Part 10 (2/2)
The modern mind has a sense of the vast, the infinite, that the Greek had not, and it is drawn by infored against Whits us the s us the s us the brick and ies rown, it is a vital union of the fact and the spirit If the verse awakens in us the poetic thrill, the material, whatever it be,spirit of poesy Why does Whitest to any reader that it is poetic material? Because it has already been breathed upon by the poetic spirit A poetthe rawthe raw ive it does not add to its value It is doubtful if any of Whitman's utterances could be worked up into what is called poetry without a distinct loss of poetic value What they would gain in finish they would lose in suggestiveness This word ”suggestiveness” affords one of the keys to Whit arises from the failure of the critic to see and appreciate his avowed purpose to estion, rather than in samples of poetic elaboration ”I finish no specimens,” he says ”I shower them by exhaustless laws, fresh and modern continually, as Nature does”
He is quite content if he awaken the poetic e it He would have you ry for poetry when you had finished with his the poetic stis it in fuller h for him
An eminent musician and co ”Leaves of Grass” excited him to composition as no other poetry did Tennyson left hiers in estive of new harave the hints, and left his reader to follow them up This is exactly what Whitman wanted to do It defines his attitude toward poetry, towards philosophy, towards religion,--to suggest and set going, to arouse unanswerable questions, and to brace you tothe materials of poetry, if you will have it so, and leave you to ht, and leave you to pursue the flight alone Not a thinker, several critics have urged; no, but the cause of thought in others to an unwonted degree ”Whether you agree with hi you into such an anguish of thought as must in the end be beneficial” It ree with him; what is important is, that you should think theyou in by his conclusions; he would lead you in no direction but your own
”Once e you leave all free, as I have left all free”
No thought, no philosophy, no es; no, it is all character, iestion But the true reader of hies, if he kno to look for it, a profound metaphysic, a profound ethic, a profound aesthetic; a theory of art and poetry which is never stated, but only hinted or suggested, and which is much ood and evil; a view of character and conduct; a theory of the state and of politics, of the relation of the sexes, etc, to give aelian philosophy is in the ”Leaves” as vital as the red corpuscles in the blood, so ested, as in Nature herself The really vast erudition of the work is adroitly concealed, hidden like its philosophy, as a tree hides its roots Readers should not need to be told that, in the region of art as of religion, ination; and that we do not expect a poet's thoughts to lie upon his pages like boulders in the field, but rather to show their presence like elements in the soil
”Love-buds, put before you and within you, whoever you are, Buds to be unfolded on the old ter the war form, color, perfume to you, If you become the aliment and the wet, they will become flowers, fruits, tall branches and trees”
The early records and sacred books of most peoples contain what is called the lish literature shows many attempts to work this material up into poetry, but alith a distinct loss of poetic value The gold is simply beaten out thin and made to cover more surface, or it is lish poet has attempted to work up the New Testament records into poetry, and the result is for the inal If the record or legend is full of poetic suggestion, that is enough; to elaborate it, and deck it out in poetic finery without loss of poetic value, is next to iiven in the old books, are ination, than they are after they have gone through the verbal upholstering and polishi+ng of such a poet as Swinburne or even Tennyson These poets add little but words and flowers of fancy, and the heroic siinal is quite destroyed
XX
No critic of repute has been ht character of our poet's verse than Mr Edmund Gosse, the London poet and essayist Mr Gosse finds Whitman only a potential or possible poet; his work is literature in the condition of protoplase which should have crystallized his fluid and teees into forms of art never came It does not occur to Mr Gosse to inquire whether or not so like this may not have been the poet's intention Perhaps this is the secret of the vitality of his work, which, as Mr Gosse says, now, after forty years, shows no sign of declining Perhaps it was a large, fresh supply of poetic yeast that the poet really sought to bring us Undoubtedly Whitenerative quality, to put into it the very basic elee” to which Mr
Gosse refers; he kneas e frorass, and not the gem, is the type of his sentences He sacrificed fixed form; above all, did he stop short of that conscious intellectual elaboration so characteristic of later poetry, the better to give the impression and the stimulus of creative elee that this is not the method or aim of other poets; that others have used the fixed forms, and found them plastic and vital in their hands It was Whitht I think beyond doubt that he gives us the i akin to the vital forces of the organic world, much more distinctly and fully than any other poet who has lived
Whitman always aimed to make his reader an active partner with him in his poetic enterprise ”I seek less,” he says, ”to state or display any the you, reader, into the atht, there to pursue your own flight” This trait is brought out by Mr Gosse in a little allegory ”Every reader who comes to Whitin forest He must take his conveniences with him He will enerally do, in such cases, Mr Gosse]
There are solitudes, fresh air, rough landscape, and a well of water, but if he wishes to enjoy the latter hehis own cup with him” This phase of Whitman's work has never been more clearly defined Mr Gosse utters it as an adverse criticiset out of Whit to hiet the saet out of him in proportion to the sympathetic and interpretative power of our own spirits Have you the brooding, warue, elusive, inco in the ”Leaves” that led Sy about the universe,--that seee our pursuit and definition, that takes on so many different aspects to so many different minds,--it seems to be this that has led Mr
Gosse to persuade himself that there is no real Walt Whiture in literature, as an ”entity of positive value and definite characteristics,” but a mere mass of literary protoplasm that takes the instant impression of whatever mood approaches it Stevenson finds a Stevenson in it, Mr Symonds finds a Symonds, Emerson finds an Emerson, etc Truly may our poet say, ”I contain multitudes” In what other poet do these men, or others like them, find themselves?
Whitman was a powerful solvent undoubtedly He never hardens into anything like a system, or into mere intellectual propositions One of his own phrases, ”the fluid and sing soul,” is descriptive of this trait of him One source of his charm is, that we each see soests Above all things is he potential and indicative, bard of ”flowing mouth and indicative hand” In his ”Inscriptions” he says:--
”I a, turns a casual look upon you and then averts his face, Leaving it to you to prove and define it, Expecting theand half-averted glancing, then, on the part of the poet, is deliberate and enters into the scheme of the work Mr Gosse would have shown himself a sounder critic had he penetrated the poet's purpose in this respect, and shohether or not he had violated the canons he had set up for his own guidance We do not condemn a creative hen it departs from some rule or precedent, but when it violates its own principle, when it is not consistent with itself, when it hath not eyes to see, or ears to hear, or hands to reach what lies within its own sphere
Art, in the plastic reale, may set its mind upon elaboration, upon structural finish and proportion, upon exact forms and compensations, as in architecture, or it , changing foranic nature It is as et rid of all visible artifice is, of course, the great thing in both cases There is so little apparent artifice in Whit entirely without art, and of throwing his ht, without selection,” without ”composition, evolution, vertebration of style,” says Mr Gosse Yet his work s alone are supposed to insure success Whitman covers up his processes well, and kno to hit histo take aim The verdicts upon him are mainly contradictory, because each critic only takes in a part of his scheme Mr Stedation of all forht A Boston critic speaks of what he happily calls the ”waves of thought” in his work,--vast reat masses of concrete facts and incidents Whitman knew from the start that he would puzzle and baffle his critics, and would escape from them like air when they felt most sure they had him in their verbal nets So it has been fro, he says, it is useless to read hiives only the vaguest hint, only a ”significant look”
XXI
I ed by Mr Stedreat respect, and a enuine affection With all his boasted breadth and tolerance, Whitman, says my friend, is narrow; and, with all his vaunted escape froular, manneristic chant” is as much at the extreme of artificiality as is the sonnet These certainly are faults that one does not readily associate with the work of Whitman But then I rees Carlyle, the apostle of the gospel of sincerity, with being insincere and guilty of canting about cant If Carlyle is insincere, I think it very likely that Whits are so e for another Yet one ought not to confound narrowness and breadth, or little and big All earnest, uncoe of narrowness A man is narrohen he concentrates himself upon a point; even a cannon-shot is Whitman was narrow in the sense that he was at tiht but few effects, that he poured himself out mainly in one channel, that he struck chiefly the reat range of artistic motifs A versatile, e, broad, tolerant nature he as certainly was He does not assumewith andin all the elements of life, like Shakespeare; but in his own proper forives a sense of vastness and power that are unapproached in ly, but he would have you do the same ”He who spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own” ”He most honors hest hope is to be the soil of superior poems
Mr Stedman thinks he detects in the poet a partiality for the coarser, commoner elements of our huentles have been duly considered, it will be found, I think, that he finally rests only with great personal qualities and traits He is drawn by powerful, natural persons, wherever found,--men and women self-poised, fully equipped on all sides:--
”I announce a great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affectionate, compassionate, fully arm'd, I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold,”--