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IV
Considering the sensual explicitness of "Lucretius," its reception in England was remarkably favorable. Benjamin Jowett wrote Emily Tennyson, "I thought 'Lucretius' a most noble poem, and that is the universal impression," though as Masson had predicted, the poem did "not pass without" some "yelping on various sides" (Memoir, II, 55; Buckler, p. 270, and Letters to Macmillan, p. 115). Macmillan, true to his promise to stop its being plundered in Great Britain, printed a prefatory note
The first review to appear, on April 29 in the Pall Mall Gazette, an evening daily of high literary repute, owned by George Murray Smith and edited by Frederick Greenwood, set the prevailing tone of adulation (pp. 11-12).[35] Its writer ridiculed the false gentility of those who thought Tennyson should be above publishing in magazines and reminded readers that "Tithonus"—one of the finest pieces of Tennyson's art, to which
On Saturday, May 2, four laudatory reviews appeared in weekly journals. The Imperial Review reported "Lucretius" to be "in every way worthy of the author of In Memoriam and the Idylls of the King" and of equal rank with those "exquisite" poems "Œnone" and "Tithonus" (3, 413-414). The Inquirer wrote of the poem, "It is one of the finest bits of blank verse that . . . [Tennyson] has ever written, and may be compared with his well-known 'Tithonus' . . ." (27, 277). In a detailed critique of the poem the London Review and Weekly Journal referred to "Lucretius" as "a very beautiful work of art," a "striking and impressive poem" (16, 429); and the Spectator, now exerting renewed influence under the joint editorship of Richard Holt Hutton and Meredith Townsend, devoted a "middle article" to what it considered "a grand poem, which will live with Mr. Tennyson's finest creations" (41, 523-524).[36] The next Saturday, May 9, Macmillan quoted a brief extract from each of these reviews in an advertisement in the Athenaeum (59, 676), presumably not "vulgar" advertising, and four more weeklies—the Examiner (p. 296), the Illustrated London News (52, 471), the Illustrated Times (12, 346),[37] and Punch (54,205)—assessed the poem favorably. Punch's humorous questionnaire on the new work, in order for diners-out to be prepared to discuss it at dinner-parties, testifies to the wide-spread attention "Lucretius" was attracting.
On Monday Macmillan directed this letter to the poet's wife:
My dear Mrs Tennyson,
I hope I am not boring you in sending notices that appear in the papers about "Lucretius." It is a habit we have in regard to our books generally, but some authors—I
Would Mr Tennyson care to look at Mr Jebbs article on the poem & the subject? It seems to me very delicately done.
I hope you are all well, and that the mild gai[e]ties of Clapham have not disturbed him.[38]
With kindest regards to the Poet & the boys.
Yours very faithfullyAlex Macmillan. (Add. MSS. 55388(1), fol. 340)
She replied the next day:
May 12th 1868
Dear Mr Macmillan,
It is very kind in you sending the favourable reviews. Unless there be anything you particularly wish him to see perhaps he has now seen enough *when he has seen the Jebb you mention [interlined]. Those three you name are decidedly the best, I think. "The Nation", the most impertinent *I have seen as a whole [interlined] I have fortunately been able to hide from him The beginning of the Cosmopolitan, equally impertinent, he saw. . . .[39]
[P.S.] He seems to enjoy his Clapham visits, thank you.
We shall be very anxious to know that you are not a loser by Lucretius (Add. MSS. 54986, fols. 213-214).
On the same day that Macmillan wrote to Mrs. Tennyson, The Times issued a resounding encomium by Eneas Sweetland Dallas, who declared "Lucretius" to be "a poem of such power as to demand a notice"—recognition that The Times did "not usually accord to works issued" in a magazine (May 11, p. 12).[40] For him it was "a magnificent piece"; and as if to answer the London Review, which had complained of "'experiments' in versification" in such lines as 30, 40, 53, and 126,[41] he exalted Tennyson as "unapproachable since Milton" for "the melody" of his verse. "To whom, if not to such a man," Dallas demanded, "are we to allow the liberty of altering the rhythm of blank verse?"
Two days later, May 13, the weekly Guardian, in an extended commentary continued the panegyrical strain (23, 564); and by May 20, the Nonconformist could announce, "Tennyson's Lucretius has more than sustained its great reputation. The last number of Macmillan's Magazine has already reached a third edition in consequence of its appearance" (p. 511)—the answer to Emily's fears that Macmillan might lose financially on the poem.
At the end of the month, by a letter dated May 29, Macmillan was able to inform Jebb,
Tinsley's Magazine for July gave "Lucretius" further critical approbation: it would "rank among the best" of Tennyson's poems (2, 611-616). His treatment was severe and "chaste," compared to "the pruriency" that might have been expected from Swinburne.
Finally, in October, the Methodist London Quarterly Review, after extolling the poet as "a well-versed psychologist" and "a consummate artist," applauded the blank verse as "of the finest and richest quality that Mr. Tennyson has produced . . ." (31, 249-254). Furthermore, he was heartily to be congratulated—"at a time when Swinburne is read and apparently relished"—that "the moralist can find no weak or erring point in Lucretius." The London Quarterly Review, however, provided in a footnote the full version of the Oread from a Canadian edition to indicate the "narrow escape" that English readers had had from "a very considerable blemish," to which Americans had been subjected. This reviewer also singled out one line for objection: "Poor little life that toddles half an hour" (228), in which he found the idea dramatically sound "but the expression 'toddles half an hour' . . . too trivial and inelegant for propriety in so austere and grand an entourage."
Despite Tennyson's recognized sensitivity to criticism, when he republished "Lucretius" in the Holy Grail and Other Poems (1870), issued in December, 1869, he ignored all such strictures on lines or phrases; and in the face of the London Quarterly Review (though one cannot be certain that he saw it), he restored to the text the complete description of the Oread. A significant substantive change in the last line of the poem—in part a return to the reading of MS2 through P3—suggests, however, that he may have taken into account the commentary of this critic, who regretted Lucilia's reappearance, and after quoting the passage describing it, wrote as follows:
What matters? All is over: fare thee well!"
Afterward, there would be further polishing of accidentals; and a change of "And" to "That" (261) occurred in the Eversley Edition.[43] But with the felicitous stroke in the concluding line, seemingly slight yet quite consequential, the poet essentially completed the involved process of fashioning "Lucretius."
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