Life of Robert Browning [24]
isolation
he was wont to enjoy on fortunate occasions.
It is not my intention -- it would, obviously, be a futile one,
if entertained -- to attempt an analysis or elaborate criticism
of the many poems, long and short, produced by Robert Browning.
Not one volume, but several, of this size, would have to be allotted
to the adequate performance of that end. Moreover,
if readers are unable or unwilling to be their own expositors,
there are several trustworthy hand-books which are easily procurable.
Some one, I believe, has even, with unselfish consideration
for the weaker brethren, turned "Sordello" into prose -- a superfluous task,
some scoffers may exclaim. Personally, I cannot but think this craze
for the exposition of poetry, this passion for "dissecting a rainbow",
is harmful to the individual as well as humiliating to the high office
of Poetry itself, and not infrequently it is ludicrous.
I must be content with a few words anent the more important
or significant poems, and in due course attempt an estimate
by a broad synthesis, and not by cumulative critical analyses.
In the selection of Paracelsus as the hero of his first mature poem,
Browning was guided first of all by his keen sympathy
with the scientific spirit -- the spirit of dauntless inquiry,
of quenchless curiosity, of a searching enthusiasm. Pietro of Abano,
Giordano Bruno, Galileo, were heroes whom he regarded with an admiration
which would have been boundless but for the wise sympathy
which enabled him to apprehend and understand their weaknesses
as well as their lofty qualities. Once having come to the conclusion
that Paracelsus was a great and much maligned man, it was natural for him
to wish to portray aright the features he saw looming through the mists
of legend and history. But over and above this, he half unwittingly,
half consciously, felt the fascination of that mysticism
associated with the name of the celebrated German scientist --
a mysticism, in all its various phases, of which he is now acknowledged
to be the subtlest poetic interpreter in our language,
though, profound as its attraction always was for him,
never was poet with a more exquisite balance of intellectual sanity.
Latest research has proved that whatsoever of a pretender
Paracelsus may have been in certain respects, he was unquestionably
a man of extraordinary powers: and, as a pioneer in a science
of the first magnitude of importance, deserving of high honour.
If ever the famous German attain a high place in the history
of the modern intellectual movement in Europe, it will be primarily
due to Browning's championship.
But of course the extent or shallowness of Paracelsus' claim
is a matter of quite secondary interest. We are concerned
with the poet's presentment of the man -- of that strange soul
whom he conceived of as having anticipated so far, and as having focussed
all the vagrant speculations of the day into one startling beam of light,
now lambently pure, now lurid with gross constituents.*
--
* Paracelsus has two particular claims upon our regard.
He gave us laudanum, a discovery of incalculable blessing to mankind.
And from his fourth baptismal name, which he inherited from his father,
we have our familiar term, `bombast'. Readers interested
in the known facts concerning the "master-mind, the thinker,
the explorer, the creator," the forerunner of Mesmer and even
of Darwin and Wallace, who began life with the sounding appellation
"Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus ab Hohenheim",
should consult Browning's own learned appendical note,
and Mr. Berdoe's interesting essay in the Browning Society Papers, No. 49.
--
Paracelsus, his friends Festus and his wife Michal, and Aprile,
an Italian poet, are the characters who are the personal media
through which Browning's already powerful genius found expression.
The poem is, of a kind, an epic: the epic of a brave soul
striving against baffling circumstance. It is full of passages
of rare technical excellence, as well as of
he was wont to enjoy on fortunate occasions.
It is not my intention -- it would, obviously, be a futile one,
if entertained -- to attempt an analysis or elaborate criticism
of the many poems, long and short, produced by Robert Browning.
Not one volume, but several, of this size, would have to be allotted
to the adequate performance of that end. Moreover,
if readers are unable or unwilling to be their own expositors,
there are several trustworthy hand-books which are easily procurable.
Some one, I believe, has even, with unselfish consideration
for the weaker brethren, turned "Sordello" into prose -- a superfluous task,
some scoffers may exclaim. Personally, I cannot but think this craze
for the exposition of poetry, this passion for "dissecting a rainbow",
is harmful to the individual as well as humiliating to the high office
of Poetry itself, and not infrequently it is ludicrous.
I must be content with a few words anent the more important
or significant poems, and in due course attempt an estimate
by a broad synthesis, and not by cumulative critical analyses.
In the selection of Paracelsus as the hero of his first mature poem,
Browning was guided first of all by his keen sympathy
with the scientific spirit -- the spirit of dauntless inquiry,
of quenchless curiosity, of a searching enthusiasm. Pietro of Abano,
Giordano Bruno, Galileo, were heroes whom he regarded with an admiration
which would have been boundless but for the wise sympathy
which enabled him to apprehend and understand their weaknesses
as well as their lofty qualities. Once having come to the conclusion
that Paracelsus was a great and much maligned man, it was natural for him
to wish to portray aright the features he saw looming through the mists
of legend and history. But over and above this, he half unwittingly,
half consciously, felt the fascination of that mysticism
associated with the name of the celebrated German scientist --
a mysticism, in all its various phases, of which he is now acknowledged
to be the subtlest poetic interpreter in our language,
though, profound as its attraction always was for him,
never was poet with a more exquisite balance of intellectual sanity.
Latest research has proved that whatsoever of a pretender
Paracelsus may have been in certain respects, he was unquestionably
a man of extraordinary powers: and, as a pioneer in a science
of the first magnitude of importance, deserving of high honour.
If ever the famous German attain a high place in the history
of the modern intellectual movement in Europe, it will be primarily
due to Browning's championship.
But of course the extent or shallowness of Paracelsus' claim
is a matter of quite secondary interest. We are concerned
with the poet's presentment of the man -- of that strange soul
whom he conceived of as having anticipated so far, and as having focussed
all the vagrant speculations of the day into one startling beam of light,
now lambently pure, now lurid with gross constituents.*
--
* Paracelsus has two particular claims upon our regard.
He gave us laudanum, a discovery of incalculable blessing to mankind.
And from his fourth baptismal name, which he inherited from his father,
we have our familiar term, `bombast'. Readers interested
in the known facts concerning the "master-mind, the thinker,
the explorer, the creator," the forerunner of Mesmer and even
of Darwin and Wallace, who began life with the sounding appellation
"Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus ab Hohenheim",
should consult Browning's own learned appendical note,
and Mr. Berdoe's interesting essay in the Browning Society Papers, No. 49.
--
Paracelsus, his friends Festus and his wife Michal, and Aprile,
an Italian poet, are the characters who are the personal media
through which Browning's already powerful genius found expression.
The poem is, of a kind, an epic: the epic of a brave soul
striving against baffling circumstance. It is full of passages
of rare technical excellence, as well as of