On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
However that may be , this is not , we apprehend , the epic that js to come , if there be one to come . Disraeli was pi ^ obamy born a poet . There are indications , in most of his writings , of a noble nature ; but , as before said , he has been spoiled , —spoiled by that cleaving curse of our country , the spirit of aristocracy . He fears sneers and smiles , and affects heartiessness . Vivian Grey was
alike a premature production , in its abundance of talent , and its want of earnestness . Contarini Fleming is much nearer the spirit in which such a being as Disraeli should have commenced his career . It seemed as if nature were struggling within him against the blighting influences of society . Airoy , which is a gorgeous fit of orientalism , ( not Jewish at all , despite genealogy , ) was
rather a relapse : there was a return towards artificiality : and here he is blundering , both in design and execution . In design , because , from the strong necessity of his nature , he who is capable of singing a revolution , must be employed in making the revolution ; and in execution , on the same principle , because he is resting on forms outworn , obsolete , and not objects of even
poetical faith , either to the writer or the reader . The epics are all pervaded by the simple earnestness of their authors . If it were needful for Disraeli to put a preface to his fable , he should , in his own person , have declared his own strong convictions of the present condition , the past vicissitudes , and the future prospects of society : his lofty strains would then have had responsive echoes ; but Magros or Tag-ros , Lyndon or Derrydown , —who cares about any of their tribe ? Who wants to hear angels , with wings and helmets , make long speeches before the throne of Demogorgon ? The Revolutionary Epic must be a revolution in epicry : it must be written in a new faith , which is believed ; not in an old faith , which is not believed . There can never be intensity again , in the stale machinery which is here adopted .
The poem opens with the pleadings before Demogorgon , of Magros , the genius of feudalism , ( which are presented in this first book , ) and those of his ascending r ival , Lyndon , the genius of federalism , which are to follow in the second book , when Demogorgon will pronounce judgment , and the earthl y harlequinade commence . Many isolated passages have so much beauty , that we should be tempted to transcribe them , but for the brief space
to which this notice is necessarily confined . They cannot redeem the erroneousness of the plan ; but they make it a ' glorious blunder , ' as Byron said of the universe . The author declares that , supposing the public to decide against this specimen of his poem , he shall , without a pang , hurl his lyre to limbo . ' We
would not ' have him do that , nor suppress any portion which he has actually written . But , as to completing it , —it can but be a failure ; and failures always make us melancholy . Disraeli , himself , seems to us in danger of being a failure , —» a failure of Nature , in a work as boldLv conceived as his 6 vrn ; yet we cannot and will
Untitled Article
The Rettihtfiottitiy Epic . 97 ?
Untitled Article
No . 89 . 8 D
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1834, page 377, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2633/page/65/
-