Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot

by Frank Kermode

  sign of Milton's intellectual mastership.

  On the subject of Milton's versification, so far as I am aware,

  little enough has been written. We have Johnson's essay in the

  Rambler, which deserves more study than it has received, and we

  have a short treatise by Robert Bridges on Milton's Prosody. I

  speak of Bridges with respect, for no poet of our time has given

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  such close attention to prosody as he. Bridges catalogues the

  systematic irregularites which give perpetual variety to Milton's

  verse, and I can find no fault with his analysis. But however interesting these analyses are, I do not think that it is by such means that we gain an appreciation of the peculiar rhythm of a poet. It

  seems to me also that Milton's verse is especially refractory to

  yielding up its secrets to examination of the single line. For his

  verse is not formed in this way. It is the period, the sentence and

  still more the paragraph, that is the unit of Milton's verse ; and

  emphasis on the line structure is the minimum necessary to provide a counter-pattern to the period structure. It is only in the period that the wave-length of Milton's verse is to be found : it is

  his ability to give a perfect and unique pattern to every paragraph,

  such that the full beauty of the line is found in its context, and his

  ability to work in larger musical units than any other poet - that

  is to me the most conclusive evidence of Milton's supreme

  mastery. The peculiar feeling, almost a physical sensation of a

  breathless leap, communicated by Milton's long periods, and by

  his alone, is impossible to procure from rhymed verse. I ndeed,

  this mastery is more conclusive evidence of his intellectual power,

  than is his grasp of any ideas that he borrowed or invented. To be

  able to control so many words at once is the token of a mind of

  most exceptional energy.

  It is interesting at this point to recall the general observations

  upon blank verse, which a consideration of Paradise Lost prompted Johnson to make towards the end of his essay.

  The music of the English heroic lines strikes the ear so faintly, that it

  is easily lost, unless all the syllables of every line co-operate together ;

  this co-operation can only be obtained by the preservation of every

  verse unmingled with another as a distinct system of sounds ; and this

  distinctness is obtained and preserved by the artifice of rhyme. The

  variety of pauses, so much boasted by the lovers of blank verse, changes

  the measures of an English poet to the periods of a declaimer ; and there

  are only a few skilful and happy readers of Milton, who enable their

  audience to perceive where the lines end or begin. Blmtk 1·erse, said an

  ingenious critic, seems to be rerse only to the eye.

  Some of my audience may recall that this last remark, in almost

  the same words, was often made, a literary generation ago, about

  the 'free verse' of the period : and even without this encouragement from Johnson it would have occurred to my mind to declare Milton to he the greatest master of free verse in our language.

  What is interesting about Johnson's paragraph, however, is that

  it represents the judgment of a man who had hy no means a deaf

  ear, but simply a specialized ear, for verbal music. Within the

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  limits of the poetry of his own. period, Johnson is a very good judge

  of the relative merits of several poets as writers of blank verse. But

  on the whole, the blank verse ·of his age might more properly be

  called unrhymed verse ; and nowhere is this difference more

  evident than in the verse of his own tragedy Irene : the phrasing is

  admirable, the style elevated and correct, but each line cries out

  for a companion to rhyme with it. Indeed, it is only with labour,

  or by occasional inspiration, or by submission to the influence of

  the older dramatists, that the blank verse of the nineteenth century

  succeeds in making the absence of rhyme inevitable and right,

  with the rightness of Milton. Even Johnson admitted that he could

  not wish that Milton had been a rhymer. Nor did the nineteenth

  century succeed in giving to blank verse the flexibility which it

  needs if the tone of common speech, talking of the topics of common intercourse, is to be employed ; so that when our more modern practitioners of blank verse do not touch the sublime, they frequently sink to the ridiculous. Milton perfected non-dramatic blank verse and at the same time imposed limitations, very hard

  to break, upon the use to which it may be put if its greatest

  musical possibilities are to be exploited.

  I come at last to compare my own attitude, as that of a poetical

  practitioner perhaps typical of a generation twenty-five years ago,

  with my attitude today. I have thought it well to take matters in

  the order in which I have taken them to discuss first the censures

  and detractions which I believe to have permanent validity, and

  which were best made by Johnson, in order to make clearer the

  causes, and the justification, for hostility to Milton on the part of

  poets at a particular juncture. And I wished to make clear those

  excellences of Milton which particularly impress me, before

  explaining why I think that the study of his verse might at last be

  of benefit to poets.

  I have on several occasions suggested, that the important

  changes in the idiom of English verse which are represented by

  the names of Dryden and Wordsworth, may be characterized as

  successful attempts to escape from a poetic idiom which had

  ceased to have a relation to contemporary speech. This is the sense

  of Wordsworth's Prefaces. By the beginning of the present century another revolution in idiom - and such revolutions bring with them an alteration of metric, a new appeal to the ear - was

  due. It inevitably happens that the young poets engaged in such a

  revolution will exalt the merits of those poets of the past who offer

  them example and stimulation, and cry down the merits of poets

  who do not stand for the qualities which they are zealous to

  realize. This is not only inevitable, it is right. It is even right, and

  certainly inevitable, that their practice, still more influential than

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  their critical pronouncements, should attract their own readers to

  the poets by whose work they have been influenced. Such influence has certainly contributed to the taste (if we can distinguish the taste from the fashion) for Donne. I do not think that any

  modern poet, unless in a fit of irresponsible peevishness, has ever

  denied Milton's consummate powers. And it must be said that

  Milton's diction is not a poetic diction in the sense of being a

  debased currency : when he violates the English language he is

  imitating nobody, and he is inimitable. But Milton does, as I have

  said, represent poetry at the extreme limit from prose ; and it was

  one of our tenets that verse should have the virtues of prose, that

  diction should become assimilated to cultivated contemporary

  speech, before aspiring to the elevation of poetry. Another tenet

  was that the sub
ject-matter and the imagery of poetry should be

  extended to topics and objects related to the life of a modern man

  or woman ; that we were to seek the non-poetic, to seek even

  material refractory to transmutation into poetry, and words and

  phrases which had not been used in poetry before. And the study

  of Milton could be of no help here : it was only a hindrance.

  We cannot, in literature, any more than in the rest of life, live

  in a perpetual state of revolution. If every generation of poets

  made it their task to bring poetic diction up to date with the

  spoken language, poetry would fail in one of its most important

  obligations. For poetry should help, not only to refine the language of the time, but to prevent it from changing too rapidly : a development of language at too great a speed would be a development in the sense of a progressive deterioration, and that is our danger today. If the poetry of the rest of this century takes the

  line of development which seems to me, reviewing the progress of

  poetry though the last three centuries, the right course, it will

  discover new and more elaborate patterns of a diction now established. In this search it might have much to learn from Milton's extended verse structure ; it might also avoid the danger of a

  servitude to colloquial speech and to current jargon. It might also

  learn that the music of verse is strongest in poetry which has a

  definite meaning expressed in the properest words. Poets might be

  led to admit that a knowledge of the literature of their own language, with a knowledge of the literature and the grammatical construction of other languages, is a very valuable part of the

  poet's equipment. And they might, as I have already hinted,

  devote some study to Milton as, outside the theatre, the greatest

  master in our language of freedom within form. A study of Samson

  should sharpen anyone's appreciation of the justified irregularity,

  and put him on guard against the pointless irregularity. In

  studying Paradise Lost we come to perceive that the verse is

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  continuously animated b y the departure from, and return to, the

  regular measure ; and that, in comparison with Milton, hardly any

  subsequent writer of blank verse a·ppears to exercise any freedom

  at all. We can also be led to the reflection that a monotony of

  unscannable verse fatigues the attention even more quickly than a

  monotony of exact feet. In short, it now seems to me that poets are

  sufficiently liberated from Milto11's reputation, to approach the

  study of his work without danger, and with profit to their poetry

  and to the English language.

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  PART TWO

  SOCIAL AND RELI G I OUS

  CRITICISM

  THE HUMAN I S M OF

  I RV I N G BABB I TT

  It is proverbially easier to destroy than to construct ; and, as a

  corollary of this proverb, it is easier for readers to apprehend the

  destructive than the constructive side of an author's thought.

  More than this : when a writer is skilful in destructive criticism,

  the public is satisfied with that. If he has no constructive philosophy, it is not demanded ; if he has, it is overlooked. This is especially true when we are concerned with critics of society, from

  Arnold to the present day. All such critics are criticized from one

  common standard, and that the lowest : the standard of brilliant

  attack upon aspects of contemporary society which we know and

  dislike. It is the easiest standard to take. For the criticism deals

  with concrete things in our world which we know, and the writer

  may be merely echoing, in neater phrasing, our own thoughts ;

  whereas construction deals with things hard and unfamiliar.

  Hence the popularity of Mr. Mencken.

  But there are more serious critics than Mr. Mencken, and of

  these we must ask in the end what they have to offer in place of

  what they denounce. M. Julien Benda, for instance, makes it a

  part of his deliberate programme to offer nothing ; he has a

  romantic view of critical detachment which limits his interest.

  Mr. Wyndham Lewis is obviously striving courageously toward a

  positive theory, but in his published work has not yet reached that

  point. But in Professor Babbitt's latest book, Democracy ami

  Leadership, the criticism is related to a positive theory and

  dependent upon it. This theory is not altogether expounded, but

  is partly assumed. What I wish to do in the present essay is to ask

  a few questions about Mr. Babbitt's constructive theory.

  The centre of Mr. Babbitt's philosophy is the doctrine of

  humanism. In his earlier books we were able to accept this idea

  without analysis ; but in Democracy and Leadership - which I take

  to be at this point the summary of his theory - we arc tempted to

  question it. The problem of humanism is undoubtedly related to

  the problem of religion. Mr. Babbitt makes it very clear, here and

  there throughout the book, that he is unable to take the religious

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  view - that is to say that he cannot accept any dogma or revelation ; and that humanism is the alternative to religion. And this brings up the question : is this · alternative any more than a

  substitute ? and, if a substitute, does it not bear the same relation

  to religion that 'humanitarianism' bears to humanism ? Is it, in

  the end, a view of life that will work by itself, or is it a derivative

  of religion which will work only for a short time in history, and

  only for a few highly cultivated persons like Mr. Babbitt - whose

  ancestral traditions, furthermore, are Christian, and who is, like

  many people, at the distance of a generation or so from definite

  Christian belief? Is it, in other words, durable beyond one or two

  generations ?

  Mr. Babbitt says, of the 'representatives of the humanitarian

  movement', that

  they wish to live on the naturalistic level, and at the same time to enjoy

  the benefits that the past had hoped to achieve as a result of some

  humanistic or religious discipline.

  The definition is admirable, but provokes us to ask whether, by

  altering a few words, we cannot arrive at the following statement

  about humanists :

  they wish to live on the humanistic level, and at the same time to enjoy

  the benefits that the past had hoped to achieve as a result of some

  religious discipline.

  If this transposition is justified, it means that the difference is only

  of one step : the humanitarian has suppressed the properly human,

  and is left with the animal ; the humanist has suppressed the

  divine, and is left with a human element which may quickly

  descend again to the animal from which he has sought to raise it.

  Mr. Babbitt is a stout upholder of tradition and continuity, and

  he knows, with his immense and encyclopaedic information, that

  the Christian religion is an essential part of the history of our race.

  Humanism and religion are thus, as historical facts, by no means

  parellel ; humanism has been sporadic, but Christianity continuous. It is quite irrelevant to c
onjecture the possible development of the European races without Christianity - to imagine, that is, a tradition of humanism equivalent to the actual tradition

  of Christianity. For all we can say is that we should have been

  very different creatures, whether better or worse. Our problem

  being to form the future, we can only form it on the materials of

  the past ; we must use our heredity, instead of denying it. The

  religious habits of the race are still very strong, in all places, at all

  times, and for all people. There is no humanistic habit : humanism is, I think, merely the state of mind of a few persons in a few 278

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  places at a few times. To exist at all, it is dependent upon some

  other attitude, for it is essentially critical - I would even say

  parasitical. It has been, and can still be, of great value ; but it will

  never provide showers of partridges or abundance of manna for

  the chosen peoples.

  It is a little difficult to define humanism in Mr. Babbitt's terms,

  for he is very apt to line it up in battle order with religion against

  humanitarianism and naturalism ; and what I am trying to do is to

  co111rast it with religion. Mr. Babbitt is very apt to use phrases like

  'tradition humanistic and religious' which suggest that you could

  say also 'tradition humanistic or religious'. So I must make shift

  to define humanism as I can from a few of the examples that Mr.

  Babbitt seems to hold up to us.

  I should say that he regarded Confucius, Buddha, Socrates, and

  Erasmus as humanists (I do not know whether he would include

  Montaigne). It may surprise some to see Confucius and Buddha,

  who are popularly regarded as founders of religions, in this list.

  But it is always the human reason, not the revelation of the supernatural, upon which Mr. Babbitt insists. Confucius and Buddha are not in the same boat, to begin with. Mr. Babbitt of course

  knows infinitely more about both of these men than I do ; but even

  people who know even less about them than I do, know that

  Confucianism endured by fitting in with popular religion, and

  that Buddhism endured by becoming1 as distinctly a religion as

  Christianity - recognizing a dependence of the human upon the

  divine.

  And finally, the attitude of Socrates and that of Erasmus toward the religion of their place and time were very different from what I take to be the attitude of Professor Babbitt. How much