Europe. "Calandra," the earliest modern comedy, was presented at
Venice in 1508, and about the same time the Spanish tragi-comedy of
"Calisto and Melibœa" was printed. The pastoral romance, also, made
its appearance in Portugal; and the "Arcadia," 1502, by the Italian
Sannazaro, a work of this class, did much to restore the correctness
and elegance of Italian prose. Peter Bembo's "Asolani," 1505, a
dialogue on love, has also been thought to mark an epoch in Italian
literature. At the same time, William Dunbar, with his "Thistle and
Rose," 1503, and his allegorical "Golden Targe," was leading the van of
British poetry.
The records of voyages of discovery begin to take a prominent place.
The old travels of Marco Polo, as well as those of Sir John Mandeville,
and the "Cosmography" of Ptolemy, had been printed in the previous
century; but the stupendous discoveries of the close of that age now
fell to be told. The voyages of Cadamosto, a Venetian, in Western
Africa, appeared in 1507; and those of Amerigo Vespucci, entitled
"Mondo Nuovo," in the same year. An epistle of Columbus himself had
been printed in Germany about 1493.
Leo X., who became pope in 1513, placed men of letters in the most
honourable stations of his court, and was the munificent patron of
poets, scholars, and printers. Rucellai's "Rosmunda," a tragedy played
before Leo in 1515, was the earliest known trial of blank verse. The
"Sophonisba" of Trissino, published in 1524, a play written strictly
on the Greek model, had been acted some years before. Two comedies by
Ariosto were presented about 1512.
Meanwhile, the printing press became very active in Paris, Basle,
and Germany, chiefly in preparing works for the use of students in
universities. But in respect of learning, we have the testimony of
Erasmus that neither France, nor Germany, stood so high as England. In
Scotland, boys were being taught Latin in school; and the translation
of the Æneid by Gawin Douglas, completed about 1513, shows, by its
spirit and fidelity, the degree of scholarship in the north. The only
work of real genius which England can claim in this age is the "Utopia"
of Sir Thomas More, first printed in 1516.
Erasmus diffuses a lustre over his age, which no other name among the
learned supplies. About 1517, he published an enlarged edition of his
"Adages," which displays a surprising intimacy with Greek and Roman
literature. The most remarkable of them, in every sense, are those
which reflect with excessive bitterness on kings and priests. Erasmus
knew that the regular clergy were not to be conciliated, and resolved
to throw away the scabbard; and his invectives against kings proceeded
from a just sense of the oppression of Europe in that age by ambitious
and selfish rulers.
We are now brought by necessary steps to the great religious revolution
known as the Reformation, with which we are only concerned in so far
as it modified the history of literature. In all his dispute, Luther
was sustained by a prodigious force of popular opinion; and the German
nation was so fully awakened to the abuses of the Church that, if
neither Luther nor Zwingli had ever been born, a great religious schism
was still at hand. Erasmus, who had so manifestly prepared the way for
the new reformers, continued, beyond the year 1520, favourable to their
cause. But some of Luther's tenets he did not and could not approve;
and he was already disgusted by that intemperance of language which
soon led him to secede entirely from the Protestant side.
The laws of synchronism bring strange partners together, and we
may pass at once from Luther to Ariosto, whose "Orlando Furioso"
was printed at Ferrara in 1516. Ariosto has been, after Homer, the
favourite poet of Europe. His grace and facility, his clear and rapid
stream of language, his variety of invention, left him no rival.
No edition of "Amadis de Gaul" has been proved to exist before that
printed at Seville in 1519. This famous romance was translated into
French between 1540 and 1557, and into English by Munday in 1619.
A curious dramatic performance was represented in Paris in 1511, and
published in 1516. It is entitled "Le Prince des Sots et la Mère
sotte," by Peter Gringore; its chief aim was to ridicule the Pope and
the court of Rome. Hans Sachs, a shoemaker of Nuremberg, produced his
first carnival play in 1517. The English poets Hawes and Skelton fall
within this period.
From 1520 to 1550, Italy, where the literature of antiquity had been
first cultivated, still retained her superiority in the fine perception
of its beauties, but the study was proceeding also elsewhere in Europe.
Few books of that age give us more insight into its literary history
and the public taste than the "Circeronianus" of Erasmus, against which
Scaliger wrote with unmannerly invective. The same period of thirty
years is rich with poets, among whom are the Spanish Mendoza, the
Portuguese Ribero, Marot in France, many hymn-writers in Germany; and
in England, Wyatt and Surrey. At this time also, Spain was forming its
national theatre, chiefly under the influence of Lope de Rueda and of
Torres Naharro, the inventor of Spanish comedy. The most celebrated
writer of fiction in this age is Rabelais, than whom few have greater
fertility of language and imagination.
_IV.--The Sixteenth Century (1550-1600)_
Montaigne's "Essays," which first appeared at Bordeaux in 1580, make
an epoch in literature, being the first appeal from the academy to the
haunts of busy and idle men; and this delightful writer had a vast
influence on English and French literature in the succeeding age.
Turning now to the Italian poets of our period, we find that most of
them are feeble copyists of Petrarch, whose style Bembo had rendered so
popular. Casa, Costanzo, Baldi, Celio Magno, Bernardino Rota, Gaspara
Stampa, Bernado Tasso, father of the great Tasso, Peter Aretin, and
Firenzuola, flourished at this time. The "Jerusalem" of Torquato Tasso
is the great epic of modern times; it is read with pleasure in almost
every canto, though the native melancholy of Tasso tinges all his poem.
It was no sooner published than it was weighed against the "Orlando
Furioso," and Europe has not yet agreed which scale inclines.
Spanish poetry is adorned by Luis Ponce de Leon, born in 1527, a
religious and mystical lyric poet. The odes of Herrera have a lyric
elevation and richness of phrase, derived from the study of Pindar
and of the Old Testament. Castillejo, playful and witty, attempted to
revive the popular poetry, and ridiculed the imitators of Petrarch.
The great Camoens had now arisen in Portugal; his "Lusiad," written
in praise of the Lusitanian people, is the mirror of his loving,
courageous, generous, and patriotic heart. Camoens is the chief
Portuguese poet in this age, and possibly in every other.
This was an age of verse in France. Pierre Ronsard, Amadis Jamyn his
pupil, Du Bartas, Pibrac, Desportes, and many others, were gradually
establishing the rules of metre, and the Alexandrine was displacing the
old verse of ten syllables.
Of German poetry there is little to say; but England had Lord Vaux's
short pieces in "The Paradise of Dainty Devices"; Sackville, with his
"Induction" to the "Mirrour of Magistrates," 1559; George Gascoyne,
whose "Steel Glass," 1576, is the earliest English satire; and, above
all, Spenser, whose "Shepherd's Kalendar" appeared in 1579. This work
was far more natural and more pleasing than the other pastorals of
the age. Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis," and his "Rape of Lucrece,"
were published in 1593-94. Sir Philip Sidney, Raleigh, Lodge, Breton,
Marlowe, Green, Watson, Davison, Daniel, and Michael Drayton were now
writing poems, and Drake has a list of more than two hundred English
poets of this time.
The great work of the period is, however, the "Faëry Queen," the first
three books of which were published in 1590, and the last three in
1596. Spenser excels Ariosto in originality, force, and variety of
character, and in depth of reflection, but especially in the poetical
cast of feeling.
Of dramatic literature, between 1550 and 1600, we have many Italian
plays by Groto, Decio da Orto, and Tasso. The pastoral drama
originating with Agostino Beccari in 1554, reached its highest
perfection in Tasso's "Aminta," which was followed by Guarini's "Pastor
Fido."
Lope de Vega is the great Spanish dramatist of this time. His
astonishing facility produced over two thousand original dramas,
of which three hundred have been preserved. Jodelle, the father of
the French theatre, presented his "Cléopatre" in 1552. In 1598 the
foundations were laid of the Comédie Française.
In England, Sackville led the way with his tragedy of "Gorboduc,"
played at Whitehall before Elizabeth in 1562. In 1576, the first
public theatre was erected in Blackfriars. Several young men of talent
appeared, Marlowe, Peele, Greene, Kyd, and Nash, as the precursors
of Shakespeare; and in 1587, being then twenty-three years old, the
greatest of dramatists settled in London, and several of his plays had
been acted before the close of the century.
Among English prose writings of this time may be mentioned Ascham's
"Schoolmaster," 1570, Puttenham's "Art of English Poesie," 1586, and,
as a curiosity of affectation, Lilly's "Euphues." But the first good
prose-writer is Sir Philip Sidney, whose "Arcadia" appeared in 1590;
and the finest master of prose in the Elizabethan period is Hooker. The
first book of the "Ecclesiastical Polity" is one of the masterpieces of
English eloquence.
_V.--The Seventeenth Century (1600-1650)_
The two great figures in philosophy of this period are Bacon and
Descartes. At its beginning the higher philosophy had been little
benefited by the labours of any modern enquirer. It was become, indeed,
no strange thing to question the authority of Aristotle, but his
disciples could point with scorn at the endeavours made to supplant it.
In the great field of natural jurisprudence, the most eminent name
in this period is that of Hugo Grotius, whose famous work "De Jure
Belli et Pacis" was published in Paris in 1625. This treatise made an
epoch in the philosophical, and, we might almost say, in the political
history of Europe.
In the history of poetry, between 1600 and 1650, we have the Italians
Marini, Tassoni, and Chiabrera, the last being the founder of a school
of lyric poetry known as "Pindaric." Among Spanish poets are Villegas
and Gongora; in France, Malherbe, Regnier, Racan, Maynard, Voiture,
and Sarrazin; Opitz, in Germany, was the founder of German poetic
literature; and this, the golden age of Dutch literature, included the
poets Spiegel, Hooft, Cats, and Vondel. The English poets of these
fifty years are very numerous, but for the most part not well known.
Spenser was imitated by Phineas and Giles Fletcher. Sir John Denham,
Donne, Crashaw, Cowley, Daniel, Michael Drayton, William Browne, and
Sir William Davenant wrote at this time, to which also belong the
sonnets of Shakespeare. Drummond of Hawthornden, Carew, Ben Jonson,
Wither, Habington, Suckling, and Herrick, were all in the first half
of the seventeenth century. John Milton was born in 1609, and in 1634
wrote "Comus," which was published in 1637; "Lycidas," the "Allegro"
and "Penseroso," the "Ode on the Nativity," and Milton's sonnets
followed.
The Italian drama was weak at this period, but in Spain Lope de Vega
and Calderon were at the height of their glory. In France, Corneille's
"Mélite," his first play, was produced in 1629, and was followed by
"Clitandre," "La Veuve," "Medea," "Cid," and others. The English
drama was exceedingly popular, and the reigns of James and Charles
were the glory of our theatre. Shakespeare--the greatest name in all
literature--Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Shirley,
Heywood, Webster, and many other dramatists contributed to its fame.
In prose writings, Italian and Spanish works of this time show a great
decline in taste; but in France, the letters of the moralist Balzac and
of Voiture, from 1625, have ingenuity and sprightliness. English prose
writings of the period include the works of Knolles, Raleigh, Daniel,
Bacon, Milton, Clarendon; Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," Earle's
"Microcosmographia" and Overbury's "Characters."
Fiction was represented by "Don Quixote," of which the first part was
published in 1605--almost the only Spanish book which is popularly read
in every country; by the French heroic romance, and by the English
Godwin's "Man in the Moon."
_VI.--The Seventeenth Century (1650-1700)_
Among the greatest writers of this period are Bossuet and Pascal, in
theology; Gassendi, Malebranche, Spinoza, and Locke, in philosophy; and
Cumberland, Puffendorf, La Rochefoucauld, and La Bruyère, in morals.
Leibnitz wrote on jurisprudence before he passed on to philosophy, and
the same subject was treated also by Godefroy, Domat, and Noodt.
Italian poetry had now improved in tone. Filicaja, a man of serious
and noble spirit, wrote odes of deep patriotic and religious feeling.
Guidi, a native of Pavia, raised himself to the highest point that any
lyric poet of Italy has attained. Spain and Portugal were destitute
of poets; but in France La Fontaine, Boileau, Benserade, Chaulieu,
Segrais, Deshoulières, and Fontenelle, were famous. In England at this
time there were Waller, Milton, Butler, and Dryden, as well as Marvell
and other minor poets.
Neither Italy nor Spain was now producing dramatic works of any
importance, but it was very different in France. Corneille continued
to write for the stage, and Racine's first play, the "Andromaque," was
presented in 1667. This was followed by "Britannicus," "Bérénice,"
"Mithridate," "Iphigénie," and others. Racine's style is exquisite; he
is second only to Virgil among all poets. Molière, the French writer
whom his country has most uniformly admired, began with "L'Étourdi" in
1653, and his pieces followed rapidly until his death, in 1673. The
English Restoration stage was held by Dryden, Otway, Southern, Lee,
Congreve, Wycherley, Farquhar, and Vanbrugh.
In prose literature Italy is deficient; but this period includes the
most distinguished portion of the great age in France, the reign of
Louis XIV. Bossuet, Malebranche, Arnauld, and Pascal are among the
greatest of French writers.
English writing now became easier and more idiomatic, sometimes even to
the point of vulgarity. The best masters of prose were Cowley, Evelyn,
Dryden, and Walton in the "Complete Angler."
Among novels of the period may be named those of Quevedo in Spain;
of Scarron, Bergerac, Perrault, and Hamilton, in France; and the
"Pilgrim's Progress"--for John Bunyan may pass for the father of our
novelists--in England. Swift's "Tale of a Tub," than which Rabelais has
nothing superior, was indeed not published till 1704, but was written
within the seventeenth century.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Lectures on the English Poets
William Hazlitt, critic and essayist, was born on April 10,
1778, and was educated in London for the Unitarian ministry. But
his talents for painting and for writing diverted him from that
career, and soon, though he showed great promise as a painter,
he devoted himself to authorship, contributing largely to the
"Morning Chronicle," the "Examiner," and the "Edinburgh Review."
His wide, genial interests, his ardent temperament, and his
admirable style, have given Hazlitt a high place among English
critics. He is no pedant or bookworm; he is always human, always
a man of the world. His "Characters of Shakespeare's Plays,"
1817, gave him a reputation which was confirmed by his "Lectures
on the English Poets," delivered next year at the Surrey
Institute. Further lectures, on the English comic writers and on
the Elizabethan dramatists, followed. His essays, on all kinds
of subjects, are collected in volumes under various titles. All
are the best of reading. Hazlitt's later works include "Liber
Amoris," 1823; "Spirit of the Age," 1825, consisting of character
studies; and the "Life of Napoleon" (Hazlitt's hero), 1828-30.
The essayist was twice married, and died on September 18, 1830.
_What Is Poetry?_
The best general notion which I can give of poetry is that it is the
natural impression of any object or event by its vividness exciting
an involuntary movement of imagination and passion, and producing,
by sympathy, a certain modulation of the voice or sounds expressing
it. Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with
Nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry cannot have much
respect for himself or for anything else. It is not a mere frivolous
accomplishment; it has been the study and delight of mankind in all
ages.
Nor is it found only in books; wherever there is a sense of beauty,
or power, or harmony, as in a wave of the sea, or in the growth of a
flower, there is poetry in its birth. It is not a branch of authorship;
it is the "stuff of which our life is made." The rest is "mere
oblivion," for all that is worth remembering in life is the poetry of
it. If poetry is a dream, the business of life is much the same. If it
is a fiction, made up of what we wish things to be, and fancy that they
are because we wish them so, there is no other or better reality.
The light of poetry is not only a direct, but also a reflected light,
that, while it shows us the object, throws a sparkling radiance on all
around it; the flame of the passions communicated to the imagination
reveals to us, as with a flash of lightning, the inmost recesses of
thought, and penetrates our whole being. Poetry represents forms
chiefly as they suggest other forms; feelings, as they suggest forms,
or other feelings. Poetry puts a spirit of life and motion into the
universe. It describes the flowing, not the fixed. The poetical
impression of any object is that uneasy, exquisite sense of beauty or
power that cannot be contained within itself, that is impatient of all
limit; that--as flame bends to flame--strives to link itself to some
other image of kindred beauty or grandeur, to enshrine itself, as it
were, in the highest forms of fancy, and to relieve the aching sense
of pleasure by expressing it in the boldest manner, and by the most
striking examples of the same quality in other instances.
As in describing natural objects poetry impregnates sensible
impressions with the forms of fancy, so it describes the feelings of
pleasure or pain by blending them with the strongest movements of
passion and the most striking forms of Nature. Tragic poetry, which is
the most impassioned species of it, strives to carry on the feeling to
the utmost point of sublimity or pathos by all the force of comparison
or contrast, loses the sense of present suffering in the imaginary
exaggeration of it, exhausts the terror or pity by an unlimited
indulgence of it, and lifts us from the depths of woe to the highest
contemplations of human life.
The use and end of poetry, "both at the first and now, was and is to
hold the mirror up to Nature," seen through the medium of passion and
imagination, not divested of that medium by means of literal truth or
abstract reason. Those who would dispel the illusions of imagination,
to give us their drab-coloured creation in their stead, are not very
wise. It cannot be concealed, however, that the progress of knowledge
and refinement has a tendency to clip the wings of poetry. The province
of the imagination is principally visionary, the unknown and undefined;
we can only fancy what we do not know. There can never be another
Jacob's dream. Since that time the heavens have gone farther off, and
grown astronomical.
Poetry combines the ordinary use of language with musical expression.
As there are certain sounds that excite certain movements, and the song
and dance go together, so there are, no doubt, certain thoughts that
lead to certain tones of voice, or modulations of sound. The jerks, the
breaks, the inequalities and harshnesses of prose are fatal to the flow
of a poetical imagination, as a jolting road disturbs the reverie of an
absent-minded man. But poetry makes these odds all even. The musical in
sound is the sustained and continuous; the musical in thought is the
sustained and continuous also. An excuse may be made for rhyme in the
same manner.
_Chaucer and Spenser_
These are two out of the four greatest English poets; but they were
both much indebted to the early poets of Italy, and may be considered
as belonging, in some degree, to that school. Spenser delighted in
luxurious enjoyment; Chaucer in severe activity of mind. Spenser was
the most romantic and visionary of all great poets; Chaucer the most
practical, the most a man of business and the world.
Chaucer does not affect to show his power over the reader's mind, but
the power which his subject has over his own. The readers of Chaucer's
poetry feel more nearly what the persons he describes must have felt,
than perhaps those of any other poet. There is no artificial, pompous
display; but a strict parsimony of the poet's materials, like the
rude simplicity of the age in which he lived. His words point as an
index to the objects, like the eye or finger. There were none of the
commonplaces of poetic diction in his time, no reflected lights of
fancy, no borrowed roseate tints; he was obliged to inspect things
narrowly for himself, so that his descriptions produce the effect of
sculpture.
His descriptions of natural scenery possess a characteristic excellence
which may be termed gusto. They have a local truth and freshness which
give the very feeling of the air, the coolness or moisture of the
ground. Inanimate objects are thus made to have a fellow-feeling in the
interest of the story, and render the sentiment of the speaker's mind.
It was the same trust in Nature and reliance on his subject which
enabled Chaucer to describe the grief and patience of Griselda and the
faith of Constance. Chaucer has more of this deep, internal, sustained
sentiment than any other writer, except Boccaccio. In depth of simple
pathos and intensity of conception, never swerving from his subject, I
think no other writer comes near him, not even the Greek tragedians.
The poetry of Chaucer has a religious sanctity about it, connected
with the manners and superstitions of the age. It has all the spirit
of martyrdom. It has also all the extravagance and the utmost
licentiousness of comic humour, equally arising out of the manners of
the time. He excelled in both styles, and could pass at will from the
one to the other; but he never confounded the two styles together.
Of all the poets, Spenser is the most poetical. There is an
originality, richness, and variety in his allegorical personages and
fictions which almost vie with the splendours of the ancient mythology.
His poetry is all fairyland; he paints Nature not as we find it, but
as we expected to find it, and fulfils the delightful promise of our
youth. His ideas, indeed, seem more distinct than his perceptions. The
love of beauty, however, and not of truth, is the moving principle of
his mind; and he is guided in his fantastic delineations by no rule but
the impulse of an inexhaustible imagination.
Some people will say that Spenser's poetry may be very fine, but that
they cannot understand it, on account of the allegory. They are afraid
of the allegory. This is very idle. If they do not meddle with the
allegory, the allegory will not meddle with them. Without minding it at
all, the whole is as plain as a pikestaff.
Spenser is the poet of our waking dreams, and he has invented not
only a language, but a music of his own for them. The undulations are
infinite, like those of the waves of the sea; but the effect is still
the same, lulling the senses into a deep oblivion of the jarring noises
of the world, from which we have no wish ever to be recalled.
_Shakespeare and Milton_
Those arts which depend on individual genius and incommunicable power
have always leaped at once from infancy to manhood, from the first
rude dawn of invention to their meridian height and dazzling lustre,
and have in general declined ever after. Homer, Chaucer, Spenser,
Shakespeare, Dante, and Ariosto--Milton alone was of a later age, and
not the worse for it--Raphael, Titian, Michael Angelo, Correggio,
Cervantes, and Boccaccio, the Greek sculptors and tragedians, all lived
near the beginning of their arts, perfected, and all but created them.
They rose by clusters, never so to rise again.