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Chapter XIII
iri»ni» mi i wo—w———m
Masefield ’s Place in English literature
As a narrative poet Masefield has been compared by some to
Chaucer and he. is eulogised as a ’20th Century Chaucer 5.
This
verdict can be accepted in a limited senset in that Masefield
renovated and succeeded in the longer narrative verse*
Tmt the
verdict cannot be accepted in the strict sense because i-asefield
cannot compare with the inimitable Chaucer.
1hough Masefield
has renovated the narrative art of his master, Chaucer ‘a
objectivity, range and genius are beyond his reach.
Even in
She Everlasting Mercy one can easily see that Masefield has a
purpose: he wishes to show us the reformed sinner.
But Chaucer
just gives us an impartial picture of many men and women, their
frailties and their good points, from a purely objective angle.
He just goes on with the story and does not bother to comment
upon the black spots of his characters.
range of humanity and universality.
He has Shakespeare %
Masefield does not have the
freedom of the narrative because his didacticism comes in the way:
"Fundamentally a traditionalist and an idealist, Maaefield
uses realism as an incidental technique, a means to achieve a
moral end whose function in the story is never clear." I
This is also true of his plays,
'fhai Masefield holds a
brief for Nan, Pompey, Mary Queen of Scots, Jezebel and others
is clear because he is incapable of being totally objective the one quality that distinguishes a good dramatist.
He lacks
the ’Negative Capability’ even of a second-rate dramatist.
1. D.Baiches: "Poetry and the Modern World", p 49
279
This statement of Daiches throws a flood of light on the
main theme of this thesis.
tionalist and idealist.
Masefield is fundamentally a Tradi­
He is of the Romantic tribe.
Yiefcorian compromise has affected him.
hit the
Unlike the Decadents, who
retreated from Realism and like the Georgians who tried to come to
grips with it, Masefield also tried to achieve a fusion of realism
and romanticism in his poetry, even though he might have used
realism as an incidental teohnique.
He succeeds in this, as w©
have seen, in some of his lyrics and narrative poems when his
didacticism and other limitations of his genius do not stand
in the way *
like Ohaueer, Shakespeare and Browning, Masefield nae sought
to interpret the human spirit as it has shown itself in many
climes and ages and he shares with them their broad hutminity
though not their genius.
Thors is at least some thing lasting in
his approach and he is therefore of a higher stature than Kipling.
Masefield does not also suffer from doubts and inhibitions as
Tennyson did.
But in another sense Masefield is no match for
Tennyson* Masefield’s verse suffers from many lirnltationa while
Tennyson is a master of language and preserves throughout ’a level
of workmanship possible only to a great and conscientious artist'.
Masefield has been elected ’Companion of lifcerature' by the
Royal Society of literature - an honour bestowed normally upon
those who have brought some distinction to English letters.
This
is, of course, a well-deserved honour.
Despite all his lapses and limitations some would deem it fit
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to call Masefield a 'genius' and a 'great' poet-artist.
reason?
Has he not written much?
And their
Miss f&triel Spark wow id decree
thus*
genius frequently abounds with bad taste.
If the phenome­
non can be explained, the cause possibly has some boaring on the
quantity of the poet's (Masefield's) output". 1
And she quotes Herbert Palmer to support her argument.
Palmer
admits that Masefield does insert 'nonsensical or inept words for
the mere sake of effecting a correct rhyme.
But this does not
occur on every page, and it is better to be like that bhan to be
merely bloodlessly competent.’
With regard to Masefield's use of
queer or ambiguous, words for the sake of rhyme Palmer just waves
his hand, avoids cogent and convincing argumentation, and replies;
"Ho, Masefield does not bother himself sufficiently, and gets on
with the next job." 2
J
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Mr. JL.A.Gr.Strong's remarks are no less curious:
"Every copious writer is uneven.
Unevenness, provided the
output is large, is often a sign of genius.
This is true of every
kind of creative work. ... It is admitted nowadays that not all of
Shakespeare's work is on the highest level;
and the same is true
of lesser artists....
"John Masefield is a copious writer, and one of the most
uneven whom our time can show..... Por this reason, I propose to
make an arbitrary 'selection, picking out certain works which seem
to me to represent, at its most sensitive and vigorous, bhe
intermittent genius of one of the most lovable of English writers.
Siome of these works will be of the highest class.
Ochers will
show, even if imperfectly, gifts of the highest class, and sympa­
thies so generous as to warm and quicken the work that surrounds
them." 3
We wonder whether an 'intermittent genius' can be compared with
a genius who is uniformly grand.
We remember Issac Newton's
famous remark about the glow-worms it sparkles intermittently at
night, no doubt;
but in day-light what a pathetic sight; does it
1. Muriel Spark: J.Masefield, p SO.
2. Herbert Palmer: Post-Victorian Poetry, p 134.
3. L.A.0.Strongs J.Masefield, p 7.
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present to us.'
It Is an exaggeration to call Masefield a
or a
'second Chaucer*.
'second Shakespeare 1
He will of course remain a distinguished
"but uneven minor poefe though not of much historical importance. He
is not also of the rank of Wordsworth, Shelley, Browning, Hardy
and Byron.
This is "because he does not have the metaphysical
imagination which stands him in good stead in short pieces like
Laugh and he Merry, on a sustained level.
He is the William
Morris of the Georgian group with a touch of Swinburne.
Masefield has concerned himself single-mindedly with the old
verities and truths of the heart - the universal truths lacking
which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honour, pity
and pride, compassion and sacrifice.
Masefield refuses
to accept
the end of mankind at any time because man alone has a soul, a
spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
It is
man's failure to live on his god-given gifts, on his highest
spiritual level which produces the horrors that Masefield so often
depicts and deplores.
Masefield has in fact created a spiritual
world of his own and from this world he seeks to illuminate the
restless searching of all men.
Above all Masefield has sung of the dignity of man, of the
individual.
He has immense faith in humanity*
Once .7i31iam
Faulkner appears to have said that he believed that man would not
merely endure, but that he would prevail?
was immortal.
mouth.
for he held that man
This philosophy may equally be apt in Masefield's
This is how Masefield has sung of man 'a glory and promise:
’’Pray not to any god for it, but plan
Imagine,, work, determine, straggle still
That out of modem man there may come Man.
Life was a sorry thing when it bdgan
Life is a sorry thing when warnings sway.
But Life was fair in Pavilastukay.
I have a star for when the storm abates
A cock that crows against the coming day
England shall live like Pavilastukay. ”
Masefield*s message of hope will be still more significant if we
; try
\bo note the effects of the First World War on some of the
poets of the day, and what Masefield’s reaction was*
’’After the 1st World War, however, it was by no means clear
that democracy and humanity were triumphant. Rather, to many,
mankind seemed &s pitiful and destiny as cruel as in Hardy's novels.
The futility of man’s efforts whether in war or peace became the
theme of many a writer, and idealism of all sorts, including that
of democracy, were subject to fresh and bitber criticism.” 1
We find this gloom m GalsworthyTs Flowering Wilderness
which reflects, with less than usual of his good baste, a younger
generation ’disillusioned’ by the First World /ar.
In others too
the effect was more or less similars
’’Like Hardy, he (A.S.Housman) was possessed by the antiVictorian mood, depressed by the disappointments of life, the
presence of death, the complications of sex, the futility of our
pursuits, the transience of nature's charm.” 2
The year 1922 saw the publication of T.S.Eliot's Waste Land
and it became instantly popular and much-read.
it could ably reflect the mood of the majority.
Why?
It was because
The poem sums up
the spiritual state of our civilisation: it is (to use Eliot's own
\vords in his essay on James Joyce) "the immense panorama of
futility and anarchy which is contemporary history".
The vVadte
of
Land is thus a dramatic self-expression of an ag© disbelief and
"
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f*
1. Eeilson & Thorndikes A History of English Literature, p 418.
2. H.V.Rouths English Lit. & Ideas in the 20th Century, p 78,
emotional sterility, devoid of real purpose and haunted by fear.
The Waste land was followed in 1925 by The Hollow Men with a
similar view of a dying civilisation, drawing to its end
uMot with a bang but a whimper.”
But the question iss
what is Eliot’s message to the world
through these two much-read poems?
Poes he offer any solution
to the war-tossed world that had lost completely its spiritual
equilibrium and human heritage?
of Respond?
Does he take it out of the Slough
Thus the early poems of Eliot are full of cynicism and
irony and ridicule;
message of Hope.
so full of them that they could hardly contain
They hardly take into account the Beauty of life
in spite of its ugliness and ghastliness.
In fact one hao to
wait for Eliot’s four Quartets for this kind of achievement.
We have found that Bdasefield did not give way to despair
during the aftermath of the War*
imaginative insight;
Perhaps this could be lack of
it is to be deplored.
However we see that
he exudes Hope and Oourage, and faith in the ultimate deBtiny of
man.
His spiritual evolution, we have noted, has nothing negative
in it.
Beneath all the ghastliness and grotesquely of life, its
battered battalions and bleeding noses, Masefield is able to see
life’s glory, its beauty and its rich possibilities!
’'Abide in hope the turning of the wheel,
The luck will alter and the star will rise.”
(Kina Cole)
Masefield therefore is a cheerful participant in life whose
message is hope in man *s destiny and faith in tbe ultimate good­
ness of man.
He rules out despair altogether.
Always looking
forward, he reflects the ceaseless quest of -man to retain the
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spirit of youth and1 adventure with sobriety and steadiness.
The modem world is beset by tensions and assailed by fears,
and threatened with the daily nightmare of extinction.
The world
to-day is no longer the simple pastoral world that it once was,
a world in which the poet and his public felt fairly at ease.
The world to-day is complex, a world in which old values are dis­
torted beyond recognition, and where fear lurks in every corner]
■
in this increasingly .depressing situation Masefield’s message
comes like a shower of soul-soothing rain amidst the parching heat
of summer.
Hd has given the call for a healthy view of life which
implies a correct sense of human values despite technological
advances and achievements.
At a time when totalitarian systems
and the rush of industrialisation have been trying their best to
annihilate or diminish the value' of
the human spirit, Masefield
has tried to preserve, enhance1and uphold the freedom of the
human spirit and the dignity of the individual.
let us not forget that Masefield is not content with being a
mere echo of his predecessors;
like all true artiscs he not only
leaves the imprint of his impressive personality on whatever he
writes but strives hard to find a meaning in the new phenomena.
This is why he comes to grips with realism again and again in his
poetry and succeeds, in some poems, in enshrining a romantic
message in terms of a realistic situation.
Above all, Masefield is humble enough not to judge human
behaviour?
-he merely explains its
’♦Moreover, he is the poet of sympathy, forgiveness and excuse.
There is nothing about him of the Hebrew prophet or the stern
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moralizer. Moralist he is often, hut moraliser never.
He does
not set out to judge, hut to delineate and show. So he delights
in his riff-raffs as much as in his regal people;
and he wrixes
of the motley assembly which sets out in the hunt against Reynard,
as Chaucer wrote of his Canterbury Pilgrims, To Masefield they
are just human beings, and the most objectionable of them not
really bad.” 1
Further, the true artist rises above narrow loyal bias and
enshrines in his work something universal and fundamental*
freedom of the human spirit.-
the
Great and good literature has to
promote an international consciousness particularly in the present
context of crumbling frontiers and the inconceivable inroads in
science. The artist has to bring all peoples together and integrate,
xeach people to love and not hate;
and induce in his readers a
sense of humility and humanity.
Masefield, with his fundamental faith in the virtue of man,
has tried in ample measure to bring about this togetherness, and
promote a sense of humanity, compassion and understanding.
has given us something largely human if nox universal*
He
Here
is a great message*
“Laugh and be merry, remember, better the world wit„i a song,
Better the world with a blow in the teeth of a wrong.
I>augh, for the time is brief, a thread the length of a span.
Laugh and be proud to belong to the proud pageant of man.
laugh and be merry? remember, in olden time,
God made Heaven and Barth for joy He book: in a rhyme,
Made them, and filled them full with the strong red wine of
- His mirth,
The splendid joy of the stars* the joy of the earth.
So we must laugh and drinlc from the deep blue cup of the sky,
Join the jubilant song of the great stars sweeping by,
Laugh, and battle, and work, and drink of the wine out-poured
In the dear green earth, the sign of the joy of the Lord.
Laugh and be merry together, like brothers akin,
Guesting awhile in the rooms of a beautiful inn,
1. Herbert Palmers Post-Tictorian Poetry, p 124.
Glad till the dancing stops, and the lilt of the music ends.
Baugh till the game’is played; and he you merry, my friends.*'
Or thiss
"I have seen flowers come in stony places;
And kindness done hy men with ugly faces;
And the gold cup won hy the worst horse at the races;
So I trust,' too."
BBad lies behind, worse lies before.
What stars there were are in us still;
The Moon, the inconstant, keeps her will,
And shall not Man do more?
When the worst comes, the worst is going,4
As a gate shuts, another opes;
The power of man is as his hopesi
In darkest night the cocks are crowing.
In the sea roaring and wind blowing
Adventures man the ropes."
And lastly this!
"I have seen sorrow close and suffering close.
I know their ways with men, if any knows,
I know the harshness of the way they have
To loose the base and prison up the brave.
I know that some have found the depth they trod
In deepest sorrow, is the heart of God.
Up on the bitter iron there is peace.
In the dark night of prison comes release,
In the black midnight still the cock will crow.
There is a help that the abandoned know
Beep in the heart", that conquerors cannot feel.
Abide in hope the turning of the wheel,
The luck will alter and the star will rise."
This is the spirit that Masefield presents - the saint of
youth and adventure and hope which grows mellow with the sobering
effects of age and steadiness.
We speak of uhe true English tradition while speaking of
Masefield.
The English tradition is one of acceptance and
compromise - acceptance of the old and the new.
'this spirit of
fusion is also the secret of the development of Masefield as a
poet.
Masefield can he taken as a representative poet of England.
His approach is richly human and natural.
It is his catholicity
of outlook and his stress on the ultimate dignity and destiny of
man that may, in a large measure, he taken as the message of
the essential Masefield.