The Winter Lectures

Southland Times, Issue 19087, 1 July 1903, Page 3

The Winter Lectures

TENNYSON

The second lecture on Tennyson was delivered last night l>y bean Fitchett before a large audience, the V.M.t.'.V Hall with ditliculty accommodating the numbers that attended. The poems chosen for criticism were " Maud " and

" fiuinevere." both dealinc; with the elfects of passion, which the I lean explained, meant something different from affection and contained also the i leu of suffering and puinfu'l experience. The affections- must be cultivated, but passion must be restrained, for it readily developed into tragedy. Nemesis never iKJiug far behind. Critics. the Itc-iuer continued, had found fault with 7'tnnyson that there was too much mornl purpose in his work. " Art for art's saUt* 1 ' was the'.r guiding principle, but this to Tennyson was nothtrifr more 'ban cant, and immoral cant at that. Artists made the tragedy develop naturally out of the characters in a logical manner, and tlu- re was in 'the nature of things something ihut made for righteousness. 'I l,e gods were just and of our pleasant vices made instruments to scourge us. Coming to the poem, itself, the Dean went (in to say that " Maud " belonged lo the mature period of Tennyson's genaus. when he had survived the solemn impression made on his mind by the death of his friend Hallam. The poem was a inonodrama ; that is, th.-re were several actors ( but only one speaker. This was a young man of twenty-Dye, given much to solitary brooding over a great wrong done to his father, who had been ruined by a friend and thus driven to suicide. This youtP* was thus made the victim of morbid fancies and became a misanthrope. His impeachment of the existing state of society was caused by Kk brooding on Ihe crime against his father. One criticism of the poem, the lecturer added, was such as to reduce its sule : namely, that it preached the gospel of war. the critics taking the speaker to bo identical with Ule author, an astonishing assumption dictated by ignorance. Some very absurd criticisms were passed on the poem at its Grst appearance, such as that it was " a careless, visionary, unreal allegory of the Russian war." Ajnong the few who did appreciate) its greatness was IJenjainin .Jowett. of Oxford. Caniinp back to the story, we found the speaker iv the poem standing gazing on his former home, the hall of which his futher had been deprived of by the treachery of Maud's father. She wus returning from abroail anil the workmen were in the nouse, transforming it to receive its guests He and she were old playmates, and he fc_id seen her only once since childhood. Now he hears her sing a song that appeals to the one good feeling left in him. his patriotism, and he falls in love with her, though he distrusted her and considered her to be playing the coquette. There had apparently been an understanding between the two fathers that this young man and daud were destined for each other. At this stage of the story tK." s/ituation wus advanced by the appearance of a rival — " the other fellow " — a young lord whose father bad grown rich by coalmining. Maud's brother would have nothing at all to do With t he t young lover, the misanthrope, and in this antagonism was the germ of the future tragedy. This affection begins to develop into an overwhelming passion, and iv this part of tK.' poem, the Dean declared, occurred some of tho very highest poetry. A stolen int. -.view for which no just excuse could be fi und led on lo tin- until catustrophc. The lovers were discovered by the brothers and the rival, a bitter qunirel ensued, ending in blows, and the two men, the lover and the brother, met in a duel, the brother meeting death at the hands of his sister's lover. Madness followed under the strain of remorse, und on recovering the lover plunged into the excitement of the war that was then raging. The lecturer gave it as his opinion that tho end contained a touch ol bathos, as there was no artistic reason why the death of the brother and ol Maud herself should be inevitable. The lover might easily have been made to return regenerated und spiritually renewed. Probably it was v concession to the fury of pat riot isim then raging in Britain, caused by the war tfc.it had broken out after such a long interval of peace. There was no professed didactic purpose in the poem ; yet it contained a moral : wrong-doing was inevitably

followed by tragic consequences ; catastrophe must result if the conditions for it were there.

Passing on to " Guinevere," the lecturer gave a brief expositon of its story and meaning. Queen Guinevere had been brought from her distant home to wed K?r destined husband, King Arthur, in the company of Lancelot, who was an example of knightly courtesy, with no taint of evil mind. She found Art^Jl'. of a cold and passionless nature, apparently wrapped up in affairs of State, which he never confided to his wife. She only discovered when too late that her husband loved her. Left to herself she fell back on the feelings estnblisael between her und Sir Lancelot in the journey to tho Court. This was the sudden ing part of the story : to see two souls intrinsically noble gradually corrupted through the fatal carelessness of a husband. A most pathetic scene was that in which Arthur revealed himself to Guinevere as he really was, wKmi she (led and took refuge in the convent at Almesbtirg, and was there surprised by Iho coming of the King- He freely pardoned' her, though ho would yol t.iKe hpp imr.ki: os he refused to set thio ex-.-

ample to corrupt the court and land by receiving a faithless wife. Though Arthur cut the ignominious figure of tho injured husband, there was a nobility about him that none could question, lie was to blame for the tragic result —it was caused by his sin — for it was a sin against the very ideal of tho marriage relationship for a husband to leave Ms wife in intellectual isolation and refuse to confide iv her and allow her to share in his high interests. The ideal of this relationship was given in the

" Princess." A woman could become anything through sympathy with her husband. This lecture was even better than the .previous one, and was not lacking in humorous touches During ihe evening Dean Fitchett referred to Buskin and Swinburne, mentioning- what Kuskin called " tho pathetic fallacy. ' and also Swinburne's criticism of Arthur as "an impeccable prig." The pathetic fallacy was found frequently throughout " Maud," and consisted in a character's weaving into Nature and his surroundings his own moode of feelings at any given moment. If ho was happy, nature seemed bright : but if ho was gloomy mid depressed, nature seemed to respond to his feelings by assuming a. sad and mournful appearance The lecturer combated Kuskin's assertion that this was not art, declaring it to he a

trait, of unconscious art. and our poetry was full of it Swinburne's characterisation of Arthur could not be agreed in by anyone who read sympathetically and j intelligently the words in which he free. I ly forgave his penitent wife. [ The Uev. J. (iihson Smith again pie;M'ded. and in moving a vole of thanks, stated that a still greater treat was in store for next night, when I In- "dialect" poems would he discuss >,l. as Dean l-'itchett was himself a " l,in.-->lii-