Life of Robert Browning [25]
conceptive beauty:
so full, indeed, that the sympathetic reader of it as a drama
will be too apt to overlook its radical shortcomings,
cast as it is in the dramatic mould. But it must not be forgotten
that Browning himself distinctly stated he had attempted to write
"a poem, not a drama": and in the light of this simple statement
half the objections that have been made fall to the ground.
Paracelsus is the protagonist: the others are merely incidental.
The poem is the soul-history of the great medical student
who began life so brave of aspect and died so miserably at Salzburg:
but it is also the history of a typical human soul, which can be read
without any knowledge of actual particulars.
Aprile is a projection of the poet's own poetical ideal. He speaks,
but he does not live as Festus lives, or even as Michal, who, by the way,
is interesting as being the first in the long gallery of Browning's women --
a gallery of superbly-drawn portraits, of noble and striking
and always intensely human women, unparalleled except in Shakespeare.
Pauline, of course, exists only as an abstraction, and Porphyria
is in no exact sense a portrait from the life. Yet Michal can be revealed
only to the sympathetic eye, for she is not drawn, but again and again
suddenly silhouetted. We see her in profile always: but when she exclaims
at the last, "I ever did believe," we feel that she has withdrawn the veil
partially hiding her fair and generous spirit.
To the lover of poetry "Paracelsus" will always be a Golconda.
It has lines and passages of extraordinary power, of a haunting beauty,
and of a unique and exquisite charm. It may be noted, in exemplification of
Browning's artistic range, that in the descriptive passages he paints as well
in the elaborate Pre-Raphaelite method as with a broad synthetic touch: as in
"One old populous green wall
Tenanted by the ever-busy flies,
Grey crickets and shy lizards and quick spiders,
Each family of the silver-threaded moss --
Which, look through near, this way, and it appears
A stubble-field or a cane-brake, a marsh
Of bulrush whitening in the sun. . . ."
But oftener he prefers the more succinct method of landscape-painting,
the broadest impressionism: as in
"Past the high rocks the haunts of doves, the mounds
Of red earth from whose sides strange trees grow out,
Past tracks of milk-white minute blinding sand."
And where in modern poetry is there a superber union
of the scientific and the poetic vision than in this magnificent passage --
the quintessence of the poet's conception of the rapture of life: --
"The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth,
And the earth changes like a human face;
The molten ore bursts up among the rocks,
Winds into the stone's heart, outbranches bright
In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds,
Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask --
God joys therein. The wroth sea's waves are edged
With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate,
When in the solitary waste, strange groups
Of young volcanoes come up, cyclops-like,
Staring together with their eyes on flame --
God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride.
Then all is still; earth is a wintry clod:
But Spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes
Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure
Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between
The withered tree-rests and the cracks of frost,
Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face;
The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms
Like chrysalids impatient for the air,
The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run
Along the furrows, ants make their ado;
Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark
Soars up and up, shivering for very joy;
Afar the ocean sleeps; white fishing gulls
Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe
Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek
Their loves in wood and plain -- and God renews
His ancient rapture."
so full, indeed, that the sympathetic reader of it as a drama
will be too apt to overlook its radical shortcomings,
cast as it is in the dramatic mould. But it must not be forgotten
that Browning himself distinctly stated he had attempted to write
"a poem, not a drama": and in the light of this simple statement
half the objections that have been made fall to the ground.
Paracelsus is the protagonist: the others are merely incidental.
The poem is the soul-history of the great medical student
who began life so brave of aspect and died so miserably at Salzburg:
but it is also the history of a typical human soul, which can be read
without any knowledge of actual particulars.
Aprile is a projection of the poet's own poetical ideal. He speaks,
but he does not live as Festus lives, or even as Michal, who, by the way,
is interesting as being the first in the long gallery of Browning's women --
a gallery of superbly-drawn portraits, of noble and striking
and always intensely human women, unparalleled except in Shakespeare.
Pauline, of course, exists only as an abstraction, and Porphyria
is in no exact sense a portrait from the life. Yet Michal can be revealed
only to the sympathetic eye, for she is not drawn, but again and again
suddenly silhouetted. We see her in profile always: but when she exclaims
at the last, "I ever did believe," we feel that she has withdrawn the veil
partially hiding her fair and generous spirit.
To the lover of poetry "Paracelsus" will always be a Golconda.
It has lines and passages of extraordinary power, of a haunting beauty,
and of a unique and exquisite charm. It may be noted, in exemplification of
Browning's artistic range, that in the descriptive passages he paints as well
in the elaborate Pre-Raphaelite method as with a broad synthetic touch: as in
"One old populous green wall
Tenanted by the ever-busy flies,
Grey crickets and shy lizards and quick spiders,
Each family of the silver-threaded moss --
Which, look through near, this way, and it appears
A stubble-field or a cane-brake, a marsh
Of bulrush whitening in the sun. . . ."
But oftener he prefers the more succinct method of landscape-painting,
the broadest impressionism: as in
"Past the high rocks the haunts of doves, the mounds
Of red earth from whose sides strange trees grow out,
Past tracks of milk-white minute blinding sand."
And where in modern poetry is there a superber union
of the scientific and the poetic vision than in this magnificent passage --
the quintessence of the poet's conception of the rapture of life: --
"The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth,
And the earth changes like a human face;
The molten ore bursts up among the rocks,
Winds into the stone's heart, outbranches bright
In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds,
Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask --
God joys therein. The wroth sea's waves are edged
With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate,
When in the solitary waste, strange groups
Of young volcanoes come up, cyclops-like,
Staring together with their eyes on flame --
God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride.
Then all is still; earth is a wintry clod:
But Spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes
Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure
Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between
The withered tree-rests and the cracks of frost,
Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face;
The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms
Like chrysalids impatient for the air,
The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run
Along the furrows, ants make their ado;
Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark
Soars up and up, shivering for very joy;
Afar the ocean sleeps; white fishing gulls
Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe
Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek
Their loves in wood and plain -- and God renews
His ancient rapture."