R660321A. General Review Essay.
The Marlburian, 21 March 1866, pp. 91–93.
Listed in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 391.
There have appeared from time to time in every age, authors who have consoled themselves for the want of present fame with the hope that a future generation would accord them the appreciation of their true merits which had been denied them by their contem- [p. 92→] poraries. Critics with a human carelessness of the changes of the future seldom trouble themselves to dispute their claims; and in most cases the expected fame has existed only within the brain of the would-be genius. Solitary instances however might be given, where a man has been really as superior to his age as he has supposed himself to be. Our own blind poet, who spent his last days in poverty, and whose greatest work lay almost neglected for many years after his death, eventually realised his own confident self-assurance that he would produce something “which the world should not willingly let die.”
Once more a poet, who, notwithstanding his defiance of all the received canons of poetical criticism, has next to Tennyson exercised the greatest influence on the works of the versifiers of our age, gives expression to hopes that a time of purer taste will enlarge the circle of his admirers. His claims are at least plausible, and as the literature current at Marlborough is disposed to be somewhat conventional, it appears to fall within the province of our magazine to open to our readers a mine of acknowledged depth of thought and richness of imagination.
The chief impediment to our enjoyment of Browning’s poems is his studied obscurity. The mind of man is, we are told, naturally inclined to take “Omne ignotum pro mirifico,” considering that the darkness is merely a veil drawn over the brightness or depth of a brilliant imagination. This, however, is seldom the case with Browning. His air of mystery seldom arises from the terseness of his language or the magnitude of his ideas; and, instead of being “Clarus ob obscuram linguam,” he owes to this fault chiefly his lack of admirers. The peculiarity is caused, to a great extent by the mental reservation which at all times hides so much of his pictures. The scene which he is describing or the lines of argument which he is following are undoubtedly represented in perfect outline upon his mind whilst he is reproducing them in his poems. He only, however, allows his readers to catch glimpses of the image in his thoughts, and consequently what is represented to the eye is often incomplete, if not wholly unintelligible. This obscurity is heightened in many cases by his practice of referring continually to petty events in an almost unknown period of history, as if others were as well acquainted with the allusions as himself. Thus, though interspersed with flashes of dazzling brilliancy, Sordello is in general to the uninitiated merely a dark mass of unconnected thoughts and unmeaning names; and some of the most spirited of his ballads lose half their interest from the fact that the reader is entirely unacquainted with their subject.
The carefully-sustained quaintness and harshness of Browning’s language, his long parentheses, his uncomely ejaculations, his perpetual anacolutha, have become almost proverbial; and, though it may be well to remember in this age of hypercriticism that the thought is always more valuable than the dress in which it is clothed, a poet can seldom afford to discard the enhancing beauties of rhythm and language. This, however, Browning has done; and in consequence, few persons, who are blessed or cursed with a sensitive ear, can read more than a few lines of some of his poems without undergoing the most excruciating torment.
In addition to this,—a less important fault it is true, but one which does scarcely less to injure his popularity,—is his want of nationality. Though no one but an Englishman could have written the exquisite little song “Home Thoughts from Abroad,”—
Oh! to be in England
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf,
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough,
In England—now!
And after April, when May follows,
And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover,
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray’s edge—
That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower—
Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
—most of his poems are so tinged with Italian scenery and sentiment, that an Englishman often [p. 93→] feels out of his element while reading them. With the few the introduction of a new sphere of ideas into our language is a recommendation; but with the many the love of association is not easily replaced.
Many, however, as are the faults which disfigure the works of this strange writer, his beauties are so numerous as almost to counter-balance them. No modern poet is perhaps more richly endowed with the pure creative faculty, and he is certainly unsurpassed in the power of daring conception and rich colouring. Of his longer poems, Saul and Paracelsus are, we think, the most complete, and though not free from the peculiar harshness and obscurity of his style, they are full of noble thoughts and a bold imagination, which would at once stamp him, with the most prejudiced lover of smooth versification, as a great poet. A splendid conception surely it was to paint the scene where the young Jewish harp player is presented before the frenzied king, and to sing to modern ears the hymn which drove away the evil spirit from its prey! And the execution is scarcely unequal to the conception. The picture is complete to its minutest details. With the wonderful dramatic power which pervades all his writings, and which would we think, but for the fatal mental reservation and opacity of which we have spoken, have given him a place amongst the poets second only to that of Shakespeare, Browning has entirely identified himself with the persons whom he is describing in this striking scene.
In Paracelsus, Browning, as he often has done elsewhere, has given us a rich dramatic picture of mediæval life. It is less intelligible as a whole than Saul, but its aim appears to be to trace the progress of a soul of Prometheus-like ambition, which
Longs
At once to trample on and save mankind,
In their behalf to wring some wondrous good
From heaven or earth for them, to perish, winning
Eternal weal in the act: as who should dare
Pluck out the angry thunder from its cloud,
That, all its gathered flame discharged on him,
No storms might threaten Summer’s azure sleep.
To attain this end Paracelsus makes knowledge the sole aim of his life, thrusting from his path all human passion and the society of men as mere hindrances. His attempt fails, proving it seems that the bare utilitarian love of knowledge for its own sake, unaccompanied by the gentler influence of beauty and taste, can never have a lasting influence on the world.
Many more instances might be given to illustrate Browning’s power of bold, almost audacious, conception and vigorous execution, or of his faithful reproduction of mediæval sentiment, but our space is limited, and with one more quotation, in which we think his colouring is peculiarly vivid, we will leave him to our Readers, hoping that if they have not already made his acquaintance they will at once proceed to do so.
There’s a woman like a dew-drop, she’s so purer than the purest;
And her noble heart’s the noblest, yes, and her sure faith’s the surest:
And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of lustre
Hid i’ the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cluster,
Gush in golden tinted plenty down her neck’s rose-misted marble:
Then her voice’s music—call it the well’s bubbling, the bird’s warble!
V. E. P. N. [W.J. Greenwell]
Reviewed:
General Review Essay (RB).
___________________
