44 Hartley Burr Alexander 



spiritually apprehended truth ; its emphasis of the day-light aspect 

 of things is only apparent. When this emphasis is shifted enough 

 to throw mood into the foreground, dimming objective outlines, 

 we have symbolism. But even here the dramatic form, movement 

 as of facts, is largely retained, though adapted to the needs of 

 metaphor. It is the final victory of lyric impulse over the ethical 

 motive of primitive balladry and represents a last adaptation of 

 the ballad form. I have already named Swinburne and Rossetti 

 as exemplars ; perhaps I might also cite Swinburne's King's 

 Daughter and Rossetti's Sister Helen, not as best instances, but 

 because each of those poems possesses a dual development 

 analogous to that in the curse of Seithenhin. And by comparing 

 the clarity of the major theme, at least in Rossetti's poem, with 

 the mysticism of the refrain, that distinction which I draw between 

 allegory and symbolism may show the clearer. It is the interplay 

 of the two which creates the last appreciation, so that there is 

 contrived that drama of mood which contrasts with lyric 

 movements. 



But there is yet another drama of mood, made in another 

 fashion. The development which I have drawn first abstracts the 

 music- form from the dramatic context, and then, casting aside all 

 but verbal melody, evolves an esoteric drama of symbolism. But 

 on the other hand, in Browning's dramatic monologues we attain 

 a not dissimilar end by an opposite course. Here it is the event 

 that is seized upon and installed in dramatic independence. But 

 the poem never exists for the event, the story, nor even for the 

 moral of it. Always it exists for the underimpelling mood. 

 Likely the paradox of a great poet with dramatic instincts failing 

 to achieve great drama is partly to be explained by the fact that 

 Browning's interest did focus so intensely in the mood, the spirit 

 of the thing; the sensuous dress is after all but a dress, and he 

 saw too clearly the naked soul always to catch its pall of flesh 

 and blood with the needful dramatic verve. But he did know 

 the soul's action and adapting to its representation the vivacity of 

 the old ballad he gave us a new poetic form and a new drama of 

 the spirit. 



Victorian poetry thus reveals the final appropriation of balladry 



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