The Poems of George Meredith

by George Meredith

According to Wikipedia: "George Meredith, OM (12 February 1828 - 18 May 1909) was an English novelist and poet during the Victorian era . . . His wife ran off with the English Pre-Raphaelite painter Henry Wallis [1830-1916] in 1858; she died three years later. The collection of "sonnets" entitled Modern Love (1862) came of this experience as did The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, his first "major novel". He married Marie Vulliamy in 1864 and settled in Surrey. He continued writing novels and poetry, often inspired by nature. His writing was characterized by a fascination with imagery and indirect references. He had a keen understanding of comedy and his Essay on Comedy (1877) is still quoted in most discussions of the history of comic theory. In The Egoist, published in 1879, he applies some of his theories of comedy in one of his most enduring novels. Some of his writings, including The Egoist, also highlight the subjection of women during the Victorian period. During most of his career, he had difficulty achieving popular success. His first truly successful novel was Diana of the Crossways published in 1885."

Genres: Poetry

1302 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1912

About the author

George Meredith of Britain wrote novels, such as The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859), and poetic works, including Modern Love (1862).

During the Victorian era, Meredith read law, and people articled him as a solicitor, but shortly after marrying Mary Ellen Nicolls, a 30-year-old widowed daughter of Thomas Love Peacock, in 1849 at 21 years of age, he abandoned that profession for journalism.

He collected his early writings, first published in periodicals, into Poems, which was published to some acclaim in 1851. His wife left him and their five-year old son in 1858; she died three years later. Her departure was the inspiration for The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859), his first "major novel." It was considered a breakthrough novel, but its sexual frankness caused a scandal and prevented it from being widely read.

As an advisor to publishers, Meredith is credited with helping Thomas Hardy start his literary career, and was an early associate of J. M. Barrie. Before his death, Meredith was honored from many quarters: he succeeded Lord Tennyson as president of the Society of Authors; in 1905 he was appointed to the Order of Merit by King Edward VII.

His works include: The Shaving of Shagpat (1856), Farina (1857), Vittoria (1867) and The Egoist (1879). The Egoist is one of his most enduring works.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

George^Meredith

Reviews

[VG · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ‘me’ of fifteen years ago would have absolutely adored this collection of romantic, classical-inspired nature poetry. The ‘me’ of today appreciates its beauty and imagery, but found it, at times, a little too over-wrought.

[Drkshadow03 · Rating 3 out of 5]

George Meredith writes about love, nature, the changing seasons, major figures from Greek mythology such as Cassandra, Idomenus, and Antigone, poetic dedications to major English poets such as Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, and Wordsworth, and also borrows from other mythological sources such as the Welsh myth of Bran the Blest. A few of his poems adopt a strong English patriotic theme. For example, “The Head of Bran the Blest” uses the mythological king of Britain from Welsh mythology as a symbol for British glory and patriotism. While poems like “Chillianwallah” mourns the death and destruction suffered by English soldiers during the bloody battle of the same name that was part of the Second Anglo-Sikh War in 1849


Many of his poems don’t seem to have any profound philosophical point or deeper worldview beyond the beauty of nature and the joy it brings. He tells us of the cheerful sound of birds, of misty hills, the gaiety of the countryside, and the floods of winter giving way to spring. They are mostly well-written poems extolling the beauties of nature. Some of the poems have a theme about opposites mixing to create something more beautiful and spectacular. His poems tend to be more descriptive rather than proscriptive.

In the poem “To Robin Redbreast” the music of the Robin provides the speaker comfort in autumn before the coming of winter, contrasting with the mourning of the trees that “in grief sheds its fiery leaf.” The robin’s song and the color of fallen red leaves serve as a symbolic forerunners to the coziness of hearth fires in the cottage. Meanwhile, the poem ends with the speaker promising to provide crumbs for the Robin during winter time. One could read an interconnection of nature theme—how the Robin contrasts with the miserable trees and helps the human feel joy for the upcoming cold season, only to be helped in turn by the human—but it mostly seems to be a well-written poem about the joys of the Robin’s song before winter.

Many of the poems feel derivative of the Romantic poets, but lack their memorable style and originality.

“My soul is singing with the happy birds,   
And all my human powers   
Are blooming with the flowers,
My foot is on the fields and downs, among the flocks and herds.

Deep in the forest where the foliage droops,   
I wander, fill’d with joy.   
Again as when a boy,
The sunny vistas tempt me on with dim delicious hopes.

The sunny vistas, dim with hurrying shade,   
And old romantic haze:—   
Again as in past days,
The spirit of immortal Spring doth
every sense pervade.

Oh! do not say that this will ever cease;—    This joy of woods and fields,   
This youth that nature yields,
Will never speak to me in vain, tho’ soundly rapt in peace.”

Everything about the poem is reminiscent of a not-quite-as-good Wordsworth. Every time I read one of the poems, I felt it was a good poem, but not a great or memorable one.


The exception was the much darker and pessimistic “Modern Love” which deals with a failed marriage, documenting how both partners attempt to deal with it, their attempts at love with other people, and the facade they put on in front of others socially. The male speaker works through the complex emotions, bemoaning the ghost of their love, and bitter about how the his failed relationship has ruined all other joys for him, and essentially made him a worse and bitter person. This work consisting of fifty interconnected sonnets was the strongest poem of the collection.

“Like sculptured effigies they might be seen Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between; Each wishing for the sword that severs all.”

The wordplay of these lines is magnificent. Their failed relationship has transformed their marriage bed into a marriage tomb. They are so motionless and silent due to their loss of intimacy that they are like effigies rather than people. They describe the space between them like a sword, but also further play on this idea of sword as something to finally sever their relationship for good so they can move on with life. There also seems to be another sense they the sword symbolizes not just a hoped for end of their relationship, but suicide.


“All other joys he strove to warm,
And magnify, and catch them to his lip:
But they had suffered shipwreck with the ship,
And gazed upon him sallow from the storm.”

When a relationship goes sour all other joys become “sallow” and no longer provide pleasure.

There is a particularly creative moment in the poem when Meredith reverses the traditional idea that philosophy provides comfort and protection against our passions.

“Cold as a mountain in its star-pitched tent,
Stood high Philosophy, less friend than foe:
Whom self-caged Passion, from its prison-bars,
Is always watching with a wondering hate.
Not till the fire is dying in the grate,
Look we for any kinship with the stars.
Oh, wisdom never comes when it is gold,
And the great price we pay for it full worth:
We have it only when we are half earth.
Little avails that coinage to the old!”

We only care to search for comfort in philosophy when it is already too late. We often resent imprisoning our passions with reason.

[Greg S · Rating 2 out of 5]

“…This was the woman; what now of the man?

But pass him. If he comes beneath a heel,

He shall be crushed until he cannot feel,

Or, being callous, haply till he can.

But he is nothing:- nothing? Only mark

The rich light striking out from her on him!

Ha! what a sense it is when her eyes swim

Across the man she singles, leaving dark

All else! Lord God, who mad'st the thing so fair,

See that I am drawn to her even now!

It cannot be such harm on her cool brow

To put a kiss? Yet if I meet him there!

But she is mine! Ah, no! I know too well

I claim a star whose light is overcast:

I claim a phantom-woman in the Past….”

[Sheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

This entry was set up for a later collection, looks to me, but I am reviewing Meredith's first poetry book, entitled simply Poems, published in 1851, and available online as the collection of Meredith poems called Poems, Volume I and published in 1912 (which also includes Meredith's Modern Love of 1862).

In this book Meredith's poems range from the frivolous to the serious to the relationally romantic to the outright erotic. Meredith is better known for Modern Love and a more realistic approach, but I thought this book highly influenced by the Romantic Movement. "The Rape of Aurora" is purely erotic and succeeds on those grounds, and I would say for the most part Meredith succeeds whenever he has something to say that can be told with beauty and imagery.


In "The Death of Winter," which I liked, he writes of when "winter, he who tamed the fly" is dying into spring, ending thusly:

O Winter! I’d live that life of thine,
With a frosty brow and an icicle tongue,
And never a song my whole life long,—
Were such delicious burial mine!
To die and be buried, and so remain
A wandering brook in April’s train,
Fixing my dying eyes for aye
On the dawning brows of maiden May.

I also enjoyed some of his lighter efforts, for example "Over the Hills":

OVER THE HILLS
The old hound wags his shaggy tail,
And I know what he would say:
It’s over the hills we’ll bound, old hound,
Over the hills, and away.

There’s nought for us here save to count the clock,
And hang the head all day:
But over the hills we’ll bound, old hound,
Over the hills and away.

(etc.)

Which is the classic cry to be free of social limitations and such like, however when he gets a bit more serious on that subject, as with "The Beggar's Soliloquy," I don't think it works as well, although even there I liked a few lines. He has a whole series of quatrains on various poets that try to describe the poet's poetry rather than imitate it, some of which I thought spot on, and others not so much. And then there's the usual love poems and story poems (one on Sir Gawain and the Loathsome Lady), etc.

On the whole I enjoyed this book, although it's a fairly typical entry of mid-nineteenth century romantic poetry and not a huge stand out as a collection. In terms of the individual poems, "The Rape of Aurora" shows up in a lot of collections of erotic poetry, and is one of the best of the type, I would say, but I've not seen much of anything else from this collection anywhere. I'm no judge of poetry, so while I'm mighty fond of "Over the Hills" and a number of others, I suppose either Meredith's later brilliance over shadows this collection, or it's not that great. I liked it and thought it well worth going over for any fan of romantic or mid-Victorian poetry.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

An old book, was worried it would be a waste of time, very glad it wasn't. Seems to be an anthology of his work, maybe even all of it. By far the best piece is "Modern Love." Very moving fictionalized account of the breakdown of the poet's marriage. Also notable were a few of the sonnets and much of the group called "A Reading of Earth". Not always easy understanding Meredith's archaic verse, typical of poetry of this time, but worth the effort in this case.