by J. M. Synge
The aim of literature is to make the impossible seem inevitable or to make the inevitable seem impossible....
Once men sought in art to make natural things beautiful. Now we seek to make beautiful things natural. Aran 3/11/99.
When the body dies the soul goes to Heaven or Hell. So our modern art is — must be — either divine or satanic. The psychological novel is still in its first stage, but our poetry is sophisticated....
The supreme culture of German music and the adolescent stage of German literature show that each art has its own life independent of the life of the people....
The American lack of literary sense is due to the absence in America of any mother tongue with a tradition for the whole population.... Has any bilingual person been great in style?
Lyrics can be written by people who are immature, drama cannot. There is little great lyrical poetry. Dramatic literature is relatively more mature. Hence the intellectual maturity of most races is marked by a definite moment of dramatic creation. This is now felt in Ireland. Lyrical art is the art of national adolescence. Dramatic art is first of all a childish art — a reproduction of external experience — without form or philosophy; then after a lyrical interval we have it as mature drama dealing with the deeper truth of general life in a perfect form and with mature philosophy.
The artistic value of any work of art is measured by its uniqueness. Its human value is given largely by its intensity and its richness, for if it is rich it is many-sided or universal, and, for this reason, sane — another word for wholesome — since all insanities are due to a one-sided excitement.
No personal originality is enough to make a rich work unique, unless it has also the characteristic of a particular time and locality and the life that is in it. For this reason all historical plays and novels and poems — except a very few that continue the tradition of a country — or like Faust and Don Juan renew some stock type — are relatively worthless. Every healthy mind is more interested in Tit-Bits than in Idylls of the King, or any of the other more or less artificial retellings of classical or saga stories. The most that one can claim for work of this kind — such as Keats’s Isabella — when it is beautiful, is that it is made for a Utopia of art.
All Utopian work is unsatisfying, first because it is weak and therefore vague and therefore wanting in uniqueness, and also because it is only the catastrophes of life that give substance and power to the tragedy and humour which are the two poles of art.
The religious art is a thing of the past only — a vain and foolish regret — and its place has been taken by our quite modern feeling for the beauty and mystery of nature, an emotion that has gradually risen up as religion in the dogmatic sense has gradually died. Our pilgrimages are not to Canterbury or Jerusalem, but to Killarney and Cumberland and the Alps....
In my plays and topographical books I have tried to give humanity and this mysterious external world.
Man has gradually grown up in this world that is about us, and I think that while Tolstoy is wrong in claiming that art should be intelligible to the peasant, he is right in seeking a criterion for the arts, and I think this is to be found in testing art by its compatibility with the outside world and the peasants or people who live near it. A book, I mean, that one feels ashamed to read in a cottage of Dingle Bay one may fairly call a book that is not healthy — or universal.
LA VIEILLE LITTÉRATURE IRLANDAISE
LA LITTÉRATURE IRLANDAISE se divise en deux parties: la littérature ancienne, écrite en celtique, et la littérature moderne, écrite en anglais par de jeunes écrivains qui ignorent à peu près complètement la langue originaire de leur pays. Ces deux littératures, bien qu’il existe entre elles des liens analogues à ceux qu’on retrouve (si la comparaison m’est permise) entre l’ancien et le nouveau testament, sont tellement différentes qu’il ne m’est pas possible de les traiter en même temps, et malgré l’intérêt, voire même la grande beauté, de quelques-uns de nos ouvrages modernes, c’est la vieille littérature et elle seule qui a une véritable importance européenne.
D’abord cette littérature est vaste. D’après O’Curry, l’un des premiers Irlandais qui ait étudié la question avec un réel sens critique, il existe dans les bibliothèques du collège de la Trinité de Dublin et de l’Académie d’Irlande assez de manuscrits pour exiger, dans le cas où l’on voudrait les publier, près de 60.000 pages in-quarto, imprimées en caractères serrés. Un autre écrivain, M. Douglas Hyde, très connu des folkloristes français, estime que pour imprimer tous les manuscrits qui sont actuellement dans les!les britanniques il faudrait 1.200 volumes in-octavo, ou même davantage.
C’est ce qui nous reste. Et les écrits perdus? Dans un pays comme l’Irlande qui a souvent eu à souffrir des incursions des Danois, et qui finalement a été conquis par l’Angleterre après des luttes acharnées, l’on peut aisément se figurer qu’un grand nombre de manuscrits out dû être détruits. Mais on n’est pas réduit aux suppositions. Ainsi dans l’histoire de Keating, qui écrivait au commencement du XVIIe siècle, on trouve des citations de plusieurs grands ouvrages qui n’existent plus et il faut se rappeler que dans l’ancienne Irlande chacun de ces gros livres constituait une petite bibhothèque. Duald MacFirbis, soixante ans plus tard, fit un catalogue de la littérature de son temps, et bien que le catalogue lui-même soit perdu, nous savons, par une phrase d’un autre ouvrage, qu’il fallait un grand livre pour faire une simple énumération des noms des auteurs et des titres de leurs ouvrages. Mais c’est surtout une liste dressée par O’Curry qui est intéressante à ce point de vue. Il a trouvé des allusions à plus de vingt recueils importants qui existaient avant l’an 1100. Or, comme on a écrit en irlandais jusqu’au XVIIe siècle, combien de pages précieuses out dû disparaître sans laisser aucune trace!
Des manuscrits qui nous restent, les plus importants sont: le Livre de la Vache brune, le livre de Leinster, le Livre Tacheté, le Livre Jaune de Lecain, tous de grands recueils de littérature faits, on croit, à l’usage des princes ou des rois d’Irlande. On a souvent remarqué je ne sais quoi de charmant qui se dégage des seuls titres de ces livres séculaires.
Quand on se met à déchiffrer leurs pages vermoulues, on est étonné par la variété des matières. On y trouve de l’histoire, telles les Annales des Quatre Maîtres, des traités sur les lois primitives, dites les Lois des Bretons, puis des légendes épiques de toutes sortes, des narrations de bataille, des sièges, des aventures de terre et de mer, des banquets, des visions quasi-mystiques et des histoires d’amour dont la plupart sont tragiques. Ensuite on tombe sur des généalogies sans fin, entremêlées de traités topographiques qui cèdent la place, à leur tour, à des vies de saints, sans oublier une grande quantité de poésies, en vers compliqués, construits avec des assonances et des allitérations selon des règles extrêmement curieuses.
Tout cela a l’air tant soit peu chaotique, mais quand on se donne la peine de coordonner tous les fragments épiques — qui sont, en somme, la partie la plus intéressante de nos textes — on y trouve, plus ou moins complets, trois cycles qui se distinguent nettement entre eux. Le premier, le cycle mythologique proprement dit, contenant l’histoire des conflits primordiaux entre les hommes et les dieux, peut être considéré, à bien des égards, comme le plus important, quoique le plus obscur. Le deuxième s’occupe des héros Conchobar et Cuchulain — l’Achille de l’Irlande — et c’est ici surtout qu’on trouve des pages d’un grand intérêt littéraire. Plusieurs récits qui y appartiennent, tel que le Sort des Fils d’Uisneach, sont tous imprégnés de cette poésie particulièrement celtique qui réunit d’une façon inattendue une tendresse timide, un héroïsme rude et mâle et un amour infini pour les beautés de la nature. Le troisième cycle est consacré aux aventures de Finn et d’Ossian, le poète légendaire si connu en Europe grâce à l’imagination de MacPherson, l’instituteur écossais.
C’est à M. d’Arbois de Jubainvüle que revient l’honneur d’avoir éclairé par de longs travaux toute cette mythologie ir
landaise, et ses cours de la littérature celtique sont d’une valeur inestimable pour tous ceux qui voudraient se renseigner sur ce sujet. Cependant, les dures études initiales qui out rendu ces textes à peu près compréhensibles sont dues surtout aux Allemands. Déjà, en 1853, Zeuss fit époque dans l’histoire des langues celtiques par la pubhcation de sa Grammatica celtica et, depuis, Windisch et Zimmer l’ont suivi, faisant paraître de temps en temps des travaux philologiques d’une érudition admirable.
J’ai parlé plus haut de l’importance européenne de la littérature irlandaise et l’expression n’est pas exagérée. Dans nos légendes et dans les cycles dont je viens de parler, on trouve une mythologie qui forme avec la mythologie grecque de la première époque, un noyau de croyances les plus primitives que nous ayons des races indo-européennes. Telle, au moins, est la conclusion de M. Alfred Nutt, dans son essai sur l’idée du Happy other world dans la littérature irlandaise. Rien, par exemple, dans la littérature n’est aussi primitif que cette foi commune aux Grecs et Irlandais, foi en un autre monde où les morts continuent une vie semblable à l’existence terrestre sans espoir d’être récompensés pour leurs vertus ni appréhension d’être punis pour leurs méfaits. Dans cette étude de M. Alfred Nutt, étude qui fait suite à un ancien poème, le Voyage de Bran, traduit du vieil irlandais par M. Kunro Meyer, plusieurs questions relatives à la religion originaire des races indo-européennes, sont discutées avec soin, et le livre forme un chapitre extrêmement intéressant de la mythologie comparée.
Cette littérature est importante à un autre point de vue encore. La vie, les mœurs et les cultes qu’on y trouve dépeints ne sont autre chose que des phases de la civilisation de toutes les races celtiques de l’ouest de l’Europe au temps des Césars. Ainsi, en reconstituant le monde d’où sont sortis nos textes, on arrive à se former une idée assez nette des anciens Gaulois.
Enfin, pour conclure, je vais citer le poème panthéiste qui, d’après la légende, est le plus ancien poème de l’Irlande. Je me sers de la traduction de M. d’Arbois de Jubainville.
Je suis le vent qui souffle sur la mer,
Je suis la vague de l’océan,
Je suis le bœuf aux sept combats;
Je suis le vautour sur le rocher;
Je suis une larme du soleil;
Je suis sanglier par la bravoure;
Je suis saumon dans l’eau;
Je suis lac dans la plaine;
Je suis parole de science;
Je suis le point de la lance qui livre les batailles;
Je suis le dieu qui crée ou forme dans la tête (de l’homme) le feu (de la pensée).
Qui est-ce qui jette la clarté dans l’assemblée sur la montagne?
(Ici une glose ajoute: Qui éclaire chaque question sinon moi?) Qui annonce les âges de la lune? (sinon moi).
Qui enseigne l’endroit où se couche le soleil? (sinon moi).
La date de ce poème et l’époque de la vie d’Amairgen, son auteur présumé, ne sont pas certaines, mais les vers sont assez remarquables en eux-mêmes.
THE POEMS OF GEOFFREY KEATING
THE PUBLICATION OF the Poems, Songs and Keenes of Geoffrey Keating is an event of considerable interest in the history of Gaelic literature, for this volume is the first collected edition of the works of a Gaelic poet that has ever been given to the public. We have had anthologies of all kinds and, a few months ago, a book of original poems by Dr. Douglas Hyde, but till now no collected edition of the poems of any Gaelic writer. The existence of good native poetry was admitted, but till the new mood of intellectual patriotism arose in Ireland, there was no body of opinion from which students of the more literary aspect of Gaelic could gain the impulse that is needed for studies of this kind.
Geoffrey Keating, best known as the historian of pagan Ireland, was born in Co. Tipperary about the year 1570. After taking Orders in the Roman Catholic Church of his own country, he studied for several years at a theological college at Bordeaux, became a Doctor of Divinity, and returned to Ireland about 1610.
The second poem in this volume was written during his visit to France, and is a fair instance of the passionate yet fanciful poems written to Ireland from abroad by students and exiles, with a nostalgia so different from the Heimweh of Teutonic races. It begins thus: —
My blessing to you my writing,
To the pleasant noble island:
And it is pity I cannot see her hill-tops,
Though usual their red beacons.
A salutation to her nobles and to her clan meetings,
A particular salutation to her clerics,
A salutation to her weeping women,
A salutation to her learned men of poetry.
On his return to Ireland Keating seems to have gained some distinction as a preacher, but before long the rather outspoken morality of one of his sermons offended a lady who was said to be too intimate with Sir George Carew, the president of Munster, and through her influence the Penal Laws were put in force against him. It is likely that it was this period of his life that gave the definitely sombre shade to his disposition that we find in most of his poetry. He was now a man of about forty, with all the scholarship of his century, a remarkable literary talent, and an extraordinary energy, and his physical and moral sufferings while he was thus hunted like a malefactor must have been intense. However, to his large and human, rather than strictly clerical, temperament, the adventure and incident of this episode may not have been without charm, and he seems to have wandered in disguise through the country, collecting materials for his history from the ancient manuscripts which were then scattered through Ireland.
There is a curious half-serious, half-humorous poem, written not improbably about this time, in which he repulses the love of a woman with characteristically direct language. I will give a couple of stanzas: —
Oh woman full of wiles,
Keep away from me thy hand,
I am not a man for these things,
Though thou art sick for my love.
Do not think me perverse,
Do not bend thy head,
Let our love be inactive
Forever, oh slender fairy.
After some time Carew ceased to have power in Munster, and Keating resumed his clerical duties; from which time little is known of him beyond what is found in his own writings.
The poems in this volume — great as is at times their literary interest — cannot be adequately judged without reference to their author, and Keating himself cannot be known without some reference to his elaborate prose works — The History, The Three Shafts of Death, a dissertation on human life and death somewhat resembling the Imitation of Christ, and The Defence of the Mass, a work of controversy. An early critic spoke of the history as ‘insigne sed tamen insanurn opus’, and the phrase is not wholly inappropriate, such is the medley it contains of Irish myth and of Biblical or classical history. Keating himself is not, of course, responsible for this mixture, as he merely transcribed and co-ordinated the stories which he found in the ancient manuscripts — a proceeding which gives his book a high antiquarian value, as most of his sources have since perished. Beyond this, however, the work has many personal traits of considerable interest, which show the shrewd observation, and naïve reasoning that are common to the learned men of his age and the peasants of our own. One might almost say that it is a history written in the spirit of the folktale. Thus when he is dealing with the story of Finntan, who is supposed to have lived in Ireland before the Flood, he says: —
I do not understand how the historians found the accounts of the people who, they say, came to Ireland before the Flood unless it was the demons of the air — who were their fairy lovers the time that they were pagans — that gave the stories to them... for it cannot be said that it was the same Finntan who was living before the Flood that lived after it, for Scripture is against it in saying that no one of mankind escaped drowning except the eight who were in the ark only and it is evident that Finntan was not one of these.
There is another passage which deserves to be famous in which he compares the English writers of his day who dealt with Irish things to beetles that raise up their heads in the evening and fly out over lilies and roses till they find a heap of refuse in places where there are horses and cows and in this they make haste to bury themselves. All through the prose works we find the same large, open mind, rich in illustration both from nature and from his wide reading in the Fathers and in the Latin Classics. By keeping this view of the man before us when we turn to the poems we can correct the impression some of them are likely to give, that Keating, when mature, was the most mournful of men, seeing and brooding over nothing but the misery of Ireland. In his primary temperament he seems to have united a feeling for the humour of life that might have made him, in some circumstances, a disciple of Rabelais, with a piety worthy of St. Thomas à Kempis and it was nothing but the extraordinary desolation of his country that drew from him these poems, which are as stern and unrelieved as the patriotic poems of Leopardi.
The tone of his more serious work differs considerably from the tone of most of the Irish Gaelic poetry that has been printed hitherto. There is neither the note of the folk-poem nor the note of the clear nature-poetry, that sometimes broke through the bardic traditions of the early school. We find rather the expression of a half-mediaeval, half-modern temperament, writing verse when moved by some event in his own, or the national life, but remembering sometimes, when the pen was in his hand, that he was a priest and a scholar, and turning aside to drag in long Biblical allusions, or indulging in the abuse of adjectives that has been the curse of Irish literature. Apart, however, from this uncertainty of attitude, he has given expression to the agony of his country with a sustained personal dignity and a freedom from exaggeration that is thought rare with the Gaels.
