“The Interdicted Space”: Dreaming and Madness in the Poetry of George Crabbe
EXTRACT 1
[…] a melancholy or half-mad person is somewhat in the same condition with him who, not being thoroughly awake, is doubtful whether his dream be not true or something real. The difference between dreaming and madness, (which is nothing material in the present case) seems to be only this; that the bodily organs […] of mad-men are shattered, or put out of their natural frame and order: in dreamers, there is a stupor which possesseth them. But the effects are the same […]
Zachary Mayne, Two Dissertations Concerning Sense, and the Imagination: With an Essay on Consciousness,
(London: J. Tonson, 1728), p.188.
EXTRACT 2
Come near,—I’ll softly speak the rest!—
Alas! ‘tis known to all the Crowd,
Her guilty Love was all confest;
And his, who so much Truth avow’d,
My faithless Friends.—In Pleasure proud
I sat, when these curs’d Tidings came;
Their Guilt, their Flight was told aloud,
And Envy smil’d to hear my Shame!
I call’d on Vengeance; at the Word
She came:—Can I the Deed forget?
I held the Sword, th’accursed Sword,
The Blood of his false Heart made wet;
And that fair Victim paid her Debt,
She pin’d, she died, she loath’d to live;—
I saw her dying—see her yet:
Fair fallen Thing! my Rage forgive!
‘Sir Eustace Grey’, 116-131.
EXTRACT 3
Those Cherubs still, my Life to bless,
Were left: Could I my Fears remove,
Sad fears that check’d each fond Caress,
And poison’d all parental Love;
Yet that, with jealous Feelings strove,
And would at last have won my Will,
Had I not, Wretch! Been doom’d to prove
Th’ Extremes of mortal Good and Ill.
In Youth! Health! Joy! In Beauty’s Pride!
They droop’d: as Flowers when blighted bow,
The dire Infection came:—They died,
And I was curs’d— as I am now——
Nay, frown not, angry Friend, — allow,
That I was deeply, sorely tried;
Hear then, and you must wonder how
I could such Storms and Strifes abide.
‘Sir Eustace Grey’, 132-146.
EXTRACT 4
Then I was cast from out my State;
Two Fiends of Darkness led my Way;
They wak’d me early, watch’d me late,
My dread by Night, my Plague by Day!
Oh! I was made their Sport, their Play,
Through many a stormy troubled Year,
And how they us’d their passive Prey;
Is sad to tell: but you shall hear.
‘Sir Eustace Grey’, 164-179.
EXTRACT 5
There are two senses, tho’ very nearly allied, in which the expression Darkness and Light are to be understood: Darkness signifying to us the dominion of ignorance and sin, and Light that of wisdom and virtue; and in a second though closely connected sense, the evil spirits, and above all the first and greatest of these are called the powers of darkness, and the Prince of these powers. While the heavenly company of angels and ministering spirits are the children of light.
National Library of Scotland, John Murray Archive, MS. 42099.
EXTRACT 6
A task very difficult, and if the presumption of the attempt may find pardon, it will not be refused to the failure of
the poet. It is said of our Shakespeare, respecting madness;
“In that circle none dare walk but he:”–
yet be it granted to one, who dares not pass the boundary fixed for common minds, at least to step near to the tremendous verge and form some idea of the terrors that are stalking in the interdicted space.
Preface, Poems, (1807)
EXTRACT 7
I returned late last night, and my reflections were as cheerful as such company could make them, and not, I am afraid, of the most humiliating kind; yet, for the first time these many nights, I was incommoded by dreams, such as would cure vanity for a time in any mind where they could gain admission. Some of Baxter’s mortifying spirits whispered very singular combinations. None, indeed, that actually did happen in the very worst of times, but still with a formidable resemblance.
George Crabbe, 21st July 1817, in Selected Letters and Journals of George Crabbe, p. 211.
The Rejected Member’s Wife
We shall see her no more
On the balcony,
Smiling, while hurt, at the roar
As of surging sea
From the stormy sturdy band
Who have doomed her lord’s cause,
Though she waves her little hand
As it were applause.
Here will be candidates yet,
And candidates’ wives,
Fervid with zeal to set
Their ideals on our lives:
Here will come market-men
On the market-days,
Here will clash now and then
More such party assays.
And the balcony will fill
When such times are renewed,
And the throng in the street will thrill
With to-day’s mettled mood;
But she will no more stand
In the sunshine there,
With that wave of her white-gloved hand,
And that chestnut hair.
Thomas Hardy, January 1906.
JRWB 