E630328B. The Greek Christian Poets and the English Poets.
The Reader, 28 March 1863, pp. 311–312.
Listed in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 369.
Fashions prevail in literary matters as well as in dress; and the present fashion is that poets shall abstain from writing prefaces. The essay on the principles of the poetical art, and on the author’s own argument and design, which used almost invariably, some fifty years ago, to precede any new volume of verse, is almost as obsolete as the pig-tail or the shoe-buckle. Perhaps it is that our poets have been warned by the fate of Wordsworth, whose works would certainly not have raised the storm of opposition which assailed them, if he had not first attacked all the existing canons of criticism, and declared himself, in theory as well as practice, the apostle of a new order of things. Perhaps it is that they have adopted Shelley’s maxim, that—
It is a dangerous invasion
When poets criticise: their station
Is to delight, not pose.
Whatever the reason, certain it is that prose, and especially prose criticism, is in very bad odour with our poets.
This prosophobia (to coin a word) may have certain advantages. One great disadvantage it unquestionably possesses—viz., that, to a great extent, it deprives us of the judgments, on their own art, of men who have made that art their special study. It is perfectly true that the poet was not originally, and is not now necessarily, a critic; but at this late stage in the history of mankind, when elder generations have left us so much that is great and noble on which to exercise our critical faculty, it is scarcely possible to find a man who uses his creative powers without having previously made some analysis of the principles of his art. Tennyson may be mentioned as a case in point. Who can doubt that being, as he is, a great thinker as well as a great poet, he could, were he so minded, give us some most useful poetical criticism? We do not mean on his own works, but on poetry in general, and especially on modern poetry—subjects which no one could treat with more authority, and probably with more power than himself. It is, at the same time, very easy to understand that it would be distasteful to him to do so: for professional critics have occasionally taken a rather mean advantage of such observations, and used them in an indolent manner, for the purpose of saving themselves the trouble of arriving at a poet’s principles by a proper analysis of his works. Still, this is scarcely a sufficient reason for compelling every reader to grope along by the help of such dim rush-lights as he can procure for himself, without the slightest help from the master-spirit who hewed out the cavern, and is, therefore, best able to point the way through its intricacies.
We are, therefore, glad to welcome this book of Mrs. Browning— not only on account of its intrinsic value, but also because it contains her thoughts on a subject to which she had devoted the study of her life, and because it throws some additional light on her own artistic views and opinions. The volume consists of two essays which, as we are informed in the “Advertisement,” originally appeared in the Athenæum journal in the year 1842. The first is a tolerably interesting account of the series of Greek Christian poets, whose lives extend from the time of Christ to the fourteenth century, and whose works are comparatively unknown, because their milder light has been dimmed by the glory of their non-Christian predecessors. And really, even according to Mrs. Browning’s own showing, it is very doubtful whether these slumbering saints and poets will ever wake to any very great purpose in again moving the hearts of men—though certainly the religious pieces of Gregory Nazianzen and of Synesius (well known to the readers of Mr. Kingsley’s “Hypatia,”) seem to deserve a better fate than to moulder entirely forgotten. The second essay is both more interesting in itself, and more useful for the particular purpose to which we have adverted, of enabling us to enter more fully into Mrs. Browning’s own principles of taste. It consists of a disquisition on the poets of England, from the time of Chaucer to the beginning of this century; and considering that this immense subject is treated in little more than a hundred small pages, it is not too much to say that it contains a wonderful amount of sound criticism and valuable thought.
Let the following extract, in which, as the reader will perceive, Mrs. Browning indirectly defends her own system of versification, be taken as an instance:—
Among the elder poets, the rhyme was only a felicitous adjunct—a musical accompaniment—the tinkling of a cymbal through the choral harmonies. You heard it across the changes of the pause as an undertone of the chant, marking the time with an audible indistinctness, and catching occasionally and reflecting the full light of the emphasis of the sense in mutual elucidation. But the new practice endeavoured to identify in all possible cases the rhyme, and what may be called the sentimental emphasis—securing the latter to the tenth rhyming syllable, and so dishonouring the emphasis of the sentiment into the base use of the marking of the time. And not only by this unnatural provision did the emphasis minister [p. 312→] to the rhyme, but the pause did also. “Away with all pauses,” said the reformers, “except the legitimate pause at the tenth rhyming syllable.”
Of the style in which the book is written, it will be enough to say that it bears considerable resemblance to the poetical style of the authoress, being powerful, highly coloured, and frequently involved and obscure. The similes, too, of which there are many, not unfrequently degenerate into conceits.
F[rank]. T. M[arzials].
Reviewed:
The Greek Christian Poets and the English Poets (EBB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1863.
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