The Pleiade, as has already been intimated, accepted without reserve the

Platonic doctrine of inspiration. By 1560 a considerable number of the

Platonic dialogues had already been translated into French. Dolet had

translated two of the spurious dialogues; Duval, the _Lysis_ in 1547;

and Le Roy, the _Phaedo_ in 1553 and the _Symposium_ in 1559. The thesis

of Ramus in 1536 had started an anti-Aristotelian tendency in France,

and the literature of the French Renaissance became impregnated with

Platonism.[412] It received the royal favor of Marguerite de Navarre,

and its influence became fixed in 1551, by the appointment of Ramus to a

professorship in the College de France. Ronsard, Vauquelin, Du Bartas,

all give expression to the Platonic theory of poetic inspiration. The

poet must feel what he writes, as Horace says, or his reader will never

be moved by his verses; and for the Pleiade, the excitement of high

emotions in the reader or hearer was the test or touchstone of

poetry.[413]

The national and Christian points of view never found expression in

France during the sixteenth century in so marked a manner as in Italy.

There are, indeed, traces of both a national and a Christian criticism,

but they are hardly more than sporadic. Thus, it has been seen that

Sibilet, as early as 1548, had clearly perceived the distinguishing

characteristic of the French genius. He had noted that the French have

only taken from foreign literature what they have deemed useful and of

national advantage; and only the other day a distinguished French critic

asserted in like manner that the high importance of French literature

consists in the fact that it has taken from the other literatures of

Europe the things of universal interest and disregarded the accidental

picturesque details. Distinct traces of a national point of view may be

found in the dramatic criticism of this period. Thus Grevin, in his

_Bref Discours_ (1562), attempts to justify the substitution of a crowd

of Caesar's soldiers for the singers of the ancient chorus, in one of his

tragedies, on the following grounds:--

"If it be alleged that this practice was observed throughout

antiquity by the Greeks and Latins, I reply that it is

permitted to us to attempt some innovation of our own,

especially when there is occasion for it, or when the grace of

the poem is not diminished thereby. I know well that it will be

answered that the ancients employed the chorus of singers to

divert the audience, made gloomy perhaps by the cruelties

represented in the play. To this I reply that diverse nations

require diverse manners of doing things, and that among the

French there are other means of doing this without interrupting

the continuity of a story."[414]

The Christian point of view, on the other hand, is found in Vauquelin de

la Fresnaye, who differs from Ronsard and Du Bellay in his preference

for scriptural themes in poetry. The Pleiade was essentially pagan,

Vauquelin essentially Christian. The employment of the pagan divinities

in modern poetry seemed to him often odious, for the times had changed,

and the Muses were governed by different laws. The poet should attempt

Christian themes; and indeed the Greeks themselves, had they been

Christians, would have sung the life and death of Christ. In this

passage Vauquelin is evidently following Minturno, as the latter was

afterward followed by Corneille:--

"Si les Grecs, comme vous, Chrestiens eussent escrit,

Ils eussent les hauts faits chante de Iesus Christ....

He! quel plaisir seroit-ce a cette heure de voir

Nos poetes Chrestiens, les facons recevoir

Du tragique ancien? Et voir a nos misteres

Les Payens asservis sous les loix salutaires

De nos Saints et Martyrs? et du vieux testament

Voir une tragedie extraite proprement?"[415]

Vauquelin's opinion here is out of keeping with the general theory of

the Pleiade, especially in that his suggestions imply a return to the

mediaeval mystery and morality plays. The _Uranie_ of Du Bartas is

another and more fervid expression of this same ideal of Christian

poetry. In the _Semaines_, Du Bartas himself composed the typical

biblical poem; and tragedies on Christian or scriptural subjects were

composed during the French Renaissance from the time of Buchanan and

Beza to that of Garnier and Montchrestien. But Vauquelin's ideal was not

that of the later classicism; and Boileau, as has been seen, distinctly

rejects Christian themes from modern poetry.

Although the linguistic and prosodic theories of the Pleiade partly

anticipate both the theory and the practice of later classicism, the

members of the school exhibit numerous deviations from what was

afterward accepted as inviolable law in French poetry. The most

important of these deviations concerns the use of words from the various

French dialects, from foreign tongues, and from the technical and

mechanical arts. A partial expression of this theory of poetic language

has already been seen in Du Bellay's _Defense et Illustration_, in which

the poet is urged to use the more elegant technical dialectic terms.

Ronsard gives very much the same advice. The best words in all the

French dialects are to be employed by the poet; for it is doubtless to

the number of the dialects of Greece that we may ascribe the supreme

beauty of its language and literature. The poet is not to affect too

much the language of the court, since it is often very bad, being the

language of ladies and of young gentlemen who make a profession of

fighting well rather than of speaking well.[416] Unlike Malherbe and

his school, Ronsard allows a certain amount of poetic license, but only

rarely and judiciously. It is to poetic license, he says, that we owe

nearly all the beautiful figures with which poets, in their divine

rapture, enfranchising the laws of grammar, have enriched their works.

"This is that birthright," said Dryden, a century later, in the preface

of his _State of Innocence and the Fall of Man_, "which is derived to us

from our great forefathers, even from Homer down to Ben; and they who

would deny it to us have, in plain terms, the fox's quarrel to the

grapes--they cannot reach it." Vauquelin de la Fresnaye follows Ronsard

and Du Bellay in urging the use of new and dialect words, the employment

of terms and comparisons from the mechanic arts, and the various other

doctrines by which the Pleiade is distinguished from the school of

Malherbe. How these useless linguistic innovations were checked and

banished from the French language forever will be briefly alluded to in

the next chapter.

FOOT-NOTES:

[381] Brunetiere, i. 45.

[382] _Defense_, ii. 11.

[383] _Cf._ Rucktaeschel, p. 10 _sq._

[384] _Art Poet._ i. 3.

[385] _Ibid._ i. 9.

[386] _Ibid._ i. 10.

[387] Ronsard, iii. 26 _sq._

[388] _Ibid._ vii. 323.

[389] Ronsard, iii. 9 _sq._

[390] _Ibid._ iii. 23, 26.

[391] _Art Poet._ iii. 1151.

[392] _Ibid._ i. 61.

[393] _Art Poet._ i. 22 _sq._

[394] _Ibid._ i. 813. _Cf._ Ronsard, ii. 12.

[395] Ronsard, vii. 320, 332.

[396] The early Italian poetry written in classical metres has been

collected by Carducci, _La Poesia Barbara nei Secoli XV e XVI_, Bologna,

1881.

[397] Carducci, p. 2.

[398] _Ibid._ p. 6 _sq._

[399] Carducci, pp. 55, 87, etc.

[400] _Ibid._ pp. 327, 443. _Cf._ Du Bellay, _Defense_, ii. 7.

[401] For the history of classical metres in France, _cf._ Egger,

_Hellenisme en France_, p. 290 _sq._, and Darmesteter and Hatzfeld,

_Seizieme Siecle en France_, p. 113 _sq._

[402] Estienne Pasquier, in his _Recherches de la France_, vii. 11,

attempts to prove that the French language is capable of employing

quantity in its verse, but does not decide whether quantity or rhymed

verse is to be preferred.

[403] _Cf._ Rucktaeschel, p. 24 _sq._, and Carducci, p. 413 _sq._

[404] This academy has been made the subject of an excellent monograph

by E. Fremy, _L'Academie des Derniers Valois_, Paris, n. d. The statutes

of the academy will be found on page 39 of this work, and the

letters-patent granted to it by Charles IX. on page 48.

[405] _Defense_, ii. 11.

[406] _Art Poet._ i. 3.

[407] _Art Poet._ ii. 10; i. 9.

[408] Ronsard, vii. 321, 324.

[409] _Ibid._ iii. 17 _sq._

[410] Sidney, _Defence_, p. 29.

[411] _Essais_, i. 54.

[412] _Cf._ the _Revue d'Hist. litt. de la France_, 1896, iii. 1 _sq._

[413] Ronsard, iii. 28; Du Bellay, _Defense_, ii. 11.

[414] Arnaud, app. ii.

[415] Vauquelin, _Art Poet._ iii. 845; _cf._ iii. 33; i. 901.

[416] Ronsard, vii. 322.

CHAPTER IV

THE FORMATION OF THE CLASSIC IDEAL IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

I. _The Romantic Revolt_

IT is a well-known fact that between 1600 and 1630 there was a break in

the national evolution of French literature. This was especially so in

the drama, and in France the drama is the connecting link between

century and century. The dramatic works of the sixteenth century had

been fashioned after the regular models borrowed by the Italians from

Seneca. The change that came was a change from Italian classical to

Spanish romantic models. The note of revolt was beginning to be heard in

Grevin, De Laudun, and others. The seventeenth century opened with the

production of Hardy's irregular drama, _Les Amours de Theagene et

Cariclee_ (1601), and the influence of the Spanish romantic drama and

the Italian pastoral, dominant for over a quarter of a century, was

inaugurated in France.

The logic of this innovation was best expounded in Spain, and it was

there that arguments in favor of the romantic and irregular drama were

first formulated. The two most interesting defences of the Spanish

national drama are doubtless the _Egemplar Poetico_ of Juan de la Cueva

(1606) and Lope de Vega's _Arte Nuevo de Hacer Comedias_ (1609). Their

inspiration is at bottom the same. Their authors were both classicists

at heart, or rather classicists in theory, yet with differences. Juan de

la Cueva's conception of poetry is entirely based on the precepts of the

Italians, except in what regards the national drama, for here he is a

partisan and a patriot. He insists that the difference of time and

circumstance frees the Spanish playwright from all necessity of

imitating the ancients or obeying their rules. "This change in the

drama," he says, "was effected by wise men, who applied to new

conditions the new things they found most suitable and expedient; for we

must consider the various opinions, the times, and the manners, which

make it necessary for us to change and vary our operations."[417] His

theory of the drama was entirely opposed to his conception of the other

forms of poetry. According to this standpoint, as a recent writer has

put it, "the theatre was to imitate nature, and to please; poetry was to

imitate the Italians, and satisfy the orthodox but minute critic."[418]

Lope de Vega, writing three years later, does not deny the universal

applicability of the Aristotelian canons, and even acknowledges that

they are the only true rules. But the people demand romantic plays, and

the people, rather than the poet's literary conscience, must be

satisfied by the playwright. "I myself," he says, "write comedies

according to the art invented by those whose sole object it is to obtain

the applause of the crowd. After all, since it is the public who pays

for these stupidities, why should we not serve what it wants?"[419]

Perhaps the most interesting of all the expositions of the theory of the

Spanish national drama is a defence of Lope de Vega's plays by one

Alfonso Sanchez, published in 1618 in France, or possibly in Spain with

a false French imprint. The apology of Sanchez is comprehended in six

distinct propositions. First, the arts have their foundation in nature.

Secondly, a wise and learned man may alter many things in the existing

arts. Thirdly, nature does not obey laws, but gives them. Fourthly, Lope

de Vega has done well in creating a new art. Fifthly, in his writings

everything is adjusted to art, and that a real and living art. Lastly,

Lope de Vega has surpassed all the ancient poets.[420] The following

passage may be extracted from this treatise, if only to show how little

there was of novelty in the tenets of the French romanticists two

centuries later:--

"Is it said that we have no infallible art by which to adjust

our precepts? But who can doubt it? We have art, we have

precepts and rules which bind us, and the principal precept is

to imitate nature, for the works of poets express the nature,

the manners, and the genius of the age in which they write....

Lope de Vega writes in conformity with art, because he follows

nature. If, on the contrary, the Spanish drama adjusted itself

to the rules and laws of the ancients, it would proceed

against the requirements of nature, and against the foundations

of poetry.... The great Lope has done things over and above the

laws of the ancients, but never against these laws."

Another Spanish writer defines art as "an attentive observation of

examples graded by experience, and reduced to method and the majesty of

laws."[421]

It was this naturalistic conception of the poetic art, and especially of

the drama, that obtained in France during the first thirty years of the

seventeenth century. The French playwrights imitated the Spanish drama

in practice, and from the Spanish theorists seemed to have derived the

critical justification of their plays. Hardy himself, like Lope de Vega,

argues that "everything which is approved by usage and the public taste

is legitimate and more than legitimate." Another writer of this time,

Francois Ogier, in the preface of the second edition of Jean de

Schelandre's remarkable drama of _Tyr et Sidon_ (1628), argues for

intellectual independence of the ancients much in the same way as

Giraldi Cintio, Pigna, and the other partisans of the _romanzi_ had done

three-quarters of a century before. The taste of every nation, he says,

is quite different from any other. "The Greeks wrote for the Greeks, and

in the judgment of the best men of their time they succeeded. But we

should imitate them very much better by giving heed to the tastes of our

own country, and the genius of our own language, than by forcing

ourselves to follow step by step both their intention and their

expression." This would seem to be at bottom Goethe's famous statement

that we can best imitate the Greeks by trying to be as great men as they

were. It is interesting to note, in all of these early critics, traces

of that historical criticism which is usually regarded as the discovery

of our own century. But after all, the French like the Spanish

playwrights were merely beginning to practise what the Italian

dramatists in their prefaces, and some of the Italian critics in their

treatises, had been preaching for nearly a century.

The Abbe d'Aubignac speaks of Hardy as "arresting the progress of the

French theatre"; and whatever practical improvements the French theatre

owes to him, there can be little doubt that for a certain number of

years the evolution of the classical drama was partly arrested by his

efforts and the efforts of his school. But during this very period the

foundations of the great literature that was to come were being built on

classical lines; and the continuance of the classical tradition after

1630 was due to three distinct causes, each of which will be discussed

by itself as briefly as possible. These three causes were the reaction

against the Pleiade, the second influx of the critical ideas of the

Italian Renaissance, and the influence of the rationalistic philosophy

of the period.

II. _The Reaction against the Pleiade_

The reaction against the Pleiade was effected, or at least begun, by

Malherbe. Malherbe's power or message as a poet is of no concern here;

in his role of grammarian and critic he accomplished certain important

and widespread reforms in French poetry. These reforms were connected

chiefly, if not entirely, with the external or formal side of poetry.

His work was that of a grammarian, of a prosodist--in a word, that of a

purist. He did not, indeed, during his lifetime, publish any critical

work, or formulate any critical system. But the reforms he executed were

on this account no less influential or enduring. His critical attitude

is to be looked for in the memoirs of his life written by his disciple

Racan, and in his own _Commentaire sur Desportes_, which was not

published in its entirety until very recently.[422] This commentary

consists of a series of manuscript notes written by Malherbe about the

year 1606 in the margins of a copy of Desportes. These notes are of a

most fragmentary kind; they seldom go beyond a word or two of

disapproval, such as _faible_, _mal concu_, _superflu_, _sans jugement_,

_sottise_, or _mal imagine_; and yet, together with a few detached

utterances recorded in his letters and in the memoirs by Racan, they

indicate quite clearly the critical attitude of Malherbe and the reforms

he was bent on bringing about.

These reforms were, in the first place, largely linguistic. The Pleiade

had attempted to widen the sphere of poetic expression in French

literature by the introduction of words from the classics, from the

Italian and even the Spanish, from the provincial dialects, from the old

romances, and from the terminology of the mechanic arts. All these

archaisms, neologisms, Latinisms, compound words, and dialectic and

technical expressions, Malherbe set about to eradicate from the French

language. His object was to purify French, and, as it were, to

centralize it. The test he set up was actual usage, and even this was

narrowed down to the usage of the court. Ronsard had censured the

exclusive use of courtly speech in poetry, on the ground that the

courtier cares more about fighting well than about speaking or writing

well. But Malherbe's ideal was the ideal of French classicism--the ideal

of Boileau, Racine, and Bossuet. French was to be no longer a hodgepodge

or a patois, but the pure and perfect speech of the king and his court.

Malherbe, while thus reacting against the Pleiade, made no pretensions

of returning to the linguistic usages of Marot; his test was present

usage, his model the living language.[423] At the same time his reforms

in language, as in other things, represent a reaction against foreign

innovations and a return to the pure French idiom. They were in the

interest of the national traditions; and it is this national element

which is his share in the body of neo-classical theory and practice. His

reforms were all in the direction of that verbal and mechanical

perfection, the love of which is innate in the French nature, and which

forms the indigenous or racial element in French classicism. He

eliminated from French verse hiatus, enjambement, inversions, false and

imperfect rhymes, and licenses or cacophonies of all kinds. He gave it,

as has been said, mechanical perfection,--

"Et reduisit la Muse aux regles du devoir."

For such a man--_tyran des mots et des syllabes_, as Balzac called

him--the higher qualities of poetry could have little or no meaning. His

ideals were propriety, clearness, regularity, and force. These, as

Chapelain perceived at the time, are oratorical rather than purely

poetic qualities; yet for these, all the true qualities that go to make

up a great poet were to be sacrificed. Of imagination and poetic

sensibility he takes no account whatsoever. After the verbal perfection

of the verse, the logical unity of the poem was his chief interest.

Logic and reason are without doubt important things, but they cannot

exist in poetry to the exclusion of imagination. By eliminating

inspiration, as it were, Malherbe excluded the possibility of lyrical

production in France throughout the period of classicism. He hated

poetic fictions, since for him, as for Boileau, only actual reality is

beautiful. If he permitted the employment of mythological figures, it

was because they are reasonable and universally intelligible symbols.

The French mind is essentially rational and logical, and Malherbe

reintroduced this native rationality into French poetry. He set up

common sense as a poetic ideal, and made poetry intelligible to the

average mind. The Pleiade had written for a learned literary coterie;

Malherbe wrote for learned and unlearned alike. For the Pleiade, poetry

had been a divine office, a matter of prophetic inspiration; for

Malherbe, it was a trade, a craft, to be learnt like any other. Du

Bellay had said that "it is a well-accepted fact, according to the most

learned men, that natural talents without learning can accomplish more

in poetry than learning without natural talents." Malherbe, it has been

neatly said, would have upheld the contrary doctrine that "learning

without natural talents can accomplish more than natural talents without

learning."[424] After all, eloquence was Malherbe's ideal; and as the

French are by nature an eloquent rather than a poetic people, he

deserves the honor of having first shown them how to regain their true

inheritance. In a word, he accomplished for classical poetry in France

all that the national instinct, the _esprit gaulois_, could accomplish

by itself. Consistent structural laws for the larger poetic forms he

could not give; these France owes to Italy. Nor could he appreciate the

high notion of abstract perfection, or the classical conception of an

absolute standard of taste--that of several expressions or several ways

of doing something, one way and only one is the right one; this France

owes to rationalistic philosophy. Malherbe seems almost to be echoing

Montaigne when he says in a letter to Balzac:--

"Do you not know that the diversity of opinions is as natural

as the difference of men's faces, and that to wish that what

pleases or displeases us should please or displease everybody

is to pass the limits where it seems that God in His

omnipotence has commanded us to stop?"[425]

With this individualistic expression of the questions of opinion and

taste, we have but to compare the following passage from La Bruyere to

indicate how far Malherbe is still from the classic ideal:--

"There is a point of perfection in art, as of excellence or

maturity in nature. He who is sensible of it and loves it has

perfect taste; he who is not sensible of it and loves this or

that else on either side of it has a faulty taste. There is

then a good and a bad taste, and men dispute of tastes not

without reason."[426]

III. _The Second Influx of Italian Ideas_

The second influx of Italian critical ideas into France came through two

channels. In the first place, the direct literary relations between

Italy and France during this period were very marked. The influence of

Marino, who lived for a long time at Paris and published a number of his

works there, was not inconsiderable, especially upon the French

concettists and _precieux_. Two Italian ladies founded and presided over

the famous Hotel de Rambouillet,--Julie Savelli, Marquise de Pisani, and

Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise de Rambouillet. It was partly to the

influence of the Accademia della Crusca that the foundation of the

French Academy was due. Chapelain and Menage were both members of the

Italian society, and submitted to it their different opinions on a verse

of Petrarch. Like the Accademia della Crusca, the French Academy

purposed the preparation of a great dictionary; and each began its

existence by attacking a great work of literature, the _Gerusalemme

Liberata_ in the case of the Italian society, Corneille's _Cid_ in the

case of the French. The regency of Marie de Medici, the supremacy of

Mazarin, and other political events, all conspired to bring Italy and

France into the closest social and literary relationship.

But the two individuals who first brought into French literature and

naturalized the primal critical concepts of Italy were Chapelain and

Balzac. Chapelain's private correspondence indicates how thorough was

his acquaintance with the critical literature of Italy. "I have a

particular affection for the Italian language," he wrote in 1639 to

Balzac.[427] Of the _Cid_, he says that "in Italy it would be considered

barbarous, and there is not an academy which would not banish it beyond

the confines of its jurisdiction."[428] Speaking of the greatness of

Ronsard, he says that his own opinion was in accord with that of "two

great savants beyond the Alps, Speroni and Castelvetro";[429] and he had

considerable correspondence with Balzac on the subject of the

controversy between Caro and Castelvetro in the previous century. In a

word, he knew and studied the critics and scholars of Italy, and was

interested in discussing them. Balzac's interest, on the other hand, was

rather toward Spanish literature; but he was the agent of the Cardinal

de la Valette at Rome, and it was on his return to France that he

published the first collection of his letters. The influence of both

Chapelain and Balzac on French classicism was considerable. During the

sixteenth century, literary criticism had been entirely in the hands of

learned men. Chapelain and Balzac vulgarized the critical ideas of the

Italian Renaissance, and made them popular, human, but inviolable.

Balzac introduced into France the fine critical sense of the Italians;

Chapelain introduced their formal rules, and imposed the three unities

on French tragedy. Together they effected a humanizing of the classical

ideal, even while subjecting it to rules.

It was to the same Italian influences that France owed the large number

of artificial epics that appeared during this period. About ten epics

were published in the fifteen years between 1650 and 1665.[430] The

Italians of the sixteenth century had formulated a fixed theory of the

artificial epic; and the nations of western Europe rivalled one another

in attempting to make practical use of this theory. It is to this that

the large number of Spanish epics in the sixteenth century and of French

epics in the seventeenth may be ascribed. Among the latter we may

mention Scudery's _Alaric_, Lemoyne's _Saint Louis_, Saint-Amant's

_Moyse Sauve_, and Chapelain's own epic, _La Pucelle_, awaited by the

public for many years, and published only to be damned forever by

Boileau.

The prefaces of all these epics indicate clearly enough their

indebtedness to the Italians. They were indeed scarcely more than

attempts to put the rules and precepts of the Italian Renaissance into

practice. "I then consulted the masters of this art," says Scudery, in

the preface of _Alaric_, "that is to say, Aristotle and Horace, and

after them Macrobius, Scaliger, Tasso, Castelvetro, Piccolomini, Vida,

Vossius, Robortelli, Riccoboni, Paolo Beni, Mambrun, and several others;

and passing from theory to practice I reread very carefully the _Iliad_

and the _Odyssey_, the _AEneid_, the _Pharsalia_, the _Thebaid_, the

_Orlando Furioso_, and the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, and many other epic

poems in diverse languages." Similarly, Saint-Amant, in the preface of

his _Moyse Sauve_, says that he had rigorously observed "the unities of

action and place, which are the principal requirements of the epic; and

besides, by an entirely new method, I have restricted my subject not

only within twenty-four hours, the limit of the dramatic poem, but

almost within half of that time. This is more than even Aristotle,

Horace, Scaliger, Castelvetro, Piccolomini, and all the other moderns

have ever required." It is obvious that for these epic-makers the rules

and precepts of the Italians were the final tests of heroic poetry.

Similarly, the Abbe d'Aubignac, at the beginning of his _Pratique du

Theatre_, advises the dramatic poet to study, among other writers,

"Aristotle, Horace, Castelvetro, Vida, Heinsius, Vossius, and Scaliger,

of whom not a word should be lost." From the Italians also came the

theory of poetry in general as held throughout the period of classicism,

and expounded by the Abbe d'Aubignac, La Mesnardiere, Corneille,

Boileau, and numerous others; and it is hardly necessary to repeat that

Rapin, tracing the history of criticism at the beginning of his

_Reflexions sur la Poetique_, deals with scarcely any critics but the

Italians.

Besides the direct influence of the Italian critics, another influence

contributed its share to the sum of critical ideas which French

classicism owes to the Italian Renaissance. This was the tradition of

Scaliger, carried on by the Dutch scholars Heinsius and Vossius. Daniel

Heinsius was the pupil of Joseph Scaliger, the illustrious son of the

author of the _Poetics_; and through Heinsius the dramatic theories of

the elder Scaliger influenced classical tragedy in France. The treatise

of Heinsius, _De Tragoediae Constitutione_, published at Leyden in 1611,

was called by Chapelain "the quintessence of Aristotle's _Poetics_"; and

Chapelain called Heinsius himself "a prophet or sibyl in matters of

criticism."[431] Annoted by Racine, cited as an infallible authority by

Corneille, Heinsius's work exercised a marked influence on French

tragedy by fixing upon it the laws of Scaliger; and later the works of

Vossius cooperated with those of Heinsius in widening the sphere of the

Italian influence. It is evident, therefore, that while French

literature had already during the sixteenth century taken from the

Italian Renaissance its respect for antiquity and its admiration for

classical mythology, the seventeenth century owed to Italy its

definitive conception of the theory of poetry, and especially certain

rigid structural laws for tragedy and epic. It may be said without

exaggeration that there is not an essential idea or precept in the works

of Corneille and D'Aubignac on dramatic poetry, or of Le Bossu and

Mambrun on epic poetry, that cannot be found in the critical writings of

the Italian Renaissance.

IV. _The Influence of Rationalistic Philosophy_

The influence of rationalistic philosophy on the general attitude of

classicism manifested itself in what may be called the gradual

rationalization of all that the Renaissance gave to France. The process

thus effected is most definitely exhibited in the evolution of the rules

which France owed to Italy. It has already been shown how the rules and

precepts of the Italians had originally been based on authority alone,

but had gradually obtained a general significance of their own,

regardless of their ancient authority. Somewhat later, in England, the

Aristotelian canons were defended by Ben Jonson on the ground that

Aristotle understood the causes of things, and that what others had

done by chance or custom, Aristotle did by reason alone.[432] By this

time, then, the reasonableness of the Aristotelian canons was distinctly

felt, although they were still regarded as having authoritativeness in

themselves; and it was first in the French classicists of the

seventeenth century that reason and the ancient rules were regarded as

one and inseparable.

Rationalism, indeed, is to be found at the very outset of the critical

activity of the Renaissance; and Vida's words, already cited, "Semper

nutu rationis eant res," represent in part the attitude of the

Renaissance mind toward literature. But the "reason" of the earlier

theorists was merely empirical and individualistic; it did not differ

essentially from Horace's ideal of "good sense." In fact, rationalism

and humanism, while existing together throughout the Renaissance, were

never to any extent harmonized; and extreme rationalism generally took

the form of an avowed antagonism to Aristotle. The complete

rationalization of the laws of literature is first evident toward the

middle of the seventeenth century. "The rules of the theatre," says the

Abbe d'Aubignac, at the beginning of his _Pratique du Theatre_, "are

founded, not on authority, but on reason," and if they are called the

rules of the ancients, it is simply "because the ancients have admirably

practised them." Similarly, Corneille, in his discourse _Des Trois

Unites_, says that the unity of time would be arbitrary and tyrannical

if it were merely required by Aristotle's _Poetics_, but that its real

prop is the natural reason; and Boileau sums up the final attitude of

classicism in these words:--

"Aimez donc la _raison_; que toujours vos ecrits

Empruntent _d'elle seule_ et leur lustre et leur prix."[433]

Here the rationalizing process is complete, and the actual requirements

of authority become identical with the dictates of the reason.

The rules expounded by Boileau, while for the most part the same as

those enunciated by the Italians, are no longer mere rules. They are

laws dictated by abstract and universal reason, and hence inevitable and

infallible; they are not tyrannical or arbitrary, but imposed upon us by

the very nature of the human mind. This is not merely, as we have said,

the good nature and the good sense, in a word, the sweet reasonableness,

of such a critic as Horace.[434] There is more than this in the

classicists of the seventeenth century. Good sense becomes

universalized, becomes, in fact, as has been said, not merely an

empirical notion of good sense, but the abstract and universal reason

itself. From this follows the absolute standard of taste at the bottom

of classicism, as exemplified in the passage already cited from La

Bruyere, and in such a line as this from Boileau:--

"La raison pour marcher n'a souvent qu'une voie."[435]

This rationalization of the Renaissance rules of poetry was effected

by contemporary philosophy; if not by the works and doctrines

of Descartes himself, at least by the general tendency of the

human mind at this period, of which these works and doctrines are the

most perfect expressions. Boileau's _Art Poetique_ has been aptly called

the _Discours de la Methode_ of French poetry. So that while the

contribution of Malherbe and his school to classicism lay in the

insistence on clearness, propriety, and verbal and metrical perfection,

and the contribution of the Italian Renaissance lay in the infusion of

respect for classical antiquity and the imposition of a certain body of

fixed rules, the contribution of contemporary philosophy lay in the

rationalization or universalization of these rules, and in the

imposition of an abstract and absolute standard of taste.

But Cartesianism brought with it certain important limitations and

deficiencies. Boileau himself is reported to have said that "the

philosophy of Descartes has cut the throat of poetry;"[436] and there

can be no doubt that this is the exaggerated expression of a certain

inevitable truth. The excessive insistence on the reason brought with it

a corresponding undervaluation of the imagination. The rational and

rigidly scientific basis of Cartesianism was forced on classicism; and

reality became its supreme object and its final test:--

"Rien n'est beau que le vrai."

Reference has already been made to various disadvantages imposed on

classicism by the very nature of its origin and growth; but the most

vital of all these disadvantages was the influence of the Cartesian

philosophy or philosophic temper. With the scientific basis thus imposed

on literature, its only safeguard against extinction was the vast

influence of a certain body of fixed rules, which literature dared not

deviate from, and which it attempted to justify on the wider grounds of

philosophy. These rules, then, the contribution of Italy, saved poetry

in France from extinction during the classical period; and of this a

remarkable confirmation is to be found in the fact that not until the

rationalism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was superseded

in France, did French literature rid itself of this body of Renaissance

rules. Cartesianism, or at least the rationalistic spirit, humanized

these rules, and imposed them on the rest of Europe. But though

quintessentialized, they remained artificial, and circumscribed the

workings of the French imagination for over a century.

FOOT-NOTES:

[417] Sedano, _Parnaso Espanol_, viii. 61.

[418] Hannay, _Later Renaissance_, 1898, p. 39.

[419] Menendez y Pelayo, iii. 434.

[420] _Ibid._ iii. 447 _sq._

[421] Menendez y Pelayo, iii. 464.

[422] The _Commentaire_ is printed entire in Lalanne's edition of

Malherbe, Paris, 1862, vol. iv. The critical doctrine of Malherbe has

been formulated by Brunot, _Doctrine de Malherbe_, pp. 105-236.

[423] _Cf._ Horace, _Ars Poet._ 71, 72.

[424] Brunot, p. 149.

[425] _Oeuvres_, Lalanne's edition, iv. 91.

[426] _Caracteres_, "Des Ouvrages de l'Esprit."

[427] _Lettres_, i. 413. The references are to the edition by Tamizey de

Larroque, Paris, 1880-1883.

[428] _Ibid._ i. 156.

[429] _Ibid._ i. 631 _sq._

[430] These epics have been treated at length by Duchesne, _Histoire des

Poemes Epiques francais du XVII Siecle_, Paris, 1870.

[431] _Lettres_, i. 269, 424. On the theories of Heinsius, see Zerbst,

_Ein Vorlaeufer Lessings in der Aristotelesinterpretation_, Jena, 1887.

[432] _Discoveries_, p. 80.

[433] _Art Poet._ i. 37.

[434] _Cf._ Brunetiere, _Etudes Critiques_, iv. 136; and Krantz, p. 93

_sq._

[435] _Art Poet._ i. 48.

[436] Reported by J. B. Rousseau, in a letter to Brossette, July 21,

1715.

PART THIRD

_LITERARY CRITICISM IN ENGLAND_

LITERARY CRITICISM IN ENGLAND

CHAPTER I

THE EVOLUTION OF ENGLISH CRITICISM FROM ASCHAM TO MILTON

LITERARY criticism in England during the Elizabethan age was neither so

influential nor so rich and varied as the contemporary criticism of

Italy and France. This fact might perhaps be thought insufficient to

affect the interest or patriotism of English-speaking people, yet the

most charming critical monument of this period, Sidney's _Defence of

Poesy_, has been slightingly referred to by the latest historian of

English poetry. Such interest and importance as Elizabethan criticism

possesses must therefore be of an historical nature, and lies in two

distinct directions. In the first place, the study of the literature of

this period will show, not only that there was a more or less complete

body of critical doctrine during the Renaissance, but also that

Englishmen shared in this creation, or inheritance, of the Renaissance

as truly as did their continental neighbors; and on the other hand this

study may be said to possess an interest in itself, in so far as it will

make the growth of classicism in England intelligible, and will indicate

that the formation of the classic ideal had begun before the

introduction of the French influence. In neither case, however, can

early English criticism be considered wholly apart from the general body

of Renaissance doctrine; and its study loses in importance and

perspicuity according as it is kept distinct from the consideration of

the critical literature of France, and especially of Italy.

English criticism, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,

passed through five more or less distinct stages of development. The

first stage, characterized by the purely rhetorical study of literature,

may be said to begin with Leonard Coxe's _Arte or Crafte of Rhetoryke_,

a hand-book for young students, compiled about 1524, chiefly from one of

the rhetorical treatises of Melanchthon.[437] This was followed by

Wilson's _Arte of Rhetorike_ (1553), which is more extensive and

certainly more original than Coxe's manual, and which has been called by

Warton "the first book or system of criticism in our language." But the

most important figure of this period is Roger Ascham. The educational

system expounded in his _Scholemaster_, written between 1563 and 1568,

he owed largely to his friend, John Sturm, the Strasburg humanist, and

to his teacher, Sir John Cheke, who had been Greek lecturer at the

University of Padua; but for the critical portions of this work he seems

directly indebted to the rhetorical treatises of the Italians.[438] Yet

his obligations to the Italian humanists did not prevent the expression

of his stern and unyielding antagonism to the romantic Italian spirit

as it influenced the imaginative literature of his time. In studying

early English literature it must always be kept in mind that the Italian

Renaissance influenced the Elizabethan age in two different directions.

The Italianization of English poetry had been effected, or at least

begun, by the publication of Tottel's _Miscellany_ in 1557; on this, the

creative side of English literature, the Italian influence was

distinctly romantic. The influence of the Italian humanists, on the

other hand, was directly opposed to this romantic spirit; even in their

own country they had antagonized all that was not classical in tendency.

Ascham, therefore, as a result of his humanistic training, became not

only the first English man of letters, but also the first English

classicist.

The first stage of English criticism, then, was entirely given up to

rhetorical study. It was at this time that English writers first

attained the appreciation of form and style as distinguishing features

of literature; and it was to this appreciation that the formation of an

English prose style was due. This period may therefore be compared with

the later stages of Italian humanism in the fifteenth century; and the

later humanists were the masters and models of these early English

rhetoricians. Gabriel Harvey, as a Ciceronian of the school of Bembo,

was perhaps their last representative.

The second stage of English criticism--a period of classification and

especially of metrical studies--commences with Gascoigne's _Notes of

Instruction concerning the making of Verse_,[439] published in 1575, and

modelled apparently on Ronsard's _Abrege de l'Art Poetique francois_

(1565). Besides this brief pamphlet, the first work on English

versification, this stage also includes Puttenham's _Arte of English

Poesie_, the first systematic classification of poetic forms and

subjects, and of rhetorical figures; Bullokar's _Bref Grammar_, the

first systematic treatise on English grammar; and Harvey's _Letters_ and

Webbe's _Discourse of English Poetrie_, the first systematic attempts to

introduce classical metres into English poetry. This period was

characterized by the study and classification of the practical questions

of language and versification; and in this labor it was cooperating with

the very tendencies which Ascham had been attempting to counteract. The

study of the verse-forms introduced into England from Italy helped

materially to perfect the external side of English poetry; and a similar

result was obtained by the crude attempts at quantitative verse

suggested by the school of Tolomei. The Italian prosodists were thus,

directly or indirectly, the masters of the English students of this era.

The representative work of the third stage--the period of philosophical

and apologetic criticism--is Sir Philip Sidney's _Defence of Poesy_,

published posthumously in 1595, though probably written about 1583.

Harington's _Apologie of Poetrie_, Daniel's _Defence of Ryme_, and a few

others, are also contemporary treatises. These works, as their titles

indicate, are all defences or apologies, and were called forth by the

attacks of the Puritans on poetry, especially dramatic poetry, and the

attacks of the classicists on English versification and rhyme. Required

by the exigencies of the moment to defend poetry in general, these

authors did not attempt to do so on local or temporary grounds, but set

out to examine the fundamental grounds of criticism, and to formulate

the basic principles of poetry. In this attempt they consciously or

unconsciously sought aid from the critics of Italy, and thus commenced

in England the influence of the Italian theory of poetry. How great was

their indebtedness to the Italians the course of the present study will

make somewhat clear; but it is certainly remarkable that this

indebtedness has never been pointed out before. Speaking of Sidney's

_Defence of Poesy_, one of the most distinguished English authorities on

the Renaissance says: "Much as the Italians had recently written upon

the theory of poetry, I do not remember any treatise which can be said

to have supplied the material or suggested the method of this

apology."[440] On the contrary, the doctrines discussed by Sidney had

been receiving very similar treatment from the Italians for over half a

century; and it can be said without exaggeration that there is not an

essential principle in the _Defence of Poesy_ which cannot be traced

back to some Italian treatise on the poetic art. The age of which Sidney

is the chief representative is therefore the first period of the

influence of Italian critics.

The fourth stage of English criticism, of which Ben Jonson is, as it

were, the presiding genius, occupies the first half of the seventeenth

century. The period that preceded it was in general romantic in its

tendencies; that of Jonson leaned toward a strict though never servile

classicism. Sidney's contemporaries had studied the general theory of

poetry, not for the purpose of enunciating rules or dogmas of criticism,

but chiefly in order to defend the poetic art, and to understand its

fundamental principles. The spirit of the age was the spirit, let us

say, of Fracastoro; that of Jonson was, in a moderate form, the spirit

of Scaliger or Castelvetro. With Jonson the study of the art of poetry

became an inseparable guide to creation; and it is this element of

self-conscious art, guided by the rules of criticism, which

distinguishes him from his predecessors. The age which he represents is

therefore the second period of the influence of Italian criticism; and

the same influence also is to be seen in such critical poems as

Suckling's _Session of the Poets_, and the _Great Assises holden in

Parnassus_, ascribed to Wither, both of which may be traced back to the

class of critical poetry of which Boccalini's _Ragguagli di Parnaso_ is

the type.[441]

The fifth period, which covers the second half of the seventeenth

century, is characterized by the introduction of French influence, and

begins with Davenant's letter to Hobbes, and Hobbes's answer, both

prefixed to the epic of _Gondibert_ (1651). These letters, written while

Davenant and Hobbes were at Paris, display many of the characteristic

features of the new influence,--the rationalistic spirit, the stringent

classicism, the restriction of art to the imitation of nature, with the

further limitation of nature to the life of the city and the court, and

the confinement of the imagination to what is called "wit." This

specialized sense of the word "wit" is characteristic of the new age, of

which Dryden, in part the disciple of Davenant, is the leading figure.

The Elizabethans used the term in the general sense of the

understanding,--wit, the mental faculty, as opposed to will, the faculty

of volition. With the neo-classicists it was used sometimes to

represent, in a limited sense, the imagination,[442] more often,

however, to designate what we should call fancy,[443] or even mere

propriety of poetic expression;[444] but whatever its particular use, it

was always regarded as of the essence of poetic art.

With the fifth stage of English criticism this essay is not concerned.

The history of literary criticism in England will be traced no farther

than 1650, when the influence of France was substituted for that of

Italy. This section deals especially with the two great periods of

Italian influence,--that of Sidney and that of Ben Jonson. These two men

are the central figures, and their names, like those of Dryden, Pope,

and Samuel Johnson, represent distinct and important epochs in the

history of literary criticism.

FOOT-NOTES:

[437] _Cf._ _Mod. Lang. Notes_, 1898, xiii. 293.

[438] _Cf._ Ascham, _Works_, ii. 174-191.

[439] The _Reulis and Cautelis of Scottis Poesie_ by James VI. of

Scotland is wholly based on Gascoigne's treatise.

[440] J. A. Symonds, _Sir Philip Sidney_, p. 157. _Cf._ also, Sidney,

_Defence_, Cook's introduction, p. xxvii.

[441] _Cf._ Foffano, p. 173 _sq._ In Spain, Lope de Vega's _Laurel de

Apolo_ and Cervantes' _Viage del Parnaso_ belong to the same class of

poems.

[442] _Cf._ Dryden, ded. epist. to the _Annus Mirabilis_.

[443] Addison, _Spectator_, no. 62.

[444] Dryden, preface to the _State of Innocence_.

CHAPTER II

THE GENERAL THEORY OF POETRY IN THE ELIZABETHAN AGE

THOSE who have some acquaintance, however superficial, with the literary

criticism of the Italian Renaissance will find an account of the

Elizabethan theory of poetry a twice-told tale. In England, as in

France, criticism during this period was of a more practical character

than in Italy; but even for the technical questions discussed by the

Elizabethans, some prototype, or at least some equivalent, may be found

among the Italians. The first four stages of English criticism have

therefore little novelty or original value; and their study is chiefly

important as evidence of the gradual application of the ideas of the

Renaissance to English literature.

The writers of the first stage, as might be expected, concerned

themselves but little with the theory of poetry, beyond repeating here

and there the commonplaces they found in the Italian rhetoricians. Yet

it is interesting to note that as early as 1553, Wilson, in the third

book of his _Rhetoric_, gives expression to the allegorical conception

of poetry which in Italy had held sway from the time of Petrarch and

Boccaccio, and which, more than anything else, colored critical theory

in Elizabethan England. The ancient poets, according to Wilson, did not

spend their time inventing meaningless fables, but used the story merely

as a framework for contents of ethical, philosophic, scientific, or

historical import; the trials of Ulysses, for example, were intended to

furnish a lively picture of man's misery in this life. The poets are, in

fact, wise men, spiritual legislators, reformers, who have at heart the

redressing of wrongs; and in accomplishing this end,--either because

they fear to rebuke these wrongs openly, or because they doubt the

expediency or efficacy of such frankness with ignorant people,--they

hide their true meaning under the veil of pleasant fables. This theory

of poetic art, one of the commonplaces of the age, may be described as

the great legacy of the Middle Ages to Renaissance criticism.

The writers of the second stage were, in many cases, too busy with

questions of versification and other practical matters to find time for

abstract theorizing on the art of poetry. A long period of rhetorical

and metrical study had helped to formulate a rhetorical and technical

conception of the poet's function, aptly exemplified in the sonnet

describing the perfect poet prefixed to King James's brief treatise on

Scotch poetry.[445] The marks of a perfect poet are there given as

skilfulness in the rhetorical figures, quick wit, as shown in the use of

apt and pithy words, and a good memory;--a merely external view of the

poet's gifts, which takes no account of such essentials as imagination,

sensibility, and knowledge of nature and human life.

Webbe's _Discourse of English Poetrie_ (1586) gives expression to a

conception of the object of poetry which is the logical consequence of

the allegorical theory, and which was therefore almost universally

accepted by Renaissance writers. The poet teaches by means of the

allegorical truth hidden under the pleasing fables he invents; but his

first object must be to make these fables really pleasing, or the reader

is deterred at the outset from any acquaintance with the poet's works.

Poetry is therefore a delightful form of instruction; it pleases and

profits together; but first of all it must delight, "for the very sum

and chiefest essence of poetry did always for the most part consist in

delighting the readers or hearers."[446] The poet has the highest

welfare of man at heart; and by his sweet allurements to virtue and

effective caveats against vice, he gains his end, not roughly or

tyrannically, but, as it were, with a loving authority.[447] From the

very beginnings of human society poetry has been the means of civilizing

men, of drawing them from barbarity to civility and virtue. If it be

objected that this art--or rather, from the divine origin of its

inspiration, this more than art--has ever been made the excuse for the

enticing expression of obscenity and blasphemy, Webbe has three answers.

In the first place, poetry is to be moralized, that is, to be read

allegorically. The _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid, for example, will become,

when so understood, a fount of ethical teaching; and Harington, a few

years later, actually explains in detail the allegorical significance of

the fourth book of that poem.[448] This was a well-established

tradition, and indeed a favorite occupation, of the Middle Ages; and the

_Ovide Moralise_, a long poem by Chretien Le Gouais, written about the

beginning of the fourteenth century, and the equally long Ovidian

commentary of Pierre Bercuire, are typical examples of this

practice.[449] In the second place, the picture of vices to be found in

poetry is intended, not to entice the reader to imitate them, but rather

to deter sensible men from doing likewise by showing the misfortune that

inevitably results from evil. Moreover, obscenity is in no way

essentially connected with poetic art; it is to the abuse of poetry, and

not to poetry itself, that we must lay all blame for this fault.

A still higher conception of the poet's function is to be found in

Puttenham's _Arte of English Poesie_ (1589). The author of this treatise

informs us that he had lived at the courts of France, Italy, and Spain,

and knew the languages of these and other lands; and the results of his

travels and studies are sufficiently shown in his general theory of

poetry. His conception of the poet is directly based on that of

Scaliger. Poetry, in its highest form, is an art of "making," or

creation; and in this sense the poet is a creator like God, and forms a

world out of nothing. In another sense, poetry is an art of imitation,

in that it presents a true and lively picture of everything set before

it. In either case, it can attain perfection only by a divine instinct,

or by a great excellence of nature, or by vast observation and

experience of the world, or indeed by all these together; but whatever

the source of its inspiration, it is ever worthy of study and praise,

and its creators deserve preeminence and dignity above all other

artificers, scientific or mechanical.[450] The poets were the first

priests, prophets, and legislators of the world, the first philosophers,

scientists, orators, historians, and musicians. They have been held in

the highest esteem by the greatest men from the very first; and the

nobility, antiquity, and universality of their art prove its preeminence

and worth. With such a history and such a nature, it is sacrilege to

debase poetry, or to employ it upon any unworthy subject or for ignoble

purpose. Its chief themes should therefore be such as these: the honor

and glory of the gods, the worthy deeds of noble princes and great

warriors, the praise of virtue and the reproof of vice, instruction in

moral doctrine or scientific knowledge, and finally, "the common solace

of mankind in all the travails and cares of this transitory life," or

even for mere recreation alone.[451]

This is the sum of poetic theorizing during the second stage of English

criticism. Yet it was at this very time that the third, or apologetic,

period was prepared for by the attacks which the Puritans directed

against poetry, and especially the drama. Of these attacks, Gosson's,

as the most celebrated, may be taken as the type. Underlying the rant

and exaggerated vituperation of his _Schoole of Abuse_ (1579), there is

a basis of right principles, and some evidence at least of a spirit not

wholly vulgar. He was a moral reformer, an idealist, who looked back

with regret toward "the old discipline of England," and contrasted it

with the spirit of his own day, when Englishmen seemed to have "robbed

Greece of gluttony, Italy of wantonness, Spain of pride, France of

deceit, and Dutchland of quaffing."[452] The typical evidences of this

moral degradation and effeminacy he found in poetry and the drama; and

it is to this motive that his bitter assault on both must be ascribed.

He specifically insists that his intention was not to banish poetry, or

to condemn music, or to forbid harmless recreation to mankind, but

merely to chastise the abuse of all these.[453] He praises plays which

possess real moral purpose and effect, and points out the true use and

the worthy subjects of poetry much in the same manner as Puttenham does

a few years later.[454] But he affirms, as Plato had done hundreds of

years before, and as a distinguished French critic has done only the

other day, that art contains within itself the germ of its own

disintegration; and he shows that in the English poetry of his own time

this disintegration had already taken place. The delights and ornaments

of verse, intended really to make moral doctrine more pleasing and less

abstruse and thorny, had become, with his contemporaries, mere alluring

disguises for obscenity and blasphemy.

In the first of the replies to Gosson, Lodge's _Defence of Poetry,

Musick, and Stage Plays_, written before either of the treatises of

Webbe and Puttenham, are found the old principles of allegorical and

moral interpretation,--principles which to us may seem well worn, but

which to the English criticism of that time were novel enough. Lodge

points out the efficacy of poetry as a civilizing factor in primitive

times, and as a moral agency ever since. If the poets have on occasion

erred, so have the philosophers, even Plato himself, and

grievously.[455] Poetry is a heavenly gift, and is to be contemned only

when abused and debased. Lodge did not perceive that his point of view

was substantially the same as his opponent's; and indeed, throughout the

Elizabethan age, there was this similarity in the point of view of those

who attacked and those who defended poetry. Both sides admitted that not

poetry, but its abuse, is to be disparaged; and they differed chiefly in

that one side insisted almost entirely on the ideal perfection of the

poetic art, while the other laid stress on the debased state into which

it had fallen. A dual point of view was attempted in a work, licensed in

January, 1600, which pretended to be "a commendation of true poetry, and

a discommendation of all bawdy, ribald, and paganized poets."[456] This

Puritan movement against the paganization of poetry corresponds to the

similar movement started by the Council of Trent in Catholic countries.

The theory of poetry during the second stage of English criticism was in

the main Horatian, with such additions and modifications as the early

Renaissance had derived from the Middle Ages. The Aristotelian canons

had not yet become a part of English criticism. Webbe alludes to

Aristotle's dictum that Empedocles, having naught but metre in common

with Homer, was in reality a natural philosopher rather than a

poet;[457] but all such allusions to Aristotle's _Poetics_ were merely

incidental and sporadic. The introduction of Aristotelianism into

England was the direct result of the influence of the Italian critics;

and the agent in bringing this new influence into English letters was

Sir Philip Sidney. His _Defence of Poesy_ is a veritable epitome of the

literary criticism of the Italian Renaissance; and so thoroughly is it

imbued with this spirit, that no other work, Italian, French, or

English, can be said to give so complete and so noble a conception of

the temper and the principles of Renaissance criticism. For the general

theory of poetry, its sources were the critical treatises of

Minturno[458] and Scaliger.[459] Yet without any decided novelty of

ideas, or even of expression, it can lay claim to distinct originality

in its unity of feeling, its ideal and noble temper, and its adaptation

to circumstance. Its eloquence and dignity will hardly appear in a mere

analysis, which pretends to give only the more important and fundamental

of its principles; but such a summary--and this is quite as

important--will at least indicate the extent of its indebtedness to

Italian criticism.

In all that relates to the antiquity, universality, and preeminence of

poetry, Sidney apparently follows Minturno. Poetry, as the first

light-giver to ignorance, flourished before any other art or science.

The first philosophers and historians were poets; and such supreme works

as the _Psalms_ of David and the _Dialogues_ of Plato are in reality

poetical. Among the Greeks and the Romans, the poet was regarded as a

sage or prophet; and no nation, however primitive or barbarous, has been

without poets, or has failed to receive delight and instruction from

poetry.[460]

But before proceeding to defend an art so ancient and universal, it is

necessary to define it; and the definition which Sidney gives agrees

substantially with what might be designated Renaissance Aristotelianism.

"Poetry," says Sidney,[461] "is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle

termeth it in his word [Greek: mimesis], that is to say, a representing,

counterfeiting, or figuring forth; to speak metaphorically, a speaking

picture,[462] with this end,--to teach and delight."[463] Poetry is,

accordingly, an art of imitation, and not merely the art of versifying;

for although most poets have seen fit to apparel their poetic inventions

in verse, verse is but the raiment and ornament of poetry, and not one

of its causes or essentials.[464] "One may be a poet without versing,"

says Sidney, "and a versifier without poetry."[465] Speech and reason

are the distinguishing features between man and brute; and whatever

helps to perfect and polish speech deserves high commendation. Besides

its mnemonic value, verse is the most fitting raiment of poetry because

it is most dignified and compact, not colloquial and slipshod. But with

all its merits, it is not an essential of poetry, of which the true test

is this,--feigning notable images of vices and virtues, and teaching

delightfully.

In regard to the object, or function, of poetry, Sidney is at one with

Scaliger. The aim of poetry is accomplished by teaching most

delightfully a notable morality; or, in a word, by delightful

instruction.[466] Not instruction alone, or delight alone, as Horace

had said, but instruction made delightful; and it is this dual function

which serves not only as the end but as the very test of poetry. The

object of all arts and sciences is to lift human life to the highest

altitudes of perfection; and in this respect they are all servants of

the sovereign, or architectonic, science, whose end is well-doing and

not well-knowing only.[467] Virtuous action is therefore the end of all

learning;[468] and Sidney sets out to prove that the poet, more than any

one else, conduces to this end.

This is the beginning of the apologetic side of Sidney's argument. The

ancient controversy--ancient even in Plato's days--between poetry and

philosophy is once more reopened; and the question is the one so often

debated by the Italians,--shall the palm be given to the poet, to the

philosopher, or to the historian? The gist of Sidney's argument is that

while the philosopher teaches by precept alone, and the historian by

example alone, the poet conduces most to virtue because he employs both

precept and example. The philosopher teaches virtue by showing what

virtue is and what vice is, by setting down, in thorny argument, and

without clarity or beauty of style, the bare rule.[469] The historian

teaches virtue by showing the experience of past ages; but, being tied

down to what actually happened, that is, to the particular truth of

things and not to general reason, the example he depicts draws no

necessary consequence. The poet alone accomplishes this dual task. What

the philosopher says should be done is by the poet pictured most

perfectly in some one by whom it has been done, thus coupling the

general notion with the particular instance. The philosopher, moreover,

teaches the learned only; the poet teaches all, and is, in Plutarch's

phrase, "the right popular philosopher,"[470] for he seems only to

promise delight, and moves men to virtue unawares. But even if the

philosopher excel the poet in teaching, he cannot move his readers as

the poet can, and this is of higher importance than teaching; for what

is the use of teaching virtue if the pupil is not moved to act and

accomplish what he is taught?[471] On the other hand, the historian

deals with particular instances, with vices and virtues so commingled

that the reader can find no pattern to imitate. The poet makes history

reasonable; he gives perfect examples of vices and virtues for human

imitation; he makes virtue succeed and vice fail, as history can but

seldom do. Poetry, therefore, conduces to virtue, the end of all

learning, better than any other art or science, and so deserves the palm

as the highest and the noblest form of human wisdom.[472]

The basis of Sidney's distinction between the poet and the historian is

the famous passage in which Aristotle explains why poetry is more

philosophic and of more serious value than history.[473] The poet deals,

not with the particular, but with the universal,--with what might or

should be, not with what is or has been. But Sidney, in the assertion of

this principle, follows Minturno[474] and Scaliger,[475] and goes

farther than Aristotle would probably have gone. All arts have the works

of nature as their principal object, and follow nature as actors follow

the lines of their play. Only the poet is not tied to such subjects, but

creates another nature better than ever nature itself brought forth.

For, going hand in hand with nature, and being enclosed not within her

limits, but only by the zodiac of his own imagination, he creates a

golden world for nature's brazen; and in this sense he may be compared

as a creator with God.[476] Where shall you find in life such a friend

as Pylades, such a hero as Orlando, such an excellent man as AEneas?

Sidney then proceeds to answer the various objections that have been

made against poetry. These objections, partly following Gosson and

Cornelius Agrippa,[477] and partly his own inclinations, he reduces to

four.[478] In the first place, it is objected that a man might spend his

time more profitably than by reading the figments of poets. But since

teaching virtue is the real aim of all learning, and since poetry has

been shown to accomplish this better than all other arts or sciences,

this objection is easily answered. In the second place, poetry has been

called the mother of lies; but Sidney shows that it is less likely to

misstate facts than other sciences, for the poet does not publish his

figments as facts, and, since he affirms nothing, cannot ever be said to

lie.[479] Thirdly, poetry has been called the nurse of abuse, that is to

say, poetry misuses and debases the mind of man by turning it to

wantonness and by making it unmartial and effeminate. But Sidney argues

that it is man's wit that abuses poetry, and not poetry that abuses

man's wit; and as to making men effeminate, this charge applies to all

other sciences more than to poetry, which in its description of battles

and praise of valiant men notably stirs courage and enthusiasm. Lastly,

it is pointed out by the enemies of poetry that Plato, one of the

greatest of philosophers, banished poets from his ideal commonwealth.

But Plato's _Dialogues_ are in reality themselves a form of poetry; and

it argues ingratitude in the most poetical of philosophers, that he

should defile the fountain which was his source.[480] Yet though Sidney

perceives how fundamental are Plato's objections to poetry, he is

inclined to believe that it was rather against the abuse of poetry by

the contemporary Greek poets that Plato was chiefly cavilling; for poets

are praised in the _Ion_, and the greatest men of every age have been

patrons and lovers of poetry.

In the dozen years or so which elapsed between the composition and the

publication of the _Defence of Poesy_, during which time it seems to

have circulated in manuscript, a number of critical works appeared, and

the indebtedness of several of them to Sidney's book is considerable.

This is especially so of the _Apologie of Poetrie_ which Sir John

Harington prefixed to his translation of the _Orlando Furioso_ in 1591.

This brief treatise includes an apology for poetry in general, for the

_Orlando Furioso_ in particular, and also for his own translation. The

first section, which alone concerns us here, is almost entirely based on

the _Defence of Poesy_. The distinguishing features of poetry are

imitation, or fiction, and verse.[481] Harington disclaims all intention

of discussing whether writers of fiction and dialogue in prose, such as

Plato and Xenophon, are poets or not, or whether Lucan, though writing

in verse, is to be regarded as an historiographer rather than as a

poet;[482] so that his argument is confined to the element of imitation,

or fiction. He treats poetry rather as a propaedeutic to theology and

moral philosophy than as one of the fine arts. All human learning may be

regarded by the orthodox Christian as vain and superfluous; but poetry

is one of the most effective aids to the higher learning of God's

divinity, and poets themselves are really popular philosophers and

popular divines. Harington then takes up, one by one, the four specific

charges of Cornelius Agrippa, that poetry is a nurse of lies, a pleaser

of fools, a breeder of dangerous errors, and an enticer to wantonness;

and answers them after the manner of Sidney. He differs from Sidney,

however, in laying particular stress on the allegorical interpretation

of imaginative literature. This element is minimized in the _Defence of

Poesy_; but Harington accepts, and discusses in detail, the mediaeval

conception of the three meanings of poetry, the literal, the moral, and

the allegorical.[483] The death-knell of this mode of interpreting

literature was sounded by Bacon, who, while not asserting that all the

fables of poets are but meaningless fictions, declared without

hesitation that the fable had been more often written first and the

exposition devised afterward, than the moral first conceived and the

fable merely framed to give expression to it.[484]

This passage occurs in the second book of the _Advancement of Learning_

(1605), where Bacon has briefly stated his theory of poetry. His point

of view does not differ essentially from that of Sidney, though the

expression is more compact and logical. The human understanding,

according to Bacon, includes the three faculties of memory, imagination,

and reason, and each of these faculties finds typical expression in one

of the three great branches of learning, memory in history, reason in

philosophy, and imagination in poetry.[485] The imagination, not being

tied to the laws of matter, may join what nature has severed and sever

what nature has joined; and poetry, therefore, while restrained in the

measure of words, is in all things else extremely licensed. It may be

defined as feigned history, and in so far as its form is concerned, may

be either in prose or in verse. Its source is to be found in the

dissatisfaction of the human mind with the actual world; and its purpose

is to satisfy man's natural longing for more perfect greatness,

goodness, and variety than can be found in the nature of things. Poetry

therefore invents actions and incidents greater and more heroic than

those of nature, and hence conduces to magnanimity; it invents actions

more agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, more just in

retribution, more in accordance with revealed providence, and hence

conduces to morality; it invents actions more varied and unexpected, and

hence conduces to delectation. "And therefore it was ever thought to

have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise the mind,

by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind; whereas

reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the nature of things."[486] For

the expression of affections, passions, corruptions, and customs, the

world is more indebted to poets than to the works of philosophers, and

for wit and eloquence no less than to orators and their orations. It is

for these reasons that in rude times, when all other learning was

excluded, poetry alone found access and admiration.

This is pure idealism of a romantic type; but in his remarks on allegory

Bacon was foreshadowing the development of classicism, for from the time

of Ben Jonson the allegorical mode of interpreting poetry ceased to

have any effect on literary criticism. The reason for this is obvious.

The allegorical critics regarded the plot, or fable,--to use a simile so

often found in Renaissance criticism--as a mere sweet and pleasant

covering for the wholesome but bitter pill of moral doctrine. The

neo-classicists, limiting the sense and application of Aristotle's

definition of poetry as an imitation of life, regarded the fable as the

medium of this imitation, and the more perfect according as it became

more truly and more minutely an image of human life. In criticism,

therefore, the growth of classicism is more or less coextensive with the

growth of the conception of the fable, or plot, as an end in itself.

This vaguely defines the change which comes over the spirit of criticism

about the beginning of the seventeenth century, and which is exemplified

in the writings of Ben Jonson. His definition of poetry does not differ

substantially from that of Sidney, but seems more directly

Aristotelian:--

"A poet, _poeta_, is ... a maker, or feigner; his art, an art

of imitation or feigning; expressing the life of men in fit

measure, numbers, and harmony; according to Aristotle from the

word [Greek: poiein], which signifies to make or feign. Hence

he is called a poet, not he which writeth in measure only, but

that feigneth and formeth a fable, and writes things like the

truth; for the fable and fiction is, as it were, the form and

soul of any poetical work or poem."[487]

Poetry and painting agree in that both are arts of imitation, both

accommodate all they invent to the use and service of nature, and both

have as their common object profit and pleasure; but poetry is a higher

form of art than painting, since it appeals to the understanding, while

painting appeals primarily to the senses.[488] Jonson's conception of

his art is thus essentially noble; of all arts it ranks highest in

dignity and ethical importance. It contains all that is best in

philosophy, divinity, and the science of politics, and leads and

persuades men to virtue with a ravishing delight, while the others but

threaten and compel.[489] It therefore offers to mankind a certain rule

and pattern of living well and happily in human society. This conception

of poetry Jonson finds in Aristotle;[490] but it is to the Italians of

the Renaissance, and not to the Stagyrite, that these doctrines really

belong.

Jonson ascribes to the poet himself a dignity no less than that of his

craft. Mere excellence in style or versification does not make a poet,

but rather the exact knowledge of vices and virtues, with ability to

make the latter loved and the former hated;[491] and this is so far

true, that to be a good poet it is necessary, first of all, to be a

really good man.[492] A similar doctrine has already been found in many

critical writers of the sixteenth century; but perhaps the noblest

expression of this conception of the poet's consecrated character and

office occurs in the original quarto edition of Jonson's _Every Man in

his Humour_, in which the "reverend name" of poet is thus exalted:--

"I can refell opinion, and approve

The state of poesy, such as it is,

Blessed, eternal, and most true divine:

Indeed, if you will look on poesy,

As she appears in many, poor and lame,

Patched up in remnants and old worn-out rags,

Half-starved for want of her peculiar food,

Sacred invention; then I must confirm

Both your conceit and censure of her merit:

But view her in her glorious ornaments,

Attired in the majesty of art,

Set high in spirit with the precious taste

Of sweet philosophy; and, which is most,

Crowned with the rich traditions of a soul,

That hates to have her dignity prophaned

With any relish of an earthly thought,

Oh then how proud a presence doth she bear!

Then is she like herself, fit to be seen

Of none but grave and consecrated eyes."[493]

Milton also gives expression to this consecrated conception of the poet.

Poetry is a gift granted by God only to a few in every nation;[494] but

he who would partake of the gift of eloquence must first of all be

virtuous.[495] It is impossible for any one to write well of laudable

things without being himself a true poem, without having in himself the

experience and practice of all that is praiseworthy.[496] Poets are the

champions of liberty and the "strenuous enemies of despotism";[497] and

they have power to imbreed and cherish in a people the seeds of virtue

and public civility, to set the affections in right tune, and to allay

the perturbations of the mind.[498] Poetry, which at its best is

"simple, sensuous, and passionate," describes everything that passes

through the brain of man,--all that is holy and sublime in religion, all

that in virtue is amiable and grave. Thus by means of delight and the

force of example, those who would otherwise flee from virtue are taught

to love her.

FOOT-NOTES:

[445] Haslewood, ii. 103.

[446] Haslewood, ii. 28.

[447] _Ibid._ ii. 42.

[448] Haslewood, ii. 128.

[449] _Hist. Litt. de la France_, xxix. 502-525.

[450] Puttenham, p. 19 _sq._

[451] _Ibid._ p. 39.

[452] Gosson, p. 34.

[453] _Ibid._ p. 65.

[454] _Ibid._ pp. 25, 40.

[455] Lodge, _Defence_ (_Shakespeare Soc. Publ._), p. 6.

[456] Arber, _Transcript of the Stat. Reg._, iii. 154.

[457] Haslewood, ii. 28.

[458] Sidney's acquaintance with Minturno is proved beyond doubt, even

were such proof necessary, by the list of poets (_Defence_, pp. 2, 3)

which he has copied from Minturno's _De Poeta_, pp. 14, 15.

[459] Scaliger's _Poetics_ is specifically mentioned and cited by Sidney

four or five times; but these citations are far from exhausting his

indebtedness to Scaliger.

[460] _Defence_, p. 2 _sq._; _cf._ Minturno, _De Poeta_, pp. 9, 13.

[461] _Defence_, p. 9.

[462] This ancient phrase had become, as has been seen, a commonplace

during the Renaissance. _Cf._, _e.g._, Dolce, _Osservationi_, 1560, p.

189; Vauquelin, _Art Poet._ i. 226; Camoens, _Lusiad._ vii. 76.

[463] Sidney's classification of poets, _Defence_, p. 9, is borrowed

from Scaliger, _Poet._ i. 3.

[464] _Defence_, p. 11. _Cf._ Castelvetro, _Poetica_, pp. 23, 190.

[465] _Defence_, p. 33. _Cf._ Ronsard, _Oeuvres_, iii. 19, vii. 310; and

Shelley, _Defence of Poetry_, p. 9: "The distinction between poets and

prose writers is a vulgar error."

[466] _Defence_, pp. 47, 51. _Cf._ Scaliger, _Poet._ i. 1, and vii. i.

2: "Poetae finem esse, docere cum delectatione."

[467] Aristotle, _Ethics_, i. 1; Cicero, _De Offic._ i. 7.

[468] This was the usual attitude of the humanists; _cf._ Woodward, p.

182 _sq._

[469] _Cf._ Daniello, p. 19; Minturno, _De Poeta_, p. 39.

[470] _Defence_, p. 18.

[471] _Ibid._ p. 22. _Cf._ Minturno, _De Poeta_, p. 106; Varchi,

_Lezzioni_, p. 576.

[472] That is, the highest form of _human_ wisdom, for Sidney, as a

Christian philosopher, naturally leaves revealed religion out of the

discussion.

[473] _Poet._ ix. 1-4.

[474] _De Poeta_, p. 87 _sq._

[475] _Poet._ i. 1.

[476] _Defence_, pp. 7, 8.

[477] _De Van. et Incert. Scient._ cap. v.

[478] _Defence_, p. 34 _sq._

[479] _Cf._ Boccaccio, _Gen. degli Dei_, p. 257 _sq._; and Haslewood,

ii. 127.

[480] _Defence_, pp. 3, 41; _cf._ Daniello, p. 22.

[481] Haslewood, ii. 129.

[482] _Ibid._ ii. 123.

[483] Haslewood, ii. 127.

[484] Bacon, _Works_, vi. 204-206.

[485] _Cf._ _Anglia_, 1899, xxi. 273.

[486] _Works_, vi. 203.

[487] _Discoveries_, p. 73. Jonson's distinction between poet (_poeta_),

poem (_poema_), and poesy (_poesis_), was derived from Scaliger or

Maggi.

[488] _Discoveries_, p. 49.

[489] _Ibid._ p. 34.

[490] _Ibid._ p. 74.

[491] _Ibid._ p. 34.

[492] _Works_, i. 333.

[493] _Works_, i. 59, _n._

[494] Milton, _Prose Works_, ii. 479.

[495] _Ibid._ iii. 100.

[496] _Ibid._ iii. 118.

[497] _Prose Works_, i. 241.

[498] _Ibid._ ii. 479.

CHAPTER III

THE THEORY OF DRAMATIC AND HEROIC POETRY

DRAMATIC criticism in England began with Sir Philip Sidney. Casual

references to the drama can be found in critical writings anterior to

the _Defence of Poesy_; but to Sidney belongs the credit of having first

formulated, in a more or less systematic manner, the general principles

of dramatic art. These principles, it need hardly be said, are those

which, for half a century or more, had been undergoing discussion and

modification in Italy and France, and of which the ultimate source was

the _Poetics_ of Aristotle. Dramatic criticism in England was thus, from

its very birth, both Aristotelian and classical, and it remained so for

two centuries. The beginnings of the Elizabethan drama were almost

contemporary with the composition of the _Defence of Poesy_, and the

decay of the drama with Jonson's _Discoveries_. Yet throughout this

period the romantic drama never received literary exposition. The great

Spanish drama had its critical champions and defenders, the Elizabethan

drama had none. It was, perhaps, found to be a simpler task to echo the

doctrines of others, than to formulate the principles of a novel

dramatic form. But the true explanation has already been suggested. The

sources of the dramatic criticism were the writings of the Italian

critics, and these were entirely classical. In creative literature,

however, the Italian Renaissance influenced the Elizabethans almost

entirely on the romantic side. This, perhaps, suffices to explain the

lack of fundamental coordination between dramatic theory and dramatic

practice during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Ascham,

writing twenty years before Sidney, indicated "Aristotle's precepts and

Euripides' example" as the criteria of dramatic art;[499] and in spirit

these remained the final tests throughout the Elizabethan age.

I. _Tragedy_

In Webbe's _Discourse of English Poetrie_ we find those general

distinctions between tragedy and comedy which had been common throughout

the Middle Ages from the days of the post-classic grammarians. Tragedies

express sorrowful and lamentable histories, dealing with gods and

goddesses, kings and queens, and men of high estate, and representing

miserable calamities, which become worse and worse until they end in the

most woful plight that can be devised. Comedies, on the other hand,

begin doubtfully, become troubled for a while, but always, by some lucky

chance, end with the joy and appeasement of all concerned.[500] This

distinction is said to be derived from imitation of the _Iliad_ and the

_Odyssey_; and in this, as well in his fanciful account of the origins

of the drama, Webbe seems to have had a vague recollection of Aristotle.

Puttenham's account of dramatic development is scarcely more

Aristotelian;[501] yet in its general conclusions it agrees with those

in the _Poetics_. His conception of tragedy and comedy is similar to

Webbe's. Comedy expresses the common behavior and manner of life of

private persons, and such as are of the meaner sort of men.[502] Tragedy

deals with the doleful falls of unfortunate and afflicted princes, for

the purpose of reminding men of the mutability of fortune, and of God's

just punishment of a vicious life.[503]

The Senecan drama and the Aristotelian precepts were the sources of

Sidney's theory of tragedy. The oratorical and sententious tragedies of

Seneca had influenced dramatic theory and practice throughout Europe

from the very outset of the Renaissance. Ascham, indeed, preferred

Sophocles and Euripides to Seneca, and cited Pigna, the rival of Giraldi

Cintio, in confirmation of his opinion;[504] but this, while an

indication of Ascham's own good taste, is an exceptional verdict, and in

direct opposition to the usual opinion of contemporary critics. Sidney,

in his account of the English drama, could find but one tragedy modelled

as it should be on the Senecan drama.[505] The tragedy of _Gorboduc_,

however, has one defect that provokes Sidney's censure,--it does not

observe the unities of time and place. In all other respects, it is an

ideal model for English playwrights to imitate. Its stately speeches and

well-sounding phrases approach almost to the height of Seneca's style;

and in teaching most delightfully a notable morality, it attains the

very end of poetry.

The ideal tragedy--and in this Sidney closely follows the Italians--is

an imitation of a noble action, in the representation of which it stirs

"admiration and commiseration,"[506] and teaches the uncertainty of the

world and the weak foundations upon which golden roofs are built. It

makes kings fear to be tyrants, and tyrants manifest their tyrannical

humors. Sidney's censure of the contemporary drama is that it outrages

the grave and weighty character of tragedy, its elevated style, and the

dignity of the personages represented, by mingling kings and clowns, and

introducing the most inappropriate buffoonery. There are, indeed, one or

two examples of tragi-comedy in ancient literature, such as Plautus's

_Amphitryon_;[507] but never do the ancients, like the English, match

hornpipes and funerals.[508] The English dramas are neither true

comedies nor true tragedies, and disregard both the rules of poetry and

honest civility. Tragedy is not tied to the laws of history, and may

arrange and modify events as it pleases; but it is certainly bound by

the rules of poetry. It is evident, therefore, that the _Defence of

Poesy_, as a French writer has observed, "gives us an almost complete

theory of neo-classic tragedy, a hundred years before the _Art Poetique_

of Boileau: the severe separation of poetic forms, the sustained dignity

of language, the unities, the _tirade_, the _recit_, nothing is

lacking."[509]

Ben Jonson pays more attention to the theory of comedy than to that of

tragedy; but his conception of the latter does not differ from Sidney's.

The parts, or divisions, of comedy and tragedy are the same, and both

have on the whole a common end, to teach and delight; so that comic as

well as tragic poets were called by the Greeks [Greek: didaskaloi].[510]

The external conditions of the drama require that it should have the

equal division into acts and scenes, the true number of actors, the

chorus, and the unities.[511] But Jonson does not insist on the strict

observance of these formal requirements, for the history of the drama

shows that each successive poet of importance has gradually and

materially altered the dramatic structure, and there is no reason why

the modern poet may not do likewise. Moreover, while these requirements

may have been regularly observed in the ancient state and splendor of

dramatic poetry, it is impossible to retain them now and preserve any

measure of popular delight. The outward forms of the ancients,

therefore, may in part be disregarded; but there are certain essentials

which must be observed by the tragic poet in whatsoever age he may

flourish. These are, "Truth of argument, dignity of persons, gravity

and height of elocution, fulness and frequency of sentence."[512] In

other words, Jonson's model is the oratorical and sententious tragedy of

Seneca, with its historical plots and its persons of high estate.

In the address, "Of that Sort of Dramatic Poem which is called Tragedy,"

prefixed to _Samson Agonistes_, Milton has minutely adhered to the

Italian theory of tragedy. After referring to the ancient dignity and

moral effect of tragedy,[513] Milton acknowledges that, in the modelling

of his poem, he has followed the ancients and the Italians as of

greatest authority in such matters. He has avoided the introduction of

trivial and vulgar persons and the intermingling of comic and tragic

elements; he has used the chorus, and has observed the laws of

verisimilitude and decorum. His explanation of the peculiar effect of

tragedy--the purgation of pity and fear--has already been referred to in

the first section of this essay.[514]

II. _Comedy_

The Elizabethan theory of comedy was based on the body of rules and

observations which the Italian critics, aided by a few hints from

Aristotle, had deduced from the practice of Plautus and Terence. It

will, therefore, be unnecessary to dwell at any great length on the

doctrines of Sidney and Ben Jonson, who are the main comic theorists of

this period. Sidney defines comedy as "an imitation of the common errors

of our life," which are represented in the most ridiculous and scornful

manner, so that the spectator is anxious to avoid such errors himself.

Comedy, therefore, shows the "filthiness of evil," but only in "our

private and domestical matters."[515] It should aim at being wholly

delightful, just as tragedy should be maintained by a well-raised

admiration. Delight is thus the first requirement of comedy; but the

English comic writers err in thinking that delight cannot be obtained

without laughter, whereas laughter is neither an essential cause nor an

essential effect of delight. Sidney then distinguishes delight from

laughter almost exactly after the manner of Trissino.[516] The great

fault of English comedy is that it stirs laughter concerning things that

are sinful, _i.e._ execrable rather than merely ridiculous--forbidden

plainly, according to Sidney, by Aristotle himself--and concerning

things that are miserable, and rather to be pitied than scorned. Comedy

should not only produce delightful laughter, but mixed with it that

delightful teaching which is the end of all poetry.

Ben Jonson, like Sidney, makes human follies or errors the themes of

comedy, which should be

"an image of the times,

And sport with human follies, not with crimes,

Except we make them such, by loving still

Our popular errors, when we know they're ill;

I mean such errors as you'll all confess

By laughing at them, they deserve no less."[517]

In depicting these human follies, it is the office of the comic poet to

imitate justice, to improve the moral life and purify language, and to

stir up gentle affections.[518] The moving of mere laughter is not

always the end of comedy; in fact, Jonson interprets Aristotle as

asserting that the moving of laughter is a fault in comedy, a kind of

turpitude that depraves a part of man's nature.[519] This conclusion is

based on an interpretation of Aristotle which has persisted almost to

the present day. In the _Poetics_, [Greek: to geloion], the ludicrous,

is said to be the subject of comedy;[520] and many critics have thought

that Aristotle intended by this to distinguish between the risible and

the ridiculous, between mere laughter and laughter mixed with contempt

or disapprobation.[521] The nature and the source of one of the most

important elements in Jonson's theory of comedy, his doctrine of

"humours," have been briefly discussed in the first section of this

essay. It will suffice here to define a "humour" as an absorbing

singularity of character,[522] and to note that it grew out of the

conception of _decorum_ which played so important a part in poetic

theory during the Italian Renaissance.

III. _The Dramatic Unities_

Before leaving the theory of the drama, there is one further point to be

discussed,--the doctrine of the unities. It has been seen that the

unities of time and place were, in Italy, first formulated together by

Castelvetro in 1570, and in France by Jean de la Taille in 1572. The

first mention of the unities in England is to be found, a dozen years

later, in the _Defence of Poesy_, and it cannot be doubted that Sidney

derived them directly from Castelvetro. Sidney, in discussing the

tragedy of _Gorboduc_, finds it "faulty in time and place, the two

necessary companions of all corporal actions; for where the stage should

always represent but one place, and the uttermost time presupposed in it

should be, both by Aristotle's precept and common reason, but one day,

there [_i.e._ in _Gorboduc_] is both many days and many places

inartificially imagined."[523] He also objects to the confusions of the

English stage, where on one side Africa and on the other Asia may be

represented, and where in an hour a youth may grow from boyhood to old

age.[524] How absurd this is, common sense, art, and ancient examples

ought to teach the English playwright; and at this day, says Sidney,

the ordinary players in Italy will not err in it. If indeed it be

objected that one or two of the comedies of Plautus and Terence do not

observe the unity of time, let us not follow them when they err but when

they are right; it is no excuse for us to do wrong because Plautus on

one occasion has done likewise.

The law of the unities does not receive such rigid application in

England as is given by Sidney until the introduction of the French

influence nearly three quarters of a century later. Ben Jonson is

considerably less stringent in this respect than Sidney. He lays

particular stress on the unity of action, and in the _Discoveries_

explains at length the Aristotelian conception of the unity and

magnitude of the fable. "The fable is called the imitation of one entire

and perfect action, whose parts are so joined and knit together, as

nothing in the structure can be changed, or taken away, without

impairing or troubling the whole, of which there is a proportionable

magnitude in the members."[525] Simplicity, then, should be one of the

chief characteristics of the action, and nothing receives so much of

Jonson's censure as "monstrous and forced action."[526] As to the unity

of time, Jonson says that the action should be allowed to grow until

necessity demands a conclusion; the argument, however, should not exceed

the compass of one day, but should be large enough to allow place for

digressions and episodes, which are to the fable what furniture is to a

house.[527] Jonson does not formally require the observance of the

unity of place, and even acknowledges having disregarded it in his own

plays; but he does not favor much change of scene on the stage. In the

prologue of _Volpone_, he boasts that he has followed all the laws of

refined comedy,

"As best critics have designed;

The laws of time, place, persons he observeth,

From no needful rule he swerveth."

Milton observes the unity of time in the _Samson Agonistes_: "The

circumscription of time, wherein the whole drama begins and ends is,

according to ancient rule and best example, within the space of

twenty-four hours."

With the introduction of the French influence, the unities became fixed

requirements of the English drama, and remained so for over a century.

Sir Robert Howard, in the preface of his tragedy, _The Duke of Lerma_,

impugned their force and authority; but Dryden, in answering him,

pointed out that to attack the unities is really to contend against

Aristotle, Horace, Ben Jonson, and Corneille.[528] Farquhar, however, in

his _Discourse upon Comedy_ (1702), argued with force and wit against

the unities of time and place, and scoffed at all the legislators of

Parnassus, ancient and modern,--Aristotle, Horace, Scaliger, Vossius,

Heinsius, D'Aubignac, and Rapin.

IV. _Epic Poetry_

The Elizabethan theory of heroic poetry may be dismissed briefly. Webbe

refers to the epic as "that princely part of poetry, wherein are

displayed the noble acts and valiant exploits of puissant captains,

expert soldiers, wise men, with the famous reports of ancient

times;"[529] and Puttenham defines heroic poems as "long histories of

the noble gests of kings and great princes, intermeddling the dealings

of gods, demi-gods, and heroes, and weighty consequences of peace and

war."[530] The importance of this form of poetry, according to

Puttenham, is largely historical, in that it sets forth an example of

the valor and virtue of our forefathers.[531] Sidney is scarcely more

explicit.[532] He asserts that heroic poetry is the best and noblest of

all forms; he shows that such characters as Achilles, AEneas, and Rinaldo

are shining examples for all men's imitation; but of the nature or

structure of the epic he says nothing.

The second part of Harington's _Apologie of Poetrie_ is given up to a

defence of the _Orlando Furioso_, and here the Aristotelian theory of

the epic appears for the first time in English criticism. Harington,

taking the _AEneid_ as the approved model of all heroic poetry, first

shows that Ariosto has followed closely in Virgil's footsteps, but is to

be preferred even to Virgil in that the latter pays reverence to false

deities, while Ariosto has the advantage of the Christian spirit. But

since some critics, "reducing all heroical poems unto the method of

Homer and certain precepts of Aristotle," insist that Ariosto is wanting

in art, Harington sets out to prove that the _Orlando Furioso_ may not

only be defended by the example of Homer, but that it has even followed

very strictly the rules and precepts of Aristotle.[533] In the first

place, Aristotle says that the epic should be based on some historical

action, only a short part of which, in point of time, should be treated

by the poet; so Ariosto takes the story of Charlemagne, and does not

exceed a year or so in the compass of the argument.[534] Secondly,

Aristotle holds that nothing that is utterly incredible should be

invented by the poet; and nothing in the _Orlando_ exceeds the

possibility of belief. Thirdly, epics, as well as tragedies, should be

full of [Greek: peripeteia], which Harington interprets to mean "an

agnition of some unlooked for fortune either good or bad, and a sudden

change thereof"; and of this, as well as of apt similitudes and passions

well expressed, the _Orlando_ is really full.

In conclusion, it may be observed that epic poetry did not receive

adequate critical treatment in England until after the introduction of

the French influence. The rules and theories of the Italian Renaissance,

restated in the writings of Le Bossu, Mambrun, Rapin, and Vossius, were

thus brought into English criticism, and found perhaps their best

expression in Addison's essays on _Paradise Lost_. Such epics as

Davenant's _Gondibert_, Chamberlayne's _Pharonnida_, Dryden's _Annus

Mirabilis_, and Blackmore's _Prince Arthur_, like the French epics of

the same period, doubtless owed their inspiration to the desire to put

into practice the classical rules of heroic poetry.[535]

FOOT-NOTES:

[499] _Scholemaster_, p. 139.

[500] Haslewood, ii. 40.

[501] Puttenham, p. 47 _sq._

[502] _Ibid._ p. 41.

[503] _Ibid._ p. 49.

[504] Ascham, _Works_, ii. 189.

[505] _Defence_, p. 47 _sq._

[506] _Defence_, p. 28. This is the Elizabethan equivalent for

Aristotle's _katharsis_ of "pity and terror."

[507] _Cf._ Scaliger, _Poet._ i. 7.

[508] _Defence_, p. 50.

[509] Breitinger, p. 37.

[510] _Discoveries_, p. 81.

[511] _Works_, i. 69.

[512] _Works_, i. 272.

[513] _Cf._ Bacon, _De Augm. Scient._ iii. 13; and Ascham,

_Scholemaster_, p. 130.

[514] He seems also to allude to the theory of _katharsis_ in the

_Reason of Church Government_; _Prose Works_, ii. 479.

[515] _Defence_, p. 28.

[516] _Ibid._ p. 50 _sq._ _Cf._ Trissino, _Opere_, ii. 127 _sq._; and

Cicero, _De Orat._ ii. 58 _sq._

[517] _Works_, i. 2.

[518] _Ibid._ i. 335.

[519] _Discoveries_, p. 82.

[520] _Poet._ v. 1.

[521] _Cf._ Twining, i. 320 _sq._, and Kames, _Elements of Criticism_,

vol. i. chap. 7.

[522] _Cf._ Jonson, _Works_, i. 67 and 31.

[523] _Defence_, p. 48; _cf._ Castelvetro, _Poetica_, pp. 168, 534.

[524] _Cf._ Whetstone, _Promos and Cassandra_ (1578), cited in Ward,

_Dram. Lit._ i. 118; also, Jonson, _Works_, i. 2, 70; Cervantes, _Don

Quix._ i. 48; Boileau, _Art Poet._ iii. 39. In the theory of the drama,

Sidney's point of view coincides very closely with that of Cervantes.

[525] _Discoveries_, p. 83.

[526] _Works_, i. 337.

[527] _Discoveries_, p. 85.

[528] _Essay of Dram. Poesy_, p. 118.

[529] Haslewood, ii. 45.

[530] Puttenham, p. 40.