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Wiley (search for this): chapter 9
then generally known, nor was it established for a long time after,--even when he had himself asserted it,--that the poet was himself born in Boston; and no one can now tell, perhaps, what was the real feeling behind the apparently sycophantic attitude. When, at the end, he abruptly began the recitation of his perplexing Al Aaraaf, everybody looked thoroughly mystified. The verses had long since been printed in his youthful volume, and had reappeared within a few days, if I mistake not, in Wiley & Putnam's edition of his poems; and they produced no very distinct impression on the audience until Poe began to read the maiden's song in the second part. Already his tones had been softening to a finer melody than at first, and when he came to the verses:--Ligeia! Ligeia My beautiful one! Whose harshest idea Will to melody run, Oh! is it thy will On the breezes to toss? Or capriciously still, Like the lone albatross, Incumbent on night (As she on the air) To keep watch with delight O
De Quincey (search for this): chapter 9
rely imaginative prose-writing is as unquestionable as Hawthorne's. He even succeeded, as Hawthorne did not, in penetrating the artistic indifference of the French mind; and it was a substantial triumph, when we consider that Baudelaire put himself or his friends to the trouble of translating even the prolonged platitudes of Eureka and the wearisome narrative of Arthur Gordon Pymr. Neither Poe nor Hawthorne has been fully recognized in England; and yet no Englishman of their time, unless De Quincey, has done any prose imaginative work to be named with theirs. But in comparing Poe with Hawthorne, we see that the genius of the latter has hands and feet as well as wings, so that all his work is solid as masonry, while Poe's is broken and disfigured by all sorts of inequalities and imitations; he did not disdain, for want of true integrity, to disguise and to falsify, and (I have myself seen proofs of this among the Griswold Mss.) to suggest or even prepare puffs of himself. But, mak
Thomas Jefferson (search for this): chapter 9
el and its development he has much to say upon what may be called the antikidglove literature, a product which is really no better than the kid-glove literature, at which it affects to protest. Lanier quotes the lines of Whitman, Fear grace, fear elegance, civilization, delicatesse, and again the passage in which the same poet rejoices in America because here are the roughs, beards, . . . combativeness, and the like; and Lanier shows how far were the founders of the Republic — Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams — from this theory that there can be no manhood in decent clothes or wellbred manners. He justly complains that this rougher school has really as much dandyism about it as the other--the dandyism of the roustabouts, he calls it; that it poses and attitudinizes and is the extreme of sophistication in writing. If we must have dandyism in our art, he adds, surely the softer sort, which at least leans towards decorum and gentility, is preferable. Then, going beyond literat
Spinoza (search for this): chapter 9
ccasionally accepts a rhythm so well defined that it may be called conventional, as in the fine verses entitled Darest thou now, 0 soul? And it is a fact which absolutely overthrows the whole theory of poetic structure or stricturelessness implied in Whitman's volumes, that his warmest admirers usually place first among his works the poem on Lincoln's death, Mily Captain, which comes so near to recognized poetic methods that it falls naturally into rhyme. Whitman can never be classed as Spinoza was by Schleiermacher, among Godcated men; but he was early inebriated with two potent draughts — himself and his country:-- One's self I sing, a simple separate poem, Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En Masse. With these words, two of them French, his collected poems open, and to these he has always been true. They have brought with them a certain access of power, and they have also implied weakness. We cannot attribute final and complete acceptance to any poet in whom the emo
Juba (search for this): chapter 9
ted as a boy would be; crudely, overmuch, and with a constant tendency to the extravagant and illogical,--so I call him the Modern Boy. It remains to be said that in Lanier's poetry we find the working out of these ideas, but according to the free faith which he held. There is uniformly a wonderful beat and cadence in his poems,--a line of a dozen syllables mating with a line of a single syllable in as satisfactory a movement as can be found in his favorite Mother Goose or in the patting Juba of a plantation singer. The volume of his poetry is less than that of Hayne, but its wealth and depth are greater. Having spent so much of his life in playing the flute in an orchestra, he has also an ear for the distribution of instruments, and this gives him a desire for the antiphonal, for introducing an answer, or an echo, or a compensating note. In the poems that most arrest attention,as the Cantata at the opening of the Philadelphia Exposition,--this characteristic was so developed a
Dryden (search for this): chapter 9
erse. It seems ingenious, suggestive, and overstrained, but it is easy to believe that to one who takes it on the middle ground where Lanier dwelt, halfway between verse and music, it might seem conclusive. Most of us associate its fundamental proposition with the poet Coleridge, who, in his Christabel, announced it as a new principle in English verse that one should count by accents, not by syllables. This bold assertion, which plainly marked the transition from the measured strains of Dryden and Pope to the free modern rhythm, was true in the sense in which Coleridge probably meant it; nor does it seem likely that Coleridge overlooked what Lanier points out,--that all our nursery rhymes and folk-songs are written on the same principle. There is certainly nothing more interesting in Lanier's book than the passage in which he shows that, just as a Southern negro will improvise on the banjo daring variations, such as would, if Haydn employed them, be called high art, so Shakespea
James Fenimore Cooper (search for this): chapter 9
imms. There were, however, three or four antebellum writers who attempted to give literary expression to the Southern life or the Southern spirit. The first of them in point of time was William Gilmore Simms. He was in some respects akin to Cooper; a writer of robust temper, a talent for narrative, and an eye for the picturesque in Southern history. He was, however, even less a finished artist than Cooper, and not one of his many romances has gained a sure place in literature. His work aCooper, and not one of his many romances has gained a sure place in literature. His work as a whole affords an interesting picture, but not a great picture, of Southern life and manners. Hayne and Timrod. Simms was born, and lived for most of his life, in Charleston, which was also the native city of the two poets, Hayne and Timrod, who, apart from Lanier and Poe, are now best known among Southern poets. Paul Hamilton Hayne's poetry is neither markedly Southern nor markedly original. It has a certain smoothness and elegance, but lacks force. A few lines from The Mocking bird
Henry David Thoreau (search for this): chapter 9
death, to place him among those whom we may without hesitation treat as master-singers. Even among these, of course, there are grades; but as Lowell once said of Thoreau, To be a master is to be a master. With Lanier, music and poetry were in the blood. Music was at any rate his first passion. As a boy he taught himself to play passed away. But into his description of sunrise in the first of his Hymns of the marshes, he puts not merely such a wealth of outdoor observation as makes even Thoreau seem thin and arid, but combines with it a roll and range of rhythm such as Lowell's Commemoration Ode cannot equal, and only some of Browning's early ocean caden weakness. We cannot attribute final and complete acceptance to any poet in whom the emotion of high and ideal love between the sexes has no visible place. When Thoreau says of Whitman, He does not celebrate love at all; it is as if the beasts spoke, Letters, p. 345. the verdict seems to be final. Not only has he given us no l
Wilkie Collins (search for this): chapter 9
at all his work is solid as masonry, while Poe's is broken and disfigured by all sorts of inequalities and imitations; he did not disdain, for want of true integrity, to disguise and to falsify, and (I have myself seen proofs of this among the Griswold Mss.) to suggest or even prepare puffs of himself. But, making all possible deductions, how wonderful remains the power of Poe's imaginative tales, and how immense is the ingenuity of his puzzles and disentanglements! The conundrums of Wilkie Collins never renew their interest after the answer is known; but Poe's can be read again and again. It is where spiritual depths are to be touched that he shows his weakness; his attempts at profundity are as unsuccessful as they are rare; where there is the greatest display of philosophic form he is often most trivial, whereas Hawthorne is usually profoundest when he has disarmed you by his simplicity. The truth is, that Poe lavished on things comparatively superficial those great intellect
Nathaniel Hawthorne (search for this): chapter 9
native prose-writing is as unquestionable as Hawthorne's. He even succeeded, as Hawthorne did not, Hawthorne did not, in penetrating the artistic indifference of the French mind; and it was a substantial triumph, whetive of Arthur Gordon Pymr. Neither Poe nor Hawthorne has been fully recognized in England; and yeamed with theirs. But in comparing Poe with Hawthorne, we see that the genius of the latter has haophic form he is often most trivial, whereas Hawthorne is usually profoundest when he has disarmed ial those great intellectual resources which Hawthorne reverently husbanded and used. That there ises. Poe complimented and rather patronized Hawthorne, but found him only peculiar and not originaand finally, he tried to make it appear that Hawthorne had borrowed from himself. He returned agaiy with Longfellow, thus condescendingly with Hawthorne, he was claiming a foremost rank among AmeriAmerican authors, Poe probably stood next to Hawthorne in the vividness of personal impression whic
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