On this page
-
Text (5)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
ciated all over Europe ; and the Courrier may be informed that , so far from her works being confined to France , translations of them in Germany and England have carried her name to thousands . iNor was there any ground for supposing hat , although the critic named the two writers in the same phrase , he placed them in the same rank .
Untitled Article
The contrast between Protestant and Catholic Oermany in respect of sacred matters might be drawn by a moralist from two indications which have this week reached us . The Berlin wit , Adolf Brennglass ( a German wit , observe !) , has published his Comic Almanac for 1851 . And comic it is , with a liberal allowance for the peculiarities of German vivacity . The illustrations are often really humorous . But the topic to which at present we invite attention is the parody of Genesis in Das Parodies—ein Puppenspiel in 3 Akten . It opens with an engraving of Adam on his first entrance into Paradise—a coarse Berlin bourgeois with
heavy loins and splay feet , in the Berlin dialect , which defies translation , Adam soliloquizes : " I am really delighted that I have been created . One knows not what good may not come of it . ( hooking round . ) A charming botanic garden I Moreover , the blue covering above there and the warm Lantern in it are not without merit ! Not to mention that as one must accept it as a fait accompli , it really is not badly executed . The author has
claims on the applause of the public ! At any rate a beginning has been made ; the initiative has been taken ; and with a rigorous government a very decent habitation may be made of it . " In this strain he continues , and Eve is introduced ; but we care not to pursue the parody , which is senseless , coarse , vulgar , and not humorous . Now turn to the second picture of Germany .
In Ober Ammergau ( Bavaria ) the simple pastimes which delighted our ancestors are , by their descendants , as heartily enjoyed and accepted with a faith as simple . Every one has heard of the Mysteries and Miracle Plays out of which the drama grew . These Mysteries , banished for some centuries from Italy , Spain , France , and England , are not yet extinct in Germany ; and in Ober Ammergau every ten years there is a great religious festival , at which a Mystery is performed . The last occurred towards the close of October . It was
the Mystery of the Passion . The scene , like that in the Greek drama , was open—and the blue sky , the rocks and verdure of Nature herself supplanted the scene painter and the jets of gas . The actors were the peasants of the village . Mass was performed by way of overture . Then came a Prologue of Adam and Eve and the loss of Paradise , naively represented , but without the coarseness which Miracle
astonishes the student in our early plays . The story of Christ ' s life from the Entry into Jerusalem to the Crucifixion , was represented in a succession of striking , tableaux . One must have been really powerful—the Sanhedrim with Caiphas a . nd the rest in council upon the danger of" society and the family" menaced by this Jesus of Nazareth ; and their final resolution to destroy the teacher of such anarchy .
Living in our sophisticated and progressive society , we cannot easily realize the simplicity which such religious performances imply , any more than we can understand how the Bacchic rout , whence sprung the Grecian Drama , could be a profoundly religious service . But it requires no effort to perceive the broad distinction between this primitive mode of religious instruction and the unwarrantable ribaldry of an Adolf Brisnnglass .
Untitled Article
There is a contempt for cowardice and compromise which often leads men to adopt titles and mottoes as offensive as they are uncalled for . To hit the right medium between flinching and swaggering is no easy task . We have this week to record a change in a spirited journal , by no means justify ing the odium of its title , but
which has been seriously injured by the invincible prejudices attached to the very name of lied Republican , which Mr . Julian Harney henceforth publishes under the title of The Friend of the People . Without foregoing any of his out-speaking , he will endeavour to get the people to listen to him , and for this purpose no longer alarms them by the name . He says : —
content with their present position . They must make converts—they must cause their principles to become the political religion of the masses . To effect this , all honourable means are not merely allowable , but indispensable . "
" It would be of , little use—so far as the victory of the pood causo is concerned—that this journal should continue to be supported by those only who are already Red Republicans . It is necessary that it should circulate mongat those who have yet to bo converted to the Itrimblionn faith . Anxious to ostnblish the reign of Equality , L'ber'r , nnd Fraternity , Republicans nan nut be
Untitled Article
There were some doubts expressed respecting Kink el ' s escape—the news seemed too good to be true . His arrival in England , however , sets those doubts at rest . Private letters from Germany give us strange romantic stories current on the subject ; but leaving high-born Russian ladies , with romantic sympathies , out of the question , we may as well mention that his escape was managed
in this way : —An officer ' s uniform was secretly conveyed to him , the password given him , and by the aid of a duplicate key of his cell he walked out , was mistaken by the sentinel for an officer , and passed without question . What a moment must that have been as he gave the password What a rolling of the stone from his breast as he fairly stepped beyond the shadow of Spandau !
Untitled Article
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING . Poems . By Elizabeth Barrett Browning-. New edition . In two volumes . Chapman aud Hall . We haye a grudge against Mrs . Browning ' s critics for having , by their praises , kept us so long in i gnorance of her beauties . We cannot , at this distance of time , specify where certain critiques appeared , nor ¦ what was the peculiar imbecility they expressed ; but
we are distinctly conscious of the general impression left by them , which was such as to destroy all curiosity to see the poems they so clumsily bepraised : the impression was that Mrs . Browning , then Miss Barrett , belonged to the le ^ ast-amiable section of the modern school of affectation and verbosity—an impression some sonnets she published in Blackwood seemed fully to bear out .
Mrs . Browning , in our hearts we make you the amende honorable ! The loss has been ours ; but we have -wronged you in our thoughts , —wronged you and scorned you , —when , we should have honoured you and loved you , had not your critics deluded us with hyperboles of nonsense . To be saved from one ' s friends has been an ancient prayer ; when the friends are critics and noodles the prayer receives a triple intensification !
diction ; yet not pedantically so . The severe strength of simplicity is not in the nature of her genius , which is affluent , redundant , and lyrical , rather than collective , suggestive , and proportional : the emotions rule her genius , not the intellect . This leads us to the primary defect of her writings —want of substantive -wealth . Partly , we suspect because of her position , isolated in its womanhood from the great experiences which enrich a man ( for it is only your unhappy or « atfraordinary women ,
such as George Sand or De Stael , whose lives furnish . them with the material open to men ) , but still more owing to the natural tendency of her nature , she has allowed her phantasy to move amidst the reveries and unrealities of a silent life , instead of seeking to rebaptize in beauty the thoughts and sufferings of our work-day world . There are exceptions to this charge , and we shall notice them anon ; but , taking a broad survey of her writings , this one fact conti * nually forces itself upon us . She does not image
forth the world . She does not , wth the solemn introspection of egotism , make her own life the image wherein we are to recognize ourselves . Her works are works of pure imagination , or say , rather , of pure phantasy ; not the utterances of a deliciously overburdened soul speaking to our souls . Hence her great admirers -will be , / ound among feminine minds of both sexes ; among the youthful who are still
inhabitants of the realms of fancy , not dragged earthward by sorrowing realities or stern necessities ; and among critics and poets , who will consider form , and form only . But , as George Sand so finely says : — " La poesie n ' est qu ' une forme , une expression de la vie en nous , et la . ou elle n ' exprime ni voeux , ni convictions , elie n ' est qu ' un ornement frivole , un instrument sonore . "
The very choice of subjects implies—to our apprehension—the want of real poetic material . " A man can only coin guineas , " said Johnson , " in proportion to his gold ; " but the poet , whether he has gold or not , will persist in coining , and invents or borrows his material to satisfy the craving of his desire to create , just as the hen , though , widowed , will lay eggs , to fulfil her function in the universe , even if housewives scorn her eggs as worthless : they look as good as other eggs , and gratify her maternal pride , but you cannot hatch them into chickens !
Open these volumes , and you find , first , " Hie Drama of Exile "—the old fable of Paradise Lost , treated not as Milton treated it , with human nature for his constant theme , and theological argument itself made human ; but as Shelley would have treated it , had he been orthodox—with fanciful choruses of earth , spirits , flower spirits , angels , and all the supernatural company vexing the reader with the sense of its being " all imagination . " We do not deny the beauty of many passages—the paradisiacal
glow that lights up the whole ; but we say the poem is a caprice : it is not hewn out of experience ; it does not appeal to human sympathies . It is a work produced by mere delight in production . Then comes a still more remote and fanciful drama — " The Seraphim " — in the reading of which we fairly broke down . Years ago we should have gloried in it , and , doubtless , have straightway proceeded to spoil foolscap with an imitation of it ! but * ' years which bring the philosophic mind "
have brought the natural distaste for unrealities . And by unrealities we do not mean the things which have no actual existence in the outward world ; we mean the things which do not really exist anywherewhich have no vitality . The Arabian Nights are intensely real and true ; so are Fairy Tales when good . Puck , Titania , Caliban , and Ariel are as real as Hamlet or Falstaff . But Mrs . Browning ' s Seraphim—Ador and Zcrah—are unreal in every acceptation of the term .
Following the " Seraphim" come translations of the Prometheus Bound ( of which more in detail hereafter ) and the Lament for Adonis of Bion : subjects which , as exercises in translation , might be chosen by any poet , but which coniirm the view we take of her natural tendency to avoid mingling with the moving currents of life , and to choose the realm of
phantasy . That noble Greek drama lay open to her ; why did not the human interests of the Antigone , the ( Edipus , the Philoctetes , the Ajax , or the Iphigenia attract her , and why won * they foregone for the mythologic grandeur of the Prometheus ? To our minds the answer is simple . The remoteness of a subject from human interest ( and there is very little human interest in the Prome *
Probably some of our readers are in the same mood that we were , and from the same causes . If so , we conjure them to rush to the first shop , and carry off the two caskets of jewels bearing the name of Elizabeth Barrett Browning—paying for them if finances permit , but stealing them if necessary ; for to possess them is imperative on all lovers of " numerous verse . " By fair means or foul , they must be had . «« Steal ? convey , the wise it call . " Any jury—having read the volumes—would give a verdict of " extenuating circumstances . "
We cannot pretend , in the novelty of our admiration to utter a final verdict on Mrs . Browning's claims ; no real poet is fathomed by the first cast of a sounding line , be the caster never so skilful . What we propose at present is merely to jot down rough notes towards the final elaboration of a judgment . And , first , we note the quality— -which takes precedence of all other excellences , without which no affluence of imagery or experience can avail—the quality of song . Poetry differs from prose as song differs from speech . The orator may be great ,
powerful , impassioned ; but the highest sublimation of his qualities will never raise him into a singer . The singer may be feeble , his song scarce worth the hearing ; but , nevertheless , he remains distinguished from all other men by this one gift of song . Mrs . Browning is a born singer—a poet by the irresistible decree of Nature . Herein she is distinguished from her husband , who , with a far greater reach of intellect , is a poet made by culture—a poet because other poets have lived before him , and spurred his ambitious horso till its paces made him fancy it was Pegasus . There is music in her mind , and that music becomes
resonant in verso . Except lennyson , there is no living writer of whom this is is so essential a characteristic . Except Tennyson , there is no living writer to whom we should sooner \ ioint as an example of a born poet . Connected with this primary quality of song there is also a singular magnificence of diction , such as rccals the prodigality of Shelley and Keats . She plays tricka with our noble langunge , occasionally ; but this arises from the very indulgence of power unrestrained by taste ; and these tricks look ugly in extracts . She is somewhat overlearncd , also , in her
Untitled Article
856 © f ) £ & ££ & £ ? + [ Saturday ,
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 30, 1850, page 856, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1861/page/16/
-