Narrative poem

“ The representation of the narrative relieves the poem of its historic character, and a dialogue which is to accompany action becomes necessarily devoted to the passions of life, or such strains of reflection as result from, and harmonise with, those passions. ”

“ It is important that the pupil get the message which the author intended to give. In teaching a descriptive poem, make the pictures as vivid as possible, and thus awaken the imagination. In dealing with a narrative poem, the sequence of events must first be made clear. ”

“ Now, upon this narrative, we are led to observe, in the first place, that it forms a very scanty and narrow foundation for a poem of such length as is now before us. There is scarcely matter enough in the main story for a ballad of ordinary dimensions; and the present work is not so properly diversified with episodes and descriptions, as made up and composed of them. No long poem, however, can maintain its interest without a connected narrative. ”

“ As it scourged the night with a hissing rain—
But the Poet wrote never a word.
Then came a burst of martial mirth,
And mighty cannon roared
Till they shook the beams of the steadfast earth—
’Twas not the voice of the Lord. [16]
In the Poet’s heart a memory rose
Of love’s first passionate thrill
That, kindling, grows as the red fire glows—
But the pen was idle, still;
When lo, a timid voice at the door,
And a child, with sweet delight,
Called “Father!” and “Father!” over and o’er—
The poem was written that night. ”

“ After a season of tears and woe,
Blossom the poet's flowers.
There are few who give the poet a thought,
When they read the pleasing strain.
There are few who know that a poem is wrought
Through sorrow, and tears, and pain. ”

“ Some graceful or touching anecdote or situation catches her attention, and its poetry is developed in a strain of mourning melody, and a vein of gentle moralizing. I always wish, in reading my favourite poets, to know what first suggested my favourite poems. Few things would be more interesting than to know under what circumstances they were composed,—how much of individual sentiment there was in each, or how, on some incident seemingly even opposed, they had contrived to ingraft their own associations. What a history of the heart would such annals reveal! Every poem is in itself an impulse. ”

“ And I do not wish to limit Poetry, as there is a new tendency to do, merely to the short dramatic poem, the ballad and the lyric, though it certainly is a convenience not to take these as the normal manifestations of Poetry in order to see more clearly the inter-relation of such different forms as the Drama, the Epic, and the song with music. In the Drama, the emotional conflict which is the whole cause and meaning of Poetry is concentrated in the mental problems of the leading character or characters. ”

“ This grouping of drama, action, and passion as the qualities of great poetry is significant. Bald narrative can never realize character or situation as can the dramatic form, either in narrative or for the stage, when the whole action takes place before the mind's eye instead of being told. ”

“ It is not often that we get so veracious an account of the making of a poem, so clear a conception of the blending of sound-motives, color-motives, story-stuff, drama-stuff, personal emotion, into a single whole. ”

“ In the epic, the poem of romance, and the tragedy, selected characters are placed in those circumstances in which all their special qualities unfold themselves, and the depths of the human heart are revealed, and become visible in significant actions. ”

“ But the love of beauty and melody in poesy is of perennial life, and thy memory shall survive the mutations of time, and shall be the Nation's heritage while fancy and imagination dwell in the souls of men. ”

“ Of course, dramatic and lyrical poetry both deal with the expression of human feeling, and the boundary line between them is often invisible. Still, it is probably correct to say that the drama takes for its principle of organic structure the action of men and women upon one another, while the lyrical poem expresses the feelings of men and women in themselves. ”

“ Differentiating classic art from the romantic, and claiming for the poet of the Reconciliation the foremost place in the nobler school, inasmuch that his poem is like a pool whose depths [350] are so measureless that its surface is tranquil, and yet so clear that it becomes a mirror that faithfully reflects the features of all that gaze therein, it recounted how the poem treats the life of man in all its phases. ”

“ The fifty poems of Men and Women, with a few exceptions, fall into three principal groups—those which interpret various careers or moods or moments of love; those which deal with the fine arts—painting, poetry, music—and with these we may class, as kindred in spirit, that poem which has for its subject the passionate pursuit of knowledge, A Grammarian's Funeral ”

“ I urge every one, every now and again at least, to lay down the novel and open the poem: but let it be a poem that will enlarge one’s conception of life, that will help one to think loftily, and to feel nobly, will teach us that there is something more important to ourselves even than ourselves, something more important and deserving of attention than one’s own [Pg 59] small griefs and own petty woes, the vast and varied drama of History, the boundless realm of the human imagination, and the tragic interests and pathetic struggles of mankind. ”

“ The life of the ode is ideal, that of the epic grandiose, that of the drama real. In fine, this triple poetry springs from three grand sources—the Bible, Homer, Shakspere. Such are the diverse aspects of thought at different eras of man and society. Here are its three faces—youth, manhood, old age. Examine a single literature by itself or all literatures en masse, and you will always reach the same fact—the lyric poets before the epic, the epic before the dramatic. ”

“ That great poets who were essentially lyrical should constantly have preferred to tell a story in narrative or dramatic form may be ascribed partly to the influence of old association, and partly to the greater variety which is offered by modes of verse that are not in their essence limited to a few stanzas. ”

“ The shadowy plumage of historic song,
The new-born poet left the beaten course,
To track the passions to their living source.
Then rose the Drama;—and the world admired
Her varied page with deeper thought inspired
Bound to no clime, for Passion's throb is one
In Greenland's twilight or in India's sun;
Born for no age, for all the thoughts that roll
In the dark vortex of the stormy soul,
Unchained in song, no freezing years can tame;
God gave them birth, and man is still the same. ”

“ But here where human passions pulse in power,
She will transcend our Shakespeare’s art,
From Desdemona to a smothered flower,
Will leap the tragic heart.
And memory will recall in keener mood
The precinct fair where passion grew,
The stars within the water in the wood,
The moonlit grove, the odorous dew.
The voice that throbbed along the summer dark
Will float and pause and thrill,
In lonely cadence silvern as the lark,
To fail below the hill. ”

“ Thus a new spirit comes into narrative poetry. Less and less it is spontaneous, impersonal, objective; more and more it is the product of a deliberate, self-conscious art; the choice of subject and the manner of presenting it are determined by the poet's own feeling. The world from which he draws his material is nearer home. His characters are more immediate to everyday experience; what they lose in glamour they gain in directness of appeal. ”

“ I certainly should not take it upon myself to explain each sentence according to its individual-historical meaning. That is easier in the case of larger and more complex formations. Every one is certainly convinced of the fact that a poem—in addition to its manifest contents—is also particularly characteristic of its author, in its form, subject-matter, and the history of its origin. ”

“ They express a peculiar poetic feeling which is sought for in vain in the epic age—a sentiment which, without art and without name, wanders on until it is caught up by fresh lips, and becomes the regular interpreter of the same feelings. Thus this simple voice of song travels onward from mouth to month, from heart to heart, the language of the general sorrows, hopes, and memories; strange, and yet near to every one, centuries old, yet never growing older, since the human heart, whose history it relates in so many changing images and notes, remains forever the same. ”

“ No other voice is raised to interrupt the meditative flow of the old man's message, which is, in fact, a recantation. And, as a consequence, the poem has a unity of serene reflectiveness, rising at times to lyrical ecstasy. ”

“ A poem that contains no particular thought may excite our profoundest admiration, just as does a papier-mâché triumphal arch or monument; but a romance or novel depicts some phase or aspect of life, reveals man's aspirations or accomplishments, his behaviors and reactions under certain conditions, reflects his nobilities, depicts his frailties, and extols his ambitions and what he would like to do, experience, or accomplish. ”

“ Rhyme and Song.—If to the story is added the attractive appeal of rhythm, rhyme, and song the concrete materials of teaching become almost ideal. It is a good thing to conclude a well-told story with a short, simple poem and a song, both of which should relate to the same truth the story sets forth in the concrete. ”

“ And you call to mind now, as I speak, how the poet, with stern fidelity to the history of all humanity, delivers this beautiful child of his heart and his brain over to the trials and the sorrows that must come to all, sooner or later, that abide in the earth, and how the pathetic story culminates in that apostrophe—so wild, so regretful, so full of mournful retrospection. ”

“ Romances are to show us heroic ideals. Lyrics of joy, of sorrow, of passion, of emotion natural and spiritual, are to be sung. The sense of beauty is to grow. The drama is to arise from beginnings to be but faintly traced in early days. Epic poetry is to take a great place. ”

“ Thus the silent drama may become vibrant with emotional music and resonant with tongues that need no interpreter, for all nations understand the universal language of the heart. The most sublime characters and valiant deeds, ravishing color and mellifluous voices, are in our soul; sublime sympathy is in our world-old heart; profound understanding is in our God-given reason, and this multi-glorious human marvel is gratified to the utmost in having its humanity called into active being. ”

“ Discussing the unity of tone which entitles this strange work, with its multitude of separate characters and incidents, to be called a poem, a writer in the Athenæum observed: 'It is an apprehension, at once profound and tender, of the pathos of man's mysterious life on the earth; a pity such as has never before been expressed by any poet; a beautiful faith in God such as, in these days, can only find an echo in rare and noble souls ”

“ In the larger fields of epic and drama, the poet turns more directly to ourselves: he bids us approach, he confers with us, he interprets for our hearing some great truth of humanity, or some wise and searching judgment of life. But the lyric poet stands apart, careless of our presence, oblivious of our attention, pouring out his heart in a transport of purely personal joy or sorrow, singing because he must, and not because there are any to listen. ”

“ Yet it appears certain that many narrative measures affect us fully as much through their intimate association with the moods of song as through their specific adaptiveness to the purposes of narrative. ”

“ In lyric poetry we are conscious of emotion, reflection, the personal interest, and yearning. The drama converts the ideal claim of human action into an objective presence. The presentation of epic poetry, on the other hand, moves, as it were, within the element itself of essentially necessary existence. ”

“ But in such a struggle the voice of the people could not fail to find expression by the means which the history of mankind has shown to be the most natural expression of emotion and enthusiasm, and their songs, however imperfect, either as literature or popular poetry, are the most genuine expression of the feelings and thoughts which filled their hearts and minds, and have a genuineness which informs the rude or inadequate words, and are a most important illustration of the history of that tremendous conflict. ”

“ But with remembered skill
The hand interprets still,
Though speech with broken lyre is faithless to the will,
Those poor, pale fingers weave with majestic art,
One last, lone thrilling word to echo through the heart. ”

“ Illustrated.
"The narrative is pervaded by a fine poetical spirit that is alive to the subtle graces of character, as well as to the tender influences of natural scenes. . . . Its chief merits must be placed in its graphic and expressive portraitures of character, its tenderness and delicacy of sentiment, its touches of heartfelt pathos, and the admirable wisdom and soundness of its ethical suggestions."—N. Y. Tribune. ”

“ The broader problems that interest thinking minds of a late and reflective age, the profounder feelings and more ambitious aspirations of manhood and maturity, are writ large in every verse of the poem. The lyre gives out true, full notes, which there is no mistaking. ”

“ A little lyric evokes an emotion, and this emotion gathers others about it and melts into their being in the making of some great epic; and at last, needing an always less delicate body, or symbol, as it grows more powerful, it flows out, with all it has gathered, among the blind instincts of daily life, where it moves a power within powers, as one sees ring within ring in the stem of an old tree. ”