Memorial Verses

"Memorial Verses" (pp.1358-60) can be read as Arnold's own reflections on the poets of the previous generation, primarily Wordsworth, to whom this is an elegy. Arnold, as a young man, knew and looked up to Wordsworth. What does he say (and HOW does he say it) about Wordsworth's value? About the other poets?

Wordsworth is such a focus for this poem that frankly it could almost be called Wordsworth and be gotten away with. The speaker refers to Wordsworth of “the last poetic voice” which makes good sense as he was the last of his generation of poets to pass on. The speaker talks about Wordsworth as a calming introduction to darker things, comparable to the song of mythical Orpheus, singing from Hades:

“For never has such a soothing voice
Been to your shadowy world conveyed,
Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade
Heard the clear song of Orpheus come
Through Hades, and the mournful gloom.”

The speaker feels that Wordsworth made a big dent on the literary world. Wordsworth took us from the “iron time//Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears” suggesting a time of coldness and many problems back to a time where we could appreciate the earth around us.

“He found us when age had bound
Our souls in its benumbing round;
He spoke, and loosened our heart in tears.
He laid us as we lay at birth
On the cool flowery lap of earth.”

The speaker goes as far to say that “our youth returned; for there was shed//On spirits that had long been dead” meaning that Wordsworth was revealing to people an almost childlike joy in his writing at times, which I fully agree with. Wordsworth’s appreciation for children and innocence was often evident. The speaker though he respects other poets that he knows and likely feels too were great at times, he has such appreciation for Wordsworth and love of what the man has created that he sets him on a higher pedestal. “Again find Wordsworth’s healing power?... But who, ah! Who, will make us feel?”

Wordsworth was well respected, though he does mention others in passing. Goethe and Byron are both mentioned. The speaker says that Byron “taught us little; but our soul//Had felt him like the thunder’s roll.//With shivering heart the strife we saw//Of passion with eternal law” Which to me feels that while he enjoyed Byron’s work and was touched by it at times, as he knew many were by the man’s deep passion, the speaker himself did not feel he learned from Byron. As for Goethe, a German poet (I believe?), he seems to have a deeper respect for his work, calling him a “Physician of the iron age” and appreciate his almost painful accuracy, “He reach each wound, each weakness clear;//And struck his finger on the place,//And said: Thou ailest here and here!” That Goethe was a man who could identify problems of society. The speaker does belief that there could be other Goethe-like or Byronic poets, “time may restore us in his course//Goethe’s sage mind and Byron’s force” though he doubts this is likely for Wordsworth. Considering he lives in an era which demanded readers to “Close thy Byron; open thy Goethe" it’s actually interesting he mentions these two specifically.