The Cambridge History of English and American Literature

in 18 Volumes

(1907–21).

Volume XIII.

The Victorian Age.

Part I.

I. Carlyle.

§ 1. Goethe on Carlyle.

When Goethe, in 1827, declared Carlyle—the Carlyle of the Life of Schiller—to be “a moral force of great significance,” he showed, as often in his judgments of men, an insight which, at the
same time, was prophetic; for Carlyle, unquestionably, was the strongest moral force in the English literature of the nineteenth century. In an age which dealt pre-eminently in ethical and religious
ideas; an age in which the intellectual currency was expressed in terms of faith and morality, rather than of abstract metaphysics; when the rapid widening of knowledge was viewed in many
quarters with suspicion and apprehension; and, especially, when the newborn science of biology appeared as a sinister force threatening the very foundations of belief—in such an age, Carlyle
was a veritable leader to those who walked in uncertainty and darkness. He laughed to scorn the pretensions of scientific materialism to undermine man’s faith in the unseen; he heaped obloquy
on the much vaunted science of political economy; he championed the spiritual against the material, demanded respect for justice and for the moral law and insisted on the supreme need of
reverence—reverence, as Goethe had taught him, not merely for what is above us, but, also, for what is on the earth, beside us and beneath us. Nowadays, when the interest in many of these
questions has ceased to be a burning one, when a tolerance, not far removed from indifference, has invaded all fields of mental and moral speculation, and when a calmer historical contemplation
of human evolution has taken the place of the embittered controversy of Victorian days, Carlyle’s power over men’s minds is, necessarily, no longer what it was. But it is, perhaps, just on this
account the easier to take a dispassionate view of his life and work, to sum up, as it were, and define his place in the national literature. Such is the chief problem which we propose to deal with
in the present chapter.

§ 2. Carlyle’s early years.

Born in the little Dumfriesshire village of Ecclefechan on 4 December, 1795, when the lurid light of the French revolution still lit up the European sky, Thomas Carlyle came of a typical
lowland Scottish peasant stock, and, to the last, he remained himself a peasant, bound by a thousand clannish bonds to his provincial home. The narrow ties of blood and family always meant
more to him than that citizenship of the world which is demanded of a man of genius; and, in spite of his forty years’ life in the metropolis, he never succeeded in shaking off the unpliant
instincts of the south of Scotland peasant. His prickly originality and sturdy independence had something Celtic about them, and these characteristics clung to him all his life, even although he had
early found an affinity in the Germanic mind. In the Dichtung und Wahrheit of Sartor Resartus and the preternaturally vivid pictures of Reminiscences, a kindly light of retrospect is thrown
over Carlyle’s childhood and early life; but, none the less, the reader is conscious of the atmosphere of oppressive frugality, through which, as a child and youth, he fought his way to the light. At
the grammar school of Annan, to which, after sparse educational beginnings in his native village, he was sent in 1805, he was too sensitive a child to distinguish himself other than as the tearful
victim of his rougher schoolmates; and, at the early age of fourteen, he passed to the university of Edinburgh, where he attended lectures through five sessions. The Scottish universities, still
medieval in character and curriculum, were then veritable bear-gardens, where the youth of the land, drawn from every rank of the population, were let loose to browse as they listed; the
formalities and entrance-examinations which now guard these institutions, and have destroyed their old democratic character, were, as yet, undreamt of: but the Scottish students of the early
nineteenth century enjoyed a Lernfreiheit as complete as, if, in its opportunities, more restricted than, that of German students of our own time; and Carlyle, while following, nominally, the
usual courses, availed himself of this freedom to the full. Ever intolerant of teachers and of the systematic acquisition of knowledge, he benefited little from his classes in Edinburgh. Like many of
our men of genius, he—one of the least academically minded of them all—always stood outside the academic pale. He had no high opinion of centres of learning, from this, his first
experience—which, doubtless, provoked the outburst in Sartor, “that out of England and Spain, ours was the worst of all hitherto discovered universities”—to the day when he recalled to students
of Edinburgh university, more than fifty years later, his dictum from Lectures on Heroes, that the “true university of our days is a collection of books.” Edinburgh had thus little share in Carlyle’s
development; at most, he succeeded, like his own Teufelsdrockh, “in fishing up from the chaos of the library more books perhaps than had been known to the very keepers thereof.” He had begun
his studies with certain vague and half-hearted aspirations towards the ministry; but these were soon discarded. His only tie with academic learning was mathematics, for which he had a peculiar
aptitude, and in which he even won the praise of his professor. He left the university in 1814 without taking a degree. On his return to Dumfriesshire, he was appointed a teacher of
mathematics in Annan, in which post he succeeded a friend who was also to make some mark in the world, Edward Irving. From Annan, Carlyle, now in his twenty-first year, passed, with the
help of a recommendation from his Edinburgh professor, to Kirkcaldy, whither Irving had preceded him—still as mathematical master, still without any kind of clearness as to what kind of work
he was ultimatley to do in the world. In Fifeshire, however, he appears to have had his first experience of romance, which presented itself to him in the shape of a pupil of higher social station
than his own; Margaret Gordon, Carlyle’s first love, may, possibly, have hovered before him as a kind of model for the “Blumine” of Sartor; although it seems hardly necessary to seek any
specific model for so purely “literary” a figure. No doubt, this love-affair, which, through the timely interposition of a relative of Miss Gordon, came to an abrupt end, upset many of the
presuppositions with which Carlyle set out in life. Another significant event was the chance reading, in September, 1817, of Madame de Stael’s De I’Allemagne, then quite new, which did
more than all the treasures of the university library in Edinburgh to bring order and direction into Carlyle’s intellectual world. Considerable emphasis must be laid on this, the accident of his first
introduction to the literature that was to mean much to him. Madame de Stael’s work, which opened up the wonderland of German thought and poetry, not only to Carlyle, but, also, to all Europe
outside Germany, was a product of German romanticism, having been written, in great measure, under the guidance of August Wilhelm Schlegel, the chief critic of that movement; it was
responsible for the fact that the impress which the new literature of Germany made on the European mind was, in the main, romantic. Even Goethe and Schiller are here seen essentially as
Schlegel saw them; and Carlyle, all his life long, viewed the German writers whom he loved and looked up to as his masters from the romantic angle.

§ 3. Life of Schiller.

Heartily weary of school-teaching, Carlyle, once more, made an effort towards a profession; he returned with his friend Irving to Edinburgh, and, in September, 1818, took up the study of law.
But he soon found that law had even less grip on him than had his previous studies for the church; and, gradually, he drifted into the undefined, and, for a man of Carlyle’s temperament infinitely
disheartening and uphill, profession of the “writer of books.” His task was the harder, as he had already begun to be tortured by dyspepsia, and by the melancholy and depression which that
disease brought in its train. Nevertheless, he made a beginning towards a literary activity with a number of articles contributed to Sir David Brewster’s Edinburgh Encyclopaedia; this was the
merest hackwork, but, at least, it was hackwork honestly performed. Meanwhile, in the summer of 1820, when at home in Dumfriesshire, he entered on a systematic study of the German
language, and threw himself with passionate ardour into the works of the new writers, from whom Madame de Stael’s book had led him to hope that he would find guidance. And, in his early
efforts to make money by his pen, it was only natural that he should have turned his German studies to account; while translating—again for Brewster—Legendre’s Elements of Geometry and
Trigonometry, he found time to write an essay on Goethe’s Faust, which appeared in The New Edinburgh Review in April 1822. But his first serious task as an interpreter of German literature was
a Life of Schiller, the German writer to whom, as was to be expected, he had been first attracted. This is an excellent piece of work, if it be remembered how meagre were the materials at his
disposal; and it is hardly surprising that Schiller’s personality—in which Carlyle saw mirrored his own early struggles—and Schiller’s work as a historian, are more adequately treated than are
his dramatic poetry or aesthetic studies. Carlyle’s Life of Schiller came out serially in The London Magazine in 1823 and 1824, and appeared in book form in 1825. Meanwhile, he had turned to
Goethe, and translated, not without occasional secret misgivings, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, which was published in 1824. This was followed by four volumes entitled German Romance,
which included stories by Musaus—something of an intruder in this circle of romanticists—Forque, Tieck, Hoffmann, Richter, as well as the continuation of Goethe’s novel, Wilhelm Meister’s
Travels, the translation of which was, naturally, more to his mind than that of the Apprenticeship had been. German Romance appeared in 1827, and found little favour with the reading public;
but in that same year Carlyle had begun to write the remarkable series of essays on German literature, contributed to The Edinburgh Review, Foreign Review and Foreign Quarterly Review, which
now form a considerable part of Critical and Miscellaneous Essays.

§ 4. Carlyle’s marriage.

The beginnings of Carlyle’s career as man of letters, all things considered, had been auspicious; perhaps, indeed, more auspicious than was justified by subsequent developments. But, at least,
all thought of the bar as a profession was given up. Through Edward Irving, who, in the meantime, had settled in London, Carlyle became tutor to Charles Buller in 1822, and had the opportunity
of getting to know something of a social world much above his own and of seeing London and even Paris. Before this, however, a new chapter in his life had begun with his introduction, in the
early summer of 1821, to Jane Welsh of Haddington. Again, it was Irving whom he had to thank for this introduction, which formed a momentous turning-point in his life. Irving had himself
been attracted by Miss Welsh, and she by him; but he was under other obligations; and the friendship between her and Carlyle was free to drift, in spite of many points of friction, into love. In
1826, the many difficulties and scruples which had arisen were successfully overcome, and she became Carlyle’s wife. After a short spell in Edinburgh, the young couple took up their abode amid
the solitudes of the Dumfriesshire moors, at Craigenputtock, “the dreariest spot in all the British dominions,” where Mrs.Carlyle, born, if ever woman was, to grace a salon, spent six of her
best years in oppressive solitude added to household work. With these years, which produced the essays on German literature, as well as Sartor Resartus, Carlyle’s apprenticeship to literature
may be said to have come to a close. It will be convenient, at this stage, to consider what these literary beginnings under German influence meant for Carlyle. He was by no means, as has been
often asserted, a pioneer of German studies in this country; he rather took advantage of an already existing interest in, and curiosity about, things German, to which many translations and
magazine articles—Blackwood’s Magazine, for instance, had, since its inception in 1817, manifested a strong interest in German poetry—bear witness. Carlyle, however, had an advantage over
other writers and translators of his day, in so far as his work is free from the taint of dilettantism, the besetting sin of all who, in those days, wrote on German literature in English magazines; he
spoke with the authority of one who knew, whose study had been deep and fundamental, even although his practical knowledge of German at no time reached a very high degree of proficiency.

§ 5. His relation to Goethe.

Carlyle was never weary, all his life long, of proclaiming his personal debt to his German masters, above all, to Goethe; and, no doubt, the debt, especially to the latter, was a very real one. It
was Goethe who helped him out of the Slough of Despond in the early twenties, when he was searching for a solution to the problem: “What canst thou work at?”—Goethe who showed him how
to work his way through blank despair to the “Everlasting Yea.”
“If I havebeen delivered from darkness into any measure of light,” he himself wrote to the German poet, “if I know aught of myself and my duties and destination, it is to the study of your
writings more than to any other circumstance that I owe this; it is you more than any other man that I should always thank and reverence with the feeling of a Disciple to his Master, nay of a Son
to his spiritual Father.”
Carlyle has himself said that the famous incident in Sartor Resartus, where the light breaks on Teufelsdrockh in the rue Saint Thomas de l’Enfer, really took place in his own life one June
afternoon in 1821, as he went down Leith walk to bathe in the firth of Forth. He, too, like his hero, had dwelt with the “Everlasting No”; difficulties of all kinds had beset him, religious
difficulties, moral difficulties, above all, the racking problem of the end of life—happiness versus renunciation. He had, perhaps, also to face problems of a more practical kind than those which
assailed his Teufelsdrockh; for it was only a few weeks before the crisis that he had met Miss Welsh; and, doubtless, in a dim way, he felt that the problem of life was now, or would become for
him, not merely what canst thou work at, but what canst thou work at with sufficient worldly success to allow of sharing thy life with another. Moreover, the spiritual crisis, when it did break over
Carlyle, assuredly did not come and go with the dramatic vividness of the chapters in Sartor; Carlyle’s struggles with the powers of darkness extended over years, and it may be questioned if he
ever found complete deliverance, ever succeeded in setting the “Everlasting No” completely and finally at definance.
When, however, we scrutinise Carlyle’s relation to Goethe more closely, we see how strangely few points actually existed between the two men. Carlyle’s Goethe was by no means the whole
Goethe, not even the real Goethe. Carlyle’s hero and saviour was a fantastic, romantic Goethe, on whom was grafted a modern individualism that was assuredly not Goethe’s. Carlyle attributed to
Goethe a disharmony between the emotional and the intellectual life, which the German poet had never really known; for Goethe’s “storm and stress” crisis, which had been lived through,
once and for all, years before Carlyle was born, was of quite another kind. The “Everlasting Yea” of Sartor, tinged, as it was, by puritanic abnegations, had not been Goethe’s solution to the inner
dissonance of his early years; and Entsagen, to the “Great Heathen,” was a very different thing from the drab and austere interpretation which Carlyle put on the English word “renunciation.” In
truth, Carlyle was no true Goethean, but a romanticist to the core; not in the vague English sense of that word, but as it is used in Germany, where it connotes a particular school of thought at the
beginning of the nineteenth century. He drew his spiritual transcendentalism from Novalis, who is the theme of one of the most beautiful of his German essays; he sought his philosophic and
political inspiration in Fichte; he regarded Richter’s Sterne-like genius, his fantastic and often incongruous mingling of crude melodrama, eccentric humour and soaring imaginative flight, as
something divinely inspired; and Goethe, to him, was no calm Olympian, but a hero of self-abnegation, who had emerged, scarified and broken, from a “sanctuary of sorrows.” And yet, in a
kind of dim way, even if much of Goethe’s life and thinking was a closed book to him, Carlyle realised that the German poet had solved the riddle of the spiritual life which tortured himself, and
had arrived at a peace and serenity to which it was never his own lot to attain. Carlyle’s interest in German literature virtually came to a close with Goethe’s death and the end of romantic
ascendancy in Germany. For the later men and movements of that literature he had no sympathy or understanding; and the chief German friend of his later life, Varnhagen von Ense, was,
preeminently, an upholder of the traditions of the past. Thus, it is to Carlyle, rather than to Byron, or to Coleridge and Wordsworth, that we must look to find the analogue in English literature of
continental romanticism, that movement which, built up on a faith in the spiritual and the unseen, had risen superior to the “enlightenment,” as well as to the Weltschmerz, of the previous
century. This was what Carlyle’s English contemporaries endeavoured to express when they said that he belonged to the “mystic” school. At the same time, he by no means represents romanticism
in all its variety and extent; he stands rather for its ethical and religious side only; while, to find an English equivalent for the no less fruitful aesthetic side of the romantic movement—with which
Carlyle had no sympathy—we have to turn to the later pre-Raphaelites and to Carlyle’s disciple Ruskin.
The romantic stamp on Carlyle’s work is nowhere more clearly apparent than in his critical writings. His method as a literary critic is summed up in the title of one of his essays,
Characteristics, a title which had been used for a volume of criticism by the two leaders of German romanticism, the brothers Schlegel. The older ideals of criticism, which had held uninterrupted
sway in Europe from the renascence to the end of the eighteenth century, had been established on the assumption that the critic was a man of superior knowledge and juster instincts; the critic,
according to this view, sat in judgment, and looked down on the criticised from his higher standpoint; or, as Carlyle himself put it: “perched himself resolutely, as it were, on the shoulders of his
author, and therefrom showed as if he commanded and looked down upon him by a natural superiority of stature.” This type of critic persisted in England in the school of Jeffrey and The
Edinburgh Review; its most brilliant representative among Carlyle’s contemporaries was Macaulay. It was Carlyle’s mission, as a literary critic, to complete the revolution already tentatively
foreshadowed by Coleridge, and to establish the new standpoint which had been ably maintained by the Schlegels. According to these writers, the first function of the critic is not to pass superior
judgments, but to “characterise”; to interpret, in humble respect for the higher rights and claims of creative genius; to approach poetry through the personality of the poet. This is the attitude
which Carlyle consistently maintains in all his essays. He insists that it is the critic’s chief task to get into sympathy with his author, to understand and appreciate his aims and intentions, not
to impose on him purposes which may have lain entirely outside his plan. It was this ideal, Carlyle’s adaptation of the interpretative method of the Schlegels to English needs, that makes his
critical essays a landmark of the first importance in the history of English criticism.
In practice, criticism of this kind is, obviously, at the mercy of the personal attitude of the critic to literature; it allows freer play to subjective likes and dislikes than is permitted to the critic
who proceeds by rule of thumb. One might say that it postulates an original sympathy between critic and criticised; at least, it is to be seen at its best where such sympathy is strong, as, for
instance, in Carlyle’s essays on his German masters, Goethe, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, Novalis, and in his masterly essay on Burns. But, where such sympathy does not exist, the method may
be responsible for an even greater unfairness than is to be laid at the door of the older, objective criticism. This disadvantage, to some extent, is apparent in Carlyle’s essay on Scott; it comes
out with dis agreeable emphisis in his presonal utterances on men like Hiene, on the leaders of the French romantic school and on many of his English contemporaries, such as Coleridge,
Wordsworth and Lamb. On the other hand, one must not overlook the eminent fairness wiht which Carlyle has written of the eighteenth century—a century which appeared to him only as an age
of paralysing scepticism and unbelief—and on writers so far away from his own way of thinking as Diderot and Voltaire.

§ 6. Sartor Resartus.

Apart from his essays, the work Carlyle takes his place as the English representative of German romanticism is Sortor Resartus, an immediate product of his affectionate study of Jean Paul.
The ideas, form, the very style, of this work, which repelled many when it first appeared and had made the search for a publisher dishearteningly difficult, have all the stamp of Jean Paul on them.
But, into the German Fabric, which has more consistency of plan, and a more original imaginative basis than iot is usually credited with, Carlyle wove his own spiritual adventures, which had
already found expression in a cruder and more verbose form in an unfinished autobiographicial nove, Wotton Reinfred. Sartor Resartus falls into two parts, a disquisition on the “philosophy of
clothes”— which, doubtless, formed the original nucleus of the book— and an autobiographic romance, modelled, to a large extent, on the writings of Jean Paul. The philosophy of clothes left
most of Carlyle’s contemporaries cold; and indeed, to his early critics, it seamed lacking in ornigality, as a mere adapta- tion of an idea from Swift’s Tale of a Tub; in their eyes, it was
overshadowed by the subjective romance, as it seemes to have been in the case of Carlyle himself as he proceeded with it. The German village of Entepfuhl took on the colouring of Ecclefechan;
the German university, the name of which Teufelsdrockh forbears to disclose, was suggested by what Carlyle had experienced in Edinburgh; the clothes-philosophy made way, more and more,
for a vivid depiction of the spiritual and moral crisis in the author’s own life. The three chapeters, “The Everlasting No,” “Centre of Indifference” and “The Everlasting Yea,” were have seen,
an epitome of what Carlyle had himself come through actuely in 1821. Here, moreover, and not in its metaphysics, lay the significance of Sartor Resartus for more than one generation of young
Englishmen; in Carlyle era of defiance—for defiance it was, rather than meek resignation—in his “Close thy Byron, open thy Goethe!” “Love not Pleasure; love God. This is the Ever- lasting Yea,
wherein all contradiction is solved; wherein whose walks and works, it is well with him,” they found a veritable finger-post pointing to the higher moral and spiritual life. Here was a basis for
that new spiritual idealism, based on suffering and resignation, but “strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield,” which, later was to pass into the poetry of In Memoriam, and into the
more assured optimism of Browning.
In 1833, the Carlyles’ six years’ exile in their Dumfriesshire Patmos came to an end; after a few months’ trial of Edinburgh, which proved unsatisfactory, the migrated—with no more than
two hundred pounds to thrift credit—to London. “the best place,” as he realised, “for writing books, after all the one use of living.” In many, 1834, they took up their abode at 5 Cheyne row,
Chelsea, which remained their home for the rest of their lives. Although London meant an assession of new friends, and the stimulus of congenial intercourse, Carlyle, life had by no means yet
passed into smoother waters. For the first time, in fact, financial difficulties began seriously to press on him. Sartor had begun to appear in Frase’s Magazine before the move was made; but,
owing to what the editor regarded as its dubious quality, it was not paid for at the full rate, and the result went far towards justifying the editorial attitude. The publication met, indeed, with a
storm of disapprobation, one critic even dismissing it as “a heap of clotted nonsense.” There seemed little hope that it would ever attain to book-form at all; and it might have taken much
longer to do so had not Emerson taken the initiative in America; Sartor Resartus appeared as a book in New York in 1836, in London in 1838. Meanwhile, however, Carlyle, having more or less
turned his back on German literature and German though, was deep in a historical work, the subject of which was the French revolution.

§ 7. The French Revolution.

The labour on this new book meant even more self-abnegation than that on Sartor had implied. On the lonely Scottish moors at Craigenputtock there had been little or nothing to tempt Carlyle
to deviate from his singleness of purpose; but London opened up alluring avenues to a literary life which might have led to freedom from material cares, to comfort, perhaps even to affluence. Had
Carlyle stooped to journalism and adapted himself to the every day routine of the professional man of letters—The Times, for instance,was thrown open to him—he might rapidly have won an
assured position for himself. Instead, he buried himself in French history, laboured unremittingly at his French Revolution, while months passed when not a penny came into the domestic
exchequer. And, as if the struggles to produce the book were not enough, the work of many weeks, the manuscript of the first volume, was accidentally destroyed in the early part of 1835, when in
the hands of John Stuart Mill. Rarely has the virtue of “the hero as man letters” shone in fairer light than the manner in which Carlyle received the terrible news, and grimly determined to sit
down and rewrite the volume. At last, in January 1837, the History of the French Revolution was finished. The English reading world did not, at first, know what to make of this strange history,
and more than it had known what to make of Sartor; but it was, at least, quicker to feel the power of the book; and enthusiastic recognition soon began to pour in from the most unexpected
quarters. Fame come at last, the right kind of fame, a fame, too that, in course of time, brought reasonable remuneration in its train.

§ 8. On Heroes.

Carlyle’s French Revolution is, again in the continental sense of the word, a “romatic” work; once more, as in his literary criticism, he stands out in sharp antagonism to Macaulay, the heir of
rationalism, whose History of England began to appear some ten years later. The French Revolution is individualistic history, interpretative history on a subjective basis, it is as far-removed form
the sober ideals of a scientific age of faithful chronicling of “things as they were,” as it is from the “enlightened” history-writing of the eighteenth century. Carlyle's work is essentially, a personal
“confession.” “You have not,” he declared to the world, “had for two hundred years any book that come more truly from a man’s very heart.” The French revolution, as Carlyle sees it becomes
a vindication of the ways of God to man; a sermon on the text: “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,” on the nemesis that follows the abuse of power or the neglect of the duties and
responsibilities of those in whom power has been placed by Providence. And Carlyle ranges himself unmistakably on the side of that nemesis; he makes no attempt, so to speak, to write “fair”
history, to hold the balance between the two great antagonistic forces that clashed in the revolution.
The French Revolution, rightly read, is a declaration of its author’s convictions on problems of his own
time; a solemn warning to the England of his own day to avoid a catastrophe which Carlyle believed, and
never ceased to believe all his life long, was imminent. But this work is, also, something more precious than a
subjective history combined with a tract for the times; it is a prose epic, a work of creative genius, in which
the facts of history are illumined by the imagination of a poet. Light and shadow, colour and darkness, are
distributed over the picture with the eye and the instinctive judgement of an artist. Carlyle does not dilate on
motives or on theories of government; he does not even, in a straightforward way, narrate facts; he paints
pictures; he brings before us only what, as it were, he has first seen with his own eyes. Setting out from the
conviction that biographies are the most precious of all records of the past—or, as he put it in lectures On
Heroes, “the History of the World is the Biography of Great Men”—he writes a history which is a collection
of marvellously clear-cut portraits; more than this, he deals with the history of a nation itself as if it were a
human biography; distils, so to speak, the life of the whole from innumerable lives of individuals. Thus, the
events he has to narrate are overshadowed and dominated by the men that were responsible for them;
Danton, Mirabeau, the “sea-green incorruptible” Robespierre, are masterpieces of historical portraiture; and
the imaginative literature of Carlyle’s age knew nothing more graphic and unforgettable than the description
of the royal flight to Varennes.
15
Meanwhile, until the material harvest of the labour on The French Revolution came in, Carlyle was
induced, in order to keep the wolf from the door, to give several series of popular lectures in London. For
the first of these, delivered in May, 1837, he utilised the materials he had gathered for a history of German
literature; the second course, in the following year, was also on literature, but took a wider sweep of literary
history, beginning with classical times and coming down to the eighteenth century. A third series dealt with
the revolutions of modern Europe, while the fourth and last, delivered in the early summer of 1840, and
published in the following year under the title On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History, was
most successful of all. This has always been one of Carlyle’s most attractive and popular works. It
Elucidates, with the help of picturesque and contrasting portraits, the cardinal doctrines of his own romantic
creed of individualism, a creed which went back in its essentials to the philosophy of Fichte, namely, that
personality alone matters in the world; that history is the record of the thoughts and actions of great men; and
that greatness lies in the exercise of the “heroic” virtues, that is to say, in the power to renounce, coupled
with the will to achieve. On the basic assumption that the quality of heroism, which makes a man a leader of
men, is capable of realisation in any sphere of human activity in which the hero happens to be placed, Carlyle
applied his doctrine to the most varied forms of leadership. Odin, chosen to illustrate the hero as god, gave
Carlyle his first opportunity to proclaim his sympathy with the virile religion of our Germanic ancestors, a
sympathy that grew with the years and found expression again in his very last work. Mohammed, the hero as
prophet, led him to seek a solid foundation of sincerity for the faith of Islam. Dante and Shakespeare, again
in contrasting spheres, served to illustrate the hero as vats or poet; while, for examples of the less soaring
activity of the “man of letters,” Carlyle turned to the century he found it hardest to understand, and singled
out as sympathetic figures against an unsympathetic background, Samuel Johnson, Rousseau and Burns. For
the hero as priest, he chose Luther and John Knox; for the hero as king, Cromwell and Napoleon; but the
last two lectures show some falling off in comparison with the earlier ones.
16
The interest in Heroes was, in the main, literary rather than historical, although, with The French
Revolution, Carlyle had appeared to turn his back definitely on literary criticism; but readers, not merely of
the latter work, but, also, of Heroes, began to discern a trend in his mind which was neither literary nor
historical, a trend towards actuality and the present. Literature was never, indeed, for Carlyle, merely
literature; its value as an aesthetic expression had always been subordinate to its potentiality as an intellectual
and moral factor. Great poetry, for him, was not the embodiment of the highest beauty, but the poetry that
contained the deepest lessons for mankind. So, too, had it been with history; history was not merely a record
of how things had been, but, also, a writing on the wall for the benefit of the historian’s contemporaries.
Carlyle’s mission in life, as he interpreted it, was, in fact, neither to be a critic of literature nor a chronicler of
history; but to be a teacher and a prophet to his own time. With every new book his writing was becoming
more “actual” in its aims; the past was becoming more and more a medium through which he spoke to the
present.
§ 9. Chartism.

Before the lectures On Heroes were published, Carlyle threw off all historical disguise and entered the arena
of practical, contemporary politics. This was with the little book, originally planned as a review article,
entitled Chartism (end of 1839). Carlyle had begun life as a radical of the radicals; the disturbances of the
Peterloo time had made a deep impression on him in his student years, and the Corn law agitation had stirred
up his sympathies with the oppressed classes. In his early London days, he was heart and soul with the
reform agitation. But, by the time he came to write on chartism, his radicalism had undergone a change. He
was still convinced that a root-and-branch reform was urgent; but his faith in the nostrums of political
radicalism was rapidly waning. In his antagonism to what he stigmatised as the “quackery” of the radicalism
of his day, he appeared almost conservative; it only meant that his radicalism had become more radical than
before. “I am not a Tory,” he said in Chartism, “no, but one of the deepest though perhaps the quietest of
radicals.” The only radicalism, as it now seemed to him, which would avail against the ills and cankers of the
day was the hand of the just, strong man. The salvation of the working-classes was not to be attained by
political enfranchisement and the dicta of political economists, but by reverting to the conditions of the middle
ages, when the labourer was still a serf. The freedom of the workingman was a delusion; it meant only
freedom to be sucked out in the labour market, freedom to be a greater slave than he had ever been before.
Carlyle’s warfare against political economy was part and parcel of his crusade against the scientific
materialism of his time. The “dismal science” eliminated the factors of religion and morality from the relation
of man to man, and established that relation on a scientific “profit and loss” basis; it preached that the
business of each man was to get as large a share of the world’s goods as he could, at the expense—strictly
regulated by laws of contract—of his fellow man. Carlyle believed that the path marked out by such a
science was the way to perdition and national ruin.
§ 10. Past and Present.

These doctrines were repeated in a more picturesque form in Carlyle’s next contribution to political
literature, Past and Present. In the beginning and end of this little work, which, perhaps, is his most inspired,
as it was his most spontaneous production—it was written within the space of two months early in 1843—he
unrolls once again “The condition of England question,” in its familiar form; he reiterates the old demands for
duty and responsibility, for earnestness and just dealing on the part of England’s rulers; and he sets up the
strong man as the only remedy for political rottenness. The arguments are the same as before; but they are
put even more trenchantly and vividly; the scornful contempt which he heaps on the democratic remedies of
his radical friends is more scathing. Encased within these two sections of the book lies the contrasting picture
of the past; he takes the chronicle of Jocelyn of Brakelond, which, not long before, had been unearthed by
the Camden society, and, with a clearness of delineation and dramatic actuality hardly surpassed by Scott
himself, he puts life into the records of the abbot Samson and his monks of St. Edmund’s and transmutes
these dry records into a veritable prose idyll. Here, Carlyle stands out emphatically as the poet and the artist,
rather than as the politician or economist.
§ 11. Latter-Day Pamphlets.

Seven years later, in 1850, Carlyle again essayed the role of political critic and prophet, namely in his
Latter-Day Pamphlets. In these papers, he brought his doctrines to a still sharper focus on the actual
problems of the day, and expressed them with a virulence and passionate exaggeration which left his earliest
utterances far behind. The consequence was that many of his old friends—friends of many years’ standing
like Mazzini and Mill—were estranged. Carlyle’s whole-hearted denunciation of philanthropy, in particular,
appeared to that eminently philanthropic age as the utterances of a misanthrope and a barbarian. Possibly, he
overshot the mark, although the Pamphlets contain little that he had not already said—in point of fact,
Carlyle’s political creed turns round a very few cardinal ideas which are repeated again and again in different
keys throughout his writings. So long as he had been content to enunciate these political theories as
abstractions, they were accepted—no doubt with some demur, but still accepted—as the curious views of
an interesting personality; it was when he brought them to bear on the concrete questions of the day that he
caused real offence. Looking back on the storm that Latter-day Pamphlets called forth, one cannot help
thinking that this book was, in some way, a reflex of the great political upheaval of 1848, from which
England had emerged much less scathed than the nations of the continent. Doubtless, Carlyle saw in the
March revolution and its dire consequences in other lands a realisation of his forebodings. “It is long years,”
he wrote to Emerson of that revolution, “since I felt any such deep-seated satisfaction at a public event,
showing once again that the righteous Gods do yet live and reign.” He felt the surer that England would not
escape the nemesis, that nemesis, indeed, might be all the more terrible in consequence of the delay of its
coming.
20
As a political preacher and prophet, Carlyle was as one crying in the wilderness; his hand was against every
man’s; he was disowned by all parties, and, apart from a certain confidence which, in earlier days, he had
felt in peel, he was notoriously out of sympathy with the leaders of the two great political parties. He
trampled ruthlessly on the toes of Victorian liberals, and flouted their most cherished ideas. Deep down in his
heart, he remained the democratic Scottish peasant, who demanded, with Burns-like radicalism, that the
innate nobility of manhood, whether in king or peasant, must be recognised; he claimed the right of nobly
born souls to rise to be rulers of men. His own cure for all political ills was government by the ablest and
best: but he denied vehemently the possibility of the ablest and best being discoverable by the vote of a
majority; for such a purpose, reform bills and secret ballots were wholly unsuitable. No nation could be
guided all right—any more than a ship could double cape Horn—by the votes of a majority. Exactly in what
manner the best man, the hero, is to be discovered and endowed with power, is a problem Carlyle never
reduces to practical terms or intelligible language; and methods similar to those whereby Abbot Samson
became the head of his monastery, if applied to the conditions of modern life, would—he must himself have
admitted it—lead to anarchy, not stable government. Carlyle had rather a kind of mystic belief in the able
man entering into his inheritance by virtue of a supernatural right; that the choice of the man who should rule
over men lay not so much with the ruled themselves as with a higher Power; and that the right to govern was
enforced by a divinely endowed might to compel the obedience of one’s fellow men.
21
But the world, as Carlyle clearly saw, was not planned on so orderly a scheme as his faith implied. “Might”
showed itself by no means always to be the same thing as “right”; and, in spite of his belief in the virtue of
strength, none could be more denunciatory than Carlyle of the victorious usurper, if the usurper’s ends were
not in accordance with Carlyle’s own interpretation of God’s purpose. Behind all his political writings, and
his asseveration of the right of might, there thus lay a serious and irreconcilable schism. “The strong thing is
the just thing,” he proclaimed with increasing vehemence; but he was forced to add that it might need
centuries to show the identity of strength and justice. In truth, with all his belief in the strong man, Carlyle
never came entirely out into the open; never expressed himself with the ruthless logical consistency of the
individualistic thinkers of our own time; the doctrine of the Übermensch was not yet ripe. On the other hand,
in the modern democratic ideal of a state built up on mutually helpful citizenship, Carlyle had little faith.
§ 12. Oliver Cromwell.

Amid all these incursions into the politics of the moment, however, he still felt on surer ground as a historian;
the lesson he had teach, he felt, could be more effectually set forth from the platform of history, than by
descending into the dusty and noisy arena of political controversy. His wish to serve the present by reviving
the past is indicated by the masterly portrait he put together from the letters and utterances of Oliver
Cromwell. The work had been long in preparation; indeed, none of Carlyle’s writings, not even his
Frederick the Great was heralded by so many groans and despairs as this; in the case of none did he find it
so difficult to discover the form best suited to the matter. At first, he had some idea of writing a history of the
civil wars, or a history of the commonwealth; but the ultimate result was very different from that originally
contemplated; in fact, he arrived at that result unawares. The publication of the letters and speeches was to
have been a mere by-product, but, this done, he saw that there was nothing more left for him to do. The
Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (1845) has been described by Froude as “the most important
contribution to English history which has been made in the nineteenth century.” This opinion may be
debatable; but it might, at least, be said that the task of rehabilitating the protector, of destroying false
legends which had gathered round him, was peculiarly made for Carlyle’s hand. Cromwell lives again here in
all his rugged strength; and lives precisely because his was one of those natures into which Carlyle could, so
to speak, project something of his own. Again, Carlyle is the artist here: not the artist in form; nor the
Protean artist of many parts, as in The French Revolution or Frederick the Great, where the stage is
crowded with varied figures; but the artist who has concentrated all his creative power on one great figure.
§ 13. John Sterling.

Standing apart from the turmoil of political controversy as well as the more serious historical studies in these
years, is a work which cannot be overlooked in an estimate of Carlyle’s activity as a man of letters, the
biography of his friend John Sterling, which appeared in 1851. Sterling himself, whose life of brilliant
promise had been darkened and prematurely eclipsed by consumption, was hardly a significant enough figure
to warrant the monument which Carlyle has erected to him; but Carlyle felt that a duty was imposed upon
him to remove the stigma which Sterling’s first biographer, Christopher Hare, had placed on his memory, in
presenting him too exclusively as a renegade from Church of England orthodoxy. Carlyle’s book has been
declared by more than one critic to be his best from the point of view of pure literature; but it is unduly long
and suffers by excessive and unnecessary detail. It contains, however, some of Carlyle’s most trenchant
writing, notably the often quoted pen-portrait of Coleridge. Its chief value, perhaps, is the light it throws on
Carlyle himself. We obtain from it an instructive glimpse of the writer’s own religion, that religion which was
an almost ludicrous combination of the “dourest” Scottish Calvinism and the Spinozistic pantheism of
Goethe; we get a pleasanter, less atrabilious picture in it, too, of the Carlyle of the early London days, than is
to be obtained from Froude’s biography; and, most valuable of all, we are able to gather from it, not merely
what he felt towards one disciple, but towards all the young aspiring souls of the time who, setting out in life,
looked to him for spiritual guidance.
§ 14. Frederick the Great.

The most ambitious of Carlyle’s work had still to come, The History of Friedrich II of Prussia, called
Frederick the Great. The first volume appeared in 1858, the sixth and last in March, 1865. There has been
much difference of opinion concerning Carlyle’s Frederick, much questioning of the wisdom which led him
to spend many years of racking labour, torments and misery over the production of this work. It was
asserted quite openly in the sixties and seventies, and it is a very generally held opinion to-day, that the result
of those labours was in no fair proportion to what they meant to the author. It cannot be said that Carlyle has
uttered any very final word about his hero; it is doubtful if any of the acknowledged standard writings on
Frederick in our day would have been essentially different had Carlyle never laboured. At most, he has been
commended by German historians for his vivid and accurate accounts of Frederick’s decisive battles. In
point of fact, Carlyle had once more set out, in his imperturbable romantic way, to do something more than
make known to the world “what had happened.” Not but what he was, in respect of the truth of history, just
as conscientious in his way as historians of the scientific school are. This is to be seen in the unwearying
labour with which he collected his materials, poring over libraries of “dull books”; and in his efforts,
notwithstanding that travel was to him a torture, to see with his own eyes the backgrounds against which
Frederick’s life was played, the battlefields on which he fought. But there was another purpose which, in the
first instance, moved him to undertake the work; he set out with the object of demonstrating the heroic in
Frederick, of illustrating his thesis of “the hero as king.” He had written his previous histories—The French
Revolution and Cromwell—with similar preconceived ends; but there was an essential difference in these
cases, in so far as hypotheses and fact are dovetailed into one another. The French revolution, in reality, was
an illustration of the nemesis of misrule; and Cromwell was well adapted to the role of Carlylean strong man;
whereas, it is very much open to question if the friend and patron of the French encyclopedists, the extremely
practical and hard-headed ruler who built up the modern Prussian state, could be adjudged a hero in
Carlyle’s sense at all. Thus, the history suffers from a too apparent dissonance; it suffers, also, from a certain
futility in its author’s efforts to make it throw a shadow across the world of his own day. For just as The
French Revolution was intended to be an overwhelming object-lesson to an England which Carlyle
believed to be rushing blindly into the whirlpool of chartism, so, his Frederick the Great was intended to
clinch his gospel of might as right, to be an embodiment, in its highest form, of the ideal of romantic
individualism. Of all men of the past, none, it seems to us, was less suited to such an interpretation than
Frederick the Great. There are, however, many pages in this history which bear witness to the cunning of the
artist; the gallery of living portraits is even wider than that in the first history, the battle scenes are on a
grander scale.
§ 15. Carlyle as a moral force.

CHAPTER II The Tennysons

In 1865, an event happened which brought peculiar gratification to Carlyle: he was invited by the students of
his own university of Edinburgh to become their lord rector. At last, the prophet was to find honour in his
own country. In many ways—bound as he was by every fibre of his nature to his native land—he regarded 2
April, 1866, when he delivered his inaugural address On the Choice of Books, in Edinburgh, as a kind of
coping-stone to his career. The address, although it makes but ineffective reading, was a triumph in delivery.
Very shortly afterwards, however, a blow fell on him of the direst kind. Before he got back to London, the
news reached him that his wife had been found dead in her carriage when driving in Hyde park. “She died at
London, 21 April, 1866, suddenly snatched from him, and the light of his life as if gone out.” The light of his
life was very literally gone out; the remaining fifteen years he had still to live were years of gradual
decadence. Still one other book it was given to him to publish, entitled The Early Kings of Norway (1875),
but it has little of the old fire and strength; and his name appeared frequently attached to letters in the press.
Notable among such letters was his vigorous appeal in The Times in behalf of Germany in her war with
France, an appeal which, no doubt, had weight with Bismarck, when, later, he conferred on him the much
prized Prussian order of merit. Disraeli made an effort to get Carlyle to accept an honour from the British
government, but he declined. Years before the end, his right hand failed him and made literary work
impossible, even although his intellectual power and energy remained unimpaired. His death took place on 4
February, 1881. He lies buried, not as his friends would have wished, in Westminster abbey, but with his
own kinsfolk in Ecclefechan.
26
Carlyle is not to be regarded as a mere apostle or transmitter of German ideas and German ideals; he built
up, under the stimulus, and with the help, of these ideas, a spiritual and moral world of his own. He saw
human life and earthly happenings against a vast background of mystic spiritualism, of eternities and
immensities; he was an individualist, to whom the development of the race depends on great personal virtues,
on heroic abnegation and self-sacrificing activity. His rugged independence made it difficult for his
contemporaries to “place” him; he resolutely refused to be labelled, or to be identified with any specific
intellectual, literary or political creed. He would admit allegiance to no one; he treated his peers and
contemporaries with crying injustice, often with quite indefensible contumely; he scorned every link with the
world around him. He went through life fighting for high causes, scattering the forces of cant and unbelief,
grappling, like a modern Luther, with the very devil himself. No man was ever more terribly in earnest about
his “God-given hest,” than Carlyle; and yet, perhaps, none was less conscious of his own precise place and
rôle in the world-history. Carlyle’s own personal convictions were full of irreconcilable contradictions. At
one time, for instance, the making of books, his own craft, is endowed, in his eyes, with priesthood; at
another, it is the paltriest and meanest of trades; at one time, his utterances are radical of the radical; at
another, his radical friends are appalled and struck dumb by his apparent apostasy. A preacher of the virtue
of silence, he himself has left us well-nigh forty volumes of printed speech; a scorner of philanthropy, he was
the most generous and open-handed disburser of charity. Possibly, his own love of startling paradox and
contrast led him to accentuate such antitheses in his own nature; but, perhaps, they only meant that he saw
deeper into the essence of things and relationships than other men; that the irreconcilability was a mere
mirage of the surface. One might fittingly apply to Carlyle the phrase with which George Brandes
characterised Nietzsche; he is “an aristocratic radical”; or, as MacCunn has called him, “an anti-democratic
radical.” Equally distraught was his own personal life; it was built up on dissonances. The agonies and
despairs which made the life at Cheyne row often a veritable purgatory for his faithful helpmate were not all
the emanation of dyspepsia and insomnia; he was the irritable man of genius, who, as his mother had
discovered long before, was “gey ill to live wi.” Below all his reflections on human things and fates, there lay
a deep and ineradicable discord. Outwardly, he would fain have appeared as a convinced optimist, to whom
God was “in his heaven,” and all was “right with the world”; inwardly, he was often haunted with pessimistic
doubts as to the right governance of the world. He proclaimed, incessantly and fervently, that “the world is
God’s,” but the converse thought of the “absentee-God sitting outside the Universe and seeing it go” often
tempted and assailed him. Thus, Carlyle’s “Everlasting Yea” is an “Everlasting Yea” against a background of
“the Everlasting No.” He may well have cried “Love not Pleasure; love God!” but these words were
originally wrung from him by bitter, enforced resignation. He had spurned mere “happiness” all his life; but it
is not given to everyone who thus places himself above the common lot of men to find what he himself calls
“blessedness.” And we sometimes doubt whether Carlyle ever found it. Such a struggle as is reflected in his
life is, too often, the consequence when a man sees his own life-happiness slip through his fingers in the
pursuit of other ideals, and when all that is left to him is to make of the stern Entbehren sollst du, sollst
entbehren! such virtue as he can. Certainly, the higher, harmonious life, to which Goethe attained, Carlyle
only saw afar off as an ideal beyond his reach. Rather, we have to think of him, even in his maturity, as he
appears in early days, when he chose as a symbol of his life the burning candle with the motto: terar dum
prosim
27
But it is just this discord, this Misston auf der grossen Laute of which Schiller sang, that gave the
enormous impetus to Carlyle’s influence; it was this optimism, tossed fitfully on a vast ocean of pessimism,
that acted as a tonic on the national life of the Victorian age. Carlyle’s idealism, whether in literature or in
morals, was an impracticable creed, but idealisms, after all, are not there to be practicable, but, rather, to
leaven the practice of life. It was this leaven that Carlyle brought to many who, in youth, fell under the spell of
his teaching. We have already claimed Carlyle as the greatest moral force in the England of his day, and it is
difficult to say more. His influence penetrated deep into English intellectual life, at no time over-prone to
impracticable idealisms; and it acted as a deterrent and antidote to the allurements held out by Benthamism,
Saint-Simonism, Comtism; it helped to counteract the secondary effects of the re-birth and advance of
science—a re-birth which made appalling havoc on intellectual idealism in Germany itself. To Carlyle, the
first of all practical problems was for a man to discover his appointed activity, the activity which alone is
capable of destroying the canker of doubt. The life of the individual man passes, but his work remains.
The only happiness a brave man ever troubled himself with asking much about was happiness
enough to get his work done. Not “I can’t eat!” but “I can’t work!” that was the burden of all
wise complaining among men. It is, after all, the one unhappiness of a man, that he cannot work;
that he cannot get his destiny as a man fulfilled. Behold the day is passing swiftly over, our life is
passing swiftly over; and the night cometh when no man can work. The night once come, our
happiness, our unhappiness—it is all abolished; vanished; clean gone; a thing that has been …
But our work—behold, that is not abolished, that has not vanished; our work, behold it remains,
or the want of it remains; for endless Times and Eternities remains; and that is now the sole
question for us for evermore!

This was Carlyle’s firm positive faith, his panacea for the temptations and despairs that assail human life; it
stands out now as his greatest message to his generation.

II. The Tennysons.

§ 1. Tennyson’s early poems.

ALFRED TENNYSON, the most representative, and by far the most popular, poet of Victorian England,
born in 1809, was the fourth son of the rector of Somersby in Lincolnshire. His two elder brothers,
Frederick and Charles, were also poets and must receive some mention later. They were all, not least the
greatest of them, men of singular physical beauty and strength, dark and stalwart, and through most of them
ran a vein of almost morbid hypersensitiveness and melancholy, to which, in Alfred, we may trace the rare
delicacy and intensity of his sensuous and emotional renderings of nature and mood and dream, as well as
the hysterical extravagances of some of the poems in which he touched on subjects, political and religious,
that moved him deeply.
1
Educated at Louth grammar school (of which his only pleasant memory was the music of the Latin words
sonus desilientis aquae) and by his father at home, Tennyson’s genius struck its roots deep into that soil of
family affection and love of country the alienation from which, in varying degree, of most of the earlier
romantic poets—Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley—contributed to the independent, revolutionary
tone of their poetry, and the slowness with which some of them gained the ear of English readers. When
Tennyson went up to Cambridge, Shelley’s was still a name of doubtful omen. Tennyson was always to
be—not entirely for the benefit of his poetry—in closer sympathy with the sentiments of the English
middle-classes, domestic, distrustful of passion or, at least, of the frank expression and portrayal of passion,
patriotic, utilitarian.
2
And the influence of these classes, politically and morally, was becoming dominant. Tennyson went to
Cambridge a few months before Gladstone, the representative statesman of the coming era, went to Oxford.
The group of friends who gathered round Tennyson included Arthur Henry Hallam, Gladstone’s most
intimate friend at Eton. They were all of them young men of the high and strenuous seriousness which
breathes from the letters of Sterling and Hallam—James Spedding, Richard Trench, Henry Alford, Edward
Lushington. The life they led was a very different one from that which Byron describes in his letters of twenty
years earlier. These have the hard, reckless ring of the age of Fox and his dissipated, aristocratic friends. The
young band of “Apostles” who debated

On mind and art,

And labour, and the changing mart,
And all the framework of the land

were imbued with the serious, practical temper of the great merchant class which was to reshape England
during the next fifty years. They were strangers alike to the revolutionary hopes that intoxicated the youthful
Wordsworth, and the reactionary spirit of “blood and iron” against which Byron fought and over which
Shelley lamented in strains of ineffable music:

Oh, cease! must hate and death return?

Cease! must men kill and die?

The era of conservative reform, of Canning and Peel, of attachment to English institutions combined with a
philanthropic ardour for social betterment, had begun. The repeal of the Test act, Catholic emancipation, the
first great Reform bill were all carried between the date at which Gladstone and Tennyson went up to college
and a year after they had gone down. Of this movement, Tennyson was to make conscientious efforts to
approve himself the poet; but, as experience was to show, the conservative instincts of the would-be liberal
poet were deeper and more indestructible than those of the young statesman who, in these years, was still
“the rising hope of stern and unbending Tories.” 1
3
The same via media was the path followed by Tennyson and his friends in the region of theology and
philosophy. Disciples, some of them, of Coleridge, they were all more or less broad churchmen, Christian in
sentiment but with little of Gladstone’s reverence for dogma, and sensitive, as Gladstone never was, to
movements of contemporary thought and science. “Christianity is always rugging at my heart,” Tennyson
said, and his heart and mind were too often divided against one another to allow of his attaining to the heights
of inspired and inspiring religious song. But in no mind of his day did the conflict of feeling and thought
produce more sensitive reactions. In the widened and altered vision of the universe which natural science
was slowly unfolding, Tennyson was to find, at moments, a fresh justification of the deepest hopes and
instincts of his heart, at moments, their utter negation. To the conflict between his sensitive and conservative
temperament and that Lucretian vision of the universe which physical science seemed more and more to
unroll, we owe some of the most haunting notes of Tennyson’s poetry.
4
But these notes were not sounded at once. Tennyson’s first concern was with poetry alone, the object of
his assiduous and patient quest being to discover and to master the style and measures in which he could
best express the poetry with which his mind was charged to overflowing. Poems, by Two Brothers (1827)
is negligible. In these early verses, he threw off, as in a kind of mental measles, the infection of the more
popular poets of the day—Byron and Moore and Scott. At Cambridge, Wordsworth and Coleridge and
Shelley and Keats displaced their more popular rivals, and Tennyson’s genius entered upon a period of
experiment, of growing clearness and sureness of judgment, of increasing richness and felicity of diction and
rhythm, the record of which has been preserved with unusual fulness in the successive Poems, Chiefly
Lyrical (1830), Poems (1833) and Poems. By Alfred Tennyson, 2 vols. (1842).
5
The relation in which these stand to one another is not unlike that of the different “states” of an etching, the
successive “pulls” in which the artist studies the progress he has made towards the complex perfection of the
final plate. Some poems were rejected altogether; others dropped only to reappear; a few suffered little or
no alteration between the first edition and the last; yet others (and these are the most interesting and the most
important) underwent an elaborate process of rearrangement of the component features, of rehandling that
included every kind of erasing, deepening and enriching—processes of which the final outcome was the
pomp and magnificence of the 1842 volumes, the beauty and glow presented in their final form by such
studies as The Lady of Shalott, The Miller’s Daughter, Œnone, The Palace of Art (considering the poem
only on the side of its music and pictures), A Dream of Fair Women and The Lotos Eaters.
6
Tennyson’s aim in all this elaboration is clear enough now, though it was not to such early critics as
Christopher North and Lockhart—who were justifiably witty at the expense of the poet’s lapses, if Lockhart
was less justifiably blind to the final result to which the experiments tended. It was no deepening insight into
his subjects and guided Tennyson’s efforts, for they were to him subjects and no more. They were the
common topics of his romantic predecessors, nature, English pastorals, ballad themes, medieval romance,
classical legend, love and death. But Tennyson was burdened with no message, no new interpretation of
nature or the peasant, no fresh insight into the significance of things medieval or things Hellenic. Each and all
were subjects that quickened his poetic imagination, and his concern was to attain to the perfect rendering in
melody and picturesque suggestion of the mood which each begat in his brooding temperament. Much has
been said of Tennyson’s relation to Keats and Wordsworth; but a closer tie unites him to Coleridge, the
poet. Like Coleridge, Tennyson is a poet not so much of passion and passionate thinking as of
moods—moods subtle and luxurious and sombre, moods in which it is not always easy to discern the line
that separates waking from dreaming.
7
And, like Coleridge, Tennyson, from the outset, was a metrist, bold in experiment and felicitous in
achievement. Almost every poem in these volumes was a distinct, conscious experiment in the metrical
expression of a single, definite mood. There were some failures, not from inadequate control of the poet’s
medium of verse (as Coleridge was inclined to think) but because, as Christopher North pointed out,
Tennyson occasionally mistook for a poetic mood what was merely a fleeting fancy and recorded it in lines
that were, at times, even silly. Of the poems which survived the purgation to which Tennyson subjected his
work, some are less happy than others, again not because the poet has failed to make the verse the echo of
the mood, but because the mood itself was not one that was altogether congenial to his mind. In lighter and
simpler strains, Tennyson is never quite spontaneous. But, when the mood was one of the poet’s very soul,
luxurious or sombre or a complex blend of both, the metrical expression was, from the first, a triumphant
success. Claribel, Mariana, “A spirit haunts the year’s last hours,” Recollections of the Arabian Nights,
The Dying Swan, The Lady of Shalott, the blank verse of Ònone, A Dream of Fair Women, The
Palace of Art, The Vision of Sin, The Lotos Eaters—all reveal (think what one may of the philosophy of
some or of the faults of phrase and figure which marred the first transcripts) a poet with a command of new
and surprising and delightful metrical effects as unmistakably as did the early poems of Milton, the
masterpieces of Coleridge, Shelley’s songs or Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads. The true character of the
English verse foot which the romantic poets had rediscovered without all of them quite knowing what they
had done, the possibilities of what Saintsbury calls “substitution,” the fact that, in verse whose indicator is a
recurring stress, the foot may be iambic, trochaic, spondaic or monosyllabic without altering the time-lengths
of the rhythmical interval, Tennyson understood perfectly and he experimented on it with a conscious and
felicitous art, combining with this subtle management of the foot a careful attention to the musical value of
vowel and consonant combinations in which his precursors are Gray and Pope and Milton. And, for
Tennyson, the guiding principle in every experiment, from Claribel to The Vision of Sin, is the dramatic
appropriateness of verse to mood.
8
Many of the poems, as has been said, underwent drastic revision; but this revision seldom affected the
metre, though the concluding stanza of The Lotos Eaters is a striking exception. It was the phrasing and
imagery, the richly decorative and picturesque diction, that was revised before the eyes of the reader with
wonderful results. The motive which dictated this labour was the same as that which controlled the varied
cadences of the poet’s verse, the desire to secure the full and exact expression for the single mood which
dominates the poem throughout. For each of Tennyson’s shorter poems, at any rate—hence, perhaps, his
preference of the idyll to the epic—is the expression of a single mood of feeling. It is seldom that one of his
songs or odes or idylls carries the imagination of the reader from one mood of feeling to another, as does an
ode by Keats or Wordsworth, while the stream of impassioned thought flows through the mind. In his longer
poems, In Memoriam and Idylls of the King, as will be seen later, the plan of construction finally adopted
is a concession to this quality of the poet’s genius. A brooding imagination, a fine ear and a vivid and curious
eye, the eye of an artist who, also, was something of a naturalist—these are the distinctive qualities of
Tennyson’s poetic temperament. He divined, as Keats had before him (but Keat’s eye was not, to a like
extent, the dominant factor in his sensibility), that a picture presented with extraordinary precision of detail
may, if every detail be relevant, contribute potently to the communication of a mood of feeling—the whole
secret of pre-Raphaelitism. But he was also aware that mere description is no business of the poet who
describes only to communicate feeling. Accordingly, the alterations which Tennyson introduced into his
work, in so far as they were not dictated by the ear, by the desire to secure a purer, more flute-like melody
of vowel and consonant, had one of two purposes in view, either to present a picture with greater clearness
of arrangement and vividness or wealth of detail, or, even more often, to diminish merely descriptive effects,
to substitute one or two significant, suggestive details for a fully drawn picture, in every way to intensify the
emotional, dramatic effect as by passing the stanza once more through the dyeing vat of the poet’s own
passionate mood. Of passages in which the first aim predominates a classical example is the opening
landscape in Œnone, but a shorter may be cited from The Palace of Art:

One seemed a foreground black with stones and slags,

Below sunsmitten icy spires
Rose striped with long white cloud the scornful crags
Deeptrenched with thunderfires,

compared with

And one a foreground black with stones and slags,

Beyond, a line of heights, and higher
All barr’d with long white cloud the scornful crags,
And highest, snow and fire

9
Of the other process, the subtle heightening of the emotional thrill, examples will be found in all the poems
mentioned; but two short passages may be cited by way of illustration:

No time hath she to sport and play,

A charmed web she weaves alway,
A curse is on her if she stay
Her weaving either night or day,
To look down to Camelot,

compared with

There she weaves by night and day

A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
To look down to Camelot,

or,

She moved her lips, she prayed alone,

She praying disarrayed and warm
From slumber, deep her wavy form
In the darklustrous mirror shone.
“Madonna,” in a low, clear tone
Said Mariana, night and morn,
Low she mourned, “I am all alone,
Love-forgotten, and love-forlorn,”

compared with

Complaining, “Mother, give me grace

To help me of my weary load.”
And on the liquid mirror glow’d
The clear perfection of her face.
“Is this the form,” she made her moan,
“That won his praises night and morn?”
And “Ah,” she said, “but I wake alone,
I sleep forgotten, I wake forlorn.”

The heightened glow of the picture in the lines italicised is not more striking than the dramatic significance of
“Is this the form,” etc. But, perhaps, the supreme examples of the poet’s power to enrich his verses by
passing them once again through the mood in which the whole poem was conceived are the closing stanzas
of The Lady of Shalott and of The Lotos Eaters.
10
The outcome of the severe course of training to which Tennyson submitted his art—a process that never
quite came to an end, for later poems were, also, carefully revised after publication—was a style, the ground
and texture of which is a pure, idiomatic English, mannered as, in a different way, the style of Milton is
mannered, decorative as in a different way, the style of Milton is decorative, 2 and a verse of wonderful
variety, a felicitous adaptability to the mood of the poem, and a curiously elaborated melody of vowel and
consonant. With the exception of Gray—for Pope’s “correctness” is not entirely a poetical
excellence—English poetry had produced nothing since Milton that is so obviously the result of a strenuous
and unwearied pursuit of perfection of form.
11
Tennyson’s range of topics is, also, fully represented in the 1842 volumes—studies of mood and character
ranging from the first slight sketches of Adelines and Marianas to the complexities of Simeon Stylites, St.
Agnes and Sir Galahad, and the nobility of Ulysses; studies of English rural life like Dora, among the least
successful of Tennyson’s poems, not because (as a critic has complained) they have too much of
Wordsworth’s “silly sooth,” but because they lack the intense conviction which keeps Wordsworth from
ever being “silly,” though he may at times be absurd, and exalts his “sooth” into imaginative truth; medieval
studies in which was now included Morte d’Arthur, starting point of the later Idylls of the King; classical
legend represented by the early Ònone recast and Ulysses, for Tithonus though written was not yet
published; and, lastly, poems in which Tennyson touches on the mysteries of life and death and immortality,
themes round which his brooding imagination was to circle all his life with a sincerer passionate and pathetic
interest than he felt for any other subject that engaged his art—seeking, finding, but never long sure that he
really had found, like some lone, ghostly sea-bird wheeling round the luring, dazzling, baffling beams of a
lighthouse on some stormy headland. For all his questing, Tennyson was never to get much further than the
vague hope of the closing section of The Vision of Sin:

At last I heard a voice upon the slope

Cry to the summit, “Is there any hope?”
To which an answer peal’d from that high land,
But in a tongue no man could understand;
And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn
God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.

12
The sombre note of the scene and the song which precede this close was to be heard more than once again
in the verse of the poet who had already written The Two Voices and was yet to write Vastness. Of political
pieces, the volumes included the very characteristic poems “You ask me, why,” “Love thou thy land,” “Of
old sat Freedom” and the very popular, if now somewhat faded, trochaics of Locksley Hall.
13

Note 1. Macaulay, Essays: Gladstone on Church and State, 1839. [ back ]

Note 2. The ground-work of Milton’s style is English Latinised in syntax, idiom and vocabulary. Of Tennyson’s
Idylls of the King, a contemporary critic says: “In the history of the English language these poems will occupy a
remarkable place as examples of vigorous, unaffected, and almost unmixed Saxon written at a time in which all
the ordinary walks of literature are becoming rapidly vulgarised with bastard Latinity,” The Edinburgh Review,
1859. Dyboski’s Tennyson’s Spracheund Stil collects Tennyson’s usages and throws an instructive light on his
mannerisms.
§ 2. The Princess.

These latter poems, and such additions to his earlier work as Morte d’Arthur, Ulysses and Love and
Duty, were proof that not only had Tennyson completely mastered his decorative, musical style but that his
poetry had gained in thought, in dramatic insight, in depth and poignancy of feeling; and the question for a
lover of Tennyson’s poetry in 1842 must have been, was this advance to be continuous, such an increasing
dramatic understanding of the passionate heart of man as carried Shakespeare from A Midsummer Night’s
Dream to Macbeth and Othello, with all the change in style and verse which that process brought with it, or
such an absorption in a great theme, the burden of a message, as produced La Divina Commedia or
Paradis Lost. For there were dangers besetting Tennyson’s laborious cultivation of a new and rich poetic
diction, dangers which betrayed themselves very evidently in the first considerable poem that followed the
1842 volumes, the longest poem Tennyson had yet attempted, and the first in which he set himself
conscientiously (in the mood in which he had conceived The Palace of Art) to give to his poetry a didactic
intention. The Princess, first published in 1847 but revised and re-revised in 1851 and 1853, if it exhibits all
the characteristic excellences of Tennyson’s style, his mellifluous blank verse and polished, jewelled phrasing,
reveals with equal clearness its limitations and faults. The blend of humour and sentiment and serious purpose
is not altogether a success—“Alfred, whatever he may think,” said FitzGerald, “cannot trifle. His smile is
rather a grim one”—and of dramatic interest there is the merest suggestion in the grandlioquent princess, the
silly prince and their slightly outlined companions. Moreover, the style, with all its beauties, reveals, as some
of the later Idylls of the King were to do, the radical want of simplicity, which is not really disguised by the
purity, of Tennyson’s style, a tendency to conceit and decoration which seeks to make poetry of a plain
statement by periphrasis and irrelevant, even if beautiful, figure. Gladstone admired the skill with which
Tennyson could make poetical the description of a game-pie:

Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay

Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks
Imbedded and injellied,

and describe mathematics as

The hard-grain’d Muses of the cube and square.

The Princess abounds in refinements of this kind, as when the prince

sat down and wrote,

In such a hand as when a field of corn
Bows all its ears before the roaring East,

or the remark that Cyril’s wilder frolics are not the surest index to his character is thus adorned:

He has a solid base of temperament:

But as the waterlily starts and slides
Upon the level in little puffs of wind,
Tho’anchor’d to the bottom, such is he.

14
Even when the poem rises to a higher level of seriousness in the closing sections, the style is still elaborated
and brocaded out of all proportion to the theme. Yet of such art the final perfection is found in an
appearance of simplicity, and that, too, Tennyson achieved in the lyrics which were added to the third
edition—the subtle “silly sooth” of “We fell out” and “Sweet and low,” the pealing music of “The splendour
falls,” the sophisticated, coloured art of “Now sleeps the crimson petal,” and, lastly, the melody, the vision
and the passionate wail of “Tears, idle tears” the most moving and finely wrought lyric Tennyson ever wrote.
§ 3. In Memoriam.

The quality which such art, with all its wonderful elaboration, lacks is that last secret of a great style which
Dante indicates when he defines the dolce still nuovo—for what is true of love is true of any other adequate
theme—

Ed io a lui:“Io mi son un che, quando

Amor mi spira, noto, ed a quel modo
Che ditta dentro, vo significando.” 3

He had not yet written as when a great subject appears to take the pen and write itself. But, in 1850,
Tennyson seemed to his readers to have found such an inspiring theme, when the poem on which he had
been at work ever since the death in 1833 of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam was published under the simple
title In Memoriam, for the theme, death and immortality, was that on which Tennyson ever felt most deeply,
was most constantly haunted and agitated by conflicting hopes and fears. In no poems had he written with
more evident sincerity, more directness, a finer balance of thought and style, than in those poems which, like
Ulysses and The Vision of Sin, were precursors of this longer poem on life and death and immortality,
sorrow and sin and the justification of God’s ways to men.
16
In Memoriam is not altogether free from the faults of Tennysonian diction, phrasing such as “eaves of
weary eyes” or

And where the kneeling hamlet drains

The chalice of the grapes of God,

but, with few exceptions, the style is pure, direct and masculine, and to this not only the theme but the verse
contributed, a verse which Ben Jonson and lord Herbert of Cherbury had used before him, but which
Tennyson made his own by the new weight and melody which he gave to it. In Tennyson’s hands the verse
acquired something of the weight and something of the fittingness for a long meditative poem of the terza
rima as used by Dante, the same perfection of internal movement combined with the same invitation to
continue, an eddying yet forward movement. 4
17
The construction of the poem in separate sections, some of which are linked together in groups by
continuity of theme, was that which gave freest scope to Tennyson’s genius, allowing him to make of each
section the expression of a single, intense mood. But the claim for In Memoriam, that it is not merely a
collection of poems of varying degrees of beauty but a great poem, rests on the degree of success with
which Tennyson has woven these together into a poem portraying the progress of the human spirit from
sorrow to joy, not by the loss of love or the mere dulling of grief, but by the merging of the passion for the
individual friend, removed but still living, into the larger love of God and of his fellow-men. 5 If the present
generation does not estimate In Memoriam quite so highly as its first readers, it is because time, which has a
way of making clear the interval between a poet’s intention and his achievement, the expressed purpose of a
Paradise Lost and its final effect, has shown that Tennyson failed to make this central experience, this great
transition, imaginatively convincing and impressive. It is not in the vague philosophy, with a dash of
semi-mystical experience, in which is veiled the simple process by which the heart grows reconciled to loss
and life renews her spell, nor in the finished and illuminated style in which all this is clothed—it is not here that
the reader of to-day finds the true Tennyson, the poet with his own unique and splendid gifts, but in the
sombre moods and the lovely landscapes of individual sections. “Old Yew, which graspest at the stones,”
“Dark house, by which once more I stand,” “Calm is the morn without a sound,” “To-night the winds begin
to rise,” “With trembling fingers did we weave”--sections such as these, or the passionate sequence
beginning “Oh yet we trust that somehow good,” and later, lovelier flights as “When on my bed the moonlight
falls,” “I cannot see the features right,” “Witch-elms that counterchange the floor,” “By night we linger’d on
the lawn,” “Unwatch’d, the garden bough shall sway,” “Sad Hesper o’er the buried sun”--these are likely to
be dear to lovers of English poetry by their expression of mood in picture and music, long after the
philosophy of In Memoriam has been forgotten. It is not the mystical experience of the ninety-fifth section
which haunts the memory, but the beauty of the sunrise that follows when

the doubtful dusk reveal’d

The knolls once more where, couch’d at ease,
The white kine glimmer’d, and the trees
Laid their dark arms about the field:
And suck’d from out the distant gloom
A breeze began to tremble o’er
The large leaves of the sycamore,
And fluctuate all the still perfume,
And gathering freshlier overhead,
Rock’d the full-foliaged elms, and swung
The heavy-folded rose, and flung
The lilies to and fro, and said,
“The dawn, the dawn,” and died away;
And East and West, without a breath,
Mixt their dim lights, like life and death,
To broaden into boundless day.

18
To the theme of the most agitated sections of the poem, those whose theme is not removal of the friend by
death from the sight and touch of those that loved him, but the more terrible doubt as to a life after death, the
poet was to recur again, to fight more than one “weird battle of the west,” before he faced the final issue with
courage and resignation and hope.
§ 4. Maud.

In the year of In Memoriam, Tennyson succeeded Wordsworth in the post of poet laureate, and his first
official poem was the fine Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington (1852), a bold metrical
experiment, the motif for which is given by the funeral march and the pomp of the obsequies in St. Paul’s. In
the dramatic use of varying metres no poet was ever a more constant and generally felicitous experimenter
than Tennyson, and in his next considerable poem Maud, issued in Maud, and Other Poems (1855), he
employed the device of sections, not, as in In Memoriam, of like metrical structure, but varying in the
boldest fashion from long six-foot to short three-foot lines, to tell in monodrama a story of tragic passion.
The hero and narrator is dramatically conceived, and Tennyson was very anxious not to be identified with the
Hamlet of his story. But the political opinions which he put into his mouth were his own, in the main, and the
morbid, hysterical temperament was his own, too, dramatically intensified and elaborated. The result was a
poem which greatly disconcerted his admirers--alike those who would have had him content to remain the
Theocritus of idylls like The Gardener’s Daughter and The Brook (which was published in the same
volume as Maud), and those who were calling on him for a great poem, and were prepared to acclaim
him--mainly on the strength of Locksley Hall--as the laureate of an age of “unexampled progress.” The latter
were profoundly shocked at the poet’s fierce exultation over war for a cause, his clear perception of the
seamy side of commercial prosperity and his contempt for what he thought a mean conception of the blessing
of peace. A great poem Maud is not. The heroine is too shadowy, the hero a Hamlet only in the hysterical
instability of his temperament, with none of Hamlet’s range of thought, or that ultimate strength of soul which
held madness and suicide at arm’s length; but “I have led her home,” “Come into the garden, Maud,” and “O
that ’twere possible” are among the most perfect of Tennyson’s dramatic love-lyrics.
§ 5. Idylls of the King.

The great poem, the magnum opus, to which Tennyson’s critics summoned him insistently 6 and on which
his mind dwelt with almost too conscientious a desire to fulfil what was expected of him, began to take shape
finally, in the only form in which his genius could work at ease (the concentration, in a poem of not too great
length on a single mood of feeling), with the composition of Idylls of the King. Malory’s Morte d’Arthur
had early arrested his attention.
I could not read Palmerin of England nor Amadis, nor any other of those Romances through.
The Morte d’Arthur is much the best: there are very fine things in it; but all strung together
without Art.

So he told FitzGerald, and his first experiment in the retelling of the old legends, Morte d’Arthur, had
appeared in 1842 as a fragment of Homeric epic. Nothing more was added till 1857, when Enid and
Nimue was issued in an edition of some six copies. This issue was followed, in 1859, by The True and the
False, Four Idylls of the King, containing Enid, Nimue (Vivien), Elaine and Guinevere. In the same
year, the four idylls were issued as Idylls of the King. In 1869 were added The Coming of Arthur, The
Holy Grail, Pelleas and Ettarre and The Passing of Arthur. The Last Tournament (1871), Gareth and
Lynette (1872), Balin and Balan (1885) came later, and, in the final arrangement, Geraint and Enid was
divided into two parts.
21
In the later poems, the epic, Homeric flavour of the first Morte is abandoned for a more purely idyllic tone,
a chiselled, polished, jewelled exquisiteness of Alexandrian art. Of blank verse, Tennyson was an exacting
critic and a master in a manner as definitely his own as Thomson’s, but with a greater claim to be compared
with the finest of English non-dramatic blank verse, that is Milton’s. And when the theme is reflective,
oratorical or dramatic—at least in monologue—Tennyson’s blank verse is melodious and sonorous,
variously paused and felicitously drawn out into effective paragraphs. A continuous study reveals a greater
monotony of effect than in Milton’s ever varied harmonies, and there is never the grand undertone of
passion, of the storm that has raised the ground swell. It is in narrative that the faults of Tennyson’s blank
verse become apparent—its too flagrant artificiality. The pauses and cadences are too carefully chosen, the
diction too precious, the movement too mincing, the whole “too picked, too spruce, too affected”:

So coming to the fountain-side beheld

Balin and Balan sitting statuelike,
Brethren, to right and left the spring, that down,
From underneath a plume of lady-fern
Sang, and the sand danced at the bottom of it.

One could multiply such instances—taken quite at random—from the Idylls, especially from the descriptions
of tournament or combat. In his parody of The Brook, Calverley has caught to perfection the mincing gait
and affected phrasing of this Tennysonian fine-writing:

Thus on he prattled like a babbling brook,

Then I, “The sun hath slipt behind the hill,
And my Aunt Vivian dines at half-past six.”
So in all love we parted; I to the Hall,
They to the village. It was noised next noon
That chickens had been miss’d at Syllabub Farm.

22
The over-exquisite elaboration of form is in keeping with Tennyson’s whole treatment of the old legends,
rich in a colour and atmosphere of their own. With the spirit of the Arthurian stories, in which elements of a
Celtic, primitive world are blended in a complex, now hardly to be disentangled, fashion with medieval
chivalry and catholic, sacramental symbolism, the Victorian poet was out of sympathy. Neither the aimless
fighting in which they abound, nor the cult of love as a passion so inspiring and ennobling that it glorified even
sin, nor the mystical adoration of the Host and the ascetic quest of a spotless purity in the love and service of
God, appealed deeply to Tennyson, who wished to give to the fighting a philanthropic purpose, to combine
love with purity in marriage and to find the mystic revelation of God in the world in which we move and
serve.
23
It is not easy to pour new wine into old bottles, to charge old stories with a new spirit. If Milton’s classical
treatment of Biblical themes is a wonderful tour de force—and it is not a complete success—it is because
the spirit of the poet and the poem is, after all, rather Hebraic than Hellenic. There is as much of the Hebrew
prophets in his work as of the Greek poets. It is still harder to give a new soul to old legends if one is not
quite sure what that soul is to be. The allegory which was to connect the whole, “the conflict continually
maintained between the spirit and the flesh,” is, at once, too obvious and too vague, too vague as an
interpretation of the story as a whole, too obvious when it appears as an occasional intrusion of a double
meaning—in Gareth and Lynette or The Holy Grail. It was, indeed, a misfortune that Tennyson was
determined to tie the tin kettle of a didactic intention to the tail of all poems of this period. The general moral
significance of the old story was clear enough—“do after the good and leave the evil and it shall bring you to
good fame and renommee”—and needed no philosophic pointer. The sole justification for rehandling the
legends was the possibility of giving them a new and heightened poetic beauty and dramatic significance.
24
In the latter, the poet has certainly not wholly failed, and it is this dramatic significance, rather than the vague
allegory, which connects the stories and gives to the series a power over and above the charm of the
separate tales. As in In Memoriam, so in Idylls of the King, the connecting link between the parts is a
gradually induced change of mood. Each Idyll has its dominant mood reflected in the story, the characters
and the scenery in which these are set, from the bright youth and glad spring-tide of Gareth and Lynette to
the disillusionment and flying yellow leaves of The Last Tournament, the mists and winter-cold of the
parting with Guinevere and “that last, dim, weird battle of the west.” The dramatic background to this change
of mood is the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, and the final test of Tennyson’s success or failure in his most
ambitious work is his handling of this story; the most interesting group of characters are the four that
contemplate each other with mournful and troubled eyes as in some novel of modern life, Arthur, Lancelot,
Guinevere and Elaine. In part, Tennyson has succeeded, almost greatly; in part, he has inevitably failed.
Elaine is perfect, a wonderful humanising of the earlier, half mystical Lady of Shalott. Lancelot, too, is surely
a great study of the flower of knighthood caught in the trammels of an overpowering, ruining passion, a
modern picture drawn on the lines of the old; and Guinevere, too, slightly, yet distinctly, drawn
in her splendid beauty—wilful, impetuous, self-indulgent—yet full of courtesy and grace and,
when she pleases, of self-control also; not without a sense in her of the greatness of the work
which she is marring; not without a bitter consciousness of her secret humiliation and the place
she has lost; but yet too proud, too passionate, too resolute to yield even to her own
compunctions. 7

The failure is Arthur, and it could hardly be otherwise. A shadowy figure in the old legends, Tennyson has
made him not more but less real, a “conception of man as he might be,” Gladstone declared, and, in
consequence, of man as he ought not to be in such a dramatic setting. Like the Lady in Comus, Arthur has
become a symbol, not a human being. As the former, when she speaks, is not a young English girl, but the
personification of chastity, so Arthur is, as in Spenser’s poem, the embodiment of complete virtue conceived
in a Victorian fashion, with a little too much in him of the “endless clergyman,” which Tennyson said was the
Englishman’s idea of God. And the last speech he delivers over the fallen Guinevere is, in consequence, at
once magnificent and intolerable. The most popular of his works when they appeared, Idylls of the King, is,
to-day, probably the chief stumbling-block to a young student of Tennyson. Its Parnassian beauties, its
vaguely religious and somewhat timid morality reflect too vividly the spirit of their own day. Yet even English
poetry would need to be richer than it is before we could afford to forget or ignore such a wealth of splendid
colour and music as these poems present.
25

Note 6. “We once more call upon him to do the duty which England has long expected of him, and to give us a
great poem on a great subject,” The Edinburgh Review, 1855.
§ 6. Enoch Arden and dialect ballads.

The same excess of sentiment, which, in a great poem, should have given place to thought and passion, and
the same over-elaborate art, are apparent in the rustic idyll which gives its name to the volume published in
1864, Enoch Arden, etc., a tragedy of village life founded on a story given to Tennyson by the sculptor
Woolner, recalling, in many of its details, Crabbe’s The Parting Hour. Fundamentally, there is more of
Crabbe than of Wordsworth in Tennyson’s tales of English country-life, for, though Tennyson is more
sentimental than Crabbe and his treatment far more decorative, he does not idealise in the mystical manner of
Wordsworth. But, in style and verse, there could not well be a greater difference than that between the
vividpictures, the tropical colouring, the sophisticate simplicity of Enoch Arden and the limited, conventional
phraseology, the monotonous verse in which Crabbe tells his story with so much more of sheer dramatic
truth. But it was in the direction of sheer dramatic truth, mastering and, to some extent simplifying the style,
that Tennyson’s genius was advancing most fruitfully, and the earnest of this is two poems which accompany
Enoch Arden, the dialect ballads in six-foot anapaests, The Grandmother and The Northern
Farmer—Old Style, the first of which owes its poignancy to the sorrow with which Tennyson gazed on his
own first child born dead, while the latter is the earliest altogether felicitous expression of the vein of dramatic
humour which ran through his naturally sombre temperament. Tennyson could not trifle, but he had a gift of
caustic satire to which he might have given freer play with advantage to his permanent, if not his immediate,
popularity. The two farmer poems and The Village Wife are worth several such poems as Dora and Enoch
Arden.
§ 7. Dramas and later poems and ballads.

What is it all, if we all of us end but in being our own corpse-coffins at last, Swallow’d in Vastness, lost in Silence,
drown’d in the deeps of a meaningless Past?

29 Tennyson was not able to expel, though he could subdue, the ghosts which haunted him. He never thought his way
through any of the problems, political, moral or metaphysical, which the age presented, and, to the reader of to-day, it is not the
thought of these poems which matters, but the reaction of this thought on their dramatic and poetic quality, the piercing note
which it gave to poems that have lost the wonderful fragrance and colour--the rich bouquet if one might change the figure—of
the 1842 poems, but in whose autumnal tints and severer outlines there is a charm more deeply felt than in the overwrought
perfection, the deliberate intention of the middle period poems.
§ 8. His metres.

In one respect, these poems show little, if any, abatement of force, that is in the dramatic adjustment of metre
to mood. The blank verse of the later pieces is simpler and less mannered than in Idylls of the King, while
retaining the variety and dignity of movement which Tennyson’s blank verse always has when used for
meditative, and not narrative, poetry. Tithonus has all, and more than all, the magic of the earlier Œnone in
the rendering of a passionate mood in a setting of exquisite natural description, and Lucretius all, and more
than all, the dramatic and psychological subtlety and force of such an earlier study of mental disturbance as
St. Simeon Stylites; and, to the last, in Tiresias and Demeter and St. Telemachus, the stately movement,
the vowelled melody, hardly flags.
31
But the metre in which Tennyson exprimented most repeatedly in the last poems is the anapaestic, generally
in six-foot line. All the dialect pieces are in this metre and the verse is admirably adapted to the drawling
speech of the English rustic. In The Revenge, where the anapaest interchanges freely with shorter, more
massive, rhythms, the poet has achieved one of his masterpieces in dramatic, picturesque, glowing narrative,
the finest poem of English heroic patriotism since Drayton’s Agincourt, perhaps the greatest war-poem in
the language; and, metrically, The Charge of the Heavy Brigade is not less felicitous though the story is not
so romantic and picturesque. In The Voyage of Maeldune, Tennyson opened at the end of his life another
storehouse of Celtic legend than the Arthurian, and the metre, again, is perfectly adapted to the monotony of
marvel and magic which is the note of Irish story. It is, however, more doubtful whether the six-foot anapaest
was so well suited to the tales of modern life, Despair, The Flight, The Wreck, etc., of which Tennyson
wrote, perhaps, more than enough in his last years. Certainly, the blank verse poem The Sisters is a happier
effort. The ballad movement is not well adaptable to such themes, and the verse, quite in keeping w h he
s y e o us c na a ve seems by s mono ony o he gh en he one o hys e ca sens b y he “spasmod c”
cha ac e o hese no ve y p eas ng poems
32
B ank ve se and anapaes s by no means exhaus he me es o hese as vo umes hough some o hese
a e p o essed y expe men s n The Da sy pub shed n he Maud vo ume Tennyson was us p oud y o
hav ng caugh “a a o echo o he Ho a an A ca c” and h s ocha cs a e no ess e c ous han h s
anapaes s The as vo umes con a n as we as he second Locks ey Ha he ove y echo o Ca u us s
amen

Row us ou om Desenzano o you S m one ow

and he c angou o he g ea nes To V g

Landscape ove o d o anguage

he wo h es bu e wh ch has been pa d o he Roman poe s nce Dan e To he as Tennyson was capab e

o sp ng ng such su p ses on hose who we e babb ng o h s decadence o he as he was ab e o de gh
by he mus ca and p c u esque n e p e a on o mood and d eam The au ho o Tea s d e ea s cou d
w e a he age o e gh y

Bu such a de as mov ng seems as eep

Too u o sound and oam
When ha wh ch d ew om ou he bound ess deep
Tu ns aga n home
§ 9 Summa y

The ve y u ness o Tennyson s popu a y un ke any h ng s nce Pope p ovoked he nev ab e eac on To
do us ce o he g ea body o va ed and sp end d poe y he ved o comp e e w hou any such subs dence
o o g na nsp a on as s ev den n a he a e wo k o Wo dswo h e ved hough ha s by u
ecu ences o he o d mag c me was needed me wh ch sepa a es une ng y he mos accomp shed
w ng and n e es ng hough om poe y he exp ess on o an mag na ve mus ca sou was on he
h nke he see ha he g ea es adm e s o he o d poe F ede ck Mye s and o he s we e emp ed o ay
s ess he p ophe o mmo a y n an age o pos v sm Bu Tennyson was no see ke B ake o
Wo dswo h no ag e d a ec c an ke B own ng He was a g ea sens ve sou u o B sh p e ud ces bu
a so w h a B sh consc ence anx ous o ende a good accoun o he a en en us ed o h m o make a
he handma d o du y and a h bu oub ed by he cou se o even s and unab e o nd any so u on save a
a h n he “ a u u e ” n a p ocess ha uns h ough a h ngs he

one a o d v ne even
To wh ch he who e c ea on moves

S nce Shakespea e he e has been no poe so Eng sh n h s p e ud ces and n h s ove o he so and scene y
o Eng and he peasan s and he g ea sa o s and so d e s To speak o h m as a ep esen a ve V c o an s
a m s ake sugges s ha he e was n h m any h ng o Macau ay s comp acen p de n he “p og ess” o
he age econom c and sc en c He was n e es ed n and h s hough deep y co ou ed by hese bu
empe amen a y he be onged o he a s oc a c ma a Eng and o he pe od ha c osed n 1832 and he
con c o h s empe amen and h s consc en ous e o o unde s and and sympa h se w h h s own age gave
a comp ex mbe o many o h s poems A hea he was an a s oc a c Eng shman d s us u o
democ acy and d sda n u o o e gne s and o e gn po cs pass ona e y pa o c and oub ed above a by
a ea ha democ a c Eng and was ess ea ous o he honou han he o d mo e n en on ma e a we a e
and peace a any p ce A hea he was a Ch s an n a qu e undogma c Eng sh ash on a Ch s an o he
o d Eng sh ec o y and v age chu ch ype ch n he cha es and he s mp e p e es w h no ouch o
B own ng s noncon o m s e vou d s us u o Roman s ng dogmas and ua a once n e es ed n and
p o ound y oub ed by he d o con empo a y sc ence and pos v sm The beau es o Eng sh u a
scene y and Eng sh ga dens and v ages a e woven h ough and h ough he ch y co ou ed apes y o h s
poe y O h s one ou ney o a y he emembe ed on y he d scom o o he a n and he da sy wh ch spoke
o h m o Eng and Even o he dead s be e o e n Eng sh so

we may s and
Whe e he n Eng sh ea h s a d
And om h s ashes may be made
The v o e o h s na ve and

And he e a e no such ach evemen s by sea o and as hose o Eng sh sa o s and so d e s

34
s no as a h nke o see ha Tennyson w ve bu as one o he mos g ed and w h M on and G ay
one o he ew consc en ous wo kmen among Eng sh poe s F om C a be o C oss ng he Ba he c a m
o h s poe y s a ways he same he wonde u e c y w h wh ch ende s n v v d p c u e n va ed bu
a ways d ama ca y app op a e me e n anguage o he mos ca e u y w ough euphony—no poe s nce
M on s ud ed as Tennyson d d he ne e ec s o we ad us ed vowe s and consonan s— he s ng e n ense
mood n wh ch he poem has been conce ved He was no a g ea d ama s he was no a g ea na a ve
poe The e s a mo e pass ona e w nged movemen n he songs o o he poe s han h s songs ha s ng
hemse ves mo e nev ab y H s g ea ach evemen s n ha c ass o med a ve mus ca deco a ve poe y o
wh ch be ong M on s L A eg o and Pense oso G ay s E egy Kea s odes Th s s he ype owa ds
wh ch a h s poems end even when hey ake d e en o ms and a e y ca o nc ude an e emen o
na a ve And Tennyson has w en no h ng ne han M on s o Kea s poems us named he has g ven
new qua es o he k nd and he has ex ended s ange by h s d ama c use o he dy he p c u e o a
mood Compa ed w h Tennyson Wo dswo h She ey and Kea s a e poe s o a s ng e no e na u e
mys ca y n e p e ed he sensuous de gh o beau y he “des e o he mo h o he s a ” The moods o
wh ch Tennyson has g ven poe c exp ess on a e as va ed as h s me es and nc ude a a e ee ng o he
beau y o Eng sh scene y he m nd o he peasan n many o s phases humo ous and ag c he
n e p e a on o c ass ca egend he ep oduc on o he ve y sou o some G eek and Roman poe s as
Theoc us and Ve g Luc e us and Ca u us he co ou and beau y no a he pecu a e h ca and
e g ous one o med eva omance comp ex es o m nd and even pa ho og ca sub e es o emo on he
b ood ng o a sens ve sp ove he dd es o e and dea h and good and ev B own ng has a w de
ange s ess nsu a mo e cu ous abou exo c ypes and mo e sub e n ac ng he d a ec cs o mood and
s ua on Bu he does no en e mo e n ense y n o he pu e y emo ona aspec o he mood and he does no
s eep he who e n such a wea h o co ou and me ody
35
Com ng a e he g ea oman cs Tennyson nhe ed he ach evemen n he ed scove y o poe c hemes
he pu ca on and en chmen o Eng sh poe c d c on he be a on and en chmen o Eng sh ve se and
he uses hem a as a consc ous ca e u a s H s poe y s ands o he s much as a ga den o a na u a
andscape The ee a o pass ona e nsp a on does no b ow h ough so po en y acks he sub m y o
sea and moo and he open heavens Bu he e a e compensa ons The beau y o na u e s enhanced by a
he mass ng o b ooms he va y ng o e ec s he backg ound o ve ve awn and g assy bank and o de ed
hedge ow above a by he en chmen o he so wh ch adds a deepe c mson o he ose and b ends w h
s mp e b ooms he sp endou s o he exo c An mag na on ch n co ou a de ca e and h gh y a ned ea a
hough wh ch no p o ound was nou shed on he e a u e and ph osophy o G eece and Rome— hese
we e among Tennyson s g s o Eng sh poe y and hey go a ong way o coun e ba ance such m a ons as
a e o be ound n h s hough and ee ng The pee age con e ed on h m n 1884 was he ecogn on o he
g ea ness o h s epu a on and he n ense y na ona sp o h s wo k
§ 10 Cha es Tennyson

The name Tennyson may have ove shadowed o a me n he ong un has g ven an adven ous n e es
o he wo k o he poe au ea e s b o he s F ede ck and Cha es F ede ck wen om Lou h g amma
schoo o E on and om E on o Camb dge whe e a e a yea a S John s co ege he m g a ed o T n y
whe e he was o ned by h s b o he s He d s ngu shed h mse by ga n ng he B owne meda w h a G eek
ode on Egyp The cadence o he c os ng nes nge ed n he ea s o S F anc s Doy e a h s e cha Bu
he d d no make so s ong an mp ess on on h s con empo a es as he younge b o he s The g ea e pa o
h s subsequen e was spen n a y and he as h y ve yea s n Je sey A F o ence he came unde he
n uence o he sp ua s c n uences wh ch a ac ed M s B own ng and gave he wo d M S udge “The
Med um” and n h s a e e he became an a den F eemason and Swedenbo g an He was a g ea eade
a s uden o a and a pass ona e ove o mus c H s s vo ume o poems Days and Hou s was pub shed
n 1854 The ea e he pub shed no h ng un 1890 when he ssued a ong vo ume o b ank ve se dy s
ca ed The s es o G eece o owed n 1891 by a vo ume o c ass ca s o es Daphne and o he Poems
and n 1895 unde he e o Poems o he Day and Yea a se ec on om he ea e p n ed poems w h
some add ons
37
Cha es Tennyson g adua ed a Camb dge n 1832 and was o da ned n 1835 On succeed ng o a sma
es a e by he w o a g and unc e he ook he name o Tu ne The g ea e pa o h s e was spen as v ca
a G asby n L nco nsh e whe e he cu va ed h s de ca e med a ve ve se w ng sonne s on nc den s n
h s da y e pub c even s heo og ca op cs and o he sub ec s He d ed a Che enham n 1879
38
Cha es Tennyson s poems w h ew excep ons we e sonne s n he a an o m bu w h a esh se o
mes n he second qua e o he oc ave F y we e pub shed n 1830 and we e added o as occas on
sugges ed Sonne s O d and New pub shed n 1880 numbe ed mo e han h ee hund ed No many o
h s numbe evea he n ens y o ee ng and pe ec on o o m wh ch a e essen a o he sonne Co e dge
was a ac ed by he young Tennyson s sonne s as a an ea e age he had been by he no ve y d ss m a
sonne s o Bow es w h he pens ve sen men and occas ona y e c ous desc p on Bu when a h s bes
Tennyson Tu ne s a ne a s han Bow es Some o he ea e ndeed show an unce a n g asp o he
o m he as nes be ay ng an he o c e o o comp e e he ou een and n sh He w o e oo many on
occas ona hemes and heo og ca po em cs Bu he bes o hose nsp ed by aspec s o na u a scene y and
s mp e nc den s have he cha m o e c ous wo kmansh p and de ca e ee ng The La ce a Sun se The
Buoy Be The Ocean and some o he s sugges Wo dswo h n a m no key and Le y s G obe ke he
g ande sonne o B anco Wh e s a poem n wh ch a and chance seem o have comb ned o p oduce a
poem su p s ng y e c ous a ke n conce and execu on
39
Cha es Tennyson s a p eas ng esse poe F ede ck s kes one as a poe n whom he poss b y o
g ea e h ngs was neve ea sed H s cha ac e and occas ona nes n h s wo k mp essed F zGe a d who
a e 1842 was neve a who e hea ed adm e o he poe au ea e s wo k “You a e now he on y man
expec ve se om ” he w o e o F ede ck n 1850 “such g oomy g and s u as you w e we wan
some b s o s ong genu ne mag na on” and B own ng spoke o h m as possess ng a he qua es o h s
b o he A ed bu n so u on “One a ways expec ed hem o c ys a se—bu hey neve d d ”
40
The e s ce a n y mo e o he a ge manne abou h m han Cha es H s mage y espec a y h s
pe son ca ons s mo e mag na ve h s ve se has mo e o sweep and ow Bu he neve ook o hea as
A ed d d he esson o b ev y “ e ce a n o one h ng hen mean o make any ma k a a mus be
by sho ness o he men be o e me had been so d use ” F ede ck s c ass ca dy s and na a ves a e
excess ve y d use They con a n some o h s bes wo k cha m ng desc p on ende ness o
ee ng—pass on hey ack as n some deg ee does he wo k o a he Tennysons The e s none ha wou d
no have ga ned by concen a on o ea men
§ 11 F ede ck Tennyson

The o he no ab e qua y o F ede ck Tennyson s poems onge and sho e s a ce a n abs ac ness H s
ove o ave and a e apa we e he ndex o a ce a n a oo ness and so a ness o sou no ncompa b e
w h a des e o sympa hy and se exp ess on Some s anzas ca ed R ve o L e c ose w h a con ess on o
h s a oo ness

R ve o L e o have u d my sa
Unde he w gh o hese anc en ees
s en o he wa e s s eep ess wa
m ne ea s w h s ghs ha neve cease
a med hea s come s onge ou o
The dus o con c s he eyes and ea s
M ne unaccus om d hea w emb e s
W h he o d m h and w h he ea y ea s

He was deep y n e es ed n me aphys ca p ob ems He e e s o d my hs w h he pu pose o mak ng hem

messenge s o h s own hough on mmo a y and he unseen wo d Bu he message s a e nd s nc
Occas ona y as n Psyche he oses h mse n a Swedenbo g an quagm e The e was some h ng o a mys c
n F ede ck Tennyson and h s s ange unequa poems a e he exp ess on o a so a y sou w h a ce a n
d s nc on o s own Na u e and ove and dea h and mmo a y a e he oc ound wh ch h s hough as ha
o h s g ea b o he moved and on each he has w en occas ona haun ng nes

Oh hou mus weep and n he a n

O ea s a se up he p me
And beau y o hy hea aga n
And o and a w h me
And ook on Fa e and bea o see
The shadow o Dea h am a y
Thy nob es ac s bu a so ow
To ve— hough be a
Thy g ea ewa d— o d e o mo ow
God and Na u e ca
n a h o each wha ea and eye
D eam no no a hy phan asy

Robe B own ng and E zabe h Ba e B own ng

§ 1 Robe B own ng s ea y yea s

THE bes exp ana on o a poe s o be sough n he bes poem he has w en o n ha heme wh ch a h s
ouch b eaks ou n o he amp es mus c The e h s ve y se he pe sona y wh ch he ve y s and wh ch n a
g ea e o esse deg ee sub y su uses a ha he does nds es and u es u e ance and he u e ance
se whe he n ph ase o gu e be ng a h u o ac bea s ha s amp o nev ab y wh ch mp es
pe ec on
1
The e s e doub as o he heme wh ch ca ed o h he u ness o he powe s o E zabe h Ba e and
Robe B own ng was ove was ove n he same cosm c sense as Wo dswo h s du y wh ch “kep he
s a s om w ong ” an omn p esen pass on o he bes n a na u e and n a mank nd To E zabe h
B own ng he e was no u h no subs ance save ove was he essence and who eness o he be ng and
exp essed se w h un es a ned p od ga y n Sonne s om he Po uguese Eve y h ng n he e ha wen
be o e— he beau y o he ea y home among he Ma ve ns he who e p ac ce o he e a y ndus y he
ong one yea s o ness and weakness he heavy so ow o he dea h s cken home— s aken up sanc ed
and ded ca ed n hese poems and eve y h ng ha was o o ow was bu ha ves g ean ng and a e ma h
These sonne s and one s emp ed o say hese sonne s on y o a ha E zabe h B own ng w o e he wo d
w n no w se e go They a e equa ed on y by he e— n M on s sense 1 hey a e he e
2
Robe B own ng canno be so eas y summed and su veyed H s sk was mu a ous a beyond he won
even o g ea poe s The e was ha d y an ns umen n he o ches a wh ch he cou d no p ay h s ouch was
a ways un que and ecogn sab e and w h n he doma n o human cha ac e he e was ha d y a ben o a
a pass on o p opens y wh ch he d d no ce eb a e Neve he ess when ke h s A on he “ga he s h s
g ea ness ound h m ” and “s ands n s a e ” and “ha p and vo ce end a ” w h h s u “magn cence o song ”
2 he heme s a mos ce a n o be some phase o ove And ove had he same cosm c cons u ve
cha ac e o h m he same o even g ea e mo a wo h and sp ua sp endou Speak ng o Sonne s om
he Po uguese a c c has obse ved w h u h ha
as p ece o poe y hey a e no equa o he sonne s o Wo dswo h o o M on ye s no so
un easonab e o ques on whe he he emova wou d no eave a mo e epa ab e gap n
eaue 3

3
The emova o ove om among B own ng s hemes wou d be o g na as he was n eve y h ng he emova
o h s mos o g na as we as h s mos mass ve y va uab e con bu on o ou e a u e wou d have e he
poe h mse a man w hou a pu pose n a un ve se w hou mean ng Love n he as eso was he on y
a c e n h s c eed Fo hese easons he conve gence o hese wo ves n o un y and he mos n ma e
comm ng ng eve a e have an a s c mean ng no ess han an e h ca n e es and hey conce n he e a y
c c no ess han he b og aphe No ha e he o he wo poe s when he p en ce days we e ove was
con en o be m a ve o cou d poss b y be conce ved as mov ng n he o he s manne The e was no
sac ce o ndependence— he e neve s when he un on s sp ua n cha ac e and comp e e They even
ook p ecau ons aga ns n uenc ng one ano he when a poem was n he mak ng Neve he ess wha hey
mean o one ano he was mo e sub e and pene a ng and pe vas ve han any d ec and exp c bo ow ng
ove wh ch he c c cou d c y “Lo he e ” o “Lo he e ” s mo e easy o sugges and o ns ance han o
desc be he n uence on each o he bu a c own ng examp e be eve s o be ound n B own ng s
Pomp a The e a e cha ms and above a he e a e n ens es sca e ed ab oad n The R ng and he Book
wh ch wou d no have been poss b e even o h m had no been o h s “ y c Love ” No one was mo e
eage o be d ama ca han B own ng o ess w ng o expose o a gap ng wo d he pagean o h s nne e
Bu a e a a poe d ps h s pen n h s own b ood when he w es wha he wo d mus ead he be obbed
o expe ence as a man he s ands mo e ba e as a poe and n he expe ence o bo h Robe and E zabe h
B own ng he e was one even pa amoun one sove e gn ac ha en mean ng o a ha o owed Th s was
he d scove y o one ano he and he un que pe ec on o he wedded e C c sm o he B own ngs and
o he mean ng o e a u e da e no d s ega d o d scoun a mu ua pene a on o pe sona es so n ense as
he s bu mus n dea ng w h he one be awa e ha s dea ng w h he o he as we n h s espec wha
wen be o e n he e and wo k was bu p e m na y and wha came a e me e consequen
4
Robe B own ng was younge han E zabe h Ba e by some s x yea s He was bo n n Sou hamp on
s ee Cambe we on 7 May 1812 H s a he was a c e k n he bank o Eng and o e a y and a s c
as es and h s mo he he daugh e o a Dundee sh powne o Ge man ex ac on
5
s mo e easy o ead he aco n n e ms o he oak han he oak n e ms o he aco n and he g ea man
evea s and exp a ns a he han s evea ed and exp a ned by he capac es ha s umbe ed n h s o e a he s
Wh e none can deny he he ed y o he ea u es o he sou any mo e han hose o he body s de o
p e end ha he neamen s o a g ea man s sp can be aced back w h any deg ee o accu acy o h s
ances o s Eve y man even he mos meag e n endowmen has so many ances o s Bu he psych ca
s uc u e and p opens es o h s mmed a e pa en s have a s gn cance a he own o hese de ne and
de e m ne he env onmen w h n wh ch he ch d s m nd ves and moves and has s be ng The home du ng
he yea s when mos o a he sou s be ng made s ands o he ch d o so d ea h and s a y mamen
and he n uences ope a ve he e n a e he a and he ood and he d nk and he e o e he ve y subs ance
embod ed n h s pe sona y F om h s po n o v ew he s mp e p e y o B own ng s mo he he membe sh p
o an “ ndependen Chu ch” n Wa wo h he e ong c ass n he Sunday schoo he box o con bu ons
o he London M ss ona y soc e y ose he ns gn cance n hese and o he hab s he ch d saw he sp o
e g on made ea and a ed by h s mo he and ema ned w h h m much mod ed s ue bu ow ng o
h s mo he s memo y pe manen y ho y and a ways dom nan
6
Aga n mus no be sa d ha B own ng s “gen us was de ved om h s a he ” Gen us s no de ved s
a ways a m ac e and has no h s o y Bu he a he s gen us ha o a ove o a and o e a u e made he
son a ove o books and a co ec o o hem ed h m o w e ve se—wh ch he d d uen y and a e he
manne o Pope and he had a g ea de gh n g o esque mes Mo eove he was so sk u n he use o h s
penc ha Rosse p onounced h m o possess “a ea gen us o d aw ng ” Now “ he handsome v go ous
ea ess ch d ” un es ng y ac ve e y o empe c owded w h ene gy o m nd obse van and mos sw o
ea n na u a y saw a hese h ngs and no ess na u a y m a ed he ways o h s pa en s and sough o
acqu e wha hey va ued
7
n B own ng s case no educa ona n uence coun s a a n compa son w h ha o h s a he s as es and
hab s and co ec on o books Tha n uence can be aced n he poe s cho ce o hemes a he way om
Pau ne and So de o o Pa ey ngs and Aso ando and even ma ks h s manne o dea ng w h many o
hem He ead vo ac ous y n h s a he s b a y appa en y w hou e o gu dance and h s acqua n ance was
ve y ea y w h he wo ks o Vo a e he e e s o Jun us and o Ho ace Wa po e he Emb ems o Qua es
and C oxa s Fab es The s book he eve bough w h h s own money was Macphe son s Oss an
8
S de by s de w h h s p ecoc ous e a y omn vo ousness wen om ea y ch dhood ca e u a n ng n
mus c “ was s udy ng he G amme o Mus c ” he sa d acco d ng o M s e and “when mos ch d en a e
ea n ng he Mu p ca on Tab e ” Mo eove he was g ven pe m ss on a an age owe han he u es a owed
o v s he Du w ch ga e y wh ch was ha d by h s a he s home became “a be oved haun o h s
ch dhood ” He was g a e u a h s e o he p v ege and used o eca n a e yea s “ he umphan
Mu o p c u es ” “such a Wa eau” and “a he Pouss ns” he had seen he e
§ 2 The n uence upon h m o By on and She ey

The Con bu on made by schoo and co ege o he educa on o B own ng was even ess s gn can han
has been n he case o mos g ea poe s H s ea mas e s bes des h s a he and h s a he s b a y n
gene a we e he poe s and espec a y By on and She ey “The s compos on was eve gu y o ” he
w o e o E zabe h Ba e n 1846 “was some h ng n m a on o Oss an ” Bu he neve cou d “ eco ec no
w ng hymes ” hough he “knew hey we e nonsense even hen ” “ s no su p s ng ” says He o d “ ha a
boy o hese p oc v es was cap va ed by he s o my sw ng and sweep o By on ” and ha as he poe o d
E zabe h Ba e he “wou d have gone o F nch ey o see a cu o h s ha o one o h s g oves” whe eas he
“cou d no ge up en hus asm enough o c oss he oom a he o he end o a Wo dswo h Co e dge
and Sou hey we e condensed n o he e Ch na bo e yonde ” 4 When he was we ve yea s o age a
co ec on unde he e ncond a was made o h s “By on c poems ” and he a he wou d have ked o
pub sh No pub she was ound w ng and he young au ho des oyed he manusc p Bu he poems
had been seen by E za F owe s s e o he au ho ess o he hymn Nea e my God o Thee who made a
copy o hem and showed o W J Fox ed o o The Mon h y Repos o y Acco d ng o B own ng s
s a emen o Gosse he ed o ound n hem “ oo g ea sp endou o anguage and oo e wea h o
hough ” bu a so a “me uous smoo hness” and Fox d d no o ge he boy poe
10
B own ng nex passed unde an n uence wh ch was s mo e nsp ng and n ma e He chanced upon
She ey s Queen Mab on a books a and became n consequence o ass m a ng “a p o ess ng a he s
and a p ac s ng vege a an ” W h some d cu y h s mo he secu ed o h m o he s o “M She ey s
a he s ca poems” and appa en y h ough Adona s he was ed o Kea s n he w n e o 1829 30 he
a ended c asses n G eek and La n and o a ve y sho me n Ge man a Un ve s y Co ege London
and a e wa ds B unde s ec u es n med c ne a Guy s hosp a Mean me he ca ed on h s s ud es n
mus c and sang danced boxed and ode
11
Th s any was h s pe od o S u m und D ang—du ng wh ch by he way he ved on po a oes and
b ead He cha ed a e a he soc a m a ons o he home he oved we and he gave h s devo ed pa en s
a e en e y need ess anx e y h s empe amen was buoyan h s sou ke a sh p c owded w h sa s and he
was a ven u esome ma ne Bu h s wande ngs we e o he mag na on and h s “excesses” we e e a y
bo h n o g n and n ou come n u h a he me he was v ng w h n he bounds nay d aw ng h s s eng h
and h s nsp a on om hose conv c ons o he s ab e h ngs o he wo d o sp n he powe o wh ch he
wen o h n a e days o cha enge n eve y o m o ous and ou namen and n many an adven u e he
o ces o doub and a sehood and den a and c me He had no o su e n h s a e e om any eache ous
aches o ha o go en wounds o cha ac e bu aced e sound n eve y mb and one s emp ed o add
a ogan y hea hy
§ 3 Pau ne

He s “exp o ng pass on and m nd ” he says “ o he s me ” “d eam ng no o es a n bu gaz ng on a h ngs ” He s “bo ne

away as A ab b ds oa s eep ng n he w nd o e dese s owe s and o es s ” He “nou shes mus c mo e han e and o d
o e ” and “knows he wo ds sha move men ke a sw w nd ” n eve y way Pau ne mus ema n a sup eme y n e es ng
poem o B own ng s eade s ho ds n bud many o B own ng s qua es powe s and even conv c ons
The who esome and wea hy con us on o h s see h ng pe od o he young poe s e s a h u y ende ed
o a he be ayed n he b an and ncohe en Pau ne—B own ng s ea es pub shed poem Pau ne
he se excep o he s ha dozen nes and a oo no e s he shadow o a shade— he pass ve ec p en
o he psycho og ca con ess ons o a young poe a young poe who no a a unawa e o h s cu s and ace
and u es has been u n ng h mse ound and ound be o e he m o and has ound ha he s oo nob e a
be ng oo bo d eck ess un es a ned scep ca b an n ense w desou ed hung y o know edge and
ove o h s wo k a day wo d The se consc ousness s no “ n ense ” as J S M hough s
p c u esque s no “mo b d” o unwho esome as o he c cs have ave ed s on y he ppe y he mos
se ous mock be eve ag ca ou pou ngs o an ex a o d na y handsome and nnocen you h who n u h
had neve known d sappo n men no ooked n he ace o so ow B own ng s d s ke o he poem n a e
yea s was en e y na u a He esen ed a p y ng n o p va e e and was o a men eas w ng o
“sonne s ng abou h mse ” So he d ape y n wh ch he had c o hed h mse n h s ea y poem seemed o
h m o be a mos anspa en and he e as he had been go ng abou nude
13
Pau ne was pub shed n Janua y 1833 anonymous y when s au ho was wen y yea s o d Bu ha ne
c c W J Fox d sce ned s me and dea w h n gene ous p a se n The Mon h y Repos o y o Ap
n he same yea A an Cunn ngham a so p a sed n The A henaeum Some yea s a e p obab y n
1850 Rosse ound and ansc bed n he ead ng oom o he B sh Museum and he w o e o
B own ng who was n F o ence o ask h m “whe he he was he au ho o a poem ca ed Pau ne ” Beyond
h s he poem a ac ed no a en on Why s d cu o say Tha s mas e ed by s ma e a ooded by
s own wea h ue O a B own ng s poems s he on y one wh ch owes s d cu y o con us on and
s n ac o use he poe s own ph ase a “boy sh wo k ” Bu wha wo k o a boy The e a e passages n
no a ew o a beau y ha exceeds so much as o be ong o a sphe e o be ng n o wh ch med oc y neve
o a momen ga ns en y So ong as he has h s hea ca y ea nes boy a h s s de he eade s neve sa e
om he su p se o some sudden sp ash o sp endou

he boy
W h h s wh e b eas and b ow and c us e ng cu s
S eaked w h h s mo he s b ood bu s v ng ha d
To e h s s o y e e h s eason goes

14
A e he pub ca on o Pau ne n 1833 B own ng v s ed Pe og ad w h Benkhausen he Russ an consu
gene a and was p obab y h s con ac w h o ca e wh ch ed h m sho y a e h s e u n o Eng and o
app y— n va n— o a pos on a Pe s an m ss on Du ng h s pe od he e s amp e ev dence o phys ca and
men a exube ance bu e o poe c ac v y was many yea s a e ha he Russ an v s y e ded he
o es scene o he h ng a e o vàn vànov ch and h s oy ng w h he Pe s an m ss on poss b y
sugges ed Fe sh ah Bu h s n e es n he comp ca ed sub e es o d p omacy appea ed n So de o and
S a o d as we as n P nce Hohens e Schwangau—no o men on B shop B oug am and Ca ban
upon Se ebos n 1834 howeve he e appea ed n The Mon h y Repos o y a se es o ve poe c
con bu ons o wh ch he mos no ewo hy we e Po phy a a e wa ds en ed Po phy a s Love and
he s x s anzas beg nn ng “S a ng W nd? W be appeased o no ” wh ch we e epub shed n James
Lee s W e Then w h a p e ace da ed 15 Ma ch 1835 when s au ho s acked wo mon hs o
comp e ng h s wen y h d yea he e appea ed one o he mos ma ve ous p oduc ons o you h u poe c
gen us n he h s o y o any e a u e
§ 4 Pa ace sus

B own ng s sa d o have w en Pa ace sus n s x mon hs med a ng no a ew o s passages du ng

m dn gh wa ks w h n s gh o he g a e o London gh s and he mu ed hea ng o s qu e ng umu Th s
poem be ongs o an a oge he d e en a ude om ha o Pau ne ns ead o a con used ende ng o
vague d eams and see h ng sen men s and pass ons we have n Pa ace sus he s o y o he he and
s newy s eng h o ea y manhood he man o d powe s o a mos g ed sp b aced oge he and
pass ona e y ded ca ed o he se v ce o an on ha d n e ec ua amb on He e s he “ n enses e” eso u e
upon acqu ng a any cos he n e ec ua mas e y o mank nd
16
The sub ec was sugges ed o B own ng by a F ench oya s and e ugee coun Amédée de
R pe Monc a and he poem s ded ca ed o h m B own ng was a eady acqua n ed w h he ca ee and
cha ac e o Pa ace sus—h s wo ks we e n h s a he s b a y Mo eove s beyond doub ha a h s
s age o h s e n pa cu a he poe was d ven by a ke hunge o know edge and amb on o n e ec ua
sove e gn y H s ead ng o h s sub ec mp es a n y o m nd and s a oge he sympa he c The
eccen c es o behav ou he cha a an sm he bound ess conce he m ac es and absu d es w h wh ch
Pa ace sus was acc ed ed by popu a be e e he d sappea o a e sub ma ed n o e emen s o a d ama c
omance wh ch has some h ng o he g ea ness and se ousness o agedy To assume ha B own ng n h s
poem was dep c ng “ he a o a og c an ” o o se des gn “des oy ng he n e ec ua s a acy ” s o
m sunde s and he sp n wh ch he poem was w en The adven u ous a chem s was h mse oo much a
poe o se ve such an unpoe c pu pose even B own ng had been so e a poe as o o m Pa ace sus
does no “ a ” he “a a ns ”
Fa om conv c ng h m o n e ec ua u y B own ng ac ua y made h m d v ne he sec e he
sough and n one o he mos sp end d passages o mode n poe y dec a e w h h s dy ng ps a
a h wh ch s no ess B own ng s han h s own 5

T ue know edge w hou ove s no even powe bu ne he s ove w hou know edge and he
consumma on o he ach evemen o Pa ace sus s ha ove becomes he means o know edge and
n e gence he ns umen o ove “The s mu aneous pe cep on o Love and Powe n he Abso u e” was n
B own ng s v ew “ he nob es and p edom nan cha ac e s c o She ey” and o B own ng even n h s
mos “me aphys ca ” days when know edge was a ways sa d o have “ a ed ” was s a powe
17
Pa ace sus s he mos m acu ous and nexp cab e o a he exh b ons o B own ng s gen us The p om se
con a ned w h a he poe s as ng g ea ness was no u ed s o m and a s c manne he neamen s
and he movemen s o he m nd wh ch wo ks w h n he nob e pass ons wh ch moved he poe and he a h
wh ch nsp ed and con o ed h m— hese a e p e em nen y um na ng o he s uden o B own ng and by
a he bes n oduc on o a he s ove o do Pa ace sus s n e es ng a so as ouch ng he new mes
wh ch we e dawn ng a ound he young poe n s c os ng pages some h ng o he sp o mode n sc ence
comes o h o he momen a eas wea ng he ga b o poe y Neve was he concep on o he
evo u ona y con nu y o na u e mo e ma ve ous y ende ed

as success ve zones
O seve a wonde open on some sp
F y ng secu e and g ad om heaven o heaven

The young poe had even g asped wha ook he wo d ano he ha cen u y o pe ce ve ha he dea o
evo u on eve ed upwa ds and no downwa ds sp ua sed na u e a he han na u a sed sp
18
The m no cha ac e s o Pa ace sus need no de a n us Fes us s he commonsense o o he he o and he
gen e domes c M cha ma den and so ow ng mo he s on y ess o a shadow han Pau ne Ap e s an
unsubs an a moons uck “w a h o a poe ” who “wou d ove n n e y and be oved” bu h s ô e s mos
s gn can y de ved and bo owed and acc den a

saw Ap e—my Ap e he e
And as he poo me od ous w e ch d sbu hened
H s hea and moaned h s weakness n my ea
ea ned my own deep e o

Pa ace sus ea n om h m “ he wo h o ove n man s es a e and wha p opo on ove shou d ho d w h

powe ” was h s new know edge wh ch made h m w se o know mank nd

be p oud
O he ha easons a n asp ngs d m
S ugg es o u h he poo es a ac es

“a w h a ouch o nob eness … upwa d end ng ”

L ke p an s n m nes wh ch neve saw he sun

Bu d eam o h m and guess whe e he may be
And do he bes o c mb and ge o h m

W h h s know edge h s “sp endou o God s amp” on h s dy ng b ow he s as secu e o “eme g ng one

day ” as he was when he s se o h “ o p ove h s sou ”
19
Pa ace sus on s pub ca on was ha ed by he eve a h u and wa ch u Fox bu he mos s k ng no ce
ece ved was om John Fo s e He p ed c ed o he au ho a b an ca ee and n a second a c e on
he poem sa d w h unusua da ng as we as ns gh “W hou he s gh es hes a on we name M Robe
B own ng a once w h She ey Co e dge Wo dswo h ” Bu by mos ou na s Pa ace sus was s mp y
neg ec ed n h s e e s o E zabe h Ba e B own ng e e s o he con emp uous ea men ece ved
b ough h m ne he money no ame
20
Bu b ough h m s he acqua n ance and hen he endsh p o he mos d s ngu shed men o he
day—among hem we e Wo dswo h D ckens Lando and Ca y e and n no h ng was he man y
mun cence o B own ng s na u e mo e ev den han n h s endsh ps H s a ec on o Lando ouched w h
sympa hy as we as adm a on showed se n a e yea s n a ca e o h m wh ch was “one o he mos
beau u nc den s n a beau u e ” The endsh p w h Ca y e was on bo h s des pecu a y wa m and
us u “ have us seen dea Ca y e ” says B own ng “ca ch me ca ng peop e dea n a hu y” and ha
Ca y e shou d c oss ove o Pa s us o see and d ne w h B own ng s assu ed y e oquen o h s ega d
and a ec on o he young poe “Commanded o me by my vene a ed end Thomas Ca y e ” says
B own ng o h s ans a on o Agamemnon “and ewa ded w ndeed become am pe m ed o d gn y
by he p e a o y nse on o h s dea and nob e name ” John Fo s e and W am Mac eady we e a so
added a h s me o he g oup o B own ng s ends and h s acqua n ance w h he a e had o a me an
mpo an bea ng upon h s wo k
21
n Pau ne and Pa ace sus has been we sa d B own ng had “ana ysed a he han exh b ed” cha ac e
The sou “ he one h ng” wh ch he hough “wo h know ng ” was he psycho og s s abs ac en y e
mo e han a s age occup ed success ve y by moods and pass ons was no he conc e e comp ex se
ve ned and b ood nc u ed Mo eove wh ch s gn es much a s h s o y e w h n se and ex e na
c cums ance ns ead o u n sh ng w h he ma e a ou o wh ch cha ac e s hewn was bu “deco a on ”
o use B own ng s own ph ase and was pu pose y pu n o he backg ound These wo poems we e hus
us y ca ed “con ess ona ” hey we e sub ec ve and se consc ous
22
No soone was Pa ace sus n shed han B own ng con emp a ed ano he “sou h s o y ” n once mo e
a g ea y asp ng sou was o ecogn ze on y a he as momen and a e much “appa en a u e ” he
m ss on wh ch cou d save ng o he n e h s n n y The s o y ha he w shed o e was So de o
§5 S a od

Bu he ma e a was s ubbo n as we as ch and es s ed easy and ea y mas e y Poss b y a so he

“con ess ona ” mood was pass ng n any case B own ng who was a ways and a mos so e y n e es ed n
human cha ac e was h nk ng o dep c ng cha ac e n ac on He was eage as he sa d n h s p e ace o
S a o d “ o eshen a aded m nd by d ve ng o he hea hy na u es o a g and epoch ” B own ng s
m nd no doub was u ned o S a o d by Fo s e who w h some he p om B own ng had w en he
g ea s a esman s e Bu was a a suppe g ven by Ta ou d o ce eb a e he s pe o mance o on ha
Mac eady o whom B own ng had a eady spoken o h s n en on o w ng a agedy sa d “W e a p ay
B own ng and keep me om go ng o Ame ca ” S a o d wh ch was he esu o he eques was ac ed
a Coven ga den hea e on 1 May 1837—Mac eady appea ng as S a o d and He en Fauc as ady
Ca s e s s age h s o y was b e was no “damned” on he s n gh bu us escaped was
app auded on he second and d ed an unna u a dea h a e he h was be ayed he p aye who ac ed
Pym e us ng “ o save Eng and even once mo e ” and B own ng vow ng ha “neve aga n wou d he w e a
p ay ”
24
The ag ca e emen n he p ay s he co s on o he wo oya es— ha o S a o d o he k ng and ha o
Pym o Eng and and he agedy bo ows s n ens y om he ac ha he k ng whom S a o d oves w
no save h m and ha Pym who oves S a o d sends h m o h s dea h Pym “was used o s o w h h m
a m ocked n a m ” and n ea y days had even ead he same needs n Eng and s ace wh e

E o s b ow g ew b oad w h nob e hough s

The a mosphe e o he p ay s ha o “a ho ough se devo emen se o ge ng ” The cha ac e s a e a

s mp e and ap o be a ways n one cond on o m nd They have a gene ous magn ude and s eng h and
v gou bu hey a e oo cons s en y n a s a e o exa a on nc ned o be dec ama o y and se consc ous
and o be a ways expound ng he movemen s o he own m nds ndeed no one o B own ng s cha ac e s
n any o h s p ays a y comes ou n o he open a and on he h gh oad excep pe haps P ppa
§ 6 So de o

n he p e ace o S a o d B own ng says ha “he had o some me been engaged on a Poem o a ve y

d e en na u e when nduced o make he p esen a emp ” Th s poem as a eady h n ed was So de o
B own ng s second s udy o a poe c sou bu a sou h s me caugh n he con ex o a ge and mpe ous
c cums ance and qu e un ke Ap e
26
Many have exp a ned So de o and some have comp ehended s uncomp om s ng y and e evab y
d cu ead ng No h s o ca accoun o he con c s o Gh be ne and Gue ph no expos o y anno a on o
any k nd no even s own wea h o um nous deas o sp endou o a an c y scenes and so udes can
us y en e y as a wo k o a We may ende s ma n p o n s mp e e ms how So de o endowed w h
powe s ha m gh have made h m he Apo o o h s peop e and v c o ous n a con es o song ove Eg amo
h s poe c o nds unexpec ed y em nen s a on and po ca powe w h n h s g asp bu ga ns a v c o y o
ano he k nd s ng supe o o he emp a on doub y u ged by he Gh be ne cap a n and he beau y o
Pa ma how he doub e v c o y has s e h m a dabb e and o e e a Ham e n bo h poe y and po cs
how c ng ng o h s dea he cause o human y bu a ng o make dom nan ove h s “ n e” wo d he
“d es unde he s a n o cho ce ” Bu no s mp ca on o he s o y su ces s da k om he ve y n ens y
and mu p c y o he p ay ng c oss gh s o he ma n deas a e e ec ed nnume ab y om he coun ess
ace s o he ac s wh ch he poe d sp ays n con us ng y ap d success on B ancy sw ness o movemen
he sudden exc ama on made o convey a comp ex hough he c owded n us on o pa en he ca
an eceden s he e s on o connec ng e a ves—such a e he cha ac e s cs wh ch make d cu o
dec phe
27
s no wonde ha he appea ance o So de o n 1840 des oyed he somewha m d p om se o pub c
avou wh ch Pa ace sus had b ough o he poe We a e o d ha he “gen e e a y pub c” o hose days
had ound Sa o Resa usun n e g b e and ank y u ned away om B own ng Bu he sugges ed
compa son s m s ead ng and he c c sm s un a The d cu es o Sa o have d sappea ed w h he new
mes wh ch Ca y e n oduced hose o So de o w s ay so ong as he men a s uc u e o men ema ns he
same
28
“ b ame no one ” sa d B own ng “ eas o a myse who d d my bes hen and s nce ” was n no
pe ve se mood o n e ec ua p de o o sco n o he pub c m nd ha he w o e So de o H s e o was
a he he oppos e “F e gh ed u o mus c ” c owded w h he wea h o h s de a ed know edge ap w h
he sp endou o h s poe c v s ons he n he s mp c y o h s hea o go h s pub c so comp e e y as o
assume as a ma e o cou se ha h s eade s we e ab e o w ng he gh a h s s de
29
The e a e ev dences ha he expe ence was pa n u and ha s e ec s as ed n The R ng and he Book
and e sewhe e he e s n he eso u e s mp ca on o he na a ve and he pa n u e a on a c ue o he
e ec o he a u e o So de o upon h s wo kmansh p Bo h as he en e ed upon and as he c osed ha
g ea es o a h s poe c adven u es he e s a h n o a cha enge and a ouch o ep oo and even sco n o
he “B sh Pub c

ye who ke me no
God ove you —whom ye have abou ed o
Pe chance mo e ca e u whoso uns may ead
Than e s when a seemed cou d ead who an

30
Bu s me o u n o he ou wa d even s o h s pe od o B own ng s e These we e h s ou ney o a y
and he emova o he am y o Ha cham He s a ed o a y on Good F day 1838 ave ng as so e
passenge on a me chan man On he voyage he w o e he g o ous s o y o he de om Ghen o A x and
Home Though s om he Sea One o h s ob ec s was o ga he ma e a s o So de o bu he ha ves ed
much mo e om h s v s was o h m “a me o enchan men ” He saw Aso o and Ven ce and Padua he
v s ed moun a n so udes and he b ough home a pass ona e and endu ng ove o a y a an hemes
we e hence o h o be avou es o h s mag na on and h s e n ha coun y was o many yea s o come
o sa u a e h s expe ence
§ 7 Be s and Pomeg ana es

A he me when B own ng was ”go ng o beg n he n sh ng o So de o ” as he w o e o M ss Hawo h he

was a so beg nn ng “ h nk ng a T agedy ” He had s ano he agedy n p ospec he e s us and “w o e
bes so p ov ded ” The wo aged es we e K ng V c o and K ng Cha es and The Re u n o he D uses
He was a so occup ed w h wha was no s c y a p ay bu a new poe c o m—a se es o scenes
connec ed oge he ke pea s on a s ken h ead by he mag c n uence o he e s k w nde o
Aso o— he exqu s e y beau u and s mp e P ppa Passes The p ays we e w en w h he v ew o be ng
ac ed bu Mac eady s e usa kep hem back o a me and hey we e pub shed They appea ed n a
se es o wha may be ca ed poe ca pamph e s ssued be ween 1841 and 1846 wh ch undoub ed y
cons u ed as ema kab e e a y me chand se as was eve o e ed o any pub c Th s p an o pub ca on
was sugges ed by Moxon and was n ended o popu a se he poe s wo ks by se ng hem cheap y They
we e a s so d a s xpence Bu among o he h nde ances hey we e ca ed Be s and Pomeg ana es
and was on y a he c ose o he se es and on he ns ga on o E zabe h Ba e ha B own ng exp a ned
o he puzz ed eade s how was n ended by h s e e ence o “ he hem o he obe o he h gh p es ” o
nd ca e “ he m x u e o mus c w h d scou s ng sound w h sense poe y w h hough ” wh ch he pamph e s
we e Mo eove e a y c cs had no o go en o o g ven So de o and e a y p e ud ce s s ubbo n
s u Even P ppa Passes he s o he se es had a e uc an and g d ecep on A gene ous y
app ec a ve a c e n The Ec ec c Rev ew n 1849 men ons a ong w h So de o as one o he poems
aga ns wh ch “ he oudes comp a n s o obscu y have been a sed ”
32
No h ng ha B own ng eve w o e was be e ed han P ppa Passes o a es he pub c a en on was
as nove n cha m as was n o m P ppa he se has been sugges ed 6 s B own ng s A e —a mag c
n uence n he mag c s e o man s wo d The e s k w nde wa k ng a ong he s ee s o Aso o on he
“one day n he yea ” and ancy ng he se o be n u n each o s “Fou Happ es Ones ” pou s o h he
y c sou n song The songs s k ng n o he wo d o pass ons p o s and c mes n wh ch he “Fou
Happ es Ones” we e nvo ved a es c eanse and ans o m She s as cha m ng as he y cs she ca o s
E zabe h Ba e “cou d nd n he hea o envy he Au ho ” and P ppa was B own ng s own avou e
among he c ea ons o h s ea y manhood She has “c ep n o he s udy o mag na on” o a h s eade s
eve s nce
33
P ppa Passes was o owed n 1842 by K ng V c o and K ng Cha es and ha agedy n u n by a
co ec on o some s x een sho p eces wh ch we e ca ed D ama c Ly cs Then n 1843 appea ed The
Re u n o he D uses w en some yea s ea e and wo o he p ays—A B o n he Scu cheon and
Co ombe s B hday pub shed n 1844 These we e o owed by ano he co ec on o sho poems on he
g ea es va e y o sub ec s en ed D ama c Romances and Ly cs n 1846 he se es en ed Be s and
Pomeg ana es was b ough o an end and B ow ng s pe od o p ayw ng c osed w h Lu a and he
d ama c ske ch A Sou s T agedy
34
A h s me a so he s pe od o B own ng s amaz ng p oduc veness came o a c ose The poems ha
appea ed canno even be c ass ed excep n he oughes way and any c ass ca on mus m s ead The
am a d s nc ons wh ch c c sm se s up ade and become a se The e a e y ca e ec s n mos o he
d amas d ama c ouches n a mos eve y y c and omance and h s muse w no be demu e and p m On
he o he hand he va e y o he sub ec s o ms moods scenes and pass ons and o he wo k ngs o each
o hem ba es c ass ca on And each s so “c ea p oc a med”—whe he “Hope ose a p oe ” o
“Rap u e d ooped he eyes ” o “Con dence sw he o ehead up”— ha he d s nc ons hey a e o be
a h u mus be as nume ous as he poems hemse ves n u h s no a bu sc ence no ove bu
know edge wh ch c ass es So a as poems a e ue wo ks o a each one s and mus be un que—a
ca ved go den cup ed w h s own w ne Fo he a s eve y ess o ha n u n s he one song and o
he ove eve y ess o ha n u n “ s he a es ess o a ”
§ 8 The d ama c e emen n B own ng s wo k

B own ng h mse howeve sugges s wo po n s o v ew om wh ch he poems may be obse ved He

cha ac e ses hem a as “d ama c ” How a s h s qua ca on accu a e? Was B ow ng s gen us ve y
d ama c n cha ac e ? The ques on s no eas y answe ed even a hough can be p o ab y asked n
compa son w h Wo dswo h who was bo h he mos se con a ned and he mos mpe sona o a ou
poe s we mus answe he ques on w h a c ea a ma ve Bu compa ed w h Shakespea e o w h S
Wa e Sco as nove s he d e ence s so g ea as o make he ep he “d ama c” pos ve y m s ead ng
O no one o Shakespea e s c ea ons can we say “He e s he au ho h mse ” o sca ce y one o
B own ng s can we say “He e he au ho s no ” B own ng n w ng o E zabe h Ba e ca ed he poems
“Me e escapes o my nne powe ke he gh o a evo v ng gh house eap ng ou a n e va s om a
na ow ch nk ” The ana ogy s ue n mo e han one sense The poems ca y sugges ons o he abundance o
ches w h n he poe s own v ng a e en e p s ng sense augh pass on used sou he mo ey h ong o
h s D ama c Ly cs D ama c Romances and D ama s Pe sonae a so s and n he b an g a e o h s
pe sona y—no n he unob us ve qu e gh o common day The e s ha d y a s a um o soc e y an age
o h s o y a co ne o he wo d o man wh ch s a oge he absen om hese poems neve he ess we
neve escape he sense o he au ho s powe u p esence n a he d ve s es o ype ace and cha ac e
he e a e pe s s en qua es and hey a e he poe s own
36
The e s no qua y o Shakespea e s m nd wh ch can be ound n a h s p ays excep pe haps h s
gen eness even as on y he one ep he “gen e” sa s es when we speak o Shakespea e h mse Bu
“gen eness” s us o e ance su used w h k nd ness and whe e o e ance s pe ec p e e ences d sappea
and he poe h mse ema ns a ways evea ng and neve evea ed
37
To deny o e ance o B own ng s mposs b e and wou d u e y des oy h s c a m o be d ama c The e s a
ea sense n wh ch he s ands a oo om h s c ea ons ne he app ov ng no d sapp ov ng bu e ng hem go
B shop B oug am and M S udge Ca ban and he b shop o S P axed s he ady o The Labo a o y and
o The Con ess ona he on o The G ove w h “ hose eyes w de and s eady ”

eagues n he dese a eady

D v ng he ocks up he moun a n

and he ve c ea u es n S b andus Scha nabu gens s—“wo m s ug e w h se ous ea u es ” ck ng and

ous ng and b ows ng h m a ove —a hese a e g ven a p ace n he sun no ess han h s Va ence o
Caponsacch Co ombe o Cons ance we e unpa donab e n a c c no o ecogn se ha o B own ng
he e was no o m wh ch he human sou cou d ake ha was oo s ange comp ex mons ous magn cen
commonp ace and d ab n s ha e o ove o n any o he pass on o be n e es ng n he a s c and pu e y
mpe sona sense A he same h s o e an un ve sa y s no ke Shakespea e s n qua y The e a e n
B own ng no cha ac e s whom we mus condemn and a so mus app ove whom we canno us y and
wou d no m ss bu ke beyond a speech o sense The e s no Jack Fa s a no even a Dogbe y o
Bo om o Launce a ess a Touchs one The e s no Bob Ac es even o S An hony Abso u e
38
B own ng w pe s s n appea ng o ou eason s a ways a ques on o wha accep s o e uses o
accep s con o Mo a y a a e momen s s a owed o see o se and he beau u and ug y s and
us ed o condemned n he own gh Bu u h a ways ma e s o h m and h s n e ec ua s ng
p opens es neve es The p ay o ancy s a e y qu e espons b e and o humou mo e a e y s The e
s no ouch n B own ng o he s ng ng ogue Au o ycus Some o h s y cs no doub a e as gh as hey a e
ove y and The P ed P pe s by no means he on y s a e examp e o oyous s o y e ng Neve he ess
B own ng many as a e he pa s he p ays s no ke Bo om—he canno agg ava e h s vo ce and oa us
gen y He s neve sp end d y absu d no ee o eve y pu pose Even a h s pe od he s p agued w h
p ob ems c ammed w h know edge c owded w h men a ene gy a evo v ng gh house bu s ng w h gh
n a wo d he s n ense and pu pos ve and h s pu pos veness and n ens y had many consequences no a
o hem avou ab e o h s d ama c wo k A b e s udy o hese s um na ve o h s who e wo k as a poe
39
“Ho d on hope ha d n he sub e h ng ha s sp ” he sa d n Pacch a o o He a d s ess “on he
nc den s n he deve opmen o a sou ” he e s us n h s p e ace o So de o “ e e se s wo h s udy ” Th s
was mo e han a undamen a dea o B own ng was a cons u ona p opens y and d ove h m o he
d ama Bu he con ess on o mp es he consc ousness o a m ss on and he a s a h s bes knows no
m ss on o ha k nd He s n he se v ce o no concep on ha he n e ec can shape o exp ess o o no
pu pose ha he w can ame and x H s ap u e s as ne and ca e ess as ha o he h ush and he s
sna ched up and away by hemes ha de ne hemse ves on y n he p ocess o c ea on and n he end
escape a de n on and s and o h as m ac es Bu h s absence o pu pose we do no o en nd n
B own ng H s d ama c p eces a e no a e su e he poe h mse neve s o s bu s a ways se upon some
bus ness even among h s Ga den Fanc es
40
Fo he same eason he e a e no genu ne e nc den s n B own ng s p ays L e h ngs a e ap o be
symbo c—p npo n ays o n ense gh com ng om a a a e mp soned n hem hey sugges g ave
mean ngs poss b y o ns ance he a u e o he who e e h ough mak ng ove a some momen a me e y
second bes

Why d d no you p nch a owe

n a pe e o c ay and ng ?
Why d d no pu a powe
O hanks n a ook o s ng ? 7

41
The who e a mosphe e o he p ays s heav y cha ged w h s gn cance and many cha ac e s n
consequence a e om beg nn ng o end n some h gh y s ung mood The e s ag c ens on n he ve y s
wo ds ha M d ed speaks “S Hen y—do no ake my hand ” The mo a s a n deepens w h he nex
ques on and s neve e axed No b ea h o esh a om he unheed ng ou e wo d comes o b eak he
spe and a he same me o deepen by con as he pa hos and agedy o M d ed s ove mas e ng
consc ousness ha she does no dese ve and w neve ho d n he a ms he happ ness ha seemed o s and
c ose by
42
s p obab y h s p e m na y pu pos ve su cha g ng o he cha ac e s and nc den s ha ed Dowden o
say ha
he d ama c gen us o B own ng was n he ma n o he s a c k nd s ud es w h ex ao d na y
sk and sub e y cha ac e n pos on a a ns on y an mpe ec o abou ed success w h
cha ac e n movemen

As s ands h s d c um s unsound Res ess ene gy s a ways s a n ng aga ns he poe s con o H s gen us
s d ama c p ec se y n v ue o he sense o movemen wh ch conveys and he ee ng ha e s p ocess
and no h ng e se a con nuous new c ea on o se ca ed on by se Even n The R ng and he Book
whe e he poe no on y knows bu e s he end a he beg nn ng he d ama c qua y o movemen s
p esen The s o y expands a each e ng ke c c es n wa e The ac s a e ans o med w h each
success ve e ng o hem by one and he o he Ha Rome Gu do Caponsacch Pomp a The Pope and
he awye s No o a momen does he s o y s and s no does he eade ee ha he s be ng o d o pas
even s as n s en ng o an essen a y ep c poe ke M on B own ng s poems a e neve s agnan agedy
neve hangs ove head as n Ham e a b ack mo on ess de ayed hunde c oud bu he gh n ng s a ways
ab aze The e a e c owded happen ngs and he hea and hu y o s ua ons c ash ng n o he consequences
B own ng s gen us s essen a y dynam c and he e s abundan movemen
43
Wha B own ng s cha ac e s ack s ob ec v y— we may bo ow a e m om he ph osophe s Such s
he n ens y o h s n e es n “ he nc den s n he deve opmen o a sou ” ha ans uses no on y he
d ama s pe sonae bu he wo d n wh ch hey ve The ou e wo d s no genu ne y ou e does no ex s
o s own sake ca y ng on s own p ocesses “go ng on us he same ” whe he men and women augh o
weep ve o d e u e y nd e en o eve y a e d s ngu sh ng no n he eas be ween g ea h ngs and
sma ev h ngs and good a ow ng “bo h he p oud y d ng and he ounde ng ba k ” s no a wo d a oo
om man non mo a and on su ace ead ng non a ona he sphe e o shee cap ce and he p ayg ound
o acc den The wo d s he s age and backg ound o B own ng s cha ac e s and supp es he scene y hey
need
44
Wha s done by h s pe sonages he e o e s no he esu o n e cou se be ween human cha ac e and
wha n se s an en e y na u a wo d And consequen y wha akes p ace acks ha appea ance o
con ngency n co us on w h necess y o wh ch he ue d ama s makes ag c use When he s mos
comp e e y unde he spe o h s muse he ue d ama s canno e be o ehand wha w happen o h s men
and women o how hey w behave He s a he me cy o wo unknowns he nexhaus b e poss b es o
man s na u e and o he esponse wh ch w make o he neve end ng con ngenc es o an nd e en ou e
wo d He has no p econce ved heo y no scheme o e no un o m es o necess es wh ch can be
abe ed he un y o h s wo k as a wo k o a has some mo e mys c sou ce han any o hese h ngs Bu
we canno qu e say h s o B own ng H s men and women canno be ca ed embod men s o Áp o
concep ons mean o us a e a doc ne o po n a mo a and ye he n e cou se w h he e ows and
n e ac on w h he wo d have no genu ne y ash on ng po ency No h ng qu e new o qu e unexpec ed eve
happens o hem They a e no n a wo d whe e unexpec ed h ngs a e pe m ed o happen Had no
Macbe h happened o mee he w ches on he moo w h he exc emen o he ba e no ye subs ded n h s
b ood he m gh have ved and d ed a oya and v c o ous gene a And wha s de w nds o me e acc den s
he e a e n O he o and Ham e These d amas a e ke e because he a e wh ch s es s b e comes
c o hed n acc den and w h s chap e a aw y and as ca e ess as ha o a Bacch c dance The acc den s
seem v a oo and m gh eas y no have aken p ace o have been u ned as de un hey have aken
p ace Then and no hen do we ee ha hey we e mean and ha hey we e as nev ab e as des ny
45
Bu B own ng s p ays can be seen om a a o ma ch s a gh o wa d o he consumma on and he wo d
n wh ch hey ake p ace s a oo ob us ve y “a mo a o de ” The pe sonages a e om he s nwa d y
cha ged w h some dom nan pass on o p opens y They a e ded ca ed even when hey a e comp ex o
some one o m o good o o ev and some one m sdeed s a ns he who e o e ke nk n wa e They a e
enve oped n he own a mosphe e and ou e nc den s canno a ec he ca ee ca ed a ong by he
powe s w h n as by a d v ng s o m e gh ed u om he s w h he des ny Pym w h h s ove o
Eng and M d ed w h he gu o he nnocence Lu a w h h s “own Eas ” T esham w h he p de o am y
and he scu cheon w hou a b o Va ence w h h s s o my ec ude and g ea hea
46
Th s s he on y sense n wh ch B own ng s d amas ack movemen and h s me hod may be ca ed s a c H s
cha ac e s a e mpe v ous o ou wa d n uence excep n so a as se ves o d scha ge wha s a eady
w h n W h n he nne ea m o pass ons emo ons vo ons amb ons and he wo d wh ch hese ca ch up
n he ca ee he e s no ack o movemen A p en ude o powe s a ac ve a e evea ed by h m hey
co ope a e seve m ng e co de comb ne and a e a as a n—bu hey a e a psych ca B own ng p aces
us n he pa amen o he m nd s he powe s o m nd o wh ch we s en n h gh deba e And we a e
em nded by hem o he ugues o Mas e Hugues o Saxe Go ha

One d sse a es he s cand d

Two mus d scep has d s ngu shed
Th ee he ps he coup e eve ye man d d
Fou p o es s F ve makes a da a he h ng w shed
Back o One goes he case band ed

And hey equ e scope o dec a e hemse ves as hey evea he wonde wo d o he human sou
47
Now we have s a ed hese po n s somewha u y because hey seem o h ow gh upon he who e o
B own ng s wo k as a poe The endency owa ds dwe ng upon dea ssues a he han upon ou e deeds
on he s gn cance o ac s o sou s and he ns gn cance o a h ngs save n he sou s con ex was a ways
p esen n B own ng so a so was he endency owa ds mono ogue w h s de be a e o de ed
pe s s ency And bo h o hese endenc es g ew Ex e na c cums ance became mo e and mo e he me e
ga b o he nne mood deeds mo e and mo e he c ea u es o hough s and a ea va ues we e mo e and
mo e und sgu sed y dea m n s an s o man s need o beau y o goodness o ove and happ ness
48
Bu o say h s s o adm no on y ha he d ama c e emen n h s poe y was on he wane bu ha h s
poe y was se becom ng mo e de be a e y e ec ve And he sp o e ec on wh ch e ec s s
appea ances sub ma es sense and s expe ence n o mean ngs s o say he eas as cha ac e s c o
ph osophy as s o a s ph osophy a he han a wh ch concen a es upon p nc p es and wh ch
a ows ac s and even s o dw nd e n o ns ances o gene a aws A mus va ue a h ng o wha s n se
no o he u h wh ch exemp es The e e ence o he beau u ob ec beyond se o a beau y ha s
e e na mus be o a as undes gned as he mus c o a ha p swung n he w nd And when a poe akes o
us a ng hemes o he un y o h s poems ns ead o be ng a mys c ha mony o e emen s m ng ng o
hemse ves comes o a se pu pose wh ch can be s a ed n wo ds hen ndeed s he g o y o a pass ng
n o he g ey The poe ou ved he d ama s n B own ng and he poe d d no succumb o he
ph osophe was because o he s eng h o he pu e y y ca e emen n h s sou and he ma ve ous wea h
o h s sensuous and emo ona endowmen s H s human y was oo ch y ve ned o h m o become an
abs ac h nke and ce a n appa en acc den s o h s ou e e consp ed w h he endenc es o h s poe c
gen us o ead hem away om he egu a d ama
49
One o hese was h s qua e ove A B o n he Scu cheon w h Mac eady o whom and a whose
eques h s p ay was w en Bu Mac eady s a a s we e en ang ed he wou d w hd aw om h s
a angemen w h B own ng was no ank w h h m bu shu ed and B own ng was ange ed mpe ous and
exp os ve The p ay was p oduced bu “damned ” appa en y no by he aud ence bu by Mac eady s own
s age and p ess a angemen s The T mes p onounced “one o he mos au y d amas we eve behe d ”
and The A henaeum ca ed “a puzz ng and unp easan bus ness ” and he cha ac e s nsc u ab e and
abho en Th s was n 1843
50
The qua e w h Mac eady was no he poe s on y unp easan expe ence o he s age Soon a e h s
nc den Cha es Kean nego a ed w h B own ng o a su ab e p ay and n Ma ch 1844 Co ombe s
B hday was ead o h m and app oved Bu Kean asked ha shou d be e w h h m unpub shed he
Eas e o he o ow ng yea B own ng howeve hough he ong de ay un easonab e was poss b y
doub u o he ac o s good a h and eso ved o pub sh he p ay a once was no ac ed 1853 when
was p oduced by Phe ps w h He en Fauc as he o ne and an o a o n gh Bu was ev ewed on
pub ca on by Fo s e —who sa d ha he abom na ed he as es o B own ng as much as he espec ed h s
gen us Fo s e epen ed ca ed on B own ng and was “ve y p o use o g ac oc es” bu he endsh p had
ece ved a a a n u y B own ng conc uded ha he e was oo much “spang e” and “smu ch” n connec on
w h ac o s and w o e no mo e o he s age
51
Du ng he yea s 1844 5 B own ng made a se es o con bu ons o Hood s Magaz ne The se es
nc uded The F gh o he Duchess and The B shop o de s h s Tomb a Sa n P axed s Chu ch The
poe hav ng gone o a y n 1844 and hav ng v s ed he g ave o She ey had u ned n o he e chu ch o
Sa n P assede nea San a Ma a Magg o e
§ 9 E zabe h Ba e s Poems

Re u n ng o Eng and be o e he end o he yea he ead E zabe h Ba e s new y pub shed Poems They
con a ned Lady Ge a d ne s Cou sh p n wh ch he ound h s wo k men oned w h ha o Tennyson and o
Wo dswo h and a e e ence o h s own “hea b ood nc u ed o a ve ned human y ” E zabe h Ba e had
p ev ous y n a se es o a c es on Eng sh poe s n The A henaeum p aced B own ng among “h gh and
g ed sp s” and he had app oved o he s se es o a c es on he ea y G eek Ch s an poe s
Mo eove each knew o he o he h ough Kenyon E zabe h Ba e s second cous n schoo e ow o
B own ng s a he and he spec a p ov dence o bo h Robe B own ng and h s w e Kenyon encou aged
B own ng o exp ess o E zabe h Ba e h s adm a on o he poems The poe w o e o he w h he
un es a ned eedom o h s mos magnan mous cha ac e e ng he ha he “ oved he ve ses w h a h s
hea ” and h s e e he e e “o he au ho o Pa ace sus and k ng o mys cs ” “ h ew he n o ecs as es ”
They became n ma e h ough a co espondence wh ch was a s d c a ed by mood and oppo un y and
a e wa ds n acco dance w h o ma “con ac ” On 20 May 1845 a e he apse o a w n e and a sp ng
B own ng came and saw he o he s me a “ e gu e wh ch d d no se om he so a pa e ng e ed
ace g ea eage w s u eyes ” and as E zabe h Ba e sa d “he neve wen away aga n ” H s dec a a on
o ove o owed p omp and dec s ve as a hunde c ap was coun e ed w h a e usa ha was abso u e
bu a o h s sake and o owed by “ he umph o a mas e u pass on and w wh ch cou d no be pu
as de ”
53
The c cums ances a e oo ema kab e and mean oo much o bo h he poe s no o equ e a b e
ecoun ng
54
E zabe h Ba e was bo n a Coxhoe Ha Du ham on 6 Ma ch 1806 he e des o he e even ch d en o
Edwa d Mou on Ba e a Wes nd an p an e When she was s an n an he am y moved o Hope
End He e o dsh e he p ace w h wh ch he ea y memo es eco ded n Au o a Le gh The Los Bowe
and o he poems a e assoc a ed Un she was abou een yea s o age she was hea hy and v go ous
a hough “s gh and sens ve” and she was a good ho se woman Bu e he n endeavou ng o sadd e he
pony o he se o n d ng she n u ed he sp ne and he hu was he occas on no he cause o he
be ng ea ed as an ncu ab e nva d by he a he —so ong as she was unde h s oo
55
F om Hope End he am y emoved s o S dmou h a e wa ds o 74 G ouces e P ace and na y o
W mpo e S ee London whe e B own ng s came o see he The ma age ook p ace on 12 Sep embe
1846 and a week a e hey we e on he way o a y whe e hey made he pe manen home n Casa
Gu d F o ence
§ 10 Sonne s om he Po uguese

The Ba e o Ma a hon E zabe h Ba e s uven e poem was o owed n 1826 by An Essay on M nd

and O he Poems a vo ume wh ch bea s n he ve y e he s amp o Pope hough s au ho ess hen and
a ways was qu e unqua ed o m a e h s e se nea ness Then n 1833 came P ome heus Bound a
ans a on om Aeschy us w h wh ch he ans a o he se came o be so ho ough y d ssa s ed ha she
supp essed so a as she was ab e and subs u ed o a second ans a on wh ch was pub shed n
1850 n he same vo ume as Sonne s om he Po uguese The Se aph m and o he Poems was
pub shed n 1838 and na y n 1844 he wo vo umes o Poems No poe eve had ess o he G eek
sp o measu e and p opo on hough she was w de y ead n G eek e a u e and de gh ed n s a
o ms No was anyone mo e un ke Pope He wo k n ac was as chao c and con used as was
uxu ous and mp ov den He Se aph m s ove s a ned and m s y he D ama o Ex e s an un n e es ng
a ego y nea y a he sho e poems a e oo ong o she d d no know how o om o when o s op Few
any poe s have s nned mo e g evous y o equen y aga ns he aws o me e and me
57
was na u a and nev ab e ha he n uence o he ove o B own ng shou d ans gu e he poe y as we
as ans o m he e n consequence o he e s one wo k and poss b y one on y whose qua y s un que
and whose wo h s pe manen and no eas y compu ed Th s s he Sonne s om he Po uguese They
had been composed by he du ng he pe od o he cou sh p B own ng knew o hem o he s me
when “one mo n ng ea y n 1847 M s B own ng s o e qu e y a e b eak as n o he oom whe e he
husband wo ked h us some manusc p n o h s pocke and hen has y w hd ew ” 8 An amaz ng
eve a on even o h m hey mus have been o he se aph c n ens y o he ove
58
The o m o he sonne had he ped E zabe h Ba e as he ped Wo dswo h a mes o avo d he
bese ng s ns Ex avagance and d useness a e no so poss b e unde s g d u es On he o he hand he
n ox ca on o he pass on he ped o secu e he aga ns he a ness o he commonp ace They we e s
p va e y p n ed as Sonne s by E B B and h ee yea s a e pub shed unde he p esen e These
o y ou sonne s unequa as hey a e make E zabe h B own ng s e o ame secu e and go some way
owa ds exp a n ng no a so us y ng he es eem o he con empo a es o he poe y She was deemed
he g ea es o Eng sh poe esses pe haps gh y he name was a so sugges ed w h Tennyson s bu w hou
he husband s o he poe au ea esh p on he dea h o Wo dswo h n Ma ch 1849 he B own ngs on y
ch d Robe W edemann Ba e was bo n and sho y a e wa ds Robe B own ng s mo he d ed
eav ng h m ong dep essed The summe s o 1851 and 1852 we e spen n Eng and n he o me yea on
he e u n ou ney o a y hey ave ed as a as Pa s w h Ca y e The e among o he ce eb es hey
me Geo ge Sand and a so Joseph M sand who had ecen y w en o B own ng n La Revue des Deux
Mondes M sand s endsh p was one o he mos p ec ous n B own ng s e Que homme
ex ao d na e he s epo ed o have sa d o he poe son cen en es pas au m eu The w n e o
1853 4 was spen by way o va e y a Rome O he nume ous ou ney ngs om F o ence du ng he
ema n ng yea s s on y necessa y o eco d ha n he summe o 1855 he wo poe s ca ed o Eng and
he MS o Men and Women and g ea pa o ha o Au o a Le gh B own ng comp e ed h s vo ume by
he add on o One Wo d Mo e wh ch s da ed London Sep embe 1855 Du ng h s v s Tennyson n
he house o B own ng ead a oud h s Maud and B own ng ead F a L ppo L pp wh e Dan e Rosse
s ened and ske ched h m—Tennyson acco d ng o W M Rosse “mou h ng ou h s ho ow Ós and Ás ”
wh e B own ng s vo ce a d s ess on a he gh and shade o cha ac e s conve sa ona po n s s
d ama c g ve and ake They o ned Kenyon a Wes Cowes and E zabe h B own ng w o e he as pages
o Au o a Le gh unde h s oo and ded ca ed he poem o h m
59
On he e u n o F o ence hey ece ved news o he mmed a e and ve y g ea success o he poem and
B own ng whose Men and Women a ed e he o a ac he pub c o o p ease he c cs e o ced w h a
g ea oy n he umph
60
Wh e he B own ngs we e n Eng and Dan e D Home he mos no o ous o Ame can exponen s o
Ame can exponen s o Sp ua sm he d a sÉance a wh ch hey we e p esen A w ea h ha “happened” o
be on he ab e was a sed by “sp ” hands and p aced on E zabe h B own ng s b ow— he med um s own
ee ope a ng a so B own ng ma n a ned Home subsequen y v s ed F o ence and sp ua s c
man es a ons became o E zabe h B own ng and some o he ends a ma e o p o ound y se ous
n e es and o B own ng h mse an n o e ab e an No h ng ha B own ng w o e su passes M S udge
“The Med um” n d ama c powe exposes mo e powe u y even han B oug am and Juan and
Hohens e Schwangau ha co up on o he sou by a y ng and se sh e wh ch n ec s s who e wo d
mak ng o a w gh eg on n wh ch u h and e o gh and w ong a e nex cab y con used and no h ng
sa d s e he s nce e o ns nce e S udge a eas n some espec s s he g ea es o B own ng s magn cen
casu s s who hemse ves a e new gu es n poe c e a u e and on doub he poem owes some h ng o s
v gou o h s d s as e u expe ence o Home Bu Home was no he sub ec o he poem S udge he med um
s as un ve sa and mpe sona a c ea on as Fa s a and hough B own ng “s amped on he oo n a enzy
o age a he way some be eve s and med ums dece ved M s B own ng ” he a ows S udge o be h mse
and o have h s own say n so mpa a a way as o make he poem a s k ng eve a on o he s eng h o he
poe s d ama c gen us
61
n 1859 E zabe h B own ng e a a m ng y po ca even s— he wa he a m s ce and con e ence a
V a anca and Napo eon s ba ga n exc ed he oo much B own ng nu sed he and ook cha ge a so o
h s son s essons To hese he added he cha ge o he a a s o Lando and o Lando h mse —a mos
d cu and de ca e ask Lando had qua e ed n h s vo can c way w h h s am y w h whom he ved a
F eso e and appea ed home ess penn ess and w h no h ng bu he c o hes he s ood n a Casa Gu d
B own ng ook h m n o h s house a anged and managed h s a a s o h m and was ov ng and o e an w h
ha w de gene os y o sp wh ch made ends o men o he mos un owa d empe amen Lando oved
B own ng and was ame unde h s hand wh e B own ng amused E zabe h by a k ng o Lando s
“gen eness and swee ness ”
62
No w hs and ng he “ ans o ma on” wh ch he ma age was sa d o have w ough E zabe h B own ng s
hea h was neve comp e e y es o ed o secu e—“ have neve seen a human ame so nea y a anspa en
ve o a ce es a and mmo a sp ” sa d H a d o he when he saw he n F o ence Du ng hese yea s
he s eng h g adua y waned and on 29 June 1861 sudden y w hou any p esen men on he pa o ea
on h s she passed away He dea h s supposed was has ened by ha o Cavou on he s x h o he same
mon h She had sa d o h m “ ea s o b ood cou d have saved h m o us he shou d have had m ne ” She
was bu ed n F o ence and a ab e on he wa s o Casa Gu d exp esses he g a ude o he c y o he
advocacy o a an eedom B own ng s so ow was as deep as h s e bu was bo ne n h s man y
ash on n o de “ o ve and wo k and w e ” he had “ o b eak up eve y h ng and go o Eng and ” He neve
e u ned o F o ence no d d he v s a y aga n un 1878
63
A hough hey ved a s n happy sec us on “sound ess and s ess he m s ” as E zabe h B own ng sa d
s no one o owed w h u e sympa hy he chang ng o unes o a y Bu B own ng sang ne he s hopes
no s so ows—“Na ona y was no an e ec ua mo ve w h h m”—no d d s con empo a y po cs mean
so much o h m as a poe as s med eva a Bu was o he w se w h h s w e She esponded o wha was
p esen Even he a o wh ch we hea n he e e s s no he a o he Va can o he Cap o bu S o y s
o G bson s o Page s She was p o ound y moved by he ag a on o eedom a y was he and whe e
she he se s knew eedom and he emo ons swep he n o song O he ou pub ca ons o he a e
e wo a e en e y a an n heme—Casa Gu d W ndows 1851 and Poems be o e Cong ess 1860
And bo h a e po ca
§ 11 Casa Gu d W ndows

was a me o evo u on when he B own ngs se ed n a y and he e men con nued h oughou he
who e pe od o he ma ed e Casa Gu d W ndows dea w h he ea e phases o he movemen o
be a on n s a e s ages he pa aken n by Napo eon and he equ voca cha ac e o h s mo ves
and ac ons we e ma e o n ense n e es o hem E zabe h B own ng was h s devo ed de ende B own ng
was a e na e y c ca and condemna o y Even “ he annexa on o Savoy and N ce” on y momen a y shook
he a h n h m B own ng summed up he s ua on by say ng o Napo eon s pa n he a an wa ha “
was a g ea ac on bu he has aken e gh een pence o wh ch s a p y ” They had ag eed o w e o
Napo eon and pub sh o n y E zabe h B own ng s abou s esu ed n Poems be o e Cong ess on he
annexa on B own ng d opped he p o ec and des oyed wha he had w en Bu he came back o he
sub ec du ng ha pe od when de gh ed h m mos o exp o e he n cac es o amb guous sou s whose
mo a y was “p ed” and n e ec s casu s ca and he p oduced P nce Hohens e Schwangau
65
Bo h Casa Gu d W ndows and Poems be o e Cong ess us a e he d cu y o ng con empo a y
po cs n o poe y Ne he hese no he a e ma h n he pos humous Las Poems 1862 have added o
E zabe h B own ng s e a y epu a on
§ 12 Au o a Le gh

ema ns o no ce he onges and he mos amb ous o he poems—Au o a Le gh w h s e even

housand nes o b ank ve se was he e a y ven u e on wh ch she s aked he o une n he ded ca on o
o Kenyon she ca s “ he mos ma u e o my wo ks and he one n o wh ch my h ghes conv c ons upon
L e and A have en e ed ” The eade s o he me ag eed w h he c cs we e unan mous and he p a se
was p ched h gh he s ed on was exhaus ed n a o n gh and a h d was equ ed w h n a ew mon hs
La e eade s have become much mo e empe a e s a nove n amb c decasy ab es The s o y s a h n
h ead on wh ch a e s ung he op n ons o he w e on a manne o ma e s—educa ona soc a a s c
e h ca
67
E zabe h B own ng s g s we e y ca She was essen a y a sub ec ve poe n he sense ha he even s
she desc bed and he cha ac e s she d ew we e sa u a ed w h he own sympa h es A he cha ac e s n
Au o a Le gh a e en e y subo d na e o he he o ne and he he o ne howeve e E zabe h B own ng
n ended s he unsubs an a shadow o he se She had no d ama c o na a ve gen us The wo d n
wh ch he cha ac e s move s a ways c ea ed on he pa e n o he own nne e o she d pped he b ush n
he own emo ons He a e poems show some mp ovemen n echn que and some o hem a e en ched
by he e n a y and by he n uence o he husband wh ch was ve y g ea o s no P ppa Passes on y
“wh ch coun s o some h ng n Au o a Le gh ” no even Pa ace sus whose a h s pa aph ased n
hund eds o s nes Bu hey con a n no h ng equa o Rhyme o he Duchess May Cowpe s G ave and
The C y o he Ch d en she s emembe ed pe manen y w be as a poe by eason o he
exp ess on she gave o a mo he s ove n A Ch d s G ave a F o ence and even mo e secu e y by he
sub me pass on o he ove o w e o husband n Sonne s om he Po uguese
§ 13 Ch s mas Eve and Eas e Day

The a an pe od o B own ng s e was compa a ve y ba en has been sugges ed ha h s was due n

pa o he ac ha he c ma e o a y owe ed h s v a y n pa o he unpopu a y o h s wo ks
Mo eove he ook o d aw ng and o mode ng n c ay copy ng mas e p eces w h n ense p easu e On y
wo pub ca ons o ve se ma ked h s pe od—Ch s mas Eve and Eas e Day 1850 and Men and
Women 1855 He a so w o e a h s me an essay on She ey by way o n oduc on o Ce a n Le e s
o Pe cy Bysshe She ey 1852 wh ch we e a e wa ds ound o be ab ca ons The essay was ev den y
n uenced by M sand s a c e on B own ng h mse n La Revue des Deux Mondes accen ua es n he
same way he d s nc on be ween sub ec ve and ob ec ve poe y and d scusses She ey s wo k w h much
sk and ns gh
69
n Ch s mas Eve and Eas e Day c cs d scove c ea ev dence o he n uence o E zabe h B own ng s
devou Ch s an a h B own ng had been n e es ed n e g on a h s e o he “a he sm” wh ch he caugh
om She ey was as supe c a and empo a y as he vege a an sm Pau ne Pa ace sus P ppa Passes a
he p nc pa poems o he ea y pe od bea w ness o h s sense o he p o ound s gn cance o e g on
Ch s mas Eve dea s w h con empo a y a udes owa ds Ch s an y—d ssen he h ghe c c sm Roman
ca ho c sm—w h a cha ac e s c p e e ence o he s Eas e Day s mo e es a ned and s e n mo e u
o y c beau y and mo e sea ch ng n s u h dea s w h he nne na u e o he a h ha s
e g ous— e g ous and no ep cu ean o ma e a s c—no seek ng s ev dences n ou wa d happen ngs o
s wo h n he comp acency wh ch b ngs he zes g ves o oy o he b e ness akes away om
so ow Bo h poems a e d ama c ne he s o be ega ded as he poe s con ess on o a h neve he ess
hey exp ess he p o oundes o h s sp ua conv c ons wh ch cen ed upon he mos sub me o a e g ous
hypo heses name y ha o he omn po ence and omn p esence o a Ch s ke God he d v ne powe and
wo k o ove Sau espec a y he second pa wh ch con a ns he p ophecy o Ch s an y C eon
Ka sh sh bea w ness o he same concep ons— he omn p esen wonde ha anscends de n on and s
ye he so e su e gh whe eby man can wa k and nd sa e oo ng
70
E zabe h B own ng s n uence may be de ec ed a so n he poems wh ch ea o ove The o g na
D ama c Ly cs he D ama c Ly cs as hey s ood be o e poems we e ans e ed he e o om Men
and Women nc uded C s na and n a Gondo a and among D ama c Romances and Ly cs he e
appea ed The Los M s ess Bu he co ec on wh ch nc uded A Woman s Las Wo d Any W e o Any
Husband The Las R de Toge he One Way o Love among many mo e was ce a n y a che ende ng
o he ma ve o ove han any o h s p ev ous wo ks s p obab e ha no s ng e poe n any coun y so
ende ed he va e y o s phases and he abundance o s powe — s umph s a u e s v c o y ove he
wo d s de ea by he wo d s pass on and po gnancy s psych ca sub e y and s omance and he
mmens y o s sp ua s gn cance whe he n he e o he sou o n he ou e cosmos
71
Many o he poems n Men and Women o wh ch he scene can be de e m ned have e e ence o a y Bu
s doub u whe he h s es dence n a y n uenced B own ng s cho ce o sub ec s o any g ea ex en “He
was deep y a an sed be o e he wen o ve n a y ” To say no h ng o So de o and P ppa Passes he e
was an a an g oup n he o g na D ama c Romances and Ly cs wh ch s a mos as consp cuous as ha
o he o g na Men and Women A e The R ng and he Book a an sub ec become bo h mo e a e and
ess mpo an
72
On eav ng a y B own ng se ed n London W h he change o es dence came a change o hab H s
a an e qu e n he ea y yea s had become g adua y much mo e soc a n F o ence n Rome and du ng
he v s s o London he cha m o E zabe h B own ng and Robe B own ng s own gen us o nob e
endsh p b ough hem n o n ma e e a ons w h he mos g ed o he me A e he dea h un he
sp ng o 1863 he e ed w h n h mse and h s e as he sa d was “as g ey as he London sky ” Then he
hough ha way o e mo b d and unwo hy eso ved o accep eve y su ab e nv a on and hence o h
h s gu e was am a n he c c es o he ove s o e a u e a hough excep o a ve y ew ends a
women none eve saw o B own ng mo e han “a sp end d su ace ”
73
n 1863 he was much ag a ed by a p oposa o pub sh a e o E zabe h B own ng w h e e s He u ned
savage y upon “ he b ackgua ds” who wou d “ h us he paws n o h s bowe s ” and he des oyed he
g ea e pa o h s own co espondence Bu he p ese ved he e e s ha had passed be ween h mse and
h s w e p o o he ma age w h he esu ha ha d y anyone excep pe haps Ca y e p o es ed mo e
s ong y aga ns he n us on o sp es n o h s e s n mac es and had he nne sh ne mo e u h ess y a d
ba e He howeve ee y gave o he pub c wha had been n ended o hem He epub shed E zabe h
B own ng s p ose essays on he G eek Ch s an poe s and he Eng sh poe s n 1863 and wo yea s a e
made a se ec on om he poems and exp essed h s de gh a he popu a y wh ch made necessa y
74
Fo h ee yea s n success on he spen he summe mon hs a S e Ma e nea Po n c whe e he wo ked a
h s D ama s Pe sonae pub shed n 1864 Pa o 1866 and 1867 was spen a C o s c he name o wh ch
s nked w h The Two Poe s o C o s c as he nked ha o Po n c w h Go d Ha Red Co on
N gh Cap Coun y and he gypsy woman o F ne a he Fa
§ 14 The R ng and he Book

B own ng was a he he gh o h s powe du ng h s pe od Nowhe e s h s poe c wo k so un o m y g ea as

n D ama s Pe sonae 1864 and he e s no doub ha The R ng and he Book s he mos magn cen o
a h s ach evemen s n sp e o s nequa es C cs m ss n D ama s Pe sonae some h ng o he gh ness
and b gh ness and ea y mo n ng cha m o P ppa Passes and o some o h s ea e Men and Women and
hey nd n no any ace o he pa he c a acy ye a nge ng echo o he b ood ng so ow o h s e s
oss was a e n he day he wo d was mo e commonp ace he ou ook mo e deso a e and man s a u e
ess nged w h g o y women we e mo e home y ove was ess e he ea and he s u o be dea sed h ough
be ng be e known by a w se ove was mo e s ubbo n “The summe had s opped ” and “ he sky was
de anged ” Bu he au umn had come b ng ng a che ha ves n D ama s Pe sonae The s gn cance o
man s e and o he c ash o c cums ance wh ch e c ed was deepe as we as mo e g ave The wo d s
wo n ook d sappea s when s seen n he g ea con ex n wh ch s ands—“A we have w ed o hoped
o d eamed o good sha ex s ” says Ab Vog e Man has h mse “a ash o he w ha can ” o he can
use s d s augh e emen s o e o a mo a pu pose and we d hem n a sp ua ha mony—ou o h ee
sounds make “no a ou h sound bu a s a ” P osp ce Rabb Ben Ez a A Dea h n he Dese even
M S udge “The Med um” and Ca ban upon Se ebos a e s ong w h a con o ed e h ca pass on o
wha s ea and ue as h ngs s and and by n e es n he ssues wh ch a e u ma e and w h ea sm na u a
and sp ua n bo h k nds he e s b ended an mag na ve sp endou wh ch ans gu es even “ he eas o a
mank nd ” when we “ ook a h s head and hea ” and

see wha e you—na u e dance

Abou each man o us e e advance
As hough he pagean s end we e o enhance
H s wo h and—once he e h s p oduc ga ned—Ro away e sewhe e

s a pe manen heme s echoes a e o be hea d a he way o Aso ando— h s wash o c cums ance
a ound man s sou wh ch ye ma n a ns s mas e y ove a he p ay o he waves and nowhe e s ende ed
mo e ne y han n D ama s Pe sonae and s Ep ogue
76
The Ed nbu gh Rev ew ound a “sub ec o amazemen ha poems o so obscu e and un nv ng a
cha ac e shou d nd nume ous eade s” and he e we e o he c cs bes des F ede ck Tennyson who s
hough B own ng s poe y “ he mos g o esque conce vab e ” Bu he s ua on had n u h changed
B own ng s adm e s we e no onge con ned o p e Raphae es and “young men a he Un ve s es ” A
second ed on o D ama s Pe sonae was ca ed o w h n he same yea as he s And he ecep on
acco ded o The R ng and he Book was s mo e avou ab e A as B own ng was com ng n o h s
k ngdom had aken ong so a e as 1867 he spoke o h mse as “ he mos unpopu a poe ha eve was ”
77
The e was an n e va o ou yea s be ween D ama s Pe sonae and The R ng and he Book Bu he
heme had n e es ed h m om he momen when he came upon he “o d squa e ye ow book” on an o d
books a n F o ence— he pa chmen bound a e o he a o an a an nob e o he mu de o h s w e He
saw s d ama c poss b es when he s ood on he ba cony o Casa Gu d n June 1860 a n gh wa ch ng
he s o m Bu ay ong wo k ng n h s m nd and he so ow o he o ow ng yea ed h m o abandon he
dea o w ng and he sugges ed he sub ec o wo o h s ends n Sep embe 1862 he ecu ed o
spoke o “my new poem ha s abou o be ” “ he Roman mu de s o y ” He began o w e abou 1864
and he poem g ew s ead y o became h s c own ng ven u e and he gave egu a y eve y day “ h ee
qu e ea y mo n ng hou s ” was pub shed n ou vo umes he s o wh ch appea ed n Novembe
1868 and he o he s du ng he h ee mon hs o ow ng
78
Many h ngs concu ed o make he s o y a ac ve o B own ng He had nhe ed a as e o a es o c me
om h s a he he s ua on was amb guous and as ega ds he p es and he g w e e oom o a
mos beau u as we as o a so d d exp ana on and he e o e appea ed bo h o B own ng s ove o
a gumen and o h s e h ca dea sm mo eove op n on n Rome was d v ded and he popu a m nd was on
s a he e was he poss b y ha he u h “ o d o once o he chu ch and dead aga ns he wo d he
esh and he dev ” and he s o y n s essence was no a common d ab bu g o ous— he omance o he
young p es and Pomp a was “a g o God who showed o once how he wou d have he wo d go
wh e ”
79
was nev ab e ha such a heme shou d se ee a he powe s o B own ng s sp bu bo owed
sub m y and a sac ed ove ness om ano he qua e Fo undoub ed y he “poem wh ch ensh ned
Pomp a was ns nc w h em n scence ” “W h a s abound ng v a y was ye commemo a ve and
memo a ” 9 When he w o e o “ he one p ze vouchsa ed unwo hy me” o “ he one b ossom ha made
me p oud a eve” o a “ e compan oned by he woman he e” o v ng and see ng he ea n and ea n ng by
he can he e be doub as o who en o hese u e ances he pa he c beau y?
80
No s anc u o nd n Caponsacch some h ng o he poe h mse —mo e pe haps han n any o he
cha ac e he c ea ed The e was h s own empes uousness much ha a w se o d pope cou d nd “am ss ”
“b amewo hy ” “unga n y ” “d sco dan ” “ n ngemen man o d” o conven on bu he e was a so a
“symme c sou w h n ” “champ onsh p o God a s b ush ” “p omp chee y hud o g ove on g ound ”
answe ng “ ng ng y he cha enge o he a se kn gh ” Wha a e hese qua es w h he a dou o a g ea
ove and he head ong and u e devo on o a a ge hea ed manhood excep he poe s own?
Caponsacch s

am on ea h as good as ou o
A e ega ed p es when ex e ends
mean o do my du y and ve ong

s nsp ed by he man y eco o B own ng and h s e usa o be c ushed by h s so ow Bu he d eam o

hav ng h s “ y c Love” by h s s de has been b oken and he be eaved poe s no pe cep b e n he
“d udg ng s uden ” who “ ms h s amp ” “d aws he pa ched gown c ose” and awakes “ o he o d so a y
no h ngness ” The as wo ds a e a p om se o h s p es o “pass con en om such commun on” and
B own ng wou d a n have come back n o he wo d o men as h s wound had hea ed Bu he u h b eaks
ou —

O g ea us good God M se ab e me

The e was o bo h p es and poe he u e n he wo d o a ove ha w apped a h ngs ound abou and
ye somehow a so he e we e so ows ha knew ne he sho es no shoa s
81
To pass a he pa s o h s g ea poem unde ev ew s no poss b e and o es ma e he e a ve poe c
wo h o s seve a pa s—Caponsacch Pomp a The Pope and Gu do— s no necessa y he e a e
k nds as we as deg ees o pe ec on and compa son s some mes absu d The poss b y o us y ng he
s uc u e o he poem as a who e w ema n doub u and he maca on c speeches o he awye s and some
pa s o wha Rome sa d have no ea a s c va ue Bu he poem s un que n s exce ence as we as n s
de ec s
§ 15 La e poems

Du ng he s x yea s wh ch o owed The R ng and he Book B own ng w o e no h ng bu ong poems—w h

he excep on o He vè R e wh ch was pub shed o a cha ab e pu pose Ba aus on s Adven u e
appea ed n 1871 Ba aus on had he A ces s o Eu p des by hea and by ende ng ha “s anges
saddes swee es song ” saves he own e and w ns o he sh p e uge n he ha bou o Sy acuse
Ba aus on s cha ac e has he cha m o P ppa He cu es e c ea ed by B own ng s magn cen —w h “ he
gay chee ” o h s g ea vo ce he a d ng g adness as he he ped he wo d “ he human and d v ne ” he
wea y happy ace o h m ha god ha man wh ch made he god pa god he mo e a avou e and
ecu en concep on n A s ophanes Apo ogy Ba aus on s e n oduced and we have a second
ansc p om Eu p des—and w h above a e se he ncompa ab e po a o A s ophanes “No
gnob e p esence” “m nd a wan on ng ” s ue bu “a ease ” a he same “o und spu ed mas e y ove he
body s b ood hose appe es ”

A sea wo n ace sad as mo a y

D v ne w h yea n ng a e e owsh p

83
The ansc bed po ons o bo h poems have on y seconda y va ue and he ans a on s sa d o be o en
ame e a and even awkwa d The Agamemnon o Aeschy us 1877 s sa d o be an even ess
accep ab e ende ng “exac ” and un n e g b e was unde aken on he sugges on o Ca y e and
ded ca ed o h m One wou d ke o know wha mood Ca y e was n when he gave h s adv ce e ng
B own ng “ye ough o ans a e he who e o he G eek aged ans— ha s you voca on ” B own ng was
be e e o spo n h s own way n h s own e emen ke h s “K ng o P de ” “ h ough deep o deep ”
“chu n ng he b ackness hoa y ” The e s amp e ev dence o h s w de n ma e know edge o he e a u e o
A hens and o h s ove o s me hods bu h s s eng h was no s m a o ha o he G eeks and he canno
be sa d o have made a s gn can con bu on e he o he know edge o o he ove n Eng and o he
G eek d ama
84
As B own ng we e unde compu s on o squande he popu a y ga ned by D ama s Pe sonae and The
R ng and he Book and w h bo h hands he e appea ed bes des hese G eek poems P nce
Hohens e Schwangau 1871 F ne a he Fa 1872 Red Co on N gh Cap Coun y o Tu and
Towe s 1873 and The nn A bum 1875 E he o s heme o o he ea men o o o bo h heme
and ea men eve y one o hese poems a ed o p ease P nce Hohens e Schwangau a mono ogue
ove a c ga us a ed by connec ng b o w h b o on a “so ed b ” o pape s he mean and o uous p ea
o a weak poss b y we mean ng ce a n y d sc ed ed po c an s he o Napo eon was ha d y g ea
enough o be ag ca o even p c u esque F ne a he Fa shocked and a ena ed good peop e was
supposed o be a de ence o c ove and s s y e was hough as u g d as s mo a y was a se Red
Co on N gh Cap Coun y s a nove n ve se he s o y o a Pa s ewe e and h s m s ess has been
de ended on he g ound ha as a s ong ea men o he ug y makes he ug y ug e Mo e sane y has
been d sapp oved as “ve s ed spec a co espondence ” “ om wh ch eve y p e ence o poe y s usua y
emo e ” The nn A bum once mo e dea s w h c pass on and once mo e s “a nove n ve se ” s he o
s a nse and “ ag and ea he sham ” edeemab y mean sma and sha ow a chea a ca ds g ow ng o d
am d h s “scanda ous successes”—a gu e one m gh say be e e be by he poe The he o ne he
be ayed g s a genu ne y ag ca gu e And he agedy s na emo se ess o she ma es a pa sh
p es who s un ov ng and un oved du e de y poo consc en ous whom she “used o p y ” she
“ ea ned wha woes a e p y wo h ” H m n an ug y hy v age s e e as “sown w h sa ” she he ps o
d ug and dose h s ock w h he doc ne o heaven and he — he a e “made exp c ” Much o h s poem
s powe u con a ns one passage s ange y Shakespea ean n qua y ha n wh ch he e de ady desc bes
he os ove when s ea y was ques oned by he be aye As a who e howeve canno compa e w h
F ne a he Fa e he n ange o e ec ve powe o n wea h o a s c sp endou o n he we gh o
he ssues wh ch a e ca ed o h was no w hou eason ha B own ng spoke o F ne as “ he mos
me aphys ca and bo des he had w en s nce So de o” and no n a espec s was Sw nbu ne s d c um
w ong—“Th s s a be e han any h ng B own ng has ye w en ” s ma n de ec s ha n even mo e
han usua “B own ng has p esumed oo much upon h s eade s ns gh ” and aken no pa ns o “obv a e
con us ons he wou d have he d o be mposs b e had hey occu ed o h s m nd ”
85
H s expe ence o h s c cs—“ he nab y o he human goose o do o he han e he cack e o h ss”— ed
h m o ban e hem n Pacch a o o and how he wo ked n D s empe 1876 wh ch e s he wh ms ca
a e o he a s who ed o e o m h s e ows The poem s gen a and bo s e ous and n s me b an
and absu d an ns ance o ano he o he poe s ways o A s ophan c wan on ng n A he “Me ma d” and
House and o he poems n he same vo ume he a oo ness o he nne e he deepes and ea s b ough
be o e us and how n he as eso he wo d o men m ng e w h hem as he m gh was no h ng bu
“wo d w hou ”—

as wood b ck s one h s ng
O he ue u ne ghbou s

He ved and he sang and he was o “one” on y o he es o men he e was bu h s se s su ace and he
ga b and wha p eased h m o do e
86
The ac ha unm s akab y he speaks o h mse m ng es and nvo ves h mse n h s c ea ons shows ha
B own ng s d ama c powe was beg nn ng o dec ne The p ea ha he “u e ances” a e hose o “ mag na y
cha ac e s” becomes ess and ess va d o he mag ned cha ac e s a e unsubs an a he shadows h own
by he poe h mse Bu he e s one heme wh ch change as e s seasons may ema ns o h m a pe enn a
sou ce o pe ec song n S Ma n s Summe whe e much ha s g een had u ned se e and he hea
had os s en e p se n Numpho ep os and n o he poems n h s vo ume ove wh ch s now a memo y o
wha was and a w s u ong ng o wha mus ye be e a ns a s mys c powe and b eaks n o y c poe y
o unaba ed beau y
87
n 1877 B own ng v s ed he Savoy a ps and he e h s compan on M ss Ege on Sm h d ed sudden y as
she was mak ng eady o a moun a n exped on w h h m
88
n he o ow ng yea La Sa s az was pub shed a commemo a ve poem wh ch s a es and es s he
a gumen s o and aga ns he mmo a y o he sou and p onounces udgmen Bu he p onouncemen
hough a ma ve s no un nged w h doub and has he a a weakness o be ng a bes va d o
conc us ve on y o he poe He e as e sewhe e he e s a soph s c ouch n B own ng s ph osophy and
was no n he n e gence bu n he po ency o ove ha he us ed n he same vo ume as La Sa s az he e
appea ed The Two Poe s o C o s c n wh ch once mo e he poe gambo s mock ng h s me a ame
89
n he au umn o 1878 o he s me a e he dea h o h s w e B own ng wen o a y and he epea ed
h s v s s eve y yea un he c ose o h s e On h s s ou ney he s ayed o some weeks a a ho e nea
he summ o he Sp ugen pass vÁn vÁnov ch and Ned B a s we e w en he e and he vo ume
en ed D ama c dy s 1879 con a ns hese and Ma n Re ph and Phe d pp des bo h magn cen y o d
s o es he a e ca y ng he eade back o he a e How hey b ough he Good News om Ghen o
A x The second se es o D ama c dy s con a ned he d ama c s o es o “ he oo shness ” wh ch s ove
o Mu Èykeh s A ab owne and C ve s con ess on o ea w h s s a ng u n Jocose a pub shed n
1883 con a ns wo g ea poems name y x on and he y c Neve he T me and he P ace—whe e
ong ng ove nds once mo e s pe ec u e ance Then came Fe sh ah s Fanc es 1884 and Pa ey ngs
w h Ce a n Peop e o mpo ance n he Day 1887 and na y Aso ando 1890 The ga b o
Fe sh ah s eas e n he s a Pe s an sage and he a ego es and pa ab es have a so an eas e n avou Bu
Fe sh ah s on y a name and he sage who speaks he w sdom o commonsense h ough h s ps us a ng
h s conv c ons ega d ng mo a ma e s pa n p aye asce c sm pun shmen by e e ence o common
ob ec s— he sun a me on se e che es wo came s p o cu u e— s B own ng h mse The poems a e
s mp e d ec and p eas ng hey con a n a p ac ca a h ouched w h heo e ca doub The conc us ons a e
a en a ve and nsecu e so ong as he hea does no ead o hem and ove s s en The y cs ha
n e vene be ween he d a ogues a e exqu s e
90
B own ng was seven y ve yea s o d when he pub shed Pa ey ngs and he “ mpo ance” o he peop e
w h whom he pa eys comes om he ac ha hey ca ed h m back o h s boyhood s ndus ous happ ness
n h s a he s b a y The e he ea n o “A s y s dea ” om “ he p od g ous book” o Ge a d de La esse
and he emembe ed h s mo he p ay ng Av son s g and ma ch The poems a e v go ous he ea n ng
d sp ayed n hem s mmense and hey abound n n e ec ua v a y bu he pe sonages a e as shadowy as
hey a e vo ub e and he poe c g o y has e he g ey
91
B own ng s hea h was becom ng mo e unce a n bu he con nued bo h h s soc a e n London and h s
ou neys sou h o he moun a ns and o a y n 1887 h s son ma ed and bough he Rezzon co pa ace
Ven ce and h he o wo summe s mo e he poe e u ned He a so wen back a e o y yea s o
Aso o and ved n a house he e on he o d ownwa and he p ace wh ch he had oved om he days o
P ppa enewed s cha m o h m He d ed a Ven ce on 12 Decembe 1889 and was bu ed n he poe s
co ne o Wes m ns e abbey on he as day o he yea
92
He had no expec ed dea h bu o he as was u o p o ec s h s cou age unaba ed and h s en e p se
no wea y and h s as wo ds he g ea Ep ogue w h wh ch n Aso ando he c osed he co ec ed g ean ngs
o h s gen us y exp ess he a h wh ch made h s e he o c

V Ma hew A no d A hu Hugh C ough James Thomson

§ 1 A no d s ea y poems

EM NENT a ke as poe and c c Ma hew A no d ho ds a p ace o s ngu a d s nc on among he

ep esen a ve w e s o he V c o an age H s poe ca wo k s much sma e n vo ume and ess va ed n
n e es and ange han ha o h s wo mo e popu a con empo a es Tennyson and B own ng bu e ec s
a ong ce a n nes even mo e a h u y han he poe y o e he some pecu a y s gn can endenc es o
n ne een h cen u y hough A no d h mse a any a e was conv nced—and ew poe s have been su e
c cs o he own wo k han he— ha he need no ea compa son w h e he B own ng o Tennyson as an
n e p e e o even he “ma n movemen o m nd” 1 n he Eng and o h s me n h s n e ec ua sympa h es
and n e es s he was much nea e ak n o B own ng han o Tennyson L ke B own ng A no d was a ge y a
man o he wo d hough un ke h m he s ud ous y kep h s s de o h s cha ac e ou o h s poe y s nhs
c ca p osew ngs and n h s e e s d sappo n ng hough he a e may be om a pu e y e a y po n o
v ew ha we d scove he ea A no d—bo h he se sea ch ng poe w h h s

h dden g ound
O hough and o aus e y w h n

and he sh ewd obse ve o men and movemen s cu ous y sens ve o a “p ay o he m nd ” whe eve and n
whomsoeve he ound When a a compa a ve y ea y pe od n h s e a y ca ee he v ua y abandoned
poe y o p ose he a once came n o ouch w h a much w de pub c and h s e e s ank y exp ess he
de gh wh ch he e n hav ng a as ound an “aud ence ” H s poe y was he u o “ca m con emp a on
and ma es c pa ns ” a he han o u gen and mpe a ve mpu se The e s a sense o eedom and even o
ga e y abou h s p ose wh ch sugges s a be a ed sp mov ng eas y and happ y n s p ope e emen And
was no on y a de gh bu a sou ce o se ous sa s ac on o A no d o ee ha h ough h s p ose w ngs
he was ab e o exe a ea n uence upon he e and hough o h s own gene a on He was an ne ec ve
pub c speake bu h s w en excu s ons n o eg ons whe e he popu a speake ho ds he e d a ac ed as
much a en on and made as powe u an mp ess on as he mos sound ng p a o m u e ances o he day H s
manne o p each ng h s new ound gospe had e n o he e vou o he soc a c usade and o e ed a
ma ked con as o he s den he o c w h wh ch Ca y e o examp e sough o mp ess h s
con empo a es He h mse de ned h s me hod as “s nuous easy unpo em ca ” bu he emp oyed w h
dead y e ec n unde m n ng he “ o s o o y ” H s ban e and h s ony o en gave o ence and many o h s
eade s ound d cu o pu up w h he O ymp an a o supe o y a ec ed by a c c who ook he who e
conduc o e o h s p ov nce Bu he e was no escap ng he e a y cha m o p ose d scou ses cas n a
de gh u y esh and nd v dua s y e wh ch w h a s manne sms e a ned he pe uc d c ea ness and
d s nc on o h s poe y Mo eove h s a e p ose w ngs con med he op n on wh ch h s poe y and a ew
ea y essays had gone a o es ab sh ha Ma hew A no d was he mos b an e a y c c o h s me
Much o h s soc a po ca and e g ous c c sm s pe haps because o s epheme a sub ec s doomed
u ma e y o ob v on a hough a good pa o can neve ose s po n o p ac ca va ue wh e he empe
and hab s o he Eng sh peop e ema n subs an a y wha hey a e H s e a y c c sms howeve w ve as
ong as he bes o he k nd and n he comb na on o ema kab e poe c ach evemen w h um na ng
d scou se on he a o poe y and on “ he bes ha s known and hough n he wo d ” D yden and
Co e dge a one among Eng sh w e s sha e h s p e em nence
1
Ma hew A no d he e des son o Thomas A no d head mas e o Rugby was bo n a La eham on
Ch s mas eve 1822 H s mo he who su v ved he husband mo e han h y yea s was a woman o g ea
o ce o cha ac e who had so much n e ec ua sympa hy w h he son as o make h s e e s o he he mos
n ma e pe sona eco ds o h m ha we possess Ma hew owed much o h s d s ngu shed a he —h s h gh
sense o du y h s n e ec ua hones y h s aus e e mo a dea s we e ab d ng pa e na nhe ances bu as h s
e and w ngs ended mo e and mo e o show he was n some ways and pa cu a y n empe amen
cu ous y un ke h m Ma hew A no d en e ed Rugby n 1837 whe e he ema ned un he won a Ba o
scho a sh p a Ox o d n 1841 Ox o d a ha me was ag a ed by he ac a an movemen and Newman
was a he he gh o h s ex ao d na y n uence n he un ve s y Tha n uence does no seem o have had
much any n e ec ua o sp ua e ec upon Ma hew A no d bu ke o he s o mo e o ess no e n he
Ox o d o h s day he e unde he spe o Newman s pe sona cha m o wh ch he g ves a v v d desc p on
n one o he a es o h s pub c u e ances 2 A no d by empe amen was oo an c e ca and p obab y
sha ed oo s ong y h s a he s p onounced hos y o he neo ca ho c movemen o have any deep
sympa hy w h Newman s each ng n 1843 he won he Newd ga e p ze w h a poem en ed C omwe
bu he d sappo n ed h s ends and u o s a yea a e by ob a n ng on y a second c ass n L e ae
Human o es L ke h s end C ough howeve who had me w h a s m a a e be o e h m he was conso ed
o h s success n he schoo s by he awa d o a e owsh p a O e Pass ona e y hough Ma hew A no d
oved he “swee c y w h he d eam ng sp es ” even he a a nmen o h s cove ed academ c d gn y cou d
no keep h m a Ox o d P obab y as some o h s adm e s have sugges ed he ne o e ha wou d have
su ed h m bes was ha o a d p oma s 3 A d p oma c ca ee seemed o e n h s way when n 1847 he
was appo n ed p va e sec e a y o o d Lansdowne The bes h ng howeve n he way o advancemen
wh ch o d Lansdowne hen p es den o he counc cou d do o h m was o appo n h m o an nspec o sh p
o schoo s “Though am a schoo mas e s son ” A no d ong a e wa ds ank y o d a mee ng o eache s “
con ess ha schoo each ng o schoo nspec ng s no he ne o e shou d na u a y have chosen
adop ed n o de o ma y ” Tha was n 1851 when he ma ed F ances Lucy W gh man The cond ons o
h s o c a wo k we e any h ng bu avou abe o he p oduc on o poe y bu nea y a A no d s bes poe y
was w en du ng he bus es yea s o h s schoo nspec o a e As he yea s wen on he came o d scove
ha even he d ab ask wo k o schoo nspec on had s compensa ons He oved ch d en and he ook a
genu ne n e es n he we a e o eache s mo eove n h s ou neys om schoo o schoo he acqu ed ha
many s ded know edge o Eng sh e and cha ac e o wh ch he made e ec ve use n h s soc a c c sms He
dwe w h “ he Ph s nes” n he en s was cons an y go ng n and ou among “ he popu ace” and on
occas ons b oke b ead w h “ he ba ba ans ”
2
n 1859 Ma hew A no d was appo n ed o e gn ass s an comm ss one on educa on and sen on a
m ss on o enqu e n o he sys ems o p ma y educa on p eva ng n F ance Ho and Be g um Sw ze and
and P edmon The mmed a e esu o h s con nen a v s was he ssue n 1861 o h s Popu a Educa on
o F ance o wh ch he mos pe manen y va uab e pa he n oduc o y essay was subsequen y
epub shed unde he e “Democ acy” n M xed Essays 1879 n 1864 appea ed a by p oduc o he
same o e gn m ss on en ed no pe haps ve y app op a e y A F ench E on be ng an accoun o he
gene a economy o a Lycee a Tou ouse n 1865 he wen ab oad on a second educa ona m ss on o
wh ch he pub shed eco d appea ed n 1868 unde he e Schoo s and Un ve s es on he Con nen
These vo umes and he Repo s on E emen a y Schoo s ed ed a e h s dea h by S F anc s Sand o d
make up he sum o A no d s o c a educa ona w ngs and hey a be ong o he pe od o h s poe ca
ac v y wh ch p ac ca y ended w h he yea 1867 To he same pe od a so be ong wo o he p ose wo ks
wh ch s and somewha apa om he se es o w ngs beg nn ng w h Cu u e and Ana chy wh ch won o
h m h s con empo a y enown as a soc a and po ca c c They a e he de gh u c ca d scou ses On
T ans a ng Home 1861 and The S udy o Ce c L e a u e 1867 n wh ch we nd he essence o h s
p e ec ons om he cha o poe y a Ox o d a pos o wh ch he was e ec ed n 1857 and wh ch he he d o
en yea s A e 1867 A no d w o e e poe y and en e ed upon a ca ee as pub c s on soc a e g ous
and po ca sub ec s wh ch ed h m somewha a a e d om he h gh oad o e a u e He soon became a
con ove s a s whom he newspape s and magaz nes o he hou ound p o ab e o no ce and o a ack
h s ame sp ead ac oss he A an c and n 1883 ed o he nev ab e Ame c an ec u ng ou wh ch has been
he no a ways happy o o many popu a Eng sh au ho s A no d s Ame c an expe ences seem on he
who e o have been a y o una e and he h mse se such s o e by h s ec u es n he Un ed S a es as o e
one o h s ends 4 ha D scou ses n Ame ca “was he book by wh ch o a h s p ose w ngs he mos
des ed o be emembe ed ” n 1886 he es gned h s schoo nspec o sh p and was awa ded a s a e pens on
He d ed sudden y a L ve poo on 15 Ap 1888 H s e n sp e o uncongen a asks and some so e
domes c a s was a pecu a y happy one and he sec e o s happ ness was h s se ene empe and an
nexhaus b e n e es n mundane h ngs ev den h oughou h s e e s o h s ends and h s am y
§ 2 The S ayed Reve e

A no d s s vo ume o poems was p n ed n 1849 unde he e The S ayed Reve e and o he Poems
by A Th s modes budge o ve se hough con a ned a ew sho poems no n e o n qua y o he bes o
h s subsequen wo k a ac ed e pub c a en on and was w hd awn om c cu a on a e on y a ew
cop es had been so d The same a e be e h s second pub shed vo ume Empedoc es on E na and o he
poems by A wh ch appea ed n Oc obe 1852 D ssa s ac on w h he e poem was he eason g ven by
A no d h mse o he w hd awa o h s second vo ume bu een yea s a e wa ds a he ns ance o
Robe B own ng he epub shed he poem The sac ce o Empedoc es howeve seems o have been a
k nd o s a eg c e ea wh ch enab ed he poe n he o wo ng yea o pub sh bo d y unde h s own name
a new vo ume w h a p e ace de n ng h s v ews upon some o he p me ob ec s and unc ons o poe y Th s
vo ume 1853 nc uded many o he poems a eady p n ed n s wo p edecesso s oge he w h o he wh ch
a e sh n ng examp es o h s mo e e abo a e and cons de ed wo k such as Soh ab and Rus um and The
Scho a G psy n 1855 appea ed Poems by Ma hew A no d Second Se es a vo ume w h on y wo new
poems Ba de Dead and Sepa a on bu con a n ng a u he ns a men o epub ca ons nc ud ng some
agmen s o Empedoc es om he ea e vo umes n 1858 Me ope a T agedy composed as a so o
“poe ca d p oma p ece”on h s e ec on o he Ox o d p o esso sh p was pub shed A e an n e va o n ne
yea s h s nex and h s as sepa a e vo ume o poems—as d s ngu shed om ed ons o h s co ec ed
wo ks—appea ed unde he e New Poems n h s vo ume Empedoc es made s eappea ance n he
company o such no ab e poems as Thy s s Rugby Chape He ne s G ave A Sou he n N gh Dove
Beach and Obe mann Once Mo e Du ng he as wen y yea s o h s e w h he excep on o a ew
occas ona p eces o he qua y o Wes m ns e Abbey and Ge s s G ave A no d p oduced no h ng wh ch
added ma e a y o h s poe ca epu a on
§ 3 A no d s “ heo y o poe y”

A su vey o A no d s poems n he ch ono og ca o de b ngs n o p om nence wo ou s and ng ac s— he

ea y ma u y o h s gen us and h s s ead as adhe ence h oughou o ce a n ve y de n e dea s o poe c a
and o a s ngu a y me ancho y ph osophy o e We no e a once n he s sma vo ume o 1849 he
p edom nan y G eek nsp a on o s con en s bo h n ma e and n s y e As he poe h mse avows n a
amous sonne he h ee G eek mas e s who mos o a “p opped n hose bad days h s m nd” we e
Home Ep c e us and espec a y Sophoc es— he a e a poe u ng A no d s dea as one whom

Bus ness cou d no make du no pass on w d

Who saw e s ead y and saw who e

The e poem The S ayed Reve e s se G eek n bo h sub ec and o m s me ess and egu a
me e be ng an a emp o ep oduce he e ec o he cho c odes o A c agedy The F agmen o an
“An gone”—ano he expe men n un med y c—Myce nus The New S ens The S ck K ng n
Bokha a a e a G eek e he n sub ec o n sou ce o n manne o ea men W ng n 1867 o he G eek
s a n n A no d s poe y gene a y Sw nbu ne sa d
Even a e h s mas e h s d sc p e o Sophoc es ho ds h s h gh p ace he has ma ched aga ns he
A c o he gods h s Hype bo ean d a ec o ou s and has no ea ned he doom o Ma syas

n h s endeavou s o a une ou “Hype bo ean d a ec ” o A c mus c A no d was p a n y n uenced by he

examp e o Goe he—ano he o h s e ong mas e s a ke n a and n h s “w de and um nous v ew” o e
who o h m was “ he g ea es mode n poe he g ea es c c o a me ” 5 Goe he s p esence s e n
The S ayed Reve e vo ume as a so s ha o he Eng sh mas e who

a d us as we ay a b h
On he coo owe y ap o ea h

The G eeks Goe he Wo dswo h— hese a e he p me e a y sou ces o Ma hew A no d s poe ca

nsp a on and we a e n as c ose ouch w h hem a n he poems o 1849 as we a e n hose o 1867 The
Wo dswo h an “no e ” as he poe h mse m gh say s c ea y hea d n Reg s a on To a G psy Ch d and
Myce nus D s nc echoes o Laodam a a e caugh n Myce nus wh e he g ave movemen o To a G psy
Ch d s qu e a e Wo dswo h s manne Bu he n uence o Wo dswo h s mos appa en n
Res gna on—a once a poem o na u e and a c y om he dep h o he poe s own sou No poem
howeve us a es be e han h s as he essen a d e ence be ween A no d s ee ng o na u e and ha o
Wo dswo h The e s a w de d s ance be ween he poe o whom he “m gh end he e a vo ce ” h s
s eams ocks he sky “seemed o bea a he han e o ce ” and he see who e was na u e s “p v ege
o ead om oy o oy” and who he d he a h ha “eve y owe en oys he a b ea hes ” Pe haps he mos
o g na poem n he 1849 vo ume s The Fo saken Me man wh ch s ema kab e a ke o s pa hos and s
me ca sk and was s ng ed ou by C ough n a ev ew pub shed n 1853 6 C ough ound The S ck K ng
nBokha a “ a he s a ned ” O he c cs have ound du whe eas one whose e a y udgmen was neve
a a au —R H Hu on—he d ha A no d “neve ach eved any h ng so u y d ama c ”
5
W h he vo ume o poems pub shed unde h s own name n 1853 A no d as a eady s a ed ssued a
p e ace expound ng some o he ma n p nc p es o h s “ heo y o poe y ” Th s p e ace now eas y access b e
dese ves ca e u ead ng as s A no d s s pub shed “essay n c c sm ” ema kab e a ke o s ease and
g ace o s y e wh ch bea s e ace o he ma ked manne sms o h s a e p ose and o s c ea expos on
o a poe ca c eed o wh ch s au ho n he ma n adhe ed bo h n p ecep and p ac ce h oughou h s e
We nd h m de n e y ang ng h mse as he apos e o a c ass ca dea o poe y n oppos on o he vaga es
and excesses o he oman c schoo o wh ch Eng and seemed o h m hen o be “ he s ongho d ” 7 And
mo e pa cu a y he denounces v ews ke hose o he c c whom he quo es as ma n a n ng ha
he poe who wou d ea y x he pub c a en on mus eave he exhaus ed pas and d aw h s
sub ec s om ma e s o p esen mpo and he e o e bo h o n e es and o nove y

He e s sounded he s no e o ha wa c y aga ns he Ph s nes wh ch he was des ned n a e yea s o

send ng ng h ough many g ooves o he na ona e When we exam ne he p e ace n he gh o A no d s
own poe ca p ac ce may be u ged ha he a ed n h s a emp s o exemp y on any a ge sca e one o s
ma n heses Empedoc es and Me ope a e h s wo mos amb ous e o s o ep esen “s ua ons” a e he
manne o he anc en s— he s on h s own con ess on an unsa s y ng ach evemen he a e n he op n on
o he ma o y o even h s adm e s a g ace u bu somewha ne ec ua academ c exe c se
§ 4 Soh ab and Rus um

O he con en s o he vo ume o 1853 he poem wh ch comes nea es o a p ac ca us a on o he heo es

o he p e ace s Soh ab and Rus um he mos n shed and success u o h s na a ve poems The sub ec
appea s ke he hemes o c ass ca agedy o “ he g ea p ma y human a ec ons ” and s ea ed w h a
c ea ness and sus a ned e eva on o s y e as c ose y app ox ma ng he G eek manne “ he g and s y e ” as
any h ng e se o be ound n a e Eng sh poe y The b ank ve se s hand ed h oughou w h sub e sk and
n many passages s em n scen o M on—pa cu a y n he a s c use o he ong s m e and o ecu en
pa ades o sono ous p ope names A no d s s m es he e a e ke M on s a a e he G eek ep c ype
and he who e poem s ho ough y Home c n manne and subs ance The human n e es o he
“ep sode”— o so he au ho desc bes h s poem—cen es n he ag c a e o he b ave and gen e Soh ab
s a n by he a he who does no know h m and n he de nea on o no o he cha ac e n h s poe y does
Ma hew A no d show a su e and mo e sympa he c ouch The we known desc p on o he Oxus a he
c ose o he poem s no me e p c o a a e hough due o A no d s a eged penchan o “e ec ve
end ngs ” bu s as a s ca y gh as s n ns ca y beau u
7
W h Soh ab and Rus um much he mos no ab e new con bu on o he 1853 vo ume s The
Scho a G psy pe haps he mos cha m ng as s one o he happ es n concep on and execu on o a
A no d s poems s cha m es pa y n he sub ec na u a y congen a o he poe and pa y n he scene
wh ch s mu a es one o Ox o d s poe c ch d en o av sh a h s powe s o desc p on upon he andscape
wh ch he dea y oved He was o e u n o he same na u a scene y n Thy s s bu a hough n he a e
poem he e may be one desc p ve passage wh ch su passes any h ng o be ound n he ea e Thy s s a s
o g ve he mp ess on o eage eshness and ease wh ch a e e h oughou The Scho a G psy The wo
poems a e pas o a n o m bu he e s much ess concess on o a c a conven ons n The Scho a G psy
han n s mo e consc ous y e eg ac successo Wha howeve g ves he ab d ng cha m o bo h s he
v v dness and he beau y o he p c u es o na u e and he mag c spe cas by he haun ng nes ove
Ox o d and s ad acen e ds and h s n The Scho a G psy he sub e g amou o a ha Ox o d and s
ne ghbou hood sugges o he eye and o he memo y s e n g mpses o

The ne o es a gh n Ch s Chu ch ha

o he “Ox o d de s b he”

C oss ng he s p ng Thames a Bab ock h he

o “ he wa m g een mu ed Cumne h s ” “ he Fy e d e m n May ” he “d s an Wychwood bowe s ”

Gods ow b dge Bag ey wood and “ he o es g ound ca ed Thessa y ” n he a e pa o he poem A no d
nds a na u a open ng o h s cha ac e s c pens ve mo a s ngs upon

h s s ange d sease o mode n e

W h s s ck hu y s d v ded a ms

when men a e bu “ha be eve s” n he “casua c eeds”—as con as ed w h days when “ e an ga y as he

spa k ng Thames ” and when was s poss b e o an “Ox o d scho a poo ” o pass h ough hem nu s ng
“ he unconque ab e hope” and “c u ch ng he nv o ab e shade ”
§ 5 H s a e poems

Seve a poems om he w hd awn vo ume o 1852 we e ep n ed n 1853 bu on y wo o h ee o he

mo e mpo an ones can be no ced he e The mos e abo a e and he nes o hese s T s am and
seu a poem wh ch seems o evea he au ho n a pecu a mood o hes a on He s he e exp o ng he
sho es o o d omance as a a d o mak ng a m and ng and o bo d y occupy ng he a coun y ha
opens ou be o e h m The ve y equency o h s changes o me e n he poem p oduces an mp ess on o
unce a n y and o a sh nk ng om he u cha enge wh ch h s sub ec gave h m S anzas n Memo y o he
Au ho o “Obe mann” s one o hose pe sona and e ec ve poems wh ch a e cha ac e s c o Ma hew
A no d s wo k and wh ch g ve us he mos n ma e eve a ons o h s sou s s ange o nd a
compa a ve y obscu e w e ke Sènancou c ass ed w h Goe he and Wo dswo h as one o he h ee
pu ssan sp s who n “ he hope ess ang e o ou age ” a one seemed o he poe o “have a a n d o see
he way ” 8 Bu was a somewha mo b d n e es a e a ha he poe e n Sènancou —

A eve n hese pages bu ns

Benea h he ca m hey e gn
A wounded human sp u ns
He e on s bed o pa n

Wha howeve n h s s Obe mann poem s o mos mpo a e he b e passages wh ch speak o

Goe he and Wo dswo h s seque Obe mann Once Mo e—w en many yea s a e wa ds— s as a
who e a mo e hough compe ng poem no so much because o wha s sa d abou Sènancou as o wha s
evea ed o A no d s own a ude owa ds he e g ous hough o h s me n Memo a Ve ses—ano he
poem nc uded n he 1853 vo ume—we have he poe s e eg ac bu e o h s g ea es Eng sh mas e
Wo dswo h and nc den a y memo ab e summa es o he g s o By on and Goe he Whe he he c ca
es ma e o Wo dswo h embod ed n hese ve ses s comp e e o us a a po n s may be a ma e o
d spu e bu no one can e use o o n n he e c ous pa ng no e

Keep esh he g ass upon h s g ave

O Ro ha w h hy v ng wave
S ng h m hy bes o ew o none
Hea s hy vo ce gh now he s gone

A Summe N gh g ves us as mov ng and as a s ca y pe ec an exp ess on o A no d s ph osophy o e

as any h ng o be ound n h s poe y None o h s poems opens n a ne mag na ve s a n and n no o he s
he ans on om he human n e es sugges ed by he “moon b anch d s ee ” and s oppos e v s on o he
head ands and he sea by “ he same b gh ca m moon ” o he cen a med a ve passages mo e sk u y
and ye na u a y con ved A e compa ng n one o hese passages hose who escape om h s wo d s
p son w h s “unmean ng ask wo k” o he empes ossed he msman who c ngs o h s “spa s ewn
deck ”

S ben o make some po he knows no whe e

S s and ng o some a se mposs b e sho e

he ends up w h a magn cen a ma on o he powe and s ead as ness o na u e as

A wo d above man s head o e h m see

How bound ess m gh h s sou s ho zons be 9

9
The so ca ed “second se es” o poems wh ch A no d pub shed n 1855 nc uded on y one cons de ab e
new poem—Ba de Dead a wo k wh ch he poe hough wou d “conso da e he pecu a so o epu a on
he go by Soh ab and Rus um ” 10 Th s poem s gh y onge han Soh ab s cas n he same Home c
ve n and w en n equa y exce en b ank ve se Bu he sub ec a s somehow o g p he eade as
powe u y as does ha o he ea e poem 11 To he yea 1855 a so be ongs h s nex mpo an poem
S anzas om he G ande Cha euse wh ch was pub shed n he Ap numbe o F ase s Magaz ne
These ve ses n wh ch Obe mann aga n appea s a e among he mos pa he c o A no d s pe sona
“con ess ons” n ve se Nowhe e e se does he g ve us a c ea e o a mo e po gnan a cu a on o h s
ee ngs as a so a y and a bu o o n wande e om a am a o ds o a h han n he nes whe e o he
Ca hus an “b o he hood aus e e ”

No as he end o ch d speak
Bu as on some a no he n s and
Th nk ng o h s own Gods a G eek
n p y and mou n u awe m gh s and
Be o e some a en Run c s one—
Fo bo h we e a hs and bo h a e gone
Wande ng be ween wo wo ds one dead
The o he powe ess o be bo n
W h nowhe e ye o es my head
L ke hese on ea h wa o o n
The a h my ea s he wo d de de
come o shed hem a he s de

10
n 1858 a yea a e h s e ec on o he Ox o d cha o poe y A no d pub shed Me ope a
T agedy—w h an e abo a e p e ace o wh ch he mos pe manen y n e es ng pa s an expos on
adm ab y c ea and conc se o some o he ca d na p nc p es o G eek ag c a Me ope was no
ep n ed and nc uded n h s own au ho sed canon o h s poe ca wo ks un 1885 As a d ama acks e
as poe y s ce a n y n e o o Empedoc es The me ess cho uses upon wh ch A no d bes owed much
pa ns may as he e s us have p oduced on “h s own ee ng a s m a mp ess on o ha p oduced on by
he hy hms o G eek cho c poe y” bu hey a a on an un ns uc ed ea and desp e he e o a e
co ec ness o s uc u e g ve a much ess v v d mp ess on o he gene a e ec o G eek cho c measu es
han does he “ e axed o m” wh ch A no d w shes M on had no adop ed n Samson Agon s es
11
The New Poems o 1867 nc uded seve a by wh ch Ma hew A no d s now bes emembe ed bu none
wh ch can be sa d o exce he bes o h s p ev ous wo k They a e nea y a o an e eg ac o med a ve
cha ac e and epea he o d am a me ancho y s a n L ke The Scho a G psy Thy s s s bo h an dy o
he Ox o d coun y and a p a n ve p o es aga ns he d sco dan spec ac e

O men con en on os o men who g oan

The andscape s p c u ed once mo e n nes as exqu s e as hose o he ea e poem wh e no passage n

a A no d s poe y su passes n beau y he wo s anzas wh ch con as he “ empes uous mo n n ea y June ”
w h “ he h gh M dsumme pomps” unde

d eam ng ga den ees

And he u moon and he wh e even ng s a

Rugby Chape aga n s ano he p o essed y e eg ac poem wh ch s as much conce ned w h “ he c oud o
human des ny” as w h he memo y o he poe s a he Though Rugby Chape s cha ged w h n ense
ee ng s me ess ve se has abou some h ng ha d and he o ca wh ch s e s mo e n He ne s G ave
As a pu e y e eg ac poem A Sou he n N gh n wh ch A no d amen s he dea h o h s b o he su passes a
he o he s n ende ness and dep h o ee ng and s no n e o o hem n poe ca exp ess on Wes m ns e
Abbey—a nob e e egy on h s a he s b og aphe and h s own e ong end dean S an ey—and h ee o he
poems we e he on y e o s n ve se A no d a emp ed a e 1867 O hese as h ee he poem on h s dead
dachshund “Ge s ” s one o he mos beau u h ngs o s k nd n he anguage
§ 6 The qua es o h s poe y

“The c c sm o D yden ” says Johnson “was he c c sm o a poe ” w h even g ea e us ce may be

sa d ha Ma hew A no d s poe y was he poe y o a c c A hough s he ash on o ca h m he bes o
ou e eg ac poe s and a hough h s ve se cons s s ma n y o sho poems we do no ns nc ve y h nk o h m
as p ma y o p e em nen y a y c poe The e s sca ce y one poem by h m wh ch s e o be an ou bu s
o unp emed a ed ca e ess y c ap u e The e s doub ess an “emo on o he n e ec ” wh ch nds as
g ow ng u e ance n y c poe y as he emo on o he hea bu does no ouch us n qu e he same way
And s us because o ou consc ousness o he p edom nance o he n e ec ove he hea even n h s
s mp e and mo e mov ng poems ha we m ss he h wh ch a ea y pass ona e y c poe y o ces us o
ee Requ esca he Sw ze and poems Dove Beach— o name a ew o h s bes known sho e
p eces—a e a e he oo “ uc d y sad” o oo pa pab y med a ve o be c assed as pu e y cs H s “second
hough s ” unn ng a ways on he dd e o h s pa n u ea h c oud h s v s on and s ay h s u e ance When he
u ned o poe y A no d—capab e hough he was o be ng gay and gh hea ed enough n h s
p ose—seemed o su ende h mse o a me ancho y appa en y so b ed n he bone as on y o be exp a ned
as some h ng cons u ona Th s was ha mos o a oze he gen a cu en o h s poe c sou H s
m a ons howeve o wha eve cause hey may have been due have no been a oge he o h s
d sadvan age o ew poe s a any me have p oduced so much wh ch s so un o m y exce en n s y e
Luc d y was wha he a med a above a h ngs—c ass ca beau y and u h o ph ase and mage sugges ng
a ways n h s own wo ds “ he pu e nes o an on an ho zon he qu d c ea ness o an on an sky ” Th s
s ud ed e o a e pe ec on o o m accoun s a ge y hough no a oge he o “ he qua y o
adhes veness” wh ch S Les e S ephen ound n A no d s poe y s poe y wh ch as he same c c adds
“ ea ns se by hea ” n many p aces Bu cou d no do h s had no ove and above h s o ma
exce ence qua es ha ouch he hea and s he ee ngs Love s o poe y ess e cen and es a ned
han A no d s n he exp ess on o emo on ess conce ned w h sp ua doub s and d sco ds and mo e
abandoned n s ndu gence n he mo e ac e o ms o sen men may nd h s poems co d unsympa he c
even epe en Bu hose who ook o he mo e ab d ng e emen s o poe ca cha m and powe can neve
ema n nsens b e o he n ens y o ee ng “ he sense o ea s n mo a h ngs ” he he o ca y aus e e empe
and above a he ee ng o na u e and he chas en ng n uences wh ch hey w d scove n a h s bes
poems n h s v ew o na u e Ma hew A no d s no as we have seen qu e Wo dswo h s d sc p e Fo
A no d na u e s “sec e was no oy bu peace ” He oved he n he qu e e and mo e subdued moods he
p e e ed he s ences o he many vo ces moon gh o sun gh he sea e ea ng om he “moon b anch d
and” w h “ s me ancho y ong w hd aw ng oa ” o he sea n umu and s o m The sea—“ he
unp umb d sa es ang ng sea”—was o h m he one e emen n wh ch he d scove ed he deepes
e ec on o h s own me ancho y and sense o so a on Bu above eve y h ng wha he wo sh pped n na u e
was he s ead as ness and ca m eve each ng he esson o Se Dependence

And w h oy he s a s pe o m he sh n ng
And he sea s ong moon s ve d o
Fo se po sed hey ve no p ne w h no h ng
A he eve o some d e ng sou

13
By a s ange ony was he o o a poe who ound hese m gh y conso a ons n he e o na u e o “p ne
w h no h ng” he eve o h s own sou o such an ex en as o ma k h m ou among he poe s o he V c o an
age as he one who a cu a es mo e d s nc y han any o he he c y o he ma ad e de s èc e— he ”doub s
d spu es d s ac ons ea s” o an “ on me ” He has no ce a n sp ua anodynes o p esc be o hose
who su e om h s s ckness beyond a s o ca ecogn on o he pa amoun c a ms o du y and an e o o
ve “se po sed ” ke he powe s o na u e un we ee ou sou s becom ng vas ke hem Bu n sp e o
hese counse s o o ude we nd he poe h mse o en possessed by a w s u yea n ng o “make o some
mposs b e sho e”—“ag a ed ” as he says o Ma cus Au e us and “s e ch ng ou h s hands o some h ng
beyond— enden emque manus pae u e o s amo e
§ 7 H s p ose Essays n C c sm

Ma hew A no d s p ose w ngs ma n y we e he wo k o h s m dd e and a e yea s 12 They dea w h

p ac ca y he en e ab c o Eng sh c v sa on and cu u e n h s day and hey a e a d ec ed by one c ea
and cons s en c ca pu pose Tha pu pose was o “cu e he g ea v ce o ou n e ec man es ng se n
ou nc ed b e vaga es n e a u e n a n e g on n mo a s name y ha s an as c and wan s
san y ” 13
15
The ma n body o h s pu e y e a y c c sm w h he excep on o a ew sca e ed essays s o be ound n
he ec u es On T ans a ng Home 1861 and The S udy o Ce c L e a u e 1867 and n he wo
vo umes en ed Essays n C c sm 1865 1889 The mos no ab e o hese books as us a ng
A no d s e a y dea s and p e e ences—h s c ca me hod may be equa y we s ud ed n he o he s — s
undoub ed y he s se es o Essays n C c sm s appea ance n 1865 was some h ng o a e a y
sensa on by eason o s s y e he nove y and con dence o s op n ons and he w de and cu ous ange o
s sub ec s No vo umes o c ca essays had be o e appea ed n Eng and a eas on a co ec on o
sub ec s and au ho s so d ve se as he e a y n uence o academ es pagan and med eva e g ous
sen men a Pe s an pass on p ay he Du Gue ns Joube He ne Sp noza Ma cus Au e us And he s
wo essays n pa cu a s uck a no e o cha enge o a he popu a c cs o he day They p oc a med he
appea ance o a pa ad n ben above eve y h ng upon p e c ng he a mou o se su c ency and
“p ov nc a y ” n wh ch he ave age Eng sh “au ho y n ma e s o as e” had been accus omed o s u w h
much con dence He e o he s me we come ac oss ve ba weapons o be epea ed y used w h
devas a ng e ec n a e ong campa gn aga ns he hos s o Ph s a The amous n ckname “Ph s ne ”
bo owed om He ne makes s s appea ance n h s book— o deno e he “s ong dogged
unen gh ened opponen o he chosen peop e o he ch d en o gh ” We now s hea a so o “ he
p ov nc a sp ” “ he bes ha s known and hough n he wo d ” “ he ee p ay o he m nd ” “ ex b y o
n e gence”—a e wa ds o be den ed w h P a o s ? ? 14 ”p ose o he cen e ” “ he mode n sp ”
“c c sm o e” and o he ph ases des ned by e e a ed use o become am a A hough he au ho s
weapons we e ma n y o h s own mak ng h s way o us ng hem h s ad o and dex e ous me hods o a ack
had been ea n om F ance F ench p ose o Ma hew A no d was he “p ose o he cen e ” he nea es
mode n equ va en o “A c p ose ” and he wo con empo a y c cs he adm ed mos we e Sa n e Beuve
and Renan n pu e y e a y c c sm Sa n e Beuve s h s ch e mode bu h s me hods n o he c ca e ds
we e a ge y he esu s o h s ead ng o Renan As ea y as 1859 he speaks o Renan as one “be ween
whose ne o endeavou and my own mag ne he e s cons de ab e esemb ance ” 15 The wo esemb ed
each o he no eas n he adop on o a s y e en s m n meque pe nax—“s nuous easy
unpo em ca ”—ve y un ke he “h gh y cha ged heavy sho ed a c es” o Eng sh newspape c cs 16
16
A no d s know edge and app ec a on o F ench p ose we e w de and pecu a y sens ve and s and n
cu ous con as o h s ack o en hus asm o no nd e ence o F ench poe y F ance “ amed n a g ea
a s n none sup eme ” appea ed o h m o have ach eved he mos s gna umphs n p ose bu h s pa a y
o F ench p ose ed h m o some s ange vaga es o udgmen n h s es ma es o nd v dua w e s
Sa n e Beuve and Renan no doub dese ved he a e y he pa d bo h by m a ng hem bu he has g ven an
exagge a ed mpo ance o such w e s as he Du Gueacu e ns Joube and Am e
17
When we u n om hese eccen c p e e ences o he ma n p nc p es o h s e a y c c sm we nd n h s
de n ons o hem a any a e much ha s ncon ove b e and a e ha s open o ques on
“D s n e es edness ” de achmen he e s us s he s equ s e n a e a y c c—“a d s n e es ed
endeavou o ea n and p opaga e he bes ha s known and hough n he wo d ” W h h s goes
“know edge” and no Eng sh c c s adequa e y equ pped who does no “possess one g ea e a u e a
eas bes des h s own ” C c sm n Eng and was a oge he oo p ov c a No h ng qu e ke h s had been
s a ed n Eng sh be o e and no c c n h s p ac ce made so sedu ous an e o as A no d o conv nce h s
coun ymen o he nsu a y and o pe suade hem o acqu e an Eu opean ou ook n e a u e and a
When he becomes a e mo e pa cu a n h s de n ons and says ha “ he end and a m o a e a u e” s
“a c c sm o e ” 17 and aga n ha “poe y s a bo om a c c sm o e ” 18 he p ovokes a deba e
wh ch a one me was pu sued w h cons de ab e sp and some ace b y—espec a y as S Les e
S ephen has pu by c cs who we e “unab e o d s ngu sh be ween an ep g am and a ph osoph ca
dogma ”
18

No e 12 s a p y ha no comp e e ed on o A no d s p ose wo ks has ye been pub shed n a se ec on o

h s essays ssued by he Ox o d un ve s y p ess n 1914 “ ve essays h he o unco ec ed” we e nc uded he
mos n e es ng o wh ch a e pe haps a ev ew ep n ed om Macm an s Magaz ne o Feb ua y 1863 o
S an ey s Lec u es on he Jew sh Chu ch and a sho a c e en ed Obe mann w en n 1869
§ 8 The S udy o Ce c L e a u e

Wh e e au can be ound w h h s s anda ds and dea s as a c c o poe y some o h s me hods e

open o easy and se ous ob ec on The de ec s a e nhe en n he ve y qua es ha g ve cha m and
nd v dua y o he bes o h s e a y c c sms None o h s wo ks exh b s so we bo h he s eng h and he
weakness o h s me hods as The S udy o Ce c L e a u e—one o he mos de gh u o h s books
cons s ng o numbe o Ox o d ec u es d ec y nsp ed by an essay by Renan 19 n h s excu s ons n o
he Ce c wonde and A no d acked one o he ch e qua ca ons wh ch he des de a es n a
c c—know edge A eas he had no know edge o a s ng e Ce c ongue and hough he wande s n o
by pa hs o e hno ogy and ph o ogy he has o e y upon he ea n ng o o he s o ev dence n suppo o h s
b an gene a sa ons Bu even hose who do know some h ng o he Ce c ongues a e among he s o
ecogn se hese ec u es as a umph o he n u ona me hod n he ns nc ve se zu e o he h ngs ha
ea y ma e n Ce c e a u e and n he p c u esque d agnos s o he Ce c gen us The “ n u ona ”
p ocess howeve has s dange s and he passages n wh ch A no d aces he Ce c “no e” n
Shakespea e By on Kea s Macphe son and he es a e abou as adven u ous an examp e o ska ng on
he h n ce o c c sm as any h ng o be ound n ou eaue
§ 9 Cu u e and Ana chy

The s wo o Essays n C c sm sem po em ca as hey we e n he mo ve and c ea ng as hey d d

a cons de ab e s among he Ph s nes seem o have opened A no d s eyes o h s oppo un es as a soc a
c c He became consc ous by deg ees o hav ng some h ng ke a “m ss on” o h s coun ymen who soon
came o speak o h m as p e em nen y he “apos e o cu u e” n he Eng and o h s day was he e ec o
Essays n C c sm ha ed o he compos on by ns a men s be ween 1867 and 1869 o he book
u ma e y ca ed Cu u e and Ana chy wh ch may be e med h s cen a wo k n c c sm o he han e a y
con a n ng as does he qu n essence o wha he had a eady w en and o much ha he was aga n o
w e upon Eng sh e and cha ac e Memo ab e ph ases wh ch he had a eady used a e he e e ec ve y
epea ed and expanded and new ph ases and ca ch wo ds w h he same qua y o “adhes veness” as he
o d a e pa aded w h he same mpe u bab e e a on Some o hese ph ases such as “swee ness and gh ”
and “ he D ss dence o D ssen ” a e bo owed om we known sou ces wh e o he h ngs ke he
desc p on o Eng sh pub c e as a “Thyes ean banque o c ap ap ” and he de n on o “ he wo po n s o
n uence” be ween wh ch ou wo d moves as “Heb a sm and He en sm ” a e he au ho s own Cu u e
and Ana chy s no a g ea an undoub ed y s mu a ng book s capab e o exe ng a s ong n uence
on young m nds n 1871 A no d pub shed ano he se es o essays n soc a c c sm unde he e
F endsh p s Ga and pe haps he mos m sch evous y amus ng o h s books
20
was undoub ed y he mp ess on made n ce a n qua e s by Cu u e and Ana chy ha ed A no d n o
he somewha pe ous e d o heo og ca and e g ous c c sm— n wh ch h s ch e wo ks a e S Pau and
P o es an sm 1870 L e a u e and Dogma 1873 God and he B b e 1875 and Las Essays on
Chu ch and Re g on 1877 L e need be sa d o hese wo ks he e cons u ng as hey do as a who e
he eas va uab e and endu ng g oup o h s p ose w ngs The mos popu a o hem n s day was
L e a u e and Dogma a wo k bea ng obv ous ma ks o he n uence o Renan and an e abo a e
d squ s on upon a ex enunc a ed n Cu u e and Ana chy—“No man who knows no h ng e se knows
even h s own B b e ” The equen ppancy no o say ev y o one wh ch cha ac e ses h s ea men o
sac ed sub ec s n h s and o he books oge he w h h s oo exc us ve y e a y and “ n u ona ” c ca
me hods n dea ng w h p ob ems o heo og ca scho a sh p a oused a good dea o esen men No ca e u
and d spass ona e eade o h s e g ous w ngs can howeve have any ques on abou he s nce y and he
se ousness o A no d s mo ves Some o h s ca ch ph ases ob a ned a w de cu ency and a e pe haps
des ned o ve among he mos amous h ngs o he k nd co ned by h m The de n on o God as “a s eam
o endency no ou se ves wh ch makes o gh eousness ” o e g on as “mo a y ouched by emo on ” o
? ? as “ he swee easonab eness” o Jesus— hese and o he ph ases have an ep g amma c qua y wh ch
w p even he be ng soon o go en
21
Su cen has been nc den a y sa d abou he cha ac e s cs o Ma hew A no d s p ose s y e o make
unnecessa y o a emp he e any e abo a e es ma e o s qua es as a who e “The need u qua es o a
p ose ” he h mse has sa d n a am a sen ence “a e egu a y un o m y p ec s on ba ance ” A hese
h ngs may be sa d A no d s own p ose has ma ked y as ha o any o he mode n Eng sh w e The one
p e em nen v ue o h s p ose as o h s ve se s y e s s uc d y—we neve m ss o doub h s mean ng
Bu he qua es wh ch he enume a es—and c ea ness—may be ound n p ose s y es wh ch have e o no
d s nc on and d s nc on n he s c sense o he wo d Ma hew A no d s has s an unm s akab y
nd v dua s y e and n sp e o s obv ous manne sms and occas ona a ec ons s ex eme y d cu o
m a on s a s y e wh ch s no ee om some cap ces ha “p ose o he cen e” wou d avo d bu wh ch
a s bes s abou as nea a u men as s human y poss b e o h s own dea s o o de and uc d y w h he
added g aces o ease e egance and a g ave hy hm ca movemen he e ec o wh ch ke ha o he bes
mus c can be e bu neve adequa e y desc bed
§ 10 A hu Hugh C ough H s hexame e s

The common connec on w h Rugby and Ox o d and he mpe shab e commemo a on o he Ox o d

endsh p n Thy s s nsepa ab y nk w h he name o Ma hew A no d ha o A hu Hugh C ough C ough
was A no d s sen o by some ou yea s and he endsh p was ounded on a deep mu ua espec o each
o he s cha ac e and n e ec ua powe s “You and C ough ” A no d w es o h s s s e Fanny n 1859 20
a e be eve he wo peop e n my hea ca e mos o p ease by wha w e” and a he me o C ough s
dea h he speaks o h s mo he o h s oss as one “wh ch sha ee mo e and mo e as me goes on o he s
one o he ew peop e who eve made a deep mp ess on upon me ” 21 The mos e abo a e bu e pa d o
h m n Las Wo ds on T ans a ng Home s we known he “adm ab e Home c qua es” o The Bo h e
a e he e du y no ed “bu ha n h m o wh ch h nk o enes s he Home c s mp c y o h s e a y e ”
The mp ess on wh ch C ough made on A no d was a ge y due o he ac ha hey we e bo h n he same
“movemen o m nd” n he Eng and o he day n any compa son howeve be ween A no d and C ough
shou d be emembe ed ha p obab y he o me has g ven us a he poe y ha was n h m wh e C ough
d ed young
23
A hu Hugh C ough was bo n n L ve poo on 1 Janua y 1819 n 1828 he was pu o schoo a Ches e
whence he sho y a e wa ds wen o Rugby A Rugby C ough became Thomas A no d s dea pup and
he e he schoo n 1837 w h a g ea epu a on and a Ba o scho a sh p L ke Ma hew A no d a e h m
he on y ook a second c ass n he Ox o d schoo s bu so much was hough o h m ha he was soon made a
e ow and u o o O e He es gned bo h e owsh p and u o sh p n 1848 because o h s nab y o
subsc be any onge o he a h o he chu ch o Eng and Few o he ema kab e g oup o Ox o d men who
ound hemse ves “con en on os ” n he we e o he ac a an ag a on we e so dom na ed by a
s ng e m nded endeavou a e u h as C ough Mos o h s poe y s he eco d o he sp ua and
n e ec ua s ugg es n o wh ch he was p unged by he e g ous un es o he me n 1854 he ma ed
B anche Sm h who was a s cous n o F o ence N gh nga e and n he wo k o he a e du ng and a e
he C mean wa C ough ook he ve es n e es H s hea h neve a any me ve y s ong began o g ve
way n 1859 A e ong and wea y wande ngs on he con nen he d ed a F o ence on 13 Novembe
1861
§ 11 The Bo h e

The eco d o C ough s e a y ac v y s ma n y conce ned w h poe y he w o e bu e p ose o

pe manen va ue and n e es and ha on y n he o m o sca e ed a c es wh ch h s w e co ec ed and
ep n ed ong a e h s dea h H s s poem o appea n p n was he “ ong vaca on pas o a ” n
hexame e s The Bo h e o Tope na Fuos ch 22 composed mmed a e y a e he e Ox o d— he
be a on song o an emanc pa ed sou He had a eady w en sho poems and hese we e soon
a e wa ds pub shed 1849 s n a vo ume ca ed Amba va a he o n p oduc on o C ough and h s
end Thomas Bu b dge and subsequen y n a sepa a e o m These poems nc ude seve a o he bes o
h s sho e y cs such as Qua Cu sum Ven us eco d ng he b eak o h s endsh p w h W G Wa d
Qu Labo a O a The New S na The Ques on ng Sp S c u Du y The H ghe Cou age—a
poems wh ch bea he ma ks o he sp ua con c o h s Ox o d days
25
Du ng a v s o Rome n 1849 C ough composed h s second hexame e poem Amou s de Voyage and
n he o ow ng yea a Ven ce he began D psychus Th s a e poem ke Ma Magno—a se es o
“mode n” a es n oduced and o d n manne em n scen o Chauce —“was no poe s wo ks “du ng he
au ho s e me and shou d no be ega ded as hav ng ece ved h s n sh ng ouches ” The wo ks eco ded
he e oge he w h a numbe o o he y cs—o wh ch he g oup en ed Songs n Absence a e he mos
no ab e—and a ew sa ca and e ec ve p eces cons u e he sum o C ough s poe ca p oduc ons
26
O ew poe s can be sa d mo e pos ve y han o C ough ha h s appea s and a ways mus be o a
se ec and m ed aud ence H s poe y can neve be popu a no on y because much o s oo
n ospec ve bu because he o m o wo o h s mos e abo a e poems w ema n a s umb ng b ock o he
ave age Eng sh eade o poe y “Ca men Hexame um ” says Ascham n The Scho emas e “do h a he
o e and hob e han unne smoo h y n ou Eng sh ong ” and h s wo ds a e s ue n sp e o
n ne een h cen u y e o s o es ab sh ha measu e n ou common p osody Ne he Ma hew A no d s
advocacy o as he med um o Home c ans a on no Bageho s desc p on o n d scuss ng
C ough s hexame e s as “pe haps he mos ex b e o Eng sh me es ”d sposes o he ha d ac ha o
quo e aga n om Bageho no “consumma e poem o g ea eng h and sus a ned d gn y” has eve ye been
w en n n Eng sh To say as one o h s adm e s does ha C ough s hexame e s “a e un ke hose o any
o he w e n any anguage and be e han hose o any o he Eng sh au ho ” and ha he had n h s m nd a
ve y sub e and cons s en concep on o he ha mon es o he measu e s bu o emphas se he cha ge ha
he poe was emo e and equ ed a spec a y ns uc ed c ass o eade s o app ec a e h m Bu w no do
o d sm ss h m as Sw nbu ne ma ked y app ec a ve o A no d s A c g ace d d as be ng no poe a a n
ac ua ach evemen he s ndeed bu one o “ he nhe o s o un u ed enown ” T me conque ed h m
be o e he a a ned o u c ea ness o poe c u e ance

When we have p oved each on h s cou se a one

The w de wo d and ea ne wha s now unknown
Have made e c ea and wo ked ou each a way
We mee aga n —we sha have much o say

he s gns n one o h s mos ouch ng y cs Bu “ he u u e day ” on wh ch he was o u h s covenan w h

eade s o h s poe y neve dawned o h m H s a e poems howeve —pa cu a y Ma Magno—show
ha he was g adua y ee ng a e a me owe and a che no e H s b e ma ed e was beg nn ng o
en a ge and o deppen h s expe ence had he ved o w e mo e h s poe y wou d have embod ed a mo e
p o ound “c c sm o e ” wou d ce a n y have become ess s e cen ed and ess p eoccup ed w h he
ques on ngs and doub s o he so a y sp
27
These doub s and ques on ngs o m he subs ance o wha was p obab y h s mos amb ous wo k
D psychus poem cons s ng o a se es o d a ogues be ween he poe h mse and an a endan sp who s
an obv ous hough d s an e a ve o Goe he s Meph s ophe es C ough ke A no d was a ge y a d sc p e
o Goe he and he n uence o He mann und Do o hea s o be c ea y seen bo h n he o m and n he
hough o The Bo h e Bu bo h The Bo h e and D psychus e ec a mo e o he n e ec ua a mosphe e
o Ox o d and o he ee opena e o Eng and han hey do o e he he a o he ph osophy o Goe he
The bes exp ess on o C ough s own cha ac e and gen us s undoub ed y o be ound n he “ ong vaca on
pas o a ” The poe s humou empe s he hexame e w h me cy and g ves n p aces a sem bu esque
e ec wh ch s no w hou s no w hou sugges on o he bes uses o wh ch he measu e may be u ned n
Eng sh The poem howeve s ho ough y se ous n s ma n d and pu pose dea ng as does w h
soc a p ob ems wh ch we e hen be ng eage y d scussed by he mo e hough u m nds o he me and
pa cu a y w h he dea o ue womanhood Tha dea C ough h mse nds n

Meanes u es se zed as occas ons o g ace and embe sh

and he who e poem s a p o es aga ns he concep on o em n ne g ace and embe shmen as cons s ng o
vu ga deco a on and n e ec ua ns p d y Bu he mos cha m ng ea u es o The Bo h e a e s de gh u
p c u es o na u e wh ch show how esh was C ough s en oymen o na u a scene y and how deep and
n ma e was h s commun on w h he ve y sou o he H gh ands Many d sce n ng eade s exp ess a
p e e ence o some o C ough s sho e y cs o eve y h ng e se he w o e and hey a e p obab y gh He
w o e no h ng so ke y o keep h s name and memo y a ves as he bes o Songs n Absence A hos o
eade s who know e e se o h s wo k know h m by Say no he s ugg e nough ava e h and du ng
he pe od o he g ea es na ona s ess eve endu ed by h s coun ymen ew nes have been mo e
equen y quo ed o conso a on and hope han

Fo wh e he ed waves va n y b eak ng
Seem he e no pa n u nch o ga n
Fa back h ough c eeks and n e s mak ng
Comes s en ood ng n he ma n
§ 12 James Thomson

A hough James Thomson second poe o he name be ongs o no schoo and de es c ass ca on w h any
poe c a e n y h s p ace n e a y h s o y s pe haps mos app op a e y xed n p ox m y o he poe s o
doub and o “ he scep ca eac on " Bu he s ands qu e apa om h s compan ons bo h n pe sona
cha ac e and empe amen and n he e ong s ugg e wh ch he was condemned o wage w h wha m gh
we seem o h m a ma gn a e n he poe y o he o he s even he dep hs o he despa a e no w hou
g eams o some h ng d v ne Bu a ha s mos au hen c and a es ng n he poe y o James Thomson s
abso u e y “w hou hope and w hou God n he wo d ” s he poe y o shee ove mas e ng nexo ab e
despa —a pass ona e and a mos e ce dec a a on o a h n pess m sm as he on y ue ph osophy o e
He e we have one who unequ voca y a ms

ha eve y s ugg e b ngs de ea

Because Fa e ho ds no p ze o c own success
Tha a he o ac es a e dumb o chea
Because hey have no sec e o exp ess
Tha none can p e ce he vas b ack ve unce a n
Because he e s no gh beh nd he cu a n
Tha a s van y and no h ngness

The C y o D ead u N gh om wh ch hese nes a e aken s a om be ng a ha s o accoun n he

poe y o Thomson he cou d s ke o he and mo e chee u cho ds Bu h s poem s so d s nc ve y
nd v dua and s nce e an u e ance sp ng ng om he dep hs o he poe s own ee ngs and expe ence and
s so powe u and o g na a h ng n se as o make he one sup eme ach evemen n ve se by wh ch
Thomson s and p obab y w be emembe ed
29
James Thomson was he son o a sa o and was bo n a Po G asgow n Novembe 1834 Wh e he was
qu e a sma boy a sudden b eakdown n h s a he s hea h b ough he am y n o ve y ow c cums ances
and o ced hem o seek be e o une n London A he age o n ne he was adm ed o he Roya
Ca edon an Asy um whe e he spen p obab y he happ es e gh yea s o h s e n 1850 he en e ed he
m a y a n ng schoo a Che sea w h a v ew o qua y ng as an a my schoo mas e n 1851 he was
appo n ed eache n a ga son s a on a Ba nco g a v age nea Co k and he e he me wo pe sons who
had no sma n uence upon h s subsequen ca ee One was a young g Ma da We e by name o whom
he poe o med a pass ona e a achmen and whose ea y dea h appea s o have e h m wande ng on h s
own es mony n

a was e o a d woe
Neve e eshed by ea s

A Ba nco g he a so me Cha es B ad augh hen a oope n a eg men o d agoons and was ma n y

unde h s u on ha Thomson became an a he s and subsequen y cas n h s o w h a sma bu n ep d
London band o ee h nk ng ou na s s Fo seve a yea s du ng h s cheque ed ca ee as a ou na s n
London Thomson ound n B ad augh a s ead as end and bene ac o He was o some eng h o me an
nma e o B ad augh s househo d and a cons an con bu o o p ose and ve se o The Na ona Re o me
n he co umns o wh ch The C y o D ead u N gh made s s appea ance n 1874 Thomson s ca ee n
he a my ceased n 1862 when he was d sm ssed because o a somewha v a ac o nsubo d na on He
a e wa ds became a so c o s c e k hen sec e a y o a m n ng company n Ame ca a wa co esponden
n Spa n and na y a ou na s c ee ance n London H s a e yea s da kened by pove y and hea h
a ge y due o nsomn a and n empe a e hab s we e spen n London and he d ed a Un ve s y co ege
hosp a unde d s ess ng c cums ances n June 1882
§ 13 The C y o D ead u N gh

Thomson was a man o gen us who n he b un common ph ase “wen w ong ” Weakness o w and some
ns d ous nhe ed ma ady accoun ed much mo e o h s m s o unes han any v c ous p opens y o
de be a e y pe ve se conduc A h s ends bea es mony o he gen a and sunny s de o h s cha ac e
k nd cou eous and ch va ous n h s ways he won he ove and he es eem o hose who came n o c oses
con ac w h h m “A man ” w es h s ed o and b og aphe Be am Dobe “cou d ha d y w sh o a be e
compan on han he was wh e as ega ds women he e was a cha m abou h m wh ch nva ab y made hem
h s ends and adm e s ” Bu “Me ancho y o … b ackes m dn gh bo n ” ma ked h m o he own and
unde he ba e u n uence he e a he p ess v c om o n empe ance and d sease Th s s he s
cons de a on o be aken n o accoun n any udgmen o Thomson s poe y The C y o D ead u N gh
he w o e o Geo ge E o “was he ou come o much s eep ess hypochond a ” s no he u e ance o a
sane m nd bu wha eve one may h nk abou he san y o he poem nobody can a o ecogn se and ee
s s nce y Human e on Thomson s expe ence and n e p e a on o was one ong “a d sas ous gh ”
aga ns a b nd des ny The n n e pa hos and he pa n o he se sac c ng sou s who h oughou he ages
had “s ven o a ev a e ou o ” d d no seem o h m o have “ava ed much aga ns he p ma cu se o ou
ex s ence ”
31
s s ange o nd ha o a Eng sh poe s he one who n uenced h s a e day p ophe o despa mos
was he who sang o he ndom ab e hope ha

c ea es
F om s own w eck he h ng con emp a es

Nex o h m among h s e a y avou es came pe haps He ne many o whose y cs he has ne y

ans a ed and he a ch op m s B own ng Thomson s adm a on o She ey s nd ca ed by he pseudonym
“Bysshe Vano s”— he a e pa be ng an anag am o Nova s ano he o h s chosen au ho s—unde wh ch
us ng gene a y on y he n a s B V he w o e many o h s con bu ons o The Na ona Re o me and
o he pe od ca s O bo h B own ng and She ey he w o e some adm ab e p ose c ques wh ch w h o he
h ngs o he k nd a es no on y Thomson s ca ho c y o e a y as e and sympa hy bu h s acu e ns gh
and sound udgmen as a c c H s s ud es o Ben Jonson B ake John W son James Hogg Wa Wh man
He ne and o he s—many o hem o g na y w en o The Secu a s and o ha mos n e ec ua o
obaccon s s adve s ng ou na s Cope s Tobacco P an —cons u e a budge o p ose c c sm wh ch
even he ead ng gh s o he g ea e ev ews m gh have been p oud o own No s a o udge he ange
and va e y o h s poe ca powe s by The C y o D ead u N gh a one H s co ec ed poems o m n me e
subs ance and ex en a ve y cons de ab e e a y egacy and p ove ha he cou d s ng n many a key The
wo sepa a e vo umes o poe y pub shed us be o e h s dea h—The C y o D ead u N gh and o he
Poems 1880 and Vane s S o y and o he Poems 1881 1880 —con a n nea y a h s bes wo k n
hese vo umes poems ke To Ou Lad es o Dea h a ne y conce ved e phan asy “sugges ed ” n he
au ho s wo ds “by he sub me s s e hood o Ou Lad es o So ow” n he Susp a de P o und s o De
Qu ncey an o en a a e ca ed Weddah and Om e Bona n Vane s S o y a pe sona con ess on we
exh b h s ange o n e es s and h s sk as a ve s e Among poems o he w se pub shed shou d be no ed
h s bu e o She ey 1861 and nsomn a 1882 —a ng pendan n s e o and g oom o The C y
o D ead u N gh As a y c poe Thomson anks h gh and eve y hough u eade o h s gh e ve se w
have e pa ence w h hose who asse ha he mos dep ess ng o h s poems s h s on y e o e a y
d s nc on Two poems n pa cu a have o en and dese ved y been s ng ed ou as de gh u examp es o
h s gh e ve n—Sunday up he R ve and Sunday a Hamps ead bo h “genu ne dy s o he peop e ” as h s
end Ph p Bou ke Ma s on ca ed hem “cha ged w h b gh ness and hea hy oy n v ng ” The weakness
o mos o Thomson s ve se w h a h s me ca sk and h s as on sh ng command o me es n s
ca e essness no o say s oven ness o execu on and n a cons an endency o a n o a ha d and g e ng
he o c em n scen o By on a h s wo s When a s o d howeve The C y o D ead u N gh w h s
“ nsp ssa ed g oom ” nev ab y ema ns h s mos haun ng and powe u p oduc on—a poe ca monumen
we n gh un que n s somb e and awe nsp ng sp endou s a poem ha akes no accoun o such
p easan heo es as Ma hew A no d s ha “ he gh a s ha a one wh ch c ea es he h ghes en oymen ”
Bu he wou d be a bo d man who den ed he gh o u e ance even n poe y o ee ngs so n ense and ea
as hose wh ch o e and o u ed he hea o James Thomson