They revised the versions of Byron’s poems. These were somewhat mechanical although mostly accurate, because the translator had been careful to choose the simplest passages. It’s strange, said Hans, Byron was at his most rhetorical, his most academic when he was at his least restrained. Perhaps, suggested Sophie, because he sometimes frightened himself with what he was saying.
They decided, however, to alter all the translations of Shelley, which they found stylised and filled with a stodgy pathos. Hans suggested eliminating all the adjectives and translating what was left. Sophie said she admired Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, which in her opinion refuted all attempts to separate the Enlightenment and the Romantics:
Thou messenger of sympathies
That wax and wane in lovers’ eyes—
Thou, that to human thought art nourishment,
Like darkness to a dying flame!
Do you see? said Sophie, breathlessly, the darkness brings the flame to life! Mystery is the essence of this poem, but Shelley wrote it in order to bring light to the intellect. And this “human thought”, untouched by emotion or love, is at once nourished by beauty, isn’t it wonderful? Stop, Hans laughed, you’re too convincing, I’m going to end up liking Shelley.
When they reached Coleridge, they concentrated above all on rewriting Kubla Khan, which was the only poem everyone knew:
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
The funny thing is Kubla Khan is far from being Coleridge’s best poem, remarked Hans. But, as you know, it’s the myth that counts, people don’t expect poets to produce great works but to behave like great poets. And it occurred to the crafty Coleridge to tell people a three-hundred-line poem had come to him during an opium-induced slumber, and that when he awoke he recalled it word for word, an unrivalled work of genius! And so he began to copy it all down, but the poor man was interrupted and his poem remained unfinished, with only the few verses you can see … So you don’t believe him, said Sophie. I’d believe anything of a poet, smiled Hans, provided nothing he tells me is true. In that case, she argued, the poem wasn’t unfinished, it continued in Coleridge’s own narrative, in the tale he told about the dream, so that where the poem, or rather the dream, ends, the other tale begins, the one that begins when he wakes up. I get it! Hans declared, brushing her ankle under the table. In fact, Sophie went on, offering Hans her other ankle, the most romantic part of the poem is its explanation. You’re right, Hans said growing excited once more, and what do think of the last line? “And drunk the milk of paradise”—all those ks at the end, such a struggle to drink some nectar! As if paradise were choking you! If you think about it for a moment, you realise the best Romantic poets never evoke paradise, only its impossibility. (When he had finished talking about Coleridge, Hans noticed with a touch of sadness that Sophie’s ankle had moved away from his.)
Comparing styles, Sophie said, as she leafed through the book, there seem to be two distinct approaches in English poetry — the grandiloquent and passionate, like Shelley and Byron, and the more serene but more modern one of Coleridge or Wordsworth. And where would that put Keats? Hans asked, indicating his poems. In both, Sophie hesitated, or neither. I agree, said Hans, that Byron or Shelley, however good they are, could never be modern like Wordsworth. He attempts to approximate speech when he writes, which in poetry is a cardinal sin. And as we know, literature only evolves through sinning (do you really think so? she smiled mischievously), yes, of course, I mean, when Wordsworth says in the Preface, wait, look, here, when Wordsworth says the language of prose can be perfectly adapted to poetry, that there is no real difference between well-written prose and the language of poetry, what is he doing? Debasing poetry? On the contrary, it seems to me he is enriching the possibilities of prose. And more importantly, he is associating poetry with everyday speech, with events in life that aren’t necessarily sublime. Wordsworth takes poetry off its pedestal and broadens its scope.
I understand, Sophie said, taking the book from him, it sounds very convincing. But if poetry takes on too much of an everyday quality, how are we to differentiate between a well-written and a badly written poem? That, replied Hans, is Wordsworth’s most difficult dilemma, which I suppose is why he tackled it early on in his Preface, pass me the book, please, look, here: “The first volume of these poems, blah blah blah, was published as an experiment, which, I hoped, might be of some use to ascertain, how far, by fitting to metrical arrangement a selection of the real language of men …” (Ah, said Sophie sarcastically, and the language of women remains a mystery.) Well, all right: “to ascertain, how far, by fitting to metrical arrangement a selection of the real language of people …” (how kind of you, Sophie broke in) “… in a state of vivid sensation that sort of pleasure and that quantity of pleasure may be imparted, which a poet may rationally endeavour to impart.” Notice that Wordsworth refers to it as an experiment, there is nothing perfunctory about it, especially since he is referring to a selection of everyday speech, which is where the poet’s talent comes into play, and that such everyday moments must coincide with a state of vivid emotion. If these premises are adopted, Wordsworth’s experiment could never result in vulgarity. It would be different were someone to follow the simplest part of his advice and ignore the rest. Most notably, just a moment, let’s see, I underlined it somewhere, where is it? Ah, here — most notably the part where he says “and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect”, this is most interesting don’t you think? And then further down: “chiefly, as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement”, meaning, to delve into everyday emotions, to order them and translate them into everyday language, not forgetting the capacity our imagination has to associate images and ideas. Do you see how old-fashioned Byron seems by comparison?
I’m not trying to defend Byron or Shelley, Sophie mused, I just think that in order to judge a poet’s style one must take into account the rhetoric of his forebears. I mean, rhetoric is like a pendulum, isn’t it? There are periods when everyday speech and writing seem to be in conflict, such as in the works of Milton or Shakespeare, until that exclusively poetic language becomes mannered, giving way, so to speak, to Pope, and then poetry moves closer to speech again, as in some of Coleridge’s or Wordsworth’s poems. It strikes me that the swings of the pendulum have their propitious moments, and that a poet with a good ear should know at what point the pendulum is with regard to the poetry in his language. Hans said with admiration: We must include that idea in the introduction. Yes, Sophie went on, I see it like a set of scales, and perhaps Wordsworth is right, and now is one of those moments. Hans agreed: We could do with a dose of it here in Germany. We are constantly seeking purity, which is regrettable. And in my view poetry that seeks purity becomes puritanical, true lyricism is the opposite, how can I describe it? It is pure impure emotion. That’s what I like about modern English poetry, its impurities. However lofty, it never loses faith in the value of immediate reality, as in “the fancy cannot cheat so well”. That’s why (Hans went on, skipping forward through the pages of the book) I left Keats, my favourite, until last. I was very keen for us to translate him together, beginning with Ode to a Nightingale. A simple nightingale would never satisfy a German poet, he’d have to hear the cosmos or at the very least a gigantic mountain.