The restrained humanism of the Preface is noticeable. Thus, although the critical concerns of the age lead Trapp to seek to annex "clear Ideas" "to the Words, Action, Fable, Incident, and Episode," there is nothing in his writing resembling the prolegomena to the Aeneid in the Delphin edition,[7] prolegomena that define epic from the doctrine of Aristotle as the imitation of one action, illustrious, complete, of a certain magnitude, which by narration in hexameter verse raises eminent men to the prime virtues by delight and admiration, proceeds to define the actio, fabula, mores, sententia, and dictio in the abstract, and then demonstrates that the definitions fit the Aeneid (ergo it is an epic poem). This is scientific method ossified. On the other hand, if one compares Dryden's Dedication of the Aeneid, Trapp equally eschews the quirky digressiveness (and the wholesale borrowings), which give to Dryden's writing both its sense of personal and spontaneous insight and yet its prolixity and mere messiness. Trapp had studied the art to blot. The reader is spared Dryden's extended and pointless discussion (at second hand) of how long the action of the Aeneid takes, let alone whether this is the right length for an epic action or whether Aeneas was too lacrymose to be a hero (presumably Trapp thought that those who will believe that will believe anything). Likewise, Dryden's political insights, gathered as much from his own experience as from Roman history, are also swiftly passed by for more aesthetic concerns. Perhaps the view of Dryden (and Pope) that the Aeneid was a party piece like Absalom and Achitophel was unbalanced,[8] but Trapp might have reflected that, if any man knew about political poetry, it was John Dryden and that the Aeneid has a place in the history of the Roman civil wars. But the Oxford professor was more concerned with the sublime and beautiful.
As a critic of classical epic there can be little reasonable doubt that Trapp stands comparison with either Dryden or Pope, and the honesty and value of his critical endeavor are worth respect. He can be cool and analytical when dispassionate reason is required (witness his account of how in brevity and morality Virgil surpasses Homer); but he is in no sense tied by a rigidly formalistic approach, happy to praise even that "Variety" which "justifies the Breach of almost any Rule" (Preface p. xlvi), or the organic development of structure that seems to be "no Method at all" (II. 953). Essentially, behind this firm but flexible criticism, there is a compelling sense that to read a great poem is to submit to an overwhelming experience; and his criticism is always hastening to illustration, with the tacit appeal, "It is like this, isn't it?" What is particularly stimulating, whether one accepts the claim or not that Virgilian style and sensibility are reflected in Milton, is the continual illumination of the classics by the vernacular and particularly by modern example. It seems as if he is claiming that, to understand the past, we must respond to the literature of our own culture and that there are no important barriers between antiquity and the modern world, the appreciation of foreign languages and our own tongue. All true culture is always immediate and felt vitally as part of our being. In attempting to express this, Trapp is in touch with what is best in neoclassicism.
University of Reading.
NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION
[1] He had held the chair for the maximum period of ten years permitted by the original statute. For further particulars, see Thomas Hearne, Remarks and Collections, ed. C. E. Doble (Oxford, 1886), entries for 14 July and 27 July 1708.
[2] There is a translation by William Bowyer, assisted by William Clarke, entitled Lectures on Poetry (London, 1742).
[3] Comparaison des poèmes d'Homère et de Virgile (Paris, ?1688).
[4] He is identified by the Twickenham editor as the "T—" of the line "T—s and T—the church and state gave o'er," in The Dunciad of 1728 II. 381, but was dropped from the Variorum in 1729. In the Warburton note of 1743, I.33, he may be alluded to in the gibe at "Professors."
[5] Notably in The Advancement and Reformation of Modern Poetry (London, 1701) and The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry (London, 1704).