The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844

Various

The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 / Volume 23, Number 1

DESCRIPTIVE POETRY

BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR

Whatever the poets may say, it is incontrovertible that the great majority of men look upon the beauties and glories of Nature that surround them with almost entire indifference. We shall not inquire whether this is the result of a natural incapacity to perceive and admire the beautiful and sublime, or whether it is that their impressions are so deadened by familiarity as to be passed by unnoticed. Probably the former is the case with the greater number; although we cannot believe with some writers, that all our ideas of beauty are but the results of association, or of our perceptions of the proportion, or fitness, or utility of things. When we say that some things are naturally agreeable, and others naturally disagreeable, we have said all that we know about the matter; and this amounts to nothing more than a confession of our ignorance. Yet, if we admit in all men the existence of a natural sense of beauty, daily observation shows us that the pleasure arising from it is in most cases very feeble and evanescent. How many live in the midst of the most magnificent natural scenery, and never perceive its beauties until they are pointed out to them by some intelligent traveller! And often if admiration be professed, it is of that vague, undistinguishing kind, which indicates little knowledge of the causes why they admire. Even among men of cultivated tastes, there is much more of affected than real enthusiasm.

If what we have said be true, it is a curious subject of inquiry why descriptive poetry has been so popular. How happens it that so many who have looked upon Nature herself with great indifference, have been so much delighted with the reflection of her image in the pages of the poets? We suspect, indeed, that a part of the popularity of this class of writers is factitious. Thomson, the most popular, is we suspect oftener purchased than read; and his ‘Seasons’ are not unfrequently spoken of with admiration by those who know little of them but the episodes. The chief interest of the ‘Task’ is to be sought for in other sources than its descriptions, notwithstanding the curiosa felicitas of Cowper’s diction.

The pleasure which we feel in reading descriptive poetry may perhaps in all cases be traced to one of the three following sources: the conception in our own minds of objects corresponding in a greater or less degree to those which exist in the mind of the poet; the train of associations which his language awakens; or the moral interest with which he invests what he describes. In the case first mentioned, the emotions we feel are similar to those which the sight of the objects themselves would produce; if beautiful, of pleasure; if terrible, of awe. A painting, which is an accurate representation of nature, regarded irrespective of the skill of the artist, would affect us in the same way. But the effects resulting from this cause are too inconsiderable to require particular mention. The picture which words are able to present is so indistinct and vague as rarely to produce any strong emotion. If the objects themselves are generally looked upon with indifference, much less can a verbal description of them afford us any great degree of pleasure.

The language which the poet uses often suggests to the mind of the reader trains of thought and imagery which were never present to his own mind. Hence many expressions which are in themselves eminently poetic, will arouse associations, oftentimes, that entirely spoil the passage. On the other hand, an expression low and vulgar may be ennobled by its associations, and give dignity and force to the composition. We not unfrequently meet phrases which have great beauty in the eyes of one man, which seem flat and insipid in the eyes of another. Every writer who has attempted dignified or pathetic composition, has felt how difficult it is to avoid those words which will suggest ideas that are unworthy of the subject. If, however, the poet is sometimes a loser, he is also sometimes a gainer from this cause. The reader often finds in his own associations, sources of pleasure independent of the poet. The light that illumines the page is but the reflected radiance of his own thoughts, and is unseen by all save himself.

But it is in the moral interest with which the poet invests the objects he describes, that the chief source of our pleasure is to be found. The poet paints Nature, not as she is, but as she seems. He adorns her with beauty not her own, and presents her thus adorned to men, to admire and to love. It is by interweaving human sympathies and feelings with the objects of the material world, that they lose their character of ‘mute insensate things,’ and acquire the power to charm and to soothe us, amidst all the cares and anxieties of our life. The intellectual process which here takes place is so interesting and important that we shall make no apology for treating the subject at some length.

It is sufficiently obvious that an accurate description of nature, or a beautiful work of art, is not poetical. On the other hand, in proportion as the minuteness of the description is increased, the poetry vanishes. The traveller who should give us the exact dimensions of the pyramids, the precise height of the terraces, the width and height of the inner passages, would give us much more definite ideas of those structures than he who should paint to us the effects produced on his own mind by their vastness, their antiquity, and the solitude that surrounds them. So in descriptions of natural scenery, the geographer who gives us the measurement of mountains, and rivers, and plains, is much more accurate than he who describes them solely from the picture that exists in his fancy. We wish to be rightly understood. We do not mean that vagueness and generality are essential to poetical description. As on the one hand, mathematical accuracy, by allowing no play to the imagination, produces a feeble impression, so on the other the indistinctness arising from indefinite expressions is equally unfavorable. But in neither is the poetry of the description dependent on the greater or less degree of minuteness with which particular objects are spoken of. When Whitbread described the Phenix, according to Sheridan’s version, ‘like a poulterer; it was green, and red, and yellow, and blue; he did not let us off for a single feather,’ he did not fail more egregiously than Thomson in the following lines, in which, by the force of language, a flock of geese are made highly poetical objects:

                        ‘Hushed in short suspenseThe plumy people streak their wings with oil,To throw the lucid moisture trickling off,And wait the approaching sign to strike at onceInto the general choir.’

The poet indeed must give us a lively and definite image of the scene or object which he undertakes to describe. But how shall this be done? Simply by telling us how it appeared to him; introducing those circumstances which had the greatest effect on his own imagination. He looks on nature neither as a gardener, a geographer, an astronomer, nor a geologist, but as a man, susceptible of strong impressions, and able to describe clearly to others the objects which affected himself. This he will do in the style which the emotion raised within him naturally dictates. His imagery, his illustrations, his whole language, will take the hue of his own feelings. It is in describing accurately the effect, not the cause, the emotion, not the object which produced it, that the poet’s fidelity to nature consists. Let us illustrate our meaning by two or three examples. In Thomson we find the following description of a thunder-storm:

                        ‘A boding silence reignsDread through the dun expanse; save the dull soundThat from the mountain, previous to the storm,Rolls o’er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood,And shakes the forest leaf without a breath.Prone to the lowest vale, the aërial tribesDescend: the tempest-loving raven scarceDares wing the dubious dusk. In rueful gazeThe cattle stand, and on the scowling heavensCast a deploring eye, by man forsook,Who to the crowded cottage hies him fast,Or seeks the shelter of the downward cave.’Tis listening fear, and dumb amazement all,When to the startled eye the sudden glanceAppears far south, eruptive through the cloudAnd following slower in explosion vast,The thunder raises his tremendous voice.At first heard solemn o’er the verge of heavenThe tempest growls; but as it nearer comesAnd rolls its awful burthen on the wind,The lightnings flash a larger curve, and moreThe noise astounds; till over head a sheetOf livid flame discloses wide; then shutsAnd opens wider; shuts, and opens stillExpansive, wrapping ether in a blaze.Follows the loosened, aggravated roar,Enlarging, deepening, mingling; peal on pealCrushed horrible, convulsing heaven and earth.’

Mr. Irving describes a similar scene in the following terms: ‘It was the latter part of a calm sultry day, that they floated quietly with the tide between these stern mountains. There was that perfect quiet which prevails over nature in the languor of summer heat; the turning of a plank, or the accidental falling of an oar on deck, was echoed from the mountain side, and reverberated along the shores. To the left the Dunderberg reared its woody precipices, height over height, forest over forest, away into the deep summer sky. To the right strutted forth the bold promontory of Antony’s nose, with a solitary eagle wheeling about it; while beyond, mountain succeeded to mountain, until they seemed to lock their arms together, and confine this mighty river in their embraces. In the midst of his admiration, Dolph remarked a pile of bright snowy clouds peering above the western heights. It was succeeded by another and another, each seemingly pushing onward its predecessor, and towering with dazzling brilliancy in the deep blue atmosphere; and now muttering peals of thunder were faintly heard rolling behind the mountains. The river, hitherto still and glassy, reflecting pictures of the sky and land, now showed a dark ripple at a distance, as the breeze came creeping up it. The fish-hawks wheeled and screamed, and sought their nests on the high dry trees; the crows flew clamorously to the crevices of the rocks, and all nature seemed conscious of the approaching thunder gust. The clouds now rolled in volumes over the mountain tops; their summits still bright and snowy, but the lower parts of an inky blackness. The rain began to patter down in broad and scattered drops; the winds freshened, and curled up the waves; at length it seemed as if the bellying clouds were torn open by the mountain tops, and complete torrents of rain came rattling down. The lightning leaped from cloud to cloud, and streamed quivering against the rocks, splitting and rending the stoutest forest trees; the thunder burst in tremendous explosions; the peals were echoed from mountain to mountain; they clashed upon Dunderberg, and then rolled up the long defile of the Highlands, each headland waking a new echo, until old Bull Hill seemed to bellow back the storm.’

We think that no one who attentively reads the foregoing extracts can fail to see the infinite superiority of the latter over the former, in every thing that pertains to a faithful representation of nature. Irving has given us the scene just as he saw it, unmixed with any hue or coloring with which the mood of his own mind might have invested it. We see the objects themselves, disconnected from the associations of the spectator. Had there been a thousand persons looking on, each would have heard the same sounds, and seen the same sights. There is nothing that is extraneous. He has given us an exact copy of his original, and nothing more. Thomson, on the contrary, has not described a thunderstorm as he saw it, but according to the effect that it produced on his own mind. His epithets are rarely descriptive of the qualities that exist in the objects to which they are applied. They have reference rather to the emotions which their presence produces in himself. Thus, in the first line, ‘boding’ is not a quality that can be predicated of silence. To the feeling that the silence preceding a storm is wont to excite, the epithet is properly enough applied. So with the expression ‘dubious dusk.’

In connection with these extracts, we will look at one taken from Scott’s description of the scenery around Loch Katrine:

‘Boon nature scattered free and wild,Each plant, or flower, the mountain’s child;Here eglantine embalmed the air,Hawthorn and hazel mingled there;The primrose pale, and violet flower,Found in each cleft a narrow bower;Foxglove and night-shade, side by sideEmblems of punishment and pride,Grouped their dark hues with every stainThe weather-beaten crags retain;With boughs that quaked at every breath,Gray-birch and aspen wept beneath;Aloft the ash and warrior oakCast anchor in the rifted rock;And higher yet the pine tree hungHis scattered trunk, and frequent flungWhere seemed the cliffs to meet on highHis boughs athwart the narrowed sky.Highest of all, where white peaks glanced,Where glistening streamers waved and danced,The wanderer’s eye could barely viewThe summer heaven’s delicious blue.’

The same remarks which we applied to Irving are applicable with some little restriction here. With one or two exceptions, the epithets mark attributes that exist in the subjects. Every one can see at a glance the appropriateness of such terms as pale primrose, gray birch, and narrow bower. They are not dependent for their effect upon any fanciful train of associations which their names may excite.

If we compare the above extracts together, we arrive at certain results which we shall briefly state. We will throw out of view for a moment any pleasure which the rhythm may give us, as foreign to our present purpose. Each of these writers is describing a scene from nature. Each of them has the same object, to interest others by a representation of those sights and sounds that interested themselves. Scott accomplishes his purpose by presenting as exact a picture of nature as it is possible perhaps for words to give. He does not tell us how he is affected by what he sees, and looks upon neither directly nor indirectly. He does not search for any resemblances that are not palpable, and founded in the nature of things. All similes and metaphors which serve to express his own emotions are carefully avoided. The whole is picturesque and life-like in the highest degree, yet every circumstance is mentioned in the cool, unimpassioned way in which we mention any common occurrence.

Thomson accomplishes his purpose by portraying his own feelings; not indeed in so many words, but by the use of those expressions, and by those transitions of thought, which mark a state of emotion. The epithet ‘boding,’ to which we have referred, is an example. It is an indirect disclosure of the mood of his own mind. At another time it is not improbable that an epithet of a directly opposite meaning would have been selected. The reader is affected by it, because by a law of sympathy, we are affected by whatever reveals the presence of passion in another. It influences us precisely as the tones of the voice of a person in distress influence us. Both are expressive of emotion, and we cannot remain unaffected by them.

This is the main source of the pleasure we feel in reading Thomson's description. It conveys to us but a very indistinct idea of the subject matter. Different readers, according to their mental peculiarities, will be differently affected by it. He does not paint to the bodily eye, but to the eye of the mind; and he will feel most pleasure who puts himself in the same position as the poet, and sees with his eyes and hears with his ears. Unless he can do this, he will derive but little gratification from the perusal.

Less minute than Irving, and more picturesque than Thomson, Scott will probably to most readers give more pleasure than either of them. In conveying lively impressions of natural objects he is unsurpassed, but he is scarcely less successful in inspiring the mind of the reader with the same emotions that fill his own breast. There is ever between the thought and its expression a perfect harmony. It is only when agitated by passion that he uses the language of passion. Hence we never find that timid phraseology which so often disgusts us in Thomson; vox et præterea nihil. No one delights more in the use of figurative language, nor employs metaphors that more appropriately convey the sentiment that pervades his mind. In the passage we have quoted are the following lines:

‘Aloft the ash and warrior oakCast anchor in the rifted rock.’

The poet looking up at the trees firmly rooted in the rifts of the rock, defying the tempest and storm, felt an emotion of pleasure which the sight of their lofty position, and the apparent danger of their being hurled headlong at the first blast of wind, contrasted with the sense of their real security, produced. To express this pleasurable emotion, he fastens upon the resemblance between a root of the tree and an anchor; a resemblance not between the things themselves, but between their uses. Neglecting all the points of difference, and confining his attention to this single point of similarity, he presents an image which all admit to be highly forcible and poetical.

The great merit of all descriptive poetry consists in the unity of feeling which pervades it. Unlike the epic, or the drama, it has none of the interest which arises from a connected narrative, or the development of individual character in reference to a certain end. The poet confines himself to the expression of those feelings which are awakened by the sight of the beauty and sublimity of nature. Passing, as he necessarily must, from one object to another, each fitted to excite in his bosom conflicting emotions, his attention is so much diverted, that none of them produces upon him its legitimate effect. There is wanting some central object of interest to which all others are subordinate. Hence is explained the listlessness of which every one is conscious in the continuous perusal of the Seasons. We find the greatest pleasure by reading a page here and a page there, according to the state of our feelings.

It is never in short poems that the descriptive poets succeed best. L’Allegro and Le Penseroso are gems; but all Milton’s genius could not have made the Paradise Lost readable, were it deprived of its unity as an epic, and broken up into a series of detached pictures. The Deserted Village of Goldsmith is the longest poem of this class that we now remember, having all its parts so pervaded by a common spirit that a succession of new objects does not impair the designed effect. Sweet Auburn as it was in its palmy days, and as it is in its desolation, presents two distinct pictures, yet so closely connected that each heightens the effect of the other by the contrast. Nothing can exceed the exquisite art with which Goldsmith has seized upon those circumstances that tend to make the desired impression, and rejected all others. How perfect are each of the following descriptions, and how much would their beauty be marred by the transfer of a single circumstance from one to the other:

‘How often have I paused on every charm,The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm;The never-failing brook, the busy mill,The decent church that topped the neighb’ring hill;The hawthorn-bush with seats beneath the shade,For talking age and whispering lovers made.·····‘The dancing pair that simply sought renown,By holding out to tire each other down;The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,While secret laughter tittered round the place;The bashful virgin’s sidelong looks of love,The matron’s glance, that would those looks reprove.·····‘No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,But choked with sedges works its weedy way;Along thy glade, a solitary guest,The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies,And tires the echoes with unvaried cries;Sunk are thy bowers, in shapeless ruin all,And the long grass o’ertops the mouldering wall.’

It is by the selection of such objects as have in themselves no common bond of union, but which combine to raise a certain emotion, that the essential distinction is to be found between the descriptions of the poet and the prose-writer. The latter joins objects together as they are joined in nature, following a principle of association which is simple and obvious. His resemblances are usually such as are cognizable by the senses; a likeness in the sensible qualities of things. The poet’s principle of association is in the effect produced on his imagination. Things which have not in themselves a single point of similarity, are connected together, because they produce the same emotions of pleasure, or pain, or hope, or melancholy. A beautiful illustration of this is found in the opening stanzas of Gray’s Elegy:

‘The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea,The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,And leaves the world to darkness and to me.Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,And all the air a solemn stillness holds,Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.’

A summer evening in the country is associated in most minds with images of mirth and joy. Thus Goldsmith has described it:

‘Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening’s close,Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;There as I passed with careless steps, and slow,The mingling notes came softened from below;The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung,The sober herd that lowed to meet their young;The noisy geese that gabbled o’er the pool,The playful children just let loose from school,The watch-dog’s voice, that bayed the whisp’ring wind,And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.’

With what consummate skill, if indeed it be not rather the instinct of the poet, has Gray avoided all mention of those objects which might awaken associations discordant with the mood of his own mind! Each epithet is full of a plaintive melancholy. There is not one that does not contribute something to the effect; not one that can be omitted; not one that can be altered for the better. Yet there is scarcely one that is descriptive of any quality actually existing in its subject. The fitness of each is to be felt rather than seen.

In the selection of those circumstances and objects which Gray has enumerated, he was governed by the effect which each had upon his own feelings. He looked upon nature in the reflected light of his own heart. He was mournful in view of the destiny of man; and wandering amidst the graves of the lowly and obscure, he saw all the external world colored with the hue of his own sad thoughts. The melancholy spirit within him transformed all things without into its own likeness. His imagination, darting hither and thither, and governed in its flight by laws too subtle and delicate to be analyzed, reposed itself for a moment amidst the gloom of the historical associations that cluster around the curfew, hovered over the lowing herd, and followed the ploughman as he homeward plods his weary way. Goldsmith, recalling the scenes where he had spent many happy hours, looks upon nature under a far different aspect. Every thing to him is gay and joyous. He hears not the hollow tones of the curfew, nor the drowsy tinklings that lull the distant folds. He sees not the wearied ploughman, caring for nought but to forget his toils in the sweet oblivion of sleep. He hears but the song of the milk-maid, and the soft response of her rustic lover; the watchdog’s voice, and the loud laugh of the happy idlers. He sees but the children just escaped from school, running and leaping, and romping in their innocent glee. Happy himself, he fastens upon whatever in nature around him seems to sympathise with him, and dwelling fondly upon it, casts away from his thoughts every thing that can obstruct the full, free flow of his joyous emotions.

We may remark in passing, what has probably been before remarked by the attentive reader, that both Gray and Goldsmith, excited as they are by different passions, refer to the ‘lowing herd’ as raising on the one hand a cheerful, and on the other a melancholy feeling. To our thought, the associations connected with the return of the herds from the fields at sunset are best fitted to awaken that quiet, reflective state of mind which is most congenial to the mood of the elegiac poet. To another, these associations may be of such a character as to produce a directly opposite effect.