The Bridling of Pegasus: Prose Papers on Poetry

by Alfred Austin

BYRON AND WORDSWORTH

The present age can hardly be reproached either with an absence of admirers or with a lack of self-complacency. Even its most fervid flatterers, however, ever and anon admit that it exhibits a few trifling defects; and among these is sometimes named a diminution of popular interest in poetic literature. Some have attributed this decline to one cause, some to another; but the fact can hardly be disputed. The Heavenly Muse is suffering a partial eclipse. The gross and material substance of the earth has somehow got between her and the Soul, that source and centre of her gentle light; and some enthusiasts aver that with the progress of Science and the production at will of its precise and steadfast lights, fitful luminaries of night may henceforth be dispensed with. But spiritual eclipses, though not to be predicted with the accuracy with which physical eclipses are foretold, and though unfortunately they endure for longer periods, are equally transitory; and the nineteenth century was scarcely original, nor will its successor prove to be correct, in fancying that the garish and obedient flame of material philosophy will prove a satisfactory substitute for the precious, if precarious illumination of the Spirit.

Among the causes that have contributed to divert popular affection and popular sympathy from poetical literature, there are three that deserve to be specially indicated. The first of these is the multiplication of prose romances, which, though so much lower in literary value and in artistic character than poetry, and so much less elevating in their tendency, are better fitted to stimulate the vulgar imagination, and minister more freely to the common craving for excitement. The second cause is the reaction that has settled upon mankind from the fervid hopes inspired by the propagation of those theories and the propounding of those promises which the historian associates with the French Revolution. All saner minds have long since discovered that happiness is to be procured neither for the individual nor for the community by mere political changes; and the discovery has been distinctly hostile to literary enthusiasm. Finally, many poets, and nearly all the critics of poetry, in our time, seem determined to alienate ordinary human beings from contact with the Muse. The world is easily persuaded that it is an ignoramus; and the vast majority of people, after being told, year after year, that what they do not understand is poetry, and what they do not care one straw about is the proper theme and the highest expression of song, end by concluding that poetry has become a mystery beyond their intelligence, a sort of freemasonry from whose symbols they are jealously excluded. Unable to appreciate what the critics tell them are the noblest productions of genius, they modestly infer that between genius and themselves there is no method of communication; and incapable of reading with pleasure the poetry they are assured ought to fill them with rapture, they desist from reading poetry altogether. They have not the self-confidence to choose their own poets and select their own poetry; and indeed in these days, the only chance any writer has of being read is that he should first be greatly talked about. Thus, what between the poets who are talked about by so-called experts, and thus made notorious, but whom ordinary folks find unreadable, and the poets, if there be any such, whom ordinary folks would read with pleasure if they knew of their existence, but of whom they have scarcely heard, poetry has become “caviare to the general,” who content themselves with the coarser flavour of the novel, and the more easily digested pabulum of the newspaper.

But if poetry is now comparatively little read, no one can deny that it is much written about; and many persons would perhaps see in the second of these facts a reason for doubting the reality of the first. But the contradiction is only apparent. Poetry is the subject at present of much prose criticism, prose exposition, and prose controversy; but the controversialists are largely the poets themselves, or those who aspire to the title. The subject is treated by them with much earnestness, indeed with some little heat; and it is easy to perceive that the main object of most of the disputants is to establish the superiority of the poet whom the critic himself most admires, and possibly whom he himself most resembles. The controversy rages around those poets alone who are claimed by the nineteenth century, and practically, these are five in number; Byron, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, and Wordsworth. Each of these has his votaries, his disciples, his passionate advocates. The public look on, a little bewildered; for who is to decide when doctors disagree? Few, if any, of the disputants lay down explicit canons respecting poetry, which may enable a competent bystander to play the part of umpire even to his own satisfaction; and he is left, like the controversialists themselves, to abide by his own personal tastes, and to estimate poets and poetry according to his individual fancy.

It was therefore with no slight satisfaction one heard that one of our poets, who is likewise a critic, but who brings to his criticisms moderation of language and measure of statement, was about to appraise the English poets who have written in this century, but who have for many years joined the Immortals. To Mr. Matthew Arnold, if to any one amongst us, may be applied the passage from Wordsworth, to be found in the “Supplementary Essay” published in 1815:

Whither then shall we turn for that union of qualifications which must necessarily exist before the decisions of a critic can be of absolute value? For a mind at once poetical and philosophical; for a critic whose affections are as free and kindly as the spirit of society, and whose understanding is severe as that of dispassionate government? Where are we to look for that initiatory composure of mind which no selfishness can disturb; for a natural sensibility that has been tutored into correctness, without losing anything of its quickness; and for active faculties, capable of answering the demands which an author of original imagination shall make upon them, associated with a judgment that cannot be duped into admiration by aught that is unworthy of it? Among those, and those only, who, never having suffered their youthful love of poetry to remit much of its force, have applied to the consideration of the laws of this art the best power of their understandings.

To Mr. Arnold, if to any, we say, this enumeration of the qualities indispensable to a trustworthy critic of poetry, may be applied; and if the conclusions at which he bids us to arrive should not turn out to be such as we can wholly accept, at least we shall have the satisfaction of feeling that we dissent from one who has not invited our attention in vain, and who perhaps, by the avowals he incidentally makes in the course of his argument, has enabled us to hold with all the more confidence certain opinions which we will endeavour to establish by independent reasons of our own.

Here, with sufficient brevity for the present, is the conclusion of Mr. Arnold on the vexed question of the primacy among English poets, no longer living, of the last century:

I place Wordsworth’s poetry above Byron’s, on the whole, although in some points he was greatly Byron’s inferior. But these two, Wordsworth and Byron, stand, it seems to me, first and pre-eminent in actual performance, a glorious pair, among the English poets of this century. Keats had probably, indeed, a more consummate poetic gift than either of them; but he died having produced too little and being as yet too immature to rival them. I for my part can never ever think of equalling with them any other of their contemporaries; either Coleridge, poet and philosopher wrecked in a mist of opium; or Shelley, beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain. Wordsworth and Byron stand out by themselves. When the year 1900 is turned, and our nation comes to recount her poetic glories in the century which has just then ended, the first names with her will be these.

We do not propose to traverse the entire field of controversy here lightly indicated; our purpose being to confine ourselves to a consideration of Mr. Arnold’s particular conclusion, that Wordsworth’s poetry should be placed above Byron’s. But before passing to that duty, we may say, parenthetically, that though we agree with Mr. Arnold that Shelley’s poetry often exhibits a lamentable “want of sound subject-matter,” the claims of the “beautiful and ineffectual angel” are here somewhat summarily dismissed; and that when Mr. Arnold says further that he “doubts whether Shelley’s delightful Essays and Letters, which deserve to be far more read than they are now, will not resist the wear and tear of time better, and finally come to stand higher than his poetry,” he makes us lift our eyes in sheer amazement, and somewhat more than doubt whether this will not prove to be among the utterly falsified prophecies of very able critics.