Noble Julia Essay

— The Corvey Poets Project at the University of Nebraska —

British Poetry of the later Eighteenth and Earlier Nineteenth Centuries

Bibliographical and Contextual Apparatus

Noble, Thomas

Julia; or, Pre-Existent Spirtis. Derby: Pike, [1828].

Descriptive Essay

A Preliminary Bibliographical Comment:

Thomas Noble of Derby produced and published a 10 page narrative poem in 1828 that he named "Julia, or Pre-Existent Spirits." This poem is accompanied by other short and medium length poems on various subjects, including sonnets and cantos. Noble's volume contains about 112 pages of poetry. Each section of the eclectic collection begins with a title and heading (an "argument") summarizing its content. There does not appear to be a single unifying theme running through the collection, although traces (some direct and others indirect) of the ancient doctrine of the pre-existence of spirits can be found periodically. But generally this volume of poetry is very much a document typical of late nineteenth century British Romanticism. Though Noble's skills and world-view are evident from his collection, he does not revolutionize or drastically depart from the norms of his literary period; he does, however, explore the art of poetry and take an interdisciplinary approach to theme.

General Description of Volume:

Noble makes his influences and artistic objectives explicit from the very beginning. In the "Advertisement" that appears just before the first narrative section, he qualifies his central theme of pre-existence by appealing to precedent: he says the doctrine has been possessed in some form by the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the English. To support this claim, he takes the time to share extracts about pre-existence from works by Thomas Moore, William Wordsworth, William Drummond of Hawthornden, as well as a personal letter "lent to [him] by a lady of [his] acquaintance." Of all the influences that Noble recognizes, the letter that he mentions last seems to matter most to his actual composition. It obviously informs his narrative.

Noble's complete collection appears to be influenced generally by early English Romanticism, Christianity, and Hellenism. For instance, there is this Greek-feeling comparison drawn between a contemporary scene of desolation (some ruins) and a "noble youth . . . like the marble model of a god":
          Hence let me turn–ungrateful is the scene.
          As when some noble youth, whose perfect form,
          With strength and beauty and superior soul
          Rising to manhood, full of life and hope,
          Deep smitten by the dart of sudden fate,
          Falls—like the marble model of a god,
          In force and vigour motionless;—so fell
          This fabric, ere destructive Time had rocked
          Its deep foundations or defaced its walls. (21)

The rest of Noble's collection can be characterized as an eclectic body of experimental material (he tries many stanzas and line schemes) that explores a wide range of themes: pre-existence, nature, mind, love, hope, humanity, science, prosperity, cheerfulness, corruption (avarice), history, renovation of man and the earth, etc. Throughout the collection Noble develops his themes in three general ways: 1) by using extended descriptions of nature, some of which turn very rich; 2) by using both high and low characters in long passages of direct address; and 3) by using a high-soaring, didactic voice to stress some concept for society's sake. The descriptions often feel meditative. Again, Wordsworth and the other canonical Romantics have clearly influenced him.

Specific Description of Style:

Noble confesses forthrightly that as a poet he believes that a "richness of tone in the recurrence of numerous rhymes, where the versus are varied in the position of their casura," can be achieved, even in English. He supports his stylistic theory by giving the "Spencerian Stanza" and "Sonnet" as evidence. It is no wonder then that Noble, throughout his collection, achieves a "richness of tone" as he "varies" the placement of his internal punctuation and plays with his art. He also varies his line length, meter, and rhyme schemes in certain sections to add interest to his otherwise semi-predictable narratives. Here is a fairly typical line from a passage of blank verse in Canto II:
          While eastward wave the darkly shaded elms
Contrast this stable line with another series of lines from a later section in the same collection:
          The tears of long-continued woe
          Already cease to flow :—
          The pang of pain
          The fever'd brain
          Already cease to rage;
          And pale disease
          To groan doth cease
          And tottering old age. (106)

So, on a stylistic note, it can be seen from both these passages from Noble's collection that he is no slouch. His collection reflects the work of a poet who is experimenting vigorously with his art, even though he doesn't seem to be experimenting to the same degree with his content. In one section, he tries the sonnet; in another section, he writes in terza rima; one line he slows down, the next he speeds up. Contrast the tempo of the Speaker's voice in Canto II when he says "While eastward wave the darkly shaded elms" with the words of the bird that comforts Julia in section one: "Love, love, so cherish'd–love, so sad a foe! Notice the heavily textured words and letters such as the "w's" and the "l's" in the first line and the speed of monosyllabic words making the phrase "so sad a foe." In each case sound is working with sense and Noble demonstrates his skill and his sensitivity to language while staying with familiar images and themes.

Apart from Noble's decisions to vary stanzas and lines while staying with standard Romantic themes, he uses frequent apostrophes, skillful patterns of sound and language, and rich alliteration. Characteristic of most sections of the collection is the speaker's invocation of the Muse, or if not the muse, something similar to the muse. Usually, the new speaker invites something outside the poem to inspire him. In the course of the collection something akin to this is done repeatedly. Take for example this passage:
          O God of Nature, who hast filled thy works
          With love and virtuous pleasures, grant me peace;
          Raise me from want, and teach my soul Content
          And Contemplation,—Science, and Thyself (18)!
Or this:
          Come, Cheerfulness, blithe daughter of the Spring,
          Be thou my Muse (25);
In each case someone or something existing outside the poem is directly addressed and invited to pour out a blessing or do something on behalf of the speaker who is crying out from within the poem. In most cases, the Muse or just the thing addressed, whether it is the Morning or the Nations of the earth, is asked to participate in the producing the poem, and therefore, in life itself.

In contrast, however, there are examples where just the opposite seems to be taking place:
Then, hence desponding grief,
Hence rankling memory, sad regret and fear. (25)
Here in Canto II, grief, as though it were a dark being of some kind, is not asked to impart a blessing but rather simply to be gone. Noble's use of the device of direct address in the imperative mood (and there are many example of it) has a Biblical tinge to it. It is reminiscent of Jesus' powerful rebuke when he sought to resist temptation in the wilderness: "Get thee hence Satan." In Noble's poem, grief, instead of Satan, is rebuked so that Cheerfulness can come. In this case, one thing must be commanded to depart before another can be invited to visit.

In addition to Noble's frequent use of apostrophe and direct address, he employs pattern in very interesting ways. For instance, here is a cosmic series to evoke pathos in Canto V:
          Could I but burst the torpid chain of want.
          Then whatsoe'er thy theme;—the heath—the mead—
          The murmuring streamlet, or the boisterous wave—
          The wood—the lake—the mountain—vall[e]y—rock—
          The stormy clouds—the winds—the orbs of heaven—
          Or life in all its forms—or human mind,—
          The expanding bosom and enlightened soul;— (76, 77)
Notice how the pattern in the passage builds to a climax on the wings of sound and size and tempo and the crescendoing content. The pattern moves from the heath to the mind and the soul, the mind and the soul being the highest of all, higher even than the clouds and the orbs of heaven.

Another passage that includes the sort of pattern typical of Noble's craftsmanship is found in the collection immediately after the section just cited. In it, Noble attempts to make sound match sense, however, unsuccessfully:
          Then, when the SPRING, as now, with wanton wreaths
          Blossoms the boughs, and o'er the enlivened mead
          Scatters light verdure, scatters tinted flowers
          Scatters soft fragrance on each ambient gale,
          Scatters prolific moisture from the sky (77)
The idea in repeating "scatters" four times was perhaps to spread the sound around the passage for effect. However, it breaks down because "Scatters" anchors three of four lines. The word's location at the first of the line draws attention to it, which is desirable, but capitalizing it and setting it in the firm first position seems to subtract (or detract) from the overall desired effect. Instead of the language feeling scattered it feels fixed, manipulated. But to be fair, perhaps Noble attempts to scatter only one word as opposed to scattering all four. The one word, not capitalized, hides in the middle of the line; it feels lost, displaced, or scattered, but it is hard to say whether this passage is successful or not because, after all, nobody knows for certain the poet's intentions. In any case, Noble's biggest accomplishment in this collection may be his interesting use of pattern.

Similar to the sophisticated pattern schemes in Noble's collection (there is not space or time to develop a full examination of all of them in this descriptive essay) is his use of small patterns of assonance and consonance, or his alliteration. For instance, tucked in lines throughout the collection are delicious vowel phrases like "dingy ridge" and "sandy cavity" as well as clusters of pure consonance like the soft "s" sounds in
While the soft notes of Spring, symphonious, seemed (27, 31).
Of particular interest here is the fact that the "o" and "s" sounds roll the line forward as it is read. The most interesting thing about the line in terms of the sound may be the slanted sound quality achieved between the words "Spring" and "seemed," not to mention the plain fun of reading a rich word like "symphonious" (31).

However, in a passage later in the collection, Noble almost pushes the "s" sound too far, even though his selecting "sedgy" to suggest the moistness of rush mud works very well:
          The whispering aspens, and beside the rill
          Soften the rustling of the sedgy rush
          Almost to silence (85).
Ambitious about his art, he probably goes too far, too, with the "w," "l," and, "f" sounds in the following lines:
          Where winds the Wye its wildly wand'ring stream, (96)
and
          Locked in her lover's;—left her blushing cheek (67)
In any case, Noble's collection is loaded with alliterative experimentations and disruptive punctuation, both of which are techniques of the first and finest English poets. He experiments, then, with traditional patterning, sometimes finding a sound pattern that works, and sometimes not.

Perhaps ending this section on style and pattern in Noble's collection with one of my favorite passages would be appropriate and might whet the appetite of any reader who might wish to know more about Noble's sophisticated attempts at crossing sound and pattern with descriptive and philosophic sense. Here is a densely patterned part of one of his long, narrative sentences that uses rhythmic sounds and words to good effect:
          Lost in the umbrageous vale, whence roofs and boughs
          Close mingling, rise in tiers,— roofs above roofs—
          And boughs in rich perspective clustering spread
          Boughs above boughs, until embraced, they fane, . . .
          Mid the thick foliage: —then, receding hills
          Of various forms romantic—various tints,
          That lead the piercing sight to farther hills,
          And these to farther,— till, more faint and faint,
          The pale grey distance mingles into mist, (33)

Specific Description of Volume:

As illustrated above, most of Noble's collection is richly written but not terribly profound in terms of its content. One expectation set up by the title is that this collection may be an exploration of something theological or philosophical, but instead, the greater part of the collection is in reality typical of the less meditative romantics. Noble relies heavily on standard tropes and doesn't do too much more than rehearse the familiar views of the day using the familiar tropes of the day. For instance, the times and seasons control much of the collection; birds (doves, no less) act as messengers to love-sick souls; Christian love stories are told; people sigh, stand on hills, shed tears, grow pensive, look to clear streams, fall into transport, and walk with Nature hand in hand on beautiful mornings. Two passages may suffice to show the familiarity of the tropes used by Noble; both are well written, even interesting, but neither demonstrates much originality of content.
          The cottage clothed with verdure threw as bright
          An image on the waters ; but, ah where
          Was the fond hope, that in a fairy dream
          Seized the reflection, and, with tints more fair,
          Pictured a placid home by that clear stream? (86)
And:
          Instant—or ‘twas a vision I beheld—
          In a blythe HALL of DERBY'S ancient town,
          I saw a scene all other scences excelle'd;
          Where Times and Space, compell'd,
          Seem'd mingled all in one: (97)

In both passages the tropes are traditional. Yet I selected these passages because they pick up on ancient tropes that are themselves worth mentioning. The first passage quoted above plays on the idea found in Plato's Allegory of the Cave. The reflection is but a shadow of reality. This particular image, to Noble's credit, apparently speaks of other levels of reality. So, in that sense it is philosophical, but not in any original or surprising way. The second passage tropes the tradition among the Hebrews and Greeks (and among imitators since them) of visionary experience. What is interesting is that so much of this religious tradition gets into poetry. It is as if those who have visions — seers and the like — feel that they also must be able to speak about their vision. In fact, words are said to be given them. Prophets and poets claim the first step in their obligation is to see and the second is to speak, or to prophesy. Vision precedes, or accompanies, speech. Noble adapts these tropes but does not do so in any remarkable way.

Paradoxically, Noble's effort to use the historic tropes and forms of poetry popular in his day somehow strikes the modern reader as almost fresh. His technical explorations into language, sound, and pattern make his collection on the whole worth reading. By contrast, his content only occasionally captivates the interest. In one section that is of particualr interest, however, Noble examines the relationships between art an science and art and commerce. In these particular passages Noble ambitiously attempts to fuse all knowledge, especially science and economics, with poetry. This fusion struck me as rather interesting, and as somehow less than expected. Apparently Noble was a man with a broad and inquiring mind, even if he couldn't seem to shake himself from the sentimentality and most-used tropes of his times.