Fine Art in Romantic Literature [pp. 52-66]

Fine Art in Romantic Literature.
dom. It is needless to dwell upon such familiar examples as the Faerie Queene and
Pilgrim's Progress, but contemporary poems
like Rossetti's "Card Dealer," are more likely to be overlooked:
"What be her cards, you ask? Even these: The heart, that doth but crave
More, being fed; the diamond,
Skilled to make base seem brave
The club, for smiting in the dark.
The spade, to dig a grave.
Thou see'st the card that falls,-she knows
The card that followeth;
Her game in thy tongue is called Life,
As ebbs thy daily breath;
When she shall speak thou'lt learn her tongue
And know she calls it Death."
The artist, being thus accustomed to play
with the great and the petty, and to assemble the most incongruous images in illustration of some simple, majestic thought, renders himself liable to the reproach of extravagance and absurdity. The Faerie Queene is
a phantasmagoria; a series of pictures moves
onward as in a revolving wheel, or like the
banks of a river when one is descending a
rapid stream. One scene fades out and is
borne on into the distant perspective as another assumes vividness and life; yet it is
possible, by an effort of the will, to include
both shores, and a long stretch of castled,
vine-clad, and mountain-guarded country in
a single glance. Not only is there variety of
form, but variety of color as well. The artist is not a painter in monochrome, gray on
gray. Spenser delights in brilliant hues as
heartily as Titian, or any of the Venetian
school. Besides, he commits anachronisms.
To him all the past is present. Space and
time are annihilated. The ancient world is
one with that of the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance. If you sympathize with the
poet, and adopt his verities as your own, all
will seem concordant, requiring no justification nor apology. If you regard the details
of his scheme, and do not share in his fine
frenzy, you will be likely to stigmatize the
composition as Gothic and barbarous. Upon the former hypothesis the distinction between Fancy and Imagination, so much insisted on, will be obliterated. Nothing will
be censured as wild or extravagant which
approves itself to be true.
IV.
DURING the last quarter of the eighteenth
centuryand the first quarter of the nineteenth
century there was a revival of Romanticism.
Shallow philosophy and formal poetry were
no longer adequate to those who felt the
pulse of a new and fuller life beating within
them. The more advanced of the new generation broke with tradition, and eagerly
sought release from the stifling dungeon in
which they and their fathers had been confined. In this attempt they were successful.
The rusty bars gave way, the ancient moat
was dry, the outer fortifications were falling
into decay. Bult those who had thus emerged
from the house of bondage knew not at first
what they should do with their dear-bought
and highly-prized freedom. Many, overcome
with joy, laughed and wept alternately, or
fell into paroxysms of hysterical weeping and
refused to be comforted. These have been
already described; they include Sterne and
Rousseau, and all the sentimental race that
followed. Others, climbing the nearest hill,
and surveying the landscape in all directions, looked pityingly down on their late
companions and the plain whence they themselves had but just departed, declaring that
they had seen it all, and that henceforth
there was nothing worth living for. They
had been cheated by the dreams of their
prison cell. Now they were disillusioned
they would neither return to their pallet of
straw, nor would they strike out for any goal
whatever. They would remain upon the hill,
or circle slowly round about it. From their
post of observation they had descried all
that lay in the distance, and proclaimed that
it was in no respect better than what they
had just quitted. Of this company Byron
may be taken as the type.
Still others, ascending the same hill but
half-way, looked beyond and over the fort
tress where they had been immured, and
perceived a smiling landscape, dotted with
craggy steeps, which were crowned with bat
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