Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

--

Lacking in intensity of passion and dramatic force, Tennyson here again is but typical of his era, to him one of reposeful content and calm, reasoning progress. Of permanent, lasting value much of his verse undoubtedly is, but not all of it will escape the indifference of posterity or the measuring-rod and censure, it may be, of the future critic. He had not the stirring strains or the careless rapture of other and earlier poets of the motherland, his characteristic is more contemplative and brooding, yet his range is unusually comprehensive and his power varied and sustained, as well as marked by the highest qualities of rhythmic beauty. In the idyll, where he specially shines, we have much that is lovely and limpid, with abounding instances of that felicitous word-painting for which he was noted. This is especially seen in the simple pastoral idylls, such as 'Dora,' 'The May Queen,' and 'The Miller's Daughter,' or in those tender lyrics such as 'Mariana,' 'Sir Galahad,' 'The Dying Swan,' and 'The Talking Oak.' In the ballads and songs, how felicitous again is the poet's work, and how rich yet mellifluous is the strain! Had Tennyson written nothing else but these, with the verse included in the volumes issued by him in 1832 and 1842, how high would he have been placed in the choir of song, and how supreme should we have deemed his art! In "The Princess" alone there are songs that would have made any poet's reputation,

while for music and color, and especially for perfection of poetic workmanship, they are almost matchless in their beauty.

Fortunately, however, the poet was to give us much even beyond these surpassingly beautiful things, and make a more unique and distinctive contribution to the verse of his era. In the years that followed the production of his early writings the poet matures in thought as his art ripens and reaches still higher qualities of craftsmanship. Recluse as he was, he moreover had his experiences of life and drank deeply of sorrow's cup, as we see in "In Memoriam," that noble tribute

to his youthful friend, Arthur Hallam, with its grand hymnal qualities and powerful and reverent lessons for an age shifting in its beliefs and unconfirmed in its faith. In later work from his pen we also see the Laureate for he has now received official recognition from his nation-in his relations to the culture as well as to the thought of his time, keeping pace with the age in all its complex engrossments and problems. This is shown in much and varied work turned out with its author's loving interest in the poetic art, and with characteristic delicacy and finish. The most impor tant labor of this later time includes "The Princess," "Maud and Other Poems," "Enoch Arden," the dramas 'Becket," "Queen Mary," and "Harold," "Tiresias," "Demeter," "The Foresters," but above all, and most

[ocr errors]

notably, that grand epic of King Arthur's time,-"The Idylls of the King." In the latter, the most characteristic, and perhaps the most permanent, of Tennyson's work, the poet manifests his historic sense and love for England's legendary past, and achieves his design not only to glorify it, but to imbue it with a deep ethical motive and underlying purpose, the expression of his own chivalrous, knightly soul and strenuous, thoughtful, and blameless life. In these splendid tales of knight-errantry we have the full flower of the poet's genius, narrated in the true romantic spirit, but with an ideality and imagination quite Tennysonian, and with a spiritualistic touch in harmony with "the voice of the age" that reminds us that,—

"Our little systems have their day;

They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they."

It is with such themes and speculations that Tennyson has powerfully and impressively influenced his age. Beyond and above the mere artistry of the poet, we recognize his interest in man's higher, spiritual being, his love for nature, and awe in contemplating the heights and depths of infinite time and space, ever looking upward and inward at the mysteries of the world behind the phenomena of sense. It is difficult, in set theological terms, to define the poet's creed, though we know

that he was won by the Broad Church teaching of his friends, Frederick Robertson and Denison Maurice, and had himself many a battle to fight with honest doubts until as his 'Crossing the Bar' shows us - he finally conquered and laid them. But while there is an absence of definite doctrine in his work there is no question about his religious convictions or of his belief in the eternal verities, the immanence of God in man and the universe. Throughout his poems he assumes the existence of a great Spirit and recognizes that our souls are a part of Him, however Faith at times seems to veil her face from the poet, and all appears a mystery, though a mystery presided over by infinite Power and Love. The great problems of metaphysics and of man's origin and destiny, we are told, occupied much of his thought, and he dwelt upon them with eager, intense interest, and touched upon them with great candor, earnestness, and truthfulness. No sophistry could shake his belief in man's immortality, for without belief in this doctrine the human race, he was convinced, had not incentive enough to virtue, while all man's inspirations were otherwise meaningless. For the doctrine of Evolution, in its materialistic aspect, he had nothing but scorn, though he accepted it in the more spiritual guise with which Russel Wallace propounded it. If we come from the brutes we are nevertheless linked with the Divine, he believed, and it was the

Divine in man that was to conquer the brute within him, and, in the upward struggle, work out salvation. So, in the realm of physical science, on the principles of which, as Huxley tells us, he had a great grasp, the poet, while appalled by the mystery, accepts and indeed rejoices in its truths, though he cannot acquiesce in a godless world or in the denial of a life to come, in which the race, through infinite love, shall be brought into union with God.

[ocr errors]

But leaving here Tennyson's speculations and beliefs, a most interesting part of the poet's analytical and reflective character, let us look for a little at the man personally, and record briefly the chief incidents in his quiet though ideal home-life. To those who know the Memoir by his son, Hallam Tennyson, a memoir that while paying honor to filial reverence and devotion is at the same time and in all respects most worthy of its high theme, the events in the poet's life will hardly need dwelling upon, though they throw much light on, and impart the distinction of a high dignity to, the Laureate's work. The life Hallam Tennyson describes was, we know, not lived in the public eye, and was wholly without sensational elements or any of the vapid interests which usually attach to a man whose name is, in a special sense, public property, and about whom the world was eagerly, and often officiously, curious. The life the poet lived, in a popular sense, lacked all that

« AnteriorContinuar »