English Literature
turned the tide of public opinion against him. He left England under a
cloud of distrust and disappointment, in 1816, and never returned. Eight
years were spent abroad, largely in Italy, where he was associated with
Shelley until the latter's tragic death in 1822. His house was ever the
meeting place for Revolutionists and malcontents calling themselves
patriots, whom he trusted too greatly, and with whom he shared his money
most generously. Curiously enough, while he trusted men too easily, he had
no faith in human society or government, and wrote in 1817: "I have
simplified my politics to an utter detestation of all existing
governments." During his exile he finished _Childe Harold, The Prisoner of
Chillon_, his dramas _Cain_ and _Manfred_, and numerous other works, in
some of which, as in _Don Juan_, he delighted in revenging himself upon his
countrymen by holding up to ridicule all that they held most sacred.
In 1824 Byron went to Greece to give himself and a large part of his
fortune to help that country in its struggle for liberty against the Turks.
How far he was led by his desire for posing as a hero, and how far by a
certain vigorous Viking spirit that was certainly in him, will never be
known. The Greeks welcomed him and made him a leader, and for a few months
he found himself in the midst of a wretched squabble of lies, selfishness,
insincerity, cowardice, and intrigue, instead of the heroic struggle for
liberty which he had anticipated. He died of fever, in Missolonghi, in
1824. One of his last poems, written there on his thirty-sixth birthday, a
few months before he died, expresses his own view of his disappointing
life:
My days are in the yellow leaf,
The flowers and fruits of love are gone:
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone.
WORKS OF BYRON. In reading Byron it is well to remember that he was a
disappointed and embittered man, not only in his personal life, but also in
his expectation of a general transformation of human society. As he pours
out his own feelings, chiefly, in his poetry, he is the most expressive
writer of his age in voicing the discontent of a multitude of Europeans who
were disappointed at the failure of the French Revolution to produce an
entirely new form of government and society.
One who wishes to understand the whole scope of Byron's genius and poetry
will do well to begin with his first work, _Hours of Idleness_, written
when he was a young man at the university. There is very little poetry in
the volume, only a striking facility in rime, brightened by the devil-may-
care spirit of the Cavalier poets; but as a revelation of the man himself
it is remarkable. In a vain and sophomoric preface he declares that poetry
is to him an idle experiment, and that this is his first and last attempt
to amuse himself in that line. Curiously enough, as he starts for Greece on
his last, fatal journey, he again ridicules literature, and says that the
poet is a "mere babbler." It is this despising of the art which alone makes
him famous that occasions our deepest disappointment. Even in his
magnificent passages, in a glowing description of nature or of a Hindoo
woman's exquisite love, his work is frequently marred by a wretched pun, or
by some cheap buffoonery, which ruins our first splendid impression of his
poetry.
Byron's later volumes, _Manfred_ and _Cain_, the one a curious, and perhaps
unconscious, parody of _Faust_, the other of _Paradise Lost_, are his two
best known dramatic works. Aside from the question of their poetic value,
they are interesting as voicing Byron's excessive individualism and his
rebellion against society. The best known and the most readable of Byron's
works _Mazeppa, The Prisoner of Chillon_, and _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_.
The first two cantos of _Childe Harold_ (1812) are perhaps more frequently
read than any other work of the same author, partly because of their
melodious verse, partly because of their descriptions of places along the
lines of European travel; but the last two cantos (1816-1818) written after
his exile from England, have more sincerity, and are in every way better
expressions of Byron's mature genius. Scattered through all his works one
finds magnificent descriptions of natural scenery, and exquisite lyrics of
love and despair; but they are mixed with such a deal of bombast and
rhetoric, together with much that is unwholesome, that the beginner will do
well to confine himself to a small volume of well-chosen selections.[227]
Byron is often compared with Scott, as having given to us Europe and the
Orient, just as Scott gave us Scotland and its people; but while there is a
certain resemblance in the swing and dash of the verses, the resemblance is
all on the surface, and the underlying difference between the two poets is
as great as that between Thackeray and Bulwer-Lytton. Scott knew his
country well,--its hills and valleys which are interesting as the abode of
living and lovable men and women. Byron pretended to know the secret,
unwholesome side of Europe, which generally hides itself in the dark; but
instead of giving us a variety of living men, he never gets away from his
own unbalanced and egotistical self. All his characters, in _Cain, Manfred,
The Corsair, The Giaour, Childe Harold, Don Juan_, are tiresome repetitions
of himself,--a vain, disappointed, cynical man, who finds no good in life
or love or anything. Naturally, with such a disposition, he is entirely
incapable of portraying a true woman. To nature alone, especially in her
magnificent moods, Byron remains faithful; and his portrayal of the night
and the storm and the ocean in _Childe Harold_ are unsurpassed in our
language.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822)
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
In this fragment, from the "Ode to the West Wind," we have a suggestion of
Shelley's own spirit, as reflected in all his poetry. The very spirit of
nature, which appeals to us in the wind and the cloud, the sunset and the
moonrise, seems to have possessed him, at times, and made him a chosen
instrument of melody. At such times he is a true poet, and his work is
unrivaled. At other times, unfortunately, Shelley joins with Byron in
voicing a vain rebellion against society. His poetry, like his life,
divides itself into two distinct moods. In one he is the violent reformer,
seeking to overthrow our present institutions and to hurry the millennium
out of its slow walk into a gallop. Out of this mood come most of his
longer poems, like _Queen Mab, Revolt of Islam, Hellas_, and _The Witch of
Atlas_, which are somewhat violent diatribes against government, priests,
marriage, religion, even God as men supposed him to be. In a different
mood, which finds expression _Alastor, Adonais_, and his wonderful lyrics,
Shelley is like a wanderer following a vague, beautiful vision, forever sad
and forever unsatisfied. In the latter mood he appeals profoundly to all
men who have known what it is to follow after an unattainable ideal.
SHELLEY'S LIFE. There are three classes of men who see visions, and all
three are represented in our literature. The first is the mere dreamer,
like Blake, who stumbles through a world of reality without noticing it,
and is happy in his visions. The second is the seer, the prophet, like
Langland, or Wyclif, who sees a vision and quietly goes to work, in ways
that men understand, to make the present world a little more like the ideal
one which he sees in his vision. The third, who appears in many forms,--as
visionary, enthusiast, radical, anarchist, revolutionary, call him what you
will,--sees a vision and straightway begins to tear down all human
institutions, which have been built up by the slow toil of centuries,
simply because they seem to stand in the way of his dream. To the latter
class belongs Shelley, a man perpetually at war with the present world, a
martyr and exile, simply because of his inability to sympathize with men
and society as they are, and because of his own mistaken judgment as to the
value and purpose of a vision.
Shelley was born in Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex, in 1792. On both his
father's and his mother's side he was descended from noble old families,
famous in the political and literary history of England. From childhood he
lived, like Blake, in a world of fancy, so real that certain imaginary
dragons and headless creatures of the neighboring wood kept him and his
sisters in a state of fearful expectancy. He learned rapidly, absorbed the
classics as if by intuition, and, dissatisfied with ordinary processes of
learning, seems to have sought, like Faustus, the acquaintance of spirits,
as shown in his "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty":
While yet a boy, I sought for ghosts, and sped
Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.
Shelley's first public school, kept by a hard-headed Scotch master, with
its floggings and its general brutality, seemed to him like a combination
of hell and prison; and his active rebellion against existing institutions
was well under way when, at twelve years of age, he entered the famous
preparatory school at Eton. He was a delicate, nervous, marvelously
sensitive boy, of great physical beauty; and, like Cowper, he suffered
torments at the hands of his rough schoolfellows. Unlike Cowper, he was
positive, resentful, and brave to the point of rashness; soul and body rose
up against tyranny; and he promptly organized a rebellion against the
brutal fagging system. "Mad Shelley" the boys called him, and they chivied
him like dogs around a little coon that fights and cries defiance to the
end. One finds what he seeks in this world, and it is not strange that
Shelley, after his Eton experiences, found causes for rebellion in all
existing forms of human society, and that he left school "to war among
mankind," as he says of himself in the _Revolt of Islam_. His university
days are but a repetition of his earlier experiences. While a student at
Oxford he read some scraps of Hume's philosophy, and immediately published
a pamphlet called "The Necessity of Atheism." It was a crude, foolish piece
of work, and Shelley distributed it by post to every one to whom it might
give offense. Naturally this brought on a conflict with the authorities,
but Shelley would not listen to reason or make any explanation, and was
expelled from the university in 1811.
Shelley's marriage was even more unfortunate. While living in London, on a
generous sister's pocket money, a certain young schoolgirl, Harriet
Westbrook, was attracted by Shelley's crude revolutionary doctrines. She
promptly left school, as her own personal part in the general rebellion,
and refused to return or even to listen to her parents upon the subject.
Having been taught by Shelley, she threw herself upon his protection; and
this unbalanced couple were presently married, as they said, "in deference
to anarch custom." The two infants had already proclaimed a rebellion
against the institution of marriage, for which they proposed to substitute
the doctrine of elective affinity. For two years they wandered about
England, Ireland, and Wales, living on a small allowance from Shelley's
father, who had disinherited his son because of his ill-considered
marriage. The pair soon separated, and two years later Shelley, having
formed a strong friendship with one Godwin,--a leader of young enthusiasts
and a preacher of anarchy,--presently showed his belief in Godwin's