Tennyson's The princess

Preface

The purpose of this edition of The Princess is not to repeat the labors of former editors, but to assist and as far as possible ensure first-hand knowledge and appropriation of the work.

It is no small accomplishment to have read The Princess discerningly and thoroughly; and recent efforts to popularize the poem have apparently not resulted in commending it or its author to wider favor. To force unappreciative study of a work like The Princess defeats culture, and weakens the influence and following of all good literature. Correct instruction should achieve the opposite of all such conclusions. Indeed, the future of taste for letters in this country depends largely upon the outcome of present attempts to administer English masterpieces in our academies and schools. The present manual has been prepared in the hope of contributing to the effectiveness of this work, and especially by communicating the chief artistic meanings of The Princess without directly affirming them. It would seem pedagogically wrong to tell pupils gratuitously, except here and there as a clue, what they may be put in circumstances to find out for themselves. As a means of such independent study, question outlines, of the kind used in the editor's Macbeth, are kept under the eye of the student in connection with the Notes.

iii

IV PREFACE

Tennyson possessed the gift of interpretative expression, though he seemed scarcely to understand what could be wrought with it, or what was the lack without it. He soberly preserved from the flames poems, — regrettably perpetuated in the Memoir, which he apparently believed to involve some sort of merit, but which are manifestly little better than doggerel. Some help has been essayed towards enabling the reader to find the author's best technique, and to distinguish it from perfunctory and uninspired diction. I have attempted to make Tennyson's punctuation, which in different parts of the poem greatly varies, uniform ; particularly to avoid showing to American pupils deviations that they are not, at least in student years, to imitate. The spelling of the text is made consistent, as also the elision of final -ed syllables. The Notes do not contemplate exhaustive study of the author's language, but are adapted rather to the needs of secondary classes. Pupils will not generally drudge over the sense of literature that does not charm, or even look up uncertain references without compulsion. To aid the learner until he is reached by the message of the poem, dictionary meanings have sometimes not been excluded. The Notes, moreover, are not of a kind convenient or proper to be memorized, but are intended to suggest to the student how to find interpretative equivalents or values for himself. I have endeavored to use as far as possible the work of other editors, and to acknowledge where traceable the source of every aid.

L. A. Sherman.

Lincoln, Nebraska,

Contents

PAGE

Introduction

Tennyson's Poetic Diction viii

Prose Poetry, or Verse i x

Imaginative or Interpretative Composition. . . . xi

Materials of Literature , xiv

Modes of Presentation xi*

The Highest Poetical Diction xxvi

Interpretation in Kind and Degree by Figures . . xxxi

Highest Literary Values • . xliii

Conceits, Marinlsm, and Phrasing . li

Suggestions for the Study of the Poem lvii

THE PRINCESS

Prologue 1

Index To Notes 181

v

INTRODUCTION

Tennyson's poem of The Princess was published in 1847. The author wrote it in the heart of London, and had at that time reached the age of thirty-eight. A work of such knightly purpose, and such patient and elaborate execution, could hardly have been inspired, one might suspect, except from something beyond the general interest of the theme. Tennyson, as we know from his son's Memoir, had as early as 1836 become acquainted with Emily Sellwood, and in 1839 discussed with her the plan of the poem that was to be. In the year following, on account of the poet's insufficient prospects, the lovers had been forbidden to hold communication with each other. The Princess was written when Tennyson was looking forward to a renewal of betrothal relations with Miss Sellwood. They were married in 1850, after In Memoriam had established its author's literary and social future.

"The Princess contains Tennyson's solution of the problem of the true position of woman in society — a profound and vital question, upon the solution of which the future of civilization depends. But at the time of its publication, the surface thought of England was intent solely upon Irish famines, corn-laws, and free-trade. It was only after many years that it became conscious of anything wrong in the position of women. The idea was v 1 1 1 INTR OD UCTION

not relegated to America, but originated there in the sweet visions of New England transcendentalists; and, long after, began in Old England to take practical shape in various ways, notably in collegiate education for females. No doubt such ideas were at the time ' in the air ' in England, but the dominant practical Philistinism scoffed at them as ideas ' banished to America, that refuge for exploded European absurdities. ' To these formless ideas Tennyson, in 1847, gave form, and with poetic instinct, discerning the truth, he clothed it with surpassing beauty." '

So far as the poem was intended to serve an immediate purpose of this kind it may be considered to have fulfilled its mission. Few readers, at least on this side of the Atlantic, would regard its main teachings as greatly exceeding the standard of the trite. We seem, indeed, in this country to have gone somewhat beyond what the author postulated : we have accomplished the higher education of woman, on a scale equal with man's, — much as his Princess dreamed, yet with no least detriment to her womanliness. But to the literary reader the poem has not lost its charm. If its ultimate meanings are no longer edifying, the artistic forms in which they have been declared to the world will be a delight forever. The Princess is the fullest expression of Tennyson's poetic genius, and exhibits, in a more consistent and sustained fashion than any other work, his peculiar inspiration as a poet. But to discern the beauty of the poem the unprepared student must go into training. Those who read poetry merely for the story, or like nothing better than

1 Dawson's Study, pp. 9, 10.

INTROD UCT10N IX

the most straightforward poetic diction, are apt to find The Princess tedious. Moreover, people very generally assume that poetry is merely verse, or made up of ornate or high-sounding circumlocutions. They are sometimes taught that prose is the original, fundamental, and solely legitimate form of expression, and that poetry is an expansion, chiefly verbal, of prose meanings. It will be necessary, first, that the reader become better advised upon certain points.

I

// is possible to cast common prose meanings into perfect metric form. The product in each case will not be poetry in the true sense, but versified prose, prose-poetry merely. Among a great number of possible examples the following might be ventured : —

It rained this afternoon for quite a while.

I have not seen him since he was a boy.

I knew no reason why her eyesight failed.

The days have grown so very long of late, Street lamps are lighted now at half-past eight.

The first test to which verse of high pretensions should be subjected is the test of major rhythm. In heroic couplets and blank-verse lines, like the ones pioposed, the supporting stress of the sense should occur on the fourth, the eighth, and the tenth, or else the sixth and the tenth, syllable. We find the lines in question correct and normal in this regard ; the sense-stress conforms to the scheme of four-eight-ten in 11. 2, 3, and of six-ten in the others. Moreover, the examples are good in meter and other respects of form. But the effect, in spite of all, is

X INTROD UCTION

by no means edifying. We naturally doubt whether lines so bald, so barren of aesthetic quality, could ever find their way into permanent literature. However, a little inspection will show that Chaucer abounds in such. Milton, with all his dignity, is not above admitting the like upon occasion. Shakespeare indubitably writes lines here and there not more select. Wordsworth tolerates them in theory and practice alike. Tennyson even, pronounced finical and effeminate at times, by some critics, for nicety of diction, has many prose-poetic lines and indeed passages, as these examples show : —

I waited for the train at Coventry.

We will be liberal since our rights are won.

But as for her, she stay'd at home,

And on the roof she went, And down the way you use to come

She look'd with discontent.

She left the novel half-uncut

Upon the rosewood shelf ; She left the new piano shut :

She could not please herself.

Well, you shall have that song which Leonard wrote : It was last summer on a tour in Wales : Old Jones was with me.

I'm glad I walk'd. How fresh the meadows look Above the river, and, but a month ago, The whole hill-side was redder than a fox.

Is yon plantation where this byway joins The turnpike ?

Yes.

And when does this come by?

The mail ? At one o'clock.

INTROD UCTION XI

It will be interesting to contrast the poetic and prosaic expressions in a couple of continuous passages, which shall be the opening paragraphs of Tennyson's Princess, and Holy Grail. Prosaic matter is italicized.

Sir Walter Vivia?i all a summer's day Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun Up to the people ; thither flock' d at noon His tenants, wife, and child, and thither half The neighboring borough with their Ijistitute Of which he was the patron. I was there Prom college, visiting the son, — the son A Walter too, — with others of our set, Five others ; we were seven at Vivian-place.

From noiseful arms, and acts of prowess done In tournament or tilt, Sir Percival, Whom Arthur and his knighthood call'd The Pure, Had pass'd into the silent life of prayer, Praise, fast, and alms ; and leaving for the cowl The helmet in an abbey far away From Camelot, there, and not long after, died.

II

There are no meanings so prosaic as not to admit of being couched poetically, or in such a way as to address imagination, and give some degree of pleasure.

Tennyson opens the first canto of his Princess with a brief paragraph which, with the last line altered, runs as follows :

A Prince I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face, Of temper amorous, as the first of May, With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl ; For I had had my birthplace in the North.

Xll INTROD UCTION

The prose meaning to be told in the fourth line is simply, I was born in the North. Tennyson, evidently wishing to occasion some incidental delight to the reader's mind, manages to give the line quite an imaginative turn by casting it in this form : —

For on my cradle shone the Northern star.

A little later Tennyson makes the Prince tell of setting out secretly, within a fortnight of his repulse, for the home of the Princess. The allusion to this small interval of waiting might, one could suppose, have been well enough expressed in this way : —

Then, ere two weeks had passed, I stole from court.

But what Tennyson really makes his love-sick hero say, to make known this baldest of prose circumstances, is nothing less (I. ioo, 101) than this: —

Then, ere the silver sickle of that month Became her golden shield, I stole from court.

In Canto IV., where the narrative reaches the collapse of the Prince's scheme, another notable illustration occurs. The Prince, having rescued the Princess from drowning, and scaled the palace gates, walks up and down the esplanade some two hours or more. Tennyson makes him measure to us this lapse of time, not in denominations of the clock, but of imagination and of the feelings (IV. 194, 195), thus:—

I paced the terrace, //// the Bear had wheeled Through a great arc his seven slow suns.

There are numberless examples of the same thing, in lines and parts of lines, throughout The Princess and other specimens of Tennyson's most careful work. There

INTROD UCTION Xlll

are illustrations rather neater and perhaps more numerous in Mrs. Browning. Shakespeare, and Milton, and Vergil, we shall remember, are adepts in the same craftmanship. For more thorough-going evincements, it will be enough to try some rhetorical experiments with the prose-poetic examples ventured under the last head. If a way can be found to indite such utterances cdifyingly, the utmost consequences of the principle laid down must be allowed. Nothing surely could seem more hopelessly unaesthetic, or more irremediably barren of spiritual meaning, than a sentence like

It rained this afternoon for quite a while.

But, understanding the line to have had reference, as is true, to a shower in a certain city, where the storm sewers drain the surface water of twenty-four square miles, and bring the river more inflow for the time being than any half-dozen of its head streams, we get a hint of sufficient dignity to rewrite thus: —

The river-sources shifted to our roofs For thrice an hour.

The second prose-poetic line,

I have not seen him since he was a boy,

though even more devoid of edifying sense, may be approximately redeemed and reinforced after this fashion : —

Enhancing years have lifted up the child, Through some six feet of stature, to bold looks, And virile beard, since last we met.

The next example, —

I knew no reason why her eyesight failed, —

XIV INTROD UCTION

is not so easy, but might be retold philosophically, if not poetically, in this way: —

Her eyes were vacant to the sun and stars ; No blighting touch I saw.

Finally, we come to the rhymed lines, cast, as will scarcely have been forgotten, in the orthodox Popean manner, —

The days nave grown so very long of late, Street lamps are lighted now at half-past eight.

Even this, in its turn, may be exalted by larger suggestiveness of its ultimate and involved meanings, although the rhyme, which will be little missed, must be given up :

At summer solstice now the sunsets lag, And streets are twilight-lit till curfew time.

Imagination may be engaged by truths as well as by aspects of beauty, as these examples show. How that may be, and what is the law of its double activity, must be the subjects of the next inquiry.

III

There are but three things upon tvhich literature may be founded, or of which constructed: Facts, Truths, and Aspects or Experiences of Beauty.

Perhaps it has never occurred to us that literature cannot be compiled or composed out of facts as such. Were that possible, then would a book of logarithms, or The Nautical Almanac, be literature pre-eminently. The daily newspaper is made up largely of public happenings, told as annals, and never rises to the rank of literature

IN TROD UCTION XV

because of this fact-preponderance of material. In the editorial and correspondence columns there is matter of a different sort, which sometimes mounts to the dignity and value of true literature. What must editorial writers and correspondents do to impart this permanent quality to their work ? " They must write with curious care," says one. But what is it to write with curious care ? The critic who is responsible for the answer just quoted is, to be sure, a producer of literature, yet does himself scant justice in professing to be merely an ingenious maker of phrases. Vergil, we may say, wrought literature according to Stopford Brooke's theory, as Dante also did, and Milton and Gray, and Rogers and Tennyson, as also Burke, and Macaulay, and Walter Pater. But Shakespeare, and Bunyan, and Browning, and Carlyle have been literature-makers not less, yet cannot be said to have written with much curious care. If it were insisted that even Browning and Carlyle are not exceptions, then let us take Walt Whitman. Here is a man that will be admitted to have made some literature, but with curious carelessness rather than curious care. Few, probably, will insist that the carlessness is more than incidental, or deny that his success has been due to message, all in spite of rather than in consequence of the formlessness of form. In like manner must it be finally agreed that even curious care never constitutes in itself the message, but is only an incident or an ornament of the vehicle bringing it. There are men who have written with very much of carefulness indeed, — our college students sometimes do that, yet without the least success in making literature, or discovering the secret of its power.

xvi INTRODUCTION

That which newspaper editors and correspondents must do to produce what shall be worth reprinting and making permanent in books is precisely what everybody else must do to gain admittance to the noble throng who are making the literature of the world. They must deal with facts ae the raw material, the occasion, of their work, but they must do something more than set forth facts brilliantly or glibly. They must accomplish what historians achieve when they transform annals into history, what Emerson and Hawthorne do when they sit down to write, — bring to the surface the underlying significance of the facts. This is nothing less than what is often called Interpretation, which is the process of discovering to consciousness the type-qualities involved in any given happening or object. Facts address the intellect, and are of small significance unless or until interpreted. The quantum of life that men actually live is registered in the sum of their experiences upon this plane. It is only when men find Truth, or Beauty, or facts potential of these, that they are inspired to write. If I draw a triangle, and by nice mechanical measurements ascertain that the sum of its angles equals two right angles, I establish a fact which I am prompted to tell, perhaps, but not to write a book about, or send report of to the papers. But if I chance to discover that the angles of every triangle are always equal to two right angles, I have achieved a Truth, and if it be new, — no matter were I Euclid, and publishing were as difficult and costly as in his day, I cannot but give it to the world. The impulse would be the same if I had discovered a new principle in education, or economics, or sociology. The fact or instance by way of which the

IN TR OD UCTION X V 1 1

discovery was made would be interesting historically, as would be the apple that Newton saw fall, had it been preserved, but would be otherwise quickly dropped from mind.

The same is true in the sphere of Beauty. If I encounter a lank, awkward bucolic lawyer, and observe nothing in him different from others of his type, I have before my mind simply a human fact that I shall perhaps straightway disregard. It is my habit, it is everybody's habit, to ignore things that do not seem to carry any ultimate or proximate spiritual significance. But if I finally interpret out of this man's speech and behavior the character of a Lincoln, I have discovered principles of nobility and heroism that I am moved to set forth. Others, more moved and having ampler means or opportunity of interpretation, will put together books about him. I may be minded to write at least a sketch, an essay, or an oration, to make my individual feelings known. The same is true of whatsoever other principle of Beauty shall have been discovered in God, or Man, or Nature.

We are here reminded of the imperious control exercised over us by the type-forces within that we call the Soul. They seize at once upon a fact, analyze it, and appropriate its heart of nobleness and worth ; or if that seem wanting, feign sometimes to have found it nevertheless. So the last or " ultimate " are really the first and nearest truths. That the three angles of every triangle equal two right angles is an "abstract" truth, last reached by human intelligence, yet existent before my triangle, or anybody's triangle, was ever drawn. Similarly, the sympathy, xvi 1 1 I NT ROD UCTION

generosity, and altruism discerned in a Lincoln are " abstract " principles of The Beautiful, tardily recognized and evaluated by the developing soul, yet existent before human character or society began, or the foundations of the world were laid.

Truths, and aspects of The Beautiful, alone engage and satisfy the soul. Facts have no power except as they evince a Truth, or involve an experience of The Beautiful. A triangle has no spiritual significance as such, but as an exhibition of the " law " that its angles must always equal two right angles, it has power with the soul. This power is evinced by the " high seriousness " which the soul experiences in presence of or on recognition of such truth. Greater truths induce the same sentiment in a proportionately higher degree. This high seriousness involves or occasions a recognition of Truth as One and Unconditioned, in a widened spiritual view which has been styled the Mathematical and the Scientific imagination, but belongs to all departments in the domain of Truth alike.

Aspects and manifestations of The Beautiful occasion subjective experiences of enthusiasm, which are generally known as Idealization. There is always recognition of Unconditioned Beauty, and some subjective uplifting of the beauty discerned towards the unconditioned plane. This is the aesthetic imagination, or Imagination as usually understood. Imagination, however, as psychologists are beginning to conceive it, is only a name of the soul in the act or attitude of recognizing or appropriating the Infinite under the forms of Ultimate (or Primal) Truth and Beauty.

IN TROD UCTION XIX

IV

There are three modes of presenting rjieaning, answering to the three distinct kinds of meaning to be expressed, — The Fact Way, The Truth Way, and The Idealizing or Beauty Way.

Let us take, as the simplest of possible examples under the first head, the sentence // was spring again. In this there is no hint of truths or reasons, — except in again, which to most readers will not suggest much of natural law. There is also no indication of any purpose, in the sentence meaning, to engage the feelings. This is the Fact, or Prose, Presentation.

The same idea may be communicated in such a way as not to declare, but merely to imply the fact through the laws or reasons for the fact : ' The sun climbed north from the solstice, the earth and the air grew warm, and Nature opened again her breasts to flocks and men.' In other words, the underlying principles of Truth are brought to mind as causes, and left to suggest the fact as their proper and necessary effect. Since the sensibilities are in some measure aroused, and the emotion produced is High Seriousness, the mode of presentation is clearly interpretative, and of the Truth or second kind.

The same idea may be expressed in such a way as not to declare, but merely to imply the fact through sentiments of the Beautiful that the fact occasions : ' The swallows came back from the south, the wild geese flew, screaming, northwards, and the grass broke green again from the sere fields.' In other words, the underlying principles of Beauty in nature are brought to mind as

XX IN TROD UCTION

causes, and left to suggest the fact as their proper and necessary effect. Since the sensibilities are aroused, and the emotion produced is one of Idealization or delight, the mode of presentation is again interpretative, but of the Beauty kind.

It is now evident how Tennyson succeeded so easily in keeping the lines quoted from The Princess above the plane of prose. In the first example the real sense to be expressed is, "I was of the Northern temperament and type." Hence the explanation, " For I was born in the North, ' ' and its prose-poetic paraphrase, ' ' For I had had my birthplace in the North," are really interpretative in the Truth Way, since they each make a cause do duty for one of its effects. But a principle so trite and familiar as this has little potency in arousing imagination, and might almost be mistaken for a statement of plain fact. Evidently the author, if he contemplated such an expression, was dissatisfied, and sought further means. If his mind, like Matthew Arnold's, had inclined to truthinterpretations, he would likely have soon discerned or devised something more potential of high seriousness, — perhaps like this :

For Northern blood and fancies ruled my brain.

But Tennyson is not a truth-poet, so much as Arnold; the great majority of his lines and expressions are conceived in the Beauty Way. So here he communicates his meaning by presenting to imagination the experience of lying in a cradle with the Northern star shining almost directly overhead. Similarly, the other examples are of the third, or Idealizing, kind.

INTRO D UCTION XXI

It also becomes clear why the recasting of the prose-poetic lines, attempted under the second topic, was not unsuccessful. They were retold in such a way as to bring to view, quite palpably, certain significant and edifying type-qualities. If we can ensure fresh perceptions and experiences of these, we can make literature by the use or occasion of most obvious and trite prose materials, as Lamb, De Quincey, and so many others do. The famous Assays of Elia consist but of the commonest fact meanings told in an interpretative vein. Of course interpretation may be abused, or result in mere phrasing; also, there are much higher literary values than can be produced by resort to interpretative devices. Each of the prose-poetic utterances rewrought above, — except the phrase " till curfew time," it will perhaps have been noticed, was made over into a paraphrase of the Truth kind. It would have been just as easy to bring to the surface type-meanings of the Beauty sort, and recast the examples in the third presentation, if that had chanced to be the mood.

V

In Prose, typically, the thing to be known is made to do duty for that which is to be felt. In Poetry, typically, the thing to be felt is made to do duty for that which is to be known.

In prose, typically, all meanings, even poetical, are intellectually discerned and declared; in poetry, typically, all meanings, even poetic, are spiritually discerned and couched. The character of each spoken or written utterance is not to be sought alone in the ideas and Ian-

XX11 INTRO D UCTION

guage composing it, but also in the mood and motives of the speaker or writer. When an author has emotion rather than knowledge to express, he will try to make his readers feel instead of know, he will aim to force upon them some share in his emotion rather than give them information. When we hear a cry of " Murder," we know the object of the person in distress is not so much to declare a fact as to stir feelings of concern. When we have gone to the rescue, we shall most likely find that it is not a case of murder, but of wife-beating, or abuse of children. We are made to feel first, and get definite knowledge later. So far as he may, the poet does the same. He would make us feel, and is not much concerned, if he may succeed, about what happens after. He ignores time and space relations, and gives himself to generic spiritual aspects and meanings only.

It is as necessary to know what prose is, typically, and what it is not, as to be definitively advised as to what is properly poetry, and what is not poetry at all. One of our earliest notions is that whatever is not expressed in verse is prose, and that any one composition cast in unmetric and unrhymed forms is as prosaic as any other lacking the same embellishments. This theory is pretty certain, in due time, to be much shaken. Consciously or unconsciously we become perusaded of an essential difference between the language of the almanac, or the market-place, and such utterances as we find, for instance, in the Hundred and Fourth Psalm: "Thou art clothed with honor and majesty; who coverest thyself with light as with a garment; who stretchiest out the heavens like a curtain; who layeth the beams of his chambers in the

INTRODUCTION xxill

waters; who maketh the clouds his chariot; who walketh upon the wings of the wind. ' " These sentences are manifestly nowhere in the least a record of facts. They are nothing, barring the solemn style, but plain prose in respect to form, but are unmistakably something vastly beyond plain prose in respect to meaning. A little reflection will discover to us that by no conceivable rhetorical industry could they be reduced to prose, because in this case the overpowering and all-possessing sentiment cannot be made to descend to items or instances of intellectual cognition. The thing to be felt has been made to do duty for what is to be known, and since it cannot be merged in more definite knowledge, remains till the end of the experience wholly unexpanded into knowing. The same must be largely true of all examples in which a seer or poet attempts to impart an experience of the Unconditioned. The sentences just quoted are interpretative, as all efforts to communicate experiences of the Sublime are interpretative, in the second or Truth way. The opening utterance of the Hebrew Scriptures is a yet more potent and significant example : " In the beginning God brought into existence the heavens and the earth." This was originally the product of most potent seership, and must have been indited by its Mesopotamic author, as well as discerned for generations by all truly spiritually minded hearers and readers, in a surpassing experience of mystic awe. But now that experience rounds out, with us, or the most of us, what with the revelations of the telescope and the spectroscope, and what with our nebular and monistic theories, into somewhat of intellectual comprehension. The language of interpreted Truth is always