SOURCE: An introduction to The Path of Sorrow by Thomas Holley Chivers, Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1979, pp. v-xxxi.

[In the following essay, Lombard provides a detailed study of several of Chivers's major works.]

THE PATH OF SORROW

When only nineteen Thomas Holley Chivers in 1827 married his sixteen-year-old cousin, Frances Elizabeth Chivers. Within a year she left him because of alleged cruelty. He was never allowed to see his daughter, born in 1828 after the separation. The chief culprit in the destruction of his marriage was, according to Chivers, Franky Albert, a relative who was a malicious gossip. Since litigation failed to win him a divorce, Chivers finally took advantage of a Georgia law on desertion of one's marital partner. Having established Frances' absence for over five years, he was free to find another wife. In 1837 Chivers married Harriet Hunt of Springfield, Massachusetts, and enjoyed twenty years of happiness with her.

The Path of Sorrow, or, the Lament of Youth: A Poem, was published at Chivers' expense by the Weekly Review of Franklin, Tennessee, late in 1832. Just a few volumes were printed and only several known original copies exist today. The poems were highly personal in nature and Chivers may have wished to confide his lyrical outpourings and anguish over a broken home only to trusted friends and relatives. Members of the immediate family might have destroyed copies to avoid further gossip and scandal and close friends probably did not let strangers read it out of respect for Chivers' feelings. There is also reason to believe that once he had released his pentup emotions by publishing the poems, he felt indisposed to give them wide circulation. Chivers made no effort to retain the manuscripts and any critical comments on The Path of Sorrow, contrary to his usual custom of carefully recording and preserving all manuscripts in orderly fashion together with pertinent magazine articles. Only later, by chance, did he come across the original manuscripts of his published volume of poetry. In all probability he wished to forget the period of despondency and self-imposed exile spent away from Georgia and in the wilderness beyond St. Louis and Cincinnati.

The preface is dedicated to John Rhay, Esq., and dated November 15, 1832. He mentions to Rhay that many of the poems were written in 1828-29 during his period as a student at Transylvania University. Rhay was apparently a fellow student and familiar with Chivers' interest in poetry. Some of the verses in the volume may have been known already to Rhay from their college days.

The first poem, "The Dream," is important in content, if of limited literary value. Chivers broaches a subject which was to become of increasing interest to him, the nature of sleep, the subconscious, and visions. From metaphysical speculations Chivers goes on to deal with his rupture with Frances. The poet recalls the happy days that first marked his marriage, the bliss of two teenagers fully aware of the sincerity and intensity of their love. Chivers' personal involvement with the events recorded in "The Dream" can be sensed in his recounting of the courtship, wedding, and the joyful days as man and wife, abruptly disrupted by an obnoxious busy-body who permanently destroys their idyl. Angrily Chivers tells the story from the standpoint of a heartbroken young husband.

Not satisfied by the mention of one detail in his domestic misfortune, the intervention of an unpleasant relative, Chivers proceeds to reproach his faithless wife for refusing to allow him to see his own child, born after their separation. Recalling her heartless attitude, Chivers suddenly excoriates a cruel wife and looks elsewhere for love and companionship. Another woman enters the narrative at this point and momentarily promises to make him forget his misfortune, but happiness, he discovers, does not succeed sorrow so quickly. Legal obstacles prevent a swift marriage with his second love.

Patterned closely after Byron's poem of the same name, "The Dream" is an example of the Byronic fad in American Romanticism. Chivers empathized with Byron, who also lost his wife and child through malignant gossip. In defending Chivers against plagiarism, it should be noted that he was not the only imitator of Byron at that time in America. A distinction should also be made between Chivers' use of the general outline of Byron's poem and those elements that for all their faults are strikingly Chiversian.

One aspect of "The Dream" has yet to be clarified. In a poem where most of the autobiographic details correspond closely to known events in Chivers' life there is still one allusion that gives rise to speculation. Who was the young lady, mentioned at the end of the poem, he was prevented by law from marrying? The incidents in Chivers' life from 1829-32 are not too closely documented. An impulsive person of Chivers' disposition could easily have sought solace elsewhere. Mention of another woman in a poem so patently autobiographic would be one way to get the news indirectly to his wife, in whose defense something should be said. Her side of the story has never been heard, although court records do indicate she filed a suit for alimony on the grounds of extreme cruelty.

Earlier in life Chivers experienced even greater tragedy in the loss of a favorite sister, referred to as "Adaline" in his poems. Relating his father's reaction to her demise in "On the Death of Adaline," Chivers tells how an angel takes charge of Adaline's soul. Momentary doubts about the existence of a benevolent God disappear when in a vision Adaline is heard conversing with an angel as the poet is elevated to the World of Spirits.

The appearance of the angel in the vision may not seem at first glance of any significance until Chivers' subsequent conversion to Swedenborgianism is recalled. The mention of angels then takes on a new dimension. Swedenborg stressed the existence of angels who attended humans and were present at all phases of man's life and at death. Both Adaline's conversation with the angel and Chivers' vision of "sublunary things" have a distinctly Swedenborgian flavor. The Swedish mystic often recorded how his soul left the body to wander about in the World of Spirits and speak with angels. If Chivers at this stage was not fully converted to the theology and revelations of Swedenborg, he was at the very least favorably disposed to accept such views at a later date by reason of his early belief in supernatural experience and visions.

"On the Death of Adaline" also contains a reference to one of Chivers' more mundane interests, the folk music of his native region. When the poet summons the heavens and hills to celebrate the ascension of his sister's innocent soul into heaven, he calls for a melody to be played on instruments brought over to the southern colonies from England. The psaltry and dulcimer were among the early folk instruments used in the American colonies when English immigrants played and sang the songs of their native land.

"What is Life?" brings to mind the lugubrious lines of Young's Night Thoughts, a work that furnished many themes of lamentation and melancholy which were destined to become commonplace among Romantic writers in America and France. One stanza, despite the cliches, supplies the motif of The Path of Sorrow:

Our life is that asperity which rends
The heart, in sorrow's path—a piercing thorn!
'Tis that pernicity of doubt, which ends
In immortality at that great morn—
The resurrection far beyond the skies;
And blessings of the soul which never dies!

Pernicity, one of a list of terms coined by Chivers and used in The Path of Sorrow, lends to the stanza a tone that sets it apart from the usual sentimental verse of the period. If there is sadness in the world, muses Chivers, there are as well mysteries, concealed by the outward appearance of things, whose presence the poet senses, nonetheless, and whose meaning he seeks to fathom.

From the death of loved ones Chivers returns to the main theme of The Path of Sorrow, the loss through separation and incompatibility of his first wife and child. The trauma of that agonizing moment is recalled in "The Minstrel's Valedictory." Relatives and associates apparently advised him reconciliation was out of the question and separation the only solution. Chivers discloses unknowingly an argument for his estranged wife's side of the story. Artlessly and fatuously he announces in all seriousness the nature of his relationship to his mother. If anything he presents a picture of himself as a rather spoiled adolescent.

Putting aside bitter memories, Chivers bids farewell to his native soil and family in a homespun fashion that has its own quaint dignity. He yearns to break forth in song but finds himself too overburdened with grief and unequal to the task. The verses are unquestionably original, bearing, as they do, the imprint of his florid rhetoric and far-fetched imagery:

Farewell! ye groves and hillocks, dales and brooks,
And evergreens which stood before my view—
Which caught, in morn of life, my youthful looks—
I bid you all farewell! a long adieu!

Watts has indicated Chivers' borrowings from Childe Harold, although the Byronic tenor and pose of "The Minstrel's Valedictory" would seem at best superficial. In the lines cited above Chivers is addressing himself to the crucial and personal decision he has to make in leaving family and homestead to forget his grief in the wilderness. The folkloric aspect of Chivers' work manifests itself here in the direct and unsophisticated farewell to familiar scenes. In speaking of the resumption of his "minstrelsy" and his "song" Chivers sounds more like a Georgian balladeer composing for the popular market and not a conventional poet addressing himself to a cultivated society. What some may judge a defect is more likely one of the few vigorous and redeeming features of The Path of Sorrow.

Throughout most of the poems Chivers manages to inject a personal note, even though the framework of a particular poem and the lines themselves may be ostensibly modeled on Byron, Young, or some other poet. A case in point is "The Prophet's Dream," purportedly an Old Testament writer's vision of Christ's coming. Actually it is an excuse for Chivers to define his role as poet:

Eternal Spirit! lend thy spark, to raise my
Thought above the mountain of my heart! breath
On the flambeau of my youthful soul—
Ask in love! Do thou inspire my song! …

It was difficult for Chivers to be the sedate and genteel writer. He was too much the independent maverick who would coin unusual words if he found the old ones unsuitable. Two Chiversian terms, terrene and oblectations, are used in the following passage:

He shall protect him with his ourstretched hands;
And lead him, as a faithful steward, far
Beyond the sycophants of terrene strife,—
While scintillations from his mighty star,
Shall pilot him to the eternal life,
Where oblectations shine, devoid of grief.

The unevenness of Chivers' style notwithstanding, he was at an early date bringing rhythm and melody to many lines. A reading of the dry and stilted poetasters of the times is convincing proof of his originality. Even in a stanza replete with platitudes there is conveyed to the reader a sense of Chivers' strength and conviction.

Not always involved with themes drawn from personal experiences and suffering, Chivers treated historical subjects. "The Siege of Vienna" retells the rescue of the city from the Turkish army by Sobieski's legions. In nineteenth century America there was considerable empathy with the nationalist movement in Poland. Americans sympathized with the subjugated Poles and recalled the contributions of Kosciusko and Pulaski. Polish writers and leaders who emigrated to America helped to keep the public here aware of Poland's plight. Since Byron too dealt with Sobieski's heroism, Chivers in predictable fashion profited by the Englishman's work.

"The Lament of Youth" is a fairly long poem, consisting of two cantos and covering about twenty-five pages of The Path of Sorrow; its length emphasizes the extent to which personal problems motivated Chivers in composing the major part of the work. His estranged wife, Frances, called Angeline in "The Lament of Youth," is addressed with rather mixed feelings as Chivers alternately relives their happy days together and reproaches her for infidelity. Eventually the poet overcame the sad memories of his first marriage, but the depth of passion displayed in The Path of Sorrow indicates a state of mind that was transmitted to later poems.

After the painful soul-searching in "The Lament of Youth" Chivers appears exhausted in "The Retrospect" and prematurely aged:

I am now, not what I have been in youth!
The light which first awoke me, glimmers now,
To shine no more!—the starlight which I made
My banquet, and the sunbeam which my soul
Did seek as nutriment has faded! …

One poem in The Path of Sorrow prefigures perhaps more than any other the future course of Chivers' poetry. "Let My Name Survive" gives the impression that the poet was groping for the symbolism and cadence achieved in subsequent poems. There is present the Chiversian touch, that wistful and charming manner that characterized the best of his later poetry.:

In the wilderness there is a tree—
In the bower there springs up a vine—
Any my soul in its mystical visions can see,
When my heart shall embrace them as mine.

"An Elegy," dedicated to Thomas Lacey, one of the poet's teachers at Transylvania University, reveals some of the sensuous imagery Chivers would later employ rather effectively;

Nature summons my body to death!
My soul bursts the bonds of regret;
And inspires this undying breath,
With the bliss I can never forget.
Let the wings of heaven bear the sound,
Let the whirlwinds of glory be driven—
Let the hearse of mortality's sound,
Conduct such a rapture to heaven!

The volume concludes with "To My Mother," where Chivers gives vent to his nostalgia and longing for the relatively uncomplicated and peaceful years of childhood. Like many Romantics, Chivers was given to regression when adulthood confronted him with oppressing problems. The internal evidence in the poem would seem to point to a rather long period of absence from home during the poet's voluntary exile, inasmuch as he complains of the length of separation.

Watts and Damon find The Path of Sorrow important as a starting point in a study of Chivers' development. He had not yet formulated the concept of a poetry whose esthetic merit was primarily in its sound value. Some tendency in that direction can be seen in the willingness to coin domil, oblectation, pernicity, and other terms in passages that were otherwise specimens of conformity to commonplace Romantic standards. Chivers was also tinkering with versification and meter and invented a new stanza with an ababcdcdd rhyme scheme. If unsuccessful in his attempts, he did try out spenserians and heroic quatrains. Finding blank verse rather dull, he used a ten-syllable line and allowed the accent to fall where it normally would. Often this resulted in monotonous lines, but on occasion Chivers achieved novel effects.

The Path of Sorrow is of importance as a documentation of his initial attempt at writing poetry. The emotions expressed by Chivers were in the main heartfelt and genuine. In spite of its flaws the volume expresses Chivers' fondness for Georgia and its folk songs and is a simple declaration of his faith in Christ. Signs of the value placed on his poetic calling are discernible in the sacerdotal role he assumes. Also present in The Path of Sorrow are definite indications of Chivers' fascination with visions and dreams concerning death and the afterlife. Not to be disregarded as the youthful blunders of an untutored poet, The Path of Sorrow, by reason of its autobiographic data and evidence of Chivers' evolving interests, is a necessary point of departure in any serious study of the poet.

EONCHS OF RUBY

In 1851 Thomas Holley Chivers paid Spalding and Shepard of New York to publish Eonchs of Ruby, A Gift of Love. A definition of the work's odd title was later provided by the poet in the Georgia Citizen (June 28, 1851): "The Word Eonch is the same as Concha Marina—Shell of the Sea. Eonch is used instead of Concha, merely for its euphony. It is the same as the Kaur Gaur of the Hebrews. Ruby signifies, in the language of correspondence, Divine Love. The word Eonch is used, as a title, by metonymy, for Songs. The meaning of the title is, therefore, apparent, namely, Songs of Divine Love. The clouds, I hope, are now dispelled; and the mystery, I presume, evaporates. I hope the day will continue clear."

The subtitle indicates Chivers' desire to capitalize on the contemporary fetish for gift books, but he was also keeping pace with another trend by using an obscure title that required an occultist explanation. Mediums and spiritualists, very much in vogue, used to utter strange sounds, purportedly the speech of the spirit world. Swedenborgians were studying the description of angelic language, which, according to Heaven and Hell, consisted only of vowel sounds. Chivers' endebtedness to Swedenborg is disclosed in his definition of "Ruby" as "Divine Love" in the "language of Correspondence." To the Swedish mystic precious stones were emblems of supernatural truths.

About half of the forty poems in Eonchs of Ruby had previously appeared in magazines; and since Chivers' name was fairly well known by 1851, the work at first drew the attention of readers and critics. Some had favorable comments, but there were enough caustic remarks to irk the hypersensitive Chivers. Those poems with a Poesque flavor were later to set off an argument over the extent to which the Georgian had plagiarized Poe.

Since the first poem, "The Vigil in Aiden," is a homage to Poe, any borrowing in this instance could be condoned, for Chivers was paying tribute to his colleague. The opening lines have a cadence and melody that recall Poe's best lyrics:

In the Rosy Bowers of Aiden,
With her ruby-lips love-laden,
Dwelt the mild, the modest Maiden
Whom POLITIAN called LENORE.
As the Churches, with their whiteness
Clothe the earth, with her uprightness
Clothed she now his soul with brightness,
Breathing out her heart's love-lore;

Politian, none other than Poe in a thinly veiled disguise, mourns the impending loss of Lenore. The mood and rhythm of "The Raven" are invoked by Chivers to picture the sorrowful Politan inquiring of his beloved whether their two souls will meet again. Chivers' imitation of Poe here is quite acceptable.

If the structure of "The Vigil in Aiden" is Poesque, the theology is definitely Chiversian. Poe was indifferent to religion, unlike Chivers, who eagerly depicts his ubiquitous band of angels waiting to whisk some fortunate soul off to heaven; in this instance Lenore is the lucky one.

The second poem in the volume, "The Mighty Dead," is also a lengthy elegy. Among the famous figures Chivers eulogized here is William Henry Harrison (1773-1841), for whom he has a few Swedenborgian words of wisdom about the happy destiny of the spiritual body: the association of Swedenborg with American liberty is implied by Chivers, who assigns to Harrison a hieratic role in leading Americans to a New Jerusalem, the Swedish mystic's term for a revitalized spiritual order.

Among the other persons praised in "The Mighty Dead," some remain well known today; others are given little or no attention. Consider the current fame of Washington, Milton, and Shakespeare, for example, as compared to that now of Felicia Hemans, Edward Young, and Marco Botzaris. The last three, familiar only to readers of the nineteenth century, demonstrate by their oblivion the mercurial nature of popular taste and acclaim.

The third poem, also an elegy of considerable length, concerns four of Chivers' children who died in the span of a year. His oldest son, Eugene Percy, is commemorated in "Avalon." Here Chivers' love of nature in spring-time blends with an unaffected expression of grief and with a desperate plea to God to assuage his sorrow: earnest and profound emotions furnish Chivers with what he considers to be some of the best and most human themes expressed in poetry. Among European Romantics meditation on the death of loved ones was a common subject, but they were more inclined to be deists and not as orthodox in their attitude towards Christianity as Chivers. In fact adherence to a more traditional, Christian view distinguished many American Romantics from their confreres in Europe. In America, Romanticism was closely linked to the Protestant ethic and the Second Great Awakening; as a writer of the first half of the nineteenth century, Chivers in his poetry reflects those trends.

The hymnal quality of "Avalon" and the directness achieved by its refrains make the lines ring true. Awkwardness in some of the rhymes does not detract greatly from the overall effect of the poem. In moments like these Chivers, despite his stylistic shortcomings, produced poetry that in its simplicity, religious spirit, and provincialism fulfilled some of the requirements of the so-called true American lyric that many contemporary exponents of a native literature were demanding.

A plausible explanation for the seemingly ridiculous aspects of another poem "The Lusiad," lies in Chivers' affinity to folk music. In the Georgia Citizen of March 24, 1854, he referred to G.P. Morris's "Southern Refrain" and its use of the repetend "Long time ago" as being of "nigger origin." While Watts feels that Chivers borrowed from Morris, it is more likely that the individualistic Georgian spontaneously inserted a refrain from a familiar old folk tune. If one views "The Lusiad" as a ballad, there is little reason to question Chivers' use of outlandish metaphors and similes. What is objectionable in more conventional lyrics is often admissible in the ballad. "The Lusiad" has also been considered a parody of Poe's "The Haunted Palace." While the meter is trochaic in both poems, there is little other similarity.

It is doubtful that any other poet of the time wrote and felt in quite the same fashion Chivers did. He was not an ignorant man, but, being largely self-taught and having traveled little, he had a rustic response to the wonders of the big city. A concert in New York by Mme Caradori Allen prompted the enthusiastic strains of "To Cecilia":

Like mellow moonlight in the month of June,
Waning serenely on some far-off sea,
Died the soft pathos of that spiritual tune—
Soft as the liquid hues of Heaven to me.

Chivers provides an explication de texte for "liquid hues," by stating that it alludes "to harmony between a soft sound and a blue color," in a manner reminiscent of Baudelaire's comment on one of his own poems.

From Shelley, Chivers acquired the shell image; but the American poet's use in "The Shell" gives it a broader meaning and makes it a symbol of the mysteries of the universe. The shell in the Swedenborgian system of correspondences, as interpreted by Chivers, is an emblem of the arcana that the poet alone is capable of fathoming. To Chivers, the shell also symbolizes the world of sensory impressions yet to be fully described by the poet; that realm is one in which music, the spoken word, and a painting can be united in their mutual expression of the beauty of the universe.

"Leaving the rapt World mute with supernatural wonder," Chivers in "The Dying Swan" tries to stimulate the reader's imagination to the point of furnishing sensations and impressions of sound and color to complete further the word portrait of the universe's reaction to the Day of Judgment. A cascade-like effect is derived from reading its lines. From time to time in the Eonchs of Ruby Chivers succeeds in realizing new perspectives and in freeing poetry from rigid and traditional patterns, as he does in "Isadore," another step away from the grotesque verse of his contemporaries. For obvious reasons the poem figures prominently in the Poe-Chivers controversy.

Following right after the musicality and charm of "Isadore," the choppy verse of "The Gospel of Love" is a sharp reminder of the ease with which Chivers could lapse into mediocrity. One element makes "The Gospel of Love" worthy of mention. It is one of the few poems in which Chivers shows definite signs of social consciousness when he deplores inadequate care for the insane. A surprising modernness of perception on the problems of mental health is coupled with a very progressive outlook, for the time, on penal reform. Chivers states his unqualified disapproval of capital punishment, for God alone bestows life on man and has the right to take it away.

The central idea of "The Gospel of Love" is the proper care of children, who should be reared by loving and tender parents. Chivers may well have been thinking of some of his own children, taken from him by untimely deaths, and of how he would have attended to their needs with paternal solicitude had they lived. However, though social insights are all very fine, they have no place in a poem if they are not expressed in an esthetically appealing style.

Chivers returns to better form in "Evening" when depicting the effect of the sun's rays shining on rapidly flowing water and a school of fish swimming in the current:

Down in the acromatic streams,
Meeting the luminiferous beams
With which the air forever teems,
The golden mail of minnows gleams.

Equally effective is the panorama of the heavens in the initial stanza of "The Chaplet of Cypress." an elegy written for one of his sisters, Florence. Chivers was unusually adept at creating the sensation of literally soaring through space:

Up through the hyaline ether-sea,
Star-diademed, in chariot of pure pain,
Through th' empyreal star-fires radiantly,
Triumphant over Death in Heaven to reign …

Poetry that would otherwise be of no consequence has a redeeming feature when Chivers adds a distinctive note that reflects his personal concerns, whether he mourns the loss of loved ones or expresses his regionalism. The love of homeland finds expression in poems, mediocre from a strictly literary standpoint but valuable as evidence of Chiver's folklorism. "Song from the Inner Life" terminates in a stanza that has the rough and honest outlines of a Negro spiritual or a hymn sung by the congregation of a Baptist church. This poem resounds with Chivers' provincial and rustic impulse to portray the feelings and emotions associated with his youth and early manhood in Georgia, a reminder of the essentially frontier society in which he was reared.

On another theme, one which represents a different kind of religious experience, the "Song of LeVerrier on Discovering a New Planet" is an effort to relive the astronomer's emotions when confirming the existence of Neptune through mathematical analysis. Once again Chivers displays his ability to grasp the tremendous significance of infinity and literally to whirl his readers with him through space. By alliteration and metaphor he achieves a measure of sublimity. The general impact of the poem is unified and forceful, and shows that Chivers' forte lies in shorter poems.

Undoubtedly Swedenborg's views on the intermingling of sensory impressions, all derived from one source or central sense, helped to shape Chivers' thinking. The poet attempts in the "Voice of Thought" to convey his impression of immaterial concepts through specific physical sensations. In this instance thought has a voice and is compared to the fragrance of a rose. The notion of speech expressed through silence recalls some of Swedenborg's remarks on silence as one characteristic of angelic language. From this poem the reader can derive a picture of Chivers' own internal state when composing poetry; as described by him, his spirit is like a combined sound chamber and flower bed filled with an aromatic music.

Chivers had something in common with Poe in the use of the refrain and in the conjuring-up of sensory images. However the mere coincidence that both poets used the same title for some of their poems need not produce speculation about possible plagiarism. Except in title, for example, there is little similarity between Poe's "Eulalie" and Chivers' poem of the same name. The Georgian's mark is deeply imprinted on his own version, in which his flamboyant imagery is redeemed by a certain gracefulness. Memories of Poe are also invoked by titles such as "Lily Adair." If Chivers lacked Poe's technique and level of performance, he was frequently more original in his philosophy and use of subject matter; he was incapable of consciously indulging in the slavish imitation of any poet.

Deeply religious by nature, the Baptist converted to Swedenborg combined the austerity of his childhood beliefs with the intriguing mysticism of the New Church. The concept of the spiritual body continuing life in the celestial sphere fascinated Chivers. He yearned to communicate with angels in heaven, and he counted the steps in perfection necessary to achieve the closest possible union with God. In voicing his longing for the other world Chivers sought objects in the physical world that served as harbingers of things to come. This search resulted in a fusion of sensory images in keeping with Swedenborg's concept of the fundamental union of sensations. What was a useful poetic technique had a theological basis. Chivers was more consistent in one respect than poets merely interested in the esthetic advantages afforded by Swedenborg. A convinced disciple of the Scandanavian seer, the Georgian regarded his efforts in the lyric as an exposition of theological truths. In many poets such an assumption would be judged unwarranted; in Chivers the statement of his beliefs, whether in poetry or in prose, is clear and unequivocal. He was too unsophisticated to indulge in ambiguous subtleties. From Swedenborg's revelations he undoubtedly acquired the impulse to picture man soaring through space and the heavens.

With a similar naiveté and brashness Chivers made no pretense of concealing his unaffected regionalism and provincial background. His very outlandishness stemmed from a frankly nationalistic as well as a Georgian orientation. The reiterative and simple strains of Baptist hymns were to him fitting models for elegies or religious lyrics. As for his nationalism, Chivers may have voiced his sentiments with less polish than continental writers, but pride in one's country to the point of chauvinism was fashionable in the nineteenth century.

The variation in the quality of Chivers' verse is understandable in terms of his own unpredictable and chameleonic temperament. He could write atrocious lines one moment and then compose a moving passage on the death of his children; such personal notes are endearing for their lack of affectation. Although seldom given to crusading in the cause of social reform, he could voice a concern about injustices which showed his profound awareness of the ills of society.

Some poems in the Eonchs of Ruby, while they do provide justifiable grounds for speculation on the extent of Chivers' borrowing from Poe, usually point only to aims and techniques common to both poets. A more profitable subject of inquiry would be the manner in which Chivers and Poe represented a unique trend in American poetry, one apart from the main current. Baudelaire, and later the French Symbolists, found much to admire in Poe. Chivers in Eonchs of Ruby also probed, albeit briefly, into the sound value of words alone with little regard for their literal meaning, a technique to be developed in detail by Mallarme and his school. As conventional as Chivers often was in his choice of thematic material, he still achieved, for a regional poet, unexpected and startling effects of rhyme, meter, and imagery. For this reason the Eonchs of Ruby is of interest to the literary historian.

MEMORALIA

In January of 1853 Chivers decided to publish a revised edition of the Eonchs of Ruby. It was printed by Lippincott in Philadelphia under the title Memoralia; or, Phials of Amber Full of the Tears of Love, A Gift for the Beautiful. Actually only one poem, "The Vigil in Aiden," was omitted. The Memoralia was merely a reissue of the Eonchs to which a long preface and six new poems had been added. The preface contained further reflections on Chivers' Swedenborgian esthetics and was the volume's most valuable addition. Of the six poems "Bochsa" was generally judged the best; here Chivers pictured an individual who could elevate himself to the World of Spirits and enjoyed the pristine insights of Edenic man.

The sales of the Eonchs of Ruby had been decreasing, so Chivers felt a reissue under a different title would attract buyers, who would consider the Memoralia an entirely new volume of poetry. What Chivers did was a fairly common practice at the time, but unhappily the second edition did little to increase the Georgian's profits from his writing.

VIRGINALIA

Virginalia, or Songs of My Summer Nights was printed at Philadelphia in 1853 by Lippincott. Chivers did not use one lengthy poem as the principal selection to which a collection of shorter lyrics was appended. Instead, almost all the poems are under two hundred lines in length. About one-half of them had previously appeared in magazines. A few commentators perceived some merit in Chivers' latest work, but the Georgian was, nonetheless, the recipient of the usual caustic remarks that greeted any new volume he dared to publish.

As was his custom, Chivers expounded in the preface the philosophical and esthetic notions central to Virginalia. Swedenborg's use of the polished diamond to symbolize heavenly truths is adapted to fit Chivers' theory of the preternatural function of poetry as an expression of divine truth.

Diamonds to Swedenborg were the emblems of celestial love; the successive degrees of color and the varieties of refraction in a diamond corresponded to the different phases of good and truth in heaven. The diamond also signified spiritual light for, as Swedenborg explained, the influx of light into a diamond had a correspondential relationship to the supreme degree of spiritual life a soul could receive. The "crystalline revelation of the Divine Idea" is Chivers' reference to the mystical sense attributed to crystal by Böhme and Swedenborg. For the Swedish mystic this transparent substance connoted the shining light of divine truth as well as those believers who dwell in the knowledge which that light provides. To Chivers any revelation of God's will to the poet furnished special insights into supernatural secrets hidden from ordinary mortals and, to verify this point, he discourses on the function of the repetend in mystical terms.

The refrain already appears in the first poem "Chactas; or, the Lament of the Harmonious Voice," which bears the explanatory caption "Founded on Chateaubriand's Atala." In the poem Chivers centers largely on building the suspense to the moment when Chactas is rescued by a strange Indian maid; the French writer inspired much of his work:

The night arrived. The pale Moon seemed to glide,
Weeping through Heaven, like Sorrow by my side—
When, lo'! before me, swaying down the grass,

A Maiden, beautiful as Heaven, did pass,
With noiseless steps, upon the silver sands,—
Then, turning round, untied my fettered hands.

Another poem in the collection, "Ganymede," marks a continuation of the religious preoccupation typical of Chivers. The subject, he claimed, was based on an actual experience. Impelled by a mysterious impulse, he had climbed to the heights of a hill and at the summit he had a vision of George Washington and the future greatness of America. The crowning point of his revery is the realization of the supernatural character of his vision;

For Beauty, with her love divine,
Intoxicates the soul like wine.
Thus, glory-crowned, in robes of light,
He soared up from the World's dark night.
And sitting on the highest Sills,
With Angels, on the Eternal Hills,
Hears Heaven's immortal music roll
Down God's great Ages through his soul.
Te Deum Laudamus!

Less inspired moments are handsomely redeemed by "Apollo," recognized by Bayard Taylor as one of the best poems in Virginalia; Taylor was expecially impressed by the imagery in the third and sixth lines of the following stanza:

Like some deep, impetuous river from the fountains everlasting,
Down the serpentine soft valley of the vistas of all Time,
Over cataracts of adamant uplifted into mountains,
Soared his soul to God in thunder on the wings of thought Sublime,

With the rising golden glory of the sun in ministrations
Making oceans metropolitan of splendor for the dawn—
Piling pyramid on pyramid of music for the nations—
Sings the angel who sits shining everlasting in the sun,
For the stars, which are the echoes of the shining of the sun.

Unlike other poems with only a few good passages, "Apollo" conveys an even, sustained impression. The rough edges have been smoothed and the result is an excellent short poem of three stanzas with polished meter and rhythm. Noticeably absent is the far-fetched imagery in which Chivers was often inclined to indulge.

"Lily Adair," while longer in length, has much the same quality as "Apollo"; in addition, the terminal rhyme scheme, dddd, is utilized adroitly to enhance the musicality of the stanza. Chivers also displays finesse in merely hinting at the general outlines of maidenly comeliness.

Thus she stood on the arabesque borders
Of the beautiful blossoms that blew
On the banks of the crystalline waters,
Every morn, in the diaphane dew.
The flowers, they were radiant with glory,
And shed such perfume on the air,
That my soul now to want them, feels sorry,
And bleeds for my Lily Adair—
For my much-loved Lily Adair—
For my long-lost Lily Adair—
For my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair.

Like "Lily Adair," "Valete Omnia" also enjoys an uninterrupted harmony thanks to the absence of any infelicitous metaphors. Another notable feature is the refrain, which is reminiscent of previous ballad-like verse written by Chivers in which he successfully combines his musical and folkloric insights; the imagery is also quite striking:

The great golden hand on the Adamant Dial
Of the Clock of Eternity pauses in Heaven!
From Death's bony hand I now empty the Phial—
And the Morning is just like the Even!

"The Fall of Usher," which has been criticized for its obvious Poe-isms, was written as a tribute to Chivers' late colleague. Borrowings from Poe were, therefore, both understandable and justifiable. To Chivers' credit, he did not join the current trend to demean the dead writer but paid him just tribute:

"Thou art gone to the grave!" thou art silently sleeping
A sleep which no sorrow shall ever molest;
And, in longing for which, my poor heart now is keeping
This silent lament in its grave in my breast!
Like Shelley for Keats, in its grave in my breast!

Unlike the better poems in this collection, "Rosalie Lee" marks Chivers' lapse into the old habit of wildly choosing metaphors and of displaying almost complete disregard for common sense. What botanist has discovered cucumbers growing on a tree, or, for that matter, how many poets compare that succulent vegetable to a goblet?

Many mellow Cydonian Suckets,
Sweet apples, anthosmial, divine,
From the Ruby-rimmed Beryline buckets,
Star-gemmed, lily-shaped, hyaline—
Like that sweet golden goblet found growing
On the wild emerald Cucumber-tree—

Although referring once more to "Cydonian Suckets," the title "Pas d'Extase" suggests that this poem was gaily dashed off after seeing a company of ballerinas perform. Various Chiversian elements are combined in what begins like a sybaritic ditty and ends in the ecstatic ascent of the poet's soul to heaven. Chivers employs mythological imagery with the zest and vigor of a Georgian farmer who derived lusty enjoyment from his Classical studies. References to revelry and the imbibing of alcoholic spirits remind us of earlier poems. Allusions to the death bed recall the elegies to deceased loved ones. Paradoxically he was a teetotaler and gave temperance lectures:

Like those sweet Cydonian Suckets
Herbe brings in crystal Buckets
To the Gods in Heaven above,
When they drink, forever quaffing
Fiery draughts of living wine—
Sometimes shouting, sometimes laughing
With the heavenly bliss divine.…

By its energy and vitality "Pas d'Extase" provides a striking study of Chivers. Several motifs are once more combined; what seemed a bacchanalian revelry in a provincial Georgian setting is slowly transformed into a mystical anticipation of celestial joys in the afterlife. The immediacy of angelic presences quickens the poet's sensation of climbing a ladder that leads to heaven.

Chivers' ability to picture humble flora and fauna in unusual, original terms is again demonstrated in "Bessie Bell." Few poets would speak of the action of a butterfly's wings as "psychical," but Chivers does so because he has a spiritualist's view of nature. "Bessie Bell" has one of the several references to Israfel that caused Poe's constituents to suspect plagiarism; the meter has been traced to the four-stressed trochaic of Tennyson's "Locksley Hall." While Chivers might have imitated the British poet in using this particular meter, the imagery and subject matter are undeniably his own:

Like the psychical vibration
Of the BUTTERFLY'S soft wings,
Dallying with the rich CARNATION—
Played her fingers with the strings.
Israfelian in its dearness—
All her heart's deep love to tell—
Bell-like, silver in its clearness,
Fell the voice of BESSIE BELL.

The death of Henry Clay prompted Chivers to compose "Morcia Funebre," in which he achieved unique results in evoking the pealing of bells. The very words by their strength and resonance reproduce the alternate strokes of a clapper hitting the sides of a bell. Chivers borrowed from Poe's "The Bells," but, unlike that poem, "Morcia Funebre" is more thunderous and resounding in its effects:

Toll, toll, toll!
Let your great Thor-hammer strike upon the bell,
Crushing from out his iron heart the dole—
To sable all the world with his funeral knell!
For the passing into glory of his soul—
For the Requiem of the soaring into glory of his soul!
Then toll, toll, toll!

At times Chivers put aside his ingrained provincialism to view the world on a wider scale. When surveying the situation in Europe, he could not resist the impulse to proclaim America the leader of freedom and the model to be emulated by enslaved peoples, even though ironically he was a slaveholder. There is a pre-Whitmanic strain in Chivers' vision of the United States' role and his sense of manifest destiny. While only a faint suggestion of Whitman's mighty lines is found in Chivers' "The Rising of the Nations," his poem foreshadows some of the pageantry of Leaves of Grass:

Now louder than the loud tumultuous Ocean
Stormed into passion by the ever-roaring Winds—
Come the loud shouts from all those multitudes in motion,
Chorusing the lightnings of these million mighty minds—
Answering the Bugle-blasts from out the Mountains,
Blown from the lips of ever-living Liberty—
Louder than thunders of ten thousand fountains
Leaping down cataracts of Adamant exultingly
Impatient to become the Children of the Sea!

In Virginalia Chivers' poetic principles are put into practice with fair success. Romanticism, to be sure, is present in subjects carried over from previous works; Chateaubriandesque Indians, patriotic fervor, outbursts of melancholy, and glorification of feminine beauty all remind readers of Chivers' conventional side. To these elements might also be added a continuing interest in folklore, ballads, and nature; this last serves as a link between Chivers' conformity to the prevailing Romantic vogue and a solitary search for a deep theological meaning in the universe. This religious search was tightly bound to a quest for a new poetics, a quest that comes closer to realization in Virginalia than in previous works. Evidence in the poems of Virginalia indicates Swedenborg was still the primary source of inspiration for Chivers that made him seek invigorating imagery in the world about him to express the arcana which, the Swedish mystic maintained, were hidden in nature.

Chivers sets out boldly to accomplish what he considers his mission, the development of poetry as an instrument of sonification, in a physical as well as in an intellectual sense. At times this results in poems that, when read aloud, produce a series of irregularly recurring impulses painful to hear. Quite often, however, Chivers generates a sustained vibrational energy from felicitous word combinations that convey to the reader not just concepts alone but impressions and sensations that bring into play all the reader's faculties; mind, imagination, and intuition are simultaneously stimulated. For these reasons Virginalia is usually judged Chivers' best work.

THE SONS OF USNA

In the preface to The Sons of Usna, dated November 7, 1854, Mount Vernon, New York, Chivers gratefully acknowledges his debt to Theophilus O'Flanagan's Daidra, or the Lamentable Fate of The Sons of Usnach. Chivers had become acquainted with O'Flanagan's work thanks to a footnote to Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies. Through it he was referred to the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Dublin. Probably in about 1845 Chivers took an interest in the Deidre legend and, judging from the date given in the preface, he had the manuscript of The Sons of Usna ready for publication in 1854. By that time Chivers expected little support from editors and was reconciled to paying the printing costs in 1858 to C. Sherman and Son in Philadelphia.

O'Flanagan's observation on the antiquity and purity of Gaelic and his remark that the Irish tongue was "the language of Japhet, spoken before the Deluge, and probably the Language of Paradise" would have instantly impressed Chivers as a reflection of his own views on the pristine nature of ancient languages and poetry. In his effusive panegyric of Gaelic O'Flanagan sounded almost Chiversian:

The beauties and excellence of our language must soon be seen and admired; a language copious, elegant, and harmonious, ancient above all the languages of the world, yielding to none, not even to the Greek, in the beauty and elegance of its cadences, and peculiar aptness for music and poetry; a language, in fine, highly cultivated and admired. at a time when the Gauls alone, of all the nations in Europe, were free from barbarism and ignorance, and stood unrivaled in the cultivation of letters.…

Towards the end of his life Chivers apparently discovered in the rhythm and musicality of Gaelic a primitive poetry of the highest order. The desire to produce a dramatic version in English of the story of Deidre and the sons of Usna is explainable both by Chivers' personal esthetic principles and his continuing interest in the theatre.

In consulting various sources Chivers must have read Thomas Moore's The History of Ireland (1835), where Deidre and the sons of Usnach are mentioned as the leading figures in one of the most famous Celtic epics. Here he would have found a detailed description of the function of the druids which may have inspired him to expand the role of Caffa in his play. In the Irish Melodies, besides calling attention to "the very ancient Irish story" of Deidre as related by O'Flanagan, Moore also composed a poem on the Usnach theme entitled "Avenging and Bright."

A summary of The Sons of Usna is sufficient to illustrate the hodgepodge of divergent ideas and notions in Chivers' play, destined to remain a closet drama. Shakespearean allusions are very much in evidence, since Macbeth especially was one of Chivers's favorite sources for dream symbols and portents of disaster. Conor, at the end of the The Sons of Usna, indulges in several lengthy monologues and is haunted by a series of ghosts that make the apparition of Banquo rather tame by Comparison.

Lavercam, when not occupied with her celestial assignment of watching over Daidra and Caffa, plays a rather roguish nurse similar to her counterpart in Romeo and Juliet. For an angel she is devilishly clever in arousing Naisa's passions by a glowing description of Daidra: "Whose irresistible Art outcharms all / Studied ingenuity of artfulness."

Caffa, the high priest, is an odd product of an unintentional ecumenism on Chivers' part. He speaks the language of the druid, performs incantations, conjures up spirits, and restores the dead to life, all the while propounding a theology that is basically Christian. He waxes Baptist at one point when intoning a hymn: "This is the burden of our song—/ How long? Oh, Lord! how long?"

On the subject of sacred hymns Caffa gives a Chiversian description of the divine music heard in the everyday world: "The Eden-crystalline songs that Nature sings—/Filled every human heart with joy."

Another favorite theme of Chivers is represented by Lavercam, a Swedenborgian-type angel who was once a mortal. Her function, no doubt, is to remind readers of the presence of angels among men to ward off evil influences. Lavercam, whose methods tend at times to be a bit devious, is well chosen to work in this primitive court where King Conor resorts to violence and treachery on the slightest pretext.

Caffa is also a wily rascal who discourses glibly about Christian truths and, like Lavercam, deceives time and again an incredibly gullible Conor, a typical Chiversian character who probably survives until the end of the play because Caffa has his hands full with Lucifer; the latter insists on appearing at most inopportune moments to distract the druid from more serious matters. The archdevil has spotted Caffa as one of God's elect and his fiendish suspicions are confirmed when an angel appears to hand the priest a scroll containing the key to celestial wisdom. Resorting on one occasion to a description of the millenium, when eventually even evil spirits will be restored to divine favor, Lucifer does his best to talk Caffa into giving him the scroll. Blandishments diabolical have no effect whatsoever on the tricky Caffa, who takes delight in teasing Lucifer and testing the devil on various points of theology and biblical history. Determined to seize the scroll, Lucifer makes one last effort in the final act, just before Conor dies, only to be thwarted by a thunderbolt from heaven that sends the ineffectual devil scurrying back to hell.

There are various subplots that slow down the action considerably and give the impression that Chivers' play is little better than a haphazard combination of several totally unrelated scripts. Still there are a few scenes and passages that retain some of the spirit of the original Celtic tale. In one such scene Conor, by a tricky method of interrogation, tries to get one of his followers to participate in the assassination of the Usnas. He puts the same question to Conol Carnach, Cuchullan, and Fergus:

What would you do, should Usna's Sons be slain
Under my guarantee?

The first two refuse to cooperate with Conor but Fergus gives an ambiguous reply, typical of the old Gaelic epics:

Why by my soul.
Although I swear not to attempt thy life,
They all should die together as one man.

Daidra's description of her dream lover also captures a bit of the flavor of the original tale of the Usnas:

The husband I would have, must be a man
Whose hair is like that Raven's wing; his cheeks
As red as blood; his skin as white as snow.

The translation from the Gaelic by O'Flanagan relates how Daidra describes to Lavercam the ideal husband, "his hair of the colour of the raven, his cheek of the colour of the calf s blood, and his skin of the colour of the snow." These are the three colors she has just seen. Here, as elsewhere, Chivers adheres rather closely to the original story.

The same fidelity to the O'Flanagan translation is also found in Conor's description of Daidra's birth and the sparing of her life through his intervention:

… You know she owes her life to me.
When Feidlim's, son of Delas, wife lay in
With her, Caffa, the Druid, prophesied
That she would bring destruction on the land—
Alarm—that Morning Star of heavenly love
Whose rising brings monition to the world.

An excerpt from O'Flanagan's reference to Daidra's birth is of interest for purposes of comparison:

On a certain day that Conor, King of Ulster, went to partake of an entertainment at the mansion … Feilims' [sic] wife lay in of a fair daughter, during the entertainment; and Caffa the Druid, who was then of the company, foreboded and prophesied for the daughter … numerous mischiefs.… Upon hearing this, the nobles proposed putting her to death forthwith. Let it not be done so, said Conor, but I will take her with me, and send her to be reared, that she may become my only own wife. The Druid, Caffa, named her Deidri.…

A footnote by O'Flanagan explains that the Gaelic equivalent of "Deidri" is "Alarm"; the information, which Chivers expands with Shakespearean gusto in the reference to the "Morning Star," serves as a warning to the world. While not an exceptional poetic tour deforce, the passage shows no mean facility on Chivers' part in adapting the prose of O'Flanagan to blank verse. With similar ease Chivers handles the scene, taken directly from the Gaelic accounts, in which Conor has to approach three different noblemen before he gets an ambiguous pledge from the third one, Fergus, to lead the sons of Usna into a trap.

From this point Chivers' play follows the general outline of the old Irish versions. Daidra, who has seen omens of disaster, is unable to keep Naisa from accepting Fergus' offer of safe conduct back to Conor's kingdom. Her husband rejects a second warning from Daidra when he goes to the Red Branch, a castle where he quarters his brothers and their men. They are soon attacked there by Conor's soldiers, but the latter cannot prevail against the onslaught of the Usnas until Caffa's magic conjures up a huge wave engulfing and disarming Naisa and his brothers. Breaking a promise to Caffa to spare the Usnas, Conor has them slain by Manani with a mighty sword offered by Naisa to insure an instant and merciful death for the three Usnas. According to Gaelic tradition Daidra either dies or commits suicide not long afterwards. Chiversian logic, however, would require a happy ending; therefore Caffa must restore the Usnas to life, reunite Naisa and Daidra, and make sure Conor receives his just deserts.

Chivers took some liberties in the use of names. In Macpherson's account Darthula is Naisa's wife and Slissama the mother of the Usnas; Chivers changes their roles respectively to that of the daughter of the king of Scotland and the spirit of Caffa's wife embodied in Lavercam. There are also variations in spelling; names like Caffa, Lavercam, Daidra, and Manani represent Chivers' orthography, which differs from Gaelic equivalents such as Cathbad, Leabharcham, Deidre, and Maini. The Georgian probably felt justified in altering the names in order to make them more poetic. O'Flanagan's narrative is fragmentary and uneven, and Dr. Jeoffrey Keating's The General History of Ireland, which Chivers also undoubtedly used, gives only the bare outline of the Usna tragedy. Chivers became convinced substantial changes were in order if the tale was to be successfully adapted to the stage. In some respects he could defend his alterations on the basis of vague hints in the original versions concerning the sympathies and inclinations of certain characters. Since Caffa and Lavercam indicate they tend to favor the Usnas and Daidra, Chivers places them squarely in the camp opposed to Conor. Other changes are more drastic. Eogan Mor, the slayer of the brothers in the Keating version of the legend, becomes the king of Scotland's henchman in The Sons of Usna. Fergus' role does not differ greatly from the one he plays in the O'Flanagan translation, although his support of the Usnas after Conor's betrayal seems half-hearted.

Certain elements Chivers added to the plot make it burdensome. The last minute decision of the king of Scotland and the queen of Connaught to join forces with the resurrected Usnas against Conor resembles an episode from the Arabian Nights. The combination of Baptist moralizing and Swedenborgian metaphysics that Chivers adds to the dramatic ingredients produces a confusing mixture which at times borders on the ludicrous.

One exception may be seen in the scenes that involve Caffa and Lucifer. Here the inspiration most likely comes from Byron's Cain rather than Marlowe's Dr. Faustus or Philip J. Bailey's Festus. None of Marlowe's rhetoric is even faintly suggested in The Sons of Usna when Lucifer appears. Bailey, chief of what W.E. Aytoun called the "spasmodic" school of poets, wrote a long contemporary interpretation of Faust in which both Festus and Lucifer emerge as rather wishy-washy characters. Some of Bailey's Victorian moralizing may have rubbed off on Chivers, but in general Festus would appear only a remote source of inspiration.

Chivers' Lucifer and Caffa engage in a theological dispute in which the druid finally gets the upper hand. The devil is unable to disarm Caffa with beguiling chatter about heaven. Instead he is a ready foil for Caffa similar to a straight man in a standard comedy routine. In Byron's Cain such banter is absent, but, unlike the lackadaisical pair in Festus, Adam's son and Lucifer are equally aggressive individuals. Cain takes nothing for granted and often derides the devil.

The witty exchanges between Caffa and Lucifer that brighten The Sons of Usna recall Byron's irony rather than Bailey's maudlin sermonizing or Marlowe's lofty oratory. Another source also must not be ruled out, the popular belief in the devil among poor Southern whites and blacks. Chivers had capitalized on this theme in "The Death of the Devil," published in the Georgia Citizen in 1852. There were also popular ditties in which a sharp operator frequently outfoxed old Satan himself.

Of great concern to Chivers are Swedenborgian themes he feels obliged to interpose at one point or another. The bantering between Caffa and Lucifer takes on a sober tone when the subject of angels and their presence among men is brought up in relation to the need for spiritual regeneration. Naisa, in the midst of embracing Daidra, makes passing reference to a cardinal point in Swedenborg's teachings, the influx of God's life into man's soul.

Some understanding of the author's objective in The Sons of Usna may be acquired from a manuscript in the Duke University Library Collection, "Introduction to a Drama," dated August 12, 1856, Villa Allegra, Georgia. Chivers reasons that the "Protoplay" composed by God with Adam and Eve the featured players, had tragic and comic elements. And while Christ's crucifixion was tragedy in its most sublime sense, like the story of Eden the drama of the cross gave "pleasing sensations." This to Chivers seemed perfectly logical, for if a tragedy was to arouse terror or pity, it had to be tempered by a message of reconciliation or "enthusiastic hope." Shakespeare's tragedies had this principle of "enthusiastic hope" through the "New Dispensation," namely, the gospel of Christ.

In seeking to provide a theological basis for his dramatic theory Chivers was at heart a Romantic when it came to enunciating what he deemed the fundamental esthetics of dramaturgy. "Gothic Dramatic is not logic of grammar, but of Passion." The underlying motivation of human conduct was to be found in the emotions of man; this principle furnished the true test of dramatic excellence, borne out by Shakespeare's works. Thus Chivers rejects implicitly the Aristotelian concept that a tragedy arises from a major flaw in the character of the central figure in a play. True tragedy, he goes on to explain, is "the result of a combination of virtues and perfections" and has "a higher source than mere murder." Returning to the prototypes of comedy and tragedy in the Bible, Chivers again cites respectively, as an example of each genre, the "Protoplay of Eden" and the crucifixion. Since "a tragedy proper does not consist in abstract suffering," it follows that tragedy and comedy, in the absolute sense, must both have "vis poetica" or "passion." The best of Shakespeare, Chivers emphasized, was inferior to the drama of Eden and the Cross. The one in Eden took place when the world was "young and full of beauty" and the Crucifixion occurred in a world already "old and full of ugliness."

In attempting to unite his theological and esthetic views, Shakespeare found sublime inspiration in the Eden of his own soul, which often resulted in what Chivers considered a true play, that is, one that would be like heavenly music to the audience. From Chivers' remarks it is clear that the ideal tragedy would end not in death but instead with the promise of eternal life. When referring to events in Eden as a comedy, Chivers must have had in mind a comic situation so lifelike that it had in it the makings of tragedy.

The Georgian was realistic, however, about the practical difficulties of staging a play. He recognized in another manuscript, probably intended as a preface to Charles Stuart, two kinds of plays, the poetic, customarily assigned to the closet, and the usual prose drama that was a commercial hit. Undaunted, nonetheless, Chivers refused to concede that a play written in verse was necessarily marked for failure. If Romeo and Juliet could succeed, Chivers saw no reason why the poetry of his play Charles Stuart would fail to charm an audience with its "fortuitousness."

If the foregoing principles represent Chivers' concept of the theatre, what is their relation to The Sons of Usna? While not set in Edenic times, the author chose a relatively primitive period of Irish history, when passions were more spontaneous and "fortuitous." The death and subsequent restoration to life of the Usnas seem intended to recall Christ's crucifixion and resurrection and Caffa's being raised to Heaven by a band of angels obviously reminds readers of Jesus' ascension. By the same token Caffa's frequent debates with Lucifer, from which the priest emerges victorious, may have been Chivers' way of underscoring the comic aspects of man's constant bouts with the devil despite the seriousness of the ever-present threat of eternal damnation. As for "enthusiastic hope" and the existence of a celestial message, these are provided by Lavercam, whose very presence as an angel symbolizes the promise of salvation. The play does not end in "mere murder," since Caffa summons the Usnas back to life and Conor dies of a guilty conscience. Chivers' expectations that The Sons of Usna might prove successful on the stage may have come from his belief that its source, a primitive epic, possessed the germs of pure poetry unspoiled by a modern society that had lost its appreciation of fresh and untained beauty. Unhappily the play did not live up to Chivers' rather lofty ambitions. Today The Sons of Usna is of importance largely as a document of literary history. As in most of the Georgian's works there are delightful and charming passages, and he was successful at times in capturing some of the original flavor of the Irish tale. Still the Swedenborgian speculations of Caffa and Lavercam slow down the play's action and deprive it of a certain degree of verisimilitude. Many scenes serve only as padding; one frightful example is the incident, borrowed from Count Julian, in which Naisa kisses the sleeping Darthula by mistake, much to Daidra's distress. Eogan Mor's lust for Darthula and other needless trivia also show that Chivers had much to learn about dramatic technique.

In the final analysis The Sons of Usna is Chivers' best poetic drama, but it still lacks the power and realism of Conrad and Eudora, as deficient as the bloodcurdling melodrama is in many respects. The historical significance of The Sons of Usna is that it is the first modern literary work based on the Deidre legend.