March 17, 1894. Professor Skeat's Chaucer.
After twenty-five years of close toil, Professor Skeat has completed
his great edition of Chaucer.[A] It is obviously easier to be
dithyrambic than critical in chronicling this event; to which indeed
dithyrambs are more appropriate than criticism. For when a man writes
_Opus vitæ meæ_ at the conclusion of such a task as this, and so lays
down his pen, he must be a churl (even if he be also a competent
critic) who will allow no pause for admiration. And where, churl or no
churl, is the competent critic to be found? The Professor has here
compiled an entirely new text of Chaucer, founded solely on the
manuscripts and the earliest printed editions that are accessible.
Where Chaucer has translated, the originals have been carefully
studied: "the requirements of metre and grammar have been carefully
considered throughout": and "the phonology and spelling of every word
have received particular attention." We may add that all the materials
for a Life of Chaucer have been sought out, examined, and pieced
together with exemplary care.
All this has taken Professor Skeat twenty-five years, and in order to
pass competent judgment on his conclusions the critic must follow him
step by step through his researches--which will take the critic (even
if we are charitable enough to suppose his mental equipment equal to
Professor Skeat's) another ten years at least. For our time, then, and
probably for many generations after, this edition of Chaucer will be
accepted as final.
* * * * *
And the Clarendon Press.
And I seem to see in this edition of Chaucer the beginning of the
realization of a dream which I have cherished since first I stood
within the quadrangle of the Clarendon Press--that fine combination of
the factory and the palace. The aspect of the Press itself repeats, as
it were, the characteristics of its government, which is conducted by
an elected body as an honorable trust. Its delegates are not intent
only on money-getting. And yet the Clarendon Press makes money, and
the University can depend upon it for handsome subsidies. It may well
depend upon it for much more. As the Bank of England--to which in its
system of government it may be likened--is the focus of all the other
banks, private or joint-stock, in the kingdom, and the treasure-house,
not only of the nation's gold, but of its commercial honor, so the
Clarendon Press--traditionally careful in its selections and
munificent in its rewards--might become the academy or central temple
of English literature. If it would but follow up Professor Skeat's
Chaucer with a resolution to publish, at a pace suitable to so large
an undertaking, _all the great English classics_, edited with all the
scholarship its wealth can command, I believe that before long the
Clarendon Press would be found to be exercising an influence on
English letters which is at present lacking, and the lack of which
drives many to call, from time to time, for the institution in this
country of something corresponding to the French Academy. I need only
cite the examples of the Royal Society and the Marylebone Cricket
Club to show that to create an authority in this manner is consonant
with our national practice. We should have that centre of correct
information, correct judgment, correct taste--that intellectual
metropolis, in short--which is the surest check upon provinciality in
literature; we should have a standard of English scholarship and an
authoritative dictionary of the English language; and at the same time
we should escape all that business of the green coat and palm branches
which has at times exposed the French Academy to much vulgar intrigue.
Also, I may add, we should have the books. Where now is the great
edition of Bunyan, of Defoe, of Gibbon? The Oxford Press did once
publish an edition of Gibbon, worthy enough as far as type and paper
could make it worthy. But this is only to be found in second-hand
book-shops. Why are two rival London houses now publishing editions of
Scott, the better illustrated with silly pictures "out of the artists'
heads"? Where is the final edition of Ben Jonson?
These and the rest are to come, perhaps. Of late we have had from
Oxford a great Boswell and a great Chaucer, and the magnificent
Dictionary is under weigh. So that it may be the dream is in process
of being realized, though none of us shall live to see its full
realization. Meanwhile such a work as Professor Skeat's Chaucer is not
only an answer to much chatter that goes up from time to time about
nine-tenths of the work on English literature being done out of
England. This and similar works are the best of all possible answers
to those gentlemen who so often interrupt their own chrematistic
pursuits to point out in the monthly magazines the short-comings of
our two great Universities as nurseries of chrematistic youth. In this
case it is Oxford that publishes, while Cambridge supplies the
learning: and from a natural affection I had rather it were always
Oxford that published, attracting to her service the learning,
scholarship, intelligence of all parts of the kingdom, or, for that
matter, of the world. So might she securely found new Schools of
English Literature--were she so minded, a dozen every year. They would
do no particular harm; and meanwhile, in Walton Street, out of earshot
of the New Schools, the Clarendon Press would go on serenely
performing its great work.
* * * * *
March 23, 1895. Essentials and Accidents of Poetry.
A work such as Professor Skeat's Chaucer puts the critic into a frame
of mind that lies about midway between modesty and cowardice. One
asks--"What right have I, who have given but a very few hours of my
life to the enjoying of Chaucer; who have never collated his MSS.; who
have taken the events of his life on trust from his biographers; who
am no authority on his spelling, his rhythms, his inflections, or the
spelling, rhythms, inflections of his age; who have read him only as I
have read other great poets, for the pleasure of reading--what right
have I to express any opinion on a work of this character, with its
imposing commentary, its patient research, its enormous accumulation
of special information?"
Nevertheless, this diffidence, I am sure, may be carried too far.
After all is said and done, we, with our average life of three-score
years and ten, are the heirs of all the poetry of all the ages. We
must do our best in our allotted time, and Chaucer is but one of the
poets. He did not write for specialists in his own age, and his main
value for succeeding ages resides, not in his vocabulary, nor in his
inflections, nor in his indebtedness to foreign originals, nor in the
metrical uniformities or anomalies that may be discovered in his poems;
but in his _poetry_. Other things are accidental; his poetry is
essential. Other interests--historical, philological, antiquarian--must
be recognized; but the poetical, or (let us say) the spiritual, interest
stands first and far ahead of all others. By virtue of it Chaucer, now
as always, makes his chief and his convincing appeal to that which is
spiritual in men. He appeals by the poetical quality of such lines as
these, from Emilia's prayer to Diana:
"Chaste goddesse, wel wostow that I
Desire to been a mayden al my lyf,
Ne never wol I be no love ne wyf.
I am, thou woost, yet of thy companye,
A mayde, and love hunting and venerye,
And for to walken in the wodes wilde,
And noght to been a wyf, and be with childe..."
Or of these two from the Prioresses' Prologue:
"O moder mayde! O mayde moder free!
O bush unbrent, brenninge in Moyses sighte..."
Or of these from the general Prologue--also thoroughly poetical,
though the quality differs:
"Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse,
That of hir smyling was ful simple and coy;
Hir gretteste ooth was but by sëynt Loy;
And she was cleped madame Eglentyne.
Ful wel she song the service divyne,
Entuned in hir nose ful semely;
And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,
For Frensh of Paris was to hir unknowe..."
Now the essential quality of this and of all very great poetry is also
what we may call a _universal_ quality; it appeals to those sympathies
which, unequally distributed and often distorted or suppressed, are
yet the common possessions of our species. This quality is the real
antiseptic of poetry: this it is that keeps a line of Homer
perennially fresh and in bloom:--
+"Hôs phato tous d' êdê katechen physizoos aia
en Lakedaimoni authi, philê en patridi gaiê."+
These lines live because they contain something which is also
permanent in man: they depend confidently on us, and will as
confidently depend on our great-grandchildren. I was glad to see this
point very courageously put the other day by Professor Hiram Corson,
of Cornell University, in an address on "The Aims of Literary
Study"--an address which Messrs. Macmillan have printed and published
here and in America. "All works of genius," says Mr. Corson, "render
the best service, in literary education, when they are first
assimilated in their absolute character. It is, of course, important
to know their relations to the several times and places in which they
were produced; but such knowledge is not for the tyro in literary
study. He must first know literature, if he is constituted so to know
it, in its absolute character. He can go into the philosophy of its
relationships later, if he like, when he has a true literary
education, and when the 'years that bring the philosophic mind' have
been reached. Every great production of genius is, in fact, in its
essential character, no more related to one age than to another. It is
only in its phenomenal character (its outward manifestations) that it
has a _special_ relationship." And Mr. Corson very appositely quotes
Mr. Ruskin on Shakespeare's historical plays--
"If it be said that Shakespeare wrote perfect historical plays on
subjects belonging to the preceding centuries, I answer that they
_are_ perfect plays just because there is no care about centuries
in them, but a life which all men recognize for the human life of
all time; and this it is, not because Shakespeare sought to give
universal truth, but because, painting honestly and completely
from the men about him, he painted that human nature which is,
indeed, constant enough--a rogue in the fifteenth century being
_at heart_ what a rogue is in the nineteenth century and was in
the twelfth; and an honest or knightly man being, in like manner,
very similar to other such at any other time. And the work of
these great idealists is, therefore, always universal: not
because it is _not portrait_, but because it is _complete_
portrait down to the heart, which is the same in all ages; and
the work of the mean idealists is _not_ universal, not because it
is portrait, but because it is _half_ portrait--of the outside,
the manners and the dress, not of the heart. Thus Tintoret and
Shakespeare paint, both of them, simply Venetian and English
nature as they saw it in their time, down to the root; and it
does for _all_ time; but as for any care to cast themselves into
the particular ways of thought, or custom, of past time in their
historical work, you will find it in neither of them, nor in any
other perfectly great man that I know of."--_Modern Painters._
It will be observed that Mr. Corson, whose address deals primarily
with literary training, speaks of these absolute qualities of the
great masterpieces as the _first_ object of study. But his words, and
Ruskin's words, fairly support my further contention that they remain
the _most important_ object of study, no matter how far one's literary
training may have proceeded. To the most erudite student of Chaucer in
the wide world Chaucer's poetry should be the dominant object of
interest in connection with Chaucer.
But when the elaborate specialist confronts us, we are apt to forget
that poetry is meant for mankind, and that its appeal is, or should
be, universal. We pay tribute to the unusual: and so far as this
implies respect for protracted industry and indefatigable learning, we
do right. But in so far as it implies even a momentary confusion of
the essentials with the accidentals of poetry, we do wrong. And the
specialist himself continues admirable only so long as he keeps them
distinct.
I hasten to add that Professor Skeat _does_ keep them distinct very
successfully. In a single sentence of admirable brevity he tells us
that of Chaucer's poetical excellence "it is superfluous to speak;
Lowell's essay on Chaucer in 'My Study Windows' gives a just estimate
of his powers." And with this, taking the poetical excellence for
granted, he proceeds upon his really invaluable work of preparing a
standard text of Chaucer and illustrating it out of the stores of his
apparently inexhaustible learning. The result is a monument to
Chaucer's memory such as never yet was reared to English poet. Douglas
Jerrold assured Mrs. Cowden Clarke that, when her time came to enter
Heaven, Shakespeare would advance and greet her with the first kiss of
welcome, "_even_ should her husband happen to be present." One can
hardly with decorum imagine Professor Skeat being kissed; but Chaucer
assuredly will greet him with a transcendent smile.
The Professor's genuine admiration, however, for the poetical
excellence of his poet needs to be insisted upon, not only because the
nature of his task keeps him reticent, but because his extraordinary
learning seems now and then to stand between him and the natural
appreciation of a passage. It was not quite at haphazard that I chose
just now the famous description of the Prioresse as an illustration of
Chaucer's poetical quality. The Professor has a long note upon the
French of Stratford atte Bowe. Most of us have hitherto believed the
passage to be an example, and a very pretty one, of Chaucer's
playfulness. The Professor almost loses his temper over this: he
speaks of it as a view "commonly adopted by newspaper-writers who know
only this one line of Chaucer, and cannot forbear to use it in jest."
"Even Tyrwhitt and Wright," he adds more in sorrow than in anger,
"have thoughtlessly given currency to this idea." "Chaucer," the
Professor explains, "merely states a _fact_" (the italics are his
own), "viz., that the Prioress spoke the usual Anglo-French of the
English Court, of the English law-courts, and of the English
ecclesiastics of higher ranks. The poet, however, had been himself in
France, and knew precisely the difference between the two dialects;
but he had no special reason for thinking _more highly_" (the
Professor's italics again) "of the Parisian than of the
Anglo-French.... Warton's note on the line is quite sane. He shows
that Queen Philippa wrote business letters in French (doubtless
Anglo-French) with 'great propriety'" ... and so on. You see, there
was a Benedictine nunnery at Stratford-le-Bow; and as "Mr. Cutts says,
very justly, 'She spoke French correctly, though with an accent which
savored of the Benedictine Convent at Stratford-le-Bow, where she had
been educated, rather than of Paris.'" So there you have a fact.
And, now you have it, doesn't it look rather like Bitzer's horse?
"Bitzer," said Thomas Gradgrind. "Your definition of a horse?"
"Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four
grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the
spring; in marshy countries sheds hoofs too. Hoofs hard, but
requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth."
Thus (and much more) Bitzer.
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