The Tragic Generations
Two Poems of the “Tragic Generation”
In the 1890’s, the poet Yeats was living in London and hanging out with a group of aspiring poets and literary types at a tavern on Fleet Street called the Chesire Cheese. These young men, all in their twenties, formed an association called “The Rhymer’s Club” and published two short anthologies of their poems. Most of the poems (and the poets) were quickly dubbed to be “decadent” and “aesthetic” (meant derogatorily) by critics disapproving of their supposedly wild lifestyles (which, for most, meant varying degrees of alcoholism).
Years later, in his autobiography, Yeats dubbed this group members of the “Tragic Generation,” struggling to understand why considerable poetic talent should seem locked in old forms, and come to such fruitless ends. Those who identified them as ‘decadent’ referred to an awareness on the part of the poets that they were living at the end of things, in a world winding down, dwindling into inertia. In his autobiography, Yeats wrote:
Why should men, who spoke their opinions in low voices, as though they feared to disturb the readers in some ancient library, and timidly as though they knew that all subjects had long since been explored, all questions long since decided in books whereon the dust settled – live lives of such disorder and seek to discover in verse the syntax of impulsive common life? Was it that we lived in what is called ‘an age of transition’ and so lacked coherence, or did we but pursue antithesis?
A decade earlier, French critic Jules Barbey D’Aurevilly, reviewing the “decadent” novel A Rebours by J. K. Huysmans (adored by Wilde and other members of the tragic generation,) repeated the observation he made of Baudelaire’s Les fleurs du mal, that “after such a book it only remains for the author to choose between the muzzle of a pistol or the foot of the Cross.”
Members of the tragic generation usually opted for both. By 1900, Wilde had died, penniless and Catholic in Paris. Of the poets included here, Dowson died penniless, of alcohol poisoning at 32, and Johnson, after converting to ardent Catholicism, died of a stroke incurred after falling off a bar stool at age 34. Only Yeats made the transition to the Twentieth Century, transforming himself in midlife to one of the most innovative of Modernists.
Ernest Dowson (1867-1900)
Dowson died penniless of alcoholism at 32. At 23 fell in love with the 11 year old daughter of a polish restaurant owner, who is reputedly the inspiration for this poem.
Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae
(tr. From Horace – “I am not what I was under the reign of the lovely Cynara”)
Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
When I awoke and found the dawn was gray:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:
I have been faithful to thee Cynara! in my fashion.
Lionel Johnson (1867-1902)
Johnson converted to Catholicism in 1891, living a solitary life of scholarship and dissipation. An alcoholic and repressed homosexual, he died from a stroke he suffered after falling off of a bar stool.
The Dark Angel
Dark angel, with thine aching lust
To rid the world of penitence:
Malicious Angel, who still dost
My soul such subtile violence!
Because of thee, no thought, no thing,
Abides for me undesecrate:
Dark Angel, ever on the wing,
Who never reachest me too late!
When music sounds, then changest thou
Its silvery to a sultry fire:
Nor will thine envious heart allow
Delight untortured by desire.
Through thee, the gracious Muses turn,
To Furies, O mine Enemy!
And all the things of beauty burn
With flames of evil ecstasy.
Because of thee, the land of dreams
Becomes a gathering place of fears:
Until tormented slumber seems
One vehemence of useless tears.
When sunlight glows upon the flowers,
Or ripples down the dancing sea:
Thou, with thy troop of passionate powers,
Beleaguerest, bewilderest, me.
Within the breath of autumn woods,
Within the winter silences:
Thy venomous spirit stirs and broods,
O Master of impieties!
The ardour of red flame is thine,
And thine the steely soul of ice:
Thou poisonest the fair design
Of nature, with unfair device.
Apples of ashes, golden bright;
Waters of bitterness, how sweet!
O banquet of a foul delight,
Prepared by thee, dark Paraclete!
Thou art the whisper in the gloom,
The hinting tone, the haunting laugh:
Thou art the adorner of my tomb,
The minstrel of mine epitaph.
I fight thee, in the Holy Name!
Yet, what thou dost, is what God saith:
Tempter! should I escape thy flame,
Thou wilt have helped my soul from Death:
The second Death, that never dies,
That cannot die, when time is dead:
Live Death, wherein the lost soul cries,
Eternally uncomforted.
Dark Angel, with thine aching lust!
Of two defeats, of two despairs:
Less dread, a change to drifting dust,
Than thine eternity of cares.
Do what thou wilt, thou shalt not so,
Dark Angel! triumph over me:
Lonely, unto the Lone I go;
Divine, to the Divinity.
In the 1890’s, the poet Yeats was living in London and hanging out with a group of aspiring poets and literary types at a tavern on Fleet Street called the Chesire Cheese. These young men, all in their twenties, formed an association called “The Rhymer’s Club” and published two short anthologies of their poems. Most of the poems (and the poets) were quickly dubbed to be “decadent” and “aesthetic” (meant derogatorily) by critics disapproving of their supposedly wild lifestyles (which, for most, meant varying degrees of alcoholism).
Years later, in his autobiography, Yeats dubbed this group members of the “Tragic Generation,” struggling to understand why considerable poetic talent should seem locked in old forms, and come to such fruitless ends. Those who identified them as ‘decadent’ referred to an awareness on the part of the poets that they were living at the end of things, in a world winding down, dwindling into inertia. In his autobiography, Yeats wrote:
Why should men, who spoke their opinions in low voices, as though they feared to disturb the readers in some ancient library, and timidly as though they knew that all subjects had long since been explored, all questions long since decided in books whereon the dust settled – live lives of such disorder and seek to discover in verse the syntax of impulsive common life? Was it that we lived in what is called ‘an age of transition’ and so lacked coherence, or did we but pursue antithesis?
A decade earlier, French critic Jules Barbey D’Aurevilly, reviewing the “decadent” novel A Rebours by J. K. Huysmans (adored by Wilde and other members of the tragic generation,) repeated the observation he made of Baudelaire’s Les fleurs du mal, that “after such a book it only remains for the author to choose between the muzzle of a pistol or the foot of the Cross.”
Members of the tragic generation usually opted for both. By 1900, Wilde had died, penniless and Catholic in Paris. Of the poets included here, Dowson died penniless, of alcohol poisoning at 32, and Johnson, after converting to ardent Catholicism, died of a stroke incurred after falling off a bar stool at age 34. Only Yeats made the transition to the Twentieth Century, transforming himself in midlife to one of the most innovative of Modernists.
Ernest Dowson (1867-1900)
Dowson died penniless of alcoholism at 32. At 23 fell in love with the 11 year old daughter of a polish restaurant owner, who is reputedly the inspiration for this poem.
Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae
(tr. From Horace – “I am not what I was under the reign of the lovely Cynara”)
Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
When I awoke and found the dawn was gray:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:
I have been faithful to thee Cynara! in my fashion.
Lionel Johnson (1867-1902)
Johnson converted to Catholicism in 1891, living a solitary life of scholarship and dissipation. An alcoholic and repressed homosexual, he died from a stroke he suffered after falling off of a bar stool.
The Dark Angel
Dark angel, with thine aching lust
To rid the world of penitence:
Malicious Angel, who still dost
My soul such subtile violence!
Because of thee, no thought, no thing,
Abides for me undesecrate:
Dark Angel, ever on the wing,
Who never reachest me too late!
When music sounds, then changest thou
Its silvery to a sultry fire:
Nor will thine envious heart allow
Delight untortured by desire.
Through thee, the gracious Muses turn,
To Furies, O mine Enemy!
And all the things of beauty burn
With flames of evil ecstasy.
Because of thee, the land of dreams
Becomes a gathering place of fears:
Until tormented slumber seems
One vehemence of useless tears.
When sunlight glows upon the flowers,
Or ripples down the dancing sea:
Thou, with thy troop of passionate powers,
Beleaguerest, bewilderest, me.
Within the breath of autumn woods,
Within the winter silences:
Thy venomous spirit stirs and broods,
O Master of impieties!
The ardour of red flame is thine,
And thine the steely soul of ice:
Thou poisonest the fair design
Of nature, with unfair device.
Apples of ashes, golden bright;
Waters of bitterness, how sweet!
O banquet of a foul delight,
Prepared by thee, dark Paraclete!
Thou art the whisper in the gloom,
The hinting tone, the haunting laugh:
Thou art the adorner of my tomb,
The minstrel of mine epitaph.
I fight thee, in the Holy Name!
Yet, what thou dost, is what God saith:
Tempter! should I escape thy flame,
Thou wilt have helped my soul from Death:
The second Death, that never dies,
That cannot die, when time is dead:
Live Death, wherein the lost soul cries,
Eternally uncomforted.
Dark Angel, with thine aching lust!
Of two defeats, of two despairs:
Less dread, a change to drifting dust,
Than thine eternity of cares.
Do what thou wilt, thou shalt not so,
Dark Angel! triumph over me:
Lonely, unto the Lone I go;
Divine, to the Divinity.