mind had been plucked before it had been duly mellowed by reflection. Again, he did not care enough for common things to present them with artistic fulness. He was intolerant of detail, and thus failed to model with the roundness that we find in Goethe's work. He flew at the grand, the spacious, the sublime; and did not always succeed in realizing for his readers what he had imagined. A certain want of faith in his own powers, fostered by the extraordinary discouragement under which he had to write, prevented him from finishing what he began, or from giving that ultimate form of perfection to his longer works which we admire in shorter pieces, like the Ode to the West Wind. When a poem was ready, he had it hastily printed, and passed on to fresh creative efforts. If anything occurred to interrupt his energy, he flung the sketch aside. 5. Some of these defects, if we may use the word at all to indicate our sense that Shelley might by care have been made equal to his highest self, were in a great measure the correlative of his chief quality-the ideality of which I have already spoken. He composed with all his faculties—mental, emotional, and physical-at the utmost strain, at a white heat of intense fervor, striving to attain one object, the truest and most passionate investiture for the thoughts which had inflamed his over-quick imagination. The result is that his finest work has more the stamp of something natural and elemental-the wind, the sea, the depth of air-than of a more artistic product. Plato would have said "the Muses filled this man with sacred madness," and, when he wrote, he was no longer in his own control. 6. There was, moreover, ever present in his nature an effort, an aspiration after a better than the best this world can show, which prompted him to blend the choicest products of his thought and fancy with the fairest images borrowed from the earth on which he lived. He never willingly composed except under the impulse to body forth a vision of the love and light and life which was the spirit of the power he worshipped. This persistent upward striving, this earnestness, this passionate intensity, this piety of soul and purity of inspiration, give a quite unique spirituality to his poems. But it cannot be expected that the colder perfections of the Academic art should be always found in them. They have something of the waywardness and negligence of nature, 399 something of the asymmetreia we admire in the earlier creations of Greek architecture. That Shelley, acute critic and profound student as he was, could conform himself to rule and show himself an artist in the stricter sense is, however, abundantly proved by The Cenci and by Adonais. The reason why he did not always observe this method will be understood by those who have studied his Defence of Poetry, and learned to sympathize with his impassioned theory of art. 7. If a final word were needed to utter the unutterable sense of waste excited in us by Shelley's premature absorption into the mystery of the unknown, we might find it in the last lines of his own Alastor: And all the shows o' the world are frail and vain I. ODE TO A SKYLARK. [INTRODUCTION.-The Ode to a Skylark, the most popular of all Shelley's lyrics, was produced in 1820, when the poet was in his twenty-ninth year-two years before his death. "It is,” says Prof. De Mille, “penetrated through and through with the spirit of the beautiful, and has more of high and pure poetic rapture than any other ode in existence."] I. Hail to thee, blithe spirit, Bird thou never wert, In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. LITERARY ANALYSIS.-What are the principal characteristics of this lyric? Ans. They are delicacy of imagery and exquisite melody of language. 1-5. What kind of sentence, grammatically considered. is the first stanza? -Point out any epithets of special beauty in this stanza.-Explain the expres sion "unpremeditated art.” II. Higher still and higher, Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. III. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run, Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. IV. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. V. Keen are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 6-10. Higher... singest. Arrange in the prose order. What is meant by "the blue deep?" 10. And singing... singest. What is the figure of speech? (See Def. 18.1) 15. unbodied joy. Explain this expression. 16-20. In stanza iv. give an instance of alliteration.—Point out a fine image and give the kind of figure.—Give an example of oxymoron in this stanza. 21-25. What is the thought in this stanza? This sentence is an example of that form of antithesis to which the name antimetabole is sometimes given: the order of words is reversed in each member of the antithesis. 10 15 20 25 VI. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. VII. What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. VIII. Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not. LITERARY ANALYSIS.-27. is loud How do you defend the use of the singular verb here? 28. when night is bare. 30. rains out her beams. Explain. What is the figure of speech? (See Def. 20.) 31. What... not. Observe that the poet had already implied ignorance of the creature's nature by affirming it to be a "spirit" (line 1), and denying it to be "bird" (line 2). 33-35. From rainbow... melody. Arrange in the prose order and supply ellipsis. 36-60. In line 32 the poet, finding it impossible to tell what the skylark is, asks "What is most like thee?" and he now proceeds, in stanzas viii.-xii., to answer this question in a series of lovely images-"apples of silver in pictures of gold." On this passage it is well observed by De Mille (Rhetoric, p. 109): "The poet, in his high enthusiasm, seems to exhaust himself in fitting subjects of comparison. Each one as it comes is made use of, but each one is hurriedly dismissed in order to present another; and the rich and varied imagery never fails to respond to the sustained elevation of this perfect song." 36-40. Paraphrase the first simile. IX. Like a high-born maiden Soul in secret hour, With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower. X. Like a glowworm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aërial hue 45 Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view. 50 XI. Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-wingéd thieves. 55 XII. Sound of vernal showers On the tinkling grass, All that ever was Joyous and clear and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 60 LITERARY ANALYSIS.—41-45. In stanza ix., what words are of other than Anglo-Saxon origin? 46-50. Examine stanza x. with respect to its melody.-Give examples of alliteration. Do these aid the melody? 47. dell of dew. Change the adjective phrase into an adjective word. 55. Cite a figurative expression in this line. 56. vernal. Substitute an Anglo-Saxon synonym. 57. tinkling grass. What is the force of the epithet? 60. Point out the example of polysyndeton in this line. |