FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   >>   >|  
,--and of the moral sentiment, not in its flexible, feminine, vine-like dependence and play, but in its masculine rigor, climbing in direct, vertical affirmation, like a forest-pine. In this respect he affiliates with Wordsworth, and, going farther back, with Milton, whose tap-root was Hebrew, though in the vast epic flowering of his genius he passed beyond the imaginative range of Semitic mind. In thus identifying our bard, spiritually, with a broad form of the genius of mankind, we already say with emphasis that his is indeed a Life. Yes, once more, a real Life. He is a nature. He was _born_, not manufactured. Here, once again, the old, mysterious, miraculous processes of spiritual assimilation. Here, a genuine root-clutch upon the elements of man's experience, and an inevitable, indomitable working-up of them into human shape. To look at him without discerning this vital depth and reality were as good as no looking at all. Moreover, the man and the poet are one and the same. His verse is no literary Beau-Brummelism, but a _re_-presentation of that which is presented in his consciousness. First, there is inward vital conversion of the elements of his experience, then verse, or version,--first the soul, then the body. His voice, as such, has little range, nor is it any marvel of organic perfection; on the contrary, there is many a voice with nothing at all in it which far surpasses his in mere vocal excellence; only in this you can hear the deep refrain of Nature, and of Nature chanting her moral ideal. We shall consider Whittier's poetry in this light,--as a vital effluence, as a product of his being; and citations will be made, not by way of culling "beauties,"--a mode of criticism to which there are grave objections,--but of illustrating total growth, quality, and power. Our endeavor will be to get at, so far as possible, the processes of vital action, of spiritual assimilation, which go on in the poet, and then to trace these in his poetry. God gave Whittier a deep, hot, simple, strenuous, and yet ripe and spherical, nature, whose twin necessities were, first, that it _must_ lay an intense grasp upon the elements of its experience, and, secondly, that it _must_ work these up into some form of melodious completeness. History and the world gave him Quakerism, America, and Rural Solitude; and through this solitude went winding the sweet, old Merrimac stream, the river that we would not wish to forget, even by
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
elements
 

experience

 

spiritual

 
processes
 

assimilation

 

Whittier

 

poetry

 

Nature

 

nature

 

genius


effluence

 
product
 

America

 
Solitude
 
solitude
 

winding

 

Merrimac

 

forget

 

excellence

 

surpasses


contrary

 

refrain

 

stream

 

chanting

 

completeness

 
endeavor
 

quality

 

spherical

 

growth

 

strenuous


action

 

simple

 
illustrating
 

culling

 

beauties

 

melodious

 

Quakerism

 

History

 

objections

 

necessities


intense
 
criticism
 

citations

 

imaginative

 

Semitic

 
passed
 

flowering

 
identifying
 
emphasis
 

spiritually