He is at least as likely to have been familiar with Greek myth as
with the lamented "Minstrel." The form of 1833, greatly altered in
1842, contained such unlucky phrases as "cedar shadowy," and
"snowycoloured," "marblecold," "violet-eyed"--easy spoils of
criticism. The alterations which converted a beautiful but faulty
into a beautiful and flawless poem perhaps obscure the significance
of OEnone's "I will not die alone," which in the earlier volume
directly refers to the foreseen end of all as narrated in Tennyson's
late piece, The Death of OEnone. The whole poem brings to mind the
glowing hues of Titian and the famous Homeric lines on the divine
wedlock of Zeus and Hera.
The allegory or moral of The Palace of Art does not need explanation.
Not many of the poems owe more to revision. The early stanza about
Isaiah, with fierce Ezekiel, and "Eastern Confutzee," did undeniably
remind the reader, as Lockhart said, of The Groves of Blarney.
"With statues gracing that noble place in,
All haythen goddesses most rare,
Petrarch, Plato, and Nebuchadnezzar,
All standing naked in the open air."
In the early version the Soul, being too much "up to date,"
"Lit white streams of dazzling gas,"
like Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford.
"Thus her intense, untold delight,
In deep or vivid colour, smell, and sound,
Was flattered day and night."
Lockhart was not fond of Sir Walter's experiments in gas, the "smell"
gave him no "deep, untold delight," and his "infamous review" was
biassed by these circumstances.
Pages:
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47