University of Virginia Library

II

"Lucretius" survives first in a notebook at Harvard in nine autograph fragments, totalling 138 lines (some incomplete), that I have designated MS1. These passages, which correspond to 159 lines of the final text, are not in numerical sequence; and one of them that refers

to the satyr who chases the Oread and to Lucretius' canvassing of reasons for suicide (203-235) is a second and more advanced version of an earlier draft devoted to the same subject matter.[19]

The poet's autograph MS in a notebook at Trinity College, Cambridge (MS2), is the earliest surviving complete draft of the poem and lacks only two lines of the final text (65, 260), which were added in page proof. For the most part a fair copy that reveals notable improvement over the passages of MS1, this MS has forty-five emendations, five of them of a line or more in length; and two of them are major insertions of four and a half and four lines respectively (173-177, 213-216). Comparison of this MS with that in Emily Tennyson's hand at Yale (MS3) clearly establishes that MS2 is the text from which she copied for the press. In doing so, excepting punctuation, she made fifteen mistakes, ten of which Tennyson corrected or emended,[20] but he failed to detect five instances of miscopying—"cans't" for "can'st" (90), "floating" for "fleeting" (161), "Nymphs and Fauns" for "Nymph and Faun" (187), "slipping" for "slippery" (180), and "Who" for "who" (191)—all of which he rectified later in various stages of proof. In addition, the poet made four substantive changes in MS3. He inserted the first "he" (132) to provide a syllable necessary to the meter, substituted "an eye" for "a sight" (137) to clarify meaning, altered "with" to "against" (197) to avoid ambiguity ("butted" in opposition to not alongside or in the company of); and by deleting "Careless" and adding a second "to you" (208), he revised the line from "Careless, I know you careless, yet to you" to read "I know you careless, yet to you, to you", thus shifting the repetition to cause Lucretius to emphasize the illogic, from the point of view of his philosophy, of calling to the gods instead of having him reiterate their detached attitude toward men.[21]

The development of the text through MSS 1 and 2 evinces this same scrupulous concern for meter, accuracy of diction, clarification of unintentional ambiguity, and subtlety of emphasis. Moreover, these MSS show Tennyson's care to elevate tone and to dignify language, to move

in description from the general to the specific, and to increase the aptness and force of verbs, which have so much to do with the powerful impact of the poem. As an illustration of the first of these aspects of his practice, in MS2 Lucretius refers to Venus as the goddess whom Paris "Pronounced the prettiest" (92)—words which Tennyson struck out and replaced with "Decided fairest". Fairness for prettiness heightened the language and the quality of Venus' beauty. "Decided" conveyed a considered judgment in place of a mere pronouncement, and a clumsy alliteration disappeared as well. From the generic and plain "brakes and bushes" (205), which in MS1 Lucretius asks to hide the satyr and the Oread, Tennyson moved in MS2 and thereafter to "million-myrtled wilderness | And cavern-shadowing laurels" (205-206). By so doing, he detailed the scene, precisely named the predominant shrubs, and through balancing the compound verbal adjectives modifying "wilderness" and "laurels", achieved both weight and motion, which the line at first had lacked. Line 186 instances the poet's attention to the vigor and appropriateness of his verbs. Originally in MS2 a riot of nymphs and fauns simply "Stirs [my italics] all the summit of the copse . . ."; as perfected, the riot "Strikes thro' the wood—sets all the tops quivering".

Further, the first two MSS corroborate the poet's propensity, notable in the Trinity MS of the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, for building a poem through added lines and skillful elaboration.[22] For example, the earliest draft in MS1 of the section beginning ". . . Catch her, goatfoot" and ending "What Roman would be dragged in triumph thus" (203-234) consisted of only ten lines. The second draft in MS1 had been expanded to twenty-two, and the third, in MS2, to twenty-eight, which in that MS were increased by an insertion to thirty-two—the number in the final text.

Emendations within the inserted four lines in MS2 (213-216) also illuminate his constant sensitivity to the nuances of expression:

The concrete detail (as well as the metonymy) of "such cups" instead of "so much" and the moderation conveyed by the aftereffects of the wine ("left us"), as distinguished from the causal process of drinking it ("made us"), are distinct improvements. "Affirming" removes the suggestion of disputatiousness in "Defending" and dispenses with the undesirable possibility of a reader's connecting the warmth of "friendly-warm" as much with argument as with wine. Having introduced the wine-drinking, Tennyson then in the succeeding two lines (217-218) transposed the adjectives "sober" and "settled", so that "sober majesties" provide the immediate commentary on the scene in the first line and "settled" recedes to the second, where it joins "sweet" to become appropriately a dual modifier of "Epicurean".

From MS2 onward the passage describing the Oread (188-193) engaged the poet's attention, and one cannot deny that the comparison introducing her in the earliest version is weak:

By deletion and interlineation in MS2 Tennyson recast the lines in this manner:

These examples are sufficient to illustrate Tennyson's craftsmanship; and while it is tempting to pursue the implications and significance of numerous other variants in the MSS, it is necessary to proceed with an examination of the proofs.