Part 13 (1/2)

'But, even so,' it ures, events, and actions? That inward tendency in which you see danger and difficulty is, on the contrary, sin of our advance What we really need is topoems _entirely_ interior We only want to kno Dante felt; we do not _wish_ to see his pity felling hiround; and much less do ish to hear Othello say ”and sine the blow We are not children or savages' We do not want, I agree, attempts to repeat the Elizabethan draet, perhaps, in how many kinds of poem this inward tendency can display its poithout any injury or drawback

They fail to ask the_ poem so entirely 'interior' can possibly have the clearness, variety, and solidity of effect that the best long poems have possessed; whether it can produce the sa, 'architectonic'

power of iination; and whether all this and much else is of little value They can hardly have realised, one must suspect, how much of life they wish to leave unrepresented They fail to consider, too, that perhaps the business of art is not to ignore, but at once to satisfy and to purify, the primitive instincts from which it arises; and that, in the case of poetic art, the love of a story, and of exceptional figures, scenes, events, and actions, is one of those instincts, and one that in the in of decay And finally, if they suppose that the desire to see or iine action, in particular, is a symptom of mere sensationalism or a relic of semi-barbarism, I am sure they are woefully mistaken There is more virtue than their philosophy dreams of in deeds, in 'the motion of a muscle this way or that'

Doubtless it is the soul that matters; but the soul that remains interior is not the whole soul If I suppose that mere self-scrutiny can show ood and evil, will undeceive me

A last delusion remains 'There is,' we may be told, 'a simple, final, and co poem is not merely difficult, it is impossible It is dead, and should be publicly buried, and there is not the least occasion to mourn it It has become impossible not because we cannot write it, but because we see that we ought not And, in truth, it never ritten The thing called a long poe poees of prose And these passages _could_ be nothing except prose; for poetry is the language of a state of crisis, and a crisis is brief The long poem is an offence to art' I believe I have stated this theory fairly It was, unless I mistake, the invention of Poe, and it is about as true as I conceive his story of the coospel with some representatives of the Symbolist move poem, but the middle-sized one, and indeed all sizes but the sratitude for the lyrics of soely thoughtless Naturally, in any poerades of poetic intensity; but to represent the differences of these nurades as a simple antithesis between pure poetry andthat, because the eyes are the most expressive part of the face, the rest of the face expresses nothing To hold, again, that this variation of intensity is a defect is like holding that a face would be more beautiful if it were all eyes, a picture better if the illumination were equally intense all over it, a symphony better if it consisted of one movement, and if that were all crisis And to speak as if a s one does, and do it -bird could have the sale, the rainbow in a fountain produce the same effect as the rainbow in the sky, or apoeinative powers superfluous in a short one; and it would be easy to show that it adhest value which thepoeroundless, belief; but it is futile to deny that, if it dies, so of inestimable worth will perish[10]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The s in part to the course iven in November, 1905

They have in consequence defects which I have not found it possible to ree and difficult for a single lecture This is one reason why I have not referred to the prevalence of the novel in the nineteenth century, a prevalence which doubtless influenced both the character and the popularity of the long poeain from the lecture the false impression that the writer's admiration for those poeainst the Romantic Revival of Wordsworth's time

[2] This, and not the permanent value of the scientific product, is the point

[3] _Table-talk_, Feb 16, 1833

[4] The narrative poems that satisfy most, because in their way they come nearest to perfection, will be found, I believe, to show this balance Such, for instance, are _The Eve of St Agnes_, _Lament_, some of Crabbe's tales It does not follow, of course, that such poereatest poetry Crabbe, for example, was probably the best artist of the day in narrative; but he does not represent the full ideal spirit of the tion is an instance of such a figure

[7] This incongruity is not the only cause of the discomfort hich many lovers of Tennyson read parts of Arthur's speech in that Idyll; but it is the main cause, and, unlike other defects, it lies in the plan of the story It ht out further thus So far as Arthur isand representative of Conscience, the attitude of a judge which he assuain, Lancelot's treachery to hiivable But then this Arthur or Conscience could never be a satisfactory husband, and ought not to astound or shock us by uttering his recollections of past caresses If, on the other hand, these utterances are appropriate, and if all along Lancelot and Guinevere have had no reason to regard Arthur as cold and wholly absorbed in his public duties, Lancelot has behaved not ly but abominably, and as the Lancelot of the _Idylls_ could not have behaved The truth is that Tennyson's design requires Arthur to be at once perfectly ideal and co written this criticis that I think the depreciation of Tennyson's genius now somewhat prevalent a mistake I adard hireatest poet since the tiotten, in colish poets, that he enty years older than Wordsworth and Coleridge, and forty years older than Byron and Shelley

[9] The reader will reerated presenth essential, aspect of the poetry of the time, and of Shelley's poetry in particular, and must supply the corrections and additions for hi him to observe that Godwin's formulas are called sublime as well as ridiculous _Political Justice_ would never have fascinated such young reat truth had been falsified in it; and the inspiration of this truth can be felt all through the preposterous logical structure reared on its misapprehension

[10] The theory criticised in this paragraph arises, I think, froenuine poem is fully expressible only in the words of that poem It is seen that this is so in a lyric, and then it is assumed that it is _not_ so in a narrative or draht wepoem than of the short one; but in reality you can no more convey the whole poetic content of the _Divine Co

The theory is connected in some minds with the view that 'music is the true type or ain rests on the idea that 'it is the art of music which most completely realises [the] artistic ideal, [the] perfect identification of forly 'the artsafter the law or principle of music, to a condition which music alone completely realises' (Pater, _The Renaissance_, pp 144, 145) I have by implication expressed dissent froranted, what follows is that poetry should endeavour _in its oay_ to achieve that perfect identification; but it does not in the least follow that it should endeavour to do so by reducing itself as nearly as possible to mere sound Nor did Pater affirm this, or (so far as I see) imply it But others have

THE LETTERS OF KEATS

THE LETTERS OF KEATS

There is no lack of good criticis poets of three generations or seenerations; by Matthew Arnold, by Mr Swinburne, and, hton's _Life and Letters_ and Mr Colvin's biography both contain excellent criticiso no further) they have lately been edited by Mr de Selincourt in a volu honour not only on its author but on the Oxford School of English, to the strength of which he has contributed so much My principal object is to consider Keats's attitude to poetry and his views about it, in connection with the ideas set forth in previous lectures on Shelley's views and on the age of Wordsworth But I wish to preface ent appeal, addressed to any reader of the poems who e from my experience, such readers are still far too numerous; and I am sure that no one already familiar with the letters will be sorry to listen to quotations from them[1]

The best of Keats's poems, of course, can be fully appreciated without extraneous help; but the letters throw light on all, and they are al of _Endymion_ and of some of the earlier or contees in his mind and temper which appear in his poetry They dispose for ever of the fictions once current of a puny Keats as 'snuffed out by an article,' a sensual Keats who found his ideal in claret and 'slippery blisses,' and afor his country and his fellow-creatures Written in his last four years by a man who died at twenty-five, they contain abundant evidence of his immaturity and his faults, but they disclose a nature and character which command on the whole not less respect than affection, and they show not a little of that general intellectual pohich rarely fails to accoenius

Of Keats's character, as the lettersplainly and decidedly of the weakness visible in those to Miss Brawne, Arnold brought together the evidence which proves that Keats 'had flint and iron in hie sense of the word' And he selected passages, too, which illustrate the 'adth and clearness of judgment' shown by Keats, alike in matters of friendshi+p and in his criticisms of his own productions, of the public, and of the literary circles,--the 'jabberers about pictures and books,' as Keats in a bitter mood once called them We may notice, in addition, two characteristics

In spite of occasional despondency, and of feelings of awe at the nitude of his ambition, Keats, it is tolerably plain from these letters, had a clear and habitual consciousness of his genius He never drea a minor poet He knew that he was a poet; son that he felt hi poet except Wordsworth How he thought of Byron, whom in boyhood he had ad a criticisenius, he returned the criticise are critical, and his ae's talk is not , indeed, of the native pugnacity which his friends ascribe to him seems to show itself in his allusions to conte even Wordsworth Yet with all this, and with all his pride and his desire of fame, no letters extant breathe a more simple and natural modesty than these; and from end to end they exhibit hardly a trace, if any trace, either of the irritable vanity attributed to poets or of the subliotism of Milton and Wordsworth He was of Shakespeare's tribe

The other trait that I wish to refer to appears in a particular series of letters--soh the collection They are addressed to Keats's school-girl sister fanny, as eight years younger than he, and who died in the sa[2] Keats, as we see him in 1817 and 1818, in the first half of Mr Colvin's collection, was absorbed by an enthusias to understand During his last two years he was, besides, passionately and miserably in love, and, latterly, ill and threatened with death His soul was full of bitterness He shrank into hiht even intiland, he never ceased to visit his sister when he could; and, when he could not, he continued to write letters to her, full of a nonsense, full of brotherly care for her, and of excellent advice offered as by an equal who happened to be her senior; letters quite free froaiety and the resentainst fate which in parts of his later correspondence with others betray his suffering These letters to his sister are, in one sense, the least remarkable in the collection, yet it would lose enius, but as we corown for a ht