Longfellow, referring to some lectures on Dante which he had
repeated often, said: "It is become an old story to me. I am tired."
Lanier knew nothing of this `ennui'. He fretted at times over the fact
that he had to give to work of this kind the time he might have given
to his poetry, but there is not in his lectures a single note of weariness;
there is always the freshness and exuberance of youth, the joy of discovery,
of interpretation, of illuminating comment.
He had the power of making even the older English literature vital
to a popular audience. An Anglo-Saxon poem was not to him primarily
material for the study of philology, although he now and then tried
to interest his hearers in the etymology of words --
it was a revelation of the life of a race in its childhood.
While he lost in technical precision, he gave the listener a real grip
on some old poem by which he could always remember it and relate it
to other things. A few pages on "Beowulf", for instance,
presenting some specially striking scenes therefrom in a translation
that in rhythm and substance preserves the spirit of the original,
would incite the members of his audience to at least
a literary study of the Anglo-Saxon epic. By contrasting
"The Address of the Soul to the Dead Body" with "Hamlet",
he gave his hearers some clue to its interpretation -- he related it
to an elementary religious mood.
Is not this passage calculated to make one realize the real meaning
of "Beowulf", -- especially when accompanied by admirable translations?
"To our old ancestors there were many times when Nature must have seemed
a true Grendel's mother, a veritable hag, mindful of mischief;
and these monsters are not silly inventions, -- they are true types, ideals,
removed very far, if you please, yet born of the old struggle of man
against the wild beast for his meat, against the stern earth for his bread,
against the cold that cracks his skin and wracks his bones, against the wind
that whirls his ship over in the sea, the wave that drowns him,
the lightning that consumes him.
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