Andrew Lang

223 Pages·2012·0.38 MB·English

Classic Poetry Series

Andrew Lang
- poems -

Publication Date:
2012

Publisher:
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Andrew Lang(31 March 1844 - 20 July 1912)

LAndrew Lang was a Scots poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the
field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The
Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him.

<b>Biography</b>

Lang was born in Selkirk. He was the eldest of the eight children born to John
Lang, the town clerk of Selkirk, and his wife Jane Plenderleath Sellar, who was
the daughter of Patrick Sellar, factor to the first duke of Sutherland. On 17 April
1875 he married Leonora Blanche Alleyne, the youngest daughter of C. T. Alleyne
of Clifton and Barbados.

He was educated at Selkirk grammar school, Loretto, and at the Edinburgh
Academy, St Andrews University and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he took a
first class in the final classical schools in 1868, becoming a fellow and
subsequently honorary fellow of Merton College. As a journalist, poet, critic and
historian, he soon made a reputation as one of the most able and versatile
writers of the day.

He died of angina pectoris at the Tor-na-Coille Hotel in Banchory, Banchory,
survived by his wife. He was buried in the cathedral precincts at St Andrews.

<b>Professions</b>

<b>Folklore and anthropology</b>

Lang is now chiefly known for his publications on folklore, mythology, and
religion. The interest in folklore was from early life; he read John McLennan
before coming to Oxford, and then was influenced by E. B. Tylor.

The earliest of his publications is Custom and Myth (1884). In Myth, Ritual and
Religion (1887) he explained the "irrational" elements of mythology as survivals
from more primitive forms. Lang's Making of Religion was heavily influenced by
the 18th century idea of the "noble savage": in it, he maintained the existence of
high spiritual ideas among so-called "savage" races, drawing parallels with the
contemporary interest in occult phenomena in England. His Blue Fairy Book
(1889) was a beautifully produced and illustrated edition of fairy tales that has
become a classic. This was followed by many other collections of fairy tales,
collectively known as Andrew Lang's Fairy Books. Lang examined the origins of
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totemism in Social Origins (1903).

<b>Psychical research</b>

Lang was one of the founders of "psychical research" and his other writings on
anthropology include The Book of Dreams and Ghosts (1897), Magic and Religion
(1901) and The Secret of the Totem (1905). He served as President of the
Society for Psychical Research in 1911.

<b>Classical scholarship</b>

He collaborated with S. H. Butcher in a prose translation (1879) of Homer's
Odyssey, and with E. Myers and Walter Leaf in a prose version (1883) of the
Iliad, both still noted for their archaic but attractive style. He was a Homeric
scholar of conservative views. Other works include Homer And The Study Of
Greek found in Essays In Little (1891), Homer and the Epic (1893); a prose
translation of The Homeric Hymns (1899), with literary and mythological essays
in which he draws parallels between Greek myths and other mythologies; and
Homer and his Age (1906).

<b>Historian</b>

Lang's writings on Scottish history are characterised by a scholarly care for
detail, a piquant literary style, and a gift for disentangling complicated questions.
The Mystery of Mary Stuart (1901) was a consideration of the fresh light thrown
on Mary, Queen of Scots, by the Lennox manuscripts in the University Library,
Cambridge, approving of her and criticising her accusers.

He also wrote monographs on The Portraits and Jewels of Mary Stuart (1906)
and James VI and the Gowrie Mystery (1902). The somewhat unfavourable view
of John Knox presented in his book John Knox and the Reformation (1905)
aroused considerable controversy. He gave new information about the
continental career of the Young Pretender in Pickle the Spy (1897), an account of
Alestair Ruadh MacDonnell, whom he identified with Pickle, a notorious
Hanoverian spy. This was followed by The Companions of Pickle (1898) and a
monograph on Prince Charles Edward (1900). In 1900 he began a History of
Scotland from the Roman Occupation (1900). The Valet's Tragedy (1903), which
takes its title from an essay on Dumas's Man in the Iron Mask, collects twelve
papers on historical mysteries, and A Monk of Fife (1896) is a fictitious narrative
purporting to be written by a young Scot in France in 1429-1431.

<b>Other writings</b>
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Lang's earliest publication was a volume of metrical experiments, The Ballads
and Lyrics of Old France (1872), and this was followed at intervals by other
volumes of dainty verse, Ballades in Blue China (1880, enlarged edition, 1888),
Ballads and Verses Vain (1884), selected by Mr Austin Dobson; Rhymes à la
Mode (1884), Grass of Parnassus (1888), Ban and Arrière Ban (1894), New
Collected Rhymes (1905).

Lang was active as a journalist in various ways, ranging from sparkling "leaders"
for the Daily News to miscellaneous articles for the Morning Post, and for many
years he was literary editor of Longman's Magazine; no critic was in more
request, whether for occasional articles and introductions to new editions or as
editor of dainty reprints.

He edited The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (1896), and was responsible for
the Life and Letters (1897) of JG Lockhart, and The Life, Letters and Diaries
(1890) of Sir Stafford Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh. Lang discussed literary
subjects with the same humour and acidity that marked his criticism of fellow
folklorists, in Books and Bookmen (1886), Letters to Dead Authors (1886),
Letters on Literature (1889), etc.
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A Highly Valuable Chain Of Thoughts

HAD cigarettes no ashes,
And roses ne'er a thorn,
No man would be a funker
Of whin, or burn, or bunker.
There were no need for mashies,
The turf would ne'er be torn,
Had cigarettes no ashes,
And roses ne'er a thorn.

Had cigarettes no ashes,
And roses ne'er a thorn,
The big trout would not ever
Escape into the river.
No gut the salmon smashes
Would leave us all forlorn,
Had cigarettes no ashes,
And roses ne'er a thorn.

But 'tis an unideal
Sad world in which we're born,
And things will 'go contrairy'
With Martin and with Mary:
And every day the real
Comes bleakly in with morn,
And cigarettes have ashes,
And every rose a thorn.

Andrew Lang
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A Portrait Of 1783

Your hair and chin are like the hair
And chin Burne-Jones's ladies wear;
You were unfashionably fair
In '83;
And sad you were when girls are gay,
You read a book about Le vrai
Merite de l'homme, alone in May.
What CAN it be,
Le vrai merite de l'homme? Not gold,
Not titles that are bought and sold,
Not wit that flashes and is cold,
But Virtue merely!
Instructed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(And Jean-Jacques, surely, ought to know),
You bade the crowd of foplings go,
You glanced severely,
Dreaming beneath the spreading shade
Of 'that vast hat the Graces made;'
So Rouget sang--while yet he played
With courtly rhyme,
And hymned great Doisi's red perruque,
And Nice's eyes, and Zulme's look,
And dead canaries, ere he shook
The sultry time
With strains like thunder. Loud and low
Methinks I hear the murmur grow,
The tramp of men that come and go
With fire and sword.
They war against the quick and dead,
Their flying feet are dashed with red,
As theirs the vintaging that tread
Before the Lord.
O head unfashionably fair,
What end was thine, for all thy care?
We only see thee dreaming there:
We cannot see
The breaking of thy vision, when
The Rights of Man were lords of men,
When virtue won her own again
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In '93.

Andrew Lang
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A Scot To Jeanne D’arc

DARK Lily without blame,
Not upon us the shame,
Whose sires were to the Auld Alliance true;
They, by the Maiden’s side,
Victorious fought and died;
One stood by thee that fiery torment through,
Till the White Dove from thy pure lips had passed,
And thou wert with thine own St. Catherine at the last.

Once only didst thou see,
In artist’s imagery,
Thine own face painted, and that precious thing
Was in an Archer’s hand
From the leal Northern land.

Andrew Lang
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Aesop

HE sat among the woods; he heard
The sylvan merriment; he saw
The pranks of butterfly and bird,
The humors of the ape, the daw.

And in the lion or the frog,—
In all the life of moor and fen,—
In ass and peacock, stork and dog,
He read similitudes of men.

“Of these, from those,” he cried, “we come,
Our hearts, our brains descend from these.”
And, lo! the Beasts no more were dumb,
But answered out of brakes and trees:

“Not ours,” they cried; “Degenerate,
If ours at all,” they cried again,
“Ye fools, who war with God and Fate,
Who strive and toil; strange race of men.

“For we are neither bond nor free,
For we have neither slaves nor kings;
But near to Nature’s heart are we,
And conscious of her secret things.

“Content are we to fall asleep,
And well content to wake no more;
We do not laugh, we do not weep,
Nor look behind us and before:

“But were there cause for moan or mirth,
’T is we, not you, should sigh or scorn,
Oh, latest children of the Earth,
Most childish children Earth has born.”

They spoke, but that misshapen slave
Told never of the thing he heard,
And unto men their portraits gave,
In likenesses of beast and bird!
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Andrew Lang
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