  THE SECOND LOVE OF ADA SOMERS. THE STRIPED BASS. ( Labrax Lineatus. Cuvier. ) GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Vol. XXXVI. June, 1850. No. 6. Table of Contents Fiction, Literature and Articles Poetry and Music Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook. GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Vol. XXXVI. PHILADELPHIA, June, 1850. No. 6. FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHELLING. ——— BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. ——— [In the following elaborate specimen of literary criticism there are many passages which will be very obscure, not to say unintelligible, to those who are not familiar with the philosophic phraseology of the Germans. The student of Dante, however, will find in it many hints and suggestions worthy his consideration. It cannot be otherwise than interesting to see two such minds as those of Schelling and Dante brought into contact; and to hear what the German philosopher has to say of the Italian poet.] In the sanctuary where Religion “is married to immortal Verse,” stands Dante as high-priest, and consecrates all modern Art for its vocation. Not as a solitary poem, but representing the whole class of the New Poetry, and itself a separate class, stands the “Divine Comedy,” so entirely unique, that any theory drawn from peculiar forms is quite inadequate to it;—a world by itself, it demands its own peculiar theory. The predicate of Divine was given it by its author, because it treats of theology and things divine; Comedy he called it, after the simplest notion of this and its opposite kind,—on account of its fearful beginning and its happy ending, and because the mixed nature of the poem, whose material is now lofty and now lowly, rendered a mixed kind of style necessary. One readily perceives, however, that according to the common notion it cannot be called Dramatic, because it represents no circumscribed action. So far as Dante himself may be looked upon as the hero, who serves only as a thread for the measureless series of visions and pictures, and remains rather passive than active,—the poem seems to approach nearer to a Romance; yet this definition does not completely exhaust it; nor can we call it Epic, in the usual acceptation of the word, since there is no regular sequence in the events represented. To look upon it as a Didactic poem is likewise impossible, because it is written in a far less restricted form and aim, than those of teaching. It belongs therefore to none of these classes in particular, nor is it merely a compound of them; but an entirely unique, and as it were organic mixture of all their elements, not to be reproduced by any arbitrary rules of art,—an absolute individuality, comparable with itself alone and with naught else. The material of the poem, is, in general terms, the express identity of the Poet’s age;—the interpenetration of the events thereof with the ideas of Religion, Science and Poetry in the loftiest genius of that century. Our intention is not to consider it in its immediate reference to its age; but rather in its universal application and as the archetype of all modern Poetry. The necessary law of this poetry, down to the still indefinitely distant point where the great Epic of modern times, which hitherto has announced itself only rhapsodically and in broken glimpses, shall present itself as a perfect whole, is this:—that the individual gives shape and unity to that portion of the world which is revealed to him, and out of the materials of his time, its History and its Science, creates his own Mythology. For as the ancient world is, in general, the world of classes, so the modern is that of Individuals. In the former the Universal is in truth the particular, the race acts as an individual; in the latter, the Individual is the point of departure, and becomes the Universal. For this reason, in the former all things are permanent and imperishable: Number likewise is of no account, since the Universal idea coincides with that of the Individual;—in the latter, constant mutation is the fixed law; no narrow circle limits its ends, but one which through Individuality widens itself to infinitude. And since Universality belongs to the essence of Poetry, it is a necessary condition that the Individual through the highest peculiarity should again become universal, and by his complete speciality become again absolute. Thus through the perfect individuality and uniqueness of his Poem, Dante is the Creator of modern art, which without this arbitrary necessity, and necessary arbitrariness, cannot be imagined. From the very beginning of Greek Poetry, we see it clearly separated from Science and Philosophy, as in Homer, and this process of separation continued until the Poets and the Philosophers became the antipodes of each other. They in vain by allegorical interpretations of the Homeric Poems sought artificially to create a harmony between the two. In modern times Science has preceded Poetry and Mythology, which cannot be Mythology, without being universal and drawing into its circle all the elements of the then existing culture, Science, Religion and even Art, and joining in a perfect unity the material not only of the present but of the past. Into this struggle, (since Art demands something definite and limited, while the spirit of the world rushes towards the unlimited, and with ceaseless power sweeps down all barriers,) must the Individual enter, but with absolute freedom, seek to rescue permanent shapes from the fluctuations of time, and within arbitrarily assumed forms to give to the structure of his poem, by its absolute peculiarity, internal necessity and external universality. This Dante has done. He had before him, as material, the history of the present as well as of the Past. He could not elaborate this into a pure Epos, partly on account of its nature, partly because, in doing this, he would have excluded other elements of the culture of his time. To its completeness belonged also the Astronomy, the Theology and Philosophy of the time. To these he could not give expression in a Didactic poem, for by so doing he would again have limited himself. Consequently, in order to make his Poem universal, he was obliged to make it historical. An invention, entirely uncontrolled, and proceeding from his own individuality, was necessary, to unite these materials and form them into an organic whole. To represent the ideas of Philosophy and Theology in symbols was impossible, for there then existed no symbolic Mythology. He could quite as little make his Poem purely allegorical, for then again it could not be historical. It was necessary therefore to make it an entirely unique mixture of Allegory and History. In the emblematic poetry of the ancients no clue of this kind was possible. The Individual only could lay hold of it, and only an uncontrolled invention follow it. The poem of Dante is not allegorical in the sense that its figures only signified something else, without having any separate existence independent of the thing signified. On the other hand, none of them is independent of the thing signified in such a way as to be at once the Idea itself and more than an allegory of it. There is therefore in his Poem an entirely unique mean between Allegory and symbolic-objective Form. There is no doubt, and the Poet has himself elsewhere declared it, that Beatrice, for example, is an Allegory, namely, of Theology. So her companions; so many other characters. But at the same time they count for themselves, and appear on the scene as historic personages, without on that account being symbols. In this respect Dante is archetypal, since he has proclaimed what the modern poet has to do, in order to embody into a poetic whole, the entire history and culture of his age—the only mythological material which lies before him. He must from absolute arbitrariness join together the allegorical and historical: he must be allegorical, (and he is so, too, against his will,) because he cannot be symbolical; and he must be historical because he wishes to be poetical. In this respect his invention is always peculiar, a world by itself, and altogether characteristic. The only German poem of universal plan, unites together in a similar manner the outermost extremes in the aspirations of the times, by a very peculiar invention of a subordinate mythology, in the character of Faust: although in the Aristophanic meaning of the word it may far better be called a Comedy, and is another and more poetic sense Divine, than the Poem of Dante. The energy with which the individual embodies the singular mixture of the materials which lie before him in his age and his life determines the measure in which he possesses mythological power. Dante’s personages possess a kind of eternity from the position in which he places them, and which is eternal: but not only the actual which he draws from his own time, as the story of Ugolino and the like, but also what is pure invention, as the death of Ulysses and his companions, has in the connection of his poem a real mythological truth. It would be of but subordinate interest to represent by itself, the Philosophy, Physics and Astronomy of Dante, since his true peculiarity lies only in his manner of fusing them with his poetry. The Ptolemaic system, which to a certain degree is the foundation of his poetic structure, has already in itself a mythological coloring. If however his philosophy is to be characterized in general as Aristotelian, we must not understand by this the pure Peripatetic philosophy, but a peculiar union of the same with the ideas of the Platonic, then entertained, as may be proved by many passages of his poem. We will not dwell upon the power and solidity of separate passages, the simplicity and endless naivetÉ of separate pictures, in which he expresses his philosophical views, as the well known description of the soul which comes from the hand of God as a little girl “weeping and laughing in its childish sport,” a guileless soul, which knows nothing, save that, moved by its joyful Creator, “willingly it turns to that which gives it pleasure:”—we speak only of the general symbolic form of the whole, in whose absoluteness, more than in any thing else, the universal value and immortality of this Poem is recognized. If the union of Philosophy and Poetry even in their most subordinate synthesis is understood as making a didactic poem, it becomes necessary, since the poem must be without any external end and aim, that the intention (of instructing) should lose itself in it and be changed into an absoluteness (in eine Absolutheit verwandelt), so that the poem may seem to exist for its own sake. And this is only conceivable, when Science (considered as a picture of the Universe, and in perfect harmony therewith, as the most original and beautiful Poetry) is in itself already poetical. Dante’s Poem is a much higher interpenetration of Science and Poetry, and so much the more must its form, even in its freer self-existence, be adapted to the universal type of the world’s aspect (Weltanschauung). The division of the Universe and the arrangement of the materials according to the three kingdoms of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, independently of the peculiar meaning of these ideas in Christian theology, are also a general symbolic form, so that one does not see why under the same form every remarkable age should not have its own Divine Comedy. As in the Modern Drama the form of five acts is assumed as the usual one, because every event may be regarded in its Beginning, its Progress, its Culmination, its DÉnouement, and its final Consummation, so this Trichotomy, or threefold division of Dante in the higher prophetic poetry, which is to be the expression of a whole age, is conceivable as a general form, which in its filling-up may be infinitely varied, as by the power of original invention it can always be quickened into new life. Not alone however as an external form, but as an emblematical expression of the internal type of all Science and Poetry is that form eternal and capable of embracing in itself the three great objects of Science and culture,—Nature, History and Art. Nature, as the birth of all things, is the eternal Night; and as that unity through which these are in themselves, it is the aphelion of the universe, the point of farthest removal from God, the true centre. Life and History, whose nature is gradual progress, are only a process of clarification, a transition to an absolute condition. This can nowhere be found save in Art, which anticipates eternity, is the Paradise of life, and is truly in the centre. Dante’s Poem, therefore, viewed from all sides, is not an isolated work of a particular age, a particular stage of culture; but it is archetypal, by the universal interest which it unites with the most absolute Individuality,—by its universality, in virtue of which it excludes no side of life and culture,—and finally by its form, which is not a peculiar type, but the type of the theory of the Universe, in general. The peculiar internal arrangement of the Poem certainly cannot possess this universal interest, since it is formed upon the ideas of the time, and the peculiar views of the poet. On the other hand, as is to be expected from a work so artistic and full of purpose, the general inner type is again externally imaged forth, through the form, color, sound of the three great Divisions of the Poem. From the extraordinary nature of his material, Dante needed for the form of his creations in detail, some kind of credentials which only the Science of his time could give, and which for him are, so to speak, the Mythology and the general basis, which supports the daring edifice of his inventions. But even in the details he remains trite to his design of being allegorical, without ceasing to be historical and poetical. Hell, Purgatory and Paradise are, as it were, only his system of Theology in its concrete and architectural development. The proportion, number and relations which he observes in their internal structure were prescribed by this science, and herein he renounced intentionally the freedom of invention, in order to give, by means of form, necessity and limitation to his poem, which in its materials was unlimited. The universal sanctity and significancy of numbers is another external form upon which his poetry rests. So in general the entire logical and syllogistic lore of that age, is for him only form, which must be granted to him, in order to attain to that region in which his poetry moves. And yet in this adherence to religious and philosophical notions, as the most universally interesting thing which his age offered, Dante never seeks an ordinary kind of poetic probability; but rather renounces all intention of flattering the baser senses. His first entrance into Hell takes place, as it should take place, without any unpoetical attempt to assign a motive for it or to make it intelligible, in a condition like that of a Vision, without however any intention of making it appear such. His being drawn up by Beatrice’s eyes, through which the divine power is communicated to him, he expresses in a single line: what is wonderful in his own adventures he immediately changes to a likeness of the mysteries of religion, and gives it credibility by a yet higher mystery, as when he makes his entrance into the moon, which he compares to that of light into the unbroken surface of water, an image of God’s incarnation. To show the perfection of art, and the depth of purpose which was carried even into the minor details of the inner structure of the three worlds, would be a science in itself. This was recognized shortly after the poet’s death by his nation, in their appointing a distinct Lectureship upon Dante, which was first filled by Boccaccio. But not only do the several incidents in each of the three parts of the Poem allow the universal character of the first form to shine through them, but the law thereof expresses itself yet more definitely in the inner and spiritual rhythm, by which they are contradistinguished from each other. The Inferno, as it is the most fearful in its objects, is likewise the strongest in expression, the severest in diction, and in its very words dark and awful. In one portion of the Purgatorio deep silence reigns, for the lamentations of the lower world grow mute: upon its summits, the forecourts of Heaven, all becomes Color: the Paradiso is the true music of the spheres. The variety and difference of the punishments in the Inferno are conceived with almost unexampled invention. Between the crime and the punishment there is never any other than a poetic relation. Dante’s spirit is not daunted by what is terrible; nay, he goes to its extreme limits. But it could be shown in every case, that he never ceases to be sublime and in consequence truly beautiful. For that which men, who are not capable of comprehending the whole, have sometimes pointed out as low, is not so in their sense of the term, but is a necessary element of the mixed nature of the Poem, on account of which Dante himself called it a Comedy. The hatred of evil, the scorn of a godlike spirit, which are expressed in Dante’s fearful composition, are not the inheritance of common souls. It is indeed very doubtful still, though quite generally believed, whether his banishment from Florence, after he had previously dedicated his Poetry to Love, first spurred on his spirit, naturally inclined to whatever was earnest and extraordinary, to the highest Invention, in which he breathed forth the whole of his life, of the destiny of his heart and of his country, together with his indignation thereat. But the vengeance which he takes in the Inferno, he takes in the name of the Day of Judgment, as the elected Judge with prophetic power, not from personal hate, but with a pious soul roused by the abominations of the times, and a love of his native land long dead in others, as he has himself represented in a passage in the Paradiso where he says “If e’er it happen that the Poem sacred To which both Earth and Heaven have lent their hand, Till it hath made me meagre many a year, Conquer the cruelty that shuts me out Of the fair sheep-fold, where a lamb I slumbered, An enemy to the wolves that war upon it, With other voice forthwith, with other fleece The Poet shall return, and at the font Baptismal, shall he take the crown of laurel.” He tempers the horror of the torments of the damned, by his own feeling for them, which at the end of so much suffering so overwhelms him that he is ready to weep, and Virgil says to him “Wherefore then art thou troubled?” It has already been remarked that the greater part of the punishments of the Inferno are symbolical of the crimes for which they are inflicted, but many of them are so in a far more general relation. Of this kind is, in particular, the representation of a metamorphosis, in which two natures are mutually interchanged and their substance transmuted. No metamorphosis of Antiquity can compare with this for invention, and if a naturalist or a didactic poet were able to sketch with such power, emblems of the eternal metamorphoses of nature, he might congratulate himself upon it. As we have already remarked, the Inferno is not only distinguished from the other parts by the external form of its representation, but also by the circumstance that it is peculiarly the realm of forms and consequently the plastic part of the Poem. The Purgatorio must be recognized as the picturesque part. Not only are the penances here imposed upon sinners at times pictorially treated even to brightness of coloring; but the journey up the holy mountain of Purgatory presents in detail a rapid succession of shifting landscapes, scenes and manifold play of light; until upon its outermost boundary, when the Poet has reached the waters of Lethe, the highest pomp of Painting and Color displays itself;—in the picturing of the divine primeval forest of this region, of the celestial clearness of the water, overcast with its eternal shadow, of the maiden whom he meets upon its banks and the descent of Beatrice in a cloud of flowers, beneath a white veil, crowned with olive, wrapped in a green mantle, and “vested in colors of the living flame.” The Poet has urged his way to light through the very heart of the earth: in the darkness of the lower world forms alone could be distinguished: in Purgatory light is kindled, but still in connection with earthly matter and becomes color. In Paradise there remains nothing but the pure music of the light; reflection ceases, and the Poet rises gradually to behold the colorless pure essence of Deity itself. The astronomical system which the age of the poet invested with a mythological value; the nature of the stars and of the measure of their motion, are the ground upon which his inventions, in this part of the poem, rest. And if he in this sphere of the unconditioned, still suffers degrees and differences to exist, he again removes them by the glorious word which he puts into the mouth of one of the sister-souls whom he meets in the moon, that “every Where in heaven is Paradise.” The plan of the Poem renders it natural that on the very ascent through Paradise the loftiest speculations of Theology should be discussed. His deep reverence for this science is symbolized by his love of Beatrice. In proportion as the field of vision enlarges itself into the purely Universal, it is necessary that Poetry should become Music, form vanish, and that, in this point of view, the Inferno should appear the most poetic part of the work. But in this work it is absolutely impossible to take things separately; and the peculiar excellence of each separate part is authenticated and recognized only through its harmony with the whole. If the relation of the three parts to the whole is perceived, we shall necessarily recognize the Paradiso as the purely musical and lyrical portion, even in the design of the poet, who expresses this in the external form, by the frequent use of the Latin words of Church Hymns. The marvelous grandeur of the Poem, which gleams forth in the mingling of all the elements of poetry and art, reaches in this way a perfect manifestation. This divine work is not plastic, not picturesque, not musical, but all of these at once and in accordant harmony. It is not dramatic, not epic, not lyric, but a peculiar, unique, and unexampled mingling of all these. I think I have shown, at the same time, that it is prophetic, and typical of all the Modern Poetry. It embraces all its characteristics, and springs out of the intricately mingled materials of the same, as the first growth, stretching itself above the earth and toward the heavens—the first fruit of transfiguration. Those who would become acquainted with the poetry of modern times, not superficially, but at its fountain head, may train themselves by this great and mighty spirit, in order to know by what means the whole of the modern time may be embraced in its entireness, and that it is not held together by a loosely woven band. They who have no vocation for this, can apply to themselves the words at the beginning of the first part: ——— BY GRACE GREENWOOD. ——— ’Twas upon a southern desert, and beneath a burning sky, That a pilgrim to the gold-clime sunk, o’erwearied, down to die! He was young, and fair, and slender, but he bore a gallant heart — Through the march so long and toilsome he had bravely held his part. His companions round him gathered, with kind word and pitying look, As in fever-thirst he panted, like “the hart for the water brook;” While their last cool drops outpouring on his brow and parched lips, Sorrowed they to mark his glances growing dim with death’s eclipse. Turning then, and onward passing, left they there the dying man, For a weary way to westward still the promised river ran. One there was, a comrade faithful, who the longest lingered there, While he wrung his hand in parting, bidding him not yet despair; For they would return at morning, from the river banks, he said — And a silken scarf unfolding, laid it o’er the sufferer’s head — Then full often backward glancing, took the weary march again, Onward pressing toward the waters, gleaming far across the plain.
Silent lies the one forsaken, in this hour of pain and fear, While their farewells and their footsteps die upon his failing ear; With the withered turf his death-couch, ’neath the burning heat of day, All unhearing and unheeding, for his soul is far away! In the dear home of his childhood, in a pleasant northern land, He beholds about him smiling the familiar household band; Sees, perchance, his father coming homeward, through the twilight gray — Listens to his merry brothers, laughing in their childish play — Feels the fond arms of his mother, as of old, about him thrown, And the fair cheek of his sister pressing soft against his own! Or he strays amid the moonlight, in a cool and shadowy grove, Looking down with earnest glances into eyes that look back love! All beloved tones are calling sweetly through his heart again, And its dying pulse is quickened by the phantoms of his brain! And belovÉd names he murmurs, while his bosom heaves and swells, For in dreams again he liveth through his partings and farewells!
Slowly sinks the sun—night’s shadows round the lonely pilgrim spread — While the rising night-winds gently lift the light scarf from his head, And the soft and pitying moonbeams glance upon his forehead fair, And the dews of night descending damp the dark locks of his hair; Cool upon his brow they’re falling—but its fever-throbs are o’er — And his parched lips they moisten, but those lips shall thirst no more!
His companions come at morning—come to look on his dead face, Come to lay him to his grave-rest, in that dreary desert place; Where the tropic sun glares fiercely on the wide, unsheltered plain, And where pour, from darkest heavens, rushing floods of winter rain! Where shall come the wild-bird’s screaming, and the whirlwind’s sounding sweep, And the tramp of herded bisons shall go thundering o’er his sleep.
There are piteous sounds of mourning in a far off northern home, Where o’er childhood’s kindling dawn-light sudden clouds of darkness come — There are heard a father’s groanings, and a mother’s broken sighs — There a voiceless sorrow troubleth the clear deeps of maiden eyes.
In their fearful dreams, at midnight, they behold him left to die, With the hard, hot ground beneath him, and above a brazen sky — In his fainting, in his thirsting, in his pain and wild despair, Vainly calling on his dear ones, through the heavy desert-air! Oh, the bitter self-reproaches mingled in the cup they drain! Oh, their poor hearts, pierced and tortured by a sharp, remorseful pain — That they sent their best and dearest from his home-love’s sheltering fold, In the madness of adventure, on that pilgrimage of gold. ——— BY ANNE DRINKER. ——— |
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