Longfellow

CHARACTERIZATION BY GEORGE W. CURTIS.

1. If we care to explain the eager and affectionate welcome which always hails Longfellow's writings, it is easy to see to what general quality that greeting must be ascribed. As with Walter Scott, or Victor Hugo, or Béranger, or Dickens, or Addi

son in the Spectator, or Washington Irving, it is a genial humanity. It is a quality, in all these instances, independent of literary art and of genius, but which is made known to others, and therefore becomes possible to be recognized, only through literary forms.

2. The creative imagination, the airy fancy, the exquisite grace, harmony, and simplicity, the rhetorical brilliancy, the incisive force, all the intellectual powers and charms of style with which that feeling may be expressed, are informed and vitalized by the sympathy itself. But whether a man who writes verse has genius, whether he be a poet according to arbitrary canons, whether some of his lines resemble the lines of other writers, and whether he be original, are questions which may be answered in every way of every poet in history. Who is a poet but he whom the heart of man permanently accepts as a singer of its own hopes, emotions, and thoughts? And what is poetry but that song? If words have a uniform meaning, it is useless to declare that Pope cannot be a poet if Lord Byron is, or that Moore is counterfeit if Wordsworth be genuine. For the art of poetry is like all other arts. The casket that Cellini worked is not less genuine and excellent than the dome of Michael Angelo. Is nobody but Shakespeare a poet? Is there no music but Beethoven's? Is there no mountain-peak but Dhawalaghiri? No cataract but Niagara?

3. While the magnetism of Longfellow's touch lies in the broad humanity of his sympathy, which leads him neither to mysticism nor cynicism, and which commends his poetry to the universal heart, his artistic sense is so exquisite that each of his poems is a valuable literary study. In these he has now reached a perfection quite unrivalled among living poets, except, sometimes by Tennyson. His literary career has been contemporary with the sensational school, but he has been entirely untainted by it. The literary style of an intellectually introverted age or author will always be somewhat obscure, however gorgeous; but Longfellow's mind takes a simple, childlike hold of life, and his style never betrays the inadequate effort to describe thoughts or emotions that are but vaguely perceived, which is the characteristic of the best sensational writing. Indeed, there is little poetry by the eminent contemporary masters which is so ripe

and racy as his. He does not make rhetoric stand for passion, nor vagueness for profundity; nor, on the other hand, is he such a voluntary and malicious "Bohemian" as to conceive that either in life or letters a man is released from the plain rules of morality. Indeed, he used to be accused of preaching in his poetry by gentle critics who held that Elysium was to be found in an oyster-cellar, and that intemperance was the royal prerogative of genius.

4. His literary scholarship, also, his delightful familiarity with the pure literature of all languages and times, must rank Longfellow among the learned poets. Yet he wears this various knowledge like a shining suit of chain-mail to adorn and strengthen his gait, like Milton, instead of tripping and clumsily stumbling in it, as Ben Jonson sometimes did. He whips out an exquisitely pointed allusion that flashes like a Damascus rapier, and strikes nimbly home; or he recounts some weird tradition, or enriches his line with some gorgeous illustration from hidden stores; or merely unrolls, as Milton loved to do, the vast perspective of romantic association by recounting, in measured order, names which themselves make music in the mind-names not musical only, but fragrant:

"Sabean odors from the spicy shore
Of Araby the Blest."

KÉRAMOS.

[INTRODUCTION.-The poem of Kéramos (Greek kéramos, potter's clay, or earthenware) is a very effective handling in verse of a subject not seemingly very promising the making of pottery. It belongs to the same class of poems as The Building of the Ship, and is, says Mr. R. H. Stoddard, "as perfect a piece of poetic art as that exquisite poem."]

1. Turn, turn, my wheel! Turn round and round
Without a pause, without a sound:

So spins the flying world away!

This clay, well mixed with marl and sand,
Follows the motion of my hand;

For some must follow and some command,
Though all are made of clay!

2. Thus sang the Potter at his task

Beneath the blossoming hawthorn-tree,
While o'er his features, like a mask,
The quilted sunshine and leaf shade
Moved, as the boughs above him swayed,

NOTES.-Line 1. my wheel, the potter's

lathe or "throwing-wheel :" it
is one of the most ancient ma-
chines, and was used in Egypt
4000 years ago.

4. clay.
... marl. “Clay" is the base
of the materials for all kinds of

pottery.

"Marl" enters into the composition of various kinds of porcelain, such as old Sèvres china.

7. all are made of clay. Compare Jeremiah xviii., 6; Romans ix.,

21.

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-I-7. In the first stanza, who is represented as speaking or singing?—It will be noted that the poet's song is eight times interrupted by a melodious interlude from the potter. The effect is singularly impressive; for the composition thus assumes the character of a fugue in which, to the airy melody in celebration of the potter's art, there responds, ever and anon, a deeper strain of world-tones, admonishing us that “all are made of clay.”

1. Turn... wheel. What kind of sentence grammatically?—What figure of speech in this sentence? (See Def. 36.)—Turn. What are the modifiers of this verb?

3. So... away! Observe the grand sweep of this line.

8-17. Thus ... fire. Change into the prose order.—Is the structure periodic or loose ?—In this sentence point out a simile; a metaphor.—Select the most felicitous epithets.

5

10

And clothed him, till he seemed to be
A figure woven in tapestry,*

So sumptuously was he arrayed
In that magnificent attire

Of sable tissue flaked with fire.
Like a magician* he appeared,
A conjurer without book or beard;
And while he plied his magic art—
For it was magical to me—

I stood in silence and apart,
And wondered more and more to see
That shapeless, lifeless mass of clay
Rise up to meet the master's hand,
And now contract and now expand,
And even his slightest touch obey;
While ever in a thoughtful mood
He sang his ditty, and at times
Whistled a tune between the rhymes,
As a melodious interlude.

3. Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change
To something new, to something strange:

Nothing that is can pause or stay:

The moon will wax,* the moon will wane,
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,

The rain to mist and cloud again,
To-morrow be to-day.

4. Thus still the Potter sang, and still,

By some unconscious act of will,
The melody, and even the words,
Were intermingled with my thought,

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-19. without book or beard. Explain the allusion. 20. plied his magic art. Change this paraphrasis into plain language.

27. touch. Grammatical construction?-obey. Literal or figurative?

29. ditty. Etymology of the word?

32-38. Turn... to-day. In this stanza what is the refrain?-Point out an example of antimetabole. (See Def. 18, ii.)