[348]. With, once more, the great exception and anticipation of Vico.
BOOK VIII
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF CRITICISM
“To the young I would remark that it is always unwise to judge of anything by its defects; the first attempt ought to be to discover its excellences.”—Coleridge.
“Il ne savait pas de quoi étaient faites les limites de l’art.”—Victor Hugo.
“Savoir bien lire un livre en le jugeant chemin faisant, et sans cesser de le goûter, c’est presque tout l’art du critique.”—Sainte-Beuve.
CHAPTER I.
WORDSWORTH AND COLERIDGE: THEIR COMPANIONS AND ADVERSARIES.
[WORDSWORTH AND COLERIDGE]—[THE FORMER’S PREFACES]—[THAT TO ‘LYRICAL BALLADS,’ 1800]—[ITS HISTORY]—[THE ARGUMENT AGAINST POETIC DICTION, AND EVEN AGAINST METRE]—[THE APPENDIX: POETIC DICTION AGAIN]—[THE MINOR CRITICAL PAPERS]—[COLERIDGE’S EXAMINATION OF WORDSWORTH’S VIEWS]—[HIS CRITICAL QUALIFICATIONS]—[UNUSUAL INTEGRITY OF HIS CRITIQUE]—[ANALYSIS OF IT]—[THE “SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF”]—[ATTITUDE TO METRE]—[EXCURSUS ON SHAKESPEARE’S ‘POEMS’]—[CHALLENGES WORDSWORTH ON “REAL” AND “RUSTIC” LIFE]—[“PROSE” DICTION AND METRE AGAIN]—[CONDEMNATION IN FORM OF WORDSWORTH’S THEORY]—[THE ‘ARGUMENTUM AD GULIELMUM’]—[THE STUDY OF HIS POETRY]—[HIGH MERITS OF THE EXAMINATION]—[WORDSWORTH A REBEL TO LONGINUS AND DANTE]—[THE ‘PREFACE’ COMPARED MORE SPECIALLY WITH THE ‘DE VULGARI,’] [AND DANTE’S PRACTICE] [WITH WORDSWORTH’S]—[THE COMPARISON FATAL TO WORDSWORTH AS A CRITIC]—[OTHER CRITICAL PLACES IN COLERIDGE]—[THE REST OF THE ‘BIOGRAPHIA’]—[‘THE FRIEND’]—[‘AIDS TO REFLECTION,’ ETC.]—[THE ‘LECTURES ON SHAKESPEARE,’ ETC.]—[THEIR CHAOTIC CHARACTER AND PRECIOUSNESS]—[SOME NOTEWORTHY THINGS IN THEM: GENERAL] [AND PARTICULAR]—[COLERIDGE ON OTHER DRAMATISTS]—[THE ‘TABLE TALK’]—[THE ‘MISCELLANIES’]—[THE LECTURE ‘ON STYLE’]—[THE ‘ANIMA POETÆ’]—[THE ‘LETTERS’]—[THE COLERIDGEAN POSITION AND QUALITY]—[HE INTRODUCES ONCE FOR ALL THE CRITERION OF IMAGINATION, REALISING AND DISREALISING]—[THE “COMPANIONS”]—[SOUTHEY]—[GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HIS CRITICISM]—[REVIEWS]—[‘THE DOCTOR’]—[ALTOGETHER SOMEWHAT “IMPAR SIBI”]—[LAMB]—[HIS “OCCULTISM”] [AND ALLEGED INCONSTANCY]—[THE EARLY ‘LETTERS’]—[THE ‘SPECIMENS’]—[THE GARRICK PLAY NOTES]—[MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS]—[‘ELLA’]—[THE LATER ‘LETTERS’]—[UNIQUENESS OF LAMB’S CRITICAL STYLE] [AND THOUGHT]—[LEIGH HUNT: HIS SOMEWHAT INFERIOR POSITION]—[REASONS FOR IT]—[HIS ATTITUDE TO DANTE]—[EXAMPLES FROM ‘IMAGINATION AND FANCY’]—[HAZLITT]—[METHOD OF DEALING WITH HIM]—[HIS SURFACE AND OCCASIONAL FAULTS: IMPERFECT KNOWLEDGE AND METHOD]—[EXTRA-LITERARY PREJUDICE]—[HIS RADICAL AND USUAL EXCELLENCE]—[‘THE ENGLISH POETS’]—[THE ‘COMIC WRITERS’]—[‘THE AGE OF ELIZABETH’]—[‘CHARACTERS OF SHAKESPEARE’]—[‘THE PLAIN SPEAKER’]—[‘THE ROUND TABLE,’ ETC.]—[‘THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE’]—[‘SKETCHES AND ESSAYS’]—[‘WINTERSLOW’]—[HAZLITT’S CRITICAL VIRTUE], [IN SET PIECES], [AND UNIVERSALLY]—[BLAKE]—[HIS CRITICAL POSITION AND DICTA]—[THE “NOTES ON REYNOLDS”] [AND WORDSWORTH]—[COMMANDING POSITION OF THESE]—[SIR WALTER SCOTT COMMONLY UNDERVALUED AS A CRITIC]—[INJUSTICE OF THIS]—[CAMPBELL: HIS ‘LECTURES ON POETRY’]—[HIS ‘SPECIMENS’]—[SHELLEY: HIS ‘DEFENCE OF POETRY’]—[LANDOR]—[HIS LACK OF JUDICIAL QUALITY]—[IN REGULAR CRITICISM]—[THE CONVERSATIONS]—[‘LOCULUS AUREOLUS’]—[BUT AGAIN DISAPPOINTING]—[THE REVIVAL OF THE POPE QUARRELS]—[BOWLES]—[BYRON]—[THE ‘LETTER TO MURRAY,’ ETC.]—[OTHERS: ISAAC DISRAELI]—[SIR EGERTON BRYDGES]—[‘THE RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW’]—[THE ‘BAVIAD’ AND ‘ANTI-JACOBIN,’ WITH WOLCOT AND MATHIAS]—[THE INFLUENCE OF THE NEW ‘REVIEWS,’ ETC.]—[JEFFREY]—[HIS LOSS OF PLACE AND ITS CAUSE]—[HIS INCONSISTENCY]—[HIS CRITICISM ON MADAME DE STAËL]—[ITS LESSON]—[HALLAM]—[HIS ACHIEVEMENT]—[ITS MERITS] [AND DEFECTS]—[IN GENERAL DISTRIBUTION AND TREATMENT]—[IN SOME PARTICULAR INSTANCES]—[HIS CENTRAL WEAKNESS], [AND THE VALUE LEFT BY IT].
Wordsworth and Coleridge.
There are many differences, real and imaginary, partial and general, parallel and cross, between ancient, and mediæval, and modern poetry; but there is one, very striking, of a kind which specially differentiates ancient and mediæval (except Dante) from modern. In the former class of poets the “critic whom every poet must contain” was almost entirely silent, or conveyed his criticism through his verse only. It would have been of the very first interest to have an Essay from the hand of Euripides justifying his decadent and sentimental fashion of drama, or from that of Lucretius on the theory and practice of didactic verse: but the lips of neither were unsealed in this direction. Dante, on the other hand, as we have seen, was prepared and ready to put the rationale of his own verse, his own beliefs about poetry, into prose: so at the Renaissance were the poets of Italy and France; so was Dryden, so was Pope.