Biographia Literaria - Chapter XVI
Striking points of difference between the Poets of the present age and
those of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries--Wish expressed for the
union of the characteristic merits of both.
Christendom, from its first settlement on feudal rights, has been so
far one great body, however imperfectly organized, that a similar spirit
will be found in each period to have been acting in all its members.
The study of Shakespeare's poems--(I do not include his dramatic works,
eminently as they too deserve that title)--led me to a more careful
examination of the contemporary poets both in England and in other
countries. But my attention was especially fixed on those of Italy, from
the birth to the death of Shakespeare; that being the country in which
the fine arts had been most sedulously, and hitherto most successfully
cultivated. Abstracted from the degrees and peculiarities of individual
genius, the properties common to the good writers of each period seem
to establish one striking point of difference between the poetry of
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and that of the present age. The
remark may perhaps be extended to the sister art of painting. At least
the latter will serve to illustrate the former. In the present age the
poet--(I would wish to be understood as speaking generally, and without
allusion to individual names)--seems to propose to himself as his main
object, and as that which is the most characteristic of his art, new and
striking images; with incidents that interest the affections or excite
the curiosity. Both his characters and his descriptions he renders,
as much as possible, specific and individual, even to a degree of
portraiture. In his diction and metre, on the other hand, he is
comparatively careless. The measure is either constructed on no previous
system, and acknowledges no justifying principle but that of the
writer's convenience; or else some mechanical movement is adopted, of
which one couplet or stanza is so far an adequate specimen, as that the
occasional differences appear evidently to arise from accident, or the
qualities of the language itself, not from meditation and an intelligent
purpose. And the language from Pope's translation of Homer, to Darwin's
Temple of Nature, may, notwithstanding some illustrious exceptions,
be too faithfully characterized, as claiming to be poetical for no
better reason, than that it would be intolerable in conversation or in
prose. Though alas! even our prose writings, nay even the style of our
more set discourses, strive to be in the fashion, and trick themselves
out in the soiled and over-worn finery of the meretricious muse. It is
true that of late a great improvement in this respect is observable in
our most popular writers. But it is equally true, that this recurrence
to plain sense and genuine mother English is far from being general; and
that the composition of our novels, magazines, public harangues, and the
like is commonly as trivial in thought, and yet enigmatic in expression,
as if Echo and Sphinx had laid their heads together to construct it.
Nay, even of those who have most rescued themselves from this contagion,
I should plead inwardly guilty to the charge of duplicity or cowardice,
if I withheld my conviction, that few have guarded the purity of their
native tongue with that jealous care, which the sublime Dante in his
tract De la volgare Eloquenza, declares to be the first duty of a poet.
For language is the armoury of the human mind; and at once contains
the trophies of its past, and the weapons of its future conquests.
Animadverte, says Hobbes, quam sit ab improprietate verborum pronum
hominihus prolabi in errores circa ipsas res! Sat {vero}, says
Sennertus, in hac vitae brevitate et naturae obscuritate, rerum est,
quibus cognoscendis tempus impendatur, ut {confusis et multivotis}
sermonibus intelligendis illud consumere opus non sit. {Eheu! quantas
strages paravere verba nubila, quae tot dicunt ut nihil dicunt;--nubes
potius, e quibus et in rebus politicis et in ecclesia turbines et
tonitrua erumpunt!} Et proinde recte dictum putamus a Platone in Gorgia:
os an ta onomata eidei, eisetai kai ta pragmata: et ab Epicteto,
archae paideuseos hae ton onomaton episkepsis: et prudentissime Galenus
scribit, hae ton onomaton chraesis tarachtheisa kai taen ton pragmaton
epitarattei gnosin.
Egregie vero J. C. Scaliger, in Lib. I. de Plantis: Est primum, inquit,
sapientis officium, bene sentire, ut sibi vivat: proximum, bene loqui,
ut patriae vivat.
Something analogous to the materials and structure of modern poetry I
seem to have noticed--(but here I beg to be understood as speaking
with the utmost diffidence)--in our common landscape painters. Their
foregrounds and intermediate distances are comparatively unattractive:
while the main interest of the landscape is thrown into the background,
where mountains and torrents and castles forbid the eye to proceed, and
nothing tempts it to trace its way back again. But in the works of the
great Italian and Flemish masters, the front and middle objects of the
landscape are the most obvious and determinate, the interest gradually
dies away in the background, and the charm and peculiar worth of the
picture consists, not so much in the specific objects which it conveys
to the understanding in a visual language formed by the substitution of
figures for words, as in the beauty and harmony of the colours, lines,
and expression, with which the objects are represented. Hence novelty of
subject was rather avoided than sought for. Superior excellence in
the manner of treating the same subjects was the trial and test of the
artist's merit.
Not otherwise is it with the more polished poets of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, especially those of Italy. The imagery is almost
always general: sun, moon, flowers, breezes, murmuring streams, warbling
songsters, delicious shades, lovely damsels cruel as fair, nymphs,
naiads, and goddesses, are the materials which are common to all, and
which each shaped and arranged according to his judgment or fancy,
little solicitous to add or to particularize. If we make an honourable
exception in favour of some English poets, the thoughts too are as
little novel as the images; and the fable of their narrative poems,
for the most part drawn from mythology, or sources of equal notoriety,
derive their chief attractions from the manner of treating them; from
impassioned flow, or picturesque arrangement. In opposition to the
present age, and perhaps in as faulty an extreme, they placed the
essence of poetry in the art. The excellence, at which they aimed,
consisted in the exquisite polish of the diction, combined with perfect
simplicity. This their prime object they attained by the avoidance of
every word, which a gentleman would not use in dignified conversation,
and of every word and phrase, which none but a learned man would use;
by the studied position of words and phrases, so that not only each
part should be melodious in itself, but contribute to the harmony of
the whole, each note referring and conducting to the melody of all the
foregoing and following words of the same period or stanza; and lastly
with equal labour, the greater because unbetrayed, by the variation and
various harmonies of their metrical movement. Their measures, however,
were not indebted for their variety to the introduction of new metres,
such as have been attempted of late in the Alonzo and Imogen, and others
borrowed from the German, having in their very mechanism a specific
overpowering tune, to which the generous reader humours his voice and
emphasis, with more indulgence to the author than attention to the
meaning or quantity of the words; but which, to an ear familiar with the
numerous sounds of the Greek and Roman poets, has an effect not unlike
that of galloping over a paved road in a German stage-waggon without
springs. On the contrary, the elder bards both of Italy and England
produced a far greater as well as more charming variety by countless
modifications, and subtle balances of sound in the common metres of
their country. A lasting and enviable reputation awaits that man of
genius, who should attempt and realize a union;--who should recall the
high finish, the appropriateness, the facility, the delicate proportion,
and above all, the perfusive and omnipresent grace, which have
preserved, as in a shrine of precious amber, the Sparrow of Catullus,
the Swallow, the Grasshopper, and all the other little loves of
Anacreon; and which, with bright, though diminished glories, revisited
the youth and early manhood of Christian Europe, in the vales of
Arno, and the groves of Isis and of Cam; and who with these should
combine the keener interest, deeper pathos, manlier reflection, and the
fresher and more various imagery, which give a value and a name that
will not pass away to the poets who have done honour to our own times,
and to those of our immediate predecessors.
those of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries--Wish expressed for the
union of the characteristic merits of both.
Christendom, from its first settlement on feudal rights, has been so
far one great body, however imperfectly organized, that a similar spirit
will be found in each period to have been acting in all its members.
The study of Shakespeare's poems--(I do not include his dramatic works,
eminently as they too deserve that title)--led me to a more careful
examination of the contemporary poets both in England and in other
countries. But my attention was especially fixed on those of Italy, from
the birth to the death of Shakespeare; that being the country in which
the fine arts had been most sedulously, and hitherto most successfully
cultivated. Abstracted from the degrees and peculiarities of individual
genius, the properties common to the good writers of each period seem
to establish one striking point of difference between the poetry of
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and that of the present age. The
remark may perhaps be extended to the sister art of painting. At least
the latter will serve to illustrate the former. In the present age the
poet--(I would wish to be understood as speaking generally, and without
allusion to individual names)--seems to propose to himself as his main
object, and as that which is the most characteristic of his art, new and
striking images; with incidents that interest the affections or excite
the curiosity. Both his characters and his descriptions he renders,
as much as possible, specific and individual, even to a degree of
portraiture. In his diction and metre, on the other hand, he is
comparatively careless. The measure is either constructed on no previous
system, and acknowledges no justifying principle but that of the
writer's convenience; or else some mechanical movement is adopted, of
which one couplet or stanza is so far an adequate specimen, as that the
occasional differences appear evidently to arise from accident, or the
qualities of the language itself, not from meditation and an intelligent
purpose. And the language from Pope's translation of Homer, to Darwin's
Temple of Nature, may, notwithstanding some illustrious exceptions,
be too faithfully characterized, as claiming to be poetical for no
better reason, than that it would be intolerable in conversation or in
prose. Though alas! even our prose writings, nay even the style of our
more set discourses, strive to be in the fashion, and trick themselves
out in the soiled and over-worn finery of the meretricious muse. It is
true that of late a great improvement in this respect is observable in
our most popular writers. But it is equally true, that this recurrence
to plain sense and genuine mother English is far from being general; and
that the composition of our novels, magazines, public harangues, and the
like is commonly as trivial in thought, and yet enigmatic in expression,
as if Echo and Sphinx had laid their heads together to construct it.
Nay, even of those who have most rescued themselves from this contagion,
I should plead inwardly guilty to the charge of duplicity or cowardice,
if I withheld my conviction, that few have guarded the purity of their
native tongue with that jealous care, which the sublime Dante in his
tract De la volgare Eloquenza, declares to be the first duty of a poet.
For language is the armoury of the human mind; and at once contains
the trophies of its past, and the weapons of its future conquests.
Animadverte, says Hobbes, quam sit ab improprietate verborum pronum
hominihus prolabi in errores circa ipsas res! Sat {vero}, says
Sennertus, in hac vitae brevitate et naturae obscuritate, rerum est,
quibus cognoscendis tempus impendatur, ut {confusis et multivotis}
sermonibus intelligendis illud consumere opus non sit. {Eheu! quantas
strages paravere verba nubila, quae tot dicunt ut nihil dicunt;--nubes
potius, e quibus et in rebus politicis et in ecclesia turbines et
tonitrua erumpunt!} Et proinde recte dictum putamus a Platone in Gorgia:
os an ta onomata eidei, eisetai kai ta pragmata: et ab Epicteto,
archae paideuseos hae ton onomaton episkepsis: et prudentissime Galenus
scribit, hae ton onomaton chraesis tarachtheisa kai taen ton pragmaton
epitarattei gnosin.
Egregie vero J. C. Scaliger, in Lib. I. de Plantis: Est primum, inquit,
sapientis officium, bene sentire, ut sibi vivat: proximum, bene loqui,
ut patriae vivat.
Something analogous to the materials and structure of modern poetry I
seem to have noticed--(but here I beg to be understood as speaking
with the utmost diffidence)--in our common landscape painters. Their
foregrounds and intermediate distances are comparatively unattractive:
while the main interest of the landscape is thrown into the background,
where mountains and torrents and castles forbid the eye to proceed, and
nothing tempts it to trace its way back again. But in the works of the
great Italian and Flemish masters, the front and middle objects of the
landscape are the most obvious and determinate, the interest gradually
dies away in the background, and the charm and peculiar worth of the
picture consists, not so much in the specific objects which it conveys
to the understanding in a visual language formed by the substitution of
figures for words, as in the beauty and harmony of the colours, lines,
and expression, with which the objects are represented. Hence novelty of
subject was rather avoided than sought for. Superior excellence in
the manner of treating the same subjects was the trial and test of the
artist's merit.
Not otherwise is it with the more polished poets of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, especially those of Italy. The imagery is almost
always general: sun, moon, flowers, breezes, murmuring streams, warbling
songsters, delicious shades, lovely damsels cruel as fair, nymphs,
naiads, and goddesses, are the materials which are common to all, and
which each shaped and arranged according to his judgment or fancy,
little solicitous to add or to particularize. If we make an honourable
exception in favour of some English poets, the thoughts too are as
little novel as the images; and the fable of their narrative poems,
for the most part drawn from mythology, or sources of equal notoriety,
derive their chief attractions from the manner of treating them; from
impassioned flow, or picturesque arrangement. In opposition to the
present age, and perhaps in as faulty an extreme, they placed the
essence of poetry in the art. The excellence, at which they aimed,
consisted in the exquisite polish of the diction, combined with perfect
simplicity. This their prime object they attained by the avoidance of
every word, which a gentleman would not use in dignified conversation,
and of every word and phrase, which none but a learned man would use;
by the studied position of words and phrases, so that not only each
part should be melodious in itself, but contribute to the harmony of
the whole, each note referring and conducting to the melody of all the
foregoing and following words of the same period or stanza; and lastly
with equal labour, the greater because unbetrayed, by the variation and
various harmonies of their metrical movement. Their measures, however,
were not indebted for their variety to the introduction of new metres,
such as have been attempted of late in the Alonzo and Imogen, and others
borrowed from the German, having in their very mechanism a specific
overpowering tune, to which the generous reader humours his voice and
emphasis, with more indulgence to the author than attention to the
meaning or quantity of the words; but which, to an ear familiar with the
numerous sounds of the Greek and Roman poets, has an effect not unlike
that of galloping over a paved road in a German stage-waggon without
springs. On the contrary, the elder bards both of Italy and England
produced a far greater as well as more charming variety by countless
modifications, and subtle balances of sound in the common metres of
their country. A lasting and enviable reputation awaits that man of
genius, who should attempt and realize a union;--who should recall the
high finish, the appropriateness, the facility, the delicate proportion,
and above all, the perfusive and omnipresent grace, which have
preserved, as in a shrine of precious amber, the Sparrow of Catullus,
the Swallow, the Grasshopper, and all the other little loves of
Anacreon; and which, with bright, though diminished glories, revisited
the youth and early manhood of Christian Europe, in the vales of
Arno, and the groves of Isis and of Cam; and who with these should
combine the keener interest, deeper pathos, manlier reflection, and the
fresher and more various imagery, which give a value and a name that
will not pass away to the poets who have done honour to our own times,
and to those of our immediate predecessors.
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