R431000A. Dramatic Lyrics.
The Church of England Quarterly Review, October 1843, pp. 430–448.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 402–404.
We do not combine these three* productions under one head because they resemble each other, but because they are, in all respects, different: they are as unlike, both in spirit and in form, as could be imagined, except only in the circumfusing bond of the poetic art, the great halo of which comprises every orb of song. We propose, then, by the force of contrast, not in the unloving critical sense of the term, but in the harmonious acceptance of artists, to display the essential character and peculiar features of each to the best advantage. If in this process it shall here and there befall that one or other may appear to the worst advantage, we feel ourselves compelled to resort to a paradox, and affirm that in this case the worst may also be identical with the best; truth being the prime good for us all, and example being an excellent “thing done” for every one who is not too high and obstinate for warning or profit.
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*Also reviewed were Richard Chenevix Trench’s Poems from Eastern Sources and Thomas Powell’s Poems; we omit, by an ellipsis in square brackets, most of the remarks concerning these works.
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[…] [p. 432→]
There is a vast amount of hard work and long-suffering in the muse of Mr. Browning. Our head whizzes with the sudden conception of the heterogeneous mass of books he has read, and we fall back in our arm-chair before the battering shower of his names of men and places, historical, or never known, and the wheeling zodiac of imagery derived from the arts, and from physical and mental science. He is, nevertheless, a truly original writer; and whenever he borrows an idea or a subject—we will not use the hacknied and unsound phrase of a man making a thing his own which is derived elsewhere—he adds to it, as much as, and usually much more than, he finds, and developes it in a manner peculiar to himself.
Mr. Trench writes, for the most part, elegantly, and with very great care and study; but it is not always successful, and frequently has a raw, unskilful, if not awkward appearance. Mr. Powell writes very unequally, because carelessly, and evidently with rapidity. To this very circumstance some of his best things, as well as his worst, are attributable. It is “very hard” upon the laborious workers that a man should ever do the best that can be done of a particular kind, by taking no pains at all; so, however, it frequently occurs, and a happy thought being invariably the birth of an instant, will often save all trouble (on philosophical as well as artistical principles) by expressing itself simultaneously. In Mr. Browning’s writings, we should conjecture that their elaborate finish was the result of much time and labour. He often refines away the very point and edge of that which he most wishes to establish, and exalts his climax to invisibility. Yet is he also full of happy promptings of ideas unsought.
But it is time to quote some extracts in illustration of these remarks. What else we have to say, æsthetically, and as “matter of essence,” concerning these three writers, will follow in due course.
[…] [p. 435→]
Our next quotation is from Mr. Browning’s “Dramatic Lyrics.” A certain Italian Duke is conversing with a gentleman, who has visited him on some preliminary affairs relating to the Duke’s marriage with the daughter of a certain nobleman. They are standing before a picture of the Duke’s deceased wife:—
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive; I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Wil’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Frà Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance, [p. 436→]
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say “Her mantle laps
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat;” such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart......how shall I say?......too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the forward speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,—good; but thanked
Somehow......I know not how......as if she ranked
My gift of a nine hundred years old name
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech—(which I have not)—could make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say “Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
—E’en then would be some stooping, and I chuse
Never to stoop. Oh, Sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will ’t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company below then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, Sir! Notice Neptune, tho’,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me.
(p. 4.) [p. 437→]
Let us observe how the poet has covered up the horrible, fierce-blooded, yet cold-tempered murder of the Duchess, as quietly and darkly in his verse as in a secret grave. She was too sweet in her disposition to all around; too amiable and unsuspicious to be conscious of the rankling jealousy of her mute and haughty lord; too kindly in her feelings to all, not to smile with pleasure at any little mark of attention, and never to dream of the galled self-love and deadly pride of the Duke. He could not deign to acknowledge his jealous egotism, by giving her the slightest hint of his displeasure at any part of her conduct. He merely says—“This grew”—he would not endure it any further—and he “gave commands.” What death the sweet lady died is hidden in cold and frightful obscurity; but “all smiles stopped together.” Let us finally remark the quiet way in which his fiend-like indifference and want of all remorse is displayed in the easy irrelative turn of the conversation which concludes the poem.
[…] [p. 441→]
There is a very fine poem in Mr. Browning’s present publication, entitled “Artemis Prologuizes.” Its main subject is the death and obsequies of Hippolytos, son of Theseus:—
——And scarce the prince
Had stepped into the fixed boots of the car,
That give the feet a stay against the strength
Of the Henetian horses, and around
His body flung the reins, and urged their speed
Along the rocks and shingles of the shore,
When from the gaping wave a monster flung
His obscene body in the coursers’ path:
These mad with terror as the sea-bull sprawled
Wallowing about their feet, lost care of him
That reared them; and the master-chariot-pole
Snapping beneath their plunges like a reed, [p. 442→]
Hippolutos, whose feet were trammeled sure,
Was yet dragged forward by the circling rein
Which either hand directed; nor they quenched
The frenzy of their flight before each trace,
Wheel-spoke and splinter of the woeful car,
And boulder-stone, sharp stub, and spiny shell,
Huge fish-bone wrecked and wreathed amid the sands
On that detested beach, was bright with blood
And morsels of his flesh: then fell the steeds
Head-foremost, crashing in their mooned fronts,
Shivering with sweat, each white eye horror fixed.
His people, who had witnessed all afar,
Bore back the ruins of Hippolutos.
* * * * *
Interposed: and, this eventful night,
While round the funeral pyre the populace
Stand with fierce light on their black robes that blind
Each sobbing head, while yet their hair they clip
O’er the dead body of their withered prince,
And, in his palace, Theseus prostrated
On the cold hearth, his brow cold as the slab
’Tis bruised on, groans away the heavy grief—
As the pyre fell, and down the cross logs crashed
Sending a crowd of sparkles thro’ the night,
And the gay fire, elate with mastery,
Towered like a serpent o’er the clotted jars
Of wine, dissolving oils and frankincense,
And splendid gums like gold—my potency
Conveyed the perished man to my retreat
In the thrice venerable forest here.
And this white-bearded Sage who squeezes now
The berried plant is Phoibos’ son of fame,
Asclepios, whom my radiant brother taught
The doctrine of each herb and flower and root,
To know their secret’st virtue and express
The saving soul of all—who so has soothed
With lavers the torn brow and murdered cheeks,
Composed the hair and brought its gloss again,
And called the red bloom to the pale skin back,
And laid the strips and jagged ends of flesh
Even once more, and slacked the sinew’s knot
Of every tortured limb—that now he lies
As if mere sleep possessed him underneath
These interwoven oaks and pines. Oh, cheer,
Divine presenter of the healing rod
Thy snake, with ardent throat and lulling eye,
Twines his lithe spires around! I say, much cheer!
Proceed thou with thy wisest pharmacies!
And ye, white crowd of woodland sister-nymphs,
Ply, as the Sage directs, these buds and leaves [p. 443→]
That strew the turf around the twain! While I
In fitting silence the event await. (p. 9.)
Nothing can be finer of the heroic kind than the description of the prince flinging the reins round his body, devoting both hands to the management of the Henetian steeds; as also the description of the towering serpent-like fire; and the expression of “clotted jars of wine,” which shows that the poet has the entire scene, in all its stages, before him. The whole reads like the finest possible translation of some noble Greek poem. The introduction of the original names of men and places (instead of the Latin nomenclature), is much to be commended. The effect was very fine in that most lovely and classical production of Tennyson’s, entitled “Oenone;” and we have not heard any one complain of Mr. St. John for adopting the Greek names in his erudite, and elaborately interesting work on “Athens and the Athenians.” Learned works of reference will soon follow the example.
[…] [p. 445→]
We think Mr. Browning’s “Cavalier Poems” are hardly worthy of appearing with his other poems, though they may be quite good enough for his cavaliers, and are so far in keeping with the title of “Dramatic Lyrics.” In his “Camp and Cloister,” he seeks to show how the active combinations of the first are likely to induce sympathy and love, and the inert isolation of the other to induce antipathy and hatred. The “Camp” is famously done—so is the “Cloister” in a certain way, that way being, however, most odious. From Mr. Browning we should have expected a passion worthy of such a design, not a delineation of the most atrocious spite and the most malignant littleness, however dramatically true to such a nature in such circumstances. It is the kind of nature and the kind of truth that we object to. It does a poet’s soul harm to write such things, and it does a critic’s soul harm (no need for that) to read such things. If a monk had laid a train to blow up the whole fraternity, gardens and all, we could have beheld it (on paper) with far less disquietude than that which we suffer in contemplating the venom which this monk spits out upon the pet flowers of brother Lawrence. We do not demur as to the cause or motive for all this spite; the nature of a monastic life acting upon so vicious a temperament we readily admit as sufficient—it is the hatefulness of the fact that arrays the feelings against a deliberate critical judgment. From these remarks it will be apparent that we are thrown into this state of antagonism by a position and character which are worked out too well, both being of a kind that we cannot bear, even in abstract contemplation. We will give a few verses, and then leave the reader to his own impressions.
Gr-r-r—there go, my heart’s abhorrence
* * * * * *
What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?
Oh, that rose has prior claims—
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?
Hell dry you up with its flames!
* * * * * *
(He! he! There his lily snaps!)
* * * * * *
Oh, those melons! If he’s able
We’re to have a feast; so nice!
One goes to the Abbot’s table,
All of us get each a slice.
How go on your flowers? None double?
Not one fruit-sort can you spy?
Strange!—And I, too, at such trouble,
Keep ’em close-nipped on the sly!
* * * * * *
Or, my scrofulous French novel, [p. 446→]
On grey paper with blunt type!
Simply glance at it, you grovel
Hand and foot in Belial’s gripe.
If I double down its pages
At the woeful sixteenth print,
When he gathers his greengages,
Ope a sieve and slip it in ’t?
* * * * * *
Blasted lay that rose-acacia
We’re so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine …
St, there’s Vespers! Plena gratiá
Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r—you swine!
Of the love-poem, entitled “In a Gondola,” we cannot afford sufficient space to speak as it deserves. Bad imaginations may think it too physical; but grossness is the very last term that could be justly applied to such a poem. Its physicality is purified by the intensity of the poetry, and leaves no room for ugly and uncharitable cavils, though it may be open to various critical objections. The only objections, however, that we feel of any importance arise from the want of a line to mark when the blow of the assassin is struck which kills the lover; and from the presence of another line, in which the dying lover tells the girl to “care only to put aside her beauteous hair,” which his “blood will hurt.” This mixed suggestion of vanity, indifference, and personal admiration, at such a moment, we think compromises the passion, and brings the feelings up “with a jerk,” as though they had been trifled with. It was probably an afterthought, and interpolated like a stage-direction, the poet and dramatist seeing the action in his imagination. In a vague and dreamy abstraction the thought might have mingled confusedly with the shades of death in the lover’s eyes, and he might with a last caress of tenderness have put aside her silken tresses, near which his heart’s blood was already flowing. But the emotion and the moment were too intense to bear the words, in uttering which the fine spirit evaporates, and we awake again in the common light of earth. This is merely our individual impression: to others the same may not occur. It should never be forgotten by all that large class of readers who are more especially open to the influences of periodical disquisition, that the we of criticism is only the opinion of an individual.
We will close our review of these “Poetical Contrasts” by summarily placing their several most striking characteristics in alternate juxta-positions.
Mr. Trench writes from study and learning, and a systematic appropriation of the ideas of others, honorably and reverentially [p. 447→] acknowledged on all occasions. Mr. Powell writes for amusement, and from untiring love of poetry; the ideas are mostly his own impressions; not numerous, but often “deep as his heart can feel”—and when not his own, they seem to come somewhere out of the atmosphere, he has not the slightest notion whence. To deal with Mr. Browning’s muse is always rather “a serious piece of business,” but we venture to think that his most prevailing characteristic is imaginative passion; that he writes with much study, and too often from many learned notes which he loves to introduce in their natural state of difficult remoteness, and sometimes by delicate insinuation, which places them clean out of the possible reach of the wide multitude of readers; but that in almost all cases the fundamental ideas and impressions are his own. If Mr. Trench were to find himself in a forest of the most picturesque scenery, he would draw forth an Eastern allegory from his pocket, and read: if Mr. Powell were there, he would seat himself at the foot of a tree and write down his own emotions: if Mr. Browning were there, he would not waste the chance in reading or writing, but would learn. Mr. Trench dwells entirely on the past, and his studies, as his love, seem to be devoted to the thoughts, events, and emotions of ancient days. Mr. Powell’s poems are exclusively modern, and describe his somewhat variable states of present opinion and feeling. Mr. Browning is much addicted to the past, but only to those poetical and impassioned portions of it, which, in many cases, may be said to belong to “all times.” The first, is unconscious of the presence of the reader, or of himself as the poet; he thinks only of his subject, and is simple without being at all familiar. The second, is occupied only with his immediate emotions and thoughts, yet without thinking of their order and sequence. The last, is often far too conscious of the act of identical composition, and suddenly startles the reader by asking him a most confounding question in the most familiar tone; though we ought to say that this is chiefly the case in “Sordello,” and much less in these “Dramatic Lyrics.” The first is very grave, and equable, steady, quiet, sustained; and we should add, devoutly religious and moral in the general tone of all his poems: his “Steadfast Prince,” and also his “Genoveva” (published subsequently) breathe the pure spirit of martyrdom. The second is of very mixed features, struggling, restless—a soul without repose—difficult to fix, and only to be balanced by opposites; sometimes nobly moral for humanity, then thinking too much of conventionalisms, then “pitching them all overboard” and admiring the wild forest life of the gipsies; now very religious, and ex- [p. 448→] cited by scriptural images and contemplations; now becoming “righteous over-much,” and losing all contemplations in a maze of wild words, and emotions seeking for relief. Mr. Browning is dramatically variable, but always classically refined and imaginative. The first takes too much time, and labours too hard: the second gives himself no time to understand others, or do himself justice: the last is probably slow, but we believe sure of the laurel he seeks. There will certainly be no change in the Muse of the first: his is a calm, contemplative, fixed state; the second is evidently in a transition state, out of which in his onward course we may expect to see much good arise, if he receive warning in time, and work to attain the best results. Mr. Browning is partly in a transition state, as to certain forms only, but the character of his genius is established, and not to be mistaken by those to whom such works as his are objects of deep interest.
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. III. Dramatic Lyrics (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1842.
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