The serpent, the poet, and the paradox of illusion: Anne Finch and the rational defense of female art

“ In the contemplation of Beauty we alone find it possible to attain that pleasurable elevation, or excitement of the soul, which we recognise as the Poetic Sentiment, and which is so easily distinguished from Truth, which is the satisfaction of the Reason, or from Passion, which is the excitement of the heart. ”

“ Fly Reason’s Power and shun the Light of Truth.
With Fiction then does real Joy reside,
And is our Reason the delusive Guide?{162}
Is it then right to dream the Syrens sing?
Or mount enraptur’d on the Dragon’s Wing?
No, ’tis the infant Mind, to Care unknown,
That makes th’ imagin’d Paradise its own;
Soon as Reflections in the Bosom rise,
Light Slumbers vanish from the clouded Eyes:
The Tear and Smile, that once together rose,
Are then divorc’d; the Head and Heart are foes;
Enchantment bows to Wisdom’s serious Plan,
And Pain and Prudence make and mar the Man. ”

“ Her eyes, which were bright from emotion, from that necessity of conquering man, which makes the looks of an impure woman as seductive as those of the feline tribe, allured me, enchained me, deprived me of all the power of resistance, and filled me with impetuous ardor. It was a short, sharp struggle of the eyes only, that eternal struggle between those two human brutes, the male and the female, in which the male is always beaten. ”

“ Art thou fallen? She can lift thee up, and to the illusion of thy sense gild defeat with triumph. Ay, Harmachis, she can do these things, for Nature ever fights upon her side; and while she does them she can deceive and shape a secret end in which thou hast no part. And thus Woman rules the world. For her are wars; for her men spend their strength in gathering gains; for her they do well and ill, and seek for greatness, to find oblivion. But still she sits like yonder Sphinx, and smiles; and no man has ever read all the riddle of her smile, or known all the mystery of her heart. Mock not! ”

“ The young man, a philosopher, otherwise staid and discreet, able to moderate his passions, though not this of love, tarried with her awhile to his great content, and at last married her, to whose wedding, amongst other guests, came Apollonius; who, by some probable conjectures, found her out to be a serpent, a lamia ”

“ THE WOMAN WITH THE SERPENT'S TONGUE She is not old, she is not young, The woman with the Serpent's Tongue, The haggard cheek, the hungering eye, The poisoned words that wildly fly, The famished face, the fevered hand,— Who slights the worthiest in the land, Sneers at the just, contemns the brave, And blackens goodness in its grave. In truthful numbers be she sung, The Woman with the Serpent's Tongue; Concerning whom, Fame hints at things Told but in shrugs and whisperings: Ambitious from her natal hour, And scheming all her life for power ”

“ The Serpent having ascrib’d its Reason, and Speech to the eating of that Fruit, the Woman might infer, If this Fruit did turn a Serpent into a rational Creature, why may it not transform a rational Creature into a God, and a Woman into a Goddess? ”

“ Others there are, who will not allow the seducing Serpent to be an Animal, but the Devil himself in that Shape, who therefore in the sacred Writings is called the great Dragon, old Serpent, and Murderer from the Beginning. And some are of Opinion, he borrowed the Body of a real Serpent, which he made use of, as a Vehicle, thro’ which he instilled Poison into the Woman’s Mind: And if so, what occasion to say the Serpent was more subtle than any Beast?——Since the grand Enemy in tempting Eve, did not use the Craft of the Serpent, but his own Cunning, in the Management of that cruel Stratagem. ”

“ Whom thus afflicted when sad Eve beheld, Desolate where she sate, approaching nigh, Soft words to his fierce passion she assay'd: But her with stern regard he thus repell'd. Out of my sight, thou Serpent, that name best Befits thee with him leagu'd, thy self as false And hateful; nothing wants, but that thy shape, Like his, and colour Serpentine may shew 870 Thy inward fraud, to warn all Creatures from thee Henceforth; least that too heav'nly form, pretended To hellish falshood, snare them. ”

“ Philosophy alone is cold and destructive, but the pleasures of the senses alone are unreal and unsatisfying. The man who attempts such a divorce between the two parts of his nature will fail miserably as did Lycius, who, unable permanently to exclude reason, was compelled to face the death of his illusions, and could not, himself, survive them.
Of the poem Keats himself says, writing to his brother in September, 1819: 'I have been reading over a part of a short poem I have composed lately, called Lamia, and I am certain there is that sort of fire in it that must take hold of people some way ”

“ What wreath for Lamia? What for Lycius? What for the sage, old Apollonius? Upon her aching forehead be there hung The leaves of willow and of adder's tongue; And for the youth, quick, let us strip for him The thyrsus, that his watching eyes may swim Into forgetfulness; and, for the sage, Let spear-grass and the spiteful thistle wage War on his temples. Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. ”

“ They could inhabit;——
the high-wrought splendours of the nuptial bower, with the fading of the whole pageantry, Lamia, and all, away, before the glance of Apollonius,—are all that fairy land can do for us. They are for younger impressibilities. To us an ounce of feeling is worth a pound of fancy; and therefore we recur again, with a warmer gratitude, to the story of Isabella and the pot of basil, and those never-cloying stanzas which we have cited, and which we think should disarm criticism, if it be not in its nature cruel ”

“ Conveniently for Keats’s theory, Lycius is made to die forthwith after the vanishing of his Lamia. If we invent a different finale to the poem, and say that Lycius fell down on his knees, and thanked Apollonius for saving him from such pestilent delusions and perilous blandishments, and ever afterwards looked out for the cloven tongue (if not the cloven hoof) when a pretty woman made advances to him, we may perhaps come quite as near to a right construction of so strange a series of events, and to the true moral of the story. But Keats’s [192] championship was for the enjoying aspects of life ”

“ Whilst Mira paints her face, to paint a thought
Whilst Lamia to the manly Bumper flys
And borrow'd Spiritts sparkle in her Eyes
Why shou'd itt be in me a thing so vain
To heat with Poetry my colder Brain
But I write ill and there-fore shou'd forbear
Does Flavia cease now at her fortieth year
In ev'ry Place to lett that face be seen
Which all the Town rejected at fifteen
Each Woman has her weaknesse ”

“ By Laughters unprovok'd, thy Influence too confess.
In the Imperious Wife thou Vapours art,
Which from o'erheated Passions rise
In Clouds to the attractive Brain,
Until descending thence again,
Thro' the o'er-cast, and show'ring Eyes,
Upon her Husband's soften'd Heart,
He the disputed Point must yield,
Something resign of the contested Field;
Til Lordly Man, born to Imperial Sway,
Compounds for Peace, to make that Right away,
And Woman, arm'd with Spleen, do's servilely Obey. ”

“ For long ages woman was but the creature of man's caprice, the drudge or ornament of his home, mistress of neither her body nor her mind. But as the world advanced and matter was made more subject unto mind—as divine Reason wrested the scepter from brute Force—woman began to assume her proper place in the world's economy. ”

“ Shou'd eat by manners and good Nature
Or starve on Epigram and Satir.
She finding him thus hott proceed
Desir'd then but his winged steed
But he reply'd 'twou'd much disgrace him ⁠70
To lett a female rider pace him ”

“ As will not reason, or Religion wast.
If they're deny'd, I on my selfe can Liue,
And slight those aids, unequal chance does give.
When in the Sun, my wings can be display'd,
And in retirement, I can bless the shade. ”

“ While yet we live, scarse one short hour perhaps, Between us two let there be peace, both joyning, As joyn'd in injuries, one enmitie Against a Foe by doom express assign'd us, That cruel Serpent: On me exercise not Thy hatred for this miserie befall'n, On me already lost, mee then thy self More miserable; both have sin'd, but thou 930 Against God onely, I against God and thee, And to the place of judgement will return, There with my cries importune Heaven, that all The sentence from thy head remov'd may light On me, sole cause to thee of all this woe, Mee mee onely just object of his ire. ”

“ The serpent, represented as walking, or formed in a manner to be able to walk, standing in front of, and near a female figure, is to me, one of the greatest representations I have ever seen upon paper, or a writing substance; and must go so far towards convincing the rational mind of the correctness and divine authority of the holy scriptures, and especially that part which has ever been assailed by the infidel community, as being a fiction, as to carry away, with one might sweep, the whole atheistical fabric, without leaving a vestige sufficient for a foundation stone. ”

“ To be cast out of Paradise was a Mortification that needed not a super-added Terror; therefore to make 177those Figures Spectacles of Horror, seems not so well suited to Persons under Circumstances so inexpressibly dolorous, tho’ restored to Favour; but might rather be design’d to conduct them to God by Christ, the Tree of Life.
III. IT’s very probable a Conversation had past between the Woman and Serpent before the Narrative publish’d by Moses. She might upon the first Approach of the Serpent ask, How a Beast acquired the Gift of Speaking, which is the Prerogative of Rationals? ”

“ His gentle dumb expression turnd at length The Eye of Eve to mark his play; he glad Of her attention gaind, with Serpent Tongue Organic, or impulse of vocal Air, 530 His fraudulent temptation thus began. Wonder not, sovran Mistress, if perhaps Thou canst, who art sole Wonder, much less arm Thy looks, the Heav'n of mildness, with disdain, Displeas'd that I approach thee thus, and gaze Insatiate, I thus single; nor have feard Thy awful brow, more awful thus retir'd. ”

“ Whence come wars, and fightings, and factions? whence but from the body and the lusts of the body? wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money has to be acquired for the sake and in the service of the body; and by reason of all these impediments we have no time to give to philosophy; and, last and worst of all, even if we are at leisure and betake ourselves to some speculation, the body is always breaking in upon us, causing turmoil and confusion in our enquiries, and so amazing us that we are prevented from seeing the truth. ”

“ And Manuel said:
"Under your dear bewitchments, Sesphra, I confess that through love men win to sick disgust and self-despising, and for that reason I will not love any more. Now breathlessly the tall lads run to clutch at stars, above the brink of a drab quagmire, and presently time trips them—Oh, Sesphra, wicked Sesphra of the Dreams, you have laid upon me a magic so strong that, horrified, I hear the truth come babbling from long-guarded lips which no longer obey me, because of your dear bewitchments. ”

“ The Serpent has slimed her so to secure him! With slow weary steps he draws her into light: she clings to him; she is human; part of his work, and he loves it. As they mount upward, he looks on her more, while she, it may be, looks above. ”

“ The Serpent, material sense, will bruise the heel of the woman, will struggle to destroy the spiritual idea of Love; and the woman will bruise his head. She has given the understanding a foothold in Science. The seed of Truth and the seed of error, of belief and of understanding, — yea, the seed of Spirit and the seed of matter, — are the wheat and tares that time will separate, the one to be burned, the other to be garnered into heavenly places. ”

“ Ne'er us'd a Verse, till Love became his Theme.
To his stray'd Son, still as his Passion rose,
He rais'd his hasty Voice in clam'rous Prose:
But when in Daphne he wou'd Love inspire,
He woo'd in Verse, set to his silver Lyre. ⁠10
The Trojan Prince did pow'rful Numbers join
To sing of War; but Love was the Design:
And sleeping Troy again in Flames was drest,
To light the Fires in pitying Dido's Breast.
Love without Poetry's refining Aid
Is a dull Bargain, and but coarsely made ”

“ The struggle to apprehend the supernal Loveliness — this struggle, on the part of souls fittingly constituted — has given to the world all that which it (the world) has ever been enabled at once to understand and to feel as poetic.
The Poetic Sentiment, of course, may develop itself in various modes — in Painting, in Sculpture, in Architecture, in the Dance — very especially in Music — and very peculiarly, and with a wide field, in the com position of the Landscape Garden. Our present theme, however, has regard only to its manifestation in words. ”

“ The prey of folly, the creature of accident, the sport of nature, the surge whirls him where it will; the wind scorns his bidding; the storm crushes him; the lightning smites him. But look upon man when knowledge has touched him with her scepter.”
The circlet on his brow seemed to quiver and sparkle with inward luster; the golden serpent that clasped his robe seemed to writhe and revolve. I felt like one under fascination. A strange sense of danger thrilled through me, yet mixed with a dreamy and luxurious sense of enjoyment. ”

“ Louder still, and still more earnest, the beating rolls; and the voices of the band and all their instruments grow more clamorous and deafening; every few moments raising the war-whoop. Like as the bird, spell-bound and charmed by a serpent, flutters and circles in the air, struggling in vain to escape, and drawing nearer and nearer to the object of her dread—at last makes a sudden and desperate plunge;—so he springs upon the weapon of death, grasps it firmly in his hand, and lifts himself erect. ”

“ They represented the World by a Circle, in the middle of which was a Serpent, representing the good Demon, or Genius of the World, by which ’tis animated, and is a Symbol of the Almighty Creator. Behold here the Blasphemy of Satan, in giving to God the Form of a Serpent, which he had borrow’d himself to make war against God in Paradise. They sometimes represented their Gods with the Bodies of Serpents, and honour’d those odious Animals with divine Worship, as Symbols of Apollo, of the Sun, and of Medicine, and were put into the Charge of Ceres and Proserpine. ”

“ Scarcely a Nation upon Earth, but he has tempted to the grossest Idolatry, and in particular got himself to be worshipped in the hideous Form of a Serpent.
The Almighty foreseeing this general Delusion, guarded the World against it, by inspiring Men with the greatest Aversion to that venemous Creature, and yet was the Tempter ador’d in most places under the Appearance of a Serpent. If you say, that Men worship other Creatures; I answer, Those are beneficial to Mankind, and not so odious and hurtful as those who carry Poison in their Tails and Teeth. ”

“ Serpent, heroes had given battle to the whole fraternity. Nay, in their place had arisen a new race of gods, whose theoretical omnipotence was gladly surrendered in the interest of their righteousness; and there was now war in heaven; the dragon and his allies were cast down, and man was now free to fight them as enemies of the gods as well as himself. Woe henceforth to any gods suspected of taking sides with the dragon in this man’s life-and-death struggle with the ferocities of nature, and with his own terrors reflected from them! ”

“ For though that seat of earthly bliss be fail'd, A fairer Paradise is founded now For Adam and his chosen Sons, whom thou A Saviour art come down to re-install. Where they shall dwell secure, when time shall be Of Tempter and Temptation without fear. But thou, Infernal Serpent, shalt not long Rule in the Clouds; like an Autumnal Star Or Lightning thou shalt fall from Heav'n trod down 620 Under his feet: for proof, e're this thou feel'st Thy wound, yet not thy last and deadliest wound By this repulse receiv'd, and hold'st in Hell No triumph ”

“ This charming writer shows us the body of the one taking on its covering of leaves and bark and the members of the other clothing themselves in feathers, so that in each of them one still sees the woman which will cease to be and the tree or bird which she will become. You remember, too, how in Dante’s Inferno a serpent, coiling itself about the body of one of the damned, changes into man as the man becomes reptile. The great poet describes this scene so ingeniously that in each of these two beings one follows the struggle between two natures which progressively invade and supplant each other. ”

“ Admirably told, though perhaps somewhat disproportionately for its place in the poem, is the introductory episode of Hermes and his nymph: admirably again the concluding scene where the merciless gaze of the philosopher exorcises his pupil’s dream of love and beauty, and the lover in forfeiting his illusion forfeits life. This thrilling vividness of narration in particular [Pg 169] points, and the fine melodious vigour of much of the verse, have caused some students to give Lamia almost the first, if not the first, place among Keats’s narrative poems. ”

“ Human beauty is an illusion; and it does not become the sober wisdom of manhood to be deceived by it. The young farmer and his young wife may be happy; and so may those who find delight in the crowded hall where taste and beauty meet; where are the sounds of clear-ringing, girlish voices, and many glancing feet, and the innumerable light of maiden’s eyes, and heavy folds of auburn hair, and the flush of thought and emotion continually passing over fair faces, with the swell of music that thrills, and the air laden with fragrance that intoxicates. ”

“ "If one destroyed in museums and libraries, if one hurled down on the flagstones before the churches all the works and all the monuments of art that religions have inspired, what would remain of the great dreams of humanity? To give to men that portion of hope and illusion without which they cannot live, such is the reason for the existence of gods, heroes, and poets. During fifty years science appeared to undertake this task. But science has been compromised in hearts hungering after the ideal, because it does not dare to be lavish enough of promises, because it cannot lie." ”

“ And here let me speak briefly on the topic of rhythm. Contenting myself with the certainty that Music, in its various modes of metre, rhythm, and rhyme, is of so vast a moment in Poetry as never to be wisely rejected — is so vitally important an adjunct, that he is simply silly who declines its assistance, I will not now pause to maintain its absolute essentiality. It is in Music perhaps that the soul most nearly attains the great end for which, when inspired by the Poetic Sentiment, it struggles — the creation [page 8:] of supernal Beauty. ”

“ Here was intellectual life, he thought, and here was beauty, warm and wonderful as he had never dreamed it could be. He forgot himself and stared at her with hungry eyes. Here was something to live for, to win to, to fight for—ay, and die for. The books were true. There were such women in the world. She was one of them. She lent wings to his imagination, and great, luminous canvases spread themselves before him whereon loomed vague, gigantic figures of love and romance, and of heroic deeds for woman’s sake—for a pale woman, a flower of gold. ”

“ Yet is the Spleen alleg'd, and still the dull Pretence.
But these are thy fantastic Harms,
The Tricks of thy pernicious Stage,
Which do the weaker Sort engage;
Worse are the dire Effects of thy more pow'rful Charms.
By Thee Religion, all we know,
That shou'd enlighten here below,
Is veil'd in Darkness, and perplext
With anxious Doubts, with endless Scruples vext,
And some Restraint imply'd from each perverted Text. ”

“ Why doe the ruling Fates decree
No state shou'd e're without the [e] be,
Why, doest thou Joys, and hopes devour,
And cloath ev'n loue him self, in thy dark livery ?
Thou, and cold fear, thy close Allie,
Do not alone on life attend,
Butt following mortalls to their end,
Do wrack the wretches, whilst they dye;
And to eternal shades, too often, with them flye.
To thee, great Monark, I submitt,
Thy Sables, and thy Cypresse bring,
I own thy Pow'r, I own thee King,
Thy title, in my heart is writt,
And 'till that breaks, I ne'r shall freedom gett. ”

“ Peace, in vain, attempts to find.
Thirst of Wealth no Quiet knows,
But near the Death-bed fiercer grows;
Wounding Men with secret Stings,
For Evils it on Others brings.
War who not discreetly shuns,
Thorough Life the Gauntlet runs.
Swords, and Pikes, and Waves, and Flames,
Each their Stroke against him aims.
Love (if such a thing there be)
Is all Despair, or Extasie.
Poetry's the feav'rish Fit,
Th' o'erflowing of unbounded Wit.
This work was published before January 1, 1928, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. ”

“ Fitness of Things, is the best Rule. We cannot, it is impossible we should, understand the certain determinate Meaning of any Text of Scripture better, if altogether so well, as we do know certainly, that God is just and good, and know also as clearly, what Justice and Goodness mean, when applied to the Deity, as we do, when we apply them to ourselves. ”

“ We shall then set a price on the 'unusual combination.' A witty woman is a treasure; a witty Beauty is a power. Has she actual beauty, actual wit?—not simply a tidal material beauty that passes current any pretty flippancy or staggering pretentiousness? Grant the combination, she will appear a veritable queen of her period, fit for homage; at least meriting a disposition to believe the best of her, in the teeth of foul rumour; because the well of true wit is truth itself, the gathering of the precious drops of right reason, wisdom's lightning ”

“ Her passions suppressed, her genius disbelieved, her influence forced to seek hidden and often illegitimate channels, Woman now outwardly represents a creation of man to suit his own convenience. But the Serpent has also changed a great deal since the days of Eve, and now, as Intelligence, has found out man in his fool’s-paradise, where he stolidly maintains that, with few exceptions, it is good for man to be alone. ”