| | 1 | Author: | Wharton review: Hooker, Brian | Add | | | Title: | "Artemis to Actaeon," from "Some Springtime Verse."  | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | The title-poem of Mrs. Wharton's Artemis to Actaeon
takes a very different but equally modern view of the same goddess
[as Mr. Hewlett's]. Her Artemis slays Actaeon not in anger, but in
grace, recognising in him who dared to look upon her a soul too
great for the little uses of the world, worthy of that immortality
which is death. Now, there are two ways of handling mythological
material: one may simply retell the old stories vividly, for the
sheer beauty that is in them; or one may seek out some latent
meaning, some new idea whereof the myth will form a fitting
incarnation. The trouble with these present examples of the second
method is that they do violence to the spirit of the myth. The
vigorous and original mentality which has done so much for Mrs.
Wharton as a novelist stands somewhat in her light as a poet. It
is not that a poem can be too intellectual, but that it must not be
more intellectual than emotional; and Mrs. Wharton's thought
sometimes absorbs her feeling and leaves her language dry.
Orpheus the Harper, coming to the gate
Where the implacable dim warder sate,
Besought for parley with a shade within,
Dearer to him than life itself had been,
Sweeter than sunlight on Illyrian sea . . .
Compare with this the opening of Mr. Stephen Phillips's "Christ in
Hades":
Keen as a blinded man at dawn awake
Smells in the dark the cold odor of earth—
Eastward he turns his eyes, and over him
A dreadful freshness exquisitely breathes—
This is the magic; the other is only well written; thought, not
felt. But the most of Mrs. Wharton's book is far better. It is a
delight to follow the steady and sonorous lines of her blank verse
and to note how thoroughly she has assimilated the craftsmanship of
her models. Tennyson and Mr. Phillips have given her style,
Browning has taught her monologue and Rossetti sonnet-form; yet
there is not an imitative line in her book. She has made her
learning her own; and there is far more personality in her poems
than in Mr. Hewlett's. "Margaret of Cortona" is perhaps the best
of them. In her girlhood a man took Margaret out of the slums,
made her a woman and wise. He dying, she took the veil, and in
time became a saint; and the poem is her confession.
Judge Thou alone between this priest and me;
Nay, rather, Lord, between my past and present,
Thy Margaret and that other's—whose she is
By right of salvage—and whose call should follow
Thine? Silent still— Or his who stooped to her,
And drew her to Thee by the bands of love?
Not Thine? Then his?
Ah, Christ—the thorn-crowned Head
Bends . . . bends again . . . down on your knees, Fra Paolo!
If his, then Thine!
Kneel, priest, for this is heaven . . .
Mrs. Wharton is at her best in the dramatic monologue, both because
of her power of characterisation and because blank verse is her
readiest medium. Rhyme often troubles her; and some of her
sonnets, though well versified, are abstract and confused in
expression. She was not born a poet; but this volume shows well
how high in poetry a thoroughly cultured prose artist may attain.
It is a noble and worthy piece of work, of which at least no living
poet need be ashamed. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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