E600200A. Aurora Leigh (New York, 1860) and Poems (New York, 1860).
The Southern Literary Messenger, February 1860, pp. 146–153.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 353–357.
Of all the women who have ever written verses, from the days of Sappho, downward, there is no one who has established the claim to the title of true poet with more distinctness than Elizabeth Barrett Browning. We would even go further than this, and aver, that of all women who have ever made poetry their vehicle of thought, she has shown herself the most august in conception, the most comprehensive, the truest to the high and severe principles of art, the most suggestive, the ablest to fulfil the poet’s mission. She has been called the Milton of her sex, and altogether justly; for her intellectual strength towers as much above that of other female poets, as does the genius of the majestic epic bard over all other masters of song.
The personnel of an author is a key to the clearer comprehension and fuller appreciation of his writings. We all the more thoroughly enjoy the philosophic meditativeness of Wordsworth, when we know that his poems are really an autobiography of his own communings with nature, in his tranquil home at Grasmere. We need to read De Quincey’s “Confessions,” to be prepared for his fitful, dreamy fancies. Particularly does this hold true in regard to female writers, whose intenser susceptibilities lay them open to more decided impressions from their immediate surroundings. Mrs. Norton’s brooding melancholy no longer seems intolerable with us, when we recognize in it the consequence of her trials and her wrongs.
So of the author whose writings we have under consideration. To many readers, there may seem a morbidness in the prevailing tone of seriousness, nay, even of sorrow, with which they almost all are more or less touched. As an interpretation of this, we cannot do better than make the reader acquainted, if he be not already so, with a few details of Mrs. Browning’s life, drawn from some reminiscences of her by her friend, Mary Russell Mitford, the genial English authoress, who has but recently passed away. She says:
“My first acquaintance with Elizabeth Barrett commenced about fifteen years ago. She was certainly one of the most interesting persons I had ever seen. Everybody who then saw her said the same; so that it is not merely the impression of my partiality or enthusiasm. Of a slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on either side of a most expressive face, large, tender eyes, richly fringed by dark eye-lashes, a smile like a sunbeam, and such a look of youthfulness, that I had some difficulty in persuading a friend, in whose carriage we went together to Chiswick, that the translatress of the ‘Prometheus of Æschylus,’ the authoress of the ‘Essay on Mind,’ was old enough to be introduced into company, in technical language, was out.
“The year after this, was a most painful one to herself and to all who loved her. She broke a blood-vessel upon the lungs, which did not heal. If there had been consumption in the family, that would have intervened: there were no seeds of the fatal English malady in her constitution, and she escaped. Still, however, the vessel did not heal, and on the approach of winter her physician ordered her to a milder climate. Her eldest brother, a brother in heart and talent, worthy of such a sister, together with other devoted relatives, accompanied her to Torquay; and there occurred the fatal event which saddened her bloom of youth, and gave a deeper hue of thought and feeling, especially of devo- [p. 147→] tional feeling, to her poetry. I have so often been asked what could be the shadow that had passed over that young heart, that now that time has softened the first agony, it seems to me right that the world should hear the story of an accident in which there was much sorrow, but no blame.
“Nearly a twelvemonth had passed, and the invalid, still attended by her affectionate companions, had derived much benefit from the mild sea-breezes of Devonshire. One fine summer morning her favourite brother, together with two other fine young men, his friends, embarked on board a small sailing-vessel, for a trip of a few hours. Excellent sailors all, and familiar with the coast, they sent back the boatmen, and took the management themselves, of their little craft. Danger was not dreamt of by any one: after the catastrophe no one could divine the cause; but in a few minutes after their embarkation, and in the sight of their very windows, just as they were crossing the bar, the boat went down, and all who were in her perished. Even the bodies were never found.
“This tragedy nearly killed Elizabeth Barrett. She was utterly prostrated by horror and grief, and by a natural but most unjust feeling that she had been, in some sort, the cause of this great misery: for it so chanced that all the three were of the dearest and the best. It was not until the following year that she could be removed in an invalid carriage, and by journeys of twenty miles a day, to her afflicted family, and her London home. * * * Still she clung to literature and to Greek: in all probability she would have died without that wholesome diversion to her thoughts. Her medical attendant did not always understand this. To prevent the remonstrance of her physician, she caused a small edition of Plato to be so bound as to resemble a novel. He did not know, skilful and kind though he were, that to her such books were not an arduous and painful study, but a consolation and a delight.
“Returned to London, she began the life she continued for so many years, confined to one large, commodious but darkened chamber, admitting only her own affectionate family, and a few devoted friends. (I myself have often joyfully travelled five-and-forty miles to see her, and returned the same evening without entering another house;) reading almost every book worth reading, in almost every language, and giving herself, heart and soul, to that poetry of which she seemed born to be the priestess.
“Gradually her health improved. About four years ago she married Mr. Browning, and immediately accompanied him to Pisa. They then settled in Florence; and this summer I have had the exquisite pleasure of seeing her once in London, with a lovely boy at her knee, almost as well as ever.”
To this long extract, we beg leave to add another from Hillard’s charming book—“Six Months in Italy”—in which he speaks of the Brownings in their Italian home.
—“One of my most delightful associations with Florence arises from the fact, that here I made the acquaintance of Robert and Elizabeth Browning. A happier home and a more perfect union than theirs, it is not easy to imagine: and this completeness arises not only from the rare qualities which each possesses, but from their adaptation to each other. Browning’s conversation is like the poetry of Chaucer, or like his own, simplified and made transparent. His countenance is so full of vigour, freshness and refined power, that it seems impossible to think he can ever grow old. Mrs. Browning is, in many respects, the correlative of her husband. As he is full of manly power, so she is a type of the most sensitive and delicate womanhood. She has been a great sufferer from ill health, and the marks of pain are stamped upon her person and manner. Her figure is slight, her countenance expressive of genius and sensibility, shaded by a veil of long brown locks; [p. 148→] and her tremulous voice often flutters over her words, like the flame of a dying candle over the wick. I have never seen a human frame which seemed so nearly a transparent veil for a celestial and immortal spirit. She is a soul of fire, enclosed in a shell of pearl.”
Having thus introduced our poet in her own individuality to the reader, we proceed to some desultory criticisms upon her works.
Elizabeth Barrett’s right and title to wear the “singing robes,” was not perhaps recognized beyond the circle of the privileged few, so instantly and unhesitatingly as in the case of many of her tuneful sisters. She never wrote mere women’s verses,—very sweet, very musical, very tender, and very guiltless of being overburdened with thought—such, in short, as the public and the critics always expect women to write. Her earliest efforts were of a character and in a style quite out of the ordinary line, and were marked by a striking originality and fervour wholly removed from the morbid and excessive sentiment with which the writings of too many of her sex are with sufficient justice reproached. She did not, even in her girlhood—for we find her an authoress at fifteen—allow herself to weave poetry whose soft, mellifluous cadences fill the ear pleasantly, but leave the mind empty—touch the heart with their gentle pathos and plaintive wailings, but teach it nothing—charm by their gracefulness, while they disarm criticism through their appealing weakness.
One of her earliest published poems was “The Seraphim.” The choice of subject and the treatment are eminently characteristic. It is open to grave objection as too daring in its theme, as too bold a handling by earthly hands, of matters of the sublimest sacredness: for it attempts to pourtray the emotions of attendant spirits, as they hang awe-struck and amazed, over the scene of the Crucifixion. Not that it is not approached with the most adoring reverence and faith, and does not abound in much that is vigorous and beautiful: but we dislike altogether this sort of dealing with subjects so hallowed and solemn. It is too much like a reproduction of the “Miracle Plays” of the Middle Ages—albeit that the dramatic poem of which we speak bears the chastened, refined, purifying marks of Mrs. Browning’s truly Christian genius. Yet it gives token of the same sort of strength which we find afterwards developed in “The Drama of Exile,” and still later, though in a manner wholly different, in the pages of “Aurora Leigh.”
We have said that Mrs. Browning walks in quite a different path from other female poets. Nothing is more prominent about her, than her impassioned earnestness; and this earnestness and eagerness of purpose often so hurries her along, that she forgets to think about the draperied arrangements of these same “singing robes,” or to pause for the sake of considering whether their folds are disposed with the most artistic grace. Nor is she so dainty withal, as to fear their assoilment from her trailing them upon the ground in her strong abandon, when it suits her mood so to let them trail. How rugged, oftentimes, are her trenchant lines—not because it were not an easy task to smooth them down to the requirements of the nice ear of the critic; but because she chooses not to abate one jot of their rough strength for the sake of sweeter rhythmic flow. Occasionally this peculiarity amounts to a decided fault, and there is a want of elaboration—an eschewing of smoothness that offends the ear, and seems the result of culpable carelessness.
It must not be assumed, from what has been said, that we consider Mrs. Browning to be unfeminine in her mental organism. On the contrary, the tenderest, holiest humanities, the sweetest womanliness characterize the whole of her writings. If to be strong, self-reliant, intensely earnest, large-hearted, singularly fearless, and capable of taking many-sided views, unwarped by prejudices, and unweakened by the mere prettinesses that so often broider the web of woman’s [p. 149→] verses,—if to be all this is masculine, then may our poet be so considered. We do not need to take her books with an allowance—to award them
——the praise
Which men give women when they judge a book
Not as mere work,—but as mere woman’s work,—
Expressing the comparative respect,
Which means the absolute scorn.
The learning, of which her pages furnish unmistakable proof, the perfect naturalness of her ever-ready classic and scholarly illusions and illustrations, compel a respect which the masculine is slow to yield, except as a matter of chivalry, to one of the opposite sex. Her scholarship is of the most unquestioned character; and just because it is true and profound, even measured by the rule applied to learned men, is she free from all the littleness of pedantry. She may introduce Greek and Hebrew—even Arabaic, into her text, but we feel, as we read, how unworthy the suspicion were, that a desire for a display of her rich resources could have anything to do with such introductions. She may indulge, as she does, in the most subtle similes drawn from dim Grecian myths,—she may amaze us by her potent skill in the use of significant, concentrated expressions that convey in a word, an epitome of a poet’s life and characteristics,—as when she speaks of “Euripides, the human”—“Electric Pindar”—“Lucretius, better than his mood;” or we may wonder as we are made to feel her familiarity with the “golden mouthed Chrysostom,” or “Gregory Nazianzen,” or “the great obscure” of all time, whose names even scarcely reach ordinary readers,—and yet produce no impression, by all this, that there is the remotest intention of a show of intellectual riches. Her learning is quite beyond the point of being “dangerous” to any body but her reader, who may find himself obliged, Grecian or Roman though he be, to confess occasionally that her memory for what Aristophanes thought, or Hesiod wrote, or the Mantuan sang, far outstrips his own.
The vehement earnestness of Mrs. Browning constantly impresses us, and by sympathy, we catch her spirit as we read. She herself says, in one of her eloquent prefaces—“Poetry has been to me as serious a thing as life, and life has been a very serious thing. I never mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry; nor leisure for the hour of the poet.”
We do not see what call we have to grant to intellect a sex. Mrs. Browning’s has none, we think. Has Wordsworth been more philosophic—or Byron risen to a great height of inspired passion—or Shelley been more ideal, or Tennyson shown truer artistic power? And yet her pathos is deeper than Caroline Norton’s—her tenderness more subduing than Felicia Hemans’—her treatment of the divine sentiment of love, as superior to the everlasting twaddle of L.E.L. as daylight is to darkness. Her Love-sonnets are the very finest, subtlest, rarest, take them as a whole, which we have ever read on that subject. Not that the standing charge, of being too abstract, too abstruse, may not be urged against some of them: but their astonishing skill at analysis—their high-wrought emotions— their sacred truthfulness, are beyond praise. Did Petrarch, the acknowledged master of the love-sonnet, ever indite anything sweeter or purer than the following? Though, indeed, one scarcely knows how to select—the whole cluster is so exquisite and so spiritual.
First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write.
And ever since it grew more clean and white—
Slow to world-greetings,—quick with its “Oh, list!”
When angels speak. A ring of amethyst
I could not wear here plainer to my sight
Than that first kiss. The second passed in height
The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,
Half falling on the hair. Oh, beyond meed! [p. 150→]
That was the chrism of love which love’s own crown,
With sanctifying sweetness, did precede.
The third, upon my lips was folded down
In perfect, purple state! since when, indeed,
I have been proud, and said—“My love! my own!”
But we are lingering in our pleasant task, and must proceed to particularize briefly some of her more prominent poems.
“The Drama of Exile” is a very noble conception, abounding with passages that would not stain the genius of Milton himself. Mrs. Browning’s preface, in the second volume of her works, is of itself so fine, and so clearly sets forth the central idea of her poem, that we will be pardoned for again quoting. She says: “My own subject was the new and strange experience of the fallen Humanity, as it went forth from Paradise into the wilderness: with a peculiar reference to Eve’s allotted grief, which, considering that self-sacrifice belonged to her womanhood, and the consciousness of being the organ of the Fall to her offence—appeared to me imperfectly apprehended hitherto, and more expressible by a woman than a man. There was room, at least, for lyrical emotion, in those first steps into the wilderness—in the first sense of desolation after wrath—in that first audible gathering of the reproachful “groan of the whole creation”—in that first darkening of the hills from the withdrawing footsteps of angels,—and in that first silence of the voice of God. And I took pleasure in driving in, like a pile, stroke upon stroke, the idea of Exile—admitting Lucifer as an extreme Adam, to represent the ultimate tendencies of sin and loss,—that that idea might be strong to bear up the contrary one of the heavenly good and glory. But, when all was done, I felt afraid of my position. I had promised my own intentions to shut close the gates of Eden between Milton and myself, so that none might say I dared to walk in his footsteps. He should be within, I thought, with his Adam and Eve, unfallen or fallen, and I, without, with my exiles—I, also, an exile! It would not do. The subject and his glory covering it, swept through the gates, and I stood full in it against my will, and contrary to my vow, till I shrank back, hesitating, almost desponding.”
The “Drama,” as a whole, has grave faults. It was an error, as we conceive, to cast it in the dramatic form,—an error induced, perhaps, by the author’s exceeding devotion to the old Greek artists. Had she thrown it into the Epic mould, instead,—thus leaving out the choruses and semi-choruses—the spirits of earth, and spirits of air, whose chimed utterances break in unpleasantly upon the otherwise majestic movement of the whole, the power of the poem would have been greatly enhanced. To the modern taste, these interspersions are decided blemishes—an unnecessary reproducing of an antique fashion which the world of literature left behind with the days of its childhood. There is an inconsistency, too, in applying the form of the Greek tragedy to such a subject—an uncouth adornment of a theme which should be treated only with the severest and grandest simplicity. Notwithstanding that this objection must always, to a pure taste, lie against it, the “Drama” is full to overflowing with thoughts of sufficient originality, power and beauty, to make the reputation of half a score of poets. Here is a passage of wonderful strength: Lucifer says:
Dost thou remember, Adam, when the curse
Took us in Eden? On a mountain-peak
Half-sheathed in primal woods, and glittering
In spasms of awful sunshine, at that hour
A lion couched,—part raised upon his paws,
With his calm, massive face turned full on thine,
And his mane listening. When the ended curse
Left silence in the world,—right suddenly
He sprang up rampant, and stood straight and stiff, [p. 151→]
As if the new reality of death
Were dashed against his eyes,—and roared so fierce,
(Such thick, carniverous passion in his throat,
Tearing a passage through the wrath and fear)—
And roared so wild, and smote from all the hills
Such keen, fast echoes, crumbling down the vales
To distant silence,—that the forest beasts,
One after one, did mutter a response
In savage and in sorrowful complaint,
Which trailed along the gorges.
Toward the close of the “Drama,” Christ is represented as speaking in vision. In reference to this, which had been objected to, as a trespass upon too sacred ground, Mrs. Browning says—“There is a feeling abroad which appears to me, (and I say it with deference,) nearer to superstition than to religion—that there should be no touching of holy vessels, except by consecrated fingers; nor any naming of holy names, except in consecrated places. As if life were not a continual sacrament to man, since Christ brake with his hands the daily bread of it!” Take what view we may of the case, it cannot be denied that with loving reverence she touches the sacred theme, and with celestial clearness sets forth the central truth of the Christian system,
——For at last,
I, wrapping round me, your humanity,
Which, being sustained, shall neither break nor burn
Beneath the fire of Godhead, will tread earth,
And ransom you and it, and see strong peace
Betwixt you and its creatures. With my pangs,
I will confront your sins; and since your sins
Have sunken to all nature’s heart, from yours,
The tears of my clean soul shall follow them,
And set a holy passion to work clear
Absolute consecration. In my brow
Of kingly whiteness, shall be crowned anew
Your discrowned human nature. Look on me!
As I shall be uplifted on a cross
In darkness of eclipse and anguish dread,
So shall I lift up in my pierced hands,—
Not into dark, but light—not unto death,
But life, beyond the reach of guilt and grief,
The whole creation. Henceforth in my name
Take courage, Oh, thou woman—man, take hope!
Your graves shall be as smooth as Eden’s sward,
Beneath the steps of your prospective thoughts;
And one step past them, a new Eden gate,
Shall open on a hinge of harmony,
And let you through to mercy.
The religious element holds a most prominent place in Mrs. Browning’s poetry, and it is of the truest, most earnest type. It is no new thing for poets to be religious, after a fashion of their own. They write of God in a general way: they praise His works: they indulge in touching strains about the weariness and woe of earth: they are charmed with the beauty they attribute to the higher life to which they expect the grave to admit them: but farther than such generalities, the poetic religion of our modern school does not presume to go. It is painful to see how poor Keats lived only in the sensuous realm of Greek idealism, ignoring wholly the God of the Christian; and so far as any positive recognition of him, as Scripture reveals things, is concerned, how much better is Coleridge, or Southey, or Scott, or Campbell, or Moore—not to speak of others whose influence is decidedly adverse. And what shall we say of the living master of English song? His “In Memoriam,” one would suppose, could hardly escape being a religious poem—erected, as it is, an enduring monument of beauty, over the friend of his youth—the lovely and truly pious Arthur Hallam. But the religion, after all, of this rich collection of most rare and mel- [p. 152→] ancholy chants, is born of the poet’s own tender and exalted sentiment,—not of the Christian’s confiding and sin-humbled soul. It is the low, majestic roll of the organ, amid the cathedral service,—not the pleading voice of the preacher.
Now in all this, Mrs. Browning differs widely from her contemporaries. It is rare for her to complete a poem,—be it a Greek myth, an historic legend, a lyrical ballad, a sonnet—without some reference, not to the “All-Father” of the pantheistic German, not to the Creator, merely as such, but to Christ, the Redeemer of men. We have not been so much struck with this in her last poem, but it is a marked feature in her former volumes. She is not ashamed to avow, anywhere and everywhere, her faith in a divine Saviour; and she craves that the gifts she has to offer to her fellow-creatures, should bear the mark of consecrating blood. Oddly enough, sometimes, will she pass from the Pan or Faunus of old mythology to the central figure of our pure revelation,—yet all so reverently and with such child-like love, that we are not disposed to find fault. In nothing is Mrs. Browning’s versatility of genius displayed more than in some of her minor lyrics. Her sonnets are just the ideal of what a sonnet ought to be, remarkable for their epigrammatic force, and their sententiousness. As an example of surprising skill in verbal combinations and concentratedness of thought, he would refer the reader to one beginning—
I tell you hopeless grief is passionless—
In the range of modern literature, we know nothing richer, nothing that has more of Olympian fragrance about it, than “Wine of Cyprus:” or if the taste is yet a simpler one than can be regaled with a beaker from Ida, turn to “The Swan’s Nest,” or “Bertha in the Lane.” “The Lady Geraldine’s Courtship” is exceeding captivating, merely as an ingeniously told love-story; but as a cutting satire upon modern conventionalisms, and as a vehicle for the noblest sentiment and purest poetic thought, it stands unrivalled in its peculiar line. Can it be credited, that it was written, according to the testimony of one of Mrs. Browning’s friends, in the space of twelve hours, and that by an invalid who had to be supported to her sofa? The fact suffices to prove to us her facility in versification,—for the rhythm of the ballad is very uncommon, and unique—and also the rapidity with which her fertile brain can pour out its treasures.
Our poet’s last and longest work, “Aurora Leigh,” deserves to be considered in a separate article; and in our cursory paragraphs, we feel as if it were injustice to attempt any criticism upon it. In her brief dedication, she styles it “the most mature of all her works, and the one into which her highest convictions of life and art have entered.” No stronger, wiser poem has ever been written by a woman’s hand. It is a novel in blank verse, and so skilfully is it managed as a mere story, that the reader is drawn on as by a charmed spell, unable to lay down the book until the denouement is reached, and so hurried on by his absorbed interest, as to forget to linger long enough to take in with any adequateness a conception of the genius that irradiates its glowing pages. If the interest of the story swallows up every other consideration, on a first reading, one forgets, on a second, that there is a story in the book, so much do we find to hold the intellect and heart captive. It is very comprehensive in its subjects, and touches life in its most varied phases, at all points. It abounds in a niceness of mental anatomy, which is singularly truthful and extraordinary. We think it is the best exponent of Mrs. Browning’s power,—the work most informed by her own individualism. Its descriptions are exceedingly delicate, and rendered with Flemish accuracy of detail: its teachings on the sublime ends of art, are noble: its scorn and sarcasm as it dissects the false heart of society, is scathing: its humanity is full—throbbing as a mother’s love, and as a perfect picture of life and action and modes of thought, in this latter half of the nineteenth century, it will be invaluable to [p. 153→] the antiquarian of five hundred years hence. Our author believes that it is the poet’s business to represent his age, though it may seem to him the most prosaic thing to do so. But she reminds him that
——King Arthur’s self
Was commonplace to Lady Guenever;
And Camelot to minstrels seemed as flat,
As Regent Street to poets.
We had determined not to offer culled rose-leaves as a specimen from the garden of sweets, but we must be allowed just one more extract on the subject in hand. She says,
——Every age,
Through being held too close, is ill discerned
By those who’ve lived not past it. We’ll suppose
Mount Arthos carved, as Persian Xerxes schemed,
To some colossal statue of a man:
The peasants, gathering brush-wood in his ear,
Had guessed as little of any human form
Up there, as would a flock of browsing goats.
They’d have, in fact, to travel ten miles off,
Or ere the giant image broke on them,
Full human profile, nose and chin distinct,
Mouth, muttering rhythms of silence up the sky.
And fed at evening with the blood of suns;
Grand torso,—hand that flung perpetually
The largesse of a silver river down
To all the country pastures. ’Tis even thus
With times we live in,—evermore too great
To be apprehended near.
Some readers may think portions of “Aurora Leigh” too boldly and fearlessly drawn, and wanting in that delicacy of delineation which is expected always to characterize a woman’s hand. But Mrs. Browning is too perfect an artist to withhold anything of the truth, because she is a woman. She may be wrong in this. If she is, we do not attempt her justification.
We are impressed with the consciousness that we have given the Poems before us a most inadequate examination: for we have passed over many to which we would like to refer, did space permit. “The Vision of Poets,” “The Lost Bower,” “The Duchess May,” “Casa Guidi Windows,” have each an individualism and peculiar beauty of their own. But if what has been said shall induce only a few readers to form a more thorough acquaintance with them, we shall not have written in vain; for there is strength and wisdom to be gained from the study, not to say reading of these books. Their meaning does not lie, upturned upon the surface, ready to be picked up without any effort; but a little patient investigation generally brings to light hidden riches which fully reward the search.
It is not probable that Mrs. Browning will ever be popular with school girls or sentimental young ladies, or that they can be persuaded to substitute for Mrs. Hemans’ Æolian sweetness, or Miss Landon’s superabundant sentiment, or Maria del ’Occidente’s passion, or Mrs. Osgood’s grace, or Amelia Welby’s sprightliness,—these graver, deeper, more earnest-hearted poems. The fragrant flowers and the sparkling jewelry which these sweet singers offer, are more to their liking. For ourselves, we only know that we would rather have our brows gemmed with Elizabeth Browning’s radiant star of thought, than be crowned with the diamonds, and rubies, and opals, and amethysts of them all!
M.J.P. [Margaret Junkin Preston]
Reviewed:
Aurora Leigh (EBB), New York: C.S. Francis, 1860.
Poems (EBB), New York: C.S. Francis, 1860.
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