§ 4
I find among the fragments of my departed friend some notes that seem to me to be more or less relevant here. They are an incomplete report of the proceedings of a section S, devoted to Poiometry, apparently the scientific measurement of literary greatness. It seems to have been under the control of a special committee, including Mr. James Huneker, Mr. Slosson, Sir Thomas Seccombe, Mr. James Douglas, Mr. Clement K. Shorter, the acting editor of the Bookman, and the competition editress of the Westminster Gazette….
Apparently the notes refer to some paper read before the section. Its authorship is not stated, nor is there any account of its reception. But the title is “The Natural History of Greatness, with especial reference to Literary Reputations.”
The opening was evidently one of those rapid historical sketches frequent in such papers.
“Persuasion that human beings are sometimes of disproportionate size appears first in the Egyptian and Syrian wall paintings…. Probably innate…. The discouragement of the young a social necessity in all early societies. In all societies?… Exaggerated stories about the departed…. Golden ages. Heroic ages. Ancestor worship…. Dead dogs better than living lions…. Abraham. Moses. The Homeric reputation, the first great literary cant. Resentment against Homer’s exaggerated claims on the part of intelligent people. Zoilus. Caricature of the Homerists in the Satyricon. Other instances of unorthodox ancient criticism…. Shakespeare as an intellectual nuisance…. Extreme suffering caused to contemporary writers by the Shakespeare legend….
“Another form of opposition to these obsessions is the creation of countervailing reputations. Certain people in certain ages have resolved to set up Great Men of their own to put beside these Brocken spectres from the past. This marks a certain stage of social development, the beginning of self-consciousness in a civilized community. Self-criticism always begins in self-flattery. Virgil as an early instance of a Great Man of set intentions; deliberately put up as the Latin Homer….
“Evolution of the greatness of Aristotle during the Middle Ages.
“Little sense of contemporary Greatness among the Elizabethans.
“Comparison with the past the prelude to Great-Man-Making, begins with such a work as Swift’s ‘Battle of the Books.’ Concurrently the decline in religious feeling robs the past of its half-mystical prestige. The Western world ripe for Great Men in the early nineteenth century. The Germans as a highly competitive and envious people take the lead. The inflation of Schiller. The greatness of Goethe. Incredible dullness of “Elective Affinities,” of “Werther,” of “Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship.” The second part of “Faust” a tiresome muddle. Large pretentiousness of the man’s career. Resolve of the Germans to have a Great Fleet, a Great Empire, a Great Man. Difficulty in finding a suitable German for Greatening. Expansion of the Goethe legend. German efficiency brought to bear on the task. Lectures. Professors. Goethe compared to Shakespeare. Compared to Homer. Compared to Christ. Compared to God. Discovered to be incomparable….