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Familiar Studies of Men & Books-Part16_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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V.

Something should be said of Whitman's style, for style is of



the essence of thinking. And where a man is so critically

deliberate as our author, and goes solemnly about his poetry



for an ulterior end, every indication is worth notice. He

has chosen a rough, unrhymed, lyrical verse; sometimes



instinct with a fine processional movement; often so rugged

and careless that it can only be described by saying that he



has not taken the trouble to write prose. I believe myself

that it was selected principally because it was easy to



write, although not without recollections of the marching

measures of some of the prose in our English Old Testament.



According to Whitman, on the other hand, "the time has

arrived to essentially break down the barriers of form



between Prose and Poetry . . . for the most cogent purposes

of those great inland states, and for Texas, and California,



and Oregon;" - a statement which is among the happiest

achievements of American humour. He calls his verses



"recitatives," in easily followed allusion to a musical form.

"Easily-written, loose-fingered chords," he cries, "I feel



the thrum of your climax and close." Too often, I fear, he

is the only one who can perceive the rhythm; and in spite of



Mr. Swinburne, a great part of his work considered as verses

is poor bald stuff. Considered, not as verse, but as speech,



a great part of it is full of strange and admirable merits.

The right detail is seized; the right word, bold and



trenchant, is thrust into its place. Whitman has small

regard to literary decencies, and is totally free from



literary timidities. He is neither afraid of being slangy

nor of being dull; nor, let me add, of being ridiculous. The



result is a most surprisingcompound of plain grandeur,

sentimental affectation, and downrightnonsense. It would be



useless to follow his detractors and give instances of how

bad he can be at his worst; and perhaps it would be not much



wiser to give extracted specimens of how happily he can write

when he is at his best. These come in to most advantage in



their own place; owing something, it may be, to the offset of

their curious surroundings. And one thing is certain, that



no one can appreciate Whitman's excellences until he has

grown accustomed to his faults. Until you are content to



pick poetry out of his pages almost as you must pick it out

of a Greek play in Bohn's translation, your gravity will be



continually upset, your ears perpetually disappointed, and

the whole book will be no more to you than a particularly



flagrant production by the Poet Close.

A writer of this uncertain quality was, perhaps, unfortunate



in taking for thesis the beauty of the world as it now is,

not only on the hill-tops but in the factory; not only by the



harbour full of stately ships, but in the magazine of the

hopelessly prosaic hatter. To show beauty in common things



is the work of the rarest tact. It is not to be done by the

wishing. It is easy to posit as a theory, but to bring it



home to men's minds is the problem of literature, and is only

accomplished by rare talent, and in comparatively rare



instances. To bid the whole world stand and deliver, with a

dogma in one's right hand by way of pistol; to cover reams of



paper in a galloping, headstrong vein; to cry louder and

louder over everything as it comes up, and make no



distinction in one's enthusiasm over the most incomparable

matters; to prove one's entire want of sympathy for the



jaded, literary palate, by calling, not a spade a spade, but

a hatter a hatter, in a lyrical apostrophe; - this, in spite



of all the airs of inspiration, is not the way to do it. It

may be very wrong, and very wounding to a respectable branch



of industry, but the word "hatter" cannot be used seriously

in emotional verse; not to understand this, is to have no



literary tact; and I would, for his own sake, that this were




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