In these three poems, the art of writing, the mark and the source of
classical literature, appeared for the first time. A new spirit was born
and renewed this art, like everything else; thenceforth, and for a
century to come, ideas sprang up and fell into their place after another
law than that which had hitherto shaped them. Under Spenser and
Shakespeare, living words, like cries or music, betrayed the internal
imagination which gave them forth. A kind of vision possessed the
artist; landscapes and events were unfolded in his mind as in nature; he
concentrated in a glance all the details and all the forces which make
up a being, and this image acted and was developed within him like the
external object; he imitated his characters; he heard their words; he
found it easier to represent them with every pulsation than to relate or
explain their feelings; he did not judge, he saw; he was an involuntary
actor and mimic; drama was his natural work, because in it the
characters speak, and not the author. Then this complex and imitative
conception changes color and is decomposed: man sees things no more at a
glance, but in detail; he walks leisurely round them, turning his light
upon all their parts in succession. The fire which revealed them by a
single illumination is extinguished; he observes qualities, marks
aspects, classifies groups of actions, judges and reasons. Words, before
animated, and as it were swelling with sap, are withered and dried up;
they become abstractions; they cease to produce in him figures and
landscapes; they only set in motion the relics of enfeebled passion;
they barely shed a few flickering beams on the uniform texture of his
dulled conception; they become exact, almost scientific, like numbers,
and like numbers they are arranged in a series, allied by their
analogies--the first, more simple, leading up to the next, more
composite--all in the same order, so that the mind which enters upon a
track, finds it level, and is never obliged to quit it. Thenceforth a
new career is opened; man has the whole world resubjected to his
thought; the change in his thoughts has changed all aspects, and
everything assumes a new form in his metamorphosed mind. His task is to
explain and to prove; this, in short, is the classical style, and this
is the style of Dryden.
He develops, defines, concludes; he declares his thought, then takes it
up again, that his reader may receive it prepared, and having received,
may retain it. He bounds it with exact terms justified by the
dictionary, with simple constructions justified by grammar, that the
reader may have at every step a method of verification and a source of
clearness. He contrasts ideas with ideas, phrases with phrases, so that
the reader, guided by the contrast, may not deviate from the route
marked out for him. You may imagine the possible beauty of such a work.
This poesy is but a stronger prose. Closer ideas, more marked contrasts,
bolder images, only add weight to the argument. Metre and rhyme
transform the judgments into sentences. The mind, held on the stretch by
the rhythm, studies itself more, and by means of reflection arrives at a
noble conclusion. The judgments are enshrined in abbreviative images, or
symmetrical lines, which give them the solidity and popular form of a
dogma. General truths acquire the definite form which transmits them to
posterity, and propagates them in the human race. Such is the merit of
these poems; they please by their good expressions.[466] In a full and
solid web stand out cleverly connected or sparkling threads. Here Dryden
has gathered in one line a long argument; there a happy metaphor has
opened up a new perspective under the principal idea;[467] further on,
two similar words, united together, have struck the mind with an
unforeseen and cogent proof;[468] elsewhere a hidden comparison has
thrown a tinge of glory or shame on the person who least expected it.
These are all artifices or successes of a calculated style, which chains
the attention, and leaves the mind persuaded or convinced.