Life of Robert Browning [44]
of motive and action not less intricately involved,
than upon the conventional stage.
The first is a drama of an idea, the second of the immediate and remote
consequences of a single act, the third of the tyranny of the passions.
I understand the general opinion among lovers and earnest students
of Browning's poetry to be that the highest peaks of his genius
tower from the vast tableland of "The Ring and the Book";
that thenceforth there was declension. But Browning is not to be measured
by common estimates. It is easy to indicate, in the instances of many poets,
just where the music reaches its sweetest, its noblest,
just where the extreme glow wanes, just where the first shadows
come leaping like greyhounds, or steal almost imperceptibly
from slow-closing horizons.
But with Browning, as with Shakespeare, as with Victor Hugo,
it is difficult for our vision to penetrate the glow
irradiating the supreme heights of accomplishment. Like Balzac,
like Shakespeare again, he has revealed to us a territory so vast,
that while we bow down before the sun westering athwart distant Andes,
the gold of sunrise is already flashing behind us, upon the shoulder of Atlas.
It is certain that "The Ring and the Book" is unique.
Even Goethe's masterpiece had its forerunners, as in Marlowe's "Faustus",
and its ambitious offspring, as in Bailey's "Festus".
But is it a work of art? Here is the only vital question
which at present concerns us.
It is altogether useless to urge, as so many admirers of Browning do,
that "The Ring and the Book" is as full of beauties as the sea is of waves.
Undeniably it is, having been written in the poet's maturity.
But, to keep to the simile, has this epical poem the unity of ocean?
Does it consist of separate seas, or is it really one, as the wastes
which wash from Arctic to Antarctic, through zones temperate and equatorial,
are yet one and indivisible? If it have not this unity it is still
a stupendous accomplishment, but it is not a work of art. And though art
is but the handmaiden of genius, what student of Comparative Literature
will deny that nothing has survived the ruining breath of Time --
not any intellectual greatness nor any spiritual beauty,
that is not clad in perfection, be it absolute or relative --
for relative perfection there is, despite the apparent paradox.
The mere bulk of "The Ring and the Book" is, in point of art, nothing.
One day, after the publication of this poem, Carlyle hailed the author
with enthusiastic praise in which lurked damning irony:
"What a wonderful fellow you are, Browning: you have written
a whole series of `books' about what could be summed up
in a newspaper paragraph!" Here, Carlyle was at once right and wrong.
The theme, looked at dispassionately, is unworthy of the monument
in which it is entombed for eternity. But the poet looked upon
the central incident as the inventive mechanician regards
the tiny pivot remote amid the intricate maze of his machinery.
Here, as elsewhere, Browning's real subject is too often confounded
with the accidents of the subject. His triumph is not that he has created
so huge a literary monument, but rather that, notwithstanding its bulk,
he has made it shapely and impressive. Stress has frequently been laid
on the greatness of the achievement in the writing of twelve long poems
in the exposition of one theme. Again, in point of art, what significance
has this? None. There is no reason why it should not have been
in nine or eleven parts; no reason why, having been demonstrated in twelve,
it should not have been expanded through fifteen or twenty.
Poetry ever looks askance at that gipsy-cousin of hers, "Tour-de-force".
Of the twelve parts -- occupying in all about twenty-one thousand lines --
the most notable as poetry are those which deal with the plea
of the implicated priest, Caponsacchi, with the meditation of the Pope,
and with the pathetic utterance of Pompilia. It is not a dramatic poem
in the sense that "Pippa Passes" is, for its ten Books
(the
than upon the conventional stage.
The first is a drama of an idea, the second of the immediate and remote
consequences of a single act, the third of the tyranny of the passions.
I understand the general opinion among lovers and earnest students
of Browning's poetry to be that the highest peaks of his genius
tower from the vast tableland of "The Ring and the Book";
that thenceforth there was declension. But Browning is not to be measured
by common estimates. It is easy to indicate, in the instances of many poets,
just where the music reaches its sweetest, its noblest,
just where the extreme glow wanes, just where the first shadows
come leaping like greyhounds, or steal almost imperceptibly
from slow-closing horizons.
But with Browning, as with Shakespeare, as with Victor Hugo,
it is difficult for our vision to penetrate the glow
irradiating the supreme heights of accomplishment. Like Balzac,
like Shakespeare again, he has revealed to us a territory so vast,
that while we bow down before the sun westering athwart distant Andes,
the gold of sunrise is already flashing behind us, upon the shoulder of Atlas.
It is certain that "The Ring and the Book" is unique.
Even Goethe's masterpiece had its forerunners, as in Marlowe's "Faustus",
and its ambitious offspring, as in Bailey's "Festus".
But is it a work of art? Here is the only vital question
which at present concerns us.
It is altogether useless to urge, as so many admirers of Browning do,
that "The Ring and the Book" is as full of beauties as the sea is of waves.
Undeniably it is, having been written in the poet's maturity.
But, to keep to the simile, has this epical poem the unity of ocean?
Does it consist of separate seas, or is it really one, as the wastes
which wash from Arctic to Antarctic, through zones temperate and equatorial,
are yet one and indivisible? If it have not this unity it is still
a stupendous accomplishment, but it is not a work of art. And though art
is but the handmaiden of genius, what student of Comparative Literature
will deny that nothing has survived the ruining breath of Time --
not any intellectual greatness nor any spiritual beauty,
that is not clad in perfection, be it absolute or relative --
for relative perfection there is, despite the apparent paradox.
The mere bulk of "The Ring and the Book" is, in point of art, nothing.
One day, after the publication of this poem, Carlyle hailed the author
with enthusiastic praise in which lurked damning irony:
"What a wonderful fellow you are, Browning: you have written
a whole series of `books' about what could be summed up
in a newspaper paragraph!" Here, Carlyle was at once right and wrong.
The theme, looked at dispassionately, is unworthy of the monument
in which it is entombed for eternity. But the poet looked upon
the central incident as the inventive mechanician regards
the tiny pivot remote amid the intricate maze of his machinery.
Here, as elsewhere, Browning's real subject is too often confounded
with the accidents of the subject. His triumph is not that he has created
so huge a literary monument, but rather that, notwithstanding its bulk,
he has made it shapely and impressive. Stress has frequently been laid
on the greatness of the achievement in the writing of twelve long poems
in the exposition of one theme. Again, in point of art, what significance
has this? None. There is no reason why it should not have been
in nine or eleven parts; no reason why, having been demonstrated in twelve,
it should not have been expanded through fifteen or twenty.
Poetry ever looks askance at that gipsy-cousin of hers, "Tour-de-force".
Of the twelve parts -- occupying in all about twenty-one thousand lines --
the most notable as poetry are those which deal with the plea
of the implicated priest, Caponsacchi, with the meditation of the Pope,
and with the pathetic utterance of Pompilia. It is not a dramatic poem
in the sense that "Pippa Passes" is, for its ten Books
(the