Formative types in English poetry; the Earl lectures of 1917

Front matter

COPXRIGHT DEPOSm

•58p (Btovst |). Palmer

THE ENGLISH POEMS OF GEORGE HERBERT. With frontispiece. Edited by George H. Palmer.

Preface

The substance of this book was delivered as a series of lectures on the Earl Foundation before the Pacific Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California, during the spring of 1917. The subject was one which had long interested me. I had spoken on it before the Lowell Institute in Boston in 1913 and subsequently on several occasions had found for it eager auditors and critics among college students. This frequent traversing of the same ground has helped me to perceive more plainly the path to be followed and has controlled the inclination to turn to this side or that in search of better prospects.

My aim is a narrow one. The book is not a history of Enghsh poetry, not even an outhne. At only half a dozen periods in the long and magnificent course of that poetry do I examine it, those periods being separated by intervals widely dissimilar and occupied by poets not always of the first rank. Some of the greatest names in our literature are not touched at all. The drama is omitted altogether; and I have vi PREFACE

not inquired how far changes in prose writing attended those traced here in poetry. Even my seven chosen torch-bearers I have dealt with very imperfectly, turning to them only for the light they throw on the connected march of mind.

In my judgment the English understanding of poetry has unfolded itself slowly, passing through certain well-marked crises or epochs at each of which has stood a revolter from past practice who, setting up antagonistic, yet really supplemental, conceptions of poetry has thrown open tracts of emotion which our beautiful art had not previously touched. Of course minor changes of this sort occur continually. I have wished to fix attention on the half-dozen fundamental, logical and productive crises which have brought us the rich poetry we now possess and may yet bring us richer still.

There are dangers in such an undertaking. No important change comes about without long preparation, however great the genius who finally perceives its significance and gives it recognizable form. So condensed an account as mine is apt to make history appear a thing of leaps and bounds, as if settled practice suddenly gave way to novelty. But I have thought

PREFACE vii

this danger worth incurring if I could so bring out more clearly the type toward which many tendencies converged and present it embodied in him who first fully comprehended it.

I am sorry, too, that my plan obliges me to pass by many important writers whom one might naturally expect to find here. Where, for example, are Sidney and Shakspere with their sonnets, where Herrick, Marvell, Dryden, Gray, Byron, Keats, Shelley — superb poets all — preeminent, many readers will think, above several I have chosen? But they were not types. While all subsequent verse undoubtedly shows their influence, they did not establish a crisis and form a turning-point. More plausibly may it be objected that there is no such epochal separation between Tennyson and Browning as between the earlier members of my group. In justification I would plead that two great poets living so near us, and with whose writings we are so familiar, offer an exceptional opportunity for studying minutely and in less emphasized form the whole conception of a type.

For one huge omission, however, I have little excuse beside incompetence. Milton was too big for me. I reverence him beyond any other viii PREFACE

inventor of harmonies and feel that without eyes he saw more deeply into beauty than any of our other poets have seen with them. But on that account I did not think I could expound him in any such space as was at my disposal. And, after all, was not Wordsworth right in thinking him solitary as a star.f^ In a group he is out of scale. No doubt all the world was changed as soon as Milton wrote. But he left no school. Men opened their eyes and ears, wondered and were glad. But the wise ones went on their own way, and only the little ones imitated. He showed no path for others to follow. None but a Milton walks steadily there.

In dealing with individual poets my method is somewhat peculiar. I attempt to criticize from within out, not, as is more usual, from without in. That is, after gaining pretty full acquaintance with a poet I am apt to discover in him some central principle from which most of his peculiarities radiate. To seize this central type or interest and through it to give a unitary view of the man seems to me the true aim of criticism. One may easily press the method too far and thus regard complexity and discord too little. Few of us are completely

PREFACE ix

harmonized. Yet p>oets tend toward harmony about in proportion to their greatness, and in this book none but great men appear. I shall not distort them if I show each as moving from something hke a single centre.

At the close of each of these lectures, as originally delivered, I read for half an hour from the poet discussed. Criticism, taken apart from that which is discussed, is arid and blinding stuff. I accordingly at first thought of printing after each lecture a selection of "illustration material." But seeing that this would double the size of my book, and possibly render it less attractive to those who found there poetry already pretty familiar, I abandoned the plan and have substituted brief lists, sufficient, however, to enable the novice to bring my judgments to the test.

Perhaps a word of apology is needed for here venturing outside my province. My professional work has been in Philosophy. To the poets I have listened only as an amateur. Yet every one is wise, whatever his occupation, in cherishing some collateral interest which produces nothing for the market, is amenable to no social standard, and is valued simply for sweetening his own life. Such an unpaid in-

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vigorator has poetry been to me during a long life. On nearing the close I am glad to give it publicity and commend it as a privy councillor to others.

Harvard University August 1, 1918

Contents

I. Introductory 1

II. Geoffrey Chaucer 31

III. Edmund Spenser 63

II II

It might well seem presumptuous for a person with any pretensions to scholarship to undertake to set forth in a single brief chapter one of the most voluminous poets of our language. In Skeat's edition Chaucer's works fill nearly two thousand large octavo pages. But I make no pretension to literary scholarship and in this field am but an amateur. To be a scholar in Chaucer demands the devotion of half a lifetime, so many questions relating to him are still in controversy. What ones among the many pieces bearing his name were written by him? What ones merely composed under his influence.^ From what sources does he derive his material.'* For this creative genius, like Shakspere, seldom invents what he can borrow. Then too what are the precise facts of his life? Plentiful rumors about him have floated down from antiquity; but are these rumors trustworthy? What evidence is there for them, and do they harmonize with other known facts? It is a vast affair, becoming acquainted with Chaucer. But shall we delay our enjoyment till all these puzzling questions are settled? If we had picked a volume of Chaucer out of an ash barrel, and never had heard his name, should we not see at once the quality of the writing and know that its author must have had a prodigious influence over his contemporaries and successors? It is this aesthetic interest in Chaucer — an interest open even to one who lacks special historic training — which I would emphasize. I wish my readers to look upon his work as the best example we have of an important type of poetry, one of the earliest types and he the first to present it adequately. All else in the great world of Chaucer I pass by. Whatever facts about him I borrow from the accredited authorities will have sole reference to this aim. As an account of Chaucer this chapter will be meagre indeed. For illustrating a certain formative type of delightful poetry, it may be suflScient. But the word "type" is obscure, almost mysterious. It needs definition. If we are to find "formative types" in English poetry, we should know precisely what to look for. Here then, in connection with our first poet I will try to make the matter plain. In my first

GEOFFREY CHAUCER B5

chapter I pointed out that poetry does not primarily seek to inform : it is not a statement of facts or of ethical precepts. It aims at the conscious transference of a mood. Accordingly; in estimating the beauty of a poem our chief question is how completely is that mood presented.'' Is it vivid, rounded, fully organized.'* Has everything been stated which belongs to it, which would enable it to affect us as it affected the poet himself .f* And then, of course, the universal demand of art — is it severe; has everything been cut away which could possibly be spared?

The significance of a mood, however, varies according as it is a profound and permanent or a transient one. We all have our temporary moods, and not infrequently pungent ones. Something makes us taste of life more deeply than is our wont, and our dull tongues are quickened. We try to set forth our emotion for others to share. Under an urgent experience an ordinary man may become temporarily a poet. The very forms of verse bring a relief to his mood. Such persons who rise to the height of a single poem, or a few poems, we may call poetic writers, in contrast to the true poets. And of course many a one sinks below this level. He has some vague feeling which he imperfectly comprehends and can only imperfectly state; yet having a certain knack of verse he writes with neatness and we loosely speak of what he produces as "poetry." How can we distinguish this from the true stuff .^^ From the point of view of the writer I have called poetry the conscious transference of a mood. From that of the reader it is a fragment of reality seen through a temperament. The poetic writer has no temperament; the poet has.

To get an understanding of what we mean by a temperament we had better go quite outside the realm of poetry and examine certain experiences of common life. Suppose on a street-corner of a busy city a group of men stand watching the moving crowd in the street. Their eyes turned in the same direction, do they all see the same things? The majority of them perhaps do. If we could penetrate their inner minds we should probably find little difference in the perceptions of four fifths of the onlookers. Their observation is superficial. What is seen stirs no one of them deeply. Each casts a glance, sees a moving object, recognizes it as a human being, and that is about all. But in the group are three persons of a different type. One is an artist who, as he gazes on the swaying street, is struck with the multitude of moving arms and legs, with great dark spots of body, with certain illuminated masses here balancing other illuminated masses there. Among the swift motions certain show a harmonious rhythm, but there are maladjustments too, and he is studying how these might be pulled together to form an integral whole. That is what the artist sees. At his elbow stands a statesman, concerned over the wellbeing of his townsmen. He has before him what we are accustomed to call the same crowd as the artist, but yet how different! For as he turns his face upon that struggling crowd he is asking how many of these people are well-to-do, how many in poverty, what proportion do the criminally inclined bear to the good citizens, have any sunk so low in the social scale that there is no more hope for them — such are the statesman's questions. And since such questions fill his mind, such are his observations. If his artist neighbor should say to him, "Did you see that splendid splash of color up there on the left.^^" would he not answer, "No, I only saw a v/retchedly ragged woman, hiding her head in her shawl." This the artist had not seen, for he had been looking for something else. But near these two moves a man of God. Looking into the wan faces, he asks himself how many are lovers of the ways of righteousness, how many have grown careless and fallen into vice, how many have lost their self-respect and can no longer think of duty as a friend.'^ Though the statesman and he are scanning the same faces, each receives a different shade of impression.

And just these special prepossessions of sight will be carried away when the three friends move from the sidewalk and go up into the less frequented parts of the town. Whatever they see will come to them colored by their temperament, that is, their habitual mode of regard. These men have encompassed themselves with limitations of vision which, while allowing much that is of value to escape, enable them to perceive more fully the value of what they do see. Each of these temperamental persons is so inwardly fashioned that only certain sides of the world can come at him. And with this state of things each is on the whole content. His work is thus defined. He knows what he is called to do. And so far from despising such a one, we should honor him for accepting so limited a section of life. Only so can he acquire an aptitude of sight and judgment, and become able to disclose the deeper things of the world to his fellows.

Now, what is obvious here in common life is no less true in poetry. The great poets are those who have a temperament, a permanent attitude of mind, who have habituated themselves to approach all things on certain single sides and are contented with their limitations. Their moods are not thin and shifting. A temperamental type stamps all their work. How idle then for us when we would read poetry to bring with us a standard of what all poets should be; and because on opening a volume we do not find this there, to close it again thinking it has no value for us, we don't like it! "Like" or "don't like," that is the test ordinarily applied; and nothing more surely hinders growth. We bring our prepossessions, our little fragmentary temperaments and expect the great man to have no other. We go to the poets with the demand that they reflect ourselves. If they do, we give them the supreme honor of liking them ; if they do not, we decline the labor of understanding. Such is the sentimental way of reading poetry, and it should b^ dropped in our teens if we would not grow up weaklings.

But if we desire to enlarge our imagination and increase the scope of our life, we cannot do better than to turn to the great poets precisely because they are of a different type from ourselves. Let them take us in charge and instruct us how the world looks from their point of view. It is the poet's work to emancipate us from ourselves. Other men are able to do it but partially. The poets do it veraclously. For the moment they can make their life ours, if we will put ourselves under their guidance and not insist on all doing the same thing.

In some such way English poetry will be studied in this book. Regarding each of these poets as but a medium for bringing about the enlargement of the English mind, I give no detailed account of a poet's life and writings. I seek to furnish insight, not information. Such facts as can be had from a biographical dictionary I omit, or use only so far as they help to determine the type of the poet. I want to lay bare his psychology and to show how naturally connected with this are the peculiarities of his writings. What is his attitude of mind.'^ What aspects of the world is he interested in setting forth? That is all. If I can conduct my readers to the point of view from which they can comprehend what each poet has to say, I shall count it of little consequence that they do not like what he says. Has he said it well, I ask, and felt it deeply .^^ If so, let us be grateful. Every phase of human nature, truly displayed, has value and enriches us all. Let us then be flexible-minded and, putting ourselves successively in charge of these men, let us endeavor to see the world as each of them saw it. But while varieties of individual temperament create a multitude of interesting types, these are not all of equal consequence. The difTerences among them are often small. But from time to time, and usually when old ways of poetizing are outworn, some genius appears whose temperament is of so divergent, fresh and pronounced a type that it becomes formative over his successors. Some new phase of human experience, or at least a new mode of handling it, is disclosed by him, and those who come after are enabled to see and do what without him they could not have seen and done. It is these truly formative types which interest me. A small number of those which have been most influential I here examine.

When English poetry first sets out — I do not meddle with the Saxon and Norman forms which preceded — but when that which may fairly be called English poetry first sets out, we meet a mighty figure, Geoffrey Chaucer, 1340-1400 — easy dates to remember. His work is in an elementary type of poetry, but one which needed to be developed before others could arise at all. That type we must keep steadily in mind if we would enjoy him, for from it most of his excellence is derived. It is narrative poetry, vivid description, rooted in the observation of facts. Chaucer looks out upon the world, enjoys it, and attempts to reproduce it for our pleasure. His poetry reflects hearty content with the world as it stands. Such mere reproduction of welcomed experience must underlie all other varieties of verse. Of it Chaucer is the acknowledged master.

The closer we come to Chaucer, the more remarkable it seems that he was able to do work of this naturalistic sort. The conventional obstacles which he inherited were enormous. Under the magnitude of them a lesser genius would have succumbed. For a vast store of theology was handed over to him which had been accumulated reverently through centuries, though only half understood either by those who read or wrote it. An ecclesiasticism too protected by the State, sternly prescribed what men should beHeve and read, repressing individual inquiry. At this time it was rendered freshly suspicious by Wiclif and his followers. Verbose moralizing was also in fashion, platitudes w^ere accepted as profundities, and to their length, tedium, and emptiness, no one seems to have objected. Everybody too dehghted in fantastic allegory, the very opposite of obser^T^ational truth. And if we are to complete the catalogue of Chaucer's adverse conditions, we must mention the fondness of his age for the inferior writers of antiquity and for those extravagant legends of chivalry where mere events and coincidences are the main thing and little attention is given to human character.

Such was Chaucer's burdensome inheritance. He did not reject it. The wise man counts precious the stock the past brings him, enters into it heartily, but ever adds to and modifies it. It is a good saying that a man or nation that has no past is not likely to have a future. He who rebels against what he receives is apt to be left meagre. But what is received must not be allowed to keep its outgrown character. The poet, at least, puts his own impress on all that comes his way. How just is Bacon's statement that the beauty of excellent art consists in the homo additus natures, the stamp of the human being set on the world around! And the remark is no less tiiie of the world of inner experience, which tradition brings, than of the physical world reported by our senses. The poet accepts them both, but passes them through his special temperament.

At least so Chaucer did. All the rubbish of the past which I have assembled in my previous paragraph Chaucer uses about as abundantly as do his contemporaries. Obvious moralizing does not disturb him. Sonorous divinity, frequent quotation, magical agencies, strained allegory, belief in absurd legends — yes, even the dream as the framework of a tale — all the literary furniture of his time he cheerfully adopts. His stories are often not his own, but have been already told by Latin, Itahan, or French writers, he recasting them according to his f ancy^ He often strikes one as too modest, over docile, too much inclined to look up to those who are beneath him. Yet he borrows nothing that he does not transform. Dead matter of the past he fills with living character. Vivid individual portraiture which hitherto had hardly been attempted in English literature, is Chaucer's passion. All his improbable stories, stuffed with theologic, moral and physical lore are prized by him as material for the setting of endless varieties of mankind. Just as it exists, he rejoices in humanity, in its squalor, splendor, misfortune, tragedy. All gives him what he wants, the opportunity to depict. No doubt unworthy people are often his subjects, coarse and degraded people. A coarse man too is sure to think coarse thoughts and use coarse words. He who depicts him accurately must not be squeamish over foulness. Chaucer is not. In its indication of character he even takes a hearty pleasure. On the other hand Chaucer's world abounds in highbred knights, priests, scholars, lawyers, administrators, with attractive, refined and dutiful women not a few, all trained from youth to noble thought and gentle manners; and to these again Chaucer does imaginative justice. His aim everywhere is that announced by Shakspere, "to hold the mirror up to nature." If Chaucer can only get the moving world — the human world as he sees it in rich variety around him, — if he can get this actual world transferred to his pages, and make us as interested as himself in the queer actions, the absurdities, the glories, the degradations even, of his fellow men he will be content. His dramatic power is extreme. He suits each tale to the character of him who tells it.

But if the desire to keep close to reality is the distinctive mark of Chaucer, can we give his writings the name of poetry? By doing so shall we not come into conflict with the doctrine of our first chapter .^^ There it appeared that the antithesis of poetry was not prose, but fact. Poetry, being the conscious transmission of emotion into responsive minds, may use as its medium verse or prose, if only what it transmits is something else than fact. Accordingly we have defined poetry as a fragment of reality seen through a temperament, and have regarded the temperament as the more important part of the mixture. Now if we merely hold a mirror up to nature and content ourselves with what is reflected there, we leave out exactly that which is precious. Many therefore deny the name of poetry to narrative verse, and with much plausibility. Verse that furnishes information about men and things, however subtle that information may be and conveyed in however dehcate phrases, is after all only exquisite prose. The name of poetry should be reserved for that which conveys emotion, and this descriptive verse need not do.

With such views I largely agree and hold that so far as any verse fixes attention on a mere sequence of happenings, its poetry recedes. But I also feel that such opinions should in no way lessen our admiration of Chaucer. He interests us not primarily by the facts he presents, but by his emotional presentation. His is a marvelous temperament. That multitude of curiously diversified persons to whom he introduces us is seen through an exceptional reflecting medium. Nowhere else is such bonhomie to be found, such candor, such indisposition to judge — at least to judge harshly — such modesty, such incessant playfulness, such power of pathos and of memorable utterance. It is because this golden glov/ is over all his pages that we turn to them as artistry. Most of the information recorded there is rubbish and negligible. But the poetry is abundant and precious.

The few events of his life that are surely known show him to have been fortunately trained for the office of human interpreter. No doubt another man might pass through his experiences and bring out a different result. We cannot judge circumstances without reference to the character they affect. Perhaps a character like Chaucer's would have turned the most unpromising to profit. But certainly there are few men who through a long career can be counted so continuously fortunate.

Fortune favored him at the start, making him a member of no single class. He was not of noble birth and so cut off from knowledge of the common lot; not even a university man, disciplined into undue reverence for the past. He came out of the ranks of trade. Indeed his father followed a trade most suitable for the parent of so genial a gentleman. His father was a wine merchant in good circumstances, who probably supplied wines to the court. Nothing is known of his son's youth till in 1357 we find him mentioned as being measured for a suit of livery in the train of the wife of the Duke of Clarence, one of the King's sons. That is, he now crosses the border line, leaves the men of commerce, and joins the noble class.

with which his Hfe is henceforth allied. Chaucer is an excellent climber. He never goes backward in the social scale. He loves all that is rich and splendid and is skilful in appropriating a good share to himself. By the time he is a man, therefore, Chaucer is acquainted both with court and commonalty.

Critics divide his life into four periods; the first, the period of his youth, running from about 1340 — the date of his birth is not certain — to 13G0. Few events are reported of him in this period. There is his change in station, probably too he began early to write verse; and then in 1359, as a soldier in the Hundred Years' War, he crossed with the English army to France, was taken prisoner there, and ransomed a year later. Such an experience of war and imprisonment might naturally produce rancor tov/ard the foe. But in Chaucer's kindly soul there was no room for rancor. On the contrary, this imprisonment gave him an opportunity to know his sweet enemy. Franco, and to become better acquainted with French literature. He always remained an admirer of things French, though eight or ten years later he took part in anotlier campaign in France.

A second period of Chaucer's life is that between 1360 and 1372. Near the beginning of this period he seems to have left the service of the Duke of Clarence for that of the King and to have come under the special patronage of his powerful son John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. In 1366 he married Philippa, one of the ladies in waiting on the Queen. Her last name is not known. Throughout this time he wrote under French influence and, always disposed to over-estimate the powers of others in comparison with his own, he busied himself with translating and adapting the beautiful French poetry which he had learned to enjoy. During this time he was rapidly advancing in court favor, in power and property.

In 1372 a new period of his life begins and extends to 1386. In 1372 he was sent to Italy to settle some perplexing questions of trade. A year was spent in Genoa and Florence. In Italy he found the Renaissance even more advanced than in France and of course much more than in remote England. He came under the influence of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio. They opened to him a new world of beauty and gave fresh impulse to his poetic powers. For while Chaucer is a courtier, soldier, envoy, practical man of affairs, he is also persistently a writer, eager not merely to enjoy the world but also to report it for the enjoyment of others. His audience too was a definite one. He was a singer to court circles, to those who valued entertainment and the light touch more than earnest reflection. His verse needed to be attractive. The years from 1372 to 1386 have been called Chaucer's Italian period when the influence of Italy succeeded that of France. But the period involved much business besides. Duiing it Chaucer served seven times as a foreign envoy.

By 1386 there is reason to believe he had set himself seriously to planning and composing the "Canterbury Tales." A truly English poetry is here begun. Chaucer has found himself, has cast off foreign influences and henceforth ventures to set forth what he discovers in ordinary English life. And now for the first time there fell upon him a few years of hardship, hardship wliich he did not allow to check his poetic activity. On the contrary, he seized on the unwonted leisure and made it helpful for his great design. In 1388, Parliament obliged the young King Richard II to dismiss his uncle, John of Gaunt, Chaucer's constant friend and protector, and to put himself under