A history of English literature

by Edward Albert

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY STYLE

1. Poetry. In poetical style the transitional features are well marked. The earlier authors reveal many artificial mannerisms—for example, extreme regularity of meter and the frequent employment of the more formal figures of speech, such as personification and apostrophe. The Pindaric odes of Gray and Collins are examples of the transitional style:

Ye distant spires! ye antique towers!

That crown the watery glade,

Where grateful Science still adores

Her Henry’s holy shade;

And ye that from the stately brow

Of Windsor’s heights the expanse below

Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,

Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among

Wanders the hoary Thames along

His silver-winding way.

Gray, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College

In this verse there are the conventional personifications of Science and the Thames, and such stock phrases as “the watery glade.” The whole poem, however, is infused with a new spirit of mingled energy and meditation.

As the century draws to a close we have many of the newer styles appearing: the more regular blank verse of Cowper; the lighter heroic couplet of Goldsmith; the archaic medley of Chatterton; and the intense simplicity of Burns and Blake. As a further example of the new manner we quote a few stanzas from a poem by Fergusson, who, dying in the year 1774 (ten years before the death of Johnson), wrote as naturally as Burns himself:

As simmer rains bring simmer flowers,

And leaves to cleed the birken bowers;

Sae beauty gets by caller showers

Sae rich a bloom,

As for estate, or heavy dowers

Aft stands in room.

What makes auld Reekie’s dames so fair

It canna be the halesome air;

But caller burn, beyond compare,

The best o’ ony,

That gars them a’ sic graces skair[171]

An’ blink sae bonny.

On Mayday, in a fairy ring,

We’ve seen them roun’ Saint Anthon’s spring,

Frae grass the caller dew-draps wring,

To weet their e’en,

An’ water, clear as crystal spring,

To synd[172] them clean.

Caller Water

2. Prose. As in poetry, we have in prose many men and many manners. The simplest prose of the period is found chiefly in the works of the novelists, of whom Fielding and Smollett are good examples. Smollett’s prose, as in the following example, is almost colloquial in its native directness.

After we had been all entered upon the ship’s books, I inquired of one of my shipmates where the surgeon was, that I might have my wounds dressed, and had actually got as far as the middle deck (for our ship carried eighty guns) in my way to the cockpit, when I was met by the same midshipman, who had used me so barbarously in the tender: he, seeing me free from my chains, asked, with an insolent air, who had released me? To this question, I foolishly answered with a countenance that too plainly declared the state of my thoughts; “Whoever did it, I am persuaded did not consult you in the affair.” I had no sooner uttered these words, than he cried, “Damn you, I’ll teach you to talk so to your officer.” So saying, he bestowed on me several severe stripes, with a supple jack he had in his hand: and going to the commanding officer, made such a report of me, that I was immediately put in irons by the master-at-arms, and a sentinel placed over me.

Roderick Random

The excellent middle style of Addison, the prose-of-all-work, survives, and will continue to survive, for it is indispensable to all manner of miscellaneous work. Goldsmith’s prose is one of the best examples of the middle style, and so is the later work of Johnson, as well as the writings of the authors of miscellaneous prose already mentioned in this chapter. The following passage from Goldsmith shows his graceful turn of sentence and his command of vocabulary. The style is clearness itself.

The next that presented for a place, was a most whimsical figure indeed. He was hung round with papers of his own composing, not unlike those who sing ballads in the streets, and came dancing up to the door with all the confidence of instant admittance. The volubility of his motion and address prevented my being able to read more of his cargo than the word Inspector, which was written in great letters at the top of some of the papers. He opened the coach-door himself without any ceremony, and was just slipping in, when the coachman, with as little ceremony, pulled him back. Our figure seemed perfectly angry at this repulse, and demanded gentleman’s satisfaction. “Lord, sir!” replied the coachman, “instead of proper luggage, by your bulk you seem loaded for a West India voyage. You are big enough, with all your papers, to crack twenty stage-coaches. Excuse me, indeed, sir, for you must not enter.”

The Bee

The more ornate class of prose is represented by the Rambler essays of Johnson and the writings of Gibbon and Burke. Of the three Johnsonese is the most cumbrous, being overloaded with long words and complicated sentences, though it has a massive strength of its own. Gibbon bears his mantle with ease and dignity, and Burke has so much natural vitality that his style hardly weighs upon him at all; he does stumble, but rarely, whereas it is sometimes urged as a fault of the prose of Gibbon that it is so uniformly good that the perfection of it becomes deadening.

TABLE TO ILLUSTRATE THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY FORMS

Date	Poetry			Drama		Prose
	Lyrical	Narrative-Descriptive	Satirical and Didactic	Comedy	Tragedy	Novel	Essay	Miscellaneous
			Johnson[173]			Richardson[174]		Hume
		Shenstone				Fielding[175]
	Collins
		Thomson[176]				Smollett
1750			Johnson[177]		Johnson[178]
							Johnson[179]
		Gray[180]
					Hume
								Burke
						Johnson[181]
1760						Sterne	Goldsmith	Robertson
			Churchill[182]			Walpole
		Goldsmith[183]
						Goldsmith[184]
1770	Chatterton	Chatterton		Goldsmith[185]
		Ferguson
						Mackenzie
				Sheridan
						Burney		Gibbon[186]
1780								Cowper
		Crabbe
	Blake					Beckford
		Cowper[187]
	Burns
1790								White
		Radcliffe
								Godwin
1800					Baillie

A fresh and highly interesting style is the poetic prose of Macpherson’s Ossian. Macpherson’s style is not ornate, for it is drawn from the simplest elements; it possesses a solemnity of expression, and so decided a rhythm and cadence, that the effect is almost lyrical. In the passage now given the reader should note that the sentences are nearly of uniform length, and that they could easily be written as separate lines of irregular verse:

Her voice came over the sea. Arindal my son descended from the hill; rough in spoils of the chase. His arrows rattled by his side; his bow was in his hand; five dark grey dogs attend his steps. He saw fierce Erath on the shore; he seized and bound him to an oak. Thick wind the thongs of the hide around his limbs; he loads the wind with his groans. Arindal ascends the deep in his boat, to bring Daura to land. Amar came in his wrath, and let fly the grey-feathered shaft. It sunk, it sunk in thy heart, O Arindal my son; for Erath the traitor thou diedst. The oar is stopped at once; he panted on the rock and expired. What is thy grief, O Daura, when round thy feet is poured thy brother’s blood! The boat is broken in twain. Amar plunges into the sea, to rescue his Daura, or die. Sudden a blast from the hill came over the waves. He sunk, and he rose no more.