Studies in Tennyson

Front matter

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BY

HENRY VAN DYKE

D. C. L. (Oxon.)

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1921

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A YOUNG WOMAN OF AN OLD FASHION

WHO LOVES ART NOT ONLY FOR ITS OWN SAKE BUT BECAUSE IT ENNOBLES LIFE WHO READS POETRY NOT TO KILL TIME

BUT TO FILL IT WITH BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS • AND WHO STILL BELIEVES

IN GOD AND DUTY AND IMMORTAL LOVE I DEDICATE

THIS BOOK

In this volume I have brought together the results of some fifty years’ reading and study of Tennyson, with such revision and rearrangement as seemed desirable.

The way in which the book has come into its present shape is somewhat curious. The first chapter was written, practically as it now stands, as an introduction to the select Poems of Tennyson in the Athenaeum Press Series in 1903. It is intended to give a general view of the poet’s life and work and his place in English literature. Of necessity it is rather long. The other chapters are, in effect, essays on separate parts or aspects of Tennyson’s work. They were written at different times, printed in various magazines, and collected, substantially, in a book called The Poetry of Tennyson , which was fortunate enough to find many friends, and has now, after twelve editions, gone out of print.

But behind this writing about Tennyson there lie some twenty years of simple, human, vii non-literary reading of his poetry. Of this, it may be permissible to tell something here, by way of preface, or background. It is a personal story, but it has a certain bearing on the general subject of the love of poetry, — the seed of which is more common than most people suppose, but which often needs culture to grow.

It all began with the gift of a dollar, which a boy received on his fourteenth birthday from a very pleasant old lady. His whim led him into a bookshop to spend this money, which burned in his pocket; and his guardian angel, or possibly some prophetic instinct in the lame little bookseller, directed his unconscious choice to a book called Enoch Arden . It was a pirated edition, and therefore cheap, for this happened in the days when the American publishers still practised literary brigandage, and the American people were still willing to believe that it was more desirable to get books at a low price than to get them in a fair way. But the boy was not far enough out of the age of barbarism to feel any moral scruple on a point like this. So the book was bought for fifty cents, and it became the key which let him into the garden and palace of poetry, there to find a joy passing his delight in wild adventure-books of the Mayne Reid type.

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Not that this was his first book of poems. He had lived in a library, and was already the proprietor of a small bookcase of his own. But hitherto poetry had seemed to him like something foreign and remote, much less interesting than prose, fiction or even some kinds of history. He had read plenty of poems, of course, and had tried his hand at making verses. But the formal and artificial side of poetry was still the most prominent to his mind. It was something to be translated and scanned and parsed. P. O vidius Naso was an abomination to him, and Pope’s Rape of the Lock a weariness to the flesh. They belonged to the tedious, profitable world of education and examination.

But Enoch Arden evidently belonged to life. It was a story about real people. And then, it seemed to the boy so beautifully told. There was such a glow in it, such colour, such a swing and sweep of musical words, such a fine picture of a brave man, and at the end such a sad touch to bring the tears into your eyes, — all by yourself, you understand, when no one could see you and laugh at you. The touches of florid decoration did not trouble him then, for he was young. Why, this was as good as a novel, — yes, in a way it was better, for there was a charm in the movement of the verse, the rise

IX and fall, the ebb and flow, that seemed to stir the feelings and make them deeper and fuller.

So the boy became a lover of poetry, and began to look around him for other poems which should give him the same kind of pleasure. Of course, he found many of them, ancient and modern. His capacity of enjoyment increased, as his taste broadened. He passed along the lines of new sympathies from one poet to another, discovered the touch of life in books which he had thought were dry and dead, and learned to appreciate beauties of which he had not suspected the existence. Even the poets of Greece and Rome began to say something to his heart. They were no longer shadows of mighty names, but real makers of real things in the enduring world of poesy.

The boy came to understand, as he grew into man’s estate, that there were other, and yet loftier, masters in the realm of song; but Tennyson still held the first place in his affections. There was a singular charm in the manner and accent of this poet, so melodious, so fluent, so clear, and yet so noble and powerful. Tennyson seemed to be the one, among all the English poets, who was in closest touch with the modern world. He not only led the boy for the first time into the regions of poetry; he x also kept company, through all the experiences of life, with the young man.

When love began to speak in his heart, it found an echo in Maud , and “Locksley Hall/’ and “The Gardener’s Daughter,” — rather romantic love, of course, for that was the fashion of the time. When doubt began to trouble his mind, he turned to “Two Voices” and In Me - moriam , to learn that it was no new thing for faith to have to fight for its life. When the larger problems of human duty and destiny began to press upon him, he saw them pictured in the Idylls of the King and “The Palace of Art;” and he read a fine answer to them in such poems as “Will,” and “Wages,” and the “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington.” When he began to take that broader interest in humanity which only comes with years, he found in “Ulysses” and “Lucretius” and “St. Simeon Stylites” and “The Northern Farmer” and “Rizpah,” convincing portraits of living souls. And when at last, after many happy years, sorrow entered his house, he turned again to In Memoriam , and it brought him more comfort than any book in the world save One.

It was not unnatural, then, that this man should be a Tennysonian, not as a matter of theory, but as an affair of experience. And xi the time came when he felt the wish to make some acknowledgment of the debt which he owed to this poet, to set down some more careful estimate of the influences which have flowed from his poetry into the life of the present age, and to give some reasons for thinking that Tennyson stood among the great poets, if not on a level with the greatest. So these essays were written.

The grateful sense of benefits received which entered into their first writing has not waned, but increased. Certain judgments on particular poems have been modified; certain comparisons have been made less absolute; a certain exclusiveness of admiration, natural to youthful partisanship, has passed away. I have learned that it is no reproach to recognise the limitations of your hero, and realised that Tennyson is not exempt from les defauts de ses qualites . But on the other hand my positive reasons for admiring him have grown clearer and stronger, and I have perceived the beauty i and value of certain poems which once I accepted merely because they were his. So these essays have gained, I venture to believe, in many respects, and have a better title to be called “studies.”

At all events, I send them out in their new xii form for the last time to find such readers as providence has designed for them, with the hope that they may serve as guides and interpreters in a region of delight which well repays many visits.

The poet who can be read only once, is hardly worth reading at all. But he whose work yields new meaning and fresh pleasure as often as we come back to it, belongs to the company of our unfailing friends in the spirit. The poetry of Tennyson, like good music, improves with every hearing.

Henry van Dyke.

Avalon, October 1, 1920.

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