Show I r 9 44 TilE S S S o a a f i Ii n Study 4 4 r 4 t Copyright 1899 by Seymour Eaton Eato J t tt 1 t Directed by Prof Seymour Seymo Eaton V f 4 4 4 I GOLDEN GO N OF OP TURE GOUDEN AGES OF OP ENG ENGLISH LISH LISE POETRY Continued BY THOMAS MARC PARROTT PHD PaD PH D Wordsworth sprung sIU from an n old stock anti and grew up among the lakes and hills hUls of West Vest Westmoreland Westmoreland moreland From the very first the in influence inI influence I fluence lIu nce of or natural surroundings at ot once stern and beautiful sunk sank deep into his bis mind But his boyhood was not that of ofa ofa a poetic dreamer Rough Bough hardy and fearless rIesa fe he h ran wild over the hills about his home His mother spoke of him as the only one on of her children for fot holn she felt anxiety owing to his stiff moody and violent temper The popular conception of Wordsworth as the placid poet of country countr pleasures is due probably to the many pictures of him iu In his peaceful pe tul age a But this peace was WItS won only by a conquest over vio violent violent violent lent passions pa And in his youth these passions pa lons were inextricably intertwined with pith the French revolution In 1790 during the last year of his stay at Cambridge Wordsworth made madet t I Wordsworth a tour on foot ft through France and f Switzerland He found a 0 whole na nation II I tion mad with joy In consequence of j I the revolution r and with this passion i every fibre of his being sympathized j i To the child of the northern hills lib liberty liberty liberty erty was as the very breath he drew and from the beginning 3 joy V was to Word worth a fr T life During his bis second visit to France he hei i formed a close friendship with Michael el Beaupuy the noblest type of the republican republican lican soldier and learned at first hand band j the causes of ot the revolution and antI the sources of its strength During his 1 stay In Paris in the autumn of 1792 he be even meditated medi throwing himself I into the strife strite lOt f factions in the wild hope that his voice might recall the nation from the tile path th of blood Re He Recalled Recalled called to England by the stoppage of oft t I supplies his return was soon roOn followed by the news DeWS of et the execution of the I king and the tragic fall fan of his bIB own friends the Wordsworth I has left a lasting record rec rd in the Pre Prelude Prelude lude of or the effect the Terror made upon his hl mind min For long years after atter afterward ward nl his steep sleep was w haunted ha with vis visions ions of despair pair and aud implements of ot d death th or he saw himself pleading In vain before the th savage tribunals of the Mountain Bat nt even yet he did not pot dispels d of ot the republic On the out outbreak break eak bl of war be he with 1 Trance France rather than that with wit his own coun country country I try and shared all the hatred of the I English radicals for the reactionary I policy y of Pitt Little b by little however as the revolution changed its It charac character ch rc fey ter Wordsworth Wo worth lost hape in the move movement movement ment with which he Ju had so 80 passionate passionately paa l ly Iy sympathized He lie became soured and gloomy The strange and morbid j tragedy of the Borderers Border rs composed c in is a revelation of the depths I I i to which his mind Blind had sunk From this nadir of moral despair Wordsworth recovered red by a slow and gradual ual process The peaceful seen scenery scenery ery cry of the English country the gentle ministrations ministration of his bis sister Dorothy the stimulating influence of Coleridge and andt most t of ot all his WI abiding sympathy with the joys and ad sorrows of the coun country country country try folk whom his life Ufe was spent at laal restored him to the state I of hope and joy which he once seemed to have lost forever We find the first I evidence of his complete recovery in inthe inI I the glorious Lines Composed Com pose d Near Abbey At last when the mil mU military military II italy despotism of France was incarnated incarnated incarnated in Napoleon and England enter j i ed upon her epic struggle str against this I tremendous power Wordsworth was reconciled to his country He felt that the parts had been exchanged and that England now new tODd stood as the champion of liberty And with this feeling he poured out a series of sonnets dedicated I to liberty which remain today the nob noblest noblest I lest monument in English literature of the Napoleonic wars wan From this time on PD Wordsworth worth remained unchanged u conservative and a rationalist nationalist seek seeking ek eki lug ing i n for freedom rather in the libera liberation liberation liberation tion of the individual mind that in any change of political institutions Of all his hi critic Arnold ArRold has perhaps I best beat summed Bummed up the cause cau e of Words greatness It lies lice in the ex extraordinary power DOwer with which Words Wordsworth Wordsworth worth feels the joy offered to us in na nature naI nature I ture the joy offered to u in the sim simple simpie I pie primary affections and duties and andIn andIn andin In the extraordinary power poweI with which he shows us this joy and renders it so sou as u to make us share it In other othel words the poets Oets greatness consists in inI I Walter Waiter Scott his matter a and his manner or rather in inthe Inthe inthe the 1 A 1 Ifo peculiar of harmony matter and manner lanner which at t hs bs highest he at attains attains And Wordsworth reached his highest t more thab once or twice He has hes left as no other othet English poet since Milton has done a great and ample ody Sody of absolutely abs classic work a as imperishable a possession J of our Ian lan language guage as the King James Tames Bible or th the plays of Shakespeare He Is at once the poet of nature and the poet of man and both in a sense no n poet had hail been before e T Tt To Wordsworth nature Is In Informed informed formed with sou soul with an ing lug spirit whose Wh voice may in y be heard and comprehended Y y man because it itIs itI ItIs Is I akin to the divine within himself him elf elfiA And 1 thiS voice teaches him not lt tien to the Ills of life but joy in its iA les and arid duties Nature to Words T ii th is not an anodyne but a i Uto IDs His love Jove of man sprang from and was wasa a part of his love of nature He had little or nothing of the dramatic in instinct instinct of Shakespeare and his sympathies sympathies thies titles were in great part limited to the I lives of the common folk about him L 1 11 f for their limitation and anti through them h he restored or rather created a new newfield newfield newfield field fi for the play of poetic power the simple primary affections and duties as seen in the lives of the great mass of mankind Here as in nature he finds the divine divino element of truth and love and hence hence also he draws joy and strength manner has bas two char characteristics simplicity and sublimity They are found apart and united At times unfortunately one is degraded graded d into a flatness s of commonplace that Is ie almost unparalleled in literature This is style At times the other Is t swoon en to an ab absurd absurd absurd surd pomposity which renders too many I passage pasS g of the Prelude and the REx Ex Excursion a byword and a derision But it is 15 not of these that the lover of Wordsworth cares to think Rather he turns to the divine simplicity of the Fountain or the Solitary ReaDer Reaner to the divine sublimity of the noblest odes and sonnets or to rarer and greater work where in Arnolds words Nature herself seems to take the pen Q out of his hand d and to write for him T with her own bare sheer penetrating p pt power It is I in such passages as these pr pi t that Wordsworth displays that almost r miraculous healing power which is i his alone in English poey 3 Poets of Opposition and Indifference So far we have spoken of poets deep I i ly Iy influenced by the French revolution i In n Scott w we find one who not only shows no traces of this influence but strongly reacts against it iL From the very first he may be described as a fighting tory He headed the loyalist party In a pitched battle with Irish Jacobin Jacobina in the pit of the Edinburgh theatre where he was wu currently re reported reported reported ported to have cracked three demo democratic democratic democratic cratic heads He was waa quartermaster in n the Edinburgh th light horse a volun volUnteer volunteer teer eer regiment enrolled on the threat of French Trench invasion His political ideas were summed su summed med UD un U In the old cavalier motto Fear God GOO honor the king But though thou h not a revolutionist Scott was a romantic and that to a marked degree In poetry he broke entirely with the traditions of the classical school His first attempt at verse was wasa a translation of Burgers Lenore his second a version of Goetz von vron Descended from a family amily famous in Scottish history and he turned with enthusiasm to the chronicles and legends le ends of his country He swept the Border for the swiftly perishing songs and ballads of the he old days and gave them to the world in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border Upon this collection his first original poem the Lay of the Last Minstrel Is founded It is in fact fad a mere expansion e of the theold theold theold old ballad b into the metrical romance The meter is an imitation of Christ Christa bel which Scott had seen in MS but not the least of Rs ks ts charms to the lover of our old ballads is the frequent echo of their direct and simple notes The Lady of or the Lake opened to Engli literature the romantic world of th the Scotch cotch highlands hl Marmion per perhaps haps the greatest greate t of his poems en eu Keats shrines in verse verae Scotts own romantic town of Edinburgh h and sings with Homeric fire and 8 d vigor the fatal field where mediaeval Scotland went down downin in iti hopeless B and aDd heroic ruin rum Scott to put it plainly was himself elf the last minstrel the last English poet to t whom loyalty in its old accepted mean meaning meaning ing lag was more than an idle word It is the fashion of late years to pass light lightly ly over his poems as mere tales in inverse inverse inverse verse as though the first great poem of European literature were not a tale One may admit at once that Scotts verse lacks depth and artistic finish but when every admission is made the tame fame nine of Sir Walter remains undiminished He is still the wizard of the north dear to thousands upon thousands of young hearts as the open opener er of the gates into an enchanted world dearer still to every man who has left in his composition something Of that stern joy which warriors feel In foemen worthy of their steel John Keats was wag even less touched by the revolutionary spirit than Wal Walter Walter Walter ter Scott He neither upheld nor at attacked attacked attacked tacked it he passed it by in quiet in indifference indifference indifference difference He was a being born out of his due time a belated beat d Elizabethan the poetic son of Edmund Spenser Sponsor A worshiper of beauty the beauty which appeals to eye and ear and touch he hew was w 8 the most sensuous poet of his day Sensuous not sensual for in spite of some early extravagances of expression expression expression sion there is nothing common nor un unclean unclean unclean clean in Keats His worship of beauty is seen in his hi attitude toward nature He is the divinely drunken lover of her charms His heart aches and his senses grow numb with too much joy jO at the song of the Nature herself partakes of his passion slon pa the star str throbs in n the sapphire heavens be ns deep repose like the heart of a lover drawing near his goal In the world of man Keats sought for beauty in the theold theold I old Hellenic myths When some one asked how bow Keats with his lite leek lack 1 of learning could so interest the legends of Greece because he is a Greek said Shelley Palgrave has well point out the Greek element In the poetry of Keats It is seen in his lila absolutely di dl direct lOtt leCt and spontaneous expression of the thought before him In his freedom from conventionality In his bis freshness of phrase Such a passage as the pic picture picture picture ture of Hebe in the Ode to Fancy is pure Greek so 80 is the description of Saturn and Thea with which h Hype Hyperion non rion opens or such a couplet as asInto asInto asInto Into the ed woods w they flew Nor grew they pale as mortal lovers do But the thee e is ig something more than this Hellenic element in Keats To the theold theold theold old Greek purity and simplicity he adds a warmth of nf color olor and a richness of phrase n in English h poetry since peares day No doubt it was on this account that he lie ten heft un unfinished unfinished unfinished finished the noble fragment of Hype Hyperion rion non The theme was too remotely classical the tha style too severely sever ly Mil MU tonic Keats is at his best when deal dealing dealing ing with subjects chosen hosen from later Hellenic legend gend l su such h as Lamia Larnia or from mediaeval romance roma n e Let us take this famous passage ag in n which his de tie delight I light in rich color finds its fullest ox ex expression Full on the casement shone the win wintry wIntrY wintrY try moon And threw warm gales on Made leines soft breast AS Is 1 down she knelt for heavens grace and boon Rosebloom Rose bloom fell feU on her hands to together together together gether prest Arid AndOn On n her silver slIver cross soft amethyst am And on her hair a 3 glory like a saint There Is nothing Greek in these lines ines They are ate mediaeval or rather they th exhibit the mediaeval joy in color expressed with all the power and dor tier of the renaissance Richness lux luxury ury two very characteristics tics are favorite words word with Keats and his advice to Shelley to curb his hism magnanimity m and load every rift of the subject with ore is another instance of the predominance of this quality But Keats drew from not only his bye loye Of color but that strange haunting charm which Arnold has baptized natural magic In this quality Scott with all his love for the theom romantic om past is quite deficient He loved Javed the stir and action of the me mediaeval mediaeval world its strong contrasts and clear types But B lt Keats penetrated be below below low the surface and caught the magic and mystery of things It is hardly I too much to say aay that there is more of f I Ithe the true spirit of romance In The Eve ve of St 51 Agnes than in all the Waverley novels bound together We feel this charm not only in Keats descriptions of nature almost t very every line of the theOde theOde theOde Ode to the Nightingale le could be quoted as an example but even more morein moreIn morein in his dealings with the supernatural The ghost in Isabella is far beyond yond the reach not only of Scott but of any poet of his day and the little posthumous po posthumous thu ballad of La Belle Dame Sans Merci is to use Arnolds fine phrase drenched and intoxicated with the fairy dew of natural magic It is i this quality more than anything ng else that constitutes the peculiar charm of Keats It keeps his love of luxury and richness of color from degenerating into mere barbaric delight in show and glitter and gives to his best work a thrill and fascination that are perhaps unique In English h poetry Note This study will be continued on Wednesday May MY 23 |