A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance Part 15

"d'un voile divers Par fables ont cache le vray sens de leurs vers."[339]

It will be seen also that for Ronsard, poetry is essentially a matter of inspiration; and in the poem just quoted, the _Discours a Jacques Grevin_, he follows the Platonic conception of divine inspiration or madness. A few years later Montaigne said of poetry that "it is an easier matter to frame it than to know it; being base and humble, it may be judged by the precepts and art of it, but the good and lofty, the supreme and divine, are beyond rules and above reason. It hath no community with our judgment, but ransacketh and ravisheth the same."[340]

In his various critical works Ronsard shows considerable indebtedness to the Italian theorists, especially to Minturno. He does not attempt any formal definition of poetry, but its function is described as follows: "As the end of the orator is to persuade, so that of the poet is to imitate, invent, and represent the things that are, that can be, or that the ancients regarded as true."[341] The concluding clause of this pa.s.sage is intended to justify the modern use of the ancient mythology; but the whole pa.s.sage seems primarily to follow Scaliger[342] and Minturno.[343] It is to be observed that verse is not mentioned in this definition as an essential requirement of poetry. It was indeed a favorite contention of his, and one for which he was indebted to the Italians, that all who write in verse are not poets. Lucan and Silius Italicus have robed history with the raiment of verse; but according to Ronsard they would have done better in many ways to have written in prose. The poet, unlike the historian, deals with the verisimilar and the probable; and while he cannot be responsible for falsehoods which are in opposition to the truth of things, any more than the historian can, he is not interested to know whether or not the details of his poems are actual historical facts. Verisimilitude, and not fact, is therefore the test of poetry.

In Vauquelin de la Fresnaye may be found most of the Aristotelian distinctions in regard to imitation, harmony, rhythm, and poetic theory in general; but these distinctions he derived, as has already been said, not directly from Aristotle, but in all probability from Minturno.

Poetry is defined as an art of imitation:--

"C'est un art d'imiter, un art de contrefaire Que toute poesie, ainsi que de pourtraire."[344]

Verse is described as a heaven-sent instrument, the language of the G.o.ds; and its value in poetry consists in clarifying and making the design compact.[345] But it is not an essential of poetry; Aristotle permits us to poetize in prose; and the romances of Heliodorus and Montemayor are examples of this poetic prose.[346] The object of poetry is that it shall cause delight, and unless it succeeds in this it is entirely futile:--

"C'est le but, c'est la fin des vers que resjouir: Les Muses autrement ne les veulent ouir."

As it is the function of the orator to persuade and the physician to cure, and as they fail in their offices unless they effect these ends, so the poet fails unless he succeeds in pleasing.[347] This comparison is a favorite one with the Italian critics. A similar pa.s.sage has already been cited from Daniello; and the same notion is thus expressed by Lodovico Dolce: "The aim of the physician is to cure diseases by means of medicine; the orator's to persuade by force of his arguments; and if neither attains this end, he is not called physician or orator.

So if the poet does not delight, he is not a poet, for poetry delights all, even the ignorant."[348]

But delight, according to Vauquelin, is merely the means of directing us to higher things; poetry is a delightful means of leading us to virtue:--

"C'est pourquoy des beaus vers la joyeuse alegresse Nous conduit aux vertus d'une plaisante addresse."[349]

Vauquelin, like Scaliger, Ta.s.so, Sidney, compares the poet with G.o.d, the great Workman, who made everything out of nothing.[350] The poet is a divinely inspired person, who, _sans art, sans scavoir_, creates works of divine beauty. Vauquelin's contemporary, Du Bartas, has in his _Uranie_ expressed this idea in the following manner:--

"Each art is learned by art; but Poesie Is a mere heavenly gift, and none can taste The dews we drop from Pindus plenteously, If sacred fire have not his heart embraced.

"Hence is't that many great Philosophers, Deep-learned clerks, in prose most eloquent, Labor in vain to make a graceful verse, Which many a novice frames most excellent."[351]

While this is the accepted Renaissance doctrine of inspiration, Vauquelin, in common with all other followers of the Pleiade, was fully alive to the necessity of artifice and study in poetry; and he agrees with Horace in regarding both art and nature as equally necessary to the making of a good poet. It is usage that makes art, but art perfects and regulates usage:--

"Et ce bel Art nous sert d'escalier pour monter A Dieu."[352]

II. _The Drama_

Dramatic criticism in France begins as a reaction against the drama of the Middle Ages. The mediaeval drama was formless and inorganic, without art or dignity. The cla.s.sical drama, on the other hand, possessed both form and dignity; and the new school, perceiving this contrast, looked to the Aristotelian canons, as restated by the Italians, to furnish the dignity and art which the tragedy of Greece and Rome possessed, and which their own moralities and farces fundamentally lacked. In the first reference to dramatic literature in French criticism, the mediaeval and cla.s.sical dramas are compared after this fashion; but as Sibilet (1548), in whose work this pa.s.sage appears, wrote a year or so before the advent of the Pleiade, the comparison is not so unfavorable to the morality and the farce as it became in later critics. "The French morality," says Sibilet, "represents, in certain distinct traits, Greek and Latin tragedy, especially in that it treats of grave and momentous deeds (_faits graves et princ.i.p.aus_); and if the French had always made the ending of the morality sad and dolorous, the morality would be a tragedy. But in this, as in all things, we have followed our natural taste or inclination, which is to take from foreign things not all we see, but only what we think will be useful to us and of national advantage; for in the morality we treat, as the Greeks and Romans do in their tragedies, the narration of deeds that are ill.u.s.trious, magnanimous, and virtuous, or true, or at least verisimilar; but we do otherwise in what is useful to the information of our manners and life, without subjecting ourselves to any sorrow or pleasure of the issue."[353] It would seem that Sibilet regards the morality as lacking nothing but the unhappy ending of cla.s.sical tragedy. At the same time this pa.s.sage exhibits perhaps the first trace of Aristotelianism in French critical literature; for Sibilet specifies several characteristic features of Greek and Latin tragedy, which he could have found only in Aristotle or in the Italians. In the first place, tragedy deals only with actions that are grave, ill.u.s.trious, and for the most part magnanimous or virtuous. In the second place, the actions of tragedy are either really true, that is, historical, or if not true, have all the appearance of truth, that is, they are verisimilar. Thirdly, the end of tragedy is always sad and dolorous. Fourthly, tragedy performs a useful function, which is connected in some way with the reformation of manners and life; and, lastly, the effect of tragedy is connected with the sorrow or pleasure brought about by the catastrophe. These distinctions antic.i.p.ate many of those found later in Scaliger and in the French critics.

In Du Bellay (1549) we find no traces of dramatic theory beyond the injunction, already noted, that the French should subst.i.tute cla.s.sical tragedy and comedy for the old morality and farce. A few years later, however, in Pelletier (1555), there appears an almost complete system of dramatic criticism. He urges the French to attempt the composition of tragedy and comedy. "This species of poetry," he says, "will bring honor to the French language, if it is attempted,"--a remark which ill.u.s.trates the innate predisposition of the French for dramatic poetry.[354] He then proceeds to distinguish tragedy from comedy much in the same manner as Scaliger does six years later. It is to be remembered that Pelletier's _Art Poetique_ was published at Lyons in 1555, while Scaliger's _Poetics_ was published at the same place in 1561. Pelletier may have known Scaliger personally; but it is more probable that Pelletier derived his information from the same cla.s.sical and traditional sources as did Scaliger. At all events, Pelletier distinguishes tragedy from comedy in regard to style, subject, characters, and ending in exact Scaligerian fashion. Comedy has nothing in common with tragedy except the fact that neither can have more or less than five acts. The style and diction of comedy are popular and colloquial, while those of tragedy are most dignified and sublime. The comic characters are men of low condition, while those of tragedy are kings, princes, and great lords. The conclusion of comedy is always joyous, that of tragedy is always sorrowful and heart-rending. The themes of tragedy are deaths, exiles, and unhappy changes of fortune; those of comedy are the loves and pa.s.sions of young men and young women, the indulgence of mothers, the wiles of slaves, and the diligence of nurses.[355]

By this time, then, Aristotle's theory of tragedy, as restated by the Italians, had become part of French criticism. The actual practice of the French drama had been modified by the introduction of these rules; and they had played so important a part that Grevin, in his _Bref Discours pour l'Intelligence de ce Theatre_, prefixed to his _Mort de Cesar_ (1562), could say that French tragedy had already attained perfection, even when regarded from the standpoint of the Aristotelian canons. "Our tragedies," says Grevin, "have been so well polished that there is nothing left now to be desired,--I speak of those which are composed according to the rules of Aristotle and Horace." Grevin's _Discours_ was published the year after Scaliger's _Poetics_, but shows no indication of Scaligerian influence. His definition of tragedy is based on a most vague and incomplete recollection of Aristotle, "Tragedy, as Aristotle says in his _Poetics_, is an imitation or representation of some action that is ill.u.s.trious and great in itself, such as the death of Caesar." He shows his independence or his ignorance of Scaliger by insisting on the inferiority of Seneca, whom Scaliger had rated above all the Greeks; and he shows his independence of the ancients by subst.i.tuting a crowd of Caesar's soldiers for the singers of the older chorus, on the ground that there ought not to be singing in the representation of tragedy any more than there is in actual life itself, for tragedy is a representation of truth or of what has the appearance of truth. There are in Grevin's _Discours_ several indications that the national feeling had not been entirely destroyed by the imitation of the cla.s.sics; but a discussion of this must be left for a later chapter.

In Jean de la Taille's _Art de Tragedie_, prefixed to his _Saul le Furieux_ (1572), a drama in which a biblical theme is fashioned after the manner of cla.s.sical tragedy, there is to be found the most explicit and distinct antagonism to the old, irregular moralities, which are not modelled according to the true art and the pattern of the ancients. They are but _ameres epiceries_--words that recall Du Bellay. But curiously enough, Jean de la Taille differs entirely from Grevin, and a.s.serts positively that France had as yet no real tragedies, except possibly a few translated from the cla.s.sics. Waging war, as he is, against the crude formlessness of the national drama, perfect construction a.s.sumes for him a very high importance. "The princ.i.p.al point in tragedy," he says, "is to know how to dispose and fashion it well, so that the plot is well intertwined, mingled, interrupted, and resumed, ... and that there is nothing useless, without purpose, or out of place." For Jean de la Taille, as for most Renaissance writers, tragedy is the least popular and the most elegant and elevated form of poetry, exclusive of the epic.

It deals with the pitiful ruin of great lords, with the inconstancy of fortune, with banishment, war, pestilence, famine, captivity, and the execrable cruelty of tyrants.[356] The end of tragedy is in fact to move and to sting the feelings and the emotions of men. The characters of tragedy--and this is the Aristotelian conception--should be neither extremely bad, such men as by their crimes merit punishment, nor perfectly good and holy, like Socrates, who was wrongfully put to death.

Invented or allegorical characters, such as Death, Avarice, or Truth, are not to be employed. At the same time, Jean de la Taille, like Grevin, is not averse to the use of scriptural subjects in tragedy, although he cautions the poet against long-winded theological discussions. The Senecan drama was his model in treating of tragedy, as it was indeed that of the Renaissance in general; and tragedy approached more and more closely to the oratorical and sententious manner of the Latin poet. Ronsard, for example, a.s.serts that tragedy and comedy are entirely _didascaliques et enseignantes_, and should be enriched by numerous excellent and rare _sentences_ (_sententiae_), "for in a few words the drama must teach much, being the mirror of human life."[357]

Similarly, Du Bellay advises poets to embellish their poetry with grave _sentences_, and Pelletier praises Seneca princ.i.p.ally because he is _sentencieux_.

Vauquelin, in his _Art Poetique_, gives a metrical paraphrase of Aristotle's definition of tragedy:--

"Mais le sujet tragic est un fait imite De chose juste et grave, en ses vers limite; Auquel on y doit voir de l'affreux, du terrible, Un fait non attendu, qui tienne de l'horrible, Du pitoyable aussi, le coeur attendrissant D'un tigre furieux, d'un lion rugissant."[358]

The subject of tragedy should be old, and should be connected with the fall of great tyrants and princes;[359] and in regard to the number of acts, the number of interlocutors on the stage, the _deus ex machina_, and the chorus,[360] Vauquelin merely paraphrases Horace. Comedy is defined as the imitation of an action which by common usage is accounted wicked, but which is not so wicked that there is no remedy for it; thus, for example, a man who has seduced a young girl may recompense her by taking her in marriage.[361] Hence while the actions of tragedy are "virtuous, magnificent, and grand, royal, and sumptuous," the incidents of comedy are actually and ethically of a lower grade.[362] For tragi-comedy Vauquelin has nothing but contempt. It is, in fact, a b.a.s.t.a.r.d form, since the tragedy with a happy ending serves a similar but more dignified purpose. Vauquelin, like Boileau and most other French critics after him, follows Aristotle at length in the description of dramatic recognitions and reversals of fortune.[363] Most of the other Aristotelian distinctions are also to be found in his work.

In the _Art Poetique francois_ of Pierre de Laudun, Sieur d'Aigaliers, published in 1598, these distinctions reappear in a more or less mutilated form. In the fifth and last book of this treatise, De Laudun follows the Italian scholars, especially Scaliger and Viperano. He does not differ essentially from Scaliger in the definition of tragedy, in the division into acts and the place of the chorus, in the discussion of the characters and subjects of tragedy, and in the distinction between tragedy and comedy.[364] His conception of tragedy is in keeping with the usual Senecan ideal; it should be adorned by frequent _sentences_, allegories, similitudes, and other ornaments of poetry. The more cruel and sanguinary the tragic action is, the more excellent it will be; but at the same time, much that makes the action cruel is to be enacted only behind the stage. Like Pelletier, he objects to the introduction of all allegorical and invented characters, or even G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, on the ground that these are not actual beings, and hence are out of keeping with the theme of tragedy, which must be real and historical. De Laudun has also something to say concerning the introduction of ghosts in the tragic action; and his discussion is peculiarly interesting when we remember that it was almost at this very time, in England, that the ghost played so important a part in the Shakespearian drama. "If the ghosts appear before the action begins," says De Laudun, "they are permissible; but if they appear during the course of the action, and speak to the actors themselves, they are entirely faulty and reprehensible." De Laudun borrowed from Scaliger the scheme of the ideal tragedy: "The first act contains the complaints; the second, the suspicions; the third, the counsels; the fourth, the menaces and preparations; the fifth, the fulfilment and effusion of blood."[365] But despite his subservience to Scaliger, he is not afraid to express his independence of the ancients. We are not, he says, entirely bound to their laws, especially in the number of actors on the stage, which according to cla.s.sic usage never exceeded three; for nowadays, notwithstanding the counsels of Aristotle and Horace, an audience has not the patience to be satisfied with only two or three persons at one time.

The history of the dramatic unities in France during the sixteenth century demands some attention. That they had considerable effect on the actual practice of dramatic composition from the very advent of the Pleiade is quite obvious; for in the first scene of the first French tragedy, the _Cleopatre_ of Jodelle (1552), there is an allusion to the unity of time, which Corneille was afterward to call the _regle des regles_:--

"Avant que ce soleil, qui vient ores de naitre, Ayant trace son jour chez sa tante se plonge, Cleopatre mourra!"

In 1553 Mellin de Saint-Gelais translated Trissino's _Sofonisba_ into French, and the influence of the Italian drama became fixed in France.

But the first distinct formulation of the unities is to be found in Jean de la Taille's _Art de Tragedie_ (1572). His statement of the unity is explicit, "Il faut toujours representer l'histoire ou le jeu en un meme jour, en un meme temps, et en un meme lieu."[366] Jean de la Taille was indebted for this to Castelvetro, who two years before had stated them thus, "La mutatione tragica non pu tirar con esso seco se non una giornata e un luogo."[367] The unity of time was adopted by Ronsard about this same time in the following words:--

"Tragedy and comedy are circ.u.mscribed and limited to a short s.p.a.ce of time, that is, to one whole day. The most excellent masters of this craft commence their works from one midnight to another, and not from sunrise to sunset, in order to have greater compa.s.s and length of time. On the other hand, the heroic poem, which is entirely of a martial character (_tout guerrier_), comprehends only the actions of one whole year."[368]

This pa.s.sage is without doubt borrowed from Minturno (1564):--

"Whoever regards well the works of the most admired ancient authors will find that the materials of scenic poetry terminate in one day, or do not pa.s.s beyond the s.p.a.ce of two days; just as the action of the epic poem, however great and however long it may be, does not occupy more than one year."[369]

Minturno, it will be remembered, was the first to limit the action of the heroic poem to one year. In another pa.s.sage he deduces the rule from the practice of Virgil and Homer;[370] but Ronsard seems to think that Virgil himself has not obeyed this law. We have already alluded to the influence of Minturno on the Pleiade. Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, who explicitly acknowledges his indebtedness to Minturno, also follows him in limiting the action of the drama to one day and that of the epic to one year:--

"Or comme eux l'heroic suivant le droit sentier, Doit son oeuvre comprendre au cours d'un an entier; Le tragic, le comic, dedans une journee Comprend ce que fait l'autre au cours de son annee: Le theatre jamais ne doit estre rempli D'un argument plus long que d'un jour accompli."[371]

The two last lines of this pa.s.sage bear considerable resemblance to Boileau's famous statement of the unities three-quarters of a century later.[372]

Toward the end of the sixteenth century, then, the unity of time, and in a less degree the unity of place, had become almost inviolable laws of the drama. But at this very period strong notes of revolt against the tyranny of the unities begin to be heard. Up to this time the cla.s.sical Italian drama had been the pattern for French playwrights; but the irregular Spanish drama was now commencing to exert considerable influence in France, and with this Spanish influence came the Spanish opposition to the unities. In 1582 Jean de Beaubreuil, in the preface of his tragedy of _Regulus_, had spoken with contempt of the rule of twenty-four hours as _trop superst.i.tieux_. But De Laudun was probably the first European critic to argue formally against it. The concluding chapter of his _Art Poetique_ (1598) gives five different reasons why the unity of time should not be observed in the drama. The chapter is ent.i.tled, "Concerning those who say that the action of tragedy must conclude in a single day;" and De Laudun begins by a.s.serting that this opinion had never been sustained by any good author. This is fairly conclusive evidence that De Laudun had never directly consulted Aristotle's _Poetics_, but was indebted for his knowledge of Aristotle to the Italians, and especially to Scaliger. The five arguments which he formulates against the unity of time are as follows:--

"In the first place, this law, if it is observed by any of the ancients, need not force us to restrict our tragedies in any way, since we are not bound by their manner of writing or by the measure of feet and syllables with which they compose their verses. In the second place, if we were forced to observe this rigorous law, we should fall into one of the greatest of absurdities, by being obliged to introduce impossible and incredible things in order to enhance the beauty of our tragedies, or else they would lack all grace; for besides being deprived of matter, we could not embellish our poems with long discourses and various interesting events. In the third place, the action of the _Troades_, an excellent tragedy by Seneca, could not have occurred in one day, nor could even some of the plays of Euripides or Sophocles. In the fourth place, according to the definition already given [on the authority of Aristotle], tragedy is the recital of the lives of heroes, the fortune and grandeur of kings, princes, and others; and all this could not be accomplished in one day. Besides, a tragedy must contain five acts, of which the first is joyous, and the succeeding ones exhibit a gradual change, as I have already indicated above; and this change a single day would not suffice to bring about. In the fifth and last place, the tragedies in which this rule is observed are not any better than the tragedies in which it is not observed; and the tragic poets, Greek and Latin, or even French, do not and need not and cannot observe it, since very often in a tragedy the whole life of a prince, king, emperor, n.o.ble, or other person is represented;--besides a thousand other reasons which I could advance if time permitted, but which must be left for a second edition."[373]

The history of the unity of time during the next century does not strictly concern us here; but it may be well to point out that it was through the offices of Chapelain, seconded by the authority of Cardinal Richelieu, that it became fixed in the dramatic theory of France. In a long letter, dating from November, 1630, and recently published for the first time, Chapelain sets out to answer all the objections made against the rule of twenty-four hours. It is sustained, he says, by the practice of the ancients and the universal consensus of the Italians; but his own proof is based on reason alone. It is the old argument of _vraisemblance_, as found in Maggi, Scaliger, and especially Castelvetro, whom Chapelain seems in part to follow. By 1635 he had formulated the whole theory of the three unities and converted Cardinal Richelieu to his views. In the previous year Mairet's _Sophonisbe_, the first "regular" French tragedy, had been produced. In 1636 the famous _Cid_ controversy had begun. By 1640 the battle was gained, and the unities became a part of the cla.s.sic theory of the drama throughout Europe. A few years later their practical application was most thoroughly indicated by the Abbe d'Aubignac, in his _Pratique du Theatre_; and they were definitely formulated for all time by Boileau in the celebrated couplet:--

"Qu'en un lieu, qu'en un jour, un seul fait accompli Tienne jusqu'a la fin le theatre rempli."[374]

III. _Heroic Poetry_

It was the supreme ambition of the Pleiade to produce a great French epic. In the very first manifesto of the new school, Du Bellay urges every French poet to attempt another _Iliad_ or _aeneid_ for the honor and glory of France. For Pelletier (1555) the heroic poem is the one that really gives the true t.i.tle of poet; it may be compared to the ocean, and all other forms to rivers.[375] He seems to be following Giraldi Cintio's discourse on the _romanzi_, published the year before his own work, when he says that the French poet should write a _Heracleid_, the deeds of Hercules furnishing the mightiest and most heroic material he can think of.[376] At the same time Virgil is for him the model of an epic poet; and his parallel between Homer and Virgil bears striking resemblance to the similar parallel in Capriano's _Della Vera Poetica_, published in the very same year as his own treatise.[377]

Like Capriano, Pelletier censures the superfluous exuberance, the loquaciousness, the occasional indecorum, and the inferiority in eloquence and dignity of Homer when compared with the Latin poet.

It was Ronsard's personal ambition to be the French Virgil, as in lyric poetry he had been proclaimed the French Pindar. For twenty years he labored on the _Franciade_, but never finished it. In the two prefaces which he wrote for it, the first in 1572, and the second (published posthumously) about 1584, he attempts to give expression to his ideal of the heroic poet. In neither of them does he succeed in formulating any very definite or consistent body of epic theory. They are chiefly interesting in that they indicate the general tendencies of the Pleiade, and show Ronsard's own rhetorical principles, and his feeling for nature and natural beauty. The pa.s.sage has already been cited in which he speaks of the heroic poem as entirely of a martial character, and limits its action to the s.p.a.ce of one year. It has also been seen that for him, as for the Italians, verisimilitude, and not fact, is the test of poetry. At the same time, the epic poet is to avoid anachronisms and misstatements of fact. Such faults do not disturb the reader so much when the story is remote in point of time; and the poet should therefore always use an argument, the events of which are at least three or four hundred years old. The basis of the work should rest upon some old story of past times and of long-established renown, which has gained the credit of men.[378] This notion of the antiquity of the epic fable had been accepted long ago by the Italians. It is stated, for example, in Ta.s.so's _Discorsi dell' Arte Poetica_, written about 1564, though not published until 1587, fifteen years after Ta.s.so had visited Ronsard in Paris.

Vauquelin de la Fresnaye has the Pleiade veneration for heroic poetry; but he cannot be said to exhibit any more definite conception of its form and function. For him the epic is a vast and magnificent narration, a world in itself, wherein men, things, and thoughts are wondrously mirrored:--

"C'est un tableau du monde, un miroir qui raporte Les gestes des mortels en differente sorte....

Car toute poesie il contient en soymeme, Soit tragique ou comique, ou soit autre poeme."[379]

With this we may compare what Muzio had said in 1551:--

"Il poema sovrano e una pittura De l' universo, e per in se comprende Ogni stilo, ogni forma, ogni ritratto."

But despite this very vague conception of the epic in the French Renaissance, there was, as has been said, a high veneration for it as a form, and for its masters, Homer and especially Virgil. This accounts for the large number of attempts at epic composition in France during the next century. But beyond the earlier and indefinite notion of heroic poetry the French did not get for a long time to come. Even for Boileau the epic poem was merely the _vaste recit d'une longue action_.[380]