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LXXII. Robert Bridges' Concept of Nature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Whether because of a misunderstanding of the concept of evolution or for some other reason, a change has apparently come in the attitude of poets toward nature. Mr. Beach in his recent book laments the decline of faith in the benevolence of nature and presents the general attitude of nineteenth-century poets toward it as a bridge between the age of faith and the age of disbelief.1 But since neither terminal is proved, his fundamental thesis, which he calls a tragedy of belief, is unconvincing. The consequence of the acceptance of such a tragedy was clearly foreseen by G. K. Chesterton, who recently wrote:
When first it was even hinted that the universe may not be a great design, but only a blind and indifferent growth, it ought to have been perceived instantly that this must for ever forbid any poet to retire to the green fields as to his home, or to look at the blue sky for his inspiration. . . . Even the nature-worship which Pagans have felt, even the nature-love which Pantheists have felt, ultimately depends as much on some implied purpose and positive good in things, as does the direct thanksgiving which Christians have felt. . . . Poets, even Pagans, can only directly believe in Nature if they indirectly believe in God; if the second idea should really fade, the first is bound to follow sooner or later; and, merely out of a sad respect for human logic, I wish it had been sooner.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1939
References
1 Joseph W. Beach, The Concept of Nature in Nineteenth-Century English Poetry (New York: Macmillan, 1936), pp. 5, 16.
2 The Autobiography of G. K. Chesterton (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1936), pp. 348–350. See also Beach, pp. 433–434.
3 Chesterton, op. cit., pp. 349–350.
4 Immanuel Kant, Kritik of Judgment (London: Macmillan, 1892), trans. by J. H. Bernard, pp. xvi–xvii; 392.
5 Ibid., sec. 84, p. 361.
6 Ibid., sec. 86, pp. 370–373.—For this idea in Emerson, Carlyle, and Fichte see Beach, op. cit., pp. 351–362.
7 The English Poems of George Herbert, edited by G. H. Palmer (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1916), p. 116—The fundamental thought, of course, is not changed by our changed astronomical conceptions.
8 Kant, op. cit., sec. 59, pp. 248–252.
9 Ibid., sec. 68, pp. 288–291.
10 Ibid., p. 394.
11 Ibid., pp. 418–423.
12 See Beach, op. cit., pp. 433–434.
13 Kant, op. cit., sec. 75.
14 Loc. cit.
15 See Roger W. Holmes, “Your Nature and Mine,” The Atlantic Monthly, clxi, no. 5 (May, 1938), 698.
16 Kant, op. cit., sec. 68, p. 291.
17 Chesterton, op. cit., p. 350.
18 See Holmes, loc. cit.
19 Poetical Works of Robert Bridges (London: Oxford University Press, 1936), p. 411.
20 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1930).
21 Op. cit., pp. 524–528.
22 Ernest de Selincourt, Oxford Lectures on Poetry (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1934), pp. 207, 256.
23 The Testament of Beauty, Book iv, ll, 116–122.—Subsequent references to this poem are to book and line.
24 Ibid., ii, 708–711.
25 Collected Essays Papers &c of Robert Bridges (London: Humphrey Milford, 1934), no. xxx, 250–251.
26 See Selincourt's summary of the poem, op. cit., pp. 236–244.
27 Bridges, Essays, xxx, 253.
28 Test. of Beauty, ii, 842–844.
29 Ibid., ii, 904–921.
30 Prelude, i, 544–558. See Beach, op. cit., p. 89.
31 Bridges, Essays, xxx, 248.
32 For Bridges' Platonism, see Essays, xxvii, 183.
33 “Shorter Poems,” iv, 1 and 9.—All poems except The Testament of Beauty are cited from the Poetical Works, O.S.A., 1936, hereafter referred to as Works or W.
34 “Wintry Delights,” W., pp. 420–421. Cf. “Voltaire,” ibid., pp. 380–381.
35 Test. of B., i, 562–563. See Emerson, Nature, ch. 6, quoted by Beach, cit., p. 329.
36 W., pp. 421–122; see also “The Tapestry,” ibid., p. 513.
37 Test. of B., ii, 125–129.
38 W., p. 90.
39 Test. of B., iii, 634.
40 Ibid., iii, 797–803.—Cf. G. K. Chesterton on the Manichees, in his St. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1933), pp. 121–126.
41 Ibid., iii, 828.
42 Ibid., iv, 406–433.
43 Essays, xxvii, 185.
44 W., pp. 384–388; Test. of B., iv, 430.
45 W., pp. 511–512.
46 W., p. 262.
47 W., p. 511.
48 W., p. 512.
49 “Poor Poll,” W., p. 508.
50 W., pp. 307–308.
51 W., p. 311.
52 W., p. 306.
53 W., p. 246. See also “Melancholia,” p. 375.
54 Essays, iv, 85.
55 W., p. 202.
56 W., p. 339.
57 W., p. 405.
58 W., pp. 311–312.
59 W., p. 266.
60 Essays, iv, 95.
61 Test. of B., iv, 819–821.
62 Essays, xxix, 254.
63 Test. of B., iv, 785–786.
64 “The Growth of Love,” 1, W., p. 187.
65 Essays, xxix, 253; Test. of B., iv, 945–949.
66 Test. of B., iii, 1059.
67 Essays, iv, 97–104.
68 W., p. 276.
69 W., p. 219.
70 W., p. 218.
71 W., p. 191.
72 W., p. 380.
73 W., p. 432.
74 W., p. 296.
75 W., p. 22
76 W., p. 173.
77 W., p. 441.
78 W., p. 253.
79 W., p. 308.
80 W., p. 298.
81 W., p. 265.
82 Kant, op. cit., pp. 129–136.
83 Cf. Test. of B., iii, 1030–40.
84 W., p. 513.
85 Test. of B., iii, 978.
86 Ibid., ii, 493–494.
87 W., p. 413.
88 W., pp. 341–342.
89 W., pp. 522–530.
90 W., pp. 397–399.
91 W., p. 380.
92 W., p. 256.
93 Test. of B., iv, 1084–86.
94 Ibid., iv, 1264–67.
95 See Nowell C. Smith, Notes on “The Testament of Beauty,” (London: Humphrey Milford, 1931), p. 14.
96 Test of B., iv, 1392–93.