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MEREDITH, GEORGE (1828-1908)
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See also:MEREDITH, See also:GEORGE (1828-1908) , See also:British novelist and years later he put forth a small See also:volume of Poems (1851), which poet, was See also:born at See also:Portsmouth, See also:Hampshire, on the 12th of Feb- was at least fortunate in eliciting the praise of two judgek ruary 1828; the See also:parish See also: The See also:appearance of See also:Diana of the Crossways (1885), a brilliant See also:book, full of his ripest character-See also:drawing, though here and there tormenting the casual reader by the novelist's mannerisms of expression, marks an See also:epoch in Meredith's career, since it was the first of his stories to strike the general public. Its heroine was popularly identified with See also:Sheridan's granddaughter, Mrs See also:Norton, and the use made in it of the contemporary story of that lady's communication to The Times of the See also:cabinet See also:secret of See also:Peel's See also:conversion to See also:Free See also:Trade had the effect of producing explicit See also:evidence of its inaccuracy from See also:Lord Dufferin and others. As a See also:matter of See also:historical fact it was Lord See also:Aberdeen who himself gave See also:Delane the See also:information, but the popular See also:acceptance of the other version of the incident gave a factitious See also:interest to the novel.
Meanwhile further instalments of poems—Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of See also:Earth (1883)—had struck anew the full, rich See also:note of natural See also:realism which is Meredith's See also:chief poetic characteristic. " The See also:Woods of Westermain," in particular, has a sense of the mysterious communion of man with nature unapproached by any See also:English poets See also:save See also:Wordsworth and See also:Shelley. See also:Ballads znd Poems of Tragic Life (1887) and A See also:Reading of Earth (1888) gave further evidence of the See also:wealth of thought and vigour of expression which Meredith brought to the making of verse. To " the general," no doubt, Meredith's verse is prohibitive, or nearly so—for, after all, he has written some poems, like " See also: Neither Lord Ormont and His Aminta (1894) nor The Amazing See also:Marriage (1895) reached the level of the earlier novels, though in the latter he seemed to catch an after-glow of See also:genius. In 1898 appeared his Odes in Contribution to the See also:Song of See also:French See also:History, consisting of one See also:ode (" See also:France, See also:December 187o ") reprinted from Ballads and Poems (1871), and three others previously unpublished; a See also:fine example of his lofty thought, and magnificent—if often difficult—and individual diction. In 1901 another volume of verse, A Reading it See also:fusion of the See also:principal effect. No doubt as a result of Kingsley's introduction, two poems by Meredith appeared in Fraser's Magazine shortly afterwards; but with the exception of these, and a See also:sonnet in the See also:Leader, he did not publish anything for the next five years. In the meanwhile he was busy upon his first See also:essay in prose fiction. It was early in 1856 that the Shaving of Shagpat, a See also:work of singular See also:imagination, See also:humour and See also:romance, made its appearance. Modelled upon the stories of the Arabian Nights, it catches with wonderful ardour the magical atmosphere of Orientalism, and in this genre it remains a unique See also:triumph in See also:modern letters. Though unappreciated by the multitude, its genius was at once recognized by such contemporaries as George See also:Eliot and See also:Dante See also:Gabriel See also:Rossetti, the latter of whom was one of Meredith's intimate See also:friends. For his next story it occurred to Meredith to turn his familiarity with the life and legendary tradition of the Rhinelander into a sort of See also:imitation of the grotesquerie of the German romanticists, and in 1857 he put forth See also:Farina, a See also:Legend of See also:Cologne, which sought to See also:transfer to English sympathies the spirit of German romance in the same way that Shagpat had handled See also:Oriental See also:fairy-See also:lore. The result was less successful. The See also:plot of Farina lacks fibre, its See also:motive is insufficient, and the diverse elements of humour, serious narrative, and romance scarcely stand in proportion to one another. But the See also:Ordeal of See also:Richard Feverel, which followed in 1859, transferred Meredith at once to a new See also:sphere and to the See also:altitude of his accomplishment. With this novel Meredith deserted the See also:realm of See also:fancy for that of the philosophical and psychological study of human nature, and Richard Feverel was the first, as it is perhaps the favourite, of those wonderful studies of motive and See also:action which placed him among the demigods of English literature. The essential theme of this fine See also:criticism of life is the question of a boy's See also:education. It depicts the abortive See also:attempt of a proud and opinionated father, hide-See also:bound by theory and See also:precept, to bring up his son to a perfect See also:state of manhood through a " See also:system " which controls all his early circumstances and represses many of the natural and wholesome instincts and impulses of See also:adolescence. The love scenes in Richard Feverel are gloriously natural and full of vitality, and the book throughout marked a revolution in the English treatment of manly See also:passion. Those who have not read this novel in the See also:original See also:form, with the chapters which were afterwards omitted, have lost, however, the See also: Four years later appeared The Adventures of Harry See also:Richmond in the pages of Cornhill (187o-1871). Its successor was Beauchamp's Career (Fortnightly Review, 1874-1875), the novel which Meredith usually described as his own favourite. Its hero's character is supposed xvra. 6 See also:creeds, and tragedies or comedies of his imaginary personalities amid the selected circumstances, and inspiring them with the identical motives and educational influences of life itself, Meredith spent an elaboration and profundity of thought and an originality and vigour of analysis upon his novels which in explicitness go far beyond what had previously been attempted in fiction, and which give to his See also:works a philosophical value of no See also:ordinary See also:kind. Simplicity can scarcely be expected of his See also:language, for the interplay of ideas is in itself original and complex, and their See also:interpretation is necessarily original and complex too. But when Meredith is at his best he is only involved with the involution of his subject; the aphorisms that decorate his style .are simple when the idea they convey is simple, elaborate only in its elaboration. Pregnant, vividly graphic, capable of See also:infinite shades and gradations, his style is a much finer and subtler See also:instrument than at first appears, and must be judged finally by what it conveys to the mind, and not by its superficial See also:sound upon the conventional See also:ear. It owes something to See also:Jean See also:Paul See also:Richter; something, too, to See also:Carlyle, with whose methods of narrative and indebtedness to the apparatus of German See also:metaphysics it has a good deal in common. To the novelist See also:Richardson, too,. a careful reader will find that Meredith, both in manner and matter (notably in The Egoist and in Richard Feverel), owes a good deal; in " Mrs Grandison " in Richard Feverel he even recalls " Sir Charles Grandison " by name; and nobody can doubt that Sir Willoughby Patterne, both in idea and often in expression, was modelled on Richardson's creation. Careful students of the early 19th-century English novel will find curious echoes again in Meredith of Bulwer-See also:Lytton's (See also:Baron Lytton's) literary manner and romantic outlook.' But he was, after all, an originator, and at first suffered in estimation on that See also:score; he wrote in his own way, and what is most characteristic in Meredith remains individual. Like all the See also:great masters, he has his own tone of See also:voice, his own See also:fashion of expressing an idea. Feeling, See also:perception, reflection, See also:judgment, have equal shares in determining his architectonic relation to a problem or a situation. He rings changes on the changing emotions of humanity, but every See also:chime rings true. He is a literary artist. He takes great themes, not little ones; the characters in his fiction are personalities, human beings, neither " heroes " nor See also:sports "; and he does not descend to pander to lubricity or cater for the " reading public." His See also:gallery of portraits of real human See also:women, not dolls, would alone See also:place him among the few creators in English literature.
It is beyond our See also:scope here to enter into details concerning the See also:philosophy which represents Meredith's " criticism of life." Broadly speaking, it is a belief in the rightness and wholesomeness of Nature, when Nature—" Sacred Reality "—is lovingly and faithfully and trustfully sought and known by the pure use of See also:reason. Man must be " obedient to Nature, not her slave." Mystical as this philosophy occasionally becomes, it is yet an inspiring one, clean, austere and See also:practical; and it is always dominated by the categorical imperative of self-knowledge and the striving after honesty of purpose and thought. A strong vein of See also:political Radicalism runs through Meredith's creed. It is, however, a Radicalism allied to that of the French philosophes, rather than to the contemporary developments of British party politics, though in later life he gave his open support to the Liberal party. In spite of his German upbringing Meredith was always strongly French in his sympathies, and his appreciation of French character at its best and at its worst is finely shown in his See also:Napoleon odes. In the main his politics may be summed up as a striving after See also:liberty for reason and See also:conscience and the See also:constant progress of humanity
The cry of the conscien6e of life;
Keep the See also:young generations in See also:hail,
And bequeath them no tumbled house.
of Life, appeared. In later years too he contributed occasional poems to See also:newspapers and reviews and similar publications, which were collected after his See also:death (Last Poems, 1910). His comedy, The Sentimentalists, was performed on the 1st of See also: From the early 'nineties onward Meredith's fame had been firmly established. His own literary contemporaries still living could join hands with the younger See also:generation of enthusiastic admirers in insisting on a greatness of which they themselves had been unable to persuade the public. He was chosen to succeed See also:Tennyson as See also:president of the Authors' Society; on his seventieth birthday (1898) he was presented with a congratulatory address by See also:thirty of the most prominent men of letters of the See also:day; before he died he had been included by the See also: This criticism applies mainly to his verse, but is also true of his prose in many places, though there is much exaggeration about the difficulties of his navels. When once, however, his manner has been properly understood, it is seen to be inseparable from his method of intellection, and to add to the narrative of description both vividness of delineation and intensity of realization. The essential respect in which Meredith's method of describing action, and emotion in narrative differs from that of See also:convention is that, while the ordinary method is to relate what happens from the point of view of the onlooker, Meredith frequently describes it from the point of emotion of the actor; and his See also:influence in this direction has largely modified the See also:art of fiction. Herein lies the secret of the See also:peculiar brilliancy of his style, derived from his See also:combination of the narrator with the creator, or—in its strict sense—the seer. The reader, by the transference of the interest from the See also:audience to the See also:stage, is transported into the very soul of the character, and made to feel as he feels and See also:act as he acts. Moreover, Meredith's See also:instinct for See also:psychology is so intimate, and his sense of motive and action so true, that the interaction of character and character directly dominates the sequence of events depicted in his imaginary See also:world, and discloses the moral idea or criticism of life, instead of the preconceived " moral " being merely illustrated by the plot. In See also:building up the minds, actions, ' The fact that Bulwer-Lytton's son, the 1st See also:Earl of Lytton, Meredith's junior by three years, took the See also:pen-name of " See also:Owen Meredith," led occasionally to some confusion among uninstructed contemporaries, and even the See also:suggestion of a See also:family connexion. It is See also:part of Meredith's philosophy—and this must be remembered in considering his diction—that verbal expression is itself a test of right thought and action. Hence is derived his passion for verbal analysis. Hence also his impulse towards and vindication of See also:poetry—meaning still " the best words in the best order "; and hence his own dictum, otherwise perhaps hard to undiscerning minds, that Song itself is the test by which truth may be tried. The passage occurs in " The Empty Purse "—a poem which throughout is a careful though mannered exposition of Meredith's general views on life Ask of thyself : This furious Yea Of a speech I thump to repeat, In the cause I would have prevail, For seed of a nourishing See also:wheat, Is it accepted of Song 7 Does it sound to the mind through the ear, Right sober, pure sane ? has it disciplined feet ? See also:Thou wilt find it a test severe; Unerring whatever the theme. Rings it for Reason a See also:melody clear,
We have bidden old See also:Chaos See also:retreat,
We have called on Creation to hear;
All forces that make us are one full stream.
Meredith is generally ranked far less high as a poet than as a novelist. But he can only be understood and appreciated properly by those who realize that not prose (in the ordinary sense) but poetry was to him the highest form of expression, and that only in it could he fully deliver his See also:message, as a writer who aspired to contribute something more to the common stock of ideas than could be embodied dramatically in prose fiction.
On Meredith's 8oth birthday in 1908, the See also:homage of the English literary world was again paid in an address of con-gratulation. But his health, which for many years had been See also:precarious, was now failing. He died at See also:Flint Cottage, See also:Box See also: A carefully compiled bibliography by See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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