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Browning and Dogma. Ethel M. Naish
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isbn 4064066127787
Автор произведения Ethel M. Naish
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
ERRATA
Page 32, line 21, for “four hundred years” read “five hundred.”
Page 39, line 11, for “men to become” read “man.”
Page 71, line 30, for “interval of six years, in 1847” read “four years, in 1845.”
Page 71, line 31, for “1853” read “1851.”
LECTURE I
INTRODUCTORY, AND CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS
BROWNING AND DOGMA
LECTURE I
INTRODUCTORY, AND CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS
He at least believed in Soul, was very sure of God.[1]
To this faith, to this assurance, is largely attributable the influence unquestionably possessed by Browning as a teacher in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For the intentionally didactic element in the work may not honestly be ignored in whatever degree it is held to militate against artistic merit. Amid the throng of seekers after Truth in the world of poetry, Browning stands pre-eminent as one who not only sought Truth, but, having gained what he held to be Truth, kept it as “the sole prize of Life.” Poets of the school of thought of which Matthew Arnold and A. H. Clough may perhaps be regarded as among the more prominent exponents, are able to give no even approximately satisfying answer to the questionings bound inevitably to arise, at some time or other, in all minds whose energies are not dissipated by a too ready compliance with the demands of the hour. In certain moods their work appeals to us irresistibly, but the appeal is one of sympathy with doubt rather than of suggestion of solution. The author of Obermann may indeed in “hours of gloom” remind us that there have been “hours of insight”; that the individual soul, though through prolonged struggle and effort alone, may “mount hardly to eternal life.” The consolation he would offer to spiritual depression is that of self-dependence. Nature may soothe, but is powerless to satisfy; the appeal to her is answered by that which, although “severely clear,” is but “an air-born voice,” directing the enquirer back upon himself—
Resolve to be thyself, and know that he
Who finds himself loses his misery.[2]
So, too, Clough, sympathizing fully with doubt, may in his more inspired moments speak of hope and of the assurance
’Tis better to have fought and lost
Than never to have fought at all.
Although from his pen has come at least one short poem[3] worthy in invigorating force of the faith of Browning himself, yet the note of defeat rather than the ring of triumph is more generally characteristic of his language. Tennyson had splendid glimpses of the Truth, passing visions of glory; yet here, too, the vision was but transitory, the full glory evanescent.
The continued popularity of In Memoriam is undoubtedly due in large measure to the fact that the author has there given poetic utterance to those questionings and aspirations of the human soul, peculiar to no time or place, to no nation or form of creed—to the cry wrung from the heart when inexorable Death brings with it the hour of separation. There is in truth a triumphant note towards the close of In Memoriam: the child of the fifty-fourth stanza “crying in the night, and with no language but a cry,” though yet crying in the night, becomes in the final section (stanza cxxiv) a child “who knows his father near.” But even when the heart rises triumphantly, and in defiance of the arguments of reason asserts “I have felt,” the faith so expressed is not the faith of Browning. Beyond all the temporary darkness of La Saisiaz we recognize that the author of Asolando is speaking nothing more than the truth when he tells us that he “never doubted clouds would break.” The dispersal of the clouds gathered over La Salève added confidence to the Epilogue which constitutes so fitting a close to the life’s work. The assertion “I believe in God and Truth and Love,” expressed through the medium of the lover of Pauline, finds its echo in the more direct personal assertion of the concluding lines of La Saisiaz, “He believed in Soul, was very sure of God.” This was the irreducible minimum of Browning’s creed. How much more he held as absolute, soul-satisfying truth it is the design of this and the six following lectures to determine.
And here at once on the threshold of our investigation we are confronted by the difficulty inseparable from any consideration of Browning’s literary work; the difficulty of eliminating the dramatic and gauging the extent of the purely personal element. Although, as was inevitable, such difficulty has been universally recognized by critics and students, yet the very strength of the dramatic power has in many cases proved misleading. Browning has too completely lost himself in his subject. In the writings of the man capable of merging his personal identity in that of an Andrea and a Pippa, of a Caliban and a S. John; of assuming positions as opposed as those of a Guido and a Caponsacchi, it is a sufficiently simple matter to discover opinions supporting directly or indirectly any individual line of thought. To him who seeks with intent to obtain such confirmation may the promise be fairly made
As is your sort of mind
So is your sort of search; you’ll find
What you desire.[4]
Moreover, whilst the obscurity of the writing has been the subject of too general comment, the frequently elusive character of the meaning may be liable to escape notice. A certain course of thought having been detected is accepted to the exclusion of an even more important undercurrent only now and again rising to the surface. Despite the difficulties attendant upon a genuine study of Browning, both from the frequently recondite character of the subject and the amount of literary or historical knowledge demanded of the reader, comparatively slight attempt has so far been made towards a detailed treatment of individual poems such as that, for example, accorded to the plays of Shakespeare. And yet such concentrative labour possesses the highest value as a protection against misconstruction arising from a too hastily formed conception of the relative proportions of personal intention