Casabianca and the Glorification of Circumstance

As exemplified by the the title given to this era of literature, one of the chief uses of poetry and prose is to romanticize situations. The scenario in Casabianca is already very dramatic, so past an elegant description, it seems like Hemans’ work is already mostly done for her. But there are definitely still assumptions to be made, characters to devise, intentions to project and virtues to attach.

Lines like “Beautiful and bright he stood/ As born to rule the storm” associate the child with powers and a presence that in reality may have been replaced by a simple, wide-eyed fear. Of course, Hemans makes it clear that the boy is in fact terrified, and wants to leave. “‘Speak, Father!’ once again he cried,/ ‘If I may yet be gone!’” is just one of his frightened requests. Yet, in spite of this very reasonable fear, and his ignorance of his father’s incapacity, she makes a presumption of the boy’s strength and fortitude, as though he is in complete control of his decision- he is “proud,” a “creature of heroic blood”. The storm, in fact, has all the power here, and the child’s eagerness to leave, while understandable, is an unusual qualification to encounter in an encomium of this kind, and is a reminder of a reality that the poem otherwise gentrifies.

Poets aren’t alone in this trend of honoring victims of circumstance with conjectural commendation. Historical figures who are regarded as heroes are frequently tied (almost automatically) to righteousness and courage if they have taken part in any kind of significant peril. The boy’s presence on the ship during an event beyond his control has made him a hero - that and his instinctual disinclination to leave his father, who he thought to still be capable of hearing him. On the evidence of having seen the child floating on a plank with his father in the aftermath, we are (as the poem would seem to have it) to ignore the possibility that given the clear choice between death and an unconscious father, the boy may well have jumped, had the opportunity not disappeared before he knew it.

The last line “But the noblest thing which perished there/ Was that young faithful heart” seems particularly unfair, given that the others aboard the vessel may well have waited on comrades and happened to make it off in time. This kind of romanticism seems almost disingenuous to any people who had been tied to the event, which at the time was still relatively recent. But in the long-term, the populace seems to have taken it in stride, as the poem is well-remembered and, it seems, well-loved. People (myself included) are reluctant to begrudge a child the possibility that he made an unambiguous choice of death over abandonment of his father. This kind of second-guessing in strong tributes can make for some resentful people in some cases, namely those who knew the gritty truths about the celebrated figure in question.

But in this instance, the nameless boy is the vessel through which a grand story is told, not a politician with as may detractors as admirers. And in the world of Hemans’ poem, if not in reality, the child is noble, and doughty. This poem is representative of that function of literary artists to reinvent and reinterpret events on a scale of their own imaginings. A powerful enough piece of this nature can come to define the real event in the minds of many of the readers- especially those without a contextual introduction on the preceding page. And that’s why it’s a potentially dangerous use of romantic narrative. But here, I think it’s applied very nicely. The image is so dramatic, and evocatively depicted, that art is made from what is ultimately unlucky circumstance, and not an uncommon one at that.