UNIVERSITY OF CA RIVERSIDE LIBRARY
3 1210 01712 8909
WORLD
LITERATURE
RGMOULTON
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
WORLD LITERATURE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO
SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
LONDON • BOMBAY ■ CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
WORLD LITERATURE
ITS PLACE IN GENERAL CULTURE
RICHARD G.
ArtCfl^B.), Ph.D. (Pbnna.)
PROFESSOR OF LITERARY THEORT AND INtTTB^ETATIONJBft THE UNIVERSITY
OF CHICAGO, UNIVERSITY EXTENSION LECWHtej^IN LrCERATURE
(ENGLAND AND AHERICA^ ^"~"**' \
AUTHOR OF " SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMA^TFq ABb{ST," "*' SHAKE-
SPEARE AS A DRAMATIC THINKER," " TH^\^lh!««NT Ct*S1^ICAL
DRAMA," ETC. EDITOR OF "THE MODERN :^ADER'S BIBLE "
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1911
All rights reserved
COPYBIQHT, 1911,
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1911.
Norhiaot) JPieea
J. S. Cashing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
PREFACE
This book presents a conception of World Literature,
not in the sense of the sum total of particular literatures,
but as a unity, the literary field seen in perspective from
the point of view of the English-speaking peoples. Theo-
retical treatment is throughout supplemented by exposi-
tion of masterpieces.
To the general reader the book suggests a rational
scheme of connection such as should be at the back of
every attempt to make choice of "the best books." For
the student it illustrates a treatment of the subject un-
hampered by divisions between particular literatures in
different languages, divisions which make the weakness
of literary study in our academic systems. Its plea is
that such World Literature belongs to every stage of
general culture, from the most elementary to the most
advanced.
My life has been entirely occupied with the study and
the teaching of literature. I have sought in the present
work to embody the main results of my experience, so
far as these bear upon the field of literature and the
general interest of the subject. I purpose, at no distant
date, to follow up this work with another, which will
be a more formal introduction to literary theory and
interpretation.
RICHARD G. MOULTON.
February, 1911.
[V]
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PAGE
I. The Unity of Literature and the Conception of
World Literature 1
n. Literary Pedigree of the English-speaking Peoples 10
III. World Literature from the English Point of
View 53
SURVEY OF WORLD LITERATURE
CHAPTER I
The Five Literary Bibles. — The Holy Bible ... 59
CHAPTER II
The Five Literary Bibles. — Classical Epic and
Tragedy 99
CHAPTER III
The Five Literary Bibles. — Shakespeare .... 164
CHAPTER IV
The Five Literary Bibles. — Dante and Milton: The
Epics of Mediaeval Catholicism and Renaissance
Protestantism 179
CHAPTER V
The Five Literary Bibles. — Versions of the Story of
Faust 220
[vii]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER VI
PAGE
Collateral Studies in World Literature . . . 295
CHAPTER VII
Comparative Reading 351
CHAPTER VIII
Literary Organs of Personality: Essays and Lyrics . 381
CHAPTER IX
Strategic Points in Literature 407
CHAPTER X
World Literature the Autobiography of Civilization 429
CONCLUSION
The Place of World Literature in Education . . 439
vMl]
INTRODUCTION
I
The Unity of Literature and the Conception of World Literature
II
Literary Pedigree of the English-speaking Peoples
III
World Literature from the English Point of View
[ixl
INTRODUCTION
THE UNITY OF LITERATURE AND THE CONCEPTION
OF WORLD LITERATURE
It has been among the signs of our times that popular
inquiries have been started at intervals in reference to
''The Best Books." Eminent individuals have been
importuned to name the ten, the twenty-five, the hun-
dred best books ; or — since this is an age of democracy
— the selection has been referred to newspaper voting.
In all this there seems to be a certain simplicity min-
gled with a strain of deep wisdom. The simplicity is
the naive idea that everything knowable is of the nature
of information, sure to be found in the right compen-
dium ; only, as universal wisdom has not yet been alpha-
betically indexed, it may be necessary to have recourse
to an expert. The wisdom latent in such attempted
selections is the suggestion that the popular mind, in
however crude and shadowy a way, has grasped a prin-
ciple ignored in more formal study — the essential unity
of literature.
This failure to recognize the unity of all literature ac-
counts for the paradox that, while literary study is going
on actively all around, yet the study of literature, in any
B [1]
THE CONCEPTION OF WORLD LITERATURE
adequate sense, has yet to begin. When we speak of the
study of philosophy, what we have in mind is not the
reading of Greek philosophic writers by persons inter-
ested in Greek studies, and the reading of German philo-
sophers by persons interested in German studies, and the
like : apart from all this we recognize that there is the
thing philosophy, with an independent interest and his-
tory of its own, the whole being something quite differ-
ent from the sum of the parts. In other words, we recog-
nize the unity of philosophy. Similarly, we recognize
the unity of history, the unity of art ; even the separate
languages of the world have coalesced into a unity in the
study of philology. But when the question is of litera-
ture, it would seem as if the humanities side of the edu-
cational edifice has been built in water-tight compart-
ments ; what goes on in our schools and colleges is the
study in one class room of English Uterature in connec-
tion with English history and language, in other class
rooms Greek or Latin or French literature in connection
with Greek or Latin or French history and language.
We look in vain for an independent study of literature
itself, and of literature as a whole.
Perhaps it may be objected that such a thing is to be
found under the name of Comparative Literature, or
the Philosophy of Literature. Comparative Literature
is an important advance towards recognizing unity for
the whole literary field ; but that it is only an advance
the title infallibly marks. For who would speak of Com-
parative Philosophy, or Comparative Mathematics?
Such names might indeed be used to denote specific
pieces of work ; they could never indicate a whole study.
12]
THE UNITY OF LITERATURE
Similarly, the Philosophy of Literature can be nothing
more than a single element in the whole study of litera-
ture. The most important part of any treatment of
literature must be a detailed and loving acquaintance
with a large number of actual literary works : in propor-
tion as a reader possesses this will the philosophy of the
subject be valuable. To offer it as equivalent to the
study of literature would be as futile as to think that a
course in economics would of itself make a good business
man, or that text-books in psychology and ethics would
give a knowledge of human nature.
No doubt there are special difficulties in the way of our
compassing the study of literature as a whole. The
first of these I should myself consider not so much a
difficulty as a prejudice. It is obvious that the study of
literature as a whole is impossible without a free use of
translations. Now, there is a widespread feeling that
the reading of translated literature is a makeshift, and
savors of second-hand scholarship. But this idea is itself
a product of the departmental study of literature which
has prevailed hitherto, in which language and literature
have been so inextricably intertwined that it has be-
come difficult to think of the two separately. The idea
will not bear rational examination. If a man, instead
of reading Homer in Greek, reads him in English, he
has unquestionably lost something. But the question
arises. Is what he has lost literature ? Clearly, a great
proportion of what goes to make literature has not been
lost ; presentation of antique life, swing of epic narra-
tive, conceptions of heroic character and incident, skill
of plot, poetical imagery — all these elements of Homeric
[3]
THE CONCEPTION OF WORLD LITERATURE
literature are open to the reader of translations. But,
it will be said, language itself is one of the main factors
in literature. This is true, but it must be remembered
that the term "language" covers two different things:
a considerable proportion of linguistic phenomena is
common to related languages and will pass from one to
the other, while other elements of language are idiomatic
and fixed. What the English reader of Homer has lost
is not language, but Greek. And he has not lost the
whole of Greek ; the skilled translator can convey some-
thing of the ethos of idiomatic Greek into his version,
writing what may be correct English, but not such Eng-
lish as an Englishman would write. When, however,
all abatement has been made, the reader of the transla-
tion has suffered a distinct loss ; and the classical scholar
knows how great that loss is. But the point at issue
is not the comparative value of literature and language,
but the possibility of realizing hterature as a unity.
One who accepts the use of translations where necessary
secures all factors of literature except language, and a
considerable part even of that. One who refuses trans-
lations by that fact cuts himself off from the major part
of the Uterary field; his literary scholarship, however
poUshed and precise, can never rise above the provincial.
To which it must be added that the prejudice against
translations is of the nature of a prophecy which can ful-
fil itself : where it has prevailed, the character of transla-
tions has approximated to the schoolboy's " crib." On
the other hand, it is noteworthy how classical scholars of
front rank have devoted themselves to translation as the
best form of commentary — Jowett, Munro, Coning-
[4]
THE UNITY OF LITERATURE
ton, Jebb, Palmer, Gilbert Murray ; how poets of front
rank have made themselves interpreters between one
language and another — William Morris, Edwin Arnold,
Chapman, Dryden, Pope ; when precise scholarship and
poetic gifts mingle in such men as Mr. Arthur S. Way
and Mr. B. B. Rogers, it can be brought about that
Homer, Euripides, and Aristophanes shine equally as
English and as Greek poetry. Again, men of the high-
est literary refinement have made strong pronounce-
ments on the side of translated literature. ''I do not
hesitate," says Emerson in his Essay on Books, 'Ho read
all the books I have named, and all good books, in trans-
lations. What is really best in any book is translat-
able; any real insight or broad human sentiment.
... I rarely read any Greek, Latin, German, Italian —
sometimes not a French book — in the original which I can
procure in a good version. I like to be beholden to the
great metropolitan English speech, the sea which re-
ceives tributaries from every region under heaven. I
should as soon think of swimming across Charles River
when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books
in originals, when I have them rendered for me in my
mother tongue." Let an appeal, moreover, be made to
history. Luther's translation of the Bible, and the Eng-
lish Authorized Version, laid the foundations of literary
speech for two nations. Effects on some such wide
scale may be looked for when high linguistic scholar-
ship from critical shall turn to creative, and apply itself
to naturalizing in each literature the best of all the rest.
Quite apart, however, from this question of translation
there are real and formidable difficulties that impede
[5]
THE CONCEPTION OF WORLD LITERATURE
the study of literature as a whole. In such a subject as
language the unit is a word or a phrase : in literature
the smallest unit is a whole poem. In philology, and
most other studies, we have to deal only with facts :
with information, and that information digested. But
information on the subject of literature is of all things
the most barren ; what is wanted in this study is imagi-
native knowledge, the reaction of the Uterary matter
upon the reader's taste, upon his artistic and spiritual
susceptibility. How is it possible to compass the uni-
versal field, where the unit is so large, and the appreci-
ation so deep seated ?
With such a problem as this we are concerned in the
present work only so far as it bears upon general culture.
And that which seems to me the proper solution I am
expressing by what is the title of this book — World
Literature. It must be admitted that the term "world
literature " may legitimately be used in more than one
sense ; I am throughout attaching to it a fixed and
special significance. I take a distinction between Uni-
versal Literature and World Literature. Universal
Literature can only mean the sum total of all literatures.
World Literature, as I use the term, is this Universal
Literature seen in perspective from a given point of view,
presumably the national standpoint of the observer.
The difference between the two may be illustrated by
the different ways in which the science of Geography and
the art of Landscape might deal with the same physical
particulars. We have to do with a mountain ten thou-
sand feet high, a tree-fringed pond not a quarter of an acre
in extent, a sloping meadow rising perhaps to a hundred
[6]
PERSPECTIVE APPLIED TO LITERATURE
feet, a lake some four hundred miles in length. So far
as Geography would take cognizance of these physical
features, they must be taken all in their exact dimensions.
But Landscape would begin by fixing a point of view:
from that point the elements of the landscape would be
8&fcn to modify their relative proportions. The distant
mountain would diminish to a point of snow ; the pond
would become the prominent centre, every tree distinct ;
the meadow would have some softening of remoteness ;
on the other side the huge lake would appear a silver
streak upon the horizon. By a similar kind of perspec-
tive, World Literature will be a different thing to the
Englishman and to the Japanese : the Shakespeare who
bulks so large to the Englishman will be a small detail
to the Japanese, while the Chinese literature which makes
the foreground in the one literary landscape may be
hardly discernible in the other. World Literature will
be a different thing even to the Englishman and the
Frenchman; only in this case the similar history of
the two peoples will make the constituent elements of the
two landscapes much the same, and the difference will
be mainly in distribution of the parts. More than this,
World Literature may be different for different individ-
uals of the same nation : obviously, one man will have
a wider outlook, taking in more of universal literature ;
or it may be that the individuality of the student, or of
some teacher who has influenced him, has served as a
lens focussing the multiplex particulars of the whole in
its own individual arrangement. In each case the
World Literature is a real unity ; and it is a unity which
is a reflection of the unity of all literature. That it is
[7]
THE CONCEPTION OF WORLD LITERATURE
a reflection relative to the particular student or thinker
is a thing inseparable from culture : is indeed what
makes the difference between the purely scientific and
the educational point of view.
The essential thing is that the observation of the whole
field which gives us this World Literature should be cor-
rect ; in other words, that there should be a sound phi-
losophy at the basis of this perspective grouping. It
is the absence of such underlying philosophy that takes
the value out of mere lists of ''best books " as representa-
tions of literature. And the theory on which a view of
World Literature is to rest will resolve itself ultimately
into two supplementary principles. One of these maybe
termed the National Literary Pedigree, — the train of
historic considerations that connects the reader's nation-
ality with its roots in the far past, and traces its rela-
tionship with other parts of the literary field. Here we
are on the sure basis of history. But it will be history
as seen from the standpoint of literature : literary pedi-
gree may be very different from ethnological or linguis-
tic descent. The other principle is Intrinsic Literary
Interest. Quite apart from its association with history
literature has an interest and values of its own. The in-
dividuality of an author (to take the most obvious cases)
or the accidental flowering of some literary type may lift
portions of a literature quite out of the position that
would have been given them by their historic settings,
just as in our landscape illustration the mountain was
so distant as to have been invisible if it had not happened
to be ten thousand feet in height. The individuality of
a Dante or an Aristophanes has modified for all of us the
[8]
PERSPECTIVE APPLIED TO LITERATURE
general map of poetry. These two principles, then, of
historic connection, and of intrinsic literary value, by
their mutual interaction will elaborate a sound basis on
which a conception of World Literature may rest.
Such World Literature, conceived from the English
point of view, is the subject of the present work. And
our first step is to trace the Literary Pedigree of the
English-speaking peoples.
[9]
II
THE LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING
PEOPLES
I start from the position that our EngUsh civilization
is the product of two main factors, the gradual union
of which has made us what we are. These may be
expressed by the terms " Hellenic " and " Hebraic."
The one is the ancient Hellenic civilization embodied in
the classical literature of Greece and Rome. The other
is that special strain of Hebrew civilization which is
crystallized in that literature we call the Bible. Our
science, our art, our philosophy, our politics, are, in the
main, the continuation of processes commenced by the
ancient Greeks. But in our spiritual nature we are
not Greek, but Hebrew : product of the spiritual
movement which has made the Bible. The evolution
of our modern life rests upon the gradual intermingling
of these Hellenic and Hebraic elements. The two
came together for the first time in the conquests of
Alexander the Great. These had the effect of extend-
ing the Greek culture to all the civiUzed races, and
amongst them to the exclusive Hebrew people; after
long resistance even Palestine was Hellenized, while
in Alexandria had arisen a new centre of Jewish life
only second to Palestine. The two elements met a
[10]
HELLENIC AND HEBRAIC
second time in the Roman Empire. Once more an
Hellenic civilization was covering the world ; when
this Roman Empire was Christianized, Hebraic culture
permeated Hellenic, and Rome was grafted upon the
biblical tree. For several centuries the Hellenic and
Hebraic cultures, each in an imperfect form, remained
in combination. Then by a third revolution the two
elements, each now in its full force, were brought into
reciprocal influence : and this Renaissance makes the
threshold of our modern life.
If for a moment we turn our attention to these two
originating elements of our civilization, we find that
these seem to hold a summarizing position in reference
to the main civilizations of the world. The leading
races ^ of the world may conveniently be divided into
three classes. Two classes correspond with the Semitic
and Aryan families of peoples ; the third class is not a
related group, but merely a total of the races other than
Semitic and Aryan, which have exercised a correspond-
ingly small influence upon history, as history affects
ourselves. In the Semitic group it was not the Hebrew
people that first came to the front. A point was
reached, however, at which other Semitic civilizations
seemed to stop short ; the Hebrew civilization absorbed
what was best in the other Semitic peoples, and further
seemed endowed with an endless power of progression.
A similar phenomenon is observable in the Aryan stock.
^ I use this word as a convenient term, without meaning to imply,
necessarily, that it was the racial factor, and not (e.gr.) historical
circumstances, that brought about the distinguishing influence of
each civilization.
Ill]
U 09 ^
ca. o
gc5
[12]
HELLENIC AND HEBRAIC
Other Aryan civilizations, notably the Indian, seem at
first to dominate ; yet a point is reached at which these
become distinguished by fecundity rather than pro-
gressive power, while Hellenic culture alike absorbs
all that is best in allied civilizations, and carries for-
ward its own with unhmited development. Thus the
two ancient civilizations which are the component
factors of our own seem to represent the flower of the
civilizations of the world.
Already then we begin to catch the main lines for
a scheme of World Literature, as seen from the English
point of view. The literatures of the world's leading
peoples are seen to stand to us in closer or more remote
degrees of relationship. Some literatures are entirely
extraneous to the evolution of which we are the prod-
uct; if they have an interest for us at all, this must
rest entirely upon intrinsic literary attractiveness.
To others our culture stands in the relation of col-
lateral propinquity. But the Hellenic and Hebraic
are to us in the fullest sense ancestral literatures : this
is of itself sufficient to give them a foremost place in
our conception of World Literature. The claims of
Greek culture have always been fully acknowledged.
It has been one of the great services of Matthew Arnold
to literary study, that he insisted always upon the
prominence of the Hebraic factor in our modern culture.
At this point, a digression seems necessary, which I
would willingly have avoided. What is the essential
spirit of this Hellenism and Hebraism, which have
thus been the dominant elements in our history?
[13]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
As it appears to me, a mistaken conception of Hellen-
ism has obtained currency; mistaken, in the sense of
laying unwarranted emphasis on what is not really of
prime importance. It has become traditional to find
the essence of Hellenism in the civic spirit of Athens
during the era of Pericles ; that spirit is conceived to be
the subordination of all activity to the service of the
state ; this is taken to be the inspiration of the highest
art and poetry of the Greeks ; it is supposed to be
voiced especially in the dramas of ^Eschylus, Sophocles,
and Aristophanes ; it is invaded by the spirit of inno-
vation of which Euripides is the poetic representative ;
from this point the hold of the state becomes less,
individual and general culture prevails more and
more, and Hellenism passes into its period of decay.
This seems to me to be a mistaken reading of Hellen-
ism. There is something seductive in the description
of an ideal that subordinates all activity to the service
of the state, until we remember that the word "state"
in such a context has a different meaning from what
the word suggests to modern ears. What the Greeks
meant by "state" we should express by the word "con-
stitution" : the point is, not the devotion of the indi-
vidual to the good of the community, but the subordi-
nation of everything to one particular conception of
common life — the highly artificial conception of the
city-state. The inability of the Greeks to rise above
this ideal is by universal consent recognized as the cause
of the submergence of Greek political civilization in the
general history of mankind. This ideal, moreover,
was maintained by the sacrifice of other ideals : of free-
[14]
HELLENIC AND HEBRAIC
dom, for Greek life was based on slavery; of family
life, for the position of woman was at its lowest in the
age of Pericles. Not only are these things true in
historic fact, but in the idealization of Athenian polit-
ical ideas by Plato we find marriage and family life
surrendered in order to bolster up a special type of
state organization; the whole spirit of the Republic
is that the governed exist for the sake of the govern-
ment, and not vice versa. Our modern thinking is
more in sympathy with the primitive type of life
reflected in Homer, with its lofty conception of woman
and family life : Euripides is nearer to Homer than is
the Athens of his day. Nor does there seem any
warrant for the view that the civic spirit of Athens
was the inspiration of its art and poetry. Naturally,
in plays intended for performance in Athens, there are
passages glorifying Athenian institutions; but these
have little to do with the general spirit of the dramas.
The dominating note of Greek tragedy is a very dif-
ferent thing — overpowering awe in the presence of
Destiny. The supreme tragic situation is that of a
mortal, like Orestes, placed between opposite destinies
— the oracle that forces him to do the deed and the
Eumenides who crush him for doing it ; though it is true
that ^schylus, with the audacity of a partisan in a
political crisis, figures that even out of this tangle there
is a way of escape in the aristocratic Court of Areopagus.
So in Antigone, we see humanity placed between two
equal and opposite forces, loyalty to kindred and
loyalty to the state : alike Kreon and Antigone are
crushed. And the irony that saturates the whole
[15]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
Sophoclean drama is the mockery of man in his attempts
to unravel or to resist Destiny. Thus it is a reUgious,
not a poHtical, idea which is the basis of Greek tragedy.
It is, no doubt, a splendid moment that opens Athenian
history, with Marathon and the single-handed resist-
ance to Oriental despotism ; and splendid is the oratory
and historical writing by which this Athenian era is
illuminated for us. But we must not mistake between
the illumination and the thing illuminated. Grote
did good service in vindicating the Athenian democracy
against the traditional disparagement that had been
inspired by prejudice against democracy in general ;
yet, on an impartial review, the political history of
Athens reveals the usual combination of evil and good,
weakness and strength. The innovating spirit that
comes in with Socrates and Euripides is not the decline
of a lofty ideal, but the inevitable reaction against an
artificial conception of things, a reaction in the direc-
tion of ideals more general, saner, more natural.
What then is the true conception of the Hellenic
spirit? Hellenism, as I understand it, is the sudden,
gigantic, well-nigh illimitable outflowering of human
powers, alike creative and critical, but working upon a
highly limited material. As art and literature, the
productions of Greek genius reach unsurpassable
greatness and stand in a class by themselves. But
the permanent influence of Hellenism is at every point
checked by its inherent limitations, limitations that are
themselves largely the result of the sudden outgrowth.
The silent generations had accumulated a floating
poetry of tradition and myth. Homer and the trage-
[16]
HELLENIC AND HEBRAIC
dians gave to this matter a literary splendor that fixed
it as the permanent source of poetic material for the
Greeks. For all the centuries from Homer to Virgil
every attempt to travel outside this circle of poetic
matter failed. This has given to universal literature
one of its permanent effects — the echoing of the
poetry of the past. But inevitably at last there comes
exhaustion of material, and classical poetry passes into
the sterile imitation and uninspired polish of a silver
age. Again, the period of a single lifetime saw the
rise from the folk play to the magnificent Attic tragedy.
But this sudden rise of Greek tragedy imparted to it
a fixity of form : connection with the chorus and
limitation to a single final situation — mere accidents
of its origin^ — became accepted as essential to the
very conception of tragedy. Such stiffness of form
militated against natural expansion ; finally the Greek
Drama of Situation became the Drama of Seneca, the
rhetorical expansion of situations conventional or
assumed. Greek religion was the naive awe and delight
in presence of nature which is the religion of the world's
childhood ; it inspired such poetry that the ideal is
still dear to us, and a Schiller can sigh for the gods of
Greece. But so limited a religion had nothing with
which to satisfy the inevitably deepening life of the
Greeks ; which was thus left to the freezing influence of
Destiny with its closed circle of thought, until religion
died out in Greece except as popular superstition.
Its place was taken by the philosophy of nature and of
man. We are bewildered by the rapid succession of
philosophical schools, each school a complete explana-
c [17]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
tion of the universe, elaborated with a subtilty that
tasks our modern scholars even to follow. But these
philosophies of the universe rest upon a basis of the
narrowest observation; instruments of precision and
experiment, which are the alphabet of modern philo-
sophic research, have no existence ; such philosophies
find their natural end in the curiosity hunting of a
Pliny. So with moral speculation. The limiting hori-
zon of the autonomous city-state determines the whole
point of view : the moral nature, with infinite subtilty,
is analyzed as if a political constitution. Greek ethics
is thus the philosophy of static man ; society, or (with
the Stoics) the universe, is brought in only as a sphere
in which the individual may find exercise. There is
no dynamic, no motive for progress, no reaction of the
individual on his universe ; to its latest conceptions
in Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius virtue is the indi-
vidual on his defence against the vanity of life. In the
case of Greek art we have to take distinctions. Of the
arts of sculpture and dancing the field is the human
body : here the whole field is open to the Greeks,
and they have exhausted the possibilities of these two
arts, leaving the moderns only to imitate and modify.
In architecture, the Greeks reached fulness of develop-
ment for a single form, one consonant with their fixed
open-air life ; the more varied life of the ages that were
to come have added to architecture more than the
Greeks gave to it. The art of music is bound up with
mechanism, which in the Hellenic period was yet in its
infancy; here it is the Greeks who are the pygmies,
and the moderns the giants.
[18]
HELLENIC AND HEBRAIC
Perhaps the most astonishing achievement of the
Greeks is their criticism and logic or dialectic : these
seem to spring up in a moment full grown. But the in-
evitable limitation comes in. Perhaps the Greek lan-
guage is the most wonderful language the world has
known : but it is also true that the Greeks knew no
other language, and all other peoples were to them bar-
barians. Hence Greek criticism, while it is funda-
mental and final when it is regarded as analysis of Greek
literature, yet falls short when brought to bear upon the
literatures of the future ; in historic fact Greek criticism
has proved chiefly an incumbrance to the natural de-
velopment of poetry. Further, to say that the Greeks
knew no language but their own is to say that, ulti-
mately, they must lack the power to grasp what language
really is, to seize clearly the horizon between words and
things. And this one limitation undermines the sound-
ness of their whole profound and subtle dialectic. The
dialogues of Plato are dramatizations of thought pro-
cesses : as such they are the marvel of universal litera-
ture. As positive mental science, while the wisest of
the moderns learns much from them, yet their author-
ity breaks down continually by the confusion between
things and the names of things ; Greek logic gives us
a genealogy of ideas rather than the relation between
ideas and realities.
Rome presents a modified Hellenism. The one thing
lacked by the Greeks is supplied by the Roman people :
the instinct of political progression that can enlarge its
conceptions gradually from the city-state to world em-
pire, crystallizing all this institutional development in
[19]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
law and jurisprudence. But again the fatal limitation
comes in. When this Roman people reaches the point
of literary adolescence, they surrender absolutely to
Greece, and henceforward Roman culture follows
Greek culture through its phases of strength and weak-
ness. Accordingly, when the poHtical genius of Rome
has converted all civilization into a single empire, there
is no national character to serve as soul of this world
empire ; Roman society undergoes the decay of infinite
viciousness, until the new force of Christianity comes to
the rescue.
Thus Hellenism in all its aspects presents the same
appearance : colossal powers, with magnificent achieve-
ments, yet forever checked by limitations of the con-
ditions amid which these powers are working. It is a
totally false reading of history to say that Hellenism was
overthrown by Christianity. The seeds of decay were
in the ancient world itself, and Hellenism everywhere
showed symptoms of exhaustion long before Christian-
ity arose. The world we call modern had to make an
entirely fresh start, under new conditions. Yet this
modern world must forever reckon among its most
priceless possessions the heritage of literature, art, and
philosophy it has received from the ancient Greeks.
It is no less necessary to inquire. What is the essen-
tial spirit of Hebraism ? I use this form of the word in
order to emphasize that it is not the whole history and
culture of the Hebrew people with which we are con-
cerned, but only that element of it which is embodied in
the Uterature we call the Bible. For we cannot insist
too strongly upon the fact that the Bible is a Hterature.
[20]
HELLENIC AND HEBRAIC
One of the features of our age is a remarkable quicken-
ing of the historic spirit. Historic criticism, as in other
fields, has worked upon the Bible : analyzing the text as
it stands into component elements, assigning these com-
ponent elements to various dates, and attempting chron-
ological reconstruction. There has thus arisen a con-
fusion in the popular mind, as if the Bible were being
recast. Now, such historical analysis is legitimate and
valuable in its own sphere : but this sphere is that of
Semitic antiquities. It is a misnomer to call such stud-
ies biblical. If the Bible be taken to pieces, the compo-
nent elements associated with particular historical sur-
roundings, and the parts reconstructed in new sequence,
the result so attained ceases to be the Bible, and becomes
something quite different ; a valuable exhibit, it may be,
for the Semitic specialist, but of no bearing upon the
history of civilization. What makes the groundwork of
our modern religion is, not the history of Israel, but one
particular interpretation of the history of Israel, a
spiritual interpretation made once for all by the sacred
writers, and embodied in the finished literature we call
the Bible. To recast this Bible is as impossible as to
reconstruct Homer, or rewrite Plato, or bring Shakespeare
up to date. It is true that the full literary character
of the Bible is hidden from most of its readers. There
are two reasons for this. In the first place — as a later
chapter will show more at length — most of us read the
Bible in what are really mediaeval versions, broken up
by commentators of the Middle Ages into texts for com-
ment ; however accurate may be the translation of the
words, the literary connection is lost. Again, this Bible
[21]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
has been worked over by theology after theology, each
with a different principle of interpretation : the theologi-
cal interpretations are more familiar than the natural
literary sense. It becomes necessary, avoiding theo-
logical formulations, to realize the content of Scripture
simply read as literature.
In form, the Bible contains a framework of historic
narrative that is no more than a framework, a connei^ive
tissue holding together higher literary forms — story,
lyrics, drama, discourse, philosophic wisdom, epistolary
exposition — which higher forms constitute the life and
spirit of the whole. These higher forms are the He-
braic " classics," the survival of the spiritually fittest.
They hold a position similar to that of Greek "classics,"
yet are so different in literary structure that they would
be important, if for no other reason, as enlarging opr
conceptions of literary form. But, unlike their Hellenic
counterparts, these Hebraic classics are further seen to
draw together with a connectedness like the unity of a
dramatic plot. The Bible thus presents a progression
of things from first beginnings, in historic outline to the
first Christian century, in spiritual vision to a consumma-
tion in an indefinite future. Our immediate question is.
What are the ideas, the literary motives, holding together
this dramatic progression ?
First, in contrast with Greek Uterature, we note in
the Bible the total absence of any suggestion of Destiny.
Though, as we have seen, scriptural literature is a pro-
gression, its earlier conceptions widely sundered from
the later, yet from first to last the supreme power of the
universe is always conceived in the personal form —
[22]
HELLENIC AND HEBRAIC
God. The "work that God doeth from the beginning
even unto the end" is not Destiny but Providence. It
belongs to this freedom from any sense of Destiny that
the Bible places its golden age always in the future, not
in the past ; there is moral inspiration in this vista of an
endless progression that is always a progression upward.
Of course, the supreme Power of the universe is presented
as infinite ; but the personal conception of Deity keeps
this supreme Power always within the circle of human
sympathies. At the same time there is the careful
avoidance of anything that would make this human
conception of Deity a limitation. In the first phase of
Scripture, which we call the Law, the supreme sin is the
sin of idolatry — the ascribing to Deity the likeness of
anything in the heaven above, in the earth beneath, or
in the waters under the earth ; the New Testament lays
down as a foundation thought that God is spirit, and they
that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in
truth. Thus the biblical conception of Deity can never
be outgrown : as man enlarges, his conception of God
enlarges with him. It is a conception that is anthropo-
morphic only in the same sense and for the same reason
that the sky must appear to us spherical and the horizon
circular. With the expansion of man's vision comes
the expansion of his horizon, that is God.
With the idea of God another idea is kept side by side
throughout the Bible : the communion between human-
ity and Deity. The characteristic word of the Bible is
''covenant," the expression of the relationship between
man and God. The Bible is a succession of covenants.
The Old Covenant, or Old Testament, is the covenantal
123]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
relation between God and the People of Israel ; the New
Covenant — which makes its first appearance in the
book of Jeremiah — the covenantal relationship between
God and all individuals in whose hearts and inward parts
this new covenant is written. The lyrics of the Old Tes-
tament voice the most intimate communion between man
and God. In the New Testament the two have met.
Whatever theology may formulate as to the person of
Jesus Christ, the spirit of the New Testament is the
meeting point of humanity and Deity. It is impossible
to read the Fatherhood of God as a mere metaphor.
And what pervades the whole New Testament is by the
fourth gospel carried to a climax : in its mystic phrase-
ology — "I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in
you" — the dividing line between humanity and Deity
has disappeared. Furthermore, as with the passage
from the Old Testament to the New, if not before, the
idea of immortality has come in, and this a personal, in-
dividual immortality, the communion between man and
God is projected beyond the grave to an infinite future.
With such ideas of man and God as its basis, the Bible
presents a progression of things from first beginnings to
a final consummation in a visionary future. What are
the leading motives in this dramatic progression?
They are two, that unite to make a third. The first
may be described as Passionate Righteousness. Right-
eousness, of course, is a basic idea in all the world's great
systems of thought. But Righteousness in the Bible be-
comes an enthusiasm, inspiring the same ecstasy that
elsewhere is inspired by nature joys, by love, by ven-
geance. In the earlier phase of Scripture, which we call
[24]
HELLENIC AND HEBRAIC
the Law, righteousness appears chiefly as a restraining
force, a hohness which separates from what is around.
It is with the prophets that Righteousness becomes pas-
sionate, ahke in its indignation against evil, and its
glorying in the vindication of right. The second bib-
lical motive is Love. It breathes through the lyrics of
the Old Testament ; as the New Testament progresses,
love becomes more and more the supreme attribute
even of Deity itself. It is not the love that is self-cen-
tred, desiring what is external for its own gratification ;
but a love that goes outwards, a yearning that by its
own force flows over everything around, until it can hold
it in a universal embrace.
These two motives combine to make a third. From
first to last the Bible, in no uncertain terms, recognizes
the evil that is in the world : in the presence of evil
Righteousness and Love unite to make the supreme
motive of Redemption. This word we are so accus-
tomed to associate with theology, and its philosophical
schemes of salvation, that it needs a purely literary read-
ing of Scripture to realize that Redemption is of all con-
ceptions the most poetic. The prophetic rhapsodies
read like the day dreams of the spiritual life ; the most
exuberant and delicate poetic imagery is poured forth
over the recovery of the world from its moral chaos, its
conquest not by war but by agencies gentle as the light.
The supreme personality of prophetic vision announces
his mission as that of preaching good tidings to the meek,
binding up the brokenhearted, bringing liberty to the
captives, bringing the oil of joy for mourning, the gar-
ment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. It is this very
[25]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
passage of the Isaiahan Rhapsody which the Jesus of the
New Testament makes the announcement of his own
mission ; the gospels describe this work of heaUng and
redemption, and in the vision of the Transfiguration
present the Law and the Prophets as doing it homage.
And the final vision of all time in which the whole Bible
culminates presents the figure of the Redeemer as su-
preme over all other authority, while all history is to be
summed up as the kingdom of the world becoming the
kingdom of this Christ.
To come back to our main argument : it is the an-
cient Uteratures which are inspired by this Hellenic and
this Hebraic spirit that have been the ancestral litera-
tures of our modern English culture. Yet it is manifest
that this statement will not of itself suffice for the liter-
ary pedigree of the English-speaking peoples. A third
factor has to be recognized, only less important than
the first two. It is a factor much more difficult to
state : we have in this case, not distinct ancestral
literatures, but a complex of many forces working to-
gether. Nor is there any generally accepted term by
which these are known. I will adopt the expression
Medisevalism and Romance : Mediaevalism to describe
the historic conditions ; Romance, the literary aspect
of the result. And to realize clearly this third factor
of our pedigree, it will be necessary to summarize the
history of the Middle Ages, the period of gestation for
the forces with which we are concerned. I fear that
to some of my readers I shall seem to be reciting very
elementary historic facts. But in a case like this it is
[26]
MEDIiEVALISM AND ROMANCE
the elementary facts that constitute the difficulty : in
dealing with so vast and so vaguely known a period as
the Middle Ages it needs some resolution to keep the semi-
relevant details from obscuring the essential outline.
I. The Middle Ages should not be understood as a
chronological term, measurable in centuries; it is the
expression of the transition from Roman to modern
civilization. The Roman Empire, which is our start-
ing point, was an Hellenic civilization centring around
the Mediterranean : the name of this sea becomes
highly significant in this connection. On the east of
the Roman Empire we have the remnant of the great
Persian Empire, the last but one of the world powers.
To the same region belong, what are important for
coming movements, the Semitic civilizations of the
Arabs and the Jews. To the west of the Roman Em-
pire lies the region of the barbarian peoples, raw
material for the Europe of the future. It is simply
bewildering to enumerate the separate races, which
indeed have importance only in tfeeir amalgamation.
We may perhaps think of them as falling into two
classes, which may be described by the terms *' Ger-
manic " and " Migratory." Germanic is not here used
as a strict ethnological term, but a number of allied
stocks may be signified by what was destined to be their
dominant element. All barbarian races were migra-
tory. But those of the Germanic order migrated only
in the sense of gravitating to their permanent seats.
Other races — Slavs, Huns, eventually Turks — ap-
pear in European history as migratory in another sense :
like sudden floods they descend at intervals upon the
[27]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
comparatively settled society of Europe, making epochs
of distm'bance and shock, until they at last find a place
in the European system.
II. The first onward stage from our starting-point
is that, slowly but surely, this Roman Empue becomes
Christianized. In its total significance this of course
implies that Hebraic culture gradually pervades Hel-
lenic. But of this wide revolution a single aspect has
for us specific importance. As part of the institutions
of Christianity we have the rise of the clergy, an order
which is intellectual but not hereditary. As non-
hereditary, the order of the clergy becomes a recruit-
ing ground for talent of all kinds; from the lowest
ranks of society, and even from among slaves, indi-
viduals can by this means pass to the highest positions
of influence. As an intellectual order, the clergy make
the channels by which culture is conveyed from the
centre to every part of the vast whole. The secular
clergy bring the religious ideas of which Rome is the
centre to every hamlet and every hearth, and keep
them in evidence through each season of the changing
year. Later on, the monastic clergy, dissociated from
local ties, become the special instrument by which the
Pope in Rome maintains his hold upon all Christen-
dom : the Dominicans and Franciscans are his eccle-
siastical knighthood, the mendicant friars his guerilla
forces. More than anything else it is the order of the
clergy that makes the bridge by which Roman culture
is transported to future ages. The Middle Ages
may almost be summed up as the transition of the
Roman Empire into the Roman Church.
[28]
MEDIEVALISM AND ROMANCE
III. We pass now into a period marked by the
struggle for existence of the Roman Empire in conflict
with barbarian races. The struggle becomes a drawn
battle. The material side of civilization passes more
and more into the hands of the barbarians; new and
vigorous races control government, yet, as they settle
into organized life, become tinctured with the civiliza-
tion they have conquered. On the other hand, mental
culture is retained by Rome through its clergy. From
this time onward we find a monastic monopoly of
learning. And the word "learning" must not deceive
us : education down to its very elements is confined to
the clergy. This is brought home to our imagination
by a curious survival from this era into the far future
— the " benefit of clergy," or right of the clergy to be
tried by their own courts, the test of such clerical
status being the power to read a book : a survival point-
ing to the time when the reading, which we consider
the first step in education, was of itself sufficient
to constitute membership in the clerical profes-
sion. In this period, moreover, of struggle and con-
tinual war, not only is education confined to the non-
combatant clergy, but what culture there is undergoes
a great shrinkage: we have the "Dark Ages." The
Hellenic learning that has descended from the Roman
Empire becomes contracted to a minimum, and that
minimum becomes adulterated with ecclesiastical
limitations; mathematics tends to be little more
than the "computus" or mode of determining the date
of Easter, and history is dwarfed to the monastic
chronicle. What is stranger still, Hebraic culture
[29]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
undergoes a similar shrinkage. So far as Christianity
is a theology, its foundation doctrines are emphasized
by the mediaeval church and made prevalent. But
if we regard Christianity as the religion of the Bible,
resting therefore upon the basis of a rich and varied
literature, we seek in vain for such biblical culture in
the Dark Ages. To how small a point it has shrunk
we may best realize by noting what appears long after-
wards, when Europe has advanced from the Dark Ages
to the verge of the Renaissance. We find a Martin
Luther — already a university man, nearing his
Bachelor's degree, and exceptionally inclined to reli-
gious studies — as he rummages among books in the
university library, coming by accident for the first time
upon a copy of the Bible, and finding with amazement
that it is a whole literature, and not merely the frag-
ments of gospels and epistles read in the services of the
Church : the shock of surprise altered his whole life.
And another of the reformers, Carlstadt, tells us that
he was a Doctor of Theology in the University of
Wittenberg before he had ever read the Scriptures.
The Dark Ages involve a loss of knowledge just as
much as the confinement of knowledge to a single class.
IV. From the Dark Ages we pass to the climax of
"The Holy Roman Empire." The Middle Ages must
no longer be described by negative terms ; they have
attained a characteristic individuality that distinguishes
a great period in universal history. In other epochs
of European history we have to do with various races
and peoples : in the Middle Ages European civilization
conceives of itself as a single unity, at once a Church
[30]
MEDIiEVALISM AND ROMANCE
and a State. Its one aspect is the Holy Catholic
Church ; the other is the Holy Roman Empire. The
drawn battle between Rome and barbarism, by which
the new races have won material power and Rome has
conquered in the spiritual world, here stands fully
displayed ; it is some German potentate who represents
the outward authority of Rome, a Pope in Rome itself
who sways all Christendom in things of the spmt.
And the one is as "holy" as the other : as the soul can-
not operate except through the body, and the body is
dead without the soul, so Emperor and Pope may be
forever struggling for predominance, but neither can
exist without the other. A conception like this is the
passionate faith of great mediaeval thinkers like Dante ;
it no less plays its part in the practical politics of the
least imaginative rulers and statesmen.
If from this general conception we descend to analysis,
we find three elements side by side in this dominant
phase of mediaeval history. We have the Catholic
Church : the whole of civilization appears as a single
spiritual body, with the Pope in Rome as the brain,
and the clergy as the ramified system of nerves by
which he communicates with the corporate whole.
The second element is the Feudal System. Instead
of natural divisions of mankind, like races and nations,
we find shifting political units — the feudal tenures.
The principle of feudalism is the combination of two
things : the tenure of land by military service to a
superior, and the hereditary principle. Each feudal
chief, in the spirit of the parable, is a man under author-
ity, having authorities under him : supreme in the
131]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
administration of his own realm, he yet has allegiance
to powers above him, until the hierarchy ends in the
ideal Emperor. The accidents that go with the heredi-
tary principle — failure of heirs, intermarriage, to say
nothing of violent action and war — keep these units
of government forever shifting, and the map of Europe
changes from day to day. To these two a third ele-
ment must be added, prominent not so much at the
time as in the light of the future. The common
Roman language, acting upon various local modes of
speech, begins to form varjdng languages ; where Latin
is stronger than local linguistic influence, we have
Romance languages, Italian, French, Spanish; where
the local speech is the stronger of the two, we get Ger-
manic languages, such as English or German. Lan-
guage is the main basis of nationaUty; and thus in
the heart of the Middle Ages, with its unity of Euro-
pean civilization, are being gradually prepared the
pohtical units of the future, the great nations of Europe.
V. Thus the original Roman Empire had drawn the
barbarian west into itself, and moulded the whole into
an imperial and ecclesiastical unity. Meanwhile, a
strangely parallel movement had been going on upon
the other side of the Mediterranean. In the far East
another Semitic people had suddenly risen to be a
world power; the Arabs, inspired by the powerful
individuality of Mahomet, had produced a new reli-
gion, a perverted Hebraism. Appealing as this religion
does to the more facile side of the moral nature, it had
spread like wild-fire through regions of Indian, Persian,
Greek, African civilization, until from Babylon to the
[32]
MEDIEVALISM AND ROMANCE
Atlantic coast of Africa Islam stood up to confront
Christendom. Mohammedan civilization, like Christ-
ian, exhibits the blending of Semitic and Aryan culture ;
not only the seats of oriental learning, but Alexandria
itself, centre of Greek literature and science, had been
swept into the Mohammedan world. The parallel
must be carried a step further. On the European side,
of all binding forces the most potent was the Latin
language, sole language alike of religion and education,
the circulating medium for ideas from end to end of
Christendom. In precisely the same way, the Arabic
was the sole official language of the Mohammedan
world : in this medium alone Indian, Persian, Greek
wisdom could find currency. This has an important
bearing upon future history. The Arabians of the
Middle Ages had (so to speak) the main carrying trade
in ideas, but they brought nothing of their own to the
civilization of the future. Arabians gave a great
impulse to mediaeval philosophy ; but they did this with
translations of Aristotle. Arabians were the leading
scientists of the Middle Ages, especially in the science
of medicine, with the great names of Averroes and
Avicenna; but the enormous medical literature in
Arabic is a second-hand literature, and, except for small
advances in pharmacopoeia, Greek medical art lost,
rather than gained, in the hands of the Arabs. They
gave an Arabic name to "Algebra" : but on their own
showing it was a Greek science they were expounding.
Most important of all : the Arabic notation seems to
us the indispensable foundation of all mathematics,
and through mathematics of all exact science. But
D [33]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
the one thing certain about the Arabic notation is that
it was not Arabic. In the form in which the Arabians
conveyed it to Europe they had learned it from Indian
philosophers; but it is still a moot question whether
the essentials of the Arabic notation had not been
established centuries earlier than this in the Greek
Alexandria. In spite of the briUiant mediaeval career
of Arabic learning the roots of our civilization remain
Hellenic and Hebraic.
VI. It was inevitable that sooner or later the West
and the East, Christianity and Islam, should clash.
By what seems one of the accidents of history, the
Arabs — or, as they are then called, the Saracens — had
been able to secure a strong foothold in the Spanish
peninsula of Europe. From this as a base in the eighth
century they make their advances. Europe concen-
trates its full strength to oppose them under the leader-
ship of Charles Martel; and in the great Battle of
Tours — as decisive a world crisis as Marathon — it
is settled forever that there shall be no Mohammedan
domination of Europe. Three centuries afterwards
we have, so to speak, the return match. In the suc-
cession of expeditions known as the Crusades all
Europe put its strength into the invasion of the Sara-
cenic world. Christendom proved as powerless to
subdue Islam as Islam had been powerless to defeat
European Christendom. Meanwhile, these clashes of
East and West had served as the great tides of the
mediaeval ocean. Each civilization had been strained
to its highest bent in conflict with the other. In Europe,
more particularly, the constituent parts of the whole
[34 1
MEDIiEVALISM AND ROMANCE
by events like these had been shaken together; by
the Crusades Europe was brought to a knowledge of
itself.
VII. With these elements of mediaeval history as a
basis, we are now in a position to take a survey of
mediaBval culture. But here a distinction must be
made, if our survey is to escape being burdened with
a great deal of what, however important in itself, is not
strictly relevant to our present purpose. I have used
the term '^ Middle Ages," not as a chronological term,
but as the description of a transition. If we simply
take the centuries that intervene between the Roman
\No'
Aevo European %/,^^
Modern Times
Renaissance
Middle Ages
Dark Ages
Empire and the Renaissance, and analyze the literary
and philosophical content of these centuries, a con-
siderable proportion of what we encounter has its true
relevance not so much to contemporary history as to
the future. We have seen that in the midst of the
[35]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
European unity which is the essential distinction of
the IVIiddle Ages we have also the gradual evolution,
by slow linguistic divergence, of what are hereafter to
be the nations of Europe. The literary movements
and literary product of the mediaeval centuries belong
in a very considerable degree to the separate history of
the individual European peoples. We are here con-
cerned only with that part of the whole which, in a
strict sense, constitutes medisevalism.
1. The foremost element of mediaeval culture is that
which is expressed by the picturesque yet appropriate
name of Gothic Architecture. This has, of course,
developmental connection with previous art — Greek,
Byzantine, Saracenic ; yet it is strongly original, and
seems to us to breathe the very soul of the centuries
that produced it. It stands as the supremely great
contribution of the Middle Ages to the culture of the
world.
2. We may notice, next, the purely ecclesiastical
literature. The Christian Fathers make a library in
themselves, not only indispensable to the theologian
and ecclesiastical historian, but holding a place of their
own in philosophy. With these may be placed the
grand Latin Hymns of the Church. Several of these
in modern versions are still a part of Christian worship.
Yet this seems to be a branch of poetry which less than
most lends itself to translation. The Latin of these
hymns has a rhythmic ring as far removed from classical
Latin as it is difficult to convey into modern languages.
They are, moreover, strong with the simplicity that
seems never to come after the early stages of poetry.
[36]
MEDIiEVALISM AND ROMANCE
In the feeling of no few readers, the Hymn as a poetic
type has in these outpourings of the early Church
reached its highest point.
3. Mediaeval Science has already been mentioned,
and is the least important product of its era. What
science the Greeks bequeathed to future ages appears
here diluted by Arabic and Latin translations, and still
further limited by the ecclesiastical uses to which it was
put. Medical practice figured largely in the Middle
Ages, but medical theory was almost stationary.
4. Of much greater importance is the philosophy of
the Middle Ages, known by the name of Scholasticism,
or Doctrine of the Schools. This forms a distinct
chapter of Universal Philosophy ; one that must always
be read with the deepest respect for the mental strength
and infinite subtilty that it displays. But it is a
portion of philosophy which stands entirely apart by
itself. As philosophy is understood elsewhere, it can-
not exist in the atmosphere of authority. But Scho-
lasticism is a reasoned attempt to harmonize these
two incompatible things, and to reach ecclesiastical
dogma by logical methods. Hellenic systems of dia-
lectic are applied to Hebraic truths as laid down by
ecclesiastical authority. The conclusion is first as-
sumed, and then the argument may wander until it
finds it ; or indeed there is yet another alternative, the
position that something may be true in logic and yet
false in faith. As it appears to me, a somewhat false
conception of Scholasticism is made current by the
way in which our histories of philosophy confine their
notice of it to the Nominalist and Realist controversy,
[37]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
or at least to the works of the great scholastic doctors,
Anselm, Thomas Aqumas, Duns Scotus. No doubt
this is the portion of scholastic literature most inter-
esting to the philosophic thinker. But we must re-
member that the general character of mediaeval life
involved, alike in poetry and philosophy, a return in
some measure to floating literature ; written literature
continued, but around it there played a transitory
literature, vastly greater in extent, which was purely
oral. In philosophy, this oral literature was the de-
bate : the interminable public discussion in which
doctor encountered doctor before an excited audience.
In such debates the activity of the Schoolmen found
its main expression; the written works of the leaders
of Scholasticism were a small part of the whole. Thus
the main influence of Scholasticism in the history of
thought is that it shifted the emphasis in philosophy
from investigation or exposition to disputation. The
combative instinct became a disturbing force to logical
sequence. The continuity of the treatise or lecture
gave place to the series of numbered propositions —
like the ninety or hundred theses with which Luther
and Eck contended — each brief proposition a clenched
fist of challenge to dispute ; a change closely analogous
to that other mediaeval change by which the literary
continuity of Scripture was broken up into numbered
texts for comment. It was this aspect of Scholasticism
which impressed the men of the modern type of mind
who came nearest to it, men like Erasmus and Bacon.
What Erasmus says must of course be read as humorous
satire.
[38]
MEDIEVALISM AND ROMANCE
They fence themselves in with so many surrounders of magisterial
definitions, conclusions, corollaries, propositions explicit and im-
plicit, that there is no falling in with them ; or if they do chance to
be urged to a seeming nonplus, yet they find out so many evasions,
that all the art of man can never bind them so fast, but that an easy
distinction shall give them a starting-hole to escape the scandal of
being baffled. They will cut asunder the toughest argument with
as much ease as Alexander did the Gordian Knot. . . . They have
yet far greater difficulties behind, which, notwithstanding, they
solve with as much expedition as the former, as . . . whether this
proposition is possible to be true, the first person of the Trinity
hated the second ? Wliether God, who took our nature on him in
the form of a man, could as well have become a woman, a devil,
a beast, a herb, or a stone ? and were it so possible that the God-
head had appeared in any shape of an inanimate substance, how he
should then have preached his gospel ? or how have been nailed to
the cross ? . . . There are a thousand other more sublimated and
refined niceties of notions, relations, quantities, formalities, quiddi-
ties, haeccities, and such like abstrusities, as one would think no one
could pry into, unless he had not only such cat's eyes as to see best
in the dark, but even such a piercing faculty as to see through an
inch board, and spy out what really never had any being.^
But Bacon's criticism is sober analysis : —
. . . the manner or method of handling a knowledge, which among
them was this ; upon every particular position or assertion to frame
objections, and to those objections, solutions ; which solutions were
for the most part not confutations, but distinctions : whereas in-
deed the strength of all sciences is, as the strength of the old man's
faggot, in the bond. For the harmony of a science, supporting each
part the other, is and ought to be the true and brief confutation and
suppression of all the smaller sort of objections. But, on the other
side, if you take out every axiom, as the sticks of the faggot, one by
one, you may quarrel with them and bend and break them at your
1 Erasmus : Praise of Folly.
[39]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
pleasure. . . . And such is their method, that rests not so much
upon evidence of truth proved by arguments, authorities, simiUtudes,
examples, as upon particular confutations and solutions of every
scruple, cavillation, and objection, breeding for the most part one
question as fast as it solveth another.^
Upon both Erasmus and Bacon we see that Scholas-
ticism impresses itself as a vitiation of philosophic
method : the natural perspective of investigation or
exposition lost in the perspective of debate.
5. Mediaeval literature includes a body of Religious
Epic Poetry : of legends, miracles, lives of saints.
This pervaded the centuries as a floating literature ; it
is best known to us in the collection of these stories,
roughly associated with the successive parts of the
ecclesiastical year, under the name of The Golden
Legend. This Golden Legend of course is not an epic
poem, but it may be regarded as a cycle of epic poetry.
These stories of the saints, more than anything else,
bring us into close touch with the pulsating everyday
life of the Middle Ages. It would be a shallow criticism
that would regard these as the product of credulity.
Credulity is a negative that cannot create : these
golden legends are filled with creative reality. It is at
this point that mediaevalism is in sharpest contrast
with the spirit of the present age. The objective
material world, so clear cut to us as seen in the light
of science, was dim to the men of the Dark Ages.
Theirs was the inward vision, the eye opened to the
spiritual world interpenetrating the life of ordinary
experience: a palpable spiritual realm filled with
^ Bacon : Advancement oj Learning.
[40]
MEDIEVALISM AND ROMANCE
hierarchies of superhuman powers, fighting on oppo-
site sides in the battle of salvation. In such a world
miracle becomes the ordinary course of things; the
measure of probability is the stimulus each incident
gives to faith. If the sense of wonder is present at all,
it is present only as the salt to the food of devotion.
6. To Mediaeval Religious Epic must be added
Mediaeval Religious Drama. The whole spirit of pub-
lic worship was dramatic, and the mass was the daily
presentation of miracle. In time, complete dramatic
scenes were evolved with an independent interest of
their own : the Miracle Play, in which the plot was an
incident of sacred history ; the Morality, in which the
plot was latent in the allegorical personages repre-
sented. It is well known how the Miracle Play and
Morality became further and further dissociated from
their ecclesiastical origin; the use of realistic details
as a mode of vivification introduced a spirit of seculari-
zation, and the mediaeval drama was at last brought,
through the Interlude, to the very verge of the modern
play. But there is a more deep-seated influeti^e than
this of mediaeval drama in literary history. The
Ancient Classical Drama was the Drama of Situation :
however much its successive phases might vary, it re-
tained from first to last a fixity of form — the suggestion
of a whole story through the actual presentation of only
a single situation. The effect of the mediaeval drama
was to shift the dramatic emphasis from situation to in-
cident ; in the earlier Miracle Plays to a single incident,
in the Collective Miracle Play to a series of incidents
covering the whole of sacred history. In this way the
[411
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
medijEval drama became a transition stage to the com-
ing Romantic Drama with its presentation of whole
stories.
VIII. Yet all that has so far been enumerated con-
stitutes the less significant aspects of medisevalism.
The most important product of the Middle Ages, at
least from the standpoint of the present discussion,
is the grand popular imaginative hterature ultimately
to be known by the name of " Romance." From the
very beginning of modern literary history a leading
question has been the Origin of Romance. But the older
theories fell into the error of seeking single causes for
this vast literary phenomenon. The real source of
Romance is the constitution of the Middle Ages as a
whole.
The Middle Ages constitute a vast gathering ground
of poetic material for fusion and intermingling; for
poetic use at the time, and as foundation for the poetry
of the future. Europe at this period was possessed by
a sense of unity, never possible before or in the future.
Diversity of language, the greatest of dividing forces,
was then at its minimum ; nationality was only begin-
ning its process of formation; the consciousness of
unity, inherited from the Roman Empire, was empha-
sized by unity of religion, and brought home to daily
life by uniformity of worship ; there was one single
educated class, speaking a single language of education.
We may say that the very stratification of society
tended in the same direction. With us, the divisions
of society are (so to speak) vertical ; the higher and
lower classes of the same nation are more closely in
[42]
MEDI.EVALISM AND ROMANCE
sympathy with one another than with corresponding
ranks abroad. In the Middle Ages the stratification
was horizontal : the knights formed a freemasonry all
over Europe; the populace everywhere had the same
troubles and the same clergy to voice them ; everywhere
the towns had the same practical problems and the same
modes of meeting them. For such a European com-
munity a circulating medium of ideas was found in the
various wandering classes : the wandering minstrels,
the wandering scholars, the wandering friars and
palmers, the wandering merchants. Finally, great
movements like the Crusades brought, not profes-
sional armies, but great bodies of the people, down
even in one case to children, from all regions into
actual personal contact.
Of what nature were the poetic materials brought
together by this unification of Europe? In the first
place, we have the original folklore of the races thus
intermingling : English folklore and German ; Celtic
lore, with the delicate fairy tracery of Irish imagina-
tion ; Norse heroic saga, in its poetic potentiality
the peer of Greek epic ; all the accumulations of
Oriental nations, brought into Europe by the Arabs ;
these, in addition to what remained of Hellenic story,
especially Greek novels, and the story wealth of the
Bible, with traditions of miracle and martyrdom that
had gathered round it. But in addition to all this
there are special poetic motives generated by mediaeval
life itself. Of these, the most prominent is Chivalry.
The feudal system multiplied courts, and "courts"
(as Spenser has said) are the root of "courtesy"; of
143]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
the gay science (we may add), and what has been
called "the metaphysics of love" ; all this the secular
product of that Germanic instinct which m religion
added Mariolatry to biblical Christianity. Again,
we have Allegory and Mysticism : this is to be found
in all ages of literature, but we may look for it in special
force where we have an educated class excluded from
the dominant interests of war and love, except so far
as these can appear in symbolic forms. The interest
of Marvels and Wonderland is a universal interest;
but it will be accentuated in an age of travel and wan-
dering life. And we must add the special interest of
Magic. Magic of some kind belongs to widely different
eras, witness the Thessalian Witch and the Witch of
Endor : it was the dominating reality of mediaeval
hfe. Gustave Dore's picture of the Triumph of Christ-
ianity represents the Messiah and his angels driving
before them into the pit of hell figures easily recog-
nizable as the gods of Greek or Oriental rehgions.
This exactly reproduces the historic fact : the Christ-
ianization of the barbarian peoples was, not the
extinction, but the conquest of heathendom, the gods of
the old religions becoming the demons of the new.
Thus was provided in mediaeval thought a whole appa-
ratus of supernatural powers, warring in the fight of
good against evil; the "White Magic" of the miracle-
working Church was pitted against the " Black Magic "
of wonders wrought by demonic powers for the price
of human souls. Or, if any nature powers were of too
neutral a character to have place in the contest of good
and evil, the Rosicrucian Magic presented these as
[44]
MEDI.EVALISM AND ROMANCE
elemental beings of earth, air, fire, water. Chivalry,
Allegory, Wonderland, Magic — these together make
an atmosphere favorable to the most prolific invention
of imaginative poetry, to be added to the rich imagina-
tive stores inherited from earlier ages.
We have thus a limitless variety of poetic materials
and a common field on which they may unite. The
free intermingling and fusion of these varieties is further
favored by two circumstances. One is that in the
Middle Ages we have a partial reversion to the condi-
tions of floating literature. Oral literature prepon-
derates over written; hearers ready to listen are
universal, reading is the special function of a profes-
sional class. It is obvious that writing tends to fixity
in literature; oral poetry, free to vary with every
recitation, makes a floating medium in which the most
varied elements can come together, and gradually feel
their way to amalgamation. To this it must be added,
that all through the period under discussion the limit-
ing influence of criticism was in abeyance. In Greek
literature creative poetry and criticism sprang up
simultaneously; not of course the systematized criti-
cism of an Aristotle, but that unconscious criticism of
the public mind which favors fixity of form and literary
conservatism; such critical sense as kept tragedy and
comedy distinct at Athens, limited dramatic structure
by unity of scene, or even resented any enlargement
by Euripides of dramatic practice followed by Sophocles.
There is not a trace of such critical stiffness in mediaeval
poetry. The tragic and the comic may mingle as freely
as they do in actual life. Even the sharp line that
145]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
divides story from history has been lost : the historic
chronicle is filled in with imaginative details by a
trouvere, and becomes history to a future chronicler.
In this way it is the general condition of things we
call ''Mediaevalism" that brings about the literary
product which comes to be called "Romance." The name
seems natural in an age of which a leading phenomenon
is the breaking up of the dominant Roman language
into a number of allied languages the larger part of
which go by the name of "Romance" languages. The
essential character of this Romantic poetry is the
amalgamation of the literary riches of many races in a
product that becomes infinitely richer as it amalga-
mates. Such Romance becomes something of a World
Literature in itself, as we follow adventures of Charle-
magne's Peers that involve episodes in Ireland or Sicily,
the speakers in these incidents citing parallels from
legends of Troy or Thebes, with references to Russia
and Lithuania, while at times Christian hermits have
to work miracles that may counteract the magic power
of a Proteus, or Venus, or Osiris. The supreme creative
power that can produce the Greek masterpieces carries
with it, as its shadow, critical limitations ; these powers
and limitations may well be in abeyance for a few cen-
turies while new veins of poetic matter are being
worked, to supplement the exhausted material of
classical poetry. Or, if we go no further than the
elementary consideration of quantity, the mass of
Romance has its significance as a counterpoise, in the
European mind, to the overpowering authority of the
classical models soon to be recovered.
[ 46 ]
MEDIiEVALISM AND ROMANCE
IX. The movement which terminates the Middle
Ages and ushers in our modern times is known as the
Renaissance. Great is the power of the metaphors
hidden in words : it has become a matter of dispute in
what sense this movement is a "new birth." Some
have been wilUng to recognize only a sudden movement,
dated from the capture of Constantinople by the Turks
in A.D. 1453, which produced an exodus of Greek schol-
ars westward, bringing to Europe as a whole both the
classical literature itself and the classical scholarship
that could interpret it. But to take this view is to
ignore the steady advance towards the constitution of
the modern world which had been made all through
the latter part of the Middle Ages. Others have made
the birth of the modern world consist in the recovery,
whether gradual or sudden, of classical thought and art :
this ignores the immense contribution made by the
Middle Ages to modernism, a contribution including
Christianity itself. The fundamental principle of this
work is that modern civilization rests upon the union of
the Hellenic and Hebraic factors. The Middle Ages
had added Christianity to Hellenism, but (as we have
seen) both biblical and classical literatures were known
in an imperfect and distorted form; the Renaissance
from our point of view is the recovery of Hellenic and
Hebraic culture in their completeness. Thus the
movement is twofold ; and each half carries with it
what is a spurious counterpart of itself. In the first
place, we have the complete recovery of classical litera-
ture and art ; classical manuscripts replace the mediaeval
translations and perversions, and a classical scholar-
[47]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
ship is formed by the study of these, while in poetry
an era of translation makes an apprenticeship of
modern poets to Greek masters. This is the Renais-
sance Proper. But in its earlier stages there goes with
it the Pseudo-Hellenism of the age of the Medici : in
religion a recrudescence of paganism, in art a blind
worship of what is classical, all other types ignored as
"gothic" barbarity. The other half of the Renaissance
is what is usually called the Reformation. We now
have Hebraic literature recovered in its fulness: the
manuscripts brought into western Europe include the
Hebrew and Greek Scriptures; the scholarship of a
Budseus and an Erasmus is applied to their elucidation ;
when the results of this have had time to reach the
general mind, the great religious movement super-
venes which brings back Christianity to its foundation
upon the Bible as a whole. But the Reformation in its
later stages brings the Pseudo-Hebraism that makes
Puritanism. The translated Bible has reached the
whole people ; it is a complete Scripture, but Scripture
broken by mediaeval doctors into texts by which all
literary continuity is lost. Melancthon's ideal also
is lost, that learning should be the bulwark to religion
against enthusiasm. The words and phrases of Scrip-
ture, and its mere surface meanings divorced from
literary or historic setting, are seized upon by a reli-
gious earnestness that mistakes the fervor of novelty
for spiritual inspiration ; faith and culture are divorced,
and tumultuous religious warfare supersedes the sanity
of devotion. It is only when this fever of distorted
Hebraism has worn itself out that the biblical element
[481
MEDIiEVALISM AND ROMANCE
can be recognized in its true influence on the formation
of the modern world.
X. Thus Modern Culture, the point up to which this
discussion has led, may be summed up as a New
Thought, a New Poetry, a New Religion, and a New
Art. A New Thought : we have a fresh start of
science and philosophy from the point at which the
Greeks left off. But the intervening period has pro-
duced two inventions which have revolutionized think-
ing. The silent, unheralded, almost unperceived rise
of scientific experimentation, not only has restored
observation as the essential basis of science and phi-
losophy, but further serves to carry this observation
direct to the crucial points at which truth is likely to
be found. The more obvious invention of printing
perpetuates and distributes records : the ancient con-
ception of philosophy, which leads each thinker to
attempt a complete explanation of all things, gives
place to the New Thought, in which observers and
thinkers of all races and generations gradually resolve
into a cooperation for the advance of truth, as limitless
as the human race itself. We have again a New
Poetry : the combined influences of Medisevalism and
Hellenism give to modern literature its fundamental
antithesis of Romantic and Classical. These are the
centripetal and centrifugal forces of creative literature :
the Classical impulse is towards echoing the poetry of
the past, ministering to an established sense of form,
recalling creative details already dear to the imagina-
tion in ever new kaleidoscopic variations ; the Roman-
tic impulse is towards novelty, free invention and
B [49]
LITERARY PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH
surprise. The mutual play of these antithetic ten-
dencies keeps poetry in wholesome equilibrium. And
there is a sense in which a New Religion distinguishes
the modern world. It will have its Protestantism and
Catholicism, its religions of authority, its rationalistic,
mystical, or agnostic systems. But all alike will
differ from what has gone before by their free play of
religious thought, in which authority itself must be a
voluntarily accepted authority. And they will all
rest upon an Hebraic basis : to whatever limit their
final conclusions maj^ be carried, the only possible
starting-point for modern religions will be the moral
and spiritual conceptions of which the Bible is the
literary monument. In a somewhat different sense
we may speak, finally, of a New Art for the modern
world. The other arts have come to us by a continuous
development, quickened no doubt by the Renaissance ;
but the special art of the modern world is the art of
music. It has its roots in the ecclesiastical worship
of the mediaeval church and the folk songs of European
peoples. But the backbone of musical art is the orches-
tra, in which of course human voices find a place as
one type of instruments. Now the orchestra is in-
separably bound up with mechanical invention, the
great achievement of modern times. Each invention
of a musical instrument, or enlargement of the power
of an existing instrument, means an enlargement of
musical thought ; the enlarging musical thought in its
turn calls for enlarged instrumental technique, until
what leaders of music in Beethoven's day pronounced
impossible, has become easy to our modern players.
[50]
MEDI.EVALISM AND ROMANCE
Music thus becomes the most progressive of the fine
arts. And it is music which has placed the modern
world on a par artistically with the greatest ages of
the past. A symphony of Beethoven or Tschaikowsky,
rendered by one of the half-dozen supremely equipped
orchestras of our own day, is as colossal an artistic
achievement as a statue by Phidias or Cologne Cathe-
dral.
These seem to be the historic considerations that
determine the descent of our modern English culture
from influences of antiquity, and its varied relationship
with the culture of other peoples. We recognize two
ultimate factors : ancestral literatures, completed and
belonging to the far past. A third factor is the
complex of historic conditions and literary relation-
ships constituting Mediaevalism, in its literary aspect
Romance; into this Mediaevalism the primitive Eng-
lish literature passed, along with the primitive litera-
tures of allied European races, and in this way entered
into associations with the culture of various peoples,
ancient and modern. The original chart, with which
(on page 12) we sought to indicate the relationship of
English civilization to the main civilizations of the
world, needs to be modified in order to give its proper
place to this new factor of Mediaevalism and Romance.
As so modified (page 52), it may stand for the Liter-
ary Pedigree of the English-speaking Peoples, bringing
out, in all that has a bearing upon literature, our
nearer or more remote relationship to the rest of the
world. It thus satisfies one of the two conditions
necessary for forming our conception of World Litera-
[51]
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[52]
ENGLISH WORLD LITERATURE
ture. The other condition is that intrinsic literary
value shall have its full recognition, by which particular
portions of literature may be brought from most dis-
tant historic relationship into the foreground of our
literary perspective.
Ill
WORLD LITERATURE FROM THE ENGLISH POINT OF
VIEW
All that has been attempted so far has been prelimi-
nary. The purpose of this work is the practical realiza-
tion of World Literature from the English point of view :
actual selection of literature entering into this concep-
tion, and a grasp of the spirit in which such literature
is to be approached. It is manifestly an assistance to-
wards this purpose to have at the start something like a
map of literature as a whole ; only a small part of this
whole can be compassed, yet at least the instinct of
choice is provided with a sense of direction in which to
move.
As a step in the solution of our problem I wish, bor-
rowing a term from religious phraseology, to speak of
Literary Bibles. The great religions of the world rest
each on its sacred books ; it seems not improper to ex-
tend a word familiar in this connection to collections of
works holding a somewhat analogous position in the
purely literary field. In its full conception, the word
"bible" combines wide range of literature with high sig-
nificance of matter and some sense of literary unity ; it
further suggests a process of selection already accom-
[53]
CONSPECTUS OF WORLD LITERATURE
plished by evolution, a survival of the spiritually
fittest. Viewing universal literature from our English
standpoint, it appears to me that five such Literary
Bibles may be recognized. The first is of course the
Holy Bible : this comprehends in its completeness one
out of our two ancestral literatures. For the other an-
cestral literature, the Hellenic, we may, I think, make
an approach to such representation — but only an ap-
proach — by a particular combination of Classical Epic
and Tragedy, a combination which will give us a unity,
and will include the Classical Uterature which has most
powerfully influenced the poetry of succeeding ages.
Again, from the English point of view, the unique po-
sition held by Shakespeare suggests a third Literary
Bible. We may attain a fourth if we place side by side,
as two elements of an antithesis, the Divine Comedy of
Dante and the Paradise Lost of Milton — the supreme
expression, respectively, of Mediaeval Catholicism and
Renaissance Protestantism. Once more, it is interest-
ing to note how the Story of Faust, welling up from the
fountain of mediaeval legend, has attracted the highest
minds of the modern world, leading to successive literary
presentations of the same theme varied in their poetic
dress, and still more contrasted in the underlying phi-
losophy ; these Versions of the Faust Story will consti-
tute a fifth Literary Bible. These five Literary Bibles
put together will in themselves make a nucleus of
World Literature. They will be the subject of the five
chapters that immediately follow.^
' Mr. Denton J. Snider, in an organization known as the St.
Louis (subsequently the Chicago) Literary School, used to deal with
[54]
FROM THE ENGLISH POINT OF VIEW
Our chart of literary pedigree distinguishes between
those elements of universal literature which enter di-
rectly into our literary evolution, and those which bear
to it a more remote relationship, or are altogether ex-
traneous. The five Literary Bibles just suggested are
concerned with the first class ; what portions of the
other literatures can be drawn into our scheme will be
discussed in the sixth chapter on Collateral Studies in
World Literature.
When this much has been secured, a due representa-
tion of our nearer and more remote literary affiliations, a
large scope is left for individual choice. But the free-
dom of individual choice may yet be true to the essential
idea of feehng after the unity of literature, especially if
it seeks to draw together analogous works from different
quarters of the literary field. The scientific treatment
of our subject has indicated a similar purpose by its
name of Comparative Literature. The seventh chap-
ter, on Comparative Reading, will suggest an analogous
principle applicable to the most general reader's enjoy-
ment of literature.
The standpoint of this work is literary culture, as dis-
tinguished from literary science. Now, it has been
characteristic of the ''gentle reader" — as the last cen-
tury styled him — that he has always laid emphasis
upon literature as a revelation of the personality of the
the general literary field by the assumption of four World Bibles
— Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe. Though the particular
selection does not satisfy me, yet I have always considered this
one of the most interesting attempts to compass in practical educa-
tion the study of World Literature.
[55 1
CONSPECTUS OF WORLD LITERATURE
author. In the past no doubt this has been carried to
excess, and hterary biography, not to say Uterary gossip,
has passed muster for the study of Uterature. Yet the
instinct is a sound one; it is the high prerogative of
literature to bring us into contact with the best minds.
But this is attained in the highest degree when we seek,
not what others tell of authors, but the self -revelation
these authors vouchsafe in certain literary forms con-
secrated to this very purpose. The eighth chapter of
this work will deal with Literary Organs of Personality :
Essays and Lyrics.
When all that is possible has been done in the way of
direct principles bearing upon a conception of World
Literature, there will still remain a vast proportion of
the whole field that has been untouched, a vaster propor-
tion, it will appear, than any single mind can hope to
reach. To meet this consideration, our ninth chapter
will offer suggestions on Strategic Points in Literature :
the selection of literature possibly not more important
in itself than other literature, yet of special value for
the correlation of literature with literature, or for its
bearing on the historic considerations that assist such
correlation.
The final chapter will seek to bring back the argument
from the parts to the whole, and emphasize the high
significance of World Literature so far as we can attain
it. Such World Literature, it will suggest, is nothing
less than the Autobiography of CiviUzation.
[56
SURVEY OF WORLD LITERATURE
Chapter I. The Five Literary Bibles. — The Holy Bible
Chapter IL The Five Literary Bibles. — Classical Epic and
Tragedy
Chapter III. The Five Literary Bibles. — Shakespeare
Chapter IV. The Five Literary Bibles. — Dante and Milton:
The Epics of Mediaeval Catholicism and Renais-
sance Protestantism
Chapter V. The Five Literary Bibles. — Versions of the Story
of Faust
Chapter VI. Collateral Studies in World Literature
Chapter VII. Comparative Reading
Chapter VIII. Literary Organs of Personality: Essays and Lyrics
Chapter IX. Strategic Points in Literature
Chapter X. World Literature the Autobiography of Civiliza-
tion
[571
CHAPTER I
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
The Holy Bible
IN our task of reducing the miscellaneous vast-
ness of universal literature to that practicable
unity which is to be called world literature, we begin
by recognizing what I have ventured to call the five
literary bibles. First and foremost of these is the
Holy Bible, which is the foundation of our modern
religion. But in approaching our sacred scriptures
from the literary side we are met at the outset by a
strange difficulty, which amounts indeed to nothing
less than this — that in the course of its transmission
through the ages the Bible has almost entirely lost
its literary form. The question is not of translation:
while of course no version can be perfect or final, yet
we have reason to be well content with what our
biblical translators have done for us. Nor is it neces-
sary to dwell upon beauty of style : the English Bible
has had a large share in determining our very concep-
tions of literary style. But a literature implies some-
thing more than correct language and charm of dic-
tion. A literature is made up of a great variety of
literary forms — epic poems, lyrics, dramas, orations,
[59]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
essays, historical and philosophical works, and the like :
the discrimination of such forms is essential not only
for the full force but even for the interpretation of a
Uterary work. A man who should peruse a drama
under the impression that he was reading an essay
would go wildly astray as to the significance of what
he was reading; this would be an obvious truth were
it not that such a thing seems inconceivable. But
this is precisely the kind of thing which happens in
connection with the Bible. The Hebrew Scriptures
go back to an antiquity in which the art of manu-
script writing was in an embryonic condition ; when
manuscripts scarcely divided words and sentences,
much less indicated distinctions between prose and
verse, between one metre and another, between speeches
in dialogue, or even the simplest divisions in straight-
forward prose. The delicate varieties of biblical litera-
ture, however clear they might be to the ages that
first received them, must, for their preservation, be
committed to manuscripts of this kind, manuscripts in
which all literary forms would look alike. It appears,
then, that the form of our modern bibles has been
given to them, not by the sacred writers themselves,
but by others who, centuries later, had charge of the
scriptures at the time when manuscripts began to
indicate differences of form. Now these were rab-
binical and mediaeval commentators : men to whom
literary form meant nothing, but who regarded the
Bible as material for commentary, each short clause
being worthy of lengthened disquisition. The form
such conmientators w^ould give to their scripture would
[60]
THE HOLY BIBLE
naturally be that of texts for comment. In this form
of numbered texts or verses it came down to our trans-
lators; the most elementary distinction of form, that
between prose and verse, was not discovered in relation
to the Hebrew Scriptures until more than a century
after King James's Version had been completed. The
bibles most commonly circulated amongst us are these
bibles in mediaeval form; however correct the trans-
lation may be, they remain a double misrepresentation
of the sacred original, as ignoring on the one hand
the literary varieties of form, and on the other hand
presenting, in their chapters and verses, a structure
which is alien to the Bible itself, and is the creation of
mediaeval commentators.
I take a brief illustration from the Preface to the
Modern Reader's Bible. Such a passage as Hosea,
chapter xiv, verses 5-8, would in an ancient manu-
script (if we assume the language to be EngUsh) have
appeared thus : —
IWILLBEASTHEDEWUNTOISRAELH
ESHALLBLOSSOMASTHELILYANDC
ASTFORTHHISROOTSASLEBANONH
ISBRANCHESSHALLSPREADANDHI
SBEAUTYSHALLBEASTHEOLIVETR
EEANDHISSMELLASLEBANONTHEY
THATDWELLUNDERHISSHADOWSHA
LLRETURNTHEYSHALLREVIVEAST
HECORNANDBLOSSOMASTHEVINET
HESCENTTHEREOFSHALLBEASTHE
WINEOFLEBANONEPHRAIMSHALLS
AYWHATHAVEITODOANYMOREWITH
I DO LS I H AV E A N SW E R E D A N DW I LLR
EGARDHIMIAMLIKEAGREENFIRTR
EEFROMMEISTHYFRUITFOUND
161]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
This the mediaeval commentators broke up into short
masses — sentences, texts, propositions — of what they
considered a convenient length for discussion, and num-
bered them for reference.
5. I will be as the dew unto Israel : lie shall blossom as the
lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon.
6. His branches shaU spread, and his beauty shall be as the
olive tree, and his smeU as Lebanon.
7. They that dwell under his shadow shall return ; they shall
re\-ive as the corn, and blossom as the vine : the scent thereof shall
be as the wine of Lebanon.
8. Ephraim shaU say. What have I to do any more with idols ?
I have answered, and wiU regard him : I am like a green fir tree ;
from me is thy fruit found.
Yet a brief examination of the passage is sufficient
to show that it is a portion of a dramatic scene ; and
its structure ought to be exhibited as that of dramatic
dialogue.
THE LORD
I will be as the dew unto Israel : he shall blossom as the lily,
and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread,
and his beauty shaU be as the olive tree, and his smeU as Lebanon.
They that dwell under his shadow shall return ; they shall revive
as the corn, and blossom as the vine : the scent thereof shall be as
the wine of Lebanon.
EPHEAIM
What have I to do any more with idols?
THE LORD
I have answered, and will regard him.
EPHRAIM
I am like a green fir tree —
THE LORD
From me is thy fruit found.
162]
THE HOLY BIBLE
This accident of tradition has had far-reaching
consequences. A bible thus broken up into sentences
becomes obscure, and needs assistance for its inter-
pretation; the assistance comes in the shape of com-
mentary and annotation, with references, cross-refer-
ences, chain references, and all the familiar apparatus
of biblical helps. But the remedy aggravates the
disease : the exegesis which seems to do so much in
the way of elucidation, and which of course does elu-
cidate the particular sentences, yet hangs a curtain of
disconnectedness between the reader and the impression
of the literary whole. For in exegesis the unit is a sen-
tence, in literature the unit is a book ; that is to say, a
drama or lyric or oration, whatever the particular form
may be. In literature the whole is something different
from the sum of the parts. A drama acted as a whole
upon a stage, even though the presentation be crude
and the actors only faintly literary, yet brings us nearer
to the dramatic significance than the reading of many
annotated editions of the play, which may give scholarly
help as to sentences and allusions, yet leave plot, char-
acter, and dramatic movement to take care of themselves.
Two things then are necessary to the realization of the
Bible as literature in the truest sense. We must in the
first place do for it what is as a matter of course done
for all other literature, ancient or modern — we must
print it in its complete literary structure, a structure
discovered by internal evidence and literary analysis.
Dialogue must appear as dialogue, with distinction of
speeches and names of speakers ; verse must appear
with the proper variations of metre ; epic must be dis-
[63]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
tinguished from history, essay from song : such struc-
tural presentation goes far towards making commen-
tary superfluous. But to this must be added a changed
habit of mind. To the interpretation of exegesis must
be added the interpretation of perspective : which takes
in a hterary work as a whole, examines the mutual rela-
tion of its parts, feeling always after that unity which is
the soul of a work of art. Only when all this has been
done can the Bible take its proper place among the
literatures of the world. With the spiritual import and
the theological interpretation we are not here concerned.
But the devout reader may rest assured that literary
presentation can but assist theology, so far as theology
is sound. The heterogeneous and mutually contra-
dictory theological notions which are confidently sup-
ported by biblical quotations are possible only with a
Bible broken up into sentences, in which the separate
verses, like the separate sticks of a faggot, can be broken
or bent in accordance with preconceived ideas. ^
When the Bible is restored to its full Hterary struc-
ture, it presents itself, not as a book, but as a library
— a library of very varied literature, varied in date, in
authorship, and in the types of literature represented.
Two lines of study offer themselves to the reader. He
may take up particular books of scripture, realizing their
intrinsic interest, and how their classification enlarges
1 The Modern Reader's Bible (see page 484) presents the whole
Bible, with part of the Apocrypha, in complete hterary structure.
The translation is the Revised Version (text or margin). The
order of the books is not the traditional order, nor any attempted
historical reconstruction, but the "hterary sequence" referred to
below (pages 72-6).
164]
THE HOLY BIBLE
our ideas of literary form. But there is the further in-
terest of noting how the books of the Bible, which seem
so miscellaneous, are yet found to draw together into
the Uterary unity of the Bible as a whole.
It has been the tradition to say that the Bible contains
no epic. Such a statement is possible only to the lim-
ited criticism that squares its notions solely by those of
the Greeks. When we go back to first principles of lit-
erary classification, it is easy to distinguish in the Bible
the narrative that is history, concerned with the connec-
tion of things, from the narrative that is story, making
its appeal to the imagination and the emotions. These
stories are in prose, and stand as part of the annals of
Israel, to which they lend the emphasis of historic pic-
tures. It is only when we read these biblical stories as
a whole, apart from the historic context, that we realize
what a wealth of creative story the Bible contains. The
past is re-created for us, with the crisp simplicity of
presentation that is the note of ancient epic. Idyls,
like the story of Tobit or Ruth, have kept fresh the by-
play of common life as life was some three thousand
years ago. The stories of Genesis restore to us the patri-
archal age, a family life into which the sense of higher
and spiritual things was gradually coming. With the
''judges," so called, we have an heroic age of achieve-
ment and adventure ; in the stories of the prophets we
have a truly epic conflict between the spiritual and the
secular elements of national life. Instead of the Bible
!• [65]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
containing no epic, the truth is that the epic spirit is
found to interpenetrate the whole national history.
Still more strange sounds the statement sometimes
made that the Bible contains no drama. What is
meant, apparently, is that the Hebrew people had no
theatre; this is true, and is a curious fact. But the
dramatic instinct, denied its natural channel, is found
to have spread through Hebrew literature as a whole,
until all parts of it seem interfused with the spirit of
dramatic movement. We have the philosophic drama
of Job; the series of dramatic idyls which make up the
story of Solomon's Song. The book of Deuteronomy is
unique as an oratorical drama : a series of orations and
songs developing a pathetic situation to a noble climax
in the farewell of Moses to Israel. But the most char-
acteristic of these forms comes from prophecy ; only
the amorphous printing of our bibles could have con-
cealed from readers how large a part of biblical prophecy
is in dialogue, and how often this dialogue intensifies to
a special type of literature — the "Rhapsodic Drama,"
to which the nearest counterpart in secular literature
is perhaps such a poem as the Prometheus of Shelley.
These rhapsodies are laid wholly in the region of the
spiritual ; the workings of Divine Providence are made
to pass before the mental eye with all the intensity of
dramatic movement. The actors of these spiritual
scenes include God, the Celestial Hosts, the Nations of
the earth, Israel or Zion personified, the Watchmen
of Jerusalem bearing tidings from abroad ; with less of
personality Voices carry on the dialogue. Voices of the
Saved or the Doomed, Voices from the East and the
[66]
THE HOLY BIBLE
West, Cries from the Hills of Ephraim or from outside
the Holy Land ; impersonal Songs break in at intervals,
like chorales in modern oratorio, to spiritually celebrate
the action that is passing. The changing scenes are be-
held in vision, or described by the prophetic spectator.
The movement may be successive stages of advancing
doom, changing, as in Joel, into equally regular stages of
salvation. Or it may be sudden : the sight of the Chal-
deans stalking triumphant through the earth gives place
to the sound from the distant future of the victims tri-
umphing over Chaldea's fall ; the pall of destruction is
rent to display the mountain of salvation bright with
sunshine and song. Of course such spiritual scenes are
less easy to follow than the drama of ordinary life that
can realize itself upon a visible stage. But what is
lost in simplicity is less than what is gained in the wide
reaches of spiritual movement and solemnity of import.
Perhaps the dramatic masterpiece of universal litera-
ture is the " Rhapsody of Zion Redeemed," which
makes the latter half of our book of Isaiah.
The prophetic discourse is amongst the most familiar
forms of biblical literature ; but it is to be noted that
discourse, in the general sense of the word, is by proph-
ecy enlarged to include two very special types. One
is the Rhapsodic Discourse, so much affected by Jere-
miah ; what begins as simple oratory suddenly, as if
by the raising of a curtain, merges in rhapsodic scenes
of advancing judgment. The other is Emblem Proph-
ecy, which is symbolic discourse. In its simplest form
this implies no more than some visible or moment-
ary action — the rending of a robe or the wearing
[67]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
of the yoke of slavery — assumed as a text or visible
starting-point for discourse. By Ezekiel, however,
this Emblem Prophecy is developed to what makes a
unique species in the history of literary art ; histrionic
action and oratorical speech are carried on side by side,
elaborately interwoven. Among the prophets Ezekiel
is the consunmiate artist : how impressive to the original
hearers were these acted sermons is seen in many pas-
sages of Ezekiel, in which the audience interrupt with
excited exclamations. It is seen again in the familiar
passage,^ in which the prophet seems to complain that the
frivolous as well as the earnest among his fellow-captives
were flocking to the prophet's house as if to hear ''a
very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice and
can play well on an instrument " ; we may paraphrase —
as some to church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the music there.
The supremacy of biblical Ijo-ics has been universally
recognized. But here, as in other cases, Hebrew poetry
enlarges our ideas of literary form and adds a new con-
ception of lyric poetry. This is largely due to a well-
known peculiarity of the Hebrew language, by which
the basis of its verse is a parallelism of clauses that be-
longs almost equally to prose ; the result is a remarkable
literary elasticity, with the utmost freedom of blending
or making transitions between prose and verse. In-
deed, it is only as a matter of practical convenience that
the terms ''prose" and "verse" can be applied to bibli-
cal literature ; what we really have is a most delicate
* Ezekiel xxxiii. 32.
[681
THE HOLY BIBLE
rhythmic difference, somewhat Hke that in music be-
tween recitative and strict time. The combination
of the two admits of unhmited variations and deUcate
shadings, rhythmically reflecting variations and shad-
ings of thought. Especially to be noted is the Doom
Form, so common in prophetic literature ; here mono-
logues of Deity, expressed in what may be called prose,
are continually interrupted by highly rhythmic pas-
sages that realize or dilate upon what has been said, as if,
when Deity is the speaker, the word and its fulfilment
must be heard together. Such Dooms are sometimes a
simple denunciation of Edom or some other foe of Israel ;
sometimes they present more elaborately a Day of the
Lord. Or, in Nahum, the Doom can become an elabo-
rate rhapsodic picture of Nineveh in its fall : the careless
security of the city merging in the surprise of the sudden
attack, the din of city activity blending with the crash
of ruin, victims carried into captivity before they have
realized that war has begun, the slain corpses of the
city's crimes huddled against the corpses slain by
the advancing foe, the curtain of solitude settling down
upon the late busy scene; while through these phases
of destruction from first to last the Voice of Jehovah
has been heard denouncing the moral corruption and
speaking the word of judgment.
A large part of the sacred scriptures is philosophy;
yet the word "philosophy "seems to be carefully avoided.
This is Biblical Wisdom : a philosophy not divorced
from creative literature. The philosophy of all litera-
tures begins with such wisdom ; but in Greek and mod-
ern literatures the philosophy is soon seen to have trav-
[69]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
elled far from poetry and practical life, and to become
analytic reflection on the nature of things. Scriptural
wisdom is a reflection on the sum of things, but the re-
flection has always a bearing upon conduct ; further, all
the forms of poetry and prose seem to be at its service.
The earlier books of wisdom convey their sense of the
harmony reigning through the universe in hymns to
Wisdom; these hymns are a special form of poetry,
which seems to have the spirit of the modern sonnet,
though not its fixity of structure. In Ecclesiasticus, the
Baconian type of essay is seen gradually developing out
of the primitive gnome or proverb. What may be
called prose hymns dilate upon the wonders of God in
external nature. Personal monologues are found mak-
ing a part of philosophical exposition : the personality
is sometimes that of the wicked, sometimes the histori-
cal personality of Solomon ; sometimes the speaker is
Wisdom personified, or the opposite of this in the
"Strange Woman " — the suggestive phrase which insin-
uates the idea that sin is a " foreigner " or intruder in
God's good universe. And all through the other liter-
ary forms the primitive proverb or epigram has free
course, some of the later monologues being almost mo-
saics of such popular sayings. The climax of such wis-
dom literature is the many-sided Book of Job. This is,
in the first place, a complete drama ; it has an open-air
scene, changing at the end to a scene of storm and tem-
pest ; it has personal speakers with a silent chorus of
spectators ; its dramatic movement culminates in the
descent of Deity. But the drama is also a philosophic
discussion : the different speakers are associated with
[70]
THE HOLY BIBLE
the ideas of wisdom literature in the different stages of
its history, while the dramatic situation is a simple
situation of every-day life, which challenges the fixed
idea of ancient wisdom that righteousness and prosper-
ity must go together. And, to complete this intermin-
gling of literary forms in Job, the problem at issue, proved
insoluble in the drama that enacts itself on earth, finds
solution in the prophetic revelation of heaven that makes
the prologue and epilogue of the poem.
If then we go no farther than the consideration of par-
ticular books of scripture, we can see that the literary
importance of the Bible is not less than its spiritual sig-
nificance. There is need of Hebrew ''classics " to supple-
ment the classics of the Greek and Latin languages.
One of the greatest obstacles in the way of literary study
taking its proper place in the circle of the sciences is the
fact that literary criticism unfortunately crystallized
too early; the principles formulated by Aristotle for
the single literature of the Greeks came to be mistaken
for universal principles binding upon universal literature.
A corrective for this traditional misconception is at hand
in the study of biblical literature, which, in whatever
direction we look, is found to enlarge our conceptions of
literary form. Much may be truly said as to the value
of literary study for the elucidation of the Bible. But
the converse of this is not less true : that biblical study is
essential for a sound and well-balanced literary criticism.^
1 The whole question of the literary forms represented in Scrip-
ture is discussed in my Literary Study of the Bible (see below, page
485). A briefer treatment wiU be found in my Short Introduction to
the Literature of the Bible.
[71]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
II
I pass on to the second of the two kinds of literary in-
terest attaching to the sacred scriptures, that connected
with their unity. What we call the Bible is a collection
of some jfifty or sixty different books — books written in
Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic ; of great variety of date
and authorship and (as we have just seen) literary form.
They have been brought together — in what is techni-
cally called the history of the canon — by a process of
natural selection, a survival of the spiritually fittest,
the basis of which is theological, or certainly not liter-
ary. Yet for all this, these books of scripture, read in
their proper sequence, are felt to draw together with a
connectedness as clear as the successive stages of a dra-
matic plot.
At this point, however, great caution is necessary.
When I speak of the books of scripture being read in
their proper sequence, I refer to a sequence which is
literary, not historical. One of the great difficulties of
our subject is that, at the present time, the study of
literature is overshadowed by the more flourishing study
of history, and the spheres of the two studies are con-
tinually being confused. There is another analysis of
scripture, widely different from that which is here at-
tempted, which goes below the surface of scripture, in-
tent on questions of origins, analyzes the text into what
may appear its component materials, dates these compo-
nent elements, and attempts reconstruction. I repeat
what has already been said in the Introduction to this
172]
THE HOLY BIBLE
work, that all this is highly important in its own field,
but that field is not literary, nor in the proper
sense bibHcal. It is clear that the product of historical
analysis can be nothing else but history. The matter
of our Bible, when it has been subjected to historical
reconstruction, ceases to be the Bible, and becomes
something quite different : something important to the
historic specialist, a valuable exhibit for a museum of
Semitic studies. It is not the positive history of Israel
— which, hke all history, must undergo reconstruction
with each stage of advancing historic science — that has
revolutionized the spiritual ideas of the world, and come
to constitute a priceless possession of universal culture.
The Bible which has done all this is one particular inter-
pretation of the history of Israel, a spiritual interpre-
tation made once for all by the sacred writers, and
embodied in a literature that stands as final and unal-
terable.
This distinction between the literary and the historic
conception of the Bible will appear increasingly im-
portant as we proceed with our task of realizing the
unity of scripture. At first, when we try to think into
a connected whole the varied works of this scripture, we
may get an impression that what we have before us is
history, for the simple reason that one who has read
through the Bible from cover to cover has traversed the
ages from the creation to the first century of our era.
But this is only a first impression. Upon examination
we find that history in the Bible is no more than an his-
toric framework, a connective tissue holding together
the higher literary forms — epic, lyric, song, drama, dis-
[73]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
course, and the like — in which higher forms is con-
tained the life and spirit of the whole. The sacred his-
torians themselves seem impatient of the work of history,
as appears in numerous passages of this nature : —
Now the rest of the acts of [such and such a king], and how he
[did this and that], are they not written in the books of the chron-
icles of the kings of Judah? etc.
The biblical writers refer their readers to other works if
they desire history : what is being given is no more than
historic outline for more significant kinds of writing.
To this consideration another must be added. What I
am calling the historic framework appears to be late in
date ; the higher forms of literature it encloses are of all
dates, early and late. In calling the historic framework
late, it is not meant, necessarily, that the actual sen-
tences containing it were written at a late date. No
doubt those who constructed our scriptures found earlier
records upon which they drew, piecing different records
together, much in the same way that we of the present
time make harmonies of the four gospels, piecing to-
gether passages from each to make a continuous biogra-
phy of Jesus. It is this construction of the framework
that was late, while (I repeat) the stories, songs, dis-
courses so enclosed are of all dates from the earliest to
the latest.
Now, all this is important as suggesting for the Bible
the literary form of an autobiography. For how is an
autobiography composed? No one supposes that the
chapter on the hero's childhood was written by him
when he was a child, or that the account of his marriage
[74 1
THE HOLY BIBLE
and early business struggles was composed during the
period of his courtship and apprenticeship. The author
would probably be advanced in life before he would
come to conceive the idea of writing his autobiography ;
as an elderly man he would write the account of his child-
hood, but would insert in this account his actual childish
attempts at poetry, or letters home ; as an elderly man
he would tell the tale of his courtship and his entry into
his profession, supporting these with specimen love-
letters or early business documents. The continuous
narrative, constructed late, would be a framework for
literary illustrations dating from all parts of his career.
In the same way the Bible appears as an autobiography :
not the autobiography of an individual, or even of a
nation, but the autobiography of a spiritual evolution.
The Old Testament is the History of the People of Israel
as presented by itself. The New Testament is the His-
tory of the Primitive Church as presented by itself.
It would be late in its history before the People of Israel,
at last fully realizing its sacred mission, set itself to think
out the successive stages of its career, inserting in the
account of each of these stages the stories, songs, dis-
courses, dramas, to which that stage had given origin.
The Primitive Church would have proceeded some way
in its development before the early Christians, finding
verbal traditions begin to waver, undertook 'Ho draw
up a narrative concerning those matters which had been
fully established among them," as these matters had
been ''delivered by eyewitnesses and ministers of the
word" ; with such narrative the New Testament would
include the successive sayings, discourses, epistles, which
[75]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
constituted the witness. Once more we see the impor-
tance of insisting upon the Uterary view of the Bible.
For literature is of two kinds : the literature which is
progressive, each stage attained superseding previous
stages; and the literature which is fixed and eternal.
The greatest work of science or philosophy must in a
short time become antiquated, or by annotation be
brought up to date. But does any one think of bringing
the Iliad up to date, or of modernizing Shakespeare?
It is the high prerogative of poetry that from the mo-
ment it comes into existence it is final and eternal.
Now, autobiography belongs to that class of literature
which is thus eternal and unalterable. Had the sacred
literature taken the form of science or history, there
must have been a revised Bible for each fresh genera-
tion ; and this, not because of weakness in the Bible
itself, but from the very nature of history and science.
But as the autobiography of our religion the Bible stands
fixed and unalterable ; more truly than any creed, it is
our sacred hterature that makes the ''faith once for all
dehvered to the saints."
Given the general conception of the Bible as a whole,
it becomes not difficult to outline its hterary structure.
We commonly think of the Bible as in two divisions,
an Old and New Testament ; it is better to regard it
as threefold, in order to do justice to certain books
that stand entirely apart from all the rest. These are
the books of wisdom : Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job
in the Bible itself, with which must be associated
Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom in the Apocrypha. How
distinct is the character of these books will appear
[76]
THE HOLY BIBLE
when we remember that in three out of the five there
is no mention of Israel, or of its Messianic hopes, its
temple service, its law; in the other two, while insti-
tutions of Israel are recognized, they have no bearing
on the main purpose of the books. We may think of
these books of wisdom as belonging to the interval
between the Old and New Testaments ; chronologically
this is true of a considerable part of wisdom literature,
while as regards logical relation to the rest of scripture
it describes wisdom as a whole. When the sun goes
down, the stars come out; when the high spiritual
hopes of the theocracy have died down into disappoint-
ment, and before a new starting-point for theology has
been found in the career of Jesus, the consideration of
simple human life comes naturally into emphasis, and
wisdom hterature is the devout contemplation of
human life. Thus we may conceive of the Bible as a
drama in two great acts, with wisdom hterature as an
interlude between two theologies.
The Old Testament is the Old Covenant, and this
is the covenant between God and the people of Israel.
Eleven chapters of the Bible serve as prologue to what
follows. They describe previous covenants between
God and all mankind as represented in common an-
cestors, first Adam and then Noah ; in each case the
covenant breaks down and the world relapses into sin ;
at the last, as indicated by the Babel incident, the sinful
world is breaking up into nations. This is the point
where the history of Israel can begin : a single nation
is chosen from the rest, that through them all other
[77 1
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
nations may be blessed ; in other words, they are chosen
to be a revelation of their God to the rest of the world.
Following this, the Old Testament falls into five well-
marked historic divisions. Genesis gives us the " ori-
gin " of the Chosen People : the brief historic outline
and successive stories of the Patriarchs trace a family
expanding to the point at which it may change into a
nation. The second division is the "Exodus," or
emigration to the land of promise ; this is treated as the
period of constitutional development, and hence its
three books {Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers), m addition
to framework and stories, are filled with constitutional
documents, chiefly covenants, that is, re-statements
from time to time of the relations between the people
and its God. Between the second and third divisions
of the Old Testament is placed, with great literary
impressiveness, the oratorical drama of Deuteronomy ; if
such an expression might be allowed, this is the graduat-
ing exercise of Israel, and the now developed nation is
launched on its life-work with its founder's blessing : —
The Eternal God is thy dweUing place,
And underneath are the everlasting arms.
The history that follows is the great transition from a
theocracy to a secular government ; the books of this
third division (Joshua, Judges, part of Samuel) may be
unified under the title of "The Judges." These
heroes of Israel's history make a transition to the king-
ship that is to succeed, in the temporary or partial
national unity they effect under the stress of special
emergencies.
[78]
THE HOLY BIBLE
We reach the fourth and main division of Old Testa-
ment history with the complete estabhshment of the
kingship. Yet, if the title is to describe the matter,
this portion of the Bible must be styled ''The Kings and
Prophets." In the history of modern self-governing
peoples we regularly have an administration and an op-
position, the function of the opposition as important
as that of the administration. So with Israel we have
a secular government of kings and a spiritual opposi-
tion of prophets; as the word ''prophet" implies, these
are ''mouthpieces of God," representatives of the older
conception of the theocracy. Thus this portion of the
history (the latter part of Samuel and the books of
Kings) becomes annals of the kings with stories of the
prophets. A distinction must be taken between the
earlier and the later prophets. The earlier prophets,
with Elijah at their head, are men of action, entering
into biblical literature only as heroes of prophetic sto-
ries. The later prophets, without ceasing to be men
of action, are also men of letters, the great poets, ora-
tors, dramatists, of Israel. Men like Isaiah and Jere-
miah do for their own generation all that Elijah and
Micaiah had done for theirs ; but besides all this they
have the gift to remould the matter of their daily min-
istrations in rich and varied literary forms, that carry
a spiritual message for all time. Hence a slight change
in the form of scripture. Hitherto the stories and songs
have been inserted at the point of the historic out-
line to which they belong ; when Israel has reached
its full literary maturity with the later prophets this
arrangement becomes impracticable. The historic out-
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THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
line is allowed to complete itself in the latter part of
Kings, while the books of the prophets, from Isaiah
to Malachi, make a separate literary division. Some-
times a book of prophecy is a single literary work;
more often a miscellany of varied literary types. These
books of the prophets, with the still more miscellaneous
Book of Psalms, must be understood as holding the
same relation to the history in Kings that the earlier
stories and songs have held to their narrative context.
But more is to be noted than a change of literary
form : the whole course of the history that is being
presented undergoes the modification which makes
the crisis in the dramatic movement of the Old Testa-
ment. The brilliant literature of the prophets, how-
ever rich and varied may be the forms in which the
sacred message is clothed, is nevertheless found to rest
upon just two fixed thoughts. The prophets tell of a
golden age of righteousness in the future ; this mental
attitude of seeking the golden age in the future, and not
in the past, makes the reading of bibhcal prophecy a
moral inspiration. The other note of prophecy is the
purging judgment through which alone this golden age
may be reached. Now, as the history proceeds it
becomes more and more evident that this gulf of judg-
ment, on the other side of which is the golden age, is
to mean nothing less than the fall of Israel as a nation.
The Old Testament is moving to its decay; yet not
before there has been a vision of a New Testament.
Jeremiah, whose life-work brings him into closest con-
tact with the stages of Israel's fall, is the one who sees
most clearly that which is to come.
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Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new
covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah :
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the
day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of
Egypt ; which my covenant they brake. . . . But this is the cove-
nant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,
saith the Lord ; I will put my law in their inward parts, and in
their heart will I write it.
The covenant between God and a Chosen People is
breaking down, but there is to be a covenant between
God and individual hearts; the theocracy of the Old
Testament is to come to an end, but there is a vision
of the kingdom of God that is within. In the light
of such a vision we follow the remaining stages of the
history. Israel is carried into captivity; there is no
biblical history of the exile, yet it is pictured for us in
the stories of Daniel and Esther. Then we reach the
fifth and last division of Old Testament history, the
Chronicles of the Return. It is not the whole people
who return from captivity, but only those whose hearts
are set upon the restoration of the Divine worship;
here the nation of Israel has changed into the Jewish
Church. Its literature is the Ecclesiastical Chronicles
of Israel (the books of Chronicles with their sequel,
Ezra and Nehemiah). What is thus presented is a
strenuous effort to restore that which, in reality, has
passed away; prophecy, with its eyes on the future,
falls into the background, and the dominant element
is the law, with its eyes on the past, more and more
fastening upon the letter and external ceremony, from
beneath which the inspiration has forever gone. With
this final phase of a Jewish Church, fully realizing its
G [811
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
mission to the nations of the earth, idolizing law and
forgetting prophetic vision of the spiritual future, the
curtain descends upon the Old Testament.
But there is one prophetic poem, most splendid of
all, which stands as epilogue to the Old Testament,
gathering up its whole movement and spirit in poetic
presentation. The Rhapsody of Zion Redeemed —
our name for the latter half of the Book of Isaiah —
in its main scene pictures the nations of the world
standing before the bar of God ; on the one side the
idolatrous nations, on the other side Israel. Jehovah
challenges the idols "to declare former things, to show
things to come" ; in other words, to put an interpreta-
tion upon the whole course of events from first to last.
Clearly it is a Divine philosophy of history that we
are receiving in dramatic form. When the idols are
dumb, Jehovah's interpretation is given. He proclaims
Israel as his servant : the service is to bring the nations
under His law. But not by violence : the bruised reed
he shall not break, the smoking flax he shall not quench,
yet he must be preserved until he has brought light to
the Gentiles. When the interrupting outburst of exul-
tation has died away, the proclamation continues :
this servant is blind and deaf, has for his sins fallen
into the prison-house of the nations ; the conquering
career of Cyrus has brought deliverance, and there
comes forth a blind servant that hath eyes, a deaf ser-
vant that hath ears. Two ideas are thus presented.
One is simple : the restoration to Israel of its sense of
its Divine mission; a subsequent scene makes this
Israel a witness to the nations, inviting the peoples
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THE HOLY BIBLE
of the world to enter into the commonwealth of Israel.
The other is an idea that we read with ever increasing
wonder : in this ancient biblical book is enshrined,
with most powerful poetic setting, the thought which
twenty following centuries of religious war and perse-
cution failed to grasp, the idea that in the spiritual
world physical force is powerless; by agencies gentle
as the light may a world be conquered for God. As
the drama continues, a change seems to come over the
central figure : the servant of Jehovah from a nation
becomes a personality that can suffer martyrdom ; yet
again it becomes a mystic personality whose sufferings
are at last recognized by the nations as vicarious.
Another scene pictures a moral chaos : at the point of
extremity Jehovah himself resolves to bring salvation.
As the strains of the hymn to Redeemed Zion die away,
the Redeemer seems to make his entry, announcing
his glorious mission.
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me ; because the Lord hath
anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek ; he hath sent me
to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim Uberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to them that are bound ; to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our
God ; to comfort all that mourn ; to appoint unto them that mourn
in Zion, to give unto them a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for
mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
From this ministry of healing, the drama proceeds
on its course to its climax in the Day of Judgment.
Thus in this poem the whole spirit of the Old Testament
is dramatically gathered up. The nation that was to
bring the other nations to its God has, in the course of
[83]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
history, broken down. Its divine mission has risen
in a glorified form : the Servant of Jehovah that is to
be shall gather in the nations, not by war and conquest,
but by the gentle agencies of healing and redemption.
In following the movement of scripture as a whole,
we have now reached the interval between the Old
and the New Testament, an interval which, we have
seen, is filled by wisdom literature. But this wisdom
literature has a movement of its own. The most
important aspect of this scriptural philosophy is that
which is expressed by the word '' Wisdom" used as a
personification. This higher Wisdom includes, not
only human character as a whole, but also the spirit of
the external universe : the world within and the world
without are one. This higher Wisdom, as we follow it
through successive books, is seen to pass through three
well-marked stages. In the first stage (represented
by Proverbs and Ecdesiasticus) all is philosophic calm ;
the harmony of life and the universe is celebrated in
hymns of adoration, all analysis and questioning being
confined to what may be called the lower wisdom — the
mere details of life. With the book of Ecclesiastes a
crisis is reached, and scriptural philosophy passes through
a stage of storm and stress. For now analysis and ques-
tioning have been turned upon the sum of things : phi-
losophy seems unequal to the strain, and breaks down
in despair. The word " Wisdom," in the high sense,
disappears, and the characteristic word " Vanity "
takes its place; every attempt to find a meaning in
the universe is frustrated, and ''all things are vanity."
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THE HOLY BIBLE
In the philosophical sense of the word, this is scepticism.
Yet it is strangely different from what that word usually
suggests : the more our author fails to find Wisdom, the
closer he is driven to God, who alone has the secret
of the universe. When the Bible touches scepticism,
scepticism becomes a mode of devotion.
But why this scepticism, so different from the spirit
of the rest of scripture ? On the surface it is easy to
point out that this idea of scepticism is, in Ecclesiastes,
always associated with another idea — that death is
the end of all things; it is because every attempted
solution of life is mocked by the thought of death that
the Preacher breaks down in despair. But this has
only shifted the difficulty one stage farther back : how
comes it that in this one book the thought of what may
be beyond the grave, ignored perhaps in other Old
Testament books, is now made the subject of almost
passionate denial?
One difference of wisdom literature from the rest of
scripture is that it lacks the historic framework which,
we have seen, connects together the books of both the
Old and the New Testament. We have to supply the
historic framework ourselves. In the interval between
the Old ' and the New Testament the world that was
around the Hebrew people was undergoing fundamental
changes. The centre of gravity of civilization was
shifting steadily westward ; as Chaldea and the far
East had had to yield overlordship to Persia, so Persia
had to yield it to Greece, and Greece finally to Rome.
Further, to this general period belongs the beginning of
that which in this work I am treating as the foundation
[85]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
of our modern life, the union of Hellenic and Hebraic
civilization. The conquests of Alexander thrust Hel-
lenism upon the whole civilized world ; even Pales-
tine, after long and strenuous resistance, becomes
slowly Hellenized, while in Alexandria we have a new
centre of Jewish life, in which the Hebrew mind is
subject to the full power of the new influences. This
secular history has the closest connection with the
sacred literature we are considering ; for it has a bear-
ing upon what is amongst the foremost of religious con-
ceptions, the question of the immortality of the soul.
Every reader must have been struck with the contra-
dictory assertions so often heard as to the Old Testa-
ment and the doctrine of immortality : how one author-
ity will maintain that there is no trace in the Old
Testament of this idea of immortality, while another finds
in its books ready texts for sermons on our future life.
Such contradiction would be impossible were there not
some ambiguity in the terms of the discussion. And
this is the case. When we, in modern times, use the
expression ''life after death," we have in mind a new
type of life, commencing at the moment of death.
The life beyond death recognized by antiquity was, on
the contrary, a survival of this present life in a weaker
form. Obviously to the senses death cuts off an indi-
vidual from communication with this world ; but his
body does not immediately disappear, time is required
for it to crumble into dust and nothingness. What
the senses tell us of the body, antiquity believed to be
true also of the soul : consciousness with the moment
of death lost all power of communication with the
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THE HOLY BIBLE
world without, yet lingered for a time conscious to
itself, slowly dying down, like a mist dispersing into
nothing. This waning survival of life beyond the
moment of death was an idea of all the nations of
antiquity. The Hebrews held it equally with the rest ;
and some of the most realistic descriptions of the state
come from the Book of J oh, especially the image of the
landslip : that falls in a moment, yet takes time to
crumble away, like man cut off by death, knowing
nought of his children's honor or shame, yet knowing
the pangs of dissolution amid the mournful sohtude of
the grave. ^ And ancient life did more than merely
recognize this diminishing existence in the tomb : it
read into it — usually in a vague, unsystematic way —
ideas of the moral retribution so often found lacking in
the life that now is. Hence Tartarus and Elysium;
hence the Sheol into which shall return the nations that
forget God ; hence, above all, the curious Oriental con-
ception of metempsychosis, the re-birth of individuals
in the higher and lower forms of animal and vegetable
life, each form, with nice equity, proportioned in its
honor or degradation to the moral character of pre-
vious lives.
When this ambiguity in the conception of life beyond
death is cleared away, then the question before us
becomes simple. Of the two elements that combined
to make the modern world, Hellenic civilization stood
for the idea of Inmiortality ; not only did it, like the
rest of antiquity, recognize the shadowy survival of
existence, but it held that life was in its very essence
1 Job xiv. 18-23.
[87]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
indestructible. Yet this was an immortality that the
modern mind would not accept as a gift; for it was
immortality without individuality. What of per-
sonality there was beyond death belonged, in the
Oriental conception of things, to the retributive sur-
vival of life; when the individual was purged of his
evil, he then reached the fulness of immortality by
absorption into the infinite, the individual drop lost
in the ocean. Now, of immortality in this sense there
is no trace in the Old Testament. What Hebrew
thought stands for, on the contrary, is Personality :
it gives to this idea the highest exaltation by recogniz-
ing, from first to last, God Himself as a personal God.
It is nothing to the point to urge that Greek and
Oriental thought has also its personal deities. This is
true ; but in Oriental thought Deity is not the supreme
power in the universe. Greek deities are but larger
humanities : above Deity stands Destiny.
Not even Zeus can escape the thing decreed.
Fate, Destiny, is to the Oriental mind the supreme
power, and Fate and Destiny are impersonal. Of
such impersonal Fate or Destiny there is not a sug-
gestion in Hebrew Scriptures ; Divine Personality rules
supreme. The account then stands thus : Hellenic
thought conceives Inunortality without Individuality;
Hebrew thought emphasizes Personality while ignoring
Immortality; by the intermingling of Hellenic and
Hebraic the way is prepared for the grand conception
of the Immortality of the Individual Soul.
When we read wisdom literature in the light of this
THE HOLY BIBLE
historic background, the crisis of its movement in the
book of Ecclesiastes becomes intelUgible. The book
belongs to the Uterature of Palestine, but a Palestine
becoming permeated by Hellenic influences. The
Hebrew thinker finds around him new ideas of im-
mortality which his natural proclivities do not allow
him to accept. Yet, to the mind to which this idea has
once been presented, the world without it seems a
hollow mockery : hence the Preacher's despair. But
from the other centre of Hebraic thought, Alexandria,
comes another book, the Wisdom of Solomon, with
which scriptural philosophy reaches its third and final
stage. In this work the union of the ideas of immor-
tality and individuality is found fully established.
God, it declares, made not death : righteousness is
immortal. With the peculiar power of analytic imagi-
nation that makes this author's writing hang half-way
between poetry and prose, he pictures the sinful life
as a life impelled to sin by lack of hope beyond the
grave. Then the sinners are pictured as rising from
the grave to encounter the great surprise ; they realize
how the souls of the departed righteous have been all
the while in the hand of God ; how their own life of
rapturous pleasiu-e was an empty dream; then they
are whirled away by the blast of judgment. Thus
wisdom literature, in its final stage, recovers its philo-
sophic calm; the calm becomes a triumph. The life
enlarged by immortality no longer seems vanity. Wis-
dom reappears as the Providence ruling through the
life without and the life within : the unspotted mirror
of the working of God and the image of His goodness.
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THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
If the whole of Scripture be conceived as a mighty
drama, then wisdom hteratm-e appears an interlude
between its two acts. Yet this wisdom literature, with
its stages of calm, storm, and recovered calm, is a lesser
drama in itself. And the interlude is also a link of con-
nection : the human life that passes from the theology
of the Old to the theology of the New Covenant is a
life into which the light of immortality has begun to
enter.
The books of the New Testament, read in their
proper sequence, show a literary structure, the counter-
part of that in the Old Testament : an historic frame-
work inclosing other literary forms which give the spirit
of the whole. First, we have the Acts and Words of
Jesus, the acts the historic framework for the words :
this is the Gospel of St. Luke. Then we have the Acts
and Words of the Apostles : the book of Acts and
the Pauline epistles, which can, without difficulty, be
fitted into their places in the historic narrative. When
St. Paul arrives a prisoner at Rome, the formal his-
toric narrative ceases ; we can mentally supply the
framework for the rest of the New Testament in the
expectant attitude of the Church, looking for the near
event that shall end their era with the coming of the
Master. Against such historic background we set
the Epistles of Paul's Imprisonment, the General
Epistles, the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St.
John. Finally, as the Old Testament has its epilogue
in the Isaiahan Rhapsody, so the New Testament is
crowned by the book of Revelation, the prophetic climax
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THE HOLY BIBLE
of the whole Bible. The dramatic movement that is
to be traced through this succession of books is the
steadily advancing enlargement in the recognition and
conception of Jesus Christ. Of course, in following
this there is the difficulty that belongs to every work of
antiquity read in modern times, the difficulty that the
reader knows the end from the beginning. He must
cultivate the historic attitude of mind, and use effort in
the realization that he is in contact with the first begin-
nings of ideas and institutions which are familiar to
him in their full development.
Most dramatic is the opening of the ministry of
Jesus as related by St. Luke. Jesus comes to the
Nazareth where he had been brought up : known in
person, known also as associated with the religious
revival under John the Baptist. The courtesies of the
synagogue are extended to him, and he is invited to
read from the Scriptures and expound. ''The eyes of
all in the synagogue were fastened on him:" and we
feel as if the eyes of all history were fastened on
this first act in the ministry that is to revolutionize
the world. The portion of Scripture Jesus reads is the
critical point of the Isaiahan Rhapsody, at which the
Redeemer enters Zion and announces his mission of
healing ; Jesus then assumes the authoritative attitude
of the teacher with the words, "To-day hath this
scripture been fulfilled in your ears." With the fullest
clearness and emphasis Jesus has identified himself
with the prophetic Redeemer ; the spiritual movement
of the Old Covenant that has broken down is to start
afresh with this inauguration of a Covenant that is New.
I9lj
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
But not a soul of those who hear understands : the
congregation of the synagogue feels nothing but indig-
nation at the presumption of this carpenter's son.
From this point of absolute negation starts the move-
ment of progression in men's recognition of Jesus
Christ.
The rest of St. Luke's gospel falls into two clear divi-
sions, centering respectively around Galilee and Jeru-
salem. In the first half, Jesus appears as no more than
a Teacher slowly gathering disciples, revealing new
conceptions of life, and doing works of healing. When
John the Baptist impatiently calls upon him to declare
himself, Jesus has no answer but to point to the ministry
of healing, as the revelation of what he is. The turn-
ing-point is reached when the band of disciples, but
only they, recognize with Peter that Jesus is the
Christ. All the synoptic gospels agree in representing
that here for the first time Jesus opens the second
aspect of his life in suffering and death ; they agree in
placing at this point, where the ministries of healing
and suffering redemption have been brought together,
the vision of the Transfiguration, that displays the
Gospel as a new dispensation side by side with that of
the Law and the Prophets. The second part of St.
Luke presents the steady advance to Jerusalem, to the
passion, the resurrection, the ascension. The reader
must recognize the different spheres of theology and
of literature : that on which theology lays supreme
emphasis stands as only a single stage in the movement
we are here tracing, the enlargement in men's recog-
nition of Jesus Christ.
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The book of Acts opens with the commission given
to his apostles by Jesus — the threefold commission,
that they are to be witnesses for him "in Jerusalem,
and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost
part of the earth." A simple narrative describes the
fulfilment of the first two parts of this commission.
But with regard to the third part, the carrying of the
witness to the uttermost part of the earth, it is manifest
that the book before us can give us only successive
stages in the conception of world evangelization ; steps
in the enlargement of the witness that is to be borne,
and of the machinery by which it is to be extended.
The treatment of all this in Acts is the clearer as each
fresh stage is marked by vision and miracle. The first
revolution is the opening of the Gospel to the Gentiles :
St. Peter's vision inspires the idea, the miraculous
conversion of St. Paul brings the principal instrument.
With the enlarged sphere of action comes enlargement
in the machinery of propagation ; in Antioch, centre of
Gentile Christianity, a scene takes place, echoing in its
description the Day of Pentecost, bringing as a new
inspiration what to us is so trite and familiar, the
thought that Christian Missions are to be the means of
world evangelization. A new point of departure soon
follows. The journeyings of these missionaries become
embarrassed, with hindrances on every side to which
they turn : the perplexity is resolved by the vision of
the man of Macedonia crying, Come over and help us.
Here we have the extension of Christianity from Asia
into Europe ; from the region of the stationary past to
that of the future with its spirit of unlimited progress.
[93]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
Then we see again the machinery of evangehzation
enlarging: by vision Paul is led to adopt a settled
ministry in the large cities of Europe, and can keep in
touch with the churches only by correspondence; the
missionary epistle supplements the missionary journey,
and in the succession of epistles we have an organ for
the treatment of the gradually unfolding questions of
theology and ecclesiastical order. Here we seem to
have entered upon a progression which is indefinite in
extent, going on to our own times and beyond them.
Yet for the age of the New Testament there is a point
of finality : the world for the time is one, under the
headship of Rome. The final section of Acts is a suc-
cession of strange incidents, intermingled with vision
and miracle, bringing the apostle of the Gentiles to
Rome. And the literature that is accompanying this
history seems to reach a climax in the Epistle to the
Romans, which, to a world audience, presents a har-
monization of the Law and the Gospel, the Old
Covenant and the New.
At this point, we have seen, the narrative of the New
Testament ceases; our historic framework has to be
collected from the literature itself. The primitive
Church, of which the New Testament is the literary ex-
pression, seems to be marked off from other ages by a
fixed idea which permeates it through and through : the
idea that its times were the last times, that the end of all
things was at hand, that the great consummation it
called ''the coming of the Lord" was an event near at
hand. From the beginning of apostolic history this
idea is found ; but, naturally, the expectancy is height-
194 J
THE HOLY BIBLE
ened as the consummation is delayed. In the spirit
of this intense expectancy we may read what still re-
mains of New Testament literature.
Without going into questions of theology, it must be
evident to the literary reader that all through the his-
tory covered by the book of Acts, and especially in the
epistles of St. Paul, there has been a constant enlarge-
ment in the Church's recognition of Jesus Christ, and the
conception it is forming of his person and significance.
Under the quickened expectancy of the final period, this
conception enlarges and intensifies, until language seems
exhausted in the attempt to give it expression. The
Epistle to the Ephesians finds in Jesus the '^ mystery of
God" : the reference is to the Sacred Mysteries that
were the popular religion of the times, to the outside
world a dramatic ceremonial, with a hidden meaning for
the initiated ; the thought of the epistle is that the
whole providential government of the universe is such a
mystery, of which the hidden meaning is Jesus Christ.
The Epistle to the Colossians borrows from the Oriental
religions which, overpowered by the sense of the interval
between human and divine, sought to fill up this interval
by a graded hierarchy of angelic emanations : the epistle
seizes upon their characteristic word pleroma, and recog-
nizes Jesus as the ''fulness" that fills up the whole gulf
between man and God. In an earlier stage the new
evangel had had to fight against ''the circumcision":
the Epistle to the Philippians finds the word concision for
the Judaizing opposition ; it is the followers of Jesus
who are the true "circumcision." The main conflict of
the Gospel had been the conflict with the Law : in An
[95]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
Epistle to Hebrews the most pronounced of Hebrews con-
tends to his fellow Hebrews that the whole Law was but
a preparation for the ''better covenant" of which Jesus
is the mediator. As here we have the full recognition of
Jesus from the side of the Law, so from the side of
Wisdom philosophy comes the same recognition in the
Gospel of St. Matthew, the structure and matter of which
make it the application of wisdom literature to the life of
Christ.^ And the Gospel of St. John brings the same
recognition from the side of Greek philosophy : its
mystic conception of the Word is borrowed, and it is
shown how in Jesus the Word was made flesh.
All then is ready for the last book of Scripture which
is to crown the whole, epilogue of Old and New Testa-
ment alike. The consummation which closed the era
of the New Testament Church came in the form of an
outburst of prophecy, by which the varied attempts to
find adequate expression for the recognition of Jesus
were all combined in one. Most unfortunately, the
popular misunderstanding of the word " prophecy,"
which, aided by a false etymology, understands it as fore-
telling, has distorted the interpretation of this book, and
diverted it into the unprofitable channel of eschatologi-
cal speculations. But the opening words of the book
proclaim it, not as a revelation of the future, but as "the
revelation of Jesus Christ." Form and matter combine
to make this revelation emphatic. The form is a series
of visions, passing like dissolving views before the eye
^ This view of St. Matthew is discussed at length in my Short
Introduction to the Literature of the Bible, pages 194-209 ; more
briefly in the Introduction to Matthew in the Modern Reader's Bible.
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THE HOLY BIBLE
of the imagination. The visions are symbols that are
echoes of the symbohsm of the Old Testament. As
vision follows vision, these mystic symbols advance, fill
the field of view, and retreat, pointing ever to a climax
that is to come. In the centre of the whole, when the
seventh and final angel has sounded, the climax is at-
tained : mystery changes into clearness with the shout
of all heaven that "The kingdom of the World is be-
come the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and He
shall reign for ever and ever." This is the crowning
word of the Bible. The dramatic movement that began
in Genesis, that has run its course through the Old Cov-
enant of Israel and the New Covenant of Jesus Christ,
reaches its consummation when Jesus Christ is recog-
nized as the centre of all history, past, present, and to
come, and the significance of all prophetic literature.
The discussion in this chapter has not trenched upon
the ground of theology; still less has it meddled with
questions of religious controversy. The theologian and
the controversialist will be the first to admit that the
Holy Bible, whatever else it may be, is a supremely
great literature. What this chapter has endeavored to
present is the natural literary significance of Scripture,
which must be the common ground from which higher
interpretations will start. We have found the Bible a
succession of literary works, all classics, that serve to
enlarge our ideas of literary form. The distinction of
these, from the point of view of world literature, is the
unique interest by which such miscellaneous works, each
with a literary unity of its own, combine to enter into a
higher unity, the sublime movement of thought this
H [97]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
chapter has endeavored to trace. And the matter of
which this hterature is composed is the Hebraic thought
which makes one of the two roots of our modern civihza-
tion. Wliatever position, then, individual readers may
hold as to the spu'itual questions entering into the sacred
scriptures, we must all be as one in reverence for our
great literary heritage. He who is content to leave the
Bible unstudied stands convicted as a half-educated
man.
[981
CHAPTER II
THE FIVE LITEKARY BIBLES
Classical Epic and Tragedy
WE pass from the first to the second of our ancestral
Uteratures, from the Hebraic to the Hellenic . Here
there is no case of setting up literary claims : the Hel-
lenic has dominated our whole conception of literature.
The difficulty is rather practical : how the vastness of
Greek and Roman literature, which for so many of us
makes a whole hfe study, can be brought within due
bounds as a single element in world literature. Yet
several considerations will present themselves. The
traditional name of the study — Classics — is suggest-
ive of natural selection. Again, we have recognized
that modern philosophy and science is a continuation of
Greek thought : thus a large proportion of the ancient
literature reaches modern culture indirectly, in studies
not distinctively literary. A very important section
of classical studies will be the Greek Orators, important
not only for literary excellence, but also for the flood of
light they bring upon the whole constitution and minute
details of ancient life ; these however belong to the de-
partmental study of Hellenics rather than to universal
literature. Single phases of Hellenic poetry, such as
[99]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
its IjTics, enter into other parts of the present work.
To what remains we may apply the idea of "literary
bibles," that involves a worthy representation of a
wider field which shall also be a workable unity. Such
a literary bible, it appears to me, may be found in the
combination of Classical Epic with Tragedy : not the
whole of Tragedy, but that large number of Greek
tragedies which touch the matter of the great epics.
What this gives us is obviously a unity in itself ; it is
further just that part of classical literature which has
most powerfully influenced the poetic thought of sub-
sequent ages. In such a combination we recognize,
not a selection, but a nucleus.
I proceed to particularize the poetic works which are
thus to make a literary bible in their presentation of
Classical Epic and Tragedy. They fall into two un-
equal divisions. A small group of poems presents an
Heroic Myth of the First Generation : the Argonautic
Expedition. We have the epic of Apollonius Rhodius,
entitled Argonautica, and Euripides' tragedy of Medea.
With these it may be well to take William Morris's
Life and Death of Jason, as a modern reconstruction of
the whole myth. The other division of our poems is
made up of those founded on the Trojan War: an
Heroic Myth of the Second Generation, it may be called,
inasmuch as the heroes of this war are to a large extent
represented as sons or grandsons of the Argonautic
heroes. The matter of the Trojan War falls into suc-
cessive phases. We have first the Gathering of the He-
roes for Troy : the poetic presentation of this is the
Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides. In the war itself the
[100]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
main episode is that of the Quarrel between Agamemnon
and Achilles : this is the foundation of the Iliad, and
of the Rhesus of Euripides. Another great episode ap-
pears upon the Death of Achilles and the Rivalry of his
successors in leadership : this has inspired the Ajax
and the Philodetes of Sophocles. The Fall of Troy
gives us the Hecuba and the Daughters of Troy of Eurip-
ides. But it is the Departure of the Heroes from Troy
which has called forth the largest number of poetic
presentations. The home return of Agamemnon is con-
nected with iEschylus's trilogy, the Agamemnon, the
Sepulchral Rites and the Eumenides; with the Electra
of Sophocles ; with three plays of Euripides, the Electra,
the Orestes, and the Iphigenia in Taurica. The return
of Menelaus appears in the Helen of Euripides. The
return of Odysseus is of course the foundation of the
Odyssey. The return of Trojan captives is touched by
the Andromache of Euripides. Finally, the departure
from Troy of iEneas is the foundation for the Mneid of
Virgil : this JEneid closes the list, and constitutes a
grand link between Latin and Greek, and again between
Latin and Mediaeval. When this succession of poems
is taken, not in the chronological order of their composi-
tion, nor in any order of literary development, but
simply in the order of the story, they will be clearly
seen to give the unity which, in combination with width
of range and intrinsic literary excellence, is the note of
what we are calling literary bibles.^
1 For translations, etc., see the Book List below, pages 483-93.
[101
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
When we survey this succession of poems as a Hterary
whole, the first point to be noted is that they give us the
poetic thinking of successive epochs working upon a
common floating tradition. And to the modern mind
this is one of the main difficulties in the way of a full
appreciation of such ancient poetry : the difficulty of
bridging over the gulf, not between English and Greek,
not between modern and ancient, but between the liter-
ature of books and the literature of floating tradition.
We and our fathers before us, almost as far back as
English literature goes, have been accustomed to the
literature that is conveyed to us in books. We are apt
to ignore the great Oral Literature, which was not read
by the eye, but heard with the ear, and which constituted
the whole of poetry before the time when writing,
hitherto used for record only, comes to be applied to the
conservation of literature. It is a mistake to suppose
that such Oral Poetry has only an archaeological interest.
Oral and Written are the two main divisions in the his-
tory of poetry : in one respect Oral Poetry is the more
important of the two, for it is in this that the founda-
tions of literary form are slowly laid down.
The phenomena of Oral and Written poetry are widely
different ; even practised scholars, in referring to com-
positions of great antiquity, are apt to lapse into expres-
sions that have a connotation of modern conditions.
The simple scheme of epic evolution on the opposite
page may bring out the contrast of the two. Oral
poetry is a floating literature because, apart from writing
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[103
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
that gives fixity, each deUvery of a poem becomes a fresh
edition. In such a state of things there is no reading
class : the minstrel — by whatever particular name he
may be called — is the sole source of poetry, and the
minstrel is equally accessible to all. Our modern con-
ditions recognize authors, and protect their individual
claims as a kind of property ; in floating literature pro-
duction belongs to the minstrel profession collectively,
and each reciter uses the common material without any
sense of borrowing. Our first instinct is for originality,
and we scout plagiarism as a literary sin. Oral poetry
is founded on plagiarism ; the impulse to originality
has not appeared, and the conventional echoing of com-
mon topics and details is the foremost poetic interest.
In such floating poetry literary evolution has free and
rapid course. First we have the unit story or song.
But the life portrayed is comparatively simple, and
stories have much in common ; in the floating literature
it becomes easy for parts of one story to intermingle
with parts of another, and a general stage of story
fusion ensues. From time to time particular heroes or
incidents start into prominence, Achilles becoming
the reigning type of warrior, or Robin Hood the
popular outlaw ; incidents and details hitherto at-
tributed to others now are transferred to these.
Thus a third stage is reached of heroic cycles, ever
growing aggregations of miscellaneous stories cluster-
ing around individual heroes or topics ; such an
heroic cycle, it will be understood, is not a poem,
but a state of poetry. In course of time such an
heroic cycle will pass over the boundary line
[104]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
that brings us to written literature and individual
authorship : the cycle has now the chance of growing
into an organic epic, its miscellaneous and conflicting
details harmonized, as they pass through the mind of
some architectonic poet, into the unity we recognize
as plot.
The application of principles like these to the present
case brings us face to face with the famous "Homeric
Question." This Homeric Question is in reality a set
of complex and intricate problems connected with the
mode in which our Iliad and Odyssey have come into
existence : what are the sources from which the matter
of these poems has been derived, what the processes by
which their constituent elements have been united ;
how much, as a factor in such processes, is to be attrib-
uted to individual authorship, how much to race mi-
grations, how much to public recitations and influences
such as Pan-Athenaic festivals, how much to endeavors
after what has been well called an Authorized Version ;
how much again of modification may have come in be-
tween such accepted version and the actual text of the
Iliad and Odyssey which has come down to us. Prob-
lems like these, it is obvious, belong to specialized Greek
scholarship. The heat and perturbation which has been
imported into the Homeric Question is largely due to the
accident that it was this question which first brought
into prominence the distinction between the static and
the evolutionary view of literature ; between the mental
attitude which unconsciously carried modern conditions
of literary production into circumstances in which they
could have no place, and the conception of comparative
1105]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
literature which is prepared to find the early poetry of all
peoples passing through similar stages. It might well
be a shock to the general reader to hear for the first time
that "Homer" was to be understood as the name not
of a man but of a thing. The case is changed when it
appears that the Homeric Question does not stand alone,
but is typical of problems that arise in the early stages
of all literatures ; when, further, it is seen that the same
theory which questions the existence of the traditional
individual called Homer nevertheless lays emphasis on
individual authorship as a leading factor in the processes
by which the Homeric poems have been produced. In
any case, as has been already said, the problem belongs
to specialized scholarship. The main point on which
the student of pure literature should fasten his attention
is the consideration that, whatever may be the final de-
cision as to particular Homeric problems, our Iliad and
Odyssey unquestionably belong to that golden moment
of literary history in which the stream of floating tra-
dition meets the influence of writing and fixity of form ;
that there results a supremely great combination, be-
tween richness of material, accumulated through succes-
sive generations, and the organic harmony of plot which,
ultimately, is inseparable from individual authorship.
It is not easy for a modern reader to put back the
clock of time and adjust his mental attitude to floating
literature. This appears to involve two ideas which to
the modern mind seem self-contradictory. On the one
hand, we must conceive of this epic matter as real his-
tory : to the Greeks it is their only history of the far
past. It is doubtful if our modern conception of ''fic-
[106]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
tion" — life presented in stories wholly invented from
beginning to end — would be even intelligible to an an-
cient Greek. Thucydides is justly esteemed as one of
the world's most profound and subtle historians : what
is the attitude of this Thucydides to the Homeric presen-
tation of the Trojan War ? He brings to bear upon it his
rationalizing analysis : this particular element he con-
siders as exaggerated and tones it down; that detail
he questions ; for another he finds an alternative expla-
nation. But the rationalizing mind of Thucydides
never conceives — what would be the first thought of a
modern historian — the question whether the whole
matter of Homer from first to last has any verifiable
basis of reality, whether there is any conclusive evidence
that Troy itself had any existence. On the other hand,
the material of this accepted history must be understood
as infinitely malleable, capable of being varied at will
in all but its broadest outlines. In this we have what is
a difficulty to the modern mind. If an English reader
has taken his conception of Henry the Eighth from
Shakespeare, and then is led to a different conception
by the evidence of a modern historian, he must surrender
his first idea : the Henry of Shakespeare and the Henry
of Froude cannot both be ''history." But to the Greek
mind they could. When Stesichorus or Euripides adds
to the tradition of the guilty Helen a new conception of
Helen pure, with the world around her misled by a mi-
raculous simulacrum, the old tradition is not destroyed
by the new conception, the two can stand side by side.
This union of historic reality and malleability of mate-
rial makes a splendid medium for thought to work in :
[107]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
one not likely to recur in the future. We must criticise
our history, or offer alternative interpretations. The
ancient Greeks criticised by creating ; they could re-
cast reality in varied creations without mutual inter-
ference. For the attainment of this attitude of antiq-
uity to creative poetry the reading of our poems in the
order of the story is a great assistance ; from this point
of view the order of the story becomes the natural order.
We must, of course, discriminate the different parts of
the scheme of Epic and Tragedy suggested above ; but
for the moment let us consider the whole as a unity.
Three points suggest themselves. 1. We have here the
crystallization of a widely extended floating poetry in
epics and tragedies of consummate literary excellence,
the epics sweeping over wide areas of incident, while the
tragedies, from varied points of view, illuminate single
moments. 2. Again, we have in these poems the em-
bodiment of a grand prehistoric civilization, conveyed
in pictures so clear-cut that we can analyze its every
part. This comes, not through the purpose of any poet,
but by the very nature of poetry itself. On the one
hand, poetry does not reflect history, but invents it.
On the other hand, poetry does not invent civilization,
but reflects it. The floating tradition enriches the
result by extending the gathering ground for materials.
The history of early Greece was a history of migrations ;
as peoples migrated from one quarter of Greece to an-
other, their floating poetry migrated with them ; floating
traditions were worked over by other floating tradi-
tions, to an infinite complexity. But what makes per-
plexity for the scientific archaeologist brings enrichment
[108]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
to the object of literary study : what we have before us
is not the embodiment of a single specific civilization,
but a composite photograph of many prehistoric civih-
zations, with added value from elimination of the ac-
cidental. 3. One more remark must be added. Of the
poetry entering into our scheme we may assert that, in a
greater degree than any other part of the world's litera-
ture, it has had the prerogative voice in poetic art.
This has been true to an extent which makes embar-
rassment for literary criticism : the poetic practice of
this literature was by early criticism exalted into bind-
ing laws, against which other types of poetry had to
struggle for very existence. The authority of classical
epic and tragedy may have been overthrown, but its
primacy in poetic art there is no one to dispute. If we
are to study poetry at all, we shall surely wish to study
it at the fountainhead.
When we distinguish the separate parts of our scheme,
what the whole gives us is the thinking of successive and
widely sundered epochs concentrated upon a common
floating tradition. It is a mistake to suppose that when
the literature of books begins the literature of oral
tradition comes to an end : the two continue side by
side. For a time in ancient Greece the very machin-
ery of oral poetry, the rhapsodic recitations, continued ;
while Greek tragedies were conveyed to the people from
the lips of the actors, not from the books of the poets.
But even at a later period, when oral had yielded to
written literature, none the less floating poetry con-
tinued in the impalpable form we call tradition : a
legendary poetry, far vaster in amount than the content
1109]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
of actual poems, enshrined in the hearts of the people,
like an unwritten Bible. Homer belongs to the thresh-
old of Greek history, tragedy to its culmination in the
supremacy of Athens : but where the two touch the
matter of the Trojan War, what we find is, not that trag-
edy has borrowed from Homer, but that Homer and
tragedy have borrowed independently from the float-
ing literature. Had the tragedian Agathon succeeded
in the attempt with which history credits him, the at-
tempt to dramatize newly invented matter, the history
of world literature would have been materially different.
Apollonius belongs to the late age of Alexandrian criti-
cism ; yet for his epic story he goes back to the old cycle
of the Argonautic Expedition. With Virgil we have
the Rome of the Caesars and an entirely changed world ;
yet it seems to Vu'gil natural to seek material for his
Roman story in the same floating poetry which served
as raw material for Homer and tragedy. As a planet,
travelling vastest regions of space, can never escape
from the influence of the intangible points which make
the foci of its orbit, so the whole range of Classical Epic
and Tragedy, with all its advance in thought and senti-
ment, is held within the charmed circle of traditional sub-
ject-matter. It is hardly necessary to add that this is
no case of a barren literary age imitating because it can-
not invent. The cause is rather in the wonderful crea-
tive outburst of early Greece, the perfect marriage of the
highest invention and skill to a wealth of traditional
material, the interest of which centuries of subsequent
history could not exhaust. And it is precisely this fea-
ture which is the distinguishing feature of the poetry we
[110]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
are surveying among the great divisions of universal
literature. Classical poetry is made classical by this
attitude to the past : poetic invention and constructive
skill concentrated upon echoing the matter accumulated
by the poetry of the past, reading new thought and sen-
timent into accepted subject-matter, just as, in a differ-
ent literary medium, the modern lyric poet delights to
compel his varied and highly individualized sentiment
into the straitened form of the sonnet. And this clas-
sical impulse was to dominate poetry until, at the close
of the Middle Ages, its converse should arise in the
romantic impulse toward free invention and search for
novelty, and the antithesis of classical and romantic
should become a force in the whole future of poetry.
II
Limits of space oblige me to pass rapidly over the first
section of our scheme. The cycle of the Argonautic
Expedition stands first in the order of story, since its
heroes appear to a large extent as fathers or ancestors
of those who are to figure in the Trojan War. It is no
departure from the general spirit of the whole scheme
that I have suggested the combination with the Argo-
nautica and the Medea of the modern reconstruction of
the story in William Morris's Life and Death of Jason.
For in William Morris, surely, we have our English
Homer : supreme creative genius, with the special bias
towards crystallization of past poetry in new combina-
tions. In the period we call the Dark Ages literature
to some extent relapsed into floating poetry ; William
[111]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
Morris seized upon some of its most precious stories and
worked them into the scheme of his Earthly Paradise.
A great cycle of Norse poetry, in intrinsic power the only
peer of Greek epic, waited for its Homer until it found
him in the author of Sigurd the Volsung. And in the
present case we see Morris at work in the field of classi-
cal poetry. The traditional treatment of epic has rested
too much upon poetic ornament, or single episodes, or
heroic figures : we are apt to forget that the supreme
element in epic poetry must, from the nature of the case,
consist in the shaping of the story itself. And this is
also among forms of epic beauty the most elusive. It
becomes then a most valuable exercise in poetic art to
watch, point by point and from beginning to end, a great
master like William Morris working over the material he
has received from the past and re-shaping it into an
original creation. In the case before us there is the special
interest of seeing Greek life change its whole atmosphere
for the haze of romance, with touches of the modern
brooding on human life. Again, one who essays to com-
bine the matter of Apollonius's poem with that of Eu-
ripides' tragedy is confronted with the infinitely difficult
problem of reconciling the Jason of the Argonautic Ex-
pedition with the Jason of the Medea; new material is
imported into Morris's poem, and changes of emphasis are
traceable in all parts, largely for the purpose of soften-
ing down this discrepancy. Incidentally, such com-
parative study will bring home to the student how clas-
sical echoing is widely different from borrowing or mere
imitation. To approach traditional incidents just near
enough to awaken literary associations, and then to glide
[112]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
away with unexpected turns of thought or novel recon-
structions, this requires the nicest dehcacy of touch and
mastery of poetic art. It is this more than anything else
which has given to classical poetry its charm and tech-
nical finish, making it the reconciliation, in some de-
gree, of the primitive poetic interest of convention with
the modem impulse to novelty.
Ill
We come to the Iliad. The foundation step in our
appreciation of a poem is to grasp it in its unity. In
the case of elaborate poems this unity finds technical
expression in Plot and Movement; Plot, the unity of
a poem considered as a scheme of connected parts ;
Movement, the realization of the unity in progression
from beginning to end of the poem. Wlien we apply
such analysis to the case before us, we find just what
we should expect to find from the position of the Iliad
in literary evolution ; its plot and movement can be
formulated, but we feel at once that such formulation
conveys less of the spirit of the whole than would be the
case with later poems. The Iliad is only just within
the field of the organic epic : the traditional interest of
the exuberant subject-matter is ever asserting itself,
and tending to overpower our sense of the unity bond.
Plot of the Iliad
Main Story : Quarrel of Agamemnon and Achilles : developed at
length : within the
Enveloping Action: The Graeco-Trojan War : involving numerous
Secondary Stories
I [113]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
Secondary stories are narratives within the main
narration ; these in the case of the Iliad make, in the
aggregate, a considerable proportion of the whole. We
have pedigree stories : almost every prominent warrior,
as he is first introduced, must have his pedigree —
sometimes a lengthy pedigree — related ; we have
pedigrees for the sceptre of Agamemnon, for the
horses of Tros, for a helmet, for a bow. Again, two
personages of the poem are old men, Nestor and
Phcenix : the garrulity of age loves to tell feats of the
far past, and in the interminable speeches of these
heroes the curious analyst may find the involution of
story within story to the fourth degree. As the evolu-
tion of the epic is the gradual amalgamation of miscel-
laneous incidents within a harmonizing unity, these
secondary stories have the right to a place in our
formulation of the plot. Apart from these, the main
story of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles
presents itself as a momentary episode in the larger and
not less interesting action of the Trojan War,
When we turn our attention to the progression of
incidents through the poem, the conflicting claims
of the main story and the enveloping action are such
that we must make two statements of the movement
of the Iliad, according as we give prominence to the
one or the other. If we lay the stress upon the main
story, then the movement of the poem gives us the art
effect of Introversion, the second phase of the move-
ment reversing the order of the first.
[114]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
Movement op the Iliad: Introversion
A. Origin : The Quarrel
B. First Day's War : The Rampart : Agamemnon's Repent-
ance
C. Second Day's War: The Bivouac: Agamemnon's
Apology Rejected
Interlude of Adventure : Nocturnal Spying
CC. Third Day's War : Rampart stormed but Patroclus lost
BB. Return of Achilles : Patroclus avenged and Hector slain
AA. General Pacification : Burial of Patroclus and Hector
The starting-point of the action is, not the sin of one
man, but the quarrel of two : the power of authority
and the power of personal might have come into col-
lision, and both Agamemnon and Achilles indulge a
wrath that will bring consequences. At first, the
action turns wholly against Agamemnon. At the end
of the first day's war the building of the rampart is an
outward symbol that the Greeks have been driven to
the defensive; Agamemnon bitterly repents the out-
burst of insult which has lost him the might of Achilles.
At the end of the second day, the humiliation of the
Greeks has reached the point that their enemies bivouac
in the open air to prevent nocturnal flight ; Agamemnon
descends to the very depths of apology, only to find his
apology rejected by Achilles. But now the action
begins to reverse itself and turn against Achilles. The
storming of the rampart on the third day brings
Patroclus into the field : with the loss of Patroclus
[115]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
Achilles is wounded in his tenderest part. The next
section of the poem gives us Achilles making com-
plete surrender, and returning to the war : only
at this price can Patroclus be avenged and the tri-
umphant Hector slain. The final section balances the
original quarrel with a general pacification, and the
burial of Patroclus and Hector. In the centre of
the action, the night between the second and third day
brings an episode of relief: nocturnal incidents, with
the spying expedition of the Trojans outmanoeuvred
by the spying expedition of the Greeks, make an inter-
lude of adventure in a poem of war.
Thus the main theme, as announced in the opening
lines of the poem, has been regularly developed and
brought to a conclusion. But if we let ourselves follow
the narration just as it stands, we feel that it is rather
the enveloping action of the Trojan War that presses
itself upon our attention; and a new statement be-
comes necessary to do justice to the poetic motives
which are actually felt to underlie the course of events.
Motive Structure of the Iliad
Zeus as supreme
Destiny — balan-
cing throughout
Subordinate Dei-
ties — limited in-
terference on be-
half of favorites
WAR
Divine Carica-
ture of Life
Home scenes and
Hospitality
Underlying interests of Epic Civilization and External Nature
The dominant motive of the whole poem is the over-
powering interest of War. It is a great thing for the
[116]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
world that the stage in human evolution in which the
warrior impulse is the highest spiritual stage attainable
by man should have idealized itself in a masterpiece of
poetry, before it has passed away to become ever more
impossible and unrealizable. Whoever would study
this old-world ideal, must study it in the Iliad. At
first, and indeed all through, we have what may be
called normal war: chiefs rousing their followers, the
clash of whole armies, personal combats innumerable,
rushes of great heroes through the ranks of war like
destructive rockets, diversions by arrow warfare or
stone hurling ; amid these are interspersed more specific
martial incidents, such as the suspension of the general
battle to give place for a duel, the sudden arrow of
treachery, struggles over the divine horses of Tros or
Achilles, appeals for mercy, in the thick of combat
recognition of guest friends. From the beginning of
the third day the movement of war goes through a
steady crescendo. We now have concerted movements,
such as the five-column attack upon the rampart, and
grouped combats, with several heroes of name on each
side; there is rampart storming and defence; the
rally of the Greeks under the god Poseidon is met by
the counter rally of the Trojans under the god Apollo ;
the firing of the galleys brings Patroclus to roll back the
battle to the walls of Troy. Then all seems to merge
in contests over the corpses of fallen heroes, especially
the long strain, filling the seventeenth book, of both
armies over the corpse of Patroclus, amid mist and
darkness, with gods taking part on both sides : this
brings a sudden climax in the terrible shout of Achilles
[117]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
from the trenches, as he is seen in a glare of supernatural
light. All the resources of combat would seem to have
been exhausted ; yet a finale is still to come in the
addition of mystic warfare, with gods and men con-
fusedly intermingled. From the twentieth book the
whole action is supernaturally moulded. Gods in dis-
guise hearten heroes, and then snatch them away in
mist. We have the splendid episode of the twenty-
first book : Achilles in his heaven-wrought armor help-
less against the divine River, that ''with furious under-
sweep overmasters his knees" and dashes cataracts on
his shield, until the Fire God is brought to quench the
might of the River God. Then follows a mystic inter-
lude : for a time gods clashing with gods fill the whole
interval between earth and heaven. And thus, when
at last we reach the point up to which the whole action
of the poem has been working, the final meeting of
Achilles and Hector, it is no matching of hero strength
that we find, but a tangled incident mystically con-
trolled in every detail. Apollo has covered the retreat
of the army into Troy, while the feet of Hector are
"fettered by baleful fate" outside; at the nearer ap-
proach of the terrible Achilles the bravest of men turns
in panic flight ; when he is exhausted Apollo comes to
his side ; at the signal from heaven Apollo passes from
him, and Athene, working for Achilles, plays her cruel
deception — the apparition of the supporting brother
that brings Hector helpless to the slaughter.
This dominant motive of war is seen to be inter-
penetrated by other motives ; or at times it gives place
to other interests by way of relief. Of the other
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CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
motives the most prominent is what the modern
world would call Providence : the control of Deity over
events. Zeus is ''steward of war and peace to men" :
in the Iliad Destiny is almost completely identified
with the will of Zeus, and its visible symbol of the
Balance which makes fate. By the nature of the story
we are prepared for a temporary advantage of the
Trojans, which is the providential compensation for
the slight of Achilles ; but we are hardly prepared for
the degree to which Deity will sway the whole course of
events. In the war of the first day, as compared with
what follows, Zeus seems almost quiescent ; yet even
here it is he who sends Athene to violate the truce, and
bring about the battle in which the Trojans can be
seen to prevail. On the second day, Zeus in high
council of heaven enforces neutrality on the other gods :
they chafe against his restraint, yet know him irre-
sistible. Zeus descends to Mount Ida to keep watch.
Up to noon he leaves the battle to itself ; then he dis-
plays his balance against the Greeks, and follows this
with the thunder that turns the tide of victory ; Hera
and Poseidon are impelled to interfere, but are held
back ; at the prayer of Ajax Zeus gives him the momen-
tary encouragement of the eagle omen, then returns
to his purpose and enkindles the Trojan hosts to pour
over the trench. On the third day, Zeus sends the
demon of Discord to enhance the battle spirit on both
sides ; the rest of the gods are raging at their helpless-
ness, but Zeus recks not. Again he balances with
even sway for a time, drawing Hector out of danger as
the Greeks are prevailing, sending Iris to restrain him
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until Agamemnon shall have run his course of glory.
The wounding of this Agamemnon Zeus has made the
signal for the turn of the tide : now he drives even
Ajax into panic-stricken retreat, and, with the hurricane
of dust against the gallej'^s, carries forward the rush of
victorious Trojans to the smashing of the gate. Zeus
is now satisfied, and can turn his eyes to other parts
of the world : there is opportunity for other disturbing
forces to come in. When Zeus awakes from his sleep
he sends Apollo to undo the mischief done by Poseidon,
and restores the course of Trojan victory. At the
prayer of Nestor he thunders a moment's hope, but
only to save the life of Nestor himself, for the thunder
is interpreted as favorable omen for the Trojans. As
Achilles watching the battle utters his prayer to Zeus,
Zeus hears half of it, and grants Patroclus to hurl the
battle from the galleys, denies the other half, that
Patroclus might come back safe. From this point
Zeus is seen heartening and disheartening men, over-
bearing all human counsels. He enkindles the fury
of Patroclus to press the battle on to Troy, where he
will meet his death ; he sheds a sudden mist to save the
corpse of Patroclus from the dogs ; repenting a moment
for the Greeks Zeus sends Athene to kindle their ardor
in struggling over their hero's corpse, yet, when Hector
comes into the fray, shakes forth his segis and thunders
a triumph for Troy which all can recognize ; yet again,
as Ajax in distress puts forth a prayer, Zeus dissolves
the mist and grants the Greeks the rescue of Patroclus's
corpse. The Trojan success vowed to Thetis is now
fully accomplished, and Zeus, holding council of gods
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CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
and nature powers, bids theni take their full liberty :
he will gaze from Olympus and gladden his heart
with the truceless strife. With this presentation of
the will of Zeus as fate comes the paradox that Des-
tiny is seen in the act of hesitation and making com-
promise. When the course of the battle threatens his
own son Sarpedon, Zeus quails in his role of Destiny;
Hera reminds him of that other fate which lies in the
mortality of an individual man. Destiny must compro-
mise : Zeus leaves Sarpedon to die, but will rescue the
loved corpse; blood drops of Zeus's agony fall on the
earth in crimson dew as Sarpedon falls; he thrills
Hector's heart with faintness to draw the battle away
as Sleep and Death bear away the corpse. Again,
Zeus shakes his head over the sight of Hector putting
on the armor of Achilles torn from the dead Patroclus,
and we have another compromise of fate as Zeus grants
great might to Hector in requital of the doom that he
shall not return from the battle alive. At the last
moment of Hector's doom Zeus hesitates over a dear
and pious worshipper; again the thought of mortal
weird is presented to him, and he must display the fatal
balance that brings the end.
Other deities also come in as a disturbing force to
the natural course of events. These in no way repre-
sent Destiny; they are simply superhuman powers,
like the demonic forces of later poetry, who, by permis-
sion of Zeus or by eluding his notice, interfere for
friends or against foes, sometimes directly, more often
by momentary incarnations in some human likeness.
Athene turns the arrow of treachery aside from Mene-
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THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
laus, as a mother brushes a fly from her sleeping child ;
Aphrodite snatches away the wounded Paris in a mist,
and brings him home to Troy ; Glaucus wounded cries
to Apollo, and Apollo stanches the wound. Apollo
in the guise of a friend approaches ^neas, and ^neas
recognizes the god ; Athene comes in the guise of
Phoenix to Menelaus, and has the delight of hearing
Menelaus name herself as the divinity he invokes.
The fifth book seems given up to such interference of
deity. It is Athene who inspires Diomedes to his rush
of glory ; she leads her fellow-deity, the dull Ares, out
of the battle on the plea of their both abstaining from
combat, and straightway returns herself to the fight.
She gives Diomedes the special power of discerning the
forms of the gods in the crowd of fighters. When
Aphrodite, rescuing her ^neas in a fold of her bright
mantle, is herself wounded and drops her burden,
Apollo snatches ^neas up in a cloud, and creates a
wraith in his likeness to draw the battle away. Later,
Apollo brings Ares back into the fight; Ares in the
likeness of a comrade rouses the Trojans, and becomes
visible in his own form as he leads on their charge.
When Hera and Athene gain Zeus's permission for a
moment's interference, Hera with the voice of Stentor
rouses the Greeks, Athene tumbles the charioteer of
Diomedes out of the chariot and takes his place herself.
When the attention of Zeus is wholly transferred to
other scenes, Poseidon has his chance to rally the
Greeks : in the likeness of Kalchas he inspires their
sinking spirits ; in the likeness of another he brings re-
inforcements ; in the likeness of an aged man he urges
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CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
on Agamemnon and Nestor. In the counter rally of
the Trojans Apollo directly comforts Hector, breathes
might into him, smooths the way before him, leads
the charge of the Trojans with cloud- veiled shoulders,
spurns down with his feet full lightly the banks of the
foss : while he holds his aegis moveless the foe fall fast
by the shafts, when he shakes it their souls are dazed.
On the tower of Troy Apollo three times buffets back
the advancing Patroclus, at the fourth advance reveals
himself and shouts a terrible warning ; in the later
crisis he smites the strength out of Patroclus and leaves
him a helpless prey to Hector. Taken in the aggregate,
these irruptions of deities into the course of human
events make a very prominent motive in the action of
the poem.
Throughout all the incidents of this type the domi-
nant motive of war has continued. But there are
points at which this gives place to relief scenes and
literary interests of an entirely different kind. Wlien
the whole Trojan War has for the moment become
concentrated in the duel between Paris and Menelaus,
between the wronger and the wronged, the invisible
Aphrodite has but to snap the helmet band of Paris,
and the scene changes, as if by magic, to the bower of
Helen and passages of love. The formal challenge for
this duel has required the summoning of King Priam
to pour libations : we get a picture of Troy, of the
tender courtesy of the old king to the captive Helen,
of Helen viewing from her place of captivity the chief-
tains of her old country. In the chances of battle
Machaon is wounded : at all hazards the warrior leech
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THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
must be rescued, and for two hundred and fifty lines
we are in the tent of Nestor, with its stately hospitality,
varied by a friendly call from Patroclus, and the old
host's stories of the past. WTien the Trojans are being
hard pressed, Helenus has but to speak a word of advice
and we pass with Hector out of the battle-field to the
palace of Priam, to Athene's stately fane on its castled
crag, to the dwelling of Paris and Helen and the home
of Hector; above all, to the exquisite pathos of the
meeting by the gate with Andromache and, though
they know it not, the last parting of warrior, wife, and
babe, with forecast of the widow's doom. We have
again the formal embassy of the Greek chiefs to the
tent of Achilles bearing the royal apology, with its
interchange of passionate oratory, and the long-drawn
appeal of Phoenix for the spirit of restraint and rever-
ence for the Prayers that are the daughters of Zeus.
And the reverse side of the war glory is pictured for
us in the long scenes of mourning : the mourning
for Patroclus dead, with its side-light on the captive
women's woes ; the wailing of father, mother, wife,
and all the folk of Troy over the fall of its great hero
and hope; the misery of Priam's embassy to recover
the corpse of Hector, and the meeting of crushed
father and crushed friend ; the final wailing as the
body of Hector enters the gate of his ruined city.
But there are in the Iliad relief scenes of a very
different type from this. Pictures of divine interference
in human affairs give place at times to home scenes of
the divine life on Olympus : and we seem to read in
them parodies of home scenes in the world of mortals.
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CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
At the outset of the story Thetis must invoke the
interposition of Providence on behalf of the Trojans;
veiled in dawn mist, she seeks a secret conference with
Zeus ; Zeus gives her his pledge, but has misgivings as
to what his "brawling queen" will think of the matter.
And not without reason : for, though all the gods rise
in awe-stricken respect as Zeus enters Olympus, yet
this does not prevent a scene of feminine nagging.
The Queen of Heaven has marked the nod which has
shaken Olympus, and interprets it of a feminine influ-
ence outside the family, which she thinks means favor-
itism for the Trojans.
Ha ! thinkest thou ? — ever thou thinkest ! — thou spiest on me
evermore ! . . .
And what if it be as thou think'st ? —
The head of the divine household is on the verge
of some terrible explosion, but the Halt-foot god,
who has had experiences himself in this way, hastens
to effect a diversion ; his clumsy attempts to hurry
around the nectar and ambrosia in the absence of
Hebe restores good humor, and the scene ends in
domestic feasting, with music from Apollo and the
Muses before the gods retire for the night. This is
balanced in the fourth book by divine nagging on the
part of Zeus himself: ''with word-shafts glancing
aslant," ''mocking with heart-stinging taunt," he lets
it be known to the ladies of his household how they are
sitting apart from the trouble of their Menelaus, while
the Laughter-Queen has rescued her friend. The
daughter nurses her wrath in silence, the wife flashes
[1251
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
out. With the fixed convention of Olympus that the
gods never cross one another's schemes, Zeus bids the
rest do what they will, but let them wait until he has a
grudge against some favorite city of theirs. Hera
promptly names three famous Greek cities — and we
may presume that the rhapsodic reciter would vary
the names, with his eye upon his audience — and vows
that Zeus may do his worst against them if only she
can have a free hand with Troy. When, in the fifth
book, Athene gives Diomedes the power of recognizing
and avoiding gods in the clash of battle, she makes a
spiteful exception in the case of one single deity :
accordingly Aphrodite feels herself suddenly stung in
the wrist with the point of a mortal's spear. The
divine ichor begins to flow, and in frenzy of torment
Aphrodite borrows her brother's chariot and flies to her
mother's knees, to tell how she has been stabbed while
rescuing her darling son ; the mother comforts her
with the assurance that mortals who fight with the
gods never live long, and wipes with cool palms the
wounded arm; Hera and Athene look on with hard
eyes, suggesting some love passage in which a brooch
has scratched the dainty hand, while Zeus bids his
darling leave war to fiercer deities. A different measure
is dealt out to Ares, as the irrepressible member of the
divine family, who inherits his mother's overbearing
spirit. Athene brings Diomedes to stab Ares in the
battle, the goddess guiding the spear to a tender spot ;
the brazen Ares yells a yell fit for some nine thousand
mortals, and flees in anguish to show the blood to Zeus,
who snubs him for his whimpering moan ; as a member
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CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
of the divine household, however, he is allowed the
attentions of the family physician. In the eighth
book, Athene and Hera can no longer bear the enforced
neutrality, and begin to arm themselves. Iris is sent
to them from Zeus, with terrible threats of physical
consequences to the daughter, but Zeus is not so indig-
nant with Hera, as she is always crossing him. The
goddesses must needs unarm, and sit down indignant
and angry-souled ; Zeus comes thundering in to dare
them and taunt them with their helplessness to resist.
At the important point of the story where Zeus turns
his attention from Troy to other parts of the world,
and Poseidon has his chance to interpose, Hera sees
an opportunity for cozening Zeus with wifely charms.
We witness a divine toilet in full detail, not excepting
the casket of precious ointment, one drop of which if
spilled would fill earth and heaven with perfume;
Hera even brings herself to solicit love- charms from
Aphrodite; when thus prepared she approaches Zeus
on Mount Ida, we learn how arts of flirtation can be
played upon a husband. Zeus awakes from sleep and
perceives how he has been imposed upon, but, ere the
outburst can descend upon her, the wife takes refuge
in an equivocation that seems to amuse Zeus. At his
bidding she returns to the gods, a laugh on her lips and
overglooming scowl upon her brow, to tell them there
is no doing anything with Zeus ; yet she contrives in a
parenthesis to let out the news that Ares' son has
fallen in the fight, which drives the raging deity to a
fury of arming, and his sister must take him by the
shoulder and bring him back to a sense of the irresistible.
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THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
Iris as messenger bears to Poseidon Zeus's command
to drop his interference ; Poseidon indulges in tall talk ;
Iris naively asks if she is to repeat this exactly to Zeus,
or whether he had not better remember the Erinnyes
that wait on the elder-born ; Poseidon climbs down,
and thanks Iris for a word in season. In the twenty-
first book, when the clash of gods comes, Ares seeks a
return match against Athene for the affair of Diomedes'
spear; but the cast of a rugged rock lays him seven
roods' length on the ground, and he learns how far
reasoned force is above blind fury. Aphrodite leads
her rough lover away ; Hera tells Athene, and Athene
comes and smites Aphrodite's breast with brawny
hand, while Hera stands smiling by. Poseidon dares
Apollo to the combat, but Apollo declines to match
himself against his much-respected uncle. For this
his sister Artemis taunts Apollo with being a coward ;
whereupon Hera turns upon Artemis, grips her wrists,
buffets her with her own bow, smiling ever; Artemis
twists and writhes, flies weeping and cowed, and sits on
Zeus's knees in sorrowful plight, the vesture celestial
shaken with sobs.
In all this are we correctly interpreting the spirit of
these Olympic scenes? There is precedent for the
wholesale misreading by one age of the poetic spirit
of another age : Shakespearean scholarship to-day in-
clines to the belief that the mad scenes of Shakespeare's
plays, so infinitely pathetic to us, were by their own age
accepted as so much roaring fun. Yet I believe that
in the present case there is no mistake : the natural
impression left by the incidents we have been reviewing
[1281
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
is the correct interpretation, and the divine life of
Olympus is the comic element in the Iliad. There is
the parallel of the Satyric Drama, which all through
the literary history of Athens concluded each set of
tragedies : this Satyric Drama was simply a burlesque.
There is the still closer parallel of the Sicilian Drama
associated with the name of Epicharmus, and roughly
contemporary with the Homeric tradition; this, from
what we know of it by history and by the imitation of
it in Aristophanes, seems to have used mythology as a
mode of satire. The embassy of gods to the City of
the Birds is just a political cartoon of ambassadors
as Aristophanes saw them in his own times. The word
" caricature" etymologically means " overloading" : the
enlargement of humanity in mythical deity lends it-
self to the enlargement that burlesques. Nor is there
anything in the ancient Greek conception of Deity to
conflict with this. In Homeric thought Nature and
Man and Deity seem to shade into one another ; they
are like families which have intermarried. We have
personalities sprung from a human and a divine parent ;
we have divine horses ; Iris is the storm-footed go-
between connecting heaven and earth. The River God,
the Fire God, even Poseidon and Hades, are not, in
the Iliad, the abstract personifications of our Classical
Dictionaries, but a river that floods, a fire that burns,
the ocean and under-world that lie about us. Deity
is transcendental Humanity or transcendental Nature :
whatever we see in humanity or in nature has a mag-
nified counterpart in Deity. Semitic thought, from
which our modern spiritual conceptions come, here
K [ 129 ]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
contrasts sharply with Greek thought. Semitic
thought is distinguished by absence of the sense of
humor. It lays its emphasis, not on humanity in its
all-roundness, but upon the struggling upward and
downward tendencies in man ; we idealize the upward
element in us as God, the downward element we idealize
as something else — perhaps the Devil. But to the
thought of old Greece God would include the Devil :
intoxication becomes divine in Bacchus; thieving
becomes divine in Hermes or the Latin Mercury ; Ares,
as blind rage, is just as much a deity as the rationally
controlled force of Athene. The only mistake in the
matter — and it is a mistake into which the modern
reader may easily fall — is to see any necessary conflict
between this hilarious handling of deity and what is its
opposite, equally Greek, the awful reverence for divin-
ity as controller of destiny and vindicator of right.
Notwithstanding its comic element, the drift of the
whole Iliad is ethical, presenting a wrath that is its
own punishment.
The movement, then, of the Iliad is made by the
interplay of such distinct motives and such scenes of
relief. But all this by no means exhausts the interest
of the poem. The subject-matter of such works as
the Iliad and Odyssey has a literary interest hardly
second to that of the moulding of the matter by the
form. As remarked before, the Homeric poems are
a concrete embodiment of prehistoric civilization;
and few literary exercises are more interesting than to
take the concrete picture to pieces and resolve it into
its elements. We can from this source study the social
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CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
stratification of antiquity, and the social ideals that
this evokes. We can see with what degree of definite-
ness political conceptions have formulated themselves,
what are the mutual relations of the governing powers
and the democratic spirit in public assemblies, and in
the ordinary administration of life. We can get into
touch with primitive religion : can catch its dominant
ideas of Destiny and Deity, and trace their all-per-
vasive influence on daily life; we can follow the re-
ligious ceremonials, and see how the high ritual of
sacrifice merges in the good-fellowship of the body of
worshippers. There is especially abundant material for
studying the position of woman in the Homeric age,
her dignity in peace, the pathos of her relationship to
war ; we realize how much closer to our own ideas is the
Homeric conception of woman and family life than are
the conceptions of these that are found in later periods
of history. Precise notions can be formed of Homeric
art, and of the material side of Homeric civilization :
its cities, its houses and ships, its commerce, its imple-
ments of peace and mode of warfare. Elaborate
treatises on subjects like these can be and have been
written, based on materials mainly drawn from these
poems. The whole civilized life that preceded the
dawn of modern history has been brought closer to our
imaginative sympathy, and even to our analysis, than
the civilization we are obliged to call historical.
There is one kind of poetic interest which we look for
in all types of poetry — the handling of external nature.
On this point the Iliad is worthy of special study. In
modern poetry of the narrative order we expect to find
[131]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
direct descriptions of nature, often lengthy and elabo-
rate ; and this seems to enter into the poem as an end
in itself. Such direct nature poetry is hardly found in
the Iliad, unless in the very special section of the poem
devoted to the sculptured armor of Achilles : here some
of the scenes depicted may be called nature scenes.
Still less do we find that specially modern treatment, of
which William Morris is so great a master, and in which
nature is made a dramatic background for incident,
changes of light or scene moving in mystic sympathy
with changes in events, as if Ruskin's "pathetic fallacy"
were being adopted into the spirit of the action.^ There
is one remarkable episode of the Iliad, already noted, in
which physical nature may be said to enter into the epic
action : the contest of Achilles with the River God is a
contest with the River itself, and magnificent presenta-
tion of nature forces is the result. But as a regular
thing beauties of the external world are in the Iliad
brought into the poem indirectly, by the artificial de-
vices of the metaphor and the simile. The recurrent
phrases by which so often mention is made of morning
and night are gems of metaphorical word-picturing.
In the simile description is on a large scale ; a great part
of the similes in the Iliad are drawn from natural ob-
jects. These are of course one of the notable features
of Homeric poetry ; I would suggest to any reader, who
has not already done so, that he should mark in the
margin of his Homer every occurrence of a simile ; let
him then read again these similes independently of the
context, and he will appreciate what a wealth of nature
^ Compare below, pages 328-9.
[ 132 ]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
beauty is by this means imported into the poem. Not-
able also is the distribution of these similes, and the use
made of them. In the Iliad we may often read many
hundred lines together without finding a simile, except
momentary comparisons that carry no pictorial force.
Elsewhere the similes come crowding together, treading
on one another's heels. Very occasionally, the effect
of a simile may be classified under the head of relief
effect : such, surely, is the interpretation of the point
in book twelve, where, in the hottest moment of the
rampart storming, the strain of fighting heroes and fly-
ing missiles is broken by a simile of exquisite calm : —
As fall on a wintry day thick-thronging the flakes of the snow,
When Zeus the Counsel-father bestirreth himself, to show
Unto men what manner of arrows be shot from his quivers of cloud ; —
His winds hath he hush'd, and he still snoweth on, tiU his white pall
shroud
High mountain-crests, huge forelands that loom through the laden
air,
And the clover-mantled meadows, and menfolk's acres fair ;
It is shed on the grey sea's havens, it fringeth the rocky shore,
But the surge-sweep keepeth it back ; all else is covered o'er
With its veil, when heavily earthward the shower of Kronion doth
pour ;
So flew thick-thronging the stones by foes fast hurled against foes.^
More usually, the simile seems to come as a mode of
emphasis : human effort intensified by nature similes
seems to take on elemental force. Such is the effect, in
the second book, of the Greek hosts smitten with sudden
impulse mustering for battle: their flashing weapons
1 This and the other quotations from the Iliad are taken from
Mr. Way's translation.
[133]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
gleam — like a forest fire on a mountain ridge ; they
pour fortli to the plain and halt — like a flock of cranes
settling ; they swarm over the plain — like multitu-
dinous flies in spring wheeling and dancing round the
foaming milk-pails ; they resolve into ordered files — like
goats severed drove by drove ; their hero-king towers
above them — like the bull that in goodlihead outshines
all the herd. So largely is the Iliad the fountainhead
of epic poetry that its treatment of the important poetic
device of the simile, and the relation of this to the hand-
ling of nature beauty, is worthy of all attention. The
epic of description is not yet ; the epic of action by this
treatment becomes a gallery hung round with cameos
of nature metaphors and full-length simile pictures of
natural scenery.
IV
The Odyssey is perhaps the most universally charming
poem in all literature. What it yields to constructive
analysis is not less striking than its human interest. When
it is compared with the Iliad, we note the epic evolution
which consists in the advancing control of matter by
form ; there is here no disturbing force of over-luxuriant
detail, but every part of the subject-matter has a clearly
defined place in the symmetrical plot and movements.
Plot op the Odyssey
Main Story : of Odysseus
Complication : Wonders [nine episodes] : swayed by Poseidon
Resolution : Adventures [nine episodes] : swayed by Athene
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CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
Underplot : of Domestic Life
The Faithful Six [Wife — Son — Father — Nurse — Swineherd
— Neatherd]
The Hostile Three [Goatherd — Melantho and the Maids —
Crowd of Suitors]
Secondary Satellite Stories
Six Historic Feats of Odysseus [The Beggar — Strife with Aj ax —
The Wooden Horse — The Boar Scar — The Bow — The
Bridal Bed]
Three Parallels [Menelaus to Odysseus — Orestes and Theo-
clymenus to Telemachus]
We find in the Odyssey what was destined to become the
dominant plot form for universal literature, both in epic
and dramatic story : the form that describes itself by its
technical name of Complication and Resolution. The
distinctness of the two elements of this plot is indicated
in more than one passage of the poem ; what we must
call the Complication — the series of incidents leading
Odysseus farther and farther from home, and plung-
ing him deeper and deeper into trouble — is represented
as under the providential sway of the god Poseidon ; the
incidents bringing about the return of the wanderer, and
the Resolution of the action, are with equal clearness
controlled by the goddess Athene. When the hero meets
Athene upon his own isle of Ithaca, he addresses her : —
But this I know full surely, thou wert kind a while agone
While we sons of the Achaeans by Troy-town fought the fight ;
But when the steep city of Priam we had overthrown outright
And went up on our ships, and God scattered the Achaeans wide
abroad,
I saw thee not thenceforward, nor yet my ship aboard
[135]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
Did I note thee, Daughter of Zeus, for the putting away of my
woe;
But ever with heart sore burdened a wandering did I go
Till the day when the Gods unbound me and the spell of evil broke,
And there midst the men Phseacian and the very wealthy folk
With words then didst thou cheer me, and me to the city didst lead.
And Athene in her answer explains : —
But look you, I had no mind against Poseidon to fight,
My father's very brother, who had thee in despite.
For wrath because of thy blinding of his weU-belov6d son.*
There is again a difference of spirit between the two
parts of the story : the incidents of the return are suflfi-
ciently described by the term "Adventures" ; the inci-
dents making the comphcation are more than adventures ;
they have a mystic and supernatural color making them
Wonder Incidents.
The Trojan War lies, in the Odyssey, too far in the past
to have any place in the plot. Instead of an envelop-
ing action we here have an underplot : the fortunes of
the family and household life of Odysseus are worked up
into an interest only second to that of the hero himself.
Corresponding to the complication and resolution of the
main story we have, in the underplot, the antithesis of
the Faithful Six and the Hostile Three. The point here
is, not the mere fact that six are faithful to Odysseus
where three are hostile, but that each of the nine per-
sonages (or groups) as named in the scheme is the centre
of a story, which could be abstracted from the poem and
narrated independently, with a plot interest of its own.
* Book xiii, lines 314, 341 (of William Morris's translation).
[136]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
Even the secondary stories of the Odyssey are seen to
have been drawn within the unity bond, till they have
become satelhte stories revolving around the principal
figures. Six of these are stories narrated by one or other
personage of the main narrative; but, instead of the
miscellaneous narratives of the Iliad, they are six historic
feats of Odysseus, supporting the characteristic epithet
that is continually describing him as polymetis — the
shifty, the man of resource. In addition to these, we
have three stories (or minor portions of the action)
which have distinctness given to them as presenting
parallels to the main personages. Every reader must be
struck by the prominence given throughout to Theocly-
menus, who would seem to be a superfluous personage ;
the explanation is found in the words with which he first
accosts Telemachus and claims to be his counterpart,
like him an exile oppressed by superior foes. Again, em-
phasis is given to the story of Orestes, but this is always
to hold him up as the great example by which Telema-
chus is inspired to filial piety. Most distinct of all is
the parallel by which, in passage after passage, Mene-
laus is suggested as the minor counterpart of Odysseus
in his life of wandering and final glory. Menelaus's first
presentation of himself sounds like an echo of the whole
Odyssey. —
Yet at least many things have I suffered, and have wandered far and
near,
And about in ships have been flitted to come back in the eighth long
year.
To Cyprus and Phoenicia and Egypt have I strayed ;
-Ethiopia too, and Sidon, and Erembian land we made,
1137]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
And Lybia withal, where the lambs are full-horned from their very
birth,
And thrice are the sheepkind yeaning in the space of one year of the
earth ;
Where neither king nor shepherd may ever lack to eat
Of either cheese or flesh-meat, or to drink milk fresh and sweet,
For yearlong there unceasing they yield to the milking-trough.
But while about I wandered and gat me gear enough,
That very while another was taking my brother's life,
In covert wise and unwares by the wiles of his wicked wife.
Similarly, Menelaus detained by the gods in Egypt has
his future unveiled to him by the prophetic Elder of the
Sea, as Odysseus is held in Circe's isle, and receives
prophecies from her and from Tiresias to whom she
sends him. By a final touch of parallel the lives of
both these long -wandering men are to be crowned by
an end of mystic peace. Menelaus is to pass from his
home to the world's utmost end —
Wherein are the softest life-days that men may ever gain ;
No snow and no ill weather, nor any drift of rain ;
But Ocean ever wafteth the wind of the shrilly west.
On menfolk ever breathing, to give them might and rest.
And Odysseus, who has searched the farthest bounds of
the waters, is at the last to pass from his home to the
very end of the land world, where men have never seen
an oar : —
Then thy death from the sea shall come
Exceeding mild and gentle, and thereby shalt thou fade out
By eld smooth-creeping wasted ; and the people round about
Shall be grown all bUthe and happy. ^
^ Book iv, lines 81, 563, and book xi, line 134 (of William Morris's
translation).
[138]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
The case is similar when we turn to the progression of
incidents : the Odyssey gives us the type of movement
that was destined to prevail in classical poetry. It
may be called the Foreshortening of Story : when per-
fectly worked out, as in the present case, it implies that,
where a plot is made up of a complication and a resolu-
tion, the movement commences with the resolution, leav-
ing the earlier incidents that make the complication to
appear later on, in narrative review. Such foreshort-
ening is practically universal in classical drama : the
fixity of the ancient stage made it necessary actually to
present only the end of the story, while its earlier part
appears indirectly by inference or allusion. And in
epic the same treatment is roughly described by the
principle of plunging in medias res, which to Horace and
critics of his type has seemed so necessary a law of epic.
The application of all this to the Odyssey becomes
clear if we divide the course of the poem into nine suc-
cessive incidents.
The Council of Gods
Home in Odysseus' absence
Telemachus in search of his Father
The Isle of Calypso
The Phaeacian Wonderland and the
Hero's Story of his wanderings
The Cot of Eumseus
Odysseus as the Wandering Beggar
Catastrophe and Triumph
Winding up of the Story
The poem opens with the Council in Heaven, in which
the final return of Odysseus, which is to be the resolu-
[139]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
tion of the plot, is foreshadowed. The next section
serves the underplot, picturing the home in the absence
of its lord ; when the divine visitor gives her hints to the
young son of the house, the final return of Odysseus is
being foreshadowed on earth. The third section is the
main development of the underplot; but also in this
expedition of Telemachus in search of his father we
have the resolution of the whole action seen in prepara-
tion. The fourth episode brings us to the Isle of Ca-
lypso, which is the farthest bound of the hero's outward
voyage ; when in this isle Hermes comes from heaven to
release him, the complication and resolution of the action
have met. All the direct action of the poem that fol-
lows this is obviously so many stages in the return of ..
Odysseus. But in the central episode of the nine,;^'^'*
the Visit to the Phaeacian Land, we have the Ban->v
quet and Story of the hero, which contains the whole
series of wonder incidents making the complication
of the plot.
Incident of the Cicones
Incident of the Cyclops
Incident of the Lotus-Eaters
Incident of the Cave of iEolus
Incident of the Laestrygonian Giants
Incident of Circe's Isle
Descent to Hades
Prophetically foretold Incidents of the Sirens, etc.
Calypso's Isle
By a beautiful stroke of story art, this Land of the Phae-
acians is made itself a Wonderland, appropriate envelop-
[140]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
ing action for the chain of wonders which Odysseus' story
presents.
The poetic interest of the Odyssey is transparently
clear, rendering comment superfluous. Of the special
motives underlying it the chief is connected with the
treatment of the wonder incidents. We have here
something more than the general poetic interest of the
marvellous : touches of detail, too numerous to be acci-
dental, seem to serve as basis for the marvels. It would
be a gross distortion of the effect I am trying to indicate
if we were to say that the wonders are rationalized.
Their appeal is, in the fullest degree, to our sense of the
marvellous ; yet particular details suggest how these
marvels have retained their hold on the poetic fancy ;
what we get is riddling hints as to the genesis of stories,
an adumbration of the coming interest of mythology.
The first incident of the Cicones is so slightly tinged
with the marvellous that we may doubt whether it may
not be classed merelj^ as an ordinary adventure: the
onslaught of Odysseus and his final repulse may be noth-
ing more than the piracy which was an accepted idea of
ancient life. If it be so classed, this need not disturb
the general course of the movement as described above ;
the case then becomes this, that the outward voyage of
the hero commences in the ordinary experience of a sea-go-
ing life, and passes gradually into the region of mystery.
At the same time, if the etymological explanation of the
name "Cicones" as ''Storks" or "Cranes" be correct/
1 The fact that these etymologies are scientifically doubtful does
not prevent their having suggested connection of ideas in ancient
thought.
[1411
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
we may see a mythological hint of ancient piracy as part
of the migratory element in external nature ; a fainter
echo of the idea underlying the myth of the ''Har-
pies," or "Snatchers," which in part idealizes the foul
descents of piratical wasters. Etymological suggest-
iveness underlies the names "Circe," the "Hawk" or
Bird of Prey, and "Sirens," founded on the root of
"drawing" : but this is lost in the deep moral interest
of the incidents. The name "Sky 11a" is founded on
the root of "rending"; "Charybdis" is compounded
of cha-, which suggests yawning gulf, and rhoibdos, a
rushing noise ; but here we have also the natural horrors
of the octopus and the quicksand intensified. Perhaps
the incident which, in comparison with the rest, hangs
most unsupported in the region of the marvellous is that
of the Oxen of the Sun. Yet here we note that the Sicily
in which the incident is located is called in the text the
"three-horned" isle. When, further, we note that the
herds of these oxen are goddesses whose names — Phae-
thusa and Lampetie — are founded on the idea of light,
that the Sun joys in these oxen as he goes aloft on his
way to the heavens, especially that when the oxen are
slain the flayed-off skins creep onward, we can see poetic
fancy playing upon the idea of clouds as the oxen of the
sun, the same idea that underHes the Homeric epithet
of Zeus as "cloud-compeller," or herdsman of the
clouds.
Three of the incidents call for fuller notice. — 1. The
incident of the Lsestrygonians might for the most part
seem a voyager's adventure of giants and cannibalism,
enhanced by the description of the deceptive haven as
[142]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
a sort of human trap. But this does not take in one
element in the description of the region : —
where herd to herd doth cry
As he wendeth afield, and his fellow thence coming him doth hear.
And forsooth a twofold hire might the sleepless win him there,
And one spell the neat be herding, and one the sheep-kind white ;
For there anigh to each other are the ways of day and of night.
In these mysterious words we seem to have suggestions
of some dimly conceived Arctic region. If this is cor-
rect, the incident falls into the large class of myths
which realize the geographical extremities of the old
world as wonderlands of good or evil. The Ocean that
is border for the rest of the world has its shore of Cim-
merian gloom. On the west we have the wondrous
Gardens of the Hesperides ; on the far east —
— the isle ^sean where the house of the Day-dawn lies,
Where danceth the Mother of Morning and the Sun maketh ready
to rise.
This is Circe's isle : the far Orient, with its mystic poisons,
is the home of myths that are intensifications of drug
powers ; to this large class of myths belong, not only the
herb charms of Circe and the countercharm of the won-
drous ''moly," but also the incident of the Lotus-eaters,
though in this last case there is no hint of localization.
Thenorth appears a wonderland in the "Hyperboreans,"
who dwell beyond the north wind. The ''blameless
Ethiopians," in this poem, are ''outermost of menfolk,"
alike on the extreme east and the extreme west. The
name of Calypso's isle, Ogygia, is etymologically con-
nected with Ocean ; it is described as an isle of the cir-
[143]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
cling ocean, the navel of the sea, a tree-covered wonder-
land ; Calypso herself is daughter of Atlas, who holds the
pillars that sunder heaven from earth : in all this we
have an attempt mythically to idealize the extreme
"horizon." And we have already had to note the
wonder regions of earth's extremities that are associated
with the final lives of Menelaus and Odysseus : in the
one case, ''fields Elysian in the wide world's utmost
end " ; in the other case, a mystic region as infinitely dis-
tant from the sea as the wanderings of Odysseus had
led him to an infinite distance from the land.
2. The Cave of ^olus is a floating isle, with a brazen
wall unbroken and sheer cliffs ; the gift ^olus gives
Odysseus is a wallet in which are confined all ways of
the blustering winds except the single wind which wafts
the voyagers home; when these open the bag, the
''whirl-blast" catches them, and they are driven right
back to the very point from which they had started.
In all this we have the riddle of the *' circle of the wind"
as it appeared to antiquity : how (in the words of Eccle-
siastes) "it goeth toward the south and turneth about
unto the north ; it turneth about continually in its
course, and the wind returneth again to its circuits."
And with this we may connect the strange detail of
bolus's household, which (be it observed) is presented
not as a horror but as a lovely thing : —
Twelve children born of his body abide in his house and hall,
And six thereof are daughters and six lusty sons and tall ;
And unto his sons in wedlock his daughters did he give ;
And beside their father beloved and their mother dear they live
In endless feast.
[144]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
The natural use of wedlock is to take an individual from
one family into another: this confinement of wedlock
within the family is again the riddle of the wind return-
ing to its circuits.
3. The Incident of Polyphemus is such a tour deforce
of the interest of adventure that we need look for noth-
ing more. And yet certain points reiterated in the de-
scription carry our ideas farther. On the one hand, the
scene is described as a wealth of pastoral riches —
cheeses, whey, curds, rams and sheep, stores of milk;
order and method moreover in things pastoral are em-
phasized. On the other hand, there is a negation of all
agriculture, ships or crafts, or travel; negation of law
and the meetings of wise men ; negation of all care for
gods, or righteousness, or fellowship. With this goes
the insistence upon the idea of monstrosity : not only
the horror of the single eye, but hideousness of scale
which makes Polyphemus like a ''crag o'ergrown."
The spirit of all this is the later stages of human civiliza-
tion looking back upon the earlier pastoral stage as a
monstrous life, as all that is implied etymologically in
the word ''savage." It is the more interesting from its
sharp contrast with the idea which a later age of poetry
was to read into Sicilian life, when Theocritus was to
start the long tradition of pastoral poetry, and make the
shepherd life the conventional clothing for all that was
most sentimental and idyllic.
The same treatment can be seen on a more elaborate
scale where the poem pictures for us the Land of the
Phseacians. There are three notes in the description.
In the first place, we are told how the Phseacians once
h I 145 ]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
had intercourse with the gods, how they are of the kin
of gods and races of wild-men giants, how they dwelt in
time past by Hypereia (the realm on high), where they
were wasted by war with the Cyclops who had the mas-
tery. We must remember that the word "Cyclops,"
used originally of the Sun as the single Eye of the heav-
ens, applies in mythology not only to beings like Poly-
phemus, but also to the Cyclopes of Hesiod and Virgil,
who appear as volcanic forces, with names — Brontes,
Steropes, Arges — connected with thunder and lightning.
We hear further that it was Nausithous (or Boatswift)
who roused the Phseacians, and brought them to Scheria
(mainland) and established them there; their fame is
their ships, swift as birds, swift as thought ; these ships
need no rudder, for they know the minds of men and all
men's cities ; they pass exceedingly swiftly over the sea,
in the mist and the cloud-rack hidden ; once they flitted
Rhadamanthus — the name suggests the tender branch
or flower of spring — to the utmost part of the earth and
came back again unwearied. The riddling fancy under-
lying and playing through all this is the conception
of clouds as the boats of the sky : cloud shadows can
be pictured achieving these mystic passages ; clouds
broken by the Cyclops-storms are transferred to earth
and bring spring flowers, or as boats resume their
voyaging from end to end of the world. Accordingly,
in the second place, the region of the Phseacians
is pictured as a wonderland, one of the paradises in
the mystic regions of the earth's extremities, for the
Phseacians are ''the outermost of menfolk." A third
note of interest is found in the end of the Phseacian In-
[146]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
cident : the penal end when the ship in which Odysseus
has been miraculously flitted to his home is, by the
jealousy of the Ocean God, metamorphosed suddenly
into a mountain rock nigh the land, shading over the
Phseacian city, that so they may no longer ferry mortals
over the sea scathless. Here we recognize a fixed idea
of antiquity — the presumption implied in a sea voyage,
familiar to us in Horace' swell-known ode,^ or the wonder
ode in Sophocles' Antigone: as if the venturing upon
the treacherous sea was a tempting of Providence. And
it is an exquisite stroke of poetic art that uses this final
touch of the incident to bring to an end the enveloping
action : we listen to the story of wonders in surround-
ings which are themselves wonderland, but the door of
this wonderland is suddenly closed, and the Phseacians
will be seen by men no more.
V
The hterary scheme suggested in this chapter com-
bines Greek tragedy with Greek epic. The reader,
following through its course the floating tradition, has
one phase of it presented in epic form, another phase in
a tragedy; upon another light from both sources is
concentrated. Different, and often contradictory, pre-
sentations of the same matter are set before him. But
this only increases the interest of the treatment : few
exercises are more suggestive than to compare, for ex-
ample, the personality of Odysseus as he appears in the
Iliad and as he appears in the Odyssey, and again as he
1 Ode 3 of Book I.
[147]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
is treated in the various tragedies in which he plays a
part. It is not possible here to discuss the separate
tragedies. Nor is there any need : in the case of the
modern reader, at least, drama brings home its ma-
terial closer to the sympathies and discernment than
does narrative poetry. All I can do at this point
is to offer some remarks upon Greek tragedy in
general.^
Of the multitudinous forms into which world literature
is seen to fall, none is so remarkable, or so highly special-
ized, as Greek tragedy. It is a many-voiced organ of
hterature. Two out of the three branches of poetry.
Lyric and Drama, enter into it ; the Episodes are dra-
matic scenes in the modern sense, the Choral Odes are
pure lyrics. The dramatic and lyric elements alternate,
and, in the parts of a tragedy called ''Stage Lyrics," the
two are fused together : here the dramatic scenes have
caught the lyric spirit, and we have the Monody of the
actor and the Lyric Concerto {kommos) of actor and
chorus. The lyric metres which, in the original and
in any adequate translation, distinguish the odes and
stage lyrics, are also a signal that these parts would be
sung, and not recited. Thus Greek tragedy comes to
have its remarkable power of breaking at any point from
blank verse to lyrics, from drama to opera, and back
again; all these transitions reflecting similar transi-
tions in the spirit of the scene. The third branch of
poetry, Epic, appears in the Messenger's Speeches:
^ A full treatment of Greek tragedy, from the standpoint of general
literature, will be found in my Ancient Classical Drama (see below,
page 487).
[1481
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
here the dramatic passion gives place for a time to the
cooler elaborateness of story. In certain scenes known
as Forensic Contests the rhetoric which was such a char-
acteristic of the litigious Athenians is allowed full play.
Thus all the three forms of poetry, and the spirit, if not
the form, of one type of prose, are found in combination
within the field of Greek drama. ^
Again, Attic tragedy is of all poetic forms the most
concentrated. The fixity of the ancient stage, not liter-
ally, but for all practical purposes, implied that there
would be no change of scene ; thus the story, the whole-
ness of which was necessary for intelligibility, had to be
focussed upon a single one of its component incidents ;
only this incident would have the emphasis of direct
presentation, all the rest of the matter being given in-
directly by narration or allusion. A most singular lit-
erary product, again, is the tragic Chorus. This is not,
what the word suggests to modern ears, a mere body of
artists who perform lyric poetry. The Chorus have a
personality drawn from the particular story that is
being dramatized, in which they appear as bystanders,
sympathizers, minor actors : this personality is never
lost, and enters into all the Chorus say or do. This
Chorus is further a curious link between the play and the
audience who witness it. They have been humorously
compared to the gentlemen who go on the stage at the
request of a conjurer, at once a part of the audience and
a part of the show : so the Chorus of a tragedy, enacting
their role of bystanders in the scenes, are also in their
1 For full treatment of the subject of this and the following para-
graph compare Chapter III of The Ancient Classical Drama.
[149]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
utterances and action made to voice the impressions
which each part of the action is intended to make upon
the audience in the theatre. With all this it must be
remembered that the performance of a tragedy was a
solemn religious service : the ''Chorus" corresponded to
the ''choir" that leads the meditations of a modern con-
gregation, while the dramatic scenes offered a sermon
which was acted instead of being declaimed. And the
congregation which assisted at such a service was noth-
ing less than the whole city, which in Greek life means
the whole people. The total significance of all this is
that, in a Greek tragedy, we have the public conscience
of a community carried dramatically through the suc-
cessive phases of a poetic story.
The different tragedies have their various dramatic
motives. But one motive belonging to Greek tragedy
as a whole is the worship of Destiny.^ In such a
poem as the Iliad the supreme power in the universe
appears to be the personal will of Zeus : in tragedy the
supreme power is the inscrutable force of Destiny.
The great dramatic effect of irony is the irresistibility
of this Destiny, which mocks human opposition, or
uses it as a means of fulfilling itself. There is no con-
tradiction between this and the Deus ex machina, with
which so many tragedies conclude ; in such Di\dne
Interventions the Deity appears, not as Fate, but as
the announcer of Fate. There is, however, a certain
wavering in Greek tragedy between the conceptions of
Destiny and Deity ; and this wavering finds expression
in the dramas themselves.
^ Compare Ancient Classical Drama, pages 93-109.
[150]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
Jove, that rulest the rolling of the earth,
And o'er it hast thy throne : whate'er thou art,
The ruling mind, or the necessity
Of nature, I adore thee. Dark thy ways,
And silent are thy steps : to mortal men
Yet thou with justice all things dost ordain.
Revelation in this religion of Destiny takes the form of
oracles, as inscrutable as Destiny itself; hence the
oracular action of a drama, by which the movement
of events is from mystery to clearness, from the oracle
to its inevitable fulfilment. The revelation is in
oracles so called, or in prophecy and visions ; or we
have omens, as momentary accidents foreshadowing
Destiny. Or again, there seems to be a supreme reve-
lation of Destiny in the Erinnyes, or Furies, who play
such a part in ^schylus's trilogy; these appear as
objective beings, avenging unnatural crimes, or sub-
jectively, as the frenzy leading a sinner on to his doom,
the fate that haunts successive generations of the
House of Atreus. The special religion of Destiny has a
correlative in a special type of conscience — the awe-
struck caution that, in so inscrutable a universe, fears
to move to the right or to the left : such religious cau-
tion is ever the dominant note of a Greek Chorus,
The production of Greek tragedies falls within a short
period, as measured by years : the three tragedians
were contemporaries, ^Eschylus being half a generation
older than the other two. But history travelled fast
under the supremacy of Athens, and Euripides seems
to belong to a different era of thought from that of
iEschylus and Sophocles. This will be abundantly
1151]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
manifest in the different treatment of his subject-matter
by Euripides, as compared with the treatment in other
tragedies. Such differences belong naturally to the
literary scheme of this chapter, which includes the
thinking of successive epochs brought to bear upon a
common tradition. I allude to this only to add the
remark, for the benefit of readers who may be less
familiar with Greek literature, that Euripides is the
centre of a fierce literary controversy, which has con-
tinued from the poet's own times to our own; and
which will probably continue forever, since it involves
a fundamental difference, in the minds of his readers,
between those whose sympathies are with a fixed and
harmonious type of art, and those who are attracted
to the art which admits disturbing elements inseparable
from mental progress. From our standpoint of world
literature all this gives added importance to Euripides.
It is hardly too much to say that in Euripides we have
the very centre of literary history : his dramas seem
to give us the spirit of modem times beginning to work
in the field of Greek life.^
VI
With Virgil we are in the realm of artificial poetry.
We have travelled far from our starting-point, the
rhapsodist in an age of song, inspired to give fresh
currency to poetic conventions familiar to all around
him. We now have a scholarly poet, writing for a
circle of cultured readers. And the culture is Greek
^ Compare Ancient Classical Drama, page 160, and following
pages.
[152]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
culture. Few things in history are more interesting
than the mutual relations of Greece and Rome. In
matters of the outer world the two civilizations are
distinct, not to say antagonistic ; time moreover has
tested them, and it is Roman civilization that has
dominated the world, with Greece as one of its subject
peoples. But in the world of mind and art Greece has
subdued Rome. There is evidence of literary capacity
in the Latin language, and those who take interest in
what might have been may speculate as to what an
original Latin literature might have been under other
conditions. As a fact, just when the Roman genius
is opening to the higher reaches of thought and art, it
finds itself confronted by the fully developed literature
of Greece : the Roman genius falls under the spell of
Greece, and Latin merges itself forever in Greek cul-
ture. To the Roman, philosophy meant Greek phi-
losophy ; the spirit of Cicero's writings is a delighted
recognition that the thoughts of the Greeks can be
conveyed in Latin terms. So to Virgil's age poetry
means Greek poetry. To borrow Conington's felicitous
expression, classical poetry has become a ''second
nature" ; faithfully to reproduce this takes the place of
fidelity to the actual nature that we see around us.
Yet to say all this is not to make Virgil an imitator.
As remarked before, classical echoing is something
different from imitation : it implies some recognition of
older material that is also a modification. In the case
before us there is something more than this. Virgil
is conscious of a theme and subject-matter far vaster,
it must seem to him, than anything Greece has to offer.
[153]
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The Homeric iEneas is not the theme of Virgil's poem,
but only a link of connection. The hero of the JEneid
is Rome itself : Rome as mistress of the world, holding
in her hands the destinies of the nations. What the
Caesars have done for Rome in the world without,
Virgil is to do for it in the world of poetry. The roots
of Rome's career are to be transplanted into the field
of Greek imaginative poetry, that poetry which is at
the same time history. More than this, all that is
implied in Rome and things Roman must be brought
into reconciliation and harmony with all that stands
as part of the familiar world of Greek poetry ; and the
Roman element, in being reconciled to the Greek, must
also be seen to dominate it.
When we thus catch the general spirit of Virgil's
epic, it is not difficult to formulate its plot and move-
ment.
Plot of the Mneid
Main Action : Destiny of the Roman People working through the
agency of Pious ^Eneas : a Chain of Oracles harmonizing
Grecian and Italian Antiquities
Complicating Action : Hostility of Juno
Resolving Action : Protection of Venus
Episodic Underplot of Love : Dido and ^neas
It is in ^neas, as representing Rome and her destinies,
that the action of the poem finds its wholeness and
unity. In the working out of this main action there is
room for an echo from the Odyssey : once more we have
a complication under control of one deity, the resolution
[154]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
under control of another. Again, the Odyssey had an
underplot of domestic life running side by side with the
main interest ; here we have an underplot of love, but
the underplot is a single episode, the love of Dido and
^neas, which interrupts the course of the main action,
until its violent end allows Destiny to resume its sway.
There seems no need to find any place in the scheme
of plot for secondary stories. It is true that poetic
interest has become not less but more various : in
variety of appeal to our sympathies the Mneid ap-
proaches modern poetry of romance. We have the
episode of Nisus and Euryalus, with its tender tie
between age and youth; we have the giant brethren
dying in defence of the gate ; we have Pallas, the gift
of the shepherd king to ^neas, struck down in the first
flower of youth ; we have the episode of Camilla as the
maiden huntress of Diana's train drawn into the rude
struggles of war. All these are elaborated as stories
with an independent interest of their own. But the
control of form over matter has also strengthened :
these episodes at no point diverge from the course of
events, but fall into place as so many details in the
main action.
When we turn to the movement of the poem, we see
at once a parallel to the Odyssey in the foreshortening
of the story : in both poems the hero's narrative at a
banquet takes us back to the real commencement of
the action. But the main motive form of the ^Eneid
is one borrowed from Greek tragedy. A natural ten-
dency of plot is from the simple to the complex. But
in Greek drama this tendency would run counter to
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THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
the stage limitations we call the unities ; to have side
by side two different interests, centring around two
different personages, would violate the unity of story.
A solution is found in a form of movement that may
be called Agglutination : the two interests are made,
not parallel, but successive, the second beginning where
the first ends; and the two belong to the same per-
sonage. A clear example of this is seen in the Electra
of Euripides. The first half of the plot is filled with the
meeting of Electra and Orestes : their mutual recog-
nition is artificially obstructed, and then suddenly
effected ; such complication and resolution give us the
essentials of a complete plot, and the drama might
have ended here, with the vengeance upon the common
enemy thrown in as a final detail. But instead of this
the situation recomplicates itself, in the necessity of
two elaborate intrigues for separate vengeance upon
^gisthus and Clytaemnestra ; only when this new com-
plication has found its resolution do we reach the
finale. A similar agglutinative movement belongs to
the Mneid; and this type of structiu-e gives the poet
an opportunity of making the two halves of his poem
reflect separately the two great epics of Greece.
Movement of the jEneid
Agglutinative Movement, with common Complication and Resolu-
tion
First Half : Epic Action of Adventure : Exploring a Site for
Rome : echoing the Odyssey
Second Half : Epic Action of War : Conflict of Turnus and
iEneas : echoing the Iliad
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CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
With the conscious art that distinguishes Virgil, we
have a recognition of this twofold structure in the
poem itself: as he passes to the second half of the
action there is a fresh invocation of the Muses, and,
apparently, a suggestion of war as a more exalted mo-
tive than adventure : —
A loftier task the bard essays :
The horizon broadens on his gaze.
It is only when we follow the poem into all its details
that we can do full justice to the main action, as an
attempt to plant Roman antiquities, small and great,
in the field of Greek poetic tradition. The main crisis
in the history of Rome was its struggle with Carthage
for very existence : the idea of this is made the founda-
tion for the antagonism of Juno, which is the complica-
tion of the plot ; a temporary cessation of this antago-
nism, with Rome and Carthage made one by marriage
of iEneas and Dido, is the foundation for the episodic
underplot. Three times over, in different parts of the
^neid, we have the whole history of Rome sketched in
prophetic foreshadowing : we find this in Jove's first
unfolding of fate to Venus; we have it again in the
conversation between ^neas and his father in the
Elysian Fields ; once again, when sculptured armor is
forged in heaven for the Trojan hero, this obvious echo
from the Iliad is varied to make the details of the
sculpture prophetic. In the catalogues of allies who
take sides in the war, and elsewhere, we have various
portions of Italy, or various Italian peoples — Latium,
CEnotria, Ausonia, Etruria, the Sabines, the Rutules —
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THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
all treated in accordance with the parts these played in
Roman history. Great institutions of Rome — the
Alban Games, the Temple of Janus, the Altar of
Evander by the Aventine Hill, the Salian minstrel-
priests — find their origin in the course of the poem.
The Tarpeian Rock, the site of the Forum, appear in
their original moss-covered simplicity; objects as
familiar to a Roman as Cheapside or Hyde Park to a
Londoner, or again small points of Italian geography
or popular custom such as would need an expert
antiquarian to particularize, are just touched by the
movement of the poem as it proceeds. But there is
more than this. Troy in Greek epic is the beaten
party, and ^neas is brought a fugitive to Italy : shall
the majesty of Rome spring from the leavings of Greek
conquest? To meet this difficulty, Italy and the site
of Rome are made the fountainhead of that Dardan
race from which Troy had been only a colony ; more-
over, the rise of Rome is made, in the counsels of fate,
Troy's return match against Greece, by which it is
'Ho quit itself on the Myrmidons and Argives." In the
early part of the action, a Trojan prince is already seen
ruling over a Greek land. In the middle, the Arcadians
— not only a Grecian people, but a people whose very
name suggests the age of gold — come forward as chief
allies of ^neas. And in the end, Diomedes, supreme
foe of Troy in the Iliad, is sought in vain by Turnus
as an ally : his answer is that all who once opposed
Troy have been visited by fate with penal woes. One
other point must be noted in this connection. It is
before the age of comparative philology : what to us
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CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
might seem the easiest obstacle to overcome in the
reconciliation of Grecian and Roman would to Virgil's
age seem the most difficult — the difference of lan-
guage. This difficulty is solved at a stroke. For
twelve books Juno has maintained her antagonism,
and Jove is making one more appeal to her to let fate
take its course. Juno takes refuge in a compromise :
she will withdraw her opposition to the Trojan domina-
tion of Italy if only the Italians may retain their own
language. The compromise is accepted, and the action
reaches its conclusion.
It is not Rome merely, but Rome as the world's fate,
that is the inspiration of the poem: hence Destiny
becomes a leading motive of the jEneid. From tragedy
it draws the oracular coloring of the main action; a
chain of oracles runs through the whole movement,
mystery heaped on mystery, until at last mystery
becomes clearness as the oracles all agree. At the point
where the action begins in the fall of Troy, Hector, in
^neas's dream, bids him carry the Penates ''beyond
the seas." The encircling of young lulus with super-
natural fire removes the scruples of Anchises; the
spectre of Creusa gives supernatural assurance of
refuge ''in the land of the West." When the fugitives
make their first attempt to settle in Thrace, the portent
of the bleeding tree and the voice of the murdered
Polydore bid them fly the curst soil. They seek the
oracle of Ortygia, and receive the response that they
must go "where first their nation came to birth";
Anchises as depository of venerable tradition inter-
prets this of Crete, from which had come Teucer and
[159 1
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
the name of Mount Ida. The Trojans begin a Per-
gamia in Crete, but the plague appears to forbid. In
their perplexity the Penates come to life, and, as
spokesmen for Apollo, make known that ''the land of
the West" has now "Italy" for its name; Anchises
recognizes the source of his misinterpretation, and how
the oracular doom of Cassandra to be doubted has once
more fulfilled itself. Proceeding westwards, the Tro-
jans are driven by a storm to the Isles of the Stroph-
ades : there the loathsome Harpy speaks a word of
doom, that in the Italy they are seeking "they shall
eat their very boards for bread." Helenus, the Trojan
prophet-prince, is encountered ; he speaks oracles, but
confessedly imperfect oracles, since Fate holds him
back; it now appears that, not the neighboring Italy,
but a distant Italy, is their fated goal, while a long train
of dangers line their route. When the Trojans are
plunged in trouble by the burning of their ships, the
apparition of Anchises points to the Sybil as the source
of fresh prophecies; amidst mystic wonders the
Sybil speaks oracles, telling of worse horrors on land
than those they have endured on the sea, of war and a
new Achilles and, mysteriously, of help from a Grecian
city and a foreign bride. Mystery is at its height;
but, as we pass the turning-point of the poem, mystery
comes to solve mystery, and new oracles explain the
old. It is to the men of Italy that the word of fate
now comes : the cluster of bees on the Delphian laurel
is interpreted of a foreign host ; Lavinia is illuminated
with supernatural flame, as before was lulus; when
the oracle in the Temple of Faunus bids the Latins
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CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
look for a foreign bridegroom, two of the oracles have
become harmonized in one. As the Trojans alight on
Italian soil and prepare their first meal, the horror of
eating boards for bread dissolves into a jest. ^Eneas,
sleeping on the very site of the future city, sees the
apparition of the River God, who confirms the choice
of the spot, and points to the Arcadians as the Grecian
people fated to help. When, in obedience to this word,
the Trojans visit the Arcadians, they find that oracles
have already prepared their way: by the side of the
Arcadians are the powerful people the Etruscans,
seeking on their own account vengeance on the foes of
iEneas, waiting only for the "foreign leader" whom
fate has bidden them expect, and who is there in the
person of ^Eneas. All the words of fate have now
resolved into one. And it is at this point that the
miraculous armor descends from heaven : in its pro-
phetic blazonry the fated glory of the Trojan cause
spreads into the far future.
In yet another way the Destiny motive enters into
the poem. In the Odyssey the personality of the hero
is kept prominent by the reiteration of the single
epithet — the man of resource. So throughout the
Mneid we have reiteration of the "pious ^Eneas."
The word is apt to jar upon the modern ear ; but the
translator, surely, ought to retain the word, and leave
the course of the action to bring out in what this
Roman piety consists. Obviously, all modern asso-
ciations with the piety of an inner life are here out of
place : whatever else the word may mean, it describes
the attitude of ^Eneas to Rome. This is not patriotism
M [ 161 1
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
in the Greek sense, which was local patriotism ; nor
is it the modern patriotism of loyalty to nation or
country or king. Rome is independent of dynasty,
of race or geographical distinctions. Rome presents
itself to our mind as a sublime Institution : its unit, the
household ; its climax, world empire. The symbol
of this Institution is the Penates : if the etymology of
the word makes this "the spirit of indoors," yet we
must remember that, as there were Penates for each
household, so there were Penates for all Rome. Insti-
tutional loyalty of this type makes the hero of this
poem. But there is something more in the word than
this : it suggests sensitiveness to Destiny. The open-
ing lines introduce ^neas as fato profugus — a fugitive
with Destiny at his back. And throughout every part
of the action the first instinct of iEneas is to catch the
finger-pointing of fate. This idea helps us over the
greatest difficulty of the poem. By the combined
power of Juno and Venus ^neas has been turned
from his course, and entangled in a passion for Dido :
Fate speaks a decisive word, and ^Eneas forces himself
to desert his love and return where Destiny points.
The situation is like the most intense situation of Greek
tragedy, in which Orestes is helpless between the Deity
who forces him to commit the act of vengeance and
Destiny which crushes him for obeying. To the
modern reader Destiny is an unthinkable idea : his
sympathies are all on the side of Dido. But at least
the "piety" of ^Eneas is consistent with itself: at the
cost even of his honor ^neas is true to the Destiny of
Rome.
[162]
CLASSICAL EPIC AND TRAGEDY
This j^neid of Virgil stands last in the scheme of
classical poetry which has been the subject of the present
chapter. In a sense, it may be said to concentrate the
whole scheme in itself. By the constructive skill of a
supreme artist, combined with a double portion of the
spirit of classical echoing, a complete link has been
forged between Greek and Latin poetry. And this
same Virgil stands to the Middle Ages as the repre-
sentative of all that is classical. So far on in time as
Spenser's Faerie Queene it still seems natural for
Britain, or any other European country, to seek for
itself a poetic origin by a link with the dispersal from
Troy such as that which brought iEneas to found
Rome. In the centuries which immediately followed
Virgil the world was being both materially and morally
transformed ; new poetic forces were gathering, which
would in time build up an entirely new age of litera-
ture. Yet nothing could shake the firm foundations of
classical poetry, in which the echoing of tradition was
the supreme law. When, finally, the Middle Ages
became strong enough for a supreme effort, which
should embody in the form of epic poetry the new
religion and the whole of mediaeval thought, it is Virgil
who is chosen as the poet's mentor. Virgil is to Dante
the representative of the highest point to which human
wisdom can rise, short of that consummation in the
Christian Paradise which only One of the Blessed can
unfold.
[163
CHAPTER III
THE FIVE LITEKARY BIBLES
Shakesyeare
NO one needs to be persuaded into the reading of
Shakespeare. Of all the world's authors he has
had the most universal recognition. The schoolboy
finds time for Shakespeare sandwiched in between his
Virgil and his algebra ; the schoolgirl longs for a cos-
tume part in Midsummer Night's Dream; their younger
brothers and sisters have probably had Lambs' Tales
read to them. The popular reciter makes his debut
in Shakespeare; the theatre manager would play him
every season, if finances would permit ; the actor's
highest ambition is a Shakespearean role. Exact
scholarship is ready to devote a life-work to this one
topic ; libraries prepare large sections for Shake-
speareana; birthday books thrive on him ; the pulpit,
the lecture platform, the magazine or leading article
freely quote him ; the most frivolous diner-out takes
pains to conceal how little he knows of him. American
universities and colleges give Shakespeare a front place
in their studies ; German universities make him almost
a branch of philosophy; English universities edit,
annotate, and examine in Shakespeare. The greatest
[164]
SHAKESPEARE
French poet of the nineteenth century devoted himself
to exaltation of Shakespearean conceptions of poetry;
most European languages have naturalized the plays
in translation. I suppose no one ever framed a scheme
of general literary study from which Shakespeare was
omitted.
The natural corollary from all this would seem to be
that the reader of this book might have been spared
the present chapter; more particularly, as the author
has had his say on Shakespeare in two lengthy volumes.
Yet a brief discussion seems to be called for in order to
justify the particular position assigned in this work
to Shakespeare as one of the bibles of world literature.
It may be asked, How can the writings of a single
author be said to cover an area of literature sufficient
to justify this term? The answer is found in the
peculiarly central position of Shakespeare : central in
literary history, central in the balance of qualities that
go to make literature, central in the variety of readers
this particular author has gathered round him. The
mountain top has the smallest of areas, yet in a way the
vastness of the whole mountain region belongs to it.
If Shakespeare could be blotted out from universal
literature, the shrinkage of the whole field would re-
quire that our map of poetry must be completely recast.
It has become a commonplace of literature that its
greatness in any individual case involves a combination
of the man and the moment. This applies with im-
mense force to Shakespeare. We have an individuality
in which all the separate elements that make poetry
have for once been combined. And the poet has been
[165]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
projected upon a moment of literary history just cal-
culated to give to this many-sided individuality the
fullest possible scope.
I believe in a science of literature, that traces laws
and principles underlying literary phenomena as other
sciences trace laws and principles underlying external
nature. But no literary science will have validity
that does not give full recognition to the individuality
of authors as an element, or, if the reader prefers, a
disturbing accident, of literary law. The psychology
of human nature in general can use laboratory methods
and make precise statements ; that other psychology
concerned with the distribution of mental faculties
amongst particular individuals must always include a
considerable element of what will appear to us acci-
dent. And we have here the accident that brings all
the powers of poetry together to make one poet.
Grasp of human nature, the most profound, the most
subtle ; responsiveness to emotion throughout its
whole scale, from tragic pathos to rollicking jollity,
with a middle range, over which plays a humor like the
innumerable twinklings of a laughing ocean ; powers of
imagination so instinctive that to perceive and to
create seem the same mental act ; a sense of symmetry
and proportion that will make everything it touches
into art ; mastery of language, equally powerful for the
language that is the servant of thought and the lan-
guage that is a beauty in itself; familiarity with the
particular medium of dramatic representation so prac-
tised that it seems a misnomer to call it technique;
an ear for music that makes the rhythm of lyrics, of
[166]
SHAKESPEARE
rhjnne, of verse, of prose, each seem natural while it
lasts, and spontaneously varies these rhythms with
every varying shade of thought : all these separate
elements of poetic force, any one of which in con-
spicuous degree might make a poet, are in Shakespeare
found in complete combination. This sounds unlikely,
only because rarity is a form of improbability; yet,
were it merely a question of mathematical chances,
given the whole field of literature, the impossible com-
bination of chances may occur. That there is this
combination of powers in Shakespeare we may perhaps
best realize by thinking of other poets who are distin-
guished rather by special qualities ; recall such a poet
in his most characteristic passages or conceptions, and
I venture to say that somewhere in the field of Shake-
spearean poetry will be found passages or conceptions
that will stand comparison with the special poet in his
own specialty. ,
Or, we may bring home to ourselves the great com-
bination of powers in Shakespeare by remembering
how long it has taken appreciation to catch up with
the poet. No doubt from the beginning there have
been admirers who have found in Shakespeare the
perfection of poetry. But, naturally, it has been other-
wise with criticism that was committed to theories of
art : the history of criticism upon Shakespeare has
been a series of retreating attacks. The Shakespearean
Drama was magnificent, but it was not drama ; it was
not regular; it was not this or that. Time has tried
the pronouncements of the critics, and to-day our
chief interest in past Shakespeare criticism is that we
[167]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
turn to it at any point to see what portion of literary-
theory was about to become obsolete.^ I am far from
saying that the process is complete. It is still the
fashion to examine the technical art of Shakespeare
with analysis borrowed from altogether different regions
of poetry, as if to use straight rules for measuring
spherical angles.^ It seems so easy, when something
is found that is not obvious in its purpose, to fall back
upon the theory of Shakespeare's "irregular genius,"
and skip the passage and pass on. Yet if we are
willing to follow our poet detail by detail, with the
same minuteness and fidelity with which a philologist
follows ancient literature, we shall find Shakespeare the
revealing genius of a poetic art, more complex indeed
than any that has preceded it, but in its complexity
as full of symmetry, as reducible to form, as the simpler
poetry from which our notions of art have been derived.
It must be added that not only do we find in Shake-
speare all the elements of poetic beauty and force com-
bined, but we find them combined in even measure
and proporti(5n. Accordingly, whatever Shakespeare
achieves, he seems to achieve with "the effortless
strength of the gods." It is one of the curiosities of
literature that this very ease of Shakespeare's writing
has made a difficulty for Shakespeare study: great
part of the literary world will not be persuaded to take
1 This is fully discussed in my Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist,
pages 8-11, 17-21.
^ The inadequacy to Shakespeare of traditional dramatic tech-
nique, and the necessity of a different conception of plot analysis,
is fully discussed in the Appendix to my Shakespeare as a Dramatic
Thinker (below, page 492).
[168]
SHAKESPEARE
Shakespeare seriously enough. A tradition of him has
come into vogue as a good fellow of the literary world,
whom everybody loves, but many will not beheve
that one who has been such a bon camarade to them
can really be the exalted personage that some main-
tain him to be. Some difference surely ought to be
made to them by the history of opinion, and the steady
set of its current in the direction of fuller and fuller
appreciation of the poet. A few generations ago, it
was not unusual for those who had used the strongest
language to express the greatness of Shakespeare to
add that of course, as an imperfectly educated man, he
was faulty in his grammar and expressions. They did
not live to see the time when scholars of front rank
would devote years to the production of Shakespeare
Lexicons and Shakespeare Grammars, bringing out
how it was as natural for Shakespearean English to
differ from other English, as for Homeric or Hellenistic
Greek to differ from Attic Greek. Or again, it was a
widespread idea that, whatever else this poet might
be, he was certainly not a learned man. Yet we have
seen an erudite bishop writing a treatise to show, not
only Shakespeare's intimate knowledge of the Bible,
but also the precision of his references to matters of
systematic theology; a Lord Chancellor of England
arguing, from internal evidence, that the author of the
plays must have had a conveyancer's training; Dr.
Bucknill, as a specialist in mental disease, convinced
that the dramatist must have been an experienced
specialist in this line; a thick volume bringing out
of the plays an expert's knowledge of ornithology ; in
[169]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
fine, every one who has a specialty seems to find that
Shakespeare had it before him. We are driven to
revise our opinion of what learning may be. An
ideally learned man is not a man who knows every-
thing — that is a schoolboy's ideal — but one who
instinctively understands exactly how far he must know
the things he touches, and how far he may leave knowl-
edge of them to the specialists. If from this point of
view we compare the poet with the prodigies of his
day, the Ben Jonsons and Bacons, it is now Shake-
speare who appears the learned man, Ben Jonson or
Bacon the pedant.
The difficulty of fully appreciating Shakespeare is
further enhanced by the fact that we get no help in this
matter from biography. Of course it is natural to
search for information of this kind in all directions, to
rake together the embers and make what flame we can.
And I do not undervalue the laborious researches of
those who have specialized in Shakespearean antiqui-
ties : their results make a greater total of knowledge
about the poet's life than general readers recognize. But
when all is said and done, the attempt to construct a
biography of Shakespeare is a failure. I do not mean
merely that what has been ascertained fails to explain
the plays ; it fails to give us any personalitj^ at all that
we can understand and know. Such a situation of mys-
tery has proved a great temptation to amateurs of the
literary world : they have rushed in to kick away the
plank of known facts, and plunge into speculation as to
some other personality that might be put in Shake-
speare's place. They do not seem to see that their con-
[170]
SHAKESPEARE
jectures, even if they had foundation, would leave the
problem just as great a problem as ever; that even
Bacon himself, with all his greatness, is yet a much more
limited personality than the personality at the back of
the Shakespearean dramas. Shakespearean scholarship
has never taken such discussions seriously. They may
have brought out for us many things : as, for example,
that the best riddles are those that have no answer, pro-
longing indefinitely the interest of guessing ; or again,
how convincing evidence can be, if only cross-exam-
ination is kept out of the way ; or again, how poor a
thing is the glimmer of ascertained knowledge in com-
parison with the fascinating process of turning a search-
light of lago-like suspiciousness in every direction
through the region of the not-impossible. Meanwhile
the poet has been brought no nearer to us. It seems
wiser to give up the hope of explanation from the bio-
graphical source that will reveal the many-sided in-
dividuality of Shakespeare : by the poet's works only
do we know him.
We are on surer ground when we go on to the second
point, that Shakespeare belongs to a moment of literary
history such as presents the freest field for the realization
of all his many-sided powers. He may be classified as
belonging to the earlier part of the Renaissance. The
Renaissance is the meeting-point of two great historic
ages : the period of the Middle Ages, reaching its cul-
mination, is confronted with the age of Greek and Ro-
man antiquity, hitherto dimly known, now coming with
a flood of light, as classical literature in the original
languages is more and more brought to the attention
1171]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
of western Europe. Hellenic antiquity had risen to
the highest elevation of thought and art. The Middle
Ages, viewed from our standpoint, seems in its earlier
course to present society as lapsing into semibarbarism.
Yet to the Middle Ages belongs the consummate
achievement of Gothic architecture ; it has given
the world the progressive and inexhaustible art of
modern music; it includes the most subtle of all
intellectual eras, the age of the schoolmen ; in the
Middle Ages was evolved the dominant philosophy
of human Hfe that is latent in Christianity. If
the term " Renaissance " be extended to include the
whole of the transition from mediaeval to modern,
then Shakespeare belongs to a time when this Re-
naissance is still incomplete. But the meeting of
such mighty forces as mediaeval and ancient thought
must inevitably produce conflict ; with conflict come
antagonisms ; men take sides, and, for a time at
least, there is a narrowing of sympathies. The Hfe of
Shakespeare falls within the period when the Renais-
sance was exerting its full influence in the stimulation
of thought and art, and before the time of the great
schisms with their restraint of outlook.
The literary product of Greek and Roman antiquity
is known as classical ; and no part of it is more impor-
tant than classical drama. If the characteristic litera-
ture of the Middle Ages is to be described by a single
term, this must be " romance," the word being made
duly elastic to serve the purpose. Now, the depart-
ment of poetry to which Shakespeare makes his contri-
butions is the Romantic Drama : what the term implies
[172]
SHAKESPEARE
is the dramatization of romances. We see two elements
of a great combination, and the influence which, in part
at least, served to bring them together. The romantic
element is found in the sources of Shakespeare's plays.
He is not a poet of the type of Shelley or Philip Bailey,
who evolve out of their inner consciousness purely ideal
worlds. All the material on which he works Shake-
speare draws from the story-books of romance ; the term
of course includes histories — the chronicles for later
times, Plutarch for antiquity — which the thinking of
that age did not differentiate from stories. The. dra-
matic element was the new interest of classical drama.
But an influence can be seen tending to bring the two
together. Unlike some other types of Elizabethan
drama, Shakespeare's was distinctly popular poetry;
and the people for whom he catered was a populace
trained for generations by the Mediaeval Drama of the
Miracle Play and its offshoots. This Mediaeval Drama
was the dramatization of story, the realization in dra-
matic scenes of the sacred stories of the Bible or the
saints. In the same way the Shakespearean drama
sought to realize in dramatic form the popular stories of
romance, with an added impetus from the new interest
of classical drama.
The more this crystallization of literary elements is
examined, the richer will seem the poetic capacities of
the product. We have already seen how important for
Homer was the floating poetry which, through many
generations, was accumulating material for individual
genius to work upon. But the Middle Ages was a far
vaster gathering ground of literary material. In its
[173]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
earlier centuries floating poetry and the minstrel re-
appear ; the wandering minstrels carry the story wealth
of each people to all other peoples ; to this there is the
wealth of classical story to be added, and the new in-
terest of story that comes with diffusion of Christianity.
No doubt, with the beginning of the modern Euro-
pean languages other types of poetry arise; but from
first to last the dominant popular interest is narrated
story, in which there is nothing to interfere with ful-
ness of narration, and free interchange of light and
shade. And such is the content of the story-books of
romance from which Shakespeare drew. In sharp con-
trast with this is the concentrated poetry of classical
drama, in which the interest of a story as a whole was
sacrificed to making its final phase dramatically em-
phatic. The combination of the two elements in Shake-
speare means that upon the inexhaustible story interest
of romance the concentrated power of dramatic em-
phasis was brought to play. The influence of the audi-
ence was twofold : not only did it stand, as we have seen,
for the dramatization of story, but, as a popular audi-
ence, it insured the absence of all critical limitations
such as had by fixed principles retarded development in
Greek drama. And there is yet another condition of
poetic force to be added. If life is to be presented on a
large scale, the picture must betray the philosophy un-
derlying human experience; however highly endowed
in other respects a poet may be, his product may yet
be dwarfed if he has a shallow or a morbid philosophy
of life. It is only necessary to compare the Shake-
spearean with the ancient drama to see how much of
[174]
SHAKESPEARE
force was brought to Shakespeare's age by the concep-
tion of human life embodied in Christianity. The Uter-
ary importance of Protestantism does not consist in its
theology, but in the fact that it gives free course to the
magnificent literature of the Bible. For Shakespeare
this influence had reached its full power, before Prot-
estantism began to stiffen into Puritanism, with its nar-
rowed views and final hostility to all sense of art.
This is no place for detailed discussion of plays.^
But a moment's consideration given to fundamentals of
Shakespearean art will confirm the view of its limitless
capacity and scope. The conception of plot found to un-
derlie Shakespearean drama may be formulated thus : —
Q, , p, . ( (1) a federation of [classical] unit-plots:
( (2) with the units [romantically] expanded.
We see at once the interaction of classical and romantic
influences. Shakespearean dramas are obviously har-
monizations of several different stories in a single dra-
matic scheme, any one of these stories, abstracted from
the rest, affording sufficient material for a complete plot,
as plot was understood in classical drama. More than
this, each separate story, as handled by Shakespeare,
may contrast with classical treatment of story in that it
is expanded in full detail from beginning to end by the
influence of romance. To put this graphically. In the
subjoined figure, if we take a horizontal line to indicate
^ Plot analysis, on the principles discussed in this paragraph, is
applied to all the dramas of Shakespeare in my Shakespeare as a
Dramatic Thinker (below, page 492).
[175]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
succession in time, and a vertical line to indicate variety
in place, then a rectangle will symbolize a full story, which
will involve a succession of incidents happening in a va-
riety of places. But this rectangle must be modified to
A
express the plot of a classical drama : only one corner of
the rectangle (so to speak) will be acted on the stage, a
single final incident in a single scene ; the rest of the
story (as represented by the dotted line) must be left
for inference and indirect suggestion. But the stories
entering into a Shakespearean plot need the full rectan-
gle to represent them ; with Shakespeare's multiplica-
tion and changes of scenes the whole matter of the story
from first to last "wdll appear, or as much of this as is
dramatically effective. A figure that would symboHze
a Shakespearean plot must repre-
sent several such rectangles in
some scheme of relation, as so
many stories fully presented on
the stage; what is here left for
inference and suggestion, as indi-
cated by the dotted circle, is the
sense of harmony embracing these
stories and making them into a
dramatic whole. No conception of plot could offer a
larger scope for the varied powers of a poet.
[176]
y
/
^^
/
/
\
\
'
/
\
/
/
^-^
V
SHAKESPEARE
It is not essential to the argument, but it is an interest-
ing addition to it, that a recognition of this varied capac-
ity of the Shakespearean drama seems conscious on the
part of the poet himself. There is no need to urge —
what is no doubt true— that the classical drama, as we
know it in the hands of the Greek masters, hardly
reached Shakespeare, and that he knew it only in the
modified form of Roman drama. The point is, not the
direct imitation of models, but the awakening effect of
the contrast between classical and romantic treatment.
The barest conception of classical concentration, in
contact with the contrasting interest of free narrative
in romance, must awaken a sensitive poetic mind to
the widest variety of constructive possibilities. That
Shakespeare's mind was filled with ideas of this kind
is sufficiently evidenced by a single passage, in which
he puts a humorous literary catalogue into the mouth
of his Polonius : —
The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history,
pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical,
tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem un-
limited : Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For
the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.
Here we see the mind of Shakespeare alive to the literary
phantasmagoria made possible by the jostling together
in his age of particular types of drama and particular
types of story. He has caught the essential distinction
of classical and romantic in his phrase, ''scene individ-
able, or poem unlimited." Possibly, though not neces-
sarily, we may see a hint of the mingling of serious and
light matter in the reference to Seneca and Plautus.
N [ 177 ]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
Above all, Shakespeare has got down to the basic idea
of literary criticism, "the law of writ and the liberty" :
an idea he so phrases as to make it an echo of the funda-
mental moral issue in the New Testament phrase of
''law and liberty." And Shakespeare himself takes his
stand for the "liberty of writ" ; he has elected to give
free play to his myriad-sided genius, as it works upon
the limitless material brought to him by the reading
taste of his times. •
[178]
CHAPTER IV
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
Dante and Milton: the Epics of Medioeval Catholicism
and Renaissance Protestantism
IN constructing a scheme of world literature no one, I
presume, would omit Dante. Yet Dante's great
poem gains infinitely if it be read in antithesis with the
Paradise Lost of Milton. It is no comparison of merit
that I have in mind. Both are poets of the highest
order ; master minds, with whom to suggest gradations of
rank would be an impertinence. But in their two great
works these poets are not treating special themes ; each
is giving his poetic construction of the sum of things as
seen by him. And each is fully equipped for the task.
The two poems then will differ according to the two
ages they are reflecting ; and these two ages are ances-
tral periods in our own mental history. What makes
the combination of the Divine Comedy and the Paradise
Lost into a literary bible is that they give us complete
revelation in creative poetry of supplementary stages
through which our own literary evolution has passed ;
they enable us to think the thoughts of the men of those
times, to look upon the universe with their mental atti-
tudes, to live over again for a moment their sympathies
[179]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
and antipathies, to shape the appearances and impres-
sions of things as these seemed to eyes that at the time
actually looked upon them. No means of insight into
the far past is so potent as creative reflection, where
the poetry of the right kind is to be had. For such po-
etry is philosophy raised to life. All that the apparatus
of scientific and philosophic history can give us is anat-
omy and physiology applied to the body of some past
era : in creative poetry we are in contact with its soul.
Dante is the prophet of the Middle Ages. The term
is often used negatively, as describing a period in rela-
tion to what comes before and after. But, as we have
seen, it has also a great positive significance ; the hazy
outlines of the Dark Ages at last took form as a mediaeval
era with an individuality and consciousness of its own.
Dante came at just the right moment to voice that con-
sciousness. Had he lived a generation earlier, Dante
might still have said much that he has said, but assur-
edly he would have said it in Latin. Had he lived a
generation later, we must think that questionings and
novel problems would have disturbed the serene whole-
ness of the ideas he shapes. In discussing medisevalism
in the Introduction to this work we saw that three
factors were involved. One was the unity of all civili-
zation in the Catholic Church. Dante's poem is the
representation of Catholicism in high literature. We
who look upon Catholicism with the eyes of the present
time are apt to associate it with the idea of intellec-
[180]
DANTE AND MILTON
tual restraint, full liberty of thought being surrendered
in the interest of some higher spiritual good. There
is no suggestion of this in Dante. From beginning to
end his poem breathes the spirit of absolutely free
speculation ; there is no sense of restraint, because the
poet's spirit is in perfect harmony with the forces that
are moulding Catholicism. The second factor of medi-
sevalism is the shifting units of feudal society within
the organization of the Roman Empire, an Empire as
closely involved with the Church as the body is in-
volved with the soul. Of this political theory Dante
is the main exponent. His prose writings are the
classical source for the doctrine of the Holy Roman
Empire; and in the second heaven of the Paradise
Justinian, as representative of law and social organi-
zation, proclaims the doctrine as the backbone of
history, secular and sacred. And the third element at
work in the Middle Ages — rather perceived afterwards
than consciously recognized at the time — was the
formation, by linguistic changes, of the European
nations, political units of the future. Dante was
the passionate herald of the new Italian language,
founder alike of Italian poetry and prose. He is
the morning star of the movement that has created
modern literature, by the difficult first step of raising
the vernacular of the different peoples into an organ
of expression that might equal the Latin and Greek of
the old world.
Dante is the revealer of the Middle Ages because the
Divine Comedy is the supreme example in literature of
symbolic poetry. No doubt it is possible — so strong
[181]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
is Dante in imaginative mechanism — to read the poem
apart from its symboUsm. It is possible for a reader to
be drawn to the first part of the poem by a fascination as
of a horrible dream. In this spirit he may follow Dante
in his pilgrimage through the world of the lost, turning
ever to the left : through regions of oppressive atmos-
phere and noisome stench, tear-soaked champaigns,
blood rivers and dolorous woods of poison trees ; dark-
ness Lit up with red-heated tombs or rain of fire flakes on
sandy wastes; with glimpses of agonies and distorted
hmbs, serpents and men agglomerated, primeval giants,
and the supreme horror of Lucifer. He ma}^ have a
sense of an oppression lifted off as he follows the poet
through the sweet sadness of Purgatory, turning ever
to the right ; clambers with him the steep mountain
side, or waits through nights in exquisite valleys
where angelic protection wards off the dread serpent ;
hears converse the prisoners of voluntary torment,
while at times the whole mountain trembles with sym-
pathy as one more sinner has regained spiritual free-
dom. Or the reader feels his imagination spurred to
follow the graded glories of the Paradise, lifted from
height to height by intensifying brightness in the eyes
of Beatrice, conversing with beings swathed in robes of
light that reflect every emotion, sensible of never flag-
ging crescendo of light and motion until the central rest
of the universe is found in the Beatific Vision. All this
is possible, and I do not doubt that the poem is often so
read. But this does not give us the true Dante. We
know that the Hell is not a hideous dream, nor a prod-
uct of creative fancy. Its details are not to be read as
[ 182 ]
DANTE AND MILTON
facts at all, whether observed facts or facts suggested
for a region beyond our sight. All the details are reali-
zations in concrete parable of a deeply meditated and
harmoniously developed theory of sin, and of the reac-
tions of sin in a universe of free will ; often the signifi-
cance is obvious, and where this is not the case the de-
tails become so many symbolic riddles, to dwell on
which takes the mind to the depths of moral and spirit-
ual truth. So the details of the Purgatory — as the poet
has expressly informed us — are not limited to what
may be supposed beyond the grave, but go to build up
a full and rounded Doctrine of Penance, as penance is in
this life and that which is to come. And even the dis-
position of the celestial regions, however they may har-
monize with the objects of faith they are seen to encircle,
is none the less founded on the metaphysics of mind and
matter. It is, then, because Dante's poem is so satu-
rated with symbolism that it has become the expression
of the Middle Ages. For to the mediaeval mind symbol-
ism is the highest form of truth. Our own age rests its
conception of truth on a foundation of observed facts ;
the age of Milton, we shall see, looks to hterature for its
basis of truth. But to the mind of the Middle Ages the
cogency of things was found in what the things sym-
bolized. The miracles and lives of the saints, or the
relic-worship of the mediaeval Church, these often sug-
gest to a purely modern mind the question how man-
kind could possibly be so credulous. But to ask this
question is to lose historic perspective : to the piety of
the Middle Ages things were convincing not by the evi-
dence on which they rested, but the spiritual truth they
[ 183]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
were capable of revealing. And so Dante's poem makes
its appeal neither to fact nor to beauty, but to the order
and symmetry and completeness with which its ideas
are built into a system.^
This is not the place to analyze the symbolism of the
poem : what I am insisting upon is that to read Dante
with our eyes open to this is the best way of bringing
our minds in touch with the thinking of an age which has
helped to mould our thought. All that we can do at
this point is to notice some of the specially mediaeval
elements that have entered into the thought of the poem.
And first : we see that the geocentric arrangement of the
universe has been taken by Dante without question.
The mind of man has never been called upon to make a
greater leap than that from the old to the new structure
of the universe; the call to reject what our senses
make of all things the most evident, and to realize that
things visible are the opposite of what they seem. The
geocentric cosmogony enters into the Divine Comedy
with such clearness that it can be pictured, and mapped
to scale ; we know it all, from the frozen centre of earth,
tenanted by Lucifer, through rings of encircling ele-
ments and heavens, until a region is reached where space
ceases to be. With this naturally goes another idea,
^ The clearest treatment of Dante's symbolism, and the best com-
panion to the poem as a part of world literature, is Mrs. M. F. Ros-
setti's Shadow of Dante. A formal digest of the symbohsm by an
Hegelian philosopher is the late Dr. W. T. Harris's Spiritual Sense
of Dante's Divina Commedia. Dean Plumptre's translation is ac-
companied with copious notes, such as are absolutely required by
modern English readers. For publishers of these works, see below,
pages 485-6.
[184]
DANTE AND MILTON
that expressed by the difference between the words "as-
tronomy" and " astrology." It is the astrological train
of ideas that pervades Dante's poem. The heavens are
kept continually before us. If we ask of Dante the
time of day, we are likely to get a bewildering answer.
Even as when he darts his earliest rays
There where his Maker shed for us His blood,
While Ebro's stream 'neath lofty Libra stays.
And Ganges feels its heat at noon renewed.
So stood the sun.^
That is to say, it was sunrise at Jerusalem, and therefore
sunset on the Mountain of Purgatory, with noon in
India, and in Spain midnight, with the sign of Libra in
the meridian, Beatrice in Paradise, asked a question,
pauses a moment before she answers : the moment of
pausing must be translated into astral terms.
When both the children of Latona old,
In shelter of the Ram and of the Scales,
The zone of the horizon doth enfold,
As is the time when from those balanced scales
They part, both one and other, from their place,
Till, changing hemisphere, the balance fails,
So long, with look which winning smile did grace,
Was Beatrice silent.
Most of us need theconmientator's explanation, that she
paused for just the instant it takes for sun or moon to
rise above or sink below the horizon, at the moment of
equinox, with the sun in Aries and the moon in Libra.
^ Quotations from Dante are from either Longfellow's ox Plump-
tre's translation.
[185]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
And the heavens thus continually pictured are the
heavens of astrology —
— those great wheels,
That destine every seed unto some end,
According as the stars are in conjunction.
We have revolving heavens, moved by angelic intelli-
gences, impressing their influences on human souls. It
is at once most important and difficult for the modern
mind to recover this astrological point of view, from
which even Bacon could never separate himself. We
are apt to think of astrology as putting into different
parts of the material universe meanings and influences
which do not belong to them. The reverse is, of course,
the fact : modern science has taken out from large part
of the sum of things the spiritual element it had been
conceived to possess. Astrology goes back to the earli-
est thinking, that did not realize an impassable gulf be-
tween mind and matter, such as becomes to our thinking
more mysterious the more we study it. Astrology is
thus the foundation of what seems to us mysticism. It
gives to the universe of Dante a unity that embraces in
symmetrical harmony the whole scale of things, from
crass matter, through intelligences and pure spirits, up
to Deity itself.
Of course, the Catholic Religion fills the poem : its
oflficers, its types of devotion, the frame of mind it
fosters. Its Latin hymns and psalms can be familiarly
quoted by their initial words: —
— the Angels sang,
Suddenly, "InTe, Domine, speravi"-'
But beyond pedes meos did not pass.
[186]
DANTE AND MILTON
Catholic creeds and catechisms, and the whole corpus
of its doctrine, are here found erected into a poetic
system. The theology of the Fathers, Doctors, Found-
ers of monastic orders, makes great part of the con-
versation in the spheres of Paradise. Scholasticism,
the mediaeval philosophy founded on the fusion of
Christianity and Aristotle, has full play ; not its doc-
trine only, but its methodical phrasing of truth. The
Imperial Idea, which, as we have seen, was one of the
foundations of medisevalism, comes into this poem as
an article of faith. To such an extent is it carried that
Dante seems to feel no difficulty in shedding glory
even over the third Caesar^: apparently, his imperial
position is made to give the monster Tiberius a place
in the Divine plan of human salvation, since only the
universal Emperor could have given, through his
inferior officers, the sentence that made the death of
Christ representative of the whole world. It is in the
same spirit that Brutus and Cassius, assailants, though
from patriotic motives, of the first Emperor, are finked
with Judas Iscariot in the lowest hell of traitors.
And another element that has a large place in the
material of Dante's poem is classical antiquity, as
summed up and personified in Virgil. Virgil, standing
for the consummated art and knowledge of antiquity,
and for the enunciation of Roman imperiaUsm, and
again for the comprehension of all this in the form of
epic poetry, is the natural conductor of Dante through
all the region subject to human wisdom, unto the
1 Paradise, vi. 84r-92.
1187]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
boundary line where celestial wisdom descends from
on high in the person of Beatrice.
Another characteristic feature of this mediaeval poem
is the poet's delight in metrical bondage. European
poetry opens with the Troubadours, whose songs —
closely associated with music — tend to be tours de
force of metrical ingenuity. A higher note is struck
when Italy invents the sonnet : this becomes a supreme
type for a whole class of literature, in which the form
is fixed as a mould, and the most varied matter must
become pliable and fit this mould. Bondage like
this is the despair of the pretender to poetry, yet seems
to inspire the great poets. Dante was the first great
master of the sonnet. And the metrical system of the
Divine Comedy seems to be the spirit of the sonnet en-
larged. Its unit is the terza rima, just such as might
make an integral part of sonnet structure ; Dante had
to master this difficult unit, until he found its limita-
tions inspiring. Then, just in the spirit in which a
sonnet is built up, Dante assigns to the three necessary
divisions of his theme thirty-three cantos each, each
canto ending with the same word, stelle; an additional
canto in the introductory part brings the whole up to
the perfect number of one hundred cantos. And all
this is conscious art.
If, Reader, I possessed a longer space
For writing it, I yet would sing in part
Of the sweet draught that ne'er would satiate me :
But inasmuch as full are all the leaves
Made ready for this second canticle,
The curb of art no farther lets me go.
[188]
DANTE AND MILTON
This delight in measured symmetry extends from the
metre to the matter of the poem. We have, not only a
daily, but an hourly itinerary of the mystic journey.
We know how the vision began in the early morning of
Maundy Thursday; it was evening when Hell was
entered ; we know at what hours on Friday and Satur-
day certain parts of the infernal scenery were being
traversed; with Easter dawn is the reentrance to the
upper world and the precincts of Purgatory ; each day
and night is fully accounted for, until on Easter Wednes-
day the ascent begins into heavens in which earthly
time may be forgotten.
Side by side with the strength of medisevalism the
poem also reflects its limitations. An element of prose
comes in with scholasticism : not necessarily with the
doctrines, but with the scholastic form in which they
are introduced. A critic objecting to the Divine scheme
of redemption as enunciated in the heaven of Milton's
Paradise Lost puts it that —
God the Father turns a school divine.
There could not be a more pointless sneer as regards
Milton's poem: whatever his theology may be as
theology, the expression of it in the Council in Heaven
takes us to the style most remote from the style of the
schoolmen, and breathes a dignified simplicity that is
the highest eloquence. But it is otherwise with Dante :
he clearly delights in scholastic formalism and the
''strangeness of terms" which to the men of the Renais-
sance seemed to identify mediaeval philosophy with
barbarism. Throughout the poem abstruse mysteries
[ 189 ]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
are being expounded, and the exposition is announced
beforehand, and treated with the regular divisions of
logic. In the highest heavens Beatrice breaks off her
rhapsody to correct a doctrine of the schools. The
conversation between Virgil and Dante is the inter-
course between a master and his bashful scholar,
punctuated with rebukes not called for by errors but to
keep up the magisterial dignity. Dante in Paradise
is put through a catechism with all catechetical for-
malities.
As baccalaureate arms himself, and speaks not
Until the master doth propose the question,
To argue it, and not to terminate it,
So did I arm myself with every reason,
Wliile she was speaking, that I might be ready
For such a questioner and such profession.
Asked, What is Faith, he quotes the well-known words
from the Epistle to Hebrews, and adds, —
And this appears to me its quiddity.
He confesses the three Persons in one Essence of the
Holy Trinity, and concludes the sentence: —
— so one and trine
They bear conjunction with both sunt and est.
Where in another place there is reference to this same
theological mystery, it is added : —
Mortals, remain contented at the Qida :
that is, the scholastic demonstratio quia as distinguished
from demonstratio propter quid. The demonstrative
power of Holy Scripture is referred to as a ''syllogism,"
[190]
DANTE AND MILTON
and the Old and New Testaments as the ancient and
new ''postulates." Adam in Paradise is made to speak
of Divine light as —
— the truthful Mirror,
That of Himself all things parhelion makes,
And none makes Him parhelion of itself.
Further, though the devoted admirer of Dante will
hardly admit it, there is to most readers another pro-
saic element that breaks into the lofty tone of the poem :
this is the interruption of what must be called small
politics. The Middle Ages show at their worst in the
factious struggles of Guelf and Ghibelline ; and these
were the political atmosphere in which Dante's life
was passed. The most singular feature of the Divine
Comedy is the way in which representatives of these
political struggles, contemporaries of the poet or men
of past history, enter into the successive scenes, and
exchange experiences with the poet ; on the very verge
of the Beatific Vision Beatrice must needs break off
to exalt a particular Roman Emperor and denounce a
Pope. There is no such example in all literature of
the intrusion of the particular into the sphere of the
universal. Elsewhere in epic poetry, if personages
of real life enter in, they are idealized, and take their
tone and measure from their poetic surroundings. But
the real personages of the Divine Comedy speak with
their everyday speech, and are engrossed with the
personalities of political faction or social intercourse.
Many of these personages are so obscure that all the
diligence of commentators cannot identify them; or
in some cases, the evidence discovered by the commen-
[191]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
tators is opposed to the judgments of Dante. We
know that the poet in his personal hfe was a noble
worker and martyr in an untoward age. But the
literary tone that is proper to satire refuses to blend
with epic idealism : the very sublimity of the poem as
a whole makes these jarring notes the more discordant.
All these are particular elements of medisDvalism
which constitute special features of the Divine Comedy :
but that which makes its unity and dominating im-
pression is something still more characteristically me-
diaeval. Classical poetry, as a convention, but as
little more than a convention, must always invoke the
Muse. There is occasional invocation of the Muse
with Dante, but the true Muse of his poem is Beatrice.
And she is much more than the Muse : she is the inspira-
tion and soul of the whole. Nothing reveals the inner-
most heart of medisevalism more than the relations of
Dante and Beatrice. They were not lovers, as a
modern or an ancient poet would understand the term.
Viewed at a distance in the radiancy of her girlhood,
Beatrice had made upon Dante that impression which,
in any age, girlhood may make upon the pure soul of a
man. Seen only at social distance, this image of Bea-
trice had been kept within the limits of the ideal ; when
she is removed by an early death, her image passes
into a higher region as symbol of spiritual exaltation
and the call from on high. Whatever Dante's Ufa
gathers of philosophy and practical wisdom must be
idealized on a lower plane; beyond this there is a
further exaltation, and Beatrice is its type. Now all
this gives us the most impressive and singular char-
[192]
DANTE AND MILTON
acteristic in the spirit of the Middle Ages — its ten-
dency to ideahzation on the basis of sex homage. It is
one of the ironies of history that from the ''barbarian"
races should have come this addition to human life
and thought, that the attraction of sex to sex, which
to the Greek was the fairest of life's sports, and to the
Hebrew the foundation of domestic and social sanity,
should now become an inspiration of mental and moral
exaltation. The religion received by the western races
passively from outside is touched by this instinct, and
Christianity undergoes its greatest modijScation of
Mariolatry, the mystery of Virgin Mother exalted
amongst the highest religious mysteries. The same
instinct affects an era which was almost entirely an
era of war, and this gives the world Chivalry. This
same instinct is touched by the philosophy of an age
which found its philosophy in disputation, and, side
by side with dry scholasticism, we get the light and
airy "gay science," the Courts of Love, and amatory
metaphysics that can turn scholastic subtlety on to sex
questions, with no more of passion than in exchanges of
riddles. This peculiar ethos of mediaevalism has no
more striking manifestation than in the difference of
the parts assigned to Beatrice and Virgil in Dante's
poem. Virgil is guide through all the regions to the
farthest bound of the mundane world, through regions
constituted by a revelation Virgil had never known;
for, once revealed, the regions of Hell and Purgatory are
dominated by ideas that human science can interpret
and systematize. But there is a region beyond all this,
for eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered
o [ 193 ]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
into the heart of man, what has been reserved for the
chosen of God. For the celestial there must come a
guide from on high, and the poet finds one in the con-
summated perfection of his first love. The masterpiece
of Dante and the masterpiece of Goethe unite in the
same point. But there is a difference. The Ewigweib-
liche of the German poet comes only as a final thought
in a disconnected epilogue. The glorified Beatrice has
dominated every part of Dante's poem from beginning
to end, as the same Beatrice in her maiden purity had
struck the first note in the poet's New Life.
II
Of what is the Paradise Lost the exponent? Of
Protestantism certainly, if Protestantism is to be the
antithesis of Catholicism. But Protestantism is famous
for its variations : there is nothing in Milton's poem to
bring back to us the Protestantism of Luther, or of
Calvin, or of Cromwell, or of the contests between
Presbyterian and Independent. What the Paradise
Lost reflects is the Protestantism of the Renaissance.
We have seen that this movement has two very
different sides. On the one hand, the Renaissance
means the recovery of the ancient classical literatures,
with the resulting artistic and literary revival. But
among the manuscripts brought to the West are manu-
scripts of the Old and New Testaments, and the same
revived scholarship that was being applied to the secu-
lar literature was brought to bear also on these. When
the results have time to reach the general mind, a
[194]
DANTE AND MILTON
movement of a different kind begins, which we call the
Reformation, and which is a political and theological,
much more than a literary movement ; it goes on to a
stage of excess in the later Puritanism. The singular
position of Milton in history is that he represents in
himself the whole range of the Renaissance ; he is the
best type of the classical scholar, and he is the best type
of Puritanism. In the morning of his life he is drink-
ing in all Renaissance influences; he is personally
associated with the Italian leaders of the movement,
and those who speak with authority have ranked his
Italian sonnets with the best sonnets of native produc-
tion. In the middle stage of his life Milton is in the
thick of Reformation polemics, and, next to Cromwell,
the most hated Puritan in Europe. His old age rele-
gates him from active life to literature ; and the Para-
dise Lost displays the anomaly of Puritan thought in
classic form. It is, however, no single system of
Puritan thought, but the common groundwork of all
in the literature of the Bible. The Bible of course
belongs equally to Catholicism and to Protestantism.
But there is a difference. To the Catholic, the Bible
is the revered source of truth, while" the interpretation
of that truth, and the question what parts of it shall be
emphasized, the Church keeps in its own hands. To
the Protestant, the Bible is the sacred literature, to be
distributed broadcast among the faithful as their daily
spiritual food. But this Bible is a highly miscellaneous
literature : the thoughts and ideas scattered through its
separate books Milton focusses into a poetic scheme
of cosmic history and the sum of things, and this
[195]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
becomes accepted as the basis of Protestant thinking.
A scheme of the universe had been conceived for me-
diaeval Cathohcism by Dante : this had been founded
on philosophical reflection expressed in poetic sym-
bolism. The Protestant scheme of the universe,
through this work of Milton, finds its foundation in
sacred literature.^
Now this has an important bearing upon literary
history. A literary tradition, with each poet echoing
his predecessor, had been the great achievement of
classical antiquity: this ;the Middle Ages had inter-
rupted, bringing to the front other things, including
Christianity. With Milton the classical tradition
revives, but meanwhile the literature of the Old and
New Testament has been added to what is to be con-
sidered classical literature. The spirit of literary
echoing, which is the essence of classicalism, is found to
be applied by Milton to Greek and biblical literature
alike.
I lay stress upon this matter of literary echoing,
because it seems to me to be the very embodiment of
the classical spirit in poetic art. But it is a difficult
thing to discuss : he who undertakes to explain a joke
1 That Paradise Lost, and not the Bible itself, is responsible for
current ideas of cosmic history is illustrated by two circumstances.
1. The Protestant Bishop Bickersteth, in his poem Yesterday, To-day
and Forever, has made an independent reconstruction of such cosmic
history from purely biblical sources ; this is found fundamentally
different from Milton's, in such matters as the Fall of Angels and
Man. 2. Dean Stanley {History of Jewish Church, lecture xlix)
says there is no trace in Hebrew or Christian scriptures of Milton's
Fall of the Angels. The passage in Jude, from which Milton probably
drew the idea, has an entirely different reference.
[196]
DANTE AND MILTON
finds that the humor has been evaporating while the
explanation has been proceeding; and so the attempt
to draw out the echoes that lie beneath the surface of
poetry mars their delicacy by the mere process of
statement. Our own time belongs to a different poetic
era, when originality is enthroned and plagiarism is
an indictable offence. In classical poetry originality,
as we understand it, counts for little ; while what
might be called plagiarism — what was called plagi-
arism in eighteenth-century discussions over Milton's
poetry^ — is the fundamental beauty. The classical
poets make a sort of apostolical succession in literature ;
each rests his claim to poetic unction on the way his
details recall to the reader details in the poetry of his
predecessors, while the poetry of these predecessors
made echoes of poetry older still. Milton, coming at
the end of the line, has the longest tradition behind
him; he has moreover the addition of biblical to
classic poetry to enlarge the field from which he can
draw his effects.
What might have seemed a formidable obstacle in the
poet's way — the incongruity of classical and biblical
religion — is met by the traditional idea of idolatry as
a corruption of true religion. The gods of antiquity
become the devils of the Christian poem. When
Satan has roused his followers from the stupor of their
fall, and is marshalling them for fresh conflict, the
* An account of the Lauder controversy over the alleged plagia-
risms of Milton is given at the end of Bishop Newton's edition of the
Paradise Lost. I may add that this edition, with its copious foot-
notes citing parallels at full length, is specially helpful for the study
of poetic echoing. [ London : 1790.]
[197]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
question is raised, Who are the leaders of this demonic
host?
Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last,
Rous'd from the slumber on that fiery couch,
At their great emperor's call, as next in worth,
Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,
While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof ?
The very raising of the question echoes the classical
convention of the appeal to the Muse; the answer
echoes the poetical catalogues — of ships, of alhes, of
Argonautic comrades — which has been a fixed tradi-
tion of classical poetry. And the substance of the
answer — some hundred and forty lines in length^ —
is a history of idolatry; each false god of biblical or
Greek or Egyptian thought furnished with just such
descriptive touches as will recall, in outhne, the whole
struggle of true and idolatrous in all literature. The
powerful episode of Sin and Death at the gates of Hell
is, as a whole, the expansion of St. James's thought :
"The lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin; and
the sin, when it is fullgrown, bringeth forth death."
But what in the epistle may be only metaphor becomes
in the poem a fully developed allegory; one detail of
the allegory — sin appearing full grown at the first
thought of apostasy from God — is made elaborately
to echo the classic legend of Athene springing fully
armed from the brain of Zeus ; while the climax of
bringing forth death is at once supported and intensi-
fied by suggestions of the classical horrors of the mon-
1 Paradise Lost, i. 381-521.
[198]
DANTE AND MILTON
ster Scylla. The empire founded in hell by the fallen
angels involves a council hall, and so a demonic archi-
tect; a classical parallel assists.
In Ausonian land
Men call'd him Mulciber ; and how he fell
From Heav'n, they fabl'd, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements ; from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day ; and with the setting sun
Dropt from the zenith Uke a falling star,
On Lemnos th' ^Egean isle : thus they relate,
Erring ; for he with this rebellious rout
Fell long before.
Not personages only, but ideas of classical literature
become the groundwork of poetic echoing. The angel
who accepts the hospitality of Adam in Paradise is, of
course, the sociable Raphael of the Book of Tohit; but,
lest it might seem strange that an angel should partake
of mortal food, we have recalled the speculation of
ancient poetry on graduated scales of being, each feed-
ing on that which is lower in the scale.
Of elements
The grosser feeds the purer, earth the sea,
Earth and the sea feed air, the air those fires
Ethereal, and as lowest first the moon. , . .
The sun that light imparts to all, receives
From all his alimental recompense
In humid exhalations, and at even
Sups with the ocean.
Large part of the spirit underlying classical literature
is, of course, absolutely antagonistic to the spirit of
the Bible; yet this has appropriateness for the fallen
[199 1
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
angels. Satan and the powers of hell talk of fate
instead of Providence, and of the Epicurean ''gods
who live at ease." The whole range of ancient phi-
losophy, as a vanity to the Puritan thought of the one
thing needful, is made a theme of discussion amongst
the lost spirits.
Others apart sat on a hill retired,
In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high
Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.
Of good and evil much they argued then,
Of happiness and final misery,
Passion and apathy, and glory and shame ;
Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy.
The principle of such echoing applies to details of
a picture, or to mere poetic machinery: the smallest
point can gain by some memory link with the past of
classical or biblical literature. Satan sees the world
bound to the empyrean heaven by a golden chain,
just as, in the Iliad, Zeus speaks of —
om- golden everlasting chain.
Whose strong embrace holds heaven and earth and main :
I fix the chain to strong Olympus' height.
And the whole world hangs trembling in my sight.
Flowers spring up for Adam and Eve passing to their
nuptial bower, as in the Iliad for Zeus and Hera; as
with Olympus, so the gate of heaven is self-opening to
those who pass through. The stairway ascending to
the gate of heaven recalls Jacob's vision of the ladder
and the ascending and descending angels. Beside this
[200]
DANTE AND MILTON
is a passage down to the earth, wider, it is said, than
that of aftertime, by which the whole length and
breadth of the promised land was open to the sight of
all heaven : this last is an echo of the saying in Deu-
teronomy, "A land which the Lord thy God careth for;
the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from
the beginning of the year even unto the end of the
year." The Morning Hymn in Paradise is closely
modelled upon the Benedicite. Satan leads his rebel
forces '4nto the Hmits of the north," and to what he
impiously names after the Messiah's Mount of the
Congregation : so in biblical prophecy it is always the
north ^ out of which danger threatens God's people,
and in particular, Isaiah's hymn of the fallen Star of
Morning makes him say in his heart: —
I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God ;
And I will sit upon the mount of congregation
In the uttermost parts of the north.
The poetic practice of Milton avoids terms of numerical
exactness as carefully as that of Dante affects them;
but there is an exception where the exact term is an
echo. Thus it is said of Satan : —
His countenance, as the morning star that guides
The starry flock, allured them, and with lies
Drew after him the third part of Heaven's host :
this is on the authority of a passage in Revelation, which
speaks of the Dragon ''whose tail draweth the third
* E.g. Job xxxvii. 22 ; the note on this passage in the Modern
Reader's Bible (page 1672) collects other examples.
[201]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the
earth." Similarly, the angelic narrator tells of the
Messiah advancing to his triumph, attended with ten
thousand thousand saints —
And twenty thousand (I their number heard)
Chariots of God, half on each hand were seen :
the unwonted definiteness is an echo from the triumph
ode of the sixty-eighth Psalm : —
The chariots of God are twenty thousand,
Even thousands upon thousands.
It is a fine example of the poetic echo where the rebel
angels threaten to use the very elements of their hell
as arms against their conqueror, until the Almighty shall
find his throne ''mixed with Tartarean sulphur and
strange fire " : the epithet strange (besides its etymo-
logical suggestion of etrange or foreign) draws in the
stories of Nadab and Abihu, who offered strange fire
before the Lord and were destroyed. The war in
heaven, with its hurling of mountains, is as a whole
founded on the classical war of Titans against their
heaven. But when the evil angels, driven in flight
before the advancing Messiah, are said to —
wish the mountains now might be again
Thrown on them as a shelter from his ire —
the force of the again is to draw in the passage in Rosea,
and its echo in Revelation, in which the foes of God call
upon the mountains and hills to cover them. The
most incongruous detail in the whole picture thus rests
upon both classical and biblical foundation. Once
[202]
DANTE AND MILTON
more: the Messiah brings the victory in this war of
heaven by his own unaided might : —
Stand still in bright array, ye saints, here stand
Ye angels armed ; this day from battle rest ;
we at once catch the echo from the scene of Moses
ushering in the supernatural dehverance at the Red
Sea: —
Stand still, and see the salvation of the Loed.
More than this, we catch the echo of the forty-sixth
Psalm, when, picturing Jehovah as the desolator mak-
ing wars to cease to the ends of the earth, it reaches
its climax : —
Be still, and know that I am God !
The echoing is more difficult to formulate, though
equally striking, when it rests upon single words, or
even sentence structure. The long narrative of the
War in Heaven and Creation of the World, which fills
the middle of Milton's poem, is itself a tribute to the
convention of classical epic, by which the beginning of
affairs is given by narrative in the course of the action.
The words with which this narrative opens —
High matter thou enjoinst me, prime of men,
Sad task and hard —
seem almost a formula for the commencement of such
an epic narrative ; they echo exactly the words with
which ^neas opens his narrative at the corresponding
point of Virgil's epic —
Infandum, Regina, jubes renovare dolorem —
[203]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
and in spirit there is an echo of the opening of Odysseus'
story at the Phaeacian banquet, not to mention similar
situations in other classical poems. ^ If the reader
cares to analyze the sentence structure of Milton's
elaborate similes, he will find that they fall into three
main types, and thus echo one another, not without
suggestions of similar structure in Homer.^ Of course,
echoes of this kind are often phondnta sunetoisin, things
which have a sound for those who have ears. It seems
a simple fine —
Thou sun, of this great world both eye and soul —
^ Odyssey, ix. init. Compare Faerie Queene, II. ii. 39-40.
2 In similes of the first type the substance of the comparison is
expressed in dependent sentences or clauses, and then additional
particulars are added in a principal sentence. [Simile of the levia-
than 1. 200-208 — of the bees i. 768-775 — of the fleet on the
horizon ii. 636-642 — of the gales of Araby iv. 159-165.] The
effect is increased in some by the addition of a summary, binding
both parts together. [Simile of the elves i. 781-788 — of the cloud
forms ii. 533-538.] The simile of the bending corn [iv. 980-985]
has the summary without the other cha acteristies.
In similes of the second type a general state of things is indicated
in a series of dependent sentences, then a modifying circumstance
foUows in a short dependent sentence introduced by a new connec-
tive, then the result of the one on the other follows in a principal
sentence. [Simile of the reviving landscape ii. 488^95 — of the
rustic maiden ix. 445^54.]
In similes of the third type the particulars are introduced in
successive dependent sentences or clauses of increasing indirectness.
[Simile of reverberating rocks ii. 284-290 — of the night hag ii. 662-
666 — of thunder clouds ii. 714-718 — of a vulture on a barren
plain iii. 431^39 — of the scout iii. 543-551.]
In aU three types the classical scholar will recognize a general
resemblance to the structure of Homeric similes, but from the differ-
ent sentence construction of English and Greek it is diiScult to
equate the types precisely.
[ 204 ]
DANTE AND MILTON
but the both is a reminder to the classical scholar how
the system of Ovid makes the sun the eye of the world,
that of Pliny makes the sun its soul. Or again : the
narrative of the Rebellion in Heaven opens with the
words —
On a Day —
if we stop here, there is an echo of the scene in Job
opening with the words, " There was a day when the
sons of God came to present themselves before the
Lord " ; and the interesting suggestion of ceremonial
days in the eternity of heaven which those words open
up is reflected in the narration of Raphael which fol-
lows. But when Milton's sentence continues —
on such day
As Heaven's great year brings forth —
the reader of Plato recognizes the magnus annus, the
vast stretch of time conceived to make a year for
heaven, the interval when the differing periods of the
revolving spheres have reached their common multi-
ple, and so all are alike at their starting-point at the
same moment. Sometimes it is a minute point in the
original which is expanded in the echo. By a meta-
phor, the Epistle to Hebrews speaks of the Son as the
express image of the Father : the metaphor is raised
by Milton to a distinct action : —
HefuU
Resplendent all his Father manifest
Expressed.^
^ " Express image of his person " is the A. V. reading of Hebrews
I. 3 ; compare Paradise Lost, x. 66.
[205]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
The opening words of Genesis say that the earth was
without form and void, and the Spirit of God moved
upon the face of the waters. The word in the original
carries the metaphorical suggestion of brooding : Milton
not only substitutes that word, but expands the idea, so
that the mystic process of bringing cosmos out of chaos
is assimilated to the coagulating and differentiating
first steps in the hatching of an egg.
On the watry calm
His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread,
And \'ital ^^rtue infused, and vital warmth
Throughout the fluid mass, but downward purged
The black tartareous cold infernal dregs,
Adverse to life : then founded — then conglobed
Like things to like, the rest to several place
Disparted, and between spun out the air —
And earth self-balanc't on her centre hung.^
It may be worth while to stop and realize from time
to time the chain of echoes — the mixed metaphor
seems not inapt for its purpose — which have gathered
about a particular passage. Virgil, as his hero steps
over the boundary which separates from the world of
spirits, surrounds him Tv^th shadowy figures, personifi-
cations of the ideas we associate with death, and what
precedes or follows death.
1 This much disputed passage (vii. 234-242) I have punctuated
so as to make the words between the dashes exegetical of the word
founded. This bibUcal term of the work of creation (e.g. Psalm
xxiv. 2) Milton interprets as uniting like things to like and separat-
ing unhke things from unlike : the mass has thus run together into
globxiles of earth, globules of water, with air separating.
[206]
DANTE AND MILTON
Before the gate, yea in the yawning porch,
Grief, and avenging Cares, have placed their lair ;
And pale Diseases dwell, and sad Old Age,
Fear, Famine preaching crime, and sordid Want,
Shapes terrible to look on : Death, and Toil,
And Death's own brother Sleep, and the false Joys
That cheat men's minds : War on the other side,
Death-laden, and, deep in their iron-bound cells,
The Furies of Remorse, while Discord raves,
Her hair of living snakes clotted with blood.
Sackville's Induction to the Mirror for Magistrates
has a descent to the world of spirits, in which Virgil's
effect is recalled, but with a difference : each single
personification is expanded to a full-length portrait,
with many stanzas of description ; a gallery of shadow
sculpture and masterpiece of sustained horror. We
have space for only one or two of these shadow figures.
And first within the jaws and porch of hell
Sat deep Remorse of Conscience, all besprent
With tears : and to herself oft would she tell
Her wretchedness, and cursing never stent
To sob and sigh : but ever thus lament
With thoughtful care, as she that all in vain
Would wear and waste continually in pain.
Her eyes unsteadfast rolling here and there,
Whirled on each place, as place that vengeance brought ;
So was her mind continually in fear.
Tossed and tormented with the tedious thought
Of those detested crimes which she had wrought :
With dreadful cheer and looks thrown to the sky,
Wishing for death, and yet she could not die.
Next saw we Dread, all trembling how he shook,
With foot uncertain proffered here and there ;
[207]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
Benumbed of speech, and with a ghastly look
Searched every place, all pale and dread for fear,
His cap upborne with starting of his hair,
Stoyned and amazed at his own shade for deed,
And fearing greater dangers than was need. . . .
And next in order sad Old Age we found :
His beard all hoar, his eyes hollow and blind ;
With drooping cheer still poring on the ground,
As on the place where nature him assigned
To rest, when that the sisters had untwined
His vital thread, and ended with their knife
The fleeting course of fast declining life. . . .
Crookback'd he was, tooth shaken, and blear eyed ;
Went on three feet, and sometime crept on four ;
With old lame bones, that rattled by his side ;
His scalp all pill'd, and he with eld forlore :
His withered fist still knocking at death's door ;
Tumbling and driveUing as he draws his breath :
For brief, the shape and messenger of death.
Spenser followed Sackville as his master : where a hero
of the Fairie Queene is led by Mammon down the broad
way to Pluto's grisly realm the traditional effect is
introduced, with the brevity of Virgil, yet something
of the vividness of Sackville.
By that way's side there sat internal Pain,
And fast beside him sat tumultuous Strife :
The one in hand an iron whip did strain,
The other brandished a bloody knife ;
And both did gnash their teeth, and both did threaten life.
On th' other side in one consort there sat
Cruel Revenge, and rancorous Despight,
Disloyal Treason and heart-burning Hate ;
But gnawing Jealousy, out of their sight
[208]
DANTE AND MILTON
Sitting alone, his bitter lips did bite ;
And trembling Fear still to and fro did fly,
And found no place where safe he shroud him might :
Lamenting Sorrow did in darkness lie.
And Shame his ugly face did hide from Uving eye.
And over them sad Horror with grim hew
Did always soar, beating his iron wings ;
And after him Owls and Night-ravens flew
The hateful messengers of heavy things.
Of death and dolor telling sad tidings ;
Whiles sad Celeno, sitting on a clifte,
A song of bale and bitter sorrow sings.
That heart of flint asunder could have rift ;
Which having ended after him she flieth swift.
Milton in his turn recalls this traditionary train of
shadow personifications, but the whole situation is
different. Satan encounters the court of Chaos, its
dark pavilion spread on the wasteful deep : —
With him enthroned
Sat sable-vested Night, eldest of things.
The consort of his reign ; and by them stood
Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name
Of Demogorgon ; Rimior next, and Chance,
And Tumult and Confusion all embroiled.
And Discord with a thousand various mouths.
We may take a brief passage of Milton, and see how
widely its rootlets of poetic association are spread. Be-
tween Satan and the Night Watch of Angels in Para-
dise a conflict is impending (at the close of the fourth
book) that might have shattered the world —
Had not soon
Th' Eternal to prevent such horrid fray
Hung forth in Heaven his golden scales, yet seen
p [ 209 1
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
Betwixt Astrsea and the scorpion sign,
Wherein all things created first he weighed,
The pendulous round earth with balanced air
In counterpoise, now ponders all events,
Battles and realms : in these he put two weights,
The sequel each of parting and of fight ;
The latter quick up flew, and kick't the beam. . . .
The Fiend lookt up and knew
His mounted scale aloft : nor more ; but fled
Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night.
Sir John Seeley tells us he could never read this
''myth" without shuddering. The shudder was due to
his mistaking for a myth what is really a fine stroke of
imaginative picturing, intensified by echoes extending
to every quarter of thought. The night in Paradise,
with Angels watching over sleeping innocence, brings
the most mighty forces into hostile meeting, yet the
incidents are all carefully kept silent and shadowy, as
if they might be parts of some nightmare dream. It
is in the spirit of such nightmare dream that the move-
ment advances nearer and nearer to some unspeakable
shock, yet, ere the shock is reached, a mystic sign in
heaven is interposed, and the final lines, like a moment
of waking, give us, as it were, the nightmare horror
vanishing with low murmur, and showing day at hand.
But this sudden sign in heaven, so harmonious with the
atmosphere of the whole incident, is found to be an
exact echo of a favorite Homeric detail — Zeus's bal-
ance hung out in heaven, which makes fate: twice
in the Iliad this is used to determine crises of destiny,
and the exact formula is echoed by Virgil for a crisis of
his story. But the idea of the balance in heaven has
[210]
DANTE AND MILTON
many indirect, perhaps for that reason still more
beautiful, echoes. It suggests a sign of the Zodiac : for
the constellations of heaven are faded myths, and the
Scales is a faint memento of Justice, or the Virgin
Astrsea, retreating from earth to heaven, with her
symbol of equity hung out in heaven by her side.
Again, the association of Deity with the balance has
spread its roots widely through biblical literature.
We recall from the Isaiahan Rhapsody how He
"hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
and meted out heaven with the span, and compre-
hended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed
the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance."
The image is carried in Joh to the first moment of
creation: ''He looketh to the ends of the earth, and
seeth under the whole heaven, to make a weight for the
wind, yea, he meteth out the waters by measure." The
word " ponder " comes to remind us, by its etymology,
how the conception of the balance has rooted itself in
our very language. Other associations follow : how
"the Lord weigheth the spirits," "by Him actions are
weighed." The final word '' realms " flashes upon us
the impressive Belshazzar story of the Book of Daniel,
where again a visible sign from heaven pronounces a
whole kingdom "weighed in the balances and found
wanting."
I am tempted to add one more illustration, if for no
other reason, to remind the reader that the classical
tradition does not end with Milton; the poetry of
Paradise Lost becomes itself a subject of echoing to
such a poet as Bishop Bickersteth, who, in Milton's
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THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
spirit, but two centuries in advance of Milton in
scholarship, seeks a reconstruction of biblical literary
details in a consistent scheme. The second psalm is
an impressive lyric picture of the nations of the earth
raging, their kings and rulers taking counsel together,
to throw off the bonds of Jehovah's Anointed.
He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh :
The Lord shall have them in derision.
Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath,
And vex them in his sore displeasure.
The passage is so far echoed in Milton as to find a
foundation for the use of laughter in application to
God: —
Thou thy foes
Justly hast in derision, and secure
Laugh'st at their vain designs and tumults vain.
By Bickersteth the imagery of the psalm is expanded
to an elaborate picture, and made the climax to the
conspiracy formed by the Empire of Darkness ; suc-
cessive lines suggest echoes of the end of Herod, the
plague of Egyptian darkness, the prophet Elijah on
Mount Carmel, and passage after passage of the Book
of Revelation, while the opening simile is a variation
from Milton.^
He spake, and murmurs of assent not loud
But deep, — as is the ocean's sudden roar,
When a careering blast with tempest charged
Down rushing through the mountain gorges strikes
^ Yesterday To-day and Forever, book vi, lines 387-427. For the
opening simile, compare Paradise Lost, ii. 284.
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DANTE AND MILTON
The waters of a rocky bay, whose cliffs
And caves re-echo when the storm is past, —
Spread in interminable waves of sound
Along those countless ranks. Gladly they crouch'd,
As weaker spirits will crouch, beneath the shade
Of wickedness more wicked than their own.
And called upon their prince as God : when, lo,
A cloud impenetrable to all light.
At first not larger than the mystic hand
The prophet's servant saw from Carmel's rocks,
Hung pois'd above the throne of Lucifer,
And, spreading with the speed of thought, o'erhung
The apostate annies, shroud of dreadful gloom,
Darkness that might be felt. . . .
And for one dreadful hour, one of heaven's hours,
None from his seat arose, or station stirr'd.
Or moved his lip, or trembled. Terror froze
Their hearts insensible, until a sound.
More terrible than thunder, vibrated
Through every spirit, Jehovah's awful laugh,
Mocking their fears and scorning their designs,
The laughter of Eternal Love incensed.
Not the bare meaning then of such poetry as Milton's,
but this supplemented by the reflection which the word-
ing calls up from the poetry of the past, is what makes
the classical element in literary art. Perhaps this has
never been more strongly stated than by the late Pro-
fessor Conington in his introduction to the Bucolics
of Virgil ; Virgil is hardly second to Milton in the way
he reflects the classical impulse. The commentator
speaks in general terms of the Augustan age attributing
poetic originality to such poets as Horace and Proper-
tius, and to the Roman dramatists, "specifically for
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THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
having applied their wit to the writings of the Greeks as
to so much raw material." He proceeds : —
It is one thing to accept broadly the statement that Virgil is a
copyist, and quite another to follow him line by line and observe
how constantly he is thinking of his guide, looking to him where a
simple reliance on nature would have been not only far better but far
more easy and obvious, and on many occasions deviating from the
passage immediately before him only to cast a glance on some other
part of his model. Tityrus, Galatea, Amaryllis, Corydon, Thestylis,
Menalcas, Damoetas, Amyntas, ^Egon, Daphnis, Thyrsis, Micon,
Lycidas are all names to be found in the muster-roll of Theocritus
. . . Corydon addresses Alexis in the language used by Polyphemus
to Galatea ; boasts in the same way of his thousand sheep, and his
never-failing supply of milk ; answers objections to his personal ap-
pearance in the same way by an appeal to the ocean mirror ; paints
in similar colours the pleasures of a rural life ; glances similarly at
the pets he is rearing for his love : and finally taxes himself for his
folly, and reminds himself that there are other loves to be found in
the world, in language which is as nearly as may be a translation
from the eleventh Idyl. . . . Even this enumeration must fail to
give any notion of the numberless instances of incidental imitation,
sometimes in a single line, sometimes in the mere turn of an expres-
sion, which fill up as it were the broader outlines of the copy. And
yet there can be no doubt that Virgil ranked as an original poet in his
own judgment no less than in that of his contemporaries, and that
on the strength of those very appropriations which would stamp a
modern author with the charge of plagiarism.
Speaking of Virgil's relation to Greek writers in general,
he proceeds : —
He had doubtless lived from boyhood in their world; and their
world accordingly became a sort of second nature to him — a store-
house of fife and truth and beauty, the standard to which he brought
conceptions and images as they rose up within him. . . .
[214]
DANTE AND MILTON
He instances Virgil's practice of using a local epithet
where there is no special reason for it, and continues : —
What appropriateness can there be in describing the hedge which
separates Tityrus' farm from his neighbour's as having its willow-
blossoms fed upon by bees of Hybla, or in the wish that the swarms
which Mseris has to look after may avoid the yews of Corsica ? The
epithet here is significant not to the reader but to the poet, or to the
reader only so far as he happens to share in the poet's intellectual
antecedents; it appeals not to a first-hand appreciation of the
characteristics of natural objects, such as is open to all, but to infor-
mation gained from reading or travel and therefore confined to a
few. . . . There are some minds which are better calculated, at
least in youth, to be impressed by the inexhaustibleness of Art than
by the infinity of Nature. . . . Over such minds the recollection of
a word in a book has the same power which others find in a remem-
bered sight or sound. It recalls not only its own image, but the
images which were seen in company with it; nay, it may touch
yet longer trains of association and come back upon the memory
with something like the force of the entire body of impressions origi-
nally excited by the work which happens to contain it. Even those
who have held more direct intercourse with nature are not insensible
to the operation of this secondary charm. Can any one who reads
Milton doubt that the mere sound of the stately names of classic
history and mythology exercised a real influence on the poet's fancy ?
These extracts from Conington bring out forcibly two
characteristics of the classical tradition : how each poet
constitutes so much raw material upon which future
poets may work; how again the whole body of past
literature becomes to poets and readers a second nature,
and fidelity to this literary inheritance has much of the
effect that we call truth to nature in the other sense of
the word. There is yet another consideration. The
question is not of history, nor the dramatization of ex-
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THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
perience, but for the most part of purely creative poetry,
that appeals solely to the imagination. Now whatever
of familiarity can be given to the details is so much as-
sistance to the effort of imagination. We may say that
what evidence is in the world of fact, associations with
previous poetry are in the world of creative imagination.
This point has a special bearing upon one element of
the Paradise Lost. Dante, we have seen, constructs his
universe on the basis of the Ptolemaic astronomy : in
his day there was no other. It is different with Milton :
he lives in the days of the new science ; he is a universal
scholar, and has been in personal contact with Galileo
himself. Never was a creative poet placed in a greater
dilemma. If he follows Dante and the Ptolemaic sys-
tem, he is false to what he knows as scientific truth ; if,
on the other hand, he embodies in his poem the Co-
pernican structure of the world, he cuts his creative pic-
ture adrift from all poetic associations, and leaves it
hanging unsupported in the world of imagination.
Milton solves the difficulty and makes it the source of
additional poetic effects. In the Divine Comedy the
traveller through the universe is the poet himself, and all
description of things comes with the poet's authority.
No description of the universe comes directly from Mil-
ton. Most of what we get comes indirectly, as we follow
the journey of Satan through the world ; and this is in
full harmony with the arrangement of the old astronomy.
For the Ptolemaic system is the systematization of ap-
pearances : all that our senses tell of the outside world
is explained on this basis. It is when reflection is added
to sense impression that need arises for the new astron-
[216]
DANTE AND MILTON
omy, which accounts both for the visible appearances
and the difficulties suggested by reflection. This new
astronomy is not ignored in Milton's poem, but comes
as a suggestion of angelic intelligence. In the eighth
book Adam puts to his angel guest a difficulty that has
troubled him in his observation of the heavens.
When I behold this goodly frame, this World
Of Heav'n and Earth consisting, and compute
Their magnitudes, this Earth, a spot, a grain.
An atom, with the firmament compared,
And all her numbered stars, that seem to roll
Spaces incomprehensible (for such
Their distance argues, and their swift return
Diurnal) merely to officiate light
Round this opacous Earth, this punctual spot.
One day and night ; in all their vast survey
Useless besides ; reasoning I oft admire,
How Nature wise and frugal could commit
Such disproportions.
Raphael points out at length how this criticism upon
Nature rests solely on the appearance of things, and at
last opens out the other possibility.
What if the sun
Be centre to the world, and other stars
By his attractive virtue and their own
Incited, dance about him various rounds ?
Their wandering course, now high, now low, then hid.
Progressive, retrograde, or standing still,
In six thou seest, and what if seventh to these
The planet Earth, so steadfast though she seem.
Insensibly three different motions move ?
Few passages of the poem are more beautifully worded
than that in which angelic intelligence unfolds the new
[217 1
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
reading of the visible heavens to one who hears the
strange suggestion for the first time.
But whether thus these things, or whether not,
Whether the Sun predominant in heaven
Rise on the Earth, or Earth rise on the Sun ;
He from the east his flaming road begin,
Or she from west her silent course advance
With inoffensive pace that spinning sleeps
On her soft axle, while she paces even.
And bears thee soft with the smooth air along.
Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid.
It has not been a single feature of style that we have
been discussing at all this length. Sensitiveness to lit-
erary reminiscences is the connective bond of the whole
classical tradition in literature ; Milton at once carries
this to its furthest point, and extends it over the sacred
literature of the Bible. And this is an element of poetic
art which we are in danger of losing. There are those
at the present time who, to meet difficulties of educa-
tional pressure, give the advice to let the classics go,
and concentrate upon our own English literature.
They fail to see that with the loss of the classics we lose
also the most intensely poetic element in large part of
English poetry. For the poetic echo is not a thing that
can be dealt with by footnotes and] explanations. It is
a matter of experience — which, I fear, the preceding
pages have illustrated — that the clumsiness of having
to point out literary reminiscences blurs their charm.
They are like overtones in music. We know that every
sound heard by the ear as a note of distinct pitch is
accompanied with various sets of harmonics ; none of
[ 218 ]
DANTE AND MILTON
these harmonics are audible in themselves, yet they de-
termine altogether the timbre of the note, making all
the difference between the sound heard in sonorous
brass, or vibrating wire, or clear flute, or liquid violin.
The advice to let the classics go is like a suggestion in
music to save the great expense of an orchestra, and
let us have our symphonic compositions played from
piano score. The compromise will not serve. It is only
when the romantic momentum towards freedom and
novelty is balanced by the classical gravitation to the
poetic past that we have the fulness and sanity of
literary art.
This is no place for the full characterization of poets
like Dante and Milton, or their great masterpieces.
The purpose of the chapter has been to emphasize the
antithesis of the two poems as constituting in their com-
bination an integral part of our world literature. In the
Divine Comedy we have the richest treasure of poetic
symbolism ; to read it, moreover, is to follow the best
thinking of the Middle Ages and the era of pure Cathol-
icism. The Paradise Lost is the gift to world literature
of Protestantism in its fulness, not disintegrated into its
warring sections. When the empire was Christianized,
as remarked before, Rome was grafted upon the biblical
tree; Hellenic and Hebraic entered upon their slow
cooperation. When the Renaissance attained its full
consummation, the Paradise Lost presented the Bible
as entering into classical literature; Hellenic and He-
braic are seen in their richest combination.
[219]
CHAPTER V
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
Versions of the Faust Story
THE Story of Faust has plausible claims to be ranked
as the greatest of stories : witness the appeal it has
made to the greatest poetic minds. Marlowe, only peer
of Shakespeare in his own age; Calderon, supreme
dramatist of Catholic Spain ; Goethe, the centre and
rallying-point for the gospel of culture which inspired
the close of the eighteenth and opening of the nine-
teenth centuries; Philip Bailey, prophet of modern
mysticism, as to whom there is a tradition that Tenny-
son declined to characterize his poem lest he should
seem to be using language of adulation — all these have
given us versions of Faust ; while two of them, Goethe
and Bailey, have kept the Faust Story by them as life
companions, reading into this one creation what in-
spiration they received from successive phases of their
own personal lives, from fresh youth to mature old age.
There has been a similar appeal to the great masters of
music. Of the Germans, Spohr and Schumann ; of the
French, Gounod and Berlioz ; of the Italians, Boito —
all have translated the Faust Story into music : if little
has been heard of the Spohr version, yet the rest have
[220]
THE STORY OF FAUST
been accepted as masterpieces of musical drama. What
is there in this Faust Story that has proved such a fas-
cination for so many great masters ?
Reduced to its lowest terms, the Story of Faust is an
attempt to realize in concrete life one of the simplest
verses of Scripture : What shall it profit a man, if he
gain the whole world, and lose his soul? Familiarity
has dulled the edge of this biblical aphorism ; if we press
its language, the short verse is seen to involve three
ideas of colossal import, alike to the thinker and to the
poetic interpreter of life. First : What is it to gain the
whole world? The gain of a fortune or a kingdom is
enough for most stories ; the gaining of the whole world
tasks the imagination to its depths to find for it any
visible form in which it can be intelligibly embodied.
Again, it is a sufficiently serious question. What is it to
lose the soul ? But a third stumbling-block to the im-
agination lurks in the word " profit " : the conception
of barter, gain and loss, the machinery of the market, in
association with such ideas as the world and the soul.
Yet whoever would narrate or present the Story of Faust
must find some means of realizing these three ideas :
they are the three inevitable heads of the poetic sermon.
Thus, to follow the Story of Faust through its different
versions is not merely a curiosity of comparative litera-
ture. It means our watching the most widely sundered
eras or schools of thought — the first crude stage of the
English Reformation, Spanish chivalry and devoutness,
the many-sided culture of modern Germany, mysticism
in all its brooding subtlety — watching how these, each
in its turn, will grapple with the three fundamental
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THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
elements of the story ; what philosophic content each
will put into the three ideas, what poetic and dramatic
machinery will be drawn upon to give the ideas visible
embodiment. If, as has been suggested in this work,
the three notes of a literary bible are width of range,
supreme literary excellence, and a measure of literary
unity, then there can be no better example of a literary
bible than the versions of the Faust Story.
The legend has come down to us from the floating
literature of the Middle Ages, a period when it was nat-
ural to men to do their thinking in story form.^ And to
that age the three heads of the sermon presented not
the shghtest difficulty : they were commonplaces of
mediaeval thought. Mediaeval magic could picture the
gaining of the whole world. The mediaeval conception
of hell sufficiently expressed the loss of the soul. And as
to a spiritual market, it was the commonest thing in
those times to hear of men selling their souls to the
Devil. It is when these mediaeval conceptions pass into
periods which emphasize the idea of rationalization
that the literary interest of the Faust Story begins.
One however of these three elements of mediaevalism is
found to cling to all versions of the story ; this is magic.
Magic was the most familiar of all things to the mind of
the Middle Ages. Christianity had not destroyed, but
1 An account of the Puppet Play of Faust, and of other early
versions, will be found in T. C. H. Hedderwick's Doctor Faust
(Kegan Paul) ; also in an Appendix to Bayard Taylor's translation
of Goethe's Faust.
[222]
THE STORY OF FAUST
simply vanquished heathendom, and the old nature
gods emerged as demons with lessened yet mighty
powers ; magic was a sort of anti-religion, witchcraft
worshipping the Devil and his demons in a parody of
the rites with which the miracle-working Church wor-
shipped God. Or again, magic was the shadow cast
upon the mediaeval imagination by the coming science :
wand, trine, pentagram, were imaginative distortions
of the apparatus and diagrams of science; magical
charms and spells were adumbrations of scientific
law. To the modern world magic is unthinkable. Yet
the Faust Story must retain it, because of the sheer im-
possibility of finding any other imaginative form in
which to embody one of its necessary ideas. To stop
short of the whole world as the price of Faust's soul would
be to lose the individuality of the story altogether. Yet
how is this to be portrayed ? Science has concentrated
our attention upon second causes, upon the linking of
means with ends : the mind refuses to take in a reticu-
lated totality of means that would compass a totality of
ends. But magic ignores all means ; it is the elimina-
tion of all that comes between the will and its instant
realization; whoever has gained magic has the whole
world at his disposal. Magic then becomes a necessary
postulate for all versions of the Faust Story. And in
the latest versions a fresh source of interest is found in
the special treatment designed to mask or neutralize
the incongruous element of magic in an otherwise ration-
alized story.
[223]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
II
The Renaissance, to which Marlowe's Version be-
longs, is an isthmus separating two vast tracts of time :
the Middle Ages, of robust imagination, and our Mod-
ern Times, that would reduce all things to rational form.
It is natural that the spirit of both these ages should to
some extent be reflected in the poem of the transition
period. The mediaeval traditions are retained by Mar-
lowe in their fulness; yet in the detailed treatment of
them there are signs of incipient rationalization. Thus,
the magic of this play is the crudest mediaeval magic ;
yet a new interest appears in the use made of the magic
by Faustus, in the way that his application of it is in-
spired by nothing more than the spirit of curiosity.
It has been made an objection to Marlowe's play that its
hero, so different from the heroes of the other versions,
is a man without character. But this alleged absence of
character is in reality that which makes Faustus a per-
fect expression of the era which produced the poem.
For besides the Renaissance of the thinkers and the ar-
tists there was a Popular Renaissance. The ideas that
were transforming history percolated down at last to
the mind of the masses, even to that social stratum to
which the early EUzabethan drama appealed. When
the discovery of the new world had doubled the size of
the habitable globe, and the new astronomy changed
this earth from the bottom of all things to a twirling ball
in mid space, when traditions were everywhere breaking
down and men were practising to walk by reason, it was
inevitable that a strong impression of change and
[224]
MARLOWE'S VERSION OF FAUST
novelty should pervade the general mind ; later on, prin-
ciples would be grasped and great popular movements
would arise, but at first the Popular Renaissance mani-
fests itself as a spirit of curiosity and irresponsible
freshness. Now, what makes the whole personality of
Doctor Faustus is just this spirit of curiosity, this ir-
responsible appetite of body and mind.
Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please,
Resolve me of all ambiguities,
Perform what desperate enterprise I will ?
I'll have them fly to India for gold,
Ransack the ocean for orient pearl,
And search all corners of this new-found world
For pleasant fruits and princely dehcates ;
I'll have them read me strange philosophy,
And teU the secrets of all foreign kings ;
rU have them wall all Germany with brass,
And make swift Rhine circle fair Wertenberg ;
I'U have them fill the pubUc schools with silk.
Wherewith the students shall be bravely clad ;
I'll levy soldiers with the coin they bring.
And chase the Prince of Parma from our land,
And reign sole king of all the provinces ;
Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war,
Than was the fiery keel at Antwerp's bridge,
I'll make my servile spirits to invent.
Possessed of omnipotent magic, Faustus does not use his
power for profound speculations, or schemes of self-ag-
grandizement ; he flits like a bee from flower to flower
of casual suggestion ; he is ready to go to hell for the
sake of a new sensation. To just this extent, but no
farther, is there a rationalization of the traditional
magic. And incipient rationalization appears simi-
Q I 225 ]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
larly in regard to another of the necessary elements of
the Faust Story. The machinery of temptation in Mar-
lowe's version gives us the stock mediaeval tempter,
ready to bid for the soul of Faustus. But Mephis-
tophilis appears as something more than this. Totally
unlike the cynical creation of Goethe, Marlowe's Meph-
istophilis at times shows touches of a highly spiritual
being. He seems to embody St. James's saying, The
devils believe and tremble. Where Faustus can main-
tain a jaunty scepticism, the fiend shudders at the sacred
mysteries, flies from the topic of God and salvation, and
— in violation of his whole purpose — lets slip warnings
of the terrible awakening in store for his victim in the
end. Spiritual conceptions are found to play even
about the topic of hell itself : —
Hell hath no hmits, nor is cu-cumscrib'd
In one self place ; for where we are is hell,
And where hell is, there must we ever be :
And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,
And every creature shall be purified,
AH places shall be hell that are not heaven.
But it is in reference to the third of the three motives
which make up the story of Faust that the rationalizing
tendency of the present version comes out most clearly.
What is it to lose the soul ? The mediaeval answer to
this question is reserved by Marlowe to the end of the
story : punctually at the close of the twenty-four years
visible fiends carry off Faustus, body and soul, to a ma-
terial hell. But all through the course of the action
Faustus is, in a very different way, losing his soul.
Marlowe has given us here a highly original dramatiza-
[226]
MARLOWE'S VERSION OF FAUST
tion of a very commonplace spiritual process. As a
matter of course, by repeated yieldings to sin the will
gradually loses its resisting power. To give dramatic
accentuation to this, the poet uses the same device which
Shakespeare uses with such art to indicate the on-com-
ing madness of Lear ; waves of hysteric passion sweep
at intervals over the hero, becoming stronger and
stronger, until, in the one case, Lear is stark mad ; in the
other case, Faustus sinks helpless to his doom.^ This
Faustus, whose whole personality is the embodiment of
the spirit of curiosity, is necessarily a man of very mo-
bile emotions ; and he has doomed himself to perdition
at the close of a specified period. Inevitably, during
the twenty-four years, accidents from time to time give
suggestions of repentance, suggestions to be quickly
rejected ; Faustus is thus continually passing from the
height of hope to the depth of despair. Such sudden
transitions in so emotional a temperament will natu-
rally be accompanied with hysterical shocks ; more and
more, as the action proceeds, spasms of physical suffer-
ing mark the mental crises. A chance word of Mephis-
tophilis, that the world was made for man, rouses
Faustus to a sudden resolve; the Good and Evil
Angels contend over him, until the Evil Angel mut-
ters, ''Faustus never will repent" : this brings the
first of the hysteric shocks, and in an altered tone the
sinner realizes that his heart is hardened beyond the
power of repentance. Again, the refusal of the demon
to answer the question, Who made the world ? brings a
second burst of excitement : Mephistophilis holds up
* Compare my Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, pages 209-215.
[227]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
the bond, and with an hysteric change of tone Faustus
reahzes that he is lost. An old man, met by chance,
makes a touchingly simple appeal to the hardening sin-
ner ; the opening words of Faust's answer just fit the
awakening from a half-dazing shock : —
Where art thou, Faustus ? wretch, what hast thou done ?
Damn'd art thou, Faustus, damn'd ; despair and die !
In the closing scenes the language is still more pro-
nounced : Faustus would weep, but the Devil draws in
his tears ; he would hft up his hands, but Lucifer and
Mephistophilis hold them down.
0, I'll leap up to my God ! — Who pulls me down ? —
. . . Ah ! my Christ ! —
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ !
Yet will I call on him ! — 0, spare me, Lucifer !
It is of course clear from the dramatic action of the
scenes that nothing of what these words imply is hap-
pening : not the slightest force is used upon Faustus
until the twenty-four years are fully expired. It is the
spasrns of physical agony in which the hysterical shocks
have culminated that Faustus is mistaking for the fin-
gers of fiends upon his heartstrings. Faustus has been
all the while arming his own body to inhibit the motions
of his soul towards repentance ; he has committed
spiritual suicide before the moment when the devils
may claim him as their own.
The final scene is a dramatic masterpiece. The last
hour on earth of a lost soul, instead of being a hubbub of
agony cries, is made artistically impressive by the same
poetic device which is used to introduce the climax to
[228]
MARLOWE'S VERSION OF FAUST
the Book of Job} A moving background of nature en-
thralls the attention ; each successive thought is sug-
gested to Faustus from outside. The clock strikes
eleven : unable to endure the thought of the single hour
left him, Faustus — who has always had a gleam of
hope at the sight of the heavens — flings open the case-
ment. He gazes upon a magnificent scene of starlight :
each heavenly body hangs in space like a golden ball ;
only upon the horizon rests a dull, heavy bank of cloud.
It is not the beauty of the scene that holds Faustus's
thoughts : he seems to see visibly before him the irresist-
ible movement of time, and knows how vain is his ap-
peal to delay it.
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come and Faustus must be damn'd.
O, I'll leap up to my God ! — Who pulls me down ? —
It is of course one of his hysteric spasms that has seized
him ; when he recovers, he turns again to the comfort-
ing sky. But at that moment the Aurora Borealis —
known in the Middle Ages by the name of the Blood
Shower — is streaming through the heavens : Faustus
sees in its name an omen of hope.
See, see, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament !
One drop would save my soul, half a drop : ah, my Christ ! —
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ ! —
Yet will I call on him : 0, spare me, Lucifer !
Dazed by the succession of shocks, he at last has
strength enough to turn towards the glad omen. But
1 Compare, in Modern Reader's Bible, Introduotion to Joh, and
notes to Joh, sections xliv and xlv.
[229]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
it is gone. The Aurora has flashed out as rapidly as it
had streamed into the sky. And in its place the heavy
bank of clouds has begun to move up the heavens, blot-
ting out star after star, taking cloud shapes of beethng
mountains, yawning caverns, threatening arms.
Where is it now ? 'tis gone : and see, where God
Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows 1
Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of God !
No, no !
Then will I headlong run into the earth :
Earth, gape ! 0, no, it will not harbour me !
You stars that reigned at my nativity,
Whose influence hath allotted death and heU,
Now draw up Faustus, hke a foggy mist.
Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud,
That, when you vomit forth into the air.
My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths,
So that my soul may but ascend to heaven !
The clock strikes the half hour : thoughts of halving,
of dividing, eternity rush through the sufferer's brain :
might Faustus live in hell a thousand years, or a hun-
dred thousand, and at last be saved ! The clock strikes
twelve. As if at a signal, the first blast of the coming
tempest rocks the house to and fro : —
Now, body, turn to air,
Or Lucifer wiU bear thee quick to hell !
The deluge of rain comes pattering upon the roof : —
soul, be chang'd into little water-drops,
And faU into the ocean, ne'er be found !
[230]
THE CALDERON VERSION OF FAUST
The whole sky becomes one sheet of flame full in the face
of Faustus : —
My God, my God, look not so fierce on me !
Then the forked lightning writhes and quivers in flame
tongues about him : —
Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while !
Another flash seems to rend the whole sky in twain : —
Ugly hell, gape not !
Yet, more dread than the storm on which he is gazing,
Faustus is conscious that the room behind him is filling
with Presences : without looking round he cries : —
Come not, Lucifer !
I'll burn my books !
A strange fascination forces him to turn and behold
his fate : more terrible to Faustus than Lucifer himself,
what he sees is the old familiar figure, in the old place,
holding up that Bond which Faustus has himself signed.
With his ''Ah, Mephistophilis ! " the scene closes.
Ill
Spain, marked off by its geographical situation from
the rest of Europe, stamps upon each successive phase
of the general history an individuality of its own. There
is thus a Spanish Renaissance ; and its spirit is reflected
in Calderon's version of the Faust Story. ^ We have
exalted sentiments — of chivalry, of gallantry, of
1 1 assume the Fitzgerald version of Calderon's play (below, page
485) . This is something more than a translation : an example of
the "mediating interpretation" discussed below, pages 311-2.
[231]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
knowledge — fused in an ardor of religious devotion,
devotion of course of the Catholic type. In any
version of the story Christian theology must play
a part ; in the Mighty Magician we find successive
articles of the faith dilated upon for page after page
with untiring enthusiasm, a devout exuberance reflect-
ing audiences that only Spain could produce. It is
again the religious aspect of magic which is prominent ;
nature powers are seen as the evil counterpart to the
sacred might of the holy religion. Lucifer acknowl-
edges himself as Antichrist, as Satan, as the Serpent,
as the one who tempted the first father of mankind,
and vainly tempted its God in his human form ; he is
the Son of the Morning, fallen from heaven, and going
to and fro in the earth, armed with the very instrument
of hate that blasted him — hghtning anticipates his
coming and the thunder rolls behind. He has thus
become the god of the lower world : '^if false god, true
devil." He makes his appearance to the hero as a
"portentous glomeration of the storm darkly cast in
human form." As feats sampling his powers, he speaks
a word to the raging tempest, and —
— the word scarce fallen from his lips,
Swift almost as a human smile may chase
A frown from some concihated face,
The world to concord from confusion slips :
The winds that blew the battle up, dead slain,
Or with their tatter'd standards swept amain
From heav'n ; the billows of the erected deep
Roll'd with their crests into the foaming plain ;
While the scared earth begins abroad to peep
And smooth her ruffled locks.
[232]
THE CALDERON VERSION OF FAUST
Or again, he bids the distant mountain sHp its granite
anchor that stands fast in creation's centre, and ap-
proach, with all its cleaving tackle of pine top-gallanted
with cloud and forest-canvas squaring, until it stops
at the moment of command. Yet another manifesta-
tion of the reUgious spirit has a distinctive and special
interest. It is natural that a Faust should be exhibited
as touched with religious scepticism. But this Spanish
version carries the story back in time to a point where
paganism is dominant, and Christianity is regarded by
those around as a kind of sorcery; we thus get, as
it were, scepticism inverted, drawing Cipriano away
from the reigning paganism, to the very threshold of
the Christian verities.
It is religious sentiment then that gives the main
color to Calderon's version of the Faust Story. But
it is characteristically Spanish that with this is blended
romantic gallantry; for the first time a love passion
becomes a motive in the temptation of Faust. It
gives a double plot to the play ; and the two elements
are clearly woven together by the opening situation.
From sceptical disputations Cipriano is drawn by an
impending duel between two of his young friends,
rivals for the love of the Christian beauty, Justina.
With chivalrous delicacy, to save the maiden's good
name from public scandal, Cipriano offers himself as a
safe intermediary, to explore the state of things. The
tempter standing by sees a chance to secure two
victims by a single stroke.
By the quick feelers of iniquity
That from hell's mouth reach through this lower world,
[ 233 ]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
And tremble to the lightest touch of mischief,
Warn'd of an active spirit hereabout
Of the true God inquisitive, and restless
Under the false by which I rule the world,
Here am I come to test it for myself.
And lo ! two fools have put into my hand
The snare that, wanting most, I might have miss'd ;
That shall not him alone enmesh, but her
Whom I have long and vainly from the ranks
Striv'n to seduce of Him, the woman-born. . . .
Each other by each other snaring ; yea,
Either at once the other's snare and prey.
The cross-action of a double plot stands clearly revealed.
The magic of Lucifer avails so far as to inspire the
irresistible love at first sight : a love which the circum-
stances make dishonorable, since Cipriano presents
himself as an intermediary for others. By such mutual
passion the two are to be seduced, alike from piety and
purity.
When we turn to the foundation elements of the
Faust Story, the gaining of the whole world and the
losing of the soul, what we see in this version is a world
gained and then lost, a soul lost and then regained.
And love is the spring which sets the whole movement
at work. A year's apprenticeship to Lucifer, deep
down in the bowels of the earth, has enabled Cipriano,
when he emerges, to wield the whole chain of forces
that make up Nature. But to Cipriano the whole
world has come to mean simply Justina. All the force
of magic is brought to bear upon an innocent Christian
maiden ; Cipriano, working with circle, pentagram, and
trine, seeks to draw her to him, while Lucifer whispers
[234]
THE CALDERON VERSION OF FAUST
in the sleeping Justina's ear, and strives to break her
virgin constancy. It is a problem of the stage how to
present the phenomenon of dreaming. Lucifer is seen
whispering; invisible assistants follow his lead with
spirit music. What all this presents to the reader is a
lovely picture of Spring, of the world renewing itself
with sunshine and with leaf, of the kingdom of the rose
and the nightingale, and the flower that ever turns
adoringly with the sun. What it conveys to the mind
of Justina we know by the mutterings of the sleeper :
her thoughts have been led to the long struggle she has
secretly waged — she hears the old serenading hymns ;
sees the scholarly figure as if reading under a tree,
deadly pale and still as a statue ; she is conscious of the
street, and the faces eying her, and the cries as to what
has become of Cipriano. She wakes ; and the figure
beside her bed proclaims himself her guardian angel,
ready to conduct her to the man she desires.
Justina. 'Twas all a dream ! —
Lucifer. That dreaming you fulfill.
Justina. Oh, no, with all my waking soul renounce.
Luciftr. But, dreaming or awake, the soul is one.
And the deed purposed in Heaven's eyes is done.
Justina. Oh Christ ! I cannot argue — I can pray !
At the word the tempter is gone. Meanwhile Cipriano,
working his magic spells, has seen the veiled Justina
approach; as he opens his arms to embrace her, the
veiled figure discloses a skeleton, and flies shuddering
down the wind, with mutterings of Dust, Ashes, Dust !
The shock has dissolved all sensual passion ; in the
wildest of scenes Cipriano demands of the sneering
[235]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
Lucifer the meaning of it all, what is the ''slight impedi-
ment" that has blasted the love-charm into an agony.
When other means of wringing an answer to this ques-
tion have failed, Cipriano adjures Lucifer ''by the
Power that saved Justina": amid thunder and light-
ning the demon is compelled to name Jesus Christ,
and must dolefully answer Yea, Yea, Yea, to each
passionately recited article of the holy faith. In each
case it is the simple magic of the supreme name that
has shattered in an instant the omnipotence of demonic
magic.
How stands it then with the soul of Cipriano ?
By covenant written in his own blood he has voluntarily
surrendered himself; to regain the soul so nearly lost
he offers, not redeeming blood alone, but the blood of
his own martyrdom. He plunges into the hall of jus-
tice, shouts his confession into the general ear of
Antioch, and imperiously demands his execution. As
he is left to his fate in the deserted judgment-hall,
Justina passes into it on her way to the scaffold. The
strangest of love-scenes follows. On the brink of
martyrdom for her faith, Justina spends her last
moments in contact with the noble personality to
fight against whose love has been the tragedy of her
life. She recovers him from his swoon ; hears the
marvellous experience by which he has been brought
across the gulf that separates pagan from Christian.
From the superior height of her lifelong piety she
ministers comfort to the religious novice, trembling
with doubts of an unpardonable sin, and brings him
up to her own standard of rapturous martyrdom.
[2361
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
Oh, we shall die,
And go to heav'n together !
Secure of heavenly mercy, Cipriano is yet weighed
down with the thought of his earthly offence against
the purity of Justina. But they are on the threshold
of death : Justina's secret may be told.
My Cipriano !
Dost thou remember, in the lighter hour —
Then when my heart, although you saw it not.
All the while yearn 'd to thee across the gulf
That yet it dared not pass — my telling thee
That only Death, which others disunites,
Should ever make us one ? Behold ! and now
The hour is come, and I redeem my vow.
IV
The passage from earlier versions to Goethe's poem
on Faust is the passage from the naivety and sentiment
of adolescence to the rounded fulness of maturity.
The poem is the product and expression of Culture :
of all that the most modern age can put into the mean-
ing of that word. Moreover, Culture appears as a
supreme motive of life. Harmoniously to develop all
our faculties and powers, when fully developed to press
these evenly in all directions, this may well become a
dominant purpose ; in comparison with this, the special
motives which may lead others to give their souls —
mammon, war, patriotism, the wresting from nature of
her secrets, all the traditional causes which raise ban-
ners and demand votaries — all these may fall into a
[237]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
second place. The passion of love, once introduced
into the Faust Story by Calderon, never leaves it ; but
in Goethe's version the love passion becomes only an
episode. This broad conception of culture carries with
it a spiritual problem of profound import. Are there
any bounds to such self-development ? In the field
of culture does the end justify the means ? Or are we
to say, with Milton : —
Knowledge is as food, and needs no less
Her temperance over appetite, to know
In measure what the mind may well contain ;
Oppresses else with surfeit ; and soon turns
Wisdom to folly as nourishment to wind.
The conception of limitations upon knowledge is read
by Milton, with great skill, into the ''forbidden fruit"
of the Bible story.^ Goethe's treatment of the idea is
skilful in another way : he connects it with what is the
standing difficulty of the Faust Story — the element
of magic. The traditionary forms of magic we have
had in other versions appear here ; but there is some-
thing more, and magic is accepted as a dramatic symbol
for illegitimate sources of knowledge. The Faust of
Goethe, like Doctor Faustus, has run through the
circle of the sciences ; but, unlike Faustus, he is further
a man of artistic sensibilities, profoundly sympathetic
with human nature, and a toiler in the cause of the
distressed. But at the opening of the poem he has
passed into the state of mind in which all things —
^ Compare such passages of Paradise Lost as iv. 222, vii. 542, viii.
323, xi. 87-89.
12381
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
even culture — appear vanity. It is sheer sincerity
of mind and heart, dissatisfaction with the specious
knowledge under which science veils its ignorance of
deepest things, that leads Faust to what the conven-
tions of the story present as illegitimate modes of
knowing. Magic is thus, as regards the spectacle of
the play, all that it has been in the other versions, with
the addition of a Mephistophelean irony played upon
it by the very magician who works it ; as regards the
underlying philosophy, magic stands for all that may
be beyond the bounds of lawful knowledge. It is like
the X of an algebraic problem, the relation of which
with other things may be fully elaborated without
stopping to determine what x is, or whether x has any
real existence. Faust risks his soul — if there be any
risk — for culture.
As to the poetic form of Goethe's Faust, there is no
need for critics to discuss it, since it has been formulated
in the poem itself. The Prelude on the Stage an-
nounces it as German Drama. What German Drama
is to mean is brought out by brilliant dialogue between
three speakers. The Manager stands for unlimited
stage action and spectacle ; the Poet represents phil-
osophical speculation as well as creative beauty;
Merry-Andrew insists upon the relief element at all
points. Free spectacle, free philosophy, free humor :
these are the determinants of this German Drama.
To this long, elaborate, subtle poem of Goethe the
simple formula of the general Faust Story can be
rigidly applied. Only, as is natural, each separate
element of the formula in this case expands itself to
[239]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
something complex.^ It is best to take the three parts
of the formula separately. And first, that which is
concerned with the machinery of temptation.
Mephistopheles is the most successful stroke of
hterary art outside Shakespeare. He has captured
the whole literary world. Yet his real position in the
action of the poem seems to have been grasped by few.
The vast majority of readers and theatre-goers under-
stand Mephistopheles to be "the Devil"; for he says
as much. But seeing that the Devil is the prince of
liars, this seems a poor argument ; all that can be
maintained is that any theory of Mephistopheles must
explain how he comes to call himself the Devil. Other
readers would put it that Mephistopheles is "the Devil
modernized." Yet this seems inadequate to the facts
of the play. In the prologue Mephistopheles — speak-
ing in the presence of Deity, which would make false-
hood pointless — dissociates himself from two things :
from the tempting of men in this world, and from any
interest in their souls after death. If out of the tra-
ditionary Devil we take these two things, what is there
left? Another class of interpreters, who are bent
upon rationalizing whether the text they are inter-
preting will bear it or not, would persuade us that
Mephistopheles is nothing more than a dramatic symbol
for the lower nature of Faust. But how could the
lower nature of Faust work miracles, as Mephistopheles
is seen doing throughout the whole drama; not only
1 The application of the triple formula to the dififerent versions
of the Faust Story appears in tabular form in the Syllabus below,
pages 474-8.
12401
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
the succession of miracles which make up the magic,
but also the particular miracle of restoring to Faust
his lost youth ? Moreover, all such interpretations
ignore that which must be the basis for our conception
of Mephistopheles — the Prologue in Heaven. There
may be deep meanings in this scene ; but what lies on
its very surface is that here Mephistopheles, in the
presence of Deity, is seen assuming a role which is not
his natural role. What he is, is one thing; what he
undertakes to represent in the action of the drama, is
quite another thing. What he is, is expressed by God
Himself in the phrase, a Spirit of Denial. But this
Spirit^of Denial undertakes, in the one case of Faust,
to play the part of "Devil," or the traditional tempter;
he does this to show how it might be done ; to win a
point of argument with the Almighty. And this con-
ception of Mephistopheles playing Devil for Faust
runs through the action of the drama to its latest
scene.
The theory of Mephistopheles thus narrows itself
down to the meaning of the expression, a Spirit of
Denial. In determining this, the first thing we note
is that the Prologue in Heaven is closely modelled upon
the prologue to the Book of Job. Unfortunately, this
prologue to the Book of Job is almost universally mis-
understood, owing to an infelicity of translation in
ordinary bibles, an infelicity which even King James's
version corrects in the margin. The text of our bibles,
after saying how the sons of God came to present them-
selves before the Lord, adds "and Satan came also
among them." The margin gives, as alternative for
B [ 241 ]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
Satan, 'Hhe Adversary J^ The point lies in the definite
article. The word "Satan," which in Hebrew means
"Adversary," is used in Scripture in two very different
ways. Satan, as a proper name, is x\dversary of God ;
all that we understand by the Devil. But the Satan
is the title of an office: this ofl&cial is ''adversary,"
not of God, but of the saints; and he is adversary of
these only in the sense that an inspector, or an examiner,
or an auditor, is for the time being the adversary of
those he is inspecting or examining, or whose accounts
he is auditing. So the Satan of Joh is an official of
God's universe ; he comes among the sons of God, and
there is no difference between his reception and the
reception of the rest.^ The other sons of God — so
we must understand — have been questioned as to
their respective provinces, the different worlds ; this
one who follows announces himself as the Inspector of
the Earth, and is questioned by God about Job as the
perfect type of His service on this Earth. All this has
its counterpart in the prologue to Faust. What in
Joh is only impHed, is in the other poem given
at length : the other sons of God, the Archangels,
reporting of their worlds, which they pronounce per-
fect as on the first day — that great day when all the
morning stars sang together at the creation of the
Earth, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Then
Mephistopheles comes forw^ard and reports of his
world, in which — in a very different sense — things
are as they were on that first day.
1 This is fuUy discussed in the Modern Reader's Bible, notes to
Prologue of Joh.
[242]
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
What then is the significance of the office expressed
in Job by the title ''Satan"? The Satan is an "ad-
versary," firstly, in the sense that he is the inspector
of his province, our Earth: he comes ''from going to
and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it."
Secondly, he is "adversary" in the sense of a ques-
tioner, a challenger. When God offers Job as a perfect
type of service, the Satan — performing his proper
function — challenges this view, and points out
another possible interpretation of Job's life : there is
no malignity in this, but merely zeal for a high stand-
ard of perfection. In the third place, the Satan is
"adversary" in the sense that he tempts men : yet not
in the hostile spirit of temptation we associate with the
other use of "Satan" : the temptations of this Satan
are only moral exercises, tests of character, the more
severe in proportion as the character seems higher.
Such spiritual experimentation is no more than is
imphed in the idea of a state of probation. What
appears then as to the Satan of the Book of Job
amounts to the function of criticism in the spiritual
sphere. But criticism is a thing that has two very
different aspects. For those on whom it is exercised
criticism is a good thing, working for the discrimina-
tion between apparent and real. The evil aspect of
criticism is that its exercise reacts upon the critic him-
self, narrowing his sympathy, and predisposing to low
views. It is in this way we get the other sense of the
word "Satan" in the Bible: the Adversary who has
lost all touch with good, and become a hostile force.
Spiritual criticism in its full sense enters deeply into
[243]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
Goethe's poem. Such spiritual criticism combined with
faith in God gives the attitude of the Archangels :
theirs is not the servile adulation that will deny all
difficulties; their motto is, "Mysterious all, yet all is
good." The spirit of criticism touching the weariness
of Faust's old age produces the mood of scepticism
with which the action commences. But criticism be-
come an end in itself, warping the critic to its chilling
work, gives us Mephistopheles : he is a Spirit of Denial
in the sense of the Arch-Depreciator, whose whole
spiritual energy has decomposed into an itch for be-
littling.
But a great gulf yet to be noted separates Mephis-
topheles from the Satan of Job. Hebrew literature,
which has given us the Satan, is distinguished by a total
lack of humor. The culture of which Goethe's poem
is an expression is saturated by the spirit of humor.
This humor, like criticism, has its double aspect. The
sense of humor is the most precious endowment of the
literary artist, a touchstone for the finest shades of
perfect and imperfect. But the free indulgence of
humor is a weed of the mind, choking the soil where
it has found lodgment, and tending gradualh'' to extir-
pate all that is not humorous. It is in the latter sense
that humor cUngs to Mephistopheles : the arch-depre-
ciator is also the spirit of cynical humor, which has
lost all reverence, from which nothing is sacred. Yet
all this leaves the Spirit of Denial a very different
thing from the Devil. The zealous hostility of the
traditional tempter would be a theme for the cynical
irony of Mephistopheles quite as much as the devout
[244]
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
enthusiasm of the Angels. Mephistopheles has not
broken with good. His last appearance in the action
of the drama reveals a sneaking sense of attraction to
the angelic nature, which he blasphemously interprets
as a sort of spiritual concupiscence. And the Prologue
makes clear that Mephistopheles enjoys his attendance
at the levees of Heaven, though the expression he gives
to his enjoyment reads as if he were patronizing God.
But Goethe's adaptation of the Joh prologue to the
purposes of his modern poem yields yet another effect,
and that of the boldest. Humor in its lower form
makes a Mephistopheles ; but what of humor in its
highest sense? Even this is alien to the Hebrew
poem ; but Goethe has ventured to hint a God with a
sense of humor. This is clearly suggested by the speech
which startles so many readers, in which God seems
to approve, not indeed Mephistopheles, but at least
the function Mephistopheles is to carry out.
The like of thee have never moved My hate.
Of all the bold, denying Spirits,
The waggish knave least trouble doth create.
Man's active nature, flagging, seeks too soon the level ;
Unqualified repose he learns to crave ;
Whence, willingly, the comrade him I gave,
Who works, excites, and must create, as Devil. ^
Dr. Anster's version of the poem at this point intro-
duces a brilliant paraphrase.
1 The quotations from Goethe's poem are almost exclusively from
the version of Bayard Taylor ; a few are from Anster : see below,
page 487. Very occasionally, to make a point clear, I have made
my own version.
[245 1
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
Of the Spirits of Denial
The pleasantest, that figures in Man's Trial,
Is Old Iniquity in his Fool's clothing ;
The Vice is never heavy upon hands ;
Without the Knave the Mystery were nothing.
For Man's activity soon tires,
(A lazy being at the best)
And sting and spur requires.
In indolent enjoyment Man would live.
And this companion, whom I therefore give.
Goads, urges, drives — is devil and cannot rest.
Whether the German word Schalk can be stretched so
far as to make a basis for this passage, I am not prepared
to say ; but the idea itself is most suggestive. The
Mephistophelean function is thus made equivalent to
the reUef element in the mediaeval drama — the noisy
stage business of the Vice or Knave or Fool, intro-
duced to stimulate the flagging attention of the popu-
lace assisting at these long-winded spiritual poems.
The suggestion seems confirmed by the continuation of
the speech, in which the Almighty turns — as if in
contrast — to address the angehc hosts.
But ye, pure sons of God, be yours the sight
Of Beauty, each hour brighter and more bright ! —
As if the angels represented the developed artistic
temperament of the spiritual Ufe, which can endure
sustained presentations without needing rehef.
The life in all around, below, above.
That ever lives and works — the Infinite
Enfold you in the happy bonds of love ! —
[246]
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
The very antithesis of a Mephistopheles whom no single
manifestation of life can warm from cynicism.
And all that flows unfixed and undefined
In glimmering phantasy before the mind,
Bid Thought's enduring chain for ever bind.
The angels can maintain the equilibrium of thought in
the presence of mystery, in contrast with Faust whose
spiritual energies have broken down in scepticism.
Between such a God and such a Mephistopheles a
contention is waged. Mephistopheles has sneered at
the spiritual restlessness of Faust : God has pronounced
this restlessness the embryo of a higher spiritual condi-
tion. Mephistopheles, most characteristically, offers to
bet : a moment before he had sneered at the idea of
tempting poor mortals, but he now says that if he had
the authority to do the tempting he could make clear
the baselessness of God's confidence in Faust. God
bids Mephistopheles take the authority he suggests,
and justifies the function of tempting. The terms of
the contention are strictly defined : God engages, not
that Faust will not sin, but that in nothing Mephis-
topheles can offer will Faust rest satisfied ; Mephis-
topheles gloats over his undertaking that Faust shall
eat dust with a relish. With the machinery of the
Book of Job to assist, Goethe has thus masked one of the
difficulties in the traditional story : we no longer have
the buying and selling of a soul — marketing is a seri-
ous business — but we have the characteristic Mephis-
tophelean frivolity of a wager over souls. The playing
out of this wager is to make the drama of Faust.
[247]
THE^FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
And a continuous thread running throughout this
drama is the interest of Mephistopheles acting a part
that is a novelty to him. No hoHest thing would be
sacred to Mephistopheles, but diablerie is an inexhaust-
ible field for his special brand of humor; over and
above the game he is playing against Faust, he has a
game all to himself, in caricaturing the Devil's work in
the very act of doing it. Fully to illustrate this would
mean transcribing large parts of the poem. A first
stroke of it we have in the concluding lines of the pro-
logue, when Heaven has closed, and Mephistopheles
finds himself for a moment alone.
I'm very glad to have it in my power
To see him now and then ; he is so civil :
I rather Uke our good old governor —
Think only of his speaking to the Devil !
There would be nothing to smile at in the idea of God's
speaking to Mephistopheles, for clearly Mephistopheles
is accustomed to attend these assemblies of heaven's
hierarchs : what Mephistopheles chuckles at is that
the Almighty has inadvertently been civil to one he
had that moment constituted Devil ! Mephistopheles
clearly enjoys the process of incarnating the Devil
in visible form — Dog, Scholar, Man of the world ; the
whole etiquette of Hell is scrupulously observed, and
the tempter will not enter Faust's chamber until the
knock and invitation to come in has been duly repeated
thrice. He works the pentagram foolery for all it is
worth, and will not make his exit until, in the most
orthodox fashion, a rat has obeyed Beelzebub's sum-
[248]
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
mons to release him. He has roistering fun with the
Auerbach drinking party, who have thought they
might safely make jokes about the Devil; he caps
blasphemies with the Witch in her kitchen, and elab-
orately explains how the Devil modernized conceals
his tail ; the one pleasure for which he confesses a
weakness is the horrors of Walpurgis Night. Mephis-
topheles expresses disgust when his magic is called
upon to produce the ideal beauty of Helen : he protests
he is a romantic fiend, while classical superstitions have
a Hades of their own. At one point of the drama he
appears on the street, stamping with rage and bursting
with suppressed laughter : the rage is the Devil's at
the thought of his precious casket finding its way into
the coffers of his hereditary enemy the Church ; the
laughter is at Mephistopheles' realization that he may
not relieve his feelings by swearing, since he is already
the Devil. In the scene with the Student, Mephis-
topheles has been pouring a stream of his most cynical
depreciation upon all the different sides of academic
study : then we have an aside : —
I'm tired enough of this dry tone, —
Must play the Devil again, and fully : —
and he proceeds to whisper sensual suggestions into
the young man's ear. When Mephistopheles in the
shabby gown of a Travelling Scholar confronts Faust,
he has an antagonist who can match him, sneer for
sneer ; yet the academic tramp can at least mystify
the great professor, who is not in the secret of the
dual personality. Faust has demanded who this vis-
[249]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
itor, SO supernaturally introduced, may be; the an-
swer comes : —
Part of the power that would
Still do evil —
SO far, the answer describes the Devil ; when it adds : —
— Still does good !
we have the Depreciator gibing at the Devil's ineffect-
iveness. Again the speaker declares : —
I am the spirit that evermore denies. —
Thus much Mephistopheles may say for himself : in
the lines that follow he voices the hostiUty to all exist-
ence which belongs to the Devil he is personating : —
And rightly so — for all that doth arise
Deserves to perish — this distinctly seeing
No ! say I, No ! to every thing that tries
To bubble into being.
When this spirit of hostility has been extended to a
fierce tirade against Light itself, Faust brings him
down from his high horse w^ith a sneer : his visitor has
clearly had a failure on a large scale, and is prudently
setting up again in a retail business. Mephistopheles
at once drops to his natural tone, and sneers at the
Devil's furious assaults on all existence, the deaths
that only set young blood circulating, all the elements
lost, except indeed Flame which the Devil still keeps
to himself. Faust mocks the figure before him, in
vain spite clenching its cold devil's fist against the
energy of creation : Mephistopheles thinks it time to
change the subject and get to business. At the very
[250]
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
end of the action, when at Faust's death the wager is
hopelessly lost, Mephistopheles must needs have one
more bout of diablerie, in a first-rate mediseval devil
struggle over a corpse. But the summoned demons
— long-horned and short-horned alike — fly before
the advancing angels, and Mephistopheles himself is
edged out of the way. He disappears with a final flash
of Mephistophelean humor : that he has let himself
be diverted from business for the sake of a peep at
cherubic charms — and at his age !
This briefest of prologues, assisted by echoes from
the biblical Job, has sufficed to give an entirely new
turn to the machinery of the temptation. The actual
temptation of Faust, in Goethe's version, is the presen-
tation to him of the Whole World. The elaboration
of this second element in the traditional story accounts
for the great bulk of Goethe's poem. He is the first
to see the double significance of the term ''World" in
such a connection. Every man lives at the same time
in two worlds : the microcosm of his own individual
life, and the macrocosm of the Great World, the uni-
verse in which individual lives are small atoms. The
distinction of these two worlds underlies the division
between the First Part and the Second Part of Goethe's
Faust. In the First Part we have only the world of the
Individual Life. Faust at the outset has all that belongs
to the world of scholarly maturity ; the action of the
poem adds to this the world of social pleasure and a
youth miraculously restored : with youth thus added
to maturity the whole of the individual life has been
[251]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
covered. The Second Part presents the Great World,
in successive phases. Act I presents the World as
Spectacle — Court, Society, Wealth, Pleasure, Beauty.
Act II presents the World as Science. Act III presents
the World as Art, with the harmony of Classical and
Romantic. Act IV presents the World of Power —
Glory, State, Enterprise. Not until the fifth Act of
the Second Part are the two worlds brought into con-
flict.i
The Easter Eve scene gives us the state of things
before the poem opens. Or, if it is to stand as part of
the action, the temptation here is internal, subjective,
like the ordinary temptations of men and women;
Mephistopheles nowhere appears, though a subsequent
scene shows that he is privy to all that happens. Such
temptation must lie in the ordinary course of nature
and human life, including those unexpected turns of
events which we call accidents. As in Marlowe's
version, we have Faust in his study at midnight ; it is
a different Faust, and a different study — a vaulted
chamber of rich Gothic architecture, filled with books
and old manuscripts, apparatus proper to every science,
antique furniture bespeaking the coimoisseur in art.
The moment Faust opens his mouth we feel the influ-
ence of the spirit of depreciation ; the beautiful apart-
ment is felt by Faust to be a dungeon ; all the culture it
betokens is only vanity, the vanity of a life spent in
learning that nothing is to be truly known. It is this
spirit which allures Faust to the magic Book of Nostra-
damus, that lies gleaming in the moonlight. He has
^ Compare throughout the Syllabus below, pages 474-8.
[252]
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
opened upon the Sign of Macrocosm: as in some
intricate geometrical diagram, the powers which sway
universal nature stand supernaturally revealed; and
Faust rapturously feels a growing insight into the
balanced forces of action and reaction that answer one
another like buckets ascending and descending in a
well. But the inevitable disappointment follows : the
dry light of science that shows so clearly the stream
of things can show nothing of the fount from which that
stream has flowed. Faust impatiently turns the pages
till he lights upon the Sign of Microcosm, that in like
mystic symbol reveals so different a world. As his
spirit spontaneously draws to this kindred region,
strange manifestations are going on all around him ; at
last, in the heart of a flame, the Spirit of this Earth
chants the formula of Life — the Life woven by the
twin shuttles of Birth and the Grave upon the loom of
Time. Faust advances to embrace the Apparition,
but is waved off.
Spirit. Man, thou art as the Spirit, whom thou conceivest,
Not Me.
Faust [overpowered with confusion]. Not thee !
Whom then ? I ! image of the Deity !
And not even such as thee !
Faust is on the verge of a truth which might shatter
all temptation — that, created in the image of God, he
is no fit mate for any lesser being. But accident inter-
poses — or must we say, a contrivance of the tempter?
The opening door reveals the feeble smile of the
self-satisfied pedant Wagner ; and Faust must repel the
boredom of Wagner's hero-worship with irritated depre-
[253]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
elation of everything that makes an ideal for the routine
scholar. When he is again alone, the mood of depression
continues. Midnight has by now given place to the
j&rst faint signs of another day; as the growing light
reveals the various objects in the room, each is to Faust
the memento of some disappointed aspiration. By a
sudden crescendo of this dawning — or, shall we sa}^,
by a supernatural touch of Mephistopheles — a single
article upon a single shelf starts for a moment into
prominence : the Poison Flask suggests the plunge into
the unseen that shall solve all life's mysteries. His
bosom swelling with the thought, Faust opens the case-
ment, and gazes on the morning mists flushing with the
near approach of day. His act shall be accomplished
with due ceremony ; he takes from a secret receptacle
the most precious of his art treasures, and, as the crys-
tal goblet glitters in the growing light, pours into it the
dark brown liquid. The first ray of the rising sun
flashes upon the goblet, and Faust raises it to his lips.
But the same first ray of the sun is the signal for a merry
peal of bells from the neighboring minster, proclaim-
ing Easter morning; and the Choir in the minster
yard break into the Easter Hymn, telling of the triumph
over death. Recollections of Faust's boyhood, and the
happy days of faith, of Spring sports, and Sabbath still-
nesses that came hke a kiss from heaven — all these
rush in like a flood upon his heart : the goblet drops,
and earth has gained its child again.
Clearly this internal tempting will not serve : the
tempter must incarnate himself in visible form. In
what form? Mephistopheles' plan of temptation is
[254]
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
threefold. His main trust is to the mere presence of the
tempter, that will freeze up all the spiritual fervor of
Faust. Magic shows are to shake reason into scepticism.
Then will be the time for sensual suggestions ; yet these
— so soon exhausted — must not stand alone ; Faust
must be left free to indulge his loftiest aspirations, until
the sense of distraction between his higher and lower na-
ture shall bring some moment of sudden yielding. The
three strains of the temptation symbolize themselves in
the three forms Mephistopheles is seen to wear : the Dog
is the natural type of human companionship ; the Travel-
ling Scholar of the Middle Ages — flitting from univer-
sity to university, his whole life dissipated in endless ques-
tionings — leads the attack upon reason ; the Gay Com-
panion, all in scarlet and silk, in his hat the cock's feather
as symbol of the great denier, invites to the world
of sense delights. All the while Mephistopheles, as we
have seen, is getting his full fun out of each successive
phase of diablerie that his schemes may require. More-
over, his role of Devil entitles him to bands of Attendant
Spirits, who hover about unseen, and play up to Meph-
istopheles' lead. Faust has permitted a sample of the
tempter's art. As voices are heard singing, their words
realize themselves in a phantasmagoria like an opium
dream : the frescoed vault above Faust's head changes
into starlit heavens, with children of heaven descending
in billowy motion to meet loving ones from below;
while, stretching into the distance, rivers of wine seem
foaming over beds of precious stones, and on green hill-
slopes or in floating islands winged throngs drink deep of
bliss. Thus delicately comes the first faint suggestion of
[255]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
sense delight. Later, a sneer at the poison cup that was
never drunk reveals to Faust how the ideal of holy inno-
cence which that morning had checked his suicidal impulse
is all known to the mocking demon at his side : in a sud-
den upsurging of revulsion Faust pours out an utterance
which unites all the ideals that have ever swayed man-
kind in one common Curse. An answer seems to come
from the invisible : as the Attendant Spirits sing, a magic
vision displays a cursed universe tumbhng to pieces, and
out of the ruins a new and fair world springing up — a
world which, the Spirits sing, Faust shall build within
his secret heart. ^ Thus deUcately comes the entice-
ment to exchange the life of reason for the life of self.
And at last Faust lets Mephistopheles show the world he
has to offer. In scornful confidence that the shallow
sneerer before him can find nothing to tempt his own
higher nature, Faust pronounces a wish that the first
satisfying moment may be his last : unconsciously he
has echoed the very terms of the wager laid in heaven.
And at first his confidence seems justified : the miser-
able hetise of the Auerbach'revellers can excite in Faust
nothing but disgust. To Mephistopheles it suggests
an explanation for Faust's immobility : that the man
has entirely outgrown his youth. Then the action takes
us to the Witch's Kitchen : amid a tour de force of dev-
ilry, in which Mephistopheles is finding his recreation,
the necessary miracle is wrought, and, in Faust, all the
1 The suggestion in Bayard Taylor's note that this second song
is by other singers — Good Spirits seeking to check Faust in his temp-
tation — seems to me entirely baseless. It is out of harmony both
with the words of the song and the general movement of the scene.
1 256 1
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
susceptibility of first youth is added to the wisdom of
mature life.
The Margaret Episode is in form two series of love
scenes separated by what is called the Forest and Cav-
ern scene. In such form we see reflected Mephis-
topheles' plan of distracting Faust between the impulses
of his higher and his lower nature. In a rapid succes-
sion of the simplest incidents we watch the girlish
charms of Margaret drawing on Faust's new youth to
the rapture of the lover's first kiss. Then Mephis-
topheles hurries him away : the Forest and Cavern scene
stands for those times in which Faust is left free to his
spiritual communings with the innermost heart of Na-
ture. Mephistopheles is seen ascending the mountain
side : Faust realizes the hateful association binding him
to this being whose poisonous presence will blast all his
highest feelings, who will bring him back moreover to
that sweet passion which, Faust knows, means the
betraying of innocent trust. Mephistopheles is soon
heard distilling cool cynicism upon the' pantheist's tran-
scendental rapture; a rapture not inconsistent with a
fleshlier ecstasy as he thinks of the "poor monkey "mop-
ing in her solitary home. The warmly colored picture
of Margaret, disturbing the purity of his spiritual com-
munings, works up Faust to an agony of distraction : he
sees himself reflected in the mountain torrents all around
him, as if foaming on to his abyss he must needs drag
down a peasant's cot in his ruin. The distraction brings
the sudden yielding : he bids the Devil do his worst, but
do it quickly. So Faust moves on consciously to the
undoing of Margaret. But not of Margaret alone. A
s [ 257 ]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
sleeping potion is to soothe the invaUd mother while the
lovers may find opportunity of meeting: but Meph-
istopheles "has his amusements too," and the mother
never wakes again. The soldier brother, drawn to his
home by whispers of gossip, disturbs the midnight sere-
naders : Faust strikes and Mephistopheles pan-ies, and
the brother bleeds to death, with his last breath blurting
out his sister's sin. Faust has to fly for his life, with two
deaths on his conscience ; and Margaret is left to endure
alone the dreadful descent to ruin. The interval of
absence is marked by the dramatic digression of the Wal-
purgis Night : the soft Spring evening gradually trans-
formed to haunting forms of fancy; Mammon illu-
minating all his veins of rich metal till they shine through
the crust of the earth ; the passion of the winds as they
sweep through groaning forests growing articulate with
bandied blasphemies of riding witches in mid air ; the
Brocken mount lit by a hundred watch fires as if a scene
of some popular fair translated into demonic orgy.
Every form of the supernatural has a place on this magic
night ; amongst them clairvoyance holds up to Faust a
vision of a girl, gliding with bound feet, and on her throat
a crimson stain no wider than a knife's edge. The
thread of the action resumes with the sudden knowledge
of all that has happened to his love in Faust's absence :
how in prison she awaits execution as murderess of her
own babe. Mephistopheles feels strong enough to ven-
ture his master sneer : She is not the first ! A spasm of
revulsion rouses Faust to the highest tension of will : he
turns on Mephistopheles, and by the strength of the
compact between them forces the Devil to do a work
[258]
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
of salvation. But though magic horses bring them to
the prison, they are too late : the body is there, but the
mind is gone. In a succession of agonies Faust seeks
to make Margaret understand : her distracted brain is
busy with scenes of the old love time, or horrors of the
flight and murder, or finally with the scene of execution
— tolling bell, broken wand, bitter wound, silence of the
grave. At this point Mephistopheles enters to force the
pair away. Margaret sees the Devil claiming her be-
yond the bounds of this world : the shock restores sanity
for a moment, and, casting herself on the judgment of
God, she sinks in death. Mephistopheles points to the
corpse-like face, and cries, She is judged ! A voice
from heaven pronounces that she is saved. As Faust
lets Mephistopheles hurry him from the scene, he is fol-
lowed by a sweet call, ever becoming more distant, of
Henry ! Henry ! The first thought of the saved Mar-
garet has been for the salvation of her lover.
In this last detail we have anticipated what will be-
long to the third element in the Faust Story, which deals
with the losing or saving of the soul. Our immediate
concern is with the idea of gaining the whole world : how
does the account stand at the conclusion of the First
Part of the poem ? From the outset of the action Faust
has possessed in himself the world of broad culture that
crowns the maturity of a scholar's life. Subsequent
scenes have added to this the world of social life and
gaiety. Further, without losing any part of his ma-
turity, Faust has had miraculously restored to him the
freshness of youth, with the capacities for passionate
love that only youth can fully possess. The paradox
1259]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
of youth and maturity possessed together has offered to
Faust the whole world of the individual life.
What stands as the brief opening scene of Part Two is
in reality an Interlude between the divisions of the
poem. It belongs to Goethe's scheme that the world
of the individual life and the great world shall be kept
entirely distinct ; it is remarkable that the whole of the
Second Part — until we reach the final scene that is
really an epilogue to the whole poem — ignores alto-
gether the Margaret Episode. The Interlude that ef-
fects this separation of the two parts of the story is one
of the loveliest pieces of symbolism in all poetry. Faust
is seen in the midst of a pleasant landscape, bedded on
flowery turf, exhausted and restless with the agony of
the separation from Margaret. For the forces which are
to soothe this restlessness we have open air Nature as a
region of moral indifference ; Spring, which is the healing
of Winter ; the craft of Elves — neutral spirits, distinct
from the war of angels and demons. Amid low aeolian
music and fairy song Night advances through her four
pauses : Twilight, with misty veil shutting weary eye-
lids ; Starlight, and the pomp of the protecting Moon ;
Lethe, that cancels the hours when alike pain and bliss
have fled away ; Dawn, to shed color and form through
the shadow-rest of morning, till sleep is only a shell to be
broken through. The careering Hours are leading on
the triumph of the advancing Sun, light translated into
sound : rocky portals of cloud crash open as the Light
draws near, with pealing rays and trumpet-blazes, sound
that Uke the music of the spheres is too loud to be
[2601
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
heard. Faust awakens, oblivious of his past, with fresh
vigor to seek the highest Ufe for which he is panting.
He stands watching the growing Hght, until the sun shall
come forth over the mountain tops. But the sudden
blaze blinds him : he turns his back upon it, and what
he sees before him is the cataract smitten into rainbow
tints by the level rays of morning. In the sudden relief
Faust sees an emblem of life :
Symbol of human striving's best direction ;
Not light direct, but rainbow-like reflection.
Not attainment, but ceaseless endeavor : the symbolism
of the Interlude has anticipated the thought which is to
be the culmination of the whole poem.
The Second Part of the poem is to present the Great
World in successive phases, and Act I gives us the world
as Spectacle : as all that we mean when we talk of "see-
ing life": as many-sided life, as Wealth, Pleasure,
Beauty. It centres naturally around the Court of the
Emperor. The Emperor is seen in full court, Mephis-
topheles acting temporarily as Court Fool — no bad sug-
gestion of his actual position in the universe. Dullness
marks the opening of the action, as successive min-
isters in droning speeches detail cares of state ; Mephis-
topheles quickens the movement with a sprightly sug-
gestion that all these troubles are varied forms of the
lack of money. We reach the first of the three main
motives in this first Act. It is as if magic were being
carried into the field of political economy, for what
Mephistopheles suggests is a bubble scheme of paper
[261]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
currency, duly secui-ed on the basis of the buried wealth
of the Middle Ages which is legally the property of the
Emperor. This motive is no more than opened when
interruption brings the second motive — the Carnival
Masquerade. This is the symbolic spectacle of life in
its varied phases. With stage effects of color and rhyth-
mic dance flower girls pose in successive groups, and
opposite them gardeners bearing fruit as the masculine
side of the pastoral ; what at first seems an incongruity —
a match-making mother seeking to get her daughter off
her hands — is a link to change repose into motion, and
there follow fishers and bird-catchers, with nets, fish-
ing-rods, hmed twigs, and the like, who disperse them-
selves among the girls, with reciprocal attempts to win,
catch, escape, hold fast : life is made to appear as a game
of the sexes. To this pastoral mask there comes a pas-
toral antimask ; boisterous wood-cutters, pulcinelli or
grotesque loafers, slobbering parasites, drunken aban-
don with clinking glasses. The pastoral is followed by
the poetic presentation of life, or mask of poets — poets
of nature, courtly and knightly minstrels, sentimental-
ists, night and churchyard poets : the section is merci-
fully shortened by the device that each poet interrupts
his predecessor before any can get a hearing. Now
we have a classical mask ; the exquisite Graces, the
sombre Fates ; the Furies are announced, but appear
transformed into society ladies, who can do their work
of malice and poison with, due decorum. Next fol-
lows a mediaeval morality : the elephant of Power
guided by a delicate woman (Prudence), on which rides
throned Victory, with Hope and Fear on either side :
[262 1
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
Detraction as Vice of this morality appears under the
suggestive name of Zoilo-Thersites, and at the touch of
the herald's wand the monster falls in two as an adder
combined with a bat. We take a step nearer to the
other motives of the first Act when the mask of Wealth
follows : the dragon chariot of Plutus is driven by the
lovely boy-charioteer who is Poesy — explained as in-
tellectual wealth — and scatters among the crowd pearls
that turn to crawling beetles in vulgar hands ; the anti-
mask is Mephistopheles as sneering Penury. At last we
have a nature mask of the Court : the Emperor ap-
pears as the great god Pan, the courtiers as nymphs,
satyrs, fauns, giants ; gnomes, as surgeons of the moun-
tains, lead the Emperor to the Fount of Wealth — Plu-
tus's coffer, now transformed into a volcanic crater
overflowing with molten gold. As the Emperor stoops
over it his beard catches fire : magic flame wraps the
whole scene. There is a moment's panic, and then the
other elements come to the rescue, and with suggestions
of quaking earth, cooling airs, trickling and softly
drenching rains, the curtain descends. The transition
is to a scene of repose, and the gardens of the court.
Here the news comes of the completely realized currency
scheme. Every class of society is seen rich and con-
tented, all able to realize their own special predilection ;
the old Court Fool, whom Mephistopheles had super-
seded, like the rest has his share of ready money, and
promptly gives up foolery for serious life.
But an unexpected turn is given to the action.
Wealth has brought the demand for art and beauty ;
nothing less will serve than the ideal beauty of man and
[263 1
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
woman in Paris and Helen. Mephistopheles protests
that his magic jurisdiction does not extend to the classic ;
but he gives way, and we reach the third motive of Act I.
It was ideal beauty that was demanded : the word sug-
gests the Platonic theory of ideas — class terms and the
question of their real or nominal existence, which domi-
nated philosophy for a thousand years. It is difficult to
discuss such a speculation except in metaphorical lan-
guage ; among other metaphors the ideas were made the
moulds of things, as distinguished from the things so
moulded ; mould suggests matrix, matrix is of the same
root as mother, and, fortunately, an obscure passage of
Plutarch refers to an oriental "Mystery of the Mothers."
Thus the Platonic Theory of Ideas emerges as the Magic
Mystery of the Mothers. With burlesque awe and
mystic tremulousness Faust is despatched on a quest
for ''shapeless forms in liberated spaces," ''Formation,
Transformation," "the Eternal Mind's eternal re-crea-
tion."
Faust. Where is the way ?
Mephistopheles. No way ! — To the Unreachable,
Ne'er to be trodden ! A way to the Unbeseechable,
Never to be besought ! . . . Downward thy being strain !
Stamp and descend, stamping thou'lt rise again.
Flirtation and courtly trifling fill the interval of waiting.
At last, in the dimly lighted Hall of the Knights, the
court await a scene of theatrical magic ; the Court As-
trologer, or chief dreamer of the age, is naturally stage
manager ; Mephistopheles peeps over the prompter's
box, for "prompting is the Devil's oratory." Amid
rolling mists that distil music as they move a classic
1264]
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
scene is visible, with pillared shaft and triglyph ; from
the incense-steam gradually a Helena and a Paris ap-
pear. A rapid fire of running comments at every point
gives us courtly criticism of the classical antique. The
piece is clearly the Rape of Helena. But it is not
destined to reach its natural denouement. Like a
Pygmalion smitten with passion for the Galatea he has
sculptured, Faust falls helplessly in love with "the spec-
tral Helen he himself has made." A magic ''mystery"
had of course involved a magic ''key" ; and this key is
still in the hand of Faust. When the unendurable point
is reached of Paris bearing Helen away, Faust rushes
into the scene, and wields his key in resistance. A ter-
rific explosion follows this clash of real and ideal : amid
darkness and tumult the first Act comes to its end, the
final detail having laid the foundation for the two Acts
that follow.
The first four Acts, though parts of a common move-
ment, may be read each as an independent poem. The
first Act has presented the world as Spectacle : the sec-
ond gives us the world revealed as Science. Only, this
Science has to be understood in a somewhat restricted
sense : as analysis and synthesis, as processes of evolu-
tion . More precisely still, the word ' ' genesis ' ' — the com-
ing into being of things — expresses the idea binding the
complex details of the second Act into a clear unity. It
has a main plot and an underplot ; the main plot links
the Act with the rest of the poem, the underplot empha-
sizes the scientific nature of the material employed.
The main plot centres around Faust and Mephistopheles.
Ideal beauty of Helen, which at the outset is no more
[265]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
than a vision in the mind of Faust, is throughout the
movement of this second Act seeking genesis as a
reahty; in the atmosphere of the Classical Walpurgis
Night it makes successive stages of approach to this,
then disappears to attain complete reality in the Helen
of Act III. But Faust has a perpetual antimask in
Mephistopheles. As Faust is in search of ideal beauty,
so through the grotesquenesses of Walpurgis Night
Mephistopheles seeks ideal ugliness, and reaches a
climax in the hideous Phorkyad whose form he will
wear in Act III. The underplot is given up to compet-
ing theories of scientific genesis. One form of genesis is
the crystallization of laboratory experiment : this at the
opening of Act II has given us, not homo, but homuncu-
lus, limited by the phial in which he has been chemically
generated, like a chick that cannot break its shell;
throughout the movement of the Act he is seeking to
overcome this limitation, and reaUze complete being.
The course of this movement brings before us competing
Fire and Water creation, Eruptive and Sedimentary,
the philosophy of Anaxagoras and the philosophy of
Thales : Thales triumphs, and Water genesis holds the
field. But this Water genesis has still to pass through
ascending stages of definiteness; each true stage
flanked, as it were, by a false form of imperfect genesis.
For the false forms we have the Kabiri to suggest self-
generation (or parthenogenesis) ; the Telchines, artifi-
cial formation ; the Dorides, the union of mortals with
immortals. Over against these Nereus stands for the
general idea of Water genesis ; Proteus reveals stages
of evolution. For climax to a classical presentation of
[266]
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
Water genesis we should have expected the myth of
Aphrodite rising from the foam of the sea. But Aphro-
dite, as a goddess, would not fit into Goethe's scheme ;
he installs the more nearly human figure of Galatea in
Aphrodite's place. When the triumph of Galatea has
brought the foundation step of evolution in simple sex-
union, the matter of the underplot has worked itself out.
The movement starts from the Laboratory of Wagner.
The most modern laboratory has for its supreme prob-
lem by synthesis to produce organic life. Assisted by
the magic of Mephistopheles what Wagner has pro-
duced is no mere protoplasm : Homunculus is a com-
pletely organized being, whose first word hails his
creator as Daddy, and recognizes a cousin in Mephis-
topheles. Yet he is but generative flame, confined by
a glass phial as by a shell ; he can float in his phial
through space, and take part in things, but must
break through the phial before he can attain real flesh
and blood existence. Faust is still in the swoon
caused by his yearning for Helen ; at the suggestion of
Mephistopheles the generative flame in the phial shines
over the sleeper, and in the brain of Faust is formed
the loveliest of dreams — the swan-birth of Helen.
More than this is not possible in the gloomy regions of
the north : the scene must change to the Classical
Walpurgis Night. This of course means the indis-
criminate massing together of Greek mythologic crea-
tions, as the other Walpurgis Night was a massing of
northern superstitions. The scene is the Pharsalian
fields, still haunted by the ghost of Greek liberty.
The watch-fires burn blue as there come hovering over
[267]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
the region Mephistopheles and the flaming phial,
with Faust carried still in his state of unconsciousness.
The arrangement that the three shall roam indepen-
dently, and meet at intervals, has the effect of inter-
weaving the separate threads of the plot into a dramatic
picture. Faust awakes from his swoon as he touches
the land that bore Helen. It is easy to follow Faust
as he moves amidst the classical forms around him :
drinking in the beauty of the beautiful, appreciating
the solid strength of the repulsive, responding to the
poetic memories of all. He rides on the back of the
Centaur Chiron, on which once Helen had ridden ;
Chiron bears him to the house of Manto to be healed
of his love. Faust will not be healed : but from the
house of Manto there is a path down to the realms of
Persephone. Faust is seen no more in this Act ; but we
shall hear how from this region of Persephone Helen has
ascended to meet Faust in the third Act. It is equally
easy to follow Mephistopheles enjoying himself on
this Classical Walpurgis Night : how he caps puns
with the Griffins, cuddles the Sphinxes, flirts wdth the
Lamiae, and finally is coached by the hideous Phorkyads
for his part in Act III.
The rest of the Act centres about Homunculus seek-
ing genesis as a real being. Earthquake appears on
this night of magic, and with Atlas-like gesture has
pushed through the earth's green surface a newly
formed mountain. Bushy forest spreading soon clothes
its face. Life begins to appear on this new world :
griffins and emmets are seen pushing their gold trade ;
pygmies, with dactyls for slaves, organize war, and
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GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
prey on the ranks of herons ; a moral element seems to
come into the new world when cranes — the very cranes
who once avenged Ibycus — fly over the scene threaten-
ing judgment from on high. It is at this point that
Homunculus appears, following two philosophers he
has heard disputing of nature : Anaxagoras contending
for fire and the eruptive theory of creation, Thales
claiming the creative supremacy of water. Pointing
to the new world created in a single night Anaxagoras
seems to have the advantage, and he offers Homun-
culus the sovereignty of the realm. But Homunculus
is cautious, and will first hear Thales; Thales points
to the advancing army of cranes, who swoop down upon
the pygmies, and bring retribution for the slaughtered
herons. Anaxagoras, worsted for the moment, appeals
to the Moon, whose fearful craters proclaim her the
head of the eruptive interest. The appeal is instantly
answered : at first it seems as if the Moon itself
was descending, but the bright disk turns black, and
a mass of meteoric stone blots out the new-made world
and the life that is upon it into a shapeless mass of ruin.
Thephilosophy of Anaxagoras is routed, and Homunculus
attaches himself to Thales and the philosophy of water.
For all the rest of the Act we are in the realm of
water genesis. The scene has gradually moved : from
the Pharsalian Fields, on a tributary of the river
Peneus, to the river itself; now to the rocky coves of
the ^gean sea, in which the river Peneus empties
itself. It is a scene of beautiful moonlight ; in exquisite
songs the Sirens interpret each phase like a Chorus.
It is amid such surroundings that we have presented,
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THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
in alternation, the imperfect and the true forms of
genesis. First, Nereids and Tritons, wonder-forms of
the sea, are seen setting out with noisy joy on an
Argonautic Expedition to the domain of the lofty
Kabiri : the reference is to an ancient Mystery of the
island peoples, compounded of Phcenician sailor lore
and Egyptian phallic worship. But — for all their
vaunting triumph as they come back — the golden
fleece they bring turns out to be no more than the
ugly, one-sex, dwarf Kabiri, — the phallic element of
the Mystery. All mock these malformations, "with
earthen pots for models," strange gods ''ever begetting
themselves anew" : the suggestion is of self-generation,
one-sex generation, perhaps the imperfect reproduction
modern science studies as parthenogenesis. Mean-
while, Homunculus has been brought by Thales to
Nereus, in whom all beings of the sea world find a
common ancestor ; Nereus has grudgingly given the
hint that Proteus is the wondrous personage from
whom to hear the plan of Being and its transformations.
The second of our ascending stages thus brings us to
the beautiful Greek myth of Proteus, whose very name
is of kindred root with our modern protoplasm : the
Proteus who, grasped firmly by his captor, changes
into every form of things in nature, yet at the end is
found one and the same ! From this Proteus Homun-
culus learns the law of the evolution he seeks : —
On the broad ocean's breast must thou begin !
One starts there first within a narrow pale,
And finds, destroying lower forms, enjoyment :
Little by little, then, one climbs the scale,
[270]
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
And fits himself for loftier employment. . . .
There, by eternal canons wending,
Through thousand, myriad forms ascending,
Thou shalt attain in time to Man.
But the human will be the final term of the scale of
evolution : —
Struggle not to higher orders !
Once Man, within the hiunan borders,
Then all is at an end for thee.
To the general conception of Water genesis this second
idea has been added of evolutionary stages ; there is
still lacking the indispensable first link of the ascend-
ing chain. But before this another mode of imperfect
genesis must appear. The Telchines of Rhodes ride
past on sea-horses and dragons, wielding the trident
of Neptune which they forged, and boasting how —
We were the first whose devotion began
To shape the high Gods in the image of Man.
But this is mocked at as artificial creation, dead works
cast in bronze : their shining forms of Gods an earth-
quake was able to overthrow. Now the Sirens see the
doves of Aphrodite descending to head the procession
of Galatea her successor : in Galatea will be attained
the final triumph — the love union of sexes that makes
the first link of the evolutionary chain. But even as
the procession is passing by, yet another false note is to
be struck : the lovely Dorides — the Graces of the sea
— turn to ask from Nereus the boon of immortality
for the sailor boys they have rescued and made their
loves. The boon is denied : the union of mortals with
[271]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
immortals is as fluctuating as the waves on which the
Sea Graces are riding. Now the full triumph of
Galatea fills the scene : Galatea rides on her shell,
and all the creatures of the sea fall into the procession ;
the universal adoration proclaims water the source of
Ufe, water the only force for its sustentation.
From Water was everything first created !
Water doth everything still sustain !
Ocean, grant us thine endless reign !
If the clouds thou wert sending not,
The swelling streams wert spending not,
The winding rivers bending not.
And all in thee were ending not,
Could mountains, and plains, and the world itself, be ?
The freshest existence is nourished by thee.
The head of the procession has passed around a bend
of the coast when a new mystery is added : around the
spot reached by the shell on which Galatea rides a
fiery marvel lights up with more than moonlight the
heaving billows. Drawn by the force of Eros to the
side of Galatea, the generative flame has broken
through the phial of glass, and Homunculus has at-
tained the first link in the evolutionary chain of real
existence.
The world has been presented in the form of Spec-
tacle, and again in the form of Science : the third Act is
to present it in the form of Art. But it is the whole
world that is to be so presented. It is a leading idea
of Goethe, and his great contribution to the philosophy
of poetry, that the wholeness of art is to be found in the
equable blending and harmony of Classic and Romantic,
[ 272 ]
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
the foundation conceptions of art laid by the Hellenic
peoples and the exuberance of free invention achieved
by mediaeval Europe. The embodiment of this idea
in the love of Helen and Faust is a masterpiece of our
poet ; one knows not whether to admire more the pro-
fundity of the idea, or the exquisite poetic scenes in
which it is enshrined, or again the perfection of technical
detail with which the design is carried into execution.
The Act opens as Greek tragedy; the illusion is
complete, and we can hardly persuade ourselves that
we are not reading a drama of ^schylus englished.
The scene is before the Palace of Menelaus in Sparta.
The scenic conventions of the Greek stage are main-
tained ; in particular, the trimeter iambic rhythm,
which is the blank verse of Greek drama, and which,
though differing only by a single additional foot from
our own blank verse, yet sounds so strange to English
or German ears, dominates this part of the poem, varied
of course by the lyrical measures of the Chorus. We
have the slow, sculpturesque movement of long-drawn
dialogue with which ancient tragedy elaborates the
opening situation. This situation is the return from
Troy; and Helen, with a Chorus of captive Trojan
maidens, has been sent forward by her husband to
make preparations for a sacrifice, in consultation with
the Stewardess of the house — the old crone whose
Phorkyad hideousness, we know, conceals Mephis-
topheles. Forensic contests of age and youth, ugliness
and beauty, are waged between the Stewardess and the
Chorus. Reminiscences of the loves of Helen make
preparation for the one more love which is to follow.
T [ 273 ]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
At the right point, the accelerated rhythm of long
trochaics brings out the mystery that is suddenly per-
ceived in the general situation : Helen is to prepare a
sacrifice, but the victim of that sacrifice has not been
indicated, and the old Stewardess catches the idea that
Helen and the Chorus are themselves to be victims to
the outraged love of Menelaus. The movement begins
to advance as the Stewardess suggests the only way of
escape : in what appears to be a Messenger's Speech
broken by dialogue she tells what has happened during
Menelaus's long absence from his home — how a dar-
ing breed of strangers, pressing forth from Cimmerian
night, have occupied the surrounding country, and built
their inaccessible fortresses. Here only will be a place
of refuge; and, as trumpets of Menelaus sound an
advance in the distance, Helen must make up her mind
at once. The drift of the whole Act is conveyed in the
answer of Helen.
What I may venture first to do, have I de\ased.
A hostile Daemon art thou, that I feel full well,
And much I fear thou wilt convert the Good to Bad.
But first to yonder fortress now I follow thee ;
What then shall come, I know : but what the Queen thereby
As mystery in her deepest bosom may conceal,
Remain imguessed by all ! Now, Ancient, lead the way !
What will follow will be no forsaking of the Classic
under temptation of the Romantic, but a marvellous
and unlooked for blending of the two.
The modern stage supplants the ancient as mists
fill the whole scene ; the mists dispersing reveal a new
scene, with the intricate beauties of Gothic architecture,
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GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
a " labyrinth of many castles wondrously combined in
one." Faust and his fellow-knights, in mediaeval
armor, with all the pomp of chivalry, receive Helen at
once as guest and queen. The moment Faust speaks,
the ear catches our modern blank verse supplanting
the strange Greek metre. As the scene advances there
is another rhythmic surprise : rhyme, the great inno-
vation in poetic form achieved by mediaeval poetry,
strikes with novel effect the acute ear of Helen.
Helen.
Faust.
Helen.
Faust.
Helen.
Faust.
Helen.
Faust.
Helen.
Yet now instruct me wherefore spake the man
With strangely-sounding speech, friendly and strange ;
Each sound appeared sm yielding to the next,
And, when a word gave pleasure to the ear,
Another came, caressing then the first.
If thee our people's mode of speech delight,
O thou shall be enraptured with our song.
Which wholly satisfies both ear and mind !
But it were best we exercise it now :
Alternate speech entices, calls it forth.
Canst thou to me that lovely speech impart ?
'Tis easy : it must issue from the heart ;
And if the breast with yearning overflow,
One looks around, and asks —
Who shares the glow.
Nor Past nor Future shades an hour like this ;
But wholly in the Present —
Is our bliss.
Gain, pledge, and fortune in the Present stand :
What confirmation does it ask ?
My hand.
The advancing trumpets of Menelaus are answered
by explosions from the castle, and suggestions of
modern gunpowder warfare mingle with the scene of
[275]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
mediaeval chivalry. The marshalling of the defend-
ing hosts recalls the barbarian races who have overrun
the Europe of the Greeks — Germans, Goths, Franks,
Saxons, Normans. All this culminates in Arcadia —
"Arcadia in Sparta's neighborhood" — presented in
sonorous verse as the union of Classic and Romantic
in the domain of external nature.
With the change to this Arcadian scene a further
stage in the movement of the Act has commenced.
We hear of the love of Helen and Faust as crowned by
offspring, Euphorion, "future master of all beauty."
We see the child in his broidered garments, with tassels
from his shoulders flying, fillets fluttering round his
bosom : the ornate profuseness of romance in its first
freshness. Again we see the boy skipping and leaping
higher and higher, gently restrained by his anxious
parents. Now, Euphorion winds in dance through the
ranks of the Chorus, romantic exuberance fitting itself
to classic form ; now, he insists upon passion, and bears
away captive a girl of the Chorus who turns to flame
in his arms. More than this, Euphorion, vainly called
back by his parents, leaps farther and farther up the
rocks ; stands a youth in arms in the midst of Pelops'
land, kindred in soul ; the path to Glory opens before
him, and he leaps from the rocks. Amid cries of
Icarus, Icarus, he falls before his parents' eyes. A
pause in the movement gives opportunity for a dra-
matic digression, in which Goethe pays his tribute to
Byron : pioneer of the new poetry that shall blend
classic and romantic, yet diverted — such is Goethe's
thought — from his true poetic path by fatal sympathy
[276 1
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
with the political struggles of Greece. The Act now
reaches its closing movement. The voice of Euphorion
has summoned Helen to the lower world, from which
she had come ; her garments alone remain in the arms
of Faust, and, dissolving into clouds, raise him aloft and
bear him away : the Mephistopheles within the Phork-
yad interjecting the depreciatory interpretation that,
if the talents of ancient poetry are not to be given, at
least their costume may be lent. The Leader of the
Chorus follows Helen to the Shades, rejoicing in the
return from the romantic to the classic : —
from the magic freed,
The old ThessaHan trollop's mind-compelhng spell,
Freed from the jingling drone of much-bewildering sound,
The ear confusing, and still more the inner sense.
Not so the rest of the Chorus : their attraction to the
Elements brings before us the enduring achievement
of Greek poetry which has forever steeped every
detail of out-of-door nature in the charm of imagina-
tive suggestiveness. One part of the Chorus pass
away to become Wood Spirits, with swaying rustle
of branches to lure the rills of life to the twigs ; another
part will bend and fluctuate as Nymphs of the Reeds ;
yet another part will hasten with the brooklets along
meadow and pasture and meandering curves ; a fourth
part will girdle the vine-covered hillside, and lead on
the noisy vintage joy. The curtain falls on the empty
scene. But for a moment the Phorkyad is seen in
front of the curtain : then the Phorkyad disguise is
thrown off, and Mephistopheles makes his bow to the
audience as magic manager of the whole Act.
[2771
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
There is a fourth aspect under which the whole
world is to be presented : as Power in all its forms,
as War, Glory, State, Enterprise. There is just the
same fulness of presentation as in the other Acts, but
the ideas of the fourth Act can be much more briefly
stated. The clouds which bore Faust away from the
scenes of Act III deposit him, for Act IV, upon the
lofty heights of mountains ; Mephistopheles makes a
burlesque entry to the same scene with the aid of the
Seven League Boots. Faust revels in the sublime
scenery ; Mephistopheles works out the curious theory
that these rocky vastnesses are nothing but the bottom
of Hell coughed up by the demons under the irritation
of Hell's sulphurous atmosphere ; he claims to speak
with authority, for was not the Devil there to see ? These
mountain heights are the lofty mountain from which,
in another historic temptation, all the kingdoms of
the world and the glory of them were visible ; and once
more there is a tempter to offer these varied glories to
Faust. But only one of them has any attraction for
Faust : this is the glory of Enterprise — beneficent
enterprise, to contend against the lordly Ocean, and
win from his barren grasp stretches of land for the ser-
vice of man. No sooner has this first motive of Enter-
prise been opened than we pass to the second motive
of Act IV — War. The connecting link is that rival
emperors are contending for universal dominion ; magic
shall give the advantage to one of them, and then
Faust for his reward shall demand the sea strand as
subject for his enterprise. The scenes of the fourth
Act are thus filled with the spectacle of war — that
[278]
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
mingling of power and glory which during the greater
part of the world's history has proved the master temp-
tation to strong souls. Of course, the element of bur-
lesque is always at hand : like king David Mephis-
topheles has his three mighty men of war, and these
are Bully, Grip, and Hang-on. It is the magic com-
manded by Mephistopheles that determines the victory :
the secret powers that lurk in crystals are enlisted;
spectral floods and spectral fires close the paths of the
foe ; spectral chivalry fills the cast-off armor accumu-
lated through centuries of mediaeval warfare. The
motive of War passes naturally into the motive of
State as the victorious empire is seen organizing itself
into a constitution that shall last forever. We have
before us the hierarchy of Arch-Marshal, Arch-
Chamberlain, Arch-High-Steward, Arch-Cupbearer,
Arch-Chancellor: hereditary dignitaries who will add
to all their other dignities the special privilege of
electing the Emperor. But in the political theory of
the Middle Ages State necessarily implies Church ;
the Arch-Chancellor is also Arch-Bishop; in the one
capacity he has humbly received, in the other he im-
periously demands, hush money for the Church in
consideration of the sorcery by which the Emperor's
victory has been won. Each concession brings a
further demand, until at last ''the total income of the
land forever" is mulcted with tithes and levies for the
maintenance of the Church. But even this is not
enough, for there is the hypothetical land to be created
by the enterprise of Faust : true, the land is not yet
in existence, but patience is one of the Christian virtues,
[279]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
and the Church will know how to wait when the Em-
peror's word has secured its rights of trover.
We are engaged, let it be remembered, with that
element of the general Faust Story which makes the
temptation of Faust to be the presentation to him of
the whole world. This, in the version of Goethe, has
the modification of the wager in heaven, that in no
part of the world as presented by Mephistopheles will
Faust rest satisfied. Faust had yearned for the ideal
beauty of Helen, but Helen has vanished out of his
grasp. In the idea of beneJScent enterprise Faust
has seen a field in which to look for satisfaction, but
the enterprise must be prosecuted to its attainment
before it can be seen whether the satisfaction will be
secured. In the four Acts so far reviewed, the Great
World has been kept entirely separate from the world
of the Individual life which had been the subject of
the First Part of the poem. In Act V the two worlds
come into collision. First, from other individual lives
disturbances come to the world enterprise that is being
prosecuted. The personal obstinacy of a Baucis and
Philemon can mar the perfection of Faust's great
scheme, and the story of Naboth's Vineyard is dupli-
cated. Large enterprises must be carried on by the
agencies of others, and the corruptness of these agents
— the piratical commerce of Mephistopheles' followers
— disturbs the conscience of Faust. Again, his own
personal life comes in as a disturbing force : he feels
how his has been a haunted life, ever since he cursed
the common ideals of mankind, and embraced the magic
which is illegitimate power. But there is a disturbing
[280]
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
force far more serious than all these. The magic that
could restore to Faust the youth he had lost cannot
avail to free a mortal being from his mortality : old age
is creeping upon our hero as the grand enterprise is
being worked out, and from the opening of the fifth
Act it is clear that the inevitable end is not far off.
No magic can secure against Care. The first assault of
Care is repelled by Faust : his life has indeed quietened
down from stormy to discreet, yet is ever moving on-
ward. The second assault of Care smites Faust with
bhndness : Faust is only roused to new energy, to
complete the great work before it is too late. In his
blindness he cannot catch the irony by which the
fresh workmen summoned by Mephistopheles are
digging, not the great trench, but Faust's own grave.
Faust is eager with the idea that, though he may not
himself attain the goal of his great enterprise, yet he
may still — by removing the obstacle of the poisonous
marsh — secure it for attainment by the labor of others.
He suddenly catches the thought that this substitute
is a higher thing than the original idea : —
Yes ! to this thought I hold with firm persistence ;
The last result of wisdom stamps it true :
He only earns his freedom and existence,
Who daily conquers them anew.
Not attainment, but unceasing endeavor: this is the
summum bonum of existence, to which Faust will
commit himself as his supreme satisfaction. But he
has reached his supreme truth at the precise moment
which fate has made the moment of his mortality : as
he speaks the word he falls a corpse. When he first
1281]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
entered into compact with Mephistopheles, Faust
wished his first moment of satisfaction to be his last : —
Then let the death-bell chime the token,
Then art thou from thy service free !
The clock may stop, the hand be broken,
Then Time be finished unto me !
His words seem now to be echoed by those who stand
around his dead body.
Mephistopheles. Time is lord, on earth the old man lies.
The clock stands still —
Chorus. Stands still ! silent as midnight, now I
The index falls.
Mephistopheles. It falls ; and it is finished, here !
Chortis. 'Tis past !
The wager made with Mephistopheles seems to have
been lost by Faust, for in his last thought of unceasing
aspiration he has reached a moment of satisfaction.
But the wager made in heaven has been lost by Mephis-
topheles : the sole satisfaction acknowledged by Faust
has been eternal dissatisfaction.
All this detailed exposition has seemed necessary in
order to do justice to this part of our subject. The
triple formula of the Faust Story applies, we have seen,
to all versions alike ; yet the different versions, each for
itself, put their own interpretations upon the separate
terms of the formula. The conception of the "whole
world," so simple in the earlier versions, becomes a
thing of immense fulness and complexity in the version
which is the product of nineteenth-century culture ; for
[282]
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
what indeed is the function of culture but to give ful-
ness and richness to our conception of the world ? It
will be different with the third element of the formula,
that which is concerned with the saving or the loss of
the soul. The prologue to Goethe's version has had
the effect of throwing this question into the back-
ground ; what the discussion in heaven has brought
to the front is a kindred, yet different, question — the
inquiry what will constitute spiritual satisfaction to a
soul inherently so noble as the soul of Faust. Yet
the problem of salvation, and what may be the opposite
of salvation, is by no means eliminated from Goethe's
version. We may indeed forget this issue during
the greater part of the action. But the two final scenes
of the Second Part constitute in reality an Epilogue
to the poem as a whole ; this Epilogue draws to a focus
the suggestions of the whole poem on the question in
what the salvation of a soul shall consist.
From the opening moment of the action Faust
appears a sinner; for he is seen betaking himself to
magic, which is the conventional symbol in the drama
for illegitimate knowledge and power. And this sin
of magic — if it be a sin — is maintained from the
first moment to the last; Mephistopheles enters into
the action only as a more potent magician, who has
power to present for Faust's acceptance the whole
world. Yet the motive which has led to this sin is
nothing but the unquenchable aspiration after truth.
Nothing Mephistopheles offers can satisfy this aspira-
tion ; it maintains itself up to the last moment but one,
and the only change which the moment of death brings
[283],
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
is that the aspiration itself seems to Faust higher than
that to which he had aspired. Again : in the love
episode, by the manipulation of Mephistopheles,
Faust is brought to a single moment of distraction, in
which he suddenly surrenders to gross passion that
brings spiritual ruin to lover and loved alike. Yet
before the curtain falls on the First Part, a voice from
heaven proclaims Margaret saved ; and her cry to her
lover seems to invite him to share in her salvation. So
far as the action of the poem goes, there is nothing more
than this that bears on the question of the salvation or
loss of souls.
But the final two scenes, though not so denominated
by the poet, in reality constitute an Epilogue to the
whole poem; and these carry the problem of Faust's
salvation into the region beyond the grave. Both
scenes take the form of Mysteries, in the mediaeval
sense of the term. The first might well be called the
Mystery of Demons : in the full spirit of mediaeval
drama it presents demons, summoned by Mephis-
topheles, struggling for the soul of Faust, but driven
away with celestial roses flung by the Chorus of rescu-
ing Angels. This scene however gives us the end,
not of Faust, but of Mephistopheles : it is his final
outburst of humorous diablerie before he quits the
role of tempter, which has proved a failure in his hands.
That which follows may be called the Mystery of
Love, and the word Love rings through it from begin-
ning to end.
The Mystic Chorus with which it opens describes
the scene : it might seem some Holy Mountain of
[284]
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
Isaiah's vision, in which the beasts forget their fierce-
ness, and Love reigns throughout. With an echo of
Spanish devotion it is also a Mountain of Anchorites,
who, in their several stations, symbolize varied states
of the meditative life. First, the Anchorite of Ecstasy
sings how the storm of ecstasy purifies the soul, and
the Star of Love can shine out. Then the Anchorite
of Contemplation surveys all the nature scenes around
as so many processes of Love. The third speaker intro-
duces an idea strange to most readers, one borrowed
from the speculations of Swedenborg. What future
is there for the souls of Infants, who have died too
young for the sin that might blast them, too young also
for the development of faculties with which they might
appreciate heaven ? The idea is of some mystic inter-
communication between these and the souls of adults,
who, as it were, lend to the infant souls the faculties
with which they may understand the universe they
have never beheld. The third speaker is the Anchorite
of this Seraphic Service : as the infant souls float past
him on the mountain he incorporates them for the
moment into himself, and through his eyes they look
out upon the world. But they find this world too
gloomy ; and he dismisses them to a revelation of Love
as they ascend.
It is at this point that the Angels enter, bearing the
soul of Faust : from their words we learn the scheme
of redemption. By his unconquerable aspiration after
truth the soul of Faust, however sullied by magic and
passion in this world, has been preserved for redemp-
tion beyond the grave.
[285]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
Whoe'er aspires unweariedly
Is not beyond redeeming.
And if he feels the grace of Love
That from on high is given,
The Blessed Hosts, that wait above.
Shall welcome him to heaven !
Yet the Angels feel the heavy weight of the soul they
are bearing, in which elements of the earthy have be-
come incorporated.
When every element
The mind's high forces
Have seized, subdued, and blent.
No Angel divorces
Twin-natures single grown,
That inly mate them :
Eternal Love alone
Can separate them.
The Infant souls come floating by; the mystic incor-
poration takes place between these and the soul of
Faust. He gains from them the innocence of celestial
infancy, and the earthflakes that have clung to him are
dissipated. What they gain from him is the faculties
that can take in the universe, and the power of growth.
With mighty limbs he towers
Already above us ;
He, for this love of ours,
Will richher love us.
Early were we removed,
Ere life could reach us ;
Yet he hath learned and proved,
And he will teach us.
12861
GOETHE'S VERSION OF FAUST
Now a fourth speaker of the Mystery introduces us to
a higher region. It is the Doctor of the Blessed Mary,
his Hfe dedicated to the mystery of the Virgin-Mother,
in which mediseval theology saw the meeting-point of
love and purity. Through his powers of vision we see
the Mother All-glorious floating on high, and hear around
her the Litany of Penitence from women — Margaret
amongst them — who have sinned and who also have
loved. To this region the soul of Faust approaches :
already from celestial infancy he has reached celestial
youth, yet is still dazed with the light of this new being.
Margaret asks and obtains the boon of guiding Faust
in this higher region by the strength of the bond that
draws him towards her.
Into this region of celestial love the action of the poem
may not follow. But the Mystic Chorus concludes the
Epilogue and makes the thought complete. Here how-
ever, as elsewhere, obscurity has been caused by attempts
at too literal translation. Compound words, and other
forms of poetic compression, that are beauties in German,
are foreign to the genius of the English language. It is
vain to translate the key-word Ewigweibliche by Ever-
feminine, or Woman-soul. Such literalisms strike a false
note of interpretation : the stress is not on feminine as
distinguished from masculine, on woman as distin-
guished from man, but upon the linking of the two, upon
the mutuality of the sexes, if such an expression might
be permitted. For the spirit of this Epilogue Mar-
garet is not more necessary to Faust than Faust is to
Margaret. It is only by free paraphrase that this
Mystic Chorus will yield its thought.
[287]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
This transitory world is but a symbol :
There is the thing symbolized.
What here is mystic, indescribable,
There is a thing achieved.
The Love that links man and woman is a thing eternal,
Drawing us upward to this goal.
Faust by quenchless aspiration for truth has been led
to sin ; in his passionate love he has slipped into spiritual
folly. But his aspiration has kept his soul alive for re-
demption beyond death ; the love of Margaret has all
the while been leading him to a region of celestial love in
which the redemption will be complete.
This chapter has already run to inordinate length ; its
length would have to be doubled if full justice were to
be done to the Festus of Philip Bailey. This is indeed
one of the strange things of the literary world. In
powers of poetic execution Bailey appears to be a poet
of front rank ; to every difficulty of philosophic thought,
to every demand of imaginative setting, he is always ade-
quate. And yet he seems almost unreadable : most of us
have had with this book the experience of reaching with
the eye the bottom of a page and then realizing that the
brain has taken nothing in. The explanation seems to
be a lack in this poet of any sense of proportion. It
suggests that there is such a thing as poetic intemper-
ance ; even Pegasus needs the rein, but Bailey can never
resist the creative impulse ; not the main thought only,
but every detail, and each detail of that detail, is fitted
with simile and poetic enlargement, until outline is lost
[288]
BAILEY'S VERSION OF FAUST
in general dazzle. To difficulties springing from this
splendid obscurity of poetic style are to be added diffi-
culties of subject-matter and literary form. The poem
is the product of modern speculative mysticism, giving
creative form to a mass of theological, ontological, astro-
logical thinking, on a basis of traditional orthodoxy.
The literary form resembles the Rhapsodic Drama of
the Bible : scenic elements extending to the whole
universe, and dialogue supplemented by episodic dis-
quisitions, which — dialogue only in form — may run
to a thousand lines in length. We are however con-
cerned with the poem only as one of the Faust stories :
its variations of the type are interesting, and admit of
brief statement.^
The most notable distinction of this version is that its
hero is not an individual but a type. Festus is the
"last man," as Adam was the first man ; he is identified
with the conclusion of human history as Adam with its
commencement. The fall and rise of Festus is thus im-
plicated with the destruction of earth and the end of
time. We may think of the poem as combining the
two great literary stories of temptation, the Paradise
Lost and the Faust Story; Milton's poem opens with
the Fall of Satan, Bailey's concludes with the Rise of
Lucifer. This combination specially affects the agent of
temptation. Lucifer is essentially the Satan of Milton,
colored in manner with the Mephistopheles of Goethe.
Again : all the Faust stories involve traditional bib-
1 The reader must be careful to secure the final version of Festus,
(Routledge & Sons, 1903) : this differs fundamentally both in matter
and form from earlier versions.
D [ 289 ]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
lical theology, but that traditional theology has its
different schools; there is especially the difference
between those that rest on free will and those that deny
it. This version of Faust, unlike the rest, assumes the
Doctrine of Election. Festus is the last man in the
sense that he is necessary to make up the number of
the elect. The denial of free will carries with it the
omnipotence of Divine grace.
He sole hath full free will whose will is fate. . . .
Free will is but necessity in play,
The clattering of the golden reins which guide
The thunderfooted coursers of the sun.
This must necessarily affect the whole conception of
evil in the world.
Evil and good are God's right hand and left.
All things having emanated from God, and being des-
tined to return to God, evil becomes in things an acci-
dent attaching to the degree of separation from the
source : —
For spirit is refracted in the flesh,
And shows as crooked what is straightness' self.
Lucifer himself is but the shadow the whole creation
casts from God's own light. Such a conception of evil
must altogether alter the significance of temptation.
In this poem we can have no barter of the soul's future
for the world's present.
Lucifer. With those whom Death hath drawn I meddle not. . . .
Festus. Am I tempted thus
UntomyfaU?
[290]
BAILEY'S VERSION OF FAUST
Lucifer. God wills or lets it be.
How thinkest thou ?
Festus. That I will go with thee.
Lucifer. From God I come.
Festus. I do believe thee, spirit.
He will not let thee harm me. Him I love,
And thee I fear not.
There is indeed an incident parallel to the wager in
heaven of Goethe's version; but the philosophy of
Bailey's poem takes the point out of this.
God. He is thine
To tempt. Him richen with what gifts thou wilt,
What might, what faculty. He'll still own grace
Not thine. Upon his soul no absolute power
Hast thou. All souls be mine ; and mine for aye.
As with the Temptation of Christ in the wilderness, all
the tempter can do is to make display of the world to test
its effect upon the tempted.
But what is the "world" so displayed? We saw the
immense content put upon this term by the version of
Goethe ; yet even this is bounded by this earth of ours
and all that it contains. The world of Bailey's poem ex-
tends to the whole universe, a universe enlarged by the
astrological speculations of mysticism. The journey
of Festus and Lucifer takes them over the surface of our
globe and all its countries and peoples ; into the mys-
teries of its interior ; through interstellar space, through
all the worlds that are scattered through space. And all
these enter into the scheme of the poem. Not only are
there guardian angels of individuals, but each world has
its guardian angel, and is the abode of kindred spirits who
[291]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
once belonged to earth. More than this : a vein of
ontological speculation suggests the worlds themselves
as having a being of their own.
Oh ! I have seen
World questioned, comforting world, yes, seen them weep
Each other, if but for one red hour echpsed ;
Or, as when, but now, Jove's giant orb, obscured
By blood-wet clouds, dread proof of deadly strife
In his breast, disruptive, if subdued ; unmoved
His sun-sired kin look on him, and pass by ;
Earth only pitiful of the idol sphere.
Sore struggling with his foes, herself unfree
From \dolent ill-wishers, waves many a mist.
Anxious upon her moimtain crests, in sign
Of astral sympathy.^
The great bulk of the poem is filled out with what be-
longs to such astral speculations. What the tempter
then has to offer to Festus is knowledge of the whole
universe so enlarged, with power over the human world
exercised for the good of mankind.
The poem has underplots. The Student — in whom
perhaps we have an echo of Goethe's Wagner — and
Helen seem to illustrate seekers after truth of a differ-
ent type from Festus, the Student animated by ambition
to serve, Helen, (apparently) only by curiosity. A not-
able episode of the poem is the "Occult Adventure," in
which these two perish, while Festus survives. But the
greatest episode is that which has the boldness to present
Lucifer in love. In human form, with the weird beauty
that is appropriate to a fallen star, he has drawn the love
^ Festus, Canto I, page 30.
[292]
BAILEY'S VERSION OF FAUST
of the maiden Elissa. Lucifer is using this Elissa as a
bait in his scheme of temptation ; he intrusts her to the
safe-keeping of his comrade Festus, fully designing that
Festus shall be overpowered by her charms and betray
his trust. As regards Festus, the plot succeeds : this
fall of Festus into ignoble passion must be followed by
agonies of remorse, and the taste of Hell's purgatorial
cleansing, before he can recover his position. But Lu-
cifer, with dread amazement, finds himself caught in the
irresistible net of love. And this is the first note of the
change that is to bring about his own redemption.
Farewell, ye angels ; look your last on me.
I tempt no more. I am tempted ; but of good.
He knows not that this is part of the whole Divine
scheme of the world's salvation : —
That, as by angel man through woman fell,
Through her, shall this first-fallen again too rise ;
All life in ultimate perfection linked
By him who oft-times chooses meanest means
To compass world- vast purposes.
Divine grace being omnipotent, Lucifer cannot resist it ;
evil being but an intermediate stage, he who fell as high-
est of angels becomes highest of angels in his restora-
tion.
Then highest, humblest I, eternal Lord !
Of all thou hast made, shall be ; and by thy word
All recreative, renewed, transformed. I feel
The essential in me trembling, like to ice spears
Feeling their way 'neath star-frost o'er a lake.
The goal of the poem is thus reached. Lucifer and Fes-
tus alike are swept into the current of universal salva-
[293]
THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES
tion. From God all things had proceeded ; evil, indi-
vidual wills, had been but transient phenomena; into
God all things return.
World without end, and I am God alone.
The aye, the infinite, the whole, the One.
I only was ; nor matter else, nor mind ;
The self-contained Perfection unconfined.
I only am ; in might and mercy one ;
I live in all things, and am closed in none.
I only shall be ; when the worlds have done,
My bomidless Being will be but begim.
[294]
CHAPTER VI
COLLATERAL STUDIES IN WORLD LITERATURE
IN the Introduction to this work, on page 52, an at-
tempt has been made to offer a chart for the Literary
Pedigree of the Enghsh-speaking peoples, that might
serve, so to speak, as a map of World Literature on the
English projection. If the reader will cast his eye on this
chart, and compare it with the content of the five pre-
ceding chapters, he will see that what the chart connects
with the three main factors of our literature has been
largely covered by what we have called the five Literary
Bibles. One of them gives the Hebraic factor in its
completeness ; a second is a less complete representation
of Hellenic literature. The other three bibles belong
to stages where the third factor of Romance has come
into play. Shakespeare represents romantic material
touched by Hellenic influence; in Milton's work we
have a perfect balancing of Hellenic and Hebraic ;
Dante gives us mediae valism in its wholeness. The
fifth of our literary bibles presents what is a mediaeval
germ undergoing successive modifications under in-
fluences which have extended from the establishment
of romance to the present time. But if we survey our
literary map apart from the three main factors in our
pedigree, the other civilizations represented seem to
[295]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
have no connection with the important works we have
called literary bibles, except indeed a very indirect con-
nection in the fact that most of them have — as the
dotted lines in the chart indicate — sent out streams of
influence towards the great literary complex of mediseval-
ism and romance. The present chapter will supplement
those that have preceded, by considering elements of our
literature that have been contributed by civilizations
holding to ourselves not direct but collateral relation.
Here, however, a distinction must be emphasized
which belongs to this work as a whole. This is not in
any way a treatise on Universal Literature. Such uni-
versal literature would have to deal with the civiliza-
tions represented in our map each separately, and give
adequate account of its literary achievement. I do not
wish to underestimate the study of Universal Litera-
ture in itself ; but I do say that, when the question is of
culture and education, we need to be on our guard.
Universal Literature, if treated on a small scale, can
hardly be other than mere information. Now, in cul-
tural studies few things are more barren than literary
facts and information; few things have done more to
depress literature in the circle of studies than the text-
books often offered, which are made up of names of
authors, notices of their careers, lists of their works,
with one or two of these works briefly described
and estimated. The last seems a particular aggra-
vation : of what possible use can it be to a much-
suffering student to know^ that such and such a
book, which he is never to read, made a good or bad
impression on such and such an author, whom he does
[296]
THE KORAN
not know ? It is of course different with the treatment
of Universal Literature on a larger scale, where a whole
volume can be assigned to each literature, with the con-
nectedness of a specialist's review ; works of this kind
are indispensable for the study of history and the larger
study of literature.^ But the purpose of the present
work is entirely different from this. We are concerned,
not with the totality of literature, but with its unity;
and our fundamental position is that, at all events in cul-
tural studies, this unity of literature must be found by
the modifying influence of perspective and a given point
of view. We have in this work no responsibility for the
literary output of particular peoples. We are concerned
with our own literature : the our is that of the English-
speaking peoples, and the our own is to be estimated,
not on the narrow basis of native production, or even
expression in the English tongue. Whatever of univer-
sal literature, coming from whatever source, has been
appropriated by our English civilization, and made a
part of our English culture, that is to us World Litera-
ture. This chapter, then, deals with the contributions
of collateral civilizations to our world classics.
It has been remarked previously that among the
Semitic civilizations the Hebrew was not the first to lead.
Yet Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian literatures, how-
* I may instance as typical of such treatment the series Literatures
of the World edited by Gosse (Appleton) and the series Periods of
European Literature edited by Professor Saintsbury (Scribner).
[297]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
ever interesting for other reasons, enter into our world
literature only indirectly ; whatever was best in these
civilizations was absorbed by the Hebrew, and by its
vitalizing power diffused through the world. It is other-
wise with Arabic : this has played a very individual part
in history, and one which has closely touched ourselves.
A world religion of Arabic origin was the rival through
the Middle Ages of Christianity ; as Latin was the lit-
erary tongue of mediaeval Europe, so Arabic was the
organ of expression to Indian, Greek, and all other
peoples who made up Islam. And between Christian
and Saracenic civilizations there was continual inter-
action. Besides being one of the contributory elements
of mediaevalism, Arabic literature has given us two of
our world classics : these are — and the conjunction is
curious — the Koran and The Arabian Nights Entertain-
ments.
The Koran is of course the Bible of the millions who
make the Mohammedan world. Unlike our Bible,
which is a miscellaneous literature, the Koran consists
only of revelations made to Mahomet himself. Its
superficial appearance is very peculiar. The revelations
were written down for preservation at haphazard during
the prophet's lifetime, and brought into a collection only
after his death. The basis of order in this collection
was the singular basis of length : the brief oracles of the
early career of Mahomet come last, the long surahs,
marking the time when he is accepted for lawgiver as
well as prophet, are at the beginning. Thus the Koran
is the one book in the world which has to be read back-
wards.
[298]
THE KORAN
Of the earlier oracles let us take first one of the very
briefest, that entitled Of the Smiting}
In the name of the merciful and compassionate God.
The smiting !
What is the smiting ?
And what shall make thee know what the smiting is ?
The day when men shall be like scattered moths ; and the mountains
shall be like flocks of carded wool !
And as for him whose balance is heavy, he shall be in a well-pleasing
hfe.
But as for him whose balance is light, his dwelling shall be the
pit of hell.
And who shall make thee know what it is ? — a burning fire !
Add to this one somewhat more extended, yet still
early.
In the name of the merciful and compassionate God.
Has there come to thee the story of the overwhelming ?
Faces on that day shall be humble, labouring, toiling, — shall broil
upon a burning fire; shall be given to drink from a boiling
spring ! no food shall they have save from the foul thorn, which
shall not fatten nor avail against hunger !
Faces on that day shall be comfortable, content with their past en-
deavours, — in a lofty garden wherein they shall hear no foolish
word; wherein is a flowing fountain; wherein are couches
raised on high, and goblets set down, and cushions arranged,
and carpets spread !
Do they not look then at the camel how she is created ?
And at the heaven how it is reared ?
And at the mountains how they are set up ?
And at the earth how it is spread out ?
* The quotations are from Professor Palmer's translation (some-
times slightly altered).
1299]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
But remind : thou art only one to remind ; thou art not in author-
ity over them ; except such as turns his back and misbeUeves,
for him will God torment with the greatest torment.
Verily, unto us is their return, and, verily, for us is their account !
We notice the brevity of these, the exclamatory dis-
connected sentences, the preoccupation with the one
topic of the judgment to come. To the Oriental mind
incoherence is the sign of prophecy, as to the early
Greek madness was inspiration. Moreover, in this
the Mecca stage of his life Mahomet is occupied with
the sanctions of the new religion rather than its con-
tent ; he is ''one to remind," not yet endowed with
the authority that will make him the source of doctrine
and law. It is otherwise with the Medina prophecies.
These are long, and full of positive matter ; in addition
to descriptions of heaven and hell we now find inspired
rulings and laws, declarations of the unity of God,
assertions of Mahomet's apostolic position, recognition
of other apostles, especially Moses and Jesus, legends
and references to the history of Israel. Thus the
surah which stands first (after the introductory prayer)
covers forty-four octavo pages ; besides warnings and
promises it includes legends of Adam and of the history
of Israel ; detailed regulations — like the ordinances
of Mosaic law — on fasting, on alms, on pilgrimages,
on the use of wine, on women, on oaths, on family
life, on usury and debt. But the incoherence of
prophecy is maintained by the total absence of order
or plan ; the different topics succeed one another with
an indiscriminateness which breathes the spirit of
spontaneity. And this gives opportunity for the sudden
[300]
THE KORAN
outbursts of exalted thought, which are a distinguish-
ing feature of the Koran. Thus, in this second surah : —
God'is is the east and the west, and wherever ye turn there is
God's face.
Righteousness is not that ye turn your faces towards the east or
the west, but righteousness is, one who believes in God, and the last
day, and the angels, and the Book, and the prophets, and who gives
wealth for His love to kindred, and orphans, and the poor, and the
son of the road, and beggars, and those in captivity; and who is
steadfast in prayer, and gives alms ; and those who are sure of their
covenant when they make a covenant ; and the patient in poverty,
and distress, and in time of violence : these are they who are true,
and these are those who fear.
Or there is the "verse of the throne," often found
inscribed in mosques : —
God, there is no god but He, the living, the self-subsistent.
Slumber takes Him not, nor sleep. His is what is in the heavens and
what is in the earth. Who is it that intercedes with Him save by His
permission ? He knows what is before them and what behind them,
and they comprehend not aught of His knowledge but of what He
pleases. His throne extends over the heavens and the earth, and
it tires Him not to guard them both, for He is high and grand.
We may add the behever's prayer, with which this
surah concludes : —
We hear and obey. Thy pardon, Lord ! for to Thee our journey
tends. God will not require of the soul save its capacity. It shall
have what it has earned, and it shall owe what has been earned from
it. Lord, catch us not up, if we forget or make mistake ; Lord, load
us not with a burden, as Thou hast loaded those who were before
us. Lord, make us not to carry what we have not strength for, but
forgive us, and pardon us, and have mercy on us. Thou art our
Sovereign, then help us against the people who do not believe !
1301]
COLKITERAL WORLD LITERATURE
In literary form, the Koran presents some features
of interest. The original is prose, running in lengths
that end in common rhymes : these rhj^mes however
appear to be a linguistic rather than a literary pecul-
iarity; they are bound up with the nature of Arabic
roots, and will not admit of translation. Besides this
there is obviously the rhythm of parallelism, as in the
Hebrew Bible; but the parallelism is not carried to
the extent that admits of systematization, it is only
such sentence structure as belongs to oratory in all
languages. Occasionally we have more defined
rhythmic forms. Perhaps the most pronounced case
is in the fifty-fifth surah, which is an example of the
running refrain. This is a very early poetic form : the
great example of it in the Bible is the hundred and
thirty-sixth psalm, which is clearly a song of the wilder-
ness. It is characteristic of this form, that not only
does the refrain persist — like a basso ostinato in music
— but it delights to interrupt the grammatical struc-
ture of the sentences. Thus in the psalm we have : —
To him which smote great kings,
{For his mercy endureth for ever)
And slew famous kings :
(For his mercy endureth for ever)
Sihon king of the Amorites,
(For his mercy endureth for ever)
And Og king of Bashan ;
(For his mercy endureth for ever)
And gave their land for an heritage,
(For his mercy endureth for ever)
Even an heritage unto Israel his servant.
(For his mercy endureth for ever. )
[302]
THE KORAN
This is markedly the case with the example in the
Koran. The siirah as a whole is an appeal to men and
ginns — ginns are the genii of the Arabian Nights —
men created out of clay, and spirits out of fire ; these
are ye twain of the refrain. The bounties of crea-
tion are recited, and the surah proceeds : —
O assembly of ginns and mankind ! if ye are able to pass through
the confines of heaven and earth then pass through them ! —
ye cannot pass through save by authority !
{Then which of your Lord's bounties will ye twain deny?)
There shall be sent against you a flash of fire, and molten copper,
and ye shall not be helped !
{Then which of your Lord's bounties will ye twain deny?)
And when the heaven is rent asunder and become rosy red, melting
lilce grease,
{Then which of your Lord's bounties will ye twain deny?)
On that day neither man nor ginn shall be asked about his crime :
{Then which of your Lord's bounties will ye twain deny?)
The sinners shall be known by their marks, and shall be seized
by the forelock and the feet !
{Then which of your Lord's bounties will ye twain deny?)
" This is hell, which the sinners did call a lie ! they shall circulate
between it and water boiling quite ! "
{Then which of your Lord's bounties will ye twain deny?)
But for him who fears the station of his Lord are gardens twain :
{Then which of your Lord's bounties will ye twain deny?)
Both furnished with branching trees ;
{Then which of your Lord's bounties will ye twain deny?)
In each are flowing springs ;
{Then which of your Lord's bounties will ye twain deny?)
In each are of every fruit two kinds.
{Then which of your Lord's bounties will ye twain deny?)
Reclining on beds the linings of which are of brocade, and the fruit
of the two gardens within reach to cull,
{Then which of your Lord's bounties will ye twain deny?)
[303]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
Therein arc maids of modest glances whom none has loved before,
{Then which of your Lord's bounties will ye twain deny?)
As though they were rubies and pearls.
(Then which of your Lord's bounties will ye twain deny?)
Is the reward of goodness aught but goodness ?
{TJien which of your Lord's bounties will ye twain deny?)
With similar provisions of bliss for inferior inhabitants
of Paradise the surah continues, the refrain persisting
to the close. It is interesting to find so accentuated a
rhythmic device in a work of which the main note is
spontaneity; and this throws light upon the claim of
the running refrain to be a transition stage between the
fixed folk song and individualized compositions..
Unquestionably the Arabian Nights Entertainments
is a world classic. It takes us in a moment into the
very heart of the Middle Ages. This era conceives of
only two regions, our own and the enemy's, Christ-
ianity and Islam. The enmity is consistent with
the respect born of conflict ; nor is it all conflict, for
Saracen life has penetrated far into Europe, and brought
its poetry, science, and art. Now, the Arabian Nights
gives the English reader medisevalism seen from the
farther side. It is an intellectual holiday tour to be
separated from our own responsible life, and immersed
for a time in bright Orientalism. Instead of London
or Paris or Rome we have Bagdad, Damascus,
Bussorah, Harran, Cairo, Tripoli ; we turn from
Persia to China, India, Africa, and generally are aware
of an empire extending from farthest east to farthest
west. Instead of feudal struggles we realize autocracy,
as absolute as a child's idea of power. If a sultan
[304]
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
hears from a fair lady that she was jostled in the street
by a passing porter, he simply orders all the porters
of the city to be hanged, that the unknown offender
may not escape; the massacre is averted only by the
lady's consciousness that she has been fibbing. The
cares of government by day are refreshed by the nightly
stroll in disguise to see what the subjects think of it;
if there is criticism, the critic may be awakened from
a drugged sleep to find himself autocrat for a day amid
bending courtiers, and to experiment with his notions
of government. Slavery is in evidence, but presents it-
self chiefly as an era in an adventurous life. The lower
orders — tailors, bakers of pastry, especially porters
— can always be had to give realism to scenes. But
business on a larger scale seems chiefly to be travel-
ling in sociable caravans through distant countries,
with consciousness of immensely valuable baggage, and
good prospect, where the retail trade begins, of love
intrigues^ with veiled customers. If there is travel on a
larger scale than this, it seems to be through regions of
Bacon's ''unnatural natural philosophy," or Pliny's
book of nature prodigies. Beauties of nature are lav-
ished on all scenes, and woman is more beautiful still.
Wealth in money or precious jewellery seems boundless,
for there is the bank of magic to draw upon ; and this
is not the ponderous magic of the Faust Story, inviting
explanation, but seems simply the less usual side of na-
ture. If man has been created out of stolid earth, with
the spirit of God breathed into him, why not genii out
of volatile and overmastering fire, with no divine ele-
ment to restrain them ? The whole moral atmosphere is
X [ 305 ]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
as neutral as that of a dream ; and the only providence
is the eternal fitness of things to make story.
The title Arabian Nights only reminds us that Arabic
was the Latin of the Moslem world : into this medium
stories which had migrated from Indian, Persian,
Turkish, Hebrew, Greek literature must translate
themselves if they are to gain a hearing. Thus this
book, more perhaps than any other, brings us in touch
with floating literature; with the processes of evolu-
tion which built up romance; with the Middle Ages
as a gathering ground of world literature. It has thus
great interest for the student of literary form. What
we call a story is a form of creative literature, however
hard it may be to define it. When, however, many
stories are aggregated together, further literary forms
are required as a basis of arrangement. The most
conspicuous device is that of the frame : the story used
to introduce all the succeeding stories, enclosing them
as a frame encloses a picture. We have this in Euro-
pean collections of stories : Boccaccio gives us for a
frame the plague in Florence, and flight of elegant
ladies and gentlemen to villas where they entertain
themselves with telling the tales that are to make up
the Decameron; Chaucer's frame story is a pilgrimage
to Canterbury, the pilgrims telling stories by the waj^
The frame story of the Arabian Nights is the character-
istic suggestion of a jealous sultan, who marries a queen
each day only to have her executed on the morrow ;
but one of these queens, Scheherezade, interferes with
the regularity of the arrangement by telling stories
and stopping at the interesting parts, so that the execu-
[ 306 1
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
tion has to be postponed day after day, until, at the
end of a thousand and one nights, it is not worth while.
But in the present case this device of the frame story
is, so to speak, raised to a higher power. Not only do
we have the frame story introducing other stories, but
each of these other stories may be a frame to enclose
yet others : this is the plot interest of involution, story
within story, and story within story, like Chinese
boxes, to any degree of remoteness from the starting-
point. Involution in this sense belongs to other
Oriental collections, such as the Fables of Bidpai; but
in the Arabian Nights the involution is perfectly car-
ried through ; all the dropped threads are regularly re-
covered, and the whole brought into symmetry.
It is worth while to illustrate. Among the stories
Scheherezade tells is that of the Hunchback, in whose
death were apparently implicated an orthodox Tailor,
a Jewish Physician, a Mussulman Purveyor, and a
Christian Merchant. When the four, with the body
of the Hunchback, are brought before the sultan, he
exclaims that this is the most extraordinary tangle of
affairs he has ever known. The Christian Merchant
asks permission to relate a still more extraordinary
story; but what he offers is so inadequate that the
sultan is about to have all four prisoners hanged ; only
that the Mussulman Purveyor claims his privilege of
trying to produce a more extraordinary story than
that of the Hunchback, and so in turn the Jewish
Physician and the Tailor. Each of the tales so told
introduces yet another tale : the first, that of a Hand-
less Man ; the second, that of a Thumbless Man ; the
[307]
CX)LLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
Phj'sic'ian's, that of a Mutilated Patient. But the
Tailor's story acts as frame for two others ; for he tells
how a Lame Guest at a wedding left rather than sit
down with another guest he denounced as a Chatter-
ing Barber : if the Lame Guest has been allowed to tell
his story, so in equity must the Barber tell his. This
Barber relates an adventure amply proving that he is
the most silent of men ; yet he admits that he comes of a
family of chatterers, and — before he can be stopped —
gives in succession the story of his first brother (who
was a hunchback), of his second brother (who was
toothless), of his third brother (who was blind), of his
fom'th brother (who was one-eyed), of his fifth brother
(who had no ears), and of his sixth brother (who was
hare-lipped). Only when these six subordinate stories
have been reeled off does the Barber bring his own
story to a conclusion. But this Barber's story, it will
be remembered, was an item in the Tailor's story ; and
the Tailor's story can now be completed. We are
back now in the Story of the Hunchback; and the
sultan who has listened to all this involution of narra-
tives picks out — as the reader will do likewise — the
Chattering Barber as the most striking point. It
seems that the said Barber is in this very city of the
sultan, and can be sent for. Instead of answering to
the description of chatterer, the Barber insists on hav-
ing the surrounding circumstances explained to him.
All the tangle of the Hunchback's death is related to
him. Then comes a surprise : by his art — for barbers
are also surgeons — he has perceived something strange
in the body of the Hunchback; he draws out a fish-
[308]
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
INVOLUTION IN STORY FORM
Frame Story of Scheherezade
Story of the Hunchback, and the Four implicated in his death
Story (1) Of the Christian Merchant — containing
Story of the Handless Man
Story (2) Of the Mussuhnan Purveyor — containing
Story of the Thumbless Man
Story (3) of the Jewish Physician — containing
Story of the Mutilated Patient
Story (4) of the Tailor — containing
Story of the Lame Guest
Story of the Chattering Barber
Of the Barber's first brother (hunchback)
Of the Barber's second brother (toothless)
Of the Barber's third brother (blind)
Of the Barber's fourth brother (one-eyed)
Of the Barber's fifth brother (no ears)
Of the Barber's sixth brother (hare-lipped)
Story of the Barber concluded
Story of the Tailor concluded
Story of the Hunchback concluded
Frame Story resumed
[309]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
bone from the throat, and the Hunchback comes to
Ufe again. This Story of the Hunchback thus brought
to a happy conclusion, we get back to the Frame Story
of Scheherezade. When it is set out in graphic form,
as on the preceding page, we can reahze this symmetrical
involution of story within story to the fifth degree,
constructive framework to what, on the surface, seems
only a farrago of drolleries. Such Oriental tours de
force of plot construction are part of the forces prepar-
ing the way for the romantic drama of Shakespeare,
that blends together its many stories, not with mechan-
ical parallelism, but with delicate artistic and moral
suggestiveness.^
II
The dominant position of Indian amongst the Aryan
civilizations might lead us to expect that from this
source there would come large contributions to our
world literature. Yet such is not the case. The
primacy of Indian civilization is mainly one of time.
If we are studying the question of literary origins,
then the influence of Vedic Hymns and Vedantic phil-
osophy upon Hellenic poetry and philosophy is a sub-
ject of great importance. But it is only thus indirectly,
passed through the alembic of Greek creative origin-
ality, that the Indian element has entered largely
into world literature. So, again, to the student
of literary phenomena Indian wisdom, Indian drama
and lyric, especially the enormous epics of this
' This conception of Shakespearean plot is the basis of mj' Shake-
speare as a Dramatic Thinker; compare pages 5-7, and Appendix.
[310]
MEDIATING INTERPRETATION
literature, will be full of interest and suggestive-
ness. But this Oriental poetry, with all its literary
values, does not readily assimilate with western
taste. Or at least, the entrance of Indian into
world literature is a question of the future rather
than of the past and present. This brings me to a
point of considerable interest to our whole subject,
something I will express by the term '^ mediating
interpretation." In a sense, every translator is an
interpreter between one literature and another. But
the current idea of translation has come down to us
from the departmental study of literature ; and this
has naturally emphasized exact correspondence with
the original as the first virtue of translation. From
our point of view, departure from the original is an
offence only when it is unintentional. We have a right
to claim that our interpreters shall understand what
they are interpreting to its smallest detail. But when
the translator designedly departs from his model, and
uses fresh creative power to effect a desirable modifica-
tion, then we have a mediation between one literature
and another which is more than translation. Such
mediating interpretation has been applied with splen-
did success to Indian poetry by Sir Edwin Arnold ; his
versions — one of which will be noticed in a later
chapter ^ — retain the essence of the Indian poem, yet
with creative modification, both negative and positive,
such as enables the foreign matter to appeal to the
western taste. And mediating interpretation may go
further than this. I instance such a work as Southey's
1 See page 378.
[311]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
Curse of Kehama, in my judgment a poem of high rank.
There is no Indian original corresponding to this : it
gives us the mediating interpretation appUed, in a
purely original poem, to the whole body of Indian
mythology. Only when by modifying influences of
this kind the Oriental matter has been brought within
the range of western appreciation, will Indian enter
largely into our world literature.
Ill
It is otherwise with Persian literature : from this
quarter comes what at the present moment is perhaps
the most universally recognized world classic — the
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Once more we have
mediating interpretation ; the vogue of the poem is
perhaps as much due to Fitzgerald as to Omar. And
he has used his license of creative modification freely ;
the most startling stanza of the English poem is appar-
ently founded on a misreading, but in this case a mis-
reading that proves worth while.
The poem, on the face of it, is a glorification of wine.
Of course, the heresy of mystic interpretation has inter-
vened, and asked us to consider the wine as some'.hing
symbolic of the spiritual. Such interpretation is impos-
sible : the "vvane of the Persian poem is simply the juice
of the grape which all the world understands by that
word. And yet two notes of wine poetry are con-
spicuously absent. There is no suggestion of excess,
of the intoxicated abandon that inspires bacchanahan
verse, and to a less extent anacreontics. Nor have we
[312 1
OMAR KHAYYAM
the spirit of the connoisseur : there is no discriminat-
ing appreciation of fruity or full-bodied, only plain wine
from beginning to end. Wine here is a means to an
end. And the end is the accentuation of the conscious-
ness that wine brings; the stimulus to the mood of
brooding ; the quickened sense of the present moment
as the one unassailable certainty of life. Thus, para-
doxical as it may seem, the full spirit of this wine poem
can be maintained apart from wine. The soothing
sense of an exalted present from which to brood on past
and future, which one man gets from wine, another
man will get from tobacco, another from the right
blend of tea, or a cup of Turkish coffee ; a man of yet
another temperament will obtain it from a country
ramble in company with his favorite dog. But, how-
ever produced, this outlook on life from a moment of
elation is the spirit of the whole poem, and that which
gives it its power and universal hold. For such realiza-
tion of a conscious present is the very starting-point of
all psychology and of the philosophy of existence ; we
have here the cogito ergo sum raised to the poetic plane ;
the brooding emphasis on present existence is the
pou sto of certainty, from which whatever of hfe is
phenomenal or matter of inference can be meditatively
exalted or depressed.
The form of the poem is indicated by the title
Ruhaiyat, which signifies "epigrams." The epigrams
have a fixed structure : each is a four-lined stanza in
which the third line, by missing the common rhyme of
the other three, gives to the flow of the stanza a lift
like the crest of a wave. The epigrams (with scarcely
[313]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
an exception) are complete in themselves ; yet the
thought can be carried on from one to another. The
effect of the whole is thus something like that of the
sonnet sequence; though the epigram is so much
briefer than a sonnet, yet it has the same character of
a mould into which thought must be fitted, and the
relation of epigram to epigram is just that of sonnets
in a sequence. Another point of poetic form to be
noted is the concealed imagery of Day, which runs
through the poem. The opening stanza coincides with
the opening of Day ; of New Year's Day, which to the
Persian is the beginning of Spring; it coincides also
with, the opening of what is called the ''Tavern."
But the connotation of the English word breaks the
effect ; the Persian Tavern is a Paradise — this word is
Persian — with suggestions of shady boughs and roses
and Spring flowers, and of a ''cypress-slender minister
of wine" going her happy rounds among guests "star-
scattered on the grass." Towards the conclusion the
suggestion of evening rises out of the underlying imagery
into the thought of the poem; then moonlight closes
the Day and brings the time for departure. And among
other beauties of poetic detail we have the translation
of coromon thoughts into vinous language. Departed
friends are those who —
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to rest.
Heaven is that inverted Bowl they call the Sky ; when
men reach their end Heaven inverts them to Earth
like an empty Cup ; the fleeting generations are the
[314]
OMAR KHAYYAM
Millions of Bubbles poured from his Bowl by the
Eternal Saki ; Death comes as the Angel of the darker
Drink, whose Cup invites the Soul forth to the lips to
quaff. And the trite image of the potter and his clay
is expanded at one point to a parable, in which all
men's varying views of God and judgment are moulded
in terms of pottery : amongst them, the vessel of un-
gainly make is heard asking, "What! did the hand
then of the Potter shake?" while a profound "Sufi
pipkin" gets to the depths of all controversy with his
question, "Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot ?"
In beautiful monotony of strongly flowing verse, the
mood of conscious brooding, with its unassailable
certainty of the present moment, passes in review the
inequalities and fluctuations of life. Iram and Jamshyd
are gone, and the sweet singer David's lips are locked,
but wine and nightingales and roses are for ever. The
life of purpose, that must look to past and future : it is
so much credit offered instead of the cash of the pres-
ent ; the great purpose, no more than snow lying on
the dusty face of the desert before it melts ; the life
itself, a battered Caravanserai opening and closing its
doors of Night and Day for a traveller's destined hour.
The meaning of life? A mass of uncertainties, con-
fronting the one certainty of the Present. Eager
frequenters of Doctor and Saint evermore come out
by the same door where they went in : their sole knowl-
edge the two words / came and / go, with all the why
and whence and whither insolently withheld. Tangled
discussion of subjective and objective, ego and non-ego,
is so much talk of Me and Thee, with the talking Thee
1315]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
and Me about to perish. Or does pantheism or imma-
nence offer a Thee in Me working behind the Veil ?
There comes a Voice as from Without : The Me within
Thee Blind.
But the / go has brought another motive into the
poem, and this is another certainty : Death. But to
the exalted consciousness Death presents itself as
another exalted consciousness — the Soul able to fling
the Dust aside and ride naked on the Air of Heaven :
beside this, Life looks a paltry thing, a tent for one
day's rest on the journey, an oasis of Being for the
phantom Caravan before it reaches the Nothing from
which it set out. The thought sinks back to the im-
possibility of a meaning for life. Why spend the
spangle of Existence on the great Secret, when a hair
may divide the False and the True, when the Existence
itself may be a drama which One behind the fold of
Darkness Himself contrives, enacts, beholds ?
But the motive surges up of God, of a Judgment.
To the stimulated sense of the present moment the
question is raised. Who but God created the Wine?
Where is the certainty of Judgment, when of the
myriads who have passed through the door of Dark-
ness none have returned with tidings of the road?
The revelations of Devout and Learned are stories
which the Prophets awoke from sleep to tell their com-
rades and returned to sleep. What if men are but
magic Shadow-shapes from the Lantern held by the
Master of the Show ; but helpless Pieces of the Game
he plays. What if the message from the Invisible be
that ''I Myself am Heaven and Hell": —
[316]
OMAR KHAYYAM
Heav'n but the Vision of fulfilled Desire,
And Hell the Shadow froni a Soul on fire,
Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,
So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.
But, apart from all judgment to come, the brooding
consciousness must confront another thought — of
moral consciousness, and the sense of sin. Yet, what
becomes of sin, if all is predestined from first to last?
Man has been no party to his own existence : the
Creator alone must be responsible for the possibility
of sin.
What ! from his helpless Creature be repaid
Pure Gold for what he lent him dross-allay'd —
Sue for a Debt he never did contract.
And cannot answer — Oh the sorry trade !
And it is here we get the impressive thought created
by the translator out of a shght misreading.^
Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make.
And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake :
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken'd — Man's forgiveness give — and take !
But a subtle sense of Day passing into Evening comes
to throw the brooding consciousness into a reminiscent
attitude. A life lost for Wine ! Yet has it not been
worth while ?
I wonder often what the Vintners buy
One half so precious as the stuff they sell.
* See Professor Cowell's comment quoted in Aldis Wright's
edition of Fitzgerald's Letters and Literary Remains, Volume III,
page 386.
[317]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
The sense of closing Day presses, and the conscious
present becomes shot through with regrets, and with
longings : —
Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish wnth the Rose !
That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close.
Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield
One glimpse — if dimly, yet indeed, revealed.
To which the fainting traveller might spring,
As springs the trampled herbage of the field !
The rising Moon closes Day : the hour of strong con-
sciousness must pass with the other hours. The
Moon will be there to shed her beams on brooders of
the future.
And w^hen like her, oh Saki, you shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass,
And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made One — turn down an empty Glass !
IV
When we approach the subject of the Celtic civiliza-
tion, the points which first suggest themselves are such
as do not really belong to the present discussion. It
is for the study of literary origins to deal wdth the
question of the influence exerted by the Celtic element
on our EngUsh genius and in European literature.
Again, we are just now at the beginning of a great
Celtic revival, by which both taste and scholarship are
being poured upon the remains of Gaelic literature,
stored in manuscripts or httle-read books; we look
[318]
OSSIAN
forward to being able, at no distant date, to under-
stand and appreciate Celtic literature as a whole —
Welsh, Irish, Scotch ; to estimate fairly the Celts as
one of the Aryan famihes of peoples, and to realize the
literary leadership of Ireland in its own age. Mean-
while, the one contribution of Celtic to world literature
as it stands is the Ossian of Macpherson. This work
has in recent times fallen into neglect ; there has been
reaction from the burst of admiration it once aroused,
and it has sunk down into the mists of controversy
amid which it first emerged.
This was a literary controversy in which more than
the usual amount of nonsense was wTitten; and in
which, it may be said, the real issues were misunder-
stood by both sides. Macpherson had collected from
the lips of aged Gaels poetry which had come down to
them by long tradition ; he freely pieced together and
otherwise worked up the materials so obtained, and pub-
lished them, not in the original, but in translation. He
did his work at a most unfortunate moment. The Eng-
land of Dr. Samuel Johnson's age had the most inveter-
ate prejudice against everything Scotch ; at that time,
and for long afterwards, prejudice was a leading factor
in literary criticism. It was moreover an era of the
most highly artificial poetry, and an age incapable of
understanding any type of poetry but its own. Ac-
cordingly, Macpherson's Ossian was received with a
howl of disdain : it was pronounced an impudent forg-
ery ; the human memory, it was declared, could not
possibly retain such an amount unassisted by writing ;
the age supposed to have produced the poems was an
[319]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
age of barbarism ; the details of the poems were pal-
pable plagiarisms. It was in vain that Dr. Hugh Blair,
as Edinburgh Professor of Belles-Lettres, refuted these
charges ; in vain that a committee of the Highland So-
ciety of Scotland, appointed for the purpose, made elab-
orate inquiries, and discovered a great body of original
Gaelic poetry, just such as that from which Macpherson
professed to draw his materials ; in particular, in refer-
ence to what was a great point of the controversy, a
passage alleged to be an obvious imitation of Milton's
Address to the Sun, the Gaelic original was discovered
and certified to have been taken down orally from an old
man thirty years previously. All this side of the con-
troversy rested solely upon the critical limitations of the
period, which understood nothing but personal author-
ship, and thought of Homer as a man who had
''written" the Iliad; what we now understand of float-
ing literature, and the processes by which traditional
material is worked up by some redactor into the poems
of written literature, makes the work of Macpherson
easily intelligible. On the other hand, his haughty si-
lence assisted the difficulty ; his work in free handling
of his materials to give them poetic coherence is per-
fectly justifiable, but he equally owed literary history
the duty of scrupulously preserving the Gaelic originals,
fragmentary though they might be, as materials for
linguistic and literary science to work upon. The lit-
erary taste of Europe however pierced through the
mist of controversy, and seized upon the content of the
book as an important addition to the world of literature,
the poetry of a highly original people ; a literary ruin, it
[320]
OSSIAN
might be, but a ruin that was an artistic revelation. I
desire no better statement of the whole case than one
which comes from Matthew Arnold. —
The Celts, with their vehement reaction against the despotism
of fact, with their sensuous nature, their manifold striving, their
adverse destiny, their immense calamities, the Celts are the prime
authors of this vein of piercing regret and passion, — of this Ti-
tanism in poetry. A famous book, Macpherson's Ossian, carried
in the last century this vein like a flood of lava through Europe.
I am not going to criticise Macpherson's Ossian here. Make the
part of what is forged, modern, tawdry, spurious, in the book, as
large as you please ; strip Scotland, if you like, of every feather of
borrowed pliunes which on the strength of Macpherson's Ossian
she may have stolen from that vetus et major Scotia, the true home
of the Ossianic poetry, Ireland; I make no objection. But there
will still be left in the book a residue with the very soul of the Celtic
genius in it, and which has the proud distinction of having brought
this soul of the Celtic genius into contact with the genius of the
nations of modern Europe, and enriched all our poetry by it.
Woody Morven and echoing Sora, and Selma with its silent
halls ! — we all owe them a debt of gratitude, and when we are un-
just enough to forget it, may the Muse forget us !
The great use of Macpherson's book is to read and
re-read it until the reader is in tune with the atmosphere
of the poetry. We have here an elementary civiUzation
with the minimum of the artificial ; it seems immersed
in the gloom and power of external nature till it has be-
come a part of it ; this, with what Matthew Arnold calls
the Titanic spirit, makes the distinctiveness of Ossianic
poetry. It contrasts with Greek and Norse epic in the
absence of artistic elaboration and poetic architecture.
Fingal is the most considerable of the Ossianic epics.
Here the plot is as simple as plot can be : war against
T [321]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
invaders of Ireland, with incessant defeat, until the su-
preme hero Fingal arrives in his ships, and defeat
changes to victory, with reconciliation and rejoicings
of peace. Structural skill appears in the way in which
episodes are worked into the stages of this action, giving
scope, not only for variety in war, but also for other
motives — love, hunting, hospitality, visitations from
the supernatural, the songs of bards. As the hosts are
first mustered two notable chieftains are missing : this
gives opportunity for the episode of Morna, the sad love
story which unites the two heroes and their common
love in a tragic death. The direct narrative resumes,
and we have the clash of war.
Like autumn's dark storms pouring from two echoing hills, to-
wards each other approached the heroes. Like two deep streams
from high rocks meeting, mixing roaring on the plain ; loud, rough,
and dark in battle meet Lochlin and Inis-fail. Chief mixes his
strokes with chief, and man with man : steel, clanging, sounds on
steel. Helmets are cleft on high. Blood bursts and smokes around.
Strings murmur on the polished yews. Darts rush along the sky.
Spears fall like the circles of light, which gild the face of night : as
the noise of the troubled ocean, when roll the waves on high. As
the last peal of thunder in heaven, such is the din of war ! Though
Cormac's hundred bards were there to give the fight to song ; feeble
was the voice of a hundred bards to send the deaths to future times !
... As roll a thousand waves to the rocks, so Swaran's host
came on. As meets a rock a thousand waves, so Erin met Swaran
of spears. Death raises all his voices around, and mixes with the
sounds of shields. Each hero is a pillar of darkness ; the sword a
beam of fire in his hand. The field echoes from wing to wing, as
a hundred hammers, that rise, by turns, on the red son of the
furnace. Who are these on Lena's heath, these so gloomy and dark ?
Who are these like two clouds, and their swords like lightning above
[322]
OSSIAN
them ? The little hills are troubled around ; the rocks tremble with
all their moss. Who is it but ocean's son and the car-borne chief
of Erin ? Many are the anxious eyes of their friends, as they see
them dim on the heath. But night conceals the chiefs in clouds,
and ends the dreadful fight !
Night gives opportunity for episodes of the super-
natural.
The rest lay in the heath of the deer, and slept beneath the
dusky wind. The ghosts of the lately dead were near, and swam
on the gloomy clouds ; and far distant, in the dark silence of Lena,
the feeble voices of death were faintly heard. Connal . . .
beheld, in his rest, a dark red stream of fire rushing down from
the hill. Crugal sat upon the beam, a chief who fell in fight. He
fell by the hand of Swaran, striving in the battle of heroes. His
face is like the beam of the setting moon. His robes are of the clouds
of the hill. His eyes are two decaying flames. Dark is the wound
of his breast. . . . Faintly he raised his feeble voice, like the gale of
the reedy Lego. . . . The stars dim-twinkled through his form.
It is these nocturnal pauses in the fight that bring the
variety of episodes, heroes and bards exchanging stories.
They think of the great Fingal hurrying to their rescue,
and we hear an episode of his early love. How he had
accepted the treacherous hospitality of Selma's king,
and the snare was being spread for his life.
He praised the daughter of Lochlin : and Morven's high de-
scended chief. The daughter of Lochlin overheard. She left the
hall of her secret sigh ! She came in all her beauty, like the moon
from the cloud of the east. Loveliness was round her as light. Her
steps were the music of songs. She saw the youth and loved him.
He was the stolen sigh of her soul.
She gives secret warning of the secret plot, and Fingal
falls on the conspirators.
[323]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
The sons of death fell by his hand : and Gormal echoed around I
Before the halls of Starno the sons of the chase convened. The
king's dark brows were like clouds ; his eyes like meteors of night.
" Bring hither," he said, " Agandecca to her lovely king of Morven !
His hand is stained with the blood of my people ; her words have not
been in vain !" She came with the red eye of tears. She came
with looselj^-flowing locks. Her white breast heaved with broken
sighs, like the foam of the streamy Lubar. Starno pierced her side
with steel. She fell, like a wreath of snow, which slides from the
rocks of Ronan; when the woods are still, and echo deepens in
the vale ! Then Fingal eyed his valiant chiefs, his valiant chiefs
took arms ! The gloom of battle roared : Lochlin fled or died.
Pale in his bounding ship he closed the maid of the softest soul.
Her tomb ascends on Ardven ; the sea roars around her narrow
dwelUng.
An episode of a warrior coming by night, wounded as he
is, to give warning of danger, contains a passage which
brings home to us how deeply this hfe of Celtic poetry
is sunk into the heart of nature.
" Why bursts that broken sigh, from the breast of him who never
feared before ? " " And never, Connal, will he fear, chief of the
pointed steel ! My soul brightens in danger : in the noise of arms.
I am of the race of battle. My fathers never feared. Cormar was
the first of my race. He sported through the storms of waves. His
black skiff bounded on ocean ; he travelled on the wings of the wind.
A spirit once embroiled the night. Seas swell and rocks resound.
Winds drive along the clouds. The lightning flies on wings of fire.
He feared, and came to land, then blushed that he feared at all. He
rushed again among the waves, to find the son of the wind. Three
youths guide the bounding bark : he stood with sword unsheathed.
When the low-hung vapor passed, he took it by the curling head.
He searched its dark womb with his steel. The son of the wind
forsook the air. The moon and stars returned ! Such was the
boldness of my race."
[324]
NORSE EPIC OF SIGURD
The Homer of all this epic poetry is Ossian ; he is at
once hero and bard ; one of the sons of the mighty Fin-
gal, he has his share of the deeds he is to make immortal.
But the traditional conception of the rhapsodist obtains
here also : in old age he sings of strenuous life belonging
to a generation forever passed.
Many a voice and many a harp in tuneful sounds arose. Of
Fingal noble deeds they sung ; of Fingal's noble race ; and some-
times, on the lovely sound, was heard the name of Ossian. I often
fought, and often won, in battles of the spear. But blind, and
tearful, and forlorn, I walk with little men ! O Fingal, with thy
race of war I now behold thee not. The wild roes feed on the green
tomb of the mighty King of Morven ! . . . I am sad, forlorn,
and blind : no more the companion of heroes ! . .. • I have seen the
tombs of all my friends !
From the literary point of view the Norse is among
the greatest of Aryan civilizations. A vast body of po-
etic material is stored in the Icelandic sagas. Great in its
native dress, this has become still greater by finding an
Homeric interpreter in William Morris ; Sigurd the Vol-
sung represents perhaps the highest point to which the
epic poetry of the world has attained. There is nothing
that can be compared with it except the Iliad and
Odyssey. And what thus stand out as the masterpieces
of world epic have the added interest of sharp contrast ;
as far as the south-east is from the north-west so great
is the distance between the fresh simplicity of the
world's youth, voiced by the Greeks, and the Norse pres-
entation of its late maturity, with its complex motives
and profound moral depth. It would be violating all
[325]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
the proportions of the matter entering into the present
chapter to attempt any adequate account of Morris's
poem : I can only indicate some of its broader features.^
Any epic poem on a large scale must reflect the phil-
osophy underlying the life it presents. For this the
matter of the Norse poem offers specially wide scope :
to get a Greek parallel we should have to put together
the widely different poetry of Hesiod and of Homer.
The northern conception of life and the universe seems
to turn upon two main ideas, Fate and Evolution.
Destiny deeply overshadows the world of Morris's poem.
Yet it is a Destiny strangely harmonious with the con-
ception of human Will.
Know thou, most mighty of men, that the Norns shall order all,
And yet ^\dthout thine helping shall no whit of their will befall ;
Be wise ! 'tis a marvel of words, and a mock for the fool and the
blind;
But I s£lw it writ in the heavens, and its fashioning there did I find :
And the night of the Norns and their slumber, and the tide when
the world runs back.
And the way of the sun is tangled, it is wrought of the dastard's lack.
But the day when the fair earth blossoms, and the sun is bright
above.
Of the daring deeds is it fashioned and the eager hearts of love.
WHien we put together the action of the poem with the
back glances into the infinite past afforded by the stories
of Regin and Brynhild and the songs of Gunnar, we
seem to catch a complete course of world evolution from
first to last. We have first unconscious or blind evolu-
^ Fuller treatment will be found in my Syllabus of Study in the
Poetry and Fiction of William Morris. (See below, page 490.)
[326]
NORSE EPIC OF SIGURD
tion : chaos slowly settling into order. Then the Gods
appear, and give direction or purpose to the evolution,
fashioning or sundering things into types and antitheses.
Fixed semblances of things take the place of wavering
or variable semblances ; thus the marvels of witchcraft
and metamorphosis, which play so important a part in
the action, are merely reversions to an earlier stage of
evolution, to the ''craft of the kings of aforetime," or
"the craft that prevaileth o'er semblance." With this
influence of the Gods passion takes the place of the older
''careless life"; desire comes in, and therefore grief;
evil and good are blended —
The good and the evil wedded and begat the best and the worst.
More than this, the Gods have subjected themselves
to the evolution they have created, infusing principles,
and then without intervention awaiting the issue of
these upon their creation and upon themselves. Thus
the era in which events are happening — what in
modern phrase we should call Time, as distinguished
from Eternity — presents itself as a Day of the Gods,
passing through its stages of morning and noon to the
"Dusk of the Gods": when all will culminate in the
Judgment, unmixed Evil confronting unmixed Good,
and the issue of this final struggle is unknown. Now,
man's place in this universe is that of an ally of the Gods
for this final struggle. Hence the supreme moral con-
ception for man is the warrior virtue, fitting for the final
conflict ; and the highest dignity for woman is to be a
"chooser of the slain " — that is, gatherer for Odin of the
fit warriors whom Fate has removed from this life. The
[327]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
outer sign of this virtue is glad, decisive action, of which
the "laugh" of Sigurd is the spontaneous expression.
Repentance has no place in this system of fate. Death
is the grand disentanglement of moral comphcations,
transplanting to the higher struggle beyond the grave.
And if fate means an unchangeable future, its counter-
part is the irrevocable past : death ends the power of
action, but "the tale abides to tell."
Yea, and thy deeds thou shalt know, and great shall thy gladness be ;
As a picture all of gold thy life-days shalt thou see.
And know that thou too wert a God to abide through the hurry
and haste ;
A God in the golden hall, a God on the rain-swept waste,
A God in the battle triumphant, a God on the heap of the slain :
And thine hope shaU arise and blossom, and thy love shall be quick-
ened again :
And then shalt thou see before thee the face of all earthly ill ;
Thou shalt drink of the cup of awakening that thine hand hath
holpen to fill.
In poetic art there is an interesting point of contrast
between Greek and Norse. A notable feature of Ho-
meric poetry is the formal simile ; and we have already
seen ^ how beauties of nature in large amount are, by this
device of comparison, drawn within the body of the
poem. In Sigurd formal similes are few ; there is the
same wealth of nature beauties, but they are worked
into the incidents themselves and made a part of them.
This Dramatic Background of Nature is a leading feature
of the poem. Reiterated touches of detail keep before
the reader the natural surroundings of an incident,
^ Above, pages 132-4.
[328]
NORSE EPIC OF SIGURD
especially changes of light, and these are made to move
mystically in harmony with the movement of the inci-
dent itself. Thus the central incident, the awakening
of Brynhild, is worked out with great elaborateness ; as
we follow through the long-drawn sense of expectation
to the climax, we find the gradual approach of daylight
indicated by continuous touches and fine gradations of
growing light, until the sudden blaze of the risen sun
flashes on the kiss that begins Sigurd's day of love. On
the contrary, the approach of Sigurd to the Burg of the
Niblungs is mystically accompanied with suggestions
of day giving place to night, of cloud-threatenings and
angry heavens. The long-drawn suspense of waiting
for the murder of Sigurd is punctuated by stages in the
passing of night — waning moonlight, fading torches,
the glimmer growing on the pavement, the dawn spread
wide and gray : broad day falls on his visage as he lies
dead. Hardly a single incident of the whole poem is
without some such background of external nature.
But of course the main interest in an epic poem must
be the action itself, of which the formulation is what
we call the plot. For the ultimate basis of his plot Mor-
ris has gone down to the very foundation, perhaps of all
mythology, certainly of Norse poetry, the conflict of
light and darkness. This takes the form of Niblung
and Volsung, the Cloudy People and the People of
Brightness. The Niblung People have their seat in the
cloudy drift : —
A long way off before him come up the mountains grey ;
Grey, huge beyond all telling, and the host of the heaped clouds,
The black and the white together, on that rock-wall's coping crowds ;
1329]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
But whiles are rents athwart them, and the hot sun pierceth through,
And there glow the angry cloud-caves 'gainst the everlasting blue,
And the changeless snow amidst it ; but down from that cloudy head
The scars of fires that have been show grim and dusky-red ;
And lower yet are the hollows striped down by the scanty green,
And lingering flecks of the cloud-host are tangled there-between.
White, pillowy, lit by the sun, unchanged by the drift of the wind.
In such scenery the Niblung Palace stands, as if itself
were a thing of nature.
One house in the midst is unhidden and high up o'er the wall it
goes;
Aloft in the wind of the mountains its golden roof-ridge glows,
And down mid its buttressed feet is the wind's voice never still;
And the day and the night pass o'er it and it changes to their will.
And whiles it is glassy and dark, and whiles it is white and dead,
And whiles it is grey as the sea-mead, and whiles it is angry red ;
And it shimmers under the sunshine and grows black to the threat of
the storm.
And dusk its gold roof glimmers when the rain-clouds over it swarm,
And bright in the first of the morning its flame doth it uphft,
When the light clouds rend before it and along its furrows drift.
In antithesis to the Niblungs we have the " Afterseed of
the Volsungs." The People of Brightness have gradu-
ally died away ; twice the whole stock of Volsung is
represented by a single life ; then the last spark shoots
up into the glorious Sigurd, who concentrates the whole
brightness of the people in himself. Sigurd is pre-
sented as the supreme excellence of human nature ; and
certainly beside his bright all-round perfection other
heroes of epic poetry seem meagre. But the material
of the poem is well balanced ; and in those who are
opposed by the action to Sigurd — those who, in stage
[ 330 ]
NORSE EPIC OF SIGURD
phrase, must be called the villains of the piece — it is
remarkable how much of force and attractive goodness
is to be found.
There is Gunnar the great and fair,
With the lovely face of a king 'twixt the night of his wavy hair ;
And there is the wise-heart Hogni ; and his Ups are close and thin,
And grey and awful his eyen, and a many sights they win :
And there is Guttorm the youngest, of the fierce and wandering
glance,
And the heart that never resteth till the swords in the war-wind
dance ;
And there is Gudrun his daughter, and Ught she stands by the board,
And fair are her arms in the hall as the beaker's flood is poured ;
She comes, and the earls keep silence ; she smiles, and men rejoice ;
She speaks, and the harps unsmitten thrill faint to her queenly voice.
The poem is in four books. In the architecture of
the plot it is the second and third books that make the
main building, the first and fourth are the wings. It is
the middle books that give us the clash of Volsung and
Niblung. The first book is devoted to the Rise of the
Volsungs ; that is, the strange preservation of the Vol-
sung stock through what is all but extinction until it
culminates in the glory of Sigurd. The last book gives
the Fall of the Niblungs after their treachery to Sigurd
has been consummated, their magnificent fight against
hopeless Destiny, till they are exterminated by the ven-
geance of their wronged sister. But the whole plot
is more complex than this. As Sigurd, in the second
book, moves through his career to the point of meeting
the Niblungs, he passes through two adventures, which
draw new elements into the story. He rides through
[331]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
the fire and awakens Brynhild : the whole story of the
Valkjo-ie Maiden who has sought to manipulate Fate
becomes part of the action. And he recovers the gold
treasure of the waters ; we are carried back to pre-hu-
man eras, and the Curse of Andvari, which has clung
to the treasure of the waters through all time, becomes
the enveloping action of the whole plot, the Destiny
that entangles all its actors.
Such is the epic complexity of the plot : its crisis is
more like the crisis of drama. No more deeply interest-
ing psychological situation has ever been imagined than
that which is brought about by the treachery of Grim-
hild, the Niblungs' device to keep the supreme greatness
of Sigurd entirely for themselves. Magic, we have seen,
fits naturally into the thought of the poem ; by magic
device the love of Brynhild is smitten out of the heart
of Sigurd as coipipletely as if a portion of his brain had
been removed by surgical operation. In what follows
he is as irresponsible as a madman : the difference is,
that the force of the magic must pass in time, and Sigurd
is left in full consciousness of the moral ruin in which,
with his own hand, he has plunged himself and all he
loves. And the ruin must go on, unmitigated, until
death comes to bring relief ; meanwhile, Sigurd's whole
soul is strung up to self-restraint from the emptiness
of revenge, and to patient living for the good of the
people.
Lo, Sigurd fair on the high-seat by the white-armed Gudrun's side,
In the midst of the Cloudy People, in the dwelling of their pride !
His face is exceeding glorious and awful to behold ;
For of all his sorrow he kaoweth and his hope smit dead and cold :
[332]
THE KALEVALA
The will of the Norns is accomplished, and, lo, they wend on their
ways.
And leave the mighty Sigurd to deal with the latter days :
The Gods look down from heaven, and the lonely King they see,
And sorrow over his sorrow, and rejoice in his majesty.
For the will of the Norns is accomplished, and outworn is Grim-
hild's spell.
And nought now shall blind or help him, and the tale shall be to tell.
He knows of the net of the days, and the deeds that the Gods have
bid.
And no whit of the sorrow that shall be from his wakened soul is
hid:
And his glory his heart restraineth, and restraineth the hand of the
strong
From the hope of the fools of desire and the wrong that amendeth
wrong. . . .
— Lo, such is the high Gods' sorrow, and men know nought thereof,
Who cry out o'er their undoing, and wail o'er broken love.
VI
Our chart of world literature, constructed as it is
from the English point of view, puts into a single
group the civilizations of the world outside the Semitic
and Aryan families. To this group belong the civ-
ilizations of China and Japan. To literary science
the Chinese and Japanese literatures will always be
important ; yet it cannot be said that any part of
these has been adopted into the world literature of the
west. But from another of the extraneous civilizations,
the Finnish, has come a masterpiece of poetry in the
Kalevala. It is not a century since this poem was first
brought to light ; at once philologists like Jacob Grimm
and Max Miiller welcomed it into the inner circle of the
[333]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
world's epics ; the poet Longfellow, by a mediating
interpretation of a peculiar kind, caught its inspiration,
and transferred it to the mythology of the American
Indians in his Hiawatha. Nothing is so unanalyzable
as genius, we can only recognize it when we find it ; in
this case the poetic genius of the Finnish people has
availed to transport a poem from the outer extremity of
the literary field into the very heart of European litera-
ture. But there is something more to be said. Litera-
ture in the earlier stages of evolution must in the gen-
eral course of things perish ; it is made up of oral poetry
with nothing to record it, poetry which will either cease
to be, or be absorbed into literature of more advanced
stages. But genius can operate at any point : in the
present case the genius of Finnish minstrelsy has raised
to permanent vitality poetry in primitive forms, which
in other literatures have passed away leaving only
accidental traces. Thus, not only does the Kalevala
touch every reader with the spell of its intrinsic beauty,
but it has further the double interest of putting us in
touch with a distant civilization, and bringing home to
us poetic forms far down the scale of literary evolution.
Perhaps the first impression which the action of this
poem makes upon the modern reader is the absence in
it of all reality. Reality is, of course, in no way incon-
sistent with abundance of miracle and marvel : the
Iliad is full of miraculous incidents, yet it reads to us
as real life, though a real life containing elements which
are absent from our own. It is otherwise with the Fin-
nish poem : nothing in this is supernatural, because
there is no basis of the natural with which to make com-
[334]
THE KALEVALA
parison. External nature with its rocks and streams,
things of vegetable and animal life, human beings and
gods, all seem the same thing with attributes in common.
The Metamorphoses of Ovid is a poem founded wholly
on miracle, yet it does not fail to give us real life;
as we read we realize what it feels like to change from
a man into a tree or bird. In the Kalevala the man
does not change into the eagle, he simply becomes the
eagle. All this is a source of great intellectual interest
in the poem. We are accustomed to think what we
call reality a simple thing, to which creative imagina-
tion has added elements of the marvellous. The truth
is of course the reverse of this : the earliest thinkings
of mankind were filled with highly complex elements
unseparated, and what we call reality is the climax of
a long series of differentiations, with nature, men, and
gods distinguished, mind and matter divided, each
with its proper attributes. The thought of the Kalevala
antedates most of these differentiations ; we are re-
minded of the Norse conception of evolution as it
appears in Sigurd, and how it was only at a definite
period that the varying semblances of things gave
place to fixed semblances, each after its kind.^ It is
one thing to know as a scientific fact that human
thought has passed through such an evolutionary stage,
and to describe it by some such word as "animism."
It is quite another thing to be transported by force of
poetic genius into the very heart of this primitive
thinking, and to find its ideas and conceptions playing
in rhythmic beauty around us.
1 Compare above, page 326.
[335 1
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
Similarly, in its poetic form the Kalevala takes us
back to an early stage of literary evolution, in which
epic is just beginning to draw apart from lyric form.
A body launched in space must move in one of two
ways : either its course will return upon itself, and
make some form of circle or ellipse, or, not returning, it
will make an endless progression in parabolic or hyper-
bolic curve. There is a similar elementary distinction
in poetic form, between the lyric, that celebrates
things in rhythms which return upon themselves, and
the epic, which indicates a progression of incidents.
The Kalevala is rightly called an epic poem : yet we
feel that here the progression of incidents with difficulty
makes itself felt, as against the lyric tendency to empha-
size the separate incidents with reiteration and rhythmic
recurrence.
Many elements of rhythm combine in this poem.
First, we have metre : this is as simple as metre can
be ; the jingle —
Diddlediddle diddlediddle
exactly represents it. In the original, this metre is
supported by alliteration ; but — so far as an outsider
may judge — this is not the essential aUiteration of
Old Enghsh poetry, but merely an adjunct to the
metre, like the alliteration that strengthens Spenser's
verse. In the third place, we have the rhythm of
parallelism, as in Hebrew poetry. Consecutive lines
run in parallel clauses; often whole paragraphs are
parallel, with common refrains ; at times we have
wide reaches of purely parallel lines.
[336]
THE KALEVALA
Once before have ills assailed me,*
Plagues from somewhere have attacked me,
From the realms of mighty sorcerers,
From the meadows of the soothsayers,
And the homes of evil spirits.
And the plains where dwell the wizards,
From the dreary heaths of Kahna,
From beneath the firm earth's surface,
From the dwellings of the dead men.
From the realms of the departed,
From the loose earth heaped in hillocks,
From the regions of the landslips,
From the loose and gravelly districts,
From the shaking sandy regions,
From the valleys deeply sunken.
From the moss-grown swampy districts.
From the marshes all imfrozen,
From the billows ever tossing,
From the stalls in Hiisi's forest.
From fire gorges in the mountains.
From the slopes of copper mountains.
From their summits all of copper,
From the ever-rustling pine-trees.
And the rustUng of the fir-trees, —
The passage continues to the extent of fifty Hnes.
Again, this paralleHsm unites naturally with numerical
progressions. Thus as the conmionest of conventional
expressions we have —
Thus he drove one day, a second,
Drove upon the third day likewise —
or more elaborately —
1 The quotations are from Mr. Kirby's translation : see below,
page 489.
z [ 337 I
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
Drift for six years like a pine-tree,
And for seven years like a fir-tree,
And for eight years like a tree-stump.
Sometimes these numerical amplifications are too
much for our perverse modern spirit of humor. Thus
of the minstrel, weeping at the pathos of his own songs :
From his eyes there fell the tear-drops,
Others followed after others,
Tears upon his cheeks were falUng,
Down upon his cheeks so handsome,
Rolling from his cheeks so handsome
Down upon his chin's expansion,
Rolling from his chin's expansion
Down upon his panting bosom.
Rolling from his panting bosom
Down upon his strong knee's surface.
Rolling from his strong knee's surface
Do^-n upon his feet so handsome,
Rolling from his feet so handsome
Do'vvTi upon the ground beneath them.
And five woollen cloaks were soaking,
Likewise six of gilded girdles.
Seven blue dresses too were soaking,
And ten overcoats were soaking.
All these elements of rhythm cooperate in the
Kalevala. But there is another, which seems to pass
beyond rhythm, and enter deeply into the plot and
movement of the poem. A rudimentary type of plot
is that which may be called the one-two-three form, or
numerical series. It applies to all kinds of poetry.
Take the biblical epigram : —
There be three things which are too wonderful for me,
Yea, four which I know not :
[3381
THE KALEVALA
The way of an Eagle in the air ;
The way of a Serpent upon a rock ;
The way of a Ship in the midst of the sea ;
And the way of a Man with a Maid.
It is obvious that the point of the epigram is the last
line, and the other three wonders are introduced only
to make the fourth wonder appear as a climax. This
one-two-three form is common in fables or folk-stories.
Three sons of a father are to learn separate trades, and
the one who proves most skilful in his trade is to
inherit the family property. One son becomes a barber,
one a farrier, one a fencer. When they meet their
father again, the first son accomplishes the feat of
shaving a racer as he runs past. The farrier fixes shoes
on the horses of a chariot without stopping it. The
party are overtaken by a shower, and the son who is
a fencer waves his sword with such rapidity that the
rain is warded off as completely as by an umbrella :
the family property is voted to him. It is obvious that
the form of this story is made by introducing the two
inferior feats as a background for the third. Now,
this one-two-three form pervades every part of the
Kalevala, and is its most distinctive literary feature.
There is, of course, no sanctity in the number three : the
series may be of four, five, up to eight details, but in all
cases the rest of the details simply lead to the last as a
climax. The Lord of Pohja hears the dogs at his gate
barking, and bids his daughter go and see the cause of
this : but the daughter has other occupations.
" I have not the time, my father,
I must clean the largest cowshed,
[339]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
Tend our herd of many cattle,
Grind the corn between the millstones,
Through the sieve must sift the flour,
Grind the corn to finest flour,
And the grinder is but feeble."
The dogs bark still, and the Lord of Pohja bids his
dame go and investigate : but she also is busy.
" This is not a time for talking,
For my household cares are heavy,
And I must prepare the dinner,
And must bake a loaf enormous.
And for this the dough be kneading,
Bake the loaf of finest flour,
And the baker is but feeble."
Pohja's Master grumbles at women and their cares, but
bids his son go and find the cause of the dogs' barking.
Thereupon the son made answer :
"I've no time to look about me;
I must grind the blunted hatchet.
Chop a log of wood to pieces.
Chop to bits the largest wood-pile.
And to faggots small reduce it.
Large the pile, and small the faggots,
And the workman of the weakest."
The dogs still bark, and Pohja's Master rises himself
and goes to reconnoitre. Now — unless some one is
prepared to suggest as underljdng moral that in Pohjola
" everybody works but father " — we must recognize
that poetic form is being given to a trifling detail by this
device of numerical series, three negatives leading to
the cUmax of a positive act. And the reader of the
[340]
THE KALEVALA
Kalevala will recognize this one-two-three form as
constantly recurring in application to every type of
incident. It seems a small matter for Ilmarinen's
sister, when she sees Vainamoinen sailing in his boat,
to ask him where he is going. But the answer is not
simple. First he says he is going salmon-fishing : but
the maid points to the absence in his boat of the proper
tackle. Then he says he is wandering in search of
geese: but Annikki has witnessed hunting, and can
expose this deceit. Then Vainamoinen declares he is
on his way to a mighty fight : but Annikki has seen the
ways of battle in her father's time, and convicts him of
another lie. Only when the question is repeated a
fourth time, does the real answer come : —
All the truth I now will tell you,
Though at first I Ued a little.
In precisely the same fashion, Vainamoinen, questioned
why he has come to the River of Darkness unsubdued
by death or disease, gives four obviously false reasons,
and on the fifth repetition of the inquiry, says : —
True it is I lied a little,
And again I spoke a falsehood,
But at length I answer truly.
So deeply is the one-two-three form embedded in
Finnish minstrelsy that a man must needs tell a series ^pf
lies before he can permit himself to tell the truth.
All this has a bearing upon the struggle between lyric
and epic, which marks the stage of literary evolution to
which the Finnish poem belongs. What I have called
the one-two-three form is obviously lyric in spirit :
[341 J
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
it is the pulsam ter pede terram of the dance. Forms
of recurrence seem to pass into progressive action by
extension of the nmnerical series : we have a succes-
sion of such series, or perhaps the climax of a numerical
series breaks down and so opens up another series. It
is difficult to convey the idea otherwise than by illus-
tration.^ Vainamomen w^oos the Maid of Pohja in her
rainbow splendor : she sets him feats by which to win
her, and we at once get the one-two-three form. He
must spht a horsehair with a blunt knife and tie an
egg in knots : the sorcerer at once does this. Again,
he must peel a stone and hew a pile of ice without
splinters : Vainamoinen finds this no hard task. Once
more, he must carve a boat from splinters of a spindle
and shuttle. Vainamoinen declares this is easy; but
this climax of the one-two-three series breaks down, for
a chance stroke of his axe wounds Vainamoinen in the
knee. The blood flows in truly epic profusion —
Seven large boats with blood are brimming,
Eight large tubs are overflowing —
and as the wounded hero in his sledge seeks for help,
another one-two-three form develops. He passes one
homestead asking if there is any one to heal him, and a
child by the stove repfies there is no one ; he passes
another homestead, and a crone from beneath the
quilt gives the same answer; he passes a third, and
an old man by the stove replies that greater floods
than this have been stemmed by the words of the
1 The illustration that follows extends through Runes VIII and
IX of the poem.
[342]
THE KALEVALA
Creator. But this apparent climax to the numerical
series breaks down, for, as he sets about the task of
healing, the old man finds he has forgotten the ''word
of origin" for iron — the secret history of iron that
will prove a spell against its effects. Vainamoinen
can supply this; and the "word of origin" proves an
episode in itself, which falls into a succession of number
series. We hear of the three children of primeval Air
— Water the eldest, Iron the youngest. Fire in the
midst between them. Three daughters of Creation
stroll on the borders of the cloudlets, and milk from
their breasts drops on earth : where black milk from
the first drops, the softest Iron is found ; where white
milk from the second, is found hard steel ; where red
milk from the third has trickled, undeveloped Iron
appears. Now an elaborate example of the one-two-
three form follows. Iron desires to visit his brother
Fire, but has to fly from his fury and take refuge in
the swamps. A second time Iron would visit Fire,
when wolves and bears have uncovered what the
swamps had hidden ; there is now the smith Ilmarinen
to cast the Iron into the Fire, and it is elaborately told
how the smith makes the Iron swear to do only peaceful
acts before he will deliver it from the fury of the Fire.
There is still however the tempering of the Iron, and
this makes the climax of the series : while the smith is
seeking honey of the bee for the tempering mixture,
the hornet brings instead venom and acid, and this is
how the Iron violates its oath and inflicts wounds on
its friends. The word of origin for Iron and its evils
being thus supplied, the old man can now proceed with
[343]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
the spell that is to stop the flow of blood. The spell
makes several series in succession of parallel paragraphs.
A series with the refrain —
Once thou wast devoid of greatness —
is followed by the one-two-three form : Who has led
thee to this outrage ? not this, not that, not the other
relation, but thy own self. Then follows an appeal to
the flowing blood, the parallel paragraphs of which are
on a liturgical model that appears often in the poem.
The flow of blood at last stops; but the remainder of
the healing process opens another number series. A
boy is sent to procure healing ointment : the bee sup-
phes honey, but this mixed with many herbs proves
insufficient. Then the boy tries herbs culled by nine
magicians and eight wise seers : the mixture fixes
broken trees and stones, and is pronounced by the old
man sufficient, yet when it is appHed Vainamoinen
writhes in agony. Finally, the old man binds the
wound \\dth a silken fabric, and with this climax to the
last number series the whole incident terminates.
We may go farther, and say that the plot of the poem
as a w^hole is a variant of the one-two-three series which
gives form to so many of the detailed incidents. It
must be remembered that the Kalevala was put into
its present form by Topehus and Lonnrot less than a
century ago. But their work is not to be understood
as the process sometimes called Homerization — inde-
pendent creative work bringing floating matter into
coherence : it was a brilliant reconstruction out of
fragments of a unity belonging to the poem in ancient
[344]
THE KALEVALA
times. Every reader will feel that the progressive
action of the whole poem is dim in comparison with
the lyric expansion of the separate incidents. But
this progressive movement, such as it is, seems that of
the numerical series. The poem is arranged in fifty
runes or cantos. The first two and the last must be
written off as prologue and epilogue : the remaining
cantos give us the whole plot. As the war of Greek
and Trojan makes an Enveloping Action for the Iliad
and Odyssey, so here an Enveloping Action appears in
the rivalry of Kalevala, the Land of Heroes, and the
far distant Pohjola, gloomy region of the north. The
three heroes, Vainamoinen, Ilmarinen, Lemminkainen,
make raids from their Kalevala to this Pohjola. The
whole movement falls into three phases, through which
we can trace progression : it being always remembered
that at any point the detailed incidents can be ex-
panded out of all proportion to their bearing on the
general plot. The first phase of the movement (Runes
III to XV) gives us the heroes making separate expe-
ditions to the north. Vainamoinen, having lost his
expected bride, Aino, seeks a bride in the land of Pohjola,
and after various adventures returns disappointed;
then Ilmarinen is forced to visit the same region, and,
though he forges for the northerners the Sampo, yet he
returns without the bride ; then Lemminkainen makes
his raid on the north in search of a bride, with conse-
quences that bring on him death, from which he is
resuscitated by his loving mother. In the second
phase of the movement (Runes XVI to XXX) there is
some union between the heroes. Vainamoinen and
[345]
COLL.\TERAL WORLD LITERATURE
Ilmarinen go to Pohjola in friendly rivalry ; Ilmarinen
wins the bride, and there is elaborate celebration of the
wedding ; but Lemminkainen, pointedly omitted from
the invitation list, works a terrible revenge on the
Lord of Pohjola, with terrible nemesis upon himself.
What opens the third phase of the movement is the
longest of digressions : six runes relate the tragic his-
tory of Kullervo, a separate poem in itself. Its only
connection with the general plot is that one of Kul-
lervo's victims is the wife of Ilmarinen, and this leads
Ilmarinen to seek another daughter of the north. This
project introduces the final phase of the action,^ in which
the three heroes, now in full cooperation, make their
raid upon the land of Pohjola : fearful magic contests
ensue, in which the very sun and moon are lost to the
world, until at last the heroes of Kalevala are trium-
phant, and the balance of the world is restored. The
three phases of the movement thus seem to make the
one-two- three form with its climax. The two intro-
ductory cantos give the origin of the world in general,
such as in other languages so often commences a grand
epic. And the final rune is a piece of dim symbolism,
suggesting how a new era — perhaps the Christian
faith — is coming in, and the poet feels that his songs
belong to a past era that will never return.
I have said that the action of the poem lacks reality ;
but there is plenty of reality in the picture of life which
it presents. And the life presented is above all family
life : the household with its four centres of father,
mother, brother, sister ; incidents of the bath and the
1 Runes XXXVII to XLIX.
[346]
THE KALEVALA
toilet ; cooking and feasting ; dancing maids and bold
lovers. The main personages are types : Ilmarinen
and Vainamoinen seem to differ as the mechanical arts
differ from what we call fine arts ; while Lemminkainen
suggests the idle life that has however plenty of
vigor when necessity requires. A conventional posi-
tion is given to the old crone, or the old man past work,
or the babe, as utterers of oracular wisdom. And the
supreme interest of all is that of wooing and marriage :
while most of the incidents are briefly told, more
than three thousand lines are devoted to the wedding
ceremony of Ilmarinen united with the daughter of the
north. Nowhere in the poetry of the world do we find
celebrated with so much force and beauty as here that
mingling of joy and sorrow which belongs to every wed-
ding, when the rapture of youthful love clashes with
the pang of the maiden hfe transplanted from home
surroundings into an alien soil. The wedding cere-
mony has already been elaborated at length when the
moment of parting comes.
Bridegroom, dearest of my brothers,
Wait a week, and yet another ;
For thy loved one is not ready,
And her toilet is not finished.
Only half her hair is plaited.
And a half is still unplaited.
Bridegroom, dearest of my brothers,
Wait a week, and yet another.
For thy loved one is not ready,
And her toilet is not finished ;
One sleeve only is adjusted.
And mifitted still the other.
[347]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
Through two more stanzas the bridegroom must wait
for the putting on of shoes and gloves ; and then : —
Bridegroom, dearest of my brothers,
Thou hast waited long unwearied ;
For thy love at length is ready.
And thy duck has made her toilet.
But the song calls upon the bride to survey both sides
of the question, and dwells, detail by detail, on all she
is leaving behind her ; the tearful girl —
One foot resting on the threshold,
In my husband's sledge the other —
realizes how different this is from the joyous picture of
wedlock she had fancied. An old crone of the house-
hold rubs this sore, instead of bringing the plaster :
she reiterates the warnings against lovers she had
uttered ; insists upon the terrible change of surround-
ings : —
In thy home thou wast a floweret.
And the joy of father's household,
And thy father called thee Moonhght,
And thy mother called thee Simshine,
And thy brother Sparkling Water,
And thy sister called thee Blue-cloth.
To another home thou goest.
There to find a stranger mother. . . .
Sprig the father shouts against thee,
Slut the mother calls unto thee,
And the brother calls thee Doorstep,
And the sister. Nasty Creature.
A fancy picture of the new home with all possible hor-
rors is detailed by this old crone, and song follows with
the refrain : —
[348]
THE KALEVALA
Weep thou, weep thou, youthful maiden,
When thou weepest, weep thou sorely.
The bride does weep — filling her fists with tears of
longing — at her sad fate : then an infant on the floor
strikes the opposite tone, and oracularly describes the
new home and household as full of all good. It is now
time to instruct the bride : at interminable length the
wise woman counsels her upon all the details of house-
hold life, in the midst of which she is to restrain her
own feelings and be subservient to all around her in
the new home. But a wandering old dame strikes a
contrary note, and tells how she did all this, and yet
found nothing but misery, running away at last to her
old home only to see desolation and experience neglect.
The bridegroom in turn is instructed — in the fullest
detail — how he is to be a model husband, and protect
his wife from all ill ; even if she prove refractory, he
must be patient : —
In the bed do thou instruct her,
And behind the door advise her,
For a whole year thus instruct her.
Thus by word of mouth advise her.
With thine eyes the next year teach her,
And the third year teach by stamping.
An old man by the stove strikes a contrary note : he so
dealt with his wife, and found it would not answer.
But I knew another method,
Kjiew another way to tame her ;
So I peeled myself a birch-shoot,
When she came, and called me birdie ;
[349]
COLLATERAL WORLD LITERATURE
But when juniper I gathered,
Then she stooped, and called me darling ;
When I lifted rods of willow,
On my neck she fell embracing.
The bride now completely breaks down, and in long-
drawn details of pathetic reminiscence takes farewell
of the loved sm^roundings of her home ; she pictures her-
self returning to it at some future time only to find all
changed, with but the old stallion she had fed, and her
brother's favorite dog, to recognize her. She is whirled
away in Ilmarinen's sledge, and experiences a home-
coming in which the picture is reversed, and nothing
seems too good to be said or done for the cuckoo, the
rosy water-maiden, the blue duck, the fresh cherry
branch, that has been brought into the old home. It
is one of the surprises of world Uterature that from
the most distant point of the literary field, and from
the earliest stages of poetry, comes what, with all its
quaintness, is the sweetest and most elaborate celebra-
tion of wedding joys and sorrows.
[3501
CHAPTER VII
COMPARATIVE READING
COMPARATIVE Literature has become a familiar
term. As before remarked, it seems to be a
middle stage between the purely departmental treat-
ment of literature, which has prevailed in the past, and
that which is surely coming — the study of hterature as
an organic whole. Usage however seems to associate
the term with discussions that are formally historic or
scientific : the suggestion of this chapter is that the com-
parative treatment applies not less to the study of liter-
ature which is purely appreciative. For the compara-
tive attitude of mind is a wonderful quickener of insight.
A man may have come by unconscious tradition to
speak his own language with correctness and discrim-
ination : when he proceeds to study some other lan-
guage, or some two or three others, with their resem-
blances and differences, he wakes up to the fact that
he never before realized what language really was.
Or again, a man may be familiar with the constitution
of his own country, and know much about the con-
stitutions of other states ; but when he reads Aristotle
or Macchiavelli, and sees constitutions formally com-
pared, he realizes that there is such a thing as political
science. The principle holds good in Uterary culture.
1351]
COMPARATIVE READING
The most desultory reading need not lose any of its
charm by the reader's having acquired a habit of
mental grouping in the selection of what he is to read.
He may feel after various treatments of a common
theme that come from widely sundered literatures, or
from different literary types ; or, with less direct con-
nection than this, diverse pieces of literature will group
themselves to his mind in relations which may be
highly interesting to feel, though not easy to formulate.
Such Comparative Reading gives us the miscellaneous
reader in his attitude to the unity of literature.
A favorite group of my own has for its centre the
Alcestis of Euripides. With this it is natural to put,
what professes to be a version, what is really a per-
version of that play, though an eminently beautiful
poem in itself, Robert Browning's Balaustion's Adven-
ture. Alfieri, of whom it is sometimes said that he is
to continental Europe what Shakespeare is to England,
has been inspired by Euripides' play to give us his
Alcestis the Second. The world's greatest story-teller,
William Morris, has a Love of Alcestis as one of the tales
in his Earthly Paradise. All these are different versions
of the same story ; and the list can easily be extended.
But I would especially add, as a counterpart to the rest
of the group, an analogous story cast in the atmosphere
of modem religion — the Golden Legend of Longfellow.
To one familiar with Greek life and the conventions
of the Attic stage the Alcestis is an eminently simple
play. Admetus, King of Pherae, is the great type of
Hospitality : not in the modern sense of the word,
which makes it little more than entertainment ; but
[352]
THE ALCESTIS GROUP
the lofty Greek ideal of a sacred bond between host-
friend and guest-friend that gives the fullest scope for
gracious and self-sacrificing demeanor. Heaven itself
has recognized the hospitality of Admetus, and the god
Apollo, condemned to spend a year on earth, has made
himself an inmate of his house ; there seems to Apollo
to be a spirit of holiness pervading the entire household.
Apollo has sought to bestow on his host-friend the
gift of immortality ; his great struggle with the Fates
has proved but half successful, and Admetus is to
escape death only if a willing substitute be found.
But all have drawn back, even the aged father and
mother of the king, with so few days to give up :
Alcestis, in the full tide of her youth, has made herself
the victim to save her husband and king. The drama
opens with the fatal day, and the splendid palace
plunged in mourning ; we see Apollo making one more
effort to restrain Death, but the monster shudders out
his refusal : —
Greater my glory when the youthful die !
To Alcestis it is a glory thus by her life to save the
state: she opens the day with festal dress and de-
meanor, but breaks down at the farewell visit to the
bridal chamber. True to the religion of brightness, she
has herself carried in her agonies outside the palace to
see once more the glorious sky : but the scene around
her changes to the regions of the dead. She rallies her
strength to make an appeal for her little children, that
no second mother be put over them when she is gone :
Admetus renounces, not wedlock alone, but all forms
2 a [ 353 ]
COMPARATIVE READING
of joy save the gazing on the image of his wife. She
dies, and the Chorus sing her requiem, once more
dweUing on the strangeness of age shrinking from
death and youth taking its place. Suddenly there is
a turn in the action : a guest-friend of the house ap-
pears in Hercules — the Hercules of tragedy, whose
whole life is a succession of toils by which to sweep
away the evils of the world. When he sees tokens of
mourning, Hercules is for withdrawing and seeking
hospitality elsewhere ; Admetus waves aside his oppo-
sition, and — with the parallel verse which the Greek
stage loves — fences with Hercules' questions, leaving
him to suppose that this is only some commonplace
bereavement. He commits Hercules to the care of a
Steward, giving orders that all doors shall be barred,
lest any sound of mourning might disturb the serenity
of his guest. At this picture of self-restraint, the
Chorus are moved to an ode which celebrates the whole
record of the hospitable house : they strangely catch a
note of hope. The funeral procession is interrupted
by a harsh discord : Pheres, the aged father of the king,
wishes to join and is repelled. This is the "forensic
contest" of the drama, in which, by a convention of the
Greek stage, the wrong side of the situation is, para-
doxically, to be made as vivid as the right side. Ad-
metus emphasizes the one thought : —
Is Death alike then to the young and old ?
Pheres seeks to screen his cowardice by the novel sug-
gestion that djdng by substitute is itself a cowardly act.
When the funeral procession, including the Chorus, has
[354]
THE ALCESTIS GROUP
withdrawn, the Steward comes forward to give vent to
the irritation he may not show in the presence of his
lord's guest ; the cause of this irritation, Hercules, fol-
lows — the Hercules now of comedy, jolly banqueter
who puts all serious thought aside while the moment of
relaxation lasts. But in time his suspicions are aroused,
and he forces the truth from the Steward. We see the
comic transformed into the tragic Hercules, as his mind
takes in the friendly deceit, and how he has been out-
done in generosity by his friend : some worthy requital
must be found, and he will not shrink from a wrestle
with Death himself. As the funeral procession returns
the Chorus seek to console Admetus, and use the argu-
ment that if he has suffered the common bereavement he
has gained by it nothing less than a Ufe. The word jars
upon Admetus : he declares he has not gained but lost,
and displays the contrast of Alcestis in honor and at
rest, while for himself and his household is the widowed
life, and the new touch of bitterness in the cruel miscon-
struction of the situation which his father's words have
suggested. The Chorus can only strike the note of
fate and inexorable necessity. Then there is one more
interruption of Admetus 's mourning, and another de-
mand for hospitable graciousness, as Hercules reenters,
with a veiled woman, whom he describes as a prize won
in a notable wrestling match, and proposes to leave her
in his friend's house. But now that Hercules knows
what has happened, Admetus appeals to him : his house
is now no place for youth and beauty. Always thought-
ful for others, even the humblest, Admetus turns to the
veiled woman, to soften down his apparent inhospitality ;
13551
COMPARATIVE READING
but a fancied resemblance to the figure of Alcestis brings
a complete breakdown. At last Hercules lifts the veil
and shows the restored Alcestis. All is happiness again ;
and the last word of Hercules, as if the moral of the
whole story, is, —
See thou reverence strangers.
Yet this simple drama has been completely misread by
Browning, who usually shows the deepest insight into
Greek life and art.^ It is true Browning does not di-
rectly render Euripides' play : he has created a charming
frame for the story, in the incident of the Greek girl
Balaustion, captured by pirates, and describing a per-
formance of the Alcestis to win her release. But Brown-
ing, or Balaustion, whichever the reader pleases, has
seen in the story nothing but a wife undertaking to die
in place of her husband ; and our first thought in such a
case will be the selfishness of the husband who accepts
such a sacrifice. Balaustion, as she proceeds, ampli-
fies and condenses, reads between the lines and insinu-
ates, until there is nothing left in the story but the selfish
husband, who however in the latter part of the action
rises out of his selfishness, and so becomes worthy of
the restoration worked out for him by Hercules. Now,
such a view of Admetus is in flat contradiction to every
line of Euripides' poem. All the personages of the
drama — Apollo, representing the gods ; the Chorus,
who stand for public opinion and for the impression the
1 1 have discussed tliis question in pages 111-116 of my Ancient
Classical Drama; also, at full length, in a Paper on Balaustion'' s
Adventure as a beautiful misrepresentation of the original, published in
theTransactionsof the Browning Society of London (1891 : No.Lxvii).
[356]
THE ALCESTIS GROUP
poet wishes to leave upon his audience ; Hercules, him-
self the self-sacrificing toiler for mankind — all look up
to Admetus as the ideal of sublime generosity. The
modern reader's mistake is in seeing a wife's sacrifice of
herself for a husband where the Greek audience would
see a subject sacrificing herself for the king, and so for
the state ; the foundation principle of Greek ethics was
that individuals existed only for the state. There is
no discussion of this in Euripides' poem, because the
idea is taken for granted. Such expressions as
'^chance," "abrupt doom," ''destiny," ''appointment
of the Gods," "necessity," are applied to the sit-
uation of Admetus needing to die by substitute;
the sole question with the personages of the plot
is, who the substitute is to be. And here again is
a difference between the ancient and modern point of
view : all through the drama it is assumed that the
aged parents, not the youthful wife, would be the right-
ful sacrifice ; that — on the basis of utility to the state
— age cannot presume to rank itself with youth. Of
course, Pheres is an exception to all this : but Pheres is
the one whom all the personages of the play, including
Alcestis herself, regard as shirking in cowardice the
glory of self-sacrifice. But there is something more to
be said. Browning, at the conclusion of the play, sets
himself to reconstruct the story so as to make an Adme-
tus worthy of Alcestis ; and the point of his reconstruc-
tion is that the new Admetus is representative of a cause,
and so the personal nature of the sacrifice is eliminated.
But this is just what Euripides' play contains : the great
ideal of Hospitality is summed up in Admetus; and
[357]
COMPARATIVE READING
the foundation, the turning-point, the consummation
of the action are all made to rest upon enthusiasm for
the hospitable spirit of the king of Pherae, until (as we
have seen) the cue for the curtain is the maxim of rever-
ence for strangers.
In his preoccupation with the thought of a sinner
rising out of his sin Browning has missed the more
beautiful motive which does underlie Euripides' poem.
The hospitality of Admetus belongs to the brightness and
glory of life, which made the main religion of the Greeks,
but which falls into the background in modern life. Our
sjonpathies go out to Alcestis, because domestic love is
our great ideal. But Euripides, one of the central
points of world literature, is the anticipator of modern
in ancient life : his handling of the play has the effect of
making our modern ideal of love gradually vanquish
the ancient ideal of glory. In the earlier part of the
action the thought is all for Admetus, and the glorious
house saved by the noble sacrifice of Alcestis. But soon
the doubt begins to arise. Is this gain or loss? The
doubt spreads, and spreads, until in the return from the
funeral Admetus's speech brings out how all gain and
glory have gone, and love fills the whole field. Then
only may the feat of Hercules restore the harmony;
brightness and love are united, the pubhc state and the
personal bond.
If Browning misreads, much more Alfieri ; powerful
delineator of character and passion in general, the Ital-
ian dramatist has no insight into Greek life. As little
does he understand the conventions of the Attic stage ;
instead of the subtle suggestiveness of the choral f unc-
[358]
THE ALCESTIS GROUP
tion in Greek drama what we have is merely the chorus
of ItaHan opera. The drama of Alcestis the Second is an
eminently successful piece of poetic whitewashing, where
in reality no whitewashing is required; the dramatist
reconstructs Euripides' story with a view of saving the
character, not of Admetus only, but even of Pheres.
Admetus is lying at the point of death, and a messenger
has been sent to seek counsel from the Delphic oracle :
Alcestis schemes to intercept the messenger on his re-
turn, is the first to hear the oracle of death by substi-
tute, and that instant makes the irrevocable vow that
the substitute shall be herself. In reference to Pheres,
Alfieri brings out the beautiful point that the old father,
on the very brink of the grave, is bound to his equally
aged wife by the same obligation which binds Admetus
and Alcestis : but for this, or if Death would take both,
how gladly would he have been the victim ! The diffi-
culty of this reconstruction is with the personality of
Admetus ; it is hard to give tragic dignity to one who
is forced by the action into so passive a position, helpless
recipient of sacrifices made without his knowledge by
others. Through a succession of powerful scenes Ad-
metus is tossed from passion to passion ; Alcestis dying
has to rally her powers to strengthen her husband in the
living that is harder to him than death. When Hercules
enters, Alcestis has not yet breathed her last : the hero
orders her couch to be transported into a neighboring
temple while he essays the task of salvation. Admetus,
already on the verge of distraction, misunderstands the
absence of the body ; he seeks to stab himself, and then,
held back by main force, he utters an oath that no food
[359]
COMPARATIVE READING
shall pass his lips — the oath shall be as irrevocable as it
is impossible for Alcestis ever to return to this earth !
Hercules enters with a veiled woman, whom he offers to
his friend as another Alcestis. The figure behind the
veil hears the wild protests against the possibility of an
equal for Alcestis, hears repeated the terms of the
strange oath. Then the veil is lifted, and the tumultu-
ous happiness ensues. The Italian dramatist has at-
tained his purpose : but meanwhile the whole signifi-
cance of Euripides' story has been changed, and the
drama has been made into a character problem.
'Twas all the work
Of the Celestials. Them it pleased, Admetus,
That thou shouldst unto death be sick, that thus
Free course might to Alcestis' noble virtue
Be given ; and it also pleased the Gods
That thou, beUeving she was dead, shouldst show
Thy love immense by that most fearful oath
That thou wouldst not survive her.^
From William Morris, as might be expected, comes a
most original and powerful version of the Alcestis Story.
At first indeed it might seem that the difference between
this and the other versions was only the difference be-
tween epic and dramatic form. Classical drama is shut
up to the presentation of a single final situation ; in epic
narrative it is natural to go back to the beginning of
things. So in this case : we have related at length the
first coming of the divine guest to the house of Admetus ;
we have further — what does not appear in Euripides'
play even in allusion, but is known from other sources —
' From the translation of E. A. Bowring (below, page 483).
[360]
THE ALCESTIS GROUP
the strange wooing of Alcestis, who, in accordance with
an oracle, may be won only by a suitor driving to fetch
her in a chariot drawn by lions and wild boars. But in
reality the difference goes far beyond form. The centre
of gravity of the whole story has been shifted : the
dominant motive is changed, and, when we come to the
crisis of the action, we are made to see that the self-
sacrificing spirit even of an Alcestis is an idea that ad-
mits of enhancement.
The foundation upon which the whole story rests is
the love of Apollo for Admetus, of an immortal god for
a mortal : it seems natural for the god to seek for his
friend the supreme gift of immortality. But this idea
clashes with what is a fundamental thought running
through the poetry of William Morris — the idea that
death is the great sweetener and quickener of life. The
House of the Wolfings has this for its main motive. An
immortal loves a mortal warrior, and when danger
comes gives him the enchanted garment that will ward
off death ; as he wears it in the battle he finds himself
losing his manhood, he feels himself more and more sun-
dered from his fellows who are nobly staking their lives
on every stroke ; finally he casts off the enchantment
and dies with glory, the wood-nymph vainly lamenting
the impassable gulf that must separate mortal and im-
mortal. In the Earthly Paradise the ode to March gives
clear expression to the idea : it has sung the joy of being
alive at this beginning of Spring, and proceeds —
Ah, what begetteth all this storm of bhss
But Death himself, who crying solemnly,
E'en from the heart of sweet Forgetfulness,
[361]
COMPARATIVE READING
Bids us "Rejoice, lest pleasureless ye die.
Within a little time must yc go by.
Stretch forth your open hands, and while ye live
Take all the gifts that Death and Life may give."
So in the present story, Apollo desires to give the gift of
immortal life : but for Admetus to receive the gift will
it mean gain or loss ?
In melodious flow of verse we have described the
strange experience of a god in contact with the life of this
lower earth. Apollo yearns for the beauty of this new
world, yet realizes that he cannot ''feel the woes and
ways of man," nor enter into the cares of mortals.
Why will ye toil and take such care
For children's children yet unborn,
And garner store of strife and scorn
To gain a scarce-remembered name.
Cumbered with lies and soiled with shame ?
And if the gods care not for you.
What is this folly ye must do
To win some mortal's feeble heart ?
fools ! when each man plays his part,
And heeds his fellow little more
Than these blue waves that kiss the shore
Take heed of how the daisies grow.
Yet Apollo gives to his host and friend all that he
desires. He listens with eager and bright visage when
Admetus tells his tale of love and despair : Apollo can
put on his godship and work the miracle that wins
Alcestis for his friend. But the unnoticed slight of
Diana in the wedding festivities brings a portent of
horror at the moment Admetus is entering the bridal
[362]
THE ALCESTIS GROUP
chamber. It must not be supposed that Admetus shows
any cowardice at this point : unarmed as he is he hfts
bare hands against the monster, but is waved back by a
sign from Alcestis — she is in no danger unless he in-
terferes, for the purpose of the monster is not to slay but
to separate. Admetus can only " lie like a scourged
hound" outside the threshold until morning, when he
can invoke the assistance of his divine herdsman, who
listens to the story —
As one who notes a curious instrument
Working against the maker's own intent.
Admetus is becoming more and more dependent upon
his supernatural comrade, more and more separated
from ordinary men. And when the year of Apollo's
servitude comes to an end, he takes leave of his friend
with a hint of yet a greater gift that may be possible,
if he shall be summoned in the hour of need. When
Apollo is gone, Admetus ''seems to have some share in
the godhead he had harbored" ; war, fame, the ordinary
ambitions of mortal men, have no incitement for him ;
a vague hope gleaming before his eyes makes Admetus
great-hearted and wise, and he rules as in a golden age of
bliss like the careless bliss of the gods.
But the crisis comes, and Admetus finds death staring
him in the face. We can see the change which time and
association with the immortal have wrought in Admetus.
Fresh from the winning of Alcestis his words of her had
been : —
A little time of love, then fall asleep
Together, while the crown of love we keep.
[363 1
COMPARATIVE READING
How different it is now !
Love, 'twixt thee and me
A film has come, and I am fainting fast :
And now om* ancient happy Hfe is past ;
For either this is death's dividing hand,
And all is done, or if the shadowy land
I yet escape, full surely if I Uve
The god with life some other gift will give,
And change me imto thee. . . .
Alas, my love ! that thy too loving heart
Nor wath my life or death can have a part.
cruel words ! yet death is cruel too :
Stoop down and kiss me, for I yearn for you
E'en as the autumn yearneth for the sun.
love, a little time we have been one,
And if we now are twain, weep not therefore.
But there is the token which is to summon Apollo : the
arrows are burned in incense, and amid the cloudy vapor
husband and wife lie side by side awaiting the god, who
comes to them as if in dream. He tells the oracle of
conditioned escape from death : but there is now a
strange addition to the conditions.
For whoso dieth for thee must believe
That thou with shame that last gift wilt receive,
And strive henceforward with forgetfulnesa
The honied draught of thy new life to bless.
Nay, and moreover such a glorious heart
Who loves thee well enough with life to part
But for thy love, with life must lose love too,
Which e'en when wrapped about in weeds of woe
Is godhke life indeed to such an one.
That which makes a difficulty for the ordinary version
of Alcestis' sacrifice here finds recognition in the defini-
[364]
THE ALCESTIS GROUP
tion of the sacrifice itself ; further, beyond the giving up
of life for Admetus is opened up a higher sacrifice still
— to give up love with life, that utter fidelity may be
maintained.
But how is all this to be worked out in the progress of
the story ? To Admetus the words of the god ''seemed
to cleave all hope as with a sword" ; not for a single
moment does his mind entertain the thought of such
a sacrifice. —
On the world no look Admetus cast,
But peacefully turned round unto the wall
As one who knows that quick death must befall.
Alcestis, lying beside him, misunderstands this gesture
of silent despair, and thinks he is waiting for her to do
her part — waiting, for of course no man could ask in
words such a sacrifice. This momentary misunder-
standing makes the strange conditions of the oracle
possible. Wild thoughts pass through the brain of Al-
cestis : her love is killed, but her wifely fidelity is left.
Ah, how I trusted him ! what love was mine !
How sweet to feel his arms about me twine,
And my heart beat with his ! what wealth of bliss
To hear his praises ! all to come to this,
That now I durst not look upon his face,
Lest in my heart that other thing have place.
That which I knew not, that which men call hate.
me, the bitterness of God and fate !
A little time ago we two were one ;
1 had not lost him though his life was done.
For still was he in me — but now alone
Through the thick darkness must my soul make moan,
[365]
COMPARATIVE READING
For I must die : how can I live to bear
An empty heart about, the nurse of fear ?
How can I Hve to die some other tide,
And, dying, hear my loveless name outcried
About the portals of that weary land
Whereby my shadowy feet should come to stand.
With morning Admetus rises from his bed in full vigor •
Alcestis lies dead. Yet, in the surrendering her soul to
the process of dying, before the final moment had come,
it seems that the cloud of misunderstanding had lifted,
and Alcestis had realized the truth as to her husband.
Yet still, as though that longed-for happiness
Had come again her faithful heart to bless.
Those white lips smiled, unwrinkled was her brow,
But of her eyes no secrets might he know,
For, hidden by the lids of ivory.
Had they beheld that death a-drawing nigh.
What then is to be the end of the story? There is
no Hercules to intervene. Admetus, escaping death,
moves among his subjects as a god. There is reverence
for Alcestis also, yet it is but like the silence in midst of
the feast when there is memory of slain heroes.
But Time, who slays so many a memory,
Brought hers to light, the short-lived loving Queen ;
And her fair soul, as scent of flowers unseen,
Sweetened the turmoil of long centuries.
For soon, indeed. Death laid his hand on these,
The shouters round the throne upon that day.
And for Admetus, he, too, went his way,
Though if he died at all I cannot tell ;
But either on the earth he ceased to dwell ;
Or else, oft born again, had many a name.
[ 366 ] .
THE ALCESTIS GROUP
Such immortality as a god could bestow fades, at best,
into a cloudy tradition. The immortality which a self-
sacrificing death has won for Alcestis lasts in the hearts
of men as long as poetry shall endure.
The Golden Legend presents an analogous story in
Christian surroundings. We have, not exactly a wife
dying for her husband and king, but a maiden, in the
end to become wife, offering herself for her feudal lord
and benefactor. And the essence of the story is pre-
served : in real life all around us women are giving their
lives for those they love, but what makes the individual-
ity of the story we are considering is the formal compact
to die, which raises the difficult question of the accept-
ance of such a compact by him whom it is intended to
save. What makes the distinction of the present ver-
sion is that the poet has plunged his story into the very
heart of the Middle Ages. The essential incidents of
Elsie and Prince Henry make only a fraction of the
whole poem ; the rest is filled with the institutions and
incidents and sentiments of mediaeval life, with all its
mysticism and otherworldliness. The poem is like a
work of art made up of a small picture in the centre, and
around it copious scroll and border and framing, all of it
harmonious and suggestive. Only when we have satu-
rated ourselves with the mediaeval atmosphere of the
poem does the story which is its kernel cease to seem
forced and unreal.
The form of the poem is interesting. It might be
called a Wandering Drama, in which the epic and
dramatic spirit seem blended. The whole of the poem
is, formally, cast in dialogue, and thus far is dramatic.
[367]
COMPARATIVE READING
But in place of the single fixed scene, or interchange of a
few fixed scenes, usual in drama, we find the incidents
dispersed in a succession of scenes, especially those of
the long journey to Salerno, which suggest the progres-
sion of epic movement.
The prologue strikes the keynote of the whole poem.
We have Strasburg Cathedral — itself a mediaeval
poem; round its famous spire tempest is raging, and,
as part of the tempest, Lucifer and his demon hosts are
seeking to tear down and destroy. It is in vain : the
sacred bells are sounding their protective spells ; and the
rhythm of the chimes is beautifully made to suggest
another poetic glory of medisevalism — the great Latin
Hymns. This starting-point of Lucifer and his hosts
prepares us for the transformation that is to be made in
the story we are tracing; the dominant note will no
longer be the sacrifice of an Alcestis, but the temptation
of an Admetus. The Golden Legend falls into the class
of stories of which Faust is the great type : what it gives
us is The Temptation of Prince Henry.
The opening of the action presents a noble person-
ality brought to face extinction of life in its mid career,
with the slow agony of hopeless disease. No oracle is
required ; the remedy of blood flowing from a willing
maiden's veins is scarcely an exaggeration of the strange
nostrums of mediaeval medicine. But this exists simply
as a piece of passive knowledge in the brain of Prince
Henry. The movement commences when Lucifer ap-
pears, in the garb of a travelling physician, and offers the
sufferer his wonderful catholicon : this is the Arabic
Alcohol, the artificial life which, while the spell lasts,
[368]
THE ALCESTIS GROUP
fills the human frame with fullest vigor. There is of
course the reaction, with its shame and penance ; but
meanwhile the momentary taste of full vitality in the
midst of decrepitude has brought up that thought of a
cure from the depths of Henry's consciousness, and
made it a persistent idea. Now the other side of the
action is presented. By his disease an outcast from so-
ciety, the Prince is received in a humble country house-
hold, —
A holy family, that make
Each meal a Supper of the Lord. —
Elsie, daughter of that family, is at the moment of
adolescent life at which childlikeness mingles with
deepening womanhood, a time when the erotic and the
spiritual influences are indistinguishably blended. The
food on which her spirit is fed is the exquisite sacred
legends of the Middle Ages — stories of the Monk
Felix, of the Master of the Flowers ; she has visions and
strange dreams ; what to others are distant objects of
faith are to her near realities. It is a fine stroke of
poetic art that the first proposal of the sacrifice of life
— which to the critical reader is the great crux in the
construction of the story — is made to slip from the
lip of Elsie as a simple matter of course.
Gottlieb. — Unless
Some maiden, of her own accord,
Offers her life for the life of her lord,
And is willing to die in his stead.
Elsie. I will !
It all seems quite natural to the simple girl, living in her
atmosphere of otherworldliness.
2b [369]
COMPARATIVE READING
The Saints are dead, the Martyrs dead,
And Mary, and our Lord ; and I
Would follow in humility
The way bj^ them illumined ! . . .
Christ died for me, and shall not I
Be willing for my Prince to die ?
Later on Henry says to her : —
To me the thought of death is terrible.
Having such hold on life. To thee it is not
So much even as the lifting of a latch ;
Only a step into the open air
Out of a tent already luminous
With light that shines through its transparent walls !
Meanwhile Prince Henry, struggling against the persist-
ent idea of maiden sacrifice, has sought to purge his soul
by aid of the Confessional, the great fountain-head of all
mediaeval ethics. But Lucifer has usurped the place of
the absent priest : with the authoritative casuistry of
the Church the temptation is transformed into a sanc-
tioned duty. The difficult first step in a story of temp-
tation is won : not the purposing of the deed, but the en-
tertaining of the idea. Henry at the end of the action
declares he had never meant more than to put the girl's
courage to the proof : we take his word only so far as to
understand that he dallied with the temptation, letting
himself drift nearer and nearer to the goal, in his weak-
ness waiting irresolute until some shock should give
him vigor to accept or forever renounce.
We now have the long journey to Salerno, the middle
phase of the action, which, in stories of this type, makes
the main bulk of the poem. Two purposes are being
[370]
THE ALCESTIS GROUP
served. There is the mutual influence of the leading
personages : by contact with saintly purity Henry is
being lifted out of his selfishness ; the simple Elsie by
daily intercourse with a cultured mind is being broad-
ened and elevated. And the picture is being loaded
with mediaeval detail, necessary to make the proper at-
mosphere of the story. We have cathedrals, supreme
gift of the Middle Ages to art ; quaint mediaeval sights
and customs; minnesingers and crusaders; miracle
plays that read the most naive realism into sacred scenes,
mystic expositions, and astrological speculations. We
have the monastery and convent, with their strangely
contrasted inhabitants : here lazy monks, with sensual
pleasures and festal hilarity ; there the sacred artist of
the scriptorium, the abbot with his sense of awful re-
sponsibility, the broken lives seeking the truce and rest
of the cloister. Swiss scenes, with dances of death
and devil's bridges, lead to scenes of Italy, as the
blessed Mary's land, or to the sea, made spiritually sug-
gestive. We have processions of pilgrims, with their
strange mingling of faith and adventure ; scholasticism,
with its fighting doctors and challenges to interminable
disputing over hair-splitting trifles. And as a link bind-
ing all together we have Lucifer, with all the vim and
rollicking humor of the mediaeval devil, forever ap-
pearing in new forms, making himself all things to all
men, yet keeping a wary eye upon the two distinguished
victims he is invisibly escorting to Salerno.
Here the crisis is reached. It is Lucifer in disguise as
a Doctor of Salerno who receives the travellers ; to him
Prince Henry makes his hesitating explanation, irreso-
[3711
COMPARATIVE READING
lute to the last. By quick movement Elsie is conveyed
within. Then only does the soul of Henry come to it-
self : the shock of sudden loss has brought the burst of
passionate strength with which he breaks through the
door, struggles with the demon, — and, in the scuffle,
accidentally touches the sacred bones of St. Matthew !
Mediaeval faith in relics takes the place of the labors of
Hercules. The wedded bliss which opens the other ver-
sions makes the close of this. Last of all, the epilogue
supplements the prologue, and brings the miscellaneous
matter of the poem into unity again as a story of tempta-
tion. It is now the Recording Angels who are seen as-
cending to heaven. The Angel of Good Deeds closes
his book with every record ; the Angel of Evil Deeds
keeps his book open to the last moment of day, in hope
that repentance may erase the record, as here it has been
erased. Beneath them the great agent of temptation is
seen as a gigantic shadow sweeping into the night.
It is Lucifer,
The son of mystery ;
And since God suffers him to be,
He, too, is God's minister,
And labours for some good
By us not understood !
I pass to another group of works for comparative
reading, this time with only brief suggestions. I would
put together the Bacchanals of Euripides, the biblical
Ecclesiastes, the Ruhaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the
Legend of Temperance which makes the second book
of Spenser's Faerie Queene, and Tennyson's poem
[372]
THE BACCHANALS GROUP
entitled The Vision of Sin. Four out of the five have
an obvious, but somewhat superficial, common ground
in the topic of intemperance, or at least the wine we
associate with intemperance ; this however is lacking
in Ecclesiastes. To get a basis of interrelationship we
must go deeper.
The Bacchanals, as it is one of the most splendid, is
also one of the most difficult of poems. In the fine
translations of Way and of Milman it is easy for the
English reader to appreciate the beauty of the lyrics,
the magnificent stage spectacle, the horror of the cata-
strophe. But what is the general drift and significance ?
We recognize the strange feature of ancient life by which
the excitement of vinous elation is deified in Bacchus,
and here surrounded with all the adjuncts of religion ;
over against this, in Pentheus, we have the conserva-
tive morality which resists excess. But what are we
to say as to the relation between these two factors?
It is vain to say, as is sometimes urged, that the repre-
sentative of temperance departs from his position when
he consents to accompany the stranger to the Msenad
revels ; it is equally vain to make Agave the heroine of
the play, and in her see intoxication awakening to the
havoc it has unconsciously committed. Careful read-
ing of the scenes makes clear that the consent to accom-
pany Dionysus is not a slipping from principle, but a
mesmeric infatuation, which the all-powerful god has
been holding all the time over Pentheus until the resist-
ance to his godship is complete. And in the soliloquy
of the prologue Bacchus himself tells us that the in-
toxicating spell is being sent by his omnipotence upon
[373]
COMPARATIVE READING
Agave and her sisters, in revenge for their sHght of his
claims to divinity. The explanation of the action is to
be sought in the due conception of what tragedy means.
The sinner overwhelmed with terrible retribution, this
is not tragic enough to satisfy completely Greek
tragedy. The supreme tragedy is when an (Edipus,
wise and pious, is led by his wisdom and piety into
moral horrors ; when an Antigone must choose between
unfaithfulness to the state and unfaithfulness to the
family tie ; when an Orestes must either be the slayer
of a mother or a recusant to the avenging of a
father, when he obeys the oracle of Deity only to be-
come thereby the helpless victim of Destiny. So in the
present case : the action of the Bacchanals brings Relig-
ion and Morality into deadly opposition, and both are
involved in a common ruin. The tragedy of this play
is the dramatization of a moral chaos.
From this point of view we can feel a certain rela-
tionship between the literary works of our group. In
Ecclesiastes also there is the thought of a moral chaos :
to the eye of wisdom all attempts to read meaning
into the universe break down, and ''all things are
vanity." The difference is that here the thinker takes
sides with God ; although in the appearance of things
the righteous equally with the wicked is the victim of
an inscrutable Providence, yet without question it is
well with those who fear God. In the Bacchanals sense
pleasure, intensified to ecstasy and deified, was seen in
antagonism with morality, with a resultant moral
chaos. In the poem of Omar Khayyam sense excite-
ment on its purely mental side is made the one self-
[374]
THE BACCHANALS GROUP
sufficing certainty of the universe; in contrast with
this ideas of the Divine are but hypothesis, moral
and material interests are a delusion. In Tennyson's
Vision we have sense excitements, which are but for a
moment, and an awful Divine purity which is eternal.
The blank verse making the main thread of the poem
is at two points interrupted by verse of a different order :
first, we have the whirl of passion presented lyrically
with the underlying image of the fountain; later,
stanzas of cynical song express the broken debauchee's
consciousness of a hollow life. Thus sense, intensified
to passion, is made to react in exhausted sense craving
for passion ; this is set over against eternal Divine
purity, with a forlorn possibility of hope for the ruined
life heard in a tongue which no man can understand.
In Spenser's poem we have temperance and intemper-
ance in all their possible forms. But the scope of the
work is entirely changed : we have no longer question-
ings of the sum of things and the meaning of the uni-
verse, but the struggle of everyday life. Universal
Pleasure, on the one hand held in restraint, on the
other hand militant against Unrestraint, is made a
field for the development of Good.
Or the relationship of the different works may be put
more simply, in the light of their literary form. The
Bacchanals is tragedy of the most tragic order : a
chaos of the universe is seen, with Deity in conflict
with morality. Ecclesiasies is philosophic meditation :
the chaos of the universe is recognized, but the thinker
takes refuge with God. The Ruhaiyat is a lyrical
meditation : exalted consciousness of the chaos in the
[375]
COMPARATIVE READING
universe is a jubilant certainty. Tennyson's poem is
a Vision : Deity and Moral Order are beheld in har-
mony, with a fringe of mystery extending into an in-
finite future. The Legend is an epic poem : problems
of life have no place here, but — in the spirit of modern
pragmatism — the universe is seen in the process of
making, and the struggle is to reconstruct it for the
better.
From the Semitic and the Aryan literatures come
two poems which have the same title, The Song of
Songs, and the same character as songs of the hone}^-
moon. For the outer form of the Hebrew Song of
Songs I assume the setting of the poem as it is edited
in the Modern Reader's Bible. By the Indian Song of
Songs I mean what mediating interpretation has given
us under that title in the poetry of Sir Edwin Arnold.
The Hebrew Song of Songs is transparently simple
in its human interest. It is not — in the arrange-
ment indicated above — a continuous drama, but a
series of lyric idyls ; and underlying these is a beautiful
story. King Solomon, visiting the royal vineyards
upon Mount Lebanon, comes by surprise upon the fair
Shulammite maiden, who is sister to the keepers of the
vineyards. She flees in terror ; Solomon, smitten with
her beauty, wooes her in disguise as a shepherd of her
own rank in hfe, and wins her love ; then he comes in
royal state and in\dtes her to his throne ; they are
being wedded in the royal palace at Jerusalem as the
poem opens. Parenthetic refrains recur to keep
before us the idea of conjugal love : the songs them-
[376]
MINOR GROUPS
selves present disconnected snatches of the story.
We have youthful love in its natural setting of Spring
scenery, with a humorous interruption as the harsh
voices of the Brothers break in with a cry of foxes in
the vineyard, and all must run to the rescue. We have
the dreams of the Bride, happy and troubled dreams;
the raptures of the Bridegroom; the journey in the
state chariot ; at the close, the longing of the country
Bride for her Lebanon home, and the fresh surrender of
her heart to her husband on the very spot where first
she saw him. What may be a stumbling-block to the
unwary reader, the warmly colored picturing of personal
charms, is simply the unfamiliar symbolism of Oriental
poetry; its riddling and conventional comparisons,
which, unlike western imagery, paint no pictures on
the imagination, enable symbolic poetry to handle
topics excluded from the poetry of the west.^ The
spirit of the Hebrew poem is pure conjugal love, which
may be a basis for a secondary and spiritual interpre-
tation, if spiritual interpretation is required. The
purity is the more strikingly impressive as we have here
the love of heart for heart rising out of an atmosphere
of the harem and Oriental luxury.
There are threescore queens,
And fourscore concubines,
And virgins without number :
]My dove, my undefiled, is but one ;
She is the only one of her mother ;
She is the pure one of her that bare her.
^ The Introduction to the Song of Songs in the Modern Reader's
Bible discusses this difficult matter.
[377]
COMPARATIVE READING
The Indian Song of Songs is different : it is devo-
tional poetry, presenting an allegory of earthly and
heavenly love, coming as a spell of salvation for those
who listen. The personages are divine ; yet even a
divine lover may lapse into longings for the lower and
earthly love. In place of parenthetic refrains we have
the parenthetic interruptions of the poet — always
in their own special metre — who makes the spiritual
apphcation of all that is told. Blank verse carries
forward the thread of narrative ; the songs themselves
are in lyric measures that change with every fluctuation
of thought, the sense of dance movement being never
lost. There is a dramatic background of moonlight :
it is only when the weary night has worn away and
clear morning breaks that the irresolute Krishna
returns to his divine love. The festal ceremonies of
the now united lovers are followed to their close ; the
English poet drops the curtain as the nuptial bower is
entered.
Then she, no more delaying, entered straight ;
Her step a little faltered, but her face
Shone with unutterable quick love ; and — while
The music of her bangles passed the porch —
Shame, which had lingered in her downcast eyes,
Departed shamed . . . and hke the mighty deep,
Which sees the moon and rises, all his life
Uprose to drink her beams.
It is hardly necessary to point out that the compara-
tive attitude of mind has application to the most
diverse treatments of literary material, from the
simplest to the most elaborate. It is good to read
[378]
MINOR GROUPS
side by side, where nothing is done beyond the mere
reading, such works as Everyman, in which the naive
simphcity of mediaeval devotion rises to the subhme,
and the Pilgrim's Progress, in which the same naive
simplicity is applied to the popular theology of Puri-
tanism. It is good to follow the story of Cleopatra as
it is shaped by three of the greatest masters in poetry —
Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Dry den. ^ Or literary tasks
of much more extended scope offer themselves. The
original Germanic stock in time broke into two diverse
branches, one in central Europe, the other moving to
the Scandinavian north-west ; in the freedom of float-
ing poetry the common poetic inheritance would
undergo widely different modifications, especially as
Icelandic poets were largely cut off from intercourse
with their kindred in the south. A great epic tradition
belongs to the original Germanic stock, to which our
nearest approach is the poem of the Nibelungenlied.
Of this original material the later German modifica-
tion and the Norse modification have, in our own day,
found two great masters of reconstruction : the one
has been worked up by Wagner into the musical tetra-
logy of the Nihelung's Ring, the other in the hands of
William Morris has become the epic of Sigurd the
Volsung. The detailed study of the original form, and
of the two modern reconstructions, would carry com-
1 The reference is to Dry den's All for Love, or the World well lost,
and to the tragedy in the works of Beaumont and Fletcher entitled
The False One (of which the exact authorship is doubtful). The
authors of this last play, in the Prologue, disclaim common ground
with Shakespeare's play : yet it makes an interesting side light,
so far as Cleopatra is concerned.
[379]
COMPARATIVE READING
parative reading to a high degree of Uterary sugges-
tiveness.
I will add only one word of caution, which I should
wish to put with all emphasis possible. In laying
stress on Comparative Reading I have no idea of
recommending comparisons of merit. I am well aware
that the current treatment of literature, whether
popular or formal, is full of discussions of comparative
excellence, of blemishes and faults in poetry. For
myself, I hold the unfashionable opinion that judicial
estimates of literature are the greatest of obstacles in
the way of literary insight. It is easy enough, when
some element in the literature we are studying does
not fit in with our personal tastes, to dispose of it as a
fault or inferiority in the poet. The true course is to
study further, until the apparent unharmonious element
is seen to modify our conception of the whole scheme,
and so our taste has become enlarged. Likes and dis-
likes and preferences are natural enough in application
to things of art, as they are natural in application to
things of nature ; but we do not in our appreciation
of flowers, or of landscape, examine whether a carnation
or a geranium is the higher, or pick out faults in the
configuration of mountain scenery. Our attitude to
poetry should be the same as our attitude to nature.
Only by sjmapathy and a receptive attitude of mind
will Comparative Reading lead us to true literary
appreciation.
[380]
CHAPTER VIII
LITEKARY ORGANS OF PERSONALITY : ESSAYS AND LYRICS
LITERATURE is both objective and subjective :
objective, in that poetry presents things; sub-
jective, in so far as books are the revelation of their
authors. The hterature with which we have so far
dealt has been mainly objective in its character, but
the other type has its place in world Hterature. The
tendency, indeed, is to give it too much prominence : a
vast number more people are interested in poets than in
poetry. The two interests can be felicitously blended :
notably in the writings of Sainte-Beuve and Dowden.
3ut if we consider literary study in general, both
private reading and formal education, it is a matter of
regret that so large a part of it is switched off the true
course on to biographical and similar lines. It seems
to have become an accepted canon that we must know
about a writer, his surroundings and the circumstances
under which he produced a work, before we may get
at the work itself ; text-books of literature tend to be
accounts of producers, not of products ; questions of
editions and textual details must further intervene
between the reader and the literature he wants to read.
Of course, there is a place for all these things somewhere
in the field of scholarship ; but the unbalanced char-
[381]
LITERATURE OF PERSONALITY
acter of literary study brings it about that of those who
desire to know hterature a large percentage are, by this
biographical and bibliographical distraction, kept in
the outer precincts and never reach the literary goal at
all. Yet the instinct of the general reader is a sound
one : it is the high function of literature to bring us in
contact with the best minds. But this should be
sought, not through external histories, but bj^ aid of
special types of literature, consecrated to this purpose
of revealing the personality of authors, with a revela-
tion that is itself as literary as the mind revealed. And
these types of literature are chiefly two : Essays and
Lyrics.
Like so many other literary terms, the word "Essay"
is used in different senses. We even have such a case
as that of Locke, who, with a modesty veiling a sense
of achievement, has called a ponderous body of exact
science an Essay on the Human Understanding. But
the reader will have no difficulty in distinguishing the
more natural use of the word. Precise definition is
not practicable for a thing constituted by absence of
precision. But it is clear that where a writer has
sought to be exhaustive, and has followed a formal and
methodical treatment, he will naturally call the result
by some such name as "treatise." The Essay, in the
proper sense of the term, has for its central interest the
personality of its author, and in form it is distinguished
by perfect freedom, with full scope for thinking that
is tentative and fragmentary. It is a succession of
thoughts upon a single topic : but even the topic need
not be a binding limitation, and the general term
[382]
THE ESSAY
Essay can be stretched to include disconnected
pensees, thoughts, fragments of meditation. The Essay
is the point at which hterature approaches nearest to
discursive conversation.
The evolution of this literary organ of personal
revelation is more easily traced in world literature than
in any single national field. We have the Hebraic root
of essay literature in bibhcal wisdom, more especially
the Book of Ecclesiasticus. Wisdom is the general
meditation upon life, before that meditation, becoming
a conscious investigation, takes on formal method and
is called philosophy. Thus wisdom starts naturally
with proverbs and similar fragmentary sayings. I
have traced elsewhere ^ the genesis in wisdom literature
of the essay out of the primitive proverb. First we
have the reign of proverbs, units of thought in units
of form, and collections of these. Then some arrange-
ment comes in, so far as to make the proverb cluster,
several proverbs put together under a common topic,
such as the king, or the fool. The topic is the fore-
shadowing of the title of the essay. The separate
proverbs of a cluster gradually draw together, the
stiffness of the aphorism yielding to flow of style; in
the much quoted phrase of Stanley, the closed fist
of the Hebrew gnome relaxes into the open palm of
Greek rhetoric. This makes the essay, but even in
this we may distinguish stages : between the essay
that is a simple unit, and that into which has come so
much of organic form as we express by division into
paragraphs. All this process can be abundantly illus-
* Literary Study of the Bible, pages 298-306.
[383]
LITERATURE OF PERSONALITY
trated within the Book of Ecclesiasticus. But this
book has a further interest for us : while it is the larg-
est collection of wisdom, yet it is a collection made
entirely by one man, and the underlying personality
makes itself felt. In what may be called a preface we
are given to understand, though in veiled language,
how the quiet scholar was at one crisis dragged into
the glare and noise of public notoriety, and was won-
derfully dehvered after running in danger of his hfe.
We can gather how the whole of his life is devoted to
the collecting of wisdom from others, and the augment-
ing what he gathers by his own thinking; how his
materials grow upon him, and book is added to book ;
his intended rivulet becomes a sea; he is a grape-
gatherer gleaning after other grape-gatherers ; when
he adds a fourth book, he is filled as the moon at the
full. There is progressive self -revelation through these
books. The first is the general wisdom of the humanist ;
the second identifies the author with Israel, and wis-
dom with the Law of Moses. At the close of the
third book, in a masterpiece of essay eloquence, the
\vTiter stands fully revealed as a Scribe, profoundly
conscious of the wisdom of leism'e, separated by an
impassable barrier from the practical wisdom to which
"the handiwork of its craft is its prayer." As the fourth
book opens, we seem to see advancing years in the
plaintive essay on the Burden of Life, and the sonnet
on Death, so acceptable to "extreme old age" that is
"distracted" and "losing patience." Further, if we
read a little between the lines, we seem to find a con-
servative thinker struggling against the growing scep-
[ 384 ]
THE ESSAY
ticism all about him; never himself swerving from
his firm faith, yet forced to modify from time to time
his statement of it as a man accustomed to meet
objectors. This miscellany of wisdom, in fragmentary
forms, and revealing the underlying personality of the
collector, makes the point of departure for the coming
essay literature. With Ecclesiastes we are passing
beyond the essay ; its separate parts are drawn into a
unity by prologue and epilogue, and wisdom is chang-
ing into philosophy.^
The Book of Ecclesiasticus brings us naturally to the
great masterpiece of modern wisdom, the Essays of
Lord Bacon. It is only necessary to place side by side
the titles of essays in Ecclesiasticus as they appear in
the Modern Reader's Bible, and the titles of Bacon's
essays, to show how much there is in common in the
general scope of the two works, though of course the
books will have other matter special to their distinc-
tive eras.
Ecclesiasticus Bacon's Essays
True and False Fear— Honour Of Truth — Of Death — Re-
to Parents — On Meekness — venge — Of Adversity — Of
Consideration for High and Low Simulation and Dissimulation —
— True and False Shame — Of Parents and Children — Of
Friendship — Household Pre- Marriage and Single Life — Of
cepts — Adaptation of Behav- Envy — Of Love — Of Boldness
iour to Various Sorts of Men — Of Atheism — Of Counsel —
— Wisdom and Government — Of Delays — Of Wisdom for a
1 Part of this paragraph is taken from my article on I'The Per-
sonality of the Son of Sirach," in The International Journal of the
Apocrypha (January 1907).
2c [385]
LITERATURE OF PERSONALITY
Ecclesiasticus {Continued)
Pride and True Greatness —
Prosperity and Adversity are
from the Lord — Choice of
Company — NiggardUness —
On Free Will — No Safety for
Sinners — On Taking Heed in
Time — Against Gossip — The
Steadfast Friend and the Uncer-
tain — Retribution and Ven-
geance — On the Tongue —
On Lending and Suretiship —
On Health — On Riches — On
Feasting — On Dreams — On
False Friends — On Counsel and
Counsellors — On Disease and
Physicians — The Wisdom of
Business and the Wisdom of
Leisure — the Burden of Life
— On Death — etc.
Bacon's Essays {Continued)
Man's Self — Of Seeming Wise —
Of Friendship — Of Expense —
Of the True Greatness of King-
doms and Estates — Of Regi-
ment of Health — Of Suspicion
— Of Discourse — Of Riches —
Of Ambition — Of Nature in
Men — Of Custom and Educa-
tion—Of Fortune — Of Youth
and Age — Of Beauty — Of
Deformity — Of Followers and
Friends — Of Studies — Of Fac-
tion — Of Ceremonies and Re-
spects — Of Praise — Of Vain-
Glory — Of Honour and Reputa-
tion — Of Anger — Of Vicissitude
of Things — etc.
Bacon represents the highest point to which the litera-
ture of the essay has ever attained. And this is
because of the greatness of the personahty that is
revealed. It is altogether a mistake to exalt Bacon as
the founder of modern philosophy : he is rather the
last of the wise men, before wisdom has specialized
into philosophy. His is the wholeness of view that
belongs to what is distinctively wisdom. Breadth of
intellect in him is balanced by depth of character —
for the traditional "meanness" of this "wisest and
brightest" of mankind rests upon a superficial and
hostile interpretation of his conduct under peculiarly
trying circumstances, which disappears before modern
[386]
THE ESSAY
and fuller investigations.^ It is unnecessary to add
that in Bacon powers of expression are adequate to the
power of thought. He knows how to stop at the point
of suggestiveness : he thus appears both wise himself
and the cause of wisdom in others. In biblical wisdom
a considerable proportion of the detailed sentences is
made up of actual proverbs which have floated down
the ages ; Bacon has no need of this help, for he has
the rare epigrammatic faculty that can coin universal
proverbs for itself.
On account of the modifications which essay litera-
ture was soon to undergo, very few writers can be
classed as belonging to the school of Bacon. The
most considerable of these is Owen Feltham, whose
essays are entitled Resolves, a title intended as indica-
tion of their close connection with conduct, and reflect-
ing the eminently religious tone of Feltham's writing.
As this once popular book is not at the present time well
known, I may be permitted to cite one of the briefer
and quainter essays. —
Sanctity is a Sentence of Three Stops
A Christian's voyage to heaven is a sentence of three stops :
comma, colon, period. He that repents is come to the comma, and
begins to speak sweetly the language of salvation : but if he leaves
there, God understands not such abrupt speeches : sorrow alone
cannot expiate a pirate's robberies: he must both leave his theft,
and serve his country, ere his prince will receive him to favour.
It is "he that confesses, and forsakes his sin," that "shall find
* A simple explanation of this matter will be found in Dr. Aldis
Wright's Introduction to Bacon's Advancement of Learning (Claren-
don Press).
[387]
LITERATURE OF PERSONALITY
mercy" : it is his leaving his wickedness, that is as his colon ; and
carries him half way to heaven. Yet here also is the clause imperfect,
unless he goes on to the practice of righteousness, which as a period
knits up all, and makes the sentence full. Return and penitence
is not sufficient for him that hath fled from his sovereign's banner ;
he must first do some valiant act, before, by the law of arms, he can
be restored to his former bearing. I will not content myself with a
comma ; repentence helps not, when sin is renewed : nor dare I
make my stay at a colon ; not to do good is to commit e\'il, at least
by omission of what I ought to do : before I come to a period, the
constant practice of piety, I am sure, I cannot be sure of complete
glory. If I did all strictly, I were yet unprofitable ; and if God had
not appointed my faith to perfect me, miserable. If he were not
full of mercies, how unhappy a creature were man !
The nineteenth century has seen, in two conspicuous
cases, a reversion to the Hebrew starting-point of essay
hterature. The Proverbial Philosophy of Martin Tup-
per is biblical wisdom, diluted, and become rhapsodic.
The prefatory introduction is suggestive in this con-
nection. —
Thoughts, that have tarried in my mind, and peopled its inner
chambers.
The sober children of reason, or desultory train of fancy ;
Clear-running wine of conviction, with the scum and the lees of spec-
ulation ;
Corn from the sheaves of science, with stubble from mine own
garner :
Searchings after Truth, that have tracked her secret lodes.
And come up again to the surface-world, wath a knowledge grounded
deeper ;
Arguments of high scope, that have soared to the kej^stone of
heaven,
And thence have swooped to their certain mark, as the falcon to its
quarry;
[388]
THE ESSAY
The fruits I have gathered of prudence, the ripened harvest of my
musings,
These commend I unto thee, docile scholar of wisdom,
These I give to thy gentle heart, thou lover of the right.
What, though a guilty man renew that hallowed theme.
And strike with feebler hand the harp of Sirach's son ?
What, though a youthful tongue take up that ancient parable,
And utter faintly forth dark sayings as of old ?
Sweet is the virgin honey, though the wild bee have stored it in a
reed.
And bright the jewelled band, that circleth an Ethiop's arm ;
Pure are the grains of gold in the turbid stream of Ganges,
And fair the living flowers, that spring from the dull cold sod.
Wherefore, thou gentle student, bend thine ear to my speech,
For I also am as thou art ; our hearts can commune together :
To meanest matters will I stoop, for mean is the lot of mortal ;
I will rise to noblest themes, for the soul hath an heritage of glory :
The passions of puny man ; the majestic characters of God ;
The feverish shadows of time, and the mighty substance of eternity.
The purpose of self-revelation is made clear enough ;
but criticism has not found the personality revealed
sufficiently attractive. Writing as full of euphuism
as the above extract is sure of a wide hearing with the
general public ; there is, moreover, a great deal of true
wisdom in the Proverbial Philosophy. Walt Whitman
is a poet of another order. Here we have a strong
and deep personality, with a most original viewpoint
for the universe ; if to express one attitude to the world
of things we use the term ''pantheism," we might coin
the word " pan-anthropism " to suggest the spirit of
Walt Whitman's poetry. Both these writers, in their
different spheres, have revived the parallelism of biblical
[389]
LITERATURE OF PERSONALITY
wisdom, and Whitman has shown its immense capacity
for the expression of the most modern thinking. That
criticism has found the poetic form of these writers a
stumbhng-block is, I take it, one of the many evidences
that our higher education has lost touch with the
Hebrew root of our culture.
In the Hellenic source of our world literature the
Essay appears less marked and less influential. In
Greece it was at a very early period that wisdom
changed into formal philosophy. The Romans had
their attention engrossed with Greek philosophy ;
moreover, in Latin prose the oratorical impulse soon
nullified other variations of literary tone. Cicero's
famous works on Old Age and on Friendship, and
the writings of Seneca, are at least approaches to
essay literature. And we have two great masters of
wisdom in Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. One of
those to whom we are indebted for the ''Discourses"
of Epictetus writes : —
Whatever I heard from his own mouth, that I tried to set down
in the very same words, so far as possible, and to preserve as me-
morials for my own use, of his manner of tliiiiking, and his frank
utterance. These Discourses are such as one person would natu-
rally deliver from his own thoughts, extempore, to another ; not such
as he would prepare to be read by others afterwards.
Arrian's explanation offsets the suggestion of the title
"Discourses," and brings the matter of Epictetus home
to us as revelation of a personality. There is no need
to dwell upon the way in which the Meditations of the
Emperor Marcus Aurelius have constituted a golden
book of wisdom to all sorts of readers in subsequent
[390]
THE ESSAY
ages. As counterpart, in modern peoples, to classical
wisdom and philosophy of every-day life, we may
instance the maxim writers of the French, especially
La Bruyere and La Rochefoucauld, or the Spanish
Gracian in his Art of Worldly Wisdom. On one of
the former Sainte-Beuve remarks : —
The great and simple things were early said : the ancient moralists
and poets drew and grasped human nature in its chief and broad
outlines : they seem to have left to the moderns only the discovery
of details and the grace of refinements. La Rochefoucauld escapes
this almost inevitable law, and, in these delicate and subtle matters,
he, who had not read the ancients and was ignorant of them, obedient
only to the direct lights of his mind, and to the excellence of his
taste, has, in his best passages, attained, sometimes in the expression
and sometimes in the idea itself, a sort of grandeur.
Collections like the Table Talk of Luther, or of Selden,
or what Ben Jonson expresses by the title Timber,
belong to this group. And we may mention the
Thoughts of Pascal. All that reveals so interesting a
personality has value for us, yet these stand apart from
the other works of the group, in the degree of their
fragmentariness : in the fact that large part of them
seem studies or notes, intended to be worked up in
different form in the future.
From the classical side comes the first stream of
modifying influence upon essay literature. No book
has a better right to a place in world literature than
Plutarch's Lives. This, in the original or in its trans-
lations, served as the great intermediary between the
ancient and the modern world ; writers of the Renais-
sance, Shakespeare at the head of them, drew from
[391]
LITERATURE OF PERSONALITY
Plutarch their conceptions of Greek and Roman history
and Hfe. In its form, Plutarch's work would be clas-
sified as history or biography ; yet modern historians
or biographers would hardly go to Plutarch as a first-
rate authority. The real importance of the book,
making it an epoch in literary history, is the immense
impetus it gave to interest in personality, of which the
essay is so largely the vehicle. Not personahty only,
but comparative personality, is the subject of Plu-
tarch's book. The Lives are arranged in pairs, of a
Greek and a Roman personage, each pair followed by
a third article comparing the two. We have a life of
the Greek Aristides, of the Roman Cato, with a com-
parison of the two ; similarly, the two great orators
Demosthenes and Cicero are separately treated and
then discussed side by side ; we have the Greek Nicias
and the Roman Crassus, and then an argument mak-
ing one the counterpart of the other; in a single case
we have four lives — of Agis, Cleomenes, and the two
Gracchi — and an argumentative grouping of all four.
Thus, all the force of the comparative method is utilized
to open up a new branch of thought in Personality.
Ethics and psychology are one thing, dealing with
human nature as a whole, and analyzing its elements :
quite another thing is this interest of Personalit}^, the
particularized distribution of the elements of human
nature in the characters of different individuals. The
words of Plutarch himself, in the introduction to the
Life of Paulus ^milius, seem to give us the new in-
terest of personality rising out of the older interest of
history.
[392]
THE ESSAY
When I first applied myself to the writing of these Lives, it waa
for the sake of others, but I pursue that study for my own sake ;
availing myself of history as of a mirror, from which I learn to ad-
just and regulate my own conduct. For it is like living and con-
versing with these illustrious men, when I invite as it were, and
receive them, one after another, under my roof: when I consider
how great and wonderful they were, and select from their actions the
most memorable and glorious.
North's translation of Plutarch appeared in 1579: it
will be noticed how this comes near to the beginning of
our greatest dramatic era, when character painting in
the highest sense was represented by Shakespeare, and
exaggerated features of personal character, with their
stock name of ''humours," were the interest of Ben
Jonson and the comic stage. Somewhat later we have
the highly specialized section of essay literature that
deals with types of personal character, of which the
main representatives are Overbury's Characters and the
Microcosmography of Bishop Earle. The latter is a mas-
terpiece. Its very title is suggestive : the older wisdom
dealt with human nature as a whole, but now each single
individual is a microcosm, with a psychological geo-
graphy of its own. The new interest of personality ap-
pears clearly in the lists of character types, as compared
with the titles of Baconian or other essays.
A Child — A young raw Preacher — A grave Divine — A meer
dull Physician — An Alderman — A discontented Man — An
Antiquary — A younger Brother — A formal Man — A self-con-
ceited Man — A Reserved Man — A Shark — An old College But-
ler — An Upstart Knight — A down-right Scholar — A young
Gentleman of the University — A Pot-Poet — The common Sing-
ing-Men — A Pretender to Learning — A Tobacco seller — A plau-
[393]
LITERATURE OF PERSONALITY
sible Man — The World's wise IVIan — A She-precise Hypocrite
— A Sceptic in ReUgion — A plodding Student — An University
Dun — A stayed Man — etc.
This book is so little read at present in proportion to its
importance in our subject, that I am impelled to illus-
trate the bright insight and epigrammatic grace of
Earle. Let us see his treatment of a human life at its
two ends. —
A Child
is a Man in a small Letter, yet the best Copy of Adam before he
tasted of Eve, or the Apple ; and he is happy whose small practice
in the World can only write this Character. He is nature's fresh
picture newly drawn in Oil, which time and much handling, dims
and defaces. His Soul is yet a white paper unscribbled with ob-
servations of the world, wherewith at length it becomes a blurred
Note-book. He is purely happy, because he knows no evil, nor
hath made means by sin to be acquainted with misery. He arrives
not at the mischief of being wise, nor endures e\'ils to come by fore-
seeing them. He kisses and loves all, and, when the smart of the
rod is past, smiles on his beater. Nature and his Parents alike
dandle him, and tice him on with a bait of Sugar, to a draught of
Wormwood. He plays yet, like a young Prentice the first day, and
is not come to his task of melancholy. His hardest labour is his
tongue, as if he were loth to use so deceitful an Organ ; and he is
best company with it when he can but prattle. We laugh at his
foolish sports, but his game is our earnest : and his drums, rattles
and hobby-horses, but the Emblems, and mocking of man's business.
His father hath -writ him as his own little storj^, wherein he reads those
days of his life that he cannot remember ; and sighs to see what in-
nocence he has outhved. The elder he grows, he is a stair lower
from God ; and like his first father much worse in his breeches. He
is the Christian's example, and the old man's relapse : the one imi-
tates his pureiiess, and the other falls into his simplicity. Could
he put off his body with his little Coat, he had got eternity without
a burden, and exchanged but one Heaven for another.
[394 1
THE ESSAY
A good old Man
is the best Antiquity, and which we may with least vanity admire
One whom Time hath been thus long a working, and hke winter
fruit ripened when others are shaken down. He hath taken out
as many lessons of the world, as days, and learn't the best thing in
it, the vanity of it. He looks o'er his former life as a danger well
past, and would not hazard himself to begin again. . . . The
next door of death sads him not, but he expects it calmly as his
turn in Nature: and fears more his recoiling back to childishness
than dust. All men look on him as a common father, and
on old age for his sake as a reverent thing. His very presence
and face puts vice out of countenance, and makes it an indecorum
in a vicious man. He practises his experience on youth without the
harshness of reproof, and in his counsel is good company. He has
some old stories still of his own seeing to confirm what he says, and
makes them better in the telling; yet is not troublesome neither
with the same tale again, but remembers with them how oft he has
told them. . . . You must pardon him if he like his own times
better than these, because those things are follies to him now that
were wisdom then : yet he makes us of that opinion too, when we
see him, and conjecture those times by so good a Relic. He is a
man capable of a dearness with the youngest men ; yet he not youth-
fuller for them, but they older for him, and no man credits more
his acquaintance. He goes away at last, too soon whensoever,
with all men's sorrow but his own, and his memory is fresh when
it is twice as old.
The whole of essay Hterature is enriched by the in-
fluences represented in works of this kind. The essays
do not cease to reflect the personaHty of their authors ;
but the whole interest of human personality has been
lifted on to a higher plane.
The second great stream of influence upon the essay
comes from modern European literature, in the writings
of Montaigne. Bacon, Montaigne, and Addison make
f 395 ]
LITERATURE OF PERSONALITY
three great masters in this division of the literary field.
In this new development the self-revelation that belongs
to the essay is no longer unconscious : Montaigne
writes to pour himself out upon paper, though in the
most unpremeditated fashion possible.
This fagotting up of divers pieces, is so oddly composed, that I
never set pen to paper, but when I have too much idle time, and
never any where but at home; so that it is compiled at several
interruptions and intervals, as occasions keep me sometimes many
months abroad. As to the rest, I never correct my first by any
second conceptions. I peradventure may alter a word or so : but
'tis only to vary the phrase, and not to destroy my former meaning.
I have a mind to represent the progress of my humour, that every
one may see every piece as it came from the forge.
If we may believe him, all in Montaigne that is really
important is kept out of his writing : —
Such as I am, I will be elsewhere than in paper : my art and in-
dustry have been ever directed to render me good for something;
and my studies, to teach me to do, and not to write. I have made it
my whole business to frame my life. . This has been my trade
and my work. I am less a writer of books than anything else. . . .
Who has anything of value in him, let liim make it appear in his
manners, in his ordinary discourses, in his courtships and his quar-
rels, in play, in bed, at table, in the management of his affairs, in
his oeconomy. Those that I see make good books in ill breeches,
should first have mended their breeches, if they would have been
ruled by me.
But the personality of one who has made it his whole
business to frame his life is likely to be worth knowing ;
and besides this the form of the essay, always distin-
guished by freedom, receives immense enhancement by
Montaigne's discursive mode of revealing himself, in
[396]
THE ESSAY
flashes, in fragments hot from the forge. The essay-
now reaches the intimacy of monologue conversation.
When we consider the expansion of essay hterature
which all this suggests, and its spontaneous simplicity,
we might be inclined to expect that writing of this kind
would become the dominant form of literature, outdis-
tancing other forms in productiveness. That the course
of literary history has been different from this is due to
the peculiar characteristics of what makes the next great
stage in the evolution of the essay. This is found in
such collections as the Tatler and Spectator, with writers
like Steele and Samuel Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith,
and above all, Addison. Here we have essay writing
of supreme excellence, and highly typical of the form.
The reader cares not a straw what may be the particular
topic which Addison may be discussing at the moment ;
the interest is in the personality of Addison, equally
attractive upon whatever it may be flashing, from Para-
dise Lost to feats of yawning and whistling.
But there are two special features of this group of
essays which have an important bearing upon the future
of the literature of personality. One is that we now
get essays, roughly speaking of the same length, appear-
ing daily or at short fixed intervals. In this periodical
appearance there is a departure from the full freedom of
the essay and its accidental and spontaneous impulse.
The periodical tendency grows and becomes more im-
perious, until essay literature finds itself drawn into the
machinery of periodical writing, and produces the mag-
azine article, or even associates itself with the newspaper
and its daily purveying of news and criticism of current
[397]
LITERATURE OF PERSONALITY
events. Thus to a large extent essay writing passes out
of regular into floating literature : the floating literature
made by printing facilities at the end of literary evolu-
tion, corresponding to the other floating literature at the
beginning of things made by the absence of writing.
Here is a vast field for the treatment of the great human
interest of personality ; it is no longer personality in the
individual sense, but such interest of human nature as
is shared in common between a band of anonymous writ-
ers and an army of indiscriminate readers.
But a second important feature of the Spectator is the
element of creative story which it develops. We have
seen how, in the romance age, the multiplication and
aggregation of stories brought about the frame story
which was to introduce the rest. So here, something of
a frame story comes into the Spectator. The very title
''Spectator" is suggestive : of a silent man, haunting all
the clubs and public places, never opening his lips, but
taking note of everything to pour it out in the daily es-
says. But this is not enough : the Spectator must have
his own particular club, and all its personages need pre-
senting. There is Sir Roger de Coverley : great type of
the English baronet, hunter, justice of the peace. He has
passed through the usual spirited youth ; the perverse-
ness of a widow in the next county keeps him a bachelor
all his life, although, if she would but have listened to his
suit, ''upon her wedding day she should have carried on
her head fifty of the tallest oaks upon his estate ; ... he
would have given her a coal-pit to keep her in clean linen,
he would have allowed her the profits of a wind-mill for
her fans, and would have presented her once in three
[3981
THE ESSAY
years with the shearing of his sheep for her under petti-
coats." There is Captain Sentry, Sir Roger's nephew
and heir. There is a Hterary barrister, who knows Aris-
totle and Longiniis better than Littleton or Coke ; and
a modest clergyman who is among divines what a cham-
ber councillor is among lawyers. Sir Andrew Freeport is
a great London merchant ; there is not a point in the
compass but blows home a ship in which he is an owner.
Will Honeycomb represents the man about town, great
on fashions: ''He knows the history of every mode,
and can inform you from what Frenchwoman our wives
and daughters had this manner of curling their hair, that
way of placing their hoods ; and whose vanity to show
her foot made that part of the dress so short in such a
year. . . . Where women are not concerned, he is an
honest worthy man." Mingling with the miscellaneous
topics of the essays we have kept before us the sayings
and doings of these worthies, and of others whom they
introduce. At last this thread of story comes to be
wound up. Sir Roger is found to have "lost his roast-
beef stomach," and takes to his death-bed, amid the
tears of all around, and not without a kind message
at last from the widow. Captain Sentry leaves town
to take the estate. Sir Andrew leaves business to
set his spiritual affairs in order for the close of life.
Will Honeycomb succumbs to the attractions of a
country girl on his own estate, and marries, confessing
that he has been eight-and-forty these twelve years.
The Club is gone, and the Spectator has to face the
question of making a new one.
Slight as all this may seem, it has importance in lit-
[399]
LITERATURE OF PERSONALITY
erary history. In this association of miscellaneous
essays with a creative frame story we may see the em-
bryo of the modern novel. Of course, the term ''novel "
covers the most diverse literary types. But that which
we have in mind when we speak of the "modern Eng-
lish novel" seems to be created by the fusion of the es-
say and the story. In this it contrasts, for example, with
the epic stories of Scott, or the stories of the Decameron
type, or the modern short story, and many other varie-
ties. If we take two highly typical authors of the mod-
ern EngUsh novel, George Eliot and George Meredith,
we can see the two elements all through running side by
side, harmonious, and yet separable for analysis. In
these two authors, the discussional matter of life and
personaUty, and the actual incidents of the story, are
about in equal proportions. And this makes the im-
mense importance of this form of literature. Instead of
being dispersed in separate essays, the novel allows think-
ing upon human affairs and individual personality to be
brought into direct contact with created types of inci-
dent and personal development ; there is the same ad-
vantage that science has when its exposition is intermin-
gled with experimental illustration. With this great
organ of expression open to it, it is not surprising that,
in our times, the personality of authors is attracted to
the novel rather than the essay, and pours out its
feelings on universal and on current topics in a medium
in which self-revelation blends with creative revelations
of other life.
But all the while that essay Hterature has been draw-
ing in the two directions of the newspaper or magazine
[400]
THE ESSAY
and the novel, the original type has continued, and en-
larged itself to modern conditions of the literary world.
Three great masters of the essay stand out in modern
times: Macaulay, Emerson, Sainte-Beuve. And the
writings of these authors gain the fullest appreciation
when they are put into the category of essays, and con-
sidered as revelations of the supremely interesting per-
sonalities they reflect. If the essays of Macaulay are
presented as scientific criticism, they drop at once in
value. They regain their full value when they are ac-
cepted, not as science, but as literature; the mind of
Macaulay plajdng upon any topic cannot but be excel-
lent literature, though it may be very doubtful criticism.
And the designation of essay may enlarge to take in
writers not usually described as essayists. In this light,
surely, we should look upon Carlyle and Ruskin. I do
not, of course, refer to particular works like the Modern
Painters, or the Cromwell's Letters and Speeches ; but
in the general writings of Carlyle and Ruskin, which
have attracted such large circles of readers, we may see
the revelation of the author as the force of attraction.
And the essay in this sense may easily coalesce with
other literary forms. What are we to say in reference
to Carlyle's French Revolution? If we put it into the
class of histories, other histories will find it strange com-
pany. Shall we call it a prose epic ? or is it a gigantic
essay ? But literary classification is not the subject be-
fore us. However we may deal with the term " essay,"
the study of human personality, and especially the self-
revelation of an author's personality, will always con-
stitute a leading division of world literature.
2d [ 401 ]
LITERATURE OF PERSONALITY
In the poetic side of literature we find a branch spec-
ially devoted to the expression of personality, and a me-
dium for the self -revelation of an author. It is what we
usually mean by the term Lyrics. The adjective "lyric "
describes one of the three main divisions of poetry:
this will include lyrics of the stage, hymns, and occa-
sional pieces like epithalamia, and other literature that
is objective rather than subjective. But ordinary usage
seems to reserve the noun ''lyrics" for poems of a sub-
jective spirit ; songs and fugitive pieces which are the
expression of a poet's moods, or the crystallization of a
passing fancy. Lyrics in this sense have always been
the dehght of the cultured reader, and are the verse ana-
logue of essays in being the medium through which the
personality of the author reveals itself to the reader.
From Hebrew literature we have the Book of Psalms ;
this of course is a miscellaneous collection in which every
type of lyrical poetry finds representation, but no
psalms are more important than those meditations in
which poetry is made the confidant of devotional feeling.
Classical poetry is full of lyrics : one particular work,
the Odes of Horace, has attained a central place in the
literature of the cultured man. It adds to the usual at-
tractions of lyrics the special interest in the personality
of a Horace underlying such varied pieces ; and we may
even say that the collection as a whole embodies a cer-
tain fixed attitude of mind to the external world. Be-
sides these ancient classics there are the numerous
collections of lyrical poems, from TotteVs Miscellany,
which presented Elizabethan England as a nest of sing-
ing birds, to the Palgrave's Golden Treasury of our own
[402]
LYRICS
day. Some of the greatest of poets, notably Shelley
and Browning, appear at their best in this medium of
expression.
Side by side with the free variety of such lyrics, we
have one highly specialized form, a creation of modern
poetry, in the Sonnet. In a looser sense this term
may be used of literature of any age where form seems
to determine matter.^ But in the modern acceptation of
the word the Sonnet is created by the Italy of Dante
and Petrarch, though eagerly adopted — not without
modifications of detail — by English poets. This Son-
net is accepted specifically as the lyric of self-revelation.
How it has attracted our leading poetic minds has been
expressed by a great master of this form in the well-
known lines of Wordsworth.
Scorn not the Sonnet ; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours ; with this key-
Shakespeare unlocked his heart ; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound ;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound ;
With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief ;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow ; a glow-worm lamp.
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways ; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet ; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains — alas, too few !
^ I have ventured to claim this term for biblical literature in my
Literary Study of the Bible, pages 306-15 (compare page 521);
more briefly, in the Modern Reader's Bible, page 1457.
[403]
LITERATURE OF PERSONALITY
In one respect the sonnet seems to differ widely from
other lyrics of self -revelation, and from their prose coun-
terpart in the essays, that here instead of freedom in
form we have the strictest constructive model. But
though to the reader who is no poet himself, or at best
is conscious of being a poetaster, such strict form seems
a limitation, yet it is one of the paradoxes of literary
composition that the poet who has once mastered tech-
nique finds in technique an inspiration. This has been
said for us, in sonnet form, by Wordsworth himself.
Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room ;
And hermits are contented ^vith their cells ;
And students with their pensive citadels ;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy ; bees that soar for bloom
High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells :
In truth the prison, unto which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is : and hence for me,
In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground ;
Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty.
Should find brief solace there, as I have found.
From the same poet comes an exquisite expression of
the spirit of this poetic type.
Happy the feeling from the bosom thro^^m
In perfect shape (whose beauty Time shall spare
Though a breath made it) like a bubble blown
For summer pastime into wanton air ;
Happy the thought best likened to a stone
Of the sea-beach, when, polished with nice care,
Veins it discovers exquisite and rare,
[404]
LYRICS
Which for the loss of that moist gleam atone
That tempted first to gather it.
So closely is the sonnet associated with the expression
of individual sentiment that it has been humorously
described as an apartment for a single gentleman in
verse/ Yet the history of the sonnet shows a stage
somewhat analogous to that by which individual essays
drew, in the Spectator, into a connected frame story.
This is the stage of the Sonnet Sequence : not of course
the loose connection of poems with allied subjects, like
the Ecclesiastical Sonnets of Wordsworth, but the
series of sonnets which, though each is complete in itself,
yet suggest an underlying story, the phases of which they
are supposed to express. The Vita Nuova of Dante
combines the story, in prose, with sonnets expressing its
different parts ; or sonnets (and kindred poems) stand
by themselves, such as those of Petrarch celebrating his
Laura. Especially we have the great poetic mystery
of Shakespeare's Sonnets, still in dispute. It seems
scarcely possible to question that the succession of these
sonnets conveys a story, or rather, two stories which
may or may not be one. The only real question is
whether the poet himself is the hero of the story, or
whether even here the great dramatist is dramatizing a
revelation of some other soul.
But detailed discussion of these forms is not here in
place. The point is that Sonnets and similar Lyrics
in verse, and Essays in prose, should be recognized as
the natural medium through which the cultured reader
* Gummere, Beginnings of Poetry, page 145.
[ 405 ]
LITERATURE OF PERSONALITY
seeks access to the mind and heart of the great masters
of literature. Biography leads us outside the bounda-
ries of literature into other fields ; what is wanted is not
external description of an author, but his own self-
revelation ; not even his revelation of himself in com-
merce with the ordinary world, but the self-revelation of
his literary moods, which will naturally find expression
in literary forms. World literature offers these literary
revelations in abundance. I do not attempt to frame
any list : it is for the reader to invite his own company.
The sole point of this chapter is that Essays and Lyrics
constitute a literary organ of intimacy between author
and reader.
406
CHAPTER IX
STRATEGIC POINTS IN LITERATURE
THE expression "world literature" is apt to suggest
something impracticably vast : to be attempted
only by those who have special literary capacity, with a
lifetime to devote to the study. This impression is a
thing to be resisted. The vastness of literature applies
to its detail, not to its total impression. The number of
the stars is beyond the possibiUty of counting : yet it is
open to every one, by lifting up his eyes, to receive an
image of a stellar hemisphere. The only real obstacle
in the way of world literature is the indisposition to look
for it ; an indisposition largely the result of our educa-
tion, which has taught us to look with bhnkers, so to
speak — to strain our gaze along single lines, such as the
literature in our own language, or in the two or three
languages we happen to know, instead of seeking an all-
round survey. It is true that the stellar hemisphere, to
continue our figure, will impress different images on
different minds, according to the point at which the
observer stands, and the strength of his vision ; and so
world literature, as we have seen, will vary in its content
for different peoples, or according to different degrees
of capacity and attention bestowed on the subject.
[407]
STRATEGIC POINTS IN LITERATURE
Considerations of this kind seem relevant to the point in
our study we have now reached. Great part of what
has gone before relates to features of world literature
which should impress themselves upon all who look
from the Enghsh point of view. Beyond these there is
the widest scope for individual differences of impression ;
discussion of world literature does not mean a catalogue
of works to read, but principles to guide individual
choice. A former chapter has discussed one principle
that should affect individual choice, the tendency to
choose with mental grouping ; the comparative reading
that instinctively draws together similarities and con-
trasts from different parts of the literary field. The
present chapter is occupied with another principle of
choice — the search for strategic points in literature :
points in the literary field which are specially valuable
for their bearing on the survey of the field of literature
as a whole. Of course, any selection of such strategic
points in literature will be an individual selection : the
purpose is not to prescribe particulars, but to insist upon
the tendency to search for what is strategic. I proceed
to my hst, fully understanding that it will satisfy nobody
but myself, while to myseK it is only approximately
satisfactory. Some readers will exclaim at what is
left out ; it is for them to supply the omissions. Others
perhaps may take alarm at the length of the list. But
to these I would point out that it is a great element in
Hterary culture merely to get into contact with the right
literature. To know few things and to touch many
things is a sound maxim of study : it is no small part of
knowledge to know what there is to be known.
[ 408 ]
PLATO AND LUCRETIUS
I. In the roll of the world's great Hterary men no
name stands higher than that of Plato. Among modern
thinkers two opposite attitudes are taken to the works
of Plato. By some it will be maintained that his name
is almost synonymous with philosophy itself ; that, ex-
cept in the working out of details, which is the province
of the modern world, all that is essential in philosophy
has been anticipated in the writings of this one man.
Others, while doing full homage to the historic impor-
tance of Plato, insist that the whole of what he has pro-
duced stands outside what the modern world accepts as
philosophy. The reconciliation of these opposing views
is found in the strategic position Plato occupies in the
general field of literature. His date takes us to the time
when philosophy had not yet become differentiated from
literature. Evolution is to a large extent a succession of
differentiating processes, by which newer and more and
more specialized pursuits separate themselves from
broader fields of which they had formerly made a part ;
literature is the mother country from which all other
studies have migrated. Plato represents Dramatized
Philosophy. This does not mean merely that the writ-
ings of this philosopher are in the form of dialogue ; it
would be quite possible to rewrite the works of Kant or
Herbert Spencer in dialogue form, without their ceasing
to be just the type of philosophy they represent at pres-
ent. But the works of Plato are dramatic dialogues, of
the highest literary force and beauty. The hero of these
dramatic dialogues is Socrates : there was a Socrates of
real life of whom we form an estimate from the works of
unimaginative writers like Xenophon, but the Socrates
[409]
STRATEGIC POINTS IN LITERATURE
who is protagonist in world philosophy is the dramatic
creation of Plato. Other personalities mingle with that
of Socrates, all worked up by the hand of a dramatic
master. The dialogues have their scenic background,
and all the play of wit and rapid turns of intellectual
encounter that go to make plot. Not only is philosophy
at this point undivorced from literature, but literature
has not fully committed itself to the most fundamen-
tal of differentiations, that between poetry and prose,
the Uterature that is creative and the literature that
limits itself to analysis and discussion. In this way the
works of Plato cover the whole ground of modern
thought; yet what is presented (as previously re-
marked) is not so much philosoph}^ itself as a dramatiza-
tion of the thought processes that make philosophy. It
is of permanent value to literature, that includes in itself
all intellectual pursuits ; of varying value, sometimes
great, sometimes small, in the restricted field of modern
philosophy. The conception of world literature de-
mands some contact with this brilliant source of the
river of modern thought, with this literary representa-
tive of the greatest of Hellenic personalities. Such
works as the Apology of Socrates, the Phcedo, the Gor-
gias, the Symposium, with enough of the Republic to
give idea of its scope and point of view, will at least
bring the reader into contact with this supreme literary
artist and thinker.
With Plato it is natural to associate Lucretius. The
centuries that intervene are no objection : Lucretius,
like most Roman poets, is working over a Greek original ;
moreover, as a general principle, a species of literature
[410]
ARISTOPHANES
that has once existed can at any future time be recalled
by imitation. As Plato is dramatized philosophy, so
Lucretius is poetized science. The matter is an attempt
to construct the universe on a basis of ultimate indivis-
ible atoms, that has a superficial resemblance to atom
theories of modern science, though of course with the
fundamental difference that it is pure speculation un-
supported by quantitative analysis and experimental
research. But this is conveyed with the rhythm and
diction of poetry ; and the conventions of Latin poetry
lead to digressions that give scope for the highest crea-
tive power. The detailed system has interest only for
the specialist in Latin literature or in the history of phil-
osophy. But some of these digressions — as where sex
attraction, the pervading principle of the organic world,
finds apotheosis in the invocation to Venus ; or where
the charms of philosophic thought are compared with
the pleasures of the world ; especially where we have
the enthusiastic acceptance of Death by one to whom
beyond Death there is nothing — these give us perhaps
the highest point to which Latin poetry has attained.
II. Aristophanes is the most brilliant of poets. And
he has inspired the best of translations : in the hands
of men like B. B. Rogers and Bartle Frere the original
brilliance is not dissipated in the process of englishing.
In our present discussion the chief importance of Aristo-
phanes is that he stands at a most interesting point in
the history of poetry, representing a critical issue in the
development of literature. This is nothing less than
the union of serious and comic. In ancient Greece
Tragedy and Comedy moved in entirely distinct orbits ;
1411]
STRATEGIC POINTS IN LITERATURE
the difference of the two was the difference of spirit
represented by the words "serious" (spoudaios) and
" laughable " (geloios). Both had risen out of the prim-
itive art of dancing : the germ of the one was the intri-
cate and intellectual movement of the chorus; the germ
of the other was the jolly freedom of the comus. There
was a time when Tragedy in Athens — already in the
form of dramatic scenes alternating with, lyric choral
odes — was a public function, exhibited with great splen-
dor at the expense of the state. Fragmentary historic
references suggest how at this time the comic poets, nat-
urally desiring the same state patronage, found no way
of obtaining it but by following the routine prescribed
to tragic poets, and applying to the authorities for a
"Chorus." When their application succeeded they had
attained the right of public exhibition, but the Comedy
thus to be exhibited was encumbered with the incon-
gruous element of a tragic Chorus — a body of artists
trained in the intricate and elevated art proper to the
most serious and religious of dramas. Thus Old Attic
Comedy, of which Aristophanes is our only representa-
tive, follows the structure of Tragedy, dramatic scenes
alternating with choral poetry. Of coiu"se the Chorus
can be burlesqued ; instead of a Chorus of Senators, or
Matrons, we have a Chorus of Clouds — in gauzy upper
garments, with long black trains to represent shadows
sweeping over the hills — or a Chorus of Birds with
wings and long beaks, or a Chorus of Wasps with stings
and slim waists. But however deeply such a Chorus
may enter into the broad farce, which makes the Com-
edy of that period, the choral element always invites
[412]
A MEDIEVAL GROUP
outbursts of lyrical beauty, the most delicate fancies,
the most elevated thoughts. And besides the high art
of the Chorus there is in the matter of the plays an ele-
ment making for the serious. Attic comedies might
almost be called dramatized newspapers. They were
organs of political parties : and it has contributed in no
small degree to traditional misconceptions of Greek life
that the comic newspapers of only one party have come
down to us. The choral odes are often passionate dis-
cussions of political topics; the ''parabases" resemble
leading articles ; the dramatic scenes are acted cartoons.
So vivid is the workmanship of Aristophanes that the
modern reader enters easily into the fun and enjoys the
grotesque picturing of life : in the Clouds, to see bur-
lesqued Socrates and the New Learning ; in the Birds, to
follow a good-humored parody of current enterprise as
a project for fortifying the atmosphere ; in the Lysis-
trata, to watch a profusion of choral dances surrounding
a strike of women against husbands and lovers in the
interests of peace as against war. But with all this
human interest goes the further interest of the strategic
position occupied by Old Attic Comedy in the history
of art : the mixture of tones, union of serious and farcical,
elevated and grotesque, newly accomplished almost by
accident, in all the vicissitudes of literary history never
to be entirely lost.^
III. Three works may be named which, taken to-
gether, will immerse the reader deep in the literary life
of the middle ages. These are the Romance of the Rose,
1 Compare on the whole subject my Ancient Classical Drama;
page 265, and Chapters VII-IX passim.
f 413 ]
STRATEGIC POINTS IN LITERATURE
Reynard the Fox, and Everyman . Allusion has been made
in a previous chapter to the last : here we feel the sim-
plicity of mediaeval devotion cast its spell over our own
distant age. Reynard the Fox is the mediaeval counter-
part of Msop in antiquity ; readers interested in story-
tracking can see, in Mr. Joseph Jacobs's Introduction
to jEsop, how the beast epic has prevailed in the varied
peoples and periods. The general spirit of the poem
may be summed up in a single line of Davenant's : —
We blush to see our politics in beasts.
The crooked ways of human kind, so famiUar in real life
that we hardly think of them, take on at once a quaint
humor by being translated into ways of the animal world.
If Reynard be read in the translation of F. S. Ellis, with
the illustrative devices of Walter Crane, it will fully hold
its own with modern books of humor. But the most
important of the three is the Romance of the Rose. In
mediaeval poetry love is a rehgion, and Ovid is its bible ;
this poetical love in all its length and breadth is compre-
hended within the long Romance. The breadth of treat-
ment is favored by the extraordinary authorship of the
work. We are almost reminded of the scene in the old
miracle play, where the Almighty for a moment quits
the throne of the universe and Satan skips into his place.
Guillaume de Lorris opens the poem : a lover, delicate
and dainty ; in the favorite mediaeval form of allegory he
sets out to tell the tale, the same in all ages and never
wearisome, of youth and maiden love. But his work
is unfinished, and Jean de Meun plunges in to continue
it : a clerk full to his eyes with miscellaneous learning,
[414]
A MEDIAEVAL GROUP
racy and vigorous, with common sense ideas on the re-
lation of the sexes, and the utiHty of love as a means for
the propagation of the species. He does carry on the
action, though with such modifications as might make
Guillaume de Lorris turn in his grave ; he carries it for-
ward only to diverge from it in any direction that prom-
ises scope for pouring out his literary learning; from
these divergences there are yet digressions, and digres-
sions which seem interminable ; when the reader is los-
ing his patience he may find a warning against prolixity.
Of prolix talk I'd fain keep clear.
Women are liable to become
In speech ofttimes most troublesome ;
And in good truth all this I see
Before my eyes so vividly,
That since I am of speaking fain,
I pray you list me once again.
And the flood of learning continues its course as if it had
that moment begun. All this means so much more of
medisevalism crowded into the poem. We are told ^
that ''not less than two hundred manuscript copies of
[the Romance] have survived the waste of centuries
(while of the ''Canterbury Tales" no more than fifty-
nine are known), and printed editions followed in rapid
succession from about 1480 till 1538." In reading the
three works, especially the Romance of the Rose, the mod-
ern reader is thinking the thoughts and feeling the feel-
ings that made the everyday literary life of the genera-
tions which intervened between ancient and modern
times.
1 In Mr. Ellis's Prologue.
[415]
STRATEGIC POINTS IN LITERATURE
IV. No persuasion is required in reconunending to the
reader Malory's Morte d' Arthur and Chaucer's Can-
terbury Tales. But the interest of the two may be en-
hanced by taking them together : in the first we have
mediaeval matter vivified by the seriousness of the com-
ing age, in the other we have mediaeval matter vivified
by modern humor. Chaucer, especially as regards the
prologue and the principal tales, has won all kinds of
readers. The Morte d' Arthur is not so much a poem as
a cycle of epic poetry ; it represents a source of poetic
material for other poets, from Wagner to Tennyson.
Here we have mediaeval chivalry touched with religious
mysticism. We have further the art of narration in a
consiunmate degree, and the author's absorption in his
story is infectious. In this connection I am tempted
to quote an interesting passage in the Life of William
Morris.
During this visit to Birmingham Burne-Jones took Morris to
Cornish's, the bookseller's shop in New Street, where, in accordance
with the leisurely eighteenth-century practice that still lingered in
provincial towns, customers were allowed to drop in and read books
from the shelves. There Burne-Jones had passed "hundreds of
hours " in this employment ; and there lately he had found and begun
to read a copy of Southey's edition of Malory's "Morte d'Arthur,"
a work till then unknown to either of the two, and one which Burne-
Jones could not afford to buy. Morris bought it at first sight, and it
at once became for both one of their most precious treasures : so
precious that even among their intimates there was some shyness
over it, till a year later they heard Rossetti speak of it and the Bible
as the two greatest books in the world, and their tongues were un-
loosed by the sanction of his authority.^
1 J. W. Mackail's Life of William Morris, Vol. I, page 81.
[416]
SPENSER, FROISSART, CERVANTES
To this may be added the opinion expressed by Mr. Fred-
eric Harrison, that the Enghsh of the Morte d' Arthur
is hardly second to the Enghsh of our Bible. ^
V. I mention as a matter of course the Faerie Queene
of Spenser. An attempt adequately to characterize this
work would need not a paragraph but a volume : a
volume which I hope some day to be permitted to write.
For the present purpose it is sufficient to allude to its
universally recognized position as a common meeting-
ground for Classical, Romantic, and Puritan. Spenser
has been traditionally called the poet's poet : partly be-
cause in him the whole art of poetry (apart from drama)
is illustrated in its supreme form ; partly again because
the world of the Faerie Queene is so purely creative, kept
throughout at a safe distance from the space and time
world of real hfe.
VI. I would put two works together: Froissart's
Chronicles and the Don Quixote of Cervantes. The first
gives us history : but history inspired by chivalry. It
is a purely aristocratic conception of life, in which is
entirely ignored the '' greatest number," whose interests
are paramount to our modern democratic spirit, and
color our conception of history. On the other hand,
Don Quixote stands at an interesting point of historic
development, when the world of chivalry is passing away
and the future world of industry is just rising. A wide
range is given to the story by the double movement so
common in Shakespeare : with Don Quixote himself,
the knight, is forever associated the squire, Sancho
Panza. In the first we have the spirit of chivalry bur-
1 Essay on the ''Choice of Books," page 43. [Macmillan.]
2b [417]
STRATEGIC POINTS IN LITERATURE
lesqued, not without pathos. Side by side with this, San-
cho Panza keeps before us the crass common sense of the
masses, for whom the world of ideas has no meaning ;
yet a copious philosophy exists for them in the floating
popular proverbs, which perhaps no country has pro-
duced in larger numbers than Spain ; whole paragraphs
of Sancho's speeches are built up of these proverbs dove-
tailed together. Perhaps there is no more universally
recognized world classic than Don Quixote; and Mr.
Frederic Harrison goes so far as to make it a serio-
comic analogue of Dante's poem.^
VII. On the threshold of what we call modern life
there seem to stand two literary personalities of the high-
est rank, one with his eyes turned to the mediaevalism
that is passing away, the other with his face to the world
of the future. These are Erasmus and Bacon. Their
actual contributions to world literature may not be great
in amount, for the main work of their lives was done in
special fields ; it is as representative personalities that
they are literary landmarks. In Erasmus all the sides
of the Renaissance meet : he is the typical humanist,
and yet the founder of modern New Testament
scholarship ; when the movement we call the Refor-
mation began to separate itself from the general move-
ment of the Renaissance all parties seemed to turn
to Erasmus as the umpire whose adherence might
compose the strife. In pure literature Erasmus is
known chiefly by two works. One is the Colloquies.
This sets out to be a Latin Reader for beginners, like
the modern school books which construct sentences to
' !' Choice of Books," page 58.
[418]
ERASMUS AND BACON
the effect that Balbus is building, or was building, or is
about to build, a wall. In the hands of Erasmus the
school book becomes a series of racy dialogues, with
plenty of personality and plot ; a diversified picture is
presented of the age and its ways and customs, and great
novelists have pillaged from this school book some of
their best scenes. But the masterpiece of Erasmus is
the Praise of Folly. It is one of the greatest pieces of
satire in all literature ; yet, totally different from the
heavy cuts and thrusts of a Juvenal or Dryden, it reads
hardly as satire at all, but rather as delicate sword
play of prolonged paradoxical irony. The humor of
Erasmus is as modern as the humor of Thackeray.
Folly puts on cap and bells, mounts a pulpit, and pro-
nounces a eulogium upon herself, claiming as her vota-
ries all classes, from infants to grave divines ; all the
varying social types, as society was moulded by medi-
aeval philosophy, religion, learning, pass before us in
succession, all seen through an atmosphere which is
laughter without bitterness. The book is a confirma-
tion of the principle that, in the right hands, a caricature
may paint more truly than a portrait.
Bacon is traditionally accepted as inaugurator of
the New Thought : this is our modern thought, the
foundation of that science through which, for the
first time, man knows the external world in which he
has been placed. Yet to make good this description of
Bacon we have, as in the case of Plato, to fall back
upon the distinction between literature and philosophy.
The formal philosophical works of Bacon have naturally
become out of date ; nor is it in this field that Bacon
[419]
STRATEGIC POINTS IN LITERATURE
is supreme. Others have been more successful exposi-
tors and apphers of inductive science. Bacon is the
literary representative of the experimental philosophy :
he gives us the general mind of man surveying what
the narrower philosophic mind will achieve, and realiz-
ing for the first time the momentous epoch in human
history which the New Thought has made. Similarly,
as we have already seen, his Essays represent wisdom
as distinguished from philosophy. Perhaps this posi-
tion of Bacon comes out best in his Advancement of
Learning, that is to say, in the earlier part of the
book, before he proceeds to a criticism of detailed studies,
which of course has now only an antiquarian interest.
Beyond any special writings however of Bacon, the
general conception of his personality makes a point for
world literature. It is natural to quote here the well-
known epigram of Cowley. —
Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last ;
The barren -^vilderness he pass'd,
Did on the very border stand
Of the bless'd Promised Land,
And from the mountain-top of his exalted vnt
Saw it himself, and showed us it.
VIII. From France come the great names of Moliere
and Racine : how are we to place these dramatists in
a general \'iew of our world literature ? It seems as if
the stars of the literary heavens are often double or
triple stars : I mean, that to catch the full significance
of some poet,he must be taken in antithesis with others.
Such a sidereal triplet may be found in the three,
Mohere, Shakespeare, Victor Hugo. All are consum-
[420]
MOLIERE AND RACINE
mate artists in drama, each after his kind. By Mohere
the ancient conception of comedy is worked out in
modern hfe. As we have had occasion to remark
more than once, all Greek and Roman drama is drama
of situation. The stage limitations of its origin were
never shaken off ; ancient plot (if the comparison may
be pardoned) was a narrow-necked bottle, which forced
the fulness of a story to be poured through a single
fixed scene. Of course, this form of action brought
advantages of concentration and emphasis to compen-
sate for limitation of matter. Moliere accepts this
conception of antiquity ^ : but his comedy of situation is
applied to our modern life. Plautus and Terence, with
all their cleverness of plot, present narrow and worn-
out types ; the situations of the French dramatist are
bright with varied and subtly conceived humors of a
fully developed human nature. With Shakespeare it is
different : his is romantic drama, that gives full play
to the progress of story, and of many stories ; human
interest can abound, without any special need for
emphasizing peculiar situations. Victor Hugo as a
dramatist is influenced from opposite sides : on the
one hand, he feels the French tendency to drama of
situation; on the other hand, as devoted admirer of
Shakespeare, and with a , temperament overpoweringly
democratic, he is attracted in the direction of romance.
The result is what may be called the romantic drama
of situation: Victor Hugo makes place for enlarged
human interest, but he finds it by deepening his situa-
' Not of course limitation to a single scene : but his few scenes
make a single situation of affairs.
[421]
STRATEGIC POINTS IN LITERATURE
tions rather than by extending the flow of action.^
The hterary world becomes enriched by three contrast-
ing types of dramatic treatment, each justified by its
results.
Racine also may be made one of a trio, with Eurip-
ides and Seneca. There is obviously a superficial
connection between the three, that the form of a cient
tragedy is maintained; Mr. Frederic Harrison char-
acterizes the plays of Racine as tableaux of antiquity.^
But the differences are fundamental. In Euripides
ancient tragedy has fulness of life; the Chorus is a
living chorus, a portion of the audience projected into
the imagined incidents, forcing unity of impression
throughout. With Seneca drama in the strict sense is
dead : the plays are not for acting, and the Chorus is
no more than an appendage to the other dramatis
personce. Yet a new galvanic life has come in, of
rhetoric : characters, plot, lyrics, are with Seneca only
collections of opportunities for rhetoric exuberance.^
With Racine tragedy has come to life again — the
life of passion. The Chorus (in the Greek sense) is
gone, but much of its binding force on the unity of plot
remains. It is tragedy of situation : but the situations
are handled by Racine so as to give the widest scope for
force and play of human passions. No drama depends
upon the acting so much as the drama of Racine.
1 Compare my Introduction to Dr. J. D. Bruner's Studies in Victor
Hugo's Dramatic Characters [Ginn & Co.].
2 "Choice of Books," pages 53-54.
» The tragedy of Seneca is fully discussed in my Ancient Classical
Drama, Chapter V. For translation see below, page 492.
[422]
ROMANTIC EPIC
IX, World literature has few greater artists than
Sir Walter Scott : to lose the taste for Scott is usually
symptom of a jaded palate, produced by over-much
criticism, or by that bias towards the exceptional
which so often mistakes itself for superiority. Popular
instinct was right in recognizing the Waverley Novels
as making a new literary era. Not that the appear-
ance of Scott stands alone; it is part of a series of
literary phenomena, the most conspicuous of which are
the Ossian of Macpherson and the Percy Ballads.
The whole amounts to a new departure for epic poetry :
its form, verse or prose ; its field, the matter of romance.
The tendency to limit the term ''epic" to literature of
which Homer is the great type is a mistake, due partly
to critical conservatism, partly to the widespread con-
fusion between poetry and verse. It is entirely in
accordance with the rest of literary evolution that
narrative creation should cease to be bound by verse,
and express itself with all degrees of rhythmic freedom.
And another change is natural. The oldest epics are
the product of floating literature; in the struggle for
existence that this implies it readily happens that a
few stories survive, and draw into themselves matter
originally belonging to other stories. In the totally
different conditions of literature fixed by writing epic
creation will crystallize in variety of stories. Scott's
poems and novels constitute Romantic Epic : stories
separate and independent represent various parts of
the whole field of romance, yet the totality of his works
may be regarded as an epic whole that compares with
the grand epics of antiquity.
[423]
STRATEGIC POINTS IN LITERATURE
As it appears to me, one name may in this connection
be associated with that of Sir Walter Scott : the name
of Sienkiewicz. Here we have Romantic Epic, not
turned in a variety of directions, but concentrated
upon one field — that of Slav mediaeval life, a lost star
of historic brilliance. To the greater part of English
readers Sienkiewicz is known mainly by his Quo Vadis,
a great story, but one by no means specially characteris-
tic of its author. It is only in his novels of Polish life
that the full power of Sienkiewicz is shown, especially
the trilogy of the Zagloba Romances — With Fire and
Sword, The Deluge, Pan Michael. Here, in the same
romantic atmosphere which belongs to the works of
Scott, we have the most powerful characterization and
passion, and an absolutely illimitable fertility of
stirring incident. And as a bright thread running
through the whole we have the personality of Zagloba,
the only figure that can be put by the side of Falstaff ;
that is to say, we have here the outside of a Falstaff
with a heart of gold. Of course, detailed comparison
would be impossible : how can the medium of drama,
which concentrates a personality in a few scenes, be set
over against the medium of sustained epic, that will
spread a similar personality over a long succession of
detailed incidents? Zagloba is not the least im-
portant element in the Polish trilogy ; it thus appears
that Romantic Epic, like Romantic Drama, owes great
part of its general power to the mixture of tones.
X. One name in the world's literature stands quite
by itself : a Peak of Teneriffe in the literary landscape.
This is Rabelais. Not that he has not influenced
[424]
BALZAC AND VICTOR HUGO
followers, like Swift ; but imitations of Rabelais are of
only passing importance, while not to know the original
is not to know hterature. It will not do to make too
much of the satiric profundity which some see in this
writer; Rabelais is rather to be approached as a phe-
nomenon of literatiu-e, compelling by its extraordinari-
ness. It is a sort of literary inebriety : we have the
elephantine gambolling of the highest genius in the
field of pure nonsense, with an indecency so colossal
as to be harmless. Rabelaisism leads nowhere, and
connects itself with nothing, but while it lasts it is as
irresistible as a winter torrent. We have here a region
of world literature which every traveller needs to visit,
while few will wish to stay there long.
XI. From France again world literature gains a
double star of the first magnitude : this time in the
field of the novel. We naturally put side by side
Balzac and Victor Hugo. Both represent the highest
creative genius brought to bear upon the delineation
of human nature. Balzac was an ardent admirer of
Sir Walter Scott : yet no two things called by the same
name could be more unlike than the Waverley novels
and the novels of Balzac. The name by which the
Frenchman described his life work, actual and pro-
jected, was Comedie Humaine, of course in antithesis
to the Divine Comedy of Dante. This Comedy of
Humanity was story worked out, not with epic, but
with dramatic spirit : its action turning upon intrigue,
its motives always pathological. And it is worked out
in the real world of French social life. Victor Hugo
might well have called his fiction by the name of
1425]
STRATEGIC POINTS IN LITERATURE
Tragedie Humaine. It is a presentation of real life
much wider in its range than the hfe presented by
Balzac ; comprehending the highest and the lowest
social strata, extending beyond the life of France, and
beyond the age contemporary with the author. But
its great distinction is that it presents real life irradiated
with single ideas, ideas which Hugo uses all his sledge-
hammer force to emphasize and make as dominant as
the idea of Destiny in the tragedy of Greece. In the
Hunchback of Notre Dame we have society in the grasp
of Ecclesiasticism, at a time when the Church is at its
full strength; in U Homme qui rit, we have society
in the grasp of Aristocracy, the scene laid in aristo-
cratic England before the democratic movement has
begun. In the Toilers of the Sea, the dominant idea is
Labor, as an inspiration and as a tyranny. And
Les MiseraUes is dominated by the supreme motive of
Sin and Redemption. When we thus bring together
Balzac and Victor Hugo, we realize how, in the de-
lineation of human nature, France with its novelists
makes a counterpoise to England with its drama.
XII. The approach and actual opening of the
nineteenth century shows England leading world
literature in a reaction against the conventional poetry
that had almost frozen inspiration to death, under the
oligarchical influence of Dryden, Pope, and Samuel
Johnson. This reaction is represented chiefly by two
poets, who are naturally named together by way of
contrast — Byron and Wordsworth. Byron rose be-
fore Europe with brilliant rush, attracting universal
attention, Goethe himself leading the applause : it is a
[426 1
BYRON AND WORDSWORTH
question whether the image of the rocket must not be
carried to completion in his case. Yet the poems of
Byron belong to world literature, as embodying one
phase of the general reaction : an impulse to escape
stagnation at all costs ; an impulse often described by
the word ''demonic"; a movement away from con-
vention, whether it be conventional good or evil, and
in any direction, provided only there is a sense of
momentum. Wordsworth is totally different : he is
represented by the cry, Back to Nature. Nature,
perpetual theme of poetry, had, by the wearing thin of
the classical tradition, been attenuated with iterations
and echoes of echoes, till it had become a mere
conventional thing without any reality. Wordsworth
seeks contact at first hand with Nature, all traditions
thrown aside ; with external Nature, and with the
humanity that in daily life is closest to Nature. From
the English point of view, at all events, Wordsworth
is the prophet of External Nature, and the revealer of
the sincere and profound sentiment which the visible
world can call forth in a sensitive soul, a sentiment
which opens a new era for poetic literature.
The literature of our own times I have left almost
untouched. Not that it would not have full relevance
to the subject of this work : it is a feature of the present
age that the leading peoples of the world are drawing
nearer to one another, as if making a common reading
circle to which the best products of each people will
appeal. And the different literatures can produce
each its roll of names, for which plausible claims can be
[427]
STRATEGIC POINTS IN LITERATURE
made to the position of great masters. But we are
too near them to judge these claims, and to attempt
the difficult distinction between what is of local and
temporary, and what is of permanent value. With the
great body of readers present-day literature may safely
be left to take care of itself; there is moreover no
lack of well-equipped critics and essajdsts ready, not
only to discuss current literature, but to give the im-
pression that there is nothing else worth discussing.
To my own mind, a more serious consideration seems
to be the danger that, at the present time, literary taste
may divorce itself from literary history. To be thor-
oughly grounded in the hterature of the past, more
especially in that perspective view of the past which in
this work it is attempted to secure, this makes the
best attitude of mind with which to approach the htera-
ture of the present.
[428
CHAPTER X
WORLD LITERATURE AS THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
CIVILIZATION
A NATIONAL literature, it is generally recognized,
is a reflection of the national history. Literature
is much more than a product of the individual. A
lunatic — to take the ad absurdum degree of indi-
viduality — may write a book, and, if he can com-
mand funds, may get his book printed and published :
but it will take some degree of public acceptance,
acceptance at the time or in the future, to convert
that book into literature. Books as books reflect their
authors ; as literature, they reflect the public opinion
which gives them endorsement. Thus a national
literature as a whole is seen to reflect the successive
stages, or accidental phases, through which the history
of the nation has passed. And this principle will seem
the truer in proportion as our conception of history is
more adequate. At first, it might seem as if only cer-
tain kinds of literature would serve to reflect national
history. Authors are free to take topics remote from
their own day and generation; they may, and often
do, create for themselves purely ideal worlds. Swin-
burne, in the nineteenth century, produces dramas in
Greek form which read as purely Greek in their matter
[429]
WORLD LITERATURE
and thought as if they were plays of ^schylus or
Sophocle^ Spenser's Faerie Queene depends for its
main interest upon the degree in which its incidents
are kept at a distance from real Ufe : how, it might be
objected, can the Erechtheus and the Atalanta in Calydon
be said to reflect nineteenth-century England, or the
Faerie Queene the age of Elizabeth ? The answer
depends upon the idea we hold as to the meaning of
history. At a time when feudal conceptions were still
strong, history meant dynastic history, and confined
itself to the concerns of the reigning families and of
those closely associated with them. Then history
widened, and became the record of public events in
general. It widened further, to take in the manners
and customs of a country : instead of the history of
England we had the history of the English people.
Yet its scope is wider than this, and includes a nation's
ideas and tastes. A man's character is not made by
what he does only, but by what he loves and hates and
wishes; the most important element in the character
may be made by the man's unfulfilled aspirations.
So it is an important item of English history that a
nineteenth-century Englishman was profoundly inter-
ested, and could interest those about him, in the Greek
point of view of two thousand years before ; it is
another item of English history that an Elizabethan
reading public had strength of imagination to be
enthusiastic over idealized shadows. The wider our
sense of the historic, the more fully shall we see in a
national literature the reflection of the national history.
Now, the principle that is true for the smaller unit
[430]
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CIVILIZATION
of the nation holds good equally for the larger unit of
civilization.
The physical sciences have one advantage over the
studies we group together under the name of the hu-
manities : in the physical sciences it is so easy to realize
the common ground between them. The geologist,
the chemist, the physiologist, the psychologist, with all
their differences of field and method, are perfectly aware
that they are all studying the same one thing, which
they call by some such name as nature. But what is
the common ground between the humanity studies?
We must not answer, Man : for that brings us into
the sphere of sciences like anthropology or sociology.
The question is difficult, but perhaps the best answer
is that the common object of the humanity studies is
Civilization. But if this is correct, then it must be
admitted that our humanity studies are organized in a
way to defeat their chief aim ; they are found to con-
centrate attention on the surface variations of civiliza-
tion, and to leave the thing itself almost untouched.
Take four neighbor nations, English, French, German,
Italian ; bring representative men of these four nations
together : it will immediately appear that the national
distinctions separating the four are infinitesimally
small in comparison with the common civilization that
binds them together. If they have some means of
getting over the practical difficulty of language, then
they can converse together with easy community of
feeling, to which their national peculiarities do no more
than give a flavor of variety. Add to their company
a Turk or a Malay : in contact with the strange civi-
1431]
WORLD LITERATURE
lization the first four feel themselves a unit. Yet it is
the separate languages with their separate literatures
and histories that make the humanity studies : the
common civilization is almost entirely left out. The
effect is as if, in studying grammar, we were painfully
to memorize long lists of exceptions and forget to learn
the rules ; or as if, in medical art, we were to arrange
elaborate systems of instruction separately for the
training of expert oculists and expert aurists, while
leaving the general physiology and pathology of the
human body to be picked up by these oculists and
aurists in chance readings of their leisure moments.
The Englishman naturally desires to understand
English civilization and culture. But the knowledge
of this will not be given him by the history of England.
When the land of Britain was invaded by Julius Caesar,
and the English race was so immersed in the darkness
of European antiquities that it is difficult to identify
it — in other words, when the history of England was
in its first faint beginnings — at that time the foun-
dations of English civilization and culture had been
laid long before, and the edifice was far advanced
towards its completion. A foundation step had been
taken centuries and centuries before, when, in the
far-off region of Mesopotamia, Abraham had set out
on his profoundly original journey of exploration, "to
a country that God should give him": a migration
to found a race that should be separated from other
races, not by geography or ethnology, but by the
cherishing of a spiritual instinct which should develop
in the course of centuries into a force strong enough
1432]
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CIVILIZATION
to determine the whole spiritual side of English and
kindred civilizations. Again, for centuries and cen-
turies before that opening of English history, another
leading element of English civilization had been in
progress, when, amid the ripening life of Greek races,
competing rhapsodists, and later competing dramatists,
filled with poetic enthusiasm, had been unconsciously
framing the laws of rhythm and conceptions of what
constitutes beauty, such as would eventually mould
the taste and literary sense of English and European
peoples. In the same remote period, though some-
what later, another stage in the creation of English
civilization had been won when Greek sophists, search-
ing into the mystery of the world around them no longer
explained by religion, fell gradually into habits of think-
ing which were destined, eventually, to make for
English culture its logical sense and impulse to scientific
truth. Some three centuries before that beginning of
English history the great crisis in the history of EngHsh
and European civilization had been passed, when
Macedonian conquerors, spreading on all sides Greek
language and culture, unconsciously brought about
the blending of Hellenic with Hebraic, which deter-
mined once for all the quality of human thought and
character that should eventually dominate the western
world. Before invasions like those of Hengist and
Horsa had made a second beginning for the history of
England, the structure of English civilization had
attained its definite form in the Christianization of the
Roman Empire, the interplay of State and Church,
of imperial government and clerical culture, by which
2f [433]
WORLD LITERATURE
the modern world was to be slowly moulded. It is a
worthy task of a history to trace the development of
English nationality ; but nationality is itself a late
idea, belonging to the closing stages of mediaevalism,
and before this the real English culture is the culture
of Europe. We hear of the introduction of Christianity
into England in one century, of the Norman Conquest
of England in another century : what these events
mean is that solitary England is by revolution plunged
into the life stream of European civilization. Later on,
when it can be seen that the English people are strong
in national individuality, it yet remains true that the
main forces in the progress of their civilization are
found outside — feudal courts and their circle of poetic
aspirants; streams of traditional story from all quar-
ters pouring in to a Europe that is a literary unity ;
Saracen civilization coming into rivalry and conflict
with a Christian civilization thus led to feel still more
strongly its own strength; clerical disputers uniting
faith and philosophy in a new logic ; clerical poets
making an allegorical religion of love ; Italian priest-
craft playing against German zeal for reform, with
renovated Greek learning as a third issue. When the
whole area of the history of England has been traversed,
nine-tenths of the history of English civilization and
culture has been left outside.
Nor can the knowledge of our civilization and culture
be attained by any process of simple addition. I sup-
pose that the theory of the humanity studies — if
there be a theory — is that we should master our Eng-
lish language and literature, and add to this French
[434]
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CIVILIZATION
language and literature, to this German, Greek, Latin,
and the rest. The programme seems a long one,
enough to fill the whole length of an ordinary life.
But when this programme has been carried to com-
pletion, we have still not really commenced our study
of civilization : we have merely been getting our
materials together. The civilization and culture in
which we make a part can be studied only by a process
similar in kind to that which in the present work has
been applied to literature. We must take our stand
at the point where we find ourselves, and, looking from
that point in all directions, we must bring perspective
into play : we must distinguish what from our view-
point is great and what small, what is essential and
what less essential, and with such perspective view
ever maintained we must bring our constructive powers
into action.
Of course, it is the function of history to do all this ;
history, besides dealing with individual nations or
epochs, undertakes to trace for us the development of
civilization. But just here the principle comes in
which it is the purpose of this chapter to emphasize :
namely, that as a national literature is the reflection of
the national history, so in world literature is reflected
the course of civilization. The literary unit we call
the Holy Bible dramatizes for us, as we have seen, the
evolution through the ages of those conceptions which
are the foundation of our spiritual nature. Greek epics
and dramas, not to mention other productions of the
Greeks, not only gratify our poetic taste, but are the
very instrument by which that taste has been created.
[435]
WORLD LITERATURE
Shakespeare appears before us, not simply as a repre-
sentative of Elizabethan England — though of course
that view of him is interesting — but as a force in
civilization, by which the slow accumulations of ro-
mance were struck into new life by impact of a drama-
tizing power imported from the classical east. Medi-
aeval culture, which is part of our culture, is highly
complex, full of difficulties and unfamiliarities : in the
Divine Comedy all that is most important in mediaeval
culture lights up for us with the illumination of su-
preme poetic genius. In the history of England, at the
moment when the Restoration was a thing accom-
plished and the nation firmly determined to keep its
monarchy, it became a matter of trifling importance
whether the man Milton should be hanged as a warn-
ing to rebels, or as an extinct force be suffered to live
on in obscurity. To civilization it was of prime import
that he lived on, and his mind became a powerful
reflector, which could catch rays coming from Puritan
thought on the one side, and rays from classical form
on the other side, and focus them into a clear image by
which world literature gained what it could have gained
from no other source. When the mediaeval unity of
Europe breaks up into modern nationalities the history
of civilization becomes increasingly complex : we gain
assistance from literature when we see some of these
national differentiations — English Elizabethanism,
Catholic Spain, German culture, nineteenth-century
mysticism — obligingly cooperate in moulding the
same Faust story to reflect for us their divergent points
of view. In the study of world literature we get devel-
[436]
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CIVILIZATION
oped the comparative habit of mind, which acts as a
lens to bring together resemblances and contrasts from
all parts of the complex civihzation. It is the function
of history to lead us by philosophical analysis to the
understanding of civilization and culture : world lit-
erature is civilization presented by itself.
Hence we may speak of World Literature as the
Autobiography of Civilization. For what is auto-
biography ? An individual, wise with advancing years,
and at all events old enough to feel that his life is not
an aggregation of accidents, but a unity with a sig-
nificance, sets out to interpret his life to others. His
interpretation may of course fall into error. But we
feel that autobiography is never so soundly autobio-
graphical as where the writer, instead of discussing his
life, is presenting it : in his letters and correspondence,
in his conversations and discourses, in his original
compositions, whatever the special output of the life
may be. The history of civilization corresponds to the
formal discussion of the life. World Literature is
autobiography in the sense that it is the presentation of
civihzation in its own best products, its most signifi-
cant moments emphasized as they appear illuminated
with the highest literary setting.
[437]
CONCLUSION
THE PLACE OF WORLD LITERATURE IN EDUCATION
CONCLUSION
THE PLACE OF WORLD LITERATURE IN EDUCATION
THIS book has been written from the standpoint of
education : ahke formal academic education and
that half-involuntary self-education which fills the
lives of thinkers and readers. Its general drift has been
that literature, traditionally foremost of studies, has
fallen behind in educational evolution ; that, although
nterary intermingled with historic and linguistic matter
occupies a large share of attention, nevertheless litera-
ture itself has yet to be precipitated as an independent
study ; further, that to recognize fully the unity of the
whole literary field is the indispensable condition for
restoring literary study to its fundamental position in
the humanities side of education. I have ventured to
formulate these ideas, or at least one aspect of them,
in the name World Literature. Such World Litera-
ture is a paramount interest for the man of culture.
And in academic activity World Literature has a
field, a method, and a scholarship of its own, quite
distinct from the field and method and scholarship of
existing literary studies.
If education be surveyed from this point of view,
what most obviously attracts attention is the study we
call Classics. This is the departmental study of Latin
and Greek. However high may be the value of this
[441]
WORLD LITERATURE
study on other grounds, yet it proves totally inadequate
if considered as a training in literature. For the best
of its students the literary culture it has brought must
be pronounced not catholic, but provincial. For the
vast majority of those who have passed through a
classical course there has been no training in literature
at all. And it is easy to see how this has come about.
Our conceptions of education date from the period of
the Renaissance. At that time classical studies made
the 'piece de resistance of the whole structure of culture,
and were admirably fitted for the purpose, from their
even balance between linguistic disciphne and literature
of the highest order. But inevitably in the course of
time other studies invaded the educational programme,
diminishing the proportion of the whole which could be
allotted to Classics. Now, all this diminution in the
attention given to classical study was a diminution
made from its literary side, since the literary culture
does not commence until the difficult Latin and Greek
languages have been thoroughly mastered. Accord-
ingly, while education as a whole has been advancing,
the amount of hterary training afforded by classical
studies has been proportionately diminishing ; until —
apart from a small body of exceptional students — the
whole effect of Classics is linguistic training, and the
study is for the most part advocated for its disciphnary
value.
Let it be clearly understood that I am not attempting
to balance the relative value of linguistic and literary
training. Such a question cannot be discussed in gen-
eral terms, but is bound up with the special circum-
[442]
AN ESSENTIAL OF GENERAL CULTURE
stances of particular students or institutions. To
those who take the position that they have not time
for literature, having more important work to do, there
is nothing more to be said. But the vast majority of
those who enter upon classical studies do so in the
belief that they are engaging in the study of literature ;
for these it becomes necessary to point out that, as
things stand, the literary training has evaporated out of
the study of Classics in all but a few exceptional cases.
Some suspicion of this, I believe, underlies the objections
we sometimes hear put forward against literary culture
in general, as compared with scientific or practical
education. I believe that, if these objections could be
brought to cross-examination, it would be found that
there was no antagonism against literary culture in
itself, but an instinctive doubt whether professed
literary studies really secure it. If a man sets out to
study science or history, the chances are that what he
is seeking he will get in greater or less degree. But of
those who make literary study their goal the large
majority fail to reach it.
For alternatives to Classics we are offered such
studies as Modern Languages and English. From our
point of view of literary study these seem a very super-
ficial remedy. It may be true that, modern languages
being more quickly mastered, the student is in this way
brought into contact with a larger amount of litera-
ture in a given time. But it is also true that what
literature he touches has by no means the crucial
importance of classical literature. He is being kept
all the time on the outer circumference, and does not
[443]
WORLD LITERATURE
reach the real centre of literature. It sounds plausible
when one of the English-speaking races says, At least
let us know our own literature. But the question arises,
What is "our own Uterature" ? Is it literature in the
English tongue? Or is it the literature, in whatever
language expressed, which as an historic fact has in-
spired our great masters, and formed our own thought
and taste ? ^ We must beware of false analogies between
language and literature. If the question were of the
English language, then it is clear there can be no sci-
entific study of this without going back to its sources
in Anglo-Saxon or Old English. But of our literature,
as we have seen, the sources are to be looked for else-
where : in the classical and biblical literatures, and
the influences of European Romance. In our literary
pedigree Anglo-Saxon literature has no place, unless it
be the place of a poor relation. The objector on
behalf of the English-speaking races was sound in his
instinct, but he expressed himself wrongly; what he
really desired was, not English literature, but litera-
ture in English. English literature, great as it is,
remains only a single item of the Hterary whole ; what
the Englishman needs is world literature brought to
him in his own English tongue, in which he can reach
the literary effect of what he is reading, undistracted
by interruptions of linguistic puzzles, and the mechan-
ism of grammar and dictionary.
It is the absence from our educational schemes of
1 It is hardly necessary to remark that ample justice is done to
considerations of this kind in Mr. W. J. Conrthope's magnificent
History of English Poetry.
[444]
AN ESSENTIAL OF GENERAL CULTURE
what in this work has been called World Literature,
that makes all these alternatives futile. The study
of Classics, combined with world literature in English,
has all the advantages claimed for classical studies, and
the objection is removed that in such treatment litera-
ture is lost in language. I remember hearing a man
of the highest academic position, and one who had
taken the highest classical honors of his university,
describe his own introduction as a schoolboy to Virgil.
It was the custom of the school for three classes to
take their Virgil together; the highest of the three
could perhaps prepare two hundred lines for a lesson,
the next class one hundred, the third (to which the
speaker belonged) only fifty. Thus, his first acquaint-
ance with the ^neid consisted in reading lines 1 to 50,
lines 201 to 250, lines 401 to 450, and so on. Of course,
the motive of this otherwise ridiculous arrangement
was opportunity for drill in elementary Latin, which is
a good thing in itself. But how simple it would have
been with this drill to combine the literary presentation
of the whole Mneid in English, with all its chances of
awakening through a masterpiece a literary taste at
the most impressionable period of a boy's life.^ Simi-
1 The principle here touched is of wide-reaching importance.
Even in its own field the prevailing study of Classics is discredited
by the small proportion of Greek and Latin literature that can be
covered by a school or even a university course ; many writers of
high importance in their bearing on ancient history and life being
seldom attempted. If the principle were followed of combining a
nucleus of Greek and Latin authors, thoroughly studied in the origi-
nal, with a much wider literary area read freely in translation, the
whole study would be brought nearer to its own ideals.
[445]
WORLD. LITERATURE
larly, modern languages and English make excellent
specialties added to a basis of general literary study.
The choice between the alternative systems will de-
pend upon a variety of educational considerations not
pertinent to our present discussion; but any one of
them, thus supplemented by world literature, becomes
educationally defensible as a foundation for humanity
studies. And it would be found that the linguistic
interest in the Latin, Greek, French, German, would be
quickened by the literary interest of the whole study.
But there is something more to be said. All these
alternatives, if we allow all they claim for themselves,
yet stand convicted of omitting the Bible from their
literary education. There is no claim for classical
literature as an element of culture which cannot, with
equal force, be made for biblical literature. It is the
scandal of our higher education that we acquiesce in the
tradition of the half pagan Renaissance which leaves
a gulf between academic discipline and what we feel
to be real culture ; that our education neglects the one
literature of which the matter surpasses all other
matter in intrinsic importance, while its literary forms
are just what is needed to widen the confined outlook
of a criticism founded on the single literature of the
ancient Greeks. Of course, the ground of this neglect
is partly the fear of biblical study touching points of
religious and ecclesiastical dispute. The objection
would come with more weight, if those who urge it were
taking some means of otherwise providing for biblical
culture. But I believe there is no real substance in
objections of this type. The question is not of theo-
[446]
AN ESSENTIAL OF GENERAL CULTURE
logical, or directly religious teaching, but of literature
which, quite apart from its connection with religion,
would demand attention as part of our intellectual
inheritance; of biblical literature treated purely as
literature, which makes the common ground on which
differing theologies meet. Of course, a tactless teacher
could make trouble in handling this matter : but so
can a tactless teacher make trouble in handling science
and history. I may bear personal testimony on this
subject. For the last twenty years, a considerable part
of my work has been to present biblical matter, both
to public audiences and university classes ; and I have
never found any difficulty of the kind suggested which
was not trifling in itself and easily met. But if there
be such difficulties, they must be faced and overcome.
If the study of literature cannot square itself with its
own first principles, we must expect to see it super-
seded by better organized studies.
To translate these general considerations into aca-
demic terms. A course of education is understood to
combine a general with special elements : all educa-
tors agree upon this, however much they may differ as
to the distribution of the two parts. The point of the
present argument is that World Literature should not
be treated as a specialty, but as a part of general edu-
cation ; it is not to be considered as an option that
may be taken late, but as an essential in the founda-
tion stage of education, part of the common body of
knowledge which makes the election of optional studies
intelligent. No one would suggest a complete scheme
of education, however specialized in the end, which
[447]
WORLD LITEIL^TURE
had not at some point touched Hterature : my argu-
ment is that in this hterary element, be it smaller or
greater, World Literature is the important part. For
World Literature is an elastic thing, that lends itself to
more elementary or more advanced study. What in
this work has been put forward under that name is
purely an individual scheme; but some presentation
of general literature, reflecting the unity of literature
so far as our own history and civilization have been
affected by literary influences, has importance at any
stage of education. For education, elementary or
advanced, such World Literature is more potent than
any single literature can be in securing the aims of
literary culture : in developing the sense of what
hterature is ; in broadening human sympathies, as
travel broadens them, by bringing us into contact with
racial ideas different from our owti ; in stimulating the
interest that makes a man a reader; in cherishing the
taste which will shun the bad simply by preferring
the good. It is more important — if the choice must
be made — that students, whether younger or older,
should be acquainted with Homer than that they should
be acquainted with Chaucer or Dryden or Scott.
Classical tragedies and comedies are more important
for us than any dramatic literature except Shakespeare,
and they have a priority of time over Shakespearean
dramas because they are so much simpler. Bible
story, prophetic vision and lyrics, wisdom literature
with its glorification of the simple things of life, are
more powerful in their literary training than selected
specimens of English or Latin hterature. For awaken-
[448]
GENERAL STUDIES NEED STRENGTHENING
ing insight into literature and its power of interpret-
ing life more may be done by following the versions
of the Faust Story, or by a course of comparative read-
ing, than by the study of a whole single literature
isolated from other literatures. The perspective of the
whole literary field, which is the essential point of World
Literature, is that which gives to each particular lit-
erature when it is studied fresh interest and fresh
significance. It is the common bond which draws to-
gether the humanity studies into a single discipline.
And for those whose main interest is widely removed
from literature, who follow the physical or mathe-
matical sciences or art, if their education touches litera-
ture at all, it is this World Literature that most concerns
them, and not any single literature, even though that
be the literature of their native land.
This contention is simply one side of a wider consider-
ation applying to liberal education as a whole : in our
liberal education it is the general as against the special
side that at the present time needs strengthening.
Our education ought to be self-explaining as a whole
scheme, instead of being, as it generally is, a congeries
of separate subjects, maintained by the excellence of
the particular subjects, but without any comparative
grasp; a house without a building plan. If modern
education be compared with the old-time education
which consisted mainly in classical studies, no reason-
able man will doubt that there has been a great advance.
But it is also true that the variety of studies we have
introduced have fought their way into the programme
one by one, squeezing classical culture into smaller
2 G f 449 ]
WORLD LITERATURE
and smaller proportions ; there has been no revision of
the general scheme of learning that binds the separate
parts together. Differentiation and generalization are
the systole and diastole of mental progress. It is
inevitable that as time goes on newer and more minute
special studies should assert themselves; it is equally
inevitable, if progress is to be sound, that with these
newer interests the whole field of learning should from
time to time be resurveyed, and the distribution of its
parts recast. It is from lack of this generalizing ele-
ment that our schemes of liberal culture so often pre-
sent a strange mixture of thoroughness and looseness,
of precision with absence of perspective, lumps of real
knowledge in a paste of unconscious ignorance. A
student of one type will, at the conclusion of an aca-
demic course, have a fair grasp of English history and
the history of ancient Greece and Rome : all between
is to him a desert with elephants for cities; he may
have taken classical honors without having the Mid-
dle Ages so much as mentioned to him, or he thinks
of them as a dark interval when nothing particular was
being done. A student of another type is able to do
really expert work in one or two sciences ; yet, let him
from the starting-point of these sciences proceed to
wider discussions, his discussion betrays how un-
grounded he is even in the philosophy of science itself.
A man can hardly, at the present time, set up as an
artist in any branch of art without having really wide
knowledge of his art, and a minutely developed tech-
nique : this does not prevent the fact that a large pro-
portion of artists seem narrow in their culture, and those
[450]
GENERAL STUDIES NEED STRENGTHENING
who are brilliant exceptions would be the first to insist
that this narrow general culture reacts upon the art
itself. The significance of all this is not anything
inimical to high specialization : the difficulty is that,
while in every special study there are plenty of eager
guides, yet there seems a conspiracy of neglect in refer-
ence to the broader studies that make the map of the
general field of learning, and bring the special studies
together. Lack of this generalized education takes
from the specialties themselves great part of their cul-
tural value.
The late Sir J. R. Seeley was a man of high academic
position, and an author of front rank : he speaks in
the strongest language of the way our education fails in
this very respect of being without ideal and plan, of
the absence of any relation between education and
reality.
Look, then, how the Enghsh people treat their children. Try and
discover from the way they train them, from the education they give
them, what they wish them to be. They have ceased, ahnost con-
sciously ceased, to have any ideal at all. . . . The parent, from
sheer embarrassment and want of an ideal, has in a manner abdicated.^
But, in Seeley's view, it is not the education of chil-
dren only that suffers from this lack of ideal and plan.
In England the ideas of the multitudes are perilously divergent
from those of the thinking class. No sufficient pains have been
taken to diffuse everywhere the real religion of the age. No ade-
quate doctrine of civilization is taught among us. Science only pene-
trates either in the form of useful information or else in that of a
negative doctrine opposed to religion ; as itself a main part of relig-
* Natural Religion, page 134.
[ 451 ]
WORLD LITERATURE
ion, as the grand revelation of God in these later times supplement-
ing rather than superseding older revelations, it remains almost as
much unknown as in the dark ages. Still less known perhaps is that
doctrine of the gradual development of human society which alone
can explain to us the present state of affairs, give us the clue to his-
tory, save us from political aberrations and point out the direction of
progress. So long as churches were efficient, this idea of the continu-
ity of civilization was kept before the general mind. A grand outline
of God's dealings with the human race, drawn from the Bible and the
church doctrine, a sort of map of history, was possessed by all ahke.
Are we sufficiently aware what bewilderment must have arisen
when this is no longer the case, when those old outlines grow un-
serviceable, but no new map is furnished ? ^
He says again : —
In our culture there is at present a most dangerous gap. While
most other great subjects of knowledge have been brought under
systematic treatment, rescued from mere popular misconception,
and then, when the great generalizations have been duly settled,
rendered back to the people in authoritative teaching, one subject
remains an exception, and that one the all-important subject of the
history of civilization. No grand trustworthy outlines have yet
been put within the reach of all, which may serve as a chart to guide
us in political and social movement.^
It is the crudity of our general scheme of studies, how-
ever excellent the separate parts may be, that has
taken the interest out of education, and caused it to
be voted by outsiders the dullest of topics. And it is
in the humanities side of education that the absence of
coordination is most felt, the absence of what Seeley
calls a doctrine or outline of civilization. What in this
^ Natural Religion, page 208. [I have somewhat condensed the
passage.]
2 Natural Religion, page 256.
[452]
UNIVERSITIES NARROWING INTO SCHOOLS
work is called World Literature is just what is needed
to draw together the scattered parts of humanity
studies. When the unity of all history and the unity
of all literature are made the basis on which such
studies are arranged, the ideal of thoroughness in de-
tails not being allowed to obscure the more difficult
ideal of accurate perspective, then the humanity studies
will carry with them their own vindication.
It seems natural to go on to another consideration :
that of the change which seems to be coming over the
conception of a university, a change I would describe
by saying that universities seem to be narrowing into
schools. School education I understand to be educa-
tion conceived as a preparation for something, univer-
sity education is education as an end in itself. This
definition may perhaps be challenged by those who
would point out that the earliest universities appear
in Europe as combinations of professional schools.
But this is an argument of names rather than of
things: the word ''university," before it settled down
to its academic significance, had a broader sense, some-
thing like that of the word ''union" at the present
time ; we remember the great leader who was accus-
tomed to call the Church of Christ the University of
the Saints.^ As to school education, usage is perfectly
definite : the clergyman, the lawyer, the doctor, the
artist, are prepared for their professions by divinity
schools, law schools, medical schools, schools of art ;
the common school is similarly that which prepares for
common life. Yet there is surely such a thing as edu-
■ ' Huss's phrase : Ecclesia Christi universitas proedestinatorum.
[453]
WORLD LITERATURE
cation for its own sake with no ulterior purpose, and
what is the organ of such education if not the univer-
sity? Of course, in the detailed teaching of any par-
ticular subject the two types of education cannot in
practice be separated ; institutions called universities
must administer what is school education, and institu-
tions called schools must give what, in the sense of the
definition, is the university idea of education for its
own sake. But the new tendency is for universities to
move further and further from their function of cultural
teaching, and concentrate more and more upon the
school function of preparation for special activities.
It is not so long since the university was looked upon
as the natural home of culture. Unfortunately, an
impoverished significance came to attach itself to the
word "culture," and it seemed to connote the posses-
sion of whatever culture may be. Accordingly, aca-
demic bodies tended to become close circles of superior
persons, organized for cultural intercourse and for the
training of their successors. Not only was this an
unworthy ideal, but such a social body was bound to
stagnate : university circles became reactionary and
conservative, and university teaching a monotony of
courses of lectures delivered over and over again from
manuscripts yellow with age. A healthy reaction set
in, by which a university was to be a body of persons
doing original work as well as teaching. Nothing
could be sounder. Only, a somewhat limited sense was
attached to the word "original": it was associated
with what was called advancing the boundaries of
knowledge; with investigation, but only investigation
[454]
UNIVERSITIES NARROWING INTO SCHOOLS
in new directions. Thus the school function of a
university was emphasized, in the form of training
investigators. Of course universities continued to
teach, but with a difference : to teach was their duty,
to investigate became their ambition.
Now, if culture is to be a wholesome thing, the word
must connote the diffusion of whatever culture may be.
As the boundaries of investigation are extended in
various directions, there arises a need for reorganizing
the general field, redistributing our enlarged knowledge
and correlating its parts afresh ; above all, there is need
for the diffusion of the results through the ranks of the
people. There is just as much scope for original work,
and work demanding the highest original powers, in the
diffusion of knowledge as in its enlargement. New
diffusion of knowledge is enlargement of knowledge.
Without proportionate diffusion, the enlarged field of
learning comes to be like a community in which there
are forces to stimulate economic production without
enhanced provisions for distribution, a state of things
we associate with crops rotting for lack of rolling stock,
and markets that can find no buyers. We talk much
about the grossly unequal distribution of wealth
throughout the ranks of a people. But no small pro-
portion of human ills rest upon the grossly and unneces-
sarily unequal distribution of knowledge. We have
a religious world shaken by doubts, and falling foul of
its own most distinguished leaders, while those leaders
are absorbed in the very newest questions that have
just emerged, careless that results secured a generation
or two ago have never been really brought home to the
[455]
WORLD LITERATURE
mass of their followers. We know how dangerous
economic heresies can run rampant, while highly trained
economic minds prefer the easier task of controversy
with rivals to the more difficult problem of making the
foundations of economic science prevalent in the
pubUc mind. New enlargement and wide diffusion of
knowledge stand on equal terms : but diffusion has
the priority in time. No limits can be set to the ad-
vance of knowledge ; yet there does not seem to be any
overpowering reason why a particular discovery should
be made to-day rather than to-morrow. On the
other hand, sluggish diffusion of improved knowledge
means another generation of men passing away with-
out it.
I do not forget that there are some who strongly de-
fend this shifting in the ideal of a university, and in
defending it use a word that seems to have an almost
magical effect at the present time : they cry out that
our education must be practical. If by ''practical" is
meant close connection with actual life, I should be the
first to take sides against an education that was unprac-
tical. But in reality the argument veils an inadequate
and false conception of life. Life is made up of work
and leisure. No one is now found to defend the idle
Hfe that has no work in it. But the correlative of this
is equally true, that a life without leisure is an inmioral
hfe. If a man because of preoccupation with his pro-
fessional or philanthropic or social duties has lost all
control of his time, and cannot retire into himself and
give heed to his self-development, he has lapsed from
the life of a free man into the life of a slave. The fourth
[456]
UNIVERSITIES NARROWING INTO SCHOOLS
commandment is still valid : and the significance of the
fourth commandment is not the details of sabbath
observance, but the duty of leisure ; its place in the
decalogue means that the moral duty of leisure is as fun-
damental as the duty of purity or honesty. It is pre-
eminently in the present age that this truth calls for
assertion. In spite of all clamor to the contrary, the
reader of literature knows that this age is in advance of
most previous ages in matters of purity and honesty.
But the special vice of the time is the failure to see the
moral obligation of leisure ; that it becomes possible in
our strenuous habits for a man or woman of high pur-
pose to be so absorbed in good works as to forget the
claims of personal development, to think that zeal in
duty to God and our neighbor can excuse from duty
to our self. Let the adequate conception of what life
means be accepted, and it becomes clear that the prepa-
ration for life is twofold : school education is the fitting
for Ufe's work, general culture prepares for the leisure
time. And men's characters and value for society de-
pend quite as much upon the way they occupy their
leisure hours as upon what they consider their specific
work.
Such a change as has been suggested in the ideal of
what constitutes university organization is of wide-
reaching consequence, since universities, directly or in-
directly, determine the training of teachers for the whole
educational system. The ideal of a university as a body
of investigators and teachers is perfectly sound : the
two things go well side by side, and the natural inclina-
tions of individuals, with other circumstances, will de-
[4571
WORLD LITERATURE
termine the relative proportion of the two parts. The
evil is the exaggerated emphasis that has been placed
upon new investigation as compared with organization
and diffusion of knowledge. I have never been able to
discover that this artificial stimulus to the training of
new investigators has had any remarkable influence on
the field of modern knowledge, or perceptibly accelerated
the pace of progress. But there is very decisive evi-
dence that the quality of the teaching power supplied
by university training is inadequate and disappointing.
By a curious irony the terms of an older system have
been retained : in solemn functions every year univer-
sity authorities present to the outside world a number
of individuals under the titles of Magister and Doctor,
when these authorities must be aware that the one point
on which they have not informed themselves is whether
these individuals have any aptitude for teaching. Nor
is the situation helped by the fact that in recent times
education has itself become a subject of university study.
The education so studied is treated as a specialty : the
study centres around the psychology of attention, and
the technique of particular kinds of teaching. There is
of course a proper field for such specialized educational
discussion. But, ultimately, teaching power resolves
itself into broad culture. The particular subject a man
is going to teach can be trusted to take care of itself.
But what in his period of preparation is most important
for the teacher is to extend his interest in directions
other than his special calling ; broad culture, giving him
points of contact with minds differently constituted
from his own, is what will give him effectiveness as a
[458]
THE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION IDEAL
teacher. And there is nothing vague or unpractical in
this use of the term ''broad." Broad studies are those
in which the emphasis is laid, not upon the latest novel-
ties, but upon the whole subject in the natural propor-
tion of its parts ; a choice of subjects not limited by the
divisions of the field that may be convenient for investi-
gators, but determined with a view to culture as a whole ;
a method, moreover, that looks to the advancement of
learning through its wider diffusion. Of this type of
study it will hardly be questioned that World Literature
is an illustration.
Side by side with this change which manifests itself
within the university, and in antithesis to that change,
another movement is apparent outside, which expresses
its ideal in the term "university extension." But the
phrase is largely misunderstood. It happens that an
organization, originally started by the University of
Cambridge, and subsequently taken up by other lead-
ing universities, for diffusing education by the agency
of itinerant lecturers, was called — and very properly
called — the University Extension Movement. But of
course this is no more than an illustrative detail in the
wider ''university extension" of which I am speaking.
I am assuming throughout the whole discussion that
university education essentially means culture as an end
in itself : there are abundant signs that such culture is
gradually spreading more and more widely through the
ranks of the people, and coming to be a universal ideal,
in the same category as interest in religion or politics
or sport. This extension of the interest in culture seems
to make one of three movements which together consti-
[459]
WORLD LITERATURE
tute the foundation of our modern life. The first move-
ment was in the sphere of rehgion. In the Middle Ages
thinking in religious matters was the function of a
particular class, the clergy, into which the laity did not
intrude : what we call the Reformation consists, more
than anything else, in the fact of the masses, or the mid-
dle classes, claiming gradually to think for themselves
on religious topics — of course under the leadership of
distinguished minds — and so religious thought becomes
a universal interest. Similarly, in earher times there
was a governing class, and the rest of society (with oc-
casional protests) allowed itself to be governed ; by the
Revolution the masses grew to have a voice in govern-
ment, marshalled under men of light and leading, and
political activity became a universal interest. What
we are now seeing is that culture, traditionally the inter-
est of a small class, chiefly found in universities, is com-
ing to animate the world outside. Not only what has
been called by the name of university extension, but the
wide spread of literary and similar clubs, reading circles,
chautauquas and summer schools, organizations round
Hbraries as centres, enormous expansion of the publish-
ing trade in regard to standard books, these are among
the symptoms of the change. Of course, the culture
represented by all this is at present a chaos : all types
of efficiency and inefficiency, sometimes to the point of
grotesqueness, are exhibited : yet it is all good evidence
of educational ambition.
Thus the university ideal is being extended ; and the
extension is twofold. It is an extension, we have seen,
from a small class to the people at large, including those
[4601
THE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION IDEAL
who have no connection with universities. But what
appears to me still more important is the extension that
affects those who have been to universities and com-
pleted their course : for these university extension
means extension of the educational period to the whole
of their life, the pursuit of culture becoming a continuous
interest, side by side with other interests, and with the
practical duties of life. Traditional education assumes
that there is a cultural period in a life, a few years at a
university ending with a degree. But this whole con-
ception of a cultural period and a degree system belongs
to the school function of the university : where the
question is of qualifying for a profession no other system
is possible. For general culture the point to emphasize
is, not concentration in a few years, but extension to the
leisure time of a whole life. I have spoken of education
tending to become a universal interest like religion or
politics or sport. We should think it strange if the plan
of concentration instead of extension were applied to
these other interests of life : if people were invited to
give up three or four years entirely to religious exercises,
or entirely to sport, with a qualification at the end of
the period suggesting that the religious exercises, or
the sport, had been got through for life, and that other
matters might occupy attention. It seems more whole-
some to extend the religious exercises, and the sport,
through the life as a whole, with continuous yet not ex-
clusive interest. It is a similar spreading of higher edu-
cation through a lifetime side by side with other vital
interests that, to my mind, makes the most important
form of university extension.
[461]
WORLD LITERATURE
How does all this bear upon the university system
itself? In two ways. In the first place, universities
as the natural leaders of culture ought to cooperate
gladly with all proper agencies for such higher education
outside theu' walls; in particular, cooperate by the
training of teachers, teachers who should combine the
high standards of university work with the missionary
spirit. But, in the second place, the teaching within
the university itself is affected by these considerations,
so far as that teaching is general and not professional
training. The current idea of general (as distinguished
from professional) education is that it is of the nature
of an irreducible minimum, which the university must
jealously guard; and, where opportunity serves, the
university seeks to raise its standards. But all this is a
conception produced by confusion with the school func-
tion of training for a profession. Where the question
is of culture as an end in itself, the way of raising the
standard is, not enhanced requirements, but to vitalize
the teaching power in the university and make it more
effective. Of course, in all educational work testing
goes side by side with teaching. But the scheme of
general education must be looked at, not with a view
to acquirements attained at the close of a university
course, but with a view to the influence of the course on
the whole future life of the students. Two points are
of particular importance. The first and foremost aim
should be to stimulate interest in the subject taught;
acquirements are at best temporary, but a vital interest
once aroused may go on forever. Again, in whatever
may be the particular study, the aim should be to give a
[462]
THE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION IDEAL
clear ground plan of the whole, a map as it were of what
there is to do. The combination of these two conditions,
a ground plan of a subject and a stimulated interest for
continuing the study, makes the most favorable chance
for the general course of a university system to bear
fruit in the future. For general education the criterion
is the effect on the average man. After a life spent in
teaching I would say that I have a great respect for
the average university or university extension student.
Of course, in any body of men and women gathered
for educational or any other purpose there will be a
percentage of loafers ; and this is a difficulty that has
to be met. But my experience is that the average stu-
dent is ready to work, and — in proportion to his ability
— to do hard work, if the work is properly placed before
him. In professional training it may be enough merely
to prescribe studies : professional interest makes the
motive force. For the general student it is necessary
to take him into the confidence of the teacher, or, so to
speak, into the confidence of the subject studied ; he
may be apathetic to a mere task, but will rouse up to a
piece of work that justifies itself in a general plan of a
subject. We are brought once more to the value of
broad studies that illuminate a whole field of thought.
But, whatever may be the future action of universi-
ties, the university extension ideal remains : the volun-
teer university of self-directed education, recruited alike
from those who have no association with university life
and those who have completed academic courses and
have their whole lives before them for their own study.
To these World Literature has a special appeal : for it
[463]
WORLD LITERATURE
is they who have created the study, while academic
schemes have hngered in the departmental limitations
of literary interest. The pioneers of World Literature
are, in the first case, the great scholars who have added
literary power to scholarship, and by elevating the art
of translation to its present level have been mediating
interpreters between one civihzation and another.
With these must be recognized, in the second place, the
great publishing enterprise which, in our day, is more
and more widely spreading the classics of the nations
in worthy and accessible forms. Both these have been
catering for the general reader, and not for the specialist.
On the other hand, it is the temptation of self-directed
education to become scrappy. Yet the same principle
appHes here that applies in more regularly organized
studies : the necessity in any subject of a broad founda-
tion, with wide perspective and careful combination of
parts; this is the basis which gives soundness to the
treatment of special topics. I am no doubt biased
in favor of my own study. Yet it seems a reasonable
view that World Literature, as the term has been used
in this book, is fitted to be a foundation study in general
culture. Literature is the most universal of interests :
what is needed is to transcend the boundaries made by
diversity of language, and to realize the unity of the
literary field ; that the Enghsh reader should seek not
English Uterature so much as literature in English.
Popular inquiry has been active as to the ''best books" :
what is wanted is the philosophy lying behind the selec-
tion of these best books. Education has been wisely
defined as the epitome of civihzation : implying that
[464]
THE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION IDEAL
the new generation goes rapidly through the stages of
evolution which earlier generations, each for itself,
achieved slowly and with difficulty. Apply this to the
humanities, and World Literature at once justifies its
position : the World Literature which we have seen as
the autobiography of civilization, in which the general
outline of civilization, so pointedly absent at present
from our educational schemes, appears, not in formal
theory, but in a succession of luminous reflections.
2h 14651
SYLLABUS
LIST OF BOOKS
General Index
SYLLABUS
Introduction
The study of literature lags behind other studies as still remaining
in the departmental stage : national hteratures studied separately,
and in subordination to language and history — recognition of the
unity of all Uterature indispensable condition for elevating literary
study to the rank of such studies as history, language, philosophy,
art.
One aspect of such study of literature may be formulated as
World Literature: the unity of Uterature viewed in perspective
from the standpoint of the observer — thus World Literature will
be different for different nations and different individuals of a
nation — its philosophic basis made by two supplementary prin-
ciples : (1) the Literary Pedigree of the nation (2) Intrinsic Literary
Value.
Such World Literature from the point of view of the English-
speaking peoples the subject of the present work.
The Literary Pedigree of the English-speaking peoples rests upon
three factors — (1) Hellenic civilization as reflected in the classical
literature of Greece and Rome — (2) Hebraic civiHzation as em-
bodied in the Bible — these the flower, respectively, of the Aryan
and the Semitic civilizations — (3) a third factor made by the fusion
of the other two in Mediaevalism and Romance.
Full discussion of the essential spirit of Hellenic and Hebraic
(pages 13-26) — of Mediaevalism as the fusion of various influ-
ences that crystalUze in the literature of Romance (pages 26-53).
Chapter I. — Literary Bibles : The Holy Bible
The Hebraic basis of our civilization is not the history of Israel,
but the spiritual interpretation of the history of Israel embodied
by the sacred writers in the literature we call the Bible.
[469]
SYLLABUS
This Bible, as dating back to a period before manuscript writing
could indicate literary distinctions, has come down to us destitute
of its true literary form, and impressed with a different form [texts
for comment] the creation of mediaeval commentators — restoration
of the Bible to its true Uterary structure essential for its interpre-
tation.
I. Interest of particular books of the Bible as Hebraic Classics,
extending our conceptions of Uterary form traditionally limited by
Greek criticism, which was the formulation of a single hterature.
Discussion of notable literary forms in the Bible (pages 65-71).
IL Special Uterary interest in the Unity of the Bible : its books,
read in their Uterary sequence, draw together into a scheme like a
Uterary plot.
General form of the Bible: an historic framework [constructed
late] holding together higher Uterary forms [of all dates, early and
late] which contain the spirit of the literature : the whole may thus
be conceived of as the autobiography of a spiritual evolution.
The structure of the Bible as a whole resembles that of a Drama
in two Acts [of Old and New Testaments] with an Interlude [of
Wisdom Uterature : theology giving place to devout meditation on
Ufej.
The Old Testament is the Covenant between God and the People
of Israel, a people chosen to be the revelation of Himself to other
peoples.
Structure of the Old Testament. — Prologue [previous cove-
nants between God and mankind] — Genesis [origin of the
chosen people] — The Exodus [or emigration] — The Judges
[transition to secular government] — Secular government of
Kings with spiritual opposition of Prophets — the Capti\'ity —
Ecclesiastical Chronicles of the Return [the People of Israel
become the Jewish Church] — an Epilogue in the Isaiahan
Rhapsody [Divine plan of history in dramatic form]. — Pages
77-84.
[470]
SYLLABUS
Dramatic movement of the Old Testament : gradual breaking down
of the Old Covenant [with a People] and vision of a New Covenant
[with individual hearts] — the epilogue presents the Servant of
Jehovah transformed from a Nation to a Redeemer.
Wisdom literature belonging to the interval between the Old and
New Testaments has a progressive movement of its own. — The
historic framework has here to be inferred : contact of Hellenism
with Hebraism — the one stands for Individuality, the other for
Immortality (abstract) : their union develops idea of Immortality
of the Individual soul.
The New Testament [anticipated in Jeremiah and the Isaiahan
Rhapsody] is the Covenant between God and individual hearts.
Structure of the New Testament : historic framework and
higher forms. — Acts and Words of Jesus [Luke] — Acts and
Words [Pauline epistles] of the Apostles — for the next stage
the historic framework must be inferred : the accentuated ex-
pectation of the second coming of Christ [General epistles and
other gospels] — Epilogue to the whole Bible : Book of Revela-
tion. — Pages 90-L
Dramatic movement of New Testament : the gradual enlargement
in the conception of Jesus Christ — until the epilogue presents
Him as centre of all history and significance of all prophecy.
Chapter II. — Literary Bibles : Classical Epic and Tragedy
A literary bible may be constructed by the combination of
Classical Epic with Classical Tragedy, so far as this touches the
matter of the epics.
Heroic Myth of the First Generation : Argonautic Expedition
The Argonauts of Apollonius Rhodius
Medea of Euripides
[William Morris's Jason]
Heroic Myth of the Second Generation : Trojan War
The Gathering for Troy
Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides
[471]
SYLLABUS
Quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles
The Iliad
Rhesus of Euripides
Rivalry after the death of Achilles
Ajax and Philoctetes of Sophocles
The FaU of Troy
Hecuba and Daughters of Troy of Euripides
The Departure from Troy : of Agamemnon :
Aeschylus's trilogy (Agamemnon, Sepulchral Rites,
Eumenides) — Electra of Sophocles — Electra, Orestes,
Iphigenia in Taurica of Euripides
of Menelaus :
Helen of Euripides
of Odysseus : ^
The Odyssey
of Trojan Captives:
Andromache of Euripides
of ^neas :
Virgil's ^neid : grand link between Latin and Greek
— and between Latin and Mediaeval
I. The body of literature so constructed (1) involves the relations
between Floating and Written literature : this in the present case
has evolved the fundamental poetic interest of Classical Echoing,
the main contribution of Hellenic poetry to universal literature in
antithesis to Romantic Freedom the creation of Mediaevalism (pages
102-8). — (2) It presents a pre-historic civilization of supreme
interest. — (3) It has had the prerogative voice in poetic art.
II. The Argonautic section has the special interest of being carried
a stage further in poetic crystallization by Morris's Jason.
III. Analysis of plot and movement of the Iliad reveals interest of
exuberant subject-matter preponderating over interest of form.
Detailed discussion of poetic motives in the Iliad (pages 116-
34).
rV. Analysis of plot and movement of the Odyssey reveals perfect
balance between matter and form.
[ 472 ]
SYLLABUS
Special poetic interest in Odyssey: treatment of wonder inci-
dents, an adumbration of the coming Mythology (pages 141-7).
V. Literary interest of epic and tragic treatment applied to the
same subject-matter.
Summarizing discussion of Greek tragedy as a highly specialized
form of world poetry (pages 148-50) — as the worship of
Destiny (pages 150-1). — Euripides as a central point in the
history of poetry (page 152).
VI. Virgil : artificial poetry addressed to an audience permeated
with Greek culture. — Analysis of plot and movement of the Mneid
reveals fundamental purpose to harmonize Rome and its destiny
of world empire with Greek antiquities — thus the great link be-
tween Roman and Grecian — also between Roman and Mediaeval.
Chapter III. — Literary Bibles : Shakespeare
Shakespeare a rare conjunction of the most complete poetic
individuality with a moment of literary history offering the freest
scope for its manifestation.
Romantic . Materials : Stories of romance [accumulation of the
Drama whole of the Middle Ages]
Form : Story worked upon by Drama in its most
concentrated form [newly recovered Classical
Drama]
Popular Audiences : (1) interested in dramatization of
story [by the Miracle Play] — (2) entirely free
from limiting influence of a critical attitude
Current philosophy of life : full Hebraic spirit of the
Bible before this is warped into Puritanism
The Shakespearean conception of plot reflects the constituent ele-
ments (pages 175-8).
[473]
SYLLABUS
Chapter IV. — Literary Bibles : Dante and Milton
What makes a literary bible in this case is the antithesis of two
masterpieces, which present constructions of the sum of things as
seen by two eras ancestral to our own era.
I. Dante the complete embodiment of Medisevalism. — The
Divine Comedy reflects various features of mediaeval Catholicism —
notably (1) symbohsm as the supreme form of truth and (2) ideaU-
zation on a basis of sex homage.
IL Milton reflects the whole course of the Renaissance. — The
Paradise Lost Puritan theology in Classical form — the tradition of
Classical Echoing revived and made to extend over bibUcal as well
as Hellenic literature.
Full discussion and illustration of the poetic effect called Clas-
sical Echoing in Milton (pages 196-219).
Chapter V. — Literary Bibles : Versions of the Faust Story
What constitutes the literary bible in this case is a germ story,
invoMng three pregnant ideas, developed in successive master-
pieces which reflect the thinking on these ideas of successive eras
or schools of thought.
Germ of the Faust Story the biblical aphorism: What shall it
profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul ? — this
involves :
Gaining the whole world
Losing the soul
Machinery of a spiritual market
Traditional Story of Faust
Gaining the world : mediaeval magic
Losing the soul : mediaeval hell
Spiritual market : selling the soul to the Devil
[474]
SYLLABUS
Marlowe's Version. — Pages 224-31
Product of the Popular Renaissance : a transition stage between the
Middle Ages [Robust Imagination] and Modern Times [RationaUza-
tion]
Gaining the World
Losing the Soul
Spiritual Market
Magic
Approach to Rationalization in its applica-
tion to mere curiosity, as expression of the
spirit of the age
Hell as finale of story-
Rationalization in course of the action : Free
will undermined by hysteric shocks at
transitions between hope and despair
Mediaeval Tempter
Rationalizing touches of spiritual conceptions
for Mephistophilis and for hell
Poetic Form : Imperfectly developed Elizabethan drama [serious
plot with rough relief scenes] — with remnants of Mediaeval drama
Calderon's Version. — Pages 231-7
Product of the Spanish Renaissance : Exalted sentiments [chivalry,
gallantry, knowledge] fused in an ardor of [Catholic] religious Devo-
tion — introducing special motives : Inverted Scepticism [drawing
from pagan to Christian] — Love Passion [making a double plot] —
Magic as Anti-Religion : Holy Magic [of the Church] pitted against
Black Magic [worship of the Devil]
Th W ]r\ I Gained by Evil Magic [of occult nature power]
1 Lost by Holy Magic [spells dissolved by Holy
Name]
iLost : Voluntary surrender in blood-signed bond
under motive of passion
Regained : Voluntary confession with blood of
martyrdom — passion changing to pure love
[475]
Spiritual
Market
SYLLABUS
Lucifer [of Isaiah xiv. 12] identified with Satan,
Antichrist, the Fallen Angels — and inter-
preted (by philosophy of magic) as god of the
lower world
Poetic Form : Modern drama, specially developed on the side of
lyrics and spectacular effects
Goethe's Version : general view. — Pages 237-9
Product of Modern Culture : introducing as special interests :
Culture a supreme motive of life — Love passion, making
secondary plot — Magic accepted as symbol for illegitimate
modes of culture
Poetic Form : German drama, as formulated in the Prelude on the
Stage : union of stage-spectacle, philosophy, humor
Goethe's Version : Machinery of Temptation. — Pages 240-51
The traditional conception enlarged by ideas from the Book of Job
[with correct discrimination of the two uses of "Satan"] — this
reaUzed in the Prologue in Heaven
Mephistopheles [a Spirit of Denial or Challenge: Job's Satan
modified by modern cynicism] undertakes in the case of Faust
to play the part of Devil [mediaeval Tempter]. — Thus, a constant
relief element : Mephistopheles caricaturing the Devil's work
as he performs it
The original idea of Barter, or a Spiritual Market, is replaced by
the idea of a Wager over souls
Goethe's Version : Gaining the Whole World. — Pages 251-82
The Individual
World : Part First
At the outset Faust possesses the whole range of
mature philosophic culture — the action
adds the world of social pleasure — and
[miraculously] restores Faust's lost youth
Thus : Age plus Youth covers the whole Indi-
vidual Life
[4761
SYLLABUS
The Great World : The World presented as Spectacle [Court, So-
Part Second ciety, Wealth, Pleasure, Beauty]. — Act I
The World presented in Science [Processes of
genesis, evolution]. — Act II
The World presented in Art [Harmony of
Classic and Romantic]. — Act III
The World presented as Power [Glory, State,
especially Enterprise]. — Act IV
The two worlds clash : Public enterprise struggling with Individual
limitations. — Act V. [The two final scenes must be separated as
Epilogue to the whole poem.]
Goethe's Version : Losing the Soul. — Pages 282-8
In the action of the poem the soul of Faust appears so far lost that
(1) he has been led by unquenchable aspiration after truth to em-
brace Magic [dramatic symbol for illegitimate knowledge] — (2)
in his love of Margaret he has made a sudden surrender to gross
passion that works her ruin
The Epilogue presents the soul of Faust beyond the grave (1) pre-
served for redemption by its unquenchable aspiration, though
adulterated by elements of earth — (2) by Love the earthly
elements are purged out, and the love of Margaret is seen drawing
him to a mystic region of heavenly Love in which the redemption
will be complete
Bailey's Version. — Pages 288-94
Product of Modern Speculative Mysticism : giving creative reality
to a mass of theological, ontological, astrological thinking, on a basis
of traditional orthodoxy — making a variant of the Faust Story with
new elements : Typical position of Festus, who represents the end
of the human race as Adam its beginning — Basis on doctrine of
Election and omnipotent Grace. — Underplots of aUied temptations
and love motives
Gaining
the World
Knowledge [of the universe] and Power [over the
human world] overruled as a means of universal
salvation
[ 477 ]
SYLLABUS
Losing A single sin of passion — the reaction from which
the Soul culminates in universal salvation
Machinery of The Tempter is Milton's Satan colored in manner
Temptation by Goethe's Mephistopheles — in the reaction
the Tempter is himseK saved by the love he has
used as an instrument of temptation
The Temptation is neither Barter nor Wager, but
the presentation of the whole world as in the
temptation of Christ
Poetic Form : Rhapsodic Drama [as in bibUcal prophecy] : Scenic
elements extending to the whole universe — Dialogue supplemented
by Episodic Disquisitions which are only in form parts of the dia-
logue
Chapter VI. — Collateral World Literature
The study of collateral world hterature must not be confused with
the study of universal hterature, which must exhibit the literary
output of particular nations.
I. From Arabic literature come the Koran and the Arabian Nights
— form and matter of these. (Pages 297-310.)
II. Indian literature, otherwise of high importance, enters into our
world literature only by mediating interpretation. (Pages 310-12.)
III. From Persian literature comes the Ruhaiyat of Omar Khayyam,
mainly through mediating interpretation of Fitzgerald. (Pages 312-
18.)
rV. Celtic Hterature. Ossian the Celtic Homer. (Pages 318-25.)
V. Norse epic finds Homeric interpretation in William Morris —
supreme Uterary importance of his Sigurd. (Pages 325-33.)
VI. From the group of Extraneous Civilizations we have the Kale-
vala — besides intrinsic beauty this has the double interest (1) of
putting us in touch with a distant civihzation (2) bringing home to
us poetic forms far down the scale of literary evolution (pages 333-
[478]
SYLLABUS
6). — Discussion of form and matter of the poem (pages 336-50) —
especially dominance of the one-two-three form (pages 338-46).
Chapter VII. — Comparative Reading
The comparative attitude of mind has application, not only to
Uterary history and science, but also to appreciative reading.
Reading group centring around the story of Alcestis. — The
Alcestis of Euripides — Browning's Balaustion — Alcestis
the Second of ALfieri — Love of Alcestis in William Morris's
Earthhj Paradise — Longfellow's Golden Legend [as a parallel
in Christian surroundings]
Another reading group : The Bacchanals of Euripides — the
Book of Ecclesiastes — the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam —
Tennyson's Vision of Sin — the Second book of Spenser's
Faerie Queene
Minor groups
Distinguish carefully between comparative reading in this sense
and comparisons of merit.
Chapter VIII. — Essays and Lyrics
The Essay [central interest of author's personality — fragmentari-
ness and freedom of form] — and [subjective] Lyrics — these make a
special medium for Uterary self-revelation of authors.
The Essay in World Literature. — Pages 382-401
Hebraic origin: wisdom literature, and especially Ecclesiasticus:
development of the Essay out of the Gnome.
Modern counterpart : Essays of the Bacon type — modern re-
version to Hebraic type in Tupper and Walt Wliitman.
Hellenic origin less marked: especially Epictetus and Marcus
Aurelius.
[479]
SYLLABUS
Modern Counterpart : Type of Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, etc.
First great modification: Plutarch and interest of Comparative
Personality.
Modern Counterpart: Character-writers of seventeenth cen-
tury.
Second great modification: Montaigne: personality in flashes —
monologue conversation.
Third great modification : Type of Addison's Spectator : essays plus —
1. Periodical machinery : the Essay merges in the Magazine and
floating periodical hterature.
2. Creative frame story [Spectator and his club] : the Essay
merges in the modern Novel [fusion of Essay and Story].
Modern Essayists : reversion to original t3T)e with enlargement —
Macaulay, Sainte-Beuve, Emerson — interest of personaUty flashed
on variety of topics.
Lyrics in World Literature. — Pages 402-6
Hebraic [compare Book of Psalms] and Hellenic [compare Odes of
Horace]. — Romantic modification : the Sonnet — creative frame
in the Sonnet Sequence.
Chapter IX. — Strategic Points in World Literature
1. Plato [philosophy dramatized] — Lucretius [science poetized].
2. Aristophanes [union of exalted and farcical].
3. Mediaeval group: Romance of the Rose — Reynard the Fox —
Everyman.
4. Morte d' Arthur [mediaeval matter vivified by modern seriousness]
— Canterbury Tales [mediaeval matter vivified by modern humor].
5. Spenser's Faerie Queene [meeting point of classical, romantic and
puritan].
[4801
SYLLABUS"
6. Froissart's Chronicles [history inspired by chivalry] — Don
Quixote [chivalry passing into burlesque].
7. On the threshold of the modern world : Erasmus [modern humor
turned on medisevalism] — Bacon [modern philosophy surveyed
from outside].
8. Ancient drama of situation worked out in modern life : Moli^re
[comedy] — Racine [tragedy].
9. Sir Walter Scott [romantic epic turned in all directions] — Sien-
kiewicz [romantic epic concentrated on Slav mediaeval Ufe].
10. Rabelais [a colossal literary curiosity].
11. Balzac [com^die humaine] — Victor Hugo [trag^die humaine].
12. Literary reaction of nineteenth century in contrasted types :
Byron — Wordsworth.
Chapter X. — World Literature the Autobiography op
Civilization
A national literature is recognized as the reflection of the national
history : what is true for the smaller unit of the nation is true for
the larger unit of civilization. — The history of England a totally
different thing from the history of English civilization. — Philo-
sophic history can only analyze civilization : World Literature is
civilization presented by itself — thus World Literature of the
nature of autobiography.
Conclusion. — The Place of World Literature in Education
The study of World Literature has a field, a method, a scholarship
of its own, distinct from the field, method, scholarship of other
forms of literary study.
For education in literature the existing studies of Classics, and
of Modern Languages and English, are a failure — this would cease
to be the case, and these studies would retain their present value, if
2 1 [481]
SYLLABUS
they were associated with the study of World Literature in Eng-
lish. — Moreover, all these alternatives ignore the Bible as an essen-
tial of literary education.
World Literature is not a special study, but belongs to the general
side of education — and to all stages of general education, elemen-
tary and advanced.
In our schemes of Uberal education as a whole it is the general
side that at present needs strengthening — as specialization ad-
vances there is need from time to tune for revision of the whole
field of knowledge, and so for reorganization of the general culture
which is the link between special studies.
Present tendency of universities to narrow into schools. — True
ideal of culture, not its possession, but its diffusion. — Ideal of a
university as a combination of teachers and investigators sound :
but investigation improperly limited to new knowledge : diffusion of
knowledge a form of enlargement of knowledge. — The overempha-
sis of the school function of universities has a disastrous effect on
the training of teachers: broad culture the best training for the
work of a teacher.
Rise of the ideal of "university extension" : that is, culture be-
coming a universal interest of life. — The term implies extension
(1) to all classes (2) to the whole period of life. — Existing schemes of
liberal education vitiated by confusion with the school function of
universities : for professional training concentration in a limited
period, for general culture extension to the whole of life, is the main
thing. — Thus the cultural teaching of universities should aim at
(1) stimulation of interest (2) presentation of ground plan in a field
of study as chart to guide study of the future.
Apart from the action of imiversities, the "university extension"
ideal remains : volunteer university of self-directed education. —
To this World Literature has a special appeal, as a study created
by the general reader and not by the academic world.
[482
LIST OF BOOKS
A formal bibliography for a work like the present would be im-
practicable. What is offered is only the roughest suggestions on
the literature touched in the body of the work, intended chiefly
for readers who have not access to other sources of information.
World literature at the present time is being opened up to the
general reader by the enterprise of leading publishing houses.
Reference is made below to such series as The Temple Classics and
Everyman's Library [Dent, London ; Button, New York] — the
Arber Reprints [Constable] — the World's Classics [Oxford Uni-
versity Press] — Morley's Universal Library [Routledge] — Bohn's
Libraries [Bell ; Macmillan].
Addison : see under Spectator.
.ffischylus: translations (preserving metrical changes) by Lewis
Campbell [in World's Classics] and Plumptre [D. C. Heath].
— Separate plays : trilogy of Orestes by Anna Swanwick [Bell]
and by E. D. A. Morshead as " The House of Atreus " [Kegan
Paul] — the Suppliants by Morshead [Kegan Paul] — the
Agamemnon translated by Robert Browning — the Prometheus
in the works of Mrs. Browning.
iEsop : Caxton translation with elaborate introduction by Joseph
Jacobs [Nutt].
Alfieri : verse translation by E. A. Bowring (two volumes of Bohn's
Libraries) .
American Literature : see under Gosse. — Literary History of
America by Barrett Wendell [Scribner].
Apocrypha : Revised Version [Oxford or Cambridge University Press].
— Three books {Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Tobit) are
included in the Modern Reader's Bible : see under Bible. —
International Journal of Apocrypha [published by International
Society of Apocrypha, 15 Paternoster Row, London].
[483]
LIST OF BOOKS
Apollonius Rhodius : translation in verse of the Argonautica by
A. S. Way [Temple Classics] — prose translation with notes
by E. P. Coleridge [Bohn's Libraries].
Arabian Nights Entertainments : one volume edition [Routledge] —
many others.
Arabic Literature : see under Gosse.
Aristophanes : translations (preserving metrical changes) by B. B.
Rogers [Bell] — of four plays by Bartle Frere [in World's
Classics] — of Birds by (late) Professor B. H. Kennedy [Mac-
millan].
Arnold, Edwin : " The Song of Songs " in Indian Poetry volume of
his works [Kegan Paul] — or one volume edition of his poems
[Hurst].
Arnold, Matthew: Celtic Literature, one volmne of Everjonan's
Library — Select Essays, two volumes of the same. — Complete
prose works (seven voliunes) pubUshed by Macmillan.
Aurelius : see imder Marcus.
Bacon : Advancement of Learning edited by Aldis Wright [Oxford
University Press] — Essays in Temple Classics, etc.
Bailey's Festus. [Routledge].
Balzac : see under De Balzac.
Beaumont and Fletcher : Dramas in two volumes [Routledge].
Berlioz : musical version of Fatist pubUshed by Schirmer, New York.
Bible.
The Modem Reader's Bible : Books of the Bible, with three
books of the Apocrypha, presented in modem literary form,
edited with Introductions and Notes by Richard G. Moulton
[Macmillan]. — Complete in one volimae (1733 pages), cloth or
leather. — The same in twenty-one separate volmnes, cloth or
leather. [Genesis, The Exodus, Deuteronomy, The Judges, The
Kings, The Chronicles ; Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and
the Minor Prophets; The Psalms (two volumes), Biblical Idyls
(containing Song of Songs and books of Esther, Ruth, and Tobit) ;
Proverbs, Ecclesiasticus, Ecclesiastes and Wisdom of Solomon,
Job; St. Luke and St. Paid (two volumes containing books of
[484]
LIST OF BOOKS
Luke and Acts with Pauline Epistles inserted), St. Matthew
(including General Epistles), St. John]. — Supplementary vol-
umes, intended chiefly for young people: Bible Stones (Old
Testament), Bible Stories {New Testament), Biblical Master-
pieces. — See above, note to page 64.
The Literary Study of the Bible : An Account of the leading
forms of literature represented in the sacred writings : by
Richard G. Moulton [Boston, D. C. Heath; London, Isbis-
ter & Co.].
Short Introduction to the* Literature of the Bible: by Richard
G. Moulton [D. C. Heath].
Bickersteth : Yesterday, To-day, and Forever [Rivingtons].
Bidpai, Fables of: translation by I. G. N. Keith-Falconer [Cam-
bridge University Press].
Boccaccio's Decameron: translation published by Routledge —
translation with illustrations by Chatto & Windus.
Bohemian Literature : see under Gosse.
Boito : musical version of Faust published by Ricordi [London].
Calderon : Fitzgerald's version of Calderon's II Magico Prodigioso
in Eight Plays of Calderon translated [Macmillan].
Celtic Literature : see under Arnold, Matthew.
Cervantes' Don Quixote : translation of P. Motteux in Everyman's
Library (two volumes).
Chaucer : Works in three volumes of the World's Classics. — The
Canterbury Tales (in part) edited " for the average reader " by
Principal Burrell, one volume of Everyman's Library.
Chinese Literature : see under Gosse.
Cicero : Essays on Old Age and Friendship, one volume in Bohn's
Libraries.
Courthope, W. J. : History of English Poetry, in five volumes
[Macmillan].
Courts of Love : by J. F. Rowbotham [Sonnenschein],
Dante : Divine Comedy: translation with notes by E. H. Plumptre
[D. C. Heath] — Longfellow's translation [one volume of Uni-
[ 485 ]
LIST OF BOOKS
versal Library] — Gary's translation [one volume of Every-
man's Library]. — Vita Nuova in Rossetti's translation [Temple
Classics] — Convivio and Latin Works translated by P. H.
Wicksteed [two volumes of Temple Classics]. — Mrs. M. F.
Rossetti's Shadow of Dante [Rivingtons] — Dr. W. T. Harris's
Spiritual Sense of Dante^s Divina Commedia [Appleton].
De Balzac. Several editions : one (^dth Professor Saintsbury's in-
troductions) in 40 volumes [Button]. — Single novels (with
Saintsbury's introductions) make volumes in Everyman's
Library : Wild Ass^s Skin, Eugenie Grandet, Old Goriot, The
Chouans, The Quest of the Absolute, Cov^n Pons, and others.
Don Quixote : see under Cervantes.
Dryden's All for Love, in edition of his complete works.
Earle : see under Microcosmography.
English Literature : see under Gosse.
Epictetus : translation by Elizabeth Carter in Everyman's Library :
by T. W. Higginson [Little].
Erasmus : translation of Colloquies [Gibbings] — of Praise of Folly
with Holbein's illustrations [Scribner].
Euripides : complete translation (observing all metrical changes)
by A. S. Way [Macmillan] — of six plays ( Hippolytus, Bac-
chanals, Trojan Women, Electra, Medea in one volume, and
Iphigenia in Taurica in separate volume) by Professor Gilbert
Murray [Oxford University Press] — of Bacchanals by Milman
in volume 58 of Universal Library. The other plays in this
volume, and volumes 54 and 61, are very readable, but only
partially represent the metrical changes. — A version of the
Hercules in Browning's Aristophanes' Apology.
Everyman (with other interludes) in Everyman's Library.
Faust, Puppet Play of : see under Hedderwick.
Feltham's Resolves: in Temple Classics.
Fitzgerald, Edward : Life and Literary Remains, edited by Aldis
Wright, in three volumes [Macmillan]. Contains versions of
Calderon's II Magico Prodigioso and of the Ruhaiyat of Omar
Khayyam.
[486]
LIST OF BOOKS
French Literature : see under Gosse.
Froissart's Chronicles: editions by Macmillan or Routledge. —
Condensed edition in Everyman's Library.
German Literature : see under Gosse.
Goethe's Faust : translations of Bayard Taylor [Houghton] — of
Theodore Martin [Blackwood] — of Anna Swanwick [one
volume in Bohn's Libraries] — of A. G. Latham [one volume in
Everyman's Library]. — Dr. Anster's version is free, but very
suggestive [two volumes in Universal Library: the first also
contains Marlowe's FauMus].
Golden Legend (Mediaeval) : seven volumes in Temple Classics.
Gosse, Edmund : Editor of Series " Literatures of the World "
[Appleton].
American : W. P. Trent.
Arabic : C. Huart.
Bohemian : Count Liitzow.
Chinese : H. A. Giles.
(Modern) English : Edmund Gosse.
French : Edward Dowden.
German : Calvin Thomas.
(Ancient) Greek : Gilbert Murray.
Hungarian: Riedl.
Italian : Richard Garnett.
Japanese : W. G. Aston.
Russian : K. Waliszewski.
Sanskrit : A. A. Macdowell.
Gounod : musical version of Faust [Schirmer, New York].
Gracian: Art of Worldly Wisdorn, with introduction by Joseph
Jacobs in Golden Treasury Series [Macmillan].
Greek Drama : Ancient Classical Drama, A Study in Literary Evo-
lution: by Richard G. Moulton [Oxford University Press]. —
Greek Theatre: Haigh's Attic Theatre [Oxford University
Press].
Greek Literature : see under Gosse.
Greek Novels: Greek Romances in one volume of Bohn's Libra-
[487]
LIST OF BOOKS
ries — Apuleius's works, one volume of Bohn's Libraries —
Apuleius's Cupid and Psyche, one volume of Temple Classics.
Greek Orators: Orations of Demosthenes translated by Rann
Kennedy, five volumes in Bohn's Libraries — oration On the
Crown also published as separate volume.
Grote : History of Greece (full on the literary side), twelve volumes
in Everyman's Library.
Harrison, Frederic : Choice of Books [Macmillan].
Hedderwick, T. H. C. : Dr. Faustus (contains Puppet Play). [Ke-
gan Paul].
Hesiod : translation (prose) in Bohn's Libraries.
Homer : Iliad. Translation in ballad hexameters by A. S. Way [Low]
— in prose (but of exceptional value) by Lang, Leaf, and Myers
[Macmillan] — in blank verse by Bryant [Houghton] — in
heroic couplets by Pope [in World's Classics] — in Alexandrines
by Chapman [two volumes of Temple Classics]. — Many others.
Homer: Odyssey. Translation in ballad hexameters by William
Morris [Longmans] — in blank verse by Bryant [Houghton] —
in Spenserian stanzas by Worsley [Blackwood] — in heroic
couplets by Chapman [two volumes in Temple Classics] —
in rhythmical prose (an interesting experiment) by G. H.
Palmer [Houghton]. — Many others.
Horace : Odes by various translators, one volume in Temple Clas-
sics. — Epodes translated by A. S. Way [Macmillan]. — Satires
(and other poems) translated by Conington [Bell].
Hugo, Victor : Dramas (three) translated in one volume of Bohn's
Libraries. — Novels : many editions : e.g. Les Miserables [two
volumes] and Notre Dame [one volume] in Everyman's Library.
[L' Homme qui rit variously translated as By the King's Com-
mand or The Man who Laughs.]
Hungarian Literature : see under Gosse.
Hymns (Latin) : R. C. Trench's Sacred Latin Poetry [Kegan Paul].
Indian Literature : Frazer's Literary History of India [Scribner]. —
See also Sanskrit Literature under Gosse.
[488]
LIST OF BOOKS
Irish Literature: Douglas Hyde's Literary History of Ireland
[Scribner].
Italian Literature : see under Gosse.
Japanese Literature : see under Gosse.
Jonson, Ben : his Timber edited by Gollancz in Temple Classics.
Kalevala: translated by Kirby [two volumes of Everyman's Li-
brary] — translation and introduction by J. M. Crawford
[Robert Clarke Company, Cincinnati].
Koran : elaborate edition, translation by G. H. Palmer, in Sacred
Books of the East : two volumes [Oxford University Press] —
Rodwell's translation in Everyman's Library. — Many others.
La Bruyere : translated as Morals and Manners of Seventeenth Cen-
tury by Helen Stott [McClurg].
La Rochefoucauld : Reflections and Moral Maxims with introductory
essay by Sainte-Beuve [Chatto and Windus].
Lucretius : monumental edition of Munro in three volumes, the
translation volume sold separately [Deighton] — translation by
Cyril Bailey in Oxford Library of Translations [Oxford Univer-
sity Press].
Luther : Table Talk in National Library [Cassell].
Macaulay : Essays in two volumes of Everyman's Library.
Mackail : Life of William Morris in two volumes [Longmans].
Macpherson : see Ossian.
Malory's Morte d' Arthur: Globe edition [Macmillan].
Marcus Aurelius : Meditations in Temple Classics.
Marlowe's Life and Death of Dr. Faustus: many editions: e.g. in
Universal Library (with First Part of Goethe's Faust) — in
Temple Classics — edited by Ward [Oxford University Press].
Microcosmography (Earle's) : in Arber Reprints or Temple Classics.
Milton : Clarendon Press edition [Oxford University Press].
Molifere : elaborate edition (translation) by Van Laun in six volumes
[Barrie, Philadelphia] — prose version in three volumes of
[489]
LIST OF BOOKS
Bohn's Library. — New and spirited version by Curtis Hidden
Page, in two volumes [Putnam].
Montaigne : in three volumes of Everyman's Library — or three
volumes in World's Classics — in one volume [Routledge].
Morris, William : all his works mentioned in the text are published
by Longmans. — Syllabus of Study in the Poetry and Fiction of
William Morris by Richard G. Moulton [Chicago University
Press].
Morte d'Arthur : see under Malory.
Moulton, Richard G. : see under Bible, Greek Drama, Shakespeare.
Nibelungenlied : Fall of the Nibelungs one volume of Everyman's
Library — verse translation by W. N. Lettsom [Wilhams] — by
Alice Horton [Macmillan].
Norse Sagas : in the Saga Library edited by William Morris and
Magnusson [Quaritch] — the Laxdale Saga translated by
Muriel A. C. Press in Temple Classics.
Omar Khayyam: his Rubaiyat in Fitzgerald's version published
by Macmillan, and many others. — See under Fitzgerald.
Ossian : the Macpherson poems published by Macmillan.
Overbury, Sir Thomas : Works [Scribner].
Ovid : translation of his poems (prose) in three volumes of Bohn's
Libraries. — Verse translation of the Metamorphoses by Henry
King [Blackwood].
Palgrave's Golden Treasury in Everyman's Library.
Pascal : the Pensees translated by W. F. Trotter in Temple Classics.
Percy Ballads : as Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, two volmnes
in Everyman's Library. Several other editions.
Petrarch : translation in Bohn's Library.
Plato : monumental translation and commentary of Jowett in five
volumes [Oxford University Press] — Cary's translation in six
volumes of Bohn's I^ibraries. — Separate dialogues : the Re-
public as volume 611, and others as volumes 456 and 457 in
Everyman's Library. — Many other translations : e.g. of the
Gorgias by E. M. Cope [Deighton].
[490]
LIST OF BOOKS
Plautus : prose translation in two volumes of Bohn's Libraries —
verse translation in four volumes by Bonnell Thornton out of
print.
Plutarch's Lives: North's translation in ten volumes of Temple
Classics — Dryden's translation edited by Clough in three
volumes of Everyman's Library — Langhorne's translation in
one volume [Routledge].
Rabelais : translation with illustrations by Gustave Dor6 [Chatto
and Windus].
Racine : metrical version by R. B. Boswell in two volumes of Bohn's
Libraries.
Reynard the Fox : translation of F. S. Ellis, with designs by Walter
Crane [Nutt].
Rochefoucauld : see under La Rochefoucauld.
Romance of the Rose : version of F. S. Ellis in three volumes of the
Temple Classics.
Rossetti, Mrs. : see imder Dante.
Russian Literature : see under Gosse.
Sackville : Works [Scribner]. — His Induction etc., in Southey's
British Poets.
Sainte-Beuve. Essays translated by Sharp [Gibbings or Lippincott]
— Portraits, by Wormeley and Ives [Putnam].
Saintsbury, Professor George : editor of Series " Periods of Euro-
pean Literature" [Scribner]. — The Dark Ages (W. P. Ker)
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory
(editor) — The Fourteenth Century (F. J. Snell) — The Tran-
sition Period (G. Gregory Smith) — The Earlier Renaissance
(editor) — The Later Renaissance (David Hannay) — The
First Half of 17th Century (H. J. C. Grierson) — The Augus-
tan Ages (Oliver Elton) — The Mid-Eighteenth Century (J.
H. Millar) — The Romantic Revolt (C. E. Vaughan) — The
Romantic Triumph (T. S. Omond) — The Later Nineteenth
Century (editor).
Sanskrit Literature : see under Gosse.
[491]
LIST OF BOOKS
Schumann : musical version of Faust published by Novello, Lon-
don.
Scott, Sir Walter : poems in Globe edition [Macmillan] — novels in
48 volumes of Temple Classics. — Many other editions.
Seeley, Sir J. R. : Natural Religion [Macmillan].
Selden : Table Talk in Temple Classics, or National Series [Cassell].
Seneca : Essays : On Benefits in Temple Classics — Minor Essays
translated by Aubrey Stewart in Bohn's Libraries.
Seneca : Tragedies : verse translation (retaining metrical changes)
with notes, etc., by F. J. Miller [Chicago University Press].
Shakespeare : Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist [Oxford University
Press] and Shakespeare as a Dramatic Thinker [Macmillan] by
Richard G. Moulton.
Sienkiewicz : novels translated by Jeremiah Curtin and others
[Little, Brown & Co.].
Sophocles : translations (preserving metrical changes) by Lewis
Campbell [in World's Classics] and Plumptre [D. C. Heath]. —
Translation of (Edipus the King by E. D. A. Morshead [Mac-
millan].
Southey's Curse of Kehama in National Library [Cassell].
Spectator of Addison, etc. : four volumes in EverjTuan's Library
edited by Gregory Smith — in one volmne [Macmillan]. —
Selections, excellently arranged, edited by T. Arnold [Oxford
University Press].
Spenser's Faerie Queene: Globe edition [Macmillan].
Spohr's musical version of Faust : only in libraries.
Stanley's History of the Jewish Church (touching largely upon
biblical literature) in three volumes [Scribner].
Swinburne : Atalanta in Calydon [Chatto] — Erechtheus [Chatto].
Terence : prose translation in Bohn's Libraries — verse translation
by Colman out of print.
Theocritus : translation of A. Lang in Golden Treasury Series
[Macmillan].
Thucydides : translation by Richard Crawley in Everyman's
Library — by Dale (two volumes) in Bohn's Libraries.
[492]
LIST OF BOOKS
Tottel's Miscellany : in Arber Reprints.
Tupper, Martin : Proverbial Philosophy [Ward ; Darrow].
Universal Literature, Handbook of: by Mrs. A. C. L. Botta
[Houghton].
Virgil : translation of Mneid in ballad hexameters by William
Morris [Longmans] — in Scott's metre (an interesting experi-
ment) by Conington [Longmans]. In Professor Conington's
edition of Virgil with English notes [three volumes of the
Bibliotheca Classica published by Bell] the Introductions have
a bearing on general literature. — Translation of the ^neid
by Fairfax Taylor in Everyman's Library. — Dryden's trans-
lation in the World's Classics. — Translation of Eclogues and
Georgics by T. F. Royds in Everyman's Library.
Wagner : translation of Ring of Nibelung by G. T. Dippold [Holt]
— by H. and F. Corder, German and English on opposite
pages [Schott & Co., London].
Way, Arthur S. : translator : see imder ApoUonius, Euripides,
Homer, Horace.
Whitman, Walt : complete works [McKay],
Xenophon : translation of the Memorabilia in Temple Classics.
[4931
GENERAL INDEX
Acts, book of : 90, 93-4.
Addison 395, 397-400.
iEschylus 15, 101.
^sop 414.
Agglutination 156.
Alcestis group of poems 352-72.
Alexander the Great 10, 86.
Alfieri 358-60.
Allegory 44.
Ancestral literatures 51.
Anglo-Saxon literature 444.
ApoUonius 100, 112.
Arabian Nights Entertainments 304-
10.
Arabic civilization 12, 32-5, 52 — in
collateral world literature 298-310.
Arabic language 33, 306.
Arabic medicine 33.
Arabic notation 33-4.
Argonautica 100.
Argonautic group of poems 100,
111-3.
Aristophanes 411-3.
Aristotle 71.
Arnold, Edwin: 311, 378.
Arnold, Matthew: 13, 321.
Art motive in Goethe's Faust 272-7.
Aryan civilizations 11, 12, 52.
Assyrian civilization 12, 52, 297.
Astrological ideas 185-6, 292.
Authorized Version of Bible 61.
Autobiographical form of the Bible
74-6 — world literature the auto-
biography of civilization 56 and
Chapter X.
Babylonian civilization 52, 297.
Bacchanals group of poems 372-6.
Bacon 38, 39, 386 — his place in the
evolution of the essay 385-7 — a
strategic point in literature 419-20.
Bailey's Festus 173, 220, 288-9 —
especially 289-94.
Balzac: see De Balzac.
Beatrice and Dante 192-4.
Beaumont and Fletcher 379.
Berlioz 220.
Best Books 1, 464.
Bible, The Holy : as one of the lit-
erary bibles 54, 295 and Chapter I
— its omission from liberal edu-
cation 446-7 — loss of literary
form in the Middle Ages and
recovery 59-64 (compare 21, 48)
— conception of the Bible as lit-
erature 20, 72-3, 76 — its frame-
work of history 22, 73-4, 85-6 —
its leading literary motives 22-6
— interest of its literary forms
65-71 — unity of the Bible 65,
72-97 — its general literary form
73-6 — suggestion of autobio-
graphic form 74 — its threefold
division 76 (compare 76-97) —
its detailed structure 77-80 — its
dramatic movement 80-4.
Bible, New Testament : 24, 75 — its
literary structure 90 — its dra-
matic movement 91-7.
Bible, Old Testament: 23, 75 — its
literary structure 77-80 — its dra-
matic movement 80-4.
Bible, Wisdom books : as interlude
between Old and New Testaments
76-7, 84-90 — its general spirit
84 — its movement 90.
Biblical discourse 67-8 — doom form
69 — drama 66-7 — epic or story
66 — essay 70 — idyls 65 — lyrics
68 — philosophy (or wisdom) 69-
71 — prose and verse 68 — sonnet
70, 403 note.
495
GENERAL INDEX
Bickersteth's Yesterday, Today, and
Forever 196 note, 211-3.
Bidpai 307.
Boccaccio 306.
Boito 220.
Browning 403 — his Balaustion 356-
8.
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress 379.
Byron in Goethe's Faust 276 — in
strategic points of literature 426-
7.
Calderon 220 — his version of the
Faust Story 231-7.
Carlstadt 30.
Carlyle 401.
Catholicism 30-1, 180-1, 195.
Celtic [Keltic] civilization and litera-
ture 12, 52, 318-25.
Cervantes' Don Quixote 417-8.
Chart of world literature 12, 51, 52,
295.
Chaucer 306, 416.
Chinese civilization and literature
12, 52, 333.
Chivalry 43, 193.
Chorus in Greek tragedy 149, 422
— in Greek comedy 412-3.
Cicero 390.
Civilization the common ground
between the humanity studies
431 — history of English civiliza-
tion distinct from history of Eng-
land 432-5.
Classical and Romantic 49-50, 219,
especially 273-7.
Classical Drama, relation of, to
Shakespeare : 172-6.
Classical Echoing : in Paradise Lost
196-219 — compare 102-11, 112-3,
153, 163.
Classical Epic and Tragedy as one of
the literary bibles 54 and Chapter
II — scheme of poems 100-1 —
the thinking of successive epochs
upon a common floating tra-
dition 102-11 — embodiment of
prehistoric civilization 108 — • has
had the prerogative voice in art
109 — the Argonautic group of
poems 111-3 — the Iliad 113-34
— the Odyssey 134-47 — tragedy
touching epic themes 147-52 —
Virgil's ^neid 152-63.
Classics as a study 99, 218, 441-6.
Classics, Hebraic : 71.
Clergy 28 — benefit of 29
Collateral world literature 13, 55
and Chapter VI.
Comparative Literature 2, 55, 351.
Comparative Reading 55 and Chapter
VII — distinguished from merit-
comparisons 380.
Complication and Resolution 134,
154-6.
Concealed imagery 314, 318.
Conington on classical echoing 213-
5.
Courthope 444.
Courts of Love 193.
Covenant as a biblical term 23.
Criticism, basis of : 178 — its func-
tion in the spiritual world 243-4
— Greek criticism 19 — criticism
in abeyance in the Middle Ages
45 — Shakespeare criticism a series
of retreating attacks 167 — tech-
nical analysis of Shakespearean
plot inadequate 168.
Crusades 34, 43.
Culture. General Culture associated
with world literature 447-9 —
needs strengthening 449-53. —
Variations in conception of culture
454-6 — broad culture the essen-
tial preparation for teaching
458-9.
Culture, Modern: 12, 49-52 —
basis of Goethe's version of the
Faust Story 221, 237-9.
Dante and Milton as one of the
literary bibles 54, 179 and Chapter
IV — Dante as representative of
medisevalism 31, 180 — mediaeval
elements in the Divine Comedy
180-194 — its mediaeval limita-
tions 189-92 — its sjTnbolism 181-
4 — Dante and Beatrice 192-4 —
the Vita Nuova 405.
496
GENERAL INDEX
De Balzac 425-6.
Destiny : idea absent from the Bible
88 — Greek tragedy the worship
of Destiny 150 — Destiny and De-
ity in the Iliad 119-23, 131— in
tragedy 150-1 — Destiny motive
in the ^neid 159-62 — in Norse
poetry 326-8.
Deuteronomy 66, 78.
Doom form in Scripture 69.
Dowden 381.
Drama, of situation: 17, 41, 149,
421 — oratorical 78. — See Rhap-
sodic.
Dryden 379, 419, 426.
Earle 393-5.
Ecclesiastes 84-9, 385 — one of the
Bacchanals group of poems 372-
6.
Ecclesiasticus 84 — connected with
evolution of the essay 383-7.
Egyptian civilization 52, 297.
Emblem prophecy 67.
Emerson 5, 401.
English Literature distinguished from
Literature in English 444, 464.
English studies 443-6.
Enterprise motive in Goethe's Faust
278.
Epic : Religious epic of the Middle
Ages 40 — epic in the Bible 65 — -
evolution of (Greek) epic poetry
103, compare 102-6 — epics of
Dante and Milton as one of the
literary bibles 179 and Chapter IV
— struggle of epic and lyric in the
Kalevala 336 and fol. — Romantic
epic of Scott 423-4.
Epictetus 390.
Epilogue: to Goethe's Faust 283-8
— to the Old Testament 82-4 —
to the New Testament (and the
whole Bible) 96-7.
Epistles of New Testament: Colos-
sians 95 — Ephesians 95 — He-
brews 96 — Philippians 95 —
Romans 94.
Erasmus 38-9 — as a strategic point
in literature 418-9.
Essay : in Scripture 70 — as a lit-
erary organ of personality 381 and
Chapter VIII [compare Syllabus,
pages 479-80] — evolution of the
essay in world literature 383-
401 [compare Syllabus, pages 479—
80].
Euripides 14, 15, 45, 100, 101, 107,
151-2 — in relation to Seneca 422
— his Alcestis 352-6 (compare
356-72) — Bacchanals 373-4 (com-
pare 374-6).
Everyman 379, 414.
Evolution of epic poetry 103 (com-
pare 102-11) — in Norse poetic
philosophy 326-8.
Ewigweibliche 194, 287-8.
Extraneous group of civilizations 12,
52, 333.
Ezekiel 68.
Fathers, the Christian : 36.
Faust Story, Versions of: as one of
the literary bibles 54 and Chapter
V [compare Syllabus, pages 474—
8]. — Great masters attracted
by the story 220 — germ of the
Faust Story and triple formula
221-2 — mediseval versions 222-3
— Marlowe's version 224-31 —
Calderon's [Fitzgerald's] version
231-7— Goethe's version 237-88
— Bailey's version 288-94.
Feltham 387-8.
Feudal System 31, 43.
Finnish civilization and literature
12, 52, 333-50.
Fitzgerald as example of mediating
interpretation 231 note, 311-2
— his version of Calderon's II
Magico Prodigioso 231-7 — of
Omar Khayyam 312-18.
Fletcher 379.
Floating literature 45, 102-11, 173,
306, 320, 398, 423.
Fool 246, 261.
Foreshortening of story 139, 155.
Frame Story 306-10, 398-400.
Frere, Bartle: 411.
Froissart 417.
2k
[497
GENERAL INDEX
Gay Science 44, 193.
General culture, its association with
world literature : 447-9.
General side of education needs
streugthouiug 449-53.
Geocentric 184, 216-8.
German Drama 239.
Germanic civTlization 12, 27, 52.
Goethe's Faust as one version of the
Faust Story: 237-88 — the ex-
pression of modern culture 237-9
— German Drama 239 — ma-
chinery of temptation 240-51 —
relation to the Book of Job 241-70
— conception of " world " 251-2 —
Part First 252-60 — interlude be-
tween the parts 260-1 — Part
Second 260-88 — epilogue to the
whole poem 283 — salvation or
loss of the soul 282-8.
Golden Legend (mediaeval) 40 — (of
Longfellow) 367-72.
Gospels: of Luke 90, 91-2 — of
Matthew 96 — of John 96.
Gothic architecture 36.
Gounod 220.
Greek architecture 18 — art 18 —
comedy 411-3 — criticism 19, 65,
71 — culture 152-3 — drama of
situation 17, 41, 149, 421 — ethics
18 — logic and dialectic 19 —
music 18 — orators 99 — phi-
losophy 17 — tragedy 99-101, 147,
148-9, 149-50, 150-1.
Hebraic civilization and literature 12,
52 — Introduction and Chapter I
— spirit of Hebraic factor in our
culture 20-6 — Hebraic classics
22, 71.
Hellenic civilization and literature
12, 52 — Introduction and Chap-
ter II — spirit of Hellenic factor
in our culture 13-20.
Hesiod 326.
Holy Catholic Church 31.
Holy Roman Empire 30.
Homer : Chapter II passim [see also
Syllabus, pages 471-3] — Homeric
Question 105-6 — Homeric simile
132-4, 204 — Ossian the Celtic
Homer 325 — William Morris the
English Homer 111-2, 325 —
homerization 344.
Homer : Uiad : plot and movement
113-6 — motive structure 116 —
war motive 116-8 — providence
motive 118-21 — interference of
deities 121-3 — relief element 123-4
— Olympic life the comic element
of the Iliad 124-30 — Homeric
civilization 130-1 — nature interest
of the poem 131-4.
Homer : Odyssey : plot and move-
ment 134-40 — mj'thologicai ele-
ment of special interest 141-7.
Horace 402.
Hugo, Victor : dramas 420-2 —
novels 425-6.
Humanity studies 2, 434-5 — com-
pare 441-65.
Humor in relation to Goethe's Faust
244-7.
Hymns : Latin 36 — prose hymns in
wisdom books 70.
Icelandic sagas 325 — compare 325-
33.
Ideas, Platonic Theory of : 264.
Immortality, Idea of: in wisdom lit-
erature 86-9.
Indian civilization and literature 12,
52, 310-2.
Individuality as a factor in literature
166.
Interlude (mediaeval) 41 — (in
Goethe's Faust) 260-1.
Interpretation of exegesis and of
perspective 64.
Intrinsic value of literature one of
the principles underljdng world
literature 8.
Introversion 115.
Involution (in story form) 309, 307-10.
Isaiahan Rhapsody 26, 67, 82-4, 91.
Islam 34.
Jacobs, Joseph : 414, 487.
Japanese civilization and literature
12, 52, 333.
498
GENERAL INDEX
Jeremiah 67, 80.
Job, Book of: 66, 70, 229 note —
influence of its prologue on
Goethe's Faust 241-7.
Joel 67.
Johnson, Samuel: 319, 426.
Jonson, Ben : 391, 393.
Juvenal 419.
Kalevala 333-50.
Koran 298-304.
La Bruyere 391.
La Rochefoucauld 391.
Latin language 32, 298 — hymns 36.
Lauder controversy 197.
Literary bibles 53 and Chapters I-V.
Literature: comparative 2, 55, 351
— philosophy of 2 — unity of 1-9
— universal distinguished from
world literature 296-7. — See
World Literature.
Longfellow : Golden Legend 352,
367-72 — Hiawatha 334.
Lucifer (in Longfellow's Golden
Legend) 368 and fol. — (in Bailey's
F est us) 289-94.
Lucretius 410-11.
Luther 30 — his Table Talk 391.
Lyric : struggle of lyric and epic in
the Kalevala 336 and fol. — LjtIcs
as a literary organ of personality
402-6.
Macaulay 401.
Macpherson 319-25.
Magic : element of medisevalism 44-5,
222-3 — an element of the Faust
Story 223, 224-5, 232-3, 238-9,
261, 281.
Malory 416-7.
Manuscript writing, art of : 60.
Marcus Aurelius 390.
Margaret episode in Goethe's Faust
257-9, 260, 283-8.
Mariolatry 44, 193, 287.
Marlowe 220 — his version of the
Faust Story 224-31.
Marriage poetry 347-50, 376-8.
Masquerade motive in Goethe's
Faust 262-3.
Mediaeval: drama 41, 173, 246 —
morality 262 — mystery 284-8 —
science 37.
Mediaevalism : 26-51, 304, 306 —
its connection with Shakespeare
172 — Dante 180-94 — the Faust
Story 222 — Longfellow's Golden
Legend 367.
Mediating Interpretation 231, 311-2,
334, 376, 378.
Melancthon 48.
Mephistopheles 226, 240-51 (com-
pare 240-84) — relationship to the
Satan of Job 241-7 — his playing
an assumed role 241, 248-51.
Mephistophilis 226 (compare 224-31).
Microcosmography 393-5.
Migratory races 27.
Milton : his Paradise Lost and Dante's
Divine Comedy combined as one
of the literary bibles 54, 179 and
Chapter IV — Paradise Lost the
epic of Renaissance Protestantism
194-219 — establishes Protestant
thought on the literary foundation
of the Bible 195-6 — the great
representative of classical echoing
196-219 — relation to Bailey's Fes-
tus 289.
Miracle Play 41, 173, 246.
Modern Language studies 443-6.
Moliere 420-2.
Montaigne 395-7.
Morality 262.
Morris, William : as the English
Homer 111-2 — his Jason 111-2
— Earthly Paradise 361 — Story
of Alcestis 360-7 — Sigurd 112,
32.5-33, 379 — House of the Wolf-
ings 361.
Movement as an element of action
113 — in the Bible 72, 73, 84 —
in the Old Testament 80-2 —
New Testament 91-7 — wisdom
literature 90 — movement of Iliad
114-6 — of Odyssey 139-41 — of
^7ieid 155-7 — of Kalevala 345.
— Forms of movement : fore-
shortening of story 139, 155 —
introversion 115.
499
GENERAL INDEX
Murray, Gilbert: 5.
Music IS, 50.
Mystery (mcdioeval) 284-8 — Mys-
tery of the Mothers in Goethe's
Faiist 264-5 — of Demons 284
— of Love 284-8.
Mysticism 44, 186, 221.
Mythology motive in the Odyssey
141-7.
Nahum 69.
Nature : treatment of it in the Iliad
131-4. — Dramatic background of
nature 132, 229-31, 229 note,
328-9
Nibelungenlied 379.
Norse civilization and literature 12,
52, 325-33, 335.
Novel, modern : its connection with
the evolution of the essay 400.
Numerical progressions in the Kale-
vala 337-8.
Omar Khayyam 312-8, 372-6.
One-two-three form of plot 338-46.
Oral literature 45, 334 — phenomena
of Oral and Written literature
102-6.
Ossian 319-25, 423.
Ovid 335, 414.
Palgrave's Golden Treasury 402.
Parallelism 302, 336-8.
Pascal 391.
Pastoral poetry 145.
Pedigree, National literary : a factor
of world literature 8 — applied to
English-speaking peoples 10-53.
Percy ballads 423.
Persian civilization and literature 12,
52, 312-8.
Personality, Literary organs of:
Essays and Lyrics 55-6 and
Chapter VIII [compare Syllabus,
pages 479—80] — Plutarch's Lives
the accentuation of Comparative
Personality 391-5.
Perspective applied to literature in
world literature 6-7 — interpre-
tation of perspective 64.
Petrarch 405.
Plato 15, 19, 409-10.
Plautus 177, 421.
Plot : distinguished from movement
113 — application to the Bible 72
— to Shakespeare 168, 175-8 —
plot of Iliad 113-4 — Odyssey
134-8 — ^neid 154-5 — Sigurd
329-33 — in Ossian 321-2 — in
Kalevala 344-6. — Plot forms :
agglutination 156 — complication
and resolution 134, 154-6 — frame
story 306-10 (compare 398-400)
— involution 309 — one-two-three
form 338-46.
Plutarch 391-3.
Pope 5, 426.
Prophets, earlier and later 79.
Protestantism 194-6 (compare 47-9,
175).
Psalms 402.
Pseudo-Hebraism 48.
Pseudo-Hellenism 48.
Puppet Play of Faust 222.
Puritanism 48.
Rabelais 424-5.
Racine 422.
Reformation 194-6, 221.
Refrains 302, 336, 348.
Renaissance 11, 47-9, 171-5 — in-
fluence on education 442. — Re-
naissance Protestantism reflected
in Paradise Lost 194-6. — Popular
Renaissance 224-5 — Spanish Re-
naissance 231.
Revelation, Book of : 90, 96-7.
Revised Version of Bible 64.
Reynard the Fox 414.
Rhapsodic : discourse 67 — drama
66.
Rhapsody, Isaiahan, or " Zion Re-
deemed ": 26, 67, 82-4, 90.
Rhyme 275.
Rogers, B. B. : 5, 411.
Roman culture, relation to Hellenic
19, 152-4 — Roman drama 421.
Romance as literary aspect of medi-
sevalism 26, 172 — origin of Ro-
[500]
GENERAL INDEX
mance 42-51 — Romance of the
Rose 413-5.
Romantic and Classical 49-50, 219,
especially 273-7. — Romantic
drama 172-6, 310, 421-2. — Ro-
mantic epic 423-4.
Ruskin 401.
Sackville 207.
Sainte-Beuve 381, 391, 401.
Satan 241-7.
Satire 419, 425.
Scholasticism 37, 187, 189-91.
Schumann 220.
Science : mediaeval 37 (compare 32-
4) — science motive in Goethe's
Faust 265-72.
Scott, Sir Walter : 423^.
Seeley, Sir J. E. : 210, 451-3.
Selden 391.
Semitic civilizations 11, 12, 21, 52,
297-8.
Seneca 17, 177, 422.
Shakespeare : as one of the literary
bibles 54, 164 and Chapter III —
his supreme poetic individuality
165-71 — free field for its realiza-
tion in the Romantic Drama 171-5
— consciousness of this in Shake-
speare 176-8. — Compared with
Molifere 420-2. — Shakespeare's
sonnets 405.
Shelley 66, 403.
Sienkiewicz 424.
Sigurd 325-33.
Similes : of Homer 132-4 — of Mil-
ton 204 and note. — Compare
328.
Snider, Denton J. : 54 note.
Song of Songs: Hebraic 66, 376-7
— Indian 378.
Sonnet 188, 403-5 — biblical 403
note — sonnet sequence 314, 405.
Sophocles 15, 16, 101 [compare Syl-
labus, pages 471—2].
Southey's Curse of Kehama 312.
Spectator : its place in the evolution
of the essay 397-400.
Spenser 208, 372-6, 417, 430.
Spohr 220.
Story form 306, 309, 339.
Strategic points in literature 56,
407-8 and Chapter IX [compare
Syllabus, pages 480-1].
Swedenborg 285-7.
Swinburne 429-30.
Symbolic poetry : in Dante 180-4 —
highest form of truth to the Middle
Ages 183.
Tennyson's Vision of Sin one of the
Bacchanals group of poems 372-
6.
Terence 421.
Theocritus 145.
Thucydides 107.
Tottel's Miscellany 402.
Translated literature 3-5.
Tupper 388-90.
Universal Literature 6, 296-7.
University education distinguished
from school education 453-9.
University Extension 459-65.
Vice (in mediaeval drama) 246.
Virgil : the ^neid in scheme of Clas-
sical Epic and Tragedy 101 — a
link between Grecian and Roman
and Mediaeval 101, 163 — artificial
poetry for a cultured audience 152-
4 — plot and movement of the
JSneid 154-7 — motives of the
poem 157-62 — relation to Roman
antiquities 157-9 — Destiny mo-
tive 159-62. — Relation of Dante
and Virgil 187, 193,
Wagner 379.
Walpurgis Night 258 — Classical
Walpurgis Night 266-8.
Wandering drama 367.
Whitman, Walt : 389-90.
Wisdom of Solomon 89.
Wonderland, Interest of: 44, 145-7
— compare 134-5, 140-7.
Wordsworth 404, 426-7.
World : double significance in
Goethe's Faust 251 and fol. — in
Bailey's Festus 291-2.
[501]
GENERAL INDEX
World Literature : conception of,
1-9, 441 — distinguished from uni-
versal literature 6, 296-7 — the
application of perspective to lit-
erature 6 — its underlying prin-
ciples 8 — the autobiography of
civilization 56 and Chapter X —
its place in education 441-65 [com-
pare Syllabus, pages 481-2]. —
Study of world literature the crea-
tion of the general reader 464. —
Collateral world literature 13, 55
and Chapter VI.
Xenophon 409.
[502]
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No other single work on Shakespeare includes so much, and so much that is
valuable. Dr. Brandes is a good, a first-rate 'all-round man.' There is no side of
his subject which he neglects. He is both an antiquary and a critic, interested in
the smallest details of biography, and also taking broad and comprehensive views
of Shakespeare's thought and style. His book is in its way encyclopaedic, and we
venture to say that there are few people — few scholars — who would not find them-
selves the better informed and the wiser for its perusal. He has equipped himself
for his task by wide study and research ; and on all the materials he has amassed
he has brought to bear a judgment well balanced and vigorous, and a mind liberal
and independent. It is many years since there has been any contribution to
Shakespearean literature of such importance as this. These two volumes are of
solid worth, and deserve a place in every Shakespearean student's library."
Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare
Edited by D. NICHOL SMITH cloth, $3.00
From the Editor's Preface: —
" It is at least eighty years since most of these Essays were reprinted. Rowe's
Account of Shakespeare is given in its original and complete form for the first time,
it is believed, since 1714. . . . Dennis's Essay has not appeared since the author re-
published it in 1721. . . . The Nine Essays or Prefaces here reprinted may claim
to represent the chief phases of Shakespearean study from the days of Dryden to
those of Coleridge. The Introduction has been planned to show the main lines in
the development of Shakespeare's reputation, and to prove that the new criticism,
which is said to begin with Coleridge, takes its rise as early as the third quarter of
the eighteenth century."
PUBLISHED BY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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By W. T. BREWSTER
Specimens of Modern English Literary
Criticism
Cloth, i2mo, $1.00 net
This book belongs to the realm of rhetoric rather than of literature or
literary history. It aims to use critical writing more completely than
is done in any text-book of selections as an agent in rhetorical study
and intellectual discipline. The selections cover Leslie Stephen, Dr.
Johnson, Macaulay, Henry James, Matthew Arnold, Shelley, Coleridge,
and others, with many notes and an excellent and comprehensive
introduction.
Studies in Structure and Style
With an Introduction by George Rice Carpenter, Professor
of Rhetoric and English Composition in Columbia University
Cloth, i2mo, $1.10 nei
The author has used rare discrimination in selecting the essays which
he discusses, insisting that they should be of the highest class of mod-
ern literature and that they should serve as models to the student.
The analysis of structure and style in these volumes is most able, and
the book will be found a most valuable one as a text in the higher
institutions of learning.
By WILBUR L. CROSS
The Development of the English Novel
Cloth, i2mo, $1.50 net
"This thorough and comprehensive work on English fiction is based
upon sound scholarship. Professor Cross has mastered his material,
and his presentation is not only logical in its general classifications
but entirely adequate in its particulars. For these reasons it is an
admirable text-book, and the student will find, besides the organic
treatment of the whole, a basis for an exhaustive study of independent
periods." — The Washington Star.
PUBLISHED BY
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64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York
By G. R. carpenter and W. T. BREWSTER
Modern English Prose
Cloth, i2mo, $1.10 net
"This book will prove of great service to English teachers. The
selections, complete and unabridged as they are, and made with nice
discrimination, will be welcomed by instructors who desire to place
before their pupils some of the best examples of modern prose writ-
ing." — WiLMOT B. Mitchell, Bowdoin College, Maine.
By MILTON PERCIVAL and R. A. JELLIFFE
Of Oberlin College
Specimens of Exposition and Argument
Cloth, i2mo, $o.go net
The selections in this volume, chosen from a wide range of literature,
illustrate the different phases of argument such as persuasion, refuta-
tion, and controversy, and the different types of exposition such as
descriptions, explanations, definitions, and interpretations.
" It is not often that the student is given the opportunity to use a
text-book at once so fascinating and so essentially practical." —
Philadelphia Public Ledger.
By LANE COOPER
Of Cornell University
Theories of Style
Cloth, i2mo, $1.10 net
In bringing together the principal treatises and the loci on " Theories
of Style " from Plato to Frederic Harrison, Professor Lane Cooper
has made a book useful at once for the classroom student and the
professional writer. The familiar views of Plato, Aristotle, Coleridge,
De Quincey, and Spencer, as well as those of Wackernagel, Schopen-
hauer, and Brunetiere, are included.
PUBLISHED BY
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Library Bureau Cat. No. 1137
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