Joyous Gard

Joyous Gard by A.C. Benson (1913)

Joyous Gard takes its title from Sir Lancelot's castle in the Morte D'Arthur, won by his own hands, from which he rode out to rescue the oppressed, and which was renamed Dolorous Gard after his sin, only to recover its old name when his body was brought there after death and the Bishop dreamed of angels attending him. Benson explains that he uses the name as a figure for a stronghold of the mind that each person can win for themselves, a place of beauty and rest that must not become a refuge for idle or selfish seclusion, but must always be ready to send its occupant out again into the work and claims of the world. From this parable Benson moves into a wide-ranging meditation on poetry, beauty, and the good life. He discusses definitions of poetry offered by Mr. Mackail and Coleridge, and argues that poetry is essentially the discernment of beauty and the emotion it arouses, whether found in nature, love, music, art, or noble conduct. He recalls his own years of writing verse, quotes Keats's Letters and Shelley's Defence of Poetry on inspiration, and discusses Rossetti's House of Life, Tennyson, Wordsworth, and Browning on the difficulty of sustaining poetic power into age. He considers the relation of art to morality, citing Plato, Aristotle, and Shakespeare, and argues that true teaching, like that of Arnold or Jowett, works by making ideas seem beautiful rather than by direct instruction. Benson then criticizes contemporary English education for cultivating dry erudition rather than imaginative sympathy, recalling his own schooldays, an anecdote about Professor Ker's book on mediaeval English, and remarks by Dr. Johnson and the poet Clough on the value of knowledge. He reflects on national character, contrasting American curiosity with English incuriosity, and describes a meeting with Queen Victoria as an example of true, unaffected simplicity and "kingship." He urges readers to build their own Joyous Gard deliberately, as a fortress of delight rather than of mere self-improvement, warning against Puritan suspicion of joy and against the vanity of shrinking from experience. A long section addresses the discipline of memory: Benson describes visiting Lincoln, where his father was Canon and Chancellor from 1872 to 1877, and recovering childhood memories of the Chancery garden and household without pain or longing to relive them, concluding that experience's value lies in what it teaches, not in the recaptured happiness itself. He discusses grief, citing Mrs. Charles Kingsley's remark on her widowhood, and argues against morbid dwelling on sorrow. Benson considers humour as a mark of Joyous Gard, illustrated by an anecdote of two quarrelling tramps and one of a well-dressed man falling into a stream, and warns against priggishness, formidableness (illustrated by Bishop Henry Phillpotts of Exeter), and the desire to "exercise influence" over others, citing Carlyle's troubled marriage as an example of well-meaning but destructive zeal. He insists on tolerance for other people's forms of joy and belief, recounting a critical letter from a reader objecting to his book The Child of the Dawn, and warns against imposing one's own tastes as moral law, as he says Ruskin tended to do. He turns to metaphysical questions, criticizing a "mechanistic" theory of the universe he had been reading, quoting William James on the validity of feelings of unseen reality, and arguing that thought and love are as real as matter. He describes a bicycle ride into the countryside and a contrasting session revising dull examination papers, using both to argue for simplifying life and resisting needless complication. He quotes a poem by Mr. Alfred Noyes addressed to the memory of Robert Browning and disputes its pessimism, then reflects on a visit to the Academy exhibition and its sculpture gallery, and considers social obligation, arguing that shared joy rather than guilty self-denial is the right response to the suffering of others. The book closes with an extended discussion of Christianity as an "atmosphere and a life" rather than a doctrine or institution, contrasting it with Nietzsche's theory of the superman, and holding up a portrait of Christ as one who loved flowers, birds, and children and who would have put ordinary people entirely at ease. Benson describes renunciation as a positive, discriminating affirmation of life's worth rather than mere abstinence, and reflects on the trained perception of beauty in familiar landscapes such as Cambridge and Sussex, on the "great still books," and on the need to await beauty everywhere rather than confine it to approved forms. The text breaks off during a closing discussion of Robert Browning as an interpreter of personality, mid-sentence, before the work's conclusion.

By A.C. Benson · First published 1913 · Genre: Non-fiction, Essays, Philosophy · 27 chapters · 51,684 words

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The Castle of _Joyous Gard_ in the _Morte D'Arthur_ was Sir Lancelot's own castle, that he had won with his own hands. It was full of victual, and all manner of mirth and disport. It was hither that the wounded knight rode as fast as his horse might run, to tell Sir Lancelot of the misuse and capture of Sir Palamedes; and hence Lancelot often issued forth, to rescue those that were oppressed, and to do knightly deeds.

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beautiful · beauty · cannot · could · essays · even · find · great · life · like · little · love

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