But the case is not the same with regard to the general plan of a work, or what may be called the order of distribution, which is and must be governed by the subject-matter itself. It was as requisite for the Fairy Queen to consist of the adventures of twelve Knights, as for the Odyssey to be confined to the adventures of one Hero: justice had otherwise not been done to his subject.
So that if you will say any thing against the poet’s method, you must say that he should not have chosen this subject. But this objection arises from your classic ideas of Unity, which have no place here; and are in every view foreign to the purpose, if the poet has found means to give his work, though consisting of many parts, the advantage of Unity. For in some reasonable sense or other, it is agreed, every work of art must be one, the very idea of a work requiring it.
If you ask then, what is this Unity of Spenser’s Poem? I say, It consists in the relation of its several adventures to one common original, the appointment of the Fairy Queen; and to one common end, the completion of the Fairy Queen’s injunctions. The knights issued forth on their adventures on the breaking up of this annual feast: and the next annual feast, we are to suppose, is to bring them together again from the atchievement of their several charges.
This, it is true, is not the classic Unity, which consists in the representation of one entire action: but it is an Unity of another sort, an unity resulting from the respect which a number of related actions have to one common purpose. In other words, it is an unity of design, and not of action.
This Gothic method of design in poetry may be, in some sort, illustrated by what is called the Gothic method of design in gardening. A wood or grove cut out into many separate avenues or glades was among the most favourite of the works of art, which our fathers attempted in this species of cultivation. These walks were distinct from each other, had each their several destination, and terminated on their own proper objects. Yet the whole was brought together and considered under one view, by the relation which these various openings had, not to each other, but to their common and concurrent center. You and I are, perhaps, agreed that this sort of gardening is not of so true a taste as that which Kent and Nature have brought us acquainted with; where the supreme art of the designer consists in disposing his ground and objects into an entire landskip; and grouping them, if I may use the term, in so easy a manner, that the careless observer, though he be taken with the symmetry of the whole, discovers no art in the combination:
In lieto aspetto il bel giardin s’aperse,
Acque stagnanti, mobili cristalli,
Fior vari, e varie piante, herbe diverse,
Apriche collinette, ombrose valli,
Selve, e spelunche in UNA VISTA offerse:
E quel, che’l bello, e’l caro accresce à l’opre,
L’arte, che tutto sà, nulla si scopre.
Tasso, C. XVI. s. ix.
This, I say, may be the truest taste in gardening, because the simplest: yet there is a manifest regard to unity in the other method; which has had its admirers, as it may have again, and is certainly not without its design and beauty.
But to return to our poet. Thus far he drew from Gothic ideas; and these ideas, I think, would lead him no further. But, as Spenser knew what belonged to classic composition, he was tempted to tie his subject still closer together by one expedient of his own, and by another taken from his classic models.
His own was, to interrupt the proper story of each book, by dispersing it into several; involving by this means, and as it were intertwisting the several actions together, in order to give something like the appearance of one action to his twelve adventures. And for this conduct, as absurd as it seems, he had some great examples in the Italian poets, though, I believe, they were led into it by different motives.
The other expedient, which he borrowed from the classics, was, by adopting one superior character, which should be seen throughout. Prince Arthur, who had a separate adventure of his own, was to have his part in each of the other; and thus several actions were to be embodied by the interest which one principal Hero had in them all. It is even observable, that Spenser gives this adventure of Prince Arthur, in quest of Gloriana, as the proper subject of his poem. And upon this idea the late learned editor of the Fairy Queen has attempted, but, I think, without success, to defend the unity and simplicity of its fable. The truth was, the violence of classic prejudices forced the poet to affect this appearance of unity, though in contradiction to his Gothic system. And, as far as we can judge of the tenour of the whole work from the finished half of it, the adventure of Prince Arthur, whatever the author pretended, and his critic too easily believed, was but an after-thought; and, at least, with regard to the historical fable, which we are now considering, was only one of the expedients by which he would conceal the disorder of his Gothic plan.