Give a critical appreciation of 'Memorial Verses'.

Give a critical appreciation of ‘Memorial Verses’.

Ans.

Memorial Verses is great as a piece of literary criticism in verse, it is also great as a piece of social criticism. Arnold comments upon the Europe of Goethe’s day-the Europe of ‘fitful dream”. ‘feverish power’, ‘weltering strife turmoil of expiring life. Referring in Wordsworth’s England he calls it the ‘iron time of doubts, disputes, distractions’, fear an age in which people had grown too materialistic, had lost contact with Nature, and had grown weak, dejected and enervated. It was Wordsworth’s poetry which revived their spirits, and a poet with such healing power’ is not likely to be born again.

The elegy is quite perfect as a work of art also. “It is exactly the right length, and has not an excessive line or one out of place. “The opening lines have a classic economy and force:

Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece,

Long since saw Byron’s struggles cease,

But one such death remained to come;

The last poetic voice is dumb….

We stand today b Wordsworth’s tomb.

Then follows a short verse- paragraph on Byron, a rather longer one on Goethe, and the main pronouncement on Wordsworth. Note the skillful variation of the lines that introduce the three sections:

When Byron’s eyes were shut in death….

When Goethe’s death was told, we said…

And Wordsworth-Ah pale ghosts, rejoice.

Having told us wherein Wordsworth excelled, he comes back, in a fifth paragraph, to the comparison with Byron and Goethe. their qualities may repeat themselves in others, but Wordsworth was and will remain unique. And he says this again in the lovely singing conclusion:

Keep fresh the grass upon his grave,

O Rotha, with the living wave.

Sing him they best! for few or none

Hears they voice right, now he is gone….

No one has ever, like Wordsworth, brought the spirit of man into intimate, vitalising touch with the spirit of nature. The octosyllabic couplet is handled faultlessly, often with epigrammatic precision, yet with ease and informality, (Duffin). The felicity of these last concluding lines has also been admired by W.L. Jones and a host of other critics. But the following lines are also noteworthy for their felicity of phrasing

The cloud of mortal destiny

Other will front it fearlessly

But who, like him, will put it by?

The vacuum caused by Wordsworth’s death can never be filled, says Arnold, and he says this in lines which have become immortal for their beauty and perfection.

Lastly, the poet has taken the opportunity to criticize the ills prevalent in his own age. The age in which Arnold lived was torn apart by doubts and religious scepticism.