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Phantom-Wooer: The Thomas Lovell Beddoes Web Site | Life
LETTER 29
To BRYAN WALLER PROCTER
19th April, 1829
MY DEAR PROCTER,--Accept my thanks for the patience and attention
with which you have read my M.S., and for the manner in which you
have spoken of it. I fear that if you had expressed your
disapprobation of some of it still more strongly, I should have been
obliged to confess that you were right. If you, as I have cause to
apprehend, are not too well engaged in other and more substantial
pursuits, you would oblige me still more by specifying the scenes and
larger passages which should be erased (that is to say, if I am to
let any considerable part remain as it is, for perhaps it might take
less time to enumerate such bits as might be retained?). For of
the three classes of defects which you mention--obscurity, conceits,
and mysticism,--I am afraid I am blind to the first and last, as I
may be supposed to have associated a certain train of ideas to a
certain mode of expressing them, and my four German years may have a
little impaired my English style; and to the second I am, alas! a
little partial, for Cowley was the first poetical writer whom I
learned to understand. I will, then, do my best for the Play this
summer; in the autumn I return to London, and then we will see what
can be done. I confess to being idle and careless enough in these
matters, for one reason, because I often very shrewdly suspect that I
have no real poetical call.
I would write more songs if I could, but I can't manage rhyme well or
easily. I very seldom get a glimpse of the right sort of idea in the
right light for a song; and eleven out of the dozen are always good
for nothing. If I could rhyme well and order complicated verse
harmoniously, I would try odes; but it's too difficult.
Am I right in supposing that you would denounce and order to be
rewritten all the prose scenes and passages?--almost all the first
and second, great part of the third act. Much of the two principal
scenes of the fourth and fifth to be strengthened, and its
opportunities better worked on. But you see this is no trifle,
though I believe it ought to be done.
Can you tell me whether Vondel's "Lucifer" has been translated? It
is a tragedy somewhat in the form of Seneca. J. von Vondel was born
in Cologne, 1587 (according to Van Rampen), and "Lucifer" published
in 1654. Milton, born in 1608, published "Paradise Lost" 1667.
It is to me very unlikely that Milton should have been acquainted
with the Dutch language in Holland long after this period, and M--
was Cromwell's Latin secretary; therefore, if he had any business
with the Dutch, he would not have transacted it unnecessarily in
their language, and I do not recollect that he visited Holland in his
travels; if he had, he would hardly have gone farther than learned
Leyden. Both on this account and because I am rather partial to
Holland and the Dutch (for their doings against Spain, their
toleration, their (old) liberty of the press, and their literature
wonderfully rich for so small a people), I was very much pleased and
struck on finding two lines in Vondel's "Lucifer," which I translate
literally:
"And rather the first prince at an inferior court,
Than in the blessed light the second or still less."
"LUCIFER" Act II
Does it not seem as if at certain periods of the world some secret
influence in nature was acting universally on the spirit of mankind,
and predisposing it to the culture of certain sciences or arts, and
leading it to the discovery even of certain special ideas and facts
in these? I do not know whether the authors of philosophies of
history have as yet made this observation, but it is sufficiently
obvious, and might be supported by numerous instances. So in our
times Scheele and Priestly; the former in Sweden a few weeks later
than P. discovered oxygen gas. A little time before we have
half-a-dozen candidates for the title of appliers of the power of
steam in mechanics, etc. Middleton's "Witch" and "Macbeth" present
in the lyrical parts so close a similarity, that one can hardly doubt
of the existence here of imitation on one side. I cannot but think
that M. was the plagiarist, and that some error must have occurred
with regard to the dates of the two pieces.
The King of Bavaria has commenced poet, and a very sorry one he
appears to be from the newspaper extracts. Kings as well as cobblers
should keep to their craft--and Louis is a very reputable king; but
still every inch a king, as you may see from his having made
Thorwaldsen a Knight of the Bavarian Crown!
That you may see that I am not the only careless dramatist going, I
quote you three lines from Oehlenschläger's new play, the
"Norseman in Constantinople." "Ha!" his great, strapping tragic hero
says in rage and despair:
"Ha! knew the porkers what the old boar suffers,
They would raise up a dismal grunt and straight
Free him from torture."
This is as literally translated as possible; and do not disbelieve me
if it should not happen to be in the German translation, which, of
course, is more likely to be in London than the Danish original.
I have it from the latter; probably it is not in the German, which I
have not seen. Moreover, Oehlenschläger is one of the very first of
continental dramatists, perhaps the first, far above Müller,
Grillparzer, Raupach, Immermann, etc.
I will sacrifice my raven to you; but my crocky is really very dear
to me; and so, I dare say, was Oehlenschläger's pig-sty metaphor to
him.
Yours ever
T.L. BEDDOES.
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