‘Oh, Alma redemptoris mater, loudly sung,’
and who, after his death, still triumphed in his song. Chaucer has more of this deep, internal, sustained sentiment than any other writer, except Boccacio, to whom Chaucer owed much, though he did not owe all to him: for he writes just as well where he did not borrow from that quarter, as where he did; as in the characters of the Pilgrims,—the Wife of Bath’s Prologue,—the ‘Squire’s Tale, and in innumerable others. The poetry of Chaucer has a religious sanctity about it, connected with the manners of the age. It has all the spirit of martyrdom!
In looking back to the chef-d’œuvres of former times, we are sometimes disposed to wonder at the little progress which has been made since in poetry, and the arts of imitation in general. But this, perhaps, is a foolish wonder. Nothing is more contrary to fact, than the supposition, that in what we understand by the fine arts, as painting and poetry, relative perfection is the result of repeated success; and that, what has been once well done, constantly leads to something better. What is mechanical, reducible to rule, or capable of demonstration, is indeed progressive, and admits of gradual improvement: but that which is not mechanical or definite, but depends on taste, genius, and feeling, very soon becomes stationary or retrograde, after a certain period, and loses more than it gains by transfusion. The contrary opinion is indeed a common error, which has grown up, like many others, from transferring an analogy of one kind to something quite different, without thinking of the difference in the nature of the things, or attending to the difference of the results. For most persons, finding what wonderful advances have been made in biblical criticism, in chemistry, in mechanics, in geometry, astronomy, &c., i.e. in things depending on inquiry and experiment, or on absolute demonstration, have been led hastily to conclude, that there was a general tendency in the efforts of the human intellect to improve by repetition, and, in all arts and institutions, to grow perfect and mature by time. We look back upon the theological creed of our ancestors, and their discoveries in natural philosophy, with a smile of pity: Science, and the arts connected with it, have all had their infancy, their youth and manhood, and seem to have in them no principle of limitation or decay; and, inquiring no farther, we infer, in the intoxication of our pride, and the height of our self-congratulation, that the same progress has been made, and will continue to be made, in all other things which are the work of man. The fact, however, stares us so plainly in the face, that one would think the smallest reflection must suggest the truth, and overturn our sanguine theories. The greatest poets, the ablest orators, the best painters, and the finest sculptors that the world ever saw, appeared soon after the first birth of these arts, and lived in a state of society which was in other respects rude and barbarous. Those arts which depend on individual genius and incommunicable power, have almost always leaped at once from infancy to manhood—from the first rude dawn of invention to their meridian height and dazzling lustre, and have, in general, declined ever after. This is the peculiar distinction and privilege of science and of art;—of the one, never to arrive at the summit of perfection at all; and of the other, to arrive at it almost at once. Homer, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Dante and Ariosto, (Milton alone was of a later period, and not the worse for it),—Raphael, Titian, Michael Angelo, Correggio, Cervantes and Boccacio—all lived near the beginning of their arts—perfected, and all but created them. These giant sons of genius stand indeed upon the earth; but they tower above their fellows; and the long line of their successors does not interpose any object to obstruct their view, or lessen their brightness. In strength and stature, they are unrivalled; in grace and beauty, they have never been surpassed. In after ages and more refined periods (as they are called), great men have arisen one by one, as it were by throes and at intervals; though, in general, the best of these cultivated and artificial minds were of an inferior order; as Tasso and Pope among poets, Guido and Poussin among painters. But in the earlier stages of the arts, when the first mechanical difficulties had been got over, and the language acquired, they rose by clusters and in constellations—never so to rise again.
The arts of poetry and painting are conversant with the world of thought within us, and of the world of sense without us—with what we know and see and feel intimately. They flow from the living shrine of our own breasts, and are kindled at the living lamp of Nature: But the pulse of the passions assuredly beat as high—the depths and soundings of the human heart were as well understood, three thousand or three hundred years ago, as they are at present. The face of nature, and ‘the human face divine,’ shone as bright then, as they have ever done since. But it is their light, reflected by true genius on art, which marks out the path before it, and sheds a glory round the Muses’ feet, like that which
——‘circled Una’s angel face,
And made a sunshine in the shady place.’
SCHLEGEL ON THE DRAMA
Vol. xxvi.] [February 1816.
The work is German; and is to be received with the allowances which that school of literature generally requires. With these, however, it will be found a good work: and as we should be sorry to begin our account of it with an unmeaning sneer, we will explain at once what appears to us to be the weak side of German literature. In all that they do, it is evident that they are much more influenced by a desire of distinction than by any impulse of the imagination, or the consciousness of extraordinary qualifications. They write, not because they are full of a subject, but because they think it is a subject upon which, with due pains and labour, something striking may be written. So they read and meditate,—and having, at length, devised some strange and paradoxical view of the matter, they set about establishing it with all their might and main. The consequence is, that they have no shades of opinion, but are always straining at a grand systematic conclusion. They have done a great deal, no doubt, and in various departments; but their pretensions have always much exceeded their performance. They are universal undertakers, and complete encyclopedists, in all moral and critical science. No question can come before them but they have a large apparatus of logical and metaphysical principles ready to play off upon it; and the less they know of the subject, the more formidable is the use they make of their apparatus. In poetry, they have at one time gone to the utmost lengths of violent effect,—and then turned round, with equal extravagance, to the laborious production of no effect at all. The truth is, that they are naturally a slow, heavy people; and can only be put in motion by some violent and often repeated impulse, under the operation of which they lose all control over themselves—and nothing can stop them short of the last absurdity. Truth, in their view of it, is never what is, but what, according to their system, ought to be. Though they have dug deeply in the mine of knowledge, they have too often confounded the dross and the ore, and counted their gains rather by their weight than their quality. They are a little apt, we suspect, literally to take the will for the deed,—and are not always capable of distinguishing between effort and success. They are most at home, accordingly, in matters of fact, and learned inquiries. In art they are hard, forced, and mechanical; and, generally, they may be said to have all that depends on strength of understanding and persevering exertion,—but to want ease, quickness and flexibility. We should not have made these remarks, if the work before us had formed an absolute exception to them.
William Schlegel has long been celebrated on the Continent as a philosophical critic, and as the admirable translator of Shakespear and Calderon into his native tongue. Madame de Staël acknowledges her obligations to him, for the insight which he had given her into the discriminating features of German genius. And M. Sismondi, in his work on Southern literature, bears the most honourable testimony to his talents and learning. The present work contains a critical and historical account of the ancient and modern drama,—the Greek, the Latin, the Italian, the French, the English, the Spanish, and the German. The view which the author has taken of the standard productions, whether tragic or comic, in these different languages, is in general ingenious and just; and his speculative reasonings on the principles of taste, are often as satisfactory as they are profound. But he sometimes carries the love of theory, and the spirit of partisanship, farther than is at all allowable. His account of Shakespear is admirably characteristic, and must be highly gratifying to the English reader. It is indeed by far the best account which has been given of the plays of that great genius by any writer, either among ourselves, or abroad. It is only liable to one exception—he will allow Shakespear to have had no faults. Now, we think he had a great many, and that he could afford to have had as many more. It shows a distrust of his genius, to be tenacious of his defects.