ROMANTIC ELEMENTS IN ITALIAN CRITICISM
IN the Italian critical literature of the sixteenth century there are to
be found the germs of romantic as well as classical criticism. The
development of romanticism in Renaissance criticism is due to various
tendencies, of ancient, of mediaeval, and of modern origin. The ancient
element is Platonism; the mediaeval elements are Christianity, and the
influence of the literary forms and the literary subject-matter of the
Middle Ages; and the modern elements are the growth of national life and
national literatures, and the opposition of modern philosophy to
Aristotelianism.
I. _The Ancient Romantic Element_
As the element of reason is the predominant feature of neo-classicism,
so the element of imagination is the predominant feature of romanticism;
and according as the reason or the imagination predominates in
Renaissance literature, there results neo-classicism or romanticism,
while the most perfect art finds a reconciliation of both elements in
the imaginative reason. According to the faculty of reason, when made
the basis of literature, the poet is, as it were, held down to earth,
and art becomes the mere reasoned expression of the truth of life. By
the faculty of imagination, the poet is made to create a new world of
his own,--a world in which his genius is free to mould whatever its
imagination takes hold of. This romantic doctrine of the freedom of
genius, of inspiration and the power of imagination, in so far as it
forms a part of Renaissance criticism, owes its origin to Platonism. The
influence of the Platonic doctrines among the humanists has already been
alluded to. Plato was regarded by them as their leader in the struggle
against mediaevalism, scholasticism, and Aristotelianism. The
Aristotelian dialectic of the Middle Ages appealed exclusively to the
reason; Platonism gave opportunities for the imagination to soar to
vague and sublime heights, and harmonize with the divine mysteries of
the universe. As regards poetry and imaginative literature in general,
the critics of the Renaissance appealed from the Plato of the _Republic_
and the _Laws_ to the Plato of the _Ion_, the _Phaedrus_, and the
_Symposium_. Beauty being the subject-matter of art, Plato's praise of
beauty was transferred by the Renaissance to poetry, and his praise of
the philosopher was transferred to the poet.
The Aristotelian doctrine defines beauty according to its relations to
the external world; that is, poetry is an imitation of nature, expressed
in general terms. The Platonic doctrine, on the contrary, is concerned
with poetry, or beauty, in so far as it concerns the poet's own nature;
that is, the poet is divinely inspired and is a creator like God.
Fracastoro, as has been seen, makes the Platonic rapture, the delight in
the true and essential beauty of things, the true tests of poetic power.
In introducing this Platonic ideal of poetic beauty into modern literary
criticism, he defines and distinguishes poetry according to a subjective
criterion; and it is according to whether the objective or the
subjective conception of art is insisted upon, that we have the classic
spirit or the romantic spirit. The extreme romanticists, like the
Schlegels and their contemporaries in Germany, entirely eliminate the
relation of poetry to the external world, and in this extreme form
romanticism becomes identified with the exaggerated subjective idealism
of Fichte and Schelling. The extreme classicists entirely eliminate the
poet's personality; that is, poetry is merely reasoned expression, a
perfected expression of what all men can see in nature, for the poet has
no more insight into life--no more imagination--than any ordinary,
judicious person.
The effects of this Platonic element upon Renaissance criticism were
various. In the first place, it was through the Platonic influence that
the relation of beauty to poetry was first made prominent.[298]
According to Scaliger, Tasso, Sidney, another world of beauty is created
by the poet,--a world that possesses beauty in its perfection as this
world never can. The reason alone leaves no place for beauty; and
accordingly, for the neo-classicists, art was ultimately restricted to
moral and psychological observation. Moreover, Platonism raised the
question of the freedom of genius and of the imagination. Of all men,
only the poet, as Sidney and others pointed out, is bound down and
restricted by no laws. But if poetry is a matter of inspiration, how can
it be called an art? If genius alone suffices, what need is there of
study and artifice? For the extreme romanticists of this period, genius
alone was accounted sufficient to produce the greatest works of poetry;
for the extreme classicists, studious and labored art unaided by genius
fulfilled all the functions of poetic creation; but most of the critics
of the sixteenth century seem to have agreed with Horace that genius, or
an inborn aptitude, is necessary to begin with, but that it needs art
and study to regulate and perfect it. Genius cannot suffice without
restraint and cultivation.
Scaliger, curiously, reconciles both classic and romantic elements. The
poet, according to Scaliger, is inspired, is in fact a creator like God;
but poetry is an imitation (that is, re-creation) of nature, according
to certain fixed rules obtained from the observation of the anterior
expression of nature in great art. It is these rules that make poetry an
art; and these rules form a distinct neo-classic element imposed on the
Aristotelian doctrine.
II. _Mediaeval Elements_
The Middle Ages contributed to the poetic ideal of the Renaissance two
elements: romantic themes and the Christian spirit. The forms and
subjects of mediaeval literature are distinctly romantic. Dante's _Divine
Comedy_ is an allegorical vision; it is almost unique in form, and has
no classical prototype.[299] The tendency of Petrarchism was also in the
direction of romanticism. Its "conceits" and its subjectivity led to an
unclassical extravagance of thought and expression; and the
Petrarchistic influence made lyric poetry, and accordingly the criticism
of lyric poetry, more romantic than any other form of literature or
literary criticism during the period of classicism. It was for this
reason that there was little lyricism in the classical period, not only
in France, but wherever the classic temper predominated. The themes of
the _romanzi_ are also mediaeval and romantic; but while they are
mediaeval contributions to literature,[300] they became contributions to
literary criticism only after the growth of national life and the
development of the feeling of nationality, both distinctly modern.
Some reference has already been made to the paganization of culture by
the humanists. But with the growth of that revival of Christian
sentiment which led to the Reformation, there were numerous attempts to
reconcile Christianity with pagan culture.[301] Such men as Ficino and
Pico della Mirandola attempted to harmonize Christianity and Platonic
philosophy; and under the great patron of letters, Pope Leo X., there
were various attempts to harmonize Christianity with the classic spirit
in literature. In such poems as Vida's _Christiad_ and Sannazaro's _De
Partu Virginis_, Christianity is covered with the drapery of paganism or
classicism.
The first reaction against this paganization of culture was, as has been
seen, effected by Savonarola. This reaction was reenforced, in the next
century, by the influence and authority of the Council of Trent; and
after the middle of the sixteenth century the Christian ideal plays a
prominent part in literary criticism. The spirit of both Giraldi Cintio
and Minturno is distinctly Christian. For Giraldi the _romanzi_ are
Christian, and hence superior to the classical epics. He allows the
introduction of pagan deities only into epics dealing with the ancient
classical subjects; but Tasso goes further, and says that no modern
heroic poet should have anything to do with them. According to Tasso,
the heroes of an heroic poem must be Christian knights, and the poem
itself must deal with a true, not a false, religion. The subject is not
to be connected with any article of Christian faith or dogma, because
that was fixed by the Council of Trent; but paganism in any form is
altogether unfit for a modern epic. Tasso even goes so far as to assert
that piety shall be numbered among the virtues of the knightly heroes of
epic poetry. At the same time also, Lorenzo Gambara wrote his work, _De
Perfecta Poeseos Ratione_, to prove that it is essential for every poet
to exclude from his poems, not only everything that is wicked or
obscene, but also everything that is fabulous or that deals with pagan
divinities.[302] It was to this religious reaction that we owe the
Christian poetry of Tasso, Du Bartas, and Spenser. But humanism was
strong, and rationalism was rife; and the religious revival was hardly
more than temporary. Neo-classicism throughout Europe was essentially
pagan.
III. _Modern Elements_
The literature of the Middle Ages constitutes, as it were, one vast body
of European literature; only with the Renaissance did distinctly
national literatures spring into existence. Nationalism as well as
individualism was subsequent to the Renaissance; and it was at this
period that the growth of a national literature, of national life,--in a
word, patriotism in its widest sense,--was first effected.
The linguistic discussions and controversies of the sixteenth century
prepared the way for a higher appreciation of national languages and
literatures. These controversies on the comparative merits of the
classical and vernacular tongues had begun in the time of Dante, and
were continued in the sixteenth century by Bembo, Castiglione, Varchi,
Muzio, Tolomei, and many others; and in 1564 Salviati summed up the
Italian side of the question in an oration in which he asserted that
the Tuscan, or, as he called it, the Florentine language and the
Florentine literature are vastly superior to any other language or
literature, whether ancient or modern. However extravagant this claim
may appear, the mere fact that Salviati made such a claim at all is
enough to give him a place worthy of serious consideration in the
history of Italian literature. The other side of the controversy finds
its extremest expression in a treatise of Celio Calcagnini addressed to
Giraldi Cintio, in which the hope is expressed that the Italian
language, and all the literature composed in that language, would be
absolutely abandoned by the world.[303]
In Giraldi Cintio we find the first traces of purely national criticism.
His purpose, in writing the discourse on the _romanzi_, was primarily to
defend Ariosto, whom he had known personally in his youth. The point of
view from which he starts is that the _romanzi_ constitute a new form of
poetry of which Aristotle did not know, and to which, therefore,
Aristotle's rules do not apply. Giraldi regarded the romantic poems of
Ariosto and Boiardo both as national and as Christian works; and Italian
literature is thus for the first time critically distinguished from
classical literature in regard to language, religion, and nationality.
In Giraldi's discourse there is no apparent desire either to underrate
or to disregard the _Poetics_ of Aristotle; the fact was simply that
Aristotle had not known the poems which deal with many actions of many
men, and hence it would be absurd to demand that such poems should
conform to his rules. The _romanzi_ deal with phases of poetry, and
phases of life, which Aristotle could not be expected to understand.
A similar feeling of the distinct nationality of Italian literature is
to be found in many of the prefaces of the Italian comedies of this
period. Il Lasca, in the preface of the _Strega_ (_c._ 1555), says that
"Aristotle and Horace knew their own times, but ours are not the same at
all. We have other manners, another religion, and another mode of life;
and it is therefore necessary to make comedies after a different
fashion." As early as 1534, Aretino, in the prologue of his
_Cortegiana_, warned his audience "not to be astonished if the comic
style is not observed in the manner required, for we live after a
different fashion in modern Rome than they did in ancient Athens."
Similarly, Gelli, in the dedication of the _Sporta_ (1543), justifies
the use of language not to be found in the great sources of Italian
speech, on the ground that "language, together with all other natural
things, continually varies and changes."[304]
Although there is in Giraldi Cintio no fundamental opposition to
Aristotle, it is in his discourse on the _romanzi_ that there may be
found the first attempt to wrest a province of art from Aristotle's
supreme authority. Neither Salviati, who had rated the Italian language
above all others, nor Calcagnini, who had regarded it as the meanest of
all, had understood the discussion of the importance of the Tuscan
tongue to be concerned with the question of Aristotle's literary
supremacy. It was simply a national question--a question as to the
national limits of Aristotle's authority, just as was the case in the
several controversies connected with Tasso, Dante, and Guarini's _Pastor
Fido_.[305] Castelvetro, in his commentary on the _Poetics_, differs
from Aristotle on many occasions, and does not hesitate even to refute
him. Yet his reverence for Aristotle is great; his sense of Aristotle's
supreme authority is strong; and on one occasion, where Horace,
Quintilian, and Cicero seem to differ from Aristotle, Castelvetro does
not hesitate to assert that they could not have seen the passage of the
_Poetics_ in question, and that, in fact, they did not thoroughly
understand the true constitution of a poet.[306]
The opposition to Aristotelianism among the humanists has already been
alluded to. This opposition increased more and more with the development
of modern philosophy. In 1536 Ramus had attacked Aristotle's authority
at Paris. A few years later, in 1543, Ortensio Landi, who had been at
the Court of France for some time, published his _Paradossi_, in which
it is contended that the works which pass under the name of Aristotle
are not really Aristotle's at all, and that Aristotle himself was not
only an ignoramus, but also the most villanous man of his age. "We have,
of our own accord," he says, "placed our necks under the yoke, putting
that vile beast of an Aristotle on a throne, and depending on his
conclusions as if he were an oracle."[307] It is the philosophical
authority of Aristotle that Landi is attacking. His attitude is not that
of a humanist, for Cicero and Boccaccio do not receive more respectful
treatment at his hands than Aristotle does. Landi, despite his mere
eccentricities, represents the growth of modern free thought and the
antagonism of modern philosophy to Aristotelianism.
The literary opposition and the philosophical opposition to
Aristotelianism may be said to meet in Francesco Patrizzi, and, in a
less degree, in Giordano Bruno. Patrizzi's bitter Antiperipateticism is
to be seen in his _Nova de Universis Philosophia_ (1591), in which the
doctrines of Aristotle are shown to be false, inconsistent, and even
opposed to the doctrines of the Catholic Church. His literary antagonism
to Aristotle is shown in his remarkable work, _Della Poetica_, published
at Ferrara in 1586. This work is divided into two parts,--the first
historical, _La Deca Istoriale_, and the second controversial, _La Deca
Disputata_. In the historical section he attempts to derive the norm of
the different poetic forms, not from one or two great works as Aristotle
had done, but from the whole history of literature. It is thus the first
work in modern times to attempt the philosophical study of literary
history, and to trace out the evolution of literary forms. The second or
controversial section is directed against the _Poetics_ of Aristotle,
and in part also against the critical doctrines of Torquato Tasso. In
this portion of his work Patrizzi sets out to demonstrate--_per istoria,
e per ragioni, e per autorita de' grandi antichi_--that the accepted
critical opinions of his time were without foundation; and the _Poetics_
of Aristotle himself he exhibits as obscure, inconsistent, and entirely
unworthy of credence.
Similar antagonism to the critical doctrines of Aristotle is to be found
in passages scattered here and there throughout the works of Giordano
Bruno. In the first dialogue of the _Eroici Furori_, published at London
in 1585, while Bruno was visiting England, he expresses his contempt for
the mere pedants who judge poets by the rules of Aristotle's _Poetics_.
His contention is that there are as many sorts of poets as there are
human sentiments and ideas, and that poets, so far from being
subservient to rules, are themselves really the authors of all critical
dogma. Those who attack the great poets whose works do not accord with
the rules of Aristotle are called by Bruno stupid pedants and beasts.
The gist of his argument may be gathered from the following passage:--
"TANS. Thou dost well conclude that poetry is not born in
rules, or only slightly and accidentally so; the rules are
derived from the poetry, and there are as many kinds and sorts
of true rules as there are kinds and sorts of true poets.
CIC. How then are the true poets to be known?
TANS. By the singing of their verses; in that singing they give
delight, or they edify, or they edify and delight together.
CIC. To whom then are the rules of Aristotle useful?
TANS. To him who, unlike Homer, Hesiod, Orpheus, and others,
could not sing without the rules of Aristotle, and who, having
no Muse of his own, would coquette with that of Homer."[308]
A similar antagonism to Aristotle and a similar literary individualism
are to be found in a much later work by Benedetto Fioretti, who under
the pseudonym of Udeno Nisieli published the five volumes of his
_Proginnasmi Poetici_ between 1620 and 1639.[309] Just before the close
of the sixteenth century, however, the _Poetics_ had obtained an ardent
defender against such attacks in the person of Francesco Buonamici, in
his _Discorsi Poetici_; and three years later, in 1600, Faustino Summo
published a similar defence of Aristotle. The attacks on Aristotle's
literary dictatorship were of little avail; it was hardly necessary even
to defend him. For two centuries to come he was to reign supreme on the
continent of Europe; and in Italy this supremacy was hardly disturbed
until the days of Goldoni and Metastasio.
FOOT-NOTES:
[298] De Sanctis, ii. 193 _sq._
[299] _Cf._ Bosanquet, _Hist. of AEsthetic_, p. 152 _sq._
[300] _Cf._ Foffano, p. 151 _sq._
[301] Symonds, ii. 470.
[302] Baillet, iii. 70.
[303] Tiraboschi, vii. 1559.
[304] Several similar extracts from Italian comic prologues may be found
in Symonds, v. 533 _sq._
[305] Foffano, p. 154 _sq._
[306] _Poetica_, p. 32.
[307] _Paradossi_, Venetia, 1545, ii. 29.
[308] _Opere_, ii. 315 (Williams's translation).
[309] _Cf._ the diverse opinions of Tiraboschi, viii. 516, and Hallam,
_Lit. of Europe_, pt. iii. ch. 7.
PART SECOND
_LITERARY CRITICISM IN FRANCE_
LITERARY CRITICISM IN FRANCE
CHAPTER I
THE CHARACTER AND DEVELOPMENT OF FRENCH CRITICISM IN THE SIXTEENTH
CENTURY
LITERARY criticism in France, while beginning somewhat later than in
Italy, preceded the birth of criticism in England and in Spain by a
number of years. Critical activity in nearly all the countries of
western Europe seems to have been ushered in by the translation of
Horace's _Ars Poetica_ into the vernacular tongues. Critical activity in
Italy began with Dolce's Italian version of the _Ars Poetica_ in 1535;
in France, with the French version of Pelletier in 1545; in England,
with the English version of Drant in 1567; and in Spain, with the
Spanish versions of Espinel and Zapata in 1591 and 1592, respectively.
Two centuries of literary discussion had prepared the way for criticism
in Italy; and lacking this period of preparation, French criticism
during the sixteenth century was necessarily of a much more practical
character than that of Italy during the same age. The critical works of
France, and of England also, were on the whole designed for those whose
immediate intention it was to write verse themselves. The disinterested
and philosophic treatment of aesthetic problems, wholly aside from all
practical considerations, characterized much of the critical activity of
the Italian Renaissance, but did not become general in France until the
next century. For this reason, in the French and English sections of
this essay, it will be necessary to deal with various rhetorical and
metrical questions which in the Italian section could be largely
disregarded. In these matters, as in the more general questions of
criticism, it will be seen that sixteenth-century Italy furnished the
source of all the accepted critical doctrines of western Europe. The
comparative number of critical works in Italy and in France is also
noteworthy. While those of the Italian Renaissance may be counted by the
score, the literature of France during the sixteenth century, exclusive
of a few purely rhetorical treatises, hardly offers more than a single
dozen. It is evident, therefore, that the treatment of French criticism
must be more limited in extent than that of Italian criticism, and
somewhat different in character.
The literature of the sixteenth century in France is divided into two
almost equal parts by Du Bellay's _Defense et Illustration de la Langue
francaise_, published in 1549. In no other country of Europe is the
transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance so clearly marked as
it is in France by this single book. With the invasion of Italy by the
army of Charles VIII. in 1494, the influence of Italian art, of Italian
learning, of Italian poetry, had received its first impetus in France.
But over half a century was to elapse before the effects of this
influence upon the creative literature of France was universally and
powerfully felt. During this period the activity of Budaeus, Erasmus,
Dolet, and numerous other French and foreign humanists strengthened the
cause and widened the influence of the New Learning. But it is only with
the birth of the Pleiade that modern French literature may be said to
have begun. In 1549 Du Bellay's _Defense_, the manifesto of the new
school, appeared. Ronsard's _Odes_ were published in the next year; and
in 1552 Jodelle inaugurated French tragedy with his _Cleopatre_, and
first, as Ronsard said,
"Francoisement chanta la grecque tragedie."
The _Defense_ therefore marks a distinct epoch in the critical as well
as the creative literature of France. The critical works that preceded
it, if they may be called critical in any real sense, did not attempt to
do more than formulate the conventional notions of rhetorical and
metrical structure common to the French poets of the later Middle Ages.
The Pleiade itself, as will be more clearly understood later, was also
chiefly concerned with linguistic and rhetorical reforms; and as late as
1580 Montaigne could say that there were more poets in France than
judges and interpreters of poetry.[310] The creative reforms of the
Pleiade lay largely in the direction of the formation of a poetic
language, the introduction of new _genres_, the creation of new
rhythms, and the imitation of classical literature. But with the
imitation of classical literature there came the renewal of the ancient
subjects of inspiration; and from this there proceeded a high and
dignified conception of the poet's office. Indeed, many of the more
general critical ideas of the Pleiade spring from the desire to justify
the function of poetry, and to magnify its importance. The new school
and its epigones dominate the second half of the sixteenth century; and
as the first half of the century was practically unproductive of
critical literature, a history of French Renaissance criticism is hardly
more than an account of the poetic theories of the Pleiade.
The series of rhetorical and metrical treatises that precede Du Bellay's
_Defense_ begins with _L'Art de dictier et de fere chancons, balades,
virelais et rondeaulx_, written by the poet Eustache Deschamps in 1392,
over half a century after the similar work of Antonio da Tempo in
Italy.[311] Toward the close of the fifteenth century a work of the same
nature, the _Fleur de Rhetorique_, by an author who refers to himself as
L'Infortune, seems to have had some influence on later treatises. Three
works of this sort fall within the first half of the sixteenth century:
the _Grand et vrai Art de pleine Rhetorique_ of Pierre Fabri, published
at Rouen in 1521; the _Rhetorique metrifiee_ of Gracien du Pont,
published at Paris in 1539; and the _Art Poetique_ of Thomas Sibilet,
published at Paris in 1548. The second part of Fabri's _Rhetorique_
deals with questions of versification--of rhyme, rhythm, and the complex
metrical form of such poets as Cretin, Meschinot, and Molinet, in whom
Pasquier found _prou de rime et equivoque, mais peu de raison_. As the
_Rhetorique_ of Fabri is little more than an amplification of the
similar work of L'Infortune, so the work of Gracien du Pont is little
more than a reproduction of Fabri's. Gracien du Pont is still chiefly
intent on _rime equivoquee_, _rime entrelacee_, _rime retrograde_, _rime
concatenee_, and the various other mediaeval complexities of
versification. Sibilet's _Art Poetique_ is more interesting than any of
its predecessors. It was published a year before the _Defense_ of Du
Bellay, and discusses many of the new _genres_ which the latter
advocates. Sibilet treats of the sonnet, which had recently been
borrowed from the Italians by Mellin de Saint-Gelais, the ode, which had
just been employed by Pelletier, and the epigram, as practised by Marot.
The eclogue is described as "Greek by invention, Latin by usurpation,
and French by imitation." But one of the most interesting passages in
Sibilet's book is that in which the French morality is compared with the
classical drama. This passage exhibits perhaps the earliest trace of the
influence of Italian ideas on French criticism; it will be discussed
later in connection with the dramatic theories of this period.
It is about the middle of the sixteenth century, then, that the
influence of Italian criticism is first visible. The literature of Italy
was read with avidity in France. Many educated young Frenchmen
travelled in Italy, and several Italian men of letters visited France.
Girolamo Muzio travelled in France in 1524, and again in 1530 with
Giulio Camillo.[312] Aretino mentions the fact that a Vincenzo Maggi was
at the Court of France in 1548, but it has been doubted whether this was
the author of the commentary on the _Poetics_.[313] In 1549, after the
completion of the two last parts of his _Poetica_, dedicated to the
Bishop of Arras, Trissino made a tour about France.[314] Nor must we
forget the number of Italian scholars called to Paris by Francis I.[315]
The literary relations between the two countries do not concern us here;
but it is no insignificant fact that the great literary reforms of the
Pleiade should take place between 1548 and 1550, the very time when
critical activity first received its great impetus in Italy. This
Italian influence is just becoming apparent in Sibilet, for whom the
poets between Jean le Maire de Belges and Clement Marot are the chief
models, but who is not wholly averse to the moderate innovations derived
by France from classical antiquity and the Italian Renaissance.
M. Brunetiere, in a very suggestive chapter of his History of French
Criticism, regards the _Defense_ of Du Bellay, the _Poetics_ of
Scaliger, and the _Art Poetique_ of Vauquelin de la Fresnaye as the most
important critical works in France during the sixteenth century.[316]
It may indeed be said that Du Bellay's _Defense_ (1549) is not in any
true sense a work of literary criticism at all; that Scaliger's
_Poetics_ (1561) is the work, not of a French critic, but of an Italian
humanist; and that Vauquelin's _Art Poetique_ (not published until
1605), so far as any influence it may have had is concerned, does not
belong to the sixteenth century, and can hardly be called important. At
the same time these three works are interesting documents in the
literary history of France, and represent three distinct stages in the
development of French criticism in the sixteenth century. Du Bellay's
work marks the beginning of the introduction of classical ideals into
French literature; Scaliger's work, while written by an Italian and in
Latin, was composed and published in France, and marks the introduction
of the Aristotelian canons into French criticism; and Vauquelin's work
indicates the sum of critical ideas which France had gathered and
accepted in the sixteenth century.
With Du Bellay's _Defense et Illustration de la Langue francaise_ (1549)
modern literature and modern criticism in France may be said to begin.
The _Defense_ is a monument of the influence of Italian upon French
literary and linguistic criticism. The purpose of the book, as its title
implies, is to defend the French language, and to indicate the means by
which it can approach more closely to dignity and perfection. The
fundamental contention of Du Bellay is, first, that the French language
is capable of attaining perfection; and, secondly, that it can only hope
to do so by imitating Greek and Latin. This thesis is propounded and
proved in the first book of the _Defense_; and the second book is
devoted to answering the question: By what specific means is this
perfection, based on the imitation of the perfection of Greek and Latin,
to be attained by the French tongue? Du Bellay contends that as the
diversity of language among the different nations is ascribable entirely
to the caprice of men, the perfection of any tongue is due exclusively
to the diligence and artifice of those who use it. It is the duty,
therefore, of every one to set about consciously to improve his native
speech. The Latin tongue was not always as perfect as it was in the days
of Virgil and Cicero; and if these writers had regarded language as
incapable of being polished and enriched, or if they had imagined that
their language could only be perfected by the imitation of their own
national predecessors, Latin would never have arrived at a higher state
of perfection than that of Ennius and Crassus. But as Virgil and Cicero
perfected Latin by imitating Greek, so the French tongue can only be
made beautiful by imitating Greek, Latin, and Italian, all of which have
attained a certain share of perfection.[317]
At the same time, two things must be guarded against. The French tongue
cannot be improved by merely translating the classic and Italian
tongues. Translation has its value in popularizing ideas; but by mere
translation no language or literature can hope to attain perfection. Nor
is a mere bald imitation sufficient; but, in Du Bellay's oft-cited
phrase, the beauties of these foreign tongues "must be converted into
blood and nourishment."[318] The classics have "blood, nerves, and
bones," while the older French writers have merely "skin and
color."[319] The modern French writer should therefore dismiss with
contempt the older poets of France, and set about to imitate the Greeks,
Latins, and Italians. He should leave off composing rondeaux, ballades,
virelays, and such _epiceries_, which corrupt the taste of the French
language, and serve only to show its ignorance and poverty; and in their
stead he should employ the epigram, which mingles, in Horace's words,
the profitable with the pleasant, the tearful elegy, in imitation of
Ovid and Tibullus, the ode, one of the sublimest forms of poetry, the
eclogue, in imitation of Theocritus, Virgil, and Sannazaro, and the
beautiful sonnet, an Italian invention no less learned than
pleasing.[320] Instead of the morality and the farce, the poet should
write tragedies and comedies; he should attempt another _Iliad_ or
_AEneid_ for the glory and honor of France. This is the gist of Du
Bellay's argument in so far as it deals in general terms with the French
language and literature. The six or seven concluding chapters treat of
more minute and detailed questions of language and versification. Du
Bellay advises the adoption of classical words as a means of enriching
the French tongue, and speaks with favor of the use of rhymeless verse
in imitation of the classics. The _Defense_ ends with an appeal to the
reader not to fear to go and despoil Greece and Rome of their treasures
for the benefit of French poetry.[321]
From this analysis it will be seen that the _Defense_ is really a
philological polemic, belonging to the same class as the long series of
Italian discussions on the vulgar tongue which begins with Dante, and
which includes the works of Bembo, Castiglione, Varchi, and others. It
is, as a French critic has said, a combined pamphlet, defence, and _ars
poetica_;[322] but it is only an _ars poetica_ in so far as it advises
the French poet to employ certain poetic forms, and treats of rhythm and
rhyme in a concluding chapter or two. But curiously enough, the source
and inspiration of Du Bellay's work have never been pointed out. The
actual model of the _Defense_ was without doubt Dante's _De Vulgari
Eloquio_, which, in the Italian version of Trissino, had been given to
the world for the first time in 1529, exactly twenty years before the
_Defense_. The two works, allowing for the difference in time and
circumstance, resemble each other closely in spirit and purpose as well
as in contents and design. Du Bellay's work, like Dante's, is divided
into two books, each of which is again divided into about the same
number of chapters. The first book of both works deals with language in
general, and the relations of the vulgar tongue to the ancient and
modern languages; the second book of both works deals with the
particular practices of the vulgar tongue concerning which each author
is arguing. Both works begin with a somewhat similar theory of the
origin of language; both works close with a discussion of the
versification of the vernacular. The purpose of both books is the
justification of the vulgar tongue, and the consideration of the means
by which it can attain perfection; the title of _De Vulgari Eloquio_
might be applied with equal force to either treatise. The _Defense_, by
this justification of the French language on rational if not entirely
cogent and consistent grounds, prepared the way for critical activity in
France; and it is no insignificant fact that the first critical work of
modern France should have been based on the first critical work of
modern Italy. Thirty years later, Henri Estienne, in his _Precellence du
Langage francois_, could assert that French is the best language of
ancient or modern times, just as Salviati in 1564 had claimed that
preeminent position for Italian.[323]
It is not to be expected that so radical a break with the national
traditions of France as was implied by Du Bellay's innovations would be
left unheeded by the enemies of the Pleiade. The answer came soon, in an
anonymous pamphlet, entitled _Le Quintil Horatian sur la Defense et
Illustration de la Langue francoise_. Until a very few years ago, this
treatise was ascribed to a disciple of Marot, Charles Fontaine. But in
1883 an autograph letter of Fontaine's was discovered, in which he
strenuously denies the authorship of the _Quintil Horatian_; and more
recent researches have shown pretty conclusively that the real author
was a friend of Fontaine's, Barthelemy Aneau, head of the College of
Lyons.[324] The _Quintil Horatian_ was first published in 1550, the year
after the appearance of the _Defense_.[325] The author informs us that
he had translated the whole of Horace's _Ars Poetica_ into French verse
"over twenty years ago, before Pelletier or any one else," that is,
between 1525 and 1530.[326] This translation was never published, but
fragments of it are cited in the _Quintil Horatian_. The pamphlet itself
takes up the arguments of Du Bellay step by step, and refutes them. The
author finds fault with the constructions, the metaphors, and the
neologisms of Du Bellay. Aneau's temperament was dogmatic and pedagogic;
his judgment was not always good; and modern French critics cannot
forgive him for attacking Du Bellay's use of such a word as _patrie_.
But it is not entirely just to speak of the _Quintil Horatian_, in the
words of a modern literary historian, as full of futile and valueless
criticisms. The author's minute linguistic objections are often
hypercritical, but his work represents a natural reaction against the
Pleiade. His chief censure of the _Defense_ was directed against the
introduction of classical and Italian words into the French language.
"Est-ce la defense et illustration," he exclaims, "ou plus tost offense
et denigration?" He charges the Pleiade with having contemned the
classics of French poetry; the new school advocated the disuse of the
complicated metrical forms merely because they were too difficult. The
sonnet, the ode, and the elegy he dismisses as useless innovations. The
object of poetry, according to Horace, is to gladden and please, while
the elegy merely saddens and brings tears to the eyes. "Poetry," he
says, "is like painting; and as painting is intended to fill us with
delight, and not to sadden us, so the mournful elegy is one of the
meanest forms of poetry." Aneau is unable to appreciate the high and
sublime conception of the poet's office which the Pleiade first
introduced into French literature; for him the poet is a mere versifier
who amuses his audience. He represents the general reaction of the
national spirit against the classical innovations of the Pleiade; and
the _Quintil Horatian_ may therefore be called the last representative
work of the older school of poetry.
It was at about this period that Aristotle's _Poetics_ first influenced
French criticism. In one of the concluding chapters of the _Defense_ Du
Bellay remarks that "the virtues and vices of a poem have been
diligently treated by the ancients, such as Aristotle and Horace, and
after them by Hieronymus Vida."[327] Horace is mentioned and cited in
numerous other places, and the influence of the general rhetorical
portions of the _Ars Poetica_ is very marked throughout the _Defense_;
there are also many traces of the influence of Vida. But there is no
evidence whatsoever of any knowledge of Aristotle's _Poetics_. Of its
name and importance Du Bellay had probably read in the writings of the
Italians, but of its contents he knew little or nothing. There is indeed
no well-established allusion to the _Poetics_ in France before this
time. None of the French humanists seems to have known it. Its title is
cited by Erasmus in a letter dated February 27, 1531, and it was
published by him without any commentary at Basle in the same year,
though Simon Grynaeus appears to have been the real editor of this work.
An edition of the _Poetics_ was also published at Paris in 1541, but
does not seem to have had any appreciable influence on the critical
activity of France. Several years after the publication of the
_Defense_, in the satirical poem, _Le Poete Courtisan_, written shortly
after his return from Italy in 1555, Du Bellay shows a somewhat more
definite knowledge of the contents of the _Poetics_:--
"Je ne veux point ici du maistre d'Alexandre [_i.e._ Aristotle],
Touchant l'art poetic, les preceptes t'apprendre
Tu n'apprendras de moy comment jouer il faut
Les miseres des rois dessus un eschaffaut:
Je ne t'enseigne l'art de l'humble comoedie
Ni du Meonien la muse plus hardie:
Bref je ne monstre ici d'un vers horacien
Les vices et vertus du poeme ancien:
Je ne depeins aussi le poete du Vide."[328]
In 1555 Guillaume Morel, the disciple of Turnebus, published an edition
of Aristotle's _Poetics_ at Paris. It is interesting to note, however,
that the reference in the _Defense_ is the first allusion to the
_Poetics_ to be found in the critical literature of France; by 1549 the
Italian Renaissance, and Italian criticism, had come into France for
good. In 1560, the year before the publication of Scaliger's _Poetics_,
Aristotle's treatise had acquired such prominence that in a volume of
selections from Aristotle's works, published at Paris in that year,
_Aristotelis Sententiae_, the selections from the _Poetics_ are placed at
the head of the volume.[329] In 1572 Jean de la Taille refers his
readers to what "the great Aristotle in his _Poetics_, and after him
Horace though not with the same subtlety, have said more amply and
better than I."[330]
The influence of Scaliger's _Poetics_ on the French dramatic criticism
of this period has generally been overestimated. Scaliger's influence in
France was not inconsiderable during the sixteenth century, but it was
not until the very end of the century that he held the dictatorial
position afterward accorded to him. No edition of his _Poetics_ was ever
published at Paris. The first edition appeared at Lyons, and subsequent
editions appeared at Heidelberg and Leyden. It was in Germany, in Spain,
and in England that his influence was first felt; and it was largely
through the Dutch scholars, Heinsius and Vossius, that his influence was
carried into France in the next century. It is a mistake to say that he
had any primary influence on the formulation and acceptance of the
unities of time and place in French literature; there is in his
_Poetics_, as has been seen, no such definite and formal statement of
the unities as may be found in Castelvetro, in Jean de la Taille, in Sir
Philip Sidney, or in Chapelain. At the same time, while Scaliger's
_Poetics_ did not assume during the sixteenth century the dictatorial
supremacy it attained during the seventeenth, and while the particular
views enunciated in its pages had no direct influence on the current of
sixteenth-century ideas, it certainly had an indirect influence on the
general tendency of the critical activity of the French Renaissance.
This indirect influence manifests itself in the gradual Latinization of
culture during the second half of the sixteenth century, and, as will be
seen later, in the emphasis on the Aristotelian canons in French
dramatic criticism. Scaliger was a personal friend of several members of
the Pleiade, and there is every reason to believe that he wielded
considerable, even if merely indirect, influence on the development of
that great literary movement.
The last expression of the poetic theories of the Pleiade is to be found
in the didactic poem of Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, _L'Art Poetique
francois, ou l'on peut remarquer la perfection et le defaut des
anciennes et des modernes poesies_. This poem, though not published
until 1605, was begun in 1574 at the command of Henry III., and,
augmented by successive additions, was not yet complete by 1590.
Vauquelin makes the following explicit acknowledgment of his
indebtedness to the critical writers that preceded him:--
"Pour ce ensuivant les pas du fils de Nicomache [_i.e._ Aristotle],
Du harpeur de Calabre [_i.e._ Horace], et tout ce que remache
Vide et Minturne apres, j'ay cet oeuvre apreste."[331]
Aristotle, Horace, Vida, and Minturno are thus his acknowledged models
and sources. Nearly the whole of Horace's _Ars Poetica_ he has
translated and embodied in his poem; and he has borrowed from Vida a
considerable number of images and metaphors.[332] His indebtedness to
Aristotle and to Minturno brings up several intricate questions. It has
been said that Vauquelin simply mentioned Minturno in order to put
himself under the protection of a respectable Italian authority.[333] On
the contrary, exclusive of Horace, Ronsard, and Du Bellay, the whole of
whose critical discussions he has almost incorporated into his poem,
Minturno is his chief authority, his model, and his guide. In fact, it
was probably from Minturno that he derived his entire knowledge of the
Aristotelian canons; it is not Aristotle, but Minturno's conception of
Aristotle, that Vauquelin has adhered to. Many points in his poem are
explained by this fact; here only one can be mentioned. Vauquelin's
account, in the second canto of his _Art Poetique_, of the origin of
the drama from the songs at the altar of Bacchus at the time of the
vintage, is undoubtedly derived from Minturno.[334] It may have been
observed that during the Renaissance there were two distinct conceptions
of the origin of poetry. One, which might be called ethical, was derived
from Horace, according to whom the poet was originally a lawgiver, or
divine prophet; and this conception persists in modern literature from
Poliziano to Shelley. The other, or scientific conception, was
especially applied to the drama, and was based on Aristotle's remarks on
the origin of tragedy; this attempt to discover some scientific
explanation for poetic phenomena may be found in the more rationalistic
of Renaissance critics, such as Scaliger and Viperano. Vauquelin de la
Fresnaye, the disciple of Ronsard and the last exponent of the critical
doctrines of the Pleiade, thus represents the incorporation of the body
of Italian ideas into French criticism.
With Vauquelin de la Fresnaye and De Laudun Daigaliers (1598) the
history of French criticism during the sixteenth century is at an end.
The critical activity of this period, as has already been remarked, is
of a far more practical character than that of Italy. Literary criticism
in France was created by the exigencies of a great literary movement;
and throughout the century it never lost its connection with this
movement, or failed to serve it in some practical way. The poetic
criticism was carried on by poets, whose desire it was to further a
cause, to defend their own works, or to justify their own views. The
dramatic criticism was for the most part carried on by dramatists,
sometimes even in the prefaces of their plays. In the sixteenth century,
as ever since, the interrelation of the creative and the critical
faculties in France was marked and definite. But there was, one might
almost say, little critical theorizing in the French Renaissance.
Excepting, of course, Scaliger, there was even nothing of the
deification of Aristotle found in Italian criticism. To take notice of a
minute but significant detail, there was no attempt to explain
Aristotle's doctrine of _katharsis_, the source of infinite controversy
in Italy. There was no detailed and consistent discussion of the theory
of the epic poem. All these things may be found in seventeenth-century
France; but their home was sixteenth-century Italy.
FOOT-NOTES:
[310] _Essais_, i. 36.
[311] On these early works, see Langlois, _De Artibus Rhetoricae
Rhythmicae_, Parisiis, 1890.
[312] Tiraboschi, vii. 350.
[313] _Ibid._ vii. 1465.
[314] Morsolin, _Trissino_, p. 358.
[315] Egger, _Hellenisme_, ch. vii.
[316] Brunetiere, i. 43.
[317] _Cf._ Horace, _Ars Poet._ 53 _sq._
[318] _Defense_, i. 7.
[319] _Ibid._ ii. 2.
[320] _Ibid._ ii. 4.
[321] _Cf._ Vida, in Pope, i. 167.
[322] Lanson, _op. cit._, p. 274.
[323] _Cf._ T. Tasso, xxiii. 97.
[324] H. Chamard, "Le Date et l'Auteur du Quintil Horatian," in the
_Revue d'Histoire litteraire de la France_, 1898, v. 59 _sq._
[325] _Ibid._ v. 54 _sq._
[326] _Ibid._ v. 62; 63, n. 1.
[327] _Defense_, ii. 9.
[328] Du Bellay, p. 120.
[329] Parisiis, apud Hieronymum de Marnaf, 1560.
[330] Robert, appendix iii.
[331] _Art Poet._ i. 63.
[332] Pellissier, pp. 57-63.
[333] Lemercier, _Etude sur Vauquelin_, 1887, p. 117, and Pellissier, p.
57.
[334] Minturno, _Arte Poetica_, p. 73; _De Poeta_, p. 252. _Cf._
Vauquelin, Pellissier's introduction, p. xliv.
CHAPTER II
THE THEORY OF POETRY IN THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
IT is in keeping with the practical character of the literary criticism
of this period that the members of the Pleiade did not concern
themselves with the general theory of poetry. Until the very end of the
century there is not to be found any systematic poetic theory in France.
It is in dramatic criticism that this period has most to offer, and the
dramatic criticism is peculiarly interesting because it foreshadows in
many ways the doctrines upon which were based the dramas of Racine and
Corneille.
I. _The Poetic Art_
In Du Bellay's _Defense_ there is no attempt to formulate a consistent
body of critical doctrine; but the book exhibits, in a more or less
crude form, all the tendencies for which the Pleiade stands in French
literature. The fundamental idea of the _Defense_ is that French poetry
can only hope to reach perfection by imitating the classics. The
imitation of the classics implies, in the first place, erudition on the
part of the poet; and, moreover, it requires intellectual labor and
study. The poet is born, it is true; but this only refers to the ardor
and joyfulness of spirit which naturally excite him, but which, without
learning and erudition, are absolutely useless. "He who wishes poetic
immortality," says Du Bellay, "must spend his time in the solitude of
his own chamber; instead of eating, drinking, and sleeping, he must
endure hunger, thirst, and long vigils."[335] Elsewhere he speaks of
silence and solitude as _amy des Muses_. From all this there arises a
natural contempt for the ignorant people, who know nothing of ancient
learning: "Especially do I wish to admonish him who aspires to a more
than vulgar glory, to separate himself from such inept admirers, to flee
from the ignorant people,--the people who are the enemies of all rare
and antique learning,--and to content himself with few readers,
following the example of him who did not demand for an audience any one
beside Plato himself."[336]
In the _Art Poetique_ of Jacques Pelletier du Mans, published at Lyons
in 1555, the point of view is that of the Pleiade, but more mellow and
moderate than that of its most advanced and radical members. The
treatise begins with an account of the antiquity and excellence of
poetry; and poets are spoken of as originally the _maitres et
reformateurs de la vie_. Poetry is then compared with oratory and with
painting, after the usual Renaissance fashion; and Pelletier agrees with
Horace in regarding the combined power of art and nature as necessary
to the fashioning of a poet. His conception of the latter's office is
not unlike that of Tasso and Shelley, "It is the office of the poet to
give novelty to old things, authority to the new, beauty to the rude,
light to the obscure, faith to the doubtful, and to all things their
true nature, and to their true nature all things." Concerning the
questions of language, versification, and the feeling for natural
scenery, he agrees fundamentally with the chief writers of the Pleiade.
The greatest of these, Ronsard, has given expression to his views on the
poetic art in his _Abrege de l'Art Poetique francois_ (1565), and later
in the two prefaces of his epic of the _Franciade_. The chief interest
of the _Abrege_ in the present discussion is that it expounds and
emphasizes the high notion of the poet's office introduced into French
poetry by the Pleiade. Before the advent of the new school, mere skill
in the complicated forms of verse was regarded as the test of poetry.
The poet was simply a _rimeur_; and the term "_poete_," with all that it
implies, first came into use with the Pleiade. The distinction between
the versifier and the poet, as pointed out by Aristotle and insisted
upon by the Italians, became with the Pleiade almost vital. Binet, the
disciple and biographer of Ronsard, says of his master that "he was the
mortal enemy of versifiers, whose conceptions are all debased, and who
think they have wrought a masterpiece when they have transposed
something from prose into verse."[337] Ronsard's own account of the
dignity and high function of poetry must needs be cited at length:--
"Above all things you will hold the Muses in reverence, yea, in
singular veneration, and you will never let them serve in
matters that are dishonest, or mere jests, or injudicious
libels; but you will hold them dear and sacred, as the
daughters of Jupiter, that is, God, who by His holy grace has
through them first made known to ignorant people the
excellencies of His majesty. For poetry in early times was only
an allegorical theology, in order to make stupid men, by
pleasant and wondrously colored fables, know the secrets they
could not comprehend, were the truth too openly made known to
them.... Now, since the Muses do not care to lodge in a soul
unless it is good, holy, and virtuous, you should try to be of
a good disposition, not wicked, scowling, and cross, but
animated by a gentle spirit; and you should not let anything
enter your mind that is not superhuman and divine. You should
have, in the first place, conceptions that are high, grand,
beautiful, and not trailing upon the ground; for the principal
part of poetry consists of invention, which comes as much from
a beautiful nature as from the reading of good and ancient
authors. If you undertake any great work, you will show
yourself devout and fearing God, commencing it either with His
name or by any other which represents some effects of His
majesty, after the manner of the Greek poets ... for the Muses,
Apollo, Mercury, Pallas, and other similar deities, merely
represent the powers of God, to which the first men gave
several names for the diverse effects of His incomprehensible
majesty."[338]
In this eloquent passage the conception of the poet as an essentially
moral being,--a doctrine first enunciated by Strabo, and repeated by
Minturno and others,--and Boccaccio's notion of poetry as originally an
allegorical theology, are both introduced into French criticism.
Elsewhere Ronsard repeats the mediaeval concept that poets
"d'un voile divers
Par fables ont cache le vray sens de leurs vers."[339]
It will be seen also that for Ronsard, poetry is essentially a matter of
inspiration; and in the poem just quoted, the _Discours a Jacques
Grevin_, he follows the Platonic conception of divine inspiration or
madness. A few years later Montaigne said of poetry that "it is an
easier matter to frame it than to know it; being base and humble, it may
be judged by the precepts and art of it, but the good and lofty, the
supreme and divine, are beyond rules and above reason. It hath no
community with our judgment, but ransacketh and ravisheth the
same."[340]
In his various critical works Ronsard shows considerable indebtedness to
the Italian theorists, especially to Minturno. He does not attempt any
formal definition of poetry, but its function is described as follows:
"As the end of the orator is to persuade, so that of the poet is to
imitate, invent, and represent the things that are, that can be, or that
the ancients regarded as true."[341] The concluding clause of this
passage is intended to justify the modern use of the ancient mythology;
but the whole passage seems primarily to follow Scaliger[342] and
Minturno.[343] It is to be observed that verse is not mentioned in this
definition as an essential requirement of poetry. It was indeed a
favorite contention of his, and one for which he was indebted to the
Italians, that all who write in verse are not poets. Lucan and Silius
Italicus have robed history with the raiment of verse; but according to
Ronsard they would have done better in many ways to have written in
prose. The poet, unlike the historian, deals with the verisimilar and
the probable; and while he cannot be responsible for falsehoods which
are in opposition to the truth of things, any more than the historian
can, he is not interested to know whether or not the details of his
poems are actual historical facts. Verisimilitude, and not fact, is
therefore the test of poetry.
In Vauquelin de la Fresnaye may be found most of the Aristotelian
distinctions in regard to imitation, harmony, rhythm, and poetic theory
in general; but these distinctions he derived, as has already been said,
not directly from Aristotle, but in all probability from Minturno.
Poetry is defined as an art of imitation:--
"C'est un art d'imiter, un art de contrefaire
Que toute poesie, ainsi que de pourtraire."[344]
Verse is described as a heaven-sent instrument, the language of the
gods; and its value in poetry consists in clarifying and making the
design compact.[345] But it is not an essential of poetry; Aristotle
permits us to poetize in prose; and the romances of Heliodorus and
Montemayor are examples of this poetic prose.[346] The object of poetry
is that it shall cause delight, and unless it succeeds in this it is
entirely futile:--
"C'est le but, c'est la fin des vers que resjouir:
Les Muses autrement ne les veulent ouir."
As it is the function of the orator to persuade and the physician to
cure, and as they fail in their offices unless they effect these ends,
so the poet fails unless he succeeds in pleasing.[347] This comparison
is a favorite one with the Italian critics. A similar passage has
already been cited from Daniello; and the same notion is thus expressed
by Lodovico Dolce: "The aim of the physician is to cure diseases by
means of medicine; the orator's to persuade by force of his arguments;
and if neither attains this end, he is not called physician or orator.
So if the poet does not delight, he is not a poet, for poetry delights
all, even the ignorant."[348]
But delight, according to Vauquelin, is merely the means of directing us
to higher things; poetry is a delightful means of leading us to
virtue:--
"C'est pourquoy des beaus vers la joyeuse alegresse
Nous conduit aux vertus d'une plaisante addresse."[349]
Vauquelin, like Scaliger, Tasso, Sidney, compares the poet with God, the
great Workman, who made everything out of nothing.[350] The poet is a
divinely inspired person, who, _sans art, sans scavoir_, creates works
of divine beauty. Vauquelin's contemporary, Du Bartas, has in his
_Uranie_ expressed this idea in the following manner:--
"Each art is learned by art; but Poesie
Is a mere heavenly gift, and none can taste
The dews we drop from Pindus plenteously,
If sacred fire have not his heart embraced.
"Hence is't that many great Philosophers,
Deep-learned clerks, in prose most eloquent,
Labor in vain to make a graceful verse,
Which many a novice frames most excellent."[351]
While this is the accepted Renaissance doctrine of inspiration,
Vauquelin, in common with all other followers of the Pleiade, was fully
alive to the necessity of artifice and study in poetry; and he agrees
with Horace in regarding both art and nature as equally necessary to the
making of a good poet. It is usage that makes art, but art perfects and
regulates usage:--
"Et ce bel Art nous sert d'escalier pour monter
A Dieu."[352]
II. _The Drama_
Dramatic criticism in France begins as a reaction against the drama of
the Middle Ages. The mediaeval drama was formless and inorganic, without
art or dignity. The classical drama, on the other hand, possessed both
form and dignity; and the new school, perceiving this contrast, looked
to the Aristotelian canons, as restated by the Italians, to furnish the
dignity and art which the tragedy of Greece and Rome possessed, and
which their own moralities and farces fundamentally lacked. In the first
reference to dramatic literature in French criticism, the mediaeval and
classical dramas are compared after this fashion; but as Sibilet (1548),
in whose work this passage appears, wrote a year or so before the advent
of the Pleiade, the comparison is not so unfavorable to the morality and
the farce as it became in later critics. "The French morality," says
Sibilet, "represents, in certain distinct traits, Greek and Latin
tragedy, especially in that it treats of grave and momentous deeds
(_faits graves et principaus_); and if the French had always made the
ending of the morality sad and dolorous, the morality would be a
tragedy. But in this, as in all things, we have followed our natural
taste or inclination, which is to take from foreign things not all we
see, but only what we think will be useful to us and of national
advantage; for in the morality we treat, as the Greeks and Romans do in
their tragedies, the narration of deeds that are illustrious,
magnanimous, and virtuous, or true, or at least verisimilar; but we do
otherwise in what is useful to the information of our manners and life,
without subjecting ourselves to any sorrow or pleasure of the
issue."[353] It would seem that Sibilet regards the morality as lacking
nothing but the unhappy ending of classical tragedy. At the same time
this passage exhibits perhaps the first trace of Aristotelianism in
French critical literature; for Sibilet specifies several characteristic
features of Greek and Latin tragedy, which he could have found only in
Aristotle or in the Italians. In the first place, tragedy deals only
with actions that are grave, illustrious, and for the most part
magnanimous or virtuous. In the second place, the actions of tragedy are
either really true, that is, historical, or if not true, have all the
appearance of truth, that is, they are verisimilar. Thirdly, the end of
tragedy is always sad and dolorous. Fourthly, tragedy performs a useful
function, which is connected in some way with the reformation of manners
and life; and, lastly, the effect of tragedy is connected with the
sorrow or pleasure brought about by the catastrophe. These distinctions
anticipate many of those found later in Scaliger and in the French
critics.
In Du Bellay (1549) we find no traces of dramatic theory beyond the
injunction, already noted, that the French should substitute classical
tragedy and comedy for the old morality and farce. A few years later,
however, in Pelletier (1555), there appears an almost complete system of
dramatic criticism. He urges the French to attempt the composition of
tragedy and comedy. "This species of poetry," he says, "will bring honor
to the French language, if it is attempted,"--a remark which illustrates
the innate predisposition of the French for dramatic poetry.[354] He
then proceeds to distinguish tragedy from comedy much in the same manner
as Scaliger does six years later. It is to be remembered that
Pelletier's _Art Poetique_ was published at Lyons in 1555, while
Scaliger's _Poetics_ was published at the same place in 1561. Pelletier
may have known Scaliger personally; but it is more probable that
Pelletier derived his information from the same classical and
traditional sources as did Scaliger. At all events, Pelletier
distinguishes tragedy from comedy in regard to style, subject,
characters, and ending in exact Scaligerian fashion. Comedy has nothing
in common with tragedy except the fact that neither can have more or
less than five acts. The style and diction of comedy are popular and
colloquial, while those of tragedy are most dignified and sublime. The
comic characters are men of low condition, while those of tragedy are
kings, princes, and great lords. The conclusion of comedy is always
joyous, that of tragedy is always sorrowful and heart-rending. The
themes of tragedy are deaths, exiles, and unhappy changes of fortune;
those of comedy are the loves and passions of young men and young women,
the indulgence of mothers, the wiles of slaves, and the diligence of
nurses.[355]
By this time, then, Aristotle's theory of tragedy, as restated by the
Italians, had become part of French criticism. The actual practice of
the French drama had been modified by the introduction of these rules;
and they had played so important a part that Grevin, in his _Bref
Discours pour l'Intelligence de ce Theatre_, prefixed to his _Mort de
Cesar_ (1562), could say that French tragedy had already attained
perfection, even when regarded from the standpoint of the Aristotelian
canons. "Our tragedies," says Grevin, "have been so well polished that
there is nothing left now to be desired,--I speak of those which are
composed according to the rules of Aristotle and Horace." Grevin's
_Discours_ was published the year after Scaliger's _Poetics_, but shows
no indication of Scaligerian influence. His definition of tragedy is
based on a most vague and incomplete recollection of Aristotle,
"Tragedy, as Aristotle says in his _Poetics_, is an imitation or
representation of some action that is illustrious and great in itself,
such as the death of Caesar." He shows his independence or his ignorance
of Scaliger by insisting on the inferiority of Seneca, whom Scaliger had
rated above all the Greeks; and he shows his independence of the
ancients by substituting a crowd of Caesar's soldiers for the singers of
the older chorus, on the ground that there ought not to be singing in
the representation of tragedy any more than there is in actual life
itself, for tragedy is a representation of truth or of what has the
appearance of truth. There are in Grevin's _Discours_ several
indications that the national feeling had not been entirely destroyed by
the imitation of the classics; but a discussion of this must be left for
a later chapter.
In Jean de la Taille's _Art de Tragedie_, prefixed to his _Sauel le
Furieux_ (1572), a drama in which a biblical theme is fashioned after
the manner of classical tragedy, there is to be found the most explicit
and distinct antagonism to the old, irregular moralities, which are not
modelled according to the true art and the pattern of the ancients. They
are but _ameres epiceries_--words that recall Du Bellay. But curiously
enough, Jean de la Taille differs entirely from Grevin, and asserts
positively that France had as yet no real tragedies, except possibly a
few translated from the classics. Waging war, as he is, against the
crude formlessness of the national drama, perfect construction assumes
for him a very high importance. "The principal point in tragedy," he
says, "is to know how to dispose and fashion it well, so that the plot
is well intertwined, mingled, interrupted, and resumed, ... and that
there is nothing useless, without purpose, or out of place." For Jean de
la Taille, as for most Renaissance writers, tragedy is the least popular
and the most elegant and elevated form of poetry, exclusive of the epic.
It deals with the pitiful ruin of great lords, with the inconstancy of
fortune, with banishment, war, pestilence, famine, captivity, and the
execrable cruelty of tyrants.[356] The end of tragedy is in fact to move
and to sting the feelings and the emotions of men. The characters of
tragedy--and this is the Aristotelian conception--should be neither
extremely bad, such men as by their crimes merit punishment, nor
perfectly good and holy, like Socrates, who was wrongfully put to death.
Invented or allegorical characters, such as Death, Avarice, or Truth,
are not to be employed. At the same time, Jean de la Taille, like
Grevin, is not averse to the use of scriptural subjects in tragedy,
although he cautions the poet against long-winded theological
discussions. The Senecan drama was his model in treating of tragedy, as
it was indeed that of the Renaissance in general; and tragedy approached
more and more closely to the oratorical and sententious manner of the
Latin poet. Ronsard, for example, asserts that tragedy and comedy are
entirely _didascaliques et enseignantes_, and should be enriched by
numerous excellent and rare _sentences_ (_sententiae_), "for in a few
words the drama must teach much, being the mirror of human life."[357]
Similarly, Du Bellay advises poets to embellish their poetry with grave
_sentences_, and Pelletier praises Seneca principally because he is
_sentencieux_.
Vauquelin, in his _Art Poetique_, gives a metrical paraphrase of
Aristotle's definition of tragedy:--
"Mais le sujet tragic est un fait imite
De chose juste et grave, en ses vers limite;
Auquel on y doit voir de l'affreux, du terrible,
Un fait non attendu, qui tienne de l'horrible,
Du pitoyable aussi, le coeur attendrissant
D'un tigre furieux, d'un lion rugissant."[358]
The subject of tragedy should be old, and should be connected with the
fall of great tyrants and princes;[359] and in regard to the number of
acts, the number of interlocutors on the stage, the _deus ex machina_,
and the chorus,[360] Vauquelin merely paraphrases Horace. Comedy is
defined as the imitation of an action which by common usage is accounted
wicked, but which is not so wicked that there is no remedy for it; thus,
for example, a man who has seduced a young girl may recompense her by
taking her in marriage.[361] Hence while the actions of tragedy are
"virtuous, magnificent, and grand, royal, and sumptuous," the incidents
of comedy are actually and ethically of a lower grade.[362] For
tragi-comedy Vauquelin has nothing but contempt. It is, in fact, a
bastard form, since the tragedy with a happy ending serves a similar but
more dignified purpose. Vauquelin, like Boileau and most other French
critics after him, follows Aristotle at length in the description of
dramatic recognitions and reversals of fortune.[363] Most of the other
Aristotelian distinctions are also to be found in his work.
In the _Art Poetique francois_ of Pierre de Laudun, Sieur d'Aigaliers,
published in 1598, these distinctions reappear in a more or less
mutilated form. In the fifth and last book of this treatise, De Laudun
follows the Italian scholars, especially Scaliger and Viperano. He does
not differ essentially from Scaliger in the definition of tragedy, in
the division into acts and the place of the chorus, in the discussion of
the characters and subjects of tragedy, and in the distinction between
tragedy and comedy.[364] His conception of tragedy is in keeping with
the usual Senecan ideal; it should be adorned by frequent _sentences_,
allegories, similitudes, and other ornaments of poetry. The more cruel
and sanguinary the tragic action is, the more excellent it will be; but
at the same time, much that makes the action cruel is to be enacted only
behind the stage. Like Pelletier, he objects to the introduction of all
allegorical and invented characters, or even gods and goddesses, on the
ground that these are not actual beings, and hence are out of keeping
with the theme of tragedy, which must be real and historical. De Laudun
has also something to say concerning the introduction of ghosts in the
tragic action; and his discussion is peculiarly interesting when we
remember that it was almost at this very time, in England, that the
ghost played so important a part in the Shakespearian drama. "If the
ghosts appear before the action begins," says De Laudun, "they are
permissible; but if they appear during the course of the action, and
speak to the actors themselves, they are entirely faulty and
reprehensible." De Laudun borrowed from Scaliger the scheme of the ideal
tragedy: "The first act contains the complaints; the second, the
suspicions; the third, the counsels; the fourth, the menaces and
preparations; the fifth, the fulfilment and effusion of blood."[365] But
despite his subservience to Scaliger, he is not afraid to express his
independence of the ancients. We are not, he says, entirely bound to
their laws, especially in the number of actors on the stage, which
according to classic usage never exceeded three; for nowadays,
notwithstanding the counsels of Aristotle and Horace, an audience has
not the patience to be satisfied with only two or three persons at one
time.
The history of the dramatic unities in France during the sixteenth
century demands some attention. That they had considerable effect on the
actual practice of dramatic composition from the very advent of the
Pleiade is quite obvious; for in the first scene of the first French
tragedy, the _Cleopatre_ of Jodelle (1552), there is an allusion to the
unity of time, which Corneille was afterward to call the _regle des
regles_:--
"Avant que ce soleil, qui vient ores de naitre,
Ayant trace son jour chez sa tante se plonge,
Cleopatre mourra!"
In 1553 Mellin de Saint-Gelais translated Trissino's _Sofonisba_ into
French, and the influence of the Italian drama became fixed in France.
But the first distinct formulation of the unities is to be found in Jean
de la Taille's _Art de Tragedie_ (1572). His statement of the unity is
explicit, "Il faut toujours representer l'histoire ou le jeu en un meme
jour, en un meme temps, et en un meme lieu."[366] Jean de la Taille was
indebted for this to Castelvetro, who two years before had stated them
thus, "La mutatione tragica non puo tirar con esso seco se non una
giornata e un luogo."[367] The unity of time was adopted by Ronsard
about this same time in the following words:--
"Tragedy and comedy are circumscribed and limited to a short
space of time, that is, to one whole day. The most excellent
masters of this craft commence their works from one midnight to
another, and not from sunrise to sunset, in order to have
greater compass and length of time. On the other hand, the
heroic poem, which is entirely of a martial character (_tout
guerrier_), comprehends only the actions of one whole
year."[368]
This passage is without doubt borrowed from Minturno (1564):--
"Whoever regards well the works of the most admired ancient
authors will find that the materials of scenic poetry terminate
in one day, or do not pass beyond the space of two days; just
as the action of the epic poem, however great and however long
it may be, does not occupy more than one year."[369]
Minturno, it will be remembered, was the first to limit the action of
the heroic poem to one year. In another passage he deduces the rule from
the practice of Virgil and Homer;[370] but Ronsard seems to think that
Virgil himself has not obeyed this law. We have already alluded to the
influence of Minturno on the Pleiade. Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, who
explicitly acknowledges his indebtedness to Minturno, also follows him
in limiting the action of the drama to one day and that of the epic to
one year:--
"Or comme eux l'heroic suivant le droit sentier,
Doit son oeuvre comprendre au cours d'un an entier;
Le tragic, le comic, dedans une journee
Comprend ce que fait l'autre au cours de son annee:
Le theatre jamais ne doit estre rempli
D'un argument plus long que d'un jour accompli."[371]
The two last lines of this passage bear considerable resemblance to
Boileau's famous statement of the unities three-quarters of a century
later.[372]
Toward the end of the sixteenth century, then, the unity of time, and in
a less degree the unity of place, had become almost inviolable laws of
the drama. But at this very period strong notes of revolt against the
tyranny of the unities begin to be heard. Up to this time the classical
Italian drama had been the pattern for French playwrights; but the
irregular Spanish drama was now commencing to exert considerable
influence in France, and with this Spanish influence came the Spanish
opposition to the unities. In 1582 Jean de Beaubreuil, in the preface of
his tragedy of _Regulus_, had spoken with contempt of the rule of
twenty-four hours as _trop superstitieux_. But De Laudun was probably
the first European critic to argue formally against it. The concluding
chapter of his _Art Poetique_ (1598) gives five different reasons why
the unity of time should not be observed in the drama. The chapter is
entitled, "Concerning those who say that the action of tragedy must
conclude in a single day;" and De Laudun begins by asserting that this
opinion had never been sustained by any good author. This is fairly
conclusive evidence that De Laudun had never directly consulted
Aristotle's _Poetics_, but was indebted for his knowledge of Aristotle
to the Italians, and especially to Scaliger. The five arguments which he
formulates against the unity of time are as follows:--
"In the first place, this law, if it is observed by any of the
ancients, need not force us to restrict our tragedies in any
way, since we are not bound by their manner of writing or by
the measure of feet and syllables with which they compose their
verses. In the second place, if we were forced to observe this
rigorous law, we should fall into one of the greatest of
absurdities, by being obliged to introduce impossible and
incredible things in order to enhance the beauty of our
tragedies, or else they would lack all grace; for besides being
deprived of matter, we could not embellish our poems with long
discourses and various interesting events. In the third place,
the action of the _Troades_, an excellent tragedy by Seneca,
could not have occurred in one day, nor could even some of the
plays of Euripides or Sophocles. In the fourth place, according
to the definition already given [on the authority of
Aristotle], tragedy is the recital of the lives of heroes, the
fortune and grandeur of kings, princes, and others; and all
this could not be accomplished in one day. Besides, a tragedy
must contain five acts, of which the first is joyous, and the
succeeding ones exhibit a gradual change, as I have already
indicated above; and this change a single day would not suffice
to bring about. In the fifth and last place, the tragedies in
which this rule is observed are not any better than the
tragedies in which it is not observed; and the tragic poets,
Greek and Latin, or even French, do not and need not and cannot
observe it, since very often in a tragedy the whole life of a
prince, king, emperor, noble, or other person is
represented;--besides a thousand other reasons which I could
advance if time permitted, but which must be left for a second
edition."[373]
The history of the unity of time during the next century does not
strictly concern us here; but it may be well to point out that it was
through the offices of Chapelain, seconded by the authority of Cardinal
Richelieu, that it became fixed in the dramatic theory of France. In a
long letter, dating from November, 1630, and recently published for the
first time, Chapelain sets out to answer all the objections made against
the rule of twenty-four hours. It is sustained, he says, by the practice
of the ancients and the universal consensus of the Italians; but his own
proof is based on reason alone. It is the old argument of
_vraisemblance_, as found in Maggi, Scaliger, and especially
Castelvetro, whom Chapelain seems in part to follow. By 1635 he had
formulated the whole theory of the three unities and converted Cardinal
Richelieu to his views. In the previous year Mairet's _Sophonisbe_, the
first "regular" French tragedy, had been produced. In 1636 the famous
_Cid_ controversy had begun. By 1640 the battle was gained, and the
unities became a part of the classic theory of the drama throughout
Europe. A few years later their practical application was most
thoroughly indicated by the Abbe d'Aubignac, in his _Pratique du
Theatre_; and they were definitely formulated for all time by Boileau in
the celebrated couplet:--
"Qu'en un lieu, qu'en un jour, un seul fait accompli
Tienne jusqu'a la fin le theatre rempli."[374]
III. _Heroic Poetry_
It was the supreme ambition of the Pleiade to produce a great French
epic. In the very first manifesto of the new school, Du Bellay urges
every French poet to attempt another _Iliad_ or _AEneid_ for the honor
and glory of France. For Pelletier (1555) the heroic poem is the one
that really gives the true title of poet; it may be compared to the
ocean, and all other forms to rivers.[375] He seems to be following
Giraldi Cintio's discourse on the _romanzi_, published the year before
his own work, when he says that the French poet should write a
_Heracleid_, the deeds of Hercules furnishing the mightiest and most
heroic material he can think of.[376] At the same time Virgil is for him
the model of an epic poet; and his parallel between Homer and Virgil
bears striking resemblance to the similar parallel in Capriano's _Della
Vera Poetica_, published in the very same year as his own treatise.[377]
Like Capriano, Pelletier censures the superfluous exuberance, the
loquaciousness, the occasional indecorum, and the inferiority in
eloquence and dignity of Homer when compared with the Latin poet.
It was Ronsard's personal ambition to be the French Virgil, as in lyric
poetry he had been proclaimed the French Pindar. For twenty years he
labored on the _Franciade_, but never finished it. In the two prefaces
which he wrote for it, the first in 1572, and the second (published
posthumously) about 1584, he attempts to give expression to his ideal of
the heroic poet. In neither of them does he succeed in formulating any
very definite or consistent body of epic theory. They are chiefly
interesting in that they indicate the general tendencies of the Pleiade,
and show Ronsard's own rhetorical principles, and his feeling for
nature and natural beauty. The passage has already been cited in which
he speaks of the heroic poem as entirely of a martial character, and
limits its action to the space of one year. It has also been seen that
for him, as for the Italians, verisimilitude, and not fact, is the test
of poetry. At the same time, the epic poet is to avoid anachronisms and
misstatements of fact. Such faults do not disturb the reader so much
when the story is remote in point of time; and the poet should therefore
always use an argument, the events of which are at least three or four
hundred years old. The basis of the work should rest upon some old story
of past times and of long-established renown, which has gained the
credit of men.[378] This notion of the antiquity of the epic fable had
been accepted long ago by the Italians. It is stated, for example, in
Tasso's _Discorsi dell' Arte Poetica_, written about 1564, though not
published until 1587, fifteen years after Tasso had visited Ronsard in
Paris.
Vauquelin de la Fresnaye has the Pleiade veneration for heroic poetry;
but he cannot be said to exhibit any more definite conception of its
form and function. For him the epic is a vast and magnificent narration,
a world in itself, wherein men, things, and thoughts are wondrously
mirrored:--
"C'est un tableau du monde, un miroir qui raporte
Les gestes des mortels en differente sorte....
Car toute poesie il contient en soymeme,
Soit tragique ou comique, ou soit autre poeme."[379]
With this we may compare what Muzio had said in 1551:--
"Il poema sovrano e una pittura
De l' universo, e pero in se comprende
Ogni stilo, ogni forma, ogni ritratto."
But despite this very vague conception of the epic in the French
Renaissance, there was, as has been said, a high veneration for it as a
form, and for its masters, Homer and especially Virgil. This accounts
for the large number of attempts at epic composition in France during
the next century. But beyond the earlier and indefinite notion of heroic
poetry the French did not get for a long time to come. Even for Boileau
the epic poem was merely the _vaste recit d'une longue action_.[380]
FOOT-NOTES:
[335] _Defense_, ii. 3.
[336] _Ibid._ ii. 11.
[337] Ronsard, vii. 310, 325.
[338] Ronsard, vii. 37 _sq._
[339] Ronsard, vi. 311 _sq._
[340] _Essais_, i. 36, Florio's translation.
[341] Ronsard, vii. 322. _Cf._ Aristotle, _Poet._ ix. 1-4; xxv. 6, 7.
[342] _Poet._ iii. 24.
[343] _De Poeta_, pp. 44, 47.
[344] _Art Poet._ i. 187.
[345] _Ibid._ i. 87 _sq._
[346] _Art Poet._ ii. 261.
[347] _Ibid._ i. 697 _sq._
[348] _Osservationi_, Vinegia, 1560, p. 190.
[349] _Art Poet._ i. 744.
[350] _Art Poet._ i. 19. _Cf._ Tasso, cited by Shelley, _Defence_, p.
42, "No one merits the name of creator except God and the poet."
[351] Sylvester's _Du Bartas_, 1641, p. 242.
[352] _Art Poet._ i. 149.
[353] Sibilet, _Art Poet._ ii. 8.
[354] Pelletier, _Art Poet._ ii. 7.
[355] _Ibid._
[356] Robert, app. iii.
[357] Ronsard, iii. 18 _sq._
[358] _Art Poet._ iii. 153.
[359] _Ibid._ ii. 1113, 441.
[360] _Art Poet._ ii. 459.
[361] _Ibid._ iii. 143.
[362] _Ibid._ iii. 181.
[363] _Ibid._ iii. 189 _sq._
[364] Robert, app. iv.
[365] _Art Poet._ v. 6.
[366] Robert, app. iii.
[367] _Poetica_, p. 534.
[368] Ronsard, iii. 19.
[369] _Arte Poetica_, p. 71.
[370] _Ibid._ p. 12; _De Poeta_, p. 149.
[371] _Art Poet._ ii. 253.
[372] Boileau, _Art Poet._ iii. 45.
[373] Arnaud, app. iii.
[374] _Art Poet._ iii. 45.
[375] _Art Poet._ ii. 8.
[376] _Ibid._ i. 3.
[377] _Ibid._ i. 5. _Cf._ Capriano, cap. v.
[378] Ronsard, iii. 23, 29.
[379] Vauquelin, _Art Poet._ i. 471, 503.
[380] Boileau, _Art Poet._ iii. 161.
CHAPTER III
CLASSIC AND ROMANTIC ELEMENTS IN FRENCH CRITICISM DURING THE SIXTEENTH
CENTURY
THE principle for which the Pleiade stood was, like that of humanism,
the imitation of the classics; and the Pleiade was the first to
introduce this as a literary principle into France. This means, as
regards French literature, in the first place, the substitution of the
classical instead of its own national tradition; and, secondly, the
substitution of the imitation of the classics for the imitation of
nature itself. In making these vital substitutions, Du Bellay and his
school have been accused of creating once and for all the gulf that
separates French poetry from the national life.[381] This accusation is
perhaps unfair to the Pleiade, which insisted on the poet's going
directly to nature, which emphasized most strongly the sentiment for
natural scenery and beauty, and which first declared the importance of
the artisan and the peasant as subjects for poetry. But there can be but
little doubt that the separation of poetry from the national life was
the logical outcome of the doctrines of the Pleiade. In disregarding the
older French poets and the evolution of indigenous poetry, in
formulating an ideal of the poet as an unsociable and ascetic
character, it separated itself from the natural tendencies of French
life and letters, and helped to effect the final separation between
poetry and the national development.
I. _Classical Elements_
It was to Du Bellay (1549) that France owes the introduction of
classical ideas into French literature. He was the first to regard the
imitation of the classics as a literary principle, and to advise the
poet, after the manner of Vida, to purloin all the treasures of Greek
and Latin literature for the benefit of French poetry. Moreover, he
first formulated the aristocratic conception of the poet held by the
Pleiade. The poet was advised to flee from the ignorant people, to bury
himself in the solitude of his own chamber, to dream and to ponder, and
to content himself with few readers. "Beyond everything," says Du
Bellay, "the poet should have one or more learned friends to whom he can
show all his verses; he should converse not only with learned men, but
with all sorts of workmen, mechanics, artists, and others, in order to
learn the technical terms of their arts, for use in beautiful
descriptions."[382] This was a favorite theory of the Pleiade, which
like some of our own contemporary writers regarded the technical arts as
important subjects of inspiration. But the essential point at the bottom
of all these discussions is a high contempt for the opinion of the
vulgar in matters of art.
The _Quintil Horatian_ (1550) represents, as has already been seen, a
natural reaction against the foreign and classical innovations of the
Pleiade. Du Bellay's advice, "Prens garde que ce poeme soit eslogne du
vulgaire,"--advice insisted upon by many of the rhetoricians of the
Italian Renaissance,--receives considerable censure; on the contrary,
says the author of the _Quintil_, the poet must be understood and
appreciated by all, unlearned as well as learned, just as Marot was. The
_Quintil_ was, in fact, the first work to insist on definiteness and
clearness in poetry, as these were afterward insisted on by Malherbe and
Boileau. Like Malherbe, and his disciple Deimier, the author of the
_Academie de l'Art Poetique_ (1610), in which the influence of the
_Quintil_ is fully acknowledged, the author of the _Quintil_ objects to
all forms of poetic license, to all useless metaphors that obscure the
sense, to all Latinisms and foreign terms and locutions.[383] Du Bellay
had dwelt on the importance of a knowledge of the classical and Italian
tongues, and had strongly advised the French poet to naturalize as many
Latin, Greek, and even Spanish and Italian terms as he could. The
_Quintil_ is particularly bitter against all such foreign innovations.
The poet need not know foreign tongues at all; without this knowledge he
can be as good a poet as any of the _graecaniseurs, latiniseurs, et
italianiseurs en francoys_. This protest availed little, and Du
Bellay's advice in regard to the use of Italian terms was so well
followed that several years later, in 1578, Henri Estienne vigorously
protested against the practice in his _Dialogues du Nouveau Langage
francois italianise_. As Ronsard and Du Bellay represent the foreign
elements that went to make up classicism in France, so the author of the
_Quintil Horatian_ may be said to represent in his humble way certain
enduring elements of the _esprit gaulois_. He represents the national
traditions, and he prepares the way for the two great bourgeois poets of
France,--Boileau, with his "Tout doit tendre au bon sens," and Moliere,
with his bluff cry, "Je suis pour le bon sens."
According to Pelletier (1555), French poetry is too much like colloquial
speech; in order to equal classical literature, the poets of France must
be more daring and less popular.[384] Pelletier's point of view is here
that of the Pleiade, which aimed at a distinct poetic language, diverse
from ordinary prose speech. But he is thoroughly French, and in complete
accord with the author of the _Quintil Horatian_, in his insistence on
perfect clearness in poetry. "Clearness," he says, "is the first and
worthiest virtue of a poem."[385] Obscurity is the chief fault of
poetry, "for there is no difference between not speaking at all and not
being understood."[386] For these reasons he is against all unnecessary
and bombastic ornament; the true use of metaphors and comparisons of all
sorts is "to explain and represent things as they really are."
Similarly, Ronsard, while recognizing the value of comparisons,
rightfully used, as the very nerves and tendons of poetry, declares that
if instead of perfecting and clarifying, they obscure or confuse the
idea, they are ridiculous.[387] Obscurity was the chief danger, and
indeed the chief fault, of the Pleiade; and it is no small merit that
both Ronsard and Pelletier perceived this fact.
The Pleiade exhibits the classic temper in its insistence on study and
art as essential to poetry; but it was not in keeping with the doctrines
of later French classicists in so far as it regarded the poetic labors
as of an unsociable and even ascetic character. In this, as has been
seen, Ronsard is a true exponent of the doctrines of the new school. But
on the whole the classic spirit was strong in him. He declares that the
poet's ideas should be high and noble, but not fantastic. "They should
be well ordered and disposed; and while they seem to transcend those of
the vulgar, they should always appear to be easily conceived and
understood by any one."[388] Here Du Bellay's aristocratic conception of
poetry is modified so as to become a very typical statement of the
principle underlying French classicism. Again, Ronsard points out, as
Vida and other Italian critics had done before, that the great classical
poets seldom speak of things by their bare and naked names. Virgil does
not, for example, say, "It was night," or "It was day," but he uses some
such circumlocution as this:--
"Postera Phoebea lustrabat lampade terras."
The unfortunate results of the excessive use of such circumlocutions
are well exemplified in the later classicists of France. Ronsard perhaps
foresaw this danger, and wisely says that circumlocution, if not used
judiciously, makes the style inflated and bombastic. In the first
preface to the _Franciade_, he expresses a decided preference for the
naive facility of Homer over the artful diligence of Virgil.[389] In the
second preface, however, written a dozen years later, and published
posthumously as revised by his disciple Binet, there is interesting
evidence, in the preeminence given to Virgil, of the rapidity with which
the Latinization of culture was being effected at this period. "Our
French authors," says Ronsard, "know Virgil far better than they know
Homer or any other Greek writer." And again, "Virgil is the most
excellent and the most rounded, the most compact and the most perfect of
all poets."[390] Of the naive facility of Homer we hear absolutely
nothing.
We are now beginning to enter the era of rules. Ronsard did not
undervalue the "rules and secrets" of poetry; and Vauquelin de la
Fresnaye calls his own critical poem _cet Art de Regles
recherchees_.[391] In regard to the imitation of the classics, Vauquelin
agrees heart and soul with the Pleiade that the ancients
"nous ont desja trace
Un sentier qui de nous ne doit estre laisse."[392]
Nothing, indeed, could be more classical than his comparison of poetry
to a garden symmetrically laid out and trimmed.[393] Moreover, like the
classicists of the next century, he affirms, as does Ronsard also, that
art must fundamentally imitate and resemble nature.[394]
The imitation of the classics had also a decided effect on the technique
of French verse and on the linguistic principles of the Pleiade.
Enjambement (the carrying over into another line of words required to
complete the sense) and hiatus (the clash of vowels in a line) were both
employed in Latin and Greek verse, and were therefore permitted in
French poetry by the new school. Ronsard, however, anticipated the
reforms of Malherbe and the practice of French classic verse, in
forbidding both hiatus and enjambement, though in a later work of his
this opinion is reversed. He was also probably the first to insist on
the regular alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes in verse. This
had never been strictly adhered to in practice, or required by stringent
rule, before Ronsard, but has become the invariable usage of French
poetry ever since. Ronsard regards this device as a means of making
verse keep tune more harmoniously with the music of instruments. It was
one of the favorite theories of the Pleiade that poetry is intended, not
to be read, but to be recited or sung, and that the words and the notes
should be coupled lovingly together. Poetry without an accompaniment of
vocal or instrumental music exhibits but a small part of its harmony or
perfection; and while composing verses, the poet should always
pronounce them aloud, or rather sing them, in order to test their
melody.[395] This conception of music "married to immortal verse"
doubtless came from Italy, and is connected with the rise of operatic
music. De Laudun (1598) differs from the members of the Pleiade in
forbidding the use of words newly coined or taken from the dialects of
France, and in objecting to the use of enjambement and hiatus. It is
evident, therefore, that while the influence of the Pleiade is visible
throughout De Laudun's treatise, his disagreement with Ronsard and Du
Bellay on a considerable number of essential points shows that by the
end of the century the supremacy of the Pleiade had begun to wane.
The new school also attempted to introduce classical metres into French
poetry. The similar attempt at using the ancient versification in Italy
has already been incidentally referred to.[396] According to Vasari,
Leon Battista Alberti, in his epistle,
"Questa per estrema miserabile pistola mando,"
was the first to attempt to reduce the vernacular versification to the
measure of the Latins.[397] In October, 1441, the _Scena dell' Amicizia_
of Leonardo Dati was composed and recited before the Accademia Coronaria
at Florence.[398] The first two parts of this piece are written in
hexameters, the third in Sapphics, the fourth in sonnet form and rhymed.
The prologues of Ariosto's comedies, the _Negromante_ and the
_Cassaria_, are also in classical metres. But the remarkable collection
of Claudio Tolomei, _Versi e Regole de la Nuova Poesia Toscana_,
published at Rome in 1539, marked an epoch in sixteenth-century letters.
In this work the employment of classical metres in the vulgar tongue is
defended, and rules for their use given; then follows a collection of
Italian verse written after this fashion by a large number of scholars
and poets, among them Annibal Caro and Tolomei himself. This group of
scholars had formed itself into an esoteric circle, the Accademia della
Nuova Poesia; and from the tone of the verses addressed to Tolomei by
the members of this circle, it would seem that he regarded himself, and
was regarded by them, as the founder and expositor of this poetic
innovation.[399] Luigi Alamanni, whose life was chiefly spent at the
Court of France, published in 1556 a comedy, _La Flora_, written in
classical metres; and two years later Francesco Patrizzi published an
heroic poem, the _Eridano_, written in hexameters, with a defence of the
form of versification employed.[400]
This learned innovation spread throughout western Europe.[401] In
France, toward the close of the fifteenth century, according to Agrippa
d'Aubigne, a certain Mousset had translated the _Iliad_ and the
_Odyssey_ into French hexameters; but nothing else is known either of
Mousset or of his translations. As early as 1500 one Michel de
Bouteauville, the author of an _Art de metrifier francois_, wrote a poem
in classical distichs on the English war. Sibilet (1548) accepted the
use of classical metres, though with some distrust, for to him rhyme
seemed as essential to French poetry as long and short syllables to
Greek and Latin. In 1562 Ramus, in his _Grammar_, recommended the
ancient versification, and expressed his regret that it had not been
accepted with favor by the public. In the same year Jacques de la Taille
wrote his treatise, _La Maniere de faire des Vers en francois comme en
grec et en latin_, but it was not published until 1573, eleven years
after his death. His main object in writing the book was to show that it
is not as difficult to employ quantity in French verse as some people
think, nor even any more difficult than in Greek and Latin.[402] In
answer to the objection that the vulgar tongues are by their nature
incapable of quantity, he argues, after the manner of Du Bellay, that
such things do not proceed from the nature of a language, but from the
labor and diligence of those who employ it. He is tired of vulgar
rhymes, and is anxious to find a more ingenious and more difficult path
to Parnassus. He then proceeds to treat of quantity and measure in
French, of feet and verse, and of figures and poetic license.[403]
The name most inseparably connected with the introduction of classical
metres into France in the sixteenth century is that of Jean Antoine de
Baif. This young member of the Pleiade, after publishing several
unsuccessful volumes of verse, visited Italy, and was present at the
Council of Trent in 1563. In Italy he doubtless learnt of the metrical
innovations then being employed; and upon his return, without any
apparent knowledge of Jacques de la Taille's as yet unpublished
treatise, he set about to make a systematic reform in French
versification. His purpose was to bring about a more perfect unison
between poetry and music; and in order to accomplish this, he adopted
classical metres, based as they were on a musical prosody, and accepted
the phonetic reforms of Ramus. He also established, no doubt in
imitation of the Accademia della Nuova Poesia, the Academie de Poesie et
de Musique, authorized by letters patent from Charles IX. in November,
1570.[404] The purpose of this academy was to encourage and establish
the metrical and musical innovations advocated by Baif and his friends.
On the death of Charles IX. the society's existence was menaced; but it
was restored, with a broader purpose and function, as the Academie du
Palais, by Guy du Faur de Pibrac in 1576, under the protection of Henry
III., and it continued to nourish until dispersed by the turmoils of the
League about 1585. But Baif's innovations were not entirely without
fruit. A similar movement, and a not dissimilar society, will be found
somewhat later in Elizabethan England.
II. _Romantic Elements_
Some of the romantic elements in the critical theory of the Pleiade have
already been indicated. The new movement started, in Du Bellay's
_Defense_, with a high conception of the poet's office. It emphasized
the necessity, on the part of the poet, of profound and solitary study,
of a refined and ascetic life, and of entire separation from vulgar
people and pleasures. Du Bellay himself is romantic in that he decides
against the _traditions de regles_,[405] deeming the good judgment of
the poet sufficient in matters of taste; but the reason of this was that
there were no rules which he would have been willing to accept. It took
more than a century for the French mind to arrive at the conclusion that
reason and rules, in matters of art, proceed from one and the same
cause.
The feeling for nature and for natural beauty is very marked in all the
members of the Pleiade. Pelletier speaks of war, love, agriculture, and
pastoral life as the chief themes of poetry.[406] He warns the poet to
observe nature and life itself, and not depend on books alone; and he
dwells on the value of descriptions of landscapes, tempests, and
sunrises, and similar natural scenes.[407] The feeling for nature is
even more intense in Ronsard; and like Pelletier, he urges the poet to
describe in verse the rivers, forests, mountains, winds, the sea, gods
and goddesses, sunrise, night, and noon.[408] In another place the poet
is advised to embellish his work with accounts of trees, flowers, and
herbs, especially those dignified by some medicinal or magical virtues,
and with descriptions of rivers, towns, forests, mountains, caverns,
rocks, harbors, and forts. Here the appreciation of natural beauty as
introduced into modern Europe by the Italian Renaissance--the feeling
for nature in its wider aspects, the broad landscape, the distant
prospect--first becomes visible in France. "In the painting or rather
imitation of nature," says Ronsard, "consists the very soul of heroic
poetry."
Ronsard also gives warning that ordinary speech is not to be banished
from poetry, or too much evaded, for by doing so the poet is dealing a
death-blow to "naive and natural poetry."[409] This sympathy for the
simple and popular forms of poetry as models for the poetic artist is
characteristic of the Pleiade. There is a very interesting passage in
Montaigne, in which the popular ballads of the peasantry are praised in
a manner that recalls the famous words of Sir Philip Sidney concerning
the old song of Percy and Douglas,[410] and which seems to anticipate
the interest in popular poetry in England two centuries later:--
"Popular and purely natural and indigenous poetry has a certain
native simplicity and grace by which it may be favorably
compared with the principal beauty of perfect poetry composed
according to the rules of art; as may be seen in the
villanelles of Gascony, and in songs coming from nations that
have no knowledge of any science, not even of writing. But
mediocre poetry, which is neither perfect nor popular, is held
in disdain by every one, and receives neither honor nor
reward."[411]