A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance Part 19

The second influx of Italian critical ideas into France came through two channels. In the first place, the direct literary relations between Italy and France during this period were very marked. The influence of Marino, who lived for a long time at Paris and published a number of his works there, was not inconsiderable, especially upon the French concettists and _precieux_. Two Italian ladies founded and presided over the famous Hotel de Rambouillet,--Julie Savelli, Marquise de Pisani, and Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise de Rambouillet. It was partly to the influence of the Accademia della Crusca that the foundation of the French Academy was due. Chapelain and Menage were both members of the Italian society, and submitted to it their different opinions on a verse of Petrarch. Like the Accademia della Crusca, the French Academy purposed the preparation of a great dictionary; and each began its existence by attacking a great work of literature, the _Gerusalemme Liberata_ in the case of the Italian society, Corneille's _Cid_ in the case of the French. The regency of Marie de Medici, the supremacy of Mazarin, and other political events, all conspired to bring Italy and France into the closest social and literary relationship.

But the two individuals who first brought into French literature and naturalized the primal critical concepts of Italy were Chapelain and Balzac. Chapelain's private correspondence indicates how thorough was his acquaintance with the critical literature of Italy. "I have a particular affection for the Italian language," he wrote in 1639 to Balzac.[427] Of the _Cid_, he says that "in Italy it would be considered barbarous, and there is not an academy which would not banish it beyond the confines of its jurisdiction."[428] Speaking of the greatness of Ronsard, he says that his own opinion was in accord with that of "two great savants beyond the Alps, Speroni and Castelvetro";[429] and he had considerable correspondence with Balzac on the subject of the controversy between Caro and Castelvetro in the previous century. In a word, he knew and studied the critics and scholars of Italy, and was interested in discussing them. Balzac's interest, on the other hand, was rather toward Spanish literature; but he was the agent of the Cardinal de la Valette at Rome, and it was on his return to France that he published the first collection of his letters. The influence of both Chapelain and Balzac on French cla.s.sicism was considerable. During the sixteenth century, literary criticism had been entirely in the hands of learned men. Chapelain and Balzac vulgarized the critical ideas of the Italian Renaissance, and made them popular, human, but inviolable.

Balzac introduced into France the fine critical sense of the Italians; Chapelain introduced their formal rules, and imposed the three unities on French tragedy. Together they effected a humanizing of the cla.s.sical ideal, even while subjecting it to rules.

It was to the same Italian influences that France owed the large number of artificial epics that appeared during this period. About ten epics were published in the fifteen years between 1650 and 1665.[430] The Italians of the sixteenth century had formulated a fixed theory of the artificial epic; and the nations of western Europe rivalled one another in attempting to make practical use of this theory. It is to this that the large number of Spanish epics in the sixteenth century and of French epics in the seventeenth may be ascribed. Among the latter we may mention Scudery's _Alaric_, Lemoyne's _Saint Louis_, Saint-Amant's _Moyse Sauve_, and Chapelain's own epic, _La Pucelle_, awaited by the public for many years, and published only to be d.a.m.ned forever by Boileau.

The prefaces of all these epics indicate clearly enough their indebtedness to the Italians. They were indeed scarcely more than attempts to put the rules and precepts of the Italian Renaissance into practice. "I then consulted the masters of this art," says Scudery, in the preface of _Alaric_, "that is to say, Aristotle and Horace, and after them Macrobius, Scaliger, Ta.s.so, Castelvetro, Piccolomini, Vida, Vossius, Robortelli, Riccoboni, Paolo Beni, Mambrun, and several others; and pa.s.sing from theory to practice I reread very carefully the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, the _aeneid_, the _Pharsalia_, the _Thebaid_, the _Orlando Furioso_, and the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, and many other epic poems in diverse languages." Similarly, Saint-Amant, in the preface of his _Moyse Sauve_, says that he had rigorously observed "the unities of action and place, which are the princ.i.p.al requirements of the epic; and besides, by an entirely new method, I have restricted my subject not only within twenty-four hours, the limit of the dramatic poem, but almost within half of that time. This is more than even Aristotle, Horace, Scaliger, Castelvetro, Piccolomini, and all the other moderns have ever required." It is obvious that for these epic-makers the rules and precepts of the Italians were the final tests of heroic poetry.

Similarly, the Abbe d'Aubignac, at the beginning of his _Pratique du Theatre_, advises the dramatic poet to study, among other writers, "Aristotle, Horace, Castelvetro, Vida, Heinsius, Vossius, and Scaliger, of whom not a word should be lost." From the Italians also came the theory of poetry in general as held throughout the period of cla.s.sicism, and expounded by the Abbe d'Aubignac, La Mesnardiere, Corneille, Boileau, and numerous others; and it is hardly necessary to repeat that Rapin, tracing the history of criticism at the beginning of his _Reflexions sur la Poetique_, deals with scarcely any critics but the Italians.

Besides the direct influence of the Italian critics, another influence contributed its share to the sum of critical ideas which French cla.s.sicism owes to the Italian Renaissance. This was the tradition of Scaliger, carried on by the Dutch scholars Heinsius and Vossius. Daniel Heinsius was the pupil of Joseph Scaliger, the ill.u.s.trious son of the author of the _Poetics_; and through Heinsius the dramatic theories of the elder Scaliger influenced cla.s.sical tragedy in France. The treatise of Heinsius, _De Tragoediae Const.i.tutione_, published at Leyden in 1611, was called by Chapelain "the quintessence of Aristotle's _Poetics_"; and Chapelain called Heinsius himself "a prophet or sibyl in matters of criticism."[431] Annoted by Racine, cited as an infallible authority by Corneille, Heinsius's work exercised a marked influence on French tragedy by fixing upon it the laws of Scaliger; and later the works of Vossius cooperated with those of Heinsius in widening the sphere of the Italian influence. It is evident, therefore, that while French literature had already during the sixteenth century taken from the Italian Renaissance its respect for antiquity and its admiration for cla.s.sical mythology, the seventeenth century owed to Italy its definitive conception of the theory of poetry, and especially certain rigid structural laws for tragedy and epic. It may be said without exaggeration that there is not an essential idea or precept in the works of Corneille and D'Aubignac on dramatic poetry, or of Le Bossu and Mambrun on epic poetry, that cannot be found in the critical writings of the Italian Renaissance.

IV. _The Influence of Rationalistic Philosophy_

The influence of rationalistic philosophy on the general att.i.tude of cla.s.sicism manifested itself in what may be called the gradual rationalization of all that the Renaissance gave to France. The process thus effected is most definitely exhibited in the evolution of the rules which France owed to Italy. It has already been shown how the rules and precepts of the Italians had originally been based on authority alone, but had gradually obtained a general significance of their own, regardless of their ancient authority. Somewhat later, in England, the Aristotelian canons were defended by Ben Jonson on the ground that Aristotle understood the causes of things, and that what others had done by chance or custom, Aristotle did by reason alone.[432] By this time, then, the reasonableness of the Aristotelian canons was distinctly felt, although they were still regarded as having authoritativeness in themselves; and it was first in the French cla.s.sicists of the seventeenth century that reason and the ancient rules were regarded as one and inseparable.

Rationalism, indeed, is to be found at the very outset of the critical activity of the Renaissance; and Vida's words, already cited, "Semper nutu rationis eant res," represent in part the att.i.tude of the Renaissance mind toward literature. But the "reason" of the earlier theorists was merely empirical and individualistic; it did not differ essentially from Horace's ideal of "good sense." In fact, rationalism and humanism, while existing together throughout the Renaissance, were never to any extent harmonized; and extreme rationalism generally took the form of an avowed antagonism to Aristotle. The complete rationalization of the laws of literature is first evident toward the middle of the seventeenth century. "The rules of the theatre," says the Abbe d'Aubignac, at the beginning of his _Pratique du Theatre_, "are founded, not on authority, but on reason," and if they are called the rules of the ancients, it is simply "because the ancients have admirably practised them." Similarly, Corneille, in his discourse _Des Trois Unites_, says that the unity of time would be arbitrary and tyrannical if it were merely required by Aristotle's _Poetics_, but that its real prop is the natural reason; and Boileau sums up the final att.i.tude of cla.s.sicism in these words:--

"Aimez donc la _raison_; que toujours vos ecrits Empruntent _d'elle seule_ et leur l.u.s.tre et leur prix."[433]

Here the rationalizing process is complete, and the actual requirements of authority become identical with the dictates of the reason.

The rules expounded by Boileau, while for the most part the same as those enunciated by the Italians, are no longer mere rules. They are laws dictated by abstract and universal reason, and hence inevitable and infallible; they are not tyrannical or arbitrary, but imposed upon us by the very nature of the human mind. This is not merely, as we have said, the good nature and the good sense, in a word, the sweet reasonableness, of such a critic as Horace.[434] There is more than this in the cla.s.sicists of the seventeenth century. Good sense becomes universalized, becomes, in fact, as has been said, not merely an empirical notion of good sense, but the abstract and universal reason itself. From this follows the absolute standard of taste at the bottom of cla.s.sicism, as exemplified in the pa.s.sage already cited from La Bruyere, and in such a line as this from Boileau:--

"La raison pour marcher n'a souvent qu'une voie."[435]

This rationalization of the Renaissance rules of poetry was effected by contemporary philosophy; if not by the works and doctrines of Descartes himself, at least by the general tendency of the human mind at this period, of which these works and doctrines are the most perfect expressions. Boileau's _Art Poetique_ has been aptly called the _Discours de la Methode_ of French poetry. So that while the contribution of Malherbe and his school to cla.s.sicism lay in the insistence on clearness, propriety, and verbal and metrical perfection, and the contribution of the Italian Renaissance lay in the infusion of respect for cla.s.sical antiquity and the imposition of a certain body of fixed rules, the contribution of contemporary philosophy lay in the rationalization or universalization of these rules, and in the imposition of an abstract and absolute standard of taste.

But Cartesianism brought with it certain important limitations and deficiencies. Boileau himself is reported to have said that "the philosophy of Descartes has cut the throat of poetry;"[436] and there can be no doubt that this is the exaggerated expression of a certain inevitable truth. The excessive insistence on the reason brought with it a corresponding undervaluation of the imagination. The rational and rigidly scientific basis of Cartesianism was forced on cla.s.sicism; and reality became its supreme object and its final test:--

"Rien n'est beau que le vrai."

Reference has already been made to various disadvantages imposed on cla.s.sicism by the very nature of its origin and growth; but the most vital of all these disadvantages was the influence of the Cartesian philosophy or philosophic temper. With the scientific basis thus imposed on literature, its only safeguard against extinction was the vast influence of a certain body of fixed rules, which literature dared not deviate from, and which it attempted to justify on the wider grounds of philosophy. These rules, then, the contribution of Italy, saved poetry in France from extinction during the cla.s.sical period; and of this a remarkable confirmation is to be found in the fact that not until the rationalism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was superseded in France, did French literature rid itself of this body of Renaissance rules. Cartesianism, or at least the rationalistic spirit, humanized these rules, and imposed them on the rest of Europe. But though quintessentialized, they remained artificial, and circ.u.mscribed the workings of the French imagination for over a century.

FOOT-NOTES:

[417] Sedano, _Parnaso Espanol_, viii. 61.

[418] Hannay, _Later Renaissance_, 1898, p. 39.

[419] Menendez y Pelayo, iii. 434.

[420] _Ibid._ iii. 447 _sq._

[421] Menendez y Pelayo, iii. 464.

[422] The _Commentaire_ is printed entire in Lalanne's edition of Malherbe, Paris, 1862, vol. iv. The critical doctrine of Malherbe has been formulated by Brunot, _Doctrine de Malherbe_, pp. 105-236.

[423] _Cf._ Horace, _Ars Poet._ 71, 72.

[424] Brunot, p. 149.

[425] _Oeuvres_, Lalanne's edition, iv. 91.

[426] _Caracteres_, "Des Ouvrages de l'Esprit."

[427] _Lettres_, i. 413. The references are to the edition by Tamizey de Larroque, Paris, 1880-1883.

[428] _Ibid._ i. 156.

[429] _Ibid._ i. 631 _sq._

[430] These epics have been treated at length by d.u.c.h.esne, _Histoire des Poemes epiques francais du XVII Siecle_, Paris, 1870.

[431] _Lettres_, i. 269, 424. On the theories of Heinsius, see Zerbst, _Ein Vorlaufer Lessings in der Aristotelesinterpretation_, Jena, 1887.

[432] _Discoveries_, p. 80.

[433] _Art Poet._ i. 37.

[434] _Cf._ Brunetiere, _etudes Critiques_, iv. 136; and Krantz, p. 93 _sq._

[435] _Art Poet._ i. 48.

[436] Reported by J. B. Rousseau, in a letter to Brossette, July 21, 1715.

PART THIRD

_LITERARY CRITICISM IN ENGLAND_

LITERARY CRITICISM IN ENGLAND

CHAPTER I

THE EVOLUTION OF ENGLISH CRITICISM FROM ASCHAM TO MILTON

LITERARY criticism in England during the Elizabethan age was neither so influential nor so rich and varied as the contemporary criticism of Italy and France. This fact might perhaps be thought insufficient to affect the interest or patriotism of English-speaking people, yet the most charming critical monument of this period, Sidney's _Defence of Poesy_, has been slightingly referred to by the latest historian of English poetry. Such interest and importance as Elizabethan criticism possesses must therefore be of an historical nature, and lies in two distinct directions. In the first place, the study of the literature of this period will show, not only that there was a more or less complete body of critical doctrine during the Renaissance, but also that Englishmen shared in this creation, or inheritance, of the Renaissance as truly as did their continental neighbors; and on the other hand this study may be said to possess an interest in itself, in so far as it will make the growth of cla.s.sicism in England intelligible, and will indicate that the formation of the cla.s.sic ideal had begun before the introduction of the French influence. In neither case, however, can early English criticism be considered wholly apart from the general body of Renaissance doctrine; and its study loses in importance and perspicuity according as it is kept distinct from the consideration of the critical literature of France, and especially of Italy.

English criticism, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, pa.s.sed through five more or less distinct stages of development. The first stage, characterized by the purely rhetorical study of literature, may be said to begin with Leonard c.o.xe's _Arte or Crafte of Rhetoryke_, a hand-book for young students, compiled about 1524, chiefly from one of the rhetorical treatises of Melanchthon.[437] This was followed by Wilson's _Arte of Rhetorike_ (1553), which is more extensive and certainly more original than c.o.xe's manual, and which has been called by Warton "the first book or system of criticism in our language." But the most important figure of this period is Roger Ascham. The educational system expounded in his _Scholemaster_, written between 1563 and 1568, he owed largely to his friend, John Sturm, the Strasburg humanist, and to his teacher, Sir John Cheke, who had been Greek lecturer at the University of Padua; but for the critical portions of this work he seems directly indebted to the rhetorical treatises of the Italians.[438] Yet his obligations to the Italian humanists did not prevent the expression of his stern and unyielding antagonism to the romantic Italian spirit as it influenced the imaginative literature of his time. In studying early English literature it must always be kept in mind that the Italian Renaissance influenced the Elizabethan age in two different directions.

The Italianization of English poetry had been effected, or at least begun, by the publication of Tottel's _Miscellany_ in 1557; on this, the creative side of English literature, the Italian influence was distinctly romantic. The influence of the Italian humanists, on the other hand, was directly opposed to this romantic spirit; even in their own country they had antagonized all that was not cla.s.sical in tendency.

Ascham, therefore, as a result of his humanistic training, became not only the first English man of letters, but also the first English cla.s.sicist.