Wordsworth’s Light–and its Shadows

Wordsworth’s Light-and its Shadows

To few sons of the Muses is given the privilege of moving in an ever-resplendent orbit of glory. The bulk of the poetic kind have to content themselves with shedding light of an intermittent character, though their title to fame is not the less assured on that account. Wordsworth belongs to this latter class, though in it he occupies a high position. Like the rest of his poetic brethren, he exhibits a good many virtues as well as draws. Speaking of him and of Coleridge, Prof. Saintsbury says, “Both were poets of the very highest power, the interval and inequality between whose best and worst poetry is vast and very nearly incomprehensible.” And again, “Wordsworth will sometimes soar to empyrean heights, and sometimes flounder along the moor of prose with the most exasperating shamble.” Referring to this “perpetual series of ups and downs”, “of alterations between small things and great ones”, to this “inequality”, Matthew Arnold remarks that “in Wordsworth’s case the accident of inspiration is of peculiar importance”. When the inspiration is upon him, no poet is so powerful, new and sacred; when it fails him, none is so weak.

Wordsworth’s draws and failings constitute an interesting study. When carefully examined, his defects will be found to be the defects of his merits. They are the shadow inevitably accompanying the flame of his genius. In them, no less than in his merits, is clearly visible a faithful reflection of the greatness of the poet.

Wordsworth is the poet of the age of Revolution, whose motto is simplicity. He felt himself called upon to proclaim a new gospel. He was pre-eminently the poet of Nature. He sounded the note of revolt against the artificialities of the eighteenth century. He discarded the life-less conventions and customs of the age and laid his finger on the real in Nature and in Man. Kings and Queens, Gods and Fairies, the mythical heroes of romance, and all the stage effects of current poetry, vanish from his presence while he sings with delight the simple ditties of thoughtful men. He brought poetry down from the lofty regions of aristocratic life to dwell in the humble homes of peasants and villagers. “He valued most,” says Walter Pater, “the almost elementary expression of elementary feelings.” But thereby some of the graces are denied to his muse. Life is many-sided. Human nature is complex. No doubt, the sweet loves and pieties of country life are an interesting study. But no less interesting, no less real, are the loves and hates, the passions and tumults, of civilized life. He failed to note these passions and ambitions, the love-making and jealousies of the world around him,–topics that are so dear to the dramatic poet Wordsworth, in short, was utterly wanting in the dramatic instinct.

Wordsworth was a poet of meditation, and of deep spiritual vision, He had high ideals of the vocation of the poet. Every great poet, according to him, is a teacher. If Milton set himself the task of “justifying the ways of God to man,” Wordsworth likewise sought to turn man’s mind from earth to heaven, to rouse in men’s bosoms a sense of the Infinite, to exhort man in the search after peace and virtue. A tone of deep earnestness pervades everything that he wrote. A man whose word could assuage reconcile and fortify, whose object was to enlarge the understanding and widen the spiritual vision, whose message was to lead to a firmer self-control and larger self-government,–such a one could not but be serious toned throughout. The teacher who could wean, though temporarily the utilitarian Mill from a soul deadening Benthamism, and who inspired reverence in the bosom of the positivist George Eliot, must certainly have possessed, in a large measure, the gift of the healing power in him. Says Walter Pater, “Wordsworth’s words are themselves thought and feeling, not eloquent or musical words merely, but that sort of creative language which carries the reality of what it depicts directly to the consciousness.” Yes, he was poet, sage and prophet who brought the waters of life to the threshold alike of the believer and of the septic.  But how pathetic it is that such a teacher should be felt to be “monotonous beyond endurance”, “too deliberate and direct in his intention to instruct” and “insupportably dull!” Perhaps England and Europe have to take their own time for a fuller appreciation of the beauty and excellence of Wordsworth’s muse. Perhaps, also, Wordsworth, who in this respect may be spoken of as the poet of the few, may have felt that he could not utter his profound and solemn truths unless the reader’s mind was rendered sufficiently receptive by the patient hearing of a lengthy story. But all the same the fact remains that the seriousness of the sage has overshot its mark and the saving truths of the gospel, being conveyed in voluminous books of endless and rhymeless pentameters, do thus fall quite flat on the ear and most pitiably defeat their own high purpose.

To the same, or a similar, cause may be attributed another great drawof Wordsworth’s. He is the master-hand that moved the sympathies of high and low, saint as well as sinner. His muse made the happy happier and brought consolation to the afflicted and down-hearted. This was the result of deep seriousness in him. He felt that, charged as he was with a holy mission, he should turn neither to the right nor to the left. But, alas, in art as in matters ethical and spiritual, he who thinks of his soul is certain to lose it. Self-consciousness in art leads to its own certain death. The morbidly over-anxious face of the artist is visible even in the best of Wordsworth’s work. He seems to think that even a little smile on his face mars the good effect of his work, and detracts from the sacred seriousness of the situation. And what is the result? The sight of the artist ready with his bait and his nets is certainly not re-assuring to the reader. Wordsworth may speak of ‘daffodils’, ‘phantoms of delight’ and ‘iris.’ But his muse is not naturally iris-coloured, and he, with religious studiousness, clips her wings, and paints a sober grey upon them. He forgets that if he is to be the poet of simple folk, he must cast is rigidity aside, sing and weep in their company, as did Shakespeare. He must enter into their manifold feelings and must touch every chord in their nature. But Wordsworth cannot do this: he has not a trace of humour in him.

Another charge that is brought against Wordsworth is that though he is a poet of Nature, he is lost in the thought of Nature as a great and beneficent whole, that he is unduly optimistic, and that he is not energetically alive to that side of a Nature–Nature ‘red in tooth and claw.’ Mr. O. Elton who (in his Survey of English Literature) quotes the couplet,

“Wordsworth’s eyes avert their ken
From half of human fate”,

says that Wordsworth, while admitting the presence of evil, is averse to recognise it as a principle in things and Wordsworth, being the most reminiscent of all poets, many of the people in his stories are dead or old, and so  the hand of the dead is kind and cool upon the memory as a sort of balsam.

The explanation is plausible enough. But it is important, in this connection, tobear in mind the central fact of Wordsworth’s poetic and philosophic creed. To him Nature is all in all. It is not enough to label him a pantheist, as if that will explain everything. To him nature is not a mere abstraction, a formula, a hypothesis that offers a cold philosophical explanation. He sees Nature radiant with life. To him she isa living presence: here he holds constant communion. She it is that has taught him, helped him, ever smiled on him. Such a one is nearer and dearer to him than anything else. If only in part to requite her love, he must sing of her and celebrate her glory. What matters it to him if his eyemay perceive a spot on her cheek or a stain on her hand? His is the eyeof a lover or of a child, whose vision is not analytic but synthetic, beholding no flaw in the face of the beloved. Emerson says somewhere that the benefactor of the country cannot be expected to pay small debts. Likewise, the lover and adorer of Nature sinks in the act of homage all thought of doubt or dissent. He forgets the particular and exceptional in the universal.

He would forget the particular and exceptional for another reason. His mission is to offer peace–the peace that passeth all understanding. This he can do by rousing man to a communion with Nature and with Nature’s God. With him religion and worship are direct. The votary in the Excursion is face to face with the Most High on the top of the lone mountain. In that hour of solemn, sublime meditation, ‘thought was not’ the imperfect offices of prayer and praise are discarded. Alone to the Alone–that is the ecstatic, beatific vision vouchsafed to our sight. Now communion with such a God and such a Nature were well-nigh impossible without an implicit trust in their goodness. A God or Nature in whose plan there are whole continents of evil and suffering cannot possibly inspire confidence in the votary. And rather than refer to the flaw and offer an explanation for it–both of which are uncongenial to the attitude of sweet trust and to peace of mind,–he coolly and ingeniously ignores the whole vexed question of evil and suffering in the world.

A number of minor defects are noticeable in his poetry, such as that he is defective in the historic sense and the sense of Fate; that his poetry is not sufficiently fluent nor musical; that there is too much solemnity without grace. If such defects were found in the poetry of Keats whose life was cut off prematurely, or in the case of one like Coleridge whose life was dissipated between opium and idleness, there might be some extenuation. But Wordsworth, who wrote for half a century, and had no cases or ambitions besides, could have easily corrected himself had he been so minded. He could have easily spared another the trouble of   “relieving him of a good deal of the poetic baggage encumbering him.” Though he might not be able to assimilate virtues quite alien to his genius, he could have certainly corrected some of his defects. That he never made the least attempt in this direction is what amazes critics. Saintsbury says, “His poetic power, though ofthe intensest and noblest was very narrow in its Possibilities of application”. Wordsworth was wanting in a sense of proportion. It is by no means a fault that a poet should find himself the pioneer on a new path. It certainly redounds to Wordsworth’s credit that he should have taken upon himself the mission of directing poets to turn to Nature and draw their inspiration from her, of urging on them the claims of a simple and natural style. Buta man with a fine sense of proportion would easily perceive the limits of his own principles. Wordsworth was deprived of this good sense by reason of one or twoofhis fixed beliefs which became obsessions with him. Says Saintsbury in this connection: “As it was his equally firm creed that William Wordsworth could not mean otherwise than nobly, so it was matter of breviary with him likewise that William Wordsworth could not write otherwise than well.” Here, again, it may be remarked that for poet, to hold himself as charged by God with a certain mission is noble, butto infer and claim infallibility thereby for every act and expression proceeding from such a belief is patently absurd. Wordsworth could not have inaugurated a new era, could not have stamped his own name on the forehead of an age, had he not acted from start to finish in his long life on the firm conviction of his own inspiration. At the same time, howregrettable is the mischief which such a conviction bred in his bosom, leading to the serious blemishes in his poetry to which he was utterly blind! Here, again, is another instance of the huge shadow accompanying a huge flame–a great defect following in the wake of a great merit.