章节正文
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He sympathized in their beliefs even when he did not share them.
Above all he loved their culture; and the love of culture in general,
of its old classic forms in particular, was as strong in him
as if it had been formed by all the natural and conventional associations
of a university career. He had hearty friends and appreciators
among the dignitaries of the Church -- successive Archbishops and Bishops,
Deans of Westminster and St. Paul's. They all knew the value
of the great freelance who fought like the gods of old with the regular army.
No name, however, has been mentioned in the poet's family more frequently
or with more affection than that of the Rev. J. D. W. Williams,
Vicar of Bottisham in Cambridgeshire. The mutualacquaintance, which was made
through Mr. Browning's brother-in-law, Mr. George Moulton-Barrett,
was prepared by Mr. Williams' great love for his poems,
of which he translated many into Latin and Greek; but I am convinced
that Mr. Browning's delight in his friend's classical attainments
was quite as great as his gratification in the tribute
he himself derived from them.
His love of genius was a worship: and in this we must include his whole life.
Nor was it, as this feeling so often is, exclusively exercised upon the past.
I do not suppose his more eminent contemporaries ever quite knew how generous
his enthusiasm for them had been, how free from any under-current of envy,
or impulse to avoidable criticism" target="_blank" title="n.批评；评论(文)">criticism. He could not endure
even just censure of one whom he believed, or had believed to be great.
I have seen him wince under it, though no third person was present,
and heard him answer, `Don't! don't!' as if physical pain
were being inflicted on him. In the early days he would make his friend,
M. de Monclar, draw for him from memory the likenesses of famous writers
whom he had known in Paris; the sketches thus made
of George Sand and Victor Hugo are still in the poet's family.
A still more striking and very touchingincident refers to one of the winters,
probably the second, which he spent in Paris. He was one day
walking with little Pen, when Beranger came in sight,
and he bade the child `run up to' or `run past that gentleman,
and put his hand for a moment upon him.' This was a great man,
he afterwards explained, and he wished his son to be able by-and-by
to say that if he had not known, he had at all events touched him.
Scientific genius ranked with him only second to the poetical.
Mr. Browning's delicateprofessional sympathies justified some sensitiveness
on his own account; but he was, I am convinced, as free from this quality
as a man with a poet-nature could possibly be. It may seem hazardous
to conjecture how serious criticism" target="_blank" title="n.批评；评论(文)">criticism would have affected him.
Few men so much `reviewed' have experienced so little.
He was by turns derided or ignored, enthusiastically praised,
zealously analyzed and interpreted: but the independent judgment
which could embrace at once the quality of his mind and its defects,
is almost absent -- has been so at all events during later years --
from the volumes which have been written about him. I am convinced,
nevertheless, that he would have accepted serious, even adversecriticism" target="_blank" title="n.批评；评论(文)">criticism,
if it had borne the impress of unbiassed thought and genuine sincerity.
It could not be otherwise with one in whom the power of reverence
was so strongly marked.
He asked but one thing of his reviewers, as he asked but one thing
of his larger public. The first demand is indicated in a letter
to Mrs. Frank Hill, of January 31, 1884.
==
Dear Mrs. Hill, -- Could you befriend me? The `Century' prints
a little insignificance of mine -- an impromptu sonnet --
but prints it CORRECTLY. The `Pall Mall' pleases to extract it --
and produces what I enclose: one line left out, and a note of admiration (!)
turned into an I, and a superfluous `the' stuck in --
all these blunders with the correctly printed text before it!
So does the charge of unintelligibility attach itself to your poor friend --
who can kick nobody.
Robert Browning.
==
The carelessness often shown in the most friendly quotation
could hardly be absent from that which was intended to support a hostile view;
and the only injustice of which he ever complained,
was what he spoke of as falsely condemning him out of his own mouth.
He used to say: `If a critic declares that any poem of mine
is unintelligible, the reader may go to it and judge for himself;
but, if it is made to appear unintelligible by a passage extracted from it
and distorted by misprints, I have no redress.' He also failed to realize
those conditions of thought, and still more of expression,
which made him often on first reading difficult to understand;
and as the younger generation of his admirers often deny those difficulties
where they exist, as emphatically as their grandfathers proclaimed them
where they did not, public opinion gave him little help in the matter.
The second (unspoken) request was in some sense an antithesis to the first.
Mr. Browning desired to be read accurately but not literally.
He deprecated the constant habit of reading him into his work;
whether in search of the personal meaning of a given passage or poem,
or in the light of a foregone conclusion as to what that meaning must be.
The latter process was that generally preferred, because the individual mind
naturally seeks its own reflection in the poet's work,
as it does in the facts of nature. It was stimulated by the investigations
of the Browning Societies, and by the partialfamiliarity with his actual life
which constantly supplied tempting, if untrustworthy clues. It grew out of
the strong personal as well as literary interest which he inspired.
But the tendency to listen in his work for a single recurrent note
always struck him as analogous to the inspection of a picture gallery
with eyes blind to every colour but one; and the act of sympathy
often involved in this mode of judgment was neutralized for him
by the limitation of his genius which it presupposed.
His general objection to being identified with his works
is set forth in `At the Mermaid', and other poems of the same volume,
in which it takes the form of a rather captious protest
Above all he loved their culture; and the love of culture in general,
of its old classic forms in particular, was as strong in him
as if it had been formed by all the natural and conventional associations
of a university career. He had hearty friends and appreciators
among the dignitaries of the Church -- successive Archbishops and Bishops,
Deans of Westminster and St. Paul's. They all knew the value
of the great freelance who fought like the gods of old with the regular army.
No name, however, has been mentioned in the poet's family more frequently
or with more affection than that of the Rev. J. D. W. Williams,
Vicar of Bottisham in Cambridgeshire. The mutualacquaintance, which was made
through Mr. Browning's brother-in-law, Mr. George Moulton-Barrett,
was prepared by Mr. Williams' great love for his poems,
of which he translated many into Latin and Greek; but I am convinced
that Mr. Browning's delight in his friend's classical attainments
was quite as great as his gratification in the tribute
he himself derived from them.
His love of genius was a worship: and in this we must include his whole life.
Nor was it, as this feeling so often is, exclusively exercised upon the past.
I do not suppose his more eminent contemporaries ever quite knew how generous
his enthusiasm for them had been, how free from any under-current of envy,
or impulse to avoidable criticism" target="_blank" title="n.批评；评论(文)">criticism. He could not endure
even just censure of one whom he believed, or had believed to be great.
I have seen him wince under it, though no third person was present,
and heard him answer, `Don't! don't!' as if physical pain
were being inflicted on him. In the early days he would make his friend,
M. de Monclar, draw for him from memory the likenesses of famous writers
whom he had known in Paris; the sketches thus made
of George Sand and Victor Hugo are still in the poet's family.
A still more striking and very touchingincident refers to one of the winters,
probably the second, which he spent in Paris. He was one day
walking with little Pen, when Beranger came in sight,
and he bade the child `run up to' or `run past that gentleman,
and put his hand for a moment upon him.' This was a great man,
he afterwards explained, and he wished his son to be able by-and-by
to say that if he had not known, he had at all events touched him.
Scientific genius ranked with him only second to the poetical.
Mr. Browning's delicateprofessional sympathies justified some sensitiveness
on his own account; but he was, I am convinced, as free from this quality
as a man with a poet-nature could possibly be. It may seem hazardous
to conjecture how serious criticism" target="_blank" title="n.批评；评论(文)">criticism would have affected him.
Few men so much `reviewed' have experienced so little.
He was by turns derided or ignored, enthusiastically praised,
zealously analyzed and interpreted: but the independent judgment
which could embrace at once the quality of his mind and its defects,
is almost absent -- has been so at all events during later years --
from the volumes which have been written about him. I am convinced,
nevertheless, that he would have accepted serious, even adversecriticism" target="_blank" title="n.批评；评论(文)">criticism,
if it had borne the impress of unbiassed thought and genuine sincerity.
It could not be otherwise with one in whom the power of reverence
was so strongly marked.
He asked but one thing of his reviewers, as he asked but one thing
of his larger public. The first demand is indicated in a letter
to Mrs. Frank Hill, of January 31, 1884.
==
Dear Mrs. Hill, -- Could you befriend me? The `Century' prints
a little insignificance of mine -- an impromptu sonnet --
but prints it CORRECTLY. The `Pall Mall' pleases to extract it --
and produces what I enclose: one line left out, and a note of admiration (!)
turned into an I, and a superfluous `the' stuck in --
all these blunders with the correctly printed text before it!
So does the charge of unintelligibility attach itself to your poor friend --
who can kick nobody.
Robert Browning.
==
The carelessness often shown in the most friendly quotation
could hardly be absent from that which was intended to support a hostile view;
and the only injustice of which he ever complained,
was what he spoke of as falsely condemning him out of his own mouth.
He used to say: `If a critic declares that any poem of mine
is unintelligible, the reader may go to it and judge for himself;
but, if it is made to appear unintelligible by a passage extracted from it
and distorted by misprints, I have no redress.' He also failed to realize
those conditions of thought, and still more of expression,
which made him often on first reading difficult to understand;
and as the younger generation of his admirers often deny those difficulties
where they exist, as emphatically as their grandfathers proclaimed them
where they did not, public opinion gave him little help in the matter.
The second (unspoken) request was in some sense an antithesis to the first.
Mr. Browning desired to be read accurately but not literally.
He deprecated the constant habit of reading him into his work;
whether in search of the personal meaning of a given passage or poem,
or in the light of a foregone conclusion as to what that meaning must be.
The latter process was that generally preferred, because the individual mind
naturally seeks its own reflection in the poet's work,
as it does in the facts of nature. It was stimulated by the investigations
of the Browning Societies, and by the partialfamiliarity with his actual life
which constantly supplied tempting, if untrustworthy clues. It grew out of
the strong personal as well as literary interest which he inspired.
But the tendency to listen in his work for a single recurrent note
always struck him as analogous to the inspection of a picture gallery
with eyes blind to every colour but one; and the act of sympathy
often involved in this mode of judgment was neutralized for him
by the limitation of his genius which it presupposed.
His general objection to being identified with his works
is set forth in `At the Mermaid', and other poems of the same volume,
in which it takes the form of a rather captious protest
- associate [ə´səuʃieit]
v.联合a.同伴的n.伙伴 (初中英语单词) - dramatic [drə´mætik] a.戏剧的；戏剧般的 (初中英语单词)
- imagination [i,mædʒi´neiʃən] n.想象(力) (初中英语单词)
- factor [´fæktə] n.因素；原动力；要素 (初中英语单词)
- estimate [´estimət, ´estimeit] n.估计；评价 vt.估价 (初中英语单词)
- measure [´meʒə] n.量度；范围 vt.测量 (初中英语单词)
- impression [im´preʃən] n.印刷；印象；效果 (初中英语单词)
- sympathetic [,simpə´θetik] a.同情的，有同情心的 (初中英语单词)
- atmosphere [´ætməsfiə] n.大气；空气；气氛 (初中英语单词)
- strongly [´strɔŋli] ad.强烈地；强有力地 (初中英语单词)
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章节正文
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