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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2025
That the poetic imagination is sometimes a companion of, and sometimes the substitute for, the mystical gift is, perhaps, a truism of literary criticism. But it is a truism of especial interest for students of English because the strength of the English artistic genius has always lain in religious subjects, or, at least, in those related to religion. The truth of this may be proved by a very simple experiment. What are the subjects of the stock passages of English literature? Here are a few in the order of memory:
‘O eloquent, just, and mighty Death: whom none
could advise thou hast persuaded : what none hath dared, thou hast done: and whom all the world hath flattered thou only hast cast out of the world and despised. . . .u
And, even more familiar :
‘The glories of our blood and state Are shadows, not substantial things :
There is no armour against Fate;
Death lays his mighty hand on Kings. . . ,’
And Shakespeare :
‘. . . We are such stuff As dreams are made of; and our little life Is rounded by a sleep. . . .’
Or the famous close of Astrophel’s passion for Stella : ‘Leave me, O Love, that cleavest but to dust,
And thou, my soul, aspire to higher things. . .
Lastly, for this can be but a brief selection, that most apt putting of the world’s most pertinent question :
‘What is Truth? quoth jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.’
Truth, and death, and love: these would seem to be the habitual subjects of the great literary tradition of England; and, as Spenser has it, love turning from earthly to divine pleasure. And this even when the work does not profess to be of a specifically religious character.
1 Sir Walter Raleigh, History of the World.
2 James Shirley, Death the Leveller.
3 Shakespeare, The Tempest.
4 Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophel and Stella.
5 Bacon, Essay on Truth.
6 Taylor, Sermon on the Day of Judgment.
7 Same, Funeral Sermon.
8 Donne, Funeral Sermon on a City Merchant.
9 Spenser, Fairy Queen.
10 Gillerbert, Love.
11 Browning, Christmas Eve and Easter Day.
12 Browning, The Guardion Angel.
13 Tennyson, In Memoriam.
14 A. S. Cripps, St. Austin.
15 Shakespeare, Henry VIII.
16 Anon, c. 1350, in Chambers' and Sidgwick's collection.
17 George Herbert, A Dialogue.
18 A. S. Cripps, Out of Our Time.
19 Rudyard Kipling, Kabir.
20 Anon, c. 1250.
21 Shelley, Lines.
22 Shakespeare, Winter's Tale.
23 Arnold, Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse.
24 Lang, Bion.
25 George Herbert, The Pulley.
26 Caedmon.
27 W. E. Henley.
28 Kipling.
29 Anon, fifteenth century.
30 Matthew Arnold, Scholar Gipsy.