Platonism in English poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

by John Smith Harrison

Set up, electrotyped, and published September, 1903.

Norwood Press

J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.

Norwood, Mass., U. S. A.

TO

My Father and My Mother

PREFACE

This essay was presented as a dissertation for the doctorate in Columbia University. It attempts to explain the nature of the influence of Platonism upon English poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, exclusive of the drama. Its method is purely critical. It has not attempted to treat the subject from the standpoint of the individual poet, but has tried to interpret the whole body of English poetry of the period under survey as an integral output of the spiritual thought and life of the time.

In its interpretation of this body of poetry the essay has aimed to see Platonism in its true historical perspective, as it must have been understood by the poets, either as a system of philosophic thought held consciously in the mind, or as a more intimate possession of the spirit in its outlook upon life. The idea of Platonism which these poets had was that which Ficino had made known to Italy of the fifteenth century, and from Italy to the rest of Europe. Ficino saw Plato through two more or less refracting media. To him Plato was the “divine Plato,” the importance of whose work lay in its subtle affinity for the forms of Christian thought. He thus Christianized Plato’s philosophy. But this body of thought was that peculiar product resulting from the study of Plato’s “Dialogues” in the light of what latter-day criticism has named Neo-platonism, or that new form of Platonic philosophy which is expounded in the “Enneads” of Plotinus. But more than this. Ficino endeavored to reform the practice of love by the application of the Platonic doctrine of love and beauty to the lover’s passion. From his “Commentarium in Convivium,” which he translated into Italian, originate the various discussions of love and beauty from the Platonic standpoint which were carried on in dialogues and manuals of court etiquette throughout the sixteenth century. In this essay, consequently, reference has been made to Ficino’s “Commentarium” on the points involved in the theory of love and beauty. The translations have been made directly from the Latin version of the commentary. On the more metaphysical side of Platonism the “Enneads” of Plotinus have been accepted as representative. The translation on page [77] is taken from Mr. Bigg’s “Neo-Platonism,” and those on pages [153], [154], [155] are from Thomas Taylor’s translation noted in the bibliography. In interpreting the “Enneads” I have accepted the explanation of his system by Mr. Whittaker in “The Neo-Platonists.” All the quotations from Plato’s “Dialogues” are from Jowett’s translation. In quoting from the poets the texts of the editions noted in the bibliography have been followed in details of spelling, punctuation, and the like.

In the preparation of the work hardly anything of a critical nature was found serviceable. In the notes to the works of the individual poets several detached references are to be gratefully mentioned, but no general appreciation of the part Platonism played in the work of the English poets was at hand. Mr. Fletcher’s article on the “Précieuses at the Court of Charles I,” in the second number of the “Journal of Comparative Literature,” appeared after this essay had gone to the printer.