1101b OSCAR WILDE Oscar Wilde, the son of the Irish surgeon and antiquary Sir William Robert Wilde, was born in Dublin. He was educated at the royal school in Enniskillen, at the University of Dublin, and at Oxford. His career at Oxford was remarkable. He stood high in scholastic attainments, won the Newdigate prize for poetry, founded a movement on the doctrine of Art for Art's sake, and led a brilliant but hectic existence by trying to live up to theblue china " of his new cult. After a lecture tour in America and a quiet life in London for five or six years, he began in 1888 a career of almost unprecedented literary activity. He wrote with ease prose fiction of various kinds, but in such plays as Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892; Salomé, written in French, 1893; and The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, he excelled all other Victorian dramatists in brilliancy of dialogue, literary finish, and dramatic effectiveness. In 1895, while engaged in a lawsuit for libel against the Marquis of Queensberry, he was found to be criminally liable himself. He was arrested, tried, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment with hard labor. This was the end of his literary career, except for an apologetic account of his life written in prison and his powerful rhetorical Ballad of Reading Gaol, 1898. After his release from jail he went abroad and died of cerebral meningitis in Paris in 1900. His reputation as a writer has suffered from his life as a man. His best work is to be found in his plays, but his poetry possesses a fascinating but sinister beauty, the beauty of decay. REQUIESCAT 1108b JOHN DAVIDSON John Davidson was born a minister's son in a small town near Glasgow. He spent his youth in school and at work in Greenock, and in 1876-1877 attended the University of Edinburgh. For a dozen years thereafter he taught in various places in Scotland and attempted playwriting under the impression that he was a born dramatist. In 1890 he removed to London to devote himself entirely to literature. His first poetry in the metropolis was received coldly, but his Fleet Street Eclogues, 1893, brought him recognition. Several subsequent volumes and a successful play or two increased his reputation but failed to provide him with a competent income. He lived in hard circumstances in Penzance during his last years and in 1909 disappeared under suspicion of suicide by drowning. His poetry is fresh and full of thought, vigorous and bold in expression and imagery, and replete with a passionate but unembittered reproachfulness of life as he had known it. Such intense ballads as his Heaven and Hell deserve to be remembered. A BALLAD OF HEAVEN 25. adagio, a piece of music, or a movement in music, in adagio (i.e., slow and graceful) time. 32. andante, a musical piece or movement in moderate time. 1109a 36. scherzo, in music a movement of lively character. FRANCIS THOMPSON Francis Thompson was born at Preston in Lancashire. He was bred a Catholic and educated in that faith at Upshaw College near Durham. Preparatory to following his father's profession, he studied medicine at Owens College near Manchester but was interested only in literature. Failing in practical life, he became friendless and solitary. After 1110b 1111a several obscure years in which he suffered ill health and great destitution he was discovered in London and rescued from starvation if not from self-destruction by a Mr. and Mrs. Meynell, adherents of his own faith, who had been attracted to him by his offer of a poem for the Merrie England magazine. They gave him a home and procured a publisher for his first volume, Poems, 1893. The book met with critical favor, and the opinion was confirmed by his Sister Songs, 1895, and New Poems, 1897. During his last years he was a victim of tuberculosis and lived a shadowy existence partly at a Capuchin monastery in north Wales and partly at Storrington in Sussex, until his death in London in 1907. Some of his poetry is marred by eccentricity in both speech and manner, but his genuine inspiration and a certain high distinction of thought and utterance justify the unique place he occupies in English poetry. TO OLIVIA This poem is characteristic of Thompson's poetry about children in its attitude of intimate reverence for childhood. THE HOUND OF HEAVEN The Hound of this poem is the poet's daring representation of God. The poem reflects its author's deeply religious nature and the profound spiritual experience through which he passed. ROBERT BRIDGES Robert Bridges, now poet laureate, though for years a practicing physician in London, has long been identified with the cultured literary and academic life of England. He was educated at Eton and Oxford and studied medicine in London, but retired from practice while he was yet under forty. His early poetry was printed privately and had a limited but admiring circle of readers. He pubblished numerous volumes but did not reach his full maturity as a poet until his Shorter Poems in 1890. He has continued productive to the present time, although he is now past eighty. Within the new century he was won wide recognition as a scholar, as attested by the many honorary degrees he has received from various institutions. He became poet laureate on the death of Alfred Austin in 1913, and resides at Oxford. His poetry illustrates his own poetic theory, which emphasizes stress rather than uniformity in the number of syllables, but at the same time it carries on the older traditions 1113a 1114b of restraint, purity, and precision, and is not lacking in strength. ELEGY, etc. This elegy, though written in a somewhat difficult stanza, fully sustains the quality of other great elegies, and is inferior, if in aught, only in its brevity. WILLIAM WATSON William Watson was born at Burley-inWharfedale, Yorkshire, and was reared in Liverpool, whither the family had removed in the interest of his father's business. His early poems, which appeared in the eighties, passed unnoticed, but his volume containing Wordsworth's Grate, 1890, won recognition. From this time until his important New Poems in 1909 he produced numerous works in verse of a critical, philosophical, and political character. His political poetry is usually understood to have interfered with his appointment as poet laureate in 1913. Since the beginning of the World War he has continued to issue volumes of poetry at regular intervals without doing anything to surpass the quality of his previous work. His lyrics are often good, but he is best in a contemplative vein, which comports only moderately well with the lyrical spirit. His poetry is compact with thought expressed in a refined and stately diction, often with striking epigrammatic effect, and at times glows with a sincere and sustained eloquence. It displays a classical turn in its regularity, fastidiousness of taste, and chastened and restrained general tone. WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE Wordsworth was buried at Grasmere. In addition to its excellent criticism of Wordsworth, this poem is noteworthy for the writer's wide knowledge of English poetry during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His characterization of the classical régime in section iv is excellent. 2. Rotha, a small river flowing through Grasmere churchyard. 1116a 89. rugged scholar-sage, Dr. Samuel Johnson. 95. Collins' lonely vesper-chime. Ode to Erening, p. 579. See s 96. frugal note of Gray. Gray's published verse is unusually small in volume. 100. Auburn, Goldsmith's Deserted Village 101 ff. one 'neath northern skies, etc., Robert Burns. 111 ff. Twin morning stars, etc., Wordsworth and Coleridge. The former is the and the latter the Dreamer. 1118b THE WORLD IN ARMOUR It may be noted that the second (1. 9 ff.) and third sonnets of this group contain a striking prophecy of the World War twenty years before its beginning in 1914. 1119a 1 ff. London's Plague . . . dread Fire. The plague, or black death, which had visited England, at times with devastating effects, since the fourteenth century, was particularly virulent in 1664-1666; hence it was known as the Great Plague. It disappeared finally from the country after the Great Fire of 1666. 14. him that idly, etc., literally, the person or persons who shot to death at Serajevo on June 28, 1914, Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria, an act which precipitated the World War. THE SAINT AND THE SATYR 1. the eremite, the hermit. See note to p. 89b, l. 44. 1119b 13. Paphos, a town in Cyprus, one of the favorite resorts of Venus. 14. Ida, a mountain in Crete where Zeus was concealed to escape being devoured by his father Saturn. RUDYARD KIPLING Rudyard Kipling, the son of an English colonial official, was born in Bombay, India. He was educated at a college in north Devonshire and at seventeen returned to India to become an editor. At twenty-one he published his Departmental Ditties, and within the next three years produced a succession of prose fictions that brought him fame. In 1892 he issued his second volume of verse, Barrack Room Ballads. These and other poems of the nineties opened up a new literary field 1121a the life of the common soldier and sailor beyond England's natural borders. They were written in a racy if low language that all classes could understand, and they made Kipling a genuinely popular poet. In 1894-1895 he produced in the Jungle Books the work that will probably live longest of all his writings. He traveled in the Orient and South America, lived a few years in America, settled in England, in 1907 won the Nobel prize for distinction in literature, and has continued to the present time a fluent and prolific writer. In both his prose and his poetry he has described from the ranks the life of the British service, not so much as it was but as it came to be under the influence of his writings. He is one of the supreme masters of the modern short story. His home is at Burwash in Sus sex. THE BALLAD OF FISHER'S The place-names in this poem are unimportant for an interpretation of it as a ballad. They illustrate well the author's mastery of proper names for poetical uses. They serve to suggest remoteness, strangeness, and the like. GUNGA DIN WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS William Butler Yeats, son of the distinguished Irish artist J. B. Yeats, was born in Dublin. After attending schools in London and Dublin, he took up the study of art but soon abandoned it for literature. Encouraged by Oscar Wilde, he went to London in 1888, and in 1889 published his first volume of verse, The Wanderings of Oisin, containing a narrative poem based on one of the most charming and characteristic episodes in the Irish Ossianic legend (see introductory note to Ossian, p. 62b). This was followed by other volumes, notably The Celtic Twilight, 1893, and The Wind among the Reeds, 1899, which, together with his collected Poems, 1895, established his position as a poet of ability. He has also written numerous dramas on ancient or modern Irish themes, some of them involving allegories of Ireland's national aspirations. Especially significant among his plays are Kathleen ni Houlihan and The Land of Heart's Desire. He is a literary critic of distinction, has edited several collections of Irish folk tales, and was one of the editors of the works of the English poet and mystic William Blake. Of late years he has become interested in Japanese literature and has written several plays under Japanese influence. Mr. Yeats's first volume is said to have inaugurated the so-called modern Celtic renaissance, or Anglo-Irish literary movement, and throughout his career the author has striven to create for Ireland a national literature written in English but independent of foreign influences. Stimulated more or less by oriental philosophy, William Blake, the PreRaphaelites, and modern occultism, he has attempted to convey in his poetry that lively faith in an other world of fairy folk and magic which is so striking a characteristic of the native Irish mind. In his treatment both of ancient Celtic themes, such as The Death of Cuchulain, and of modern Irish superstitions, as in The Land of Heart's Desire, he has sought to catch the feeling for nature and the wistful charm of ancient Celtic romance. His style is almost proselike in its simplicity and naturalness. He has always had a leaning toward mysticism, but before he became obsessed with modern spiritualism and necromancy and with things Japanese, he held practically undisputed his position as the most representative writer of the new spirit in the literature of Ireland. He resides in London. 1123a THE DEATH OF CUCHULAIN The chief source of this poem is an ancient Irish version of the theme of the father-and-son combat, best known perhaps through Arnold's Sohrab and Řustum (p. 963b ff.): Cuchulainn, while learning feats of arms abroad, becomes the father of a son whom he later meets and unknowingly slays. Cuchulainn's famous wife Emer does not figure in the older story, nor is Cuchulainn an old man when he slays his son (Conlach). Yeats's version should be compared with Macpherson's (see p. 588 f. and introductory note). 1123b 39. Red Branch. See note to The Feast of Bricriu, p. 59a. 1124a 90. quicken, the mountain ash, or rowan tree, associated with magic and hence with druidism. THE WHITE BIRDS 1. I would . . . white birds. This fanciful poetic idea may have been suggested by the common appearance in early Irish tradition of fairies or transformed mortals in the form of white birds. 1124b 9. Danaän. In ancient Irish tradition the Tuatha Dé Danaan are represented as one of the ancient races of Ireland. They are possessed of magical powers and inhabit a fairy world beneath the earth or water, or even in the many-isled elysium beyond the ocean (see Conula of the Golden Hair, p. 61a, and note to p. 61a, 1. 32). They are often identified with the sidhe, or fairy folk (see note to p. 61b, l. 9). STEPHEN PHILLIPS Stephen Phillips was born at Somertown near Oxford. He was educated at Stratford and later at Peterborough, where Es father was precentor in the cathedrai For six years he was a minor actor in a theatrical company. He attracted attention as a poet first by his Christ in Hades, 1896, and with his Poems the following year he was recognized as a genius of unusual magnitude. His repu tation brought a request from a theatrical manager for a play, whereupon he turned to drama and produced a succes sion of poetical plays which gratified the popular taste but which have since been neglected. His last volume, Lyrics ard Dramas, 1913, representing his maturer thought and style, came after his voge had declined. He died at Deal in 1915. He drew his inspiration from the past. His plays are based on old stories and are modeled upon Greek drama. In Ex poetry he is Victorian in both manner 1126a and style. His fame is preserved best by his shorter poems. JOHN MASEFIELD John Masefield was born in Hertfordshire. Urged by the love of adventure which has marked a large part of his life and which shines constantly through his work, he ran away to sea and for some years underwent the hard experiences which furnished him with abundant materials for literary treatment. The character of his first volume of poems, published in 1902, is indicated by the title, Salt-Water Ballads; and much of his later verse, notably The Everlasting Mercy, 1911, deals with the vicissitudes of the sailor or the wanderer. He has written several novels, the first, Captain Margaret, appearing in 1908, and a number of plays, of which The Tragedy of Nan, 1909, shows unusual dramatic intensity. In his forthright, uncompromising view of life Mr. Masefield is distinctly a modern, but in imaginative power and clear-eyed idealism he rises above most of the contemporary realists. A WANDERER'S SONG 7. ketches, two-masted vessels of one to two hundred tons burden. 1126b 11. hooker, a one-masted fishing smack. 14. Moby Dick, a whale in the famous sea romance of the same name, by the American novelist Herman Melville, 18191891. ALFRED NOYES Alfred Noyes was born in Staffordshire and was educated at Oxford. His first volume of poetry was published in 1902. His collected poems appeared in 1910. From 1914-1923 he was professor of modern English literature at Princeton University. He published several volumes during the period of the World War. In meter, vocabulary, and theme Mr. Noyes carries on the tradition of the Victorians and of the older literature. He is steeped in the poetry and heroic traditions of the Elizabethan age and revives them with a fine enthusiasm. His verse is significant for its melody, which has rarely been surpassed, rather than for any profound philosophy or theory of life. RALEIGH In its main outlines this poem is historical; hence to understand and appreciate it in full the student should read an ac count of Ralegh's life and acquaint himself with the conditions of the time. The personages represented familiarly as Ben, Will, Kit, and Rob, are, of course, the great dramatists Jonson, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Greene. The Mermaid was the celebrated tavern which they frequented. The story is dramatically told long afterward by mine host to an imagined listener or listeners. 1. His tribe. The younger poets who owned their discipleship to Jonson delighted to call themselves the Sons of Ben. 12. Last of the men,' etc. See p. 253 and notes, and p. 295 ff. 16. El Dorado, the "Land of Gold," believed by the Spaniards and by Sir Walter Ralegh to exist in the upper course of the Amazon River in South America. 20. catamite, a male pervert. 1127a 23. Salome. Salome was the daughter of the beautiful and unscrupulous Herodias, whose marriage to Herod Antipas, 4 B.C.-A.D. 39, after her divorce from Herod's half-brother Philip, caused the wrath of John the Baptist. Cf. Mark vi, 17 ff. 1127b 73 f. king . . . hates tobacco. Ralegh is reputed to have introduced the use of tobacco into England. James was its avowed enemy. By his Counterblast to Tobacco, 1604, he imagined himself to have said the last word on the subject. 80. ketch. See note to p. 1126a, 1. 7. 81. Tilbury, a town near the mouth of the Thames. 1128a 122. Gravesend, a town a few miles below London on the Thames. 125. wherry, a light rowboat. 136. dinghy, a small light skiff. 1128b 157. Cathay. See note to p. 890, 1. 184. 1129a 197. Greenwich. At this time Greenwich was, of course, an independent village outside London. 1130b 296 f. the face, etc. See note to Paradise Lost, II, 611. 307 ff. our poor earth, etc. The Copernican theory was announced three-quarters of a century before Ralegh's death. 318. wastrel, a good-for-nothing. 1131a 324 f. The sea-witch, etc., the figure of the mermaid represented on the tavern signboard. See note to Keats's Lines, etc., p. 789b. 351. wild Italian tales. See Boccaccio, Decameron, Day iv, Nov. 5, and Keats's Isabella. 1132a 423. black-cassocked figure, the priest who administered the sacrament and heard the prisoner's confession before the execution. 1132b 444. Budleigh Salterton, a small town on the southern coast of Devonshire, where Ralegh was born. 1133a 487. like Lazarus, etc. Cf. John xi. |