R490800A. Poems (1849) and Sordello.
The Eclectic Review, August 1849, pp. 203–214.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 15, 406–410.
The need of appreciative criticism in literature is at all times greatest in regard to those most distant, and those nearest. The Great of the immediately Present, and of the far Past, are alike liable to be overlooked. Those occupying the middle place in literary history, whose merits have been authenticated by generations of the discerning, and have not yet ceased to be reiterated by the crowd, attract the exclusive attention of the mass of men. For the right estimation of those of whom the standard market-value has not been currently ascertained, the exertion of independent thought and labour is requisite; an exertion which but few are competent or willing to make. And, when we take into account the extrinsic material obstacles which hinder the few from an acquaintance with such new lights, it is readily seen [p. 204→] how protracted an interval must elapse before their places shall be marked in our ordinary intellectual charts. In the particular case of poetry, the number of those qualified to decide is still smaller. For the matter here to be decided is more difficult. And men are not born—the ordinary creed on this head notwithstanding—in full possession of a ready-made taste, or appreciative power, for poetry, any more than for formative art, or for mathematic and scientific truth. The higher the poetry, the fuller, deeper, its spirit, the more consummate and individual its expression, the fewer those competent to receive and welcome it, and the greater the obstacles to its reception, even among these. Against every fresh production of original, true art, the most appreciative mind, Goethe has observed, is to some extent, and, at first, of necessity, predisposed to hostility. For such new production will be governed by its own laws,—laws not comprised within our old code,—and will make part in a world, not altogether ours; must find a place, if at all, in our world, through an enlargement of it.
That the genuine poet must ever linger in the rear of general recognition has of late become a truism in criticism. But it is a truism which our criticism should seek to diminish. The poets whose merits lie on the surface will be earliest recognised. The Byrons, and Scotts, and Moores, men descry at once, and make much of. The Wordsworths, the Coleridges, the Keatses, must tarry some quarter of a century ere their names are known or honoured beyond the confines of a clique. The Robert Montgomerys will strut their hour in all the pomp of popular editions, and, some fleeting while, show true, in the eyes of a far larger company of admiring readers, than the Tennysons and Brownings can hope to command. The exposition, therefore, of such as these latter is the special duty of contemporaneous poetic criticism. For, assuredly, in the right apprehension and faithful account of contemporaneous greatness, consists the highest work of criticism, properly so called.
From among the selected few, those poets who combine with deep thought a full and clear expression will be apprehended earliest, and by the larger number. The publisher of a Tennyson, after having waited some ten years for the sale of a first edition, may in time count his poet’s purchasing readers by the thousands. But we gravely doubt whether the like fortune will at any time befal the publisher of the works—or, at least, the hitherto-published works—of the poet, of whom a new edition is at present before us.
The praise of “poet for the people” is not unfrequently awarded, or withheld, as the highest within the critic’s gift: with how slender ground of reason, a little reflection might show. [p. 205→] The reverse of such praise, the negation of this capability for wide-spread popularity, might be taken with as much, or rather more justice, to carry with it an implication of true greatness in the individual poet. It is once for all to be borne in mind, that highest poetry, as highest truth of any kind, is not within the apprehension of the majority. Much general false conclusion on the matter is induced by a confusion so commonly prevailing,—of the second-hand traditional appreciation, and mere lip-service, of the many, with the actual individual appreciation of the few,—of empty echoings from within the halls of the great, with plaudits from living hands.
The writings of Shakspere are frequently cited for the maintenance of the divine right of the popular voice; as their general appreciation, the most unanswerably testified to the validity of its authority. Perhaps Shakspere stands in no aspect more alone, than in the position he occupies in the general heart of his country. In the extent of the worship paid him, his case is unparalleled. He, too, is to many but a name. Yet, while the Miltons, and Spensers, and Chaucers, are names wholly—unless a widely-received rumour shall be accounted synonymous with a wide-spread intimacy—unless a station in “every gentleman’s library,” or a quotation in every collection, shall be taken to testify to a throne in the general heart—Shakspere’s miscellaneous, scattered, uncritical admirers, may be counted by the thousand, in every Anglo-Saxon community. These admirers have indeed seen somewhat of that poetic greatness, of which Landor has said, the right revealment continuously grows, not with individual men, but with generations and epochs. But it is only somewhat, these have seen, truly, some section or aspect, appreciable by them. True reverence for the greatest of poets dates within the memory of man. Schlegels and Coleridges were needed to tell us of the art of Shakspere. He, of all poets, unites the largest, most various range of excellences. Over and above that prevailing fertility of thought which an advanced civilization is progressing to comprehend, over and above that depth of purely poetic beauty, that fulness of created wealth, that relative and absolute fitness of creation and beauty, which, all in their unmatched combinations, can sustain, and continuously reward the life-long study of the most sensitive and cultured; there exist stores of attributes—such as the perfect dramatic play of incident and action, the constant evidence of consummate judgment, the wit, the rich display of worldly wisdom—respectively adapted to the relish of the most diverse classes of readers. Those appreciating any one of these attributes, will often be found affirming the poet to be greatest of all, in that one, which they see best.
Thus, again, within a lesser range, a Burns may hold an uni- [p. 206→] versal sovereignty; as possessing, beside his deeper, finer, poetic truth, a genuineness adapted to the apprehension of all. And this poet, in addition to these, holds an influential claim on the general regard, in that nobility of individual nature,—as a man, simply, and distinctively,—the right recognition of which depends not, as does that of poetic truth, on the culture of appreciative power. Capability for the appreciation of it exists universally. And so, it will invariably be found, that where a poet, beyond his natural home in the hearts of the cultured, finds one in the hearts of the generality, the latter he owes to a combination, with deeper attainments, of palpable, obvious excellence. Still more often in such cases, is the combination supported by some powerful extrinsic lien upon the popular sympathy: as in the case of enduringly popular secondary poets, like Thomson and Cowper.
With no other poet are we acquainted, so inevitably calculated, through the prevailing character of his poetic manifestation, and from the primary conditions of his nature as Poet, to meet with a limited range of sympathy and appreciation, as Robert Browning. Pre-eminently and distinctively, is he to be classed as a poet for the few. Without study, actual bonâ-fide study, his poetry must remain caviare to the most intelligent reader. We have encountered literary men, poetic students, who, failing to give this, found themselves utterly unable to make anything of his poetry. And among general readers, though his earliest poem, “Paracelsus,” has been before the public some fourteen years, he still remains, for the most part, an unknown name. Yet, to our mind, this is a great and original poet. One among the greatest who have arisen among us, he seems, since the beginning of the present century; a poet, worthy to claim brotherhood with his contemporary, Alfred Tennyson. In the case of Browning, we do not see how,—he, the while faithfully obeying the impulses of his own genius, it could well have been otherwise with him, than it has been. His poetic genius is essentially recondite; and its expression could be nothing less. In its specific nature, and in its conditions of life, his assuredly, must rank, as a new manifestation of poetic art. With no modern poet, are we conversant, in whom less of resemblance to others can be traced. None stands more absolutely self-entire and independent. It is plain, that to be genuine and true, was, rightly, his great aim. That the realization should square with every chance reader’s apprehension, rested not with him. Popular or not, he must be a poet after his own fashion; if at all. And the right poet doubts not long how to choose. In the early days of enthusiasm, some pangs must have been suffered by our poet, on finding his best wealth lavished on a regardless audience. What great heart has not, at one time or [p. 207→] another, suffered such pangs? But by this time, he must have resolved to find content, in other things than popular praise, or popular reward; in poetry itself, and the free hearing of a few.
In some quarters, praise has been awarded to Mr. Browning, with no little show of patronage and condescension; with sundry pattings of the back; accompanied by counsel to amendment, in this or that respect. Such praise in nowise concerns true merit. In the present instance, it is more than usually inapt. Mr. Browning is in the main, either altogether wrong, or altogether right. For our part, we are inclined to think, Nature herself speaks most plainly, and to most effect, in his actual poetic genius,—such as it is. So far are we from conceiving amendment would follow from his narrowing himself to the capabilities of his readers, we think rather, in those poems, wherein he has striven after the completest definiteness of expression, as in the “Blot in the Scutcheon” and some of the other dramas,—the result has been attained by a sacrifice, not by an enrichment. Those very poems, such as “Sordello,” “Pippa Passes,” in respect to which, the loudest complaints of obscurity have been raised, are precisely those, in which the fullest wealth of poetry, the highest creative power, have been realized.
Any reliance, in regard to poetry, on canons of criticism, applicable to purely scientific expression, is, in the last degree, futile and perplexing. The truth of poetry is not the truth of science; not indeed opposed to it; but distinct and independent of it. The truth of Imogen, of Beatrice, of Juliet, of Hamlet, of Lear,—of Homeric manhood,—of the sublime aspiration of the Greek tragedy, or of an Italian Dante,—the truth of our Milton’s “Paradise” and of his Satan,—of the blithe, full world of Chaucer,—of a Spenser’s dream-shadowing of verities,—is not the truth of mathematic, astronomic, chemic laws. But they are akin: great divisions of actual Truth proceeding from God; bound up alike, with the phenomena of God’s nature. The phenomena of humanity, in the largest application of the word, form the province and distinctive prerogative of poetry, of the development of poetic truth. In Browning’s own words, occuring amid that noble exposition of his art, in the second canto of “Paracelsus,” which is only surpassed by some among the incidental passages in “Sordello,” on the same topic:—
No thought which ever stirred
A human breast should be untold; no passions,
No soft emotions, from the turbulent stir
Within a heart fed with desires like mine—
To the last comfort, shutting the tired lids
Of him who sleeps the sultry noon away
Beneath the tent-tree by the way-side well. [p. 208→]
And thus:—
The lowest hind should not possess a hope,
A fear, but I’d be by him, saying better
Than he, his own heart’s language.
Robert Browning is not one whom we can recommend to the readers of poetry, at their ease: gentlemen who would have their hour’s amusement out of their poet. We cannot safely assure such, of finding much, addressing itself to their class. Judging from our own experience, we should doubt whether any could be competent to speak of Browning, till having given him a second reading; or fully to estimate him, till after, at least, three readings. For a student of poetry to refuse the amount of labour required for a mastery of the poetic wealth here opened, would be not a little discreditable. Patient study is needed; but no more. Our poet always presupposes an intelligent and thoughtful reader; and herein lies the primary source of difficulty. Almost always, he not only leaves unexplained much that a less bold or abstract poet would explain; but also much in the conception of character, to be comprehensively imagined out; or seen at once—taken for granted, as the ground-work for the after-realization of the poet’s creative working.
There is, thus far, no positive obscurity in the poet, but only a great demand on the reader. One source of actual obscurity, however, in the poet himself, and the most influential, is his neglect of incident and external material. These, however necessary for the comprehension of the drift of the individual poem, are always hinted at, rather than stated; and that, too, in the loosest way. In “Sordello,” their unravelment constitutes the main difficulty of the poem. Browning commenced, in fact, his career, in “Paracelsus,” by an avowed sacrifice of the outward constituents of poetic narration, to a more independent and exclusive development of purely mental emotion. And the practice has more or less clung to him, even when external agency is more prominently introduced, than in that poem. In his more recent dramas, however, the unconscious adherence to such practice is to be traced in a very modified degree. The severance of the mental life set forth in the poetic creation, from those outward links connecting it with the actual world, and from those external influences calling it into action, amounts assuredly, in itself, to a factitious result, and is always, more or less, a source of obscurity. At the same time, it is in the development of abstract mental life, that Browning’s strength really consists: in its passionately imaginative interpretation; in the clothing of this abstract life, with a new concrete poetic life of its own; after having been cast into his “soul’s rich mine,” it “coming up, crusted o’er with gems;” the [p. 209→] external incident meanwhile being shadowed forth, or borne with, but as distant back-ground, or mere skeleton frame-work.
A further cause of obscurity, on a first perusal, is to be found in the remarkable strength and fertility of the poet’s associative imagination; leading him to follow out the remotest suggestion which may cross his path. Such tendency is often productive of the greatest difficulty to the reader, who labours under the disadvantages, inseparable from being but the accomplice, not the principal, in the poetic conception. In “Sordello,” this discursive spirit absolutely triumphs, to the dismay, no doubt, of the faint-hearted reader; but with the most splendid poetic fruits.
It may thus be seen, that such shortcoming as exists in Mr. Browning’s Expression, springs not from niggardliness but from profusion, of poetic wealth; not from insufficient sight of those ideas within his possession, but from the number and reconditeness of the ideas themselves. The difficulty experienced by the reader springs from the same cause. He has much given him, and in small space; and to all this is to be added, the recondite manner of the poet. And herein we arrive at Mr. Browning’s most prominent and influential characteristic as a poet. The bent of his genius is eminently and exclusively recondite. This attribute we find to be the inseparable companion of his originality and power. His imagination is peculiarly subtile, and given to refinement; seeing innumerable bearings and aspects of the matter in hand, not seen by others. Every incident, topic, event, character, handled by him, is seen from a remote and novel point of view, of which the apprehension is peculiar to the idiosyncrasy of the poet. Sometimes, it is, practically, a mere possibility of mental action, feeling, or thought, in the individual case, which is apprehended; but always a refined inner truth, proper to universal humanity. This attribute of the poet’s mind is well exemplified in the case of one of his minor poems—“The Glove”—the topic of which is handled after a wholly opposite manner to that of his predecessors. That which by others had been regarded, in accordance with historical tradition, as an action of heartless vanity on the part of the lady in the story, who throws her glove within the lion’s cage, to be rescued by her knightly lover, is justified; developed with refined physiologic truth under quite a fresh aspect: as a simple test of idle protestation, a test that was needed, and satisfied to his rather than her essential loss. This is recondite, though evidently spontaneously recondite treatment; witnessing, moreover, to that refinement of sympathy with humanity, characteristic of Browning;—a tendency to sympathize with all most needing sympathy, or commonly least encountering it. In the characters themselves embodied by him, his reconditeness of mind is always more or less [p. 210→] manifested. These,—whether dreamers, such as “Paracelsus” and “Sordello,” men of action, such as Prince Berthold, the Advocate Valence, Djabal, Luria, are all great refiners in their thinking and action, like the poet himself; though endowed with that full individual variety of manifestation, hindering them from anywise amounting to mere photograph copies of the author’s self. This actual self is rarely or never to be caught sight of throughout the whole range of his poetry; so purely objective is it essentially.
The present new and collective edition of Mr. Browning’s works, contains a singular omission. The longest, most characteristic, every way most important poem—his highest, fullest, poetic flight, “Sordello,” is excluded; as also is his first play, “Strafford.” The latter, though imbued with a rare power of its own, hinges in its leading motive on a strained and severely abstract conception; while its execution is singularly bald, and barren of the poet’s ordinary attributes of imaginative thought and expression. As possessing so little in common with the remainder of his writings, it may well be severed from them. The exclusion of “Sordello” can only be accounted for on the supposition, that its author was willing to secure a more extended and actual hearing, by the temporary withdrawal of the poem, which, from its greater inherent difficulties, would most endanger such a hearing. And though to an admirer of Mr. Browning, the present edition looks something like that celebrated enactment of the play of “Hamlet” with the part of Hamlet omitted, we know not but that the plan adopted is the more judicious. We ourselves must confess to having gone through our first reading of “Sordello,” with feelings, for the most part, of unmingled perplexity, occasionally passing into angry despair. Not till we had entered on the second reading, did we begin to apprehend its scope, or unity, or see the exceeding beauty of its parts. But now, in its subtle, yet broadly-marked development of character,—whether drawn at full, as of the dreamy, irresolute aspirer, Sordello himself, or of the showy, prompt, decisive man of action, the warrior Salinguerra—or sketched in brief, at few and slight touches, as of the glorious creature Palma—afar-off shining in the poet’s golden shadowing of her beauty, spiritual and material—and of the fervent poet, Eglamour, type of his class; in its consummate wealth of general purely poetic thought, and imaginative beauty, overflooding the whole, the poem stands before us as the most splendid representative conceivable, of all that can be attained by the union, with the purely poetic embodiment of the highest thoughtful aspiration—of the fullest luxury of glowing and passionately imaginative vitality. But the involution of conceptions to which the poet’s digressiveness of imagination gives rise, is sufficiently productive of obstacles, without [p. 211→] a corresponding involution of language. And involved as is the speech, its difficulty would be immeasurably relieved, were a clearer plan of punctuation merely, adopted, in the printing of “Sordello,” than that prevailing in the first edition. When, as in “Sordello” constantly, and sometimes in “Paracelsus,” a period occupies some two or three pages; after journeying on, without once reaching the satisfaction of a full stop for our rescue, or any more efficacious support than a semicolon, the clearest head will grow dizzy, the most persistent attention slacken.
Commencing with “Sordello,” and thence passing to its younger brother, “Paracelsus;” alike in scope—and though an early, by no means an immature fruit, in general expression simpler, more obviously determinate, but not anywise so pregnant with luxury of beauty and thoughtful wealth; thence proceeding to the noble group of dramas, with their calm, quietly, reconditely noble, human heroism; from these, to the indeterminate drama, so original and deep-reaching, of “Pippa Passes,” and “A Soul’s Tragedy;” and from these, to the rich suggestive gallery of minor dramatic sketches, including pieces so wondrously rife in deep thought and creative speech, as the “Madhouse bells [sic],” “Pictor Ignotus,” “St. Praxed’s Church,” “The Confessional,” “The Last Duchess;” after running through the entire range, how shall we convey to those unfamiliar with it, any sense of the wealth herein comprised: the large, many-fronted embodiment of human thought, and feeling, and aspiration, the new world of beauty, directly, or suggestively, in it opened up—the significance of life, actual, or dreamed, laid bare before us?
The poet’s genius is essentially dramatic, but not in the sense which the word vulgarly bears. Mr. Browning’s is mostly the drama of character, not of incident, or scenic effect. Under this aspect, the entire sum of his poetry may be said to be dramatic, though much of it, like so much of Tennyson’s, simple monodrama; in which class must be included not only the lyrics, but the entire poem of “Paracelsus.” In the professed plays and tragedies, great aptitude is manifested for the development of effectiveness of action, and essential dramatic unity—the unity of feeling, of general presiding motive. In all, more or less, and in such pieces as “Colombe’s Birthday,” and the “Blot in the Scutcheon,” more especially, this spirit is wed to a serene and clearly expressive beauty of execution, in speech, and in the subsidiary working of imaginative conception; in all, with more particular distinctiveness, in “Luria,” the “Return of the Druses,” “King Victor and King Charles,” united to a subtile development of delicate shades of individual, thoughtful character, and to a simple grandeur of individual elevation of human action and purpose. Essential dramatic power prevails in all. But there exists too little play of [p. 212→] incident, there predominates too absolute a development of interior, mental action, for these productions to fall within the range of representable drama, though even in that aspect far above other recent attempts in this kind.
If not, in fact, essentially adapted to representation, the formal division into acts and scenes would appear an error. If not actable, to what end the acting form? At the present day, moreover, when the acted drama is not a living matter among us, anywise, labour employed in that direction would seem to us misemployed altogether; wasted in a futile attempt to infuse living spirit into an effete body. The drama, taken in the large, true, sense, can never die out, so long as creative poetry exists. But the acting drama may; and has, for a season, at the least. Let our drama, then, develop itself in other, fresh, and genuine forms; as realized by a Chaucer in the fourteenth century, by a Tennyson—by the author of “St. Simeon Stylites,” “Ulysses,” “Ænone”—in the nineteenth; and by Mr. Browning himself, in so large a proportion of his creative working. The aspiration of the poetry of the present generation is manifesting itself as much more fully and decisively dramatic, than was that of the last generation—of the æra of Wordsworth and Coleridge. In Shelley and Keats, however,—in the latent desires of the poets themselves, we first find a strong tendency of this kind: in the case of the former so fully and grandly developed, in one solitary instance. Had their lives proved longer, it would, doubtless, have been largely manifested by these two, in one fashion or another. In Browning’s unformal drama we find the highest success of poetic and creative power achieved; in nearly all his lyrics, so living and deeply suggestive; and in the “Pippa Passes.” In the latter, where the young girl Pippa, on her year’s holiday from silk-weaving, during the course of her pleasure-ramble unconsciously influences, through her innocent songs, the various groups of human life she passes;—the adulterous, blood-stained lovers, the dreaming artist, the scheming Italian patriot, the crafty churchman; in this full, shifting drama, we have a deeper, truer dramatic exposition, a larger range, and more completely developed—though, of necessity, fragmentarially—than is to be met with throughout the entire series of the poet’s professed plays. This poem, in fact, forms a sample of a new dramatic development, as successful in execution, as it is original in conception. The “Soul’s Tragedy,”—an exposition of the twofold course of one, in actual practice missing real sight, and hold of the truth, which had had power to seize possession of him theoretically, is in plan far simpler, but deeply and forcefully dramatic.
We have said that Browning develops abstract character at the [p. 213→] expense of incident. But it would be a great mistake to imply from this, a general divorcement of incident, and of the outward aspects of humanity, from thought, in his poetry. Bound up with the large human world, is it all. His particular characteristic is this, that whereas others make incident a staple, and thought dependent on it; with him, more especially in his earlier and longer poems, incident is subsidiary to thought, introduced, only as elucidatory of the main design, or illustrative of a specific conception. But the outward world is there; ever and anon as the given topic of some richly freighted allusion. Exquisite site painting is passing often there in this way; as at the commencement of “Paracelsus,” in the introduction throughout of the “Sweet Michel,” and in those glowing pictures of beauty which relieve the continuous fulness of thought of “Sordello,” more especially occurring, and with more salient beauty, throughout the history of Sordello’s youth, and in those passages wherein his Princess-love, the superb Palma, occupies a place. So, too, the occasional introduction of external nature, in such frank sincerity,—given so largely, and from so elevated a point of view; these slight, yet full revealments, seem to float over the general sum of his poetic working, as a deep, sweet breathing of visible music; a reconciling and fulfilling influence, amid his world of human aspiration, and passion, and striving. Such play of external nature in his poetry, is as that of some Æolian harp amid the high discourse of thoughtful men, heard but at intervals, and then, with fullest beauty, and clearest import.
To the deep thought prevailing throughout Mr. Browning’s poetry, we have already sufficiently alluded, in passing. It is to be added, however, that difficulty and apparent obscurity form by no means the universal attendant on this poetic exposition of thought. There are passages and whole poems, of which the meaning and beauty may be transparent to any, and at once. And at least a moiety of his writing, we should judge to be not more distant from the ordinary apprehension than all genuine poetry commonly is.
His mastery over language, and of an essentially poetical language,—condensed, and imaginatively breathing life, is complete; and, for the most part, would seem inborn. It is, in “Paracelsus,” as conspicuous—and in almost equal refinement, as in the latest of his lyrics or dramas. Luxuriant, however, in beauty, as is his subordinate expression, it is the expression of any one of his poems, as a whole, which most prominently attracts attention and abides by the memory. For herein is his largeness of imagination most saliently seen; realizing its full effect. His versification, again, is a continuously efficient instrument, a noble servant. It is always,—in whatever measure, strictly individual [p. 214→] and characteristic, and of exceeding power and facility—the facility of energy, not of smoothness. It is marked by such license and freedom dangerous only to the poetaster, from merely arbitrary rules, as is proper to the right poet, who is his own lawgiver—following the law of use intelligently, not blindly, only so far as is consistent with the end of this law,—in the first instance proceeding from such as himself. And here, the end of the law is melody, and a meet musical interpretation of the subject-matter of poetic speech. It is this which is to be attained by the versifier, by whatever means. Assuredly, here, the end, when actually attained, does justify the means, whatever they may be. The melody of Browning is seldom or never of so finished and heightened a beauty as that of Tennyson. And so, generally, it may be affirmed, he is far from being so consummate an executive artist as his great Brother-poet.
[C. Edmunds]
Reviewed:
Sordello (RB), London: Moxon, 1840.
Poems (RB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1849.
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