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The departure of the poetry of Robert LouisStevenson for the Victorian Tradition in poetryAnna Howard RussellAtlanta University

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Recommended CitationRussell, Anna Howard, "The departure of the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson for the Victorian Tradition in poetry" (1937). ETDCollection for AUC Robert W. Woodruff Library. Paper 1082.

THE DEPASTURE OF THE POBXRY OF

BGBEBT LOUIS STEVEHSON FROM THE ¥IGTOBIM TRADITION IN PO1TEY

A 1HESIS

SUBftffTTID TO THB FAOOLTSf OF ATLABTA

IH PARTIAL FUU'IUMSIT OP THE REQCTEREMENTS FOB

THE DEGREE OF M&STSR OF AUTS

AKM4 HOMED OTSSBLL

OF MGLISH

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

JUH1 193?

li

TABLE OF GOMEMB

CHAPTER PACE

I TBE VICTORIAN TRADITION 11 POETRY . . 1

II HOTS OF NATURALISM IS STEVSHSCTCMS POETEY . . . . 18

III CONFIRMATION Of STEVENSON*3 NATORAUSM IK filS

PO1TO1 28

IV SOMM&HI 48

BIBLIOGRAPHY . 51

iii

PREFACE

This thesis is a study of the departure of the poetry of Robert

Louis Stevenson from that of the Victorians by virtue of the note of

naturalism embodied in his poetry.

The agreement of her advisor, Dr. William Stanley Braithwaite,

with the late Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford, H. I.

Garrod,, in his opinion that Stevenson's poetryf because of its

studied sentiment of naturalism and its effort to quicken dietion from

living sources of speech, formed a bridge between the poetry of the

Victorians and the Georgians, has led the writer to examine the poems

of Robert Louis Stevenson in order to discover if, and in what manner,

it actually departed from the Victorian tradition in poetry.

The Thistle Edition of Robert Louis Stevenson, in twenty-five

volumes, published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1920, has

been used as the text of the selections quoted and ths references made

to Stevenson's writings in this study.

3 1

THE fBJTOBlAM ra&DITlON IB POETRX

Botert Louis Stevenson's MtHire®itt-iiig effort to escape from art

Into nature,**1 and the itipaet of this effort on the ¥ictoriaa tradition

In literature will be the abject of this study* His poetry will

supply the sources of those eloaeats nhieh it is Intended to show dis

tinguished his art from that of his iiaaediate predecessors*, and will

herewith receive our attention and interp:retatieiu His letters, novels,

and essays will be cited oalj in so far as they seem to support the

assertion that Stevenson's poetry did break froxa the Victorian tradition

with a new note.of naturalism*

la order to determine what the Victorian tradition in poetry was,

it will "be necessary, first, to present a brief sumssary of the political,

social, scientific, end religious problems of the period which iafltieneed

lngli.sfi life and which wre reflected ia its literature; for never

before, as stated By William Vaughn loodf and Robert lores Lovett in

"literature been ao closely in

league» or opeal^ at war, with the forces of social life.**2 The process

es of aatioaal life in Snglaad which lei to the eventual interdependence

of public and primte affairs in their germinal state, and. the creative

hi. W. 6arrods j^eJ^rofas^ioDijp^JJoej^;, Oxford, 19S9, w- 182-183.

%lilliaffi Vsu#m Voo&j and Robert Morss tov©ttLiterature, lew York, J1930J, p. 341.

9

purpose and expression of literature, are sketched in their larger

movements by Percy Haaen Houston in the following quotation;

The Restoration revealed th© transition; the

eighteenth eentary aaw the germination of new

ideas; the first quarter of the nineteenth

eentury was the explosive period of the new

democracy; the remainder' of the century became

the battle of old and new....1

The three central problems around whieh waged the controversies of

the Victorian mind and emotion, were democracy, science and religion,

and out of them developed all those forces and influences whieh affect

ed the social and economic, the civil and domestict the educational and

administrative character of Victorian England.v

The progress of democracy which began *ith the Reform Bill of

s1832, and continuing with successive victories for several decades,

had a profound effect upon the social and economic conditions of the

English people. Beneficial as democracy proved in enhancing the power

and comforts of the middle classes, it was challenged all the way hj

soae of the most eminent men of letters. Literature was divided in ita

allegiance between the old traditions of the aristocracy,—the landed

gentry with their privileges and wealth upon whieh the power and pres

tige of England had been built,---and the social hopes of the common

people for a share in the fruits of the nation's abundant wealth.

%>erey Hazen Houston, jfain_^Guire^^JLn__^|^i3h_Mtejpaturet Hew York,192B, p. 180.

Legouls and Louis Oazamian,

Mew York,. 1930, p. 1124.

^Edward P. Cfceyney, The Reform Bill of 1832 "was the first step towardsthe attainment o? self-government hy the whole mass of th© English people,"

A_Short Jiiatorx of England, New York, £l9S?J, p. 628.

Democracy was to help realize a more equal distribution of the latter

through a wider extension of the franchise awong the lower classes, with

its consequent participation in the government through representation.

1 9Literature in the figures of Carlyle, Newman, and Arnold protested the

advance of democracy as the cure for soeial and political evils, nor did

Tennyson, the "apostle of gradual progress,"8 fail to become alarmed as

he viewed the concentrated emphasis which had come to be placed upon

materialism, an outgrowth of the practical, application of scientific in

ventions. He did not believe that democracy could legislate social,

political, and economic virtues into being, but he visioned the better

ment of human conditions through the slower process of evolution by

which tradition would advance the brotherhood of man from "precedent to

precedent." The poetie representative of his age, Tennyson spoke for

the age*s poetry ia its attitude towards democracy which, though not

wholly able to accept democracy found the hope and demand for it too

strong to be resisted, and rested finally upon the Tennysonian compro-

6

Thus the ideal of democracy towards which England moved during th©

long reign of Queen Victoria became first, a political debate decided

John Baefaan, AM^^9¥I.r..oS^A^^A^KM*S^^JSu, New lork, 19£9, p. 58?.

%ardin Craig and J. M. Thomas.,New York, 1934, p. 5.

3John Buehan, op_«_jBit., p. 476.

%lfrefl Lord Tennyson, "You Ask 15c !7hy,w.Lord Tennyson, edited by U. I. Horfe,^BostonV[i89ej, p. 60.

%ugh Walker, fha,.j:itjars^^ Cambridge, 1931, p.S88.

6Harold Nicholson, Tgnnxson, London, 1925, pp. 252-257.

by ParliaBsntary enactments «hioa, in turn, when put into practice so

changed the social and economic character of a'4tional life as to arouse

partisan moods and antagonistic tempers in literature.

After the passage of the Reform Bill of 18SSS the next raost impor

tant Parliamentary enactment of far-reaching sigaifieanee was the repeal

of the Corn Laws ia 1846. The repeal of the Corn Laws greatly in

creased the material- wealth of England, largely shared by the eoim»reiai

and industrial classes who, forming the middle classes, rose triumphant

ly "over the old aristoeraeywS of England. Democracy and industrialism

were allied in a battle in behalf of the middle classess utiose possession

would give them the prerogatives and privileges of the aristocracy in

supporting and Maintaining the solidarity of England at home and in ex

panding her interests and power abroad. The art stocracy did not yield

without a fight, in which it had able literary chasroions who contested

in poem and no¥©l and essay the literature of their fellow authors who

praised and encouraged the nem ideals and the ne?j order. Tennyson

effected a cos^roiaise between the old and the new;4 ISatthew Arnold was

wholly on the side of ike old as the embodiment of dignitj and culture;^

Halph Philip Boas and Barbara Hahn, goo^al_Backgro.uB.d of EngLlshLlteratare, .Boston, 193S, p. 222.

%sme Wlrngfield-Stratford, JhaJglclSS^-SSiSSZ* London, 1931, pp

3-Carlton J. H. Hayes, A_PoliUcal aad_Cultural History of Modern Europe,'— York, 1931, Vol. 2S p. 9S. — — ___ ___

^Gilbert ICeith Chesterton, The fietorianjyse in Literature, lew York1913, p. .162. —-—-----------»----------__ »

%5atthew Arnold, Preface to Oalture^gna Jinarehy, edited by Arminius,Baron Ton ^ander-Ten-Tronckh, Hew fork, 1924, p. xi.

Carlyle was sourly skeptical of the fitness of the new to select and

train leaders;1 and even Buskin preached the sanetlfication of the new

order with the moral and ethical spirit of the old tradition's aesthetic

2values.

So far the results of the progressive legislation inaugurated by

the Before Bill of 1832 and the Bepeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 were

Materialistic in the spread of political freedom and the increase of

wealth among the Basses of the English people. Literature recorded

these changes in proae and Terse, centering its arguments upon the in

dividual nan and his ability to receive and profit from these ciTil

and social benefits. SMle the people were still on probation in re

gards to the rights to the permanent exercise and enjoyment of these

material benefits, their minds and spirits were shocked and depressed

hj the revelations of science in Its dual role of origins and inventions,

and fcy religion with its opposing emphasis on faith and the various

modes of worship within the Established Church, and with shich the Non

conformists joined in th© stirring conflicts that ensued between science

and religion.

Theological discussions were precipitated, and raade distressing by

the fact that many of the newly enfranchised Englishmen had brought into

their ecclesiastical affairs the same rafiie&l type of policy ahich they

had used ia their political affairs. On July 14, 1833,S a movement

^omas Garlyle, "The Present Time,'f from Latter Day Pamphlets, London.1907, -a®. 14-15. —^,-,~,,-^,.., r ■ _» »

8J6hn Buskin, "St. Park's," The Stones of Venice, Hew York,|l879i to.113-114. "~"*~"~~—•-——» >L J' yi

%en. W. H. Button, "The Oxford Movement,"ii*I4^t dit

1916, Vol. XII,'p. S84.s edited fey A. W. Ward and A. R. Waller. Mew York.S84

whioh smight to protect the Ctrareh from this type of policy, Md its

birth. In a a&vsson preached at Oxford % Joto Keble; it sought to fore

stall interforance of the State in Church affairs, to defend the Church

against mterialiam end industrlalisn:, to raise the morale ©f the clergy,

and to arouse a spiritual eathusia&a within the Church* Shis movement,

kaona as the Oxford EOYetsent, and using tie "fa® Tracts of the Times** as

its isouthpieee, attej^teS to shorn that ttie Tklrt^-Mine Articles of the

Anglican Chmrah corresponSei to those of the Catholic Church*

and eerrsffionj tisre eneotiraged, aad the pufelic took a a«? aa3 c

iBt©r®at ia religious topies, ^wevor, ae Joha Sera^ llewsaa, »to beeaise

th« virtual leafier of tfee movementt studied the situation, he osse to

the conclusion that %he •'Church of Saglaad was a schiswatical offshoot

©f the tras Gatfeolie faith....wl Ir 1845, he joiaefl the Catholic Gtorah.

The wOxford Wm&mnt broke iip;**^ aai, es a "reaction against the attest

td identify Christianity with Bonan CatholicIsm a .small but Influential

body of thinkers* inelu«Jing II®siBaa*s ©wn brother„ ware iri¥©n to steptie-

,3

effect of the Orfori 2Knren»nt mpoa fictoriaji thought aad litera

ture is described by- Arehdeaeon luttoa is the following;

The Oxford novexseat eertaiBly ts^longs to th® history

of fngli&h religion mqtb definitely thaa to the history

of Snglisti litaratorej but it hnd great influence, out

side its own definite raatnfcers, on the literary taste

Ifon (Iroas, ^^^2njSL]iS^S^S^L^SSSSS3L^iJSS^.* Ses York,1928, p. 1041.

3IbW.

of its age. It spoke from the first for a certain

purity, directness and severity ofstyle: later,

the historical influences itiieh attached themselves

to it, through the study of ancient legends, and

liturgies, and hymns, produced a richer vein of prose,

a more florid touch in poetry, lo one can think that

Tennyson was wholly unmoved by its Banner; but Dolben

and Pater were the undoubted issue of its later life.

That the "glamour of tractarian theology extended far beyond thos©

who were its first teachers," Dr. Button informs us i&en h® adda:

...in the poetry ©f BIgby laekworth Dolban, only

recently given to the world, and of Christina

Boaettl, it formeci a new life exuberant and aflame.

Dolbea. pursued its teaching till it yielded to him

a certain mediaeval richness of ecclesiastical

imagery that touched at many points a religious passion

which was older than Christianity, and almost hostile to

it. To Christina Boeeetti, the catholic theology of the

English Chrueh was the very breath of life, and sh@ ac

cepted its sternness without dispute...But most proain-

eat of all was the long line of stories, exquisite in

domestic portraiture, strong in moral power, keen in un

derstanding of character and touched with a gracious

huaour, which issued from the parish of Hursley—uhere

leble was to the authoress a tru© guide, philosopher and

friend—and were the work of Charlotte M., Yonge. The

Heir _of Redclyffe and jS^Llttle Duke have their place in

English literature. They*liaro "had jsany iiaitators andsuccessor® but few rivals, unless Jj^byn_Inrf:e_sant may claimto b® of their company.^

Apart from the theological dialectics on matters of dogma and worship

which the movement brought into being, it sought, as we have stated,

to arouse a spiritual enthusiasm within the Church, and "making itself

f®lt throughout the country had, naturally, an influence in many phases

of literature.wS Lord HLachford believed the Oxford Movement to be

Yen. W» H. Mutton, ogi^cit., p. 300.

IWd., pp. 306-307.

5Ibid», p. SO?.

8

'•...fervent and reforming in essentials with, a due reverene® for exist

ing authorities mid habits and traditions;"1 propagating "a religion

whieh did not reject, but aspired to embody itself, any form of art

and literature, poetry, philosophy, and ©ven science which could be

2pressed into the service of Christianity."

though the Methodist Bjoveraent, with its evangelical aeal, had

"•given back to religious feeling its rightful plaee," it had "produced

4little or no theology,* a fast which waves F. E. Hutehinson to state

that "Beligious thought has seldom been so stagnant in England as at

th© opening of the nineteenth century." Th© Oxford Movement supplied

the theology that was laeking, to complement within the Established

Church, the spirit of Methodism which fired the revival of religion in

England during the first half of th© nineteenth century• Religion was

an intensely personal matter to both Anglican and Kon-Gonfonaist alike,

and the belief in God, the divinity of Ohrist, and th© immortality of

the soul could be attributed to saeh in the manner of their acceptance!

to the Kon-Confornist, by his faith and good' works, to the inglican,

through his faith supported by evidence. Differences of acknowledgment

and worship of a Christianity professed by all, created a battleground

"Letters ©f T-ord Blaohford," p. 15, quoted by V©n. 1?* H. Button, Ibid.

3F. E. Hutehinson, "The Growth, of Liberal Tfieology,**jj^.* Vol. XI2S p. 509.

5lbid.

upoa which was waged a stirring conflict of doctrine and principle.

Suddenly an unforeseen and unsuspected enemy appeared to attack the

antagonists, throwing the orthodox Christianity of England into a confused

and chaotic defense of its faith.

The attack cam© with the publication of Charles Darwin's On__th@

Jt^l£tojpJLAfo^il5S®^ and sustained by

succeeding works of science establishing the theory of Evolution.

Darwin's j^gf_iPeecentrrrofrtjten and Alfred Russell Wallace's O

to .Depart from tae_ OrtglnalJ^Tggg. with Barwin's earlier

work, did tiaore than any other achievement of the age to Chang® man's

whole attitude towards the origin and growth of lifef^ and ia consequence,

not only weakened man's religious beliefs, but through scientific proof

and evidence tended to destroy the very foundations of his faith in God

and immortality.

Darwin taught:

...there had been a long, slow development of things,

an evolution of one type from another; that the changes

in, this evolution had bees brought about as the result

of a struggle for survival, in which some individuals

or species had. survived because of peoularities vhleh

especially fitted theia to succeed or survive, and that

these peeularities increasing in the course of time

had constituted the changes of evolution, and brought

about variation of species, There had been a long

descent of species in which man could be traced back

through the ape- families to lower forma more distant

aad remote in tine.8

Biis theory "became the most important new intellectual force of the

time,"3 and Herbert Spencer, in his^gthetie_PhilQgophy., sought to

^■Edward Raymond Turner, ]gurop_e_ Since JL87O. lew York, 1937, p. 71.

3IMd., p.

10

explain all branches of knowledge in terms of evolution.

Th© theory of evolution, however, proved very damaging to theo

logical beliefs. A few men completely ignored it. Th© majority of

the fietorians were torn between the Moldw and the "new11—the Biblical

aeeount and the scientific account of creation. A comparatively small

group of men, like Wallace,1 were incited by the theory of evolution

to loftier realms of spiritual truth.

The eoafliet which arose between the evolutionists and doctrinaire

Christians proved especially harmful in the An&Liean Church, which had

fallen back into the formalism and conservatism from which th© Wesleyan

revival had sought to save it. "Its bishops were poMpoua, di^ified

figures who had secured their high offices throu^i family connections,

personal influence, or reputation for learning, who enjoyed ample

incomes and extensive powers, and who, with little regard for purely

religious work, devoted theaselves to politics, to the administration

of their estates, to society and scholarly leisure,mS while "the rank

and file of the country parsons drew only meagre stipends."*5

The creative literature of Victorian England was influenced by

the dynamic forces of democracy, religion and science, with itiich it

was ^either closely in league or openly at war." lever before had

poetry so passionately striven to realize its function as a truth-seeker;

suspicious of the imagination, it sought to rationalise all the elements

Russell Wallace, JMSiSiilE. London, 1901, p. 474.

^Arthur Lyon Gross, og^jsit.., p. 1039,

11

of an intellectual conflict to assure and assuage a troubled national

mind and spirit.1 Tennyson stands pre-erainentlj the poetic leafier2

who sought to compose the differences in ideas a»t» ideals of life and

conduct which, lured the "English Blind anfi emotion 'in ©very direction.

Sit all his contemporaries, dominated by their special moods and eon™

victiona, joined in the effort to solve the perplexities that baffled

the individual and threatened the security of the nation's institutions.

Browning, Arnold, Mrs. Browning, dough, Gb.fi.atim. Kossetti, and William

Harris were poetically controversial in the spirit of their art,.and the

more intensely they communicated their convictions or sought to arrive

at a compromise when uncertain of conviction, the less spontaneous and

natural were the Hoods of their poeias, though more subtle became their

verbal artifice.

The impulsiveness and idealism of the first part of the nineteenth

eintury had passed.. Emotion had fallen to the 'background and logic had

taken the leading role. Men everywhere sought truth and stability; and

they -sfsre not content to listen to sere outbursts of magical veree.

Edmund Clarence Stediaan wrote of the Victorian poets: "A thirst

for aore facts grows upon them; ttiej throe e.side their lyres and renew

the fascinating .study, forgetful that-the inspirationof Plato, Shakespeare and other poets of old, oftenforeshadowed the glory of these revelations, and...

Hugh walker, Jfoe^Age^fJItonngTOn, London, 19?89 p. vli.

George Saintabury, A_MSi2£I_2£Sinetee»ttt Century Literature He* York1910, p. 253. —___~-^-_»»»-£____»_____» ,

^dnuna Clarence Stediaan, .Victorian Poets. Boston, 1881, pp. 14-15.

{neglectj to sliaat isa turn the traneeniant possibilities of eras to eome. Science, the modern Circe,

beguiles them from their voyage to the Hesperidee.

and transforms them iato her voiceless devotees."*

wIn tha search for a worthy theme, more than one of

the poets.,. .by jojjrjae_fogee, allied himself to some

heroic raission "of~tha "day~S*%

Although the Yietorian© possessed an "easy mastery over such images

... which gave to the poetry of the time a common background of rich

anfi varied natural beauty, very bright in line and colour,"3 they no

longer turned to external nature as a source of spontaneous joy and in

spiration, they were "not very much concerned with the interpretation

of nature in Wordsworth*s prophetic sense.,.."4 ViSa Seudder says:

"Poetry subsequent to 1830 practically ignored the most significant

factor in the work of the earlier poets. Mature which'had been a theme

of substantial and glorious independence, sank back again into a store

house of illustrations for the experience of raan."5

The success of the ?ietorian poets had been a triumph of culture,

intellect aad will power. They **no longer aeeept, even for its beauty,

the language of myth and tradition; they know better; the glory may

remain, but verily the dream ha® passed away."6 wIa the ultra-critical

S p. 29,

Brinkwater, Victorian Poetry;. London, 1923, p. 188

!>• Scudder, The_Llfe.of the Spirit in the Modern iSnglish PoetsBoston,, 1895, p. 319. -————. w., ^^^.,

Clarence Stedman, op^eit., p. 17.

spirit of the tine, they enchanted the strength and

beauty of their measures by every feasible process

arid the careful adaptation of fora to thene....The

extreme of word-music and word relating .has been

attained, together with a peculiar condensation in

imagery and thought; so that, whereas the poets of

the last era, for all their strength of %sing,

occupied whole passages with a single image... the

¥ictoriaas express it "by a single adjective or

epithet^-

The best models are ©elected by the song ¥jritsrs, the

tale-tellers, and the preachers in verse....2

J. W» Mackail !>eliaves that Percy Bysahs Shelley lias embodied in his

treatise A PJlt?**$$_..9f.J*P®Pl%L* oae of *he "moat considered and authentic

utterances that poets have given about their own art."3 It is Shelley*s

eontentlan that "Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be everted

according to the determination of the will. A uasn cannot say, 'I will

eoiipose poetry.1 The greatest poet ever cannot saj it; for...rrtien

composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline...it ^poetry-'

is not subject to the control of the active powers of the Kind...."4

The Yiotorian. poets had evidently lost sight of this. They yielded

to the search for truth and. the love of fact. ?ennyson "embodied within

himself the teaper and striving of tlie Victorian era,"5 Browning probed

into men's minds and souls with the analytical precision of a scientist,

3J. ¥. Maekall, j^tttjfe^jo^JPoeitr^, New lark, 1914, pp. 21-2R.

*Percy Bysahe Shelley, Befenae .of^Poetryt Boston, 1891, pp, 39-44.

5Benjamin Brawley, A._New..Suryjgjr ...of gngliA .Literaturet Hew York, 1930,

p. 305.

14

and catered to hia reading public by instilling isoral platitudes into

his poetry. Mrs, Browning's poetry has for the most part been Mim

passioned pai^)hl@teering5tt Matthew Arnold admits that:

Slave of sense „

I have in no wise been;—but slave of Hi ought;

Arthur Hugh Glough "became so to say, the mouthpiece of hie own doubt

ing age;w^ William Harris wrote his mother: S?I will fey no means give

up things I have thought of for the bettering of the world in so far

4as it lies in me;*1 and even Swinburne, "the East fertile lyrie poet

of the Yictorian era...was obsessed with fiercely cherished prejudices

and...fan] unsparing condemnation of the dogmas and opinions held most

saered by his countrymen...."^

Freedom, that quality which liberates men and art from restraint,

was largely excluded from Yietorian poetry. In the words of William

Wordsworth, wa multitude of causes, unknown to former times...[have

acted] with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the

mind, and... (to unfitj it for voluntary exertion...." Yictorian poetry

%. W. Maekail, Studigg-J»f JagULlk Posts, Mew York, 1926, p. 179.

%atthew Arnold, "Empedoeles on Etna," toajg^bic^njM^tgr_jPp_ejna_, NewYork, 1924, p. 174. - _ ._

3W. H. Hudson, "Clough," Studies .in Interpretation, New York, 189S,p. 117.

%. W. Mackail, ^tu^e^jjf^^tt^iafaJPoets, pp. 193-194.

George Saintsbury, "Lesser Poets of th© Middle nineteenth and Later

nineteenth Century," 9M^t§&^M^^J^Rt^A^^.M^&tn^.v Vol. XIII,p. 163.

William fferdsworth, "Preface to the Lyrical Ballads," Poems _by .William

Wordgggrth, edited by George McLean Harper, Sew York, ^j7~^T~

15

was not "tii© spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings."

The rapid political, social, economic, and religious changes of

the era had aimed the vision of the poets, who were no longer contest

to deal with the simple, natural, unsophisticated desires and instinets

of man. They consciously subjected their poetry to th© determination

of the will. And, ae a result, they ha1?© left us prepondering, well-

thought-out, didactic, intellectual, pessimistic, and frosty poetry.

Lotiis Untermeyer says that they had produeed poetry which wwass in the

main, not universal but parochial; its romanticism was gilt and tinsel;

its realism was as cheap as its showy glass pendants, red plush, parlor

2chroBJoa and antinascasars." They had written under a "'thousand...

5theories that have sot truth but comfort for their end,"'

It was during this period of "pessimistic resignation...and a kind

4 5of negation" which refused wto ae© any glamour in the actual world,'1

that Hobert Louis Stevenson, spiritually more akin to the romanticists

than to the Yietorians, set forth in the simple lyrical verse a gospel

of happiness, gaiety, and courage—a delight in plain, unaffected in-

dividual® and in the "open air, the fellowship of moors and roads.*1

gIbi_d.

4jbM.

sIbld.

%ohn

s p. 4B6»

i Uisteraieyer,

, p. 5.

, p. 4.

Buehan, o^^

editor,

cit., p.

x, New York, 1925S p. 4.

Geoffrey Bullough, ThaJ£ren&j>f_Jfodern Pog_try, London, 1934, pp. 8-9.

CHAPTER Ii

IOTE OF NATURALISM IN STE¥EIS01»S POET1Y

Victorian paetry reflected, as a mirror, the activities of a.

ecaplex and. chaotic age. The poets -were subjected to the rapid changes

in the mental temper of a nation striving to folios? its leaders towards

the solution of problems whieli the aatioa as a whole had not hitherto

been concerned with. The poets felt it their artistic duty to resold©

these problems In their works, to arrive at seme kind of answers to

their questions, sad thus lead their confused fellow eoantryiaen oat of

their dilemmas* They gave allegiance to the controversies of a world

created Toy m&nt a world of industry, of eeietttifis discoveries and in

ventions, of religious doubts and re-asserted faiths, of tesoeratic

aspirations is conflict with aristocratic institutions and traditions,

of the social changes and privileges resulting from thass conditions,

and produced objective, didactic, relatively cold and intellectual

poetry whose very Ming sprang from the stirring and p^ggling activities

of the period* The measure in which the posts gave thair intellect and

their spirit to the general ideas and controversies of the era, by that

imach smothered their individual emotions and weaken©*! the power of the

imagination is the post.

The didactic purpose, and the aoeoptance of a "mission," hj the

Victorians in their poetry, gave rise to foraalism and dQgf»tie

spiritual values which led, ultimately, to a sterility of ideas ana

conventions*

16

1?

and I ."alia

li'tor ITf; 11"*. JleterUni .THorc, i';i* a Vbr*VIti ihoxv '*•««

%J. vv< the *im. •"Oiiore.ti'* be7'a* Jo j'c«"1 itot 'rc^yoon ladkea

£»aiMt>-ir-t!s cj< *L-t '.meld v;ax Vi*r*.ta»i .'i\*tar"v.»» ■■*:;'-. :•?/*' 'Sriva-

il5 of Ids "«3;riu.*»ouo of *;c/.

t'del fco

j. \c tt"t! ! .•^■i

at firsts 1.1 1!»k crjc^es

Is vA

tin

e. ;*»«:••!. ic/.. of vut la;. 1. » .ovorlc Ju>

a i iycovoredj . '^r'- uiv^o'." tna g^v

re.fleni» tr^re etrc/c o("<i

j *| Wfc at tj,"ci'.s ^j

-c,1+1i liars lvLi-\^% %

tfceu

cv-* ,>"iv 1*1 fo* .tic <j:ti 8a*,\»

it- racs'j ii ru'ixsic?-j*v( ir^r tho

O. til" )•)&{,: ;i

cl»<!t* tho'r fro do'ij l'"cc. ,fmtx» a

el'

>• oit*t

18

in pri»eiple to austerity in language and faamers**..! sew

spirit of restlessness, anarchy and adventurous experiment

is tending t© replace the imposing and decorous wisdom of

the ¥ie%oriaai compromise in all things*. •«!■

Among the new poets of the 1880s in England who Is to fe© found

In the possession of a new note is bis song, whieh ms to refreshen

the pulse ef English poetry, and ia so doing, give evidence of a break

from the ¥intorian tradition! Chief among the poets of the ia>@aie

whose works became recognized as permanent ooatritatioas to the poetry

of England were William Ernest Senley, Oscar Wilde, John Davidson,

l©feert Bridges9 and Bofesrt tails SteTeasoo. Healey, for all his

robustious nature*^ j^g flexibility of mood, Ms literal transcriptions

of Batera.1 forms and colors^ was essentially impressionistic* Bis im

pressionism ms circumscribed by the TiotoriaB proprieties.^ Wilde

rooted Ms sensuous imageries* in the ftestheticism of tfe® Pre-Eaphft©l-

ites and aidod &n enticing artifice to replace their uystiels®*5

DaviisoB w&s a strsyei asiiaewalist lured by the strains of a modem

world whose s»aaing poazled and depressed his.6 Bridges with aa

sxquisit© misic aad meditative grace recaptared the soois and

* pp. 12S7-12S8.

2Seorge Saintsbury, lsL@sser Poets of the Middle and later SineteenthCentury,* in TheC^rMe® History of Eaglish Literatera* Vol. XIII,

SArthur Syiaons, toto^ht^l©vi£S* (AugM«t, 1892), pp, ISSI'f., quoteda P»tryrftte^^^^^^^^^"ditd by §©orge Benjeiain

*H. I» Woodbrifige, "Osear Wild© as a Po©t,« Poet lore, 19 (loTOaber,1908), pp* 440-453* quoted in £»tr£mOf_^<-^^^^^^rlo£, p. 1053,

°Edraund Clarence Stedj»a, %dt,, p.

%«gli Walter, TheJLJtjgrature of theJlgtw^ngrm. pp« 610-611*

of the English poets of the past«^ Except for certain idiosynor&cies

of style every one of these posts tcight be aergei into various phases

of the Victorian, poetic tradition* It is to Stetreneon,, then* that we

look for the answer to the question beginning this paragraph*

lobert Louis Stevenson sounded the first trite note of naturalism

to rise ovar the decadence of the fictorian tradition in poetry.

Quoting the following liaes as a texts

Slag elearlinr, Muaes or evermore be still,

Sing traer or no longer sing,1

No more the voice of melancholy Jacques

To wake a weeping echo in the hillj

Bat as the boy, the pirate of the spring,

From the green ©La a living linnet takes*

Oae natural Terse recapture—then tie still*2

H. ¥• Garrod, the eminent critic and lat© professor of poetry at Oxford,

commentst

it is this effort to recapture natural notes that so oftenmakes him write the kind of verse of which all hie Tioofcscontain some and Ihe lew Poems a great deal; verse in

which the studied avo13ance~"oT art coai«ctss act to satsr©but to prose,, Yfe shall be just to this Mad of verse if

me eoaeeive it an written, not to e»re.ise Stevenson in art*but to exercise him out of it,s

Bmpfaasing again this note of naturalism in SteYeason* Professor Garrod,

quoting the verso "It is tit© Season/* declares:

1 am more impressed, on the whole, by its lyrical tender-Bess,, by the natural sweetness of it; or, it may be, by

the way in which these qoalities wed themselves with the*pro«e merits. » Familiar lyrics of this kind Btevmsmwrote when Tictorianism was still at the height of its

ard Do»dens "The Poetry of KcAert Bridges," Fortnightly leview, .82

' 18M}* PP# 45**46' Quoted in PpjrfcQMof^awlTO^&KrOT, p.

%ol»rfc Louis Stevenson, "Sing Clearer lug®/* Underwoods, in Ballads

%. W. Garrod, oju^clt., p, 183.

2Q

pretentious g and aa nueh as any other Ban* 1 am inclined

to think, he found both the metes and the words for the

poets who since have clou© much to put us oat of love with

fietorian standards*•*The peltry of Stevenson troth in Its

studied naturalism of seatiseat, and in the pains whioh

. it sliows to quicken diction from the living sources of

speech, has always seemed to me to build a bridge, as it

•wore, between the decelerated Vietorlanlsm««*and the lush

freorgianism»«*fby]the accident, of fate* *•we ow® to poetswho w«r© primarily novelists the disintegration in poetry

of Victorian standards* For so 1 think it is* The

pottry of Stevenson, Meredith., Wr» Bardy* fe&s iaflnenced

the younger poets more de«ply than better poetry* Th«

best poet of tho three 1 suppose to be Steveaaoa*—I do

not think it was in Meredith, or in Sir* Hardy, to re

capture nat»ral notes % to sing clearly enough to "b«

heart hereafter* •»he must share* I thinks with, fcreiitfe

and Mr. lardy the responsibility for al>oat half the poetrycalled Georgian*1

The quality of mood and reaction to life and the world vhich

Professor e&jrrod finds so attractive and r@fresM.Bg ia Stevenson's

poetry ms due to the joy, aad Its gratifications, which the post

discovered in Just J»ing and ^c^iSS.81 '•i'fc^ut at the -mm time having

a didactic concern about tho wig; of the first emA the when of the

second* Sir tssli© Stephen reminds «s that Stevenson dasir®4 action

aad freedom, that

, for him, is, or can b© made, essentially bright and

fall of interest* H© agrees with Mr, Herbert Speaeer thatit is ft duty to be happyj aai to lie happy not fey erasMng

yoar instincts tat by finding ©nplsyiasat for them»2

la support ©f this assumption w» say apply to Steiraasea's poaass

the Btateaent made by Matthew Arnold concerning Wordsworth*s poetry*

II© belien-ea that it is

great because of the extra-ordinary power with which fiords-worth feels the joy offered to us ia nature, the joy offered

t© us in the simple primary affections and duties} and

beeause of the extra-ordinary power with which* in ease after

£ pp. 187-192

2Leslie Stephen* Sta^^^^f^^^^Mogragter, London, 1902, p. 228«

SI

casa he shows us this Joy, aai renders it so as to aaJ

us share it«l

Stevenson draws from this source of Joys the various and alluring

world of nature, and with such a natural asceptanee and eonfiienee as to

sake us believe that it is the truest and most unfailing aoure© of joy

accessible to man* With an eestasy that takes oa a tone of vehemence

he declares the discovery which he would hav® us shars is lines that

e,re universally knows

The world is so fall of a namber of things,

sure we should all be as happy as Icings*^

The, reality of this world was as pertinent to Stevenson as it was

to the Victorian poets, tat aalike them, fee did not look apoa it for

shadows east % his own harassed and investigating being:, and confuse

his conscience■by attempting to account for tham through causes and

motives which nature hareelf sought to conceal and manifest deceptive

ly. Because nature would not give direct answers, nor experience

logical reasons to their questions and to their social ideals and

religious hopes, the intellectual and spiritual temper of the ¥ietorisas

wmre pessimistic, aad the fictorian poets reflected this pessimism ia

their song# 111 of the major Victorian poets, with the exception of

Browning, tried to dilute this pessimism with either a courage that

was sore a sentiment than a conviction, or a mysticism that was store a

way of escape from the deamad for the expression of a positive faltfc

than the aeeeptaacs of faith of a real world beyond ftnfi oatside the

physical world of oar semse perceptions* Robert Lcrais Stevenson reacted

against this passiiaisia of the Victorians with a firm determination to be

■Wfcthew Arnold* £ss^s>__iBB£rf^ie3^a» London, 1921* p. 153.

^Robert Louis Steveason, "Happy Thoughts," Underwoods., Vol. XVI, p. 25*

happy* 1 passage £roa Aes Triglex strikes with & satirical protest

ag&issi the mudiliag efforts of the Victorians to settle the problems

©f the waivers©, the failure of which begets their pessimistic moods*

Stevenson writes,, "Re live the time that a natch flickers^ we pop the

cork of a giager-feeer bottle***

' Farther mlianoe of his attitude is given in the statement of

Gilbert I. Chesterton who declared that Stevenson felt that

Tl;f»yv vac something weak about "bewailing drearily the fata

cf l"'<o puppets of destiny* to an audience that was eagerly

awaits se^ the joyful apolcalpse of a puppet show* The

Stwonsonian reaction might be roughly represented by the

suggestion—-if we are fertile as puppets, is there anything

particular to prevent our being as entertaining as Punch?*

To this Chesterton adds this fuller exposition; of that mood aai outlook

in Stevenson which brought a refreshening note of naturalism to English

poetry of the 1880ss

The rise or revolt of 1. L* S, must be taken in relation

to history, to the history of the whole European raisd eai

mood* It was, first and last, a reaction against pessita-

ism.«#»ABfkowJ in that period we might almost say that

pessimism was another name for raiit«re# Cheerfulness was

associated with the Philistine, like the broad grin with

the taalds. Pessimism could be read between the lines of

the lightest triolet.».»Any one who really remembers the

time will admit that the world was more hopeful after the

worst of its wars than II uau f»ot long before*•• It Is no

very imraaacioa"ble clai;# for M.n that to m&&9 a better as©

of Ms bad health tha* Oscar Wilde made of Ms good health;

and nothing affoetod in tho eytoraals of either can alter the

contrast*.«*And it really -was the afeseace of courage in the

ouyremt culture thai: awote hlo protest or posa»##.»:'8*4t ho

hated ©hiefly the loss of what soldiers call morale rather

than what the parsons call morality,, All the world coffered

TJobert Louis Stevenson, "Aes Triplex," in

^Jj^ Vol» XIII, p, 39,

^Gilbert Keith Chesterton* Kobert Louis St«vensOTs New York* 1928,p. 75. —«-----—-—----«—--_--«.

23

Lfc*j :.hsicc?' erf dt«U-., All <u;/.\. 'ceve i-rcn Iliac urtslcr tlt

o~ titc olrcll caad cmcclKsnos. '>ai to clone, coalii call1

* Jv. '. •.i'.Ci-i-.; ^.asj Us ;*- ILLcr-c; • <T»e tnea

Viet.>«&■/! ctravoi'ilt-us: *. thju."v.t. u,«.u *v! *sj, tu.'» v**»;l: (;.*fJicf,i

u-VA-V'i-ty (!u-r- a«U?Titloc cxdarc iftat fi as St«sv«3fiu \s ?.€?« gaw- t©

tl:u t"'-'-'* '■"„ '^: j- <- lfj;'G;i t'.j/j «',\; cr:i '»/Ivid r.ct*> "j! iki/>:?wos. For ra?.si

r>.*lfi",«, '.*}<'<;■ *. 'if ?'.- n5ri£ a a «ir ^13^nc, and liio jaacry that

izv

la»-J t»i'. fi'^J kit's o.1I '«'i \.:«lat. *l',!c ii^lrii o.f u*< >t;wus fr^i; (

.-, ,ut

To i.j.lii t&ty 1w» t)fl«C(*1 i?ir *Jld»«y Co?vlBt8 opiuton

in f««t# *»3 @v©r l*ss Inelinsi! ts take .a%tkl»g

The rmb of ail origtaatiiy was in fei% i»

f «i «xfcrei« uattirai vivJl.d»oss of

pp. 8-0-fS*

,,..™ ..™ '.'# fo; ',-luiuS, "Sober! Louis

*/s Ciyrfi, icns)» p* 6S8.

imagination, aai feeling* An instinctive and inbred un

willingness to accept the accepted and eoaform to the

conventional was the essence of hie.characters whether in

life ©r art, and was a sowre© to Mm both of strength and

wemlmeBB. He would not follow a geaaral rule—least of

all if it "was a prudentl&l rule—»o£ conduct unless he was

clear that it was right according to his private e©nsei#ne©i

»©r would he join* in youth, ia the ordinary social amuse-

meat of Ms elass when he bad once found out that they- did

not anus© ^

Possessed with this spirit.. Touched for by one of the most intimate of

his many friends, the resultant presentation of life in Stevenson's poetry,

was the vivid response to a natural enjoys-teat of the world and hmaa®. ex-

In attempt has 'been mad© in the foregoing pages of this chapter

to reveal a mood and quality in Stevenson's poetry absent from the

poetry of the Victorians* and characterised as a note of naturalism*

In interpretation of the term naturalism as applied to the poetry of

Stevenson my well serve the purpose of presenting a more definite

contrast between his spirit mai art and that ©f the Victorian poets,

and thus indicate more sharply Stevenson's break fros their traditions*

Naturalism, or that quality in art which "contends that art should

exhibit the world as it isi that only the most accurate aad painstaking

©ORSistoney of representation is worthy of the artist* Ev©a though

tfeer© is asich that is hideous and repulsive,, "^ %s used in wboth a sub-

jeetivs and objective senue* In the objective.sense the natural, as

the original -and essential, is opposed to what is acquired, artificial ,

loberi Louis Stevenson, Letters aai Miscellanies of Eofeerb Lewis

%illiaai Jerasalem, tolntr^MtiOT to^iiloso^lyt revised aad-#dit©iby Charles S. s7TKT57*^S7TTTI17**;~'*"^

conventional or accidental.al la th© ssbjeetiv© sense It "reduces

the ©sternal world to a aecimnisn ieseri'ba'ble ia terms of matter and

motion.s'2

In this study of the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson* naturalism

will Is© ased In the subjective sense, and may be defined ass "Action

arising from* or based on, natural instincts, without spiritual

guidances a. system of morality or religion having a purely natural

basis«»*a vims of the world, and of na»*s relation to it, ia which

oaly the operation of natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual)

laws and forees is admitted or assumed*"^ Ia g©s©ral wit refers to that

which is in aeeerdaace with nature*.••Kature laaj be eonsidared as that

whieii is th« opposite of artificial* the eomrentional or the traditional

.«,.*!« does not deny a supernatural reality in the theological seas®.

It msrelj is not interested in the questions wfeieh turn upea a beyond

ani above as regards teas thought and huamn activity.tt* George

Braades offers as an excellent illustration of naturalism in poetry,

the following famous sonnet by Wordsworths

The world is too much with usi late and soon*

Getting antt spending* \m lay wftsto oar powers;Little w© see in Mature that is oursiWe h&ve given our hearts away* a sordid booaJ

This Sea that bares her bosom to the mooa;

James Ward* "Batontlism, * in |h«L^eyc^gaedia Brittttiea, lleveathBditioa* eambridge, England, 19lB7T5ir^Sr7Tl7~~~™*™""

% 1. H. 'Mwray, Oxford. 1908, Vol.

y.8 pv 771«

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

tod are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

for this, far everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not—Great God! I'd rather be

A Pagan suckled in a ©reed outworn;

So mi|$it I, standing on tkia pleasant lea,

Have a glimpse that would mate me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow Ms wreathed horn.

Adding this exposition of naturalism he remarks;

These are remarkable words to have eome from Wordsworth's

pen—•remarkable, because they show that all sineere

naturalism really is, let it be decked with as sanj thea-

istic trappings as it will. In its essence it is akin to

the old Greek conception of nature, and antaipnistie to

all the official creed® of modern days; it is vitally im

pregnated with the pantheism whieh reappears in this cen

tury as the dominating element in the feeling fbr nature

in every literature*•■•Christianity eomanded men to love

ttelr fsllowaen; pantheism bade thea love the meanest

2

Stevenson's poetry is filled with elements of naturalism, H«

wrote for and to the smallest and sasst insignificant part of the

population—the e&ild— in an age when men were wrangling over ssientiflc$

religious, economic, and political problems, tod h© aade also the

■subject of his poe»a sach fsasiliar figures as the guag©rs the gardener*

and the vagabond; such creatures as birds, dogs, eats, and the buck;

such features and scenes of the earth as flowers, moor®, roads, rivers

and the s©as« There is nothing in this featalogue of animate and in

animate creatures and forms that poets have not sung about in their

songs, but not sinee the rojaantio visions of the post-Georgian group

%lllism nov&BMorth, nTk& world is too imxch with us; late and soon,"

George Brandsss jfeinj^rrejAs^n^^ London,19244 ¥©1. I?, pp. 38-39.

27

had they been so wholly detached from a moralizing contemplation. Hor

were Blake and Wordsworth, who drew, as did Stevenson, upon the single

among mankind and the more familiar and eomaon of nature's features, for

the materials of their poems, without the Boralizing mood and the

symbolic temper.

I*re© from a preoccupation with the immediate problems of man and

his enviromsent f the naturalism of Stevenson*s poetry reveals itself

in the simplicity, happiness, gaiety, and joy nhich manifest his

satisfaction with the world as he found it. His poetry of the heart

susceptible to simple and pure iapressions. The poetry of the Victorians

sprang from minds whose constant intercourse with fTa© World* whad dis

sipated their energy and talents, and impaired th© susceptibility of

their hearts to simple and pure 3

Ibid.t p. S8. George Brandes uses this phrase in hie treatment of the

elements of Naturalism found in the poetry of William Wordsworth*

CHAPTER III

CO1FIWATI0S OF S7f,?1PISCU*S NATURALISM II HIS POlflf

flie evidence of SteTeasoB's naturalism lies clearly ©a the aurftto«

of his po&tyy» For notes and teadeneies In art so highly sv.gg«stlire

aad symbolic as poetry, it is often necessary to proba beneath the re

presentation to roach the spirit and know its temper aai purposej in

Stevenson the -royy materials he a&bss the subjects of his poems and the

frank treatment of them ©peas wide the gats to oar understanding of Ms

spirit* This spirit, which ms to bring back a natural aooi aad feel

ing iato English poetry, reveals itself with almost a conscious deter

mination towards th® redemption of a purer emotional and Imaginative

expression in poetry. The Master»s admonition to "suffer little

children to eon® unto me for of such Is the kingdom of heaven,B ©as be

said to have a meaning for Stevenson, when xm think ofth© first

eolltotion of his poems. To regain that natural delight in the world

as it is, which the Vietoriana had seemingly lost, Stevenson*a imagina

tion had to fee bora again ia the experiences" of childhood} th© redemp

tion of po#try from the sin of the Fief.oria.Bs* preoccupation with the

knowledge of good and evil was in the inadnation and the emotions

booming child-lito again, sM therein finding the poetic kingdom of

Immm. in th© Maple, unaffected Joy and wonder of the world axtd experi

ence. Sieironsoa, then, though mature in mmhood, stAJeerteci his faagim-

ticii to tlie »»rieS of oMMhood. and proteeed as his first collection

laSaed, JVu^ ■<'*£ rj.vl

** .u i< IrsvcM

VT$?*s j%*fv i t**4* twt, '"vt„*.>*"«.<. 4- Lihj* - i'» _/ V:lMrt«. a.

s.i \.i.o koart oi f \tl it. i,.

'i" ;'-lft*0.*j iiiJG*1:'.* .."t 4

fij oi' ihu vln<l

ilsa * o£* t

il»i»r A CixJ-I

a© proto-

*a*t dam «ith*«« the ehildrea wlffeoot distwMs^ -utoi

.♦•looked into the world of la«lBe»»t>eliew* with tlv* clil mm

*" CIAift1^ »s. "la 'ioa ti'is,; Ix/ ,t»i*- w*' . iiiitji

5IMd»

p*

la the phrase of fiordawdrtt, Stevenson wrote of the "trailing clouds

of glory»"*■ the period during which the ehild is aosrast Sod* when the

child is relatively free from sin, conventions, aad traditions* and

appropriating Wordsworth's state of innocence again, the period before

the

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the gf0frf.Bg Boy, 2

the filters man, the period of life during which, on© is most guided fcy

the inclinations, thoughts,, aatural dssires and instincts* He "seems

to have remembered," Mr* Chapman continues s

the impressions of Ids cfaildhoofl with accuracy, and

he has recorded them without aff@ett.tios, without

sentimentality, without exaggeration* In depleting

children fee draws from life* He is at tame in the

Histories of their play and in the inconsequent

operations of their sdnds, ia the golden haxe of im

pressions in which they live»S

So true to childhood is Ills poetry that lAatind Goss« believes, wMj%

Stevensoa Bight lead a long roap in the attic wh@n nurse was out shop

ping, aad not a ehild in the lions© should know that a grown-up person

had t»an there*B*

is the following passage from nTbm Little tend,"' Stevenson aptly

depioted himself in the r©l® of a writer of poetry for ohildrem

When at ham alone i sit

lad am very tired of it,

I tovo just to shut zBQjr «yes

To go sailing through the skies—

%illiam Wordsworth, f*Intimations of Iimnortality From Beoolleetions ofEarly Childhood," O£2_Sii,*» Pa sls»

Jay Chapaan,

op* eit*# p« 247»

31

To go sailing far amy

To the pleasant Land of Plays

To the fairy laad afar

flhere the little People ar«|

Where the el0ver«*t©ps are trees.

Ant! the rain-pools are the seas,

Anel the leaves like little shipe

Sail about on tiay tripsil

for, in Aj^lld^^rgeiij^JeraeB^ Stevenson did shut his eyas to the

tawdrlness and smugness of 'Vicjtoriaa England* and to Ms physical fain

of tritich he was very tired, and travelled*

*««out past the mill*

Away doim the valley*

Amy down the hill^

Stevenson travelled into the "Land of Play," ttThe Land of Hod,"3 "The

Land of Counterpane,1*4 aad "The %nd of Story-Books»ttS to the lands

where ©'Ha might find MLooking«>«Glass liver*"® a queer, yet funny* little

simiow»7 and "The Daub Soldier*mQ

In "Foreign Lands*" ttLoo!ciBg Forward," and "The Las$>lighterv"

Sterensen deivecl into the msehaaism and revealed the working of the

mini of a carefree* happy, anil normal child, la the first of ttese

three poems he writes*

Lottia Stevenson, "The Little land,1* A Child's Sarie-n of ferses,

in ^llO '^^^^^~^7^7~T"^^""

Boatsta p». IS,

.» "'The Lmad of Mod," p. 18.

.*» WTh0 I*Bd of C©»it©rpano,w p. 17.

#» "The land of Story-Booke," p. S?.

»» ttLooMiig-Glass liver,.1* p. 57*

,, wI|r Shadow/' p» 18.

,# "The ftaab S©ldi«r#B p. ?!♦

Up into the efeerry tree

Who should climb bat little me?

I feeId the trunk with both ay hands

And look abroad on foreign lands*

I saw the next garden lie,

Adorned %• flowers, before v$f ©ye.

If I could find a higher tree

Farther and farther I should see,

T© where the grows.-*rirer slips

Into the sea among the ships*

To where the roads on either hand

Lead ©award into fairy laud..,

■bar© all the children dine at five.

And all the playthings ease alive*1

Ihile, in "Looking Forward'* fee embodied a thought universal among

children*

When I am grow to nan's estate

I shall be very proud and great,

tod tell the other girls and boys

Hot to meddle with n§r toys., 2

and "The Lamplighter" is no less representative of the thoughts and

workings of the sind of a childt

% tea is nearly ready, and the sua has left the sky

It's time to take the window to see Leerie goiag by;For every night at tea time and before you take your seat.

With lantern and with laider lie etaies posting up the street.

How Tea would be a driver and Haria g© to sea.Mi. nsjr Pft,pa*g a banker and as rich as he can be$

Bit I, when I am stronger aad can choose wbat I'm to do,0 L©erie# I'll go round at night and lipt the Maps with

Oa a windy sight the child imagines that the wind is a man ridiag on a

galloping horses

"foreign lands,1* p* 8»

"Looking Forward,* p, 13*

r,11 p. 32,

the mooa and the stars ar© set

Whenever the "wind is high*

And night long in the dark and wet*.

A Ban goes rldiag by»

Late 1b th» night when th©1 fires are out.

Why doss he gallop and gallop about?!

The passive ehlld saeg towers, cities* and valleys app«ar aad disappear

in-the flames of "Armies In th© Fire"*

The lamps now glitter dotm the streetj

Faintly sound the failing; feetj

Armies march by tower and spire

Of cities blazing in the firej—

fill as 1 gase with staring eyes,'

The armies fad©.,, the luster dies*

Then one© again the. glow returnss

Again th® 'phantom city burns}

And dawn the recMrot valley, lol

-The phantom armies marching go*2

The inquisitive ©MM is depicted in "The Wind**?

0 you that are so strong and cold,

0 blower, are you. young or old?

Are you a beast of field and tree.

Or just » stronger child than ae?

0 wind, a-blowing all day ioag,

0 wind, that sings so loud a song!S

Storrenson, as has been said and

s dm-rn upon materials from the bright, vivid, memories ©f childhood,

that age of the buman being, which is most free from th© controversies

and problems in a world created % man. Bat fea did not stop itere in Ms

expression and interpretation of the innooency in hiaaaH character ani

©xperlanee , but went farther ia th© employment of a speech that that was

spostaneeas and natural* The words used is these verses are, for the

lights," p. 3,

» "Armies » the Fire,11 f, 8%

*lbid., "The Wind," p. 26.

most part, monosyliable and decasyllabic words which a aonaal child

could readily uaierstaad* Thsy are also* wans and colorful words,

words that appeal to the child, and as often to his elders, and they

>mme symbols that are both simple and delightful. la the verses on

the "Summer San,." the sun

• •»sheds a warn and glittering look

among the ivy's inmost nook#l

The reader cannot fail to enjoy the jglw of the fire in "Amies la the

Fire,**

flie jgd. fire paints the empty rooms

And warmly on the roof It looks,

And flickers on the baok of books.2

The sparkle and glow of flames had a fascination for Stevenson, and

g#eiBBfi to symbolise that tItM and eager spirit he possessed, because

he returns 'again asd again to this element as in "Autumn Fir«s,*!

the fir© burns with a bright blaees

Pleasaat summer over

lad all the saasier flowers.

The red fire bl&zes,

US" grey amok© tensers*

Sing a song of seasonal

Something bri^t In all!

. Flowers in the susaer.

Fires in the

Like a child it is with an abandoned delight that he responds t© eolore

in tli® various objects in the natural world, fhe

IIM£*» "Summer Sun,*' p.. 70,

JJSM» "Annies in the fire,tt p. 69. Stevenson did not tmdsrscor© th«the trora tetij this and several of the following words have been underscored, here, for emphasis*

BAttt«jffla Firestw p. 78,

•&

*S2

•3T•«*S

ore

patu

fif*',r?)«r'in"

36

makes a noise like the "teaming of the thunderj"* the Mbed is a

the moon is "like the clock in_ thg_jmllj w§ and the haystacks are.

22HHiS£i2_i2E£For mountaineers to roam*4

Stevenson lias used material* Ideas* wordss anfi symbols which are those

eaeily understood and aataral to a child, and to grown-ups as -well, who

react spontaneously to the physical world* This naturalism consists in

part of the fact, that lie did take the child's mood and wonder over Into

the adult's sympathy aad imagination, and in releasing them through his

poetjy created vivid,, familiar aad appealing pictures which, set against

tli® darker and menacing texture of the Tietorian tradition, shone with

sparkle and clarity,

(1887), the. collection of poeas to follow A Child's

Stevenson turned from the innocent, active, feappy

thoughts aai feelings ©f childhood as the source of materials for Ms

poeas, to the thoughts and feelings.of active, carefree youth. His

youths are relatively free from the artifice and polish which the

Tictorian civilization with its coiiTeatioas and traditions had isjpoeed

ttpoa the Tietorian, youth. The verses of the poem, "It is the Season,"

establish a siapl©, natural, and unaffected"relationship between boy

and girls

"leapeake Mill,*1 p... 24,

IS% m& is » Boat8M p.

«ooa,tt p* S4.

Hayloft,11 p. 42.

It is the season now to go

About the sotnitxy high and low,

Imoag the lilacs hand in hand.

And two by two in fairy laud* _

The brooding bsy, the sighing maid, •

Wholly fain &ad half afraid.

How meat along the hazel brook

To pass and linger, pause aai look.

A year ago, and blithely paired,

Their rough-and-tumbled play they shared?

They kissed and quarrelled, laughed and eri«d»

A ye»r ago at Eastertide*

With bursting heart, and fiery face,

She strove against him in the races

He unabashed h«r garter sa^4

That new would touch her skirts ia awe.

low by the stile &hl«ze she stops,

ted his demiiror eyes he drops;

Mow they exchange averted siphs.Or stand and marry silent ey«sa

And fee to her a hmro is

lad sweeter she than primroses s

fheir oonsaon silence dearer far

than nightingale ami mavis are#

low wh.es 'they sever wedd©i hands,.

Joy tremblei in their bosossf-straads.

And lovely laughter leaps and fallsUpos their lips in madrigals, 2.

Professor Garrod has found a "lyrical tenderness*.^natural sweetness'^

in this poem, when "Vlctorlanism was still at the belghth of its

preteation,"3 and it is Just in that quality of "natural sw»0tness B

tlmt .Stevenson instinctively discredits the "pretentious1' of the postis

traditions in the midst of which his om. poetry was bora.

Youth, however, occupies a small portion of the poems in Underwoods*

1JMcl*, wIt is the Season./* p. 105,

%.* !• Sarrod, SBl^^H.** P* ^^7#

slbid.

In ft»so poesis Stevenson treats the atialiis mJli&t like his

B&i rnxMi-ifylmg his friends to wfiaa he pays personal tributes* are the

common lav/ly men loading simple, i'.n. j-drtoi'blcue Hvoj, 1-c L 3 tJi.'s «-i*c;

close to nature* Ueverthelsss? 'n-' t'nvu^.cujc us in A "J?« iu*o "arvlot

of n

of e«s,#tiet#** 2fe ret&ias his ©ajaysieiit of little plaasarco} 1»

tiao«s to Is* "ujstroubled tsy thoa.ght« of %henes» oh.

ar.«l a{Tii.', he prcsonix* t;-.o spoetacl* of a post «du> w««v«r looks acmy

X'r.J ii^t' floi'A.i'a oil litiA dcjaDO-ly l)e«i.-t'ti towards th» flaming x&mpftrts of

tui'f ."^ri«?«w^ Vo art rc-lHiy-^C sccfl io the gardener whora h« d«eerlb»A ai

t'.o tt<^o0t iti'i^'-.jaiTer.l'n ya'stvr*"^ attending the rosss *a€ oaloas. ffae

i"T.i»3/*.41- -.•in, bx' i>j -td "rvf* '! " "*v '"50 11; of tfm ¥:.mifw with "willing feet*

wlio follows "The trarenirj' 7'«".nhn*>v; o-.f I"-.* sl^-»Sf while pouring from

Ms flats the str»ine ei wOve** the hillu uai fkr ^

It i« Prof«»»or 6arra«i1'B %.L»iIvi' timt in the

\rtt*> fi~c ^si. piectss in Bndor.;octIrJ fee atiilu thai it ic "yro^oi to think

^ *fli« Oft-rden«-r#w

SJMJ** WA Song of the lo»i,Sf p. 96.

of Stevenson as more certainly a post than any writer'whose fame was

founded in the same period.Bl This high #stis»t© is sapporfcod by

the following references to the particular merits of the poems:

It is in the graver lyric, in those poems where fee weds

ethical reflection to lyrical expression, that Stevenson

Attains his purest felicity. One or two pieces, in this

orf#r* the lines* for example, to S» R. Croetott, and the

atana&e beginning *In the highlands* in the country places

*••f have found their way into thm anthologies* For sy—

self, I like better* and think more like Stevensons a poem

which I hairs not seen in any anthology the poem entitled

fYouth and Lore1:2

To the heart of youth the world ts a highnayslde.

Passing for ©««r# lie fares; and on either iiand,

Deep is the gardens golden pavilions hide,

Ilesile in orchard bloom* and fax on the level land

Gall him with lighted lamp in the eventide*

Thick as the stars at night when the boob is daws.*

Pleasures-assail him* Bo to Ms nobler fate

Faresi and but waves a hand as he passes 0%

Cries but a wayside word to her at the garden gate,

Sings but a boyish stave., and his face is goae*3

This poem oa "Youth and Love" together with a Hdosen other pieces**

Professor Garrod says ho could mention in ^SSS^SLS£Jl£S^k* show

Stevenson achieving aa "individual expressioa" and illustrating the new

anisic in him and producing "work of par© and noble quality*W5

The age—anfl in which he happened to be born—that was tfdistiag*aish-

ed by many true idealists and many falsa ideals,*6 did not attract

2<IMcL

%ol)ort Louis Stsveasoa, "Youth and Love," Saxpoffiwel, Vol. XVI,p. 202.

% #. og*joit«» p» 181.

6Louis Ontsrawyers KodWH_Wttsb_Poetr^, lew York, Fl92o7» p# 4.

40

Stevenson; and with, his imagination he raised the standard of natural

sentiment in poeas that declared their independence of th© reining

poetic order* He expresses tlie desires and thoughts of a natural raan

in these verses of ^oag...Qf^_TraTOlt which were published two years

after his deatii, as he had axpresssd the heart of childhood in

, and the purer emotions of youth ia UMerggjgds; and.

child, youth and man, governed more by their instincts and ©motions,

rihich Stevenson believed to be truer and happier in human nature, than

hy their intellect and Bind wttieh aesthetically he would have us believe

was false and depressing.

Stevenson's poetry, then, seldom touches upon the question of God

and iasaortality, which so obsessed the xniad and imagination of the

Victorian poets, He does not profess to be either Catholic or Puritan,

but h© lived an upright, highly responsible, and chivalrous life.

free froia the restraints of theology and dogaaatie Christianity, h©

learned to respect "all creeds alik® as expressions of the cravings

and conjectures of the human spirit in the face of the unseen mystery

of things rather than to eling to anyone of them as a revelation of

ultimate truth.1' He sang:

Cod, if this were enough,

That I s©e things bar© to the buff

And up to the buttocks in mire;

That I ask nor hope nor hire,

But in the task,

Hor dawn beyond the dusk,

lor life beyond death;

God, if this were falth?S

Stevenson accepted the world as he found it and faced it with a

sensibility untroubled with th® weight of doubt and fear. The best use

^Gilbert Keith Chesterton, .gB«_cit., p. 5?.

8»If This Were Faith,® Songs of Travel., Vol. m, p. B27

that on© could make of the world since one was in it, was, if we adapt

a statement he applied to another mood, better to travel than to arrive

at one's destination..1 He believed, therefore, that "literatim* should

be cheerful and brave-spirited, even if it could not be aa.de beautiful,

and pious and heroic;"8 and that "true realise, always and everywhere,

ia that of the poets; to find out ?»here joy resides, and give it a vote®

far beyond singing.1*3 Despite the fact that Stevenson suffered all his

life from physical pain and that he live*-in a chaotic and confused

world, a world peopled with many stepticists and pessimists, h© preached

the doetrine of optimism and good cheer. Sustained by the strength

supplied by his natural instincts he conceived aad practiced a self~

convincing philosophy of joy, courage, and. adventure in his poeias.

His poetry was in essence of the very spirit of the supplication

in the prayer he wrote:

(Jive us to awake »ith smiles, give us to labour

sailing. As the sun returns in the east-, so let

our patienoe b© renewed with dawn; as th© sun

lightens the world, so let our loving-kindneaa

make bright this house of our habitation."

Th© radiation of the aspiring mood in this prayer from his poetry was

the highest purpose in the exercise of metrical expression, and

Doradof" in .Tgte.JSraggla__agd_ga^y_B of Robert Louis..Stevenson, Vol.

mi, p. io9.

!!^ ¥ol» XXIII, p. 365.

""Lantern Bearers,'* in Tj^Jfag|yj>lB_am^j!Bjga^Vol. nil, p. 247.

John Buchan, op^^^c^t., p. 563.

•5"Praters Written for Family Use at VailiBa," ia Letfera and^ Miscellanies

9JL.JjoMgiLJj>Ms_Steyenapn, Vol. XXII,, p. 593.

spreading joy and happiness, helped tha initial efforts of escape fxaa

the tawdriness asc! stsagness of the Victorians.

In his own life Stevenson attained a spirit of freedom and action

which gs¥© to his relationships with nature and Ms fellowmen a natural

anfi spoBtaaeoas character, and h© wished the ssse for other men. In

prose his wish took the form of those Inspiring prayers ea long

elierisiiea by the entire Smglish-apeakiag world, teat in verse the wish,

takes expression through the escsEpl© of his own feelings and conduct.

He cannot help tout believe that the exta^le he sets will pat one is

possession of those riches which raaire life sweet and sound* And rinses,

to Stevenson, are not only nor wholly the material Health for which sea

labor, mi which labor, dulls the instincts and saps the capacity for a

natural enjojusnt of living; his concept of riches is the t»untiful

blessings that lie all around in the «orl.Q for isaa to enjoy if he has!

but the wisdom to discover them. Out of his "loving kindness1*1 in the

to ^§222M£* k0 na|f«s s0E!6 °^ these blessings that he wished:

...to all

Flowers in the garden, xaeat in the hall,

A tin of sine, a spies of wit

k house with lawas enclosing it,

A living riwr by the door,

A nightingale ia the

Stevenson's desire for his fellowaen was that they have is abundance all

of the beauties of nature, the eoiaforts of life, and ia as lauch as they

say no longer possess a great amouat of childlike -santor, acteuratioa,

Sj Vol. 2CH, p.

and surprise,^ he wished them the armour of wit, all of which lie felt

would make their lives fuller and happier.

About these hopes for a more natural life bj his fellowaenf hopes

which mist have lain ©lose to Mb heart and mind as profound principles

of thought and conduct, was Stevenson ever solemn in Ms pronouncements.

His writings, whether in prose or verse, were keyed to that quality of

which John Jay Chapman writes: MThere was, moreover, in everything he

wrote an engaging humourous touch which made friends for him everywhere,

and excited an interest in his fragile and somewhat elusive personality

supplementary to the appreciation of his books as literature." This

is well ctaaoastratetl in the following poem in which Stevenson gives us

a glimpse of himself;

At mankind's feast, I take ray place

In solQfflii, sanctimonious state,

And have the air of saying grace

While I defile the dinner plate*

I am 'the siailer with the knife, ♦

The battener upon garbage, I—

Dear Heaven, with such a rancid life,

fere it not better far to die?

Yet still, above the human pale,,

1 love to scamper, love to' race,

To swing by ay irreverent tail

All over the most holy place;

jjobert Louis Stevensont

"We aake to ourselves day by day, out of history, and gossip,

and economical speculations, and God knows what,, a medius is

which we walk and through which we look abroad, 1* study

shop windows with, other eyes than in our childhood., never to

wonder, not always to admire, "but make and modify our little

incongrous theories about life.•„,The pleasure of surprise is

passed away...." "Child*® Play," j^JKragglsjaj^5sgag[a_of_ Robert

, Vol? XIII, p. 138.

2John Jay Chapman, op»eit., pp. 217-818.

44

Aad when at length, some golden day,

The unfailing sportsman, aiming at,

Shall bag, me—all the world shall say:Thank God, and thats an end of thatI1

The delicate child who grew into a frail Ban and who wrote William

Arehert "To me the medicine bottles on njy ehlnney and the blood ©a my

p.handkerchief are accidents; they do not color ay life," seems never

to have bees quite serious when h® expressed his ideas about life. "Mo

doubt his ill health made him feel that ell his life was a little unreal,

and that the best philosophy, for one so eager for the fulness of life

3and so seldom able to experience it, was to content himself with games,

therefore he played the natural man, the strong, healthy, happy man, and

in his poetry has instilled the Noughts and ideas of that nan, the man

who accepts the world as he finds it, and, proceeds to press from every

moment all of the joy that it contains. This fact becomes evident -when

we consider the "Requiem," which he wote to be engraved upon the stome

marking his resting-plaea on the mountain-top in Ssaoa:

tJnfier the wide and starry sky,

Dig the grave asd let me lie.

61afl did I live and gladly die,

lad I laid m® down with a will.

This is the verse you gjgave for we:

Bare he lies where he jLonged Jo _be_s

Hoik is the sailor, home from the sea,

_An& the hgnter hoge from t.he Jtill.

In this epitaph we find none of the self-imposed concern and worry about

death, a topic so important to his conteuporaries. Here the question ©f

111A Portrait," Underwoo&a, Yol. TO, p. 143.

^Letter to William Archer, Lejtte^^ndjtaseellanies otr Robert .LouisStevens^., Voi.. XXIII, ps 441.

^Stevenson's Poeas," Llytnfcjyge, Vol. 253, p. S49.

4tfBequieffi,«' Underwgoag, Vol. XVI, p. 129.

45

«Is life worth living?'1 and the possibility that this life ends all is

absent. Stevenson* in tils imagination, at least, had lived to the full

a happy life, and accepted death as inevitably associated with it and

about which there should be little concern. In this calm acceptance of

death along with life lie offers a striking contrast to Tennyson who is

troubled for the assurance that after death,

I hope to see rsy Pilot face to face

When I hat© erost the bar;1

or to Browning who is troubled lest hi® trumpeting conviction of life

after death is not telieved;

Greet the unseam with a cheer!

Bid him forward, breast and. back

as either should be,

'Strive and thrive!* cry, 'Speed—-fight on,

fare ever

There as hereI•

"2

Stevenson, the descendant of a "strenuous family" did not build

lighthouses to gjiide tired and baffled sailors safely to shore. Instead

^Alfred Lord Tennyson, "Crossing the Bar," ogJL_elt., p. 753.

Robert Browning, "Epilogue to Asolando,"jj^, Boston, 1895 „ p. 1007.

^Hobert Louis Stevensoa.,

Say not of ma that neakly I declined

The labours of my sires, and fled the sea,

The towers we founded and the lamps t?e lits

To play at home with paper like a child.

But rather say: jtn the afternoon j3£ jjA

it, i*SSS2S2 £SSM2 ^SSM5; i£S US, ^S§Tjie sands of graaite, and beholding f_ar_

thegell content, mA Jo_ Jbhls childish task

JS £$££. .addressed Its evening hoars.

not of me that weakly I declined....,M ttoterwoods, Vol. XVI, p. 152.

46

he wrote simple, often prosy vex^ses filled with happiness9 itiose music

beckoned asn towards realms of joy and play, and. thus back to a natural

life. The Victorian poetaf like death,1 had lost their way, Thej? were

stranded amidst materialism, science, economies, end polities; but the

songs of Stevenson like a 'benediction, released poetry's preoccupation

with the realism of inanimate facts to the truths of animate nature and

a wholesome existence.

Hthottgh in. later life Stevenson, tended to beeoae !*mor© ready, in

daily life, t© use the language and fall in with the observation of the

faith in which he had bees, brought up, the attitude displayed in his

poetry through his acceptance of the natural world, its order and

beauty, offers sufficient evidence of Ms belief in God and immortality.

This idea of his belief has confirmation in.the following Terse;

I know not how it is idtli you—•

I loir© the first and. last,

The whole- field of the present vies,

The whole flow of the past.

^•0. T. Gopeland,

Life's Angel shining sat in his high place

To view the lands and waters of his glob®;

A leaning Shape came' throu^i the fields of Space,

Stealthy, and touched the hem of his white robe.

The Angel turned; Brother, what ill brings thee

Like thieving night to trespass on my day?

Yonder, Death answered him, I cannot see;

Yonder I take this star to light ray way.

oju_eit. t p» 547.

2Sidney Oolvin, j;ett6jra_jgn^

vol. mil, p. 14.

One tittle of th© things that are,

Mar you should change cor I—

On© pebble in our path--one star

In all our heaven or sky.

Our lives, and every day and hour

One symphony appear:

One road, one garden—every flower

And every bramble

In the words of Edmund Clarence Stedman: "as a minor feat genuine

example of poetic art, not alone for art's sake, but for dear nature's

sake,—in th© light of Aose material smil© all art must thrive and

blossom if at all,"8 Stevenson's came at the height of the fietorian

poetic conventions in the habiliments of naturalism to lead English

poetry out into the open rsalxra of imagination and the emotions.

1m1 Enow Hot How It is With You," Songs of_Travel, Vol. m, p. 210.

ciiapence Stedman, op« eit., p. 468.

chapter iv

sukmart

In the foregoing pages of this thesis we have endeavored to present

three stages in the development of the subject: first, we stated those

forces in democracy, religion and science which wrenched the national

mind and habits of the English people from their traditional beliefs and

relationships, and showed how those forces reflected in ¥ietorian poetry

and. prose, establishing in them those moods and conventions which sapped

the vitality and dulled tlie freshness of English literature of the 1880s;

secondly, we stated that it was a note of naturalism in the foetry of

Robert Louis Stevenson that broke from the traditions of ¥ictorian poetry,

giving a refreshening stimulus to the pulse of English poetryf and we

gave an explanation of #iat was meant by Naturalism; and thir&lj, we

offered proof of this quality of naturalism in Stevenson's poetry by

e3q>osition and quotations from A_^13^jBjgggdgn__ofJforgea, PBd_erwoodg

and Sojygsjof.Jfrayel. In conclusion we offer a brief suHEary of tae es

sential differences between th© spirit of Victorian versa B.nd that of

Stevensonfs to enforce the argument of the latter*s break from the

traditions of the former.

The differences exist in the temper of the poetic spirit, and how

that temper affected the imagination and the eiaotions, and the character

of verbal craftsmanship wiieii gave expression to the poetic faculties.

Tae temper of tae Victorians was to speculate upon the problems ?Siich

■mystified and disturbed the national mind, tad their poeas became poetic

debates on one side or the otter of questions about deraocr&cy, science,

religion, with, their topes and fears. With these preoccupations the

Yictoriams were restrained froa giving freedori to the imagination aasi •

emotions which would express the individual Bind and soul in their

reactions to mature and expedience*

Stevenson gave the ataost freedom to both his imagination and

emotions. He did not attempt to transcribe the ineligible script of

nature as a message fron &©<! or as a syiabol of immortality; nor did

he strive to translate man's origin and experiences in the temsa of

sitter science or theology, i'o haw dose these tilings in Ms poetry

ufsmlS hate meant the tyranny of the intellect over the imagination.

and the Motions, and would have created either a furtive or challeng

ing spiritual temper in his art. lie furtive temper which was present

in tli© works of Tennyson and, Arnold sought a refuge in the Illusory

with the hops of perselving revelations to confirm their hopes and as

pirations, anci the challenging teaaer ia Hossetti, Swinburne antl

Morris, defied the realities to yield a jgystleiaw which vould endow

thets with n aoarprehension of the secrets of truth and beauty. In all

this the poetic nature as well as the noetle methods hammst strained

and precise, fee gladness and spontaneity, the freshness and siiEplieitj

which, glorifies a renascence of poetry tod •ro»istec!» Tietsria» poetry

had become tmoataral in the expression of an untroubled imginatlon

and the chilled aianifestetien of diaciplined enotions*

Bobert Louis Stevenson felt tmre than aay poet 1b the lat© ¥ictoriaa

age the neei of escaping fro® the conventions said traditions of the

Victorian po©ts» At s tinas 'siien men bad apparently forgotten tow to

50

play, how happy and carefree life eould be, confessed in his verse a

ehildisli indifference to problems. He infused, "Bserefor©, his Terse

with the spirit of naturalism, as it lias been the purpose of this thesis

to show, and in so doing broke definitely from the traditions of the

Yietoriaa poets.

51

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Articles

A. On Robert Louis Stevenson

WA ifedera Piper.*1 Outlook, Vol. 114 (Oetober 4, 1916}, pp. S52-253.

Baildan, B. B. wB©bert L@uis Stevenson: Essayist, Novelist and

Poet." LJgJngjya* Vol. 281 (June 10, 1899), pp. 671-688.

B©k, E. W. wlEte Playful Stevenson." Seribner's Magazine, Vol. 82

(August, 192?}, pp. 179-180.

Gaxringten, J. B. **An®ther Glimpse ©f R. L. S.w gcribaer^s

Magazine, Vol. 82 (August, 1927), pp. 180-183.

Chalmers, Stephen. "The Penny Piper of Saranae.1* Ontlggk» Vol. 102

(October IS, 1912), pp. 314-SSO.

Clarke, 1. E. "Robert L®uis Steveassa in Samoa." Yale Beview. Vol.

10 (January, 1981), pp.

Cepeland, G. T. "Hubert L®uis Stev©ns®a.fl Atlajc^j^JMgntbl^, ¥©1.

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