The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-06-25
DE FOREST PRIZE MEDAL
lContinued from First Page.l

consistent sublime impression. In shelley drama on the other hand the scene is ever changing with quite bewildering rapidity from caves to mountnin-tops, from, earth to he'll from hell to heaven. There are ocean Ids and Fauns and Echoes, Spirits or the Earth and of the Moon and of the Hours and an indefinite number of unspeciiled and evidently simply plain everyday Spirits, with Olympian Gods galore and plenty or aemogorgons, yphantasms, and furies thrown in whenever things are getting monotonouS. We are troubled throughout moreover by an Inconsistency of plot an insuficiency or motives, an excessive minuteness in de- seripttons and general eXpansiyeness ln language-too often accompanied by consid, erable thnness of thought-Nnd above all by proneness to windy preaching and phi- losophiaing that compare quite unfavorably with the even simplicity of the matchless Greek.
 It is evident at once that that pre-emi- nently Hellenic trait which we try to eX- press in the word temperance was as con present in Aeschylus. The comparatively few expressions of defiance into which the I'rometheus of Aeschylus is drawn were probably regarded by the spectators of the drama, as they are by the chorus in the play, with simple horror, as the utmost display of that awful crime of insolence and irreverence which they called with bNted breath, "hubris." But Shelley is 'hubris' ncarnate ''Fiend, defy thee, " is the chiefest note of his Titan, and he never can tell long enough and loud enough the bitterness, the scorn, the wrath, with which he looks up from his, torture at Crime enthroned There is the same ex- travagance In the expression of the other moods of the poem. It's joy Is ecstacy, the tiger joy'' of Snelley's own phrase, The fourth act is composed entirely of loosely connected lyrics which present combina- tion of ethereal refinement with passionate eamestness which is equally foreign to the concrete cleamess and the balanced calm of the grave-Souled Greek.
 As regards dramatic quality. 1t is evident that AeSchyluss work, while containing considerable of the lyric, and not little of | the epic, element is more of drama than Shelley's. The characters occupy consist ently their respective stand 'oints, and tue | personality of the dramatist is as much concealed, one might say, as in play of 1 Shakespeare's But Shelley was totally un- | fitted by temperament for genuinely dra- matic work; holding and propagating his l beliefs with the passionateness of reli- gious fanatic he lacked entirely that sym | pathy for those with whom he differed that conception of the mingled truth and error, right and wrong in everything human which Is perhaps the most essential endowment of the dramatist. The result is that in none of his work certainly not in his Prone l theus-did he escape from a complete, in tense, and rare subjectivity. But who will complain of the deep full stream that it Is | not broad and blame a Shelley for not be- | ing a Shakespeare?
 | If we seek to compare the two works by that intangible spiritual charm which is perhaps the ultimate criterion of great po- etry, we notice at once that Shelley, en- | dowed with a. soul .tle an Aeolian harp, which every slightest breath of beauty may set a-tremble with delight, Is able to sur of feeling which Is not in any word or any sound and yet Is in all the words and all the sounds, where ''eyery pause Is filled with undernotes, ,"-that richness of dim bring to us vague longings and soft dreams 1 that hover on the border-land between sweet sadness and grave joy It is always hard for us to get to this heart of poetry far from saying that Aeschylus, with all | his beauty of rhythmical movement and ex- quisite correspondence of sound and sense is without this subtle poetic quality. We can only say that we have never read q passage in the Prometheus Bound which af. fleets us like, for instance. the verses of Shelley beginning life of life! Thy lips enkindle'' or the ones just following, be | ginning "My soul Is an enchanted boat. ' There are many of these lines whose every word is heard,-whose every form is seen golden in the radiant ether atmosphere ot gods and poets.
 We can only now In conclusion compare the two poems as regards moral intensity It does not take us long to see the differ ence. It Is the transcendental God-aspect and fate-aspect of the story which engages | AeschyluS. He treats it with an appropri ate grandeur, but uninflamed by its ethica
 meaning. Shelley Is atire with srmpathies ana sell -SacrluceS. nerOlS1nS ana hopes. Al his sublimest conceptions are ethical. IIt lives in world of moral images and ideals life to him does not mean the eating ant drinking affair 1t does to many.
 Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses,
 But feeds on the aerial kisses
 Of shapes that haunt thoughts wilder nesses."
 So when he writes this great poem ht
 filings himself into it with the fervor of { holy consecration to righteousness and love
 It is wrong to call such a man an atheist
 the beautiful forms of ne spiritual world mean too much to him; and indeed at time'
 we cannot help feeling that If less reveren
 than Aeschyus, Shelley is the more reli
 gouS man of the two. And so his whole
 poem throbs with love and rings with th'
 songs of better life that is to be. Fo
 Shelley is a boundless optimist and dare
 believe that when once oppressive custon
 has been done away, perfect happiness i
 reserved for man. And if we of more sci
 entifc age and temper, sadly smiling, sa,
 "a dream" yet-even dreams sometimes
 come true. Shall we not better hold tha
 ShelIey's hopes were not empty, but onl.
 premature? Shall we not listen gladly t
 these ravishing songs of the larger hope
 and believe they are true prophecies of tha
 great day when on the stage of earth tn
 curtain of time shall fall forever upon tn
 ended drama of Redemption.