XIII KEATS

Mr. Sidney Colvin’s book upon Keats is, in the main, a welcome exception to what has become, of late, the rule in this class of work. It is remarkably¹ just, and every good reader will feel it to be the more warmly appreciative² because it is scarcely ever extravagantly³ so. The bulk of Keats’s poetry, including “Endymion,” is estimated at its true worth, which, as Keats—the severest judge of his own work—knew and confessed, was not much; and the little volume (justly styled by Mr. Colvin “immortal⁴”) which was published in 1820, and which does not consist of more than about 3000 lines, is declared to contain nearly the whole of the poet’s effective writing. And even in this little volume—which includes “Lamia,” “Isabella,” “The Eve of St. Agnes,” the five “Odes,” and “Hyperion”—Mr. Colvin acutely detects and boldly points out many{81} serious defects. From the comparatively worthless waste of the rest of Keats’s writing, Mr. Colvin picks out with accurate discernment the few pieces and passages of real excellence⁵; and he does criticism good service in directing attention to the especial value of the fragment called “The Eve of St. Mark,” and of that which is probably the very finest lyric⁶ in the English language, “La Belle⁷ Dame⁸ sans Merci.”

As long as Mr. Colvin limits himself to the positive beauties and defects of Keats’s poetry he is nearly always right; it is only in his summing up and in his estimate of the comparative worth of his subject that a less enthusiastic critic must part company with him. “I think it probable that by power, as well as by temperament⁹ and aim, he was the most Shakespearian spirit that has lived since Shakespeare.” Is not the truth rather that, among real poets, Keats was the most un-Shakespearian poet that ever lived? True poets may be divided into two distinct classes, though there is a border-line at which they occasionally become confused. In the first class, which contains all the greatest poets, with Shakespeare at their head, intellect predominates; governing and thereby¹⁰ strengthening passion, and evolving beauty and sweetness as accidents—though inevitable¹¹ accidents—of its operation. The vision of such{82} poets may almost be described in the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, in speaking of the Beatific¹² Vision. “The vision,” he writes, “is a virtue¹³, the beatitude an accident.” Such poets are truly spoken of as masculine. In the other class—in which Keats stands as high as any other, if not higher—the “beatitude,” the beauty and sweetness, is the essential, the truth and power of intellect and passion the accident. These poets are, without any figure of speech, justly described as feminine (not necessarily effeminate); and they are separated from the first class by a distance as great as that which separates a truly manly¹⁴ man from a truly womanly woman. The trite¹⁵ saying that the spirit of the great poet has always a feminine element is perfectly¹⁶ true notwithstanding. “The man is not without the woman;” though “the man is not for the woman, but the woman for the man.” The difference lies in that which has the lead and mastery. In Keats the man had not the mastery. For him a thing of beauty was not only a joy for ever, but was the supreme¹⁷ and only good he knew or cared to know; and the consequence is that his best poems are things of exquisite¹⁸ and most sensitively felt beauty, and nothing else. But it is a fact of primary significance, both in morals and in art (a fact which is sadly lost sight of just now), that the highest{83} beauty and joy are not attainable¹⁹ when they occupy the first place as motives²¹, but only when they are more or less the accidents of the exercise of the manly virtue of the vision of truth. There is at fitting seasons a serene²³ splendour and a sunny sweetness about that which is truly masculine, whether in character or in art, which women and womanly artists never attain²⁰—an inner radiance of original loveliness and joy which comes, and can only come, of the purity of motive²² which regards external beauty and delight as accidental.

In his individual criticisms of Keats’s poems Mr. Colvin fully²⁴ recognises their defect of masculine character. In speaking of “Isabella” he says: “Its personages appeal to us, not so much humanly and in themselves, as by the circumstances, scenery, and atmosphere amidst which we see them move. Herein lies the strength, and also the weakness, of modern romance: its strength, inasmuch as the charm of the medi?val colour and mystery is unfailing for those who feel it at all; its weakness, inasmuch as under the influence of that charm both writer and reader are too apt to forget the need for human and moral truth; and without these no great literature can exist.” Again: “In Keats’s conceptions of his youthful heroes there is at all times a touch, not the wholesomest, of effeminacy and physical softness, and the influence of passion{84} he is apt to make fever and unman them quite; as, indeed, a helpless and enslaved submission²⁵ of all the faculties²⁶ to love proved, when it came to the trial, to be the weakness of his own nature.” And again: “In matters of poetic²⁷ feeling and fancy Keats and Hunt had not a little in common. Both alike were given to ‘luxuriating’ somewhat effusively²⁸ and fondly over the ‘deliciousness’ of whatever they liked in art, books, and nature.” In these and other equally just and unquestionable criticisms of Keats’s character and works, surely Mr. Colvin sufficiently²⁹ refutes his own assertion that this writer was “by temperament” “the most Shakespearian” of poets since Shakespeare. And whether he was also such (as Mr. Colvin further asserts him to have been) “by power,” let the poet’s work declare. In his own lovely line—which he faithfully kept to in “Lamia,” “Isabella,” “The Eve of St. Agnes,” and the “Odes”—he is unsurpassed and perhaps unequalled. When he is true to that line we do not feel the want of anything better, though we may know that there is something better: as, in the presence of a beautiful woman, we do not sigh because she is not a General Gordon or a Sir Thomas More. But let Keats try to assume the man—as he does in his latest work, his attempts at dramatic composition {85}or at satirical humour, in the “Cap and Bells”—and all his life and power seem to shrivel and die, like the beauty of Lamia in the presence of Apollonius. Some of his readers may object the semblance³⁰ of Miltonic strength in certain passages of the fragment “Hyperion”; but Keats himself knew and admitted that it was only a semblance and an echo, and therefore wisely abandoned the attempt, having satisfied himself with having shown the world that there was no object of merely external nature, from “roses amorous³¹ of the moon” to
The solid roar
Of thunderous waterfalls and torrents³² hoarse³³,
Pouring a constant bulk, uncertain where,

which he had not nerves to feel and words so to utter that others should feel as he did.

In making this distinction between poetry of a masculine and that of a feminine order, it must be understood that no sort of disrespect is intended to the latter in saying a good word for that “once important sex” of poetry which the bewitching allurements³⁴ of Keats and Shelley and their followers³⁵ have caused, for a season, to be comparatively despised. The femininity of such poets as these is a glorious and immortal gift, such as no mortal lady has ever attained³⁶ or ever will attain. It has been proved to us how well a mortal lady may become able to read the classics; but, humbled³⁷ as{86} some of us may feel by her having headed the Tripos, it is still some compensation for those of our sex to remember that we alone can write “classics,” even of the feminine order. Nor let it be thought that we have been insisting upon a modern and fanciful distinction in thus dividing great men into two classes, in one of which the masculine and in the other the feminine predominates. It is a fact the observation of which is as old as the mythology³⁸ which attributed the parentage of heroes in whom the intellectual powers prevailed to the union of gods with women, while those who distinguished³⁹ themselves by more external and showy faculties were said to have been born of the commerce of goddesses with men.

1 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

2 appreciative   

adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的

参考例句：

• She was deeply appreciative of your help.她对你的帮助深表感激。
• We are very appreciative of their support in this respect.我们十分感谢他们在这方面的支持。

3 extravagantly   

adv.挥霍无度地

参考例句：

• The Monroes continued to entertain extravagantly. 门罗一家继续大宴宾客。 来自辞典例句
• New Grange is one of the most extravagantly decorated prehistoric tombs. 新格兰奇是装饰最豪华的史前陵墓之一。 来自辞典例句

4 immortal   

adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的

参考例句：

• The wild cocoa tree is effectively immortal.野生可可树实际上是不会死的。
• The heroes of the people are immortal!人民英雄永垂不朽！

5 excellence   

n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德

参考例句：

• His art has reached a high degree of excellence.他的艺术已达到炉火纯青的地步。
• My performance is far below excellence.我的表演离优秀还差得远呢。

6 lyric   

n.抒情诗，歌词；adj.抒情的

参考例句：

• This is a good example of Shelley's lyric poetry.这首诗是雪莱抒情诗的范例。
• His earlier work announced a lyric talent of the first order.他的早期作品显露了一流的抒情才华。

7 belle   

n.靓女

参考例句：

• She was the belle of her Sunday School class.在主日学校她是她们班的班花。
• She was the belle of the ball.她是那个舞会中的美女。

8 dame   

n.女士

参考例句：

• The dame tell of her experience as a wife and mother.这位年长妇女讲了她作妻子和母亲的经验。
• If you stick around,you'll have to marry that dame.如果再逗留多一会，你就要跟那个夫人结婚。

9 temperament   

n.气质，性格，性情

参考例句：

• The analysis of what kind of temperament you possess is vital.分析一下你有什么样的气质是十分重要的。
• Success often depends on temperament.成功常常取决于一个人的性格。

10 thereby   

adv.因此，从而

参考例句：

• I have never been to that city,,ereby I don't know much about it.我从未去过那座城市，因此对它不怎么熟悉。
• He became a British citizen,thereby gaining the right to vote.他成了英国公民，因而得到了投票权。

11 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

12 beatific   

adj.快乐的，有福的

参考例句：

• All parents wish their children could have a safe and beatific life.父母都渴望他们的孩子们平安快乐。
• Perhaps the Beatific Vision itself has some remote kinship with this lowly experience.或许至福幻象本身就同这种平凡的体验有着某种淡薄的血缘关系。

13 virtue   

n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力

参考例句：

• He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
• You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。

14 manly   

adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地

参考例句：

• The boy walked with a confident manly stride.这男孩以自信的男人步伐行走。
• He set himself manly tasks and expected others to follow his example.他给自己定下了男子汉的任务，并希望别人效之。

15 trite   

adj.陈腐的

参考例句：

• The movie is teeming with obvious and trite ideas.这部电影充斥着平铺直叙的陈腐观点。
• Yesterday,in the restaurant,Lorraine had seemed trite,blurred,worn away.昨天在饭店里，洛兰显得庸俗、堕落、衰老了。

16 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

17 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

18 exquisite   

adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的

参考例句：

• I was admiring the exquisite workmanship in the mosaic.我当时正在欣赏镶嵌画的精致做工。
• I still remember the exquisite pleasure I experienced in Bali.我依然记得在巴厘岛所经历的那种剧烈的快感。

19 attainable   

a.可达到的，可获得的

参考例句：

• They set the limits of performance attainable. 它们确定着可达到的运行限度。
• If objectives are to be meaningful to people, they must be clear, attainable, actionable, and verifiable. 如果目标对人们是具有意义的，则目标必须是清晰的，能达到的，可以行动的，以及可供检验的。

20 attain   

vt.达到，获得，完成

参考例句：

• I used the scientific method to attain this end. 我用科学的方法来达到这一目的。
• His painstaking to attain his goal in life is praiseworthy. 他为实现人生目标所下的苦功是值得称赞的。

21 motives   

n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• to impeach sb's motives 怀疑某人的动机
• His motives are unclear. 他的用意不明。

22 motive   

n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的

参考例句：

• The police could not find a motive for the murder.警察不能找到谋杀的动机。
• He had some motive in telling this fable.他讲这寓言故事是有用意的。

23 serene   

adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的

参考例句：

• He has entered the serene autumn of his life.他已进入了美好的中年时期。
• He didn't speak much,he just smiled with that serene smile of his.他话不多，只是脸上露出他招牌式的淡定的微笑。

24 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

25 submission   

n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出

参考例句：

• The defeated general showed his submission by giving up his sword.战败将军缴剑表示投降。
• No enemy can frighten us into submission.任何敌人的恐吓都不能使我们屈服。

26 faculties   

n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院

参考例句：

• Although he's ninety, his mental faculties remain unimpaired. 他虽年届九旬，但头脑仍然清晰。
• All your faculties have come into play in your work. 在你的工作中，你的全部才能已起到了作用。 来自《简明英汉词典》

27 poetic   

adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的

参考例句：

• His poetic idiom is stamped with expressions describing group feeling and thought.他的诗中的措辞往往带有描写群体感情和思想的印记。
• His poetic novels have gone through three different historical stages.他的诗情小说创作经历了三个不同的历史阶段。

28 effusively   

adv.变溢地，热情洋溢地

参考例句：

• We were effusively welcomed by the patron and his wife. 我们受到老板和他妻子的热忱欢迎。 来自辞典例句
• The critics praised her effusively. 评论家们热情洋溢地表扬了她。 来自互联网

29 sufficiently   

adv.足够地，充分地

参考例句：

• It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
• The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。

30 semblance   

n.外貌，外表

参考例句：

• Her semblance of anger frightened the children.她生气的样子使孩子们感到害怕。
• Those clouds have the semblance of a large head.那些云的形状像一个巨大的人头。

31 amorous   

adj.多情的；有关爱情的

参考例句：

• They exchanged amorous glances and clearly made known their passions.二人眉来眼去，以目传情。
• She gave him an amorous look.她脉脉含情的看他一眼。

32 torrents   

n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断

参考例句：

• The torrents scoured out a channel down the hill side. 急流沿着山腰冲刷出一条水沟。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Sudden rainstorms would bring the mountain torrents rushing down. 突然的暴雨会使山洪暴发。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

33 hoarse   

adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的

参考例句：

• He asked me a question in a hoarse voice.他用嘶哑的声音问了我一个问题。
• He was too excited and roared himself hoarse.他过于激动，嗓子都喊哑了。

34 allurements   

n.诱惑( allurement的名词复数 )；吸引；诱惑物；有诱惑力的事物

参考例句：

• The big cities are full of allurements on which to spend money. 大城市充满形形色色诱人花钱的事物。 来自《简明英汉词典》

35 followers   

追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件

参考例句：

• the followers of Mahatma Gandhi 圣雄甘地的拥护者
• The reformer soon gathered a band of followers round him. 改革者很快就获得一群追随者支持他。

36 attained   

（通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况）

参考例句：

• She has attained the degree of Master of Arts. 她已获得文学硕士学位。
• Lu Hsun attained a high position in the republic of letters. 鲁迅在文坛上获得崇高的地位。

37 humbled   

adj. 卑下的，谦逊的，粗陋的 vt. 使 ... 卑下，贬低

参考例句：

• The examination results humbled him. 考试成绩挫了他的傲气。
• I am sure millions of viewers were humbled by this story. 我相信数百万观众看了这个故事后都会感到自己的渺小。

38 mythology   

n.神话，神话学，神话集

参考例句：

• In Greek mythology,Zeus was the ruler of Gods and men.在希腊神话中，宙斯是众神和人类的统治者。
• He is the hero of Greek mythology.他是希腊民间传说中的英雄。

39 distinguished   

adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的

参考例句：

• Elephants are distinguished from other animals by their long noses.大象以其长长的鼻子显示出与其他动物的不同。
• A banquet was given in honor of the distinguished guests.宴会是为了向贵宾们致敬而举行的。