Understanding the Importance of Poetry: Matthew Arnold's 'The Study of Poetry', Ejercicios de Idioma Inglés

¡Descarga Understanding the Importance of Poetry: Matthew Arnold's 'The Study of Poetry' y más Ejercicios en PDF de Idioma Inglés solo en Docsity! 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 MATTHEW ARNOLD “THE STUDY OF POETRY” (1880) worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable, not a received tradition which does not threaten to dissolve. Our religion has materialised itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attached its emotion to the fact, and now the fact is failing it. But for poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact. The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious poetry.” Let me be permitted to quote these words of my own, as uttering the thought which should, in my opinion, go with us and govern us in all our study of poetry. In the present work it is the course of one great contributory stream to the world-river of poetry that we are invited to follow. We are here invited to trace the stream of English poetry. But Whether we set ourselves, as here, to follow only one of the several streams that make the mighty river of poetry, or whether we seek to know them all, our governing thought should be the same. We should conceive of poetry worthily, and more highly than it has been the custom to conceive of it. We should conceive of it as capable of higher uses, and called to higher destinies, than those which in general men have assigned to it hitherto. More and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry. Science, 1 say, will appear incomplete without it. For finely and truly does Wordsworth call poetry “the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science”; and what is a countenance without its expression? Again, Wordsworth finely and truly calls poetry “the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge”: our religion, parading evidences such as those on which the popular mind relies now; our philosophy, pluming itself on its reasonings about causation and finite and infinite being; what are they but the shadows and dreams and false shows of knowledge? The day will come when we shall wonder at ourselves for having trusted to them, for having taken them seriously; and the more we perceive their hollowness, the more we shall prize “the breath and finer spirit of knowledge” offered to us by poetry. But if we conceive thus highly of the destinies of poetry, we must also set our standard for poetry high, since poetry, to be capable of ful filling such high destinies, must be poetry of a high order of excellence. We must accustom ourselves to a high standard and to a strict judgment. Sainte-Beuve relates that Napoleon one day said, when somebody was spoken of in his presence as a charlatan: “Charlatan as HE future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is creed: credo received traditon: tradición legada attached: unido, adjunto unconscious: inconsciente ulttering; pronunciando course: recorrido stream: corriente trace: rastrear mighty: potente worthily: encomiable conceive: concebir hitherto: hasta ahora, hasta la fecha finely: atinadamente impassioned: apasionada countenance: semblante finer. magnífico parading; luciendo pluming;: vanagloriándose causation: causalidad hollowness: falsedad prize: valorar ful filling; cumpliendo 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 much as you please; but where is there not charlatanism?” — “Yes,” answers Sainte-Beuve, “in politics, in the art of governing mankind, that is perhaps true. But in the order of thought, in art, the glory, the eternal honour is that charlatanism shall find no entrance; herein lies the inviolableness of that noble portion of mar's being.” Itis admirably said, and let us hold fast to it. In poetry, which is thought and art in one, it is the glory, the eternal honour, that charlatanism shall find no entrance; that this noble sphere be kept inviolate and inviolable. Charlatanism is for confusing or obliterating the distinctions between excellent and inferior, sound and unsound or only half-sound, true and untrue or only half-true. It is charlatanism, conscious or unconscious, whenever we confuse or obliterate these. And in poetry, more than anywhere else, it is unpermissible to confuse or obliterate them. For in poetry the distinction between excellent and inferior, sound and unsound or only half-sound, true and untrue or only half-true, is of paramount importance. It is of paramount importance because of the high destinies of poetry. In poetry, as a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty, the spirit of our race will find, we have said, as time goes on and as other helps fail, its consolation and stay. But the consolation and stay will be of power in proportion to the power of the criticism of life. And the criticism of life will be of power in proportion as the poetry conveying it is excellent rather than inferior, sound rather than unsound or half-sound, true rather than untrue or half- true. The best poetry is what we want; the best poetry will be found to have a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can. A clearer, deeper sense of the best in poetry, and of the strength and joy to be drawn from it, is the most precious benefit which we can gather from a poetical collection such as the present. And yet in the very nature and conduct of such a collection there is inevitably something which tends to obscure in us the consciousness of what our benefit should be, and to distract us from the pursuit of it. We should therefore steadily set it before our minds at the outset, and should compel ourselves to revert constantly to the thought of it as we proceed. Yes; constantly in reading poetry, a sense for the best, the really excellent, and of the strength and joy to be drawn from it, should be present in our minds and should govern our estimate of what we read. But this real estimate, the only true one, is liable to be superseded, if we are not watchful, by two other kinds of estimate, the historic estimate and the personal estimate, both of which are fallacious. A poet or a poem may count to us historically, they may count to us on grounds personal to ourselves, and they may count to us really. They may count to us historically. The course of development of a nation's language, thought, and poetry, is profoundly interesting; and by regarding a poet's work as a stage in this course of development we may easily bring ourselves to make it of more importance as poetry than in itself it really is, we may herein: en esto hold fast: aferrarse obliterating; destruyendo paramount primordial conveying; transmitiendo to be drawn: extraer de gather: obtener pursuit: persecución steadily: firmemente outset: principio compel: impulsar revert: volver a estimate: valoración liable: expuesto superseded: reemplazado watchful: vigilante fallacious: falso 185 190 195 200 205 210 215 220 the desire of attainingit the one principle to which, as the Imitation says, attaining; whatever we may read or come to know, we always return. Cum multa alcanzando legeris et cognoveris, ad unum semper oportet redire principium. The historic estimate is likely in especial to affect our judgment and our language when we are dealing with ancient poets; the personal estimate when we are dealing with poets our contemporaries, or at any rate modern. The exaggerations due to the historic estimate are not in themselves, perhaps, of very much gravity. Their report hardly enters the general ear; probably they do not always impose even on the literary men who adopt them. But they lead to a dangerous abuse of language. So we hear Csedmon, amongst our own poets, compared to Milton. I have already noticed the enthusiasm of one accomplished French critic for “historic origins.” Another eminent French critic, M. Vitet, comments upon that famous document of the early poetry of his nation, the Chanson de Roland. It is indeed a most interesting document. The joculator or jongleur Taillefer, who was with William the Conqueror's army at Hastings, marched before the Norman troops, so said the tradition, singing “of Charlemagne and of Roland and of Oliver, and of the vassals who died at Roncevaux”; and it is suggested that in the Chanson de Roland by one Turoldus or Théroulde, a poem preserved in a manuscript of the twelfth century in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, we have certainly the matter, perhaps even some of the words, of the chant which Taillefer chant: canto sang. The poem has vigour and freshness; itis not without pathos. But M. — pathos: patetismo Vitet is not satisfied with seeing in it a document of some poetic value, and of very high historic and linguistic value; he sees init a grand and grand: magnífico beautiful work, a monument of epic genius. In its general design he finds the grandiose conception, in its details he finds the constant union of simplicity with greatness, which are the marks, he truly says, of the genuine epic, and distinguish it from the artificial epic of literary ages. One thinks of Homer; this is the sort of praise which is given to Homer, and justly given. Higher praise there cannot well be, and it is the praise due to epic poetry of the highest order only, and to no other. Let us try, then, the Chanson de Roland at its best. Roland, mortally wounded, lays himself down under a pine-tree, with his face turned towards Spain and the enemy— De plusurs choses a remembrer li prist, De tantes teres cume li bers cunquist, De dulce France, des humes de sun lign, De Carlemagne sun seignor ki l'nurrit.* That is primitive work, I repeat, with an undeniable poetic quality of its own. It deserves such praise, and such praise is sufficient for it. But now turn to Homer — (Os p?to: Todc d'129n ka exev buo?ioos a?a 225 230 235 240 245 250 255 év Aaxeda?uov av8n, $2Ar ev raro? ya?y.? We are here in another world, another order of poetry altogether; here is rightly due such supreme praise as that which M. Vitet gives to the Chanson de Roland. 1f our words are to have any meaning, if our judgments are to have any solidity, we must not heap that supreme praise upon poetry of an order immeasurably inferior. Indeed there can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do us most good, than to have always in one's mind lines and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. Of course we are not to require this other poetry to resemble them, it may be very dissimilar. But if we have any tact we shall find them, when we have lodged them well in our minds, an infallible touchstone for detecting the presence or absence of high poetic quality, and also the degree of this quality, in all other poetry which we may place beside them. Short passages, even single lines, will serve our turn quite sufficiently. Take the two lines which I have just quoted from Homer, the poet's comment on Helen's mention of her brothers—or take his 2 deLA?, Tv? 0p?oi dev TIna?i ÚvaKTL O9vn7?; due?o ¿otóv dy? TA9AVIT TE. ? tva dvor?voLoa1 per dvó?ow Aya” Exntov; the address of Zeus to the horses of Peleus; — or take finally his Kok 07, y?Q0v, Td Lg V Ev dco?oev dABLoV e?var.* the words of Achilles to Priam, a suppliant before him. Take that incomparable line and a half of Dante, Ugolino's tremendous words— lo no piangeva; si dentro impietrai. Piangevan elli...? take the lovely words of Beatrice to Virgil— lo son fatta da Dio, sua merce, tale, Che la vostra miseria non mi tange, N? fiamma d'esto incendio non massale ... * take the simple, but perfect, single line— In la sua volontade e nostra pace.” Take of Shakespeare a line or two of Henry IV's expostulation with sleep— heap: amontonar touchstone: piedra de toque dissimilar: diferente lodge: colocar suppliant: suplicante expostulation: protesta 260 265 270 275 280 285 290 295 Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains In cradle of the rude imperious surge ... and take, as well, Hamlet's dying request to Horatio— Tf thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain To tell my story. ... Take of Milton that Miltonic passage— Darken'd so, yet shone Above them all the archangel; but his face Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd, and care Sat on his faded cheek ... add two such lines as— And courage never to submit or yield And what is else not to be overcome. ... and finish with the exquisite close to the loss of Proserpine, the loss . . Which cost Ceres all that pain To seek her through the world. These few lines, if we have tact and can use them, are enough even of themselves to keep clear and sound our judgments about poetry, to save us from fallacious estimates of it, to conduct us to a real estimate. The specimens I have quoted differ widely from one another, but they have in common this: the possession of the very highest poetical quality. If we are thoroughly penetrated by their power, we shall find that we have acquired a sense enabling us, whatever poetry may be laid before us, to feel the degree in which a high poetical quality is present or wanting there. Critics give themselves great labour to draw out what in to draw out: the abstract constitutes the characters of a high quality of poetry. It is averiguar much better simply to have recourse to concrete examples—to take specimens of poetry of the high, the very highest quality, and to say: The recourse to: characters of a high quality of poetry are what is expressed there. They are recurrir a far better recognised by being felt in the verse of the master, than by being perused in the prose of the critic. Nevertheless if we are urgently pressed perused: to give some critical account of them, we may safely, perhaps, venture on examinar laying down, not indeed how and why the characters arise, but where and in what they arise. They are in the matter and substance of the poetry, and 390 395 400 405 410 415 420 425 430 Metre from this poetry; for even of that stanza which the Italians used, and which Chaucer derived immediately from the Italians, the basis and suggestion was probably given in France. Chaucer (I have already named him) fascinated his contemporaries, but so too did Christian of Troyes and Wolfram of Eschenbach. Chaucer's power of fascination, however, is enduring; his poetical importance does not need the assistance of the historic estimate; it is real. He is a genuine source of joy and strength, which is flowing still for us and will flow always. He will be read, as time goes on, far more generally than he is read now. His language is a cause of difficulty for us; but so also, and 1 think in quite as great a degree, is the language of Burns. In Chaucer's case, as in that of Burns, itis a difficulty to be unhesitatingly accepted and overcome. Tf we ask ourselves wherein consists the immense superiority of Chaucer's poetry over the romance-poetry —why itis that in passing from this to Chaucer we suddenly feel ourselves to be in another world, we shall find that his superiority is both in the substance of his poetry and in the style of his poetry. His superiority in substance is given by his large, free, simple, clear yet kindly view of human life—so unlike the total want, in the romance-poets, of all intelligent command of it. Chaucer has not their helplessness; he has gained the power to survey the world from a central, a truly human point of view. We have only to call to mind the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales. The right comment upon it is Dryden's: “It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty.” And again: “He is a perpetual fountain of good sense.” Itis by a large, free, sound representation of things, that poetry, this high criticism of life, has truth of substance; and Chaucer's poetry has truth of substance. Of his style and manner, if we think first of the romance-poetry and then of Chaucer's divine liquidness of diction, his divine fluidity of movement, it is difficult to speak temperatel y. They are irresistible, and justify all the rapture with wliich his successors speak of his “gold dew- drops of speech.” Johnson misses the point entirely when he finds fault with Dryden for ascribing to Chaucer the first refinement of our numbers, and says that Cower also can show smooth numbers and easy rhymes. The refinement of our numbers means something far more than this. A nation may have versifiers with smooth numbers and easy rhymes, and yet may have no real poetry at all. Chaucer is the father of our splendid English poetry; he is our “well of English undefiled,” because by the lovely charm of his diction, the lovely charm of his movement, he makes an epoch and founds a tradition. In Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, we can follow the tradition of the liquid diction, the fluid movement, of Chaucer; at one time it is his liquid diction of which in these poets we feel the virtue, and at another time it is his fluid movement. And the virtue is irresistible. Bounded as is my space, 1 must yet find room for an example of Chaucer's virtue, as 1 have given examples to show the virtue of the great classics. I feel disposed to say that a single line is enough to show the 10 enduring; duradero flowing; fluyendo unhesitatingly: sin vacilación wherein: donde survey: estudiar temperately: moderadamente rapture: éxtasis dew-drop: gota de rocío ascribing; atribuyendo undefiled: sin profanar 435 440 445 450 455 460 465 470 charm of Chaucer's verse; that merely one line like this— O martyr souded! in virginitee has a virtue of manner and movement such as we shall not find in all the verse of romance-poetry— but this is saying nothing. The virtue is such as we shall not find, perhaps, in all English poetry, outside the poets whom I have named as the special inheritors of Chaucer's tradition. A single line, however, is too little if we have not the strain of Chaucer's verse well in our memory; let us take a stanza. It is from The Prioress's Tale, the story of the Christian child murdered in a Jewry— My throte is cut unto my nekke-bone Saide this child, and as by way of kinde I should have deyd, yea, longé time agone; But Jesu Christ, as ye in bookés finde, Will that his glory last and be in minde, And for the worship of his mother dere Yet may 1 sing O Alma loud and clere. Wordsworth has modernised this Tale, and to feel how delicate and evanescent is the charm of verse, we have only to read WordswortH's first three lines of this stanza after Chaucer's My throat is cut unto the bone, 1 trow, Said this young child, and by the law of kind IT should have died, yea, many hours ago. The charm is departed. It is often said that the power of liquidness and fluidity in Chaucer's verse was dependent upon a free, a licentious dealing with language, such as is now impossible; upon a liberty, such as Burns too enjoyed, of making words like neck, bird, into a dissyllable by adding to them, and words like cause, rhyme, into a dissyllable by sounding the e mute. Itis true that Chaucer's fluidity is conjoined with this liberty, and is admirably served by it; but we ought not to say that it was dependent upon it. It was dependent upon his talent. Other poets with a like liberty do not attain to the fluidity of Chaucer; Burns himself does not attain to it. Poets, again, who have a talent akin to Chaucer's, such as Shakespeare or Keats, have known how to attain to his fluidity without the like liberty. And yet Chaucer is not one of the great classics. His poetry transcends and effaces, easily and without effort, all the romance-poetry of Catholic Christendom), it transcends and effaces all the English poetry contemporary withit, it transcends and effaces all the English poetry subsequent to it down to the age of Elizabeth. Of such avail is poetic truth of substance, inits natural and necessary union with poetic truth of style. 1 inheritor: heredero strain: tensión depart: partir, marcharse conjoined with: unida a efface: sobrepasa avail: provecho 475 480 485 490 495 500 505 510 515 And yet, I say, Chaucer is not one of the great classics. He has not their accent. What is wanting to him is suggested by the mere mention of the name of the first great classic of Christendom, the immortal poet who died eighty years before Chaucer—Dante. The accent of such verse as In la sua volontade e nostra pace... is altogether beyond Chaucer's reach; we praise him, but we feel that this accent is out of the question for him. It may be said that it was necessarily out of the reach of any poet in the England of that stage of growth. Possibly; but we are to adopt a real, not a historic, estimate of poetry. However we may account for its absence, something is wanting, then, to the poetry of Chaucer, which poetry must have before it can be placed in the glorious class of the best. And there is no doubt what that something is. It is the orroudaióTns, the high and excellent seriousness, which Aristotle assigns as one of the grand virtues of poetry. The substance of Chaucer's poetry, his view of things and his criticism of life, has largeness, freedom, shrewdness, benignity; but it has not this high seriousness. Homer's criticism of life has it. Dante's has it, Shakespeare's has it. Itis this chiefly which gives to our spirits what they can rest upon; and with the increasing demands of our modern ages upon poetry, this virtue of giving us what we can rest upon will be more and more highly esteemed. A voice from the slums of Paris, fifty or sixty years after Chaucer, the voice of poor Villon out of his life of riot and crime, has at its happy moments (as, for instance, in the last stanza of “La Belle Heaulmiére”?) more of this important poetic virtue of seriousness than all the productions of Chaucer. But its apparition in Villon, and in men like Villon, is fitful; the greatness of the great poets, the power of their criticism of life, is that their virtue is sustained. To our praise, therefore, of Chaucer as a poet there must be this limitation; he lacks the high seriousness of the great classics, and therewith an important part of their virtue. Still, the main fact for us to bear in mind about Chaucer is his sterling value according to that real estimate which we firmly adopt for all poets. He has poetic truth of substance, though he has not high poetic seriousness, and corresponding to his truth of substance he has an exquisite virtue of style and manner. With him is born our real poetry. For my present purpose 1 need not dwell on our Elizabethan poetry, or on the continuation and close of this poetry in Milton. We all of us profess to be agreed in the estimate of this poetry; we all of us recognise it as great poetry, our greatest, and Shakespeare and Milton as our poetical classics. The real estimate, here, has universal currency. With the next age of our poetry divergency and difficulty begin. An historic estimate of that poetry has established itself; and the question is, whether it will be found to coincide with the real estimate. The age of Dryden, together with our whole eighteenth century 12 want: carecer, faltar shrewdness: astucia chiefly: principalmente slum: barrios bajos fit£ul: irregular sterling: excelente dwell on: insister en currency: difusión 605 610 615 620 625 630 635 640 Absent thee from felicity awhile ... Or of And what is else not to be overcome.... O martyr souded in virginitee! Tanswer: It has not and cannot have them, it is the poetry of the builders of an age of prose and reason. Though they may write in verse, though they may in a certain sense be masters of the art of versification, Dryden and Pope are not classics of our poetry, they are classics of our prose. Gray is our poetical classic of that literature and age; the position of Gray is singular, and demands a word of notice here. He has not the volume or the power of poets who, coming in times more favourable, have attained to an independent criticism of life. But he lived with the great poets, he lived, above all, with the Greeks, through perpetually studying and enjoying them; and he caught their poetic point of view for regarding life, caught their poetic manner. The point of view and the manner are not self-sprung in him, he caught them of others; and he had not the free and abundant use of them. But whereas Addison and Pope never had the use of them, Gray had the use of them at times. He is the scantiest and frailest of classics in our poetry, but he is a classic. And now after Gray, we are met, as we draw towards the end of the eighteenth century, we are met by the great name of Burns. We enter now on times where the personal estimate of poets begins to be rife, and where the real estimate of them is not reached without difficulty. But in spite of the disturbing pressures of personal partiality, of national partiality, let us try to reach a real estimate of the poetry of Burns. By his English poetry Burns in general belongs to the eighteenth century, and has little importance for us. Mark ruffian Violence, distain'd with crimes, Rousing elate in these degenerate times; View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, As guileful Fraud points out the erring way; While subtle Litigation's pliant tongue The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong! Evidently this is not the real Burns, or his name and fame would have disappeared long ago. Nor is Clarinda's love-poet, Sylvander, the real 15 self-sprung; brotar de sí mismo scanty: insuficiente, escaso, leve frail: frágil rife: malo en abundancia 645 650 655 660 665 670 675 680 Burns either. But he tells us himself: “These English songs gravel me to death... I have not the command of the language that I have of my native tongue. In fact, 1 think that my ideas are more barren in English than in Scotch. I have been at "Duncan Gray" to dress it in English, but all I can do is desperately stupid.” We English turn naturally, in Burns, to the poems in our own language, because we can read them easily; but in those poems we have not the real Burns. The real Burns is of course in his Scotch poems. Let us boldly say that of much of this poetry, a poetry dealing perpetually with Scotch drink, Scotch religion, and Scotch manners, a Scotchman's estimate is apt to be personal. A Scotchman is used to this world of Scotch drink, Scotch religion, and Scotch manners; he has a tenderness for it; he meets its poet half way. In this tender mood he reads pieces like the “Holy Fair” or “Halloween.” But this world of Scotch drink, Scotch religion, and Scotch manners is against the poet, not for him, when itis not a partial countryman who reads him; for in itself it is not a beautiful world, and no one can deny that itis of advantage to a poet to deal with a beautiful world. Burns's world of Scotch drink, Scotch religion, and Scotch manners, is often a harsh, a sordid, a repulsive world; even the world of his “Cotter's Saturday Night” is not a beautiful world. No doubt a poet's criticism of life may have such truth and power that it triumphs over its world and delights us. Burns may triumph over his world, often he does triumph over his world, but let us observe how and where. Burns is the first case we have had where the bias of the personal estimate tends to mislead; let us look at him closely, he can bear it. Many of his admirers will tell us that we have Burns, convival, genuine, delightful, here— Leeze me on drink! it gies us man Than either sohool or college; It kindles wit, it waukens lair, It pangs us fou o' knowledge. Be 't whisky gill or penny wheep Or ony stronger potion, It never fails, on drinking deep, To kittle up our notion By night or day. There is a great deal of that sort of thing in Burns, and itis unsatisfactory, not because it is bacchanalian poetry, but because it has not that accent of sincerity which bacchanalian poetry, to do it justice, very often has. There is something init of bravado, something which makes us feel that we have not the man speaking to us with his real voice; something, therefore, poetically unsound. With still more confidence will his admirers tell us that we have the genuine Burns, the great poet, when his strain asserts the independence, 16 command: dominio barren: improductivo boldl y: descaradamente bias: prejuicio mislead: conducir al error bravado: bravuconadas strain: esfuerzo assert: afirmar 685 690 695 700 705 710 715 720 equality, dignity, of men, as in the famous song “For a” that and a' that”— A prince can mak' a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that; But an honest man's aboon his might, Guid faith he mauna fa' that! For a' that, and a' that, Their dignities, and a' that, The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, Are higher rank than a' that. Here they find his grand, genuine touches; and still more, when this puissant genius, who so often set morality at defiance, falls moralising— The sacred lowe o” weel -placed love Luxuriantly indulge it; But never tempt th' illicit rove, Tho' naething should divulge it. Twaive the quantum o” the sin, The hazard o” concealing, But och! it hardens a' within, And petrifies the feeling. Orin a higher strain — Who made the heart, “tis He alone Decidedly can try us; He knows each chord, its various tone; Each spring, its various bias. Then at the balance let's be mute, We never can adjust it; What's done we partly may compute, But know not what's resisted. Or in a better strain yet, a strain, his admirers will say, unsurpassable — To make a happy fire-side clime To weans and wife, That's the true pathos and sublime Of human life. There is criticism of life for you, the admirers of Burns will say to us; there is the application of ideas to life! There is, undoubtedly. The doctrine of the last-quoted lines coincides almost exactly with what was the aim and end, Xenophon tells us, of all the teaching of Socrates. And the application is a powerful one; made by a man of vigorous understanding, 17 defiance: desafío 810 815 820 825 830 835 840 On the brink of the night and the morning My coursers are wont to respire, But the Earth has just whispered a warning That their flight must be swifter than fire. .... of Prometheus Unbound, how salutary, how very salutary, to place this from “Tam Glen“— My minnie does constantly deave me And bids me beware o' young men, They flatter, she says, to deceive me; But wha can think sae o' Tam Glen? But we enter on burning ground as we approach the poetry of times so near to us—poetry like that of Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth— of which the estimates are so often not only personal, but personal with passion. For my purpose, it is enough to have taken the single case of Burns, the first poet we come to of whose work the estimate formed is evidently apt to be personal, and to have suggested how we may proceed, using the poetry of the great classics as a sort of touchstone, to correct this estimate, as we had previously corrected by the same means the historic estimate where we met with it. A collection like the present, with its succession of celebrated names and celebrated poems, offers a good, opportunity to us for resolutely endeavouring to make our estimates of poetry real. 1 have sought to point out a method which will help us in making them so, and to exhibit itin use so far as to put any one who likes in a way of applying it for himself. At any rate the end to which the method and the estimate are designed to lead, and from leading to which, if they do lead toit, they get their whole value—the benefit of being able clearly to feel and deeply to enjoy the best, the truly classic, in poetry —is an end, let me say it once more at parting, of supreme importance. We are often told that an era is opening in which we are to see multitudes of a common sort of readers, and masses of a common sort of literature; that such readers do not want and could not relish anything better than such literature, and that to provide it is becoming a vast and profitable industry. Even if good literature entirely lost currency with the world, it would still be abundantly worth while to continue to enjoy it by oneself. But it never will lose currency with the world, in spite of momentary appearances; it never will lose supremacy. Currency and supremacy are insured to it, not indeed by the world's deliberate and conscious choice, but by something far deeper—by the instinct of self-preservation in humanity. 20 endeavour: esforzarse relish: deleitarse en currency: difusión insured: asegurado self-preservation: conservación 845 850 855 860 865 870 875 Notes 1. “Then began he to call many things to remembrance—all the lands which his valour conquered, and pleasant France, and the men of his lineage, and Charlemagne his liege lord who nourished him,” Chanson de Roland, 111,939-42. 2. “So said she; theylong since in Earth's soft arms were reposing, There, in their own dear land, their fatherland, Lacedaernon/” Iliad, TI, 243, 244 (translated by Dr. Hawtrey) 3. “Ah, unhappy pair, why gave we you to King Peleus, to a mortal? but ye are without old age, and immortal. Was it that with men born to misery ye might have sorrow?” Iliad, XVII, 443-45, 4. “Nay, and thou too, old man, in former days vast, as we hear, happy” Iliad, XXIV, 543. 5. “I wailed not, so of stone grew I within—they wailed,” Inferno, XXXIII, 39, 40. 6. “Of such sort hath God, thanked be His mercy, made me, that your misery touched me not, neither doth the flame of this fire strike me,” Inferno, II, 91-93. 7. “In His will is our peace” Paradiso, UI, 85. 8. The French soudé; soldered, fixed fast. 9. The name Heaubniére is said to be derived from a headdress (helm) worn as a mark by courtesans. In Villon s ballad, a poor old creature of this class laments her days of youth and beauty. The last stanza of the ballad runs thus — Ainsi le bon temps regretons Entre nous, pauvres vieilles sottes, Assises bas, á croppetons, Tout en ung tas comme pelottes; A petit feu de chenevottes Tost allumées, tost estainctes. Et jadis fusmes si mignottes! Ainsi en prend á maintz et maintes. Thus amongst ourselves we regret the good time, poor silly old things, lowseated on our heels, all in a heap like so many balls; by a little fire of hemp- stalks, soon lighted, soon spent. And once we were such darlings! So fares it with many and many a one. 21