Books: English literary criticism
V >>
Various >> English literary criticism
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 | 7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22
Instances of criticism, conceived in this spirit, are unhappily still
rare. But some of Coleridge's on Shakespeare, and some of Lamb's on
the Plays of the Elizabethan Dramatists--in particular _The Duchess
of Malfi_ and _The Broken Heart_--may fairly be ranked among them. So,
and with still less of hesitation, may Mr. Ruskin's rendering of the
_Last Judgment_ of Tintoret, and Mr. Pater's studies on Lionardo,
Michaelangelo, and Giorgione. Of these, Mr. Pater's achievement is
probably the most memorable; for it is an attempt, and an attempt of
surprising power and subtlety, to reproduce not merely the effect of
a single poem or picture, but the imaginative atmosphere, the spiritual
individuality, of the artist. In a sense still higher than would be
true even of the work done by Lamb and Ruskin, it deserves the praise
justly given by Carlyle to the masterpiece of Goethe; it is "the very
poetry of criticism".
We have now reviewed the whole circle traversed by criticism during
the present century, and are in a position to define its limits and
extent. We have seen that a change of method was at once the cause and
indication of a change in spirit and in aim. The narrow range of the
eighteenth century was enlarged on the one hand by the study of new
literatures, and on the other hand by that appeal to history, and that
idea of development which has so profoundly modified every field of
thought and knowledge. In that lay the change of method. And this, in
itself, was enough to suggest a wider tolerance, a greater readiness
to make allowance for differences of taste, whether as between nation
and nation or as between period and period, than had been possible for
men whose view was practically limited to Latin literature and to such
modern literatures as were professedly moulded upon the Latin. With
such diversity of material, the absolute standard, absurd enough in
any case, became altogether impossible to maintain. It was replaced
by the conception of a common instinct for beauty, modified in each
nation by the special circumstances of its temperament and history.
But even this does not cover the whole extent of the revolution in
critical ideas. Side by side with a more tolerant--and, it may be
added, a keener--judgment of artistic form, came a clearer sense of
the inseparable connection between form and matter, and the
impossibility of comprehending the form, if it be taken apart from the
matter, of a work of art. This, too, was in part the natural effect
of the historical method, one result of which was to establish a closer
correspondence between the thought of a nation and its art than had
hitherto been suspected. But it was in part also a consequence of the
intellectual and spiritual revolution of which Rousseau was the herald
and which, during fifty years, found in German philosophy at once its
strongest inspiration and its most articulate expression. Men were no
longer satisfied to explain to themselves what Carlyle calls the
"garment" and the "body" of art; they set themselves to pierce through
these to the soul and spirit within. They instinctively felt that the
art which lives is the art that gives man something to live by; and
that, just because its form is more significant than other of man's
utterances, it must have a deeper significance also in substance and
in purport. Of this purport _Criticism of life_--the phrase suggested
by one who was at once a poet and a critic--is doubtless an unhappy,
because a pedantic definition; and it is rather creation of life, than
the criticism of it, that art has to offer. But it must be life in all
its fulness and variety; as thought, no less than as action; as energy,
no less than as beauty--
As power, as love, as influencing soul.
This is the mission of art; and to unfold its working in the art of
all times and of all nations, to set it forth by intuition, by patient
reason, by every means at his command, is the function of the critic.
To have seen this, and to have marked out the way for its performance,
is not the least among the services rendered by Carlyle to his own
generation and to ours. Later critics can hardly be said to have yet
filled out the design that he laid. They have certainly not gone beyond
it.
ENGLISH LITERARY CRITICISM.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.
(1554-1586.)
I. AN APOLOGIE FOR POETRIE.
The _Apologie_ was probably written about 1580; Gosson's pamphlet,
which clearly suggested it, having appeared in 1579. Nothing need here
be added to what has been said in the Introduction.
When the right virtuous Edward Wotton and I were at the emperor's court
together, we gave ourselves to learn horsemanship of John Pietro
Pugliano: one that with great commendation had the place of an esquire
in his stable. And he, according to the fertileness of the Italian
wit, did not only afford us the demonstration of his practice, but
sought to enrich our minds with the contemplations therein, which he
thought most precious. But with none I remember mine ears were at any
time more laden, than when (either angered with slow payment, or moved
with our learner-like admiration) he exercised his speech in the praise
of his faculty. He said, soldiers were the noblest estate of mankind,
and horsemen, the noblest of soldiers. He said, they were the masters
of war, and ornaments of peace: speedy goers, and strong abiders,
triumphers both in camps and courts. Nay, to so unbelieved a point he
proceeded, as that no earthly thing bred such wonder to a prince, as
to be a good horseman. Skill of government was but a pedanteria in
comparison: then would he add certain praises, by telling what a
peerless beast a horse was. The only serviceable courtier without
flattery, the beast of most beauty, faithfulness, courage, and such
more, that, if I had not been a piece of a logician before I came to
him, I think he would have persuaded me to have wished myself a horse.
But thus much at least with his no few words he drove into me, that
self-love is better than any gilding to make that seem gorgeous, wherein
ourselves are parties. Wherein, if Pugliano his strong affection and
weak arguments will not satisfy you, I will give you a nearer example
of myself, who (I know not by what mischance) in these my not old years
and idlest times, having slipped into the title of a poet, am provoked
to say something unto you in the defence of that my unelected vocation;
which if I handle with more good will than good reasons, bear with me,
sith the scholar is to be pardoned that followeth the steps of his
master. And yet I must say that, as I have just cause to make a pitiful
defence of poor poetry, which from almost the highest estimation of
learning is fallen to be the laughing-stock of children, so have I
need to bring some more available proofs: sith the former is by no man
barred of his deserved credit, the silly latter hath had even the names
of philosophers used to the defacing of it, with great danger of civil
war among the muses. And first, truly to all them that professing
learning inveigh against poetry may justly be objected, that they go
very near to ungratefulness, to seek to deface that which, in the
noblest nations and languages that are known, hath been the first
light-giver to ignorance, and first nurse, whose milk by little and
little enabled them to feed afterwards of tougher knowledges: and will
they now play the hedgehog that, being received into the den, drove
out his host? or rather the vipers, that with their birth kill their
parents? Let learned Greece in any of her manifold sciences, be able
to show me one book, before Musaeus, Homer, and Hesiodus, all three
nothing else but poets. Nay, let any history be brought, that can say
any writers were there before them, if they were not men of the same
skill, as Orpheus, Linus, and some other are named: who having been
the first of that country, that made pens deliverers of their knowledge
to their posterity, may justly challenge to be called their fathers
in learning: for not only in time they had this priority (although in
itself antiquity be venerable) but went before them, as causes to draw
with their charming sweetness the wild untamed wits to an admiration
of knowledge. So as Amphion was said to move stone with his poetry,
to build Thebes. And Orpheus to be listened to by beasts indeed, stony
and beastly people. So among the Romans were Livius Andronicus, and
Ennius. So in the Italian language, the first that made it aspire to
be a treasure-house of science were the poets Dante, Boccace, and
Petrarch. So in our English were Gower and Chaucer.
After whom, encouraged and delighted with their excellent foregoing,
others have followed, to beautify our mother tongue, as well in the
same kind as in other arts. This did so notably show itself, that the
philosophers of Greece durst not a long time appear to the world but
under the masks of poets. So Thales, Empedocles, and Parmenides sang
their natural philosophy in verses: so did Pythagoras and Phocylides
their moral counsels: so did Tyrtaus in war matters, and Solon in
matters of policy: or rather, they being poets, did exercise their
delightful vein in those points of highest knowledge, which before
them lay hid to the world. For that wise Solon was directly a poet,
it is manifest, having written in verse the notable fable of the
Atlantic Island, which was continued by Plato.
And truly, even Plato, whosoever well considereth, shall find, that
in the body of his work, though the inside and strength were philosophy,
the skin as it were and beauty depended most of poetry: for all standeth
upon dialogues, wherein he feigneth many honest burgesses of Athens
to speak of such matters, that if they had been set on the rack, they
would never have confessed them. Besides, his poetical describing the
circumstances of their meetings, as the well ordering of a banquet,
the delicacy of a walk, with interlacing mere tales, as Gyges' ring,
and others, which who knows not to be the flowers of poetry, did never
walk into Apollo's garden.
And even historiographers (although their lips sound of things done,
and verity be written in their foreheads) have been glad to borrow
both fashion, and perchance weight, of poets. So Herodotus entitled
his history by the name of the nine Muses: and both he, and all the
rest that followed him, either stole or usurped of poetry their
passionate describing of passions, the many particularities of battles,
which no man could affirm: or if that be denied me, long orations put
in the mouths of great kings and captains, which it is certain they
never pronounced. So that truly, neither philosopher nor historiographer
could at the first have entered into the gates of popular judgments,
if they had not taken a great passport of poetry, which, in all nations
at this day where learning flourisheth not, is plain to be seen: in
all which they have some feeling of poetry. In Turkey, besides their
law-giving divines, they have no other writers but poets. In our
neighbour country Ireland, where truly learning goeth very bare, yet
are their poets held in a devout reverence. Even among the most
barbarous and simple Indians where no writing is, yet have they their
poets, who make and sing songs which they call areytos, both of their
ancestors' deeds, and praises of their Gods. A sufficient probability,
that, if ever learning come among them, it must be by having their
hard dull wits softened and sharpened with the sweet delights of poetry.
For until they find a pleasure in the exercises of the mind, great
promises of much knowledge will little persuade them, that know not
the fruits of knowledge. In Wales, the true remnant of the ancient
Britons, as there are good authorities to show the long time they had
poets, which they called bards: so through all the conquests of Romans,
Saxons, Danes, and Normans, some of whom did seek to ruin all memory
of learning from among them, yet do their poets, even to this day,
last; so as it is not more notable in soon beginning than in long
continuing. But since the authors of most of our sciences were the
Romans, and before them the Greeks, let us a little stand upon their
authorities, but even so far as to see what names they have given unto
this now scorned skill.
Among the Romans a poet was called _vates_, which is as much as a
diviner, fore-seer, or prophet, as by his conjoined words _vaticinium_
and _vaticinari_ is manifest: so heavenly a title did that excellent
people bestow upon this heart-ravishing knowledge. And so far were
they carried into the admiration thereof, that they thought in the
chanceable hitting upon any such verses great foretokens of their
following fortunes were placed. Whereupon grew the word of _Sortes
Virgilianae_, when, by sudden opening Virgil's book, they lighted upon
any verse of his making, whereof the histories of the emperors' lives
are full: as of Albinus the governor of our island, who in his childhood
met with this verse
_Arma amens capio nee sat rationis in armis:_
and in his age performed it; which although it were a very vain and
godless superstition, as also it was to think that spirits were
commanded by such verses (whereupon this word charms, derived of
_Carmina_, cometh), so yet serveth it to show the great reverence those
wits were held in. And altogether not without ground, since both the
oracles of Delphos and Sibylla's prophecies were wholly delivered in
verses. For that same exquisite observing of number and measure in
words, and that high-flying liberty of conceit proper to the Poet, did
seem to have some divine force in it.
And may not I presume a little further, to show the reasonableness of
this word _vates_? And say that the holy David's Psalms are a divine
poem? If I do, I shall not do it without the testimony of great learned
men, both ancient and modern: but even the name Psalms will speak for
me; which being interpreted is nothing but songs. Then that it is fully
written in metre, as all learned Hebricians agree, although the rules
be not yet fully found. Lastly and principally, his handling his
prophecy, which is merely poetical. For what else is the awaking his
musical instruments? The often and free changing of persons? His notable
prosopopeias, when he maketh you, as it were, see God coming in His
majesty? His telling of the beasts' joyfulness, and hills leaping, but
a heavenly poesy: wherein almost he showeth himself a passionate lover
of that unspeakable and everlasting beauty to be seen by the eyes of
the mind, only cleared by faith? But truly now having named him, I
fear me I seem to profane that holy name, applying it to poetry, which
is among us thrown down to so ridiculous an estimation: but they that
with quiet judgments will look a little deeper into it, shall find the
end and working of it such as, being rightly applied, deserveth not
to be scourged out of the Church of God.
But now, let us see how the Greeks named it, and how they deemed of
it. The Greeks called him a poet, which name hath, as the most
excellent, gone through other languages. It cometh of this word
_poiein_, which is, to make: wherein I know not, whether by luck or
wisdom, we Englishmen have met with the Greeks, in calling him a maker:
which name, how high and incomparable a title it is, I had rather were
known by marking the scope of other sciences, than by my partial
allegation.
There is no art delivered to mankind, that hath not the works of nature
for his principal object, without which they could not consist, and
on which they so depend, as they become actors and players, as it were,
of what nature will have set forth. So doth the astronomer look upon
the stars, and by that he seeth, setteth down what order nature hath
taken therein. So do the geometrician, and arithmetician, in their
diverse sorts of quantities. So doth the musician, in times, tell you
which by nature agree, which not. The natural philosopher thereon hath
his name, and the moral philosopher standeth upon the natural virtues,
vices, and passions of man; and follow nature (saith he) therein, and
thou shalt not err. The lawyer saith what men have determined. The
historian what men have done. The grammarian speaketh only of the rules
of speech; and the rhetorician, and logician, considering what in
nature will soonest prove and persuade, thereon give artificial rules,
which still are compassed within the circle of a question, according
to the proposed matter. The physician weigheth the nature of a man's
body, and the nature of things helpful, or hurtful unto it. And the
metaphysic, though it be in the second and abstract notions, and
therefore be counted supernatural, yet doth he indeed build upon the
depth of nature: only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such
subjection, lifted up with the vigour of his own invention, doth grow
in effect another nature, in making things either better than nature
bringeth forth, or quite anew forms such as never were in nature, as
the heroes, demigods, cyclops, chimeras, furies, and such like: so as
he goeth hand in hand with nature, not inclosed within the narrow
warrant of her gifts, but freely ranging only within the zodiac of his
own wit.
Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry, as divers poets
have done, neither with pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling
flowers: nor whatsoever else may make the too much loved earth more
lovely. Her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden: but let
those things alone and go to man, for whom as the other things are,
so it seemeth in him her uttermost cunning is employed, and know whether
she have brought forth so true a lover as Theagenes, so constant a
friend as Pylades, so valiant a man as Orlando, so right a prince as
Xenophon's Cyrus: so excellent a man every way, as Virgil's Aneas.
Neither let this be jestingly conceived, because the works of the one
be essential, the other, in imitation or fiction; for any understanding
knoweth the skill of the artificer standeth in that idea or fore-conceit
of the work, and not in the work itself. And that the poet hath that
idea, is manifest, by delivering them forth in such excellency as he
hath imagined them. Which delivering forth also is not wholly
imaginative, as we are wont to say by them that build castles in the
air: but so far substantially it worketh, not only to make a Cyrus,
which had been but a particular excellency, as Nature might have done,
but to bestow a Cyrus upon the world, to make many Cyruses, if they
will learn aright, why and how that maker made him.
Neither let it be deemed too saucy a comparison to balance the highest
point of man's wit with the efficacy of Nature: but rather give right
honour to the heavenly Maker of that maker: who, having made man to
his own likeness, set him beyond and over all the works of that second
nature, which in nothing he showeth so much as in poetry: when, with
the force of a divine breath, he bringeth things forth far surpassing
her doings, with no small argument to the incredulous of that first
accursed fall of Adam; sith our erected wit maketh us know what
perfection is, and yet our infected will keepeth us from reaching unto
it. But these arguments will by few be understood, and by fewer granted.
Thus much (I hope) will be given me, that the Greeks, with some
probability of reason, gave him the name above all names of learning.
Now let us go to a more ordinary opening of him, that the truth may
be more palpable: and so I hope, though we get not so unmatched a
praise as the etymology of his names will grant, yet his very
description, which no man will deny, shall not justly be barred from
a principal commendation.
Poesy, therefore, is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it
in his word _Mimesis_, that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting,
or figuring forth: to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture: with
this end, to teach and delight; of this have been three several kinds.
The chief both in antiquity and excellency, were they that did imitate
the inconceivable excellencies of God. Such were David in his Psalms,
Solomon in his Song of Songs, in his Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs: Moses
and Deborah, in their hymns, and the writer of Job; which, beside
other, the learned Emanuel Tremilius and Franciscus Junius do entitle
the poetical part of Scripture. Against these none will speak that
hath the Holy Ghost in due holy reverence.
In this kind, though in a full wrong divinity, were Orpheus, Amphion,
Homer in his hymns, and many other, both Greeks and Romans: and this
poesy must be used by whosoever will follow St. James his counsel, in
singing psalms when they are merry: and I know is used with the fruit
of comfort by some, when, in sorrowful pangs of their death-bringing
sins, they find the consolation of the never-leaving goodness.
The second kind, is of them that deal with matters philosophical;
either moral, as Tyrtaus, Phocylides, and Cato: or natural, as Lucretius
and Virgil's _Georgics_; or astronomical, as Manilius, and Pontanus;
or historical, as Lucan; which who mislike, the fault is in their
judgments quite out of taste, and not in the sweet food of
sweetly-uttered knowledge. But because this second sort is wrapped
within the fold of the proposed subject, and takes not the course of
his own invention, whether they properly be poets or no, let grammarians
dispute; and go to the third, indeed right poets, of whom chiefly this
question ariseth; betwixt whom and these second is such a kind of
difference, as betwixt the meaner sort of painters (who counterfeit
only such faces as are set before them) and the more excellent; who,
having no law but wit, bestow that in colours upon you which is fittest
for the eye to see; as the constant, though lamenting look of Lucretia,
when she punished in herself another's fault.
Wherein he painteth not Lucretia whom he never saw, but painteth the
outward beauty of such a virtue: for these third be they which most
properly do imitate to teach and delight; and, to imitate, borrow
nothing of what is, hath been, or shall be: but range, only reined
with learned discretion, into the divine consideration of what may be,
and should be. These be they that, as the first and most noble sort
may justly be termed Vates, so these are waited on in the excellentest
languages and best understandings, with the fore-described name of
poets: for these indeed do merely make to imitate: and imitate both
to delight and teach: and delight to move men to take that goodness
in hand, which without delight they would fly as from a stranger: and
teach, to make them know that goodness whereunto they are moved, which
being the noblest scope to which ever any learning was directed, yet
want there not idle tongues to bark at them. These be subdivided into
sundry more special denominations. The most notable be the heroic,
lyric, tragic, comic, satiric, iambic, elegiac, pastoral, and certain
others. Some of these being termed according to the matter they deal
with, some by the sorts of verses they liked best to write in, for
indeed the greatest part of poets have apparelled their poetical
inventions in that numbrous kind of writing which is called verse:
indeed but apparelled, verse being but an ornament and no cause to
poetry: sith there have been many most excellent poets that never
versified, and now swarm many versifiers that need never answer to the
name of poets. For Xenophon, who did imitate so excellently, as to
give us _effigiem justi imperii_ the portraiture of a just empire under
the name of Cyrus (as Cicero says of him), made therein an absolute
heroical poem.
So did Heliodorus in his sugared invention of that picture of love in
Theagenes and Chariclea, and yet both these wrote in prose: which I
speak to show, that it is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet,
no more than a long gown maketh an advocate: who, though he pleaded
in armour, should be an advocate and no soldier. But it is that feigning
notable images of virtues, vices, or what else, with that delightful
teaching which must be the right describing note to know a poet by:
although, indeed, the senate of poets hath chosen verse as their fittest
raiment, meaning, as in matter they passed all in all, so in manner
to go beyond them: not speaking (table-talk fashion, or like men in
a dream) words as they chanceably fall from the mouth, but peyzing
[Footnote: weighing.] each syllable of each word by just proportion
according to the dignity of the subject.
Now, therefore, it shall not be amiss first to weigh this latter sort
of poetry by his works, and then by his parts; and if in neither of
these anatomies he be condemnable, I hope we shall obtain a more
favourable sentence. This purifying of wit, this enriching of memory,
enabling of judgment, and enlarging of conceit, which commonly we call
learning, under what name soever it come forth, or to what immediate
end soever it be directed, the final end is, to lead and draw us to
as high a perfection, as our degenerate souls made worse by their
clayey lodgings, can be capable of. This, according to the inclination
of the man, bred many formed impressions; for some that thought this
felicity principally to be gotten by knowledge, and no knowledge to
be so high and heavenly as acquaintance with the stars, gave themselves
to astronomy; others, persuading themselves to be demigods if they
knew the causes of things, became natural and supernatural philosophers;
some an admirable delight drew to music; and some the certainty of
demonstration, to the mathematics. But all, one and other, having this
scope to know, and by knowledge to lift up the mind from the dungeon
of the body, to the enjoying his own divine essence. But when by the
balance of experience it was found, that the astronomer looking to the
stars might fall into a ditch, that the inquiring philosopher might
be blind in himself, and the mathematician might draw forth a straight
line with a crooked heart: then lo, did proof the overruler of opinions
make manifest that all these are but serving sciences, which, as they
have each a private end in themselves, so yet are they all directed
to the highest end of the mistress knowledge, by the Greeks called
_Arkitektonike_, which stands (as I think) in the knowledge of a man's
self, in the ethic and politic consideration, with the end of
well-doing, and not of well-knowing only; even as the saddler's next
end is to make a good saddle: but his farther end, to serve a nobler
faculty, which is horsemanship: so the horseman's to soldiery, and the
soldier not only to have the skill, but to perform the practice of a
soldier: so that the ending end of all earthly learning, being virtuous
action, those skills that most serve to bring forth that, have a most
just title to be princes over all the rest. Wherein if we can show the
poet's nobleness, by setting him before his other competitors, among
whom as principal challengers step forth the moral philosophers, whom
methinketh I see coming towards me with a sullen gravity, as though
they could not abide vice by daylight, rudely clothed for to witness
outwardly their contempt of outward things, with books in their hands
against glory, whereto they set their names, sophistically speaking
against subtlety, and angry with any man in whom they see the foul
fault of anger; these men casting largess as they go, of definitions,
divisions, and distinctions, with a scornful interrogative, do soberly
ask, whether it be possible to find any path, so ready to lead a man
to virtue, as that which teacheth what virtue is? and teacheth it not
only by delivering forth his very being, his causes, and effects: but
also, by making known his enemy vice, which must be destroyed, and his
cumbersome servant passion, which must be mastered, by showing the
generalities that contain it, and the specialities that are derived
from it: lastly, by plain setting down, how it extendeth itself out
of the limits of a man's own little world, to the government of families
and maintaining of public societies. [Footnote: A principal clause--_It
will be well_, or some equivalent--is unhappily lacking to this long
sentence.]
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 | 7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22