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 classicism in England intelligible, and will indicate that the formation of the classic 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, passed 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 Coxe'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 Coxe'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 classical 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 classicist.
The first stage of English criticism, then, was entirely given up to rhetorical study. It was at this time that English writers first attained the appreciation of form and style as distinguishing features of literature; and it was to this appreciation that the formation of an English prose style was due. This period may therefore be compared with the later stages of Italian humanism in the fifteenth century; and the later humanists were the masters and models of these early English rhetoricians. Gabriel Harvey, as a Ciceronian of the school of Bembo, was perhaps their last representative.
The second stage of English criticism—a period of classification and especially of metrical studies—commences with Gascoigne's Notes of Instruction concerning the making of Verse,[439] published in 1575, and modelled apparently on Ronsard's Abrégé de l'Art Poétique françois (1565). Besides this brief pamphlet, the first work on English versification, this stage also includes Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie, the first systematic classification of poetic forms and subjects, and of rhetorical figures; Bullokar's Bref Grammar, the first systematic treatise on English grammar; and Harvey's Letters and Webbe's Discourse of English Poetrie, the first systematic attempts to introduce classical metres into English poetry. This period was characterized by the study and classification of the practical questions of language and versification; and in this labor it was coöperating with the very tendencies which Ascham had been attempting to counteract. The study of the verse-forms introduced into England from Italy helped materially to perfect the external side of English poetry; and a similar result was obtained by the crude attempts at quantitative verse suggested by the school of Tolomei. The Italian prosodists were thus, directly or indirectly, the masters of the English students of this era.
The representative work of the third stage—the period of philosophical and apologetic criticism—is Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesy, published posthumously in 1595, though probably written about 1583. Harington's Apologie of Poetrie, Daniel's Defence of Ryme, and a few others, are also contemporary treatises. These works, as their titles indicate, are all defences or apologies, and were called forth by the attacks of the Puritans on poetry, especially dramatic poetry, and the attacks of the classicists on English versification and rhyme. Required by the exigencies of the moment to defend poetry in general, these authors did not attempt to do so on local or temporary grounds, but set out to examine the fundamental grounds of criticism, and to formulate the basic principles of poetry. In this attempt they consciously or unconsciously sought aid from the critics of Italy, and thus commenced in England the influence of the Italian theory of poetry. How great was their indebtedness to the Italians the course of the present study will make somewhat clear; but it is certainly remarkable that this indebtedness has never been pointed out before. Speaking of Sidney's Defence of Poesy, one of the most distinguished English authorities on the Renaissance says: "Much as the Italians had recently written upon the theory of poetry, I do not remember any treatise which can be said to have supplied the material or suggested the method of this apology."[440] On the contrary, the doctrines discussed by Sidney had been receiving very similar treatment from the Italians for over half a century; and it can be said without exaggeration that there is not an essential principle in the Defence of Poesy which cannot be traced back to some Italian treatise on the poetic art. The age of which Sidney is the chief representative is therefore the first period of the influence of Italian critics.
The fourth stage of English criticism, of which Ben Jonson is, as it were, the presiding genius, occupies the first half of the seventeenth century. The period that preceded it was in general romantic in its tendencies; that of Jonson leaned toward a strict though never servile classicism. Sidney's contemporaries had studied the general theory of poetry, not for the purpose of enunciating rules or dogmas of criticism, but chiefly in order to defend the poetic art, and to understand its fundamental principles. The spirit of the age was the spirit, let us say, of Fracastoro; that of Jonson was, in a moderate form, the spirit of Scaliger or Castelvetro. With Jonson the study of the art of poetry became an inseparable guide to creation; and it is this element of self-conscious art, guided by the rules of criticism, which distinguishes him from his predecessors. The age which he represents is therefore the second period of the influence of Italian criticism; and the same influence also is to be seen in such critical poems as Suckling's Session of the Poets, and the Great Assises holden in Parnassus, ascribed to Wither, both of which may be traced back to the class of critical poetry of which Boccalini's Ragguagli di Parnaso is the type.[441]
The fifth period, which covers the second half of the seventeenth century, is characterized by the introduction of French influence, and begins with Davenant's letter to Hobbes, and Hobbes's answer, both prefixed to the epic of Gondibert (1651). These letters, written while Davenant and Hobbes were at Paris, display many of the characteristic features of the new influence,—the rationalistic spirit, the stringent classicism, the restriction of art to the imitation of nature, with the further limitation of nature to the life of the city and the court, and the confinement of the imagination to what is called "wit." This specialized sense of the word "wit" is characteristic of the new age, of which Dryden, in part the disciple of Davenant, is the leading figure. The Elizabethans used the term in the general sense of the understanding,—wit, the mental faculty, as opposed to will, the faculty of volition. With the neo-classicists it was used sometimes to represent, in a limited sense, the imagination,[442] more often, however, to designate what we should call fancy,[443] or even mere propriety of poetic expression;[444] but whatever its particular use, it was always regarded as of the essence of poetic art.
With the fifth stage of English criticism this essay is not concerned. The history of literary criticism in England will be traced no farther than 1650, when the influence of France was substituted for that of Italy. This section deals especially with the two great periods of Italian influence,—that of Sidney and that of Ben Jonson. These two men are the central figures, and their names, like those of Dryden, Pope, and Samuel Johnson, represent distinct and important epochs in the history of literary criticism.
FOOT-NOTES:
[437] Cf. Mod. Lang. Notes, 1898, xiii. 293.
[438] Cf. Ascham, Works, ii. 174-191.
[439] The Reulis and Cautelis of Scottis Poesie by James VI. of Scotland is wholly based on Gascoigne's treatise.
[440] J. A. Symonds, Sir Philip Sidney, p. 157. Cf. also, Sidney, Defence, Cook's introduction, p. xxvii.
[441] Cf. Foffano, p. 173 sq. In Spain, Lope de Vega's Laurel de Apolo and Cervantes' Viage del Parnaso belong to the same class of poems.
[442] Cf. Dryden, ded. epist. to the Annus Mirabilis.
[443] Addison, Spectator, no. 62.
[444] Dryden, preface to the State of Innocence.