Chapter XVIII: Preface

In prefixing to this poem a brief explanation of its design, I feel myself involuntarily compelled to refer to the more popular distinctions of Epic Fable, though I do not thereby presume to arrogate to my work that title of Epic which Time alone has the prerogative to confer.

Pope has, accurately and succinctly, defined the three cardinal divisions of Epic Fable to consist in the Probable, the Allegorical, and the Marvellous. For the Probable is indispensable to the vital interest of the action, the Marvellous is the obvious domain of creative invention, and the Allegorical is the most pleasing mode of insinuating some subtler truth, or clothing some profounder moral.

I accept these divisions, because they conform to the simplest principles of rational criticism; and though their combination does not form an Epic, it serves at least to amplify the region and elevate the objects of Romance.

It has been my aim so to blend these divisions, that each may harmonize with the other, and all conduce to the end proposed from the commencement. I have admitted but little episodical incident, and none that does not grow out of what Pope terms "the platform of the story." For the marvellous agencies I have not presumed to make direct use of that Divine Machinery which the war of the Christian Principle with the form of Heathenism might have suggested to the sublime daring of Milton, had he prosecuted his original idea of founding an heroic poem upon the legendary existence of Arthur;--and, on the other hand, the Teuton Mythology, however imaginative and profound, is too unfamiliar and obscure, to permit its employment as an open and visible agency;--such reference to it as occurs, is therefore rather admitted as an appropriate colouring to the composition, than made an integral part of the materials of the canvas: and, not to ask from the ordinary reader an erudition I should have no right to expect, the reference so made is in the simplest form, and disentangled from the necessity of other information than a few brief notes will suffice to afford.

In taking my subject from chivalrous romance, I take, then, those agencies from the Marvellous which chivalrous romance naturally and familiarly affords--the Fairy, the Genius, the Enchanter: not wholly, indeed, in the precise and literal spirit with which our nursery tales receive those creations of Fancy through the medium of French Fabliaux, but in the larger significations by which, in their conceptions of the Supernatural, our fathers often implied the secrets of Nature. For the Romance from which I borrow is the Romance of the North--a Romance, like the Northern mythology, full of typical meaning and latent import. The gigantic remains of symbol-worship are visible amidst the rude fables of the Scandinavians, and what little is left to us of the earlier and more indigenous literature of the Cymrians, is characterized by a mysticism profound with parable. This fondness for an interior or double meaning is the most prominent attribute in that Romance popularly called The Gothic, the feature most in common with all creations that bear the stamp of the Northern fancy: we trace it in the poems of the Anglo-Saxons; it returns to us, in our earliest poems after the Conquest; it does not _originate_ in the Oriental genius (immemorially addicted to Allegory), but it instinctively _appropriates_ all that Saraconic invention can suggest to the more sombre imagination of the North--it unites to the Serpent of the Edda the flying Griffin of Arabia, the Persian Genius to the Scandinavian Trold,--and wherever it accepts a marvel, it seeks to insinuate a type. This peculiarity, which distinguishes the spiritual essence of the modern from the sensual character of ancient poetry, especially the Roman, is visible wherever a tribe allied to the Goth, the Frank, or the Teuton, carries with it the deep mysteries of the Christian faith. Even in sunny Provence it transfuses a subtler and graver moral into the lays of the joyous troubadour,[A]--and weaves "The Dance of Death" by the joyous streams, and through the glowing orange-groves, of Spain. Onwards, this under-current of meaning flowed, through the various phases of civilization:--it pervaded alike the popular Satire and the dramatic Mystery;--and, preserving its thoughtful calm amidst all the stirring passions that agitated mankind in the age subsequent to the Reformation, not only suffused the luxuriant fancy of the dreamy Spenser, but communicated to the practical intellect of Shakspere that subtle and recondite wisdom which seems the more inexhaustible the more it is examined, and suggests to every new inquirer some new problem in the philosophy of Human Life. Thus, in taking from Northern Romance the Marvellous, we are most faithful to the genuine character of that Romance, when we take with the Marvellous its old companion, the Typical or Allegorical. But these form only two divisions of the three which I have assumed as the components of the unity I seek to accomplish; there remains the Probable, which contains the Actual. To subject the whole poem to allegorical constructions would be erroneous, and opposed to the vital principle of a work of this kind, which needs the support of direct and human interest. The inner and the outer meaning of Fable should flow together, each acting on the other, as the thought and the action in the life of a man. It is true that in order clearly to interpret the action, we should penetrate to the thought. But if we fail of that perception, the action, though less comprehended, still impresses its reality on our senses, and make its appeal to our interest.

[A] Rien n'est plus commun dans la poesie provencale que
l'allegorie; seulement elle est un jeu-d'esprit an lieu d'etre
une action.... Une autre analogie me parait plus spoutanee
qu'imitee--la poesie des troubadours qu'on suppose frivole,
a souvent retracee des sentiments graves et touchants,"
&c.--VILLEMAIN, _Tableau du Moyen Age_.

I have thus sought to maintain the Probable through that chain of incident in which human agencies are employed, and through those agencies the direct action of the Poem is accomplished; while the Allegorical admits into the Marvellous the introduction of that subtler form of Truth, which if less positive than the Actual, is wider in its application, and ought to be more profound in its significance.

For the rest, it may perhaps be conceded that this poem is not without originality in the conception of its plot and the general treatment of its details. I am not aware of any previous romantic poem which it resembles in its main design, or in the character of its principal incidents;--and, though I may have incurred certain mannerisms of my own day, I yet venture to trust that, in the pervading form or style, the mind employed has been sufficiently in earnest to leave its own peculiar effigy and stamp upon the work. For the incidents narrated, I may, indeed, thank the nature of my subject, if many of them could scarcely fail to be new. The celebrated poets of chivalrous fable--Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser, have given to their scenery the colourings of the West. The Great North from which Chivalry sprung--its polar seas, its natural wonders, its wild legends, its antediluvian remains--(wide fields for poetic description and heroic narrative)--have been, indeed, not wholly unexplored by poetry, but so little appropriated, that even after Tegner and Oehlenschlaeger, I dare to hope that I have found tracks in which no poet has preceded me, and over which yet breathes the native air of our National Romance.

For the Manners preserved through this poem, I naturally reject those which the rigid Antiquary would appropriate to the date of that Historical Arthur, of whom we know so little, and take those of the age in which the Arthur of Romance, whom we know so well, revived into fairer life at the breath of Minstrel and Fabliast. The anachronism of chivalrous manners and costume for the British chief and his Knighthood, is absolutely required by all our familiar associations. On the other hand, without affecting any precise accuracy in details, I have kept the country of the brave Prince of the Silures (or South Wales) somewhat more definitely in view, than has been done by the French Romance writers; while in portraying his Saxon foes, I have endeavoured to distinguish their separate nationality, without enforcing too violent a contrast between the rudeness of the heathen Teutons and the _polished Christianity of the Cymrian Knighthood_.[B]

[B] In the more historical view of the position of Arthur, I
have, however, represented it such as it really appears to have
been,--not as the sovereign of all Britain, and the conquering
invader of Europe (according to the groundless fable of Geoffrey
of Monmouth), but as the patriot Prince of South Wales,
resisting successfully the invasion of his own native soil, and
accomplishing the object of his career in preserving entire the
nationality of his Welsh countrymen. In thus contracting his
sphere of action to the bounds of rational truth, his dignity,
both moral and poetic, is obviously enhanced. Represented as the
champion of all Britain against the Saxons, his life would have
been but a notorious and signal failure; but as the preserver of
the Cymrian Nationality--of that part of the British population
which took refuge in Wales, he has a claim to the epic glory of
success.

It is for this latter reason that I have gone somewhat out of
the strict letter of history, in the poetical licence by which
the Mercians are represented as Arthur's principal enemies
(though, properly speaking, the Mercian kingdom was not then
founded): the alliance between the Mercian and the Welsh, which
concludes the Poem--is at least not contrary to the spirit of
History--since in very early periods such amicable bonds between
the Welsh and the Mercians were contracted, and the Welsh, on
the whole, were on better terms with those formidable borderers
than with the other branches of the Saxon family.

May I be permitted to say a word as to the metre I have selected?--One advantage it has,--that while thoroughly English, and not uncultivated by the best of the elder masters, it has never been applied to a poem of equal length, and has not been made too trite and familiar, by the lavish employment of recent writers.[C] Shakspere has taught us its riches in the Venus and Adonis,--Spenser in The Astrophel,--Cowley has sounded its music amidst the various intonations of his irregular lyre. But of late years, if not wholly laid aside, it has been generally neglected for the more artificial and complicated Spenserian stanza, which may seem, at the first glance, to resemble it, but which to the ear is widely different in rhythm and construction.

[C] Southey has used it in the "Lay of the Laureate" and "The Poet's
Pilgrimage,"--not his best-known and most considerable poems.

The reader may perhaps remember that Dryden has spoken with emphatic praise of the "quatrain, or stanza of four in alternate rhyme." He says indeed, "that he had ever judged it more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us." That metre, in its simple integrity, is comprised in the stanza selected, ending in the vigour and terseness of the rhyming couplet, with which, for the most part, the picture should be closed or the sense clenched. And whatever the imperfection of my own treatment of this variety in poetic form, I hazard a prediction that it will be ultimately revived into more frequent use, especially in narrative, and that its peculiar melodies of rhythm and cadence, as well as the just and measured facilities it affords to expression, neither too diffuse nor too restricted, will be recognized hereafter in the hands of a more accomplished master of our language.

Here ends all that I feel called upon to say respecting a Poem which I now acknowledge as the child of my most cherished hopes, and to which I deliberately confide the task to uphold, and the chance to continue, its father's name.

To this work, conceived first in the enthusiasm of youth, I have patiently devoted the best powers of my maturer years;--if it be worthless, it is at least the worthiest contribution that my abilities enable me to offer to the literature of my country; and I am unalterably convinced, that on this foundation I rest the least perishable monument of those thoughts and those labours which have made the life of my life.

E. BULWER LYTTON.

NOTE.

Of the notes inserted in the first edition I have retained only those which appeared to me absolutely necessary in explanation of the text. Among the notes omitted, was one appended to Book I., which defended at some length, and by numerous examples, two alleged peculiarities of style or mannerism:--I content myself here with stating briefly--

1st.--That in this work (as in my later ones generally) I have adopted what appears to me to have been the practice of Gray (judging from the editions of his Poems revised by himself), in the use of the capital initial. I prefix it--

First, to every substantive that implies a personification; thus War, Fame, &c, may in one line take the small initial as mere nouns, and in another line the capital initial, to denote that they are intended as personifications. This rule is clear--all personifications may be said to represent proper names: love, with a small l, means but a passion or affection; with a large L, Love represents some mythological power that presides over the passion or affection, and is as much a proper name as Venus, Eros, Camdeo, &c.

Secondly, I prefix the capital in those rare instances in which an adjective is used as a noun; as the Unknown, the Obscure,[D] &c. The capital here but answers the use of all printed inventions, in simplifying to the reader the author's meaning. If it be printed "he passed through the obscure," the reader naturally looks for the noun that is to follow the adjective; if the capital initial be used, as "He passed through the Obscure," the eye conveys to the mind without an effort the author's intention to use the adjective as a substantive.

[D] So Pope, "Spencer himself affects the Obsolete."

Thirdly, I prefix the capital initial where it serves to give an individual application to words that might otherwise convey only a general meaning; for instance--

"Or his who loves the madding Nymphs to lead
O'er the Fork'd Hill.

that is, the Forked Hill, _par emphasis_,--Parnassus.

The use of the capital in these instances seems to me warranted by common sense, and the best authorities in the minor niceties of our language.

With regard to the other point referred to in the omitted note, I would observe, that I have deliberately used the freest licence in the rapid change of tense from past to present, or _vice versa_; as a privilege essential to all ease, spirit, force, and variety, in narrative poetry; and warranted by the uniform practice of Pope, Dryden, and Milton. I subjoin a few examples:--

"So _prayed_ they, innocent, and to their thoughts
Firm peace recover'd soon and wonted calm;
On to their morning's rural work they _haste_,
Among sweet dews and flowers, where any row
Of fruit-trees over-woody reach'd too far
Their pamper'd boughs, and needed hands to check
Fruitless embraces; or they _led_ the vine
To wed the elm."

MILTON'S _Paradise Lost_, Book v., from line 209 to 216.

Here the tense changes three times.

Again:--

"Straight _knew_ him all the bands
Of angels under watch, and to his state
And to his message high in honour _rise_,
For on some message high they _guess'd_ him bound."

_Ibid._, Book v., from line 288 to 291.

"Thus while he spoke, the virgin from the ground
_Upstarted_ fresh; already closed the wound;
And unconcern'd for all she felt before,
_Precipitates_ her flight along the shore:
The hell-hounds as ungorged with flesh and blood
_Pursue_ their prey and seek their wonted food;
The fiend remounts his courser, mends his pace,
And all the vision _vanish'd_ from the place."

DRYDEN'S _Theod. and Honor_.

Pope--not without reason esteemed for verbal correctness and precision--far exceeds all in his lavish use of this privilege, as one or two quotations will amply suffice to show.

"She said, and to the steeds approaching near
_Drew_ from his seat the martial charioteer;
The vigorous Power[E] the trembling car _ascends_,
Fierce for revenge, and Diomed _attends_:
The groaning axle _bent_ beneath the load," &c.

POPE'S _Iliad_, Book v.

"Pierced through the shoulder first Decopis _fell_,
Next Eunomus and Thoon _sunk_ to Hell.
Chersidamas, beneath the navel thrust,
_Falls_ prone to earth, and _grasps_ the bloody dust;
Cherops, the son of Hipposus, _was_ near;
Ulysses reach'd him with the fatal spear;
But to his aid his brother Socus _flies_,
Socus the brave, the generous, and the wise;
Near as he _drew_ the warrior thus _began_," &c.--_Ibid._

"Behind, unnumber'd multitudes _attend_
To flank the navy and the shores defend.
Full on the front the pressing Trojans bear,
And Hector first _came_ towering to the war.
Phoebus himself the rushing battle _led_,
A veil of clouds involves his radiant head--
The Greeks _expect_ the shock; the clamours rise
From different parts and _mingle_ in the skies
Dire _was_ the hiss of darts by heaven flung,
And arrows, leaping from the bowstring, _sung_:
These _drink_ the life of generous warrior slain--
Those guiltless _fall_ and _thirst_ for blood in vain."

POPE'S _Odyssey_.

In the last quotation, brief as it is, the tense changes six times.

[E] In the corrupt and thoughtless mode of printing now in vogue,
Power is of course printed with a small p, and the sense of
the clearest of all English poets instantly becomes obscure.

"The vigorous power the trembling car ascends."

It is not till one has read the line twice over that one
perceives "the power" means "the God," which, when printed
"the Power," is obvious at a glance.

I ask indulgence of the reader if I take this occasion to add a very short comment upon three objections to this poem which have been brought under my notice:--

1--that it contains too much learning; 2--that it abounds too much with classical allusions; 3--that it indulges in rare words or archaisms.

I wish I could plead guilty to the honourable charge that it contains too much learning. A distinguished critic has justly observed, that the greatest obstacle which the modern writer attempting an Epic would have to encounter, would be, in his utter impossibility to attain the requisite learning. For an Epic ought to embody the whole learning of the period in which it is composed; and in the present age that is beyond the aspiration of the most erudite scholar or the profoundest philosopher. Still, any attempt at an Heroic Poem must at least comprise all the knowledge which the nature of the subject will admit, and we cannot but observe that the greatest narrative poems are those in which the greatest amount of learning is contained. Beyond all comparison the most learned poems that exist, in reference to the age in which they are composed, are the "Iliad" and "Odyssey;" next to them, the "Paradise Lost;" next to that, the "AEneid," in which the chief charm of the six latter books is in that "exquisite erudition," which Mueller so discriminately admires in Virgil; and after these, in point of learning, come perhaps the "Divine Comedy," and the "Fairy Queen." So that I have only to regret my deficiency of learning, rather than to apologize for the excess of it.

With regard to the classical allusions which I have permitted myself, I might shelter my practice under the mantles of our great masters in heroic song--Milton and Spenser; but in fact such admixture of the Classic with the Gothic muse is so essentially the characteristic of the minstrelsy of the middle ages, that without a liberal use of the same combination, I could not have preserved the colouring proper to my subject. And, indeed, I think the advice which one of the most elegant of modern critics has given to the painter, is equally applicable to the poet:--

"Non te igitur lateant antiqua numismata, gemmae,
Quodque refert specie veterum post saecula mentem;
Splendidior quippe ex illis assurgit imago
Magnaque se rerum facies aperit meditanti."[F]

[F] DU FRESNOY _de Arte Graphica_.

Lastly, the moderate use of archaisms has always been deemed admissible in a narrative poem of some length, and rather perhaps an ornament than a defect, where the action of the poem is laid in remote antiquity. And I may add that not only the revival of old, but the invention of new words, if sparingly resorted to, is among the least contestable of poetic licences--a licence freely recognized by Horace, elaborately maintained by Dryden, and tacitly sanctioned, age after age, by the practice of every poet by whom our language has been enriched. I have certainly not abused either of these privileges, for while I have only adopted three new words of foreign derivation, I do not think there are a dozen words in the whole poem which can be considered archaisms: and in the three or four instances in which such words are not to be found in Milton, Shakspere, or Spenser, they are taken from the Saxon element of our language, and are still popularly used in the northern parts of the island, in which that Saxon element is more tenaciously preserved.

If these matters do not seem to the reader of much importance, in reference to a poem of this design and extent, I will own to him confidentially, that I incline to his opinion. But I have met with no objections to the general composition of this work, more serious than those to which the above remarks are intended to reply. Some objections to special lines or stanzas which appeared to me prompted by a juster criticism, or which occurred to myself in reperusal, I have carefully endeavoured in this edition to remove.