Text
Editionsbericht
Literatur: Hurd
Literatur: Brief
NO doubt Spenser might have taken one single adventure, of the TWELVE, for the subject of his Poem; or he might have given the principal part in every adventure to P. Arthur. By this means his fable had been of the classic kind, and it's unity as strict as that of Homer and Virgil.
All this the poet knew very well, but his purpose was not to write a classic poem. He chose to adorn a gothic story; and, to be consistent throughout, he [76] chose that the form of his work shoud be of a piece with his subject.
Did the Poet do right in this? I cannot tell, but comparing his work with that of another great Poet, who followed the system you seem to recommend, I see no reason to be peremptory in condemning his judgment.
The example of this poet deserves to be considered. It will afford, at least, a fresh confirmation of the point, I principally insist upon, I mean, The preeminence of the Gothic manners and fictions, as adapted to the ends of poetry, above the classic.
I observed of the famous Torquato Tasso, that, coming into the world a little of the latest for the success of the pure Gothic manner, he thought fit to trim between that and the classic model.
[77] It was lucky for his fame, perhaps, that he did so. For the gothic fables falling every day more and more into contempt, and the learning of the times, throughout all Europe, taking a classic turn, the reputation of his work has been chiefly founded on the strong resemblance it has to the antient epic poems. His fable is conducted in the spirit of the Iliad, and with a strict regard to that unity of action which we admire in Homer and Virgil.
But this is not all, we find a studied and close imitation of those poets, in many of the smaller parts, in the minuter incidents, and even in the descriptions, and similies of his poem.
The classic reader was pleased with this deference to the public taste: he saw with delight the favourite beauties of Homer and Virgil reflected in the Ita[78]lian poet: and was almost ready to excuse, for the sake of these, his magic tales and faery enchantments.
I said, was almost ready; for the offence given by these to the more fashionable sort of critics was so great, that nothing, I believe, could make full amends, in their judgment, for such extravagancies.
However, by this means the Gierusalemme Liberata made it's fortune amongst the French wits, who have constantly cried it up above the Orlando furioso, and principally for this reason, that Tasso was more classical in his fable, and more sparing in the wonders of gothic fiction, than his Predecessor
The Italians have indeed a predilection for their elder bard, whether from their prejudice for antiquity, their admiration of his language; the richness [79] of his invention; the comic air of his style and manner; or from whatever other reason.
Be this as it will, the French criticism has carried it before the Italian, with the rest of Europe. This dextrous people have found means to lead the taste, as well as set the fashions, of their neighbours: And Ariosto ranks but little higher than the rudest romancer in the opinion of those who take their notions of these things from their writers.
But the same principle, which made them give Tasso the preference to Ariosto, has led them by degrees to think very unfavorably of Tasso himself. The mixture of the gothic manner in his work has not been forgiven. It has sunk the credit of all the rest; and some instances of false taste in the expression of his sentiments, detected, by their nicer cri[80]tics, have brought matters to that pass, that, with their good will, Tasso himself should now follow the fate of Ariosto.
I will not say, that a little national envy did not perhaps mix itself with their other reasons for undervaluing this great poet. They aspired to a sort of supremacy in Letters; and finding the Italian language and its best writers standing in their way, they have spared no pains to lower the estimation of both.
Whatever their inducements were, they succeeded but too well in their attempt. Our obsequious and over modest critics were run down by their authority. Their taste of Letters, with some worse things, was brought amongst us at the Restoration. Their language, their manners, nay their very prejudices were adopted by our Frenchified king and his Royalists. And the more fashionable [81] wits, of course, set their fancies, as my Lord Molesworth tells us the people of Copenhagen in his time did their clocks, by the court-standard.
Sir W. Davenant open'd the way to this new sort of criticism in a very elaborate preface to Gondibert; and his philosophic friend, Mr. Hobbes, lent his best assistance towards establishing the credit of it. These two fine Letters contain, indeed, the substance of whatever has been since written on the subject. Succeeding wits and critics did no more than echo their language. It grew into a sort of cant, with which Rymer, and the rest of that School, filled their flimsy essays and rambling prefaces.
Our noble critic himself * condescended to take up this trite theme: And it |82] is not to be told with what alacrity and self-complacency he flourishes upon it. The Gothic manner, as he calls it, is the favourite object of his raillery; which is never more lively or pointed, than when it exposes that "bad taste which makes us prefer an Ariosto to a Virgil, and a Romance (without doubt he meant, of Tasso) to an Iliad." Truly, this critical sin requires an expiation, which is easily made by subscribing to his sentence, "That the French indeed may boast of legitimate authors of a just relish; but that the Italian are good for nothing but to corrupt the taste of those who have had no familiarity with the noble antients."
This ingenious nobleman is, himself, one of the gallant votaries he sometimes makes himself so merry with. He is perfectly enamoured of his noble antients and will fight with any man who con[83]tends, not that his Lordship's mistress is not fair, but that his own is fair also.
It is certain the French wits benefited by this foible. For pretending, in great modesty, to have formed themselves on the pure taste of his noble ancients, they easily drew his Lordship over to their party: While the Italians more stubbornly pretending to a taste of their own, and chusing to lye for themselves, instead of adopting the authorized lyes of Greece, were justly exposed to his resentment.
Such was the address of the French writers, and such their triumphs over the poor Italians.
It must be owned, indeed, they had every advantage on their side, in this contest with their masters. The taste and learning of Italy had been long on the decline, and the fine writers under [84] Louis XIV were every day advancing the French language, such as it is, (simple, clear, exact, that is, fit for business and conversation; but for that reason, besides it's total want of numbers, absolutely unsuited to the genius of the greater poetry) towards it's last perfection. The purity of the antient manner became well understood, and it was the pride of their best critics to expose every instance of false taste in the modern writers. The Italian, it is certain, could not stand so severe a scrutiny. But they had escaped better, if the most fathionable of the French poets had not, at the same time, been their best critic.
A lucky word in a verse, which sounds well and every body gets by heart, goes farther than a volume of just criticism. In short, the exact, but cold Boileau happened to say something of the clinquant of Tasso; and the magic of this |85] word, like the report of Astolfo's horn in Ariosto, overturned at once the solid and well built reputation of the Italian poetry.
It is not perhaps so amazing that this potent word should do it's business in France. It put us into a fright on this side the water. Mr. Addison, who gave the law in taste here, took it up and sent it about the kingdom in his polite and popular essays. It became a sort of watch-word among the critics; and, on the sudden, nothing was heard, on all sides, but the clinquant of Tasso.
After all, these two respectable writers might not intend the mischief they were doing. The observation was just, but was extended much farther than they meant, by their witless followers and admirers. The effect was, as I said, that the Italian poetry was rejected in the [86] gross, by virtue of this censure; thơ' the authors of it had said no more than this, "That their best poet had some false thoughts, and dealt, as they supposed, too much in incredible fiction."
I leave you to make your own reflexions on this short history of the Italian poetry. It is not my design to make it's apology in all respects. However, with regard to the first of these charges, I presume to say that, as just as it is sense in which I persuade myself it was intended, there are more instances of natural sentiment and of that divine simplicity we admire in the antients, even in Guarini's Pastor Fido, than in the best of the French poets.
And as to the last, I pretend to shew you, in my next Letter, that it is no fault at all in the Italian poets.
[Fußnote, S. 81]
* Lord Shaftesbury, Adv. to an Author.
zurück
Erstdruck und Druckvorlage
Letters on Chivalry and Romance.
London: A. Millar, in the Strand; and W. Thurlbourn and J. Woodyer,
in Cambridge 1762, S. 85-86.
Die Textwiedergabe erfolgt nach dem ersten Druck
(Editionsrichtlinien).
URL: https://books.google.fr/books?id=jUgJAAAAQAAJ
Literatur: Hurd
Brandmeyer, Rudolf: Poetiken der Lyrik: Von der Normpoetik zur Autorenpoetik.
In: Handbuch Lyrik. Theorie, Analyse, Geschichte.
Hrsg. von Dieter Lamping.
2. Aufl. Stuttgart 2016, S. 2-15.
Engell, James: Romantische Poesie: Richard Hurd and Friedrich Schlegel.
In: Cultural Interactions in the Romantic Age.
Critical Essays in Comparative Literature.
Hrsg. von Gregory Maertz.
Albany 1998, S. 13-27.
Everson, Jane E.: Ariosto in England in the Eighteenth Century:
From Antipathy and Ambivalence to Enthusiasm.
In: Ariosto, the Orlando Furioso and English Culture.
Hrsg. von Jane E. Everson u.a.
Oxford 2019, S. 147-168.
Hopkins, David / Martindale, Charles (Hrsg.): The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature.
Bd. 3: 1660-1790.
Oxford 2012.
Lynch, Jack (Hrsg.): The Oxford Handbook of British Poetry, 1660-1800.
Oxford 2016.
Mueller, Andreas: Richard Hurd's Letters on Chivalry and Romance
and Eighteenth-Century Cultural Nationalism.
In: Eighteenth-Century Life 43.1 (2019), S. 24-49.
Wright, Angela / Townshend, Dale (Hrsg.): The Cambridge History of the Gothic.
Bd. 1: Gothic in the Long Eighteenth Century.
Cambridge 2025.
Young, Helen: Race, Medievalism and the Eighteenth-Century Gothic Turn.
In: Postmedieval. A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies 11.4 (2020), S. 468–475.
Edition
Lyriktheorie » R. Brandmeyer