Biographia Literaria
elevated character, must necessarily, except with reference to the
metre, in no respect differ from that of good prose, but likewise that
some of the most interesting parts of the best poems will be found to be
strictly the language of prose, when prose is well written. The truth of
this assertion might be demonstrated by innumerable passages from almost
all the poetical writings, even of Milton himself.” He then quotes
Gray’s sonnet--
“In vain to me the smiling mornings shine,
And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire;
The birds in vain their amorous descant join,
Or cheerful fields resume their green attire.
These ears, alas! for other notes repine;
_A different object do these eyes require;
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine;
And in my breast the imperfect joys expire._
Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer,
And new-born pleasure brings to happier men;
The fields to all their wonted tribute bear;
To warm their little loves the birds complain:
_I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear,
And weep the more, because I weep in vain.”_
and adds the following remark:--“It will easily be perceived, that the
only part of this Sonnet which is of any value, is the lines printed in
italics; it is equally obvious, that, except in the rhyme, and in the
use of the single word `fruitless’ for fruitlessly, which is so far a
defect, the language of these lines does in no respect differ from that
of prose.”
An idealist defending his system by the fact, that when asleep we often
believe ourselves awake, was well answered by his plain neighbour, “Ah,
but when awake do we ever believe ourselves asleep?” Things identical
must be convertible. The preceding passage seems to rest on a similar
sophism. For the question is not, whether there may not occur in prose
an order of words, which would be equally proper in a poem; nor whether
there are not beautiful lines and sentences of frequent occurrence in
good poems, which would be equally becoming as well as beautiful in good
prose; for neither the one nor the other has ever been either denied
or doubted by any one. The true question must be, whether there are not
modes of expression, a construction, and an order of sentences, which
are in their fit and natural place in a serious prose composition, but
would be disproportionate and heterogeneous in metrical poetry; and,
vice versa, whether in the language of a serious poem there may not be
an arrangement both of words and sentences, and a use and selection
of (what are called) figures of speech, both as to their kind, their
frequency, and their occasions, which on a subject of equal weight would
be vicious and alien in correct and manly prose. I contend, that in both
cases this unfitness of each for the place of the other frequently will
and ought to exist.
And first from the origin of metre. This I would trace to the balance
in the mind effected by that spontaneous effort which strives to hold in
check the workings of passion. It might be easily explained likewise
in what manner this salutary antagonism is assisted by the very state,
which it counteracts; and how this balance of antagonists became
organized into metre (in the usual acceptation of that term), by a
supervening act of the will and judgment, consciously and for the
foreseen purpose of pleasure. Assuming these principles, as the data of
our argument, we deduce from them two legitimate conditions, which the
critic is entitled to expect in every metrical work. First, that, as
the elements of metre owe their existence to a state of increased
excitement, so the metre itself should be accompanied by the natural
language of excitement. Secondly, that as these elements are formed
into metre artificially, by a voluntary act, with the design and for
the purpose of blending delight with emotion, so the traces of present
volition should throughout the metrical language be proportionately
discernible. Now these two conditions must be reconciled and co-
present. There must be not only a partnership, but a union; an
interpenetration of passion and of will, of spontaneous impulse and
of voluntary purpose. Again, this union can be manifested only in a
frequency of forms and figures of speech, (originally the offspring of
passion, but now the adopted children of power), greater than would be
desired or endured, where the emotion is not voluntarily encouraged and
kept up for the sake of that pleasure, which such emotion, so tempered
and mastered by the will, is found capable of communicating. It not only
dictates, but of itself tends to produce a more frequent employment of
picturesque and vivifying language, than would be natural in any other
case, in which there did not exist, as there does in the present, a
previous and well understood, though tacit, compact between the poet and
his reader, that the latter is entitled to expect, and the former bound
to supply this species and degree of pleasurable excitement. We may
in some measure apply to this union the answer of Polixenes, in the
Winter’s Tale, to Perdita’s neglect of the streaked gilliflowers,
because she had heard it said,
“There is an art, which, in their piedness, shares
With great creating nature.
POL. Say there be;
Yet nature is made better by no mean,
But nature makes that mean; so, o’er that art,
Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art,
That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry
A gentler scion to the wildest stock;
And make conceive a bark of baser kind
By bud of nobler race. This is an art,
Which does mend nature,--change it rather; but
The art itself is nature.”
Secondly, I argue from the effects of metre. As far as metre acts in and
for itself, it tends to increase the vivacity and susceptibility both
of the general feelings and of the attention. This effect it produces by
the continued excitement of surprise, and by the quick reciprocations
of curiosity still gratified and still re-excited, which are too slight
indeed to be at any one moment objects of distinct consciousness,
yet become considerable in their aggregate influence. As a medicated
atmosphere, or as wine during animated conversation, they act
powerfully, though themselves unnoticed. Where, therefore, correspondent
food and appropriate matter are not provided for the attention and
feelings thus roused there must needs be a disappointment felt; like
that of leaping in the dark from the last step of a stair-case, when we
had prepared our muscles for a leap of three or four.
The discussion on the powers of metre in the preface is highly ingenious
and touches at all points on truth. But I cannot find any statement of
its powers considered abstractly and separately. On the contrary Mr.
Wordsworth seems always to estimate metre by the powers, which it exerts
during, (and, as I think, in consequence of) its combination with other
elements of poetry. Thus the previous difficulty is left unanswered,
what the elements are, with which it must be combined, in order
to produce its own effects to any pleasurable purpose. Double and
tri-syllable rhymes, indeed, form a lower species of wit, and, attended
to exclusively for their own sake, may become a source of momentary
amusement; as in poor Smart’s distich to the Welsh Squire who had
promised him a hare:
“Tell me, thou son of great Cadwallader!
Hast sent the hare? or hast thou swallow’d her?”
But for any poetic purposes, metre resembles, (if the aptness of the
simile may excuse its meanness), yeast, worthless or disagreeable by
itself, but giving vivacity and spirit to the liquor with which it is
proportionally combined.
The reference to THE CHILDREN IN THE WOOD by no means satisfies my
judgment. We all willingly throw ourselves back for awhile into the
feelings of our childhood. This ballad, therefore, we read under such
recollections of our own childish feelings, as would equally endear to
us poems, which Mr. Wordsworth himself would regard as faulty in the
opposite extreme of gaudy and technical ornament. Before the invention
of printing, and in a still greater degree, before the introduction of
writing, metre, especially alliterative metre, (whether alliterative at
the beginning of the words, as in PIERCE PLOUMAN, or at the end, as in
rhymes) possessed an independent value as assisting the recollection,
and consequently the preservation, of any series of truths or incidents.
But I am not convinced by the collation of facts, that THE CHILDREN
IN THE WOOD owes either its preservation, or its popularity, to its
metrical form. Mr. Marshal’s repository affords a number of tales in
prose inferior in pathos and general merit, some of as old a date, and
many as widely popular. TOM HICKATHRIFT, JACK THE GIANT-KILLER, GOODY
TWO-SHOES, and LITTLE RED RIDING-HOOD are formidable rivals. And
that they have continued in prose, cannot be fairly explained by the
assumption, that the comparative meanness of their thoughts and images
precluded even the humblest forms of metre. The scene of GOODY TWO-SHOES
in the church is perfectly susceptible of metrical narration; and, among
the thaumata thaumastotata even of the present age, I do not recollect a
more astonishing image than that of the “whole rookery, that flew out
of the giant’s beard,” scared by the tremendous voice, with which this
monster answered the challenge of the heroic TOM HICKATHRIFT!
If from these we turn to compositions universally, and independently of
all early associations, beloved and admired; would the MARIA, THE MONK,
or THE POOR MAN’S ASS of Sterne, be read with more delight, or have a
better chance of immortality, had they without any change in the diction
been composed in rhyme, than in their present state? If I am not grossly
mistaken, the general reply would be in the negative. Nay, I will
confess, that, in Mr. Wordsworth’s own volumes, the ANECDOTE FOR
FATHERS, SIMON LEE, ALICE FELL, BEGGARS, and THE SAILOR’S MOTHER,
notwithstanding the beauties which are to be found in each of them where
the poet interposes the music of his own thoughts, would have been more
delightful to me in prose, told and managed, as by Mr. Wordsworth they
would have been, in a moral essay or pedestrian tour.
Metre in itself is simply a stimulant of the attention, and therefore
excites the question: Why is the attention to be thus stimulated? Now
the question cannot be answered by the pleasure of the metre itself;
for this we have shown to be conditional, and dependent on the
appropriateness of the thoughts and expressions, to which the metrical
form is superadded. Neither can I conceive any other answer that can be
rationally given, short of this: I write in metre, because I am about to
use a language different from that of prose. Besides, where the language
is not such, how interesting soever the reflections are, that are
capable of being drawn by a philosophic mind from the thoughts or
incidents of the poem, the metre itself must often become feeble. Take
the last three stanzas of THE SAILOR’S MOTHER, for instance. If I could
for a moment abstract from the effect produced on the author’s feelings,
as a man, by the incident at the time of its real occurrence, I would
dare appeal to his own judgment, whether in the metre itself he found a
sufficient reason for their being written metrically?
And, thus continuing, she said,
“I had a Son, who many a day
Sailed on the seas; but he is dead;
In Denmark he was cast away;
And I have travelled far as Hull to see
What clothes he might have left, or other property.
The Bird and Cage they both were his
’Twas my Son’s Bird; and neat and trim
He kept it: many voyages