England has given to the world one great poetess -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
By her side Mr Swinburne would place Miss Christina Rossetti, whose New Year
hymn he describes as so much the noblest of poems in our language, that there is
none which comes near it enough to stand second. "It is a
hymn," he tells us, "touched as with a fire, and bathed as in
the light of sunbeams, tuned as to chords and cadences of refluent sea-music
beyond reach of harp and organ, large echoes of the serene and sonorous tides of
heaven." Much as I admire Miss Rossetti's work, her subtle
choice of words, her rich imagery, her artistic
naïveté, wherein curious notes of
strangeness and simplicity are fantastically blended together, I cannot think
that Mr Swinburne has, with noble and natural loyalty, placed her on too lofty a
pedestal. To me, she is simply a very delightful artist in poetry. This is
indeed something so rare that when we meet it we cannot fail to love it, but it
is not everything. Beyond it and above it are higher and more sunlit heights of
song, a larger vision, and an ampler air, a music at once more passionate and
more profound, a creative energy that is borne of the spirit, a winged rapture
that is borne of the soul, a force and fervour of mere utterance that has all
the wonder of the prophet, and not a little of the consecration of the priest.
Mrs Browning is unapproachable by any woman who has ever touched a lyre or blown
through reed since the days of the great Æolian poetess. But Sappho,
who, to the antique world, was a pillar of flame, is to us but a pillar of
shadow. Of her poems, burnt with other most precious work by Byzantine Emperor
and by Roman Pope, only a few fragments remain. Possible they lie mouldering in
the scented darkness of an Egyptian tomb, clasped in the withered hands of some
long-dead lover. Some Greek monk at Athos may even now be poring over an ancient
manuscript, whose crabbed characters conceal lyric or ode by her whom the Greeks
spoke of as "the Poetess," just as they termed Homer
"the Poet," who was to them the tenth Muse, the flower of the
Graces, the child of Erôs, and the pride of Hellas -- Sappho, with
the sweet voice, the bright, beautiful eyes, the dark hyacinth-coloured hair.
But, practically, the work of the marvelous singer of Lesbos is entirely to us.
We have a few rose leaves out of her garden, that is all. Literature nowadays
survives marble and bronze, but in old days, in spits of the Roman poet’s noble
boast, it was not so. The fragile clay vases of the Greek's still keep
for us pictures of Sappho, delicately painted in black and red and white; but of
her song we have only the echo of an echo.
Of all the women of history, Mrs Browning is the only one that we could name in
any possible or remote conjunction with Sappho. Sappho was undoubtedly a far
more flawless and perfect artist. She stirred the whole antique world more than
Mrs Browning ever stirred our modern age. Never had Love such a singer. Even in
the few lines that remain to us the passion seems to scorch and burn. But, as
unjust Time, who has crowned her the barren laurels of fame, has twined with
them the dull poppies of oblivion, let us turn from the mere memory of a poetess
to one whose song still remains to us an imperishable glory of our literature;
to her who heard the cry of the children from dark mine and crowded factory, and
made England weep over its little ones; who, in feigned sonnets from the
Portug[u]ese, sang of the spiritual mystery of Love, and of the intellectual
gifts that Love brings to the soul; who had faith in all that is worthy, and
enthusiasm for all that is great, and pity for all that suffers; and who wrote
the "Vision of Poets," and "Casa Guidi
Windows," and "Aurora Leigh."
As one, to whom I owe my love of poetry no less than my love of country, has said
of her:
Still on our ears |
The clear "Excelsior" from a woman's
lip |
Rings out across the Apennines, although |
The woman's brow lies pale and cold in death |
5 With all the mighty marble dead in Florence. |
For while great songs can stir the hearts of men, |
Spreading their full vibrations through the world |
In ever-widening circles till they reach |
The Throne of God, and song becomes a prayer, |
10 And prayer brings down the liberating strength |
That kindles nations to heroic deeds, |
She lives -- the great-souled poetess who saw |
From Casa Guidi windows Freedom dawn |
On Italy, and gave the glory back |
15 In sunrise hymns to all Humanity! |
She lives indeed, and not alone in the heart of Shakespeare's England,
but in the heart of Dante's Italy also. To Greek literature she owed
her scholarly culture, but modern Italy created her human passion for Liberty.
When she crossed the Alps, she became filled with a new ardour, and from that
fine, eloquent mouth, that we can see in her portraits, broke forth such a noble
and majestic outburst of lyrical song as had not been heard from a
woman's lips fro more than two thousand years. It is pleasant to think
that an English poetess was to a certain extent a real factor in bringing about
that unity of Italy that was Dante's dream, and if Florence drove her
great singer into exile, she at least welcomed within her walls the later singer
that England had sent to her.
If one were asked the chief qualities of Mrs Browning's work, one would
say, as Mr Swinburne said of Byron's, its sincerity and its strength.
Faults it, of course, possesses. "She would rhyme moon to
table," used to be said of her in jest; and certainly no more monstrous
rhymes are to be found in all literature that some of those we come across in
Mrs Browning's poems. But her ruggedness was never the result of
carelessness. It was deliberate, as her letters to Mr Horne show very clearly.
She refused to sandpaper her muse. She disliked facile smoothness and artificial
polish. In her very rejection of art she was an artist. She intended to produce
a certain effect by certain means, and she succeeded; and her indifference to
complete assonance in rhyme often gives a splendid richness to her verse, and
brings into it a pleasurable element of surprise.
In philosophy she was a Platonist, in politics an Opportunist. She attached
herself to no particular party. She loved the people when they were king-like,
and kings when they showed themselves to be men. Of the real value and motive of
poetry she had a most exalted ideal. "Poetry," she says, in
the preface to one of her volumes, "has been as serious a thing to me
as life itself; and life has been a very serious thing. There has been no
playing at skittles for me in either. I never mistook pleasure for the final
cause of poetry, nor leisure for the hour of the poet. I have done my work so
far, not as mere hand and head work apart from the personal being, but as the
completest expression of that being to which I could attain." It
certainly is her completest expression, and through it she realizes her fullest
perfection. "The poet," she says elsewhere, "is at
once richer and poorer than he used to be; he wears better broadcloth, but
speaks no more oracles." These words give us the keynote to her view of
the poet's mission. He was to utter Divine oracles, to be at once
inspired prophet and holy priest; and as such we may, I think, without
exaggeration, conceive her. She was a Sibyl delivering a message to the world,
sometimes through stammering lips, and once at least with blinded eyes, yet
always with a true fire and fervour of lofty and unshaken faith, always with the
great raptures of a spiritual nature, the high ardours of an impassioned soul.
As we read her best poems we feel that, although Apollo's shrine be
empty and the bronze tripod overthrown, and the vale of Delphi desolate, still
the Pythia is not dead. In our own age she has sung for us, and this land gave
her new birth. Indeed, Mrs Browning is the wisest of the Sibyls, wiser even than
that mighty figure whom Michael Angelo has painted on the roof of the Sistine
Chapel at Rome, poring over the scroll of mystery, and trying to decipher the
secrets of Fate; for she realized that, while Knowledge is power, Suffering is
part of Knowledge.
To her influence, almost as much as to the higher education of women, I would be
inclined to attribute the really remarkable awakening of women's song
that characterizes the latter half of our century in England. No country has
ever had so many poetesses at once. Indeed, when one remembers that the Greeks
had only nine muses, one is sometimes apt to fancy that we have too many. And
yet the work done by women in the sphere of poetry is really of a very high
standard of excellence. In England we have always been prone to underrate the
value of tradition in literature. In our eagerness to find a new voice and a
fresh mode of music we have forgotten how beautiful Echo may be. We look first
for individuality and personality, and these are, indeed, the chief
characteristics of the masterpieces of our literature, either in prose or verse;
but deliberate culture and a study of the best models, if united to an artistic
temperament and a nature susceptible of exquisite impressions, may produce much
that is admirable, much that is worthy of praise. It would be quite impossible
to give a complete catalogue of all the women who since Mrs Browning's
day have tried lute and lyre. Mrs Pfeiffer, Mrs Hamilton King, Mrs Augusta
Webster, Graham Tomson, Miss Mary Robinson, Jean Ingelow, Miss May Kendall, Miss
Nesbit, Miss May Probyn, Mrs Craik, Mrs Meynell, Miss Chapman, and many others
have done really good work in poetry, either in the grave Dorian mode of
thoughtful and intellectual verse, or in the light and graceful forms of old
French song, or in the romantic manner of antique ballad, or in that
"moment's monument," as Rossetti called it, the
intense and concentrated sonnet. Occasionally one is tempted to wish that the
quick artistic faculty that women undoubtedly possess developed itself somewhat
more in prose and somewhat less in verse. Poetry is for our highest moods, when
we wish to be with the gods, and in poetry nothing but the very best should
satisfy us; but prose is for our daily bread, and the lack of good prose is one
of the chief blots on our culture. French prose, even in the hands of the most
ordinary writers, is always readable, but English prose is detestable. We have a
few, a very few masters, such as they are. We have Carlyle, who should not be
imitated; and Mr Pater, who, through the subtle perfection of his form, is
inimitable absolutely; and Mr Froude, who is useful; and Mathew Arnold, who is a
model; and Mr George Meredith, who is a warning; and Mr Lang, who is the divine
amateur; and Mr Stevenson, who is the humane artist; and Mr Ruskin, whose rhythm
and colour and fine rhetoric and marvelous music of words are entirely
unattainable. But the general prose that one reads in magazines and newspapers
is terribly dull and cumbrous, heave in movement and uncouth or exaggerated in
expression. Possibly some day our women of letters will apply themselves more
definitely to prose. Their light touch, and exquisite ear, and delicate sense of
balance and proportion would be of no small service to us. I can fancy women
bringing a new manner into our literature.
However, we have to deal here with women as poetesses, and it is interesting to
note that, though Mrs Browning's influence undoubtedly contributed very
largely to the development of this new-song movement, if I may so term it, still
there seems to have been never a time during the last three hundred years when
the women of this kingdom did not cultivate, if not the art, at least the habit,
of writing poetry. Who the first English poetess was I cannot say. I believe it
was Abbess Juliana Berners, who lived in the fifteenth century; but I have doubt
that Mr Freeman would be able at a moment’s notice to produce some wonderful
Saxon or Norman poetess, whose works cannot be read without a glossary, and even
with its aid are completely unintelligible. For my own part, I am content with
the Abbess Juliana, who wrote enthusiastically about hawking; and after her I
would mention Anne Askew, who in prison and on the eve of her fiery martyrdom
wrote a ballad that has, at any rate, a pathetic and historical interest. Queen
Elizabeth's "most sweet and sententious ditty" on
Mary Stuart is highly praised by Puttenham, a contemporary critic, as an example
of "Exargasia, or the Gorgeous in Literature," which somehow
seems a very suitable epithet for such great Queen's poems. The term
she applies to the unfortunate Queen of Scots, "the daughter of
debate" has, of course, long since passed into literature. The Countess
of Pembroke, Sir Philip Sidney’s sister, was much admired as a poetess in her
day. In 1613, the "learned, virtuous, and truly noble ladie,"
Elizabeth Carew published a "Tragedie of Miriam, the Faire Queene of
Jewry," and a few years later the "noble ladie Diana
Primrose" wrote "A Chain of Pearl," which is
panegyric on "peerless graces" of Gloriana. Mary Morpeth, the
friend and admirer of Drummond of Hawthornden; Lady Mary Wroth, to whom Ben
Jonson dedicated the "Alchemist;" and the Princess Elizabeth,
the sister of Charles I, should also be mentioned. After the Restoration women
applied themselves with still greater ardour to the study of literature and the
practice of poetry. Margaret Duchess of Newcastle was a true woman of letters,
and some of her verses are extremely pretty and graceful. Mrs Aphra Behn was the
first Englishwoman who adopted literature as a regular profession. Mrs Katherine
Philips, according to Mr Gosse, invented sentimentality. As she was praised by
Dryden, and mourned by Cowley, let us hope she may be forgiven. Keats came
across her poems at Oxford when he was writing "Endymion," and
found in one of them "a most delicate fancy of the Fletcher
kind;" but I fear that nobody reads the Matchless Orinda now. Of Lady
Winchelsea's "Nocturnal Reverie" Wordsworth said that
with eh exception of Pope's "Windsor Forest," it was
the only poem of the period intervening between "Paradise
Lost" and Thompson's "Seasons" that
contained a single new image of external nature. Lady Rachel Russell, who may be
said to have inaugurated the letter-writing literature of England; Eliza
Haywood, who is immortalized by the badness of her work, and has a niche in the
Dunciad; and the Marchioness of Wharton, whose poems Waller said he admired, are
very remarkable types, the finest of them being, of course, the first named, who
was a woman of heroic mould and of a most noble dignity of nature. Indeed,
though the English poetesses up to the time of Mrs Browning cannot be said to
have produced any work of absolute genius, they are certainly interesting
figures, fascinating subjects for study. Amongst them we find Lady Mary Wortley
Montague, who had all the caprice of Cleopatra, and whose letters are delightful
reading; Mrs Centlivre, who wrote one brilliant comedy; Lady Anne Barnard, whose
"Auld Robin Gray" was described by Sir Walter Scott as
"worth all the dialogues Corydon and Phillis have together spoken from
the days of Theocritus downwards," and is certainly a very beautiful
and touching poem; Esther Vanhomrigh and Hester Johnson, the Vanessa and Stella
of Dean Swift's life; Mrs Thrale, the friend of the great Lexographer;
the worthy Mrs Barbauld; the excellent Mrs Hannah More; the industrious Joanna
Baillie; the admirable Mrs Chapone, whose "Ode to Solitude"
always fills me with the wildest passion for society, and who will at least be
remembered as the patroness of the establishment at which Becky Sharp was
educated; Miss Anna Seward, who was called "the Swan of
Litchfield;" poor L. E. L., whom Disraeli described in one of his
clever letters to his sister as "the personification of Brompton --
pink satin dress, white satin shoes, red cheeks, snub nose, and her hair
à la Sappho;" Mrs Ratcliffe, who introduced
the romantic novel, and has consequently much to answer for; the beautiful
Duchess of Devonshire, of whom Gibbon said that she was "made for
something better than a duchess;" the two wonderful sisters Lady
Dufferin and Mrs Norton; Mrs Tighe, whose "Psyche" Keats read
with pleasure; Constantia Grierson, a marvellous blue stocking in her time; Mrs
Hemans; pretty, charming "Perdita," whose flirted alternately
with poetry and the Prince Regent, played divinely in "The
Winter's Tale," was brutally attacked by Guilford, and has
left us a pathetic little poem on the snowdrop; and Emily Bronte, whose poems
are instinct with tragic power, and seem often on the verge of being great.
Old fashions in literature are not so pleasant as old fashions in dress. I like
the costume of the age of powder better than the poetry of the age of Pope. But
if one adopts the historical standpoint -- and this is, indeed, the only
standpoint from which we can ever form a fair estimate of work that is not
absolutely of the highest order -- we cannot fail to see that many of the
English poetesses who preceded Mrs Browning were women of no ordinary talent,
and that if the majority of them looked upon poetry simply as a department of
belles letters, so in most cases did their contemporaries.
Since Mrs Browning's day our woods have become full of singing birds,
and if I venture to ask them to apply themselves more to prose and less to song,
it is not that I like poetical prose, but that I love the prose of poets.