lyrical poetry - OUDL Home

TENNYSON, BROWNING, & SOME OTHERSthe Fireside, Le Byron de nos Jours, Too Late, Youthand Art, Any Wife to Any Husband; and, to go outsidethe love songs, Cavalier Tunes, The Heretic'sTragedy, The Lost Leader, How They Brought the GoodNews from Ghent to Aix—round each you might buildup a novel, or must recall a chapter in history {TheHeretic's Tragedy), or imagine a piece of fictitious history{How They Brought the Good News).But another thing is obvious if one goes back toPippa Passes, and that is the very fanciful character ofthe story told or suggested. Of Pippa Passes a severecritic of Browning writes: "It is entirely free fromcertain defects which characterise his other pieces ofa dramatic character. There is nowhere any violationof that natural probability which should govern theactions and emotions of the characters. . . . Weknow from our own observation, . . . that a remarkoverheard, a chance word spoken with not the leastthought on the part of the speaker of affecting thecourse of another, often influences profoundly thewhole life of the hearer. . . . The scheme of thepoem ... is worked out with consummate skill. Itis both high morality and high art." That is true ina measure, yet I would add, as a qualification ratherthan a contradiction, a somewhat sentimental moralityand a somewhat fanciful, even fantastic, if beautifulart. That Pippa's songs should by the operation ofcoincidence produce the beneficial effects they do isno more surprising or unnatural than are the abundantmaleficent coincidences in Thomas Hardy's novels.What is surprising is that a girl of the kind describedshould sing such very Browningesque songs, and thatthese songs should produce the effect they do, especiallythe very enigmatical song which apparently sends Luigi73