Life and Letters of Robert Browning [70]
life;
and if Mr. Browning has meant to say -- as he so often did say --
that religious certainties are required for the undeveloped mind,
but that the growing religious intelligence walks best by a receding light,
he denies the positive basis of Christian belief, and is no more orthodox
in the one set of reflections than in the other. The spirit, however,
of both poems is ascetic: for the first divorces religious worship
from every appeal to the poetic sense; the second refuses to recognize,
in poetry or art, or the attainments of the intellect,
or even in the best human love, any practical correspondence with religion.
The dissertation on Shelley is, what `Sordello' was,
what its author's treatment of poets and poetry always must be --
an indirect vindication of the conceptions of human life
which `Christmas Eve and Easter Day' condemns. This double poem stands indeed
so much alone in Mr. Browning's work that we are tempted to ask ourselves
to what circumstance or impulse, external or internal, it has been due;
and we can only conjecture that the prolonged communion with a mind
so spiritual as that of his wife, the special sympathies and differences
which were elicited by it, may have quickened his religious imagination,
while directing it towards doctrinal or controversial issues
which it had not previously embraced.
The `Essay' is a tribute to the genius of Shelley; it is also a justification
of his life and character, as the balance of evidence then presented them
to Mr. Browning's mind. It rests on a definition of the respective qualities
of the objective and the subjective poet. . . . While both, he says,
are gifted with the fuller perception of nature and man, the one endeavours to
`reproduce things external (whether the phenomena of the scenic universe,
or the manifested action of the human heart and brain)
with an immediate reference, in every case, to the common eye
and apprehension of his fellow-men, assumed capable of receiving
and profiting by this reproduction' -- the other `is impelled to embody
the thing he perceives, not so much with reference to the many below,
as to the One above him, the supreme Intelligence which apprehends
all things in their absolute truth, -- an ultimate view ever aspired to,
if but partially attained, by the poet's own soul.
Not what man sees, but what God sees -- the `Ideas' of Plato,
seeds of creation lying burningly on the Divine Hand -- it is toward these
that he struggles. Not with the combination of humanity in action,
but with the primal elements of humanity he has to do;
and he digs where he stands, -- preferring to seek them in his own soul
as the nearest reflex of that absolute Mind, according to the intuitions
of which he desires to perceive and speak.'
The objective poet is therefore a fashioner, the subjective is best described
as a seer. The distinction repeats itself in the interest with which we study
their respective lives. We are glad of the biography of the objective poet
because it reveals to us the power by which he works; we desire still more
that of the subjective poet, because it presents us with another aspect
of the work itself. The poetry of such a one is an effluence
much more than a production; it is
`the very radiance and aroma of his personality, projected from it
but not separated. Therefore, in our approach to the poetry,
we necessarily approach the personality of the poet; in apprehending it
we apprehend him, and certainly we cannot love it without loving him.'
The reason of Mr. Browning's prolonged and instinctive reverence for Shelley
is thus set forth in the opening pages of the Essay:
he recognized in his writings the quality of a `subjective' poet;
hence, as he understands the word, the evidence of a divinely inspired man.
Mr. Browning goes on to say that we need the recorded life in order
quite to determine to which class of inspiration a given work belongs;
and though he regards the work of Shelley as carrying its warrant
and if Mr. Browning has meant to say -- as he so often did say --
that religious certainties are required for the undeveloped mind,
but that the growing religious intelligence walks best by a receding light,
he denies the positive basis of Christian belief, and is no more orthodox
in the one set of reflections than in the other. The spirit, however,
of both poems is ascetic: for the first divorces religious worship
from every appeal to the poetic sense; the second refuses to recognize,
in poetry or art, or the attainments of the intellect,
or even in the best human love, any practical correspondence with religion.
The dissertation on Shelley is, what `Sordello' was,
what its author's treatment of poets and poetry always must be --
an indirect vindication of the conceptions of human life
which `Christmas Eve and Easter Day' condemns. This double poem stands indeed
so much alone in Mr. Browning's work that we are tempted to ask ourselves
to what circumstance or impulse, external or internal, it has been due;
and we can only conjecture that the prolonged communion with a mind
so spiritual as that of his wife, the special sympathies and differences
which were elicited by it, may have quickened his religious imagination,
while directing it towards doctrinal or controversial issues
which it had not previously embraced.
The `Essay' is a tribute to the genius of Shelley; it is also a justification
of his life and character, as the balance of evidence then presented them
to Mr. Browning's mind. It rests on a definition of the respective qualities
of the objective and the subjective poet. . . . While both, he says,
are gifted with the fuller perception of nature and man, the one endeavours to
`reproduce things external (whether the phenomena of the scenic universe,
or the manifested action of the human heart and brain)
with an immediate reference, in every case, to the common eye
and apprehension of his fellow-men, assumed capable of receiving
and profiting by this reproduction' -- the other `is impelled to embody
the thing he perceives, not so much with reference to the many below,
as to the One above him, the supreme Intelligence which apprehends
all things in their absolute truth, -- an ultimate view ever aspired to,
if but partially attained, by the poet's own soul.
Not what man sees, but what God sees -- the `Ideas' of Plato,
seeds of creation lying burningly on the Divine Hand -- it is toward these
that he struggles. Not with the combination of humanity in action,
but with the primal elements of humanity he has to do;
and he digs where he stands, -- preferring to seek them in his own soul
as the nearest reflex of that absolute Mind, according to the intuitions
of which he desires to perceive and speak.'
The objective poet is therefore a fashioner, the subjective is best described
as a seer. The distinction repeats itself in the interest with which we study
their respective lives. We are glad of the biography of the objective poet
because it reveals to us the power by which he works; we desire still more
that of the subjective poet, because it presents us with another aspect
of the work itself. The poetry of such a one is an effluence
much more than a production; it is
`the very radiance and aroma of his personality, projected from it
but not separated. Therefore, in our approach to the poetry,
we necessarily approach the personality of the poet; in apprehending it
we apprehend him, and certainly we cannot love it without loving him.'
The reason of Mr. Browning's prolonged and instinctive reverence for Shelley
is thus set forth in the opening pages of the Essay:
he recognized in his writings the quality of a `subjective' poet;
hence, as he understands the word, the evidence of a divinely inspired man.
Mr. Browning goes on to say that we need the recorded life in order
quite to determine to which class of inspiration a given work belongs;
and though he regards the work of Shelley as carrying its warrant