As I declare our Poet, him
Whose insight makes all others dim:
A thousand poets pried at life,
And only one amid the strife
Rose to be Shakespeare.
Browning's poetry, as he elsewhere expresses it, was always dramatic in principle, always an attempt to interpret human life. With that large number of highly respectable and useful persons who do not care whether they understand him or not, I have here no concern: but to those who really wish to learn his secret, I insist that his main intention must ever be kept in mind. Much of his so-called obscurity, harshness, and uncouthness falls immediately into its proper place, is indeed necessary. The proof of his true greatness not as a philosopher, thinker, psychologist, but as a poet, lies in the simple fact that when the subject-matter he handles is beautiful or sublime, his style is usually adequate to the situation. Browning had no difficulty in writing melodiously when he placed the posy in the Ring,
O lyric Love, half angel and half bird
And all a wonder and a wild desire,
although just a moment before, when he was joking about his lack of readers, he was anything but musical. The Ring and the Book is full of exquisite beauty, amazing felicity of expression, fluent rhythm and melody; full also of crudities, jolts, harshness, pedantry, wretched witticisms, and coarseness. Why these contrasts? Because it is a study of human testimony. The lawyers in this work speak no radiant or spiritual poetry; they talk like tiresome, conceited pedants because they were tiresome, conceited pedants; Pompilia's dying speech of adoring passion for Caponsacchi is sublime music, because she was a spiritual woman in a glow of exaltation. Guido speaks at first with calm, smiling irony, and later rages like a wild beast caught in a spring-trap; in both cases the verse fits his mood. If Pompilia's tribute to Caponsacchi had been expressed in language as dull and flat as the pleas of the lawyers, then we should be quite sure that Browning, whatever he was, was no poet. For it would indicate that he could not create the right diction for the right situation and character. Now, his picture of the triple light of sunset in The Last Ride Together is almost intolerably beautiful, because such a scene fairly overwhelms the senses. I hear the common and unintelligent comment, "Ah, if he had only always written like that!" He would have done so, if he had been interested in only the beautiful aspects of this world. "How could the man who wrote such lovely music as that have also written such harsh stuff as Mr. Sludge, the Medium"? The answer is that in the former he was chronicling a stage of life that in its very essence was beauty: in the latter, something exactly the opposite. Life has its trivialities and its ugliness, as well as its sublime aspirations. In Browning's poetry, whenever the thought rises, the style automatically rises with it,
Compare the diction of Holy Cross Day with that in Love Among the
Ruins. Cleon is an old Greek poet, and he speaks noble, serene verse:
Bishop Blougram is a subtle dialectician, a formidable antagonist in
a joint debate, and he has the appropriate manner and language.
Would you have him talk like the lover in Evelyn Hope?
Browning was a great artist, and the grotesque is an organic part of his structures. To find fault with the grotesque excrescences in Browning's poetry is exactly like condemning a cathedral because it has gargoyles. How could the architect that dreamed those wonderful columns and arches have made those hideous gargoyles? Did he flatter himself they were beautiful? When Macbeth was translated into German, the translator was aghast at the coarse language of the drunken porter. How could the great Shakespeare, who had proved so often his capacity as an artist, have made such an appalling blunder? So the translator struck out the offensive words, and made the porter sing a sweet hymn to the dawn.
The theory of poetry originally stated in Pauline Browning not only endeavored to exemplify in his work; he often distinctly repeated it. In The Glove, all the courtiers, hide-bound by conventional ideas, unite in derisive insults howled at the lady. She goes out 'mid hooting and laughter. Only two men follow her: one, because he loves her; the other, for purely professional reasons. To-day, he would of course be a society reporter. "I beg your pardon, Madam, but would you kindly grant me an interview? I represent the New York Flash, and we shall be glad to present your side of this story in our next Sunday issue." With equal professional zeal, Peter Ronsard is keenly interested in discovering the motives that underlay the lady's action. He simply must know, and in defense of his importunity, he presents his credentials. He is a poet, and therefore the strange scene that has just been enacted comes within his special domain.
I followed after,
And asked, as a grace, what it all meant?
If she wished not the rash deed's recallment?
"For I"—so I spoke—"am a poet:
Human nature,—behoves that I know it!"
In Transcendentalism, a poem which is commonly misunderstood, Browning informs us that the true poet must deal, not with abstract thought, but with concrete things. A young poet informs an elder colleague that he has just launched a huge philosophical poem, called Transcendentalism: a Poem in Twelve Books. His wiser critic tells him that he is on the wrong track altogether; what he has written is prose, not poetry. Poetry is not a discussion of abstract ideas, but the creation of individual things. Transcendentalism is not a fit subject for poetry, because it deals with metaphysical thought, instead of discussing men and women. To illustrate his point, he makes a comparison between botany and roses. Which is the more interesting, to read a heavy treatise on botany, or to behold roses? A few pedants may like botany better, but ordinary humanity is quite right in preferring flowers. Browning indicates that the poet should not compose abstract treatises, but should create individual works of art, like the stout Mage of Halberstadt,
John, who made things Boehme wrote thoughts about.
He with a "look you!" vents a brace of rhymes,
And in there breaks the sudden rose herself,
Over us, under, round us every side,
Nay, in and out the tables and the chairs
And musty volumes, Boehme's book and all,—
Buries us with a glory, young once more,
Pouring heaven into this shut house of life.