Matthew Arnolds Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems | Page 6

main, he fails to handle his plots in a dramatic manner and, as a result,
does not secure the totality of impression so vital to the drama.
Frequently, too, his characters are tedious, and in their dialogue manage
to be provokingly unnatural or insipid. They also lack in individuality
and independence in speech and action. Many of his situations,
likewise, are at fault. For instance, one can scarcely conceive of such
characters as Ulysses and Circe playing the subordinate roles assigned

to them in _The Strayed Reveller_. A true dramatist would hardly have
committed so flagrant a blunder. Merope is written in imitation of the
Greek tragedians. It has dignity of subject, nobility of sentiment, and a
classic brevity of style; but it is frigid and artificial, and fails in the
most essential function of drama--to stir the reader's emotions.
Empedocles on Etna, a half-autobiographical drama, is in some respects
a striking poem. It is replete with brilliant passages, and contains some
of Arnold's best lyric verses and most beautiful nature pictures; but the
dialogue is colorless, the rhymes poor, the plot, such as it contains, but
indifferently handled, and even Empedocles, the principal character, is
frequently tedious and unnatural. Arnold's dramas show that his forte
was not in character-drawing nor in dialogue.
=Arnold as a Writer of Epic and Elegy=.--Epic poetry narrates in grand
style the achievements of heroes--the poet telling the story as if present.
It is simple in construction and uniform in meter, yet it admits of the
dialogue and the episode, and though not enforcing a moral it may hold
one in solution. Elegiac poetry is plaintive in tone and expresses sorrow
or lamentation. Both epic and elegy are inevitably serious in mood, and
slow and stately in action. In these two forms of verse Arnold was at
his best. Stockton pronounced _Sohrab and Rustum_ the noblest poem
in the English language. Another critic has said that "it is the nearest
analogue in English to the rapidity of action, plainness of thought,
plainness of diction, and nobleness of Homer." Combining, as it does,
classic purity of style with romantic ardor of feeling, it stands a direct
exemplification of Arnold's poetic theories, as set forth in the preface of
his volume of 1853. Especially is it successful in emphasizing his idea
of unity of impression; "while the truth of its oriental color, the deep
pathos of the situation, the fire and intensity of the action, the strong
conception of character, and the full, solemn music of the verse, make
it unquestionably the masterpiece of Arnold's longer poems, among
which it is the largest in bulk and also the most ambitious in scheme."
Balder Dead, a characteristic Arnoldian production, founded upon the
Norse legend of Balder, Lok, and Hader, though not so great as Sohrab
and Rustum, has much poetic worth and ranks high among its kind; and
Tristram and Iseult_, with its infinite tragedy, and The Sick King in
Bokhara_, gorgeous in oriental color, are rare examples of the lyrical

epic. The Forsaken Merman_ and _Saint Brandan, which are dealt with
elsewhere in this volume, are good examples of his shorter narrative
poems. In Thyrsis, the beautiful threnody in which he celebrated his
dead friend, Clough, Arnold gave to the world one of its greatest
elegies. One finds in this poem and its companion piece, The
Scholar-Gipsy, the same unity of classic form with romantic feeling
present in Sohrab and Rustum. Both are crystal-clear without coldness,
and restrained without loss of a full volume of power. Mr. Saintsbury,
writing of The Scholar-Gipsy, says: "It has everything--a sufficient
scheme, a definite meaning and purpose, a sustained and adequate
command of poetical presentation, and passages and phrases of the
most exquisite beauty;" and no less praise is due Thyrsis_. Other of his
elegiac poems are Heine's Grave, Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse,
Stanzas in Memory of the Author of "Obermann," Obermann Once
More, Rugby Chapel_, and Memorial Verses, the two last named being
included in this volume. In such measures as are used in these poems,
in the long, stately, swelling measures, whose graver movements
accord with a serious and elevated purpose, Arnold was most at ease.
=Greek Spirit in Arnold=.--But it is not alone in the fact that he selects
classic subjects, and writes after the manner of the great masters, that
Arnold's affinity with the Greeks is manifested. His poems in spirit, as
in form, reflect the moods common to the ancient Hellenes, "One feels
the (Greek) quality," writes George E. Woodberry, "not as a source, but
as a presence. In Tennyson, Keats, and Shelley there was Greek
influence, but in them the result was modern. In Arnold the antiquity
remains--remains in mood, just as in Landor it remains in form. The
Greek twilight broods over all his poetry.