Lord Alfred Tennyson

The Critical Heritage

John D. Jump

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136173035
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

The Critical Heritage gathers together a large body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling student and researcher to read the material themselves.

1. W. J. Fox on

Poems, Chiefly Lyrical [1830]

William Johnson Fox, unsigned review, Westminster Review (January 1831), xiv. 210–24.

Fox (1786–1864) was a nonconformist preacher, politician, and author. He contributed to the first number of the Benthamite Westminster Review, and early in the present essay he welcomes the appearance of ‘the utilitarian spirit’ in literary criticism.

It would be a pity that poetry should be an exception to the great law of progression that obtains in human affairs; and it is not. The machinery of a poem is not less susceptible of improvement than the machinery of a cotton-mill; nor is there any better reason why the one should retrograde from the days of Milton, than the other from those of Arkwright. Of course we do not mean that the cases are precisely parallel, but the difference is not so much in favour of the perfectibility of the cotton-mill as is often imagined. Man cannot be less progressive than his own works and contrivances; in fact it is by his improvement that they are improved; and the mechanical arts are continually becoming superior to what they were, just because the men who are occupied in or about those arts have grown wiser than their predecessors, and have the advantage of a clearer knowledge of principles, an experience more extended or more accurately recorded, and perhaps a stronger stimulus to invention. Their progressiveness is merely a consequence from, a sort of reflection of, the progressiveness of his nature; but poetry is far nearer and dearer; it is essential to that nature itself; it is part and parcel of his constitution; and can only retrograde in the retrogradation of humanity.

There is nothing mysterious, or anomalous, in the power of producing poetry, or in that of its enjoyment; neither the one nor the other is a supernatural gift bestowed capriciously nobody knows how, when, or why. It may be a compound, but it is not incapable of analysis; and although our detection of the component parts may not enable us to effect their combination at pleasure, it may yet guide us to many useful conclusions and well-grounded anticipations. The elements of poetry are universal. The exercise of the organs of sight and sense stimulates man to some degree of descriptive poetry; wherever there is passion, there is dramatic poetry; wherever enthusiasm, there is lyric poetry; wherever reflection, there is metaphysical poetry. It is as widely diffused as the electric fluid. It may be seen flashing out by fits and starts all the world over. The most ignorant talk poetry when they are in a state of excitement, the firmly-organized think and feel poetry with every breeze of sensation that sweeps over their well-tuned nerves. There is an unfathomable store of it in human nature; the species must fail before that can be exhausted; the only question is, whether there be any reason why these permanent elements should not be wrought into their combined form, in the future, with a facility and power which bear some direct ratio to the progress of society.

So far as poetry is dependent upon physical organization; and doubtless it is to some extent so dependent; there is no reason why it should deteriorate. Eyes and ears are organs which nature finishes off with very different gradations of excellence. Nervous systems vary from the finest degree of susceptibility down to the toughness of a coil of hempen cable. Poeta nascitur in a frame the most favourable to acute perception and intense enjoyment of the objects of sense; and it would be difficult to shew that poets are not, and will not continue to be, produced as excellent as they have been, and as frequently. Why, then, should not those species of poetry which may be termed its music and its painting, which spring from, and appeal to, our sense of the beautiful in form or colour and of harmonious modulation, abound as much as heretofore ? He is no lover of nature who has any notion that the half of her loveliness has ever yet been told. Descriptive poetry is the most exhaustible; but our coal mines will fail us much sooner. No man ever yet saw all the beauty of a landscape. He may have watched it from the rising to the setting sun, and through the twilight, and the moonlight, and the starlight, and all round the seasons, but he is deceived if he thinks then that it has nothing more for him. Indeed it is not he who ever will think so, but the man who drove down one day and back the next because he found the place so dull. The world has tired of descriptive poetry because it has been deluged with what was neither poetical nor descriptive. The world was quite right to be no longer tolerant of the repetition of conventional, traditionary, unfelt, and unmeaning phrases. But Cowper did not find the ground preoccupied. Bucolics, and Georgies, and Eclogues, and Pastorals, all made reverential room for his honest verses; and the shelf on which they took their stand is far from crowded. Nature will never cease to be poetical, nor society either. Spears and shields; gods, goddesses, and muses; and all the old scenery and machinery may indeed wear out. That is of little consequence. The age of chivalry was but one, and poetry has many ages. The classical and romantic schools are both but sects of a religion which is universal. Even the fields which have been most frequently reaped will still bear harvests; and rich ones too. Bards began with battles some thousands of years ago, and yet nobody ever wrote the Fight of Flodden field till it was indited by Scott, nor did any one anticipate Campbell’s glorious ballad of the battle of Hohenlinden. Genius is never anticipated. No wit ever complained that all the good things had been said; nor will any poet, to the world’s end, find that all worthy themes have been sung. Is not the French Revolution as good as the siege of Troy? And the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers on the shores of America, as that of the Trojan fugitives on the coast of Italy? The world has never been more disposed to make the want of a hero ‘an uncommon want’ than in these supposed unpoetical days on which we are fallen. And were they not provided, poetry might do without them. The old epics will probably never be surpassed, any more than the old coats of mail; and for the same reason; nobody wants the article; its object is accomplished by other means; they are become mere curiosities. A long story, with a plot to be ravelled and unravelled, and characters to be developed, and descriptions to be introduced, and a great moral lesson at the end of it, is now always done, and best done, in prose. A large portion always was prose in fact, and necessarily so; but literary superstition kept up the old forms after every body felt them intolerably wearisome and soporific, though few dared be so heretical as to say so, until the utilitarian spirit shewed itself even in poetical criticism, and then the dull farce ended. This we take to be a great reformation. We have left off singing what ought only to be said, but the singing is neither the less nor the worse on that account. Nor will it be. The great principle of human improvement is at work in poetry as well as every where else. What is it that is reforming our criminal jurisprudence? What is shedding its lights over legislation? What purifies religions? What makes all arts and sciences more available for human comfort and enjoyment? Even that which will secure a succession of creations out of the unbounded and everlasting materials of poetry, our ever-growing acquaintance with the philosophy of mind and of man, and the increasing facility with which that philosophy is applied. This is the essence of poetic power, and he who possesses it never need furbish up ancient armour, or go to the East Kehama-hunting or bulbulcatching. Poetry, like charity, begins at home. Poetry, like morality, is founded on the precept, know thyself. Poetry, like happiness, is in the human heart. Its inspiration is of that which is in man, and it will never fail because there are changes in costume and grouping. What is the vitality of the Iliad? Character; nothing else. All the rest is only read either out of antiquarianism or of affectation. Why is Shakspeare the greatest of poets? Because he was one of the greatest of philosophers. We reason on the conduct of his characters with as little hesitation as if they were real living human beings. Extent of observation, accuracy of thought, and depth of reflection, were the qualities which won the prize of sovereignty for his imagination, and the effect of these qualities was practically to anticipate, so far as was needful for his purposes, the mental philosophy of a future age. Metaphysics must be the stem of poetry for the plant to thrive; but if the stem flourishes we are not likely to be at a loss for leaves, flowers, and fruit. Now whatever theories may have come into fashion, and gone out of fashion, the real science of mind advances with the progress of society like all other sciences. The poetry of the last forty years already shews symptoms of life in exact proportion as it is imbued with this science. There is least of it in the exotic legends of Southey, and the feudal romances of Scott. More if it, though in different ways, in Byron and Campbell. In Shelley there would have been more still, had he not devoted himself to unsound and mystical theories. Most of all in Coleridge and Wordsworth. They are all going or gone; but here is a little book as thoroughly and unitedly metaphysical and poetical in its spirit as any of them; and sorely shall we be disappointed in its author if it be not the precursor of a series of productions which shall beautifully illustrate our speculations, and convincingly prove their soundness.

Do not let our readers be alarmed. These poems are anything but heavy; anything but stiff and pedantic, except in one particular, which shall be noticed before we conclude; anything but cold and logical. They are graceful, very graceful; they are animated, touching, and impassioned. And they are so, precisely because they are philosophical; because they are not made up of metrical cant and conventional phraseology; because there is sincerity where the author writes from experience, and accuracy whether he writes from experience or observation; and he only writes from experience or observation, because he has felt and thought, and learned to analyze thought and feeling; because his own mind is rich in poetical associations, and he has wisely been content with its riches; and because, in his composition, he has not sought to construct an elaborate and artificial harmony, but only to pour forth his thoughts in those expressive and simple melodies whose meaning, truth, and power, are the soonest recognized and the longest felt.

The most important department in which metaphysical science has been a pioneer for poetry is in the analysis of particular states of mind; a work which is now performed with ease, power, and utility as much increased, as in the grosser dissections of the anatomical lecturer. Hence the poet, more fortunate than the physician, has provision made for an inexhaustible supply of subjects. A new world is discovered for him to conquer. The poets of antiquity rarely did more than incidentally touch this class of topics; the external world had not yet lost its freshness; situations, and the outward expression of the thoughts, feelings and passions generated by those situations, were a province so much nearer at hand, and presented so much to be done and enjoyed, that they rested there content, like the two tribes and a half of Israel, who sought not to cross the narrow boundary that separated them from a better and richer country. Nor let them be blamed; it was for the philosophers to be the first discoverers and settlers, and for poetry afterwards to reap the advantage of their labours. This has only been done recently, or rather is only beginning to be done at all. Metaphysical systems and discussions in verse, there have been indeed, from Lucretius down to Akenside. But they have generally had just argument enough to spoil the poetry, and just poetry enough to spoil the argument. They resembled paintings of the bones, arteries, veins, and muscles; very bad as a substitute to the anatomist for the real substances in the human body, and still worse for the artist as the materials for a pleasant picture. Science, mental or physical, cannot be taught poetically; but the power derived from science may be used poetically; and metaphysics may do as much for the poet as anatomy has done for the painter,—in truth, more,—for the painter’s knowledge of the human frame does not furnish him with distinct subjects for the exercise of his art; we have just remarked the unfitness. The benefit which the painter derives is that of being able to delineate the external appearances of the living body with greater truth and effect. And while the poet has an analogous advantage from mental science in the greater truth and effect of his delineations of external action, character, passion, and all that belongs to situation and grouping; he also finds in the phenomena exhibited in moral dissection (though not in the operation itself, in the application of the logical scalpel) some of the finest originals for his pictures; and they exist in infinite variety.

Mr. Tennyson has some excellent specimens of this class. He seems to obtain entrance into a mind as he would make his way into a landscape; he climbs the pineal gland as if it were a hill in the centre of the scene; looks around on all objects with their varieties of form, their movements, their shades of colour, and their mutual relations and influences; and forthwith produces as graphic a delineation in the one case as Wilson or Gainsborough could have done in the other, to the great enrichment of our gallery of intellectual scenery. In the ‘Supposed Confessions of a second-rate sensitive mind not in unity with itself’, there is an extraordinary combination of deep reflection, metaphysical analysis, picturesque description, dramatic transition, and strong emotion. The author personates (he can personate anything he pleases from an angel to a grasshopper) a timid sceptic, but who must evidently always remain such, and yet be miserable in his scepticism; whose early associations, and whose sympathies, make religion a necessity to his heart; yet who has not lost his pride in the prowess of his youthful infidelity; who is tossed hither and thither on the conflicting currents of feeling and doubt, without that vigorous intellectual decision which alone could ‘ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm’, until at last he disappears with an exclamation which remains on the ear like

the bubbling cry

Of some strong swimmer in his agony

Now without intruding any irreverent comparison or critical profanity we do honestly think this state of mind as good a subject for poetical description as even the shield of Achilles itself. Such topics are more in accordance with the spirit and intellect of the age than those about which poetry has been accustomed to be conversant; their adoption will effectually redeem it from the reproach of being frivolous and enervating; and of their affinity with the best pictorial qualities of poetry we have conclusive evidence in this very composition. The delineations of the trustful infant, the praying mother, the dying lamb, are as good as anything of the kind can be; while those of the supposed author’s emotions as he gazes on ‘Christians with happy countenances’, or stands by the Christian grave, or realizes again, with a mixture of self-admiration and self-reproach, ‘the unsunned freshness of his strength’, when he ‘went forth in quest of truth’, are of a higher order, and are more powerfully, though not less gracefully finished.

Our author has the secret of the transmigration of the soul. He can cast his own spirit into any living thing, real or imaginary. Scarcely Vishnu himself becomes incarnate more easily, frequently, or perfectly. And there is singular refinement, as well as solid truth, in his impersonations, whether they be of inferior creatures or of such elemental beings as Syrens, as mermen and mermaidens...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• General Editor’s Preface
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1. W. J. Fox on Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830) 1831
• 2. A. H. Hallam on Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830) 1831
• 3. Christopher North on Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830) 1832
• 4. J. W. Croker on Poems (1833) 1833
• 5. J. S. Mill on Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830) and Poems (1833) 1835
• 6. F. Garden (?) on Poems (1842) 1842
• 7. J. Sterling on Poems (1842) 1842
• 8. Leigh Hunt on Poems (1842) 1842
• 9. R. M. Milnes on Poems (1842) 1842
• 10. J. Spedding on Poems (1842) 1843
• 11. R. H. Horne: ‘Alfred Tennyson’, 1844
• 12. J. W. Marston on The Princess (1847) 1848
• 13. C. Kingsley on In Memoriam (1850) and earlier works, 1850
• 14. Goldwin Smith: ‘The War Passages in Maud’ (1855) 1855
• 15. G. Brimley on Maud (1855) 1855
• 16. R. J. Mann on Maud (1855) 1856
• 17. Tennyson gives a reading of Maud, 1897
• 18. W. Bagehot on the Idylls of the King (1859) 1859
• 19. W. E. Gladstone on the Idylls of the King (1859) and earlier works, 1859
• 20. M. Arnold on Tennyson’s simplicity, 1862
• 21. H. A. Taine on Tennyson as the poet of Victorian England, 1864
• 22. G. M. Hopkins on Parnassian, 1864
• 23. W. Bagehot on Enoch Arden (1864) 1864
• 24. A. Austin revalues Tennyson, 1870
• 25. J. T. Knowles on the Idylls, 1870
• 26. A. C. Swinburne on the Idylls, 1872
• 27. E. Dowden on Tennyson as the poet of law, 1878
• 28. G. M. Hopkins on the Idylls, 1879
• 29. A. C. Swinburne replies to Taine (No. 21), 1886
• 30. Walt Whitman thanks Tennyson, 1887
• 31. R. H. Hutton surveys Tennyson’s work and replies to Swinburne, 1888
• 32. F. W. H. Myers: ‘Tennyson as Prophet’, 1889
• 33. J. M. Robertson: ‘The Art of Tennyson’, 1889
• 34. W. E. Henley: ‘Tennyson’, 1890
• 35. J. C. Collins on Tennyson’s assimilative skill, 1891
• Index