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"It appears," says the Countess de Merlin, "like a fantastic thought, the dream of a poet." Maria Malibran was unquestionably one of the most gifted and remarkable women who ever adorned the lyric stage.
The present volume, while it will confirm Mr. Longfellow's claim to the high rank he has won among lyric poets, deserves attention also as proving him to possess that faculty of epic narration which is rarer than all others in the nineteenth century.
The other Platonic notion about poetry being "imitation" colors the well-known section of the third book of the Republic, which warns against the influence of certain effeminate types of lyric harmony: "I answered: Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have one warlike, which will sound the word or note which a brave man utters in the hour of danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is failing and he is going to wounds or death or is overtaken by some other evil, and at every such crisis meets fortune with calmness and endurance; and another which may be used by him in times of peace and freedom of action, when there is no pressure of necessity expressive of entreaty or persuasion, of prayer to God, or instruction of man, or again, of willingness to listen to persuasion or entreaty and advice; and which represents him when he has accomplished his aim, not carried away by success, but acting moderately and wisely, and acquiescing in the event.
That eminently "Romantic" play, Emperor Octavian , derived from a familiar medieval chap-book, lyric in tone and loose in form, is a pure epitome of the movement, and the high-water mark of Tieck's apostleship and service. Here Tieck shows his intimate sense of the poetry of inanimate nature; ironic mockery surrenders completely to religious devotion; the piece is bathed in
a melody which is to form the motive of the hero Siegfried in the next division of the work and the curtain falls upon a scene which for power, beauty, and majesty has not its equal on the lyric stage. The second division of the tragedy, "Siegfried," might well be called an idyl, of the forest. Its music is full of joyousness and delight.
Even such are the epic, the lyric, the drama, the history, and the philosophy, as collected together in the revelries of the novel.
Besides the lyric writers there were many prose writers in the seventeenth century who are among the men to be remembered. But their books, although some day you will love them, would not interest you yet. They tell no story, they are long, they have not, like poetry, a lilt or rhythm to carry one on. It would be an effort to read them.
Had Milton taken Aeschylus for his model, he would have given himself up to the lyric inspiration, and poured out profusely all the treasures of his mind, without bestowing a thought on those dramatic properties which the nature of the work rendered it impossible to preserve. In the attempt to reconcile things in their own nature inconsistent he has failed, as every one else must have failed.
The second part gives a list of the troubadours in alphabetical order, with the lyric poems attributed to each troubadour. The first line of each poem is quoted and followed by a list of the MSS. in which it is found. Modern editors have generally agreed to follow these lists in referring to troubadour lyrics: e.g.
"And when Apollo had finished, a light wind arose and carried the song through the whole of Greece, and wherever a child in the cradle heard only a tone of it, that child grew into a poet." What poet? Famed by what song? Will he not perhaps be a lyric poet? The same happens with "Lux in Tenebris."
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