R640910A. Dramatis Personæ (Boston, 1864).
The Albion, 10 September 1864, p. 441.
Listed in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 344.
It is recorded that Socrates, having read a work written by Heraolitus, expressed his opinion of it, to Euripides, in these words: “What I have understood is good; and so I think what I have not understood is: only the book requires a Delian diver to get at the meaning of it.” A similar opinion, we fancy, will be expressed by most persons, who chance to read Mr. Robert Browning’s Dramatis Personæ, lately republished, at Boston, by Messrs. Ticknor and Fields. It may, indeed, be a remarkably profound work: it may possess subtleties of meaning, that elude ordinary faculties of perception. If so, its obscurity is merely superficial. But, whether superficial or otherwise, that obscurity—which is perplexing, in no common degree—will seal the book from the majority of readers. Poetical conundrums—if we may venture to employ a disparaging but appropriately descriptive phrase—are not likely to be popular, however strong in sense or beautiful in mechanism. It must, therefore, be over a theme of regret, with those who most thoroughly appreciate and admire the writings of this poet, that he is not able to express himself in more intelligible language.
In Dramatis Personæ”—unless, which is possible, we are entirely mistaken—Mr. Browning has aimed to present, chiefly by suggestion, a series of portraits of character. The idea, which underlies his title, is thus nearly identical with that which prompted the title of his earlier work, “Men and Women.” Therein the poet acted as interpreter. His method now is to allow his persons, for the most part, to speak for themselves, and to express their characters, by describing their emotional moods and conditions under the influence of various experiences. Thus it happens that, in reading this book, we are brought, as it were, into direct contact with human beings, who tell us what they have hoped, suffered, enjoyed, learned, and what they are. The poet’s conception was a happy one, and it has been executed with vigour, eloquence, fancy, and delicious, because exceptional, originality of style. There is but one obstacle to prevent its being fully appreciated: the Dramatis Personæ do not always, nor often, make themselves clear.
To cite illustrations of this defect would be to copy most of the poems in the volume. Nor would it avail, as against the devotees of the Browning school of poetry, whose defence of their idol is akin to that comprehensive and effectual one, adopted in controversy by Dr. Samuel Johnson, when he remarked to a perplexed opponent, “it is my business, sir, to furnish arguments, not to furnish brains.” We will merely say, in reference, for example, to the poem called “Mr. Sludge, the Medium”—which is written in jerky blank verse, and occupies upwards of sixty pages—that, to our taste, it seems a farrago of nonsense, to publish which, as poetry, is to insult the commonest intelligence. This is the worst poem in the collection, and one of the most pretentious: nor is obscurity its worst fault. It is radically trivial, and indescribably offensive, both in subject and in manner. Its purpose would seem to be to cast contempt upon the professors of modern “spiritualism”—a purpose that has nothing poetic in it, and might much better have been accomplished in plain prose.
Were we to linger upon the general obscurity of this work, we should particularize, as a trying theme for the analytic student, the incoherent poem called “James Lee.” Nor should we fail to find illustrations of vagueness, in “Abt Vogler,” “Too Late,” “Dis Aliter Visum,” and “Caliban upon Setebos.”
On the other hand it is but just to say that, notwithstanding fogginess of atmosphere, these poems variously evince an undertone of inspiration, which is the unmistakable groundswell of genius. Their writer is, plainly, a man of eccentric mental constitution; but he is also a man of powerful intellect, and passionate spirituality, keenly alive to the surrounding influences of nature, art, civilization, and experience, and deeply learned in the morbid phenomena of the human heart. His ideals, too, are high; his sensibility is tender; his sympathy reaches far and wide. Thus, though at times they baffle and repel, the pervasive spirit of his poems inspires the studious reader with respect and liking for their author. While, then, we censure the faults of “Dramatis Personæ,” we do not fail to recognize its beauties, as expressive of a fine poetic mind. In “A Death in the Desert,” we feel the ardour of the religious enthusiast. In “Rabbi Ben Ezra,” we discern the stately, yet humble philosopher. In others, we acknowledge the philanthropist and the artist. And, in passages, picked out at random, here and there, we see the poet. Witness this, for instance—expressive of an attitude towards death, which is at once thrilling and sublime:
Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle’s to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life’s arrears
Of pain, darkness, and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute’s at end,
And the elements’ rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace, then a joy,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!
The rhythm is a little harsh, as the reader perceives; but that is not a consideration of the first importance. We might desire that poetry should always wed music to thought; but we can sometimes spare the former, when the latter suffices to fill the mind. We must calculate generally to forego it, in the works of Mr. Browning. He is nothing, if not rugged.—The title of this poem is “Prospice.”
The following, in a different mood, called “May and Death,” is more musical, and is full of tender meaning:
I wish that when you died last May,
Charles, there had died along with you
Three parts of spring’s delightful things;
Ay, and for me, the fourth part too.
A foolish thought, and worse, perhaps!
There must be many a pair of friends
Who, arm in arm, deserve the warm
Moon-births and the long evening-ends.
So, for their sakes, be May still May!
Let their new time, as mine of old,
Do all it did for me: I bid
Sweet sights and sounds throng manifold.
Only, one little sight, one plant,
Woods have in May, that starts up green
Save a sole streak which, so to speak,
Is spring’s blood, spilt its leaves between,—
That, they might spare; a certain wood
Might miss the plant; their loss were small:
But I,—whene’er the leaf grows there,
Its drop comes from my heart, that’s all.
These are the most intelligible poems in the collection. To the multitude, the book will remain unknown. To the few, who can study, and who are tolerant of the thorns that nearly always grow with Mr. Browning’s roses, it will be a source of pleasure.
Reviewed:
Dramatis Personæ (RB), Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1864.
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