Madoc (poem)
Encyclopedia
Madoc is an 1805 epic poem composed by Robert Southey
. It is based on the legend of Madoc
, a supposed Welsh
prince who fled internecine conflict and sailed to America
in the 12th century. The origins of the poem can be traced to Southey's school boy days where he completed a prose version of Madoc's story. By the time Southey was in his twenties, he began to devote himself to working on the poem in hopes that he could sell it to raise money in order to fulfill his ambitions to start a new life in America, where he hoped to found Utopian commune or "Pantisocracy
". Southey finally completed the poem as a whole in 1799, at the age of 25. However, he began to devote his efforts into extensively editing the work, and Madoc was not ready for publication until 1805. It was finally published in two volumes by the London publisher Longman with extensive footnotes.
The first half of the poem, Madoc in Wales, describes Madoc, a young Welsh nobleman, whose family breaks down into a series of bloody disputes over royal succession. Madoc, unwilling to participate in the struggle, decides to journey to America in order to start a new life. When he reaches America, he is witness to the bloody human sacrifices that the Aztec
nation demands of the surrounding tribes in Aztlan
. Madoc, believing it is a defiance against God, leads the Hoamen, a local tribe, into warfare against the Aztecs. Eventually, Madoc conquers them and he is able to convert the Americans to Christianity before returning to Wales to find more recruits for his colony. In the second part, Madoc in Aztlan, Madoc returns to find that the Aztecs have returned to their human sacrifices. After long and bloody warfare, Madoc is able to defeat the Aztecs and force them out of their homeland and into exile.
The poem contains Southey's bias against superstition, whether Catholic, Protestant, or pagan. He believed that the work itself was more historical than epic, and it contained many of Southey's political views. Critics gave the work mixed reviews, with many saying that there were beautiful scenes, but many feeling that the language fell short of being adequate for the subject matter. One review went so far to mock Southey's reliance on Welsh and Aztec names.
as a boy. In particular, the subject was suggested by a school friend that claimed to be a descendant of Madoc's brother, Rhodri, and Southey began to write a prose version of the story in 1789. In 1794, the 20 year old Southey was attempting to publish works in order to raise money to support himself and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
in an expedition to America in order to establish a Pantisocracy
, a democratic form of government that the two invented. One of the poems he sought to publish was Madoc, which was an epic that he started working on while at school but he never finished. Southey and Coleridge were able to complete the poem Joan of Arc by summer 1795 while Southey worked on Madoc. However, in his notebook he claimed on 22 February 1797. "This morning I began the study of law, this evening I began Madoc." During 1797, Southey had given up his ideas of Pantisocracy and was studying to become a lawyer. He the rest of his time working on other publications, such as a translating part of Jacques Necker's On the French Revolution. Southey continued to work on Madoc through 1798, and started his mornings by working on the poem.
It was not until Summer 1799 that Southey was able to finish composing Madoc, and soon after began to work on Thalaba. Afterwards, he travelled to Portugal where he continued to work on Madoc for two more years in order to polish up the language. After Portugal went to war with France and Spain, Southey returned to England. While there, he travelled to Wales in order to get more information for his epic. He continued to travel in 1801, and worked on the epic during this time. In May 1804, Southey took the beginning of the poem to the publisher Longman, and he began to finish the second section in October. It was finished and published in two parts during Spring 1805 with footnotes and a preface explaining Southey's purpose. The work cost a lot of money to publish, which prompted Southey to write, "By its high price, one half the edition is condemned to be furniture in expensive libraries, and the other to collect cobwebs in the publisher's warehouses. I foresee that I shall get no solid pudding by it".
, the works of Homer
, and James Macpherson
's Ossian
poems. The story deals with Madoc, a legendary Welsh prince who supposedly colonised the Americas
in the 12th century. The book is divided into two parts, which represent a reversed division between the Iliad
and the Odyssey
. The work focuses on colonisation, but starts in Wales during King Henry II
's reign of England. This section is loosely based on the historical events following the death of Owain Gwynedd
, supposedly Madoc's father, in the late 12th century. The work begins as "Owen Gwynned" is crowned king of North Wales
after removing his nephew Cynetha from power. After Gwynned dies, one of his sons, David
, takes the throne after killing or exiling his siblings. The youngest sibling, Madoc, leaves Britain in order to settle in a new land. He joins with Cadwallon, the son of Cynetha, and other Welshmen to start their journey. After discovering America, they return to recruit people to help form a new colony. Madoc stays long enough to witness fighting between his living siblings and determines that he must leave immediately.
The story follows Madoc's journey as they travel West again, contending with problems such as storms and dissent among the crew. Eventually, they reach America and are received by the natives. Madoc takes on one of the natives, Lincoya, as his guide when they begin to explore the area of the Mississippi River
. As they continue to travel, they soon come to Aztlan
, the original homeland of the Aztec
nation, and Madoc discovers that the Aztecs require human sacrifices for their gods. Madoc decides to interfere with tribal affairs and stop two children from being taken by the Aztecs to be sacrificed. Following this, he encourages a peaceful tribe, the Hoamen, to take up arms against the Aztecs. In order to further protect the Hoamen, Madoc goes to the Aztec capital in order to deal with their king. While there, he is shown by the king how great the Aztecs are and how no one could stand against them. Madoc witnesses among the buildings and monuments piles of skulls and corpses along with other horrific scenes.
Unwilling to allow the Aztecs to continue their practices, Madoc instigates war between the Aztecs and the much smaller Hoamen nation. While the Aztecs bring a large army, Madoc is able to use Welsh technology and superior tactics to overcome them. The Hoamen are able to take many prisoners while the Aztec king contracts a mortal illness. Following the battle Madoc shocks the Aztecs by releasing the prisoners instead of sacrificing them, and provides leeches to help the Aztec king recover from his disease. This leads to a treaty between the Aztecs and the Hoamen which abolishes human sacrifice. The Aztec priests fear to stop the practice, so the Aztec king decides that his people will abandon their religion and take up a monotheistic religion based on a God of love.
The rest of the story involves Madoc returning to Wales to recruit more settlers for his colony. During this time, he meets with Owen Cyveilioc
, a poet who tells Madoc to discuss the matter with the Congress of Bards. During the meeting, a young bard prophesies that Madoc would be like Merlin
in America and that he is trying to recreate an Arthurian
greatness. Afterward, he meets with Llewelyn
, an individual trying to reclaim his title as Prince of Wales. Madoc tries and fails to convince him to come to America. Madoc returns to his original home, and there he stops an attempt to remove the body of Gwynned from a grave on holy ground. Instead, Madoc offers to take the corpse back with him to America where it could be buried without any worry. The rest of Madoc's time back in Wales is spent trying to get his brother David, the king, to free another brother, Rodri
, whom he has imprisoned. However, Rodri escapes after his release was promised. As Madoc sets out to return to the colony, they are met by Rodri's boat. Rodri informs Madoc that he is working with Llewelyn to overthrow David and restore the rightful king. Although Madoc is upset by the potential warfare, he leaves with the promise by Llewlyn that Britain will be fine.
The Aztec high priest, Tezozomoc, tells the people that they will not have the favour of their gods unless they kill the foreigners. Two warriors volunteer to capture a child in order to please their gods, and they return with Madoc and the child Hoel. Madoc is forced to fight other condemned men, until Madoc's Welsh allies attack the city, allowing a woman, Coatel, to free Madoc and Hoel. At the same time the Aztec warrior Amalahta attacks Caermadoc, but is defeated by the Welsh women. When Madoc returns, he joins the Welsh and Hoamen forces, and the battle continues until Madoc kills the Aztec king, Coanocotzin.
The battle is followed by the Welshmen destroying the pagan temples while the Aztecs gather to appoint a new king. Games and events are established and follow after the battle. During the various events, a temple becomes covered in flames and idols to the pagan gods appear once again. This is followed by the Aztecs telling the Welsh to leave before attacking them. A battle takes place in the water surrounding the Aztec city on boats, and the superior Welsh ships are able to win. The Aztecs, unwilling to stop, turn to superstitious rituals and priests travel to a sacred mountain to make sacrifices. However, a sudden lava eruption kills the priests. This causes the Aztecs to believe that they do not have the support of their gods and they cease their fighting. Admitting defeat, the Aztecs leave the area and head south for Mexico
.
In terms of politics, Southey believed that war with the post-revolution France was inappropriate when he first started composing Madoc. By the time the poem was finished, Southey was an advocate for a war against Napoleon's government. Instead of supporting his own government in return, he was opposed to the government of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger
. The poem is also heavily grounded in Southey's ideas on Pantisocracy, and it includes an earlier version of his democratic ideal within a mythic form. The connection between Wales and America within the poem alludes to Southey's own plans to travel from Wales to settle in America to start a new societal system.
The endings of the two poems are the same but have opposite results: they both have a sunset and an exodus from the country, but the first deals with Wales and the second with the Aztec lands. The first is messianic and heralds a return of Wales's greatness, and the second deals with a new country being created.
's Paradise Lost
, another felt that it was unreadable. In letter written by William Wordsworth
on 3 June 1805, he claimed that he was "highly pleased with it; it abounds in beautiful pictures and descriptions happily introduced, and there is an animation diffused through the whole story though it cannot perhaps be said that any of the characters interest you much, except perhaps young Llewllyn whose situation is highly interesting, and he appears to me the best conceived and sustained character in the piece [...] The Poem fails in the highest gifts of the poet's mind Imagination in the true sense of the word, and knowledge of human Nature and human heart. There is nothing that shows the hand of the great Master". He followed this with a letter in 29 July 1805 saying "Southey's mind does not seem strong enough to draw the picture of a Hero. The character of Madoc is often very insipid and contemptible [...] In short, according to my notion, the character is throughout languidly conceived". Dorothy Wordsworth
, William's sister, wrote on 11 June 1805 to claim that "We have read Madoc with great delight [...] I had one painful feeling throughout, that I did not care as much about Madoc as the Author wished me to do, and that the characters in general are not sufficiently distinct to make them have a separate after-existence in my affection."
A review by John Ferriar
in the October 1805 Monthly Review argued, "It has fallen to the lot of this writer to puzzle our critical discernment more than once [...] He has no contrived to manufacture a large quarto, which he has styled a poem, but of what description it is no easy matter to decide [...] The poem of Madoc is not didactic, nor elegiac, nor classical, in any respect [...] Respecting the manners, Mr. Southey appears to have been more successful than in his choice of the story. He has adhered to history where he could discover any facts adapted to his purpose; and when history failed him, he has had resource to probability." Ferriar continued with an attack on the Welsh names that appear within the poem: "we own that the nomenclature of his heroes has shocked what Mr. S. would call our prejudices. Georvyl and Rird and Rodri and Llaian may have charms for Cambrian ears, but who can feel an interest in Tezozomoc, Tlalala, or Ocelopan [...] how could we swallow Yuhidthiton, Coanocotzin, and, above all, the yawnings jaw-dislocating Ayayaca?—These torturing words, particularly the latter, remind us so strongly of the odious cacophony of the Nurse and Child, that they really are not to be tolerated."
An anonymous review in the Imperial Review in November 1805 stated, "something should be said of the language. This undoubtedly is not its chief excellence. The style, in many places, is trailing, flat, and uninteresting,—deficient both in strength and animation. The author seldoms avails himself of any artificial ornaments [...] Though we feel ourselves compelled to make these observations, it is hardly necessary to add, that upon the whole we think very highly of this performance." The review continues by comparing Madoc to Paradise Lost: "were the style adorned by a little artificial colouring, and enriched with all the allowable decorations of poetry, Madoc would hardly yield to Paradise Lost. As it stands, it is certainly the second heroic production in the English language. Its leading characteristics are not fire and sublimity, but tenderness and humanity. Milton astonishes the head—Southey touches the heard. The first we may admire—the last we can love."
Jack Simmons, in his 1945 biography, believed that the poem was "the longest, the least successful, the most tedious" of Southey's poems. In 1972, Ernest Bernhardt-Kabisch argued "Southey would perhaps have done well to have ended the poem here [at the end of part one]. In its larger framework of Welsh history, the American adventure and its clash of culture is interesting and is comparable in purpose and proportion, if not in power and dramatic nuance, to Odysses' exotic flashback narrative at the court of Phaeacia. The Welsh narrative [...] appeals to a variety of Romantic interests p...[ the quality of the writing is almost uniformly high, and there are memorable and moving passages of description and rhetoric, as well as suggestive images". He continued, "Southey's epic thereby becomes, in fact, the crowning effort of eighteenth-century English literature to deal poetically with the American Indian."
In 1990 Northern Irish
poet Paul Muldoon
published his long poem Madoc: a Mystery, inspired by Southey's work and the events surrounding it. Muldoon's work takes as its premise the idea that Southey and Coleridge actually came to America to found their ideal state, and offers a multi-layered poetic exploration of what might have happened. It won the 1992 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize
.
Robert Southey
Robert Southey was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the so-called "Lake Poets", and Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 to his death in 1843...
. It is based on the legend of Madoc
Madoc
Madoc or Madog ab Owain Gwynedd was, according to folklore, a Welsh prince who sailed to America in 1170, over three hundred years before Christopher Columbus's voyage in 1492. According to the story, he was a son of Owain Gwynedd who took to the sea to flee internecine violence at home...
, a supposed Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
prince who fled internecine conflict and sailed to America
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
in the 12th century. The origins of the poem can be traced to Southey's school boy days where he completed a prose version of Madoc's story. By the time Southey was in his twenties, he began to devote himself to working on the poem in hopes that he could sell it to raise money in order to fulfill his ambitions to start a new life in America, where he hoped to found Utopian commune or "Pantisocracy
Pantisocracy
Pantisocracy was a utopian scheme devised in 1794 by the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey for an egalitarian community...
". Southey finally completed the poem as a whole in 1799, at the age of 25. However, he began to devote his efforts into extensively editing the work, and Madoc was not ready for publication until 1805. It was finally published in two volumes by the London publisher Longman with extensive footnotes.
The first half of the poem, Madoc in Wales, describes Madoc, a young Welsh nobleman, whose family breaks down into a series of bloody disputes over royal succession. Madoc, unwilling to participate in the struggle, decides to journey to America in order to start a new life. When he reaches America, he is witness to the bloody human sacrifices that the Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
nation demands of the surrounding tribes in Aztlan
Aztlán
Aztlán is the mythical ancestral home of the Nahua peoples, one of the main cultural groups in Mesoamerica. And, by extension, is the mythical homeland of the Uto-Aztecan peoples. Aztec is the Nahuatl word for "people from Aztlan".-Legend:...
. Madoc, believing it is a defiance against God, leads the Hoamen, a local tribe, into warfare against the Aztecs. Eventually, Madoc conquers them and he is able to convert the Americans to Christianity before returning to Wales to find more recruits for his colony. In the second part, Madoc in Aztlan, Madoc returns to find that the Aztecs have returned to their human sacrifices. After long and bloody warfare, Madoc is able to defeat the Aztecs and force them out of their homeland and into exile.
The poem contains Southey's bias against superstition, whether Catholic, Protestant, or pagan. He believed that the work itself was more historical than epic, and it contained many of Southey's political views. Critics gave the work mixed reviews, with many saying that there were beautiful scenes, but many feeling that the language fell short of being adequate for the subject matter. One review went so far to mock Southey's reliance on Welsh and Aztec names.
Background
The basis for Southey wishing to write an epic poem came from his private reading of literature while attending Westminster SchoolWestminster School
The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...
as a boy. In particular, the subject was suggested by a school friend that claimed to be a descendant of Madoc's brother, Rhodri, and Southey began to write a prose version of the story in 1789. In 1794, the 20 year old Southey was attempting to publish works in order to raise money to support himself and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
in an expedition to America in order to establish a Pantisocracy
Pantisocracy
Pantisocracy was a utopian scheme devised in 1794 by the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey for an egalitarian community...
, a democratic form of government that the two invented. One of the poems he sought to publish was Madoc, which was an epic that he started working on while at school but he never finished. Southey and Coleridge were able to complete the poem Joan of Arc by summer 1795 while Southey worked on Madoc. However, in his notebook he claimed on 22 February 1797. "This morning I began the study of law, this evening I began Madoc." During 1797, Southey had given up his ideas of Pantisocracy and was studying to become a lawyer. He the rest of his time working on other publications, such as a translating part of Jacques Necker's On the French Revolution. Southey continued to work on Madoc through 1798, and started his mornings by working on the poem.
It was not until Summer 1799 that Southey was able to finish composing Madoc, and soon after began to work on Thalaba. Afterwards, he travelled to Portugal where he continued to work on Madoc for two more years in order to polish up the language. After Portugal went to war with France and Spain, Southey returned to England. While there, he travelled to Wales in order to get more information for his epic. He continued to travel in 1801, and worked on the epic during this time. In May 1804, Southey took the beginning of the poem to the publisher Longman, and he began to finish the second section in October. It was finished and published in two parts during Spring 1805 with footnotes and a preface explaining Southey's purpose. The work cost a lot of money to publish, which prompted Southey to write, "By its high price, one half the edition is condemned to be furniture in expensive libraries, and the other to collect cobwebs in the publisher's warehouses. I foresee that I shall get no solid pudding by it".
Part one: Madoc in Wales
Southey intended Madoc to be a combination of the BibleBible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, the works of Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
, and James Macpherson
James Macpherson
James Macpherson was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector and politician, known as the "translator" of the Ossian cycle of poems.-Early life:...
's Ossian
Ossian
Ossian is the narrator and supposed author of a cycle of poems which the Scottish poet James Macpherson claimed to have translated from ancient sources in the Scots Gaelic. He is based on Oisín, son of Finn or Fionn mac Cumhaill, anglicised to Finn McCool, a character from Irish mythology...
poems. The story deals with Madoc, a legendary Welsh prince who supposedly colonised the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
in the 12th century. The book is divided into two parts, which represent a reversed division between the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
and the Odyssey
Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
. The work focuses on colonisation, but starts in Wales during King Henry II
Henry II of England
Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...
's reign of England. This section is loosely based on the historical events following the death of Owain Gwynedd
Owain Gwynedd
Owain Gwynedd ap Gruffydd , in English also known as Owen the Great, was King of Gwynedd from 1137 until his death in 1170. He is occasionally referred to as "Owain I of Gwynedd"; and as "Owain I of Wales" on account of his claim to be King of Wales. He is considered to be the most successful of...
, supposedly Madoc's father, in the late 12th century. The work begins as "Owen Gwynned" is crowned king of North Wales
Kingdom of Gwynedd
Gwynedd was one petty kingdom of several Welsh successor states which emerged in 5th-century post-Roman Britain in the Early Middle Ages, and later evolved into a principality during the High Middle Ages. It was based on the former Brythonic tribal lands of the Ordovices, Gangani, and the...
after removing his nephew Cynetha from power. After Gwynned dies, one of his sons, David
Dafydd ab Owain Gwynedd
Dafydd ab Owain Gwynedd was Prince of Gwynedd from 1170 to 1195. For a time he ruled jointly with his brothers Maelgwn ab Owain Gwynedd and Rhodri ab Owain Gwynedd....
, takes the throne after killing or exiling his siblings. The youngest sibling, Madoc, leaves Britain in order to settle in a new land. He joins with Cadwallon, the son of Cynetha, and other Welshmen to start their journey. After discovering America, they return to recruit people to help form a new colony. Madoc stays long enough to witness fighting between his living siblings and determines that he must leave immediately.
The story follows Madoc's journey as they travel West again, contending with problems such as storms and dissent among the crew. Eventually, they reach America and are received by the natives. Madoc takes on one of the natives, Lincoya, as his guide when they begin to explore the area of the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
. As they continue to travel, they soon come to Aztlan
Aztlán
Aztlán is the mythical ancestral home of the Nahua peoples, one of the main cultural groups in Mesoamerica. And, by extension, is the mythical homeland of the Uto-Aztecan peoples. Aztec is the Nahuatl word for "people from Aztlan".-Legend:...
, the original homeland of the Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
nation, and Madoc discovers that the Aztecs require human sacrifices for their gods. Madoc decides to interfere with tribal affairs and stop two children from being taken by the Aztecs to be sacrificed. Following this, he encourages a peaceful tribe, the Hoamen, to take up arms against the Aztecs. In order to further protect the Hoamen, Madoc goes to the Aztec capital in order to deal with their king. While there, he is shown by the king how great the Aztecs are and how no one could stand against them. Madoc witnesses among the buildings and monuments piles of skulls and corpses along with other horrific scenes.
Unwilling to allow the Aztecs to continue their practices, Madoc instigates war between the Aztecs and the much smaller Hoamen nation. While the Aztecs bring a large army, Madoc is able to use Welsh technology and superior tactics to overcome them. The Hoamen are able to take many prisoners while the Aztec king contracts a mortal illness. Following the battle Madoc shocks the Aztecs by releasing the prisoners instead of sacrificing them, and provides leeches to help the Aztec king recover from his disease. This leads to a treaty between the Aztecs and the Hoamen which abolishes human sacrifice. The Aztec priests fear to stop the practice, so the Aztec king decides that his people will abandon their religion and take up a monotheistic religion based on a God of love.
The rest of the story involves Madoc returning to Wales to recruit more settlers for his colony. During this time, he meets with Owen Cyveilioc
Owain Cyfeiliog
Owain ap Gruffydd was a prince of the southern part of Powys and a poet. He is usually known as Owain Cyfeiliog to distinguish him from other rulers named Owain, particularly his contemporary, Owain ap Gruffydd of Gwynedd, who is known as Owain Gwynedd.Owain was the son of Gruffydd ap Maredudd and...
, a poet who tells Madoc to discuss the matter with the Congress of Bards. During the meeting, a young bard prophesies that Madoc would be like Merlin
Merlin
Merlin is a legendary figure best known as the wizard featured in the Arthurian legend. The standard depiction of the character first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written c. 1136, and is based on an amalgamation of previous historical and legendary figures...
in America and that he is trying to recreate an Arthurian
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
greatness. Afterward, he meets with Llewelyn
Llywelyn the Great
Llywelyn the Great , full name Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, was a Prince of Gwynedd in north Wales and eventually de facto ruler over most of Wales...
, an individual trying to reclaim his title as Prince of Wales. Madoc tries and fails to convince him to come to America. Madoc returns to his original home, and there he stops an attempt to remove the body of Gwynned from a grave on holy ground. Instead, Madoc offers to take the corpse back with him to America where it could be buried without any worry. The rest of Madoc's time back in Wales is spent trying to get his brother David, the king, to free another brother, Rodri
Rhodri ab Owain Gwynedd
Rhodri ab Owain Gwynedd was prince of part of Gwynedd, one of the kingdoms of medieval Wales. He ruled from 1175 to 1195.On the death of Owain Gwynedd in 1170, fighting broke out among his nineteen sons over the division of his kingdom...
, whom he has imprisoned. However, Rodri escapes after his release was promised. As Madoc sets out to return to the colony, they are met by Rodri's boat. Rodri informs Madoc that he is working with Llewelyn to overthrow David and restore the rightful king. Although Madoc is upset by the potential warfare, he leaves with the promise by Llewlyn that Britain will be fine.
Part two: Madoc in Aztlan
The second part of the poem parallels the Iliad and follows the events in America after the first part. Madoc returns to America from Wales and finds that Caermadoc, the colony, is doing well. However, there are struggles with his people and the Aztecs because the Aztecs have turned back to their pagan gods. As such, the peace between the two groups ends while a shaman of the Hoamen people starts to convince the people to also worship pagan gods. The Hoamen begin to sacrifice children for their god by feeding them to a large snake. Madoc, angry, accuses a priest leading the sacrifices of being a traitor before killing both the priest and the snake. This feat brings the Hoaman back to Christianity.The Aztec high priest, Tezozomoc, tells the people that they will not have the favour of their gods unless they kill the foreigners. Two warriors volunteer to capture a child in order to please their gods, and they return with Madoc and the child Hoel. Madoc is forced to fight other condemned men, until Madoc's Welsh allies attack the city, allowing a woman, Coatel, to free Madoc and Hoel. At the same time the Aztec warrior Amalahta attacks Caermadoc, but is defeated by the Welsh women. When Madoc returns, he joins the Welsh and Hoamen forces, and the battle continues until Madoc kills the Aztec king, Coanocotzin.
The battle is followed by the Welshmen destroying the pagan temples while the Aztecs gather to appoint a new king. Games and events are established and follow after the battle. During the various events, a temple becomes covered in flames and idols to the pagan gods appear once again. This is followed by the Aztecs telling the Welsh to leave before attacking them. A battle takes place in the water surrounding the Aztec city on boats, and the superior Welsh ships are able to win. The Aztecs, unwilling to stop, turn to superstitious rituals and priests travel to a sacred mountain to make sacrifices. However, a sudden lava eruption kills the priests. This causes the Aztecs to believe that they do not have the support of their gods and they cease their fighting. Admitting defeat, the Aztecs leave the area and head south for Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
.
Themes
During his time in Portugal Southey cultivated a strong anti-Catholic bias, and saw Catholic rituals as superstitious and pagan-like. However, he did not limit his feelings to only Catholics, and he believed that Methodists and Calvinists were also superstitious and a political threat. He distrusted religious enthusiasm and any alteration of the mind away from reason. Southey wrote that Madoc, in following these beliefs, was about a "gentle tribe of savages delivered from priestcraft." With such a intent, Southey also believed that he was dealing closely with history and scholarship. The footnotes within Madoc reinforce such an intent. He did not call it an epic like some of his other works. Instead, he argued that there was evidence that the story had a historical basis. The story, according to Southey, was that Madoc came from Britain to America in order to replace paganism with Christianity.In terms of politics, Southey believed that war with the post-revolution France was inappropriate when he first started composing Madoc. By the time the poem was finished, Southey was an advocate for a war against Napoleon's government. Instead of supporting his own government in return, he was opposed to the government of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
. The poem is also heavily grounded in Southey's ideas on Pantisocracy, and it includes an earlier version of his democratic ideal within a mythic form. The connection between Wales and America within the poem alludes to Southey's own plans to travel from Wales to settle in America to start a new societal system.
The endings of the two poems are the same but have opposite results: they both have a sunset and an exodus from the country, but the first deals with Wales and the second with the Aztec lands. The first is messianic and heralds a return of Wales's greatness, and the second deals with a new country being created.
Reception
Southey intended Madoc to rival the works of Homer, and Coleridge believed that the poem would be better than the Aeneid. However, Madoc received mixed reviews from critics; while one critic believed it was comparable to John MiltonJohn Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
's Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
, another felt that it was unreadable. In letter written by William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
on 3 June 1805, he claimed that he was "highly pleased with it; it abounds in beautiful pictures and descriptions happily introduced, and there is an animation diffused through the whole story though it cannot perhaps be said that any of the characters interest you much, except perhaps young Llewllyn whose situation is highly interesting, and he appears to me the best conceived and sustained character in the piece [...] The Poem fails in the highest gifts of the poet's mind Imagination in the true sense of the word, and knowledge of human Nature and human heart. There is nothing that shows the hand of the great Master". He followed this with a letter in 29 July 1805 saying "Southey's mind does not seem strong enough to draw the picture of a Hero. The character of Madoc is often very insipid and contemptible [...] In short, according to my notion, the character is throughout languidly conceived". Dorothy Wordsworth
Dorothy Wordsworth
Dorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth was an English author, poet and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close for all of their lives...
, William's sister, wrote on 11 June 1805 to claim that "We have read Madoc with great delight [...] I had one painful feeling throughout, that I did not care as much about Madoc as the Author wished me to do, and that the characters in general are not sufficiently distinct to make them have a separate after-existence in my affection."
A review by John Ferriar
John Ferriar
John Ferriar , was a Scottish physician and a poet, most noted for his leadership of the Manchester Infirmary, and his studies of the causes of diseases such as typhoid. M.D...
in the October 1805 Monthly Review argued, "It has fallen to the lot of this writer to puzzle our critical discernment more than once [...] He has no contrived to manufacture a large quarto, which he has styled a poem, but of what description it is no easy matter to decide [...] The poem of Madoc is not didactic, nor elegiac, nor classical, in any respect [...] Respecting the manners, Mr. Southey appears to have been more successful than in his choice of the story. He has adhered to history where he could discover any facts adapted to his purpose; and when history failed him, he has had resource to probability." Ferriar continued with an attack on the Welsh names that appear within the poem: "we own that the nomenclature of his heroes has shocked what Mr. S. would call our prejudices. Georvyl and Rird and Rodri and Llaian may have charms for Cambrian ears, but who can feel an interest in Tezozomoc, Tlalala, or Ocelopan [...] how could we swallow Yuhidthiton, Coanocotzin, and, above all, the yawnings jaw-dislocating Ayayaca?—These torturing words, particularly the latter, remind us so strongly of the odious cacophony of the Nurse and Child, that they really are not to be tolerated."
An anonymous review in the Imperial Review in November 1805 stated, "something should be said of the language. This undoubtedly is not its chief excellence. The style, in many places, is trailing, flat, and uninteresting,—deficient both in strength and animation. The author seldoms avails himself of any artificial ornaments [...] Though we feel ourselves compelled to make these observations, it is hardly necessary to add, that upon the whole we think very highly of this performance." The review continues by comparing Madoc to Paradise Lost: "were the style adorned by a little artificial colouring, and enriched with all the allowable decorations of poetry, Madoc would hardly yield to Paradise Lost. As it stands, it is certainly the second heroic production in the English language. Its leading characteristics are not fire and sublimity, but tenderness and humanity. Milton astonishes the head—Southey touches the heard. The first we may admire—the last we can love."
Jack Simmons, in his 1945 biography, believed that the poem was "the longest, the least successful, the most tedious" of Southey's poems. In 1972, Ernest Bernhardt-Kabisch argued "Southey would perhaps have done well to have ended the poem here [at the end of part one]. In its larger framework of Welsh history, the American adventure and its clash of culture is interesting and is comparable in purpose and proportion, if not in power and dramatic nuance, to Odysses' exotic flashback narrative at the court of Phaeacia. The Welsh narrative [...] appeals to a variety of Romantic interests p...[ the quality of the writing is almost uniformly high, and there are memorable and moving passages of description and rhetoric, as well as suggestive images". He continued, "Southey's epic thereby becomes, in fact, the crowning effort of eighteenth-century English literature to deal poetically with the American Indian."
In 1990 Northern Irish
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
poet Paul Muldoon
Paul Muldoon
Paul Muldoon is an Irish poet. He has published over thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. He held the post of Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1999 - 2004. At Princeton University he is both the Howard G. B. Clark ’21 Professor in the Humanities and...
published his long poem Madoc: a Mystery, inspired by Southey's work and the events surrounding it. Muldoon's work takes as its premise the idea that Southey and Coleridge actually came to America to found their ideal state, and offers a multi-layered poetic exploration of what might have happened. It won the 1992 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize
Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize
The Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize is a British literary prize established in 1963 in tribute to Geoffrey Faber, founder and first Chairman publisher Faber & Faber...
.
External links
- Madoc Volume I in Google books
- Madoc Volume II in Google books