THE DIALECTICAL "PRINCIPLE IN THE POETRY OF ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH by MARGO CONSTANCE WELLS B.A., The University of British Columbia, 1961 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of English We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA September, 1963 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that per mission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying, or publi cation of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of English The University of British Columbia,. Vancouver 8, Canada. Date September 10, 196,3 ABSTRACT The title of Walter Houghton's reeent article, "Arthur Hugh Clough: A Hundred Years of Disparagement," . could not fail to strike any reader familiar with the general tone and subject matter of the major criticism which has appeared on Clough to the present day. Most of the studies have been in the nature of personal appreciations and have dealt primarily with Clough as a man. Even the more scholarly and objective studies which have been published lately have failed to treat his poetry in any comprehensive way, but have tended, rather, to emphasize one aspect of Clough and then have referred briefly to certain poems which support a thesis. There has been no noteworthy attempt to subject his poetry to a close textual analysis in order to determine if any general principle underlies it. For this reason, I have been primarily concerned in this study with examining the poetry of Arthur Hugh Clough to assess the presence in it of what I have called the dialectical principle—the way in which his most characteristic approach to experience is carried over into his poetry and finds expression in theme, mood, tone, form, imagery and characters. ii i ii Chapter II discusses the presence of the dialectical element in the theme of Clough*s poetry—particularly in the poems which deal with religion, in those which attempt to answer the unanswerable questions, why man is here, how he should live while here, and if he will continue to exist in some form after death, and in those which probe the nature of love. Chapter III examines the way in which the dialectical principle is reflected in juxtaposed moods, in the tone, and in the external form of Clough*s poetry. And, finally, Chapter IV considers imagery and characters, the imaginative and dramatic embodiment of the dialectic in themes dealt with in Chapter II. The study concludes with the suggestion that Clough, for the most part, did not succeed in solving his intellectual and spiritual problems and in conveying the solution through his poetry. For the poems here analyzed, with perhaps the exception of "Easter Day, Part II," record his failure to cross "the darkling plain" and find some new light of truth which would satisfy him both emotionally and intellectually. In many of them, the dialectic exists as unresolved debate when Clough, unable to find an intellectual synthesis, con cludes with an admission of defeat or with the decision to wait for some further revelation of Truth. At other times, when his desire for certainty will not permit him to let the dialectic end in an impasse, he is forced to shift the terms iv of the debate and to "synthesize" his intellectual difficulties in a realm of pure feeling or on an ideal plane. Thus, the conclusion becomes an emotional, rather than an intellectual solution—usually one in which Clough ends by trusting an undefined "larger hope," when he is unable to answer the problem posed by rational means. V TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I. ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH: THE VICTORIAN, THE MAN, THE POET 3 II. DIALECTIC IN THEME 37 III. MOOD, TONE AND FORM 6? IV. IMAGERY AND CHARACTERS 8** CONCLUSION 109 BIBLIOGRAPHY 112 INTRODUCTION The title of Walter Houghton's recent article, "Arthur Hugh Clough: A Hundred Years of Disparagement,"1 cannot fail to strike any reader familiar with the general tone and subject matter of the major criticism which has appeared on Clough to the present day. Most of the studies have been in the nature of personal appreciations, have dealt primarily with Clough as a man, and have tended to pass quickly over the poetry with apologies to the reader for having even considered the work of one who so manifestly was not a poet. The general opinion has been that Clough, while possessing many admirable qualities, had somehow failed to realize his potentialities and had, indeed, been a failure in most ways—particularly as a poet. Even the more scholarly and objective studies which have appeared recently have failed to treat Clough*s poetry in any comprehensive way, but have tended, rather, to emphasize one aspect of Clough and then have referred briefly to certain Walter E. Houghton, "Arthur Hugh Clough: A Hundred Years of Disparagement," Studies in English Literature. 150Q- 1900, vol. 1 (Autumn 1 9 6 D, pp. 35-61. This article antici- pates his book, The Poetry of Clough: An Essay in Revaluation, soon to be published by Harvard University Press. 1 2 p poems which support a thesis. There has been no noteworthy attempt to subject Clough1s poetry to a close textual analysis in order to determine if any general principle underlies i t. For this reason, I will mainly be concerned in this study with examining the poetry of Arthur Hugh Clough to assess the presence in it of what I am calling the dialectical principle— the way in which his most characteristic approach to experience is carried over into his poetry and finds expression in theme, mood, tone, form, imagery, and characters. As most of Clough*s poetry was written between 1837 and 1853 and no marked change in style or theme occurs between these dates, I have chosen to organize my discussion according to the categories of theme, mood, tone, form, imagery, and characters, hoping in this way to avoid, for the reader's sake, repetition and confusion. With the possible exception of Isobel Armstrong's brief study, Arthur Hugh Clough, which appears in the Writers and Their Work Series, No. lM-8 (London, Longmans, Green, 1962). Katharine Chorleyts book, Arthur Hugh Clough: The Uncommitted Mind (Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1962) attempts little textual criticism and, indeed, is useful mainly as an additional biographical reference. • CHAPTER I ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH: THE VICTORIAN, THE MAN, THE POET "I will look straight out, see things, not try to evade them; Fact shall be fact for me, and Truth the Truth as ever, Flexible, changeable, vague, and multiform, and doubtful.—" Amours de Voyage. V, 100-02. In his introduction to the two volumes of Clough's letters which he edited, F. L. Mulhauser shows how Clough's life, short as it was, touched at so many points on Important elements of Victorian life: Schoolboy at Rugby under Br. Arnold, student at Balliol under Ward in the midst of the Tractarian controversy, Fellow of Oriel at the time when university reform began to be agitated and subscription again became a serious issue, observer of the uprisings in Paris in lQk& and the Roman Republic of 18^9, head of University Hall and Professor in the University of London, resident in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and welcome guest in the homes of Boston Brahmins, civil servant in the Education Office, and devoted admirer and helper of his cousin by marriage, Florence Nightingale—all these he was, as well as friend of Matthew and Thomas Arnold, Carlyle, Emerson, Froude, Charles Eliot Norton, and many others whose activities were important to their time.l Frederick L. Mulhauser, ed., The Correspondence of Arthur Hugh Clough. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1 9 5 7, vol. 1, p. xv. 3 k However, important as a knowledge of these biographical details may be as a basis for viewing Clough as a true representative of his age, there is an even more telling reason for regarding him in this light. For Clough, in common with so many other key Victorian figures, under the pressure of the new scientific theories, the current materialistic explanations of the universe and the Higher Criticism of the Bible lost his faith in tradi tional religion and in i ts explanations of God, man's relationship to God, and the meaning and purpose of human existence; and, like them, he experienced the disillusionment and spiritual conflict attendant on this loss of faith. He, too, felt himself, like Matthew Arnold, to be "on a darkling plain" and was torn by religious doubt, "the nagging philosophical nightmare of the sensitive Victorian." As F. L. Lucas rather facetiously, but nonetheless truthfully, remarked: "For us he remains the impersonation of an age when religious doubt was not, as now, a rare and mild greensickness, but a crippling, even a fatal malady."3 His poetry is the record of the John Heath-Stubbs, The Darkling Plain: A Study of the Later Fortunes of Romanticism in English Poetry from George Parley to W. B. Yeats. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1950, p. 9 8. 3F. L. Lucas, Ten Victorian Poets, 3 rd ed., Cambridge at the University Press, 19^8, p. 7 3.