A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance Part 23

[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 Ca.s.sandra_ (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.

[531] _Ibid._ p. 54.

[532] _Defence_, p. 30.

[533] Haslewood, ii. 140 _sq._

[534] _Cf._ Minturno, _Arte Poetica_, p. 71; and Ronsard, _Oeuvres_, iii. 19.

[535] _Cf._ Dryden, _Discourse on Satire_, in _Works_, xiii. 37.

CHAPTER IV

CLa.s.sICAL ELEMENTS IN ELIZABETHAN CRITICISM

I. _Introductory: Romantic Elements_

IT were no less than supererogation to adduce evidences of the romantic spirit of the age of Shakespeare. No period in English literature is more distinctly romantic; and although in England criticism is less affected by creative literature, and has had less effect upon it, than in France, it is only natural to suppose that Elizabethan criticism should be as distinctly romantic as the works of imagination of which it is presumably an exposition. As early as Wilson's _Rhetoric_ we find evidences of that independence of spirit in questions of art which seems typical of the Elizabethan age; and none of the writers of this period exhibits anything like the predisposition of the French mind to submit instinctively to any rule, or set of rules, which bears the stamp of authority. From the outset the element of nationality colors English criticism, and this is especially noticeable in the linguistic discussions of the age. At the very time when Sidney was writing the _Defence of Poesy_, Spenser's old teacher, Mulcaster, wrote: "I love Rome, but London better; I favor Italy, but England more; I honor the Latin, but I wors.h.i.+p the English."[536] It is this spirit which pervades what may be called the chief expression of the romantic temper in Elizabethan criticism,--Daniel's _Defence of Rhyme_ (1603), written in answer to Campion's attack on rhyme in the _Observations in the Art of English Poesy_. The central argument of Daniel's defence is that the use of rhyme is sanctioned both by custom and by nature--"custom that is before all law, nature that is above all art."[537] He rebels against that conception which would limit

"Within a little plot of Grecian ground The sole of mortal things that can avail;"

and he shows that each age has its own perfections and its own usages.

This attempt at historical criticism leads him into a defence of the Middle Ages; and he does not hesitate to a.s.sert that even cla.s.sical verse had its imperfections and deficiencies. In the minutiae of metrical criticism, also, he is in opposition to the neo-cla.s.sic tendencies of the next age; and his favorable opinion of _enjambement_ and his unfavorable comments on the heroic couplet[538] drew from Ben Jonson an answer, never published, in which the latter attempted to prove that the couplet is the best form of English verse, and that all other forms are forced and detestable.[539]

II. _Cla.s.sical Metres_

Daniel's _Defence of Rhyme_ may be said to have dealt a death-blow to a movement which for over half a century had been a subject of controversy among English men of letters. In reading the critical works of this period, it is impossible not to notice the remarkable amount of attention paid by the Elizabethans to the question of cla.s.sical metres in the vernacular. The first organized attempt to introduce the cla.s.sical versification into a modern language was, as Daniel himself points out,[540] that of Claudio Tolomei in 1539. The movement then pa.s.sed into France; and cla.s.sical metres were adopted by Baf in practice, and defended by Jacques de la Taille in theory. In England the first recorded attempt at the use of quant.i.ty in the vernacular was that of Thomas Watson, from whose unpublished translation of the _Odyssey_ in the metre of the original Ascham has cited a single distich:--

"All travellers do gladly report great prayse of Ulysses, For that he knew many mens maners, and saw many cities."[541]

This was probably written between 1540 and 1550; toward the close of the preceding century, we are told, a certain Mousset had already translated the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ into French hexameters.

Ascham was the first critical champion of the use of quant.i.ty in English verse.[542] Rhyme, he says, was introduced by the Goths and Huns at a time when poetry and learning had ceased to exist in Europe; and Englishmen must choose either to imitate these barbarians or to follow the perfect Grecians. He acknowledges that the monosyllabic character of the English language renders the use of the dactyl very difficult, for the hexameter "doth rather trot and hobble than run smoothly in our English tongue;" but he argues that English will receive the _carmen iambic.u.m_ as naturally as Greek or Latin. He praises Surrey's blank verse rendering of the fourth book of the _aeneid_, but regrets that, in disregarding quant.i.ty, it falls short of the "perfect and true versifying." An attempt to put Ascham's theories into practice was made by Thomas Blenerha.s.set in 1577; but the verse of his _Complaynt of Cadwallader_, though purporting to be "a new kind of poetry," is merely an unrhymed Alexandrine.[543]

In 1580, however, five letters which had pa.s.sed between Spenser and Gabriel Harvey appeared in print as _Three proper, and wittie, familiar Letters_ and _Two other very commendable Letters_; and from this correspondence we learn that an organized movement to introduce cla.s.sical metres into English had been started. It would seem that for several years Harvey had been advocating the use of quant.i.tative verse to several of his friends; but the organized movement to which reference has just been made seems to have been started independently by Thomas Drant, who died in 1578. Drant had devised a set of rules and precepts for English cla.s.sical verse; and these rules, with certain additions and modifications, were adopted by a coterie of scholars and courtiers, among them being Sidney, Dyer, Greville, and Spenser, who thereupon formed a society, the Areopagus,[544] independent of Harvey, but corresponding with him regularly. This society appears to have been modelled on Baf's Academie de Poesie et de Musique, which had been founded in 1570 for a similar purpose, and which Sidney doubtless became acquainted with when at Paris in 1572.

From the correspondence published in 1580, it becomes evident that Harvey's and Drant's systems of versification were almost antipodal.

According to Drant's system, the quant.i.ty of English words was to be regulated entirely by the laws of Latin prosody,--by position, diphthong, and the like. Thus, for example, the penult of the word _carpenter_ was regarded as long by Drant because followed by two consonants. Harvey, who was unacquainted with Drant's rules before apprised of them by Spenser in the published letters, follows a more normal and logical system. To him, accent alone is the best of quant.i.ty, and the law of position cannot make the penult of _carpenter_ or _majesty_ long. "The Latin is no rule for us," says Harvey;[545] and often where position and diphthong fall together, as in the penult of _merchaundise_, we must p.r.o.nounce the syllable short. In all such matters, the use, custom, propriety, or majesty of our speech must be accounted the only infallible and sovereign rule of rules.

It was not, then, Harvey's purpose to Latinize our tongue. His intention was apparently twofold,--to abolish rhyme, and to introduce new metres into English poetry. Only a few years before, Gascoigne had lamented that English verse had only one form of metre, the iambic.[546] Harvey, in observing merely the English accent, can scarcely be said to have introduced quant.i.ty into our verse, but was simply adapting new metres, such as dactyls, trochees, and spondees, to the requirements of English poetry.

Drant's and Harvey's rules therefore const.i.tute two opposing systems.

According to the former, English verse is to be regulated by Latin prosody regardless of accent; according to the latter, by accent regardless of Latin prosody. By neither system can quant.i.ty be successfully attempted in English; and a distinguished cla.s.sical scholar of our own day has indicated what is perhaps the only method by which this can be accomplished.[547] This method may be described as the harmonious observance of both accent and position; all accented syllables being generally accounted long, and no syllable which violates the Latin law of position being used when a short syllable is required by the scansion. These three systems, with more or less variation, have been employed throughout English literature. Drant's system is followed in the quant.i.tative verse of Sidney and Spenser; Harvey's method is that employed by Longfellow in _Evangeline_; and Tennyson's beautiful cla.s.sical experiments are practical ill.u.s.trations of the method of Professor Robinson Ellis.

In 1582, Richard Stanyhurst published at Leyden a translation of the first four books of the _aeneid_ into English hexameters. From Ascham he seems to have derived his inspiration, and from Harvey his metrical system. Like Harvey he refuses to be bound by the laws of Latin prosody,[548] and follows the English accent as much as possible. But in one respect his translation is unique. Harvey, in his correspondence with Spenser, had suggested that the use of quant.i.tative verse in English necessitated the adoption of a certain uniformity in spelling; and the curious orthography of Stanyhurst was apparently intended as a serious attempt at phonetic reform. Spelling reform had been agitated in France for some time; and in Baf's _Etrennes de Poesie francoise_ (1574), we find French quant.i.tative verse written according to the phonetic system of Ramus.

Webbe's _Discourse of English Poetrie_ is really a plea in favor of quant.i.tative verse. His system is based primarily on Latin prosody, but reconciled with English usage. The Latin rules are to be followed when the English and Latin words agree; but no word is to be used that notoriously impugns the laws of Latin prosody, and the spelling of English words should, when possible, be altered to conform to the ancient rules. The difficulty of observing the law of position in the middle of English words may be obviated by change in spelling, as in the word _mournfully_, which should be spelled _mournfuly_; but where this is impossible, the law of position is to be observed, despite the English accent, as in _royalty_. Unlike Ascham, Webbe regards the hexameter as the easiest of all cla.s.sical metres to use in English.[549]

Puttenham is not averse to the use of cla.s.sical metres, but as a conservative he considers all sudden innovations dangerous.[550] The system he adopts is not unlike Harvey's. Sidney's original enthusiasm for quant.i.tative verse soon abated; and in the _Defence of Poesy_ he points out that although the ancient versification is better suited to musical accompaniment than the modern, both systems cause delight, and are therefore equally effective and valuable; and English is more fitted than any other language to use both.[551] Campion, like Ascham, regards English polysyllables as too heavy to be used as dactyls; so that only trochaic and iambic verse can be suitably employed in English poetry.[552] He suggests eight new forms of verse. The English accent is to be diligently observed, and is to yield to nothing save the law of position; hence the second syllable of _Trumpington_ is to be accounted long.[553] In observing the law of position, however, the sound, and not the spelling, is to be the test of quant.i.ty; thus, _love-sick_ is p.r.o.nounced _love-sik_, _dangerous_ is p.r.o.nounced _dangerus_, and the like.[554]

III. _Other Evidences of Cla.s.sicism_

With Campion's _Observations_ (1602) the history of cla.s.sical metres in England may be said to close, until the resuscitation of quant.i.tative verse in the present century. Daniel's _Defence of Rhyme_ effectually put an end to this innovation; but the strong hold which the movement seems to have had during the Elizabethan age is interesting evidence of the cla.s.sical tendencies of the period. Ben Jonson has usually been regarded as the forerunner of neo-cla.s.sicism in England; but long before his influence was felt, cla.s.sical tendencies may be observed in English criticism. Thus Ascham's conservatism and aversion to singularity in matters of art are distinctly cla.s.sical. "He that can neither like Aristotle in logic and philosophy, nor Tully in rhetoric and eloquence,"

says Ascham, "will from these steps likely enough presume by like pride to mount higher to the misliking of graver matters; that is, either in religion to have a dissentious head, or in the commonwealth to have a factious heart."[555] His insistence that it is no slavery to be bound by the laws of art, and the stress he lays on perfection of style, are no less cla.s.sical.[556]