Don’t you love it when a literary reference in a book leads you on to discover something else interesting?

I’ve been enjoying poetry quite a bit recently, so when I happened on a reference to Robert Browning in Angela Thirkell’s Summer Half, I followed my usual method of pursuing a reference: I hopped over to the Kindle Store and found a free volume of his poems—and on a whim, because I like books of letters, I also picked up the first volume of his correspondence with Elizabeth Barrett (later, of course, Barrett Browning). I’m finding it absolutely delightful so far. It’s intriguing to trace the growth of their friendship and become acquainted with their personalities through the letters. Robert writes in long, eager, running-out-of-breath sentences and seems to forget that he set out to say something else several pages ago, and Elizabeth has a most charming sense of humor. But an additional delight is their frequent conversations about writing. They talk of handwriting, critics, inspiration, and life as a writer in general. I’ve been highlighting my favorite passages as I go, and I thought I’d share a few:

From Elizabeth:

The most frequent general criticism I receive, is, I think, upon the style,—’if I would but change my style’! But that is an objection (isn’t it?) to the writer bodily? Buffon says, and every sincere writer must feel, that ‘Le style c’est l’homme’; a fact, however, scarcely calculated to lessen the objection with certain critics.

On another occasion:

What no mere critic sees, but what you, an artist, know, is the difference between the thing desired and the thing attained, between the idea in the writer’s mind and the ειδωλον [translation] cast off in his work. All the effort—the quick’ning of the breath and beating of the heart in pursuit, which is ruffling and injurious to the general effect of a composition; all which you call ‘insistency,’ and which many would call superfluity, and which is superfluous in a sense—you can pardon, because you understand. The great chasm between the thing I say, and the thing I would say, would be quite dispiriting to me, in spite even of such kindnesses as yours, if the desire did not master the despondency.

And again:

One may be laborious as a writer, without copying twelve times over. I believe there are people who will tell you in a moment what three times six is, without ‘doing it’ on their fingers; and in the same way one may work one’s verses in one’s head quite as laboriously as on paper—I maintain it. I consider myself a very patient, laborious writer—though dear Mr. Kenyon laughs me to scorn when I say so. And just see how it could be otherwise. If I were netting a purse I might be thinking of something else and drop my stitches; or even if I were writing verses to please a popular taste, I might be careless in it. But the pursuit of an Ideal acknowledged by the mind, will draw and concentrate the powers of the mind—and Art, you know, is a jealous god and demands the whole man—or woman. I cannot conceive of a sincere artist who is also a careless one—though one may have a quicker hand than another, in general,—and though all are liable to vicissitudes in the degree of facility—and to entanglements in the machinery, notwithstanding every degree of facility. You may write twenty lines one day—or even three like Euripides in three days—and a hundred lines in one more day—and yet on the hundred, may have been expended as much good work, as on the twenty and the three.

And then, not forgetting the practical side, some very sensible advice to Robert:

Thinking, dreaming, creating people like yourself, have two lives to bear instead of one, and therefore ought to sleep more than others.

Just before Christmas I read An Essay On Criticism by Alexander Pope. I’d just glanced over it years ago, since it’s in the wonderful poetry volume Anne’s Anthology that we own, but after reading a very interesting guide to English literature this winter that put Pope and several other poets on my list of authors to try, I decided to sit down and read it in earnest. It turned out to be doubly enjoyable for me, since it is in fact all about literature. It starts out, as the title implies, discussing literary critics, but eventually segues into observations on the literature they critique—both pointing out the faults of the critics and suggesting ways authors can avoid laying themselves open to criticism.
There are some marvelous gems of observation on writing here, and the forthright style in which they’re presented is refreshing. How curious, incidentally, that I, much more at home in the prose and history of the 19th and 20th centuries, should find an 18th-century satirist one of the most kindred-spirit poets I’ve encountered so far. Here’s a few choice samples from An Essay On Criticism:

Isn’t this true? Though we are always learning, I personally feel that many things I can do easily now were gained during an apprenticeship of sorts, my early days of writing in which I wrote many things not fit for publication, but learned through practice the most effective ways to use words and phrases, to shape paragraphs and scenes and dialogue.

I like this. Know your own powers, he’s saying: be aware of what you can do best and make the most of it, instead of striving for a second-rate imitation of something that’s beyond your knowledge or your skill, at least for the present.

This one troubles me a bit, because I see faults of my own in it. Too often I’ve shrunk back and chosen the safest, easiest and most unremarkable way to write something, because I was simply too shy to take a risk with a bolder style or statement. This is something I’m consciously trying to improve this year.

So many others have said this, though seldom so elegantly as Pope (which proves his point right there). It reminds me a bit of what I said about instinct in my post on the three I’s of being a writer. Perhaps one may have an instinctive wit, and must learn how to give it expression; or one has a knack for expressing things that others will instantly recognize but might not have been able to express themselves.

And these excerpts just scratch the surface. There’s many more thought-provoking musings on similar subjects—language, style, content, dullness—in An Essay on Criticism, which I’d encourage anyone in the business of literature, whether writers or critics/reviewers, to seek out and enjoy for themselves.