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R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

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194 Frederick S. Boaspapers falls <strong>the</strong>refore with<strong>in</strong> this survey and <strong>the</strong>y arefavourable examples of Hutton's critical art. I doubt<strong>in</strong>deed if <strong>the</strong>re are better <strong>in</strong>troductions anywhere to <strong>the</strong>poetry of Clough and Mat<strong>the</strong>w Arnold, and I still remembergratefully <strong>the</strong> thrill that I got <strong>in</strong> my Balliol daysfrom <strong>the</strong>se appreciations of <strong>the</strong> two dist<strong>in</strong>ctively Balliolpoets. Both of <strong>the</strong>m gave scope for Hutton's <strong>in</strong>timatepsychological analysis. He who had found anchor <strong>in</strong> aliberal orthodoxy could enter <strong>in</strong>to, and yet stand apartfrom, <strong>the</strong>ir doubts and question<strong>in</strong>gs. Here is part of hisvivid mental portrait of Clough:So eager <strong>was</strong> his crav<strong>in</strong>g for reality and perfect s<strong>in</strong>cerity, somorbid his dislike even for <strong>the</strong> unreal conventional forms of lifethat a m<strong>in</strong>d quite unique <strong>in</strong> simplicity and truthfulness representsitself <strong>in</strong> his poems as* Seek<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> va<strong>in</strong>, <strong>in</strong> all my store,One feel<strong>in</strong>g based on truth.'Indeed he wanted to reach some guarantee for simplicity deeperthan simplicity itself. ...This almost morbid crav<strong>in</strong>g for a firm base on <strong>the</strong> absoluterealities of life <strong>was</strong> very weary<strong>in</strong>g to a m<strong>in</strong>d so self-conscious asClough's, and tended to paralyse <strong>the</strong> expression of a certa<strong>in</strong>lygreat genius. As a rule, his lyrical poems fall short of completesuccess <strong>in</strong> del<strong>in</strong>eat<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> mood which <strong>the</strong>y are really meant todel<strong>in</strong>eate, ow<strong>in</strong>g to this chronic state of <strong>in</strong>trospective criticism onhimself <strong>in</strong> which he is apt to write, and which, characteristic as itis, necessarily dim<strong>in</strong>ishes <strong>the</strong> l<strong>in</strong>earity and directness of <strong>the</strong> feel<strong>in</strong>gexpressed, refract<strong>in</strong>g it, as it were, through media of very variabledensity.His description later of Clough as 'a modern and <strong>in</strong>tellectualisedChaucer', suggested by <strong>the</strong> tales <strong>in</strong> In MariMagno, strikes one as somewhat of a tour deforce, and <strong>the</strong>quotations given <strong>in</strong> support scarcely prove <strong>the</strong> case. Noris anyth<strong>in</strong>g said of Clough's metrical technique, as <strong>in</strong> hisuse of <strong>the</strong> hexameter <strong>in</strong> The Bothie and elsewhere. But<strong>the</strong> essay is a permanent memorial of <strong>the</strong> impact ofClough's complete output <strong>in</strong> verse and prose, published

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