Robert Southey
(1774-1843)
Contents
The Poetry Collections
JOAN OF ARC
THE VISION OF THE MAID OF ORLEANS
THE TRIUMPH OF WOMAN
WAT TYLER
POEMS CONCERNING THE SLAVE TRADE
BOTANY BAY ECLOGUES
SONNETS
MONODRAMAS
THE AMATORY POEMS OF ABEL SHUFFLEBOTTOM
LYRIC POEMS
SONGS OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS
OCCASIONAL PIECES
ENGLISH ECLOGUES
NONDESCRIPTS
THE DEVIL’S WALK
INSCRIPTIONS
CARMEN TRIUMPHALE
ODES
MADOC
THALABA THE DESTROYER
BALLADS
THE CURSE OF KEHAMA
RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS
THE POET’S PILGRIMAGE TO WATERLOO
CARMEN NUPTIALE: THE LAY OF THE LAUREATE
FUNERAL SONG FOR THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF WALES
A VISION OF JUDGMENT
OLIVER NEWMAN: A NEW ENGLAND TALE
MISCELLANEOUS POETICAL REMAINS
The Poems
LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
The Play
THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE
Selected Prose
THE LIFE OF HORATIO, LORD NELSON
SIR THOMAS MORE, OR, COLLOQUIES ON THE PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS OF SOCIETY
CHRONICLE OF THE CID
THE STORY OF THE THREE BEARS
The Biographies
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE LAKE POETS by Thomas De Quincey
REMINISCENCES OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE AND ROBERT SOUTHEY by Joseph Cottle
The Delphi Classics Catalogue
© Delphi Classics 2013
Version 1
Robert Southey
By Delphi Classics, 2013
COPYRIGHT
Robert Southey - Delphi Poets Series
First published in the United Kingdom in 2013 by Delphi Classics.
© Delphi Classics, 2013.
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The Poetry Collections
9 Wine Street, Bristol — Southey’s birthplace. The building was lost due to bombing in WWII.
A contemporary drawing of the poet’s birthplace
Southey, 1800, aged 26
JOAN OF ARC
The Lake Poet Robert Southey was born in Bristol in 1774 to Thomas Southey, a Bristol linen draper, and Margaret Hill. In his early years Southey was mostly brought up by his mother’s half sister, Miss Elizabeth Tyler, while living in Bath. The spa town was a centre to which rich and influential visitors regularly retired and the young Robert enjoyed frequent cultural events, including visits to the theatre.
He was later educated at Westminster School, London, where he underwent a rebellious phase in his adolescent years and was expelled for writing an article in The Flagellant that condemned the practice of flogging. As a result of this expulsion, Southey was refused entrance at Christ Church, Oxford. Nevertheless, he was accepted at Balliol where he matriculated in November 1792. Southey was famous for later claiming of Oxford that, “All I learnt was a little swimming... and a little boating.”
When studying at Oxford, Southey had formed an important friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was then visiting from Cambridge. The two became great friends and, along with other fellow political dreamers, they made rash plans for a communistic settlement in America to be independent of any government, except that of the settlement itself, titled a ‘pantisocracy’. It was at this time that Coleridge and Southey collaborated together in writing the play The Fall of Robespierre. They later moved the intended location of the pantisocracy to Wales, but Southey was the first to reject the idea as unworkable.
Shortly after this, Southey published his first major poetic work, the epic poem Joan of Arc in 1796. The idea for the work came from a discussion between Southey and his literary friend, Grosvenor Bedford, when they agreed that the story would be suitable for an epic. The subject further appealed to Southey because the events of the French Revolution were popular to contemporary tastes at that time, serving as a parallel to current events. Eventually, Coleridge helped rewrite parts of the poem for a 1798 edition. Later editions removed Coleridge’s changes to the text along with other interpolations. The edition featured in this collection is Southey’s final collected 1837 edition.
Joan of Arc is divided into two parts, with the first part describing Joan’s quest to meet Charles, the Dauphin of France. Eventually, she manages to gain the Dauphin’s support and begins to lead the French army. The second half of the epic describes the French defeat of the British army at Orléans. After many victories, the poem concludes with Charles crowned King of France. The epic serves as a way for Southey to express his views on history and on politics, including his republican ideals, his claims that political tyranny was a common element in Europe and his opposition to Christian practices that he thought were superstitious.
Following its first publication, the poem received mixed reviews from critics, with some emphasising the quality of the images and themes of the poem. However, others believed that it lacked original merit and some claimed that the subject matter was inappropriate to the time. Many critics felt that Southey was rushed in composing the work and had not devoted enough time to his epic. William Wordsworth wrote to William Matthews in 1796: “You were right about Southey, he is certainly a coxcomb, and has proved it completely by the preface to his ‘Joan of Arc’, an epic poem which he has just published. This preface is indeed a very conceited performance and the poem though in some passages of first-rate excellence is on the whole of very inferior execution.” Charles Lamb, in a 1796 letter to Coleridge, stated, “With Joan of Arc I have been delighted, amazed. I had not presumed to expect of any thing of such excellence from Southey. Why the poem is alone sufficient to redeem the character of the age we live in from the imputation of degenerating in Poetry… The subject is well chosen. It opens well… On the whole, I expect Southey one day to rival Milton.” Coleridge, in a1796 letter admitted, “I entirely accord with your opinion of Southey’s Joan… the poem tho’ it frequently reached the sentimental, does not display, the poetical, Sublime. In language at once natural, perspicuous, & dignified, in manly pathos, in sooth & sonnet-like description, and above all, in character, & dramatic dialogue, Southey is unrivalled; but as certainly he does not possess opulence of Imagination, lofty-paced Harmony, or that toil of thinking, which is necessary in order to plan a Whole.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was to become, along with his other close friend William Wordsworth, one of the key founders of the Romantic Move
ment and a member of the famous Lake Poets. Coleridge was a great source of inspiration to Southey early in his literary career and helped him in the first edition editing of ‘Joan of Arc’.
CONTENTS
JOAN OF ARC. THE FIRST BOOK.
JOAN OF ARC. THE SECOND BOOK.
JOAN OF ARC. THE THIRD BOOK.
JOAN OF ARC. THE FOURTH BOOK.
JOAN OF ARC. THE FIFTH BOOK.
JOAN OF ARC. THE SIXTH BOOK.
JOAN OF ARC. THE SEVENTH BOOK.
JOAN OF ARC. THE EIGHTH BOOK.
JOAN OF ARC. THE NINTH BOOK.
JOAN OF ARC. THE TENTH BOOK.
A 1485 artist’s interpretation of the legendary warrior leader — the only known direct portrait has not survived.
Charles VII (1403–1461) ruled as the King of France from 1422 to his death, although his legitimacy was initially contested by Henry VI of England. He is a principal character of the epic poem.
Perlege, cognosces animum sine viribus alas
Ingenii explicuisse leves, nam vera fatebor;
Implumen tepido præceps me gloria nido
Expulit, et coelo iussit volitare remoto.
Pcenitet incoepti, cursura revocare juventae
Si liceat, mansisse domi cum tempore nervos
Consolidasse velim.
PETRARCA.
PREFACE TO JOAN OF ARC.
EARLY in July, 1793, I happened to fall in conversation, at Oxford, with an old schoolfellow upon the story of Joan of Arc, and it then struck me as being singularly well adapted for a poem. The long vacation commenced immediately afterwards. As soon as I reached home I formed the outline of a plan, and wrote about three hundred lines. The remainder of the month was passed in travelling, and I was too much engaged with new scenes and circumstances to proceed, even in thought, with what had been broken off. In August I went to visit my old schoolfellow, Mr. Grosvenor Bedford, who, at that time, resided with his parents at Brixton Causeway, about four miles on the Surrey side of the metropolis. There, the day after completing my nineteenth year, I resumed the undertaking, and there, in six weeks from that day, finished what I called an Epic Poem in twelve books.
My progress would not have been so rapid had it not been for the opportunity of retirement which I enjoyed there, and the encouragement that I received. In those days London had not extended in that direction farther than Kennington, beyond which place the scene changed suddenly, and there was an air and appearance of country which might now be sought in vain at a far greater distance from town. There was nothing indeed to remind one that London was so near, except the smoke which overhung it. Mr. Bedford’s residence was situated upon the edge of a common, on which shady lanes opened leading to the neighbouring villages (for such they were then) of Camberwell, Dulwich, and Clapham, and to Norwood. The view in front was bounded by the Surrey hills. Its size and structure showed it to be one of those good houses built in the early part of the last century by persons who, having realized a respectable fortune in trade, were wise enough to be contented with it, and retire to pass the evening of their lives in the enjoyment of leisure and tranquillity. Tranquil indeed the place was, for the neighbourhood did not extend beyond half a dozen families, and the London style and habits of visiting had not obtained among them. Uncle Toby himself might have enjoyed his rood and a half of ground there, and not have had it known. A fore-court separated the house from the foot-path and the road in front; behind, there was a large and well-stocked garden, with other spacious premises, in which utility and ornament were in some degree combined. At the extremity of the garden, and under the shade of four lofty linden trees, was a summer-house looking on an ornamented grass-plot, and fitted up as a conveniently habitable room. That summer-house was allotted to me, and there my mornings were passed at the desk. Whether it exists now or not I am ignorant. The property has long since passed into other hands. The common is inclosed and divided by rectangular hedges and palings; rows of brick houses have supplanted the shade of oaks and elms; the brows of the Surrey hills bear a parapet of modern villas, and the face of the whole district is changed.
I was not a little proud of my performance. Young poets are, or at least used to be, as ambitious of producing an epic poem, as stage-stricken youths of figuring in Romeo or Hamlet. It had been the earliest of my day-dreams. I had begun many such; but this was the first which had been completed, and I was too young and too ardent to perceive or suspect that the execution was as crude as the design. In the course of the autumn I transcribed it fairly from the first draught, making no other alterations or corrections of any kind than such as suggested themselves in the act of transcription. Upon showing it to the friend in conversation with whom the design had originated, he said, “I am glad you have written this; it will serve as a score where you will find good passages for better poems.” His opinion of it was more judicious than mine; but what there was good in it or promising, would not have been transplantable.
Toward the close of 1794, it was announced as to be published by subscription in a quarto volume, price one guinea. Shortly afterwards I became acquainted with my fellow-townsman, Mr. Joseph Cottle, who had recently commenced business as a bookseller in our native city of Bristol. One evening I read to him part of the poem, without any thought of making a proposal concerning it, or expectation of receiving one. He, however, offered me fifty guineas for the copyright, and fifty copies for my subscribers, which was more than the list amounted to; and the offer was accepted as promptly as it was made. It can rarely happen that a young author should meet with a bookseller as inexperienced and as ardent as himself, and it would be still more extraordinary if such mutual indiscretion did not bring with it cause for regret to both. But this transaction was the commencement of an intimacy which has continued, without the slightest shade of displeasure at any time, on either side, to the present day.
At that time, few books were printed in the country, and it was seldom indeed that a quarto volume issued from a provincial press. A font of new types was ordered for what was intended to be the handsomest book that Bristol had ever yet sent forth; and when the paper arrived, and the printer was ready to commence his operations, nothing had been done toward preparing the poem for the press, except that a few verbal alterations had been made. I was not, however, without misgivings, and when the first proof-sheet was brought me, the more glaring faults of the composition stared me in the face. But the sight of a well-printed page, which was to be set off with all the advantages that fine wove paper and hot-pressing could impart, put me in spirits, and I went to work with good-will. About half the first book was left in its original state; the rest of the poem was re-cast and re-composed while the printing went on. This occupied six months. I corrected the concluding sheet of the poem, left the Preface in the publisher’s hands, and departed for Lisbon by way of Coruna and Madrid.
The Preface was written with as little discretion as had been shown in publishing the work itself.
It stated how rapidly the poem had been produced, and that it had been almost re-composed during its progress through the press. This was not said as taking merit for haste and temerity, nor to excuse its faults, — only to account for them. But here I was liable to be misapprehended, and likely to be misrepresented. The public indeed care neither for explanations nor excuses; and such particulars might not unfitly be deemed unbecoming in a young man, though they may be excused and even expected from an old author, who, at the close of a long career, looks upon himself as belonging to the past. Omitting these passages, and the specification of what Mr. Coleridge had written in the second book (which was withdrawn in the next edition), the remainder of the Preface is here subjoined. It states the little which I had been able to collect concerning the subject of the poem, gives what was then my own view of Joan of Arc’s character and history, and expresses with overweening confidence the opinions which the writer entertained concerning those poets whom it was his ambition not to imitate, but to follow... It cannot be necessary to s
ay, that some of those opinions have been modified, and others completely changed, as he grew older.
ORIGINAL PREFACE.
The history of Joan of Arc is as mysterious as it is remarkable. That she believed herself inspired, few will deny; that she was inspired, no one will venture to assert; and it is difficult to believe that she was herself imposed upon by Charles and Dunois. That she discovered the King when he disguised himself among the courtiers to deceive her, and that, as a proof of her mission, she demanded a sword from a tomb in the church of St. Catharine, are facts in which all historians agree. If this had been done by collusion, the Maid must have known herself an impostor, and with that knowledge could not have performed the enterprise she undertook. Enthusiasm, and that of no common kind, was necessary, to enable a young maiden at once to assume the profession of arms, to lead her troops to battle, to fight among the foremost, and to subdue with an inferior force an enemy then believed invincible. It is not possible that one who felt herself the puppet of a party, could have performed these things. The artifices of a court could not have persuaded her that she discovered Charles in disguise; nor could they have prompted her to demand the sword which they might have hidden, without discovering the deceit. The Maid then was not knowingly an impostor; nor could she have been the instrument of the court; and to say that she believed herself inspired, will neither account for her singling out the King, or prophetically claiming the sword. After crowning Charles, she declared that her mission was accomplished, and demanded leave to retire. Enthusiasm would not have ceased here; and if they who imposed on her could persuade her still to go with their armies, they could still have continued her delusion.
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 1
