R551201F. Men and Women.
The Literary Gazette, 1 December 1855, pp. 758–759.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 323–325.
To those who count Pope no poet, and Cowper or Goldsmith mere makers of fine verses and pretty rhymes, this new work of Robert Browning will appear a wonderful production. Here are “earnest thoughts,” “high imaginings,” “natural utterances,” “independent style,” and all that complication of crudeness, obscurity, and disorder, by which the mystical and spasmodic school of poetry is marked. Ignotum pro magnifico; the more incomprehensible an author’s ideas are, the more admiration they excite. Poetry which is intelligible must be superficial, and he who allows himself to be tied by conventional rules of composition is a mere artist and no genius. Such is the tendency of the popular feeling, and even of critical opinion of the day, if we may judge by the reputation possessed by not a few in our day as “true poets.” For our part, we make little account of an author who does not address himself to the judgment and the ear of his readers, however great his intellectual power or fertile his invention. There may be mighty thoughts, earnest feelings, ingenious fancies, and yet not good poetry. It is the form as much as the matter of a work that secures its being enrolled among the classical treasures of our literature. The thoughts and sentiments in Gray’s “Elegy,” for instance, are trite and obvious, but being expressed in words of power and lines of melody, that poem is immortal. Where the judgment is annoyed by obscurity, or the ear offended by discord, the most original and ingenious works will fail to please readers of good taste. We know that these opinions are not in favour at the present time, and that care in composition, as well as clearness in utterance, are made very secondary matters by admirers of genius. But we are satisfied that no long time will show the soundness of “old fashioned” views on the subject, when the crude works of many modern writers pass into oblivion. We are sorry to have to class these poems of Robert Browning in this category. With every disposition to judge favourably of them, we find nothing that will live permanently in our poetical literature. We have read most of the pieces with pleasure once, because we like to hear what a thoughtful generous man has to say on a variety of subjects. But there is scarcely one piece in the whole collection that we would think of reading again and again for renewed pleasure, as is the case with old familiar poetry, which pleases by charm of form as well as force of character. One of the best of the poems, in point of thought and sentiment, is on “Old Pictures in Florence,” from which we quote some stanzas:—
’Tis a life-long toil till our lump be leaven—
The better! what’s come to perfection perishes.
Things learned on earth, we shall practise in heaven,
Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes. [p. 759→]
Thyself shall afford the example, Giotto!
Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish,
Done at a stroke, was just (was it not?) “O!”
Thy great Campanile is still to finish.
Is it true, we are now, and shall be hereafter,
And what—is depending on life’s one minute?
Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter
Our first step out of the gulf or in it?
And Man, this step within his endeavour,
His face, have no more play and action
Than joy which is crystallized for ever,
Or grief, an eternal petrifaction!
On which I conclude, that the early painters,
To cries of “Greek Art and what more wish you?”—
Replied, “Become now self-acquainters,
And paint man, man,—whatever the issue!
Make the hopes shine through the flesh they fray,
New fears aggrandise the rags and tatters.
So bring the invisible full into play,
Let the visible go to the dogs—what matters?”
Give these, I say, full honour and glory
For daring so much, before they well did it.
The first of the new, in our race’s story,
Beats the last of the old, ’tis no idle quiddit.
The worthies began a revolution
Which if on the earth we intend to acknowledge
Honour them now (ends my allocution)
Nor confer our degree when the folks leave college.
There’s a fancy some lean to and others hate—
That, when this life is ended, begins
New work for the soul in another state,
Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins—
Where the strong and the weak, this world’s congeries,
Repeat in large what they practised in small,
Through life after life in unlimited series;
Only the scale’s to be changed, that’s all.
Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen
By the means of Evil that Good is best,
And through earth and its noise, what is heaven’s serene—
When its faith in the same has stood the test—
Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod,
The uses of labour are surely done,
There remaineth a rest for the people of God,
And I have had troubles enough for one.
If Mr. Browning wrote always with as much force as in this passage, we would have complained less of the obscurity or of the irregularity of his diction, but these become intolerable when the matter is trivial, as in these lines headed “Love in a Life:”—
Room after room,
I hunt the house through
We inhabit together.
Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her,
Next time, herself!—not the trouble behind her
Left in the curtain, the couch’s perfume!
As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew,—
Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather.
Yet the day wears,
And door succeeds door;
I try the fresh fortune—
Range the wide house from the wing to the centre.
Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter.
Spend my whole day in the quest,—who cares?
But ’tis twilight, you see,—with such suites to explore,
Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!
Or in these verses, entitled “Memorabilia,” which may contain some meaning to an initiated reader, but are mere trifling when made public:—
Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you?
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems, and new!
But you were living before that,
And you are living after,
And the memory I started at—
My starting moves your laughter!
I crossed a moor with a name of its own
And a use in the world no doubt,
Yet a hand’s breadth of it shines alone
’Mid the blank miles round about—
For there I picked up on the heather
And there I put inside my breast
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather—
Well, I forget the rest.
A more pleasing and suitable expression of personal feeling is the dedication of the poems to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, two of the best of the twenty cantos of which we quote:
Love, you saw me gather men and women,
Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy,
Enter each and all, and use their service,
Speak from every mouth,—the speech, a poem.
Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows,
Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving:
I am mine and yours—the rest be all men’s,
Karshook, Cleon, Norbert and the fifty.
Let me speak this once in my true person,
Not as Lippo, Roland, or Andrea,
Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence—
Pray you, look on these my men and women,
Take and keep my fifty poems finished;
Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also!
Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things.
* * * * *
This I say of me, but think of you, Love!
This to you—yourself my moon of poets!
Ah, but that’s the world’s side—there’s the wonder—
Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you.
There, in turn I stand with them and praise you,
Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it.
But the best is when I glide from out them,
Cross a step or two of dubious twilight,
Come out on the other side, the novel
Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of,
Where I hush and bless myself with silence.
That the prevailing obscurity of the poems is the result of bad taste and carelessness, and not of inability to write plainly, the foregoing lines are sufficient to show, and the following opening stanzas of a long piece, “The Statue and the Bust,” in terza rima:—
There’s a palace in Florence, the world knows well,
And a statue watches it from the square,
And this story of both do the townsmen tell.
Ages ago, a lady there,
At the farthest window facing the east
Asked, “Who rides by with the royal air?”
The brides-maids’ prattle around her ceased;
She leaned forth, one on either hand;
They saw how the blush of the bride increased—
They felt by its beats her heart expand—
As one at each ear and both in a breath
Whispered, “The Great-Duke Ferdinand.”
That selfsame instant, underneath,
The Duke rode past in his idle way,
Empty and fine like a swordless sheath.
Gay he rode, with a friend as gay,
Till he threw his head back—“Who is she?”
—“A Bride the Riccardi brings home to-day.”
The poems in the two volumes are on a great diversity of subjects, the title of the work being wide enough in its range to include all, but the most pleasing and distinctive topics are those suggested by scenes and studies during the writer’s sojourn in Italy.
Reviewed:
Men and Women (RB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1855.
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