Notes on Chesterton's Notre

Dame Lectures on Victorian Literature

Richard Baker - John J . Connolly - Ronald Zudeck

Lecture Fifteen: Browning: November 7, 1930

Richard Baker

Robert Browning stands alone in regard to the other

movements of the Victorian Age. He had a unique style, one
that was rather startling in its grotesqueness, and its strange,
jerky manner. This peculiar style was an innovation on the
smooth, easy-flowing style with which the Victorians were
familiar. Some of this jerky style is very artistic, but some of
it is very ugly.

Because he was not of the average type. Browning did not

reflect the spirit of the times. He had his own personal opinions
of things. His poetry was not influenced by social or political
phenomena. It was concerned with individual life. He was fond
of fun and of playing games by making grotesque rhymes and
queer word combinations. He was often criticised for this
unusual practice.

Browning has also been charged with obscurity. This char-

acteristic of his poetry, however, was not just a deliberate pose
taken to heighten his fame as an intellectual, for he was just
as obscure in his earlier works. There is no doubt, however,
that much of his obscurity is unjustifiable.

He was optimistic in the sense that he was very robust and

energetic in his joy of living. He lived at a time of a quite

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positive Protestantism, and as a result he was ignorant of the

nature of the Catholic Church. He was, however, a pugnacious
Christian, not swayed by every passing religious vogue, as was
Tennyson. He had a real sense of the nature of evil and the
tragedy of sin. I n this sense he was not "optimistic." He scorned
the Byronic pose of pessimism.

Browning had the power of using the grotesque to portray

very serious ideas, and of passing from the ridiculous to the
sublime and really being sublime. He was very sincere. He had
a fine sense of the monogamous idea of love, as well as of
many other fundamental Catholic standards of life and morality,
and he firmly adhered to these principles.

Lecture Fifteen: Browning: November 7, 1930

John J . Connolly

Browning's was an isolated, personal, startling style, indi-

vidualistic in theme, standing for no ideals. He, too, incorporated
Mediaevalism. He employed grotesque mechanical devices. In Old
Pictures in Florence he has a good argument, namely the glori-
fication of Mediaeval art.

The obscurity of his early poems testifies to his sincerity.

Leigh Hunt is credited with remarking after having read one
of these during a period of convalescence, "Good God, Fm
an idiot."

Browning is often said to be optimistic (a modern term

which Aquinas probably could not have defined. A school boy
once said that an optimist is a man who looks after eyes, and
a pessimist is a man who looks after feet. G.K.C. thinks these
definitions as good as any he ever heard.) But both Browning's
obscurity and his optimism are qualities which have been
imputed to him by his friends. He was a vigorous, energetic,

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robust individual full of joie de vivre. He was ignorant of Cathol-

icism; indeed his was an invincible ignorance. His belief in
revelation was pugnacious, not sentimental.

His lack of optimism is illustrated in the poem beginning

with the lines "I have a friend over the sea, JI like him but
he loves me." Although he was passionate, he was anti-Byronic
and hated pose.

In ''Shop" he praises hobbies. In one place in the poem he

reaches the name of Christ unusually fast, but it is typical of
Browning that he should pass quickly from the ridicidous to
the sublime without seeming ridiculous. He eulogises loyalty
and love, though he himself was passionate and lived intensely.

G.K.C. criticises people who quote poets without ever

having read them. When people say that Browning was optim-
istic because he wrote "All's right with the world" they simply
do not understand dramatic poetry, nor have they read Pippa
Passes.

Lecture Fifteen: Browning

Ronald Zudeck

Browning's style was distinctly his own, greatly admired

and never successfully imitated. It astounded the people of
his day. He has a continual use of the grotesque in an
abrupt fashion, very often not an artistic use of the grotes-
que. A man of strong personal convictions, he was still
influenced by the movements of his day. He was intensely
influenced by Dante and Petrarch and in general by the
inrush of the southern culture. Aside from this nothing
influenced him. He was particularly fond of playing small
games in his poetry, of making difficult rhymes totally
irrelevant to the matter at hand. B u t however obscure he

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was, he was undoubtedly sincere, for the older he gets

the less obscure he becomes.

Browning's optimism was a sort of vapid satisfaction

with everything as it is. He was robust and energetic and,
therefore, even excessively romantic. He was ignorant of
Catholicism though he wrote much about it and considered
himself well-informed. He had a sort of ebullient, stubborn,
personal, obscure belief in Christianity. What people have
called his optimism was really faith. He was, therefore,
a great romantic poet who wrote much romantic, graceful
love poetry. He was very anti-Byronic. He had mastery of
the medium, found in the Gothic, by which one passes from
the serious to the grotesque without any hint of break,
bathos, or irreverence. He kept his simplicity of faith be-
cause of his intense, unswayed individuality.

Lecture Sixteen: November 10, 1930

Rossetti, Swinburne, Pater and Wilde

Richard Baker

Rossetti is another example of the Pre-Raphaelite move-

ment in the Victorian Age. He was a better man than he
was a poet. He had great originality, and he was a great de-
fender of the Italian culture from which the mediaeval spirit
had sprung and which he embodied in his poetry. His poems
resemble the old English and Scotch ballads. He had "funda-
mental brainwork,*' that is, a patient, powerful, vigorous mind.
This strength of intellect is revealed especially in his sonnets.

Swinburne was just a burst of pure song. His poetry en-

chanted the world on its first appearance because of its appeal
of melody and sound. I n fact, his entire style depends on this

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singing, rhythmic, swinging quahty. Although he had a fine

sense of colour and decoration, his work was not classical.

He professed to be a pagan, which probably accounts for

his spirit of pessimism. Although he was very pagan, blasphemous,
and rebellious in his poetry, these attitudes do not detract from
the fundamental sense of beauty found in his poems. Most of
the charges in regard to his immorality are unfounded.

Swinburne did not have the great mind of Rossetti, but

he did have a somewhat irrational sceptical philosophy.

Walter Pater marks the decline and end of the mediaeval

spirit, which degenerated into paganism as the result of the
lack of a religious sustenance. This decadent period is exempli-
fied in Oscar Wilde, who worshipped beauty to the neglect of
truth and morality. As a result, poetry became artificial, and
in the words of Wilde himself, it was supposed to be an "im-
provement on nature."

Stevenson was the only exception to the crowd of de-

bauched, pessimistic pagans of the nineties.

Lecture Sixteen: November 10, 1930

The Pre-Raphaelites

John J . Connolly

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was not the greatest poet, but was
a great personality and a fair painter. Italian in blood and
sympathy, he was inaccurate about his Italian details. ("Even/¬
body, except my brother [WilliamU knows that Lombardy has
no coast") His test of art was ''fundamental brain work."
Some of his sonnets are magnificent. He wrote in a standard
English style. The loss of his wife was a tragedy. He became
a drug addict.

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Swinburne's poetry was a burst of sound—a new noise.

His was a style of pure sound and few ideas; it has been parodied
even by himself. His best work was done early. It abounded
in new rhythm, with four short lines and one long rolling
Greek hexameter. Its only parallel is Bret Harte's "The Heathen
Chinee."

"Atlanta" and "The Making of Man" contain good verse,

but poor thought is sacrificed to rhyme. Swinburne professes
to be a pagan. His "Hymn to the Pre-Raphaelites" is an address
to the goddess of death by the last pagan of Rome. It is an
expression of true Lucretian paganism. (G.K.C. has quoted
three hundred lines of Swinburne before half-past eight.) He
was a devoted classicist, but he did not make his work classical.
"Madonna Mia," ornamental and decorative, is not classical but
irrational; it is full of elaborate descriptions of the women who
weren't there.

"Dolores" seems to be a raving apostrophe to a worthless

woman of the streets. "The Triumph of Time" appears as the
story of a lover who loves a low-brow woman. These poems,
however, must not be taken an pied de la lettre. He had an
unfortunate love affair and tries to express pain and despair
at the breakdown of love and affection. There is more in him
than meets the eye.

Songs Before Sunrise contains pantheistic scepticism and

his ideas on the Italian revolutionary movement. His poetry
appeals to youth. The paganising influence which he had on
poetry was not definitely established until the time of Walter
Pater.

Victorian literature saw two of its features destroyed.

Carlyle and Newman killed the tone of respectability by show-
ing that of itself it has no basis. Paganism was found to break
down, because it did not possess the sustaining virtues of
Christianity.

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Oscar Wilde was twice the fashion: first, in the time of Pater
and Rossetti as an aesthetic, when his inspiration was mediaeval
(for example. Patience^; second, in the decadent movement,
when Ruskin worshipped nature and Rossetti worshipped art,
artificiality was exalted by Wilde. He thought that art was
beautiful and that Nature was wrong when it did not agree
with it. The green carnation was the flower of decadence.

Robert L. Stevenson had all the verbal dexterity and

artistic ingenuity of the artists of the period, but he revolted
against the suicidal debauchery of their artistic tendencies. He
appealed to the boy in man and was in no sense a Piccadilly
dandy (a black knight splashed mth yellow).

Lecture Sixteen: Rossetti, Swinburne, Pater

Ronald Zudeck

Rossetti is the central representative of the Mediaeval

School. His work is the ultimate of Pre-Raphaelite poetry.
He is not the greatest poet but the greatest man of his time.
Of Italian descent, he was not closely familiar with Italy.
Though he constantly referred to that country he was
cheerfully inaccurate. Some of his most beautiful poems
are based on old English and Scotch ballads. "Fundamental
brain work" was the phrase by which he tested all art and
it is ever present in his work. Since a sonnet is either good
or bad, the excellence of his style in sonnetry proves his
greatness. He is a turning-point in English letters.

Swinburne comes upon the earth like a burst of song.

H e is like nothing before nor since and he has never been
successfully parodied. His work was a new noise. H i s best
work was done at the outset in Atalanta in Calydon. I t is
startling in its new rhythms.

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Swinburne sacrifices sense for sound. Despite his pro-

fession of paganism, a Lucretian paganism and pessimism,
his real artistic sense of purple colour and burning passion
is Pre-Raphaelite and not classic. There is nothing of marble
about Swinburne. His instinct for plan and decoration is
rather Rossettian than Grecian. A bitter irony running be-
tween the lines is often the only explanation of what first
seem mad words. Songs Before Sunrise, though more whole-
some than the work preceding it, seems utter nonsense in
part. While dealing in these poems with the political revo-
lution, he thought the philosophy of pantheism appropriate
for them, an obvious contradiction.

A s Ruskin stands at the launching end of the Mediaeval

rebirth, Pater stands at the summing-up end. He exhibits
the general downward trend of the whole thing. Victorians
accepted things Christian under the impression that they
were pagan and found that they could not exist without
Christianity. Victorianism was not a break but a break-
down.

Oscar Wilde was the sort of aesthete one makes fun of.
His influence was obviously Mediaeval. Wilde figured in the
Decadent period in which people were willing to make fools
of themselves in saying they worshipped beauty but saw
beauty only in the fantastic. Ruskin worshipped beauty.
Pater art, and Wilde artificiality. The Decadents painted
carnations green.

Stevenson, to be appreciated, must be put against the

background of the Decadents. He had all their technical
talents but refused to accept their distortion and despair.

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Lecture Seventeen: Matthew Arnold: November 12, 1930

Richard Baker

Arnold is an ideal example of the typical Victorian critic.

He had a detached, critical mind, one that could see the whole
period from a basic perspective. He was much better in his
criticism than in his poetry, though he did write some good
short poems. His longer poems are too didactic and prosaic.
He gave a melancholy aspect to the things of nature and to
the ultimates of hfe. He was a typical humanist in that his
morality had no rehgious basis.

Arnold's method in controversy was something entirely

new. Instead of expressing his opinions in the bombastic, domi-
neering style of Carlyle, he would give his opponent the
impression that he (Arnold) was not able to refute the question,
but then by a keen insinuation of ideas he would bring out
his own point. He never used the straight, logical method of
argument. Instead, he would figuratively fall down before his
opponent and then grab him by the legs. In short, he played
on the nerves of his opponent by a constant repetition of the
point, until the opponent grew tired enough of the matter to
concede the argument.

Arnold did much good in attacking the general habit of

the time of praising one's self. Another practice among the
Victorians which he attacked was their habit of discussing the
most vulgar things in their public writings, such as delicate
marital problems, and so on. Arnold attacked these Philistines
from an innate sense of refinement and delicacy, not because
he had any religious or dogmatic standards to be guided by.

His slogan of "floating stock notions" was to make people

dig up ideas that were accepted as a matter of fact and assumed
without reflection, and to make a critical study of their true
merit.

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Arnold was opposed to the spirit of extreme individualism,

realising that civic control and regulation were needed in many
matters where the poor and the weak were sufiFering from the
injustices of the upper classes. He was always trying to establish
standards, especially in art, and he violently criticised the
common spirit of mediocre things as "big stuff." His big theme
was culture, which he defined as "knowing the best that has
been thought and said."

He divided the people of England into three groups: Bar-

barians (the aristocracy), PhiHstines, and the ordinary Popu-
lace. Because he could not appreciate the spirit of fancy and
extravagance that has characterised even the great literary men
of all times, Arnold was not just in his appraisal of English
writers. This fantastic touch, which was so opposed to Arnold's
idea of extreme classicism, is found even in some of the works
of Shakespeare, in the gargoyles of the mediaevals, and so on.
Modern examples of it are found in Carroll's Alice in Wonder-
land and in many fairy tales of the time. His classicism did not
include this spirit of fantasy, and he, therefore, regarded it
as Philistine.

Lecture Seventeen: Matthew^ Arnold: November 12, 1930

John J . Connolly

Matthew Arnold was a detached critic, a wise corrector,

and at first, a poet, though not a good one (for example,
^'Resignation"). He antedated the American Humanists. His
method was, first to affect complete helplessness in argument,
and then, to rise from a position of weakness and frustration
to score heavily. He attacked self-praise in everyone (for
example, Major Bagstock in Dombey and Son would have been
one of his victims). He opposed vulgarity in moral religious
discussions, did not like the opinions of the Philistines or the
Bourgeousie. He thought that the Deceased-Wife's-Sister law

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which prohibited a man from marrying his sister-in-law, very

vulgar.

He was very unpopular mth the practical reformers

because he insisted upon considering the ultimate outcome of
their resolutions. This insistence was typified in his stand in
connection with the Irish Church, Although his age was one
of individuals dominated by the Manchester school in Ethics
and Economics, Arnold was more in favour of united action.
Although personally somewhat of an agnostic, he favoured the
State Church and wanted everybody to belong to it, although
his only reason for liking the "Lamb of God" and other hymns
was their musical beauty,

Arnold's standard of conscience was taste. In favouring the

grand style he often exalted rather questionable prophets.
"Culture," he said, "is knowing the best that was said and
thought in the world."

He divided the English people into three groups: one, the

Barbarians, made up of the aristocracy who were devoted to
field and sports; two, the Philistines, represented by the Puri-
tans of the middle class; three, the populace. G.K.C. thinks
that Arnold was on the right side in his criticism, yet not quite
just to England. Arnold had no sympathy with the life and
genius of the nation. He was fastidious, frigid, and fanatical
yet narrow against fanaticism. He did not appreciate the fact
that everything in English life and history has a certain ex-
travagance not expressed in action but in fancy and thought.
English literature has many such works, for example, Alice
in Wonrlerland and Edward Lear's works. G.K.C.'s and Bentley's
discussions of these books led him to the conclusion that they
were not allegorical, but merely imaginative. Kingsley's Water
Babies, while fantastic, is his best work. George Macdonald's
fairy tales is another example. (G.K.C. told the story of the
princess and the goblin.)

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Lecture Seventeen: Arnold

Ronald Zudeck

Matthew Arnold is an ideal example of a man summing

up his time judiciously from his own point of view and
completely, a detached mind forming a general impression.
He set himself to be a corrective and to balance the intem-
perance of the time. H e began as a poet but is more im-
portant as a critic. His long poems that he thought classic
are prosaic. Humanists in America are the heirs of Arnold
and express his belief that man cannot get along without
the moral life whatever be his view of the soul's immortality.

Arnold invented a new method of criticism and contro-

versy which was essentially to affect complete helplessness.
A t first he would argue violently or even vulgarly though
always logically, like Macaulay. I n a second phase he would
argue like Carlyle by merely asserting like a prophet. I n
the last phase he would play helpless to draw the enemy
into his toils. He used not a logical but a psychological
method. He simply repeated and repeated, an unscrupulous
tactic, for he was mildly unscrupulous.

He did great good by attacking the habit of perpetually

praising oneself. H e attacked vulgarity—the Philistines. He
assumed a sometimes unfounded but valuable tone of re-
pugnance toward many things. I n his attack on perpetually
self-satisfied middle-class vulgarity he anticipated the A m e r i -
can humanists. He held that one should set up a stream
of thought to float the "stock notions" at the bottom of
the mind.

I n Arnold's time the Manchester School ruled economics

and ethics. He protested aö'ainst their attitude that the State
should do nothing. H e believed in the Church of England
because it was a State Church. A n agnostic, he believed

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that religion was necessary to the state. He thought that

the literary music of prayer was necessary to man. H e
insisted on standards of taste and the artistic conscience.
He spoke much in favour of a consciousness of "the grand
style." Culture was "knowing the best that had been said
and thought in the world." He divided England into bar-
barians, Philistines, and populace but it was not a successful
classification. Arnold was on the right side but he was not
just to England because he was not in sympathy with her.
He was fanatical against fanaticism.

A part of the English character is an extravagance of

fancy though not of action. This is easily seen in Shakes-
peare. It is a necessary quality of genius and is notable in
the Jewish prophets. It broke out isolated in the Victorian
period in nonsense writing. The work of E d w a r d L e a r is
the paradigm of nonsense for nonsense's sake.

George MacDonald, a writer of fairy tales, was an

imaginative poet though he lacked much other literary
equipment.

Lecture Eighteen: November 14, 1930

Kipling, Shaw and Wells

Richard Baker

Both Alice in Wonderland and the Lady of Shallot were

typical Victorian ladies in that they did not see the realities of
life, but could see them only as through a mirror. In short,
Victorian ideas were discussed freely, but they were never
carried out into practice. This sheltered complacency of the
Victorians was shattered by a group of writers who were aware
of these realities and whose extreme theories pricked the bubble
of Victorianism.

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Kipling took the idea of patriotism and exaggerated it into

an imperialistic nationalism. He took the efficient, punctual,
disciphned English soldier as the ideal type of all Englishmen,
and then put forth the theory that the nation which had such
qualities was the superior nation. As a matter of fact, the typical
Englishman is casual and careless, with a trait of genial un-
sociability. Kipling's theory of efficiency was suddenly shattered
by the defeat of the efiicient German army in World War I .
The nationalistic fever seized England, however, and she began
a policy of extensive colonisation, which was another blow to
the quietism of the Victorians.

G. B. Shaw's extreme Socialism was another blow to the

Victorians. He has all the faults of a man who is too serious,
advocating extreme organisation in the state and extreme dis-
organisation in the morality of the individual.

H . G . Wells tried to fulfill the ideas of the Victorians

which, of course, were not meant to be fulfilled. He brought
the element of a gigantic scientific hypothesis to literature by
attempting to prophesy the future outcome of the Darwinian
evolutionary theory.

Thus, Kipling, Shaw, and Wells all took Victorian ideas too
seriously, and as a result destroyed the Victorian Age. The
critical spirit of the modern mind has penetrated the unstable
theology of the Victorians, and has brought to light the truths
of Christianity.

Lecture Eighteen: November 14, 1930

Kipling, Shaw and Wells

John J . Connolly

Although its literary ideals were not carried to their

logical conclusions, the Victorian age was not one of stagnation.

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The period saw the apex of commercial advancement reached;

the people were insular and comfortable, like the Lady of
Shallot; they lived in Alice's Wonderland, and held aloof from
reality completely. Stevenson, the healthy romancer, was the
last of the Victorian great ones. When Victoria died there were
three schools of realism which gained prominence: the Imperial-
istic school, represented by Kipling, the Socialistic by Shaw,
and the Scientific, by Wells.

Kipling, an Anglo-Indian Imperialist, was extremely fond of

India. Like Disraeli, his best works were his short stories of
Anglo-Indian life. In his Barrack Room Ballads, he represented
the English people as practical, punctual and organised, and
their subjects he qualified with contrary adjectives.

Kipling, did not write during the Great War because

according to his theory, Germany should have won. His slogan
was to paint the map red, and he preached it during the
time of the Boer War.

Henley wrote quiet, sad poetry. When he wrote in imitation

of Kipling, he was bad.

G. B. Shaw, one of the Fabians of Hampstead, was inspired

by Samuel Butler. He had wild, fanciful ideas, but was a true
Victorian. He was a Prohibitionist and a Puritan. His ideas of
State Socialism advocated organisation in politics and dis-
organisation in ethics. He is gradually working back to funda-
mental ethical principles and may yet discover property and
marriage.

H. G. Wells was also an extremist and came not to destroy,

but to fulfill Victorian ideas. His first books are the best.
The Time Machine is fanciful and pessimistic. On evolution he
claims that the plutocrats would degenerate while the workers
would improve, until both were perfectly equal. This deduction
from the Darwinian hypothesis had never been conceived by
Huxley or Darwin.

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The curse came upon the Victorians when they began to

apply their ideas. The non-conformist conscience of the Puritans
finally died. These ideas sponsored by Cromwell and Bunyan
were not practical; they depended upon atmosphere and when
it disappeared they disintegrated. Anglo-Catholicism came into
the ascendency and, toith the movement toward first principles,
Roman Catholicism advanced. Belloc and Maurice Baring were
Victorian men of the world. Baring was a great linguist and
had an extremely large circle of acquaintances. His conversion
was symbolic.

The Victorians lived in a dolVs house, but they lived a

life that was balanced, sane, humane, reasonable, and tolerable.
It was, however, only a doWs house. Baring discovered this;
he wanted not only a house but a home, and found it only after
his conversion.

Lecture Eighteen: Kiplin,g, Shaw, and Wells

Ronald Zudeck

The Lady of Shallott and Alice in Through the Looking

Glass are types of the Victorian Age which saw life only as
reflections in the mirror of the mind. The end of the Victor-
ian Age is historical coincidence. A number of non-Victorian
writers sprang up at the end of the queen's reign. Stevenson
was the last of the great Victorians in that he was a healthy
romancer. After him people began to introduce extreme
ideas, Darwinism and Socialism among them. Then, with
the coming of the Imperialists, Victorianism was shattered.

Kipling was an Anglo-Indian and not a true English-

man. The best things he wrote were his early Indian short
stories. Kipling thought that the distinguishing character of
England was its practicality and system. A s a matter of
fact Englishmen are lonesome, casual, and genially unsocia-

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ble. H e does not mention the Great W a r because it embar-

rasses his principles. The later idea of "painting the map
red" was foreign to the Victorian Age.

Kipling carried out many things that were implicit in

the Victorians. S h a w took up the banner. Samuel Butler
had many wild ideas but he was a true Victorian in the
exercise of his fancy. Shaw was in much the same case.
Reputed to be a bufoon, he began with savage seriousness.
He is at heart a Puritan. Wells is an even stronger example
of the extremist. These people came not to destroy but
to fulfill Victorian ideals. But Victorian ideals were not
meant to be fulfilled.

There began with Wells a profound and disastrous

change in the world's thought, the application of scientific
method to real life. He was the first man actually to apply
the Darwinian hypothesis to real life. The nonconformist
block collapsed in the face of the new world. When things
were broken up into their fundamental elements, Catholic-
ism was bound to arise. Maurice Baring is a fine example
of this. He began as a decadent and, having surveyed
everything, became a Catholic.

*Editor*s Note: This is the final installment of "Chesterton's Notre

Dame Lectures on Victorian Literature"

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