American poetry

“ The great mass of the reading world, to whom the arts should minister, have now forgotten that poetry is a consolation in times of doubt and peril, a beacon, and "an ever-fixed mark" in a crazed and shifting world. Our poetry —and I am speaking in particular of American poetry — has been centrifugal; our poets have broken up into smaller and ever smaller groups. Individualism has triumphed. ”

“ The age of folios and quartos is forever past with Young America. Octavos are waning, and more in need of brushing than of burnishing. But still we must have Poetry—good Poetry; for we Americans prefer to live rather in the style of good lyric than in that of grave, [Pg 479] elongated hexameter. Variety, too, is with us the spice of life. We are not satisfied with grand prairies, rivers, and cataracts, and even cascades and jet d'eaus!
Collections of miscellaneous Poetry seem alike due to the Poetic Muse and to the American people. We love variety. ”

“ POETRY.—America has as yet produced no great epic poet, although the existence of a high degree of poetical talent cannot be denied. Carrying the same enthusiasm into the world of fancy that he does into the world of fact, the American finds in the cultivation of the poetic faculty a pleasant relief from the absorbing pursuits of daily life; hence, while poetry is sometimes cultivated as an art, it is oftener resorted to as a pastime; the number of writers is more numerous here than in any other country, and the facility of poetical expression more universal. ”

“ Music, poetry, philosophy, have been singularly fertile and new. Strangely enough, American genius has flared forth just in those directions which are least understanded of the people. If the American note is bigness, action, the objective as contrasted with the reflective life, where is the epic expression of this spirit? Our drama and our fiction, the peculiar fields for the expression of action and objectivity, are somehow exactly the fields of the spirit which remain poor and mediocre. ”

“ What refuge we have from a critical basis so naïve is in assuming from the outset, toward contemporary American poetry, an attitude guardedly pluralistic—we begin by observing merely that American poetry is certainly, at the moment, if quantitative production and public interest are any measure, extraordinarily healthy and vigorous. We are accustomed to hearing it called a renaissance. ”

“ Such is poetry in England; while in America the case is not much better. What more enormous scope for new poetic thought than that which the New World gives? Yet the American poets, even the best of them, look lingeringly and longingly back to Europe and her legends; to her models, and not to the best of them—to her criticism, and not to the best of that—and bestow but a very small portion of such genius as they have on America and her new forms of life. If they be nearer to the spring than we, they are still deep enough in the winter. ”

“ But the mark of American merit in painting, in sculpture, in poetry, in fiction, in eloquence, seems to be a certain grace without grandeur, and itself not new but derivative; a vase of fair outline, but empty, — which whoso sees, may fill with what wit and character is in him, but which does not, like the charged cloud, overflow with terrible beauty, and emit lightnings on all beholders. ”

“ Probably if an experienced critic were called upon to point out some general characteristic of American poetry, more marked than any other, he would, without hesitation, declare it to be a deeply-felt appreciation of the beauty of the natural world. ”

“ That there are immense possibilities in the varied and complex life of to-day, few will doubt; that the great artists are to appear who will make the most of these opportunities we may assume with confidence.
III. THE POETS English Influence on American Poetry.—If we accept the popular belief, and identify poets with makers of verse, it must be allowed that American poetry at its best—in the nineteenth century—is in a peculiar sense unoriginal and derivative. To be derivative, to have a traceable pedigree, may, indeed, be no disadvantage, either for a national or an individual genius. ”

“ It is a gratifying fact that nearly every thing in the poetic manner produced in this country is free from licentiousness, and harmless, if not elevating in its tendencies. Thus far the chief distinguishing characteristic of American poetry is its moral purity. ”

“ Finally, this period of conflict was governed more largely than usual by ideals, by sentiment, by intense feeling. Witness the war, with the heroic sentiments which it summoned up south and north. As the deepest human feeling cannot be voiced in prose, we confront the strange phenomenon of an American age of poetry. This would be remarkable Poetry enough to one who remembers that the genius of America had hitherto appeared practical and prosaic, given to action rather than speech, more concerned to "get on" in life than to tell what life means ”

“ These causes operate in like manner I conceive, to prevent the attainment of that high poetical excellence which has yet to be reached by the worshippers of the muse in this country. The following remarks on this subject by an American writer are so pertinent, that I will transcribe them for your information. "We regret to say," says he, speaking of American poetry, "that much less has been done than might reasonably have been expected, even during our short political existence. ”

“ I certainly do not think there is less real poetry in the world. Perhaps people live poetry more and write poetry less. Your American girls will have to look into this matter. The other day one of the magazinists discussed ‘The Passing of the Man Poet.’ Suppose this does happen, who is to celebrate the American girl as only verse can celebrate her? ”

“ Take for example, the Elizabethan love-lyric. Here is a single human passion, expressing itself in the moods and lyric forms of one brief generation of our literature. Yet what variety of personal accent, what kaleidoscopic shiftings of mind and imagination, what range of lyric beauty! Or take the passion for the wider interests of Humanity, expressed in the lyrics of Schiller and Burns, running deep and turbid through Revolutionary and Romantic verse, and still coloring—perhaps now more strongly than ever—the stream of twentieth-century poetry. ”

“ America will take to her heart this child of genius and of nature—her home shall be by every hearth in our land, which has been made a dearer and a brighter place by her poetry, her romance, and her genial humour. ”

“ America abounds in the material of poetry. Its history, its scenery, the structure of its social life, the thoughts which pervade its political forms, the meaning which underlies its hot contests, are all capable of being exhibited in a poetical aspect. ”

“ He is, as all good poets must be, at once original and in the stream of national tradition, and in no respect more traditional than in his affection for and knowledge of the English landscape which has breathed its fragrance into so much of our great poetry in all ages. ”

“ So that the most rapt and imaginative of men, if artists, utilize the whole realm of knowledge, and diffuse it, and perpetuate it in artistic forms. But real poets are rare, even if there are many who glory in the jingle of language and the structure of rhyme. Poetry, to live, must have a soul, and it must combine rare things,—art, music, genius, original thought, wisdom made still richer by learning, and, above all, a power of appealing to inner sentiments, which all feel, yet are reluctant to express. ”

“ He also betrays his lack of art by printing verses which stick like deep sea-shells far below the high-water mark of poetry. Nevertheless, there is a fine New England color and flavor in the book which attract us, and a gentle, high-minded peace reigns throughout the volume.
Is the author young? we are tempted to ask. Then let him turn priest straightway, and enter the temple of Art, and let him weave his pictures sacredly of the pure gold fibres of inspiration and thought. ”

“ The meaning of words would permit the poet to bring before the mind all possible objects, events, and ideas, but the music of words would be incongruous with most of them. Events narrated must be stirring, thoughts uttered must be emotionally toned, things described must be related to human life and action. Poetry may desert the royal themes of long ago—arma virumque cano, maenin aeide thea—and relate the lowly life of common folk, even the sordid life of the poor and miserable, but when doing so throws over it the musical glamour of verse and arouses the heat of sympathy and passion. ”

“ When we think of melody in speech, we immediately think of the lyric. In form and in spirit it approaches nearest towards music, for it is “emotion all compact.” When we have stimulated within us a noble emotion, we begin at once to respond in some rhythmic action, a beat of our foot, sway of the body, or humming in a tuneful way. There is melody in prose as well as in poetry, only it is not so pronounced. Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” is a splendid example of prose-poetry. ”

“ And with this you may take many other bits of verse which were hammered out on the anvil of the terrible Civil War.
Perhaps these bits of verse chosen almost at random will not appeal to your taste. Then find some other verse that does. The range of literature is as wide as humanity. It touches every feeling, every hope, every craving of the human heart. Select what you can understand—best, what you can rise on tiptoe to understand. "It was my duty to have loved the highest." It is your duty toward poetry to take the highest you can reach. Then learn it by heart. Learn it when you are young. ”

“ Of their absolute genuineness there can be no question. They have all the internal evidence in their construction and language, the simplicity and abruptness of thought, the imperfection of utterance combined with untaught eloquence and strength, the occasional vulgarity by the side of an equally great delicacy, the simple and powerful melody, and all the characteristics of popular poetry, which are as unmistakable as the perfumes of the flowers of the field. ”

“ Now that all the fair dreams had been shattered by the selfishness of the courts and the bickerings of politicians, men asked, ‘What is the use?’ Turning inward to examine their own souls, they produced a delicate lyric poetry which contained just what the art-song of the time needed—the intimate and personal. ”

“ A portion of what there is is also imperfect, ephemeral, and careless, but she has written one of the most perfect lyrics in the English language, and a number of others, which, in their melody, their interpretation of simple emotion, their vividness and strength, and their power upon the heart as well as the ear, have a place which few have equaled and none have surpassed in the lyric treasures of a land more rich than all others in the voice of poetry speaking to the heart in song. ”

“ While man busies himself with the world of politics, with the world of commerce, with the rise and fall of empires, with the fortunes and fate of humanity, woman tends the hearth, visits the sick, consoles the suffering—in a word, in all she does, fulfils the sacred offices of love.
Now the highest literature—and Poetry is confessedly the highest literature—is a transfiguring reflex of life; and in its magic mirror we perforce see reflected all the thoughts, feelings, interests, passions, and events of human existence. ”

“ The race has first become aware of all ethereal and elusive loveliness through the song of the poet, sensitive to see and skillful to tell. For its beauty in and of itself, and for its revelation of the beauty of the universe, both material and intangible, poetry is to the world a boon priceless and peerless. ”

“ The thought and identity of a poetry in America to fill, and worthily fill, the great void, and enhance these aims, electrifying all and several, involves the essence and integral facts, real and spiritual, of the whole land, the whole body. What the great sympathetic is to the congeries of bones, joints, heart, fluids, nervous system and vitality, constituting, launching forth in time and space a human being—aye, an immortal soul—such relation, and no less, holds true poetry to the single personality, or to the nation. ”

“ The frequently unfinished and obscure state of his poems, a passion for forcing words out of their usual meaning into one which they may appropriately bear, but which comes upon the reader with an unpleasing and puzzling surprise, may repel, at first glance, from many of these poems, but do not mar the following sublime description of the beings we want, to rule, to redeem, to re-create this nation, and under whose reign alone can there be an American literature, for then only could we have life worth recording. ”

“ Outside of the nursery the beginning of literature is the prayers of a people, and they are always hymns, poetic,—the mind allowing itself range, and therewith is ever a corresponding freedom in the style which becomes lyrical. The prayers of nations are rhythmic,—have iterations, and alliterations, like the marriage-service and burial-service in our liturgies.
Poetry will never be a simple means, as when history or philosophy is rhymed, or laureate odes on state occasions are written. Itself must be its own end, or it is nothing. ”

“ But as one inspired by a heaven-born Muse, he echoes the chorus of the Angelic Song, when on the utterance of the first fiat the Morning Stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Hence we argue, that Poetry is not only prior to prose, but that language, its intellectual and emotional embodiment, is heaven-conceived, and heaven-born. ”

“ But in spite of this discredit, which was more of a personal literary quarrel than a critical attack upon the quality of the poetry itself, its value was at once instinctively recognized as a new and original revelation, as an appeal to sensibilities in human nature which had been stifled by the narrow and dry reasoning of English and Continental poetry at the time, and as a breath from the wide air of nature itself. ”