Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold. Arnold Matthew

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СКАЧАТЬ says, whatever we may read or come to know, we always return. Cum multa legeris et cognoveris, ad unum semper oportet redire principium.73

      The historic estimate is likely in especial to affect our judgment and our language when we are dealing with ancient poets; the personal estimate when we are dealing with poets our contemporaries, or at any rate modern. The exaggerations due to the historic estimate are not in themselves, perhaps, of very much gravity. Their report hardly enters the general ear; probably they do not always impose even on the literary men who adopt them. But they lead to a dangerous abuse of language. So we hear Cædmon,74 amongst, our own poets, compared to Milton. I have already noticed the enthusiasm of one accomplished French critic for "historic origins." Another eminent French critic, M. Vitet,75 comments upon that famous document of the early poetry of his nation, the Chanson de Roland.76 It is indeed a most interesting document. The joculator or jongleur Taillefer, who was with William the Conqueror's army at Hastings, marched before the Norman troops, so said the tradition, singing "of Charlemagne and of Roland and of Oliver, and of the vassals who died at Roncevaux"; and it is suggested that in the Chanson de Roland by one Turoldus or Theroulde, a poem preserved in a manuscript of the twelfth century in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, we have certainly the matter, perhaps even some of the words, of the chant which Taillefer sang. The poem has vigor and freshness; it is not without pathos. But M. Vitet is not satisfied with seeing in it a document of some poetic value, and of very high historic and linguistic value; he sees in it a grand and beautiful work, a monument of epic genius. In its general design he finds the grandiose conception, in its details he finds the constant union of simplicity with greatness, which are the marks, he truly says, of the genuine epic, and distinguish it from the artificial epic of literary ages. One thinks of Homer; this is the sort of praise which is given to Homer, and justly given. Higher praise there cannot well be, and it is the praise due to epic poetry of the highest order only, and to no other. Let us try, then, the Chanson de Roland at its best. Roland, mortally wounded, lays himself down under a pine-tree, with his face turned towards Spain and the enemy—

        "De plusurs choses à remembrer li prist,

        De tantes teres cume li bers cunquist,

        De dulce France, des humes de sun lign,

        De Carlemagne sun seignor ki l'nurrit."77

      That is primitive work, I repeat, with an undeniable poetic quality of its own. It deserves such praise, and such praise is sufficient for it. But now turn to Homer—

        [Greek:

        Os phato tous d aedae katecheu phusizoos aia

        en Lakedaimoni authi, philm en patridi gaim]78

      We are here in another world, another order of poetry altogether; here is rightly due such supreme praise as that which M. Vitet gives to the Chanson de Roland. If our words are to have any meaning, if our judgments are to have any solidity, we must not heap that supreme praise upon poetry of an order immeasurably inferior.

      Indeed there can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do us most good, than to have always in one's mind lines and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. Of course we are not to require this other poetry to resemble them; it may be very dissimilar. But if we have any tact we shall find them, when we have lodged them well in our minds, an infallible touchstone for detecting the presence or absence of high poetic quality, and also the degree of this quality, in all other poetry which we may place beside them. Short passages, even single lines, will serve our turn quite sufficiently. Take the two lines which I have just quoted from Homer, the poet's comment on Helen's mention of her brothers;—or take his

        [Greek:]

        A delo, to sphoi domen Paelaei anakti

        Thnaeta; umeis d eston agaero t athanato te.

        ae ina dustaenoiosi met andrasin alge echaeton;79

      the address of Zeus to the horses of Peleus;—or take finally his

        [Greek:]

        Kai se, geron, to prin men akouomen olbion einar80

      the words of Achilles to Priam, a suppliant before him. Take that incomparable line and a half of Dante, Ugolino's tremendous words—

        "Io no piangeva; sì dentro impietrai.

        Piangevan elli …"81

      take the lovely words of Beatrice to Virgil—

        "Io son fatta da Dio, sua mercè, tale,

        Che la vostra miseria non mi tange,

        Nè fiamma d'esto incendio non m'assale …"82

      take the simple, but perfect, single line—

      "In la sua volontade è nostra pace."83

      Take of Shakespeare a line or two of Henry the Fourth's expostulation with sleep—

        "Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast

        Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains

        In cradle of the rude imperious surge …"84

      and take, as well, Hamlet's dying request to Horatio—

        "If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,

        Absent thee from felicity awhile,

        And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain

        To tell my story …"85

      Take of Milton that Miltonic passage—

                         "Darken'd so, yet shone

        Above them all the archangel; but his face

        Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd, and care

        Sat on his faded cheek …"86

      add two such lines as—

        "And courage never to submit or yield

        And what is else not to be overcome …"87

      and finish with the exquisite close to the loss of Proserpine, the loss

      " … which cost Ceres all that pain To seek her through the world."88

      These few lines, if we have tact and can use them, are enough even of themselves to keep clear and sound our judgments about poetry, to save us from fallacious estimates of it, to conduct us to a real estimate.

      The specimens I have quoted differ widely from one another, but they have in common this: the possession of the very highest poetical quality. If we are thoroughly penetrated СКАЧАТЬ