On The Art of Reading Part 6

Now, having touched on mud-pies, let me say a few words upon these aesthetic imitative instincts of acting, dancing, singing before I follow Aristotle into his explanation of the origin of Poetry, which I think we may agree to be the highest subject of our Art of Reading and to hold promise of its highest reward.

Every wise mother sings or croons to her child and dances him on her knee. She does so by sure instinct, long before the small body can respond or his eyes--always blue at first and unfathomably aged--return her any answer. It lulls him into the long spells of sleep so necessary for his first growth. By and by, when he has found his legs, he begins to skip, and even before he has found articulate speech, to croon for himself. Pa.s.s a stage, and you find him importing speech, drama, dance, incantation, into his games with his playmates. Watch a cl.u.s.ter of children as they enact "Here we go gathering nuts in May"-- eloquent line: it is just what they are doing!--or "Here come three Dukes a-riding," or "Fetch a pail of water," or "Sally, Sally Waters":

Sally, Sally Waters, Sitting in the sand, Rise, Sally--rise, Sally, For a young man.

Suitor presented, accepted [I have noted, by the way, that this game is more popular with girls than with boys]; wedding ceremony hastily performed--so hastily, it were more descriptive to say 'taken for granted'--within the circle; the dancers, who join hands and resume the measure, chanting

Now you are married, we wish you joy-- First a girl and then a boy

--the order, I suspect, dictated by exigencies of rhyme rather than of Eugenics, as Dryden confessed that a rhyme had often helped him to a thought. And yet I don't know; for the incantation goes on to redress the balance in a way that looks scientific:

Ten years after, son and daughter, And now--

[Practically!]

And now, Miss Sally, come out of the water.

The players end by supplying the applause which, in these days of division of labour, is commonly left to the audience.

III

Well, there you have it all: acting, singing, dancing, choral movement--enlisted ancillary to the domestic drama: and, when you start collecting evidence of these imitative instincts blent in childhood the ma.s.s will soon amaze you and leave you no room to be surprised that many learned scholars, on the supposition that uncivilised man is a child more or less--and at least so much of child that one can argue through children's practice to his--have found the historical origin of Poetry itself in these primitive performances: 'communal poetry' as they call it. I propose to discuss with you (may be neat term) in a lecture not belonging to this 'course' the likelihood that what we call specifically 'the Ballad,' or 'Ballad Poetry,' originated thus. Here is a wider question. Did all Poetry develop out of this, historically, as a process in time and in fact? These scholars (among whom I will instance one of the most learned--Dr Gummere) hold that it did: and I may take a pa.s.sage from Dr Gummere's "Beginnings of Poetry"

(p. 95) to show you how they call in the practice of savage races to support their theory. The Botocudos of South America are-- according to Dr Paul Ehrenreich who has observed them[1]--an ungentlemanly tribe, 'very low in the social scale.'

The Botocudos are little better than a leaderless horde, and pay scant respect to their chieftain; they live only for their immediate bodily needs, and take small thought for the morrow, still less for the past. No traditions, no legends, are abroad to tell them of their forbears. They still use gestures to express feeling and ideas; while the number of words which imitate a given sound 'is extraordinarily great' An action or an object is named by imitating the sound peculiar to it; and sounds are doubled to express greater intensity.... To speak is _a_; to speak loudly or to sing, is _a-a._ And now for their aesthetic life, their song, dance, poetry, as described by this accurate observer. 'On festal occasions the whole horde meets by night round the camp fire for a dance. Men and women alternating ... form a circle; each dancer lays his arms about the necks of his two neighbours, and the entire ring begins to turn to the right or to the left, while all the dancers stamp strongly and in rhythm the foot that is advanced, and drag after it the other foot. Now with drooping heads they press closer and closer together; now they widen the circle.

Throughout the dance resounds a monotonous song to which they stamp their feet. Often one can hear nothing but a continually repeated _kalani aha!_...Again, however, short improvised songs, in which we are told the doings of the day, the reasons for rejoicing, what not, as "Good hunting," or "Now we have something to eat," or "Brandy is good."'

'As to the aesthetic value' of these South American utterances, Dr Gummere asks in a footnote, 'how far is it inferior to the sonorous commonplaces of our own verse--say "The Psalm of Life?"'

I really cannot answer that question. Which do you prefer, Gentlemen?--'Life is real, life is earnest,' or 'Now we have something to eat'? I must leave you to settle it with the Food Controller.

The Professor goes on:

'Now and then, too, an individual begins a song, and is answered by the rest in chorus.... _They never sing without dancing, never dance without singing, and have but one word to express both song and dance._'

As the unprejudiced reader sees [Dr Gummere proceeds]

this clear and admirable account confirms the doctrine of early days revived with fresh ethnological evidence in the writings of Dr Brown and of Adam Smith, that dance, poetry and song were once a single and inseparable function, and is in itself fatal to the idea of rhythmic prose, of solitary recitation, as foundations of poetry.... All poetry is communal, holding fast to the rhythm of consent as to the one sure fact.

IV

Now I should tell you, Gentlemen, that I hold such utterances as this last--whatever you may think of the utterances of the Botocudos--to be exorbitant: that I distrust all attempts to build up (say) "Paradise Lost" historically from the yells and capers of recondite savages. 'Life is real, life is earnest' may be no better aesthetically (I myself think it a little better) than 'Now we have something to eat' 'Brandy is good' may rival Pindar's [Greek: Arioton men udor], and indeed puts what it contains of truth with more of finality, less of provocation (though Pindar at once follows up [Greek: Arioton men udor] with exquisite poetry): but you cannot--truly you cannot--exhibit the steps which lead up from 'Brandy is good' to such lines as

Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine.

I bend over the learned page pensively, and I seem to see a Botocudo Professor--though not high 'in the social scale,' they may have such things--visiting Cambridge on the last night of the Lent races and reporting of its inhabitants as follows:

They pay scant heed to their chiefs: they live only for their immediate bodily needs, and take small thought for the morrow. On festal occasions the whole horde meets by night round the camp fire for a dance. Each dancer lays his arms about the necks of his two neighbours, stamping strongly with one foot and dragging the other after it. Now with drooping heads they press closer and closer together; now they widen the circle. Often one can hear nothing but a continually repeated _kalani aha,_ or again one hears short improvised songs in which we are told the doings of the day, the reasons for rejoicing, what not, as 'Good hunting,' 'Good old--'[naming a tribal G.o.d], or in former times '_Now_ we shall be but a short while,' or '_Woemma!_' Now and then, too, an individual begins a song and is answered by the rest in chorus--such as

For he is an estimable person Beyond possibility of gainsaying.

The chorus twice repeats this and a.s.severates that they are following a custom common to the flotilla, the expeditionary force, and even their rude seats of learning.

And Dr Gummere, or somebody else, comments: 'As the unprejudiced reader will see, this clear and admirable account confirms our hypothesis that in communal celebration we have at once the origin and model of three poems, "The Faerie Queene," "Paradise Lost" and "In Memoriam," recorded as having been composed by members of this very tribe.'

Although we have been talking of instincts, we are not concerned here with the steps by which the child, or the savage, following an instinct attains to _write_ poetry; but, more modestly, with the instinct by which the child _likes_ it, and the way in which he can be best encouraged to read and improve this natural liking. Nor are we even concerned here to define Poetry. It suffices our present purpose to consider Poetry as the sort of thing the poets write.

But obviously if we find a philosopher discussing poetry without any reference to children, and independently basing it upon the very same imitative instincts which we have noted in children, we have some promise of being on the right track.

V

So I return to Aristotle. Aristotle (I shall in fairness say) does not antic.i.p.ate Dr Gummere, to contradict or refute him; he may even be held to support him incidentally. But he sticks to business, and this is what he says ("Poetics," C. IV):

Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, and these natural causes. First the instinct to imitate is implanted in man from his childhood, and in this he differs from other animals, being the most imitative of them all. Man gets his first learning through imitation, and all men delight in seeing things imitated. This is clearly shown by experience....

To imitate, then, being instinctive in our nature, so too we have an instinct for harmony and rhythm, metre being manifestly a species of rhythm: and man, being born to these instincts and little by little improving them, out of his early improvisations created Poetry.

Combining these two instincts, with him, we arrive at _harmonious imitation._ Well and good. But what is it we imitate in poetry?-- n.o.ble things or mean things? After considering this, putting mean things aside as unworthy, and voting for the n.o.bler--which must at the same time be true, since without truth there can be no real n.o.bility--Aristotle has to ask 'In what way true? True to ordinary life, with its observed defeats of the right by the wrong? or true, as again instinct tells good men it should be, _universally_?' So he arrives at his conclusion that a true thing is not necessarily truth of fact in a world where truth in fact is so often belied or made meaningless--not the record that Alcibiades went somewhere and suffered something--but truth to the Universal, the superior demand of our conscience. In such a way only we know that "The Tempest" or "Paradise Lost" or "The Ancient Mariner" or "Prometheus Unbound" can be truer than any police report. Yet we know that they are truer in essence, and in significance, since they appeal to eternal verities--since they imitate the Universal--whereas the police report chronicles (faithfully, as in duty bound, even usefully in its way) events which may, nay must, be significant somehow but cannot at best be better to us than phenomena, broken ends and shards.

VI

I return to the child. Clearly in obeying the instinct which I have tried to ill.u.s.trate, he is searching to realise himself; and, as educators, we ought to help this effort--or, at least, not to hinder it.

Further, if we agree with Aristotle, in this searching to realise himself through imitation, what will the child most n.o.bly and naturally imitate? He will imitate what Aristotle calls 'the Universal,' the superior demand. And does not this bring us back to consent with what I have been preaching from the start in this course--that to realise ourselves in _What Is_ not only in degree transcends mere knowledge and activity, _What Knows_ and _What Does,_ but transcends it in kind? It is not only what the child unconsciously longs for: it is that for which (in St Paul's words) 'the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now'; craving for this (I make you the admission) as emotionally, as the heart may be thrilled, the breast surge, the eyes swell with tears, at a note drawn from the violin: feeling that somewhere, beyond reach, we have a lost sister, and she speaks to our soul.

VII

Who, that has been a child, has not felt this surprise of beauty, the revelation, the call of it?

The sounding cataract Haunted me like a pa.s.sion ...

--yes, or a rainbow on the spray against a cliff; or a vista of lawns between descending woods; or a vision of fish moving in a pool under the hazel's shadow? Who has not felt the small surcharged heart labouring with desire to express it?

I preach to you that the base of all Literature, of all Poetry, of all Theology, is one, and stands on one rock: _the very highest Universal Truth is something so simple that a child may understand it._ This, surely, was in Jesus' mind when he said 'I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.'

For as the Universe is one, so the individual human souls, that apprehend it, have no varying values intrinsically, but one equal value. They vary but in power to apprehend, and this may be more easily hindered than helped by the conceit begotten of finite knowledge. I shall even dare to quote of this Universal Truth, the words I once hardily put into the mouth of John Wesley concerning divine Love: 'I see now that if G.o.d's love reach up to every star and down to every poor soul on earth, it must be vastly simple; so simple that all dwellers on Earth may be a.s.sured of it--as all who have eyes may be a.s.sured of the planet s.h.i.+ning yonder at the end of the street--and so vast that all bargaining is below it, and they may inherit it without considering their deserts.' I believe this to be strictly and equally true of the appeal which Poetry makes to each of us, child or man, in his degree. As Johnson said of Gray's "Elegy,"

it 'abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo.' It exalts us through the best of us, by telling us something new yet not strange, something that we _recognise,_ something that we too have known, or surmised, but had never the delivering speech to tell. 'There is a pleasure in poetic pains,' says Wordsworth: but, Gentlemen, if you have never felt the travail, yet you have still to understand the bliss of deliverance.

VIII

If, then, you consent with me thus far in theory, let us now drive at practice. You have (we will say) a cla.s.s of thirty or forty in front of you. We will a.s.sume that they know _a-b, ab,_ can at least spell out their words. You will choose a pa.s.sage for them, and you will not (if you are wise) choose a pa.s.sage from "Paradise Lost": your knowledge telling you that "Paradise Lost"

was written, late in his life, by a great _virtuoso,_ and older men (of whom I, sad to say, am one) a.s.suring you that to taste the Milton of "Paradise Lost" a man must have pa.s.sed his thirtieth year. You take the early Milton: you read out this, for instance, from "L'Allegro":

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest and youthful Jollity, Quips, and Cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods and Becks, and wreathed Smiles Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides....

Go on: just read it to them. They won't know who Hebe was, but you can tell them later. The metre is taking hold of them (in my experience the metre of "L'Allegro" can be relied upon to grip children) and anyway they can see 'Laughter holding both his sides': they recognise it as if they saw the picture. Go on steadily:

Come, and trip it as ye go, On the light fantastick toe; And in thy right hand lead with thee The Mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty; And, if I give thee honour due, Mirth, admit me of thy crew--

Do not pause and explain what a Nymph is, or why Liberty is the 'Mountain Nymph'! Go on reading: the Prince has always to break through briers to kiss the Sleeping Beauty awake. Go on with the incantation, calling him, persuading him, that he is the Prince and she is worth it. Go on reading--