English poet (1835-1913)
The tendency of the times is to encourage writers, whether in prose or verse, to deal with this particular theme and to deal with it too frequently and too pertinaciously. Moreover, there is always a danger that a subject, in itself so delicate, should not be quite delicately handled, and indeed that it should be treated with indelicacy and grossness. That, too, unfortunately, has happened in verse; and when that happens, then I think the Heavenly Muse veils her face and weeps. It must have been through some dread of poetry thus dishonoring itself that Plato in his ideal Republic proposed that poets should be crowned with laurel, and then banished from the city.
ALFRED AUSTIN
Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter.php on line 35
The Bridling of Pegasus
Literature entirely divorced from politics is a thing by no means so easily attained, or so disinterestedly sought after, as it is sometimes assumed to be; and though, with much Parliamentary and extra-Parliamentary oratory before our minds, we should hesitate to affirm that politics are not occasionally cultivated with a fine disregard for literature, yet the literary flavor that is still present in the speeches of some Party Politicians, suffices to show that literature and politics are in practice not so much distinct territories as border-lands whose boundaries are not easily defined, but that continually run into, overlap, and are frequently confounded with, each other.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
There are despotisms that are corrupt, or what is equally bad, vulgar and servile, without being brilliant; and I am not alone in entertaining the fear lest unadulterated Democracy—that is to say, the passions, interests, and power of a homogeneous majority, acting without any regard to the passions and interests that exist outside of it, and purged of all respect for intellect that does not provide it with specious reasons and feed it with constant adulation—should inflict upon us a despotism under which, again, there will be no room in the domain of politics for men of letters who respect themselves.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Life seems like a haunted wood, where we tremble and crouch and cry.
ALFRED AUSTIN
"A Woman's Apology", Soliloquies in Song
If Nature built by rule and square,
Than man what wiser would she be?
What wins us is her careless care,
And sweet unpunctuality.
ALFRED AUSTIN
"Nature and the Book", At the Gate of the Convent and Other Poems
Hush! or you'll wake her. Softly tread!
She slumbers in her little bed.
What do I see? A coffin! Dead?
Yes, dead at break of morning.
ALFRED AUSTIN
"Dead!", At the Gate of the Convent and Other Poems
The permanent passions of mankind--love, religion, patriotism, humanitarianism, hate, revenge, ambition; the conflict between free will and fate; the rise and fall of empires--these are all great themes, and, if greatly treated, and in accordance with the essentials applicable to all poetry, may produce poetry of the loftiest kind.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
There must perforce be certain qualities common to all poetry, whether the greatest, the less great, or the comparatively inferior, and whether descriptive, lyrical, idyllic, reflective, epic, or dramatic; and, so long as there existed any authority or body of generally accepted opinion on the subject, these were at least two such qualities, viz. melodiousness, whether sweet or sonorous, and lucidity or clearness of expression, to be apprehended, without laborious investigation, by highly cultured and simple readers alike. Melodiousness is a quality so essential to, and so inseparable from, all verse that is poetry, that it often, by its mere presence, endows with the character of poetry verse of a very rudimentary kind, verse that just crosses the border between prosaic and poetic verse, and would otherwise be denied admission to the territory of the Muses. Some of the enthusiasts to whom allusion has been made have, I am assured, declared of certain compositions of our time, "This would be poetry, even if it meant nothing at all"—a dictum calculated, like others enunciated in our days, to harden the plain man in his disdain of poetry altogether. It would not be difficult to quote melodious verse published in our time of which it is no exaggeration to say that the words in it are used rather as musical notes than as words signifying anything. In all likelihood such compositions, and the widespread liking for them, arise partly from the prevailing preference for music over the other arts, and in part from the mental indolence that usually accompanies emotion in all but the highest minds. Nevertheless it cannot be too much insisted on that music, or melodiousness, either sweet or sonorous, is absolutely indispensable to poetry; and where it is absent, poetry is absent, even though thought and wide speculation be conspicuous in it.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
In Shakespeare, as we might have expected, the masculine note and the feminine note are heard in perfect harmony.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Is the conclusion then that a pessimistic criticism of life necessarily makes a poet greater than another poet who criticizes it from an optimistic point of view? Not in the least. The consideration—we do not say to the positive philosopher, to the historian, to the moralist, but—to the disinterested lover of poetry, is simply irrelevant.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
The term Pessimism has in these later days been so intimately associated with the philosophical theories of a well-known German writer, that I can well excuse those who ask, What may be the connection between Pessimism and Poetry? There are few matters of human interest that may not become suitable themes for poetic treatment; but I scarcely think Metaphysics is among them. It is not, therefore, to Schopenhauer’s theory of the World conceived as Will and Idea, that I invite your attention. The Pessimism with which we are concerned is much older than Metaphysics, is as old as the human heart, and is never likely to become obsolete. It is the Pessimism of which the simplest, the least cultured, and the most unsophisticated of us may become the victims, and which expresses the feeling that, on the whole, life is rather a bad business, that it is not worth having, and that it is a thing which, in the language used by the Duke in Measure for Measure, in order to console Claudio, none but fools would keep.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
But I trust I shall not give offence if I say that the number of my countrymen and countrywomen who lay stress on the artistic manner, whether in verse or prose, in which an opinion is expressed, compared with the number of those who value poetry or prose chiefly because it expresses the opinions they value and the sentiments they cherish, is very small.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
It will scarcely be doubted, therefore, that there does exist a real and a very grave danger lest Poetry should, in these perplexing and despondent days, not only be closely associated with Pessimism, but should become for the most part its voice and echo.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
But the decisions which men have to make in this world are not, as a rule, presented to them with the definiteness that gives artistic charm, as well as moral meaning, to a well-known masterpiece in the Palazzo Borghese. Between Sacred and Profane Love, between the love of literature and the pursuit of politics, the line is not, in practice, drawn so hard and fast as in the beautiful apologue immortalized by Titian. Loves that are altogether sacred and in no degree profane, are not, I imagine, frequently offered to any one; and though loves wholly profane and in no measure sacred, are, perhaps, not so uncommon, they are not likely in that absolutely coarse form to exercise enduring attraction over the finer spirits. It is the curious and inextricable amalgam of the two that constitutes the embarrassment.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Sheer lyricism just now is overmuch the mode. It is all very nice and pleasant in its way, and within bounds, but one can have too much of a good thing, and one does not want poetry to become vox et præterea nihil. It is a fashion, doubtless, that will pass.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
What real man of letters that ever ventured into the arid and somewhat vulgar domain of Party-politics has not felt the same feeling of revulsion, the same longing for the water-brooks?
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Though my verse but roam the air
And murmur in the trees,
You may discern a purpose there,
As in music of the bees.
ALFRED AUSTIN
"A Birthday", Lyrical Poems
Now frowns the sky, the air bites bleak,
The young boughs rock, the old trunks creak,
And fast before the following gale
Come slanting drops, then slashing hail,
As keen as sword, as thick as shot.
Nay, do not cower, but heed them not!
For these one neither flies nor stirs;
They are but April skirmishers,
Thrown out to cover the advance
Of gleaming spear and glittering lance,
With which the sunshine scours amain
Heaven, earth, and air, and routs the rain.
ALFRED AUSTIN
"A Defence of English Spring", Lyrical Poems
Most patriotic verse, however spirited, is verse only, nothing or little more.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Among the causes that have contributed to divert popular affection and popular sympathy from poetical literature, there are three that deserve to be specially indicated. The first of these is the multiplication of prose romances, which, though so much lower in literary value and in artistic character than poetry, and so much less elevating in their tendency, are better fitted to stimulate the vulgar imagination, and minister more freely to the common craving for excitement. The second cause is the reaction that has settled upon mankind from the fervid hopes inspired by the propagation of those theories and the propounding of those promises which the historian associates with the French Revolution. All saner minds have long since discovered that happiness is to be procured neither for the individual nor for the community by mere political changes; and the discovery has been distinctly hostile to literary enthusiasm. Finally, many poets, and nearly all the critics of poetry, in our time, seem determined to alienate ordinary human beings from contact with the Muse. The world is easily persuaded that it is an ignoramus; and the vast majority of people, after being told, year after year, that what they do not understand is poetry, and what they do not care one straw about is the proper theme and the highest expression of song, end by concluding that poetry has become a mystery beyond their intelligence, a sort of freemasonry from whose symbols they are jealously excluded. Unable to appreciate what the critics tell them are the noblest productions of genius, they modestly infer that between genius and themselves there is no method of communication; and incapable of reading with pleasure the poetry they are assured ought to fill them with rapture, they desist from reading poetry altogether. They have not the self-confidence to choose their own poets and select their own poetry; and indeed in these days, the only chance any writer has of being read is that he should first be greatly talked about. Thus, what between the poets who are talked about by so-called experts, and thus made notorious, but whom ordinary folks find unreadable, and the poets, if there be any such, whom ordinary folks would read with pleasure if they knew of their existence, but of whom they have scarcely heard, poetry has become "caviare to the general," who content themselves with the coarser flavour of the novel, and the more easily digested pabulum of the newspaper.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus