Browning and His Century

by Helen A. Clarke

This story bears upon the poet’s philosophy as it reflects his attitude toward human love, which he considers so clearly a revelation that any treatment of it not absolutely noble and true to the highest ideals is a sin against heaven itself.

George Bubb Dodington is the black sheep of these later poems. He gives the poet an opportunity to let loose all his subtlety and sarcasm, while the reader may exercise his wits in discovering that the poet assumes to agree with Dodington in his doubtful doctrine of serving the state with an eye always upon his own private welfare, and pretends to criticise him only for his method of attaining his ends. His method is to disclaim that he works for any other good than that of the State—a proposition so preposterous in his case that nobody would believe it. The poet then presents what purports to be the correct method of successful statesmanship—namely, to pose as a superior being endowed with the divine right to rule, treating everybody as his puppet, and entirely scornful of any criticisms against himself. If he will adopt this attitude he may change his tactics every year and the people, instead of suspecting his sincerity, will think that he has wise reasons beyond their insight for his changes. The poem is a powerful, intensely cynical argument against the imperialistic temper and in favor of liberal government. This means for the individual not only the right but the power to judge for himself, instead of being obliged to depend, because of his own inefficiency, upon the leadership of the over-man, whose intentions are unfortunately too seldom to be trusted.

The poet called from the shades by Browning, Christopher Smart, is celebrated in the world of criticism for having only once in his life written a great poem. The eulogies upon the beauties of “The Song of David” might not be echoed by all lay readers of poetry; nor is it of any moment whether Browning actually agreed with the conclusions of the critics, since the episode is used merely as a text for discussing the problem of beauty versus truth in art. Should the poet’s province be simply to record his vision of the beauty and the strength of nature and the universe—visions which come to him in moments of inspiration such as that which came once to Christopher Smart? Browning answers the question characteristically with his feet upon the earth. The visions of poets should not be considered as ends in themselves, but as material to be used for greater ends.

The poet should find his inspiration in the human heart, and climb to heaven by its means, not investigate the heavens first. Diligently must he study mankind, and teach as man may through his knowledge.

In “Francis Furini” the subject is the nude in art. The keynote is struck by the poet’s declaring he will never believe the tale told by Baldinicci that Furini ordered all his pictures in which there were nude figures burned. He expresses his indignation at the tale vigorously at some length, showing plainly his own sympathies.

The passage in the poem bearing more especially upon the present discussion is the lecture by Furini imagined by the poet to have been delivered before a London audience. It is a long and recondite speech in which the scientific and the intuitional methods of arriving at truth are compared. While the scientific method is acknowledged to be of value, the intuitional method is claimed as by far the more important.

A philippic against Greek art and its imitation is delivered by the poet in the “Parleying with Gerard de Lairesse,” whom he makes the scapegoat of his strictures, on the score of a book Lairesse wrote in which was described a walk through a Dutch landscape when every feature was transmogrified by classic imaginings.

To this good soul, an old sepulcher struck by lightning became the tomb of Phaeton, and an old cartwheel half buried in the sand near by, the Chariot of the Sun.

In a spirit of bravado Browning proceeds to show what he himself could make of a walk provided he condescended to illuminate it by classic metaphor and symbol, and a remarkable passage is the result. It occupies from the eighth to the twelfth stanza. It is meant to be in derision of a grandiloquent, classically embroidered style but so splendid is the language, so haunting the pictures, the symbolism so profound that it is as if a God were showing some poor weakling mortal how not to do it—and through his omniscience must perforce create something wondrously beautiful. The double feeling produced in reading this passage only adds to its interest. After thus classicizing in a manner that might make Euripides, himself, turn green with envy, he nonchalantly remarks:

“Enough, stop further fooling,” and to show how a modern poet greets a landscape he flings in the perfectly simple and irresistible little lyric: