Works of R. Rolle, Vol. I), the greatest of medieval English mystics, felt first a delightful warmth in his bosom, then tasted delicious food and heard heavenly music. Similar experiences are related of St. Catherine of Sienna and many others. The tendency to fall into a mystic trance in which the external world seems unreal is characteristic of certain temperaments (see note on Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations of Immortality, ll. 141 ff.). Tennyson says of himself: "A kind of waking trance I have frequently had, quite up from boyhood, when I have been all alone. This has generally come upon me thro' repeating my own name two or three times to myself silently, till all at once, as it were out of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality, the individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being, and this not a confused state, but the clearest of the clearest, the surest of the surest, the weirdest of the weirdest, utterly beyond words, where death was an almost laughable impossibility, the loss of personality (if so it were) seeming no extinction but the only true life." Note in this connection the weird seizures of the Prince, added to The Princess in 1851. SIR GALAHAD In mediæval romance the stories of the Holy Grail and the quest for it vary greatly. Tennyson follows Malory (Bks. XI, XIII, XVII), in making Sir Galahad the knight of the Grail and the Grail itself the sacred vessel containing some of the blood of Christ. See note on St. Agnes' Eve. IN MEMORIAM Pp. 540 ff. In Memoriam is a series of elegiac poems, written between 1833 and 1850 and expressing various phases of Tennyson's grief at the loss of Arthur Hallam, his most intimate friend in boyhood and youth. No doubt the grief becomes monotonous to the reader if he undertakes to read the whole series at a sitting, but the themes -- the aspects of grief are many and varied, and it is to be borne in mind that they are a record of many years of permanent consciousness of loss. They contain some of Tennyson's sincerest and best work and have found responsive echoes in many bereaved hearts. The Proem, written in 1849, is Tennyson's summary of his attitude toward the mystery of bereavement. Cantos I and XXVII are closely connected in thought and feeling. Cantos XXXI and XXXII form almost a single poem on a single theme. Canto LIV is the last of a series in which the poet discusses the carelessness and waste of Nature as revealed especially in the geological records, which show that not only individuals but whole species have perished: in this canto he takes refuge in a vague hope and trust. MERLIN AND THE GLEAM Pp. 543 ff. Tennyson said: "In the story of Merlin and Nimue I have read that Nimue means the Gleam-which signifies the higher poetic imagination." His career as a poet is expressed in the symbols of the successive stanzas. CROSSING THE BAR P. 545. Written in Tennyson's eighty-first year. He instructed his son to put this at the end of all editions of his poems. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE Pp. 545 ff. These sonnets are not translations, as the title implies, but record the courtship of the Brownings. The title was adopted to disguise their intimate personal tone. Sonnets I and VII allude to the unhappy conditions of Mrs. Browning's life before her marriage. For years she had been an invalid, and her father's jealousy of her friends added to her distress. Her marriage with Browning transported her to a finer, freer life and was followed by many years of improved health. Browning's response to the Sonnets may be inferred from One Word More (pp. 564 ff.) and from his beautiful tribute in The Ring and the Book beginning: "O lyric Love, half angel and half bird The passage in Theocritus here alluded to (I, 1) is in the "Psalm of Adonis" in Idyl XV, 11. 104 f.: "Tardiest of the Immortals are the beloved Hours, but dear and desired they come, for always, to all mortals, they bring some gift with them." Another notable poem suggested by the Theocritan lines is Emerson's Days: "Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all. I, in my pleachèd garden, watched the pomp, Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN Pp. 547 ff. In the middle of the nineteenth century the conditions of industrial workers in England were as bad as they still are in many parts of the United States. There were no laws regulating the employment of women and children, and child-labor was extensively exploited by manufacturers in all lines of industry. This poem was suggested by a report on factory conditions written by Richard Hengist Horne, a friend who was himself a poet of real though intermittent genius. ROBERT BROWNING CAVALIER TUNES Pp. 549 f. These songs are intended to express the feelings and opinions of the adherents of King Charles I in the Parliamentary War; they are supposed to be sung by them. "HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX" Pp. 550 f. Browning said: "There is no sort of historical foundation about Good News from Ghent. I wrote it under the bulwark of a vessel off the African coast, after I had been at sea long enough to appreciate even the fancy of a gallop on the back of a certain good horse 'York,' then in my stable at home." But the imaginary object of this imaginary ride was apparently, in Browning's intention, the conveyance of the news of the "Pacification de Gant," a treaty of union of Holland, Zealand, and the southern Netherlands against Spain. As this was concluded in 1576, the date 16- at the head of the poem is perhaps due to a failure of memory, just as some of the towns mentioned as lying on the route between Ghent and Aix are really not on the shortest and best route. The ride can easily be traced on the map; the distance is somewhat more than ninety miles. SAUL Pp. 552 ff. These two consecutive cantos from Saul give David's discussion of the power and love of God, ending in the prophetic vision of the GodMan, Christ. He has examined the works of God carefully and discovers in them evidences of law, wisdom, love, the will and the power to redeem mankind. MY LAST DUCHESS Pp. 554 f. This dramatic monologue is one of Browning's most successful efforts in this form of poetry. The Duke of Ferrara is supposed to be talking with an ambassador who has been sent by an unnamed Count to discuss with him a proposition of marriage with the Count's daughter. When the poem opens, they are returning from the place of discussion to the company awaiting them (cf. Il. 47-48), and the Duke, as if by mere chance, calls attention to a picture, and explains, as coolly as if he had no personal concern in the matter, that this is the picture of his last Duchess, whose "smiles" he had ordered "stopped," because she had a heart "too soon made glad" and had wounded his pride by setting no higher value upon what he gave her than upon the trifling gifts of others. He puts her offence purely as one against taste and family pride. The object of the conversation is, of course, to let the ambassador understand what his next Duchess may expect if she fails to rate highly enough the honor of being his wife. Fra Pandolf and Claus of Innsbruck are names invented by the poet. A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL Pp. 555 f. At the revival of classical learning in Europe the revelation of the rich and highly developed life and literatures of ancient Greece and Rome affected many men like the discovery of a new world. Some, like Erasmus (see Green's Short History of the English People) and the Grammarian of Browning's poem (see J. A. Symonds, The Revival of Learning, or J. Burkhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance, Pt. III), were ready to make all sorts of sacrifices, even to going without sufficient food, in order to devote their lives to these fascinating studies. The Grammarian is at heart an idealist and a poet, bewildered by this wonderful new world, and so entangled in the preliminaries to acquiring and applying the new ideals of life that he dies before he has completed his preparations for living. His enthusiasm and idealism he has communicated to his pupils, and a company of them bear his body on their shoulders to its last resting place. One of them is the speaker in the poem. He discusses the ideals and aims of his master and asserts that his life was not a failure, but a triumph. This is a favorite theme with Browning (cf. Abt Vogler (p. 567), Apparent Failure, and many other passages). The poem is not difficult if the reader remembers that here, as in many other poems, Browning's speaker uses the rapid changes of tone and syntactical structure of conversation. This makes it necessary to watch the punctuation closely, as it is intended to hint at the tone and voice inflection. Note especially the parentheses and quotations. 1. 95. Hydroptic means "afflicted with such a thirst that the more one drinks the more he thirsts." "CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME" Pp. 556 ff. Many have insisted upon regarding this poem as an allegory and have tried to find the allegorical meaning of each detail. Browning declared it was not so intended, but was a dramatic poem suggested by the words of the title. He admitted, however, that it might be regarded as having a symbolic significance suggesting faithfulness to any high moral quest in spite of the failure or desertion or treachery of companions, the interference of obstacles and dangers of all sorts, and the uncertainty of the final outcome. It seems also safe to recognize in ll. 175 ff. a suggestion of the sort of moral crisis that is not known as such until one is brought suddenly and unescapably into it, and when courage -even if only the courage with which a brave soul fronts the inevitable is the only safe counselor. The right way to read the poem is to attend consciously only to its plain dramatic meaning; it will inevitably suggest to the emotions all the symbolic significance it has. P. 557. l. 12. Notice that there is only a comma at the end of this line; the sentence goes on. Notice also II. 30, 132. Notice further that the "No" of 1. 61 is very closely connected with 11. 58-60. P. 558. 1. 8o. Colloped usually means lying in folds of fat, but here it is used of the folds or ridges of the horse's gaunt, withered neck. P. 559. 1. 192. This line, though in quotation marks, is not spoken, but represents the supposed attitude of the hills, watching to see the adversary slay Childe Roland. 1. 203. Browning's fancy was sometimes captured by an old or odd word, and he used it without knowing exactly what it meant. Slug-horn is due to a misunderstanding of an old spelling of the word slogan. Browning seems to have got it from Chatterton, who uses it several times; cf. Skeat's ed., II, pp. 42, 64, 125, 129, 132, 199, and especially 162: "Some caught a slug-horn, and an onset wound." (Battle of Hastings II, xi.) FRA LIPPO LIPPI "Poor brother Lippo" (i.e., Filippo) was in reality a great Florentine painter of the Quattrocento (fifteenth century), whose character and career are very accurately given in this poem. He was born in 1406, according to Berenson, and died in 1469. His teacher was Lorenzo Monaco, the Brother Lorenzo of 1. 236, but he owes much more to Masaccio (= Hulking Tom (1. 277), the nickname of Tommaso Guidi), five years his senior, whom Browning mistakenly makes his pupil. He was also somewhat influenced by Fra Angelico (1387-1455), who is mentioned in l. 235. Lippo's comments on Giotto in the poem are, of course, unfair, and were intended by Browning to be so. The cloister of the Carmine (1. 7) was then outside the city, a little south and west of the Ponte alla Carraia. When the poem opens, Fra Lippo is at work for Cosimo de' Medici in what is now the Palazzo Riccardi. As this palace was built in 1430 and Fra Lippo seems to be engaged in decorating the walls, the imaginary date of the poem is apparently before Fra Lippo left the cloister in 1432, as, indeed, l. 7 seems to indicate. The other places mentioned are in or near Florence. The church of San Lorenzo (St. Laurence, 1. 67) is less than a hundred yards from "the house that caps the corner" (1. 18). The convent of the Preaching Friars (l. 140), or Dominicans, better known as that of San Marco, is a few hundred yards north of San Lorenzo; Camaldoli, the seat of the Camaldolese monks (1. 139), lies about twenty miles east, while Prato (1. 324) is twelve miles northwest. For the facts of Fra Lippo's career Browning relied upon the latest edition of Vasari's Lives of the Painters (G. Vasari, Delle Vite de' più Eccellenti Pittori, etc.), which misled him in regard to Masaccio. The snatches of song in the poem are said to be modeled on the type of folk song called stornello (pl. stornelli), though they do not conform to the examples I have seen. The picture conceived for Sant' Ambrogio's church (ll. 346 ff.) is the Coronation of the Virgin, now in the Accademia delle Belle Arti. The words Iste perfecit opus (1. 377, “This one painted the picture”) are on a scroll pointing towards the figure of the monk. The information just given may satisfy some natural curiosity about certain details. The poem itself, however, can be understood without this introduction; it, indeed, contains all the elements necessary to its interpretation as a poem. Browning has two objects in the poem: (1) to give a vivid dramatic presentation of the psychology of this type of artist and the conditions of his life in fifteenth century Italy; (2) to use him as a mouthpiece for some interesting and important views about realistic art. ONE WORD MORE Pp. 564 ff. This poem was, as Il. 1-2 indicate, the final poem of the volumes entitled Men and Women (2 vols., 1855). It is a tribute to the poet's wife, as clear and simple as it is beautiful. Its general theme is stated in ll. 96-99 and 184-186. Notes on a few details may be interesting: 1. 5. Nothing is known of Rafael's (1483-1520) century of sonnets; according to Browning it disappeared while in the hands of Guido Reni (b. 1575, d. 1642). 1. 10. Who that one? Rafael's lady was Margareta (la Fornarina), whose likeness appears in many of his pictures. P. 565. 1. 32. Dante's account of his beginning to draw an angel on the completion of Beatrice's first year "in the life eternal" is given in The New Life (La Vita Nuova), section xxxv (see Professor Norton's translation, pp. 74 ff., and his note on p. 163). 1. 46. Browning called one of his own works Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in Their Day (pub. 1887). 1. 57. Bice (pronounced "Bee'chè") is a loveform of Beatrice. P. 566. 1. 148. Fiesole, cf. notes on Landor's A Fiesolan Idyl. 1. 150. Samminiato, a popular form of San Miniato, a small mountain southwest of Florence, famous for its scenery and its church. P. 567. ll. 163-165. Zoroaster and Galileo are named as types of those who studied the moon as scientists; Homer and Keats as poets who wrote about it. Galileo's discovery of the mountains in the moon was one of the most famous results of the use of the telescope. Keats's Endymion is the most notable version of the well-known myth of the loves of Endymion and the moon goddess. ABT VOGLER Georg Joseph Vogler (b. 1749 at Würzburg, d. 1814 at Darmstadt) was the son of a violin maker and was early devoted to the career of musician. He studied in Germany and Italy and taught and directed in Germany and Sweden. While in Rome he entered the priesthood and was appointed Apostolic Protonotary and Chamberlain. He was court chaplain and master of the chapel at Mannheim and Stockholm, and established schools of music at both places. He composed a great deal of music, but his principal interest for us is in his career as virtuoso. Having made a good many simplifications in the pipe organ, which resulted in a portable organ about nine feet in height, depth, and breadth, named by him an "orchestrion," he visited Denmark, Holland, and England with it and gave organ recitals with much success. This is the instrument upon which he has been improvising when Browning's poem opens (cf. 1. 2). The central ideas of the poem are expressed in 11. 69-82. The musician has just built up with his playing a beautiful structure of music, as wonderful both in result and in mode of accomplishment as the legendary palace built by Solomon for the princess he loved. He reflects upon these resemblances (ll. 1-40), expressing first the wish (1. 9) that this palace of music might be permanent, not doomed to perish as the notes of the improvisation die away. Then (ll. 41-56) he contrasts the rational, intelligible processes of other arts painting, poetry, etc. with the mysterious and divine creative processes of music. Then he returns to the question whether music even improvised music does really perish when the tones cease here on earth, and he finds in his soul's demand for personal immortality (ll. 63-64) the assurance that music, and all that is good and beautiful, must exist eternally in and through the power and love of the Ineffable Name; and finds in the necessity for the completion of the incomplete and the final success of apparent earthly failure triumphant "evidence for the fulness of the days” (11. 65-82), the reality of eternity. And conformably to what is said of the nearness of God to the musician in Il. 49-56, he declares in ll. 81-88 the divine revelation of these truths to musicians. The rest of the poem is a real, and at the same time symbolic, return from these exalted thoughts and feelings through the emotional effects of music to the plane and the duties of common human life. 1. 3. Legends of Solomon's skill in magic arose very early out of what the Bible says of his wisdom. The Talmudists inferred from the simple Biblical statement that no sound of a hammer was heard in the building of the Temple, that he must have used supernatural means, and they devised a story of a wonderful animal that cut stone and glass and iron, discovered by Solomon by means of his knowledge of the language of birds (see S. Baring-Gould's Myths of the Middle Ages and Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets). Later legends, hinted at in the Koran, put him in control of armies of angels and demons, able to execute every command. 1. 5. The demons had or assumed all shapes. 1. 7. The belief that the real name of God was unspeakable goes back to ancient Hebrew times or at least to a time earlier than the Septuagint version of the Old Testament; see any good encyclopædia under Jehovah or Jahveh. P. 568. 1. 18. If crest here means anything more than "head" or "creature," it is used to imply the different natures or groups represented by different crests or cognizances. 1. 22. The lighting of the lamps around St. Peter's dome (l. 23) used, it is said, to be one of the great sights of Rome on festal occasions. 1. 34. Protoplast is usually taken here to mean "model" or "mold." It seems rather to mean "creator," "first maker," as in Browning's other use of it in Fifine, cxxiv. 1. 42. visibly, as if he had really seen the structure of music. 1. 51. this = the art of music. P. 569. ll. 91–96. The symbolism of this passage is clear. The efforts of commentators to indicate the succession of chords are not entirely satisfactory. In 1. 91 the common chord seems to mean the basal chord of the tonality in which he had been improvising, for he would hardly have begun his descent to the C Major of this life from any other tonality. That this was not itself C Major, as some suppose, is probable; for what reason would there then be for sliding into the minor and the ninth before finding the resting place in C Major? What seems clear is that, beginning on the heights of feeling induced by his improvisation, the musician resumes the tonality in which he was improvising and, modulating by semi-tones, AE slips into the minor, which characteristically arouses emotions of unrest, incompleteness, and longing; but he resolutely blunts this with the inharmonic ninth, and then resolves this into C Major- the tonality of common human life. RABBI BEN EZRA Rabbi Ben Ezra, or Ibn Ezra, was born in Spain about 1090. He travelled in Africa, the Holy Land, Persia, India, Italy, France, and England, and was a scholar and a poet. Some of the ideas which Browning here puts into his mouth were really expressed by him in his poems and his commentaries on the Bible. THE EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO Pp. 572 f. The volume of which this little poem is the epilogue was published the day of Browning's death, December 12, 1889. It contemplates his own death and the feelings which his friends will have about it, and rejects their imagined pity, declaring that as on earth he was one who never feared or doubted, so after death he will continue his career, asking only that his friends cheer him though unseen and speed him onward. Note the contrast between midnight (1. 1) and noonday (l. 16). WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY Pp. 573 ff. A typical John Bull among writers, Thackeray is nowhere more Bull-ish than in dealing with his fellow-humorist. The key to all that he has to say about Sterne is found in the last sentence of the selection; his mid-Victorian sense of what is due the conventions will not permit him to discuss Sterne without saying that he prefers Dickens for his children. This personal bias, on moral, not literary, grounds, pervades his presentation of the character. His study is not unsympathetic far from it; it is appreciative, even kindly, but it never for a moment abandons the position of a paterfamilias in a frock-coat. He is scandalized |