A history of English poetry from the aesthetic point of view. Part I: The period from Langland to Spenser ..

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I BOM TNI LE8THETK POINT OF VIEW
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THE PERIOD FROM LANGLAND TO SPENSER.

IN \n;i i; \l. DISSERTATION

PKKSKNTKI' TO TBI
PHILOSOPHICAL FACT LT1 OF Till: IM\ KK-ITY

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FOR THE DOCTOR'S DE<,

HANS C^PETIKSON M. A.

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LEIPZIG

GUSTAV FOCK

1896.

/

To

Professor Dr. L. A. Sherman

author of

Analytics of Literature.

I. Introductory Remarks.

I hare always felt that writings about literature from
the aesthetic point of view were very largely valueless for
two chief reasons.

In the first place such work is not based upon research.
It does not rest upon a mass of scientific proof, proceeding
from a body of well ascertained facts such as would be
demanded in any other department of inquiry. Consequently
it fails to appeal to him who believes that increase of
knowledge depends first of all upon at least measurably
exact methods of investigation. Instead criticism has come
to be based upon a certain power of intuitive perception
called taste, which, however valuable, can hardly be called a
promoter of scientific confidence. In the second place the element
of personality enters into writing of this sort more than is
permitted in work with any claim to scientific worth. Judge-
ments about literature and art are mostly ex cathedra. With
people in general the value of a criticism depends more
upon the reputation of the critic than upon any logical
scientific excellencies of his work itself. If, as however
often happens, it appeals directly by its justice and clearness
it does so because the reader has through unconscious growth
become the equal of the critic beforehand in appreciation.
Criticism unlike science cannot of itself engender belief,
cannot instruct in any true sense of the word. It seems to
me that these few remarks are in their nature self evident.
How many of us have not often felt that aesthetics is inde-
finite and unsatisfactory? Specialists in chemistry or philo-

logy work along definite lines in common, toward a com-
mon goal, with a mass of established facts as common pro-
perty. Are aesthetic histories of literature or aesthetic
judgements about literature, on the other hand, much more
than a heterogeneous mass of private opinion?

This is a great lack. All inquiry into the life of authors,
all untangling of philological intricacies and explaining of
historical obscurities in connection with poetry or prose can
have but one aim — to make literature understood and
appreciated by the mass of educated readers that are not
.specialists in philology. To this very end the aesthetic content
of poetry must not be ignored. English poetry is the embodi-
ment of English ideals; and there can be no true history
of this poetry that does not treat the subject from the
aesthetic side. But it is precisely this aesthetic element
that is the most elusive. Nine cultivated readers would be
able to determine the meaning of the difficult passages in
an act of Hamlet without help, where only the one would
be able to grasp the force and deeper significance of the pas-
sage alone. While the appreciating of a poem is of more
importance than the simple understanding of it, it is also
more difficult. This has been my experience in attempting
to get several hundreds of young people to understand some-
what of the inner development of English poetry as a
vehicle for the expression of a progressive series of ideals;
and it is to help somewhat here that I have undertaken this
work. There is no reason why such a history as I have in-
dicated may not be made on scientific principles, why a
system of aesthetic inquiry may not be devised for poetry
that shall have a definite theory and method, that shall be
able to stand on its own authority, be in touch with other
lines of thought, and eliminate the personal equation much
more than has yet been done.

But in my attempt to make a history of this sort, I
have been able to get no aid from aesthetics, partly for the
reasons given, but particularly because criticism does not
recognize the existence of elements. It was not until 1893

by the publication of I <<f Literature*), that this

important advance in methods of aesthetic research was made.
It was shown that poetry, like everything else, is l>nilt up
of certain constant and ultimate elements; and mam
these were isolated and defined. Hut what was of more value,
a method was given, and certain simple goals were definitely
set to be reached. Previously I had collected a mass of
material on figures of speech with the same idea of elements
in mind; and now I set about determing the quality and
quantity ot them all in the fifty greatest poets of En^li-h
literature, during rata leisure as I had. Of this the pn
work is the tirst period — from Langland t<> BptHMT. I
hoped that i>\ this means I could definitely fix the aesthetic
value of each poem, which then by a comparison of all
would reveal the real inner development during the period.
A mass of statistics would be obtained from which a history
of English poetry might M written that would not be
dependent for its value upon the authority of the critic,
nor be colored by his personality. The new method was
simple enough, but the difficulties in the way of applying
it to actual investigation were found to be not a few. It
was found necessary to define the elements much more
scientifically than had yet been done. Several new ones
were discovered; others were found to stand in new relations
to each other. It became necessary to distinguish sharply
between subject - matter and technique. I have felt compelled
to fall back more upon psychology as the ultimate founda-
tion of all than Prof. Sherman did. Aesthetics should be
the science of the imagination, just as logic is the science
of reason.

This work consists of two parts. In the first I have
attempted to define the poetic elements as I have understood
them during my work. In part two I have cited the total
number of each poetic element in twelve representative
poems from Langland to Spenser. The results I have tabu-

*) By Prof. Dr. L. A. Sherman; Ginn and Company Boston.

lated, and from these tables sketched the internal develop-
ment during the period. Part one deals with the integrity
of my method; part two gives the results from applying it
to actual investigation.

As I have talked with my friends about this matter
from time to time, a number of objections have been raised,
which seem to centre about three points. First they say
that a scientific investigation of the aesthetic element in
poetry or in anything else is an impossibility, which merely
means that it has not yet been done. In the second place
they say it would destroy our capacity for aesthetic enjoy-
ment. But we cannot know if it will until it has been
quite extensively tried. I have employed this objective
method through two years in giving instruction in literature
from the aesthetic point of view to some three hundred
young men and women; every one has felt his power of
aesthetic enjoyment not only not decrease but on the con-
trary increase. This second objection has some weight however,
because it is true that our enjoyment of anything aesthetic
ceases the moment we begin to observe ourselves. But it
is not necessary that everybody be continually observing
himself. Only when he proceeds to inform the public, is
it desirable that he have some reasons of a self-sufficient
sort for the faith that is in him. And, lastly, it has been
said that investigation such as this is sacrilegious. Yet
trying to discover how Shakespeare made Hamlet is surely
no worse than the efforts of the geologist to learn how
God made the universe. To find out a thing or two has
been deemed sacrilegious since the days of Adam.

IL The Elements of Poetical Subject-Matter.

The real ego, as distinguished from the purely uni-
fying activity of the mind, is a body of generalizations that
make up what we call our personality — that which marks

— 9 —

of us off from all other human Magi, These gen.-
r.ili/.-d notions are characterized by a quality of desiralnlitx.
Tli.'v furnish us with our motives; they set drifts and im-
pulses going in us, and are really the forms in which our
will comes to consciousness. They are generally called "ideals",
a word that is undesirable because it includes only those
that are of a high order. 1 prefer the name "types", which
may then be defined as any idea that the ego consciously
<»r unconsciously considers of worth and strives to reali/»

Theae types come to us in a variety of ways, most of
which ;ir.- unknown. We inherit a proclivity for types of a
certain sort. Many are formed from the associations and
environment of childhood and youth. Many are closely
connected with the passion of love. Many come only from
the deeper experiences of later life.

There are six qualities about these types to be con-
sidered. (1) All men have them. (2) They must change from
time to time. We see clearly that they do change. The
notions any one of us had ten years back of what was
desirable are not those he had twenty years ago, nor are
these what he will have ten years hence. If we think how
we lived and acted in our childhood, we often do not seem
the same person. And these types must change because they
are the synthetic product of consciousness, and consciousness
itself is this same unifying activity. (3) They are brought
to the fore in our minds always ultimately by some sen-
sation from without. (4) If from any cause we are made
to believe that a type will be or may be partially or entirely
realized, we experience pleasure; if the contrary, sorrow.
(5) The number of attributes we may give to any type is
infinite; that is, will always be greater than we can ever
conceive. (6) As we become conscious of these types, they
assume the form of something human. Thus we assign the
attributes of man to inanimate things daily in our speech,
and this is not a projecting of ourselves into our environ-
ment but a characteristic of the types which that environ-
ment suggests.

— 10 —

These types are the elements of poetical subject-matter.
How they are related to the elements of technique in poetry
may best be seen by analyzing an instance of everyday
occurrence. One of my friends is struck by some fact or
happening on the street, and comes to me under strong
feeling and tells it. The phenomenon that struck him did
so — that is, was raised out of the ordinary — because
it set going in his mind a train of associations that ulti-
mately brought one or more of his types to consciousness.
This type had a quality of desirability about it, and what
he saw made him believe either that the type actually could
be realized or that it could not. The result is enthusiasm
or sorrow, and in either case he tells me. He would not
have told me, if his feelings had not been stirred; and his
feelings would not have been stirred, if he had not supposed
that his unconscious desires either were possible of realiza-
tion or were not. What he finally tells me is art. It may
be art with good subject-matter and bad manner, or with
the reverse. At any rate, it is the setting forth of a type
— the spiritual — by means of words — the material.
There can be nothing more to art in its widest sense.

There is evidently as wide a difference between the
types in the following works as between black and white:
Comedy of Errors, Othello, Coopers The Last of the Mohicans,
Ibsen's Brand, Sue's The Wandering Jew, Browning's Luria,
The Winter's Tale, Hamlet, Dare-Devil Dick, David Copper-
field, Cymheline, Rider Haggard's She.

We have seen that there is an evolution in types; and
this is the same for the race as for the individual. By
studying this progression in the types of the individual, and
as historically revealed in literature, the following classi-
fication may be set up.

I. Incident and Adventure. Here there are but few
types and those are mostly of class II and III. The interest
centers about happenings. Examples are pre-eminently the
"Indianer-Geschichten" and "Nickle Libraries" of our earliest
youth, and of a higher grade Haggard's She and King

11

1 ; ~ l-ilst of the M The

And these last, of a higher sort as I
-aid, arv . ht-r simph I- pes of class II and 111

bogin U) mingle with the purely advent uresome of the st

II Pkytical Strength <m<i Bravery, Mere the human
•st of the story lies only in the physical prowess of the

< diameters. Types of this sort ure found in Achilles anil
\|;i\ ol I: :i Theseus of 7 he Knight*-* /'-//-•. in B4owulf,

and Tin Nubthmoin Lied They enter into the composition
of Macbeth, Othello. BamltJ il. Bi

III Typm of Iiitell,ctu>tl l'ou-tr. Hamlet, Odysseus, the
-layer, lago, Mephistopheles. This is the period of

youth in it> admiration of brains.

IV. Wbma*W her Estenml T MM. This
is also characteristic of earliest youth. Here come most of the
t\p.s in Horace > Odm, in Surrey's and Wyatt's Songs ami
Sonnets, Chaucer's Knighte* /'<//>•. Lydgate's Tempil of Glas.

V. Loot. Here come Romeo and Juliet, Troilus and
CressiJi.

VI. Human ( %armter in ami for Itself. It is only well
on in life that the human for itself in its various phases,
good, bad, indifferent becomes of interest. Such are the
types in David Copperjield, Our Mutual Friend, and in Dickens
on the whole; in Chaucer's Prologue to a degree, and in
The Merchant of Venice.

VII. Moral Strength, Greatness, and Purity. Here come
most of the types in The Faerie Queene, Hamlet, Vision of
Piers the Ploicman, Chaucer's Prologue, Ibsen's Brand, the
King Arthur legends.

VIII. Woman Idealized in her hig/ter Attributes. Here
she is the chief source and means of inspiration, and a
factor in the elevation of humanity. Here it is her woman-
liness more than her attractiveness that is the theme.
Examples are Imogen, Hermione, Desdemona, and Shakespeare's
women on the whole.

IX. Man Subject to Forces outside himself, Favorable or
Adverse. Hamlet, Sordello, Macbeth, Ibsen's Kongs-Emnerne.

— 12 —

X. The Greatness of mere Passivity. These types are
beyond the conception of most men. They find their most
perfect expression in the personality of Christ and in the
dictum "■Resist not evil". Example, Browning's Luria.

The characters that appear in literature are a compound
of a variety of these types. Thus Hamlet has in his per-
sonality elements of class II, III, VII and IX. They may be
presented negatively, in that they are deliberately left out,
and are brought to our consciousness by contrast with
their opposites.

The natural way to set forth these types is by means
of words. If the artist instead employs pigments, tones,
marble, or stone, a reason must be sought. And if he em-
ploys words, he will make use of the following elements
of technique.

III. The Elements of Poetical Technique.
A. The direct method.

I. Poetic Words. These are words that have an emo-
tional value in addition to their usual logical intension.
Such are glory, battlements, tingling, billow, shrill, tempest,
maiden, Theseus, thrill, prairie, melody, Druids, pity, infernal,
hideous, knight, reverence, Diana, moonlight, cypress, pines,
silver, divine, starry, chrysolite, antelope, majestic, mist, mur-
mur, hum.

These words have not all acquired this suggestiveness
in the same way. Many, such as tingling, shrill, melody,
moonlight, starry, suggest past emotional experiences to us
and to all normal persons. Knight, Druids, Diana, divine,
infernal, Theseus, battlements, on the other hand, can suggest
no experiences whatever that we of to-day have had with
what they stand for. All that they mean to us we have
acquired through books, pictures and education in general.

1 1

It is thus that Prof. Sherman in .\n>d>/ti>:<
<lm|it«T VI, iittingui>h<-s ixp.riiiu-iitiil from associational
words. But this two- fold division. I tind. is not exhaustive;
n<>r does it offer any means for the historical classification
of these single words. It is true that all poetic words must
be suggestive in one of these two ways. But many have
a geographical limitation; prairie, billow are experimental
or associational according as one has lived inland or by the
>»-a. Many otJMH li;i\f a similar hi>torical limitation; Lui.jht,
battlements, drawdnridge, though associational to us, must have
be«n experimental, or perhaps even prose, to Chaucer and
Langland. Still others, as pine, silver, cypress, though in
tlieinstlv«s fxpt riniental words, are poetic, when poetic, by
association only; experimentally they are prose. Others again
contain the elements of experience and association so mixed
that they belong as much to one class as the other; such
are pity, beauty, maiden, honor.

The majority of poetic words are nouns and adjectives.
Adverbs come next in point of frequency. The interjections
<>h and alas are common; and, in some passages, the pro-
nouns thou and ye. Emotional verbs are very rare.

Suggestive words are the most elementary of the poetic
elements; they are the most spontaneous expressions of feel-
ing. Ok I probably the first word uttered by a child is a
poetic word. Poets vary greatly in their fondness for these
single words. Certain short extracts from Shelley and Tenny-
son*) have been found to contain 70 per cent, while Brown-
ing's Andrea del Sarto, or Chaucer's Prologue have no more
than ordinary prose.

IX Phrases. These are combinations of (1) a noun with
a modifying adjective, (2) a participle, adjective, or adverb
with a modifying adverb, (3) two nouns in apposition. Such
are every felawe, eldest lady, no more, holloic cave, ise yfrore,
much glorie, swich a wo, saffron beds, Faerie Queene, Elfin
Knight, riche contree: great solempnite, cristal sheeld, laurer

Alastor and The Princess song closing part III.

— 14 —

tree, soote sugre. It is evident that these phrases are not
all equally intense; indeed Prof. Sherman*) distinguishes five
well defined classes as follows: —

Class I. Phrases that are entirely prosaic, each word
being a prose word. Evert/ felawe, eldest lady, no more are
of this class. Other3 are newe jere, no wise, cheynes invisible,
yonge folk, jdlke swerd, far unfitter, old dints, long tail",.

Class II. The phrases of this class are poetic in con-
trast to those of class I. But they are tautological in that
one of the words contains in itself the emotional value of
the other — though not, of course, necessarily the logical
intension. This of itself materially diminishes the force these
phrases would otherwise have. Instances are hollowe cave, ise
yfrore, soote sugre, noble -prince, faire Venus, triumphant Mart,
dragon horrible, palfrey slow, diverse doubt, durtie ground,
blodie wound, my sty cloude, craggy roche, ladie dere, dovues
white, paleys imperial. Here also would come such puzzling
expressions as wide deep wandering of The Faerie Queene I, 2, 4 ;
wandering is a metaphor and means ocean, which then, of
course, is wide and deep.

Class III includes phrases that contain a figure of
speech, whether the phrase is clearly poetic or not. This
figure may consist in a transference of the adjective from
a part to the whole as in riche contree, blood roiall, fierce
warres; in the employment of an adjective that properly
modifies some entirely different idea as dull tong, bitter wound,
great perplexite, father Nilus; or in the use of an adjective
that is equivalent to a modifying genitive as guiltie secret,
wandering wood, manly force.

Class IV. These phrases are poetic in so far that at
least one of the words is a poetic word. At the same time
they are not figurative and not tautological. Such are so
pitous, swich a wo, antique rolls, holy Virgin, lieben bowe,
ancient hinges, hideous storme, any star, forlorne paramours,

*) Analytics of Literature Chapter VIII.

— 15

glistering armor, most lothsome, hideout biil. .
n role, rudely falling, dtdlu stinke.

Class V. We shall best understand the phnatl of this
class if we observe the mental process. •> involved in det. r-
miBing one — Elfin Knight for instance. Anyone rfitdinfl
this phrase hurriedly or with inalert imagination would
assign it to class IV because Kljin is a poetic word; the
phrase is clearly not of class I, or II, or III. Still bk
mind will he unsatisfied; will stick at the seemingly un-

ral use of the word Eljln: he will feel that he has
not done the expression justice. If he finally get any higher

rience at all from the phrase, it will be because Elfin
suggests a more or less extended allegorical series of kUm
that set forth the knight. This phrase does not mean I
knight that is small, mysterious, uncanny, or invisible at
times like the elves. The word Elfin does not modify,
limit, or define knight in any way, but suggests a series
of allegorical notions that stand in the mind in juxtaposition
to and parallel with the ideas of the knight and England.
Similarly with Faerie Queene; the words do not modify
each other; each suggests a train of associations that proceed
independently and parallel merely illustrating each other,
— Faerie, purity, brilliance, etc. etc.; Queene, Elizabeth,
virginity etc. etc. Ultimately an experience evolves itself
more powerful than if the phrase had been of another class.
These phrases have two peculiarities; the effect is not de-
pendent upon the suggestive quality of the words composing
them, both of which are generally unpoetic; and the phrase
at first sight seems of class I. In reality it is a potential
allegory as will be shown below; see page 29.

Classes II and IV of phrases convey the type from the
mind of the poet to the mind of the reader by direct sug-
gestion; as with poetic words only the suggested idea is
given. The phrases of classes III and IV, however, are like
figures of speech in that they contain both the idea to be
suggested and the idea that suggests it in the same expres-
sion; see page 16. A few phrases like good knight, /aire

— 16 —

lady, though of class IV and II respectively, may, through
interminable repetition, become trite and degenerate to class I
as the poem in question proceeds.

The great master of phrases in English literature is
Shelley. Witness the following results from the first hundred
lines of Alastor: —

1 10, II 2, III 59, IV 59, V 0; total 130.
As far as I know, Shakespeare and Tennyson alone
make much use of those most potent phrases of class V.

III. Poetic Clauses. Verbs as was said are very rarely
poetic in themselves. Occasionally they may become so
however in combination with a subject or object. The idea
thus formed is appropriated by the imagination as a unit
and the clause is a poetic clause. Such are: —

The tempil was enluymed environ — Tempil of

Glas, 283.
Went wyde in this world — Piers Plowman, Prol. 4.
I slombred in a sleping — Ibid., Prol. 10.
Ther tre shal never fruyt ne leves bere — Parle-

ment of Foules, 137.
How would she sob and shriek — Induction, 44.
And with her teeth gnash on the bones in vain —

Ibid., 51.

IV. Poetic Phrases. If the verb in the preceding should
be reduced to a participle, verbal noun, or infinitive, it would,
with its accompanying noun, constitute a form midway be-
tween the poetic clause and the phrase of class IV. Such
instances are: —

To wail and rue this world's uncertainty — In-
duction, 25.

His beard all hoar, his eyes hoi we and blind —
Ibid., 43.

Wringing his hands — Ibid., 77.

V. Figures of Speech. The elements so far con-
sidered, except class III and V of phrases, have been suggestive
and nothing more. But if the poet not merely suggests his

— 17 —
fcyp*, l>nt ;it tii.- same time father illustrates it by MOM

■mlofjiciil t'.n -t of bii nmirnwnwt. the result is a figure of
h. Thf analogy suggests itself because unconsciously
to the p"«'t it present* "gle, perhaps obscure, element

identical with an element of the type, so that tin* formula
for all figures of speech would be: —

a -f- tn -f- n *tc' \

I i -h b -h e etc. I

Where <i, in. i are thf elements making up the type;
<f, /», o, thf elements making up tin- illu-t r;it i \ >■ idea; and a,
tin- element common to both that associates them. There
then two parti to every figure of speech, the type and
the external analogical fact; or, we may say, the literal and
the spiritual, the iilea illustrated, and the idea illustrating.
There can he no more than these two parts to a true figure
of speech and no less.

These two elements may arrange themselves in the
imagination of the poet in three ways. They must both be
present, and they may either (1) be kept separate, or (2) they
may be united, or (3) one may remain unstated and be left
entirely to inference. No other arrangement is possible, and
this gives us three great classes of figures.

Now observation shows that as a man becomes more
and more enthusiastic his language changes. His sentences
become shorter; he tends to substitute phrases for clauses
and words for phrases in expressing an equivalence of thought;
he omits many conjunctions. If he be a poet and express
himself largely in figures, they will vary in length with the
ebb and flow of his enthusiasm. They may be expanded
and declarative, with many verbs and conjunctions, or con-
densed and suggestive, with much suppression of predication
and few or no conjunctions. Upon this principle the three
classes of figures may be subdivided into several well-defined
genera, giving us the following scheme: —

Class I. Figures Involving a Resemblance. Here the

Peterson, A HiBtory of English Poetry. 2

— 11

analogy takes shape in the imagination of the poet and is
presented to the mind of the reader, as two distinct pic-
tures, thus: —

a b c
d e f
g h i

spiritual

literal

Where a, b, c etc. represent the elements of which the
idea illustrating is composed; a, m, n etc., the elements of
which the type is composed; a, the common associating
element. This is the Simile.

I. A. l. — Here the form of expression the poet falls into
is usually definite predication for each picture with full ex-
position of details. He leaves nothing to inference and
trusts nothing to the reader. He says everything to the
bitter end. This is the Sustained Simile, and should contain
at least two predications as: —

literal I ^ s^re^cne<i myself and straight my hart revives
(That dread and dolour erst did so appale,
• ^; J Like him that with the fervent fever strives

[When sickness seeks his castle health to scale.

— The Induction, 19.
a = probably the stretching of fever patients.

As when two rams, stir'd with ambitious pride,
Fight for the rule of the rich - fleeced flocke,
Their horned fronts so fierce on either side
Doe meet, that, with the terror of the shocke
Astonied both stand senseless as a blocke
Forgetful of the hanging victory,

So stood these twaine \lhe R. C. Knight and Sansfoy']

unmoved as a rocke,
Both staring fierce. — Spenser, The Faerie

Queene I, 2, 136.

Sp. 4

lit.

— 19

a = probably the bent and forward thrust heads of
knighti obliging.

L12. — But if tin- pod pOTMivtt the analogy with

an imagination ill ad, it will oompkto ttatlf mora

suddenly, though still at two dfctinet pictures: and, in ex-
pressing it, he will employ a single clans.'. Tins is tin-
< loan Simih,
fit. I Sin- is the monsters heed ywryeu,

\- tilth over - ystrawetl with floures. — Cum
The Bote of the Duclutte, 628.
a = probably the generally supposed dirtiness of a
'monetary hide.

This l'alainonn
In his fighting were as a wood leoun,

Ami at a cruel tvgre was Arcite. —

Thr KidgliU* Tale, 797.
a wood leonn
a cruel tygre
fa | this Palamoun in his fighting
| Arcite
a = probably the expression about the mouth of a man

in a rage.
I. A. 3. — If the imagination of the poet be still more
energetic, predication will be a hindrance to the expression
of his type; and the two pictures, still separate, will be
presented in a single phrase. This is the Phrase Simi/e.
The predicate may be entirely suppressed, or it may be only
reduced to a participle or an infinitive.

[5uj5p-.] a murmuring winde [that was] much like the sowne
Of swarming bees. — Spexseb, The Faerie

Queene I, 1, 364.
[i<W.] woven like a wave — Ibid., I, 2, 160.
[Suppr.] silver - brighte — Parlement of Foules, 189.

I. B. — The fourth figure of the first class is the figure
called Comparison. The purpose of the simile is to insure
appreciation of a fact by citing illustrations; the object of

2*

•V

— 20 —

comparison is to insure appreciation of degree. The two
pictures are still distinct in the imagination of the poet,
while the fact that he is prompted to the expression of
degree shows that his mind is energized. Hence this figure
appears usually in the shorter forms, as: —

Swelth as black as Hell — Induction, 69.

The storm so rumbled in her brest,

That Aeolus could never roar the like. — Ibid., 21.

This pardoner had heer as yelow as wex. — Pro-
logue to The Canterbury Tales, 675.

I. C — In simile and comparison, the spiritual picture
suggests itself to the poet, and is again by him suggested
to the reader because it illustrates the literal. The idea
illustrating is secondary, and is strictly subordinated to the
idea illustrated. This secondary relation is always shown
by some subordinating word, as like, as, so. But in the
form of analogy called the Parallel, the two ideas are
presented co-ordinately, neither illustrating the other in any
formal way, thus: —

For out of olde feldes as men seith
Cometh al this newe corn fro yeer to yere,
^ [ And out of olde bokes in good feith

| Cometh al this newe science that men lere. — The

Parlement of Foules, 12.

a = perhaps the usual flat horizontal position of an
open book.
/•, | what so strong

\ But wanting rest will also want of might
J The sunne that measures heaven all day long
\ At night doth baite his steedes the Ocean waves among.
— The Faerie Queene I, 1, 285.
In the presentation of the two ideas, the relationship
is left unstated. This figure stands midway between the
figures of class I and class III. If the literal half should

tp. J

— 21

be Itfl h) inference the figure would be of class III. See

Class II. Fiijiinit that Inro/vs CM l>ltitti/ir,iti,l>,. In this
class, the type ami illustrative idea are BO longer kept
separate in the imagination, hut are identified as in: —

prescience
That giltiless tormenteth innocence.

— I'he Knio/itfs Tulf, 455.

Ban the poet was so aroused that he saw the two
ideas, a torturer tormenting an innocent Detaon, ami unshun-
aable deetiny, together as one idea. The analogy was so
striking that he assigned the two notions temporarily to a
common genus of cruel inmponaibk beings. They appeared
in hi> imagination thus: —

—

i

V

— a composite photograph. This is the Metaphor.
•Wasting woes that never will aslaker'
shows these two superimposed pictures: —

spiritual literal

A person so thirsty, or a Continuous and wasting

parched tract of land so dry, woe.

that no quantity of water can
ever satisfy.

In "all suddenly well lessoned was my fear" the two
ideas are: sp. a man overcoming fear,

lit. a teacher disciplining his pupil.
a = the sternness of facial expression probably.
The poet identified these two ideas spiritually and hence
presented them combined. They are now separate, and if

— 22 —

they be also presented separately thus: "Suddenly I overcame
my fear as a teacher disciplines his pupils", the figure will
be of class I, A. Reverse the order, use the conjunction
"and" as a connective, and the figure is of class I, C. The
poet did not present these two notions separately because
he saw them combined; and he saw them combined because
his imagination was more than usually energized for the
moment through enthusiasm over some type.

This class of figures is subdivided upon the same prin-
ciple as class I.

II. A. 1. — This form of the metaphor includes instances
where the imagination of the poet remains in the state of
identifying type and illustration through at least two state-
ments or clauses. This is the Running Metaphor.

The longe love that in my thought I harber,
And in my hart doth keep his residence,
Into my face preaseth with bold pretence
And ther campeth displaying his baner. —

Wyatt, Sonnets, I, 1.
And when the sonne hath eke the dark opprest,
And brought the day, it doth nothing abate
The travails of mine endless smart and payn;
For then, as one that hath the light in hate, —

Surrey, Sonnets, I, 27.

H. A. 2. — Here the imagination of the poet finishes
the identification within the limits of a single clause. This is
the Clause Metaphor.

The fresshe beautee sleeth me sodeynly. —

TJie Kniglites Tale, 260.

That glorious fire it kindled in his heart. —

The Faerie Queene, I. prol., 22.

Add faith unto your force. — Ibid., I, 1, 162

The boke us telleth. — The Hous of Fame, 426.

That unto logik hadde long y-go. —

Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, 286.

— 23 —

II. A. 3. ll'T. th,. {„„>t express's tin- identification with-
out tin- am of predication, which may be suppressed or reduced
to an infinitive or participle. Tins 1^ th.- I 'In livr.

Suppression of Predication: —

Tlie.NtMis, the Bool <>t" chevalne — The Knightes Tale, 124.

An Pretoria riche for to see — //'I./., 1"

Oke, sole kiug of forests all — lite Fuerie Queeti> 1, 1,71.

Japers and danglers, .ludas chyldnn.

I'rolorue to Piers Plowman, 85.
Ui-iliu tion <»f Predication: —

Sold to iiiaviitene his iagVM - 1\t Kni-ii . 588.

Making her deth their life — The Faerie Qu§m$ 1,1,224.

of fair speech and thydinges
And of fals and sooth compouned. —

J ''he Bom of Fame, 1028.
II. B. — Consider the phrase figure: —

hattaille
Betwixen Athtries and the Amazones. —

The Knightes Tale, 22.
The rhetorician would say about this figure that
•Atheiu's" merely stands for "the people of Athens", and
that there is nothing more to it. This really only names
the mystery. It seems to me far more probable that the
poet saw in his mind's eye not the people of Athens as in-
dividuals, but Athens the city, as a unit really identified
with one single warrior. This figure is really of class II, A, 3.
Consider also the expression "Emelye clothed al in
grene" of The Knightes Tale 828. That the poet could
have conceived green apart from any object is impossible. If
•green" means simply 'green clothes", the expression is a
rhetorical turn of phrase merely, and no figure of speech
at all, because the two elements common to all figures are
wanting. But *green" here is a poetic word, and the poet
saw in his imagination the entire green environment about
Emelye. This is the illustrative idea that he identified with
garments, and this figure also is of class II, A, 3. The same

24 —

is true of the very common expression "clothed in hlak",
where the blackness of night, perhaps, is the illustrative
idea used. Contrast such an expression as "miscreated faire",
Faerie Queene I, 2, 19, which is plainly no figure but
merely a rhetorical device of style. These figures are those
usually called metonymy and synecdoche; but we see that
they are either (1) no figures of speech at all because they
present no union of type and illustrative fact, or (2) they
are phrase metaphors. They are rare from Langland to
Spenser, and need not be considered separately, though
a count of them might perhaps be made with profit in the
more modern periods of the literature. Forms like "miscre-
ated faire" above are of course Ill-class phrases.

II C. — Here belong class III of phrases in which
no hint of predication remains.

Class III. Figures involving a Resemblance but the Resem-
blance left to Inference.

The typical figures for this class are the numerous
modern expressions like "The rolling stone gathers no moss"
"All is not gold that glitters", "Die Suppe wird nie so
heiss gegessen wie sie gekocht ist". Let us consider the
first of these examples. The person who in conversation says
"A rolling stone gathers no moss" does in reality not make
any statement about a stone and moss at all. His hearers
do not offer the stone and moss a thought. What he does
mean they should grasp, and what they do grasp, is that
"a wandering youth accumulates no substance". This is
what he intended to say; the illustration that came to him,
and that he said instead was the fact about the stone.
The two pictures or parallel series of circumstances must
have presented themselves to his imagination thus: —

the
youth

lit.

the
stone

spir.

— 25 —

Hugh tlif figure were of class I - \ in nil j»ru-

l>al»ilit\ is ti .»r crooked t I I slowly moving

■ton, Hut when hf comes to express this idea he does
it thus: —

spir.

leaving the literal or illustrated half entirely unsaid. This
is the Allegory, — a figure capable of two distinct inter-
pretations. One thing is said and something entirely differ-
ent meant.

\ ir, to continue our supposed instance of the man
speaking, why is it that his hearers all perfectly understand
him; inter his meaning exactly; and, if the allegory be new,
even get pleasure from it and perhaps applaud? The reason
must lie in (1) the apropos connection, (2) convention of
use, or (3) if the discourse be spoken, in the accompanying
gesture or facial expression. These circumstances are then
really as essential a part of the allegory as either of the
other two elements that make up figures of speech; and
form a third element which may be called the "interpre-
tative hint". Without this, the figure could in no case be
understood or appreciated. Children, or foreigners, unacquainted
with the language spoken about them, are proverbially blind
to the application of such figures — see only the literal
side. How many children see in TJie Pilgrim's Progress, for
instance, anything more than a story?

In the instances of this figure given above, the inter-

— 26 —

pretative hint is of the second sort, convention; though in
the third it was to me, when I first heard it, of the first
order, the pat connection. In The Pilgrim's Progress it is
the personifying of virtues. In Tlie Faerie Queene it is the
Latin signification of the proper names partly, and partly
the prefatory remarks of the author. In Absalom and Achi-
to/'/tt'l, Tlie Tale of a Tub, Gulliver's Travels it was the apro-
pos connection; a modern student will not understand a word
of these pieces unless he is either thoroughly familiar with
the history of those days, or is furnished with a key by
somebody who is.

A few illustrations may not be out of place showing
how much this form of figure is used when the mind is
energized. In one instance, I heard a discussion in progress
concerning the value of laws. The debate had become
heated; and, as the one speaker praised their impartiality,
his opponent interjected "Yes, spider-webs always hold the
little flies while the large ones break through". In another
instance the question was raised why it is that we prefer
the shorter condensed forms of tropes to the longer forms,
when someone replied, ■ Why, the man accustomed to riding
in an express train does not care much to travel by cart".
I was reading the humorously elaborate and detailed regu-
lations governing a certain bathing establishment; and, ob-
serving that none were inforced, I joked the bathing master
about it. "Ach ja", he replied "die Suppe wird nie so heiss
gegessen wie sie gekocht ist". Such instances are of daily
occurrence; anyone could think of a dozen in an hour.

The allegory distinguishes itself from the metaphor by
the fact that the subject and predicate are consistent — that
is, the subject is not said to do anything it cannot literally
perform. All parts of the allegory, in fact, are consistent
with each other; the idea illustrated must not be allowed
to intrude at all. Again, the allegory states only one side
of the analogy; the metaphor states both. Thus, in, "The
man accustomed to riding in an express train does not care
much to travel by cart", only the illustrating element is

— 27 —

iphor would be •Why, the long figure is
Um cart; tin- >l.<Tt one, the npron train".

Bunk distinguishes itself from Allegory merely in the
• ntation. In th»> mind of the poet or the speaker they
are alike. Hence odd the literal element bo the Allegory in
the presentation also, and it becomes a simile. 'The short
figure of ipeoct exhilarates like travelling in an express
train; the hmg one is tiresome like a joumev in a « art
OUT <»hl instance in the fon of a simile.

of Class I may also be easily changed to figures
of Class 111. Consider the parallel given on page 20: —

!Kor out of olde t'eldes as men seith
Cometh al this newe corn fro v» • r to yere,
... I And out of olde hokes in good feith

(Cometh al this newe science that men lere.

Substitute "as" for "For" and •so" for "And" so that

the illustrative force of the latter couplet be formally predi-

i and the figure is a simile. Now omit the literal,

state the spiritual, supply an interpretative hint, and it will

be an allegory, thus: —

' doubt the talue of Why all our new corn from
old books do you! year to year comes out of

Interpretative Hint. old fields!

The spiritual.
The literal — omitted.

It will now be seen that the three classes of figures
are merely different channels by which the poet may express
perhaps even one and the same thought.

Applying our old principle of subdivision, we get the
following genera under this class: —

HI. A. l. — The allegory continues through at least two
full periods. This is the Sustained Allegory. As instances
may be mentioned The Faerie Queene, The Boke of the
Duchesse, and of shorter examples Wyatt's, The louer hopeth
of better chance.

— 28 —

III. A. 2. — The allegory is completed within the limits
of one period — Periodic Allegor;/. This form is very rare.
Examples: —

For many a man such fire oft times he kindleth

That with the blase his berd him self he singeth. —
Wyatt, Of the fained frend, 6.

For Rachel have I served

For Lea cared I neuer

And her have I reserved

Within my hart foreuer. — Wyatt, The loner excuseth
himself of ivords wherewith he was uniustlij charged.

While Scorpio dreading Sagittarius' dart

Whose bow prest bent in fight the string had slipped

Down slid into the Ocean flood apart;

The Bear that in the Irish seas had dipped

His grisly feet with speed from thence he whipped

For Thetis hasting from tbe Virgin's bed

Pursued the Bear that ere she came was fled. —

Sackville, The Induction, Stanza 5.
III. A. 3. — Allegories that are an incomplete period,
though of more than one clause in length.

I have, God wot, a large feeld to ere

And wayke been the oxen in my plough. —

The Knightes Tale, 28.

a jay
Can clepen Watte as Avel as can the pope. —

Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, 642.
Whose praises — — — — — — —

Me all to meane the sacred Muse areeds

To blazon broad emongst her learned throng. —

Hie Faerie Queene, I. Prol., 6.
III. A. 4. — Allegories that complete themselves within
the limits of a single clause — Clause Allegor)/.
angry Jove an hideous storm of raine
Did pour into his Lemans lap so fast. —

The Faerie Queene, I, 1, 51.

Whan that hiii ina with her pale li^t

Was ioyned last with I'hebus in a(|iiarie. —

vtk. The Tempil of Glas, 4.
For str.ii,rlit after the hlaae as is no wonder
Of deadly noyse heare I tbe fearful I thunder. —

W i \tt, T7te louer describes his bring stricken
trith the n'oht <</' his lone.

m. A. 5. — Here, as in I. A. 3 and II. A. 3, predication
has been suppressed or reduced, forming the Phrase Allegory: —

A shiten shepherd and a clene sheep. —

Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, 504.

In this example, predication has been suppressed, form-
ing an instance of apposition with the preceding line. This
ia the only phrase allegory that occurs from Langland to
SptBMC inclusive.

III. A. 6. — Here belongs Class V of phrases where no
hint of predication remains. Let us again consider the
pbm e Queene" discussed on page 16, and we shall

be better able to see how distinctive a mark of these phrases
this parallelism is. If the mind be watched as it comes to
a full understanding of this phrase, it will be found that
tirst two distinct pictures appear thus: —

Faerie

(Jiteene

sp.

lit.

"Queene", the literal or illustrated half, stands for Eliza-
beth, her greatness, England. 'Faerie", the spiritual or
illustrative half stands for faerie land, elves, beauty, bril-
liance, purity. 'A" is probably the virginity of the queen.
This is a perfect allegory, and like the other forms of the
figure would be a simile were the parallelism predicated.
Secondly, Elizabeth, her great men, England were all poten-
tially contained in the word "Queene", are merely a train
of associations set going by "Queene". Similarly faerie land,

— 30 —

elves, beauty, purity, brilliance are a train of associations
started by "Faerie". Hence the mental processes involved
in the fifth class phrase are better pictured by two slowly
lengthening parallels thus: —

lit. ap.

and parallels at that that never end.

The V- class phrase then is an allegory in which the
train of association composing each of the two elements is
started by one of the words making up the phrase. In the
other forms of the allegory the spiritual series is expressed.
The other V - class phrases from Langland to Spenser are
"Elfin knight", "saffron bed", "Faerie knight".

m. A. 7. — But even the literal parallel in the V- class
phrase may fall away, leaving only the one word that sets
the spiritual train of associations going in the mind. But
this absence of the literal and presence only of the spiritual
is the distinguishing characteristic of the allegory; and such
single words may then be called Word - Allegories. As an
example consider the following from Tennyson's The Princess: —
Let the lean -headed eagles yelp alone, and
[do you] leave
Their monstrous ledges.
Here the word "yelp" may be read over or it may suggest
something. In the former case, the fault would be the
reader's. In the latter, the train of associations would be
wolves, ravenousness, snow, great wastes, and so forth, which
are not identified with any other ideas in the sentence, but
are purely illustrative in the true allegorical way. The
literal parallel or the idea illustrated does not come before
us in any definite form. We know it to be the eagles, but

the irord 'eagle*" starti n.> parallel train of associations iii
the tniii'l. Both parallels are suggested simultaneously l»\
the word *y<-l|>".

The great master of the word- allegory in Kni;lish litera-
ture is Teuii\-u!i. Witness the following from '/'/«■ ' >: —

mv tat her heard and ran
In on the lists and there unlaced niv caaqoa
\ >celttl*) on my body

«ind on their em Is
Prom the high tree the blossom wavering fell.
And over them the tremulous isles of light
x thej moving under >i

Hut he that lav
Beside us, Cyril, hattered m he was
Trailed himself up on one knee.

a wall of night
Blot out the slope of sea from verge to floor
And suck the bliuding splendor from the sands.
Nor wilt thou snare him [Love] in the white ravine
Nor rind him dropt upon the firths of ice
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors.
But follow; let the torrent dance thee down
To find him in the valley; let the wild
Lean-headed eagles yelp alone, and leave
Their monstrous ledges there to slope and spill
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water - smoke.
That like a broken purpose waste in air.
The word - allegory is the one string on which Tenny-
son harps.

The mental process involved in all these forms of allegory
is the same. The imagination of the reader is merely made
to operate by smaller and smaller hints from the poet. The
reduction in printed length does not represent the reduction
but the concentration of force. We saw most clearly from

*) The italics are mine.

— 32 —

the V - class phrase that the parallelism in the allegory
is infinite. The Simile and the Metaphor present only a
few definite qualities of the type to be set forth; but in
the allegory the imagination carries the two parallel series
of associations on and on, continually finding new points of
contact, never arriving at a full conception of the type, never
being satisfied. Herein lies the great superiority of the
allegory as a figure of speech; it is one of the character-
istics of types that they always will possess more attri-
butes than can ever be conceived of. This is why we all
feel the allegory to be the figure of speech par excellence.

III. B. — Here come figures of speech like "Justice weighed
it in her scales", "Love, that my feling astonieth with his
wonderful worching." Let us analyze the former example.
For "Justice" we all see at once, in our mind's eye, a large
female figure probably clad in classic garb. This figure
has an actual pair of scales; and the "it" that is weighed
is some object, probably a scroll. There is nothing unliteral;
all parts of the conception are mutually consistent; the female
figure can actually weigh; the expression is not of class II.
It means that exact impartial justice (with a small j) was
meted out toward some deed; and we see that it is the
illustrative half of a figure of class III. This is Personification.

Personification differs from allegory in the broadness of
the "interpretative hint" and in the fact that the same word
(with changed initial letter however) is the subject of both
the spiritual and literal parallel. The capital initial is an
interpretative hint of the conventional sort formed from book
associations; and it is the exceeding broadness of this that
makes a figure of this sort so distasteful to the mature
modern mind. Nothing is left for the imagination to do;
the figure is thrust at you so to speak. Yet there is evident
difference between "Night spread her black mantle" and
"night spread her black mantle". The former is personifi-
cation; the latter, metaphor. In the former the transactions
go parallel through the mind, in the latter they are combined.
Personification is merely an allegory that deals with persons.

— 33 —

This is the >iinpl»st and most primitive of all the BgOMt,
I the t>ii»' Hrst used by the child, the ..uh.st artivit
its imagination. Hut tor a full discussion of this point see

' iti-x of l.it,f<tui.\ page 64.

Pfnoaii s above set forth is the sense of the

work. Commonly the term is used with much
loosenes> MOM like -The trees «<|'t balm" "The

< loads blushed" are so designated, apparently tor no other
reason than that weeping and blushiug are human acts. I
have asked many persons if they saw in their mind's eye a
human being weep in the first instance and blush in the
:id; and they have uniformly answered that they did not

[>t as compounded, in a way. with a tree and a cloud.
That has always been my experiem e with MM figures, and
I believe it is the experience of all. To call a figure of
speech person iuYation when even the individual so calling it
does not clearly have a person in mind seems absurd. This
sort of figure is metaphor.

We distinguish the same classes of personification that
we did of allegory. This gives us: —

HE. B. 1. — Sustained Personification.

m. B. 2. — Periodic Personijiratimi.

HI. B. 3. — Personification of more than one Clause

though not a full Period.
IH. B. 4. — Clause Personification.
III. B. 5. — Phrase Personification.

There remain to be mentioned only those poetic appearances
called Apostrophe. Here the poet either addresses some Idea
or Object that he conceives as standing in some relation of
actual personality to him — as in the innumerable apo-
strophes to Love and Fortune. Or the object addressed may
not be conceived as holding any personal relationship to
the poet, as Byron's Apostrophe to the Ocean or Tell's address
to his native mountains. In the first case the figure is of
class III B.; in the latter, of class II.

Peterson, A History of English Poetry.

— 34 —

These are the forms in which the figures of speech appear
pure. There are some appearances of a mixed character
in poetry that need mention.

I. Allegory may be stated in metaphorical terms. Our
old illustration aA rolling stone gathers no moss" will do
for an example. "Gather" is a term that cannot be strictly
applied to a stone; it presupposes voluntary selective activity.
Such figures are counted in class II and III both. Another
instance: —

The hammer of the restless forge

I wote eke how it workes. — Surrey, Description

of the fickle Affections Panges and Slights of Love.

II. Personification may be stated in metaphorical terms,
and as such is counted in class II and III: —

[Fame speaks] Blow thy trumpe and that anon,
Quod she, thou Eolus I hote,
And ring these folkes werkes by note
That al the world may of it here. —

Chaucer, The Hous of Fame, 1718.
"Ring" and "al the world may here" are metaphorical.

III. Personification, though beginning pure, may shade
off into literal language: —

Thanne come ther a king, knyghthood him ladde
Might of the Comunes made him to regne
And than cam kynde witte and clerkes he madde
For to counseille the king and the comune save. —
The Vision of Piers the Plowman, Prol., 112.

The last line is literal; we have temporarily forgotten
the personified figures of the first lines.

IV. Personification may shade off into running meta-
phor, as: —

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droughte of Marche hath perced to the roote
And batted every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour. —

Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, 1.

— 3 5

To Mf that the flower is engendered from the virtue
ie shower is metaphor just as April pitMUg tlie drought
of March to the r> • il !'• rsoniti.ation.

\ AlkflCHj ,.-l\f from running Metaphor: —

And whan that was fill y-spronge
And woxen more on every tongue
Than ev*r hit was, hit wente anoon
I p to a windowe out to goon,
Or but hit mighte out ther pace
Hit gan to creep at some crevace
And fleigh forth taste for the nones. —

The Hew* of Fume, 2081.
VI. Allegory and Personification with literal subject.
The distinctive mark of the allegory, as we have so
often seen, is the different imagined subject for the spiritual
and the literal side of the analogy. But the grammntirnl
subject may occasionally be the same. We have many such
allegories in our common speech, as: "He would have come,
if he had not had other fish to fry". Having "other fish
to fry" means having other and more important matters in
hand, and is allegorical. Yet the spiritual and literal subjects
are identified — the distinctive mark of the metaphor. That
this nevertheless is allegory is seen from the fact that the
personality of the subject changes in our imagination the
moment the allegorical idea of frying fish intrudes. ,He"
assumes an apron perhaps or changes fittingly in some other
way. That the personality of the subject changes, often
remarkably, in this way the moment the allegorical notion
appears is seen most clearly in the following from Wyatt's
The louer excuseth himself of xcordes wherwith he was uniustbj
charged: —

And as I have deserved
So grant me now my hire
You know I never swerved
You never found me Iyer
For Rachel have I serued
For Lea cared I neuer.

3*

— 36 —

Here it is the associations connected with the names
"Rachel" and "Lea" that bring about the remarkable change
in our mental picture of the speaker from the Elizabethan
courtier to the Jew of the Old Testament. It will not do
to base the distinction between Allegory and Metaphor upon
grammatical differences. It is in this way that the personality
of the speaker (Chaucer) in 'lhe Hous of Fame changes, espe-
cially in the eagle episode of the first book.

VII. Allegory and personification may occur within alle-
gory and personification, and especially in these early periods
where such instances are often employed to illustrate the
main allegory of the poem. This is in a larger sense ana-
logous to allegory stated in metaphorical terms. In The Boke
of the Duchesse, the knight weeping for his dead mistress repre-
sents John of Gaunt's supposed feelings at the death of the
Lady Blaunche. It begins at line 444, ending at line 1310.
In the middle of his speech — lines 617 to 684 — the knight
launches into an account of a game of chess played by
himself and Fortune. The idea conveyed here might as well
have been set forth in literal language; the main allegory
would not have suffered at all. And if we ignore the main
allegory, looking upon the impersonal knight and his lament
as per se the motive of the poem, the passage in question
is not altered; it remains personification — personification
within allegory. Such instances belong as well under III B.
as III A.

Similarly in The Vision of Piers the Plowman I, 38 — 39
and 76 — 78 "Holychirche" uses personification to illustrate
her remarks merely and not in reference to any character
of the poem, when it would of course be part of the main
personification only. Indeed triple combinations may occur.
In the same piece, passus I, line 155 (half) is a simile,
occurring in an allegory (151 — 156) which is itself but in-
cidental to the main personification.

:57

The \1V century w eminently the century foi

persointicatinns in Knglish literature. Witness th.- following
from The Vision of Pier* I imm; —

II. • _' V Syi •'.,- wlf ainl - OOrfl

• mool i'i"v\.- with M
II. 8il. And the Erldome of Knvye and Wratthe

togktooi

With the chastelet of chest and clateryng - out

- of - resMim
The count- of OOTOtlM ami tl the costes aboute.
IV. IS, Anl [roooan] called catoun his knave curti>e
of speche,
i tlao tuinni- - tonge - telle - DM -

no - tal-
\ - lesyng - to - law jo - of - for - I - loved -

bom - n<
-And iotte my Mdo] upon suffre - tel - I • see -
my - tyine."
\ W. Than shallow come by a croft, but come thon
noujt there - inne,
That croft hat coveyte - noughte - mennes -

catel - ne - her - weyves -
Ne - none - of - her - servaunts - that - noyen -

hem - mi >te,
Loke ye breke no bowe there but if it be
yowre owne.
V. 592. Than shall ye see sey - soth - so - it - be -
to - done -
In - no - manere - elles - naughte - for - no -
mannes - biddynge.
Very likely William could at a pinch have conceived of
the entire decalogue as a croft or something else equally
allegorical. Moreover the XIII and XIV centuries were the
centuries of the miracle plays and the moralities. Personi-
fications and allegorical conceptions were in the air. Those
were the children of the race; and the child of to-day is as

— 38 —

alert in figuring facts to himself allegorically. I have asked
numbers of children in the schools to tell what they saw in
their minds for "evening descended"; and they have uniformly
seen "evening" as some being of the angelic order actually
winging his way downward from on high. We of mature
minds do not naturally see it thus. To them it was allegory,
to us it is metaphor. Chaucer would have seen it as they
did; and consequently more latitude must be given to allegory
and personification in the writers of the XIV century than
would be granted to instances in Tennyson or Shelley. Some
cases like the following have been classed as personification
where to us they would be metaphor: —

thus melancholye
And drede I have for to dye
Defaute of slepe and hevinesse
Have sleyn ray spirit of quiknesse. —

The Boke of the Duchesse, 23.
The blood was fled for pure drede
Down to his hert to make hit warm,
For well hit feled the hert hadde harm,
To wyte eek why hit was a-drad
By kynde, and for to make hit glad. —

Ibid., 490.
For so astonied and asweved
Was every vertu in myn heved
What with his sours and with my drede
That al ray feling gan to dede. —

The Hous of Fame, 549.
It is plain that Chaucer in his mind's eye saw Defaute -
of - Slepe, Hevinesse, Drede - I - have - for - to - deye, the
blood, as personifications of some sort. The Boke of tlie
Duchesse and The Hous of Fame are the only pieces that
present such anomalies.

VI. Associated Types. — But the illustrative fact of
environment may be combined with the type to be set forth
without making a figure of speech. It need only be placed
in juxtaposition to the type, when the illustrative bearing

3'.»

will at QMfe bt strikingly felt, though the form be perfect 1\
literal, as: —

Bt | the Honk] was a \ord nil /<>( and in good point, —
>gu9 to The Cauterhun/ Tolm, 200.

Hon tin- illustration suggested by the words in italics
of course, the well-conditioned swine. In
And gadrede us together al in a flok. — Ihid., 82 I
tlic illustration brought to bear is a flock of good-natured,
helpless, and dazed sheep or geese. As in painting, a character-
istic phase of environment may be made to do duty in the
same illustrative way as: —

the high doors
We re softly sundered, and through these a youth

Pelleas and the sweet smell of the fields

Passed, and the sunshine came along with him. —

moa, PoUtat nii'l Ettarre.

Browning, Sonlello, 387—429.

In all these instances something typical in the world
outside the ego is directly brought into association with the
type to be delineated for the sake of the illustrative force
it may have, aud may consequently be called an Associated
Typo. The excellence of this poetic element lies in the fact
that, like the allegory, it does not set forth a few character-
istics of the type in hand, but sets trains of associations in
motion.

VII. Tone Colors. — Here the type is suggested, not
through the meaning of the words, but by their sounds.
Having once had a pleasant or an unpleasant experience in
which the chief element was sound, such as the hoot by
night of an owl in a wood, the shrieking of the wintry
wind, the groans of a dying man, the ripple of an alpine
brook, the occurrence of this element alone in poetry is
sufficient to start a train of associations that recall the
original experience. Such sounds are: —

(1) of pleasant associations, e, i, 11, er, ir, a, a, m, n.

(2) of unpleasant ones oo, u, ii, ar.

— 40 —

The only instance in the period from Langland to Spenser
where this element is employed is the following four lines
from The Faerie Queene: —

And more to \ulle him in his slumber soft
A trickling stream from high rocke tumbling downe
And ever drizling raine upon the loft
Mixt with a murmuring winde much like the sowne
Of swarming bees. — Book I, 361.

I add two more examples taken from those given by
Professor Sherman.*)

Hear the sledges with the bells —

Silver bells.
What a world of merriment their melody foretells.
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle
In the icy air of night,
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle

With a crystalline delight. — Poe, 77ie Bells.
But see his eyeballs
Staring full ghastly like a strangled man
His hair upreared his nostrils stretched with straggling
His hands abroad displayed, as one that grasped
And tagged for life, and was by strength subdued.

Shakespeare, II King Henry IV, III. 2.

VIII. Rhythm and Rhyme. — It has been found that

in ten-syllable lines the accents fall well - nigh exclusively

upon either the fourth, eighth, and tenth syllable or the

sixth and tenth of each line, as in the following: —

I am to bold, tis not to me* she speaks 4, 8, 10.

Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven 6, 10.

Having some business do in treat her eyes 4, 8, 10.

To twinkle in their spheres till they return 6, 10.

What if her eyes were there; they, in her head, 4, 6, 7, 10.
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars 6, 8, 10.
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven 6, 10.

Would through the aery region stream so bright 6, 10.

*) Analytics of Literature, page 26.

— 41 —

Thai birds would >ing and think it w.-n- not night I. 8, 1"
now ftbfl leaiM lM> oMek upon her liiiiil 6, 10.

0, that I were a ghSve upon that hand 6,10.

That 1 might touch that cheek! 4, 6.

kkspkark, Romeo >//«/ Juliet, II, J, 14.
In the above the rhythmic accent corresponds with kh«
accent of sense; and, in so fur, perfection of rhythm is of
\alue because it Mggeatl power. DMMtax and warrants us
in expecting enmothing greater to come. But neither rhyme
nor rhythm aids in the setting forth of types, and as such
•r elements etrietrj -peaking. That they give
pleaaare is anqneetioped, though both rhyme and etanaa
form have been found useless in our best poetry. As Professor
Sherman truly says, "The soul of man if acquainted with
nothing nobler may get pleasure, as with the Indian, from
even a feather or a shell".

It is by means of these elements of technique that the
poet strives to place his type before us. His one object is
to set this type forth in a full, rounded way exactly as he
has it before him in his mind. He employs all the resources
of suggestion, association, phrases, and figures to this end.
To convey, so to speak, what he has in his mind to the
mind of the reader; to describe exactly all that he sees in
his imagination, in its various phases and bearings, with
out loss of definiteness, together with his personal attitude
toward it of hatred or love is his sole aim. This is the
direct or sympathetic method and the great masters of it in
English literature are Tennyson and Shelley.

But there is another method, and the poet employs this
as soon as his ideals become so high and his feeling so
strong that he realizes the futility of all attempts at ex-
pression. A man in an agony of mere physical pain may
cry out, may groan, may tear his hair. But there often
comes a time of absolute quiet — when silence is much
more eloquent. The South has always set forth such ideals
as it possessed with volubility. The North has felt that
the greatest can not be expressed.

— 42 —

B. The Indirect Method.

IX. Effects. — I once knew a man that had a son
some six years old. One day the father came up to me in
the greatest enthusiasm, and said, "I tell you, my boy is
the greatest fellow! You just ought to hear him 'cuss' his
mother once". I have made no labored description of the
man, have employed no poetic words, phrases, associations, or
figures of speech in an attempt to convey a notion of him.
Yet the type of man is definite and sharp.

In the Inferno Dante does not aim to convey a notion
of how hot hell is by an accumulation of poetic comparisons.
He merely says that he was so hot — so hot — that he
cast a red shadow*)

In Beowulf, when Hre/>el the king has lost his eldest
son and heir, the poet does not say that he tore his hair,
or that his sorrow stuck in his throat, but that his house
and the fields seemed to him altogether too large now.**)

When Beowulf and his warriors are waiting at night
in Heorot for the attack of Grendel, the poet does not de-
scribe Beowulf s watchfulness for his men, his great feeling of
responsibility as their leader, his nerving himself for the
struggle. But he says 'The warriors that were to hold that
hall adorned with antlers slept — all but one."***)

In Hamlet, before presenting the prince to us, Shake-
speare spends no words of description upon him — merely
has his name mentioned. But in the midst of a court festiv-
ity, of the scarlet and white of royalty Hamlet appears
in black.

Instances could be multiplied ad infinitum.

We shall best understand the mental processes here
involved if we analyze one of the above instances. (1) Hamlet

*) This instance is given in the Analytics of Literature p. 130.
**) Jjiihte him eall to rum

wongas and wic-stede. 1. 2462.

***) Sceotend swsefon

Jj% J>sst horn-reced healdon scoldon
ealle huton anum. 1. 704.

— 43 —

appeared in Mack for two reasons; he mourned for his father
end wished t | rebuke t<> his uncle. < '< >ii<f(|iuMit 1\

love t<>r his father and hatred of his uncle's smallness were
the causes; his appearing in black, the I ) Thee*

< ha nut eristics of filial love and hatred of littleness are only
two of an unlimited number of elements that together con-
stitute our ideal of human chararter. These elements are
nimicctnl liv *berO linings" -association in such a wa\ ttuit
wht'n one is suggested the others follow. Now (8) when irt

st't* Hamlet in Mark, and after our mind has for a while
uiuutisriou>lv grappled with the phenomenon in an attempt
t.> understand it, the imagination suddenly, by a process of
inductive inference, sees the one cause, and almost simultane -
ouslv the other. Instantly the train of associations is started
and in a flash our type of character is before us visibly em-
bodied in Hamlet. (4) This train of associations is never ended
because, as we have so often seen, the number of elements
that compose our type is greater than we can ever know. The
imagination goes on and on, higher and higher, never com-
pleting the ideal, never coming to rest. For this reason this
is the most effective of all the poetic elements. Here is where
poetry and music touch.

This is the indirect or interpretative method — the
method by "effects". The inductive process involved here
was discovered by Professor Sherman in Shakespeare and
first set forth in a general way in Analytic* of Literature,
chapter XIII. He distinguishes two kinds of effects — those
described above, and Negative Effects. A negative effect may
be defined as an effect from which the imagination infers first
the cause, of course, and then a type, which latter, however,
is the direct opposite of what the mind had been expecting
from previous knowledge would appear. Thus, if we see a
tramp perform a minor heroic act, we are much more struck
therewith than if a nicely dressed gentleman had done it.
This is the more powerful of the two varieties of effects
and is, as the professor has shown, practically the only poetic
element made use of in Othello.

— 44 —

These two kinds of effects may be called Dramatic Effects
because the individual to be portrayed appears through them
in his propria persona — the effects are not related of him.
The great masters of this poetic element in English literature
are Shakespeare and Browning, and now we see why neither
deals much in poetic words. See page 13.
Examples: —

Hamlet IV, 1. Effects in brackets.

Cause, desire to work on

King There's matter in [these sighs: TT . ™,g* ee ln"s
* l © Hamlets favor.

these profound heaves] Ty/*,motherly love, solici-

tude, etc.
You must translate; 'tis fit we under-
stand them.

Cause, instant inference
thatHamletis thecause.

[Where is your son?] r«P«» Tearfulness of H.,

general uneasiness, cow-
ardice.
Cause, desire to work upon

Queen. [ Bestow this place on us a little the kinS b^ an assuminS
while. -] of mystery.

J i-iJl>e, as above.

[Ah, my good lord, what have I seen Came and Type a8above.

to - night!]

King. [What, Gertrude? How does

Hamlet?]

Cause, Falsehood to work

on the king's feelings.
Queen. [Mad as the sea and wind, when Ty^ a woman morally

both contend loose though an anxious

Cause and Type as above.

mother.
Cause and type as above.

Which is the mightier] ; in his [lawless

fit,]

Behind the arras hearing something stir,
Whips out his rapier, cries, "A rat, a rat!"

And in his [brainish apprehension] kills Cause and type as above.
[The unseen good old man.] Cause and type as above.

King. 0 heavy deed!

— 45 —

OnMne, F«ur of Hamlet.
| It had been s<> with us, had we been Type, a king fearful of
1 1 1 ,• re • I everything because of a

bad conscience.
His lil»crt\ is full of threats to all,

m, as above. Instinct-
ive effort to strengthen
- It, | to us, to every one. nj, ,^e

Type, at above.
| Alas, how shall this bloody deed be Cause, fear of the public.

answer'd: Type, aa above.

It will be laid to us,] whose providence
Shodd have kept short, restraint, and

out of haunt,

! This mad young man:] but |so much
was our love,

Came, Instinctive effort
to make himself be-
lieve he is justified
in proceeding against
Hamlet.

Tyjie, as above.

We would not understand what was

most tit. |

But, like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging, let it feed

Even on the pith of life. [Where is Cause. Fear of Hamlet,
he gone?] Type, as above.

'j. To draw apart the body he
hath kill'd;

O'er whom [his very madness,] like Came' Falsification to

work on the king.
Type, motherlines8.
Among a mineral of metals base,
Shows itself pure. [He weeps for what Cause and type as before.

is done.] Compare IV, 2, 1.

King. 0, Gertrude come away!

[The sun no sooner shall the moun- Ca™\ De8ire t0 get

Hamlet away as soon
tains touch, as p08gible _ fear

But we will ship him hence] : and this

vile deed T^' as above'

W e must, with all our majesty and
skill,

— 46 —

Both countenance and excuse. — Ho,
Guildenstern !

Friends both, go [join you with some ^^j*8™01"11 fear °f
^ further aid;] Type^ cowardice because

^c- of an evil conscience.

Here then are nineteen effects in thirty - three lines, all
focussed upon two types — the Queen, morally flabby but
to a degree ennobled by her motherly love and solicitude, the
king with a bad conscience and, consequently, unreasonable
fear and unrest. In Act 1, Scene 1 of the play there are
twenty - three effects in the first forty lines. I have no statis-
tics, but it is my opinion that there are more effects in
Hamlet and Macbeth than in the entire Elizabethan Drama
outside of Shakespeare.

III. Narrative Effects. But there are other kinds of
effects. In Shakespeare's effects the character is presented at
first hand, in his propria persona, without the intervention of
the author. Narrative effects are such as are related of the
character like those instanced from Biowulf. Though having
no figures, I think I may say that there are more of these
two sorts of effects in Biowulf than in all other English
poetry before Shakespeare, omitting Chaucer's Prologue; and
that consequently Beowulf is the greatest poem in English
literature before Shakespeare, with the exception mentioned.
This is practically the only element employed by Chaucer in
his Prologue, as witness: —
And thereon hung a broch of gold

ful shene
On which there was first writ a crowned A
And after Amor vincit omnia. — 1, 162.

Type, worldly mincled-
ness etc. etc. ol the
Prioress.

A fat swan loved he best of any
roost. — 206.

A bokeler hadde he maad him of a cake

Epicureanism and
worldliness of the Monk.

" Type, Buffoonery etc.
etc. of the Somnour.

IV. The fourth variety of effects are Effects from
Environment. If I walk along the street and see a house

47

with ■ dooryard full of broken bricks, tlu> fence down in
dImh, the pate off its hinges, an old sock stuifed into ■
broken window - pane, 1 know the character of the inhabit

kbt type — as perfectly as though 1 had been acquainted

with him for years. These elements in his environment are

ts; his shiftlessness is the cause; and the type of man

l* instanth known. This element i^ nuiiiiion in the best

modem English fiction.

\ Effects from Emphasis. In the following passage.
the words in italics have emphasis: —

I am thy j'-it/itr's spirit

Doomd for a certain term to walk the night

d for the day conHit'il to fast in fires
Till the foul crime* done in my day of nature

\v<- burnt and purged MMA/. Hut that I am fort-id
To till the secret of my prison-house,
I could a tab- unfold whose lightest word
Would harroic up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes like stars, start from their spheres
Thi/ knotted and combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand an end
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood, List, list, 0, listl
If thou didst ever thy dear father love — 68°/0.

Shakespeake, Hamlet I, 5, 9.

Head this declaration at the head of the army, even/
■ncord will be drawn from its scabbard and the sobunn vow
uttered to maintain it or to perish on the bed of honor. Take
it to the public halls, proclaim it there, and the very walls
will cry out in its support. — 50°/0. Webster.

Twas summer and the sun had mounted high
Southward the landscape indistinctly glared
Through a pale steam; but all the northern downs
In clearest air ascending, showed far off

— 48 —

A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung
From brooding clouds; shadows that lay in sjiots
Determined and unmoved, with steady beams
Of bright and pleasant sunshine interposed. — 34°/0.
Wordswokth, lite Excursion I, 1 — 8.
Prof. Sherman has shown that ordinarily adjectives before
nouns, adverbs before verbs do not have any accent; the
object of a verb, not the verb is emphasized, and in phrases
the substantive only.*)

In the first two extracts given, adjectives, adverbs, nouns,
verbs, and even pronouns carry emphasis. These selections
have respectively sixty-eight and fifty per cent emphatic
words. The last of the three is in a tone of ordinary dis-
course, while in in the first two the speaker was much im-
passioned.

Now if a man is laboring under strong feeling, is im-
passioned and energetic, we learn this from a number of
facts, — his facial expression, his attitude of uprightness, his
gesture, the great number of emphasized words in his speech,
the tone - qualities of his voice. These elements are effects;
the strong feeling he is under, the cause. They are united
by "beruhrungs"- association in the usual way so that the
occurrence of one suggests the others. The numerousness
of the emphatic words is the only one of them that may be
given us on the printed page. When we notice it the others
at once follow, and the type of the forceful impassioned
man, laboring under excitement, comes into being in our minds.
These then are the elements of technique in poetry —
the means whereby the poet makes us see and feel the types
he has in his mind. We have seen that they are used by
us all in our daily intercourse, given the conditions. May
we not say that there is nothing in poetry, literature, art
that there is not in common life?

It now remains to arrange these elements in some
order of relative value. Certain principles of classification

*) Analytics of Literature, Chapters IV and XXVII.

49

have aln-iulv rom tin- preceding. (1) The

:s word allegory and fifth class phrase will occupy on
end of the series. (2) The sustained and periodic turn;
the figures of speech will Um other. (:?) The elements

dependent upon association purely will hold the intermediate
p'Mtion. (4) The figures will rank among themselves Allegon.
Metaphor. Simile. PorionifltntiOD (.r>) The tonus of each
figure will rank according to length. (»»| The elements that
trains of association, those that suggest, and those that
predicate being of different categories, a perfectly exact lineal
arrangement will he impossible.

following then quite accurately represents the relatn .
value of the elements: —

1. Negative Effects.
J. Dramatic Effects.
Word Allegory.

4. Narrative Effects.

5. Phrases Class V.

6. Effects from Emphasis.

7. Environment Effects.

8. Phrase Allegory.

9. Associated Types.

10. Tone-Colors.

11. Phrases Class IV.

12. Phrases Class III.

13. Clause Allegory.

14. Allegory of more than one Clause.

15. Periodic Allegory.

16. Phrases Class II.

17. Poetic Phrases.

18. Phrase Metaphor.

19. Clause Metaphor.

20. Poetic Clauses.

21. Phrase Simile.

22. Clause Simile.

23. Comparison.

24. Sustained Allegory.

Peterson, A History of English Poetry. 4

— 50 —

25. Parallel.

26. Phrase Personification.

27. Clause Personification.

28. Running Metaphor.

29. Sustained Simile.

30. Personification of more than one Clause.

31. Periodic Personification.

32. Sustained Personification.

33. Phrases Class I.

Poetic Words have been omitted because they are not
exclusively reckoned. The words composing the phrases of
Class II and IV would thus have been counted twice.

IV. The Development of English Poetry from
Langland to Spenser.

In the period from Langland to Spenser, the following
poems were selected as representative and the number of
each poetic element was determined for them severally.

I. Langland: The Vision concerning Piers the Plowman.

Text B., Skeat, Oxford 1888.
II. Chaucer: The Boke of the Duchesse.

III. Chaucer: The Parlement of Foules.

IV. Chaucer: The Hous of Fame.
V. Chaucer: The Knightes Tale.

VI. Chaucer: The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales.

VII. Lydgate: The Tempil of Glas. ,

VIII. Surrey: Songs and Sonnets.
IX. Wyatt: Songs and Sonnets.

X. Sackville: The Induction to the Mirrour
for Magistrates.

XI. Spenser: The Faerie Queene.

From The Vision concerning Piers the Plowman the
prologue and passus I — III were taken; from The Faerie

— 51 —

■ ne, the first two i -antos; from Tl* Tmpik of GLi$$ and

tin* Songt and Sonnets of Surrey and Wyatt, one thousand

lines each. The other pieces were worked through rutin-.

The basis of comparison was taken as one thousand

-\ liable lims; or an equivalent amount. The lines of

<n" are of irregular length, but the amount

taken was found equal to about twelve hundred of our

standard lines.

Where doubt came up as to whether a phrase was of
the second or fourth class it was put in tht- -.cond. In
the category of clause figure and phrase figure wen- put only
lack instances as were actually a clause or a phrase and
nothing more. A figure consisting of a clause plus a phrase
was put in the column for figures of more than one clause
but not a period.

The results have been summarized in the following
tables: —

I. The total number of instances of each element.
II. The number of instances reduced to a common
basis of one thousand lines.

III. The total number of lines of each element.

IV. The number of lines on a basis of one thousand.
These tables, and IV especially, show in an objective

way the aesthetic content of the eleven poems chosen. Each
of the poetic elements may be followed by itself throughout
the period. By referring to the list of elements on page 49,
and comparing the totals of table IV, the advance to Chaucer's
Prologue, the retrogression to Sackville, and the beginning
of a new era with Spenser may be seen in detail. The
table of effects, tone -colors, associated types, and phrases
show (1) how far removed these early poems are from what
our modern taste demands, and (2) the beginnings from
which our present standards of form have been evolved.
The types have not been tabulated, but will be discussed
for the poems severally. They represent the author's aim
in writing. Subject - matter and technique, it should be re-
membered, have no objective relation to each other, and are

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VI. Prologue
VII. Tempi 1 of Glas
VIII. Surrey's Sonnets
IX. Wyatt's Sonnets
\ Induction
XI. Faorie Queene

III. Parlement of
Foules

IV. Hous of Fame

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II. Boko of the
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lit. I'ailoment of

Ironies
VI. IIou8 of Fame
V. Knightes Tale
VI. Prologue
VII. Tempil of (J las
VIII Surrey's Sonnets
IX. Wyatt's Sonnets
X. Induction
XI. Faerio Queone

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54 —

V. Knightes Tale
VI. Prologue
VII. Tempil of Glas
VIII. Surrey's Sonnets
XI. Wyatt's Sonnets
X. Induction
XI. Faerie Queene
XII. Venus and
Adonis

III. Parlement of
Foules

IV. Hous of Fame

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— 56 —

best kept separate. Compare page 10. The tables will be
found suggestive and are self-explanatory. A few inter-
pretative remarks, however, may not be out of place.

The totals of table IV for The Vision of Piers the
Plowman, The Hous of Fame, The Parlement of Foules reveal
(1) the pre-eminence of personification and allegory in the
poetry of this early period. The stage plays also, such as
they were, were entirely or in part sustained personifications.
These were the children of the race; and, as has been shown,
the favorite figure of the child to - day is personification.
To them as to the child everything took on a human form.
These figures, decreasing gradually in frequency, have dis-
appeared entirely from modern poetry, and would be very
disagreeable to present taste. (2) The sustained allegory
when used was incidental as shown by the occurrence of
several in the same poem. It is an embellishment and not
like The Faerie Queene the motive of the work per se on
which the deeper significance was built up. Such use of
the allegory required the imagination of a Spenser. (3) The
sustained forms of figure prevail over the other forms, and
this is again the mark of the child -mind. The poet had
no confidence in the reader's intuition. His imagination was
incapable of conceiving analogies in a flash; his illustrative
material unfolded itself slowly and naively. And if it had
not, the reader would not have been able to follow him;
the age was not one of mental agility. These forms of
figure, to us so disagreeable because they retard the imagi-
nation, were to them the figure par excellence because they
helped it on. It is out of them that the clause phrase and
word forms of the present day have been evolved. (4) Con-
versely, and for the same reasons, the clause, phrase, and
word allegory, the V - class phrase, effects, tone - colors, asso-
ciated types, environment, without which there can be no
great modern poem, were then finding their first feeble be-
ginnings. (5) The poetical absence of effects shows that our
first poetry was mainly of the subjective sympathetic order.
This is what Ave would expect. Poetry of the objective

—

mtt'i|.r.tati\r tori pivMippoees a certain doubleness of paw

itv in the writer ami this is found only where there is
gonini of a high order. Chaucer's ftaffljOM alone is of
this class. (6) The types u.f of two lOrtt. The pOMM
chosen are either love poems — class IV — or mora] dteqoi-
Dl with implied exhortation* to betterment. This latter
rarittg ■ hi itself ot a high order essentially as high
M the types in three -fourths of Knglish poetry. Love m
the sense of a Romeo and Juliet; the finer — nay even the
grosser — difference! in human rhar.it iter; women like Imogen
and Bermione; Fate; the greatness of a Luria, were as ret
inconceivable. Let us now consider in what particulars these

- .-. -\. i ally show advance upon these general conditions.

Tkt Pteico tometmmg IHers the Plowman seems to be
the best type of XIV -century poetry that we have. In
technique it ie primitive, being such a labyrinth of personi-
fication and incidental sustained allegory as it is. And the
practical absence of the clause, phrase, and word forms of
these figures as of the V - class phrase, effects, associated
types, tone -colors, poetic clauses and phrases is significant of
much more. The thirty - three effects show a dramatic spirit
running through it that might have developed into something
better had Langland possessed genius for poetic expression.
As it is they are lost in the 662 lines of sustained personi-
fication per 1000. A glance at the results from Chaucer's
Prologue will show how impossible a comparison of the
two poems in technique is. The Vision is poor and rudi-
mentary in this respect even when measured by what its
own century produced.

But it is in his types that William is great. He had
a deep and sincere wish for a purer social life. He agonized
over the impiety and corruption of his day; and this is
making the Vision of Piers Plowman ever more and more
of interest to us moderns. We, in spirit at least, overlook
discrepancies of form if the content is of value. Piers is a
figure worthy the best modern story - writing. With "Holy-
cherche", "Conscience", "Trewthe", "Feith" he rises to class VII

— 58

of types, standing on the same plane with the Persoun and
the Plowman of Chaucer's Prologue. These types are posi-
tive; but the types of rectitude, suggested negatively by
"Meed", "Cyvile", "Symonye", "Glotoun" and so forth, are
not inferior. William, no less than Chaucer, meant well;
but his powers of poetical expression were conditioned by
the age be lived in. Still this is a limitation only from our
point of view, and was perhaps in itself fortunate. There
is a sort of genius that consists in being at all points in
touch with one's age no less than in being ahead of it.
Langland did not write above the people he lived among.
His imagination was slow and methodical like the mind of
his fellows. He wrote in the same round - about allegorical
way that his companions thought. This made his poem
much more popular than Chaucer's Prologue became, and
of much more influence for good.

When Chaucer came to write he took what he found
ready to his hand in the way of methods. The Boke of the
Duchesse is clearly of the XIV century; and yet it shows
some advance on the standards set by the Piers Plowman, —
only one - sixth as much personification. But, what is
more especially a mark of advancement, the 866 lines of
sustained allegory, like the 938 lines of the Faerie Queene,
are not illustrative and incidental but in themselves the
subject of the poem. Again there are twice as many IV -
and III -class phrases as Langland used; and this points to
a greater freedom of expression or, what is the same, greater
mental energy. The types rise to class VIII, a height they
were not again to reach before Spenser.

If these results be compared with the totals for The
Hous of Fame and The Parlement of Foulea a retrogression
to previous standards is apparent. When he wrote the
Boke of the Duchesse Chaucer was stirred; his mind was
more energized than in his two next following works. A
reason for this can of course be only speculative: Is it im-
possible that in singing the sorrow of Lancaster for the

— 59 —

Luis Blanche, he was at the same time pouring out his
vrn«t for the loss of his own early h>\ ■

Huwever that be, Chaucer descends to the common level
in his next work. The fJou* <•/' Fame shows sustained per-
sonification fully rampant once more. Sustained allegory is
incidental only. The running metaphors increase in length.
Kffects. fourth and second class phrases become rare. The
typM are only of class III and IV. Chaucer seemed to be
animated by no feeling other than a desire to put into
English verse what he had been reading in Dante and Vergil.

The companion piece, the Parlement of Foulet, resembles
The hum, in only one of these particulars — the

high proportion of personification. There is less allegory,
more metaphor, twice as many IV-, III-. II -class phrases.
This increase in metaphor places it nearer 7 he Knightes /"/■
where metaphor is the chief figure. But the dramatic strain
represented in '/'he Bokt of the Duehesse by 8 effects, and in
The Hou$ of Fame by 9 is represented in The Parlement of
Faults by 40. This strongly suggests the Prologue, and the
types thus set forth not the less in that they are of class VI
— human character fey its own sake in all its humorousness.
The ParUment of Foules, no more than its companion piece,
seems to have been written from any strong impulse, and
yet it is aesthetically the superior. But this means that
Chaucer when he wrote the former had acquired higher types
and attained to greater skill than when he wrote the latter;
and I am led to believe that The Hous of Fame is the
earlier of these two poems.

The tables show three well - marked periods in the
development of Chaucer's technique, characterized by the
prevalence respectively of allegory and personification, meta-
phor, and effects. The cumbrous illustrative material of the
three poems we have so far considered show him but slightly
different from his contemporaries. He was not yet finding
these sustained figures of Class III a hinderance to expression.
But with The Knightes Tale his genius is beginning to im-
prove on the methods of his day. Here he is instinctively

60

avoiding personification and allegory, and makes the metaphor
his chief element — 478 lines as against 225.

This personification and allegory is mainly confined to
certain particular passages as the following arrangement by
hundreds will show: —

l»t hund.

2d ,

3d .
4th

5th r

6«» ,

7th „

Nth

9th „

10th „

11th .

I\

A.

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1

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18th t

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58

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0

12

2

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30

5

It will be seen that five-sevenths of the total personifi-
cation and allegory occurs in the 11th, 12th and 22d hundred,
or. more exactly, in three passages, lines 1060 — 1077, 1117
— 1172, and 2129 — 2158. If Chaucer rewrote his early poem
of Palamon and Arcite to make the tale for his knight, he
must have left these passages very nearly as they were.
They are entirely in the old manner, while the Tale as a
whole is not.

But the dramatic spirit pervading The Parlement of Foules
is absent here. This gave promise that our poet would be
of the interpretative school. But here there are practically
no effects; and, as a consequence, the IV-, III-, and II-class
phrases increase in number, the unpoetic phrases of class I
fall, and poetic words for the first time appear in fair
quantity. This is significant of a change; Chaucer has become
one of the direct sympathetic poets of the class to which
Spenser belongs. The Knightes Tale deals but little with
human character, shows us nothing of human life — is
rather a spontaneous and immediate outburst of poetry, with
no object beyond the telling of a story. And its weakness

hi

u this tact, that it i^ such a pOMD without tin- QM oi
V-class phrases, word - allegories, and tiuit* - color-.

Tabid II and IV show better than words the a<l\
on his earlier work mad.- by Chaucer in the ftvtojm lit re
allegory ami personification have all but been abandoned.

: the metaphor is reduced to second place. Then- an-
still M V-class phrases. He lied the third ami la>t

BCfiod in his development as a poet: his chief element is the
effect — ISO as against 40 in I he BarUmml >•/ Fputet, This

gnificanl of two things: In tin- first place, we saw from
The Knigkte* Tmlt that Chaucer as a subjective poet
weak. This he seems unconscn.u«.I\ to have felt, or at least
his genius seems to have sought, and at last fouml. an outlet
in the other direction. In the Prologmi he has gone over
completely to the ranks of the itit* rpretative poets whither
he WM already tending in the f'<ir/>i,i.nt of Foules. Hence
the principal direct elements are all absent, even to the
poetic words. Secondly, this change is in a sense a retro-
-ion. The dramatic touches of The I'nrlement of FbuUt
are not to be found here. Life has dulled the poet's enthu-
siasm; and if he writes of men now it is as a narrator; his
effects are all narrative.

It is in their choice of subject matter, that Chaucer in
the / and Langland stand together. Both hated the

corruption and hypocrisy of the age. Both, and indeed all
earnest men of that day, were animated by the same desire
for social and political reform. The types of both rise to
class VII. Both present these types in part negatively in
portraying men and women as they ought not to be. But
while Langland found in the humble tiller of the soil alone
the mainstay of England, Chaucer, with his broader vision,
saw in the country parson and the knight some additional
grounds for hope. Moreover Chaucer is the first poet in
English literature whose development of types did not pass
over class VI. It is the subtle analysis of human character
that makes the subject - matter of the Prologue great. In
technique, on the other hand, the two poets are complemen-

— 62 —

tary. Each makes use of those elements that the other
avoids. Langland's mind was in no particular different from
the spirit of his time. Chaucer in his Prologue has nothing
in common with the XIV century, but has passed over ahead
into the sixteenth.

The tables show this advance also. In the Prologue
the word allegory — Tennyson's favorite element — the
phrase allegory, and the associated type for the first and
only time before Spenser appear. But it is the effects that
are significant here also; and it will be seen that of these
Chaucer employs twice as many as all the other writings
of the XIV and XV century together that have been ex-
amined. In this use of effects he was to find no equal before
Shakespeare.

This use of effects however is significant for an entirely
different reason. We have seen that they are used in Beo-
wulf and are of great frequency in Shakespeare. On the
other hand there are none in books I — III of the Aeneid*)
The English are a Germanic people. The Anglo - Saxons
have furnished whatever of sterling worth there is in the
national character of England. The spirit of Anglo-Saxon
poetry as expressed in the effects of Beowulf is what has
made English poetry great. In the Prologue, Chaucer is at
last English, and not merely in the fact that he has left his
French, Italian and Latin sources and writes of English
types; the Prologue is English in its very construction.
Effects are the substratum on which our poetry rests. It
has made but three outcrops in the course of our literature.
Chaucer's Prologue was the first; the other two are Shake-
speare and Browning. English poetry has been greatest
only when it has been true to the spirit of its fathers.

But the Prologue was a .voice crying in the wilderness.
Two centuries were to elapse before the word - allegory, the
effect, the associated type, with all they signify of mental

*) I do not believe there are any in the nine remaining books
nor in the Iliad.

— 63 —

irth, uti tM "iice more important elements in

i^li |Hnin. It Lydgate leaned \u< art from Chancer,

In- certainly did not acquire it from the {VolPjM* Chaucer's
Li-t ^ii;it work htl not been imitated, and was, we may
tappoee, tor centuries not fully appreciated. After it the
old superficial subject- matter of class IV, and the old tire-
•OBM technique again catne to tlie fore. From Chaucer to
Spenser there was not a poet of the first or second grade
that wrote Knglish. A glance at table II will show this:
The J fnifil 9/ Qla» contains no V- class phrase, no effect,
do word -allegory, no associated type, no tone-color, and

hi in Ml lines of running metaphor per 1000. On the
other hand it is to a degree redeemed by the circumstance
that it avoids personification and holds fast to a single
allegory for 989 consecutive lines, not employing the sustained
form of this figure as an embellishment. Measured by our
>tandard, Lydgate "as but a poor poet. Yet he was neither
behind nor ahead of his age; and after all he was a poet

- shown by the 406 poetic words he uses per thonsand
lines. But if The Tempil of Glas is without technique it
is also without subject-matter, and this is a graver fault
Langland was as bad as Lydgate in execution if not worse.
But J he I 'ision of Piers Plowman is redeemed by its sincere
wish for piety and rectitude. The XV century seemed to
be without ideals.

Surrey and Wyatt like Lydgate wrote of women and
love, but in the old superficial way. Their ideals rose no
higher than to types of class IV. But in technique they
show some progress. We saw that Chaucer advanced from
the figures of class III through metaphor to language that
was largely literal. Surrey and Wyatt seem to mark the
second of these periods in the development of the literature;
each uses twice as much metaphor as any other of our
seven authors, virtually no allegory and not overmuch of
personification. This gives a certain correctness and finish,
a certain modern air to their work. But their limitations
are evident. In the first place the complete absence of the

— 64 —

indirect elements bars them out from the ranks of the objec-
tive poets. Secondly, they were not writers of the subjec-
tive sort either, with any claim to rank, as the absence
of the concentrated direct elements shows. Their imagination
lacked vividness and strength. Their work marks the highest
point which the sort of poetry that relies on figures alone
can reach.

Between the two poets there is virtually no difference.
Surrey is the superior in thirteen of the poetic elements;
Wyatt, in nine. Wyatt inclines more to personification,
but this is offset by Surrey's greater partiality for allegory.
Surrey shows superior skill in the use of poetic words, III-
and IV- class phrases, had a finer imagination; and, we may
perhaps say, was the superior of the two.

The striking circumstance about The Induction is that
it reveals more personification per thousand lines and, at
the same time, more poetic words, phrases and clauses, more
II-, III-, and IV -class phrases than any poem that had
preceded it. It shows a retrogression in the former par-
ticular to the poetry of Langland, and in the latter reminds
us of Spenser. Sackville stands on the dividing line between
the old and the new. He was the first to feel the spirit of
the coming revival; his poetry, like the verse of the Elizabethan
era, was to a degree spontaneous and unlabored in the use
of the shorter poetic elements. His imagination was uncon-
sciously seeking a more immediate form of expression than
established canons permitted. But he lacked genius sufficient
to break consciously with his age. Hence the labored per-
sonification and semi-mythical subject-matter, both of which
are of the XV century. The Induction marks the transition
in English Literature from Mediaevalism to the Renascence.
With Spenser the Renascence began. The causes that
fired men's minds lie outside of literature; but this new
mental energy found its first expression in the formation of
new ideals; Spenser's subject-matter is of class VIII — the
first time since the Boke of the Duchesse. He is also ani-
mated by the same types of rectitude that animated Chaucer

— 65 —

1. midland, that always have animated BMB in periods of

il, ami that had been foreign to men's minds for two
tcnturitv Thirdly he shows progress in setting these types
forth. The mental agility of the times was incompatible
with sustained personification, and incidental allegory, and
rdmgly we find none in The Faerie Queene. Moreover
Spenser was a poet of the sympathetic school. His untram-
melled ebullitions of spirit, his natural joy fulness found their

expression in the shorter spontaneous elements of the
direr j ; the tables show but few effects. A glance

at table II will show this vivacity of the Renascence better
than words. The word-allegory again appears, and \ -class
phrases and tone -colors for the first time. Three times as
many IV- class phrases, are found, and twice as many of
class III and 11 as Chaucer at his best in his subjective
period could use.

But the question that comes to every student of liter-
ature is: How does Shakespeare write; what results does he
show; how does he compare with his predecessors and con-
temporaries? It seemed well to close this first period in
our investigations with an examination of the Venus amd
A<lvnis. This his first work might be expected to show best
the relation he stood in to the XV century and to the
Renascence, what the notions of poetical expression were he
had found through foreign influence, and to what extent he
already, unknown to himself, was impelled to the dramatic
form of composition.

All three influences appear in the tables. The column
for personification shows 68 lines, more than The Tempil
of Glas or The Knightes Tale. These lines are however
confined to a few passages, and explain the striking and at
times even ridiculous artificiality in some parts of the poem.
But with Shakespeare this can only have been the immature
taste of youth; and the tendency to imitate the older English
writers thus quickly passed by. The extent to which he
also was influenced by the Italian School of Surrey and
Wyatt appears from the column for metaphor and simile.

Peterson, A History of English Poetry. 5

— 66 —

It will be remembered that the metaphor was first brought
into prominence as a poetic element by these writers; Shake-
speare uses more than any other we have examined except
these two. And in the same way he is the man to natur-
alize the simile in English literature; using thrice as many
as any of his predecessors; and of these nearly all are of
the formal or sustained sort that was unknown to the
Anglo-Saxons, and had hitherto been of but small impor-
tance as a poetic element.

So much for the influences that bound Shakespeare to
his age. That his imagination even when he wrote Venus
<tnd Adonis was nevertheless quick and powerful is shown
by the two word allegories, four V- class phrases, and the
many excellent and striking allegorical illustrations that
appear in the poem. The array of personification, metaphor
and simile that stands alongside these figures can, as was
said, be due only to the influences of his time. Even before
he began to write Shakespeare must have passed over, as
did Chaucer only at the end of his career, from the group
of subjective, sympathetic poets to the objective interpretative
school: Venus <md Adonis shows 34 "effects". And that 80
of these should be dramatic is what we would expect from
the future author of Hamlet.

But it will also be seen that there is no break, no
sharp demarcation between the poetry of the XV century
and of the Renascence. The development is regular. Objec-
tively it consists simply in dropping those labored poetic
elements that were the natural outcome of the XIV - century
imagination, and in more extensively employing the shorter
elements with all that that signifies of mental growth. But
the cause of it all was the new birth.

These facts and principles of development may be simulta-
neously presented to the eye if the elements and results
be arranged in the order of value as given on page 49
thus: —

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Table V.
Tin' KlciiicntB in
order of I'otonoy.

a

=

c
-

00

—

—

c«_i on
.2 J

III. Parlemont of
Fouloa

IV. Rous of Fame
V. Knightes Tale

VI. Prologue
VII. Tempil of (Has
VIII. Surrey's Sonnets

IX. Wyatt's Sonnets

X. Induction

XI. Faerie (iuoene

•0
s

rr if*

S C

c c

Contents.

I. Introductory Remarks r>

II. The Elements of Poetical Subject - Matter 8

III. The Elements of Poetical Technique 12

IV. The Development of PJnglish Poetry from Langland to
Spenser .">()

Pruck von Hesse & Becker in Leipzig.

I