An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry Part 6

Though this is said in the person of the beautiful shepherd-boy, David, whoever has lived any time with Browning, through his poetry, must be a.s.sured that it is also an expression of the poet's own experience of the glory of flesh. He has himself been an expression of the fullest physical life: and now, in his five and seventieth year, since the 7th of last May, he preserves both mind and body in a magnificent vigor.

If his soul had been lodged in a sickly, rickety body, he could hardly have written these lines from 'Saul'. Nor could he have written 'Caliban upon Setebos', especially the opening lines: "Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best, flat on his belly in the pit's much mire, with elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin. And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, and feels about his spine small eft-things course, run in and out each arm, and make him laugh: and while above his head a pompion-plant, coating the cave-top as a brow its eye, creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard, and now a flower drops with a bee inside, and now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,-- he looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross and recross till they weave a spider-web (meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times), and talks to his own self, howe'er he please, touching that other, whom his dam called G.o.d."

There's a grand pa.s.sage in 'Balaustion's Adventure: including a transcript from Euripides', descriptive of Herakles as he returns, after his conflict with Death, leading back Alkestis, which shows the poet's sympathy with the physical. The pa.s.sage is more valuable as revealing that sympathy, from the fact that it's one of his additions to Euripides:--

"there stood the strength, Happy as always; something grave, perhaps; The great vein-cordage on the fret-worked brow, Black-swollen, beaded yet with battle-drops The yellow hair o' the hero!--his big frame A-quiver with each muscle sinking back Into the sleepy smooth it leaped from late.

Under the great guard of one arm, there leant A shrouded something, live and woman-like, Propped by the heart-beats 'neath the lion-coat.

When he had finished his survey, it seemed, The heavings of the heart began subside, The helping breath returned, and last the smile Shone out, all Herakles was back again, As the words followed the saluting hand."

It is not so much the glory of flesh which Euripides represents in Herakles, as the indulgence of appet.i.te, at a time, too, when that indulgence is made to appear the more culpable and gross.

This idea of "the value and significance of flesh", it is important to note, along with the predominant spiritual bearing of Browning's poetry. It articulates everywhere the spiritual, so to speak--makes it healthy and robust, and protects it against volatility and from running into mysticism.

2. The Idea of Personality as embodied in Browning's Poetry.

A cardinal idea in Browning's poetry is the regeneration of men through a personality who brings fresh stuff for them to mould, interpret, and prove right,--new feeling fresh from G.o.d-- whose life re-teaches them what life should be, what faith is, loyalty and simpleness, all once revealed, but taught them so long since that they have but mere tradition of the fact,-- truth copied falteringly from copies faint, the early traits all dropped away. ('Luria'.) The intellect plays a secondary part.

Its place is behind the instinctive, spiritual antennae which conduct along their trembling lines, fresh stuff for the intellect to stamp and keep--fresh instinct for it to translate into law.

"A people is but the attempt of many to rise to the completer life of one." ('A Soul's Tragedy'.)

Only the man who supplies new feeling fresh from G.o.d, quickens and regenerates the race, and sets it on the King's highway from which it has wandered into by-ways--not the man of mere intellect, of unkindled soul, that supplies only stark-naked thought. Through the former, "G.o.d stooping shows sufficient of His light for those i' the dark to rise by."

('R. and B., Pompilia'.) In him men discern "the dawn of the next nature, the new man whose will they venture in the place of theirs, and whom they trust to find them out new ways to the new heights which yet he only sees." ('Luria'.) It is by reaching towards, and doing fealty to, the greater spirit which attracts and absorbs their own, that, "trace by trace old memories reappear, old truth returns, their slow thought does its work, and all's re-known." ('Luria'.)

"Some existence like a pact And protest against Chaos, . . .

. . . The fullest effluence of the finest mind, All in degree, no way diverse in kind From minds above it, minds which, more or less Lofty or low, move seeking to impress Themselves on somewhat; but one mind has climbed Step after step, by just ascent sublimed.

Thought is the soul of act, and, stage by stage, Is soul from body still to disengage, As tending to a freedom which rejects Such help, and incorporeally affects The world, producing deeds but not by deeds, Swaying, in others, frames itself exceeds, a.s.signing them the simpler tasks it used To patiently perform till Song produced Acts, by thoughts only, for the mind: divest Mind of e'en Thought, and, lo, G.o.d's unexpressed Will dawns above us!" ('Sordello'.)

A dangerous tendency of civilization is that towards crystallization-- towards hardened, inflexible conventionalisms which "refuse the soul its way".

Such crystallization, such conventionalisms, yield only to the dissolving power of the spiritual warmth of life-full personalities.

The quickening, regenerating power of personality is everywhere exhibited in Browning's poetry. It is emphasized in 'Luria', and in the Monologues of the Canon Caponsacchi and Pompilia, in the 'Ring and the Book'; it s.h.i.+nes out, or glints forth, in 'Colombe's Birthday', in 'Saul', in 'Sordello', and in all the Love poems. I would say, en pa.s.sant, that Love is always treated by Browning as a SPIRITUAL claim; while DUTY may be only a worldly one. SEE especially the poem ent.i.tled 'Bifurcation'. In 'Balaustion's Adventure: including a transcipt from Euripides', the regenerating power of personality may be said to be the leavening idea, which the poet has introduced into the Greek play. It is entirely absent in the original. It baptizes, so to speak, the Greek play, and converts it into a Christian poem. It is the "new truth"

of the poet's 'Christmas Eve'.

After the mourning friends have spoken their words of consolation to the bereaved husband, the last word being, "Dead, thy wife-- living, the love she left", Admetos "turned on the comfort, with no tears, this time. HE WAS BEGINNING TO BE LIKE HIS WIFE.

I told you of that pressure to the point, word slow pursuing word in monotone, Alkestis spoke with; so Admetos, now, solemnly bore the burden of the truth. And as the voice of him grew, gathered strength, and groaned on, and persisted to the end, we felt how deep had been descent in grief, and WITH WHAT CHANGE HE CAME UP NOW TO LIGHT, and left behind such littleness as tears."

And when Alkestis was brought back by Herakles, "the hero twitched the veil off: and there stood, with such fixed eyes and such slow smile, Alkestis' silent self! It was the crowning grace of that great heart to keep back joy: procrastinate the truth until the wife, who had made proof and found the husband wanting, might essay once more, hear, see, and feel him RENOVATED now-- ABLE TO DO, NOW, ALL HERSELF HAD DONE, RISEN TO THE HEIGHT OF HER: so, hand in hand, the two might go together, live and die."

(Compare with this the restoration of Hermione to her husband, in 'The Winter's Tale', Act V.)

A good intellect has been characterized as the chorus of Divinity.

Subst.i.tute for "good intellect", an exulted magnetic personality, and the thought is deepened. An exalted magnetic personality is the chorus of Divinity, which, in the great Drama of Humanity, guides and interprets the feelings and sympathies of other souls and thus adjusts their att.i.tudes towards the Divine.

It is not the highest function of such a personality to TEACH, but rather to INFORM, in the earlier and deeper sense of the word.

Whatever mere doctrine he may promulgate, is of inferior importance to the spontaneous action of his concrete life, in which the True, the Beautiful, and the Good, breathe and live. What is born in the brain dies there, it may be; at best, it does not, and cannot of itself, lead up to the full concrete life.

It is only through the spontaneou and unconscious fealty which an inferior does to a superior soul (a fealty resulting from the responsiveness of spirit to spirit), that the former is slowly and silently transformed into a more or less approximate image of the latter. The stronger personality leads the weaker on by paths which the weaker knows not, upward he leads him, though his steps be slow and vacillating.

Humility, in the Christian sense, means this fealty to the higher.

It doesn't mean self-abas.e.m.e.nt, self-depreciation, as it has been understood to mean, by both the Romish and the Protestant Church.

Pride, in the Christian sense, is the closing of the doors of the soul to a great magnetic guest.

Browning beautifully expresses the transmission of personality in his 'Saul'. But according to Browning's idea, personality cannot strictly be said to be transmitted. Personality rather evokes its LIKE from other souls, which are "all in degree, no way diverse in kind." ('Sordello'.)

David has reached an advanced stage in his symbolic song to Saul.

He thinks now what next he shall urge "to sustain him where song had restored him?--Song filled to the verge his cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it yields of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty: beyond, on what fields glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten the eye and bring blood to the lip, and commend them the cup they put by?" So once more the string of the harp makes response to his spirit, and he sings:--

"In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears fruit.

Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree,--how its stem trembled first Till it pa.s.sed the kid's lip, the stag's antler; then safely outburst The fan-branches all round; and thou mindest when these, too, in turn Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect; yet more was to learn, E'en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. Our dates shall we slight, When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care for the plight Of the palm's self whose slow growth produced them? Not so!

stem and branch Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine shall staunch Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee such wine.

Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for! the spirit be thine!

By the spirit, when age shall o'ercome thee, thou still shalt enjoy More indeed, than at first when, inconscious, the life of a boy.

Crush that life, and behold its wine running! each deed thou hast done Dies, revives, goes to work in the world; until e'en as the sun Looking down on the earth, though clouds spoil him, though tempests efface, Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must everywhere trace The results of his past summer-prime,--SO, EACH RAY OF THY WILL, EVERY FLASH OF THY Pa.s.sION AND PROWESS, LONG OVER, SHALL THRILL THY WHOLE PEOPLE, THE COUNTLESS, WITH ARDOUR, TILL THEY TOO GIVE FORTH A LIKE CHEER TO THEIR SONS: WHO IN TURN, FILL THE SOUTH AND THE NORTH WITH THE RADIANCE THY DEED WAS THE GERM OF."

In the concluding lines is set forth what might be characterized as the apostolic succession of a great personality--the succession of those "who in turn fill the South and the North with the radiance his deed was the germ of."

What follows in David's song gives expression to the other mode of transmitting a great personality--that is, through records that "give unborn generations their due and their part in his being", and also to what those records owe their effectiveness, and are saved from becoming a dead letter.

"Is Saul dead? In the depth of the vale make his tomb--bid arise A grey mountain of marble heaped four-square, till, built to the skies, Let it mark where the great First King slumbers: whose fame would ye know?

Up above see the rock's naked face, where the record shall go In great characters cut by the scribe,--Such was Saul, so he did; With the sages directing the work, by the populace chid,-- For not half, they'll affirm, is comprised there! Which fault to amend, In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they shall spend (See, in tablets 'tis level before them) their praise, and record With the gold of the graver, Saul's story,--the statesman's great word Side by side with the poet's sweet comment. The river's a-wave With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when prophet-winds rave: So the pen gives unborn generations their due and their part In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank G.o.d that thou art!"

What is said in this pa.s.sage is applicable to the record we have of Christ's life upon earth. Christianity has only to a very limited extent been perpetuated through the letter of the New Testament. It has been perpetuated chiefly through transmissions of personalities, through apostolic succession, in a general sense, and through embodiments of his spirit in art and literature--"the stateman's great word", "the poet's sweet comment". Were it not for this transmission of the quickening power of personality, the New Testament would be to a great extent a dead letter. It owes its significance to the quickened spirit which is brought to the reading of it.

The personality of Christ could not be, through a plastic sympathy, moulded out of the New Testament records, without the aid of intermediate personalities.

The Messianic idea was not peculiar to the Jewish race-- the idea of a Person gathering up within himself, in an effective fulness and harmony, the restorative elements of humanity, which have lost their power through dispersion and consequent obscuration.

There have been Messiahs of various orders and ranks in every age,-- great personalities that have realized to a greater or less extent (though there has been but one, the G.o.d-Man, who fully realized), the spiritual potentialities in man, that have stood upon the sharpest heights as beacons to their fellows. In the individual the species has, as it were, been gathered up, epitomized, and intensified, and he has thus been a prophecy, and to some extent a fulfilment of human destiny.

"A poet must be earth's ESSENTIAL king", as Sordello a.s.serts, and he is that by virtue of his exerting or shedding the influence of his essential personality. "If caring not to exert the proper essence of his royalty, he, the poet, trifle malapert with accidents instead-- good things a.s.signed as heralds of a better thing behind"--he is "deposed from his kingly throne, and his glory is taken from him".

Of himself, Sordello says: "The power he took most pride to test, whereby all forms of life had been professed at pleasure, forms already on the earth, was but a means of power beyond, whose birth should, in its novelty, be kings.h.i.+p's proof. Now, whether he came near or kept aloof the several forms he longed to imitate, not there the kings.h.i.+p lay, he sees too late. Those forms, unalterable first as last, proved him her copier, not the protoplast of nature: what could come of being free by action to exhibit tree for tree, bird, beast, for beast and bird, or prove earth bore one veritable man or woman more? Means to an end such proofs are: what the end?"

The answer given involves the great Browning idea of the quickening power of personality: "Let essence, whatsoe'er it be, extend--never contract!"

By "essence" we must understand that which "const.i.tutes man's self, is what Is", as the dying John, in 'A Death in the Desert', expresses it--that which backs the active powers and the conscious intellect, "subsisting whether they a.s.sist or no".

"Let essence, whatsoe'er it be, extend--never contract!"

Sordello says. "Already you include the mult.i.tude"; that is, you gather up in yourself, in an effective fulness and harmony, what lies scattered and ineffective in the mult.i.tude; "then let the mulitude include yourself"; that is, be substantiated, essenced with yourself; "and the result were new: themselves before, the mult.i.tude turn YOU" (become yourself). "This were to live and move and have, in them, your being, and secure a diadem you should transmit (because no cycle yearns beyond itself, but on itself returns) when the full sphere in wane, the world o'erlaid long since with you, shall have in turn obeyed some orb still prouder, some displayer, still more potent than the last, of human will, and some new king depose the old."

This is a most important pa.s.sage to get hold of in studying Browning.

It may be said to gather up Browning's philosophy of life in a nutsh.e.l.l.

There's a pa.s.sage to the same effect in 'Balaustion's Adventure', in regard to the transmission of the poet's essence. The enthusiastic Rhodian girl, Balaustion, after she has told the play of Euripides, years after her adventure, to her four friends, Petale, Phullis, Charope, and Chrusion, says:--

"I think I see how. . . you, I, or any one, might mould a new Admetos, new Alkestis. Ah, that brave bounty of poets, the one royal race that ever was, or will be, in this world! They give no gift that bounds itself, and ends i' the giving and the taking: theirs so breeds i' the heart and soul of the taker, so trans.m.u.tes the man who only was a man before, that he grows G.o.d-like in his turn, can give--he also: share the poet's privilege, bring forth new good, new beauty from the old. As though the cup that gave the wine, gave too the G.o.d's prolific giver of the grape, that vine, was wont to find out, fawn around his footstep, springing still to bless the dearth, at bidding of a Mainad."

3. Art as an Intermediate Agency of Personality.