p. 559.
[38] Cesarotti, _Saggio sulla filos. del linguaggio,_ part ii.
[39] _Ricerche intorno alla natura dello stile_ (Turin, 1853), ch. 1.
[40] R. Bonghi, _Lettere critiche,_ 1856 (4th ed., Naples, 1884), pp.
37 65-67, 90, 103.
[41] Gustav Gröber, _Grundriss d. romanischen Philologie,_ vol. 1. pp.
200-250, K. Vossler, _B. Cellinis Stil in seiner Vita, Versuch einer
psychol. Stilbetrachtung,_ Halle a. S., 1899; cf. the self-criticism
of Vossler, _Positivismus u. Idealismus in der Sprachwissenschaft,_
Heidelberg, 1904 (It. trans., Bari, Laterza, 1908).
[42] Ernst Elsteb, _Principien d. Literaturwissenschaft,_ Halle a. S.,
1097. vol. i. pp. 359-413.
[43] Biese, _Philos, des Metaphorischen,_ Hamburg-Leipzig, 1893.
[44] _La Giovinezza di Fr. de S._ chs. 23, 25; _Scritti varî,_ ii. pp.
272-274.
[45] See above, pp. 67-73.
II
HISTORY OF THE ARTISTIC AND LITERARY KINDS
[Sidenote: _The kinds in antiquity. Aristotle._]
The theory of artistic and literary kinds and of the laws or rules
proper to each separate kind has almost always followed the fortunes of
the rhetorical theory.
Traces of the threefold division into epic, lyric and dramatic are
found in Plato; and Aristophanes gives an example of criticism
according to the canon of the kinds, particularly that of tragedy.[1]
But the most conspicuous theoretical treatment of the kinds bequeathed
us by antiquity is precisely the doctrine of Tragedy which forms a
large part of the Aristotelian fragment known as the Poetics. Aristotle
defines such a composition as an imitation of a serious and complete
action, having size, in language adorned in accordance with the
requirements of the different parts, its exposition to be by action and
not by narration, and using pity or terror as means to free or purify
us from these same passions;[2] he gives minute details as to the six
parts of which it is composed, especially the plot and the tragic
character. It has been often said, ever since the days of Vincenzo
Maggio in the sixteenth century, that Aristotle treated of the nature
of poetry, or particular forms of poetry, without claiming to give
precepts. But Piccolomini answered that "all these things and other
similar ones are shown or asserted with no other purpose but that we
may see in what way their precepts and laws must be obeyed and carried
out," just as, to make a hammer or saw, one begins by describing
the parts of which they are composed.[3] The error of which we take
Aristotle as representative lies in transmuting abstractions and
empirical partitions into rational concepts: this was almost inevitable
at the beginnings of æsthetic reflexion, and the Sanskrit theory of
poetry employed the same method independently when, for example, it
defines and legislates for ten principal and eighteen secondary styles
of drama; forty-eight varieties of hero; and we know not how many kinds
of heroines.[4]
[Sidenote: _In the Middle Ages and Renaissance_.]
After Aristotle, the theory of poetic kinds does not seem to have been
completely or elaborately developed in antiquity. The Middle Ages may
be said to have expressed the doctrine in treatises of the kind known
as "rhythmic arts" or "methods of composition." When the Aristotelian
fragment was first noticed, it is curious to see the way in which
the paraphrase of Averroes distorted the theory of kinds. Averroes
conceives tragedy as the art of praise, comedy as that of blame,
which amounts to identifying the former with panegyric, the latter
with satire; and he believes the _peripeteia_ to be the same thing as
antithesis, or the artifice of beginning the description of a thing by
describing its opposite.[5] This distortion demonstrates afresh the
merely historical character of these kinds and their unintelligibility
by the methods of pure logic to a thinker living in times and under
customs different from those of the Hellenic world. The Renaissance
seized upon Aristotle's text, partly expounded it, partly distorted it
and partly thought it out afresh, and thus succeeded in establishing
a long list of kinds and sub-kinds rigidly defined and subjected to
inexorable laws. Controversy now began over the correct understanding
of the unities of epic or dramatic poetry; over the moral quality and
social standing proper to the characters in this kind of poem and in
that; over the nature of the plot, and whether it includes passions and
thoughts, and whether lyrics should or should not be received as true
poetry; whether the material of tragedy should be historical; whether
the dialogue of comedy may be in prose; whether a happy ending may
be allowed in tragedy; whether the tragic character may be a perfect
gentleman; what kind and number of episodes is admissible in the poem,
and how they should be incorporated in the main plot; and so on.
Great anguish was caused by the mysterious rule of catharsis found in
black and white in Aristotle's text, and Segni naïvely predicted that
tragic poetry would be revived in its perfect spectacular entirety
for the sake of experiencing the effect spoken of by Aristotle, that
"purgation" which causes "the birth of tranquillity in the soul and of
freedom of all perturbation."[6]
[Sidenote: _The doctrine of the three unities._]
Amongst the many undertakings brought to a glorious end by the critics
and treatise-writers of the sixteenth century, the best known is the
establishment of the three unities of time, place and action. One
cannot indeed see why they are called unities, for in strictness they
could at most be spoken of as shortness of time, straitness of space
and limitation of tragic subjects to a certain class of action. It is
well known that Aristotle prescribed unity of action only, and reminded
his hearers that theatrical custom alone imposed on the action a
time-limit of one day. On this last point the critics of the sixteenth
century accorded six, eight, or twelve hours according to individual
taste or humour: some of them (amongst them Segni) allowed twenty-four
hours, including the night as particularly propitious to assassinations
and the other acts of violence which usually form the plot of
tragedies; others extended the limit to thirty-six or forty-eight
hours. The last, and most curious, unity, that of place, was slowly
developed by Castelvetro, Riccoboni and Scaliger until the Frenchman
Jean de la Taille joined it as a third to the existing two in 1572, and
in 1598 Angelo Ingegneri finally formulated it more explicitly.
[Sidenote: _Poetics of the kinds and rules. Scaliger._]
The Italian treatises were widely read and regarded as authoritative
all over Europe, and awakened the first effort towards a learned theory
of poetry in France, Spain. England and Germany. A good representative
of his class is Julius Cæsar Scaliger, who has been considered, with
some exaggeration, as the true founder of French pseudo-classicism or
neo-classicism; as one who (it has been said) "laid the first stone of
the classical Bastille." But if he was neither the first nor the only
one, he certainly helped greatly to reduce "to a system of doctrines
the principal consequences of the sovranty of Reason in works of
literature," with his minute distinctions and classifications of kinds,
the insurmountable barriers he erected between them, and his distrust
of free inspiration and imagination.[7] Scaliger numbers among his
descendants (beside Daniel Heinsius) d'Aubignac, Rapin, Dacier and
other tyrants of French literature and drama: Boileau turned the rules
of neo-classicism into neat verses.
[Sidenote: _Lessing._]
It has been noticed that Lessing entered the same field; his opposition
to the French rules (which was an opposition of rule to rule, in which
he had been forestalled by Italian writers, for example by Calepio in
1732) is anything but radical. Lessing maintained that Corneille and
other authors had misinterpreted Aristotle, to whose laws even the
Shakespearian drama could be shown to conform;[8] but on the other
hand he strongly opposed the abolition of all rules and those who
shouted "genius, genius," placing genius above the law and saying that
genius makes the law. For the very reason that genius is law, replied
Lessing, laws have their value and can be determined: negation of them
would entail the confinement of genius to its first trial flights,
making example or practice useless.[9]
[Sidenote: _Compromises and extensions._]
But the "kinds" and their "limits" could be maintained for centuries
solely by means of infinitely subtle interpretations, analogical
extensions and more or less concealed compromises. The Italian
Renaissance critics, while working at their Poetics in the style of
Aristotle, found themselves confronted with chivalric poetry, and had
to make the best of it; this they did by assigning it to a kind of poem
not foreseen by antiquity (Giraldi Cintio).[10] Here and there indeed
a rigorist was heard protesting that romances were in no way different
from heroic poetry, and were only "badly written heroics" (Salviati).
And since it was impossible to deny a place in Italian literature to
Dante's poem, Iacopo Mazzoni, in his _Defence of Dante,_ overhauled
once more the categories of Poetics in order to find a niche for the
sacred poem.[11] Farces made their appearance at this time, and Cecchi
(1585) declares "Farce is a third novelty, occupying a place between
tragedy and comedy ..."[12] The _Pastor fido_ of Guarini was published,
neither tragedy nor comedy, but tragicomedy; and discovering no heading
among the kinds deduced from moral or civil philosophy suitable for
the intruder, Jason de Nores proceeded to rule it out of existence;
Guarini made a valiant defence and claimed special protection for his
beloved _Pastor_ under a third, or mixed, style, representative of real
life.[13] Another rigorist, Fioretti (Udeno Nisieli) proclaimed the
poem "a poetic monster, so huge and deformed that centaurs, hippogriffs
and chimæras are comparatively graceful and charming ..., fit to bring
a blush to the cheek of the muse, a disgrace to poetry, a mixture of
ingredients in themselves discordant, inimical and incompatible";[14]
but will this bluster drive the delicious _Pastor fido_ from the hands
of lovers of poetry? The same thing occurred in the case of Marino's
_Adone,_ described by Chapelain as "a poem of peace" for want of
a better definition, though other supporters called it "a new form
of epic poem";[15] and the same thing happened again in the case of
the comedy of art and musical drama. Corneille, who had called down
a furious tempest from Scudéry and the Academicians on the head of
his _Cid,_ remarked in his discourse on Tragedy, though basing his
position on that of Aristotle, that there was necessity for "_quelque
modération, quelque favorable interprétation,... pour n'être pas
obligés de condamner beaucoup de poèmes, que nous avons vu réussir sur
nos théâtres." "Il est aisé de nous accommoder avec Aristote_..."[16]
he says in another place: a piece of literary hypocrisy which startles
by its verbal resemblance to "_les accommodements avec le Ciel_" of
the Tartuffian ethics. The following century saw the accepted kinds
augmented by "bourgeois tragedy" and pathetic comedy, nicknamed
"lachrymose" by its enemies; de Chassiron[17] attacked, and Diderot,
Gellert and Lessing[18] defended the new arrival. In this way the
schematism of the kinds continued to suffer violence and to cut a very
poor figure; nevertheless, in spite of adversity, it made every effort
to retain power even at the sacrifice of dignity: just as an absolute
king turns constitutional by force of circumstance, and chooses the
lesser evil of squaring his divine right with the will of the nation.
[Sidenote: _Rebellion against rules in general._]
This retention of power would have been more difficult had any success
attended the attempts at rebellion against all laws, against law in
general, which broke out in varying degrees at the end of the sixteenth
century. Pietro Aretino made mock of the most sacred precepts: in a
prologue to one of his comedies he remarks derisively, "If you see more
than five characters on the stage at once, do not laugh; for chains
which would fasten water-mills to the river could not hold the fools of
to-day."[19]
[Sidenote: _G. Bruno. Guarini._]
A philosopher, Giordano Bruno, entered the lists against the
"regulators of poetry": rules, said he, are derived from poetry: "there
are as many genera and species of true rules as there are genera and
species of true poets"; such an individualization of kinds dealt them
a deathblow. "How then" (asks the interlocutory opponent) "shall
veritable poets be recognized?" "By their singing of verse" (answers
Bruno); "of that which, being sung, either delights or instructs, or
delights and instructs at the same time."[20] In much the same way
Guarini defended his _Pastor fido_ in 1588, declaring "the world is the
judge of poets; against its sentence there is no appeal."[21]
[Sidenote: _Spanish critics._]
Amongst European countries, Spain was perhaps the sturdiest in her
resistance to the pedantic theories of the writers of treatises;
Spain was the land of freedom in criticism from Vives to Feijóo, from
the sixteenth to the middle of the eighteenth century when decadence
of the old Spanish spirit allowed Luzán, with others, to introduce
neo-classical poetry of Italian and French origin.[22] That rules
must change with the times and with actual conditions; that modern
literature demands modern poetics; that work carried out contrary to
established rule does not signify that it is contrary to all rule
or unwilling to submit itself to a higher law; that nature should
give, not receive, laws; that the laws of the three unities are
as ridiculous as it would be to forbid a painter to paint a large
landscape in a small picture; that the pleasure, taste, approbation of
readers and spectators are the deciding element in the long run; that
notwithstanding the laws of counterpoint, the ear is the true judge of
music; these affirmations and many like them are frequent in Spanish
criticism of the period. One critic, Francisco de la Barreda (1622),
went so far as to compassionate the strong wits of Italy bound by fear
and cowardice (_temerosos y acobardados_) to rules that hampered them
on every side;[23] he may have been thinking of Tasso, a memorable case
of such degradation. Lope de Vega wavered between neglect of rules in
practice, and obsequious acceptance of them in theory, alleging in
excuse for his conduct that he was forced to yield to the demands of
the public who paid money to see his plays; he said, "when I write my
comedies, I lock and double-lock the door against the precept-mongers,
that they may not rise up and bear witness against me"; "Art (that is,
Poetics) speaks truth which is contradicted by the vulgar ignorant";
"may the rules forgive us when we are induced to violate them."[24] But
a contemporary admirer of Lope's work writes of him that "_en muchas
partes de sus escritos dice que el no guardar el arte antiguo lo hace
por conformarse con el gusto de la plebe ... dicelo por su natural
modestia, y porqué no atribuya la malicia ignorante à arrogancia lo que
es politica perfeccion._"[25]
[Sidenote: _G. B. Marino._]
Giambattista Marino also protested "I assert that I have a more
thorough knowledge of the rules than have all the pedants in the
world; but the only true rule is to know how to break the rules at the
right place and time, and to conform with the custom and taste of the
day."[26] The drama of Spain, the comedy of art, and other literary
novelties of the seventeenth century caused Minturno, Castelvetro and
other rigid treatise-writers of the preceding century to be looked at
with contemptuous pity as "antiquaries"; this may be seen in Andrea
Perucci (1699), the theorist of improvised comedy.[27] Pallavicino
criticized the writers on "the disciplines of beautiful speech" on
the ground that they "generally base their precepts on observing by
experience what things in writers give pleasure, rather than pointing
out what would naturally conform to the particular affections and
instincts implanted by the Creator in the souls of men."[28]
[Sidenote: _G. V. Gravina._]
A note of distrust towards the fixed kinds may be heard in the
_Discorso sull' Endimione_ (1691), wherein Gravina severely blames
the "ambitious and miserly precepts" of rhetoricians, and makes the
penetrating comment: "No work can see the fight without finding itself
confronted by a tribunal of critics specially convened to examine it,
and questioned firstly as to its name and nature. Next begins the
action which lawyers call prejudicial, and controversy arises as to
its status, whether it is a poem, a romance, a tragedy, a comedy, or
another of the prescribed kinds. And if the said work have ignored the
slightest precept ... they decree forthwith its exile and perpetual
banishment. And yet, however they recast and expand their aphorisms,
they will never be able to include all the different kinds that can
be freshly created by the varied and ceaseless motion of human wit.
For this reason I cannot see why we should not free ourselves from
this insolent curb on the soaring grandeur of our imaginations, and
allow them to follow an open road amongst those immeasurable spaces
they are fitted to explore." He remarks on the work of Guidi which
forms the subject of his discourse, "I know not whether it be tragedy,
comedy, tragicomedy, or anything else invented by rhetoricians. It is a
representation of the loves of Endymion and Diana. If those terms have
sufficient breadth of extension, they will comprehend this work; if
they have not, let another be framed (a power which may be granted to
any one in so unimportant a matter); if no such term can be invented,
let us not, for want of a word, deprive ourselves of a thing so
beautiful."[29] These remarks have quite a modern ring, but Gravina can
hardly have thought out their implications very deeply, for later on he
wrote a special treatise on the rules of the tragic kind.[30] Antonio
Conti too declared at times his antagonism towards the rules, but he
referred to the Aristotelian rules only.[31]
[Sidenote: _Fr. Montani._]
More courage was displayed by Count Francesco Montani of Pesaro in the
polemic roused by Orsi's book against Bouhours; in 1705 he wrote: "I
know that there are immutable and eternal rules, founded on such sound
good sense and solid reason as will remain unshaken as long as mankind
lives. But these rules, whose incorruptibility gives them authority to
guide our spirits to the end of time, are rare enough to be counted
with the nose, and it seems to me somewhat arbitrary to claim to
test and regulate our new works by old laws now wholly abrogated and
annulled."[32]
[Sidenote: _Critics of the eighteenth century._]
In France the rigorism of Boileau was followed by the rebellion of Du
Bos, who unhesitatingly declared that "men will always prefer poetry
which moves them to that composed according to rule,"[33] and the like
heresies. In 1730, De la Motte made war against the unities of time
and place, asserting as the most general, and even superior to that of
action, the unity of interest.[34] Batteux tended to make free with
the rules; and Voltaire, though he opposed De la Motte and declared
the three unities to be the "three great laws of good sense," uttered
some bold sentiments in his _Essay on Epic Poetry,_ and it was he who
remarked that "_tous les genres sont bons hors le genre ennuyeux,_"
and that the best kind is "_celui qui est le mieux traité._" Diderot
was in certain respects a forerunner of Romanticism, and with him must
be mentioned Friedrich Melchior Grimm, who was influenced by him. A
breath of liberty was wafted into Italy by Metastasio, Bettinelli,
Baretti and Cesarotti: in 1766 Buonafede notes in his _Epistola della
libertà poetica_ that when erudite persons "define epic poetry, or
comedy, or odes, they ought to frame as many definitions as there
are compositions and authors."[35] In Germany the first to rise in
rebellion against the rules (opposing Gottsched and his disciples)
were the representatives of the Swiss school.[36] In England, after
examining the definitions by which critics endeavoured to distinguish
epic poetry from other compositions, Home wrote, "It affords no little
diversion to watch so many profound critics hunting after that which
does not exist. They presuppose--without shadow of proof--that there
exists a precise criterion by which to distinguish epic poetry from
all other kinds of composition. But literary compositions melt one
into another like colours: and if in their stronger shades it is easy
to recognize them, they are susceptible of such variety and of so many
different forms that it is impossible to say where one ends and another
begins."[37]
[Sidenote: _Romanticism and the "strict kinds": Berchet, V. Hugo._]
Literary thought between the late eighteenth and the first decades of
the nineteenth century, that is to say from" the period of genius"
to that of romanticism properly so called, rose in rebellion against
separate individual rules and against all rules as such. But to
describe the battles fought, and their more important episodes; to
recount the names of captains victorious or discomfited, or to deplore
the excesses committed by the conquerors, is no part of our present
task. Upon the ruins of the strict kinds, the "_genres tranchés_"
beloved by Napoleon[38] (a Romanticist in the art of war, but a
Classicist in poetry), flourished the drama, the romance and every
other mixed kind: upon the ruins of the three unities, flourished the
unity of _ensemble._ Italy made her protest against rules of style in
Berchet's famous _Lettera semiseria di Grisostomo_ (1816); and France
made hers somewhat later in Victor Hugo's preface to _Cromwell_ (1827).
Henceforth men discussed not the kinds, but Art. What is the unity of
_ensemble_ but the demand of art itself, which is always an _ensemble,_
a synthesis? What else is the principle, introduced by August Wilhelm
Schlegel and adopted by Manzoni and other Italian romanticists, to the
effect that form of component parts must be "organic not mechanical,
resulting from the nature of the subject and its interior development
... not from the impress of an external and extraneous stamp"?[39]
[Sidenote: _Their persistence in philosophical theories._]
But it would be quite wrong to suppose that this victory over the
rhetoric of kinds was either the cause or the consequence of a final
victory over its philosophical presuppositions. In pure theory, none
of the critics above named wholly abandoned the kinds and the rules.
Berchet admitted four elementary forms, that is four fundamental
kinds, in poetry; lyrical, didactic, epic and dramatic, claiming for
the poet only the right of "uniting and fusing together the elementary
forms in a thousand fashions."[40] Manzoni's only real quarrel was
with those rules "founded on special facts instead of on general
principles; on the authority of rhetoricians instead of reason."[41]
Even De Sanctis was satisfied with a concept somewhat vague, though
true enough at bottom: "the most important rules are not those capable
of being applied to every content, but those which draw their force _ex
visceribus caussæ,_ from the very heart of the content itself."[42]
Even more diverting than the spectacle which had delighted Home, is
the sight of German philosophy according the honour of a dialectical
deduction to the empirical classification of kinds. We shall give two
examples, each representing one extreme end of the chain:
[Sidenote: _Fr. Schelling._]