Escape, and Other Essays

by Arthur Christopher Benson

He says that his purpose has been "not to carry out in the approved style some choice plot of fortune or misfortune, or fancy, or fine thoughts, or incidents or courtesies—all of which has been done overwhelmingly and well, probably never to be excelled . . . but to conform with and build on the concrete realities and theories of the universe furnished by science, and henceforth the only irrefragable basis for anything, verse included—to root both influences in the emotional and imaginative action of the modern time, and dominate all that precedes or opposes them." He adds, "No one will get at my verses who insists upon viewing them as a literary performance, or attempt at such performance, or as aiming mainly toward art or aestheticism."

It is, of course, quite true that no writer is bound by traditions of art, and there is no one who need consider how the thing has been done before, or follow a prescribed code. But for all that, art is not a thing of rules made and enforced by critics. All that critics can do is to determine what the laws of art are; because art has laws underlying it which are as certain as the laws of gravity, even if they are not known. The more permanent art is, the more it conforms to these laws; because the fact is that there is a vital impulse in the human mind towards the expression of beauty, and a vital discrimination too as to the form and method of that expression. Architecture, for instance, and music, are alike based upon instinctive preferences in human beings, the one for geometrical form, the other for the combination of vibrations. It is a law of music, for instance, that the human being prefers an octave in absolute unison, and not an octave of which one note is a semitone flat. That is not a rule invented by critics; it is a law of human perception and preference. Similarly there is undoubtedly a law which determines human preferences in poetry, though a far more complicated law, and not yet analysed. The new poet is not a man who breaks the law, but one who discovers a real extension of it.

The question then, roughly, is this: Whitman chose to express himself in a species of poetry, based roughly upon Hebrew poetry, such as we have in the Psalms and Prophets. If this is a true expansion of the aesthetic law of poetry, then it is a success; if it is not a true expansion, but only a wilful variation, not consonant with the law, it is a failure.

Now there are many effects in Whitman which are, I believe, inconsistent with the poetical law. Not to multiply instances, his grotesque word-inventions—"Me imperturbe!" "No dainty dolce affettuoso I," "the drape of the day"—his use of Greek and Latin and French terms, not correctly used and not even rightly spelt, his endless iterations, lists, catalogues, categories, things not clearly visualised or even remotely perceived, but swept relentlessly in, like the debris of some store-room, all these are ugly mannerisms which simply blur and encumber the pages. The question is not whether they offend a critical and cultured mind, but whether they produce an inspiring effect upon any kind of mind.

Then too his form constantly collapses, as though he had no fixed scheme in his mind. There are many poems which begin with an ample sweep, and suddenly crumble to pieces, as though he were merely tired of them.

Then again there seem to me to be some simply coarse, obscene, unpleasant passages, not of relentless realism but of dull inquisitiveness. They do not attract or impress; they do not provide a contrast or an emphasis. They simply lie, like piles of filth, in rooms designed for human habitation. If it is argued that art may use any materials, I can only fall back upon my belief that such passages are as instinctively repulsive to the artistic sense as strong-smelling cheeses stacked in a library! There is no moral or ethical law against such a practice; but the aesthetic conscience of humanity instinctively condemns it. When I examine the literature which has inspired and attracted the minds of humanity, whether trained or untrained, I find that they avoid this hideous intrusion of nastiness; and I am inclined to infer that writers who introduce such episodes, and readers who like them, have some other impulse in view, which is neither the sense of beauty nor the perception of art. But if Whitman, or anyone else, can convert the world to call this art, and to enjoy it as art, then he will prove that he understands the law of preference better than I do.

But when all this has been said and conceded, there yet remain countless passages of true and vital beauty, exquisite phrases, haunting pictures, glimpses of perfect loveliness. His poems of comradeship and the open air, his pictures of family life, have often a magical thrill of passion, leaving one rapturous and unsatisfied, believing in the secrets behind the world, and hoping for a touch of like experience.

If I may take one poem as typical of the best that is in Whitman— and what a splendid best!—it shall be "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," from the book called Sea-drift. I declare that I can never read this poem without profound emotion; it is here that he fully justifies his claim to atmosphere and suggestiveness; the nesting birds, the sea's edge, with its "liquid rims and wet sands"—what a magical phrase!—the angry moan of the breakers under the yellow, drooping moon, the boy with his feet in the water, and the wind in his hair—this is all beyond criticism.

Demon or bird! (said the boy's soul)
Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it mostly to me?
For I, that was a child, my tongue's use sleeping, now I have
heard you
Now in a moment I know what I am for,—I awake,
And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer,
louder and more sorrowful than yours,
A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me,
never to die.

And then he cries to the waves to tell him what they have been
whispering all the time.