his
Sister. This poor Creature's Fate is not far off
that of her's whom I spoke of above,
it is not to be doubted, but
after she has been long enough a Prey to Lust she will be delivered over
to Famine; the Ironical Commendation of the Industry and Charity of
these antiquated Ladies
, these
Directors of Sin, after they can no
longer commit it, makes up the Beauty of the inimitable Dedication to
the
Plain-Dealer
, and is a Masterpiece of Raillery on this Vice.
But to understand all the Purleues of this Game the better, and to
illustrate this Subject in future Discourses, I must venture my self,
with my Friend
Will
, into the Haunts of Beauty and Gallantry; from
pampered Vice in the Habitations of the Wealthy, to distressed indigent
Wickedness expelled the Harbours of the Brothel.
T.
under in
fifty
. These
Wycherley's
Plain-Dealer
having given offence to many ladies, was
inscribed in a satirical
billet doux
dedicatory 'To My Lady B .'
Contents
|
Saturday, January 5, 1712 |
Addison |
Cedite Romani Scriptores, cedite Graii.1
Propert.
translation
is nothing in Nature
more irksome than
general Discourses,
especially when they turn chiefly upon Words. For this Reason I shall
wave the Discussion of that Point which was started some Years since,
whether
Milton's Paradise Lost
may be called an Heroick Poem? Those
who will not give it that Title, may call it (if they please) a
Divine
Poem
. It
be sufficient to its Perfection, if it has in it all the
Beauties of the highest kind of Poetry; and as for those who
alledge
it is not an Heroick Poem, they advance no more to the Diminution
of it, than if they should say
Adam
is not
Æneas
, nor
Eve
Helen
.
I shall therefore examine it by the Rules of Epic Poetry, and see
whether it falls short of the
Iliad
or
Æneid
, in the Beauties which
are essential to that kind of Writing.
first thing to be considered
in an Epic Poem, is the Fable
, which is perfect or imperfect,
according as the Action which it relates is more or less so. This Action
should have three Qualifications in it. First, It
be but One
Action. Secondly, It should be an entire Action; and, Thirdly, It should
be a great Action
. To consider the Action of the
Iliad
,
Æneid
,
and
Paradise Lost
, in these three several Lights.
Homer
preserve
the Unity of his Action hastens into the Midst of Things, as
Horace
has observed
: Had he
up to
Leda's Egg
, or begun much later,
even at the Rape of
Helen
, or the Investing of
Troy
, it is manifest
that the Story of the Poem would have been a Series of several Actions.
He therefore opens his Poem with the Discord of his Princes, and
artfully
interweaves, in the several succeeding Parts of it, an
Account of every Thing
material
which relates to
them
and had
passed before that fatal Dissension. After the same manner,
Æneas
makes his first Appearance in the
Tyrrhene
Seas, and within Sight of
Italy
, because the Action proposed to be celebrated was that of his
settling himself in
Latium
. But because it was necessary for the
Reader to know what had happened to him in the taking of
Troy
, and in
the preceding Parts of his Voyage,
Virgil
makes his Hero relate it by
way of Episode in the second and third Books of the
Æneid
. The
Contents of both which Books come before those of the first Book in the
Thread of the Story, tho' for preserving of this Unity of Action they
follow them in the Disposition of the Poem.
Milton
, in imitation of
these two great Poets, opens his
Paradise Lost
with an Infernal
Council plotting the Fall of Man, which is the Action he proposed to
celebrate; and as for those great Actions, which preceded, in point of
Time, the Battle of the Angels, and the Creation of the World, (which
would have entirely destroyed the Unity of his principal Action, had he
related them in the same Order that they happened) he cast them into the
fifth, sixth, and seventh Books, by way of Episode to this noble Poem.
Aristotle
allows, that
Homer
has nothing to boast of as to
the Unity of his Fable
, tho' at the same time that great Critick and
Philosopher endeavours to palliate this Imperfection in the
Greek
Poet, by imputing it in some measure to the very Nature of an Epic Poem.
have been of opinion, that the
Æneid
also labours
in this
Particular, and has Episodes which may be looked upon as Excrescencies
rather than as Parts of the Action.
the contrary, the Poem, which we
have now under our Consideration, hath no other Episodes than such as
naturally arise from the Subject, and yet is filled with such a
Multitude of astonishing
Incidents
, that it gives us at the same
time a Pleasure of the greatest Variety, and of the greatest
Simplicity; uniform in its Nature, tho' diversified in the Execution.
I must observe also, that as
Virgil
, in the Poem which was designed to
celebrate the Original of the
Roman
Empire, has described the Birth of
its great Rival, the
Carthaginian
Commonwealth:
Milton
, with the
like Art, in his Poem on the
Fall of Man
, has related the Fall of
those Angels who are his professed Enemies. Besides the many other
Beauties in such an Episode, its running parallel with the great Action
of the Poem hinders it from breaking the Unity so much as another
Episode would have done, that had not so great an Affinity with the
principal Subject. In
, this is the same kind of Beauty which the
Criticks admire in
The Spanish Frier
, or
The Double Discovery
where the two different Plots look like Counter-parts and Copies of one
another.
The second Qualification required in the Action of an Epic Poem, is,
that it should be an
entire
Action: An Action is entire when it is
complete in all its Parts; or, as
Aristotle
describes it, when it
consists of a Beginning, a Middle, and an End. Nothing should go before
it, be intermixed with it, or follow after it, that is not related to
it. As on the contrary, no single Step should be omitted in that just
and regular Progress which it must be supposed to take from its Original
to its Consummation. Thus we see the Anger of
Achilles
in its Birth,
its Continuance and Effects; and
Æneas's
Settlement in
Italy
,
carried on thro' all the Oppositions in his Way to it both by Sea and
Land. The Action in
Milton
excels (I think) both the former in this
Particular; we see it contrived in Hell, executed upon Earth, and
punished by Heaven.
Parts of it are told in the most distinct
Manner, and grow out of one another in the most natural
Order
.
The third Qualification of an Epic Poem is its
Greatness
. The Anger of
Achilles
was of such Consequence, that it embroiled the Kings of
Greece
, destroyed the Heroes of
Troy
, and engaged all the Gods in
Factions.
Æneas's
Settlement in
Italy
produced the
Cæsars
, and
gave Birth to the
Roman
Empire.
Milton's
Subject was still greater
than either of the former; it does not determine the Fate of single
Persons or Nations, but of a whole Species. The united Powers of Hell
are joined together for the Destruction of Mankind, which they affected
in part, and would have completed, had not Omnipotence it self
interposed. The principal Actors are Man in his greatest Perfection, and
Woman in her highest Beauty. Their Enemies are the fallen Angels: The
Messiah their Friend, and the Almighty their Protector. In short, every
thing that is great in the whole Circle of Being, whether within the
Verge of Nature, or out of it, has a proper Part assigned it in this
noble Poem.
In Poetry, as in Architecture, not only the Whole, but the principal
Members, and every Part of them, should be Great. I
not presume to
say, that the Book of Games in the
Æneid
, or that in the
Iliad
, are
not of this Nature, nor to reprehend
Virgil's
Simile of the Top
,
and many other of the same
kind
in the
Iliad
, as liable to any
Censure in this Particular; but I think we may say, without
derogating from
those wonderful Performances, that there is an unquestionable
Magnificence in every Part of
Paradise Lost
, and indeed a much greater
than could have been formed upon any Pagan System.
But
Aristotle
, by the Greatness of the Action, does not only mean that
it should be great in its Nature, but also in its Duration, or in other
Words that it should have a due Length in it, as well as what we
properly call Greatness. The
Measure of this kind of Magnitude, he
explains by the following Similitude.
An Animal, no bigger than a
Mite, cannot appear perfect to the Eye, because the Sight takes it in at
once, and has only a confused Idea of the Whole, and not a distinct Idea
of all its Parts; if on the contrary you should suppose an Animal of ten
thousand Furlongs in length, the Eye would be so filled with a single
Part of it, that it could not give the Mind an Idea of the Whole. What
these Animals are to the Eye, a very short or a very long Action would
be to the Memory. The first would be, as it were, lost and swallowed up
by it, and the other difficult to be contained in it.
Homer
Virgil
have shewn their principal Art in this Particular; the Action
of the
Iliad
, and that of the
Æneid
, were in themselves exceeding
short, but are so beautifully extended and diversified by the
Invention
of
Episodes
, and the Machinery of Gods, with the like poetical
Ornaments, that they make up an agreeable Story, sufficient to employ
the Memory without overcharging it.
Milton's
Action is enriched with
such a Variety of Circumstances, that I have taken as much Pleasure in
reading the Contents of his Books, as in the best invented Story I ever
met with. It is possible, that the Traditions, on which the
Iliad
and
Æneid
were built, had more Circumstances in them than the History of
the
Fall of Man
, as it is related in Scripture. Besides, it was easier
for
Homer
and
Virgil
to dash the Truth with Fiction, as they were in
no danger of offending the Religion of their Country by it. But as for
Milton
, he had not only a very few Circumstances upon which to raise
his Poem, but was also obliged to proceed with the greatest Caution in
every thing that he added out of his own Invention. And, indeed,
notwithstanding all the Restraints he was under, he has filled his Story
with so many surprising Incidents, which bear so close an Analogy with
what is delivered in Holy Writ, that it is capable of pleasing the most
delicate Reader, without giving Offence to the most scrupulous.
The modern Criticks have collected from several Hints in the
Iliad
and
Æneid
the Space of Time, which is taken up by the Action of each of
those Poems; but as a great Part of
Milton's
Story was transacted in
Regions that lie out of the Reach of the Sun and the Sphere of Day, it
is impossible to gratify the Reader with such a Calculation, which
indeed would be more curious than instructive; none of the Criticks,
either Ancient or Modern, having laid down Rules to circumscribe the
Action of an Epic Poem with any determin'd Number of Years, Days or
Hours.
This Piece of Criticism on
Milton's Paradise Lost
shall be carried on
in the following
Saturdays
Papers
.
L.
'Give place to him, Writers of Rome and Greece.'
This
application to Milton of a line from the last elegy (25th) in the second
book of Propertius is not only an example of Addison's felicity in
choice of motto for a paper, but was so bold and well-timed that it must
have given a wholesome shock to the minds of many of the
Spectator's
readers. Addison was not before Steele in appreciation of Milton and
diffusion of a true sense of his genius. Milton was the subject of the
first piece of poetical criticism in the
Tatler
; where, in his sixth
number, Steele, having said that 'all Milton's 'thoughts are wonderfully
just and natural,' dwelt on the passage in which Adam tells his thoughts
upon first falling asleep, soon after his creation. This passage he
contrasts with 'the same apprehension of Annihilation' ascribed to Eve
in a much lower sense by Dryden in his operatic version of
Paradise
Lost
. In
Tatlers
and
Spectators
Steele and Addison had been equal
contributors to the diffusion of a sense of Milton's genius. In Addison
it had been strong, even when, at Oxford, in April, 1694, a young man
trained in the taste of the day, he omitted Shakespeare from a rhymed
'Account of the chief English Poets,' but of Milton said:
'Whate'er his pen describes I more than see,
Whilst ev'ry verse, array'd in majesty,
Bold and sublime, my whole attention draws,
And seems above the critics' nicer laws.'
Eighteen years older than he was when he wrote that, Addison now
prepares by a series of Saturday Essays,—the Saturday Paper which
reached many subscribers only in time for Sunday reading, being always
set apart in the
Spectator
for moral or religious topics, to show
that, judged also by Aristotle and the "critics' nicer laws," Milton was
even technically a greater epic poet than either Homer or Virgil. This
nobody had conceded. Dryden, the best critic of the outgoing generation,
had said in the Dedication of the Translations of
Juvenal
and
Persius
, published in 1692,
"As for Mr. Milton, whom we all admire with so much Justice, his
Subject, is not that of an Heroick Poem, properly so call'd: His
Design is the Losing of our Happiness; his Event is not prosperous,
like that of all other Epique Works" (Dryden's French spelling of
the word Epic is suggestive. For this new critical Mode was one of the
fashions that had been imported from Paris); "His Heavenly Machines
are many, and his Human Persons are but two. But I will not take Mr.
Rymer's work out of his Hands: He has promised the World a Critique
on that Author; wherein, tho' he will not allow his Poem for Heroick,
I hope he will grant us, that his Thoughts are elevated, his Words
sounding, and that no Man has so happily copy'd the manner of Homer;
or so copiously translated his Grecisms and the Latin Elegancies of
Virgil. 'Tis true he runs into a Flat of Thought, sometimes for a
Hundred Lines together, but 'tis when he is got into a Track of
Scripture ... Neither will I justify Milton for his Blank Verse,
tho' I may excuse him, by the Example of Hanabal Caro and other
Italians who have used it: For whatever Causes he alledges for the
abolishing of Rhime (which I have not now the leisure to examine), his
own particular Reason is plainly this, that Rhime was not his Talent;
he had neither the Ease of doing it, nor the Graces of it."
So Dryden, who appreciated Milton better than most of his critical
neighbours, wrote of him in 1692. The promise of Rymer to discuss Milton
was made in 1678, when, on the last page of his little book,
The
Tragedies of the Last Age consider'd and examined by the Practice of the
Ancients and by the Common Sense of all Ages, in a letter to Fleetwold
Shepheard, Esq
. (father of two ladies who contribute an occasional
letter to the
Spectator
), he said:
"With the remaining Tragedies I
shall also send you some reflections on that Paradise Lost of
Milton's, which some are pleased to call a Poem, and assert Rhime
against the slender Sophistry wherewith he attaques it."
But two years
after the appearance of Dryden's
Juvenal
and
Persius
Rymer prefixed
to his translation of Réné Rapin's
Reflections on Aristotle's Poesie
some Reflections of his own on Epic Poets. Herein he speaks under the
head Epic Poetry of Chaucer, 'in whose time language was not capable of
heroic character;' or Spenser, who "wanted a true Idea, and lost himself
by following an unfaithful guide, besides using a stanza which is in no
wise proper for our language;" of Sir William Davenant, who, in
Gondibert
, "has some strokes of an extraordinary judgment," but "is
for unbeaten tracks and new ways of thinking;" "his heroes are
foreigners;" of Cowley, in whose
Davideis
"David is the least part of
the Poem," and there is want of the "one illustrious and perfect action
which properly is the subject of an Epick Poem": all failing through
ignorance or negligence of the Fundamental Rules or Laws of Aristotle.
But he contemptuously passes over Milton without 'mention.' Réné Rapin,
that great French oracle of whom Dryden said, in the Preface to his own
conversion of
Paradise Lost
into an opera, that he was 'alone
sufficient, were all other critics lost, to teach anew the Art of
Writing,' Réné Rapin in the work translated and introduced by Rymer,
worshipped in Aristotle the one God of all orthodox critics. Of his Laws
he said,
'There is no arriving at Perfection but by these Rules, and they
certainly go astray that take a different course.... And if a Poem
made by these Rules fails of success, the fault lies not in the Art,
but in the Artist; all who have writ of this Art, have followed no
other Idea but that of Aristotle.'
Again as to Style,
'to say the truth, what is good on this subject is all taken from
Aristotle, who is the only source whence good sense is to be drawn,
when one goes about to write.'
This was the critical temper Addison resolved to meet on its own ground
and do battle with for the honour of that greatest of all Epic Poets to
whom he fearlessly said that all the Greeks and Latins must give place.
In so doing he might suggest here and there cautiously, and without
bringing upon himself the discredit of much heresy,—indeed, without
being much of a heretic, —that even the Divine Aristotle sometimes fell
short of perfection. The conventional critics who believed they kept the
gates of Fame would neither understand nor credit him. Nine years after
these papers appeared, Charles Gildon, who passed for a critic of
considerable mark, edited with copious annotation as '
the Laws of
Poetry
' (1721), the Duke of Buckingham's 'Essay on Poetry,' Roscommon's
'Essay on Translated Verse,' and Lord Lansdowne 'on Unnatural Flights in
Poetry,' and in the course of comment Gildon said that
'Mr. Addison in the Spectators, in his criticisms upon Milton, seems
to have mistaken the matter, in endeavouring to bring that poem to the
rules of the epopœia, which cannot be done ... It is not an Heroic
Poem, but a Divine one, and indeed of a new species. It is plain that
the proposition of all the heroic poems of the ancients mentions some
one person as the subject of their poem... But Milton begins his poem
of things, and not of men.'
The Gildons are all gone; and when, in the next generation after theirs,
national life began, in many parts of Europe, strongly to assert itself
in literature against the pedantry of the French critical lawgivers, in
Germany Milton's name was inscribed on the foremost standard of the men
who represented the new spirit of the age. Gottsched, who dealt French
critical law from Leipzig, by passing sentence against Milton in his
'Art of Poetry' in 1737, raised in Bodmer an opponent who led the revolt
of all that was most vigorous in German thought, and put an end to
French supremacy. Bodmer, in a book published in 1740