The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-11-04
sOME BOOKS WORTH READING.
Brandes on Modern English Poetry.

Brandes on Modern English Poetry.
The well known Danish critic, GEORGE
BEAHDEs, devotes the fourth volume Of
his 'Mein Currents in Nineteenth Century
Literature" TO NdturaIism in England
tMncmillansl. The purpose OF the book
1. 70 trace In tho ruxiish poetry of the first
decade Of the nineteenth century the strong
cu-rsn. in the intellectual life of the
country which, sweeping away the classic
forms and conventions, produced a natural
,s.u dominating the whole of literature which
accompanied or c~ngendered rs-olt against
religious and political s~tagnatiOn or re-
action and bore in its bosom the germs
of all the liberal IDEAS and emancipatory
achievements Of a later period. The poets
principally discussed in this volume are
Wordsworth, Coleridgc, Southey. Scott,
Keats, Moore. Shelley and Byron; IL does
not enter within the scope of the writer's
theme. to speak of ~1ennysop, Browning,
Matthew Arnold or S~winburpe. In an in
troductory chapter the author shows O
distinctly may be traced in the poets whom
lie has chosen for study signs Of the general
European uprising against the ideas and
conventional sms of the eighteenth CEN
tury The strong national feeling which
superseded the sentiment OF cosmopolitan
ism appears in England in Wordsworth,
IN the form of patriotic poetical description,
while Scott and Moore may fairly be
described as literary personifications Of
Scotland and Ireland. Then. too, the uni
verpal return to the popular level finds its
chief representative and spokesman in
Wordsw orth. whose special theme is the
life Of the lower, and even the lowest. classes.
The prediction for the Middle Ages. a.
opposed 80 the eighteenth century, is strong
eat in Scott, who combines the ~antiquarian's
delight in memories and survivals Of the
past with the Tory politicians desire TO
represent the traditional in the most at
t~ractive light. rhe romanticism Of super
stition finds is poet in Colcridge, while the
passionate. despairing heroes of Chateau
brand and Of Romanticism generally are
70 be found. more passionate and more
manly. in the works Of Byron. In Keats
nafuraIiSm took possession Of the whole
world of the senses and reposed for a
moment on the neutral ground between
tranquil contemplation Of nature and the
proclamation Of q gospel Of nature and Of
natural rights. In Shelley the contem-
porary reaction against conv~entionalism
WIG transformed INTO a soulful love of ma
ture and n Poetic. radicalism, which had
at their command peetie gifts of the highest
order. but the ~indisputable fact is recalled
that the incorporeal universally Of Shelley's
naturalism. in combination with the cir
crmstance that he was much too far ahead
Of his age. and in combination also with his
early death, caused his song TO die away
unheard, Europe never learning what a
poet she possessed until long after she had
lost him. Brandes, as we shall see. like
Goethe and most other foreign critics,
would place Byron far above contemporary
English poets. Brandes compares the work
done by Byron after Shelley's death to the
uprising Of Achilles in his wrath after he
has burned the body OF Pstroclus. -Eu-
ropean poetry was flowing on like a slug
gish, smooth river; those who walked along
ats banks found little for the eye to rest on.
All at once. as q continuation of the stream,
appeared this poetry lByron'sl under
which the ground 40 often gave way that
II precipitated itself in cataracts from n
level to another-and the eyes of all in
avitably turn 20 that part Of a river where
it's stream becomes a waterfall. In Byron's
poetry the river boiled and foamed. and the
roar of its waters made music that mounted
up to heaven In its seething fury il formed
w~hirlpools. tore itself and whatever came
in its way, and in the end undermined
the vssy rocks" Our author adds that -in
the midst Of the Internal surge sat such
an Iris as the poet himself has described
in "Childe H~arold"-"a glorious rainbow, the
emblem OF freedom and peace, invisible
TO many, but clearly seen by all who with
the sun above them in the sky placed them
selves in the right position"