Читать книгу Halleck's New English Literature - Reuben Post Halleck - Страница 14

For us it is mickle right that we should praise with words, love with our hearts, the Lord of the heavens, the glorious King of the people. He is the mighty power, the chief of all exalted creatures, Lord Almighty.

The Paraphrase is really composed of three separate poems: the Genesis, the Exodus, and the Daniel; and these are probably the works of different writers. Critics are not agreed whether any of these poems in their present form can be ascribed to Caedmon. The Genesis shows internal evidence of having been composed by several different writers, but some parts of this poem may be Caedmon's own work. The Genesis, like Milton's Paradise Lost, has for its subject matter the fall of man and its consequences. The Exodus, the work of an unknown writer, is a poem of much originality, on the escape of the children of Israel from Egypt, their passage through the Red Sea, and the destruction of Pharaoh's host. The Daniel, an uninteresting poem of 765 lines, paraphrases portions of the book of Daniel relating to Nebuchadnezzar's dreams, the fiery furnace, and Belshazzar's feast.

Characteristics of the Poetry.—No matter who wrote the Paraphrase, we have the poetry, a fact which critics too often overlook. Though the narrative sometimes closely follows the Biblical account in Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel, there are frequent unfettered outbursts of the imagination. The Exodus rings with the warlike notes of the victorious Teutonic race.

The Genesis possesses special interest for the student, since many of its strong passages show a marked likeness to certain parts of Milton's Paradise Lost. As some critics have concluded that Milton must have been familiar with the Caedmonian Genesis, it will be instructive to note the parallelism between the two poems. Caedmon's hell is "without light and full of flame." Milton's flames emit no light; they only make "darkness visible." The following lines are from the Genesis:—

"The Lord made anguish a reward, a home

In banishment, hell groans, hard pain, and bade

That torture house abide the joyless fall.

When with eternal night and sulphur pains,

Fullness of fire, dread cold, reek and red flames,

He knew it filled."[15]

With this description we may compare these lines from Milton:—

"A dungeon horrible, on all sides round.

As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames

No light; but rather darkness visible.

… a fiery deluge, fed

With ever burning sulphur unconsumed."[16]

In Caedmon "the false Archangel and his band lay prone in liquid fire, scarce visible amid the clouds of rolling smoke." In Milton, Satan is shown lying "prone on the flood," struggling to escape "from off the tossing of these fiery waves," to a plain "void of light," except what comes from "the glimmering of these livid flames." The older poet sings with forceful simplicity:—

"Then comes, at dawn, the east wind, keen with frost."

Milton writes:—

" … the parching air Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire."[17]

When Satan rises on his wings to cross the flaming vault, the Genesis gives in one line an idea that Milton expands into two and a half:—

"Swang ðaet f=yr on tw=a f=eondes craefte."

Struck the fire asunder with fiendish craft.

" … on each hand the flames,

Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and, rolled

In billows, leave i' th' midst a horrid vale."[18]

It is not certain that Milton ever knew of the existence of the Caedmonian Genesis; for he was blind three years before it was published. But whether he knew of it or not, it is a striking fact that the temper of the Teutonic mind during a thousand years should have changed so little toward the choice and treatment of the subject of an epic, and that the first great poem known to have been written on English soil should in so many points have anticipated the greatest epic of the English race.