Skip to main content

Full text of "Wilhelm Busch als Dichter, Künstler, Psychologe und Philosoph"

See other formats 


Google 



This is a digital copy of a book that was prcscrvod for gcncrations on library shclvcs bcforc it was carcfully scannod by Google as pari of a projcct 

to make the world's books discoverablc online. 

It has survived long enough for the Copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject 

to Copyright or whose legal Copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books 

are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, cultuie and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. 

Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this flle - a reminder of this book's long journcy from the 

publisher to a library and finally to you. 

Usage guidelines 

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the 
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken Steps to 
prcvcnt abuse by commercial parties, including placing lechnical restrictions on automated querying. 
We also ask that you: 

+ Make non-commercial use ofthefiles We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for 
personal, non-commercial purposes. 

+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's System: If you are conducting research on machinc 
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a laige amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encouragc the 
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. 

+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each flle is essential for informingpcoplcabout this projcct and hclping them lind 
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. 

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are lesponsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just 
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other 
countries. Whether a book is still in Copyright varies from country to country, and we can'l offer guidance on whether any speciflc use of 
any speciflc book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search mcans it can bc used in any manner 
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe. 

Äbout Google Book Search 

Google's mission is to organizc the world's Information and to make it univcrsally accessible and uscful. Google Book Search hclps rcadcrs 
discover the world's books while hclping authors and publishers rcach ncw audicnccs. You can search through the füll icxi of ihis book on the web 

at |http: //books. google .com/l 



Google 



IJber dieses Buch 

Dies ist ein digitales Exemplar eines Buches, das seit Generationen in den Realen der Bibliotheken aufbewahrt wurde, bevor es von Google im 
Rahmen eines Projekts, mit dem die Bücher dieser Welt online verfugbar gemacht werden sollen, sorgfältig gescannt wurde. 
Das Buch hat das Uiheberrecht überdauert und kann nun öffentlich zugänglich gemacht werden. Ein öffentlich zugängliches Buch ist ein Buch, 
das niemals Urheberrechten unterlag oder bei dem die Schutzfrist des Urheberrechts abgelaufen ist. Ob ein Buch öffentlich zugänglich ist, kann 
von Land zu Land unterschiedlich sein. Öffentlich zugängliche Bücher sind unser Tor zur Vergangenheit und stellen ein geschichtliches, kulturelles 
und wissenschaftliches Vermögen dar, das häufig nur schwierig zu entdecken ist. 

Gebrauchsspuren, Anmerkungen und andere Randbemerkungen, die im Originalband enthalten sind, finden sich auch in dieser Datei - eine Erin- 
nerung an die lange Reise, die das Buch vom Verleger zu einer Bibliothek und weiter zu Ihnen hinter sich gebracht hat. 

Nu tzungsrichtlinien 

Google ist stolz, mit Bibliotheken in Partnerschaft lieber Zusammenarbeit öffentlich zugängliches Material zu digitalisieren und einer breiten Masse 
zugänglich zu machen. Öffentlich zugängliche Bücher gehören der Öffentlichkeit, und wir sind nur ihre Hüter. Nie htsdesto trotz ist diese 
Arbeit kostspielig. Um diese Ressource weiterhin zur Verfügung stellen zu können, haben wir Schritte unternommen, um den Missbrauch durch 
kommerzielle Parteien zu veihindem. Dazu gehören technische Einschränkungen für automatisierte Abfragen. 
Wir bitten Sie um Einhaltung folgender Richtlinien: 

+ Nutzung der Dateien zu nichtkommerziellen Zwecken Wir haben Google Buchsuche Tür Endanwender konzipiert und möchten, dass Sie diese 
Dateien nur für persönliche, nichtkommerzielle Zwecke verwenden. 

+ Keine automatisierten Abfragen Senden Sie keine automatisierten Abfragen irgendwelcher Art an das Google-System. Wenn Sie Recherchen 
über maschinelle Übersetzung, optische Zeichenerkennung oder andere Bereiche durchführen, in denen der Zugang zu Text in großen Mengen 
nützlich ist, wenden Sie sich bitte an uns. Wir fördern die Nutzung des öffentlich zugänglichen Materials fürdieseZwecke und können Ihnen 
unter Umständen helfen. 

+ Beibehaltung von Google-MarkenelementenDas "Wasserzeichen" von Google, das Sie in jeder Datei finden, ist wichtig zur Information über 
dieses Projekt und hilft den Anwendern weiteres Material über Google Buchsuche zu finden. Bitte entfernen Sie das Wasserzeichen nicht. 

+ Bewegen Sie sich innerhalb der Legalität Unabhängig von Ihrem Verwendungszweck müssen Sie sich Ihrer Verantwortung bewusst sein, 
sicherzustellen, dass Ihre Nutzung legal ist. Gehen Sie nicht davon aus, dass ein Buch, das nach unserem Dafürhalten für Nutzer in den USA 
öffentlich zugänglich ist, auch für Nutzer in anderen Ländern öffentlich zugänglich ist. Ob ein Buch noch dem Urheberrecht unterliegt, ist 
von Land zu Land verschieden. Wir können keine Beratung leisten, ob eine bestimmte Nutzung eines bestimmten Buches gesetzlich zulässig 
ist. Gehen Sie nicht davon aus, dass das Erscheinen eines Buchs in Google Buchsuche bedeutet, dass es in jeder Form und überall auf der 
Welt verwendet werden kann. Eine Urheberrechtsverletzung kann schwerwiegende Folgen haben. 

Über Google Buchsuche 

Das Ziel von Google besteht darin, die weltweiten Informationen zu organisieren und allgemein nutzbar und zugänglich zu machen. Google 
Buchsuche hilft Lesern dabei, die Bücher dieser We lt zu entdecken, und unterstützt Au toren und Verleger dabei, neue Zielgruppcn zu erreichen. 
Den gesamten Buchtext können Sie im Internet unter |http: //books . google .coiril durchsuchen. 




. .. -'^m 




t ' 






: 



jl 



UNIVERSITY OF CALirORNIA PÜBUCATtONS 

MODERN FHILOLOGY 

Voi. 2, No; i; pp. t-79 .. ^ September 26, 1 9 1 



! 



WILHELM BUSCH ALS DICHTER, 

KUNSTLER, PSYCHOLOGE 

UND PHILOSOPH 



■ \ 



VON 



FRITZ WINTHER 



BERKBLET 
THE UNKV£RSITY:pBESS 



imZVEBSITT OF 0ALIFO&]fI4 VVBläOAXiolUB; 

' ' . ■ ' ' ' ' , • ■ ■' '• . ■- * ■ ' 

K0te.T-no Üninandty öf CalifpKjiift PobUcattom aäw olEeredln excJbMige f or tb« pnbU- 
cfttioiig af l^axned aocteU^ «ad üurtitatioiii!, imiTenities, and libjradAs, ' Oon^ptote UstB of 
all the'yinbUcAtionii of tlta TJniTiMity triU be sent npon. re^n^rt» For Baandiii c€fp%9§, Usta 
of putilieatioiui br ^ther iofaraiatiaB, a4dreai tbe JdAKACHBE <KF IHS TJNIVSB8ITY 
PBSS0, BEBKSZJ3T, CALZFOSMIA, Y7~. 8. ▲. AU BUi^l^r 8«&t in .excbaaire shoold be 
addrasBOd tö^THE BZOHANaE IS^l^ABTBSBKT, tTtntVSSSXTT IiIBSigiT, ^^SKBIJBY, 
OAUFOBNIA, X7. a. A. . /. 

• . •• • • • ' - ... - ' ■ ..••." 



V t 



A^gent for tbe sertea in Ameiieaa Arcb- . . '^Agant for the aeriaa m. Amerlcaii Arcb- 

aacAöjgy and Btbnology, C^aasicai PUlcdogy« aaology.aadi Stlmology, BotMqr» Qäology, 

Bdncätlan» Idodem PMcdogy» Fhfloaiyphy« . atoOwmätUja, PaUuA<qRr» Myaiologsrj 2ool- 
Paycboiogy* . \^ . agy; and Xomolxa. 

Oited aa Thav. OaUf . PäbL Mckd. BWol. ^ 

HOSBBk PH£U>lX>GT,-HtniarlBa M« €hi^e7c Jbnelen f Qplet, 6nd Bngo K tSebilUngr Bdi 
tors, Fxic« per TQ^pme 12,50^ ' . . 

Vol. X. 1. i>ex Jnnaa €K>etlie und daa PttbUknm, by W. B. B; Fingor* -Pp. 1-67. 
2. Stadiea'ln the Marv^ooa, by Benjamin P.Knrts.. Ppw 69^244. . BCaxch 
S. IntTpdnctioB to^tbe ^bUoaopby of ^Arl^p by Arthur cWeiaa. Pp« 246-902. 

» ' V MUU9^JF *^**f A*yJ;v i„»— «-.»««»»».-«»««—■■«.. j»»* -«»««.«»»»>*«<»— .«»fc»«fc«»«»x«— «»«•««»»»*»-— »»—«-^»»-«■rv».'» »0\ß 

i. The Öld Bngttsh Ohztettaa B|^ by Ckörge A. Bmlthaon^ Pp. 246-842. 

.VoL 2. i. Wilhelia Btiech als Dichter, KiinaÜet^ Piqrcholwe, nnd PhfloBoph« von 

Frlta Winthear. Pp. 1-79. September 26k 1910 ...1 .^J. ,—*.-*- .75 



0ZiA8SI0AL PHIZ.OL0OT.*-Bdwacd B, Olapp» WUlim A. Mterill, Hubert O^ Ktottbif , 
ädltax«. Pxipa per Yolmne I2JS0.. 

¥oU, 1. ^ l.'HUtiiBü^CIreiBlc Mette PoetCF^by Bdiyard Bull OlftfV- ?P* 1-^ Jtne^ 

1 CMVa * * ' . . - • . . lOJSO 

2,^ Stadite in tbe iSi-Olaiifleu I. iJoDceasiTa ttrCOiaöaea iir Piaalte ^ XL Bnb«- 
Jtmetlte Pxotaaia and ZttdlöatiTe ApodooU in PlaathB. ByStotberta 
Kntting, ^. 85-94. ^ Jajteary, 1905^.^.^..^^ ...m:-..^> ..^ . ^.^ «60 

8. ne vnience.and wmtheK of tha BEödam Sdenoe ot lAngnage^ by BenJ. 

Xde Wheeler. Pp. 95^109. Wü^r» 1908 — _^.::,.«-„.,..^ ,^.^..^„ 4^0 

4. Qn the Belatlon of Horaca to Xiinereciuab b7"WlIUaB^ A. HaxdlL Pp; 

6. "the ^rieats of Addepi«)«, ^ Kew MMihod of Dating Atheniaa Aithona, 
by William BQOttPergnsen. ^181-173. AprU »^ 1906 -(repdnted 

6. Botaee'8 Alcaio Stpöphe, by XiOon Joalah BiChardaonu ^ 179-201« . 

7. B(«ie Phaaee of tlie Belallrä Of Thonght to irexaa in iPlanto^ 

Waehingfeon Pra»9itt. Pp. 205-262. Jbne, 1907..... . .■....■. .. ;^.^.. *..... M 

Indes, pp. 268^270. ^ 









I 

l 



UNIVER8ITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATION8 



IN 



MODERN PHILOLOGY 



VOLMMC 2 



LUCIBN FOULET 

CHARLES M. GAYLEY 

H. E. SCHILLING 

EDITORS 



BERKELEY 

UNIVEKSITT OP CALIFORNU PKB88 
1910-1912 



\ 











• 
■ 


:• : 




. • . 


• • . • • • 


• 


..... 




.. . 


• 







/^ 



/ 2. 



CONTENTS 

PAGK 

1. Wilhelm Busch als Dichter, Künstler, Psychologe, und Philosoph, von 

Fritz Winther 1 

2. The Gritios of Edmund Spenser, by Herbert E. Cory 81 

3. Some Forms of the Biddle Question and the Exercise of the Wits in 

Populär Fietion and Formal Literature, by Budolph ScheviU 183 

4. Histrionics in the Dramas of Franz GriUparzer, by Elizabeth 

Adelaide Herrmann - ~ — 239 

5. Spenser, the Sehool of the Fletchers, and Milton, by Herbert E. Cory.... 311 









244851 




« • « « 



• • * ^« « « 

• «•*•• • 



• • • • • • • 






• • • * 

• ■ • « « 



• • • < 



. * • ••• ,*- "•• •• 



• • • 



UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS 

IN 

MODERN PHILOLOGY 

Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 1-79 September 26, 1010 



WILHELM BUSCH ALS DICHTER, 
KÜNSTLER, PSYCHOLOGE UND 

PHILOSOPH. 



VON 

P. WINTHEB. 



PAOB 

Inhalt des ersten Teiles. 

(1) Der Künstler. Art der Darstellung „ 2 

(2) Der Moralist und Psychologe 14 

(3) Gestalten und Klassen 30 

Inhalt des zweiten Teiles. 

Eduards Traum. Das romantische Element. Busch im Vergleich 
mit anderen Schriftstellern. Schein und Sein. Der Lyriker und 
Philosoph 43 

TEIL I. 

Wilhelm Busch' erste grössere Arbeit, "Max und Moritz," 
aus dem Jahre 1865, war ein burleskes Meisterwerk. Sein letztes 
Werk "Schein und Sein," welches als nachgelassene Schrift im 
Jahre 1909 herauskam, enthält ein paar Verse, die mit zum 
edelsten gehören, was die moderne deutsche Lyrik hervorgebracht 
hat. Auch können einige Zeichnungen aus Busch' letzten Lebens- 
jahren sich sehr wohl mit den besten in den früheren Werken 
messen. Busch beginnt und endet somit als Meister. Ja, seine 
Grestaltungskraft wird im Alter nicht starr, sondern beweglicher, 
vielseitiger. Diese größere Vielseitigkeit Busch' machte sich 



•: -.• 



• • • •/ - . 

• • • • j 



2 Universiiy of CMfomia PübUoations in Modem Phüology. [Vol. 2 



deutlich bemerkbar vom Jahre 1894 ab mit "Eduards Traum." 
Ich betrachte daher dieses Jahr als den Trennungspunkt einer 
ersten und zweiten Periode in Busch' literarischer Tätigkeit. 

In die enste Periode fallen : 



Max und Moritz 1865 

Schnaken und Schnurren 1867 

Schnurrdiburr 1869 

Der heilige Antonius 1870 

Hans Huckebein . 1870 

Die fromme Helene 1872 

Kunterbunt 1872 

Die kühne Müllerstochter 1872 

Bilder zur Jobsiade 1872 

Pater Pilucius 1873 

Der Geburtstag 1873 

Kritik des Herzens* 1874 

Dideldum 1874 

Briefe an Marie Andersen t 1875 

In die zweite Periode fallen : . 

Eduards Traum* 1891 

Der Schmetterling* 1895 

Zer guter Letzt 1904 



50 Bilderbogen 1875 

t Abenteuer eines Junggesellen 1875 

tHerr und Frau Knopp 1876 

tJulchen 1877 

Die Haarbeutel 1878 

Fips der Affe 1879 

Bilderpossen 1880 

Der Fuchs und die Drachen ..1881 

Stippstörehen 1881 

Plisch und Plum 1882 

Balduin Bählamm 1883 

Maler Klecksel 1884 

BuBch-Album 1884 



Hernach 1908 

Schein und Sein* 1908 



1. Der Künstler. Art der Darstellung. 

Wilhelm Busch ist ein Künstler, der die Sprache der Worte 
wie die der Linie beherrscht. Er hat eine eigene Art gefunden : 
Linien und Worte sind bei ihm nicht zwei getrennte Ausdrucks* 
mittel, sie verschmelzen in der Phantasie des Lesers zu einem 
Eindruck. Diese Doppeltechnik ist eine ungeheuere Ersparnis 
an Zeit und Baum. Bei der Wiedergabe der Handlung kann 
oft ein Wort viele Bilder ersetzen, bei der Beschreibung ist meist 
das Bild das flinkere Ausdrucksmittel. Was Shaw in die Büh- 
nenanweisung steckt, das erscheint bei Busch im Bild; und die 



* Die mit * versehenen V^erke sind ohne Illustrationen. 

t Diese 3 erschienen nach einander und gehören zusammen als Knopps 
Trilogie. 

t Die Briefe an Marie Andersen fallen zwar in die erste Periode ; ich 
habe sie aber aus später zu besprechenden Gründen mit den Werken der 
zweiten Periode behandelt. 






1910] Winther: Wilhelm Busch, 3 

Komik bei beiden wird sehr oft durch den Gegensatz zwischen 
Gebärde und Wort hervergerufen, nicht immer durch Über- 
treibung. 

Hierin ist Shaw übrigens der weit Modernere, da bei ihm das 
übertreibende Moment häufig ganz wegfällt. Dadurch, daß 
Busch wie Shaw gelegentlich durch eine Antithese ohne Über- 
treibung komisch zu wirken versteht, vermag er den Humoristen 
mit dem Realisten zu vereinigen. So in folgendem Beispiel: 
Jeans Herr erstickt an einer Fischgräte: 

"Oh," sprach Jean, "es ist ein Graus, 
Wie schnell ist doch das Leben aus. ' 'i 

Tableau: Jean die Weinflasche austrinkend. Natürlich ist das 
Bild in solchem Falle immer wirkungsvoller als das Wort, sogar 
wenn es Shaw ausspräche: Wort und Bild ergänzen sich bei 
Busch, wie Dialog und Mienenspiel in der Theateraufführung. 
Es ist gerade als ob Schauspieler ersten Banges ein mittelmäfiiges 
Stück aufführten: alles ist begeistert; bei blo£er Lektüre wäre 
höchstens die eine oder andere Scene wirkungsvoll gewesen. 
LieBe man aber die Worte weg, verwandelte man das Stück in 
eine Pantomime, so würden sich die Schauspieler um einige ihrer 
besten Effekte bringen. DaB die Worte nicht die Hauptsache 
sind, wird uns erst recht klar, wenn man das Gedicht Busch' 
aus der früheren Periode liest, welches nicht illustriert 
ist.^ Wie matt erscheint dies gegen die mit Bildern 
versehenen Epen! Feinheit wie Kraft konmit erst im Bilde 
zum Ausdruck. Welche Fülle der Empfindung offenbart bei- 
spielsweise der schmerzlich emporgekrümmte Schwanzstummel 
des Teufels in der '' Frommen Helene"! Eine ganze Moralpre- 
digt steckt in der vorwurfsvoll aus dem Bett schauenden groBen 
Zehe des Onkels Nolte. Man beachte nur, was für eine Menge 
Worte nötig sind, um ein so einfaches, mit ein oder zwei Linien 
entworfenes Symbol zu charakterisieren, um zu sehen, wie viel- 
sagend es ist. Auch Busch' Liebe für gewisse Menschen und 



1 Abenteuer eines Junggesellen, 
s Kritik des Herzens. 



r 



4 Vnivenity of CaUfomia PubUeationi in Modem Phüology. [YoL 2 

Dinge käme nie oder nur selten zum Ausdruck ohne die Bilder, 
wenigstens nicht in der ersten Periode seines Schaffens. Da 
unsere Sprache natürlich in erster Linie für menschliche Ver- 
hältnisse eingerichtet ist, hat Busch, weil er zeichnen kann, einen 
grofien Vorteil über andere Dichter in der Darstellung von Tie- 
ren. ' ' Krambambuli, ' ' jene geniale Hundegeschichte der Bbner- 
Eschtobach, erscheint an einigen Stellen primitiv in der Tech- 
nik, weil unsere Sprache nun einmal nicht für Hunde gemacht 
ist. Wie leicht würde es in derartigen Fällen Busch gelingen, 
mit ein paar Linien nachzuhelfen. Er ist eben Sinnenmensch. 
Als solcher vermag er aber auch mit den Lauten ein adäquateres 
Symbol für die Tierpsychologie zu finden, als die meisten anderen 
Schriftsteller. Da aber die Lautsymbolik ein beschränktes 
Gebiet ist, so verwandelt sich bei ihm jede Empfindung in eine 
Gebärde. Diese läßt sich natürlich weit besser mit der Linie als 
mit der Sprache ausdrücken. Was jenes unvollkommene Werk- 
zeug niemals für ihn hätte festhalten können, das suggerieren uns 
ein paar feine Linien. Man ist versucht zu schließen, Busch 
habe eben ein photographisch exaktes Gedächtnis und, da Linien 
eine genauere Wiedergabe des Käumlichen gestatteten, als Worte, 
so sei klar, daB der Künstler, der Wort- wie Linientechnik 
beherrsche, die Linie seinem Gegenstand besser anschmiegen 
könne als die Worte. Sobald aber die Handlung ein Gespräch 
aufkommen läßt, kann das Wort einen ähnlich hohen Grad des 
Realismus erreichen wie die Pantomime. In der Tat hat der 
Dialog bei Busch gelegentlich eine ebenso exakte Naturkenntnis 
als Basis wie seine Zeichnungen. Fast könnte man dann meinen, 
sein Gedächtnis wirke wie die Kombination aus einem Phono- 
graphen und Kinematographen ;* im großen ganzen aber ist der 
mimische Teil seines G^prächs der lebensvollere, abgesehen von 
den späteren Werken, in denen die begriffliche Fassungskraft, 
die immer energisch bei Busch ist, so lebendig wird, daß die in 
der Zeichnung mehr gefühlsmässige Formulierung von Ideen 
der abstrakteren in Worten fast ganz weichen muß, wobei aller- 

8 Wohlgemerkt sein Gedächtnis, nicht seine Werke, die erst die künst- 
lerische Verarbeitung des im Gedächtnis verwahrten Materials sind. 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm Bwch. 5 

dings die Worte bei dem kleinsten aber besten Teil der Gedichte 
durch eine intensivere Gefühlsfärbnng die Gefühlsqualitäten der 
Zeichnung mehr als ersetzen. In seiner ersten Periode aber ist 
Busch vor allem Augenmensch. Er sieht die Dinge in einem fast 
schmerzlich grellen Licht, nichts mildert die Härte der ümriB- 
Unien, kein Halbdunkel, keine vibrierende Atmosphäre; häBlich 
imd nackt oft in des Wortes eigentlichstem Sinne, so sieht uns 
Busch; aber das genügt ihm noch nicht für die Darstellung. 
Er scheint alle Häßlichkeit der Welt zusammenzusuchen, um sie 
auf ein Individuum abzuladen : Zu wenig Haar auf dem Kopf, 
zu viele im Gesicht, abschreckende Magerkeit, in Bunzebi herab- 
hängende Haut, rote, geschwollene Nase, so zeichnet er nicht 
etwa einen Mann, nein! — ein Weib. Und zwar wird mit raffi- 
nierter Technik auf fast jedes einzebie dieser Merkmale durch 
ein besonderes Bild aufmerksam gemacht. Sie — es ist die 
** fromme" Helene, wie sie zu altem beginnt — steht nämlich 
hinter einer offenen Schranktüre, so dafi nur Kopf und IHiBe 
sichtbar sind. Ein Schönheitsmittel nach dem andern fliegt vom 
Schrank in 's Feuer, Schminke und falsche Zöpfe, Korsett, kleine 
Schuhe, für jedes wird ein besonderes Bild angefertigt. Erst 
am Ende der Scene, nachdem sie Busch so mit hassender Sorg- 
falt all ihrer Beize entkleidet, erscheint dieses Frauenzimmer in 
einem enganliegenden schwarzen Büßerrock. Wer meint, daß 
hier keine Steigerung der Häßlichkeit möglich sei, der kennt 
Busch' diabolische Verve erst halb. Sie betrinkt sich, stößt 
gegen die Lampe : 

''UmsonBtl — es fallt die Lampe um, 
GeffiUt mit dem Petroleum; 
Und hülflos und mit Angstgewimmer 
Verkohlt dies fromme Frauenzimmer." 

Busch ist aber noch nicht zu Ende ; er zeichnet ihre verkohlten 
Beste so, daß nur das abschreckend Häßliche übrig bleibt. Diese 
letzte Zeichnung zeigt die Kunst Busch' in ihrem Extrem. AUes 
ist eliminiert bis auf das Wesentliche. Er häuft somit nicht 
nur die Häßlichkeit, sondern er konzentriert sie auch. Eine 
einzige Runzel genügt; aber was für eine! Hierin geht Busch 



6 Univeraity of CaUfomia PtibUoations in Modem PMlology. [VoL 2 

gelegentlich so weit, daß seine Zeichnung zur humoristischen 
Hieroglyphe wird: Wie **Max und Moritz" nach voUführtem 
Streich durchbrennen, sieht man nur zwei Paar enteilende Füße. 
Ganz dem entspricht auch der Text; ebenfalls eine Technik in 
sehr sparsamen Linien, oft schrumpft er in eine einzige Yerbin- 
dungsstrecke zusanmien, die mit der begreiflichen Einfachheit 
des Berichtes die Höhepunkte der Handlung verbindet, das heißt 
die Stellen, wo der Zeichner einsetzt ; selbst wo Busch die Hand- 
lung anschwellen lößt, oder wo er das familiärste Detail be- 
schreibt, geschieht dies doch fast immer ohne Farbe; ein Wort, 
das die Idee ausdrückt, genügt. 

Was ist das Primäre bei Busch f Zeichnung oder Textf 
Seiner eigenen Aussage nach, nur die Zeichnung ; jedenfalls hat 
er als Zeichner stets frisch drauf los produziert, während in die 
darunter gesetzten Verse sich Beflektion einschleicht. Die 
Zeichnungen sind naiv, die Texte ironisch ; die Bilder ursprüng- 
lich, die Verse hinterher dazugesetzt.^ Und doch hat man 
häufig die Empfindung, Busch habe zuerst seinen Text geschaffen^ 
natürlich nicht so, wie er dasteht, aber doch so, daß er einen 
Begriff vom Scheinheiligen, vom Trinker, vom Lehrer, ja von 
Liebe, von Haß bildete und dann die entsprechenden Merkmale, 
um diesen Begriff in einer Zeichnung kristallisieren zu lassen, 
in der sich auch das Qefühlsmäßige spiegelt. Dabei verhindert 
die Darstellung im Baum, daß die (Gestalten zu bloßen Schemen 
werden, was bei Reduktion auf das Wesentliche leicht der Fall 
sein möchte : Figuren, die nur Idee sind, lassen sich eben nicht 
zeichnen. Der fette Bauch zeigt noch mehr wie bloße Schlem- 
merei ; die rote Nase charakterisiert nicht bloß Trunksucht ; nach 
oben gestülpt kann sie Fürwitz, Arroganz, Keckheit bezeichnen ; 
nach unten gebogen kann sie Talent, Willen, Vornehmheit, Basse 
verraten. Anschauungen sind eben immer unendlich reicher 
als Begriffe. So sind Busch' Menschen meist volle, runde Ge- 
stalten. Allerdings nicht immer. In ''Eduards Traum," den 
wir eingehender im zweiten Teil betrachten werden, führt Busch 
Gestalten ein, die er tatsächlich auf einen oder zwei abstrakte 



«T. Hof milier: W. Busch. Süddeutsche Monatshefte, 5, 1908, 430. 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm Bwch, 7 

Begriffe reduziert. Können solche Gestalten zeichnerisch darge- 
stellt werden! Nicht mit Strichen allerdings, aber mit Worten. 
Beispielsweise erscheint der ''schlanke Kellner'' als ''gerade 
Linie." Hier haben wir also eine neue und ganz exakte Art, 
Abstraktionen anschaulich zu machen, nämlich mit Hülfe der 
Geometrie. 

Das moralisierende, sowie das begrifiBiche Element, das wir 
bei Busch vorfinden, weist darauf hin, daß er unter jene Künstler 
gehört, die wie Lessing, Schiller, Ibsen ihre Phantasie durch den 
Verstand unterstützen und zügeln. Dies wird auch durch die 
Art von Busch' Komposition bestätigt, die häufig in Text wie 
Zeichnung etwas Mathematisches hat. Die Personen sind in 
geometrischer Symmetrie gruppiert: Vater und Mutter,' zwei 
junge Hunde,* oder Hund und Katze^ werden einander gegen- 
übergestellt. Dies geschieht aber selten auf Kosten der Eigenart 
der G^talten oder Situationen; im Gegenteil, dieselbe wird 
durch die in der Symmetrie akzentuierten Kontraste sehr oft 
noch besonders hervorgehoben. Dieser geometrische Stil ist 
seinem Wesen nach mehr für das Käumliche als das Zeitliche 
geeignet. Busch geht daher in der zeichnerischen Verwertung 
desselben weiter, als dies im erzählenden Teil seines Werkes der 
Fall ist. Zum Beispiel, wenn er ihn auf eine einzelne Figur 
anwendet, wie Julchens Tante ; aber dem Zweck der charakteris- 
tischen Kunst muß er sogar hier dienen : Julchens Tante könnte 
man mit einer vertikalen Linie, die von dem höchsten Teil ihres 
Kammes durch die Mitte von Nase, Mund, Kinn, Gürtel geht, in 
zwei absolut symmetrische Hälften teilen, was ihre peinlich 
akkurate Altjüngferlichkeit mit feinem Spott hervorhebt. Zu 
voller Entfaltung kommt diese Technik natürlich erst bei der 
Komposition ganzer Gruppen. Die Hauptperson oder Haupt- 
personen werden in die Mitte gerückt, die Nebenpersonen grup- 
pieren sich mit einer oft noch exakteren Symmetrie, als wir sie 
bei Baffael finden, zu beiden Seiten, so daB sie sich womöglich 



B Pliseh und Plum. 

6 Ebenda. 

Y Fips der Affe. 



8 University of CaUfomia PiibUoatians in Modem PhUology. [YoL 2 

paarweise entsprechen : zum Beispiel, wenn Plisch und Plum von 
ihren jungen Herren Kunststücke gelehrt werden. Hier wird 
sogar die Dreieckskomposition der italienischen Renaissance 
wieder belebt; die beiden Hunde als die kleinsten stehen nach 
außen, die Jungen Bücken an Bücken gegeneinander, wobei der 
größere sich soweit nach hinten überlehnt, daß seine Stirn nicht 
nur der höchste Punkt der Komposition ist, sondern sich auch 
ziemlich über der Mitte der Basislinie befindet. Diese durch 
den Stil geforderte Stellung nimmt der (Jestalt nichts von ihrem 
charakteristischen Wert; im Gegenteil, sie bringt erst recht das 
hohe Selbstgefühl des Dressierenden, den Dozentendünkel zum 
Ausdruck. Die feierliche Komposition auf die banale Materie 
angewendet verstärkt natürlich die Komik. Ganz besonders ist 
dies der Fall, wenn Busch Symmetrie durch Assymmetrie 
ergänzt. Man sieht gleichsam, wie er mit der harmlosesten Miene 
der Welt eine sehr korrekte Zeichnung zu entwerfen beginnt. 
Zuerst zeichnet er eine winklige Tischplatte als Basis der 
Dreieckskomposition; an die Mitte des Tisches als den längsten 
setzt er den hageren Bektor Debisch; dann ans linke Tischende 
dessen hageren Sohn Kuno und nun kommt die Figur fürs rechte 
Tischende : nichts mehr von magerer GeradUnigkeit — die Linien 
schwellen und schwellen, es wölbt sich ein Bauch in Biesenkurve, 
und da sitzt Knopp und bringt den ganzen kunstvollen Aufbau 
aus dem Oleichgewicht, und Busch schmunzelt vergnügt hinter 
seinem dichten, braunen Bart hervor. 

Dies ist eine Assymmetrie, wie sie auch bei den Klassikern 
vorkommt ; bei Busch wird sie aber zu einem komischen Kontrast 
mißbraucht. 

In der klassischen Komposition finden wir des öftem einen 
Parallelismus zweier sich entsprechender Personen in Stellung 
und Gebärde. Busch erzielt auch hier eine komische Wirkung 
dadurch, daß er das klassische Prinzip übertreibt ; beispielsweise 
wendet er es in der Debisch-Episode auf Gestalt und G^ichtszüge 
von Vater und Sohn an : Nase, Stirn, Haarwisch, Haltung des 
einen erscheinen in Miniatur bei dem andern. 

Die Landschaft wird gelegentlich mit hereingezogen, um die 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm Busch. 9 

symmetrische Gruppierung der Personen noch besonders zu 
akzentuieren: z. B. sehen wir in **Julchen" am Ende der Verlo- 
bungsszene im Garten in der Mitte en face die Tante, deren zwei 
Hälften wir schon als absolut kongruent beschrieben haben, ihr 
zu Füßen den Dackel, der ein Männchen macht, die rechte und 
linke Hälfte beider in absoluter Symmetrie auf lediglich oma- 
mentale Linien reduziert, ihnen zu beiden Seiten Vater und 
Bräutigam, Tochter und Mutter sich paarweise umarmend; in 
der Mitte darüber den heiterstrahlenden Vollmond, unter diesem 
im Hintergrund das Gartenwerkzeughaus, das in der Nacht wie 
ein Altar aussieht; zu beiden Seiten desselben zwei riesige, 
schwarze Büsche, von denen sich die hellen Köpfe von Mutter 
und Tochter, Bräutigam und Vater jeweils energisch abheben; 
dann noch eines : genau im Mittelpunkt des Körpers der Tante, 
d. h., genau im Mittelpunkt des ganzen Bildes, ist die Laterne, 
welche die Tante an ihr Herz preßt. Diese Laterne weist uns 
schon darauf hin, daß Busch bei allem Komponieren den Realis- 
mus nie vergißt, ja, gelegentlich erreicht er hierin einen Grad 
der Litimität, wie ihn kaum Zola übertrifft. Aber er verfällt 
dabei nicht in pedantische Breite; diese wird durch Litensität 
ersetzt. Helden im eigentlichen Sinne des Wortes, Helden wie 
sie Shakespeare gibt, werden durch eine intensive Technik ins 
Übermenschliche gesteigert; der bourgeois wird durch sie 
komisch. Die Zeichnung bringt dies natürlich erst ganz zum 
Ausdruck. Wie kann man aber Bäcker und Dorfschullehrer in 
einem linearen Freskostü' zeichnen und dennoch Realist bleiben f 
— ^Dazu muss man eben Busch sein. 

Ln Text wird wie in der Zeichnung der arrogante Stil mancher 
Klassizisten verspottet. Wenn der Lehrer sein Rohr schwingt, 
als wolle er eine Welt in Trümmer schlagen, so ist der gewich- 
tige Schwung seiner schwülstigen Rhetorik von einer nicht 
weniger maßlosen Komik als seine Gebärde. Aber dies geschieht 
so, daß uns hierdurch recht eigentlich sein innerstes Wesen 



9 leh glaube dieser Vergleich ist berechtigt, da Busch ' Kunst durchaus 
grofizügig ist, wenn auch im kleinen, und da sie die Vergrößerung in 
ProjektionsbUdem ertragen kann. 



10 University of California Fuhlieati(yM in Modem PhOology, [VoL 2 

erschlossen wird, d. h., Busch vermag es, die stilisierende Kunst 
für Zwecke der charakteristischen Darstellungsweise in Wort wie 
Bild zu verwenden. Bei einem so durch und durch charakteris- 
tischen Künstler wie Busch ist dies nur möglich, weil ihm mehr 
wie ein Stil zur Verfügung steht ; denn wenn er auch im großen 
ganzen in den Fällen, in denen er sich einem Stil anpafit, die 
klassische Komposition bezüglich der Massenverteilung walten 
läßt, so erfindet er für eine ganze Beihe von Einzelpersonen 
jeweils eine eigene Linienführung : zum Beispiel, einen Kurven- 
stil für Knopp, der dessen elastische Wohlbeleibtheit wundervoll 
herausbringt ; Rektor Debisch als steifer Pedant wird in geraden 
Linien und spitzen Winkeln ausgedrückt. Gelegentlich stilisiert 
Busch sogar ein Gefühl; nicht daß er ein paar stimmungsvolle 
Arabesken hineinwirft, in der Art mancher modemer Maler, 
aber doch so, daß er den Körper des Menschen in Linien auflöst, 
die uns unmittelbarer in eine Seele schauen lassen, als wenn der 
psychische Zustand durch ein physisches Equivalent offenbart 
wird. Eine musikalische Zeichnung möchte man es nennen, 
eine Zeichnung, die uns den Erlang selbst der Empfindung 
schauen läßt, nicht deren Wirkung auf den Körper: z. B. als 
"Pilucius" zum Haus hinausgeworfen wird, ist sein Rumpf in 
rasend wirbelnde Kurven aufgelöst, die uns schmerzlich fühlen 
lassen, mit welcher Geschwindigkeit er zum Zimmer hinaus- 
rotiert; von dem Ohr, das Fips der Affe mit der heißen Locken- 
scheere zwickt, strahlt der Schmerz wie von einem Lichtzentrum 
aus ; der vor Schreck erstarrte Sauerbrot, als er seine scheintote 
Frau sich plötzlich erheben sieht, ist aus kurzen vertikalen Linien 
zusammengesetzt, als sei er ein Eiszapfen-Konglomerat. 

Eigentlich sind hier zwei Fälle zu unterscheiden : bei Sauer- 
brot und dem gebrannten Ohr wird uns der Schock auf die 
Empfindung des Betreffenden zum Bewußtsein gebracht; bei 
Filucius ist vor allem die Empfindung des Zuschauers markiert. 

Hier sehen wir wieder das Begrifi9iche an Busch' Kunst; 
denn vereinzelte Gefühle sind ja immer von der Wirklichkeit 
losgelöst. Die Dinge verwandeln sich eben in Busch' Fingern 
in einen feinen, elastischen Faden, den er nach Belieben ziehen 
und winden kann. 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm BwoK 11 

Hinsichtlich der Darstellung von Speisen macht sich ein 
Umstand bei Busch geltend, der einigen unserer früheren Be- 
hauptungen zu widersprechen scheint: die guten Dinge zum 
Essen, die er so seelenvoll zu schildern vermag, werden nicht 
viel anders als in Andeutungen, ja, Hieroglyphen gezeichnet. 
Hier hätte also Busch mit dem Wort mehr als mit der Linie zu 
geben gewußt. Vielleicht, daß man überhaupt nie in sparsamer, 
linearer Darstellung jene weichen oder saftigen Glanzlichter 
geben kann, welche die holländischen Stilleben so appetitlich 
machen.* — Vielleicht aber auch, daß Busch, wenn er die ''sanfte 
Butter" beschreibt, weit weniger an die Butter als an die Emp- 
findung des Beschauers denkt. Dies anzunehmen haben wir zwei 
Gründe: erstens sind die Beschreibungen fast immer so, daß sie 
entweder vom Helden selbst gegeben sein könnten, oder zum 
mindesten in seine Sphäre passen würden; dann zeigt uns vor 
allem aber auch die Zeichnung den Effekt der Speise auf den 
Menschen, der sich in ihrer Nähe befindet, oder sie genießt. Mit 
welch tiefem Gtefühl wird hier gegessen, getrunken, geraucht und 
geschnupft ! 

Die Leute, die Busch in seiner ersten Periode beschreibt, 
interessieren sich eben nicht für lyrische Sonnenuntergänge. 
Daher wird wohl die Landschaft, außer in einigen wenigen 
Fällen, wo sie als Hintergrund wichtig ist, nicht dargestellt, 
geschweige denn, daß sie pantheistisch beseelt würde; wohl aber 
wird gelegentlich einem nützlichen Gegenstand in grotesker 
Weise eine dumpfe Seele eingehaucht; denn für diese Art der 
Personifizierung haben verschiedene der Gestalten Busch' Sinn; 
sie haben eben dieselbe Art von Humor wie ihr Schöpfer. Zum 
Beispiel, Frau Knopp : 

"Gern wendet Frau DoriB anjetzo den Blick 
Auf Knopp sein Bein-Bekleidungsstück, 
Welches ihr immer besonders gefiel 
Durch Ausdruck und wechselndes Mienenspiel. 
Bald schaut es so drein mit grimmem Yerdrufi, 
Bald auch voller Gram und Bekümmemufi." 



• Daß aber Busch diese Stillebentechnik verstand, das beweist z. B. 
ein wundervoll lecker gezeichneter Schweinskopf, aUerdings nicht in 
einer gewöhnlichen Holzchnittechnik. 



12 University of California PvhKoatians in Modem PhHology. [VoL 2 

Die Bilder geben auch hier wieder der Beschreibung den Gehalt. 
Gelegentlich stellt sich auch Busch bei der Schöpfung von Sym- 
bolen — er hat ja eine sehr schmiegsame Einbildungskraft, die 
ihm stets erlaubt, sich in die Lage eines andern zu versetzen — 
auf den Standpunkt von Kindern ; der pralle Mehlsack erscheint 
als massiver Faulpelz,^® oder der feiste Vollmond kommt herauf, 
die Pfeife im Mund. 

Wenn Busch in seiner ersten Periode zu wenig Romantiker 
und zu sehr Realist ist, um auf diese Art Sinnbilder zu schaffen, 
so ist er doch eine zu weit angelegte Natur, um nicht auf dem 
einen oder andern Weg ins Reich der Symbole zu gelangen, wenn 
auch jetzt noch nicht in dessen höchste Sphären; so bei einigen 
seiner Beschreibungen der Trunkenheit: auf- und nieder- 
schwankende Strafien, taumelnde Bäume,^^ der Stiefelzieher, der 
zum Homschröter wird, sind Beseelungen des Unbeseelten durch 
Ideen, aber sie sind wiederum durchaus realistich im Hinblick 
auf die Phantasie des Betrunkenen. 

Bezeichnend ist übrigens auch für unsem Nachkonmien der 
alten Holländer, dafi er die sublimierteste Gattung der Dich- 
tung, die symbolische, auf die Trunkenheit anwendet. Dieses 
absolut respektlose Spiel mit Symbolen während seiner ersten 
Periode gibt Busch eine eigenartige Stellung. Selbst Spötter wie 
Heine, Musset, Byron, werden meist ernst, sobald sie sich in die 
symbolische Sphäre erheben. In Busch' erster Periode ist aber 
das ironische Element so stark, daß er gegenüber dem Publikum 
wenigstens jede Spur von Ehrfurcht unterdrückt. Nicht einmal 
die alles zermalmende Zeit vermag er halbwegs ernsthaft auf- 
zufassen. Er stellt sie dar als hageres, spindeldürres Weib, allem 
Anschein nach in der Nachtjacke, der obere Teil des Körpers 
verschwindet in den Wolken. Mit ihren langen Beinen rast sie 
mit diabolischer G^chwindigkeit dahin. Ganz geheuer aller- 
dings war sie ihm doch nicht ; ja sie ist die einzige Abstraktion, 
die seine Phantasie so unheimlich anregte, daß sie zu einem 



10 GeBchichten für Neffen und Nichten, S. 13. 

11 Der Undankbare u. die ff. 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm BuscK 13 

TVesen wurde, das in seiner grauenvollen Grö£e und grotesken 
Kühnheit weit jenseits unserer Welt steht.^* 

Man sollte meinen eine symbolische Phantasie bei Psychologen 
und Moralisten möchte von selbst zu personifizierten Charak- 
tereigenschaften, besonders von Tugenden und Lastern führen. 
Die Tugend kommt allerdings bezeichnenderweise nicht vor, 
dafür umsomehr das Laster, oder doch mindestens schlechte 
Eigenschaften, wie Trunksucht, HaB, Neid, Schadenfreude,^* 
egoistische Bauemschlauheit,^^ geschwätzige Scheinheiligkeit.^^ 

Sehr viele der andern Gestalten können hier hereinbezogen 
werden, z. B. der Zahnarzt, den ein Unglück immer heiter 
stimmt.^^ Sie sind aber noch nicht so weit in der Abstraktion 
gediehen wie die genannten drei. Mit diesen aber sind wegen 
ihrer Abstraktheit Figuren verwandt, wie der Jude Schievel- 
beiner oder der Engländer. ^^ 

Man möchte versucht sein, die allegorischen Gestalten des 
Pastors Filucius, wie z. B. die protestantische und die katholische 
Kirche hier unterzubringen, wenn sie nicht so viele lebensvolle 
Züge hätten, die uns ganz ihren begrifflichen Ursprung vergessen 
ließen. 

Das Naiv-Moralisierende und doch wieder Yerstandesmäßige, 
sowie die rohe Derbheit seines Humors bringen Busch der 
Dichtung des Mittelalters nahe. Es finden sich auch verschie- 
dene Motive bei ihm vor, die in den mittelalterlichen Schwänken 
besonders beliebt waren : Das böse Weib,^' oder das Weib, das 
seinen Gatten mit dem Priester hintergeht.^^ Ja, einmal wagt 
er sich sogar an das Heiligenleben. Es ist klar, daS jemand von 
der barock-realistischen Einbildungskraft Busch', der außerdem 
eine psychologische Feinfühligkeit hat, die ihm sehr wohl ermög- 



^*VergI. Julehen, Hernach. 

IS Schlich in Plisch und Plum. 

41 Krischan im Geburtstag. 

iB Babbelmann in den Abenteuern eines Junggesellen. 

1* Baldnin Bählamm. 

IT Plisch und Plum. 

i> Frau Mücke. 

!• Knarrtjes Gattin in den Abenteuern eines Junggesellen. 



14 University of California Tublications in Modem Philology, [VoL 2 

licht, in ferne Zeiten einzudringen, in der Welt der Legende 
eine unglaubliche Verwirrung anrichten wird; besonders wenn 
er wie Busch die Frommen haßt. Wenn Gottfried Keller das 
Wunder mit einem leisen, liebenswürdigen Humor behandelt, 
so macht es Busch einfach grotesk. Der Bischof Busticus zwei- 
felt an dem Glauben des heiligen Antonius : 

''Flugs nimmt Antonius seine Haube, 
Und hängt sie wie an einen Pfahl 
An einen warmen Bonnenstrahl." 

Ein andermal liest der Heilige bei seinem Heiligenschein, da 
kommt eine üppige kleine Ballettänzerin zu ihm; sie wird auf- 
dringlich und aufdringlicher, bis er mit dem Kreuz auf sie 
deutend ihr zuruft: 

"LaS' ab von mir, unsaubrer Geist, 
So wie Du bist, wer Du auch seist." 

Und der Teufel enteilt in kurzem Balletröckchen, eine Blume 
zwischen den Hörnern. Antonius' Himmelfahrt mit dem 
Schwein, dem zwei Engelsflügelchen wachsen, ist in seiner bla»- 
phemischen Kühnheit weder von Voltaire in seiner Pucelle, noch 
von dem Autor der ''Combats des dieux anciens et modernes" 
übertroffen worden. Das Seltsamste dabei ist, daB während 
Busch zuerst über den Heiligen spottet, er ihn allmählich lieb 
gewinnt, was dem Schluß seiner Erzählung etwas von der Wärme 
Kellers gibt. Das ist übrigens ein Zug, der nur sehr selten in 
der ersten Periode seines Schaffens herauskommt, wenigstens 
nicht bei dem Schriftsteller. 

2. — Der Moralist und Psychologe. 

Wir haben schon gesehen, Busch hat einen scharfen Verstand, 
wie auch seine Veranlagung für Mathematik beweist.'^ Er liebt 
das Begri£9iche. Ein Begriff ist der Knoten wesentlicher Merk- 
male. Was ist nun wesentlich für Busch f Meist das, was seine 
Moral oder doch seine Weltanschauung überhaupt akzentuiert. 
AUes was nicht Bezug hat auf diese, wird rücksichtslos eliminiert. 



20 Vergl. Schaukai, W. Busch und die Autobiographische Skizze [''Pater 
Filucius"]. 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm BvseK 15 

Will uns Busch einen Begriff von kindlicher Spielerei geben, 
d. h. in der Beleuchtung seiner Philosophie des Zerstörungs- 
triebes, so bleibt in dem Zimmer gerade das, was ^'Julchen" zu 
verderben vermag. Wenn beschrieben wird, wie sich Franz 
anzieht, so ist das nötig, um uns zu zeigen, wie unpassend 
Helenchens Benehmen ist (sie schaut durch das Schlüsselloch 
zu), und wie sich dieses bestraft. Wenn Pater Filucius sein 
Oift gerade in die dampfende Suppenschüssel giefit, so geschieht 
dies, damit sie ihm nachher über den Kopf gestülpt werden 
kann, und obgleich es sich in letzterem Falle um eine ganze 
Mahlzeit handelt, sehen und hören wir von keiner andern Speise; 
ja selbst die Suppenschüssel ist gerade noch kenntlich. So 
sehr ist Busch bemüht, nur das Wesentliche vorzuführen. 

Aus den obigen Beispielen geht auch hervor, dafi in Busch' 
Welt das Böse ohne Erbarmen bestraft wird; nicht daB 
er eine transzendente Gerechtigkeit eingreifen ließe, aber 
die Logik der Ereignisse bringt es mit, daB sich das 
Böse selbst die Grube gräbt. Wer zuviel trinkt, wird 
aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach einmal in seinem Bausche 
zu Grunde gehen, wie die fromme Helene, der Gk)urmand 
wird an seiner GefräSigkeit sterben, wie Schmock, der an 
einer Gräte erstickt; der böse Junge treibt es solange, bis er 
erwischt und bestraft wird. In dieser Art ergänzen sich bei 
Busch Charakter und Schicksal, so daB die Endresultate von 
der Logik der Ereignisse gefordert erscheinen. Dadurch erlangen 
seine Lebensschicksale etwas Typisches und allgemein Gültiges, 
wie wir es bei Shakespeare und Moliöre finden.*^ — ^Dies erreicht 
Busch gewöhnlich, indem er die Situation, in der sich eine Person 
befindet, mit ihrem Charakter kontrastiert. Helenchen, ein 
boshaftes kleines Mädchen, das sich gerne amüsiert, kommt aufs 
Land zu frommen, beschränkten alten Leuten, Onkel und Tante, 
die sie gleich mit einer langen Tugendpredigt ins Bett entlassen. 
Wie soll sich da der Tatentrieb des jungen Geschöpfes anders 



>i Vgl. Wetz, Shakespeare vom Standpunkt der vergleichenden Littera" 
turgeschichie, Worms, 1890, und Lanson, Histoire de la litt, frangaise: 
Molidre, Paris, 1903. O. Ludwig, Shakespeare-Studien, Berlin, 1872. 



16 University of California PubUeatiam in Modem Phüology. [Yol 2 

Luft machen als in Streichen f Solch ein Motiv ist selbstver- 
ständlich höchst fruchtbar, um Exempel zu statuieren: Die 
alten Leute, die so weise Lehren geben, benehmen sich sehr albern 
und verlieren ganz ihre Würde, sobald sie durch Helenchens 
Übermut etwas aus ihrer alltäglichen Grewohnheit in eine unge- 
mütlich neue Situation gebracht werden. Helenchen andererseits 
kommt nicht mehr von der schiefen Ebene des Bösetuns, bis sie 
auf ihr in die Hölle hinabgerutscht ist. Moral: Hüte Dich vor 
Pharisäertum, aber hüte Dich auch vor allem Bösen : ''Es macht 
Plaisir, wenn man es ist, es macht YerdruB, wenn man 's ge- 
wesen. "^^ Eine schümme Tat hat gleich mehrere im (xefolge. 
Qegen diese Art von Lehren mag man einwenden: Das sind 
Gemeinplätze ; indessen lehren uns Shakespeare und Molidre viel 
anderes in ethischer Hinsicht als Gemeinplätze? Verdanken sie 
nicht vielmehr, zum Teil wenigstens, dem Umstand ihre Größe, 
daß sie im Stande sind, Wahrheiten, die jeder versteht, und die 
eine recht lange Epoche hindurch verstanden werden können, 
in frappanter Lebendigkeit uns vor Augen zu führen f Bei 
Busch wie bei Moliere tritt die Lehre weit evidenter hervor als 
bei Shakespeare, wahrscheinlich weil sie mehr bewußt darauf 
abzielen. Man kann diese zwei daher Moralisten nennen. Allen 
dreien wiederum ist gemeinsam, daß sie die Umgebung ihrer 
Menschen schauen und wissen, daß diese mehr oder minder durch 
die eine böse Tat beeinflußt werden muß. Während Helenchen 
noch mit intensivem Interesse durch das Schlüsselloch in Fran- 
zens Schlafzimmer sieht, geht plötzlich die Türe auf. Helene 
stößt bei eiliger Flucht an die Wasserkanne und fällt mit dieser 
die Treppe hinunter : 

''Sie kommt auf Hannchen angerollt. 
Die Franzens Stiefel holen wollt. 
Die Lene ratscht, es rutscht die Hanne, 
Die Tante tragt die Kaffeekanne; 
Da geht es klirr und klipp und klapp, 
Und auch der Onkel kriegt was ab." 

Dies Beispiel zeigt uns auch wieder das optische Oenie Busch' 
und dessen Beschränkung. Er sieht meist nur die Wirkung, 

22 Die fromme Helene. 



1910] Winiher: Wilhelm Busch. 17 

soweit das Auge reicht. Er kann nicht wie Moli^re und Shake- 
speare vorführen, wie die Umgebung im weiteren Sinne des 
Wortes durch eine lasterhafte Person an ihrem CharcJcter leidet.^' 
— ^Bei Shakespeare und Busch leiden meist Gute und Böse. 
Molidre ist hierin weniger konsequent; vielleicht, weil er ein 
Lustspieldichter war, vielleicht auch, weil er in jenem Frankreich 
des 17ten Jahrhundert lebte, das die Welt als von der Vernunft 
regiert betrachtete. Die Outen, wenn es auch noch so sehr gegen 
die Konsequenz der Verhältnisse geht, werden meist durch irgend 
ein Wunder gerettet. Wo dies nicht der Fall ist, wie im **Mis- 
anthrope," ist man im Zweifel, ob man es mit einem Lustspiel 
zu tun hat. Busch hingegen in seinem eigenen burlesken Genre 
kann sich den tragikomischen Ausgang sehr wohl leisten, ohne 
die heitere Stimmung zu stören,** weil er höher über der Wirk- 
lichkeit schwebt^* als Moüöre. 

Ein so intensiver Moralist wie Busch, der zugleich ein so 
auBerordentUch feiner Beobachter ist, sollte ein Meister in der 
Wiedergabe psychologischer Entwicklung sein. Als Moralist 
mufi ihn doch interessieren, wie der arme Mensch Schritt für 
Schritt der Versuchung unterliegt. In der Tat finden wir auch 
bei ihm wunderbar feine psychologische Skizzen, die mit sicherem 
Schnitt die Wurzeln von Tugenden und Lastern freilegen. So 
wird mit kühler Buhe beispielsweise in der **frommen Helene" 
das äussere Symptom notiert, welches einen Fortschritt in dem 
psychologischen Verfall der Heldin anzeigt: von jugendlichen 
Streichen wie dem Zusammennähen von Onkels Hemd bis zur 
bewußten Grausamkeit des erwachsenen Mädchens, das an den 
Schwanz der Eatze brennendes Papier befestigt, von der sinn- 
lichen Neugierde des Backfisches, wie es eigentlich aussieht, wenn 
ein Mann sich anzieht, bis zum Ehebruch. Ebenso haben wir in 
der Helene den Konflikt zwischen Wollen und Sollen, zwischen 
Schnapsflasche und Gebetbuch. Mit einem bitteren Realismus 
ist er durchgeführt; nirgends Beflektion, alles Handlung. Die 
intimsten Gedanken der Seele werden suggeriert; das Beschrei- 



28 Vgl. Tartuffe, ' ' das ganze Haus beginnt zu betrügen. ' ' 
24 Abgesehen von der ' ' frommen Helene. * ' 
2Byergl. hierzu Busch' autobiographische Skizze. 



18 ünivergity of California Publicaiions i» Modern PhOology. [YoL 2 

bende so knapp gehalten wie Bühnenanweisungen. Die Tragödie 
beginnt mit einem jener wundervoll scharf geprägten Zynismen 
Busch'. Feierlich und von einer unheimlichen Komik beseelt 
erschallt das Leitmotiv : 

''Es ist ein Brauch von Alters her. 
Wer Sorgen hat, hat auch Likör. ' ' 

''Nein, ruft Helene, aber nun will ich 's auch ganz und ganz 
gewiß nicht wieder tun." Ihre schmerzlich pathetische Bewe- 
gung, welche uns in der Zeichnung vor Augen geführt wird, 
markiert die Höhe des inneren Konfliktes und zeigt den Ernst 
der Absicht : 

"Sie kniet von ferne fromm nnd frisch, 
Die Flasche stehet anf dem Tisch. ' ' 

Sie klein und zerknirscht, die Flasche riesengroB. Das nächste 
Bild zeigt sie schon halb abgewendet vom Gebetpult. 

"Es läflt sich knieen aneh ohne Pult, 
Die Flasche wartet mit Geduld. ' ' 

Sie ist schon ganz nahe bei dem Tisch ; die Augen schauen über 
den Rand des (Gesangbuches — ^nach der Lampe oder nach der 
Flasche f 

"Man liest nicht gerne weit vom Lieht, 
Die Flasche glänzt nnd rührt sich nicht. ' ' 

Das Gebetbuch fällt zu Boden; andächtig kniet sie vor der 
Flasche, die gefalteten Hände inbrünstig um sie geschlungen; 
gerade als habe sie in ihrer Betäubung Liederbuch und Flasche 
verwechselt. Sehr fein geben auch die Worte den Übergang: 

''Oft liest man mehr als wie genug, 
Die Flasche ist kein Liederbuch.", 

Mit grausamer Logik ist die Versuchung analysiert ; jede Steige- 
rung genau notiert und mit welcher Technik ! Jedem Vers, der 
die innere Stimme formuliert, entspricht ein Vers, der mit in- 
differenter Brutalität die äußere Versuchung wiedergibt; und 
zu gleicher Zeit wird der Flasche eine dumpfe Seele eingehaucht, 
aber nur so leise, daß sie kaum aus der Reihe der natürlichen 
Dinge heraustritt. Die Wendungen hierfür sind so bescheiden 
gewählt, daß sie in einem Polizeibericht stehen könnten. Doch 



1910] Winiher: Wilhelm Busch. 19 

wird hierdurch die Versuchung dramatisch, ohne daß die Szene 
von ihrem furchtbaren Realismus einbüßt. Wie intensiv muß 
der Haß gewesen sein, der ein solches Geschöpf mit einer so 
grandiosen Kunst zerschmetterte, und wie groß der Künstler, 
der einen solchen Gegenstand, wohlgemerkt bei nur geringem 
Abstand von der Wirklichkeit, erträglich, ja, für viele ergötzlich 
macht. 

Gelegentlich erweitert sich das Interesse Busch' über das 
Ethische hinaus. Er gräbt einem Laster nach, bis er zu dessen 
Wurzel kommt, die sehr oft nicht mehr in den Bereich der 
ethischen Beurteilung gehört, wie die Neugierde und der Über- 
mut der ** frommen" Helene als Eand. Manchmal bleibt er dann 
in diesem moralisch-indifferenten Gebiet und sieht, was aus 
solchen Eigenschaften bei weniger ungünstigen Einflüssen werden 
kann, z. B. beim Maler Klecksel, der übermütig und sinnlich ist 
wie die "fronmie" Helene und auch dem Alkohol gerne zuspricht, 
den aber Armut im Zügel hält, so daß der tolle Malerjüngling 
schließlich seine Geliebte heiratet und ein ehrbarer Schenkwirt 
wird, in dessen Physiognomie gerade noch genügend Spuren des 
Bohemien zu erkennen sind, um die Kontinuität der Persönlich- 
keit zu markieren. 

Wir haben schon bemerkt, daß Busch eine Art '* Kettenphan- 
tasie" hat: das sittlich Schlechte führt ihn zum sittlich Indiffer- 
enten, xmd auch das sittlich Gute scheint ihm aus einem mora- 
lisch indifferenten Urgründe,*® ja, aus recht minderwertigen 
Trieben hervorzugehen, z. B. wenn er die Tugenden des heiUgen 
Antonius analysiert : 

''Auch unser Toni zeigte früh 
Zum Heiligen mancherlei Genie. 
Man rechnet meistens zu den Lasten 
Bas kirchliche Gebot der Fasten. 
Man fastet, weU man eben mufi. 
Für Toni aber war's Genufi. 
Bouillon und Fleisch und Leberklos. 
Bas war ihm alles tutmemschos, 
Bagegen jene müden Sachen, 
Bie wir aus Mehl und Zucker machen. 



<8 ' ' Sittlich ' ' nehme ich hier im kantischen Sinne. 



20 Univertity of Califomia PtibUcations in Modem Phihlogy. [VoL 2 

Wozu man auch wohl Milch und Zimmt 

Und gute sanfte Butter nimmt, 

Ich will mal sagen Mandeltorten, 

Dampfnudeln, Krapfen allersorten, 

Auch Waffel, Honig-Pfannenkuehen, 

Dies pflegt er häufig aufzusuchen. 

Den Freitag war er gern allein. 

Um sich besonders zu kastei 'n; 

Der Tag war ihm besonders heilig, 

Früh stund er auf und schlich sieh eilig 

Zur Scheune auf die kühle Tenne; 

Denn Picola, die kluge Henne, 

Legt hier versteckt in frisches Heu 

Behutsam schon ihr Morgenei 

Er trank es aus, hier sehen wir. 

Daß selbst das unvernünftige Tier 

Mit sonst gedankenlosen Werken 

Den Frommen fördern muß und stärken. ' ' 

Dann holt er sich in dem Garten eines Fischers, der am Freitag 
in Ketzerkneipen Fleisch ißt, Obst und Fische : 

"Gesegnet sind die Frommen, ihnen 
Muß jedes Ding zum Besten dienen. 
Doch nicht allein die Fastenzeit 
* Fand ihn stets willig und bereit; 
Nein, auch die vielen Feiertage 
Trug er geduldig ohne Klage. 
Zuweilen auch bei kühler Zeit 
Trieb ihn der Geist der Einsamkeit; 
Sodaß er morgens auf dem Pfühle, 
Entfernt von Schul- und Weltgewühle 
Bis in den hellen Wintertag 
Ein stiller Klausner sinnend lag." 

Man fragt unwillkürlich, was für einen Wert hat denn die ganze 
Frömmigkeit, wenn sie im Grunde genommen Faulheit und 
Genußsucht ist? Sollte aber, wenn der heilige Antonius später 
im Walde ruhig sitzend sich von Pflanzen überwachsen läßt, den 
Ameisen erlaubt, in seinem Ärmel zu nisten, das auch noch aus 
Genußsucht geschehen! Wenn mir jemand einwirft, die Qual 
kann auch eine Wollust werden, so läßt sich erwidern, daß, wenn 
man Begriffe soweit dehnt, sie ihren ursprünglichen Sinn ver- 
lieren. Wer den heiligen Antonius einen faulen Schlemmer 
schilt, müßte einen Schmetterling ein häßliches Tier nennen, weil 
er aus einer ekelhaft fetten Raupe hervorging; allein, gerade 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm BuscK 21 

das tut Busch. Er sieht eben fast immer den Orang-Utan in 
uns. Beim Hofieren um Julchen geht es fast ebenso her wie da, 
wo die zwei Hunde Pliseh und Plum nach einer Hündin schmach- 
ten ; d. h. es kommt zu einer energischen Eeilerei. Nur dadurch 
zeigen die Menschen ihren höheren Intellekt, daß sie statt ihrer 
Zähne OartenutensUien als Waffen gebrauchen. Die junge Liebe 
wäre hiemach für Busch der primitive Kampf ums Weib. Wir 
sehen, offen oder versteckt gelangt er fast immer zu einer unange- 
nehmen Lehre. Wie stimmt aber dieses Moralisieren zu seiner 
eigenen Behauptung, er habe alles zum Vergnügen geschrieben f 
Da wäre zweierlei anzuführen: Häufig deutet das Dargestellte 
bloB auf eine ethische Folgerung. Aber war diese beabsichtigt? 
Und doch muß sie hier irgendwie in ihm gesteckt haben; denn 
wer nach allen Richtungen blindlings darauf los photographiert, 
würde nur in äusserst seltenen Fällen Bilder erhalten, die auch 
nur auf eine Moral hindeuten. Dann muß aber auch betont 
werden, daß für viele Menschen das Moralisieren ein Vergnügen 
ist. Der Zorn, wenn er irgendwo hinaus kann, ist ein Genuß; 
versetzen sich doch primitive Völker in diese Art der Erregung 
einfach um des Lustgefühls willen. Die Germanen konnten sich 
ja nicht einmal die Seligkeit ohne Kampf denken; und ein Beo- 
bachter, der so sicher trifft wie Busch, sollte diesen Genuß nicht 
haben T Gerade weil er dieses burleske Sicherheitsventil für 
seinen Grimm hatte, wurde er vielleicht kein unbedingter Welt- 
vemeiner. Einen fröhlichen Pessimisten möchte man ihn nen- 
nen ; gewiß die Welt ist schlecht, aber unendlich komisch : 

''Es sitzt ein Vogel auf dem Leim, 
Et flattert sehr und kann nicht heim. 
Ein schwarzer Kater schleicht herzu, 
Die Erallen scharf, die Augen glüh; 
Am Baum hinauf und immer hoher 
Kommt er dem armen Vogel näher. 
Der Vogel denkt, weU das so ist, 
Und weil mich doch der Kater frißt, 
So will ich keine Zeit verlieren, 
Will noch ein wenig quinquillieren 
Und lustig pfeifen wie zuvor. 
Der Vogel seheint mir, hat Humor. "27 

27 Kritik des Herzens. 



22 üniversity of California FubUcations in Modem Philology. [YoL 2 

Häufig scheint es, als habe er den scharfen und tadelnden Blick 
des Moralisten, aber das Temperament des Epikuräers: 

"Sehr tadelnswert ist nnser Tun, 

Wir sind nicht brav nnd bieder. 

Gesetzt den Fall, es käme nun 

Die Sündflut nochmal nieder, 

Das war' ein Zappeln und Geschreck, 

Wir tauchten alle unter. 

Dann kröchen wir wieder aus dem Dreck 

Und wären froh und munter. "28 

Busch freut sich des Animalischen wie Homer, wenn er seinen 
Polyphem beim Mahle beschreibt; aber die christliche Kultur 
hat dieses viehische OenieBen schlecht gemacht; daher kann er 
es nicht mit naiver Bewunderung schildern, wie der Grieche, 
sondern muß einen Tadel einflechten, und das geschieht durch 
die Ironie. Der Gedanke ist, wie oben oft, streng zurechtweisend, 
aber die Form ist burlesk. Die Mischung beider ergibt die eine 
Seite von Busch' Humor. Ein Mensch, der wie Busch so un- 
barmherzig scharf die Schwächen der andern sieht, wird sich 
wohl hüten, die eigenen an den Tag zu legen. In der Tat ist 
nicht einmal der ' Simplicissimus, ' dieses maliziöseste Witzblatt, 
imstande, ihm etwas vorzuhalten. Entweder verneigt er sich 
ehrfurchtsvoll vor Junker Satan, oder was fast noch ein feineres 
Kompliment ist, er benutzt dessen Waffen. Es ist eben unmög- 
lich, Busch zu überbuschen, wenn man sich nicht selbst lächerlich 
machen will ; mit so sicherer Hand versteht er es an der Grenze 
des Möglichen zu bleiben, gerade das Äusserste zu geben, ohne 
fratzenhaft zu werden. Das heißt: er hat Geschmack. Ist das 
aber nicht selbstverständlich bei einem Künstler^® von seiner 
Bedeutung? — ^Man sehe sich Dickens an, der eine Menge Humor 
aber schmerzlich wenig Geist hat. Nun, sagt man, er ist ein 
Engländer — als ob die Engländer nicht eine ganze Menge geist- 
reicher und geschmackvoller Dichter hätten, wie Byron, Pope, 
Shaw. Aber wir wollen uns einmal in Frankreich umsehen. 
Unter den Dichtem des 19ten Jahrhunderts steht Hugo in erster 



28 Ebenda. 

«» Künstler — ^hier gleich Schöpfer im weitesten Sinne. 



1910] Winiher: Wilhelm Busch, 23 

Reihe. Und doch ist wohl keiner unter den Großen der Welt- 
literatur, der ihn übertraf e an Albernheiten. Er hat Humor, 
wenn auch nicht so viel wie Dickens, und beinahe möchte man 
meinen, daß es eben der Humor ist, der ihn wie Dickens häufig 
zum Toren macht. Busch, dessen Bedeutung vor allem in seinem 
Humor besteht, ist es also um so höher anzurechnen, wenn er 
diesen in geschmackvollen Schranken zu halten weiß. Der 
Dichter, besonders der Moralist, sucht, um auf möglichst viele 
Menschen zu wirken, bewußt oder unbewußt die typischen, d. h. 
extremsten Fälle aus: Ibsens **Nora" läßt sich nicht nur von 
ihrem Manne scheiden, sie hat auch Kinder, die sie liebt, von 
denen sie sich losreißen muß. Busch, der nicht nur Moralist, 
sondern auch Humorist ist, treibt diese Konsequenz natürlich 
bis zur äußersten Grenze: damit hängt wohl auch seine vielbe- 
sprochene Bohheit zusammen. Man betrachte genau die Fälle, 
wo er grausam wird, es ist gewöhnlich, um auch die schlimmsten 
Konsequenzen einer Unachtsamkeit oder eines bösen Streiches 
darzutun. Der tragische Dichter, wenigstens der moderne, be- 
gnügt sich mit seelischer Qual, oder der einfachen Exekution 
seines Helden. Busch als Komiker kann sich einige pikante 
Zutaten leisten, wie sie dem Tragiker nur in verhältnismäßig 
primitiven Zeiten gestattet wurden. Im ernsten Bild oder im 
ernsten Drama würden wir es unausstehlich finden, wenn ein 
Mensch an der großen Zehe in die Höhe gezogen würde, abgesehen 
natürlich von geschundenen Heiligen, die einen besonderen Fall 
darstellen. Busch hat entschieden etwas vom Dichter der prim- 
itiven Zeiten, und so schafft er seine extremen Fälle dadurch, 
daß er die Vernunft und das moderne Surrogat der Vernunft, 
die Polizei, aus seiner Tragikomödie eliminiert hat; das heißt, 
die selbstischen Triebe herrschen ungezügelt in seiner Welt. 
Vom Band sagt er: 

''Sein Prinzip ist überhaupt, 

Was beliebt, ist auch eriaubt; 

Denn der Mensch als Kreatnr 

Hat von Büeksicht nicht die Spur." (Julchen, S. 5.) 

Und das gilt auch im großen ganzen von seinen ausgewachsenen 
Kindern. Was sich Shakespeare in der Umwelt bot durch die 



24 Univernty of California FubUcaiioM in Modem PhOology. [YoL 2 

Zerstörung der engen mittelalterlichen Qesellschaftsordnnng und 
das Nichtvorhandensein des modernen Polizeistaates, das erreicht 
Busch auf künstlichem Wege, nämlich ein ungebundenes Walten 
der selbstischen Triebe. Der von solchen Trieben geleitete 
Mensch ist ein verhältnismäßig einfacher Mechanismus, den 
Busch nochmals simplifiziert und damit ein Wesen erhält, das 
durch die Übersichtlichkeit seiner Triebe sich vorzüglich für 
das Experiment eignet. Beim Sand ist das, wie wir schon be- 
merkten, noch mehr der Fall als beim Erwachsenen. Beim Tier 
erreicht häufig die Yorausbestimmbarkeit einen Grad mathema- 
tischer Sicherheit, auf die jeder Automat stolz sein könnte. Ein 
Tier wird gereizt, natürlich beißt es ; ein boshafter Schlingel sieht 
die Möglichkeit eines Streiches, natürlich führt er ihn aus. Das 
ist so bei dieser Art von Lebewesen, weil hier nur ein starkes 
Motiv vorhanden ist. Bei Erwachsenen sollte es anders sein. 
Diese haben doch die Vernunft als Oegengewicht der Instinkte, 
wenigstens nehmen wir das an. Sehen wir einmal zu, wie Onkel 
Nolte, ein ruhiger alter Herr, sich in einer kritischen Lage be- 
nimmt. Helene näht sein Nachthemd an Hals und Armlöchern 
zusammen, — ^als überlegender Mann wird er wohl bald entdecken, 
warum er nicht in sein Hemd kommt, und die Übeltäterin damit 
strafen, daß er sie den Schaden wieder gut machen läßt, — ^keine 
Spur davon; er müht sich immer wütender ab, in das Hemd 
zu kommen, bis er es zerreißt. Nun, er war allein, glaubte sich 
unbeachtet, da läßt man sich gehen. In Gegenwart seiner Frau 
wäre das ganz anders gewesen; er würde sich scheuen vor der 
weisen Sittenpredigerin, sich an ihrer Buhe ein Beispiel nehmen. 
Helenchen gibt ihm bald Gelegenheit, die Scharte auszuwetzen. 
Nachts zieht sie das Plumeau der beiden Alten mit einer Angel- 
schnur weg: 

''Hupp, jetzt spürt die Tante auch 
An dem Fuß den kalten Hauch. 
'Nolte' ruft sie, 'lasse das, 
Denn das ist ein dummer Spafi.' " 

Sie '*ruft," das sollte eine gesetzte alte Dame nicht tun; ihre 
Gebärde ist aber noch impulsiver : die Faust gegen Noltens Nase : 

"Und mit Murren und Gebrumm 
Kehrt man beiderseits sich um. ' ' 



1910] Winiher: Wilhelm Busch, 25 

Sie liegen Bücken gegen Bücken; jedes so nah an seinem Band 
des Bettes als möglich : 

"Schnupp, da liegt man gänzliclL bloß 
und die Zomigkeit geht los. ' ' 

Es endet natürlich mit einer Prügelei; und diese ganze Erre- 
gung wird durch einen kleinen Streich verursacht. So sind 
nach Busch die alten friedlichen Leute; man kann sich einen 
Begriff machen, wie die jungen erst sein werden. 
Maler Klecksel liest die Kritik seines ersten Bildes : 

"Wie düBter wird sein Blick umnebelt I 

Wie hat ihn Hinterstich vermöbelt! 

Sogleich in eigener Person 

Fort eilt er auf die Bedaktion. 

Des Autors Physiognomie 

Bedroht er mit dem Parapluie. 

Der Kritikus in Zomeztase 

Spieß mit der Feder Eunos Nase. ' ' 

Schirm, Tintenfaß und Feder werden in einer wütenden Keilerei 
als Schutz- und Trutzwaffen gebraucht. — ^Die Handlung ist hier 
noch eine Idee impulsiver als oben; die Tante machte doch noch 
einen kleinen Versuch zu einem gütlichen Vergleich. Hier 
schießt dem Malerjüngling das Blut gleich so stark in den Kopf, 
d^ sein Blick getrübt wird. Nicht einmal auf dem Weg zur 
Bedaktion gedenkt er den Kritiker erst zur Bede zu stellen, 
sondern sofort greift er ihn an. Noch geringeren Anlaß zum 
Gefecht bedarf es bei den Tieren : 

''Fips [der Affe] hat sich einen Knochen stibitzt 
Wo auch noch ziemlich was drannen sitzt. 
Neugierig hocken im Hintergrund, 
Grips der Kater und Schnips der Hund. ' ' 

**Wau, Wau," sie sausen von ihrem Platze auf den Affen. Der 
Hund beißt den Affen in den Schwanz, die Katze zaust seinen 
Kopf; hier sind wir also bei einem ganz triebhaften Handeln 
angelangt. Wiederum mit mehr Verstand versehen als seine 
beiden Gegner ist der Affe, wie seine Kampfart beweist. Er 
flüchtet, lockt die Katze mit dem bewußten Knochen in einen 



26 Univeraity of California PüblicatUms in Modem PhHology. [YoL 2 

Korb. Auf diesen springend drückt er ihn so zusammen, dafi 
gerade die Pfoten herausstehen. Mit der Zange reißt er ihr 
dann die Klauen aus und befestigt hierauf den Korb an ihrem 
Schwanz, der am andern Ende desselben heraussteht. Hierauf 
geht es an den Hund; Fips packt ihn am Schweif und 

''Schwingt ihn solchermafien im Kreis, 

Bis er nichts Gescheidtes mehr zn denken weiB." 

Dann schleift er ihn am Schwanz über den Hof und ihn immer 
noch am Schwanz haltend, läfit er ihn über einem Ziehbrunnen 
baumeln : 

"Drauf so führt er ihn hinten nach 
Auf des Daches Binne bis aufs Dach. 
Und lehnt ihn über den Schlot allhier. 
Draus geht ein merklicher Dampf herfür. ' ' 

Diese rasende Rachsucht erinnert etwas an Marlowe's ''Jew of 
Malta." Busch mußte diese in der heutigen, etwas verfeinerten 
Zeit auf ein Tier übertragen. Wir sehen, diese Geschöpfe sind 
von einem einzigen, wütenden Trieb erfüllt, der sie nichts anderes 
sehen oder hören läßt: vor der Tat nie ein Gedanke an die 
Polgen. Wenn sie nebenbei Verstand haben, so dient dieser 
nur, um diesen Trieb zu befriedigen, was sich in der raflSnierteren 
Kampfesweise des Menschen und Affen zeigt. Und in diese 
zügellose Welt stellt Busch seinen guten Philister, der nichts 
höher schätzt als Ordnung und Regel. Der Erfolg ist von einer 
erschütternden Lächerlichkeit. 

Busch gelangte zu der fast mechanischen Reaktion des psy- 
chischen Lebens, wie wir schon gesehen haben, durch Reduktion 
der Triebfedern unseres Mechanismus auf das Impulsive. Es 
ist eigen, daß bei den Charakteren Corneilles, die doch ganz von 
der Vernunft beherrscht werden, etwas Ähnliches vorhanden 
ist ; ja gerade, weil sie ausschließlich von der Vernunft beherrscht 
werden, sind sie von ähnlicher Einfachheit. Sobald man ge- 
funden hat, was diese Vernunft sich zum Ziel gesetzt hat, sei 
es sittlich, sei es unsittlich, so hat man das Naturgesetz ihres 
Wesens entdeckt. Dieses ist meist eine ethische Norm, da Ethik 
und Vernunft häufig miteinander verknüpft sind. 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm Busch. 27 

Während nun Busch und Corneille bei durchaus klassizi- 
stischer Vereinfachung der Psychologie, der eine in fast unbe- 
dingter Betonung des Verstandes, der andere in fast absoluter 
Hervorhebung des Instinktiven, zu dieser fast mechanischen 
Reaktion des Handelns gelangen, kann beispielsweise bei einer 
Grestalt des modernen Dichters — ^ich wähle "Faust,'* da dieser 
am Beginn der Bewegung nach Komplikation der Psychologie 
steht — ^nicht das künftige Handeln mit Sicherheit vorausgesagt 
werden; d. h. wenigstens nicht im ersten Teil der Tragödie, so 
lange sich Vernunft und Trieb einigermaßen das Gleichgewicht 
halten, und er somit in die Beihe der modernen komplizierten 
Naturen gehört. 

Qanz ihrer Psychologie entsprechen die Weltanschauungen 
der drei Dichter. Der Mensch nach Corneille soll das Erhabene 
wollen, und nur dieses; Herrscher soll er sein, der sich nur 
einer stolzen Moral unterwirft. Menschlich will Goethe den 
Menschen; er sei weder ein Gott noch ein Tier; er unterdrücke 
nicht seine Triebe, sondern leite sie durch die Vernunft. Busch 
ist zufrieden, wenn die gessellschaftsfeindlichen Triebe einiger- 
maßen gezügelt werden, wenn aus dem jugendlichen Nichtsnutz 
ein ehrbarer Philister wird, der eine behagliche Existenz führt, 
ohne jemand zu schaden. Tatsächlich scheinen ihm solche 
Menschen die wünschenswertesten Existenzen zu sein: einfache 
Leute, wie man sie in der mittleren Bürgerschicht findet, deren 
Leben mit den Sorgen des Alltags ausgefüllt ist, die gerne gut 
essen und trinken, überhaupt ihren Instinkten nachgehen, sofern 
diese harmlos sind; Leute wie der spätere Schenkwirt Klecksel 
oder wie Knopp, der seinen Lebenszweck erfüllt glaubt, nachdem 
er ein Kind in die Welt gesetzt und dann verheiratet hat,^** — 
sie werden wenigstens mit einigermaßen heiler Haut entlassen; 
dies sind die Leute mit denen er Sympathie empfindet. Theo- 
retiker dagegen kann er nicht ausstehen, wie wir schon im Fall 



30 Vgl. den Schluß von "Julchen"; nachdem Julchen, Knopps Tochter, 
▼erheiratet ist, heißt es: 

'^ Knopp der hat hienieden nun 

Eigentlich nichts mehr zu tun." 
Er hat seinen Zweck erfüllt etc. 



28 Vniversity of California FvbUeatioM in Modem Phüology, [YoL 2 

von Onkel und Tante Nolte sahen. Und wie lächerlich wird 
Rektor Debisch gemacht, der der Ansicht ist: 

' < Oberflächlich ist der Hieb, 
Nur des Geistes Kraft aUein 
Schneidet in die Seele ein." 

Es genügt Busch nicht, ihn durch Wort und Bild ad absurdum 
zu führen ; mit intensiver Bosheit wird ihm die obige lächerliche 
Sentenz gewissermaßen selbst in den Mund gelegt, so daB er sich 
selbst albern machen muß. 

Nun, so ein Mensch wie Busch, der in seinen Büchern aUes 
kurz und klein schlägt, muß wohl für Prügelstrafe sein,— da, 
wenn er gegen sie predigte, er sich selbst die Existenzberechti- 
gung nehmen würde. Oleich nachdem uns Debisch und sein 
Sohn vorgeführt wurden, lernen wir Herrn Druff kennen, dessen 
Namen schon erraten läßt, was wir zu erwarten haben: 

"Dmlf hat aber diese Begel, 
Prügel machen frisch und kregel 
Und erweisen sich probat 
Ganz besonders vor der Tat." 

Auch zum heutigen Schützenfest scheint ihm dies für Franz 
das beste; schon der Ton läßt ahnen, daß Busch nicht so ganz 
mit diesem Verfahren einverstanden ist, und noch mehr wird 
das Prinzip widerlegt durch die bitterbösen Streiche, die sich 
der Junge an dem Fest leistet. 

Ein Erzieher nach Busch' Wunsch ist Bockelmann, der nicht 
lange theoretisiert, sondern je nach den Umständen es mit 
freundlichem Zureden versucht, oder wenn es nötig ist mit dem 
Stock argumentiert. Er macht aus zwei nichtsnutzigen Schlin- 
geln zwei Musterknaben, die dann wieder eine ähnliche Erzie- 
hung mit ihren Hunden vornehmen, so daß diese für 100 Mark 
an einen Engländer verkauft werden können und so das Olück 
der Familie begründen. 

Im großen ganzen ist Busch' Moral mehr verneinend als 
aufbauend. Er zeigt vor allem, wie wir nicht sein sollen, was 
eigentlich von seinem ironischen Temperament zu erwarten 
wäre; ja selbst seine Lieblinge kommen nie ungerupft davon. 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm Busch, 29 

Das hat vielleicht eine tiefere Ursache. Seine Personen sind 
Alltagsmenschen, die sich meist in alltäglichen Situationen be- 
finden. Wie kann er sie interessant machen, ohne das Lächer- 
liche an Urnen hervorzuheben f Nicht daß er immer von oben 
herunter einen herzlosen Spott über sie ergießt; gelegentlich 
vergißt er sich, und wird auf ein paar Augenblicke liebens- 
würdig. Er hatte eben als Eind, Schuljunge, Kleinstädter, nicht 
nur bei anderen, sondern auch an sich selbst so manche von 
den Nöten, Gelüsten und Schmerzen seiner späteren Helden 
empfunden. So erzählt er in seiner kurzen Selbstbiographie: 
''Beim Küster diente ein Kuhjunge fünf, sechs Jahre älter als 
ich, der hatte in einen rostigen Kirchenschlüssel, so groß wie 
dem Petrus seiner, ein Zündloch gefeilt. Gehacktes Fensterblei 
hatte er auch schon genug; blos das Pulver fehlte ihm noch zu 
Blitz und Donner. Infolge seiner Beredsamkeit machte ich 
einen stillen Besuch bei einer gewissen steinernen Kruke, die 
auf dem Speicher stand. Nachmittags zogen wir mit den Kühen 
auf die Waldwiese. Großartig war der Wiederhall des Ge- 
schützes und so beiläufig ging ein altes Bäuerlein vorbei in der 
Richtung des Dorfes. Abends kehrte ich fröhlich heim und 
freute mich so recht auf das Nachtessen. Mein Vater empfing 
mich an der Türe und lud mich ein, ihm auf den Speicher zu 
folgen. Hier ergriff er mich beim linken Arm und trieb mich 
vermittelst eines Bohrstocks um die Kruke herum, in der das 
Pulver war. Wie peinlich mir das war, ließ ich weithin ver- 
lauten." Man erkennt hier die Motive verschiedener von Busch' 
Erzählungen; da damit der Mensch Busch gleichsam der Spiel- 
ball des Künstlers Busch wird, so entsteht der mildere Spott 
desjenigen, der alles versteht, der nicht über die Dinge, sondern 
mit ihnen lacht. — Aber in der ersten Periode verhältnißmäßig 
selten: Es ist als schäme er sich, ein menschliches Gefühl 
blicken zu lassen. Dementsprechend sagt er auch in seinen 
Briefen an Marie Andersen: **Die Grausamkeit soll sich 
schämen, wie die Liebe — Hm!" 



30 üniversity of California PuhUcations in Modem Philology, [Vol. 2 

3. — Oesialten und Klassen, 

Wenn Shakespeare und Moli^re uns ein ziemlieh volles Bild 
der Stände und Gesellschaftsklassen ihrer Zeit gegeben haben, 
so hat uns Busch, wie gesagt, nur mit einer beschränkten Sphäre 
seines Jahrhunderts bekannt gemacht, nämlich dem Mittelstand. 
Wenigstens ist um diesen alles andere gruppiert, wenn auch 
von hier aus gelegentlich Perspektiven nach unten wie nach 
oben gegeben werden. Von diesem Mittelstand aber hat Busch 
ein weit genaueres Bild entworfen, in intensiver wie extensiver 
Hinsicht, als der Brite oder der Franzose es für irgend einen 
ihrer Stände taten. Er weiß, wie diese Menschen spucken, sich 
schneuzen, kratzen, sich winden, wenn sie Leibschmerzen haben, 
er kennt sie bis tief ins Physiologische hinein; weiß, was sie 
gerne essen, wie sie mit Gabel und Messer umgehen, wann sie 
frühstücken, wann sie kneipen, was sie alles in der Trunkenheit 
anstellen, wie sie sind, wenn verliebt, wenn fröhlich, wie sie sich 
ändern, wenn sie sich verheiraten, wie ihre Häuser gebaut sind, 
wo die Gegenstände in Küche und Keller stehen, wie die Magd 
den Kuchen macht. Ja, Busch dringt hier in eine Sphäre, um 
die sich die älteren Dichter überhaupt nicht kümmerten, eine 
Sphäre, die erst im neunzehnten Jahrhundert das Interesse der 
breiteren Schichten erregte, nämlich die Kindheit, Wenn Blake 
kleine Kinder darstellt, haben sie etwas ungemein Zartes, Ah- 
nungsvolles; bei Busch sind es einfach feiste Tierchen, die 
schreien, bis sie etwas zu lutschen bekonmien und dann mit 
innigem Behagen saugen.^^ — Er reduziert sie fast ganz auf das 
Physiologische; mit diesen ganz kleinen Kindern allerdings gibt 
er sich nicht aUzu viel ab, sie sind ihm noch zu passiv, als daß er 
viel Verwendung für sie hätte. Sobald sie aber genügend Kraft 
und Verstand haben, etwas kapnt zu machen, dann gönnt er 
ihnen mehr Baum als sonst einem Geschöpf. Es sind vor allem 
natürlich die bösen Buben, die den Vorzug haben, wie Max und 
Moritz, oder Vetter Franz und Fritz. Es sind die Kinder der 
Bürgerschaft, die ohne Zwang auf Gassen und Feld sich selbst 



si Maler Klecksel, Julchen. 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm Busch. 31 

Überlassen aufwachsen. Bei ihnen ist noch am meisten trieb- 
mäßiges Leben zu finden, ein Leben, wie es zu allen Zeiten und 
Orten mehr oder minder häufig auftritt. Es ist eben das allge- 
mein MeTischliche, das Busch vor allem interessiert; daher sind 
auch viele seiner Menschen, ja die meisten Hauptgestalten be- 
ruflos. Berufe pressen den Menschen zu sehr in die Form einer 
bestimmten Zeit, als daß das T^'pische der Menschheit stark in 
ihnen betont werden könnte. Nun gibt es aber Beziehungen 
unter den Menschen, die sich im grossen ganzen gleichbleiben, 
wie z. B. die Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse ; und in der Tat finden 
wir wohl bei kaum einem Schriftsteller so viele Väter, Mütter, 
Onkel, Tanten, Nichten, Vettern wie bei Busch. Die Familie 
steht also im Mittelpunkt seines Werkes, und gerade in den 
Kreisen, die er vorzugsweise schildert, hat sie noch eine wirt- 
schaftliche Bedeutung. Die reiche Kaufmannsfamilie, die einen 
Livreediener hält, und in der die Dame des Hauses in allen 
Schönheitskünsten bewandert ist, die Familie also, die schon zu 
den oberen Schichten der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft gehört, 
finden wir nur einmal.** Auch vom Haus des Lebemanns er- 
fahren wir nicht viel.'* Was ihn eigentlich interessiert, ist das 
intime kleinbürgerliche Familienleben, Familien, deren Mittel 
fast ausreichen, um ein Mädchen für alles halten zu können, 
oder die gerade noch im Stande sind, sich dies zu leisten: da 
haben wir den Mann mit dem kleinen Einkommen und der 
großen Kinderzahl. Der Qatte muß den Tisch decken und die 
Kinder hüten, während die Frau allem Anschein nach die 
Wäsche besorgt. Etwas Warmes ist vom Mittagessen übrig 
geblieben, das wurde sorgfältig in einem verdeckten Topf in 
die Familienlagerstätte gestellt, um warm zu bleiben, eine 
Oewohnheit, die man in manchen Landgegenden noch findet.'^ — 
Ein Bischen weniger armselig geht es bei Fittigs her, wo doch 
jedes ein Bett für sich zu haben scheint und — ^allerdings als 
Leibgericht — Pfannkuchen and Salat aufgetischt werden sollte. 



*2 Herr und Frau Schmock in der ' ' frommen Helene. ' ' 

SS Herr und Frau Mücke in den Abenteuern eines Junggesellen. 

34 Herr Plünne in den Abenteuern eines Junggesellen. 



32 UniverHty of CaUfamia Publieaiions in Modem Phüology. [VoL 2 

Für diese Klasse zeigt Busch gelegentlich sogar seine Liebe, 
wenigstens für die kleinen Kinder. Da haben wir z. B. die ganze 
vergnügte Schar kleiner Leute, die dem Balduin Bählamm, einem 
Bureauschreiber, gehören. Den Vater kann Busch zwar nicht 
ausstehen, aber in ihrer Gegenwart wird selbst er glimpflich 
behandelt. Er will gerade dichten, da : 

''Aufspringt die Tür! 
An Bein und Ann 

Geräuschvoll hängt der Kinder Schwärm. 
"Hei" ruft der Pranzel, "Kinder hört, 
Jetzt spielen wir mal Droschkenpferd. 
Papa ist Gaul und Kutscher ichl " 
"Ja,'' ruft die Gustel, "fahre mich!" 
"Ich," ruft der Fritz, "wUl hinten aufl" 
"Hopp, hopp, du altes Pferdchen, lauft" 
"Hui " ruft der kleine Balduin, 
"Will er nicht ziehn, so hau ich ihn!" 

Endlich abends hofft der Dichter seine Ideen fixieren zu können : 

"Der Papa hat sich ausgestreckt. 
Gewissenhaft sich zugedeckt. 
Warm wird der Fufi, der Kopf denkt nach. 
Da geht es "bäh" vielleicht nur schwach; 
Doch dieses Bäh erweckt ein Zweites, 
Dann bäh aus jeder Kehle schreit es. 
Aus Mamas Mund ein scharfes Zischen, 
Bedrohlich schwellend tönt dazwischen, 
Und Papas Baß, der grad noch fehlte. 
Verstärkt zuletzt das Tongemälde." 

Mit Busch' Liebe für die Kinder hängt sein Haß gegen den 
Vater zusammen. Dieser in seinem törichten Wunsch, höher 
hinaus zu wollen als seine Begabung geht, hat weder Verständnis 
für seine reizenden Kinder, noch bemerkt er die liebevolle Auf- 
merksamkeit, mit der seine Gattin um ihn besorgt ist. Mit 
grimmigem Hohn faßt Busch am Ende seines Werkes die alberne 
Lage des Schreibers und Dichterlings, die dieser selbst verschul- 
det hat, in einem grotesken Traum zusammen ; Bählamm schwebt 
empor, einer '* Flügeldame" nach: 

"Doch ach, wie schaudert er zusammen, 
Denn wie mit tausend Kilogrammen 
Hängt es sich plötzlich an die Glieder." 



1910] Winiher: Wilhelm BuBoh. 88 

Wie das Bild zeigt, ziehen ihn Frau und Kinder an den Beinen 
herunter, wodurch sehr fein das Anf angsmotiv, die an seinen 
Beinen kletternden Kinder, wieder aufgenommen wird; und 
hierauf, um uns wieder ganz in den Schreiberhaushalt mit den 
regelmaBigen Bureaustunden zu versetzen, schließt Busch: 

''Frau Bählamm ruft, als er erwacht: 
Heraus, mein Sefaatz, es ist schon acht.'' 

Das war die Familie mit vielen Kindern, in der sich weder Vater 
noch Mutter viel mit dem einzelnen abgeben können. Ganz 
anders verhalt es sich da, wo nur eines ist, das dann natürlich 
der Hauptgegenstand des elterlichen Interesses wird. AUe die 
Geschäfte des Waschens und Einwickeins bei dem ganz kleinen 
Kinde tut die Mutter mit der größten Feierlichkeit, während 
der Vater mit intensivem Interesse zusieht. Busch hat diesen 
Vorgang in ''Julchen" so t3rpisch festgehalten, daS man sofort 
an ein halbes Dutzend befreundeter Familien erinnert wird. 
Hier hat er wirklich ein kleines Philisteridyll geschaffen, 
Menschen, die die kleinen, harmlosen, häuslichen Freuden zu 
genieBen wissen. Mit Entzücken belauscht er alle Geheimnisse 
ihres Haushaltes, wie Frau Doris ihrem Mann KafFee und Milch 
einschenkt, wie, während er seinen langen röschen Brotstengel 
nach guter alter Sitte in die Tasse tunkt, ihm von hinten die 
Frau eine selbstgestickte Hausmütze auf den Kopf setzt, eines 
jener Geschenke langer mühsamer Arbeit, wie sie jetzt glück- 
licherweise mehr und mehr im Abnehmen begriffen sind, da 
es nicht mehr das Ideal unserer Mädchen ist, ganz in häuslichen 
Arbeiten aufzugehen, ja unterzugehen; wie Herr Knopp, weil 
ihm das Abendessen — es sind Frikandellen, ein abscheuliches 
(}emisch aus alten zusammengehackten Fleischresten — ^nicht 
schmeckt, zornig ins Wirtshaus geht, um seinen Ärger hinunter- 
zuspülen. Dann wird uns die ganze desperat alberne Lage 
des Mannes bei der Geburt eines Kindes vorgeführt. Das 
alte, kinderlose imd daher etwas verschrobene Ehepaar haben 
wir schon in Onkel und Tante Nolte kennen gelernt. Die Jung- 
geseUenwirtschaft dürfte auch erwähnt werden, wie sie dem noch 
ledigen Knopp von der Haushälterin geführt wird oder dem 



34 üniversity of California Fublicatiom in Modem Philology, [Yol. 2 

Gottlieb Michael von Base und Tanten. Die alte Jungfer, 
dieses jetzt verschwindende Anhängsel des Haushaltes, seitdem 
nunmehr Berufe für Frauen eröffnet werden, hat Busch uns mit 
ihren Eigenheiten gerade noch zu rechter Zeit konserviert. 

Der Mittelstand, den uns Busch schildert, besteht der Haupt- 
sache nach aus jener Art von kleinen Leuten, die jetzt groBen- 
teils im Aussterben begriffen sind, die mehr und mehr ihrem 
Untergang entgegengehen. Es ist jene EHasse, die ihr eigenes 
Geschäftchen oder Handwerk treiben, und deren behäbige Ex- 
istenz durch Großindustrie und Warenhaus nach und nach 
unmöglich gemacht wird. Da ist z. B. der Dorf- oder Elein- 
stadtmüller. Der hat einen ganz kleinen Betrieb, wie man ihn 
jetzt nur noch sehr selten findet, mit einem Wasserrad kaum 
so groB wie er selbst, auf welches das Wasser vermittelst einer 
schmalen Holzrinne geleitet wird. Allem Anschein nach be- 
sorgt er das Greschäft ganz allein, was er um so eher kann, da 
er vermutlich eine Eundenmühle besitzt ; d. h. er arbeitet nicht 
mit eigenem Eom, sondern der Bauer bringt sein Getreide zum 
mahlen und holt es wieder als Mehl ab.'* — ^Ein anderes Geschäft, 
das momentan auch schwere Zeiten durchmacht, ist das des 
Krämers. Konsumvereine und andere kapitalkräftige Betriebe 
machen ihm das Auskommen nicht leicht. Busch hat diesen 
Typus im Kaufmann Kunze und dessen Lehrling oder Gtehülf en 
festgehalten. Die Waren, um die es sich in der Geschichte 
handelt, grüne Seife, Kümmel und Vitriol deuten schon an, daß 
man hier alles bekommt, was im bürgerlichen Haushalt noch 
vor 40 Jahren nötig war. Der Alte mit der Pfeife und langen 
Schürze konnte sowohl in Kleinstadt wie Dorf vorkommen; der 
geschniegelte Fritze mit dem eleganten Schlips imd wohlfri- 
sierten Kopf ist der t3^ische von vulgärer Eleganz strotzende 
Ladenschwengel, wie er sich meist nur in Städten findet; eine 
Menschensorte, die unangenehm zunimmt.'* Näheres über das 
alte patriarchalische Verhältnis von Meister und Lehrjungen 
erfahren wir im ''Maler Klecksel." Hier erhält der Lehr junge 



SB Max und Moritz. 
»• Fritze. 



1910] Winther: Wühehn Busch. 35 

Kost und Logis vom Meister. Dem Untergange weit weniger 
nahe als die obigen Berofsarten und Verhältnisse sind kleine 
Bäcker, Konditoren, Wirte und Schneider. Da Busch allem 
Anschein nach die primitiven Gtelüste des Menschen darzustellen 
liebt, so haben die drei Berufsarten den Vorzug, die für den 
Magen sorgen. Wenn dann noch etwas von der Schöpferfreude 
dabei ist, wie bei dem Feinbäcker Knickebieter, so ist der Be- 
treffende für Busch von vollendetem Interesse. Die Schaffens- 
freude, die beim rapiden und maschinenmäßigen Großbetrieb 
unmöglich ist, die aber der kleine Mann beim gemütvoll ruhigen 
Gang seiner (Geschäfte in hohem Grad haben kann, ist es, die 
Busch fasdniert. Allerdings weiß er auch, daß der Künstler 
gerade bei dieser Klasse doch meist von dem Geschäftsmann 
übertroffen wird, wie dies bei Knickebieter der FaU ist, der 
nicht der Versuchung wiederstehen kann, sein großes, schönes 
Butterhuhn um die Hälfte kleiner zu machen und noch dazu 
innen auszuhöhlen, um mehr Gewinn daraus zu ziehen. Das 
Vergnügen über die eigene Schlauheit, die Kurzsichtigkeit dieser 
kleinlichen Gewinnsucht, das hat Busch in seiner typischen 
G^estalt hervorgehoben im ''Geburtstag." 

Den gewöhnlichen Brotbäcker lernen wir in ''Max und 
Moritz" mitten in seiner Arbeit kennen; den Konditor und 
dessen Produkte sehen wir in der Kunstbäckerei des Herrn Bock 
in "Pips der Affe." 

Wir haben schon darauf hingewiesen, daß Busch als Moralist 
sich nicht nur um Tugend und Laster, sondern auch um deren 
Ursachen kümmert. Da die Trunkenheit einen Hauptgegenstand 
seines Spottes ausmacht, so ist es natürlich, daß auch die ver- 
schiedenen Quellen des Alkohols eine große RoUe in seinen Ge- 
schichten spielen. Da haben wir das Gasthaus der kleinen Stadt 
oder des Dorfes, wo die "besseren Leute" zusammenkommen, 
Doktor, Förster und der wohlhabende Privatier Knopp; dann 
das elegante aber etwas zweifelhafte Lokal mit sehr intimem 
Nebenzimmer, wenn nicht chambre separSe, mit weiblicher Bedie- 
nung. Rheinwein imd Sekt fließen nur so, und auch die Kell- 
nerin kann eingeladen werden, mitzuhalten.*^ Auch das bessere 



ST Abenteuer eines JnnggeBeUen. 



S6 UnwertUy of CaUforrUa P^UMiioM U^ Modem FhOologf. [YoLS 

Hotel mit befracktem Kellner fehlt nicht'* Und in die kleine 
gemütvolle Kneipe werden wir ebenf alk geführt ; den MaBkrügen 
nach zu schlieBen moS sie in München oder doch mindeatena in 
Bayern aein. Künatler nnd SpieBer aitzen behaglich an einem 
Tisch, ja Bedakteur, Lehrer, Qeck und Anstreicher sieht man 
da vereint, wie es in kaum einer andern dentschen OroSstadt 
als München möglich ist. Auch haben Wirt, Kellnerin nnd die 
Oäste-^allem Anschein nach Stammgäste— die sanftgernndeten 
ümrifilinien des typischen Münchener Biertrinken. Der Wirt 
geht bei den Gßsten herum, spricht mit ihnen, bietet ihnen eine 
Prise an ; der jüngere Oast macht der Kellnerin den Hof, pumpt 
sie auch an, wie das immer und immer wieder in dieser Art von 
Lokalen geschieht.** Ja, auch die Dor&chenke ist nicht ver- 
gessen, in der sich allsonntäglich Ai>otheker, Schneider, Bauern, 
der Bürgermeister oben am Tisch, versammeln. Die Gegend, 
in die uns Busch führt, muB irgendwo in Norddeutschland sein; 
wenigstens ist die Sprache der Leute ein plattdeutscher Dialekt 
und ihr Getränk, den Gläsern nach zu schlieBen, Schnaps, an 
dessen Stelle in Süddeutschland Bier oder Wein zu erwarten 
wäre. — ^Das Wirtshaus ist das geistige Centrum eines solchen 
Ortes. Alle Fragen von Wichtigkeit werden hier erörtert. So- 
bald sich irgend etwas ereignet, eilt man hin, um es zu verhan- 
deln.^^ Mit den verschiedenen Arten von Wirtshäusern sind 
aber die Quellen des Alkohols noch nicht erschöpft; Busch weifi 
z. B., daß auch manche Apotheken so einen behaglich kleinen 
Winkel haben, wo man sich gelegentlich stärken kann. 

Wie wir schon gesehen haben, hat Busch eine Vorliebe für 
Ejiaben. Da nun der Lehrer eine wichtige BoUe im Leben fast 
jedes Knaben spielt, so ist es nicht erstaunlich, wenn wir diesen 
Stand des öf tem in Busch ' Werken finden. Der Yolksschullehrer 
im Dorf oder dem Landstädtchen wird hier wiederum bevorzugt, 
da er ganz in die Klasse gehört, welche Busch vor Allem schil- 
dert, den unteren Mittelstand. Ganz im Verein mit dem derben 



88 Fromme Helene. 
>• Maler Klecksel. 
M Der Qebartetag. 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm Bv»ch. 87 

Humor Busch' spielt natürlich körperliche Züchtigung eine große 
BoUe in der Erziehung; nicht da8 er sie unbedingt zu empfehlen 
scheint, was Botels^^ Mißerfolg andeutet, der sie jähzornig erteilt, 
ohne ii^ndwie auf die Eigenart seines Schülers einzugehen. 
Aber mit weisem Maß angewendet, möchte sie gute Besultate 
erzielen ; wenigstens glückt es Herrn Bockelmann, wie wir schon 
gesehen haben, auf diesem Wege aus zwei bösen Bangen wohler- 
zogene, manierliche Herrehen zu machen.^' — ^Neben dieser Art 
des praktischen Pädagogen, einem Typus, den wir nicht aUzu 
selten unter den deutschen Yolksschullehrem finden, steht der 
halbgebildete aber um so eingebildetere Idealist, der sich berufen 
fühlt, wie Lehrer Lampel, der Weisheit Lehren zu verbreiten«^ 
Lehrer Lampel gehört zu der frcnnmen Speeies dieser Lehrer, 
die, wenn sie auf dem Dorfe angestellt sind, die Eirchenorgel 
spielen. Busch hat das selbstgefällige Pathos dieser Gattung 
mit maliziösem Yemügen festgehalten« 

Als Beispiel des Lehrerstandes an höheren Schulen kann nur 
Rektor Debisch dienen, den wir schon früher besprochen haben; 
denn Professor Elehn ist eine groteske Gkstalt, d^ren ganze 
pompöse Beredsamkeit nur dazu dient, um einem Streich des 
Affen Fips mehr Belief zu geben. Dasselbe gilt für die Gouver- 
nante in den '^ Abenteuern eines Junggesellen.'' Auch der 
Pfarrer, wenigstens der katholische, tritt vor allem in Beziehung 
mit der Familie auf, deren Glück er häufig durch Sittenlosigkeit 
stört. Mit besonderer Schärfe sind die Portraits des gemüt- 
lichen, etwas beschränkten Landgeistlichen^ und des verbreche- 
risch intriguierenden Jesuiten^^ entworfen, in feiner Vornehmheit 
wird der protestantische Geistliche nur leicht karriMert, nicht 
mehr als es sich jeder gefallen lassen muß, der in die Hände 
Busch' gerät.** 



41 Maler Kleeksel. 

** PliBeh und Plum. 

^ Max and Moritz. 

4« Vetter Franz in der ''frommen Helene." 

«s Pater f^ueins. 

^ Gebnrststag: der AdjunetuB Klingebühl. 



38 Univenity of CaUfortUa PubUeaiumi in Modem PhOology, [YoL 2 

Noch enger als Geistliche und Lehrer sind die Dienstboten 
mit der Familie verbunden. Da Bnsch vor allem allgemein 
menschliche Beziehungen festhält, so haben wir eine stattliche 
Gallerie von diesen. Verschiedene für den Nationalökonomen 
späterer Tage interessante Typen sind da vorhanden: von der 
Stallmagd, die in HoLsschuhen herumklappert^^ bis zum Livree- 
diener, der sehr korrekt ein paar Schritte hinter seiner Herrin 
hergehen muß, um ihr das Grcsangbuch zu tragen.^ Dazwischen 
haben wir das Bauemmädchen, das in der Stadt dient oder 
doch bei Leuten, deren Haushalt ein städtisches Gepräge hat, 
wie Hanne, Liese, Adelheid,^* die jedoch, da der Ort, wo sie 
dienen, jedenfalls klein ist, und ihre Herrschaft zu den ein- 
facheren Leuten gehört, ihre ländliche Kleidung beibehalten. 
Daneben haben wir das Eändermädchen bei der reichen Familie, 
die aus Koketterie der Herrschaft in eine recht putzige Bauem- 
tracht gesteckt wird, wie man das auch jetzt noch häufig findet. 
Bemerkenswert an dieser Gestalt ist, daß sie ganz vom Stand- 
punkt der Herrschaft aus geschildert wird, schon ihr stupid 
schnarchendes Gesicht deutet darauf hin. Dann wird ihr vorge- 
halten, daß sie noch im Bett liest : 

"Wie gewöhnlieh liest die Jette 
Wieder nachts in ihrem Bette. 
Auf dem Kopf hat sie die Haube, 
In der Hand die Gartenlaube. 
Hieran will sie sieh erfreun, 
Duselt, nickt und schlummert ein. 
An das ünschlittkerzenlieht 
Daran denkt sie freilieh nicht." 

und zur Strafe dieses Verbrechens gerät das Haus in Brand. 
Daran denkt allerdings die Herrschaft nicht, daß ein Mädchen, 
dessen ganze Zeit beansprucht wird, ausgenommen ein paar 
Stunden jeden anderen Sonntag, wie wir dies meist in Deutsch- 
land finden, sehr leicht in Versuchung kommt, sich ein uner- 
laubtes Vergnügen heimlich zu leisten. Sehr charakteristisch 



47 Bieke Mistelfink in <'Balduin Bählamm." 

«8 Jean in der ''frommen Helene." 

*9 Fromme Helene und Herr und Frau Knopp. 



1910] Winiher: Wilhelm Busch, 39 

ist das Milien und der Bildungsgrad dieser Art von Mädchen 
durch Unschlittkerze imd Gartenlaube angedeutet."^ 

Eine weitere Folge der allzu großen Bevormundung des Per- 
sonals ist, daß es auch das Gefühl der ethischen Verantwortlich- 
keit nur in geringerem Grad erlangt. Die Herrschaft ein wenig 
zu bestehlen, besonders was Eßbares betrifft, oder die Benutzung 
von Gegenständen, die der Herrschaft gehören, gilt als ganz in 
der Ordnimg. Beide Fälle finden wir bei Busch in der '^ from- 
men Helene'' imd ''Herr und Frau Knopp.*' Mit dieser im- 
selbständigen Stellung der Dienstboten hängt noch zusammen, 
daß das weibliche Personal als bei weitem unter der Herrschaft 
stehend betrachtet wird. Dies führt dazu, daß die Männer sich 
häufig bedenkliche Scherze mit den weiblichen Dienstboten er- 
lauben, wie das auch in dem Haushalt von ''Herr und Frau 
EjQopp" vorkommt. Die Schwierigkeit, gute Dienstboten zu 
bekommen, die sich momentan in Deutschland mehr imd mehr 
steigert, spiegelt sich auch schon in den Werken Busch'. Frau 
Knopp entläßt drei Dienstboten in kurzer Zeit, bis sie wieder 
froh sein muß, die erste zu bekommen. Neben den eigentlichen 
Dienstboten haben wir die Haushälterin. Diese ninunt schon 
eine ganz andere Stellung ein imd kann daher vom Hausherrn 
sehr wohl geheiratet werden, wie wir dies bei der Dorothee, der 
späteren Frau Enopp finden. 

Auch die Tiere treten mehr oder minder als Teil des Haus- 
haltes auf ; es sind daher vor aUem die Luxustiere, Himd, Katze, 
Affe, oder die nützlichen Haustiere, welche dem Bauern gehören, 
Schweine, Kühe, Ziegen, Hühner; in erster Beihe Hund imd 
Affe, weil hier mehr Psychologie gegeben werden kann als bei 
den andern, und Busch nicht den bloßen Trieb zu schildern liebt, 
sondern den Trieb von mehr oder weniger Verstand begleitet, — 
ich sage nicht : geleitet. 

Die akademisch Gebildeten blicken gerade noch ein wenig 
in Busch' Welt. Wir finden auch hier wieder, daß Busch die 
alten komischen Typen bevorzugt, nämlich die Geistlichen imd 



so Fips der Affe. 



40 University of CäUfomia FubUcatiom vn Modem PhHology. [YoL 2 

Ärzte. Die Geistlichen haben wir schon betrachtet; unter den 
Ärzten schenkt er bezeichnenderweise dem Folterknecht, dem 
Zahnarzt, besondere Beachtung. Es ist ien Mann der alten Zeit, 
der weder Mundspiegel noch Zange kennt, dessen Patient statt 
auf einem Operationsstuhl auf einem gewöhnlichen Lehnstuhl 
Platz nehmen muss. Dann leuchtet er seinem Opfer, da es 
schon dunkel ist, mit einer Kerze in den Mund; heißt ihn nach 
damaliger Mode an alles Schöne denken und macht sich mit 
einem Schlüssel an die Arbeit.^^ Den praktischen Arzt mit 
grofier Brille und gewichtiger Amtsmiene, Dr. PeUkan,*' und 
den Tierarzt Sutit^* bekommen wir auch einen Augenblick zu 
Qesieht. Der Apotheker fehlt natürlich nicht: Mickefett und 
im ' ' Geburststag ' '^* Herr Pille. Den feinen, gelehrten Skeptiker 
und Weltmann, elegant in Kleidung und Haltung, hat Busch 
in seiner ursprünglichen Qestalt, dem Benaissance-Qelehrten, 
festgehalten«*' Aber er zeigt uns auch dessen modernen Nach- 
kömmling, Doktor Hinterstich, welchen wir an seinem überle- 
genen Lächeln, der fürwitzig zugespitzten Nase und dem heraus- 
fordernden Kneifer sofort als Kritiker erkennen.'* Der Förster 
mit dem keck sitzenden Lodenhut, der Kantor, Heilige, Huren, 
Engel und Teufel, Mönche,'^ die Seele einer Abgeschiedenen 
müssen auch erwähnt werden, um eine Idee von der Vielseitig- 
keit unseres Humoristen zu geben. Die meisten sind so sehr in 
ihrer Eigenart festgehalten, daß man sie auch ohne die häufig 
beigefügten Attribute sehr wohl erkennen könnte. Busch kennt 
eben ihre Beschäftigungen, ihr Milieu sehr genau, er weiS, was 
für Falten, Runzeln, eigenartige Körperhaltung durch Bewe- 
gungen und Qeschäft ihren Gestalten eingeprägt werden. 

Busch' Werke lieBen sich einteilen in Sitten- und Charak- 
terfarcen, und Farcen, die kaum eine Spur der Psychologie 



51 Balduin Bählamm. 

52 Herr und Frau Knopp. 
68 Julchen. 

5« Julchen. 

58 Doktor Alopecius im "heiligen Antonius." 

66 Maler Elecksel. 

6T < * Der heilige Antonius, " " die fromme Helene, " ' ' Julchen. ' ' 



1910] Winiher: Wilhelm Bwch. 41 

enthalten, aufier dem Funken, der gerade nötig ist, um eine 
Explosion hervorzurufen. Ein besonderes Genre imter diesen 
würden die Tier- imd Betrunkenen-Schwanke ausmachen. Wenn 
hier auch nur das Minimum von Psychologie gegeben wird, so 
ist mit diesem Minimum von Energie aUes erschöpft, was an ihr 
auch in der Wirklichkeit vorhanden ist. Für dieses eigentlich 
realistische Gebiet scheint Busch eine ganz besondere Vorliebe 
zu haben. In vielen seiner Gkschichten kommt doch ein Be- 
trunkener vor.** Dann sind eine Beihe ganzer kleiner Epen der 
Trunkenheit gewidmet.^ 

Im '* Geburtstag'' möchte man fast versucht sein, den Bausch 
den Helden der Gtesehichte zu nennen. Trotz der zahlreichen 
Beispiele dieser Art wiederholt sich Busch kaum; meisterhaft 
hat er es verstanden, die Haupttypen dieses Zustandes festzu- 
halten. Vom stumpfsinnigen Meister Zwiel, der sich in sein 
Begenfafi setzt, einschläft und erfriert, bis zum wahnvTitzig 
tatigen AfFen, der mit allen vier Händen, Maul und Schwanz 
keine Sekunde ruhen kann, ohne Unheil zu stiften, oder bis zum 
visionären, schon nahe an Wahnsinn grenzenden Zustande eines 
Menschen, der zuerst doppelt, dann vierfach sieht, dessen Möbel 
ein Leben erhalten, wie es der phantastische Bealismus von 
Dickens nicht hätte toUer gestalten könn^i. Der Stiefelzieher 
wird zum Homschröter, der den seiner Sinne nicht mehr mäch- 
tigen in den FuB zwickt. Durch seine wütende Gegenwehr 
seheint das Tier umso lebendiger zu werden. Mit einem wilden 
Buek schleudert er es ins Bett ; er setzt sich unbedacht darauf, 
so daB er sich wieder von ihm angegriffen fühlt. Wütend dreht 
er sich nach ihm um, stößt dabei gegen seinen Kleiderständer, 
an dem sein Hut und Mantel hängt, dieser fällt gegen seinen 
Bücken, so daS er sich von hinten angegriffen glaubt. Eine 
rasende Keilerei der drei geht los! der Pendel der ühr, die 
heruntergerissen wird, sticht den Besessenen, — ein neuer Gegner; 

B8]j| der ''frommen Helene" Selmiock; Helene selbst und auch der 
Diener haben eine bedenidiehe Nase. Im "Tobias Elnopp" der Held selbst 
mehr wie einmal; Herr Mucke, der Klausner Konrad in der Kirmefi; die 
Mönche im ' ' heiligen Antonius. ' ' 

»•"Das Trinklied," "der Undankbare," "eine milde Geschichte," 
"Pritse." 



42 üniversity of California PübUeations in Modem Philology. [YoL 2 

dann hat er alle besiegt, die Nase wird lang wie eine Gießkan- 
nenspritze : 

'^Und dick und dicker schwillt der Kopf; 
Er ist von Blech und wird zum Topf. 
Wobei ein Teufel voller List 
Als Musikus beschäftigt ist. ' ' 

Er trommelt nämlich darauf, wie das Bild zeigt.*® 

Neben dieser Art der Trunkenheit, die Geist und Körper in 
krankhafter Begheit erhält, haben wir jene Mensehen, die durch 
den GtenuB des Alkohols mehr oder minder abgestumpft werden, 
z. B. den Studenten,*^ der bekneipt nach Hause kommt und 
barfuß die Treppe hinauf steigt, um mit schrecklichem Gepolter 
herunter zu fallen; den Drogisten-Lehrling, der in seinem Tau- 
mel einer alten Jungfer Vitriol statt Kümmel einschenkt; den 
Bauer, der nicht mehr klar genug sieht, um die Gegenstände 
recht zu erkennen, daher alles in verkehrter Weise behandelt, 
bis er sich in die Teigmulde statt in sein Bett legt. Vor einem 
andern schieint sich alles zu drehen, bis er sich als das Gentrum 
eines Wirbels vorkommt. Ein alter halbschläfriger Geiger dient 
dem kleinen Jungen zum Spott ; jener schaut beim Tanz zu tief 
ins Glas, dreht sich mit allzuviel Schwung, bis er Alles umwirft. 
Eine fromme alte Jungfer kneipt im Geheimen; ein Anachoret 
fällt gierig über die allem Anschein nach lang entbehrte Flasche 
her und predigt dabei Weltverachtung. Der Diener, der einen 
Schluck stibitzt, wo er ihn erhaschen kann; der Philister, der 
seinen Zorn ersäuft, nachdem ihn seine Frau schlecht behandelt 
hat; die fröhlichen Mönche, die im Klosterkeller kneipen und 
singen; das sind alles typische Figuren, die aber doch in der 
Zeichnung fast immer individuelles Leben erlangen. 



•oVergL ''Vierhändig," ''eine kalte Geschichte," "die angstliche 
Nacht." 

•i"Nur leise." 



1910] Winiher: Wilhelm Busch, 43 



TEIL II. 

Vorbemerkung, 

Ich fasse das über die Werke der zweiten Periode schon 
früher Gesagte nochmals zusammen. Wenn wir diese Werke 
als Gesamtheit betrachten, so fällt sofort auf , daB in ihnen der 
Zeichnung ein weit geringerer Baum gegönnt ist als in der 
ersten. Manches wird daher nicht mehr ausgedrückt, anderes 
spricht Busch jetzt in Worten aus, was er vorher in Linien 
andeutete, oder überhaupt nicht gestalten konnte (wolltet): 
80 eine Innigkeit des Gefühls, eine Liebe zum All, ein ernstes 
Pathos, eine eigenartige Traumphantasie, lyrische Landschaften, 
Lyrik überhaupt. 

Die philosophischen Beflexionen, die früher selten waren, 
sind jetzt häufig, weshalb ich sie an dieser Stelle behandle. Aber 
nicht nur das philosophische Element, fast alle jene Saiten, die 
in der zweiten Periode voU tönen, erklangen schon früher teils 
schon voU teils erst leise zögernd in den Briefen an Marie Ander- 
sen, die daher auch abgesehen von ihrer eigenartigen Ursprüng- 
lichkeit von ganz besonderem Interesse sind.*^ Da also diese 
Briefe aus derselben psychologischen Unterströmung wie die 
späteren Werke hervorgingen, so behandle ich sie mit diesen 
zusammen, obgleich sie ins Jahr 1875, also in die Zeit der Heraus- 
gabe des "Pater Pilucius'' und *'Dideldum" fallen. Ebenso 
jedoch, wie in der ersten Periode die zweite schlummernd vor- 
handen war, so ist der frühere Busch noch sehr deutlich, oft 
sogar vorherrschend in der späteren Periode da. Der alte 
Satyriker, Skeptiker und Psychologe schaut bald hier bald da 
heraus. 

^'Eduards Traum," Das romantische Element. Busch im 

Vergleich mit anderen Schriftstellern, ^* Schein 

und Sein." Der Lyriker und Philosoph. 

Während die Hauptgestalten Busch' in der ersten Periode 
durchaus phantasielos waren, steht am Eingang der zweiten 

«2 Vgl. S. 2. 



44 Univeniif of CälifortUa PubUeaiiam in Modem Phüologf, [YoL 8 

Eduard, ein seltsamer Phantast, der im Traum in einen Punkt 
von unbegrenztem Bewegungsvermögen zusammenschrumpft. 
Wir sehen, er ist ein Dichter, wenn auch nur im Zustand des 
Träumens, und es ist ein himmelweiter Unterschied beispiels- 
weise zwischen ihm und Knopp; selbst wenn auch die meisten 
seiner Metaphern aus Küche oder Speisekammer entlehnt sind, 
so haben sie doch eine gewisse ursprüngliche Kraft, die sie 
poetisch macht. Der Sumpf erscheint Eduard als eine 
'^ schwarze Suppe,'' und der von anderen Dichtem zu allen 
möglichen romantischen Zwecken mifibrauchte Mond bekommt 
in seiner Anschaungsweise ein fettes, glänzendes Qesieht. um 
den unterschied zwischen der ersten und zweiten Periode zu 
ermessen, vergleiche man auch ^'Schnurrdiburr," ein Werk aus 
der ersten Periode, wo der Vollmond in der Zeichnung als 
gemütlicher SpieBer mit der Pfeife im Munde hervorlugt, das 
Kinn auf die Berge wie auf ein Fenstersims gestützt, wo aber 
dieses romantische Element noch nicht im Text zum Ausdruck 
kommt. 

Vor dem Kunstwerk hat Busch, wie unter anderem auch aus 
einem seiner Briefe hervorgeht, eine hohe Achtung: Eduard 
vergleicht es daher mit der Leibspeise des Kleinbürgers, dem 
Sauerkraut: 

''Was nun aber das Kunstwerk betrifft, meine Lieben, so 
meine ich, es sei damit ungefähr so, wie mit dem Sauerkraut 
Ein Kunstwerk, möcht' ich sagen, müßte gekocht sein am Feuer 
der Natur, dann hingestellt in den Yorratsschrank der Erin- 
nerung, dann dreimal aufgewärmt im goldnen Topfe der Phan- 
tasie, dann serviert von wohlgeformten Händen, und schlieBlich 
müfite es dankbar genossen werden mit gutem Appetit." Man 
beachte übrigens wie Eduard, d. h. in diesem Falle Busch, hier 
trotz des barocken Yei^leiches in so ernstem imd aufrichtigem 
Ton spricht, dafi wir wohl merken, wie ernst er die Kunst nimmt. 
Und ebenso ernst, fast schmerzlich resigniert klingt es, wenn er 
vom Tod eines großen Mannes sagt: ''Die Welt ist wie Brei, 
zieht man den Löffel heraus, imd war es der größte, gleich klappt 



1910] Winther: Wühelm Buteh. 45 

die Qeschichte wieder zusammen als wenn gar nichts passiert 
wäre." 

Aber trotz alles Ernstes, der Vergleich mit etwas ESbaran 
muB herein, wie er eben ganz dem Temperament des Helden, 
der erzahlt, entspricht; ja sogar im erhabensten Augenblick 
seines Leben ist dies der FaU; nachdem Eduard, die änsserste 
Ernste der Welt durchstoßend, sich weit hinaus in die leere 
Unendlichkeit geschwungen hat,^ glückt es ihm nicht, auch das 
Schneckenhaus seiner Philisterwelt hinter sich zu lassen: 

''Von meinem Ich allein, von einem einzigen Punkte aus, 
durch die unendliche Nacht, warf ich einen elektrisch leuch- 
tenden Strahlenkegel auf die Weltkugel, die in ziemlicher Ent- 
fernung mir grad gegenüber lag. Sie hatte wirklich ein Ende 
und sah yon weitem aus wie ein nicht unbedeutender Knödel, 
durchspickt mit Semmelbrocken.'' 

Wir dürfen übrigens nicht ungerecht sein: wenn auch in 
Eduard das höchste was ihm das Leben bieten kann nur Asso- 
ciationen von Sauerkraut und Ejiödeln auslöst, hat er doch eine 
gewisse Bildung, besonders in mathematischen und astronomi- 
schen Fächern, die in Verbindung mit seiner humoristischen 
Einbildungskraft ihm ein komisches Fabulieren ermöglicht. Die 
Fähigkeit dazu findet man meist nur bei den Größten. Aller- 
dings macht bei Eduard, der hier wieder eine Seite von Busch 
selbst verkörpern dürfte, der Umstand, daB diese Phantasie 
humoristischen Ursprungs ist, einen sehr wesentlichen Unter- 
schied. Alles wird auf das Niveau des Helden herabgezogen; 
wir befinden uns in einem Miniaturkosmos, wie wir ihn in einer 
Jahrmarktsbude besichtigen könnten. Das Sternbild des kleinen 
Bären hat einen '^ rauhen Schwanz" und die Himmelsachse 
wird zur ''Kletterstange," an welcher der Held auf die Erde 
herunterrutscht. 

(Goethe und Byron haben beispielsweise auch den Weltraum 
poetisch zu gestalten versucht; aber sie gesellen sich zum 
Weltgeist, während Busch den Weltgeist bittet, gefälligst in 
seine Staatsstube einzutreten, ja, schliesslich läßt er ihn in 



•s Eduards Traum, 52. 



46 üniveraity of California PubUeations in Modem Phüology. [VoL 2 

der Küche Platz nehmen; es ist dort so viel gemütlicher.^ 
Scheinbar geschieht dies alles zum charakteristischen Zweck: 
Eduard soll uns vorgeführt werden. Hätte aber Busch die 
objektivere Darstellungsweise anwenden können t Wohl kaum. 
Busch ist eben ein Künstler — groB und bescheiden. Er kennt 
seine Grenzen. Noch manches hat Eduard neben den früher 
schon bemerkten Zügen mit Busch gemeinsam. Er verkörpert 
gewissermaßen auch die Fähigkeit unseres Dichters, überall hin- 
einzuschlüpfen, selbst in die intimsten Winkel von Haus und 
Herz. Es ist eine ähnliche Begabung wie wir sie bei Le Sage 
finden, der auch diese ganze kleine häusliche Welt auf geheim- 
nisvolle Weise belauscht. Sehr fein und wohl auch symbolisch 
für den Dichter ist der Zug, dafi Eduard infolge der ''Konzen- 
tration" seines Innern unter Zurücklassung des Äufiem die 
Fähigkeit zum Wechselverkehr mit der gewöhnlichen Mensch- 
heit verloren hat. Diese Art der persönlichen Symbolik ist 
romantisch, sowie noch einiges andere in den späteren Werken; 
hie und da zerreißt Busch mit einem humoristischen Bück die 
lUusion, so z. B. wo Eduard, wie auch der Leser, inmier imd 
immer wieder aus der Traumwelt gerissen werden durch ein 
energisches ''Schnarche nicht, Eduard!" Ganz ähnliches findet 
sich z. B. in Heines "Nächten von Lucca," wo die musikalische 
Vision öfters durch eine geschmacklose Bemerkung des alten 
Juden zerstört wird. Ja, diese ganze phantastische und alle- 
gorische Erzählung paßt eigentlich vollständig in den Rahmen 
der romantischen Tendenzen und Theorien; schon der Traum 
eignet sich ja vorzüglich zu einer Verbindung von Phantasie 



•4 Man yergleiehe hierzu aneh folgende SteUe: "Es sauBte bereits 
ein Komet an mir vorüber, jedoch bo eilig, daS ich nur konstatieren 
konnte, es war eine runde, hohle durchscheinende Kugel von Milchglas, 
die ein Loch hatte, aus dem geräuschvoll ein leuchtendes Gas ausströmte, 
welches nach hinten den Schweif, nach vorne, vermutlich durch Bückstoss, 
die rapide Bewegung dieses merkwürdigen Sternes erzeugte. 

Wenige Sekunden später passierte ich den Tierkreis. Die hübsche 
"Jungfrau" mit den gesunden "Zwillingen," auf jedem Arm einen, 
schielte zärtlich nach dem "Schützen" hinüber, einem schmucken, blon- 
den, krausköpfigen Burschen, dessen Flügel schön bunt, dessen Köcher, 
Bogen und PfeUe von Gold sind. Nicht weit davon in seiner Butike safi 
der sehlaue krummnasige Wassermann — Juden gibt's doch aUerrörtsI — 
und regulierte die "Waage" zu seinen Gunsten. (Eduards Traum, 50 
und 51.) 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm Busch. 47 

und Realismus; und daher war das auch ein Thema, in dem 
Busch trotz seiner ironischen Nüchternheit der Einbildungskraft 
die Zügel sehieSen lassen konnte ; besonders, da er seinen Helden 
erzählen läßt, und somit dieser gewissermaßen die Verantwortung 
trägt. Eduard berichtet, wie er in die Region der Arithmetik, 
dann in die mathematische Ebene fliegt, die mit zweidimen- 
sionalen Wesen bevölkert ist. Zahlen und geometrische Qebilde 
werden in grotesker Symbolik beseelt: ''Kummer und Elend 
gab's auch sonst noch genug. An allen Strassenecken hockten 
die gebrochenen Zahlen; arme geschwollene Nenner, die ihre 
kleinen, schmächtigen Zählerchen auf dem Buckel trugen und 
mich flehentlich ansahen. Es ließ mich kühl. Ich hatte kein 
Oeld bei mir; aber wenn auch, gegeben hätt' ich doch nichts." 
Dann geht die Reise in die mathematische Ebene: 

''Da lag sie vor uns, die Horizontalebene, im Glanz der sin- 
kenden Abendsonne. Kein Baum, kein Strauch, kein Fabrik- 
schomstein ragte daraus hervor. Alles flach, wie Judenmatzen, 
ja noch zehntausendmal flacher; und doch befanden wir uns am 
Eingang eines betriebsamen Städtchens, welches nur platt auf 
der Seite lag. 

"Das Tor, welches wir passieren mußten, hatte nur Breite, 
aber nicht die mindeste Höhe. Es war so niedrig, dass ich mir, 
obgleich ich mich bückte, doch noch die Glatze etwas abschabte, 
und selbst mein winziger Begleiter, ein Punkt, konnte nur eben 
drunter durch." 

"Ich selber suchte, da es schon spät, eine naheliegende Her- 
berge auf. 

"Hier nun trat mir zum ersten Mal in Gtestalt des Herrn 
OberkeUners eine richtige mathematische gerade Linie entgegen. 
Etwas Schlankeres gibt's nicht. Mir fiel gleich dabei ein, wie 
mein kleiner Neffe mal sagte. "Onkel Eduard," sagte er, "ein 
Geist muß aber recht mager sein, weil man ihn gar nicht sieht 1" 

"und wie lächerlich dann so ein mathematischer Strich ist, 
das sah ich so recht des Nachts, als ich zu Bett gegangen. In 
der Kammer nebenan schliefen ihrer dreißig in einer Bettstelle, 



48 UnwerHiy of CaUfornia PubUcat%<HU ii^ Modern PhOology. [VoLE 

die nicht breiter war ab ein Cigarrenetoi, und doch blieb noch 
Platz übrig. Freilich, erst schalten sie sich, denn es war ein 
Pole dabei, der an unruhigen Träumen litt und sich viel hin- 
und herwälzte, bis sie ihn schließlich durch zwei Punkte fest- 
legten; dann gab er BuIl Ich bemühte mich, seinen Namen 
auszusprechen : Chrrr — Chrrr — Im selben Augenblick läBt sich 
wieder die Stimme vernehmen : 

* ' Eduard, ■ehnarehe nieht so! 1 " 

Ich fuhr heftig zusammen." 



ti 



Am nächsten Morgen besah ich mir die Stadt. Selbstver- 
ständlich muB jedermann platt auf dem Bauche rutschen. Vor- 
nehme und Geringe sind auf den ersten Blick nur schwer zu 
unterscheiden, und wer genötigt ist, höflich zu sein, mufi riesig 
aufpassen; denn da nichts Höhe hat, also gar keinen Schatten 
wirft, so erscheint vorläufig jeder, auch der quadratisch Gehalt- 
vollste und Eckigste, der einem begegnet, als gewöhnlicher Strich. 
'' Natürlich zieht der Mangel an Schatten auch den Mangel 
an Photographen nach sich, und so müssen denn die Leute den 
schönen Zimmerschmuck entbehren, wofür wir unsererseits diesen 
Künstlern so dankbar sind. Aber man behilft sich so gut es 
geht. Man läBt seinen Schreiner kommen; man läBt sich aus- 
messen; er macht einen kleinen proportionalen AbriS in das 
Album des betreffenden Freundes, notieret den wirklichen Quad- 
ratinhalt nebst Jahr und Datum in die Mitte der werten Figur, 
und das Andenken ist fertig." 

''Ich erkundigte mich nach dem Eongruenzamte, eine Ein- 
richtung, die ungefähr unserm Standesamt entspricht. Da mir 
niemand Auskunft zu geben vermochte, wandte ich mich direkt 
an den Magistrat. 

'' 'Solche Dummheiten,' hieB es, 'machen wir hier nicht. Die 
das wollen, müssen sich gefälligst in die dritte Dimension be- 
mühen, und die Symmetrischen erst recht 1' " 

Man beachte übrigens auch, wie Busch nie die Wirklichkeit 
ganz unter den Füfien verliert. Immer wieder wird das Traum- 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm, BwcK 49 

hafte der Erzählung uns zu Bewußtsein gebracht, gerade als 
wolle der Verfasser sich entschuldigen, daB er, der Vernünftige, 
Weise, uns so verrücktes Zeug erzähle, und vielleicht aus dem- 
selben Orunde läßt er uns immer und immer wieder empfinden, 
daß es ein ganz hausbackener Kleinbürger ist, dessen Unter- 
bewußtsein, wenn es auch in die Welt des unrealen dringt, sich 
doch nur in dessen verstandesmäßig nüchternsten Reichen, wie 
den Grebieten der Algebra, Oeometrie und Utopie umhertreibt, 
und diese wiederum so alltäglich wie möglich eingerichtet findet. 
Kellner, Schlafkammer, Bett, Briefträger, eine Wurst, die 93 
Pfg. hostet, "17 Schneider, die die doppelte Anzahl Löcher, 
nämlich 34 Löcher in die Wurst stechen, einen rechenkundigen 
Schreiber, dessen schwefelgelbe Hose 45 Pfennige kostet," das 
ist es, was wir kennen lernen — überall peinlich genaue Angaben 
bis auf zahlenmäßige Einzelheiten. Das entspricht ganz dieser 
mathematischen Philisterphantasie. Aber mit welchem Oeschick 
läßt er die zwei nüchternsten Welten einander symbolisch re- 
präsentieren ! Tiefsinniger und sarkastischer wird die Symbolik 
bei den sphärischen (Gebilden : 

"Die Bewohner dieses unwesentlichen Landes sind hohl. Es 
scheint Sonne und Mond hindurch, und wer hinter ihnen steht, 
der kann ihnen mit Leichtigkeit die Knöpfe vom an der Weste 
zählen. Einer durchschaut den andern; und doch reden diese 
Leute, die sich durch und durch kennen, die nicht so viel Einge» 
weide haben, wie ein ausgepustetes Sperlingsei, von dem edlen 
Drange ihres Innern und sagen sich darüber die schönsten Flat- 
tusen. Ja, einer war da, der woUte behaupten, er hätte einen 
fünf Pfund schweren Oallenstein und verfluchte sein Dasein und 
schnitt Gesichter, und seine Familie sprang nur so, wenn er 
pfifF, und tat ganz so, als war 's so, und seine Nachbarn machten 
ihm Kondolenzvisiten unter kläglichem Mienenspiel." 

''Schwere gab's hier nicht. Man bewegte sich am Boden, 
oder in der Luft, gleichviel, mit einer unabhängigen Leichtigkeit, 
wie sie nur bei solch rein förmlichen Blasengestalten und Wind- 
beutehi sich denken läßt." 



50 University of California Publieatians in Modem PhHology. [YoL 2 



"Am Ausgange wurde ich mit einer fetten BaBstimme von 
einem unbekannten angeredet, der so rund und dick war, daß 
er die ganze Tür versperrte. Er entpuppte sich als mein ehemal- 
iger Reisebegleiter, das mathematische Pünktchen. 

''Durch eine gewandte Drehung in der Ebene hatte er 's dort 
bald zu einem umfangreichen Kreise gebracht, war darauf in 
den dreidimensionalen Baum ausgewandert, hatte sich hier durch 
ähnliche Umtriebe zur wohlbeleibten Kugel entwickelt und wollte 
sich nun mit Hilfe eines geeigneten Mediums materialisieren 
lassen, um dann später, ein Streber, wie er war, als Globus an 
die Bealschule zu gehen. 

"Aus dem nichtssagenden Kerlchen war ein richtiger Protz 
geworden, der mich behaglich wohlwollend zu behandeln ge- 
dachte. Da ich mir das aber von einem bloB aufgeblasenen 
Punkte, denn das sind alle seinesgleichen, nicht gefallen lassen 
wollte, . . ." 

Da haben wir die Phantasie Swifts, aber mit einem Gtegen- 
stand, der ihr weit mehr liegt, als das was Swift behandelte; 
denn bei Swifts Hauptwerken ist ein Gregensatz vorhanden 
zwischen der realistischen Darstellung und der irrealen Welt, 
welche nur durch die Symbolik mit der Wirklichkeit verknüpft 
ist. Außerdem hat Swift trotz seiner mathematisch exakten 
Technik nie die Mathematik selbst zu seinem (Gegenstand ge- 
nommen. Diese Art romantischer Symbolik hat ein starkes 
gedankliches Element, das unwillkürlich in die Philosophie 
mündet: "Gelungene Burschen, diese Art Punkte I Der alte 
Brennecke, ein Mathematiklehrer, pflegte freilich zu sagen : 'Wer 
sich keinen Punkt denken kann, der ist einfach zu faul dazu!' 
Ich hab's oft versucht seitdem. Aber just dann, wenn ich denke, 
ich hätt' ihn, just dann hab' ich gar nichts. Und überhaupt, 
meine Freunde, geht's uns nicht so mit allen Dingen, denen wir 
gründlich zu Leibe rücken, daß sie grad dann, wenn wir sie mit 
dem zärtlichsten Scharfsinn erfassen möchten, sich heimtückisch 
zurückziehen in den Schlupfwinkel der Unbegreiflichkeit, um 
spurlos zu verschwinden, wie der bezauberte Hase, den der Jäger 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm Busch, 51 

nie treffen kann? Ihr nickt, ich auchl" Das ist wiederum 
ganz romantisch; aber während die Romantiker nur allzu oft 
ihre Form sprengen müssen, um Raum für ihre Philosophie zu 
gewinnen, fallen diese philosophischen Bertachtungen ganz 
selbstverständlich aus Eduards Mund, weil sie ganz in den 
Rahmen seines Traumes passen, und auch Busch nicht einmal 
von den Ideen des Scheins und Seins, der Vergänglichkeit und 
Unendlichkeit zu absoluter Ehrfurcht gezwungen wird, so daB 
er sie in der trivialen Sprache und den gemeinen Associationen 
des Philisters heimisch machen kann. 

Auch Satzbau und Stil erinnern des öftem an den größten 
der Romantiker, an Heine: ''Der Abend dämmerte bereits. 
Auf dem Walle lief ein Mann hin und her, einsam und unruhig. 
Er hatte den Zeigefinger an die Stime gelegt und sagte in einem 
fort das ABC her, bald vor- bald rückwärts. Ehe ich ihm 
ausweichen konnte, stieB er mir mit dem Kopf vor die Brust. 
Nun rifi er die Augen weit auf und schrie mich an: 'Hahl wie 
heisst ert' 'Ich heiße Peter I' sag ich. 'Nein, Er, Er, mit dem 
ich vor zehn Jahren im Monat Mai drei Wochen lang herumge- 
wandert bin an der polnischen Grenze.' 'Oewifi ein Herzens- 
freund!' 'Nein, gar nicht.' 'Oder er ist Euch was schul- 
dig.' 'Keinen Heller!' "•» Oder wieder in "Eduards Traum" 
haben wir folgende Stelle, die ganz an Heine erinnert: "Aber 
ein Kritiker — denn Flöhe giebt's überall — sagte zu einem andern, 
mit dem er vorüberging: Da drinnen hocken sie, Zahlen im 
Kopf, Bazillen im Herzen. Alles pulverisieren sie : Oott, Qeist 
und Goethe. Und dann die Besengilde, die gelehrte, die den 
Kehricht zusammenfittchet vor den Hintertüren der Jahrtau- 
sende. ' ' 

Die kurze Art, in der er uns zu verstehen gibt, daß Kritiker 
und Flöhe in dieselbe Gattung gehören, die baroke Zusammen- 
stellung von Gk)tt, Geist und Göthe, die journalistische Verwen- 
dung von Metaphern, das ist ganz in der Art Heines. Und bei 
einzelnen der Gedichte passen Klang und Idee auch wieder ganz 
in Heines Welt : 



^^ * * Schmetterlinff ' ' S. 16. Vgl. obige Stelle beispielsweise mit Heines 
''Nächten in Lueca."' 



52 University of CaUfamia PubUcatunu i» Modem FhUology. [VoL 2 



IMMERHIN. 

Mein Hers, sei nicht beklonunen, 

Noch wird die Welt nicht alt. 
Der Frühling iet wieder gekommen, 

Frisch grünt der deutsche Wald. 

Hier lieg ich im weichen Moose 

Unter dem rauschenden Baum, 
Die Zeit, die wesenlose, 

Verschwindet als wie ein Traum. 

Von kühlen Schatten umdämmert, 

Versink ich in selige Buh; 
Ein Specht, der lustig hämmert. 

Nickt mir vertraulich zu. 

Mir ist, als ob er riefe: 

Heiha, mein guter Gesell, 
Für ewig aus dunkler Tiefe 

Sprudelt der LebensquelLM 

Hier wird sogar das Herz wieder angerufen, oder der Dichter 
redet in liebenswürdig schalkhafter Weise die Sommertage an: 



IN TBAUTEB VEBBOBGENHEIT. 

Ade, ihr Sommertage, 

Wie seid ihr so schnell enteilt. 
Gar mancherlei Lust und Plage 

Habt ihr uns zugeteilt. 

Wohl war es ein Entzucken, 

Zu wandeln im Sonnenschein, 
Nur die verflixten Mücken 

Mischten sieh immer darein. 

Anderes bringt Busch in die Nähe Gk)ttfried Kellers. So wenn 
der in einen Punkt zusammengeschrumpfte Eduard auf der 
Wetterfahne Karussel fahrt, würde das ganz in den Bahmen 
des Dichters der verrückten Einfälle passen. Ebenso die kurios 
realistische Art, wie er das Märchen behandelt;*^ oder wie er 
in unwahrscheinlicher Zweckmäßigkeit die Ereignisse verkettet 



««"Schein und Sein" S. 71. 
«»Vgl. den '' Schmetterling. '' 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm Busch. 53 

mit einer nie versagenden Erfinderkraft. Es ist eine Welt, in 
der nicht die Schwerkraft, sondern eine boshafte Teleologie 
herrscht/* 

''Munter dreinschauend spaziert ich weiter. Den letzten 
Best der Mahlzeit, nämlich die treffliche, zähe, salzige Schwarte, 
schob ich hinter die Backenzähne, so daB ich die Freude hatte, 
noch eine Zeitlang dran lutschen zu können. — ^Dicht vor einem 
Dörflein begegneten mir zwei unbeschäftigte Enten, die lediglich 
zum Zeichen ihres Vorhandenseins durchdringend trompeteten. 
Da ich nunmehr die Schwarte bis aufs Äusserste ausgebeutet 
hatte nach menschlichen Begriffen, warf ich sie hin. Die geis- 
tesgegenwärtigste der zwei Schnattertaschen erwischte sie und 
eilte damit, vermutlich weil sie nichts abgeben wollte, durch das 
Loch einer Hecke. Die zweite, die wohl auch keinem andern 
was gönnte, wackelte emsig hinterher. Ich, natürlich als Natur- 
beobachter, legte mich auf den Bauch und steckte den wifibe- 
gierigen Kopf durch die nämliche Öffnung. 

''Mir gegenüber, an einer gemütlichten Pfütze, sah ich zwei 
Häuschen stehen, und jedes Häuschen hatte ein Fenster und 
hinter jedem Fenster lauerte ein Bub, ein roter und ein schwarz- 
haariger, und vor jedem Häuschen erhob sich ein beträchtlicher 
Düngerhaufen, stand ein Gk>ckel, ein dicker und ein dünner, 
inmitten seiner Hühner, die eben ihre Scharrtätigkeit unter- 
brachen, um gespannt zuzusehen, was die zwei Enten da machten. 

"Vergebens bemühte sich die erste, durch Druck und Schluck 
die Schwarte hinter die Binde zu kriegen; sie war grad so um 
ein Achtelzöllchen zu breit. Hiemach durfte die zweite, die 
mit neidischer Ungeduld dieses Ergebnis erwartet hatte, ans 
schwierige Werk gehen. Schlau, wie sie war, tauchte sie das 
widerspänstige Ding zuerst in die Pfütze, um 's glittschig zu 
machen, und dann streckte sie den Schnabel kerzengerad in die 
Höhe und ruckte und zuckte ; aber es ging halt nicht ; und dann 
kehrten die beiden Enten kurz um und rüttelten verächtlich mit 
den Schwänzen, als sei ihnen an der ganzen Sache überhaupt 
nie etwas gelegen gewesen. 



««Vgl. '«Schmetterling" 8. 23-25. 



54 Univer$ity of California Publioations in Modem PkHology. [YoL 2 



ii 



Kaum hatten dies die Hühner erspäht, so rannten sie herbei 
und versuchten gleichfalls ihr Olück, eins nach dem andern, 
wohl ihrer zwanzig; indes alle Hiebe und Stöfie scheiterten an 
der zähen Hartnäckigkett dieser Schwarte. Zuletzt kam ein 
munteres Schweinchen daher getrabt und verzehrte sie mit spie- 
lender Qeläufigkeit ; und so blieb sie doch in der Yerwandsehaft 

''Während dieser Zeit hatten sich die beiderseitigen Gockel 
unverwandt angeschaut mit teuflischen Blicken; ohne Zweifel, 
weil sie sich schon lange nicht gut waren von wegen der Damen. 
Plötzlich krähte der Dicke im Eochinchinabass : ''Eockerokoh!" 

''Dieser verhaßte Laut gab dem Dünnen einen furchtbaren 
Bifi. Mit unwiderstehlichem YorstoB griff er den Dicken so 
heftig an, dafi sich dieser aufs Laufen verlegte um die Pfütze 
herum. Der Dünne kam nach. GtewiB zehn Minuten liefen sie 
Karussell; bis der Dicke, dem vor Mattigkeit schon längst der 
Schnabel weit offen stand, unversehens unter Aufwand seiner 
letzten Kräfte seitab auf das Dach flog, wo er ein mächtiges 
Kockerokoh ! erschallen liefi, damit nur ja keines glauben sollte, 
er hätte den Kürzeren gezogen. 

"Sofort schwang sich der Dünne auf den Oipfel des feind- 
lichen Düngerhaufens; jedenfalls mit der Absicht, von dieser 
Höhe herab durch ein durchdringendes Kickerikih! im Tenor 
der Welt seinen Sieg zu verkünden. 

"Ehe er noch damit anfangen konnte, sah er sich veranlaßt, 
laut krächzend in die Höhe zu fliegen. 

"Der rothaarige Knabe, heimlich heranschleichend mit der 
Peitsche, versetzte ihm einen empfindlichen Klapps um die 
mageren Beine. Aber schon, aus dem Nachbarhaus, war der 
Schwarzkopf mit einer Haselgerte als Bächer des seinerseitigen 
Gk)ckels herbeigekommen und erteilte dem Bothaarigen, grad da, 
wo die Hose am strammsten saB, einen einschneidenden Hieb. 
Hell pfiffen und klatchten die Waffen. Man wurde intimer, 
man griff zu Haar und Ohren ; man wälzte sich in die Pfütze ; aus 
dem Kampf zu Lande wurde ein Seegefecht. Für mich ein 
spannendes Schauspiel. Ich war so begeistert, daB ich ermun- 
ternd ausrief: 'Fest, fest, nur nicht auslassen!' 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm Buseh. 55 



tt 



Im selben Augenblick ruhte der Streit. Mein Kopf wurde 
bemerkt; eilig zog ich ihn zurück. Aber sogleich waren die 
Schlingel hinter mir her. Sie warfen mich mit Erdklössen; 
ich drehte mich um und ermahnte sie, artig zu sein; sie schimpf- 
ten mich Stadtfrack !"•• 

Eine gewisse Art von Busch' Bildern sind aus der saft- und 
kraftstrotzenden Sphäre des grofien Schweizers genommen. Noch 
eines : Keller wie Busch — ^Busch als Schriftsteller und Zeichner — 
gehören mit zu den GröBten durch die feine Art, wie sie junge 
Mädchen darzustellen vermögen. Die meisten Schriftsteller, ja 
Künstler überhaupt zerstören durch die Energie der Linien das 
Weiche, Mädchenhafte, oder sie verwischen alle charakteristi- 
schen Linien und geben nur Duft und süBliche Lieblichkeit. 
Busch und Keller verstehen beides zugleich herauszuarbeiten, 
vielleicht durch das feine schalkhafte Blitzen in Augen und 
Mundwinkeln.^^ 

GEDANKENVOLL. 

1. leh weifi ein stilles Fensterlein 

Liegt heimlich und veTsteekt, 
Das hat mit Laub der grüne Wein 
Und Banken überdeekt. 

2. Im Laube spielt der Sommerwind, 

Die Bebe schwankt und nickt. 
Dahinter sitzt ein hübsches Kind 
Gedankenvoll und stickt. 

3. Im jugendklaren Angesicht 

Blüht wundersüfi der Mund 

Als wie ein Bosenknösplein licht 

Früh in der Morgenstund. 

4. Im Netzgeflecht das blonde Haar 

UmfaBt ein braunes Band, 
Das liebe blaue Augenpaar 
Blickt sinnend auf die Hand. 



«• ' * Der Schmetterling. ' ' 

70 In den früheren Werken Busch' ist dies nur in der Zeichnung Yor- 
handen; in den spätem auch im Text. 



56 University of California PubUcatian$ in Modem PhHology. [VoL 2 

5. Und '8 Köpfchen scheint so still zu sein. 

Ist doch ein Taubenschlag. 
Gedanken fliegen aus und ein 
Den lieben langen Tag. 

6. Sie fliegen über Wald und Flur 

In 's weite Land hinaus. 
Aehy kam ein einzig Täubehen nur 
Und flöge in mein Haus. 

Die liebenswürdige Schelmerei gibt dem Gesicht des Mädchens 
jene leise Würze, die verhindert, daB der Eindruck fad wird, 
d. h. Busch' OröBe beruht hier auf seinem Humor. Noch mehr 
erkennen wir das im folgenden, graziös tändelnden Gedicht : 

PLAUDEBTASOHE. 

Du liebes Plappermaulchen 
Bedenk Dich erst ein Weilchen, 

Und sprich nicht so geschwind. 
Du bist wie unsere Mühle 
Mit ihrem Flügelspiele 

Im frischen Sausewind. 
Belang der MüUer tätig 
Und schüttet auf was nötig. 

Geht alles richtig zu; 
Doch ist kein Korn darinnen. 
Dann kommt das Werk von Sinnen, 

Und klappert so wie Du.7i 

Bei Busch' kleinen, feinen Gtemälden, welche in der Art von 
Bums in das intime Tierleben einführen, kommt wiederum der 
Schalk heraus und ein Humor, der eigentlich ganz neu ist. 

VEBLUST DEB ÄHNLICHKEIT. 

Man sagt, ein Schnäpschen, insofern 
Es kraftig ist, hat jeder gem. 

Ganz anders denkt das Volk der Bienen, 
Der Süffel ist verhaBt bei ihnen. 
Sein Wohlgeruch tut ihnen weh. 
Sie trinken nichts wie Blütenthee. 
Und wenn wer kommt, der Schnäpse trank. 
Gleich ziehen sie den Stachel blank. 

Letzthin hat einem Bienenstöckel 



71 Schein und Sein S. 40. 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm Busch. 67 

Der brave alte Schneider Böckel, 
Der nicht mehr nüchtern in der Tat, 
Aus Neubegierde sich genaht. 

Sofort von einem regen Leben 
Sieht Meister Bockel sich umgeben, 
Es dringen giftgetränkte Pfeile 
In seine nackten Körperteile. 

Feiner und tiefer ist der Humor in folgendem Gedieht : 

DULDSAM. 

Des Morgens früh, sobald ich mir 

Mein Pfeifchen angezündet, 
Geh ich hinaus zur Hintertür 

Die in den Garten mündet. 

Besonders gern betracht ich dann 

Die Bösen, die so niedlieh; 
Die Blattlaus sitzt und saugt daran 

So grün, so still, so friedlich. 

Und doch wird sie, so stiU sie ist. 

Der Grausamkeit zur Beute; 
Der Schwebefliegen Larve frißt 

Sie auf bis auf die Häute. 

Schlupf wespehen flink und klimperklein, 

So sehr die Laus sich sträube, 
Sie legen doch ihr Ei hinein 

Noch bei lebend 'gem Leibe. 

Sie aber sorgt nicht nur mit Fleifi 

Durch Eier für Vermehrung; 
Sie kriegt auch Junge hundertweis 

Als weitere Bescheerung. 

Es ist hier eine liebevolle Wärme vorhanden, wenn sie auch nicht 
so lebhaft hervortritt wie bei Bums. Aber bei Tieren, die dem 
Menschen näher stehen, kommt sie doch noch mehr zur Geltung : 

HUND UND KATZE. 

Miezel, eine schlaue Katze, 

M0II7, ein begabter Hund, 
Wohnhaft an demselben Platze, 

HaBten sich aus Herzensgrund. 



58 University of California PublicatumM in Modem Philologff. [VoL 2 

Schon der Ausdruck ihrer Mienen, 

Bei gesträubter Haarfrisur, 
Zeigt es deutlich: zwischen ihnen 

Ist von Liebe keine Spur. 

Doch wenn Miesel in dem Baume, 

Wo sie meistens hin entwich, 
Friedlich dasitzt, wie im Traume, 

Dann ist M0II7 auBer sieh. 

Beide lebten in der Scheune, 

Die gefüllt mit frischem Heu. 
Alle beide hatten ELleine, 

MoUy zwei, und Miezel drei. 

Einst zur Jagd ging Miezel wieder 

Auf das Feld. Da geht es bumm. 
Der Herr Förster schoB sie nieder. 

Dire Lebenszeit ist um. 

Oh, wie jämmerlich miauen 

Die drei Kinderchen daheim. 
M0II7 eilt, sie zu beschauen, 

Und ihr Herz geht aus dem Leim. 

Und sie trägt sie kurz entschlossen 

Zu der eigenen Lagerstatt, 
Wo sie nunmehr fünf Genossen 

An der Brust zu Gaste hat. 

Mensch, mit traurigem Gesichte, 

Sprich nicht nur von Leid und Streit, 
Selbst in Brehms Naturgeschichte 

Findet sich Barmherzigkeit. 

Einige allerliebste Genrebilder auch wieder in der Art von Bums 
finden sich in den Briefen : 

"Mein Bruder hat eine Küche gebaut, eine Zeitlang waren 
keine Fenster drin. Ein Botstärtchen — es singt immer zick 
zackzackzack I — ^und bibbert dabei mit dem Schwänze — war heim- 
lich aus- und eingeflogen und hatte sich auf einem Balken mit 
vieler Gteduld ein weiches Nest gebaut von manchem Halm und 
mancher Feder. Nun kommt der böse Olasermeister und macht 
alles fest zu. Das gibt ein trauriges Gezwitscher in den Bäumen 
da draußen. 

''Neulich pusselt Nachbar Mumme mit dem Spaten in seinem 



1910] Winther : Wilhelm Busch, 59 

Oarten herum, dicht bei den Stachelbeerbäschen. Auf einmal 
springt ein fremder Hund heraus und knurrt und will nicht 
weg und zeigt die Zähne. 'Der Hund ist toU' so heiBt es gleich. 
Man holt die Flinte — ^bum ! — ^Die Eugel geht dem Hunde durch 
den Kopf, er streckt sich aus und stirbt. — ^Wie man genauer 
sieht, liegen drei ganz kleine neugeborene Hündchen im Qe- 
büsch." 

Auch als Gtedicht findet sich der letzte Teil des Briefes, etwas 
abgeschwächt durch die glatte Form. Immerhin ist daran be- 
merkenswert, daB in dem vermutlich erst später geschriebenen 
Gedicht (es kam erst in der nachgelassenen Schrift ''Schein und 
Sein" heraus) die Liebe zum Tier deutlicher zu fühlen ist als in 
der prosaischen Form : 

DEB FBEMDE HUND. 

Was fallt da im BoBkettgeaträaeh 

Dem fremden Hunde eint 
Geht man Yorbei, so bellt er gleich 

Und seheint wie toll za sein. 

I>er Gärtner holt die Flinte her. 

Es knallt im Angenbliek. 
Der arme Hund, getroffen schwer, 

Wankt ins Gebüsch zurück. 

Vier kleine Hündchen liegen hier, 

Nackt, blind und unbewußt, 
Sie saugen emsig alle vier 

An eines Toten Brust.Ts 

Gelegentlich scheint mir Busch tiefer in die Eigenart des Tieres, 
immer ohne jegliche naturwissenschaftliche Pretensionen, einzu- 
dringen, mehr von seinen Gewohnheiten zu geben, als dies Bums 
tut. So in folgendem Gedieht : 

DIE SCHNECKEN. 



Jetzt in dichtbelaubten Hecken, 
Wo es still verborgen blieb, 

Büstet sieh das Volk der Schnecken 
Für den nächtlichen Betrieb. 



72 Schein und Sein S. 23. 



60 Unxversity of Cdlifamia PübUeations in Modem PJiüology. [YoL 2 

Tastend streckt sich ihr Gehörne. 

Schwach nur ist das Augenlicht. 
Dennoch schon aus weiter Ferne 

Wittern sie ihr Leibgericht. 
Schleimig, säumig, aber stete, 

Immer auf dem nächsten Pfad, 
Finden sie die Gartenbeete 

Mit dem schönsten Kopfsalat.'^* 



Wie originell er das dumpfe, triebhafte Leben der Schnecken 
anzudeuten weiß! 

Das detailliertere Beschreiben bei Busch im Vergleich zu 
Bums ist vielleich weniger charakteristich für die zwei Künst- 
lerpersönlichkeiten, — denn beide waren feine Beobachter und 
hatten, da sie beide auf dem Lande lebten, genügend Gelegen- 
heit, sich die Tiere anzusehen, — als für die Zeiten, in denen sie 
lebten; besonders wenn wir noch hinzunehmen, dafi Busch trotz 
seiner Liebhaberei zu moralisieren und seiner begrifflich philo- 
sophischen Bildung seine Lehre, die er aus dem Tierleben folgert, 
häufig in ein knappes Epigramm zusammendrängt, ja womöglich 
sie uns selbst erschliefien läBt, während Bums, der Mensch des 
18ten Jahrhunderts, dessen Sache aber von Natur weniger das 
Generalisieren zu sein scheint, sich auf ein breites gedankliches 
Element etwas besonderes zu gute tut. Aber doch ist bei Busch 
das Moralisch-Bationalistische so stark, daB er sogar die alte 
Tierfabel aufnimmt: 

DIE TEILUNG. 

Es hat einmal, so wird gesagt. 

Der Löwe mit dem Wolf gejagt 

Da haben sie vereint erlegt 

Ein Wildschwein stark und gut gepflegt. 

Doch als es ans Verteilen ging, 
Dünkt das dem Wolf ein mißlich Ding. 

Der Löwe sprach: Was grübelst Duf 
Glaubst Du, es geht nicht redlich zuf 
Dort kommt der Fuchs, er mag entscheiden, 
Was jedem zukommt von uns beiden. 

Gut, sagt der Wolf, dem solch ein Freund 



TS Zu guter Letzt 8. 15. 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm BwcK 61 

AIb Richter gar nieht übel scheint. 

Der Lowe winkt dem Fachs sogleich: 
Herr Doktor, das ist was für Euch. 
Hier dieses jüngst erlegte Schwein, 
Bedenkt es wohl, ist mein und sein. 
Ich faßt es Yom, er griff es hinten; 
Jetzt teilt es uns, doch ohne Finten. 

Der Fachs war ein Jurist von Fach, 
Sehr einfach, spricht er, liegt die Sach. 
Das Vorderteil, ob viel, ob wenig, 
Erhalt mit Fug und Recht der König. 
Dir aber, Vetter Isengrimm, 
Gebührt das Hinterteil. Da nimml 

Bei diesem Wort trennt er genau 
Das Schwänzlein hinten von der Sau. 
Indes der Wolf verschmäht die Beute, 
Verneigt sich kurz und geht beiseite. 

Fuchs, sprach der Lowe, bleibt bei mir. 
Von heut an seid ihr Grossvezier. 

Wir sehen, Busch versteht die Knappheit Lessings mit der 
frischen Sinnlichkeit und ironischen Orazie Lafontaines zu ver- 
binden. 

Je feiner die Tierfabel behandelt wird, je mehr die Tiermaske 
mit dem dahinter steckenden Menschengesicht verwächst, umso- 
mehr entfernt sich der Fabeldichter von der Allegorie und nähert 
sich dem Symbol. Busch erreicht dies in einer Art, die ihn 
wieder nahe zu Bums bringt : 

EIN MAULWURF. 

Die laute Welt und ihr Ergätzen, 
Als eine störende Erscheinung, 
Vermag der Weise nicht zu schätzen. 

Ein Maulwurf war der gleichen Meinung. 
Er fand an Lärm kein Wohlgefallen, 
Zog sich zurück in kühle Hallen 
Und ging daselbst in seinem Fach 
Stillfleifiig den Geschäften nach. 

Zwar sehen könnt er da kein Bissei, 
Indessen sein getreuer Bussel, 
Ein Nervensitz voll Zartgefühl, 
Führt sicher zum erwünschten Ziel. 

Als Nahrung hat er sich erlesen 
Die Leckerbissen der Chinesen, 
Den Begenwurm und Engerling, 



68 ünivenity of California P%bUeatiaH$ in Modem PhOology, [VoL 2 

Wovon er vielfach fette fing. 

Die Folge war, was ja kein Wunder, 
Sein Baaehlein worde täglich ninder, 
Und wie das häufig so der Branch, 
Der Stolz wuchs mit dem Bauche auch. 

Wohl ist er stattlich von Person 
Und kleidet sich wie ein Baron, 
Nur schad, ihn und sein Sammetkleid 
Sah niemand in der Dunkelheit. 

So trieb ihn denn der Höhensinn, 
Von unten her nach oben hin, 
Zehn Zoll hoch, oder gar noch mehr, 
Zu seines Namens Buhm und Ehr 
Gewölbte Tempel zu entwerfen. 
Um denen draußen einzuschärfen, 
Daft innerhalb noch einer wohne, 
Der etwas kann, was nicht so ohne. 

Mit Baulichkeiten ist es mifilich. 
Ob man sie schätzt, ist ungewifilich. 
Ein Mensch von anderm Kunstgeschmacke, 
Ein Gärtner kam, mit einer Hacke. 

Durch kurzen Hieb nach langer Lauer 
Zieht er ans Licht den Tempelbauer 
Und haut so derb ihm ubers Ohr, 
DaB er den Lebensgeist verlor. 

Da liegt er nun, der stolze Mann. 
Wer tut die letzte Ehr ihm anf 

Drei Käfer schwarz und gelb gefleckt. 
Die haben ihn mit Sand bedeckt.'^« 

Man beachte, wie durch leise doppelsinnige Wendungen wir 
immer mehr fühlen, dafi hinter dem philosophischen Maulwurf 
noch eine Unzahl anderer (Geschöpfe stecken; daB wir es hier 
nicht allein mit einem Sonderling, einer Einzelerscheinung zu 
tun haben. 

Liebe zu Natur und Tieren und damit zusammenhängend 
symbolische Beseelung derselben sind Züge, die wir häufig bei 
Pantheisten finden, wie z. B. bei Goethe, oder Shelley. Und in 
der Tat, Busch, dieser derbe, rohe Spötter, entpuppt sich in 
späteren Werken als Pantheist.^* 



74 Zu guter Letzt S. 120. 

'^B Dafi dies nicht blofi die Geburten einer momentan durch Erregung 
befrachteten Künstlerphantaeie sind, beweisen die Briefe an Marie Andersen, 
8. 40-41. übrigens findet sich schon einiges Derartige in der ''Kritik des 
Herzens. ' ' 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm BwcK 68 

Verse spriefien empor von einem zarten Duft, wie sie wiede- 
rum an Shelley erinnerten, wenn er Humor hätte. 

IM HEBBST. 

Der sehöne Sommer ging von hinnen, 

Der Herbst, der reiche, 20g ins Land. 
Knn weben all die guten Spinnen 

So manches feine Festgewand. 

Sie weben zu des Tages Feier 

Mit kunstgeubtem Hinterbein 
Ganz aUerliebste Elf enschleier 

Als Schmuck für Wiese, Flur und Hain. 

Ja, tausend Silberfaden geben 

Dem Winde sie zum leichten Spiel, 
Die ziehen sanft dahin und schweben 

Ans unbewußt bestimmte Ziel. 

Sie ziehen in das Wunderländchen, 

Wo Liebe scheu im Anbeginn, 
Und leis verknüpft ein zartes Bändchen 

Den Schäfer mit der Schaf erin-^« 

Hier wie an anderer Stelle spricht Busch offen aus : 

''Mit allen Kreaturen bin ich 

In schönster Seelenharmonie, 

Wir sind verwandt, ich fühl' es innig. 

Und eben darum lieb ich sie." 

Und wir sind mit dem All verbrüdert, weil unsere Seele 
gleichsam von einem Geschöpf ins andere wandert; dement- 
sprechend sagt Busch in den Briefen : ' ' So nahe wie möglich. — 
''Glaub ich an die alte, gute, ehrliche, biedermännische Lehre von 
der 8eelenw€mderungt So ganz doch nicht I Aber ich fühle, 
daB Wahrheit dahinter steckt, wie hinter andern Religionen und 
Mythologieen. — ^Wenn mir nun aber einer käme mit Daum- 
Bchrauben und siedendem öl und wollte mich klemmen und 
braten, bis ich Dichtung für Wahrheit nähme, so würd ich ihm 
womöglich einen Boxerhieb unter die Nase geben, dafi ihm sein 
Schraub- und Kochgeschirr aus der Hand fiele.'' Und an an- 



7« Zu Guter Letzt S. 77. 



64 Univ&nity of Cdlifomia Publicationa tu Modem Phüology. [YoL 2 

derer Stelle in den Briefen heißt es: ''Jede Gteburt ist Wie- 
dergeburt. — ^Warum wissen wir nichts mehr von unserm Vorle- 
ben! Weil wir ''Lethe" tranken, als wir starben, so gut, wie 
wir Lethe trinken müssen, wenn wir sterben werden. Der Säug- 
ling hat seine Leib- und sonstigen Schmerzen. Warum T Weil 
er ein Taugenichts war vor seiner Gteburt. — ^Meist sind die Kinder 
den Eltern, oft sind die Enkel den Grofieltem ähnlich. Warum T 
Die "Seele" wandert aus dem einen heraus in den Andern 
hinein. 

"und nun, mein gutes Madamchen, datt Sie mir nicht kommen 
und sagen, ich hätte gesagt : Dieses sind die nämlichen Seelen, 
die im Himmel singen, im Fegfeuer purgieren oder in der HöUe 
schmurgeln. Und dann — ^natürlich ! — ^Die Seelen der Tiere — die 
"wandern" auch, so gut wie die Seelen der Menschen, der 
Pflanzen und der Steine. 

"Bin ich ein Konglomerat von Atomen T Ja! — ^Aber unter 
anderem und außerdem auch Ihr ergebener Busch. — ^Warum 
interessieren wir uns für die OesammtkulturT Darum 1 Wie 
der gebildete Mensch das Oute erbt aus früheren Lebensläufen, 
so möchte er auch mit Jer Wahrscheinlichkeit sterben, daß er 
was Gutes vorfindet, wenn er wieder auflebt ; und so fort durch 
alle Ewigkeit, d. h. bis zu jenem Moment, wo das Wort "Zeit" 
keine Bedeutung mehr hat. ' ' 

Daß ein Mensch, der aUe Geschöpfe als seine Brüder betrach- 
tet, vegetarische Neigungen haben wird, ist naheliegend zu ver- 
muten; in der Tat sind auch solche bei Busch vorhanden; so 
finden wir folgende Brief stelle : 

"Auch ich habe gefunden, daß die meisten Kinder Fleisch- 
brühe und Fleisch nicht gerne wollen. Was hilft 's T Solange 
beim Menschen die Eckzähne noch so verdächtig markiert sind, 
so lange wird es Leute geben, die sich auf die Natur berufen 
und fröhlich weiter schlachten." 

Gegen Ende seines Lebens sei Busch sogar ganz Yegetarianer 
geworden. Auch in einem Gedicht gibt er seinen Ekel gegen das 
Fleischessen kund : 



1910] Winiher: Wilhelm Busch. 05 



BIS AUF WEITERES. 

Bas Messer blitzt, die Schweine sehrein, 

Man mufi sie halt benutzen, 
Denn Jeder denkt: Wozu das Seh wein, 

Wenn wir es nicht verputzen f 

Und Jeder schmunzelt, Jeder nagt 

Nach Art der Kannibalen, 
Bis man dereinst Pfui Teufel! sagt 

Zum Schinken aus WestfalenJ^ 

BnBch' Pantheismus erinnert durch den pessimistischen Grund- 
ton an Schopenhauer. Viele seiner andern Anschauungen über 
Welt und Mensehen bewegen sich in derselben Richtung. Aber 
nicht nur eine allgemeine Yerwandschaft von Anschauungen, 
auch eine direkte Beeinflussung Busch ' durch Schopenhauer geht 
aus den Briefen an Marie Andersen hervor : 

'^Also zurückgeblättert im Katechismus bei Seite I. Unser 
Dasein besteht aus WoUen. Wollen ist Wünschen. Wünschen 
setzt Mangel voraus. Mangel ist Schmerz. Wir leiden Schmer- 
zen, weil wir so sind. Wir sind so, weil unsere Erzeuger so 
waren und deren Erzeuger und so zurück und immer zurück. 
Kinder, Eltern, Geschlechter; Familie, Volk, Menschheit; sind 
intellektuelle Teilungen eines Ganzen ; d. h. unser Intellekt sieht 
alles durch das Medium von Baiun und Zeit. In Wahrheit ist 
ein WiUe, eine Schuld, ein Leiden. Ein Stück davon sitzt auch 
in meiner Brust.*' Und an anderer Stelle heißt es: ** Schopen- 
hauer hat jedenfalls die ernstliche Absicht deutüch zu sein, sonst 
wäre seine Schreibweise nicht so bündig, wie sich 's ein Mathe- 
matiker nur wünschen könnte. Zudem ist es, mein' ich, immer 
interessant, obgleich er stets dasselbe Thema variirt ; denn dieses 
Thema ist ja unser Fleisch und Blut. Freilich Kant wird vo- 
rausgesetzt. — ^Den Intellekt darf man nicht als etwas Apartes, 
Losgetrenntes ansehen, sondern als ein Produkt des Willens, dem 
es in seiner Dunkelheit unheimlich geworden. Der Intellekt ist 
ein Organ. Er bringt die Motive in Wechselwirkung ; er schließt, 



11 Sehein und Sein S. 54. 



66 ünivernty of California Publieai%on$ ii» Modem Phüology. [YoL 2 

aber der Wille beschliefit. — ^Wie oft folgen wir, der reiflichen 
Überlegung zum Trotz, im entscheidenden Momente dem dun- 
keln Drange, dem plötzlichen Impuls! — Der Wille ist Kraft; 
der Intellekt ist Form. — Der Intellekt ist sterblich; der Wille 
lebt, solange er will. — Der Qedanke an den Tod scheint mir 
deshalb meistens so verdriefilich, weil der einem die Laterne 
auspustet und einen in eine neue Haut steckt, von der man nicht 
weiß, ob sie besser ist als die, welche man ausgezogen. — ^Der 
Glaube an Seelenwanderung kommt mir wirklich recht verständig 
vor und höchst erbaulich dazu.'^* 



TS über den ZnBammenhang von Bnseh und Schopenhaaer vergl. auch 
Joseph Hohniller, "Wilhehn BuBch'' in den SüddeuUehen MonaUhefton, 
Jahrg. 5, 1908, Seite 426-30: "In diesem sehmalen Bandchen offenbarte 
Bosch zum ersten Male neben wundervoU zarten und weichen Stimmungen 
eine geradezu erschreckende Verachtung der Welt und ihres Treibens. 
Auch dem dickhäutigsten Leser hätte aUmählig eine Ahnung aufdämmern 
müssen, dafi das lachen dieses Humoristen ein merkwürdiff eompliciertes 
Ldichen war, das bald wie ersticktes Schluehsen klang, bud wie ingrim- 
miges Fluchen. Das Publikum aber rümpfte die Nase über die nicht 
illustrierte 'Kritik des Herzens' und wurde erst wieder warm, als der erste 
Teil der Knopp-TrUogie erschien, 'Die Abenteuer eines Junggesellen.' " 
• ■•«•«■•••••«•■• 

Schopenhauer sagt "Aus der Nacht der Bewufitlosigkeit zum Leben 
erwacht, findet der Wille sich als Individuum, unter zahllosen Individuen, 
alle sterbend, leidend, irrend; und wie durch einen bangen Traum eilt er 
zurück zur alten BewuStlosigkeit. " 

Busch drückt es auf seine Weise also aus: 

Eh' man auf diese Welt gekommen 
Und noch so stül Yorlieb genommen. 
Da hat man noch bei nichts Was bei, 
Man schwebt herum, ist schuldenfrei. 
Hat keine ühr und keine Eile, 
Und äußerst selten Langeweile. 
Allein man nimmt sich nicht in acht, 
Und schluppl ist man zur Welt gebracht. 

"Das Leben ist ein fortgesetzter Betrug," heißt es bei Schopenhauer; 
"hat es versprochen, so hält es nicht; es sei denn, um zu zeigen, wie 
wenig wünschenswert das Gewünschte war: so täuscht uns also bald die 
Hoffnung, bald das Gehoffte." — ^"Im Durchschnitt ist man kummervoll," 
sagt Busch; "und weiß nicht, was man machen soll." Hat aber der 
Mensch das sehnlichst Gewünschte bekommen: 

"Gleich steht er da, seufzt, hustet und spricht 
Ach, Herr, nun ist es ja doch so nicht." 

Man gebe sich einmal die Mühe, sich diese lustigen Geschichten ohne 
Bilder vorzustellen und ohne die drolligen Wendungen des Textes: man 
wird erschrecken. Man mache sich umgekehrt das Vergnügen, sich zu 
"Eduards Traum" und zum "Schmetterling" die gemäßen Bilder hin- 
zuzudenken, und man ist nicht mehr weit von den "Abenteuern eines 
Jun^geseUen. " Hat man schon bemerkt, daß Busch eigentlich der 
Begisseur und Kommentator der Bosheit istf Jener tiefen Schopenhauer- 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm BwcK 67 

Theoretisch ist also das Wesen von Busch' Welt der Wille, 
und das entspricht ganz dem Resultat, welches wir aus der 
Analyse der früheren Werke erhielten, und das sich auch aus 
einer Untersuchung der späteren Werke ergibt: Ein wim- 
melndes, zappelndes, ewig reges, ewig unvernünftiges Leben. 

Eine ganz ähnliche Auffassung machen Qoethe und Carlyle 
zu Optimisten für die Zukunft; denn jede Kraftäusserung ist 
für sie, sei sie auf das Gute oder Schlechte gerichtet, immer noch 
besser als absolute Faulheit : Eine Welt, in der gehandelt wird^ 



ischen Bosheit, die nichts anderes ist, als nneigennützigre Frende an 
fremden Leiden und sich bis zur Grausamkeit steigert? Die Bosheit ist, 
genau betrachtet, die eigentliche Heldin dieser BUderfolgen. Sie ist in 
all ihren Folgen die Haupttriebfeder dieser übermütigen Verwickelungen, 
sie ist die causa prima dieser vemüglichen Zwischenfälle. 

Gottfried Michael beweist nichts. Denn er ist kein Mensch, sondern 
eine Allegorie. Man muß bis auf Swift zurückgehen, um einen gleichen 
Verächter der Menschen en bloe zu finden. 

Am schlimmsten kommt bei Busch die Ehe weg. Auch darin folgt er 
Schopenhauer: '' Glückliche Ehen sind bekanntlich selten; eben weil es 
im Wesen der Ehe liegt, daS ihr Hauptzweck nicht die gegenwärtige, 
sondern die kommende Generation ist! Die scheinbar so lustigen ''Aben- 
teuer eines JunggeseUen" sind die galligste Satire auf Frauen und Ehe, 
in ihrer vereinfachenden Typik viel galliger als Balzacs "Petites mis^res 
de la vie conjugale." Man nehme sich Abenteuer um Abenteur vor 
und ziehe die Summe. — ^AdÖle: das hübscheste Mädchen (nach Schopen- 
hauer der KnaJleffekt der Natur) wird einmal häßlich. Die Forsterin 
Knarthe: seht, wie das Weib dem Manne Homer aufsetzt I Bektor 
Debisch: Wenn ihr Kinder nur mit Liebe behandelt, geraten sie übeL 
Meister Druff: Wenn ihr sie mit Strenge behandelt, geraten sie auch 
ubeL Babbelmann: seht, welch augenverdrehenden Mucker ein Weib 
aus dem flottesten Junggesellen macht! Küster Plünne: da habt ihr 
eure dumpfe, deutsche äubenbehagUchkeit; was ist sie anderes denn 
Ärmlichkeit und TJnsauberkeit, die mit der Zahl der Kinder wächst f 
Herr und Frau Mücke, vor Fremden zärtlich wie die frommen Tauben, 
leben in greulichstem Unfrieden: seht den Mann, wie er an einer Ani- 
mierkeUnerin herumschmiert I Wann trifft Sauerbrot der Schlag f Da 
seine gute Frau stirbt f Nein, da sie, die nur scheintot gewesen, wieder 
erwacht. Zu welchem Ende entgeht Knopp der alten Jungfer Klotilde 
Piepof Damit er, heimgekehrt, sogleich seine Köchin heiraten kann. 
Was demonstriert Knopp als Ehemann f Schopenhauers Wort: 'In un- 
serm monogamischen Weltteile heißt heiraten seine Bechte halbieren und 
seine Pflichten verdoppeln." Kaum ist Julchen Knopp versorgt, so hat 
Knopp 

''Hienieden nun 

Eigentlich nichts mehr zu tun. 

Er hat seinen Zweck erfüllt — ; 

Bnndich wird sein Lebensbild." 

Tugend geht Hand in Hand mit dem Kräfteverfalle. Nur die alten 
Leute, 

''Die haben alles hinter sich 

Und sind, gottlob, recht tugendlich." 



68 Univenity of CäUfomia Fublieationi in Modem PhOology. [YoL 2 

mufi schlieSIich zum Outen fähren, denn die Weltseele, nach 
ihnen, ist vernünftig und gut. — ^Für Busch und Schopenhauer 
folgt gerade aus dieser urkräftigen Vitalität der Pessimismus, da 
nach ihnen der WeltwiUe vemunftlos ist. 

und doch nähert sich Busch wieder Goethen und Garlyle, 
denn jede Betätigung des Willens, die ja doch, seiner Philosophie 
nach, früher oder später Schmerz auslösen muß, erweckt eine 
intensive Künstlerfreude in ihm, vielleicht weil wir, wie Busch 
selbst in einem seiner Briefe meint, eine Lust am grausamen 
Schauspiel finden: ''Hierbei mit freundlichem Dank die 
Bücher zurück! — So eigentlich angeregt hat mich nur die kleine 
Schrift über das Jagen und einer der vorangestellten Wahl- 
sprüche. — ^Die Folgerung, zu der das Schriftchen kommt, hat 
meinen vollen Beifall, die Voraussetzung aber ist falsch. Die 
Voraussetzung ''Der unverdorbene Mensch hat von Natur 
bei allen Leiden seiner Mitgeschöpfe ein unangenehmes Gtefühl'' 
— ist falsch, weil einseitig. Das Leiden, die Marter hat vielmehr 
etwas schauderhaft Anziehendes, es bewirkt Grauen und Er- 
götzen zugleich. — ^Haben Sie jemals den Ausdruck von Kindern 
bemerkt, wenn sie dem Schlachten eines Schweines zusehen T — 
NeinT — Nun, so rufen Sie sich doch das Medusenhaupt vor die 
Seele. Tod, Grausamkeit, WoUust — ^hier sind sie beisammen. 
Mufi ich Ihnen sagen, nach dem, was ich so oft gesagt, wie das 
kommt T — ^Der gute und der böse Dämon empfangen uns bei 
der Gteburt, um uns zu begleiten. Der böse Dämon ist der 
stärkere und gesundere; er ist der heftige Lebensdrang. Der 
gute Dämon aber winkt zurückt, und gute Kinder sterben früh ; 
ihnen sind die Engelsäügel nicht abgeschnitten. — ^Kurzum, der 
natürliche, unverdorbene (?) Mensch, also besonders das Kind, 
mufi überwiegend böse sein, sonst ist seines Bleibens nicht in 
dieser Welt. — ^Und die Jagdlust T — Die Jagdlust ist ein Stück 
Lebenslust. Sie ist eine Übung der Daseinsbedingungen : List, 
Scharfblick, Gewandheit, Kraft, verbunden mit dem Beiz der 
Grausamkeit. Sie ist folglich natürlich, folglich bös. — ^Und die 
Strafe bleibt nicht aus : Jeder Jäger wird mal ein Hase, früher 
oder später, denn die Ewigkeit ist lang. — ^Was mich betrifft, so 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm Bugeh. 68 

werd' ich jedenfalls, nachdem ich ein — oder zwei — oder drei — 
oder hundertmal gestorben, ein Spatz. Mein Weibchen wird 
ein Nest zusammen zotteln unter dem Dach ; es wird Eier legen ; 
und wenn dann die wackelköpfigen Jungen ausgebrochen, so 
kommt ein flachshaariger Bub daher, holt eine lange Stange, 
spaltet sie an der Spitze und — ^heraus aus dem Nest! — ^Da wird 
der alte Spatz ein schönes Geschrei erheben I" 

Wenn aber Grausamkeit schlecht ist nach Busch, warum 
verspottet er die Utopie, in der durch Herausschneiden der Eon- 
kurrenzdräse bei den Menschen der Wettbewerb und somit ein 
großer Teil der Lebenskraft und damit des Lebensschmerzes 
zerstört wird; warum verspottet er, was ihm wünschenswert er- 
schien und was er später wieder für wünschenswert hältT 
Möglich, daß er seine Anschauungen zweimal wechselte. Wahr- 
scheinlicher ist, daß er indifferent gegen den Ruhm einer starr- 
köpfigen EfQsequenz der momentanen Stimmung nachgab. 
Allerdings entfernt er sich ebenfalls in ''Eduards Traum" auch 
in anderer Hinsicht von Schopenhauer, wir finden hier Stellen, 
die durchaus eine materialistische Philosophie ankünden. Er 
reduziert alles, selbst Denken und Gefühle, auf Bewegung: 

•'Dies," (so heißt es in "Eduards Traum" S. 60-63) "er- 
klärte der Meister, ist der Kreislauf der Dinge! — ^Darauf nahm 
er ein unscheinbares Gerät vom Schranke. Es war ein kleine 
Wehmühle. Er blies den Staub davon, hielt sie mir vor und 
sprach bedeutungsvoll: 'Hier, mein Geschätzter, seht Ihr das 
Ding an sich; das vielberufene, welches vor mir noch niemand 
erkannt hat.' Er drückte auf einen Knopf, die Mühle fing lang- 
sam zu fächeln an. Ein ungemein wohliges Gefühl überkam 
mich, als würd' ich von zarten Händen so recht sanft hinter den 
Ohren gekraut. 

"Er drückte zum zweiten Mal auf den Elnopf. Nur das 
feinste Diner kann der Zunge ein solches Wohlgefallen bereiten, 
wie es mir jetzt zu Teil wurde. 

"Er drückte zum dritten Mal. Nun kam der Geruchssinn 
an die Reihe. Erschrocken blickte ich den Meister an. Doch 
nicht der leiseste Zug einer verdächtigen Heiterkeit störte den 
Ausdruck seines ehrbaren Gesichts. 



70 ünivernty of California PuhKoations in Modem PhHology, [YoL 2 

'' 'So ist denn,' sprach er erklärend, 'alles das, was zwischen 
uns nnd den Dingen an sich passiert, nichts weiter als ein Bewe- 
gung, bald schneller, bald langsamer, in einer Äther- oder Luft- 
schicht, die bald dicker, bald dünner ist/ 

'* *Auch die Gedanken f fragte ich. 

" 'Auch siel' erwiderte der Meister. 'Wir werden gleich 
sehen!' 

"Er stellte die Wehmühle weg und kriegte ein Windmühle 
her. Sie war nach dem gleichen System gearbeitet, wie die- 
jenigen, welche man in die Wipfel der Kirschbäume stellt, um 
die Spatzen zu verscheuchen, nur war sie viel kleiner und hatte 
Flügel von Papier. Indem er mir dieselbe entgegenhielt, rief 
er ermunternd: 

" 'Wohlan, mein Bester, jetzt denkt mal drauf los!' Ich 
nahm mich zusammen, was ich nur konnte, und Je eifriger ich 
dachte, je eifriger drehten sich die Papierflügel der Mühle, und 
klappern tat sie, daB es selbst ein erfahrener alter Sperling nicht 
gewagt hätte, in ihre Nähe zu kommen. 

" ' Je mehr Wind, je mehr Lärm!' sprach der Gelehrte 
erläuternd. 

" 'und Lust und Leid des Herzens,' forschte ich weiter, 'sind 
die gleichfalls Bewegung?' 

" 'Gewiß!' erhielt ich zur Antwort. 'Nur schraubenförmig!' 

"Damit nahm er vom Gesimse ein zierliches G^tell, worin 
horizontal ein Pfropfenzieher lag, den man vermittelst einer 
Kurbel in drehende Bewegung setzen konnte. 

" 'Nur zu !' rief ich erwartungsvoll. 

"Er schloß das linke Auge und fixierte mich blinzelnd mit 
dem rechten. 'So geht es noch nicht!' sprach er zögernd. 
"Denn wie ich bemerke, mein Lieber, ist Eure Konstitution 
etwas anders beschaffen, als wie es sonst üblich ist. Darum 
bitte ich, zuvörderst hier Platz zu nehmen in dem Sessel der 
höheren Empfindsamkeit!' 

"Dies war ein ungemein weich gepolsterter Lehnstuhl. Ich 
ließ mich darauf nieder. Der Meister näherte sich mit der 
Schraube und fing an vorwärts zu drehen. 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm BiueK 71 



ti 



Ein unsagbar peinliches Gefühl durchbohrte mein innerstes 
Wesen. Ich hätte laut au&chreien mögen. Es war, als wäre 
meine alte Orosstante gestorben. 

" *Der Schmerz ist positiv!' sprach der Meister gelassen. 

**Und nun drehte er rückwärts. Der Schmerz ließ nach. 
Es durchströmte mich, wie ein groBes unerwartetes Glück. Es 
war, als hätte mir die Selige eine halbe Million vermacht. 

*' 'Die Freude ist negativ!' erklärte der Meister, indem er 
die Seelenschraube wieder an ihren Platz stellte." 

Noch ganz schopenhauerisch gedacht ist dabei allerdings, daB 
der Schmerz positiv, die Lust negativ nur ein Nachlassen des 
Schmerzes sei. Ebenso der Pessimismus im Hinblick auf die 
menschlichen Motive, die als rein egoistisch fast im ganzen Buch 
dargestellt werden; ja es wird dies noch ganz besonders betont 
durch die Psycho- Analyse zweier Menschen, die zuerst einen 
äusserst edlen Eindruck machen. 

''Während ich noch hierüber nachdachte, fiel mir plötzlich 
was ein. Soviel Wunderbares und Herrliches mir nämlich bisher 
auch begegnet war, ein wahrhaft guter Mensch war mir nicht 
vorgekommen. Nicht, daB ich mich so recht herzlich danach 
gesehnt hätte ; es war nur der Vollständigkeit wegen. 

"Wie ich munkeln hörte, sollte einer da und da, Hausnum- 
mer so und so, gleich draufien vor der Stadt leben; ein auffäl- 
liger Menschenfreund, dem der Besitz eine Last sei und das 
Verteilen ein Bedürfnis, und ich beeilte mich, ihm sofort einen 
heimlichen Besuch abzustatten. 

"Er hatte grad von der Heerstrasse, die vor seiner Türe 
vorüberführte, fünf das Land durchstreifende Wanderer her- 
eingeholt. 'Brüder!' so sprach er mild. 'Tut, als ob ihr zu 
Hause wäret.' Wir wollen aUe gleich viel haben. 

"Die Fremden zeigten sich einverstanden. Man aß gemein- 
sam, man trank gemeinsam, man rauchte gemeinsam, und was 
die Stiefel anlangt, so wurde freudig beschlossen, daß sie in der 
Früh gemeinsam geputzt werden sollten. 

"Hier fing der Maurerpolier, einer der vier Gäste, wieder 
an, sich zu räuspern und sagte, ja, das wäre wohl so, aber jetzt 



72 Univeriity of California PuhHoatians in Modem Phüology. [VoL 2 

sollte er sich mal draufien unter 's Fenster stellen, und dann 
woUten sie ihm mal richtig auf den Kopf spucken und wollten 
mal zusehen, ob der Herr Bruder noch stolz sei. 

"Der Menschenfreund, dem inzwischen noch eine vierte 
Träne in 's Auge getreten, zeigte sich abgeneigt. 

"Als das die fünf Brüder bemerkten und sahen, daß er sich 
sträuben wollte, f aBte ihn einer von hinten am Hosenbund und 
zog dran, bis die Waden unten zum Vorschein kamen, und so 
führten sie ihn rings in der Stube herum und lieBen ihn 'stolz 
gehen,' wie sie es nannten, und dann hielten sie ihn horizontal 
in der Schwebe und trugen ihn auf den Hausflur, und dann 
zählten sie eins, zwei, drei, indem sie ihn pendulieren lieBen, 
und bei drei flog er zum Tore hinaus und tat einen günstigen 
Fall in warmen Spinat und erschreckte eine Euh, die sich hier 
einen Augenblick verweilt hatte, und als er so dalag, rannen ihm 
die angesammelten vier Tränen auf einmal aus den Augen heraus, 
und schimpfen tat er auch. Daraus, daS er letzteres tat, sah 
ich nur zu deutlich, daß er doch kein recht guter Mensch war. — 
Wer der (Gerechtigkeit folgen will durch dick und dünn, mufi 
lange Stiefel haben. Habt Ihr welche 1 Habe ich welche T Ach, 
meine Lieben! Lasset uns mit den Köpfen schütteln."^* 

Und nun zu dem zweiten guten Menschen : 

"Der nicht unbeleibte Besitzer, eben der zweite gute Mensch, 
gab eine Mark für die äußere Mission und fünfzig Pfennige für 
die innere. Nachdem er dies getan und der KoUektant sich 
entfernt hatte, verfiel er in Schwermuth. *Ich bin zu gut. Ich 
bin viel zu gut!' rief er seufzend und war ganz gerührt über 
sich selber wegen seiner fast strafbaren Herzensgüte."*® 

Klarer kann man die Skepsis an der Güte menschlicher 
Triebe nicht dokumentieren, und doch finden wir verschiedent- 
lich eine Oberwindung des Pessimismus : 

Wie liegt die Welt so frisch und tauig 

Vor mir im Morgensonnenschein. 
Entzückt vom hohen Hügel schau ich 

Ins frühlingsgrüne Tal hinein. 



7» Eduards Traum. 

80 Vergl. hiezu übrigens auch Hartleben, "Ein wahrhaft guter Mensch,'' 
worin dieselbe Idee erörtert wird. 



1910] Winther: Wühelm BwcK 73 

Mit allen Kreaturen bin ich 

In schönster Seelenharmonie, 

Wir sind verwandt, ich fühl' es innig, 

Und eben darum lieb ich sie. 

Und wird auch mal der Himmel grauer; 

Wer voll Vertraun die Welt besieht, 
Ben freut es, wenn ein Begenschauer 

Mit Sturm und Blitz vornber2ieht.>i 

Hier ist die Opposition gegen den Pessimismus ästhetischer 
Natur. Das Schauen der grofien Zusammenhänge hebt ihn in 
stolzer Eünstlerbegeisterung über die kleinlichen (Gemeinheiten 
des Alltags. An anderer Stelle ist es die Beaktion einer derben 
Lebenslust, besonders in den früheren Werken. 

Manchmal änden wir bei Busch Worte von eigener Gelas- 
senheit, die aber nicht der Ausdruck einer unbedingten Lebens- 
vemeinung sind, sondern nur der Extrakt einer durch eine trübe 
Weltanschauung und herbe Erlebnisse geklärten Seele. So bei 
der folgenden symbolischen Elegie auf die Vergänglichkeit, in 
der ohne ein Wort der Erklärung tiefisinnige und ergreifende 
Gedanken suggeriert werden. 

AUF WTEDBESEHEN. 

leh schnürte meinen Banzen 

Und kam eu einer Stadt, 
Allwo es mir im Gbinzen 

Beeht gut gefallen hat. 

Nur eines macht beklommen, 

So freundlich sonst der Ort: 
Wer heute angekommen, 

Geht morgen wieder fort. 

Bekränzt mit Trauerweiden, 

Vorüber zieht der Fluß, 
Den jeder beim Verscheiden 

Zuletzt passieren mufi. 

Wohl dem, der ohne Grauen, 

In Liebe treu bewährt, 
Zu jenen dunklen Auen 

Getrost hinüber fährt. 



•1 Schein und Sein S. 64. 



74 Univenity of CaUforma PubUeation$ t» Modem PhOology. [YoL 2 



Zwei Blinde, müd vom Wandern, 

Sah ich am Ufer stehn, 
Der eine sprach zum andern: 

Leb wohl, auf Wieder8ehn.ss 

Eigentümlich, dafi dieses feine, weiche Element, wie es auch 
in obigem Gtedicht zum Ausdruck kommt, wenigstens bei dem 
Dichter erst in den allerletzten Werken zu bemerken ist; wohl, 
daß es mit den Jahren erst ganz gereift wurde; denn in seinen 
Briefen an Marie Andersen klingt es erst an. Waren jene 
Verse, die von Innigkeit, Liebe, Schwermut erfüllt sind, schon 
in der früheren Periode geschrieben T Oder mufite die Zeit erst 
diese Fähigkeit von Busch entwickeln? Oder war die Fähigkeit 
schon früher entwickelt, mufite aber aus Scheu vor sich selbst 
oder dem Publikum oder aus wer weifi welchem Grunde brach 
liegen T Das mir bekannte Material genügt nicht, um hier zu 
einem Schlufi zu kommen. Am wahrscheinlichsten scheint mir, 
dafi das weiche, zarte Element in Busch' Persönlichkeit durch 
den Spötter, der sich keine Blöße vor dem Publikum geben 
woUte, lange drunten gehalten wurde, wie er möglicherweise aus 
demselben Grunde seine Person vor der Welt versteckte, sobald 
diese ihn durch ihre Aufmerksamkeiten belästigte; ja, dafi das 
zynische und brutale Element bei weitem nicht so stark heraus- 
gearbeitet worden wäre, hätte Busch seine Sensitivität nicht 
hinter seinen Zynismen verbergen woUen. Was Busch' Pessi- 
mismus betrifft, so scheint mir auch dieser mit seiner Empfind- 
samkeit zusammen zu hängen, vielleicht, dafi er, hin- und herge- 
gezerrt zwischen Lebensgenufi und Ekel, Liebe zur und Abscheu 
vor der Menschheit, doch die Sache als korrekter Denker theo- 
retisch wenigstens hatte abtun woUen und daher, wiederum mit 
von seiner Empfindsamkeit bestimmt, Schopenhauer zu seinem 
Philosophen gemacht hatte, obgleich dieser nur der einen Seite 
seines Wesens entsprach. 

Ähnliche Motive möchten dem in den früheren Werken im- 
mer zur Schau getragenen Mangel an Ehrfurcht zu Grunde 



83 Zu guter Letzt. 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm Busch. 75 

liegen : Es war ihm wohl peinlich, vor einem gröBeren Publikum 
etwas Pathetisches sehen zu lassen. 

In den Briefen, die an die Freundin gerichtet, wohl ein wahr- 
eres Licht auf sein Inneres werfen, als die für die Öffentlichkeit 
bestimmten Werke, ist er häufig, wie auch in den späteren Wer- 
ken, von einer hohen Philosophie begeistert und sucht diese Be- 
geisterung nicht hinter jener humoristischen Komik zu ver- 
stecken, die ihm sonst gelegentlich den Anschein gibt, als nähme 
er sich selbst nicht recht ernst. Der Humor läfit ihn allerdings 
auch hier nicht im Stich, aber es ist ein Humor, wie wir ihn 
z. B. bei dem Propheten Carlyle finden, ein Humor, der wie ein 
heftiger Kontrast den Ernst der Auffassung um so mehr her- 
vorhebt, da er zeigt, wie selbst das Banale für ihn von mächtigen 
GManken durchdrungen ist. Es ist die Liebe zum All, zum 
Größten wie zum Greringsten, die sich schon in den Briefen, aber 
ganz besonders bei dem alten Busch nicht mehr verstecken läßt. 

Während nun die pantheistischen Stimmungen schon früher 
vorhanden sind, ist anderes in den letzten Werken ganz neu: 
so einige schwermütige Klänge, die uns zeigen, daß Busch trotz 
hohen Alters die Schmiegsamkeit seiner Seele nicht verlor, ja 
noch mit den modernsten Lyrikern zu wetteifern vermochte.*' 

BÖS UND GUT. 

Wie kam ich nur aus jenem Frieden 

In^BWeltgetösf 
Was einst vereint, hat sieh geschieden, 

Und das ist bös. 

Nun bin ich nicht geneigt zum Geben, 

Nun heißt es: Nimm! 
Ja, ich muB töten, um zu leben. 

Und das ist schlimm. 

Doch eine Sehnsucht blieb zurücke, 

Die niemals ruht. 
Sie zieht mich heim zum alten Glücke, 

Und das ist gut.»« 



»Auch das schon früher besprochene Gedicht ''Auf Wiedersehen" 
gehört durch seine eigene Musik hierher. 

9«FaUs das Gedicht aus einer früheren Periode stammen soUte, so 
wäre Busch unter die Bahnbrecher der modernen Lyrik zu rechnen. 



76 Univ&rsity of California PübUeatiom in Modem Phüology. [YoL 2 



unwillkürlich fragt man sich, ist das noch der Dichter des 
''Pater Pilucius" und der ''frommen Helene"? Und obgleich 
Busch erst jetzt jene seltsam süBen Klänge in schweren Akkor- 
den zu modulieren weiß, ist er doch immer noch der alte Zyniker 

geblieben : 

LEIDEBI 

So ist's in alter Zeit gewesen, 

So ist es, furcht ich, aueh noch heut. 
Wer nicht besonders auserlesen, 

Dem macht die Tugend Schwierigkeit. 

Aufsteigend mufit Du Dich bemühen, 

Doch ohne Mühe sinkest Du. 
Der liebe Gk>tt muS immer ziehen, 

Dem Teufel fiUt's von selber za,^ 

Über die feierliche Antike beispielsweise mokiert er sich noch 
genau so wie in der "frommen Helene"; z. B. in "Schein und 
Sein'* und "Eduards Traum.*' 

"unterwegs, als ich bei einer ganz kleinen Insel vorüber kam, 
sah ich mehrere antike Sirenen auf ihren Nestern sitzen; Ihre 
Gesichter waren faltig, wie dem Großvater sein lederner Tabaks- 
beutel, und Stimme hatten sie auch nicht mehr, sondern schnat- 
terten wie die Gänse. Da sie nicht länger, weder durch Gesang, 
noch durch Händewinken und Augenzwinkern, den Schiffer be- 
zaubern konnten, versuchten sie 's vermittelst goldener Eier, die 
sie selber gelegt hatten, und als ich mich auf nichts einließ, 
schmissen sie damit, und ich merkte wohl an einem, welches 
dicht an mir vorüber flog, daß sie nicht echt waren, und freute 
mich, daB mich keins traf, wegen meiner Geringfügigkeit, und 
so erreichte ich wohlbehalten das Festland, ohne verguldet zu 
werden. ' ' 

Auch die Musik hat er noch immer nicht schätzen gelernt : 

GEMABTEBT. 

Ein gutes Tier 

Ist das Klavier 
Still friedlich und bescheiden, 

Und muß dabei 
Doch vielerlei 

Erdulden und erleiden. 



86 Sehein und Sein S. 4. 



1910] . Winther: Wilhelm Bweh. 77 

Der Virtuos 

Stürzt darauf los 
Mit hoehgesträubter M&hne. 

Er öffnet ihm 
YoU Ungestüm 

Den Leib, gleich der Hyäne. 

Und rasend wild, 

Das Herz erfüllt 
Von mörderiseher Freude, 

Durchwühlt er dann, 

Soweit er kann, 
Des Opfers Eingeweide. 

Wie es da schrie. 

Das arme Vieh, 
Und unter Angstgewimmer 

Bald hoch, bald tief 

Um Hülfe rief, 
YergeB ich nie und nimmer.s« 

Selbst der Blitz wird wieder wie im heiligen Antonius ange- 
ulkt mit einer allerliebsten Ünbekümmertheit um das Furchtbare 
der Naturkraft : 

Fritz war ein kecker Junge 
Und sehr geläufig mit der Zunge. 

Einstmals ist er beim Ährenlesen 
DrauSen im Felde gewesen, 
Wo die Weizengarben, je zu zehn. 
Wie Häuslein in der Beihe stehn. 

Ein Wetter zog herauf. 

Da heifit es: Lauf! 

Und flink, wie ein Mäuslein 
Schlüpft er ins nächste Halmenhäuslein. 

Krach I — ^Potztausendnochmal I 

Dicht daneben zündet der Wetterstrahl. 
Ätsch! rief der Junge, der nicht bange. 
Und streckt die Zunge aus, die lange: 

Fehlgeschossen, Herr Blitzt 

Hier safi der FritzlsT 

Und doch gehört Busch zu jenen Weisen, die wie Goethe alles 
verstehen und alles verzeihen, selbst verlogene Poesie, was für 
ihn, den großen Realisten, nicht wenig bedeutet. 

s« Zu guter Letzt. 
•7 Schein und Sein. 



I 



78 University of California Fublicationa in Modem Philology» [YoL 2 



VERZEIHLICH. 

Er ist ein Dichter, also eitel. 

Und, bitte, nehmt es ihm nicht krumm, 
Zieht er aus seinem Lügenbeatel 

So allerlei Brimborium. \ 



4 



Juwelen, Gold und stolze Namen, 

Ein hohes Schlofi im Mondenschein 
Und schöne höchstyerliebte Damen, 

Dies alles nennt der Dichter sein. 

Indessen ist ein enges Stübchen 

Sein ungeheizter Aufenthalt. 
Er hat kein Geld, er hat kein Liebchen, 

Und seine Füfie werden kalt.ss 

Busch betrachtet eben nicht die Einzelerscheinung als solche, 
sondern sieht sie in einem notwendigen Zusammenhang im 
Rhythmus der Unendlichkeit : 

IMMEBFOBT. 

Das Sonnenstäubchen fem im Baume, 

Das Tröpfchen, das im Grase blinkt, 
Das dürre Blättchen, das vom Baume 

Im Hauch des Windes niedersinkt. 

Ein jedes wirkt an seinem Örtchen 

Still weiter, wie es muß and mag, 
Ja selbst ein leises Flüsterwörtchen 

Klingt fort bis an den jüngsten Tag.^ 

Zu diesem Gedicht findet sich auch der ursprüngliche Gtedanke 
in den Briefen, Seite 55: ''Der kleinste Stein, der vom Dach 
fäUt, erschüttert die Welt; aber sein Fall war selber veranlaBt, 
war ein Teil der drängenden Bewegung, welche das All durch- 
wühlt. Wir wühlen mit und Alles muß. 

''Dieser (bedanke zieht sich durch alle Zeiten. Fatum, Präde- 
stination sind ein paar seiner allegorischen Gtewänder. — ^Könnte 
die Kraft, deren Erscheinung das fallende Steinchen ist, in 
Nichts verschwinden, könnte einer ein Loch in die Welt fressen 



M Schein nnd Sein. 
99 Ibidem. 



1910] Winther: Wilhelm Busch, 79 

— ^könnte ein Glied des Kettensystems sich selbst zerreißen — 
rums!! — ^mit einem Ruck müßten Sonne und Planeten und wir 
selbst und der ganze Krempel zusanmienrumpeln und hinunter- 
sausen in den bodenlosen, seligen Abgrund.— Wird's jemals einer 
können Y Sind Alle dazu nötig Y Wird der unruhvoUe Schöpfer 
ermüden und allmählig entschlummern Y So viel scheint fest- 
zustehen : Man ist noch allerseits recht munter ; und 'n richtigen 
Heiligen hat's bis jetzt noch nicht gegeben, sonst hätten wir 's 
gespürt und verhielten uns still. 

''Mit der Versicherung, dass ich in solchen Sachen niemals 
etwas zu wissen behauptete, zeichne ich mich als Ihren gläubigen, 
leider nicht frommen, aber ganz ergebenen W. B." 

Das klingt fast wie Hebbels Tagebücher in humoristischer 
Form. 



i 



UNIVER8ITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBUCATlONS 

IN 

MODERN PHILOLOGY 
Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 81-182 June 30, 191 1 



THE CRITIC8 OF EDMUND 8PEN8ER 



BY 

HEHBEBT £. COBY. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

L Abfiolnte Oritieum. A Foreword 81 

H. The Age of Enthusiami and Spenser-Worahip ~ 89 

HL The Age of Beason and the Bise of Literary Critieinn 98 

IV. The Age of Iiiteiary Anarehy 106 

V. The Neo-Claasical Despotiam 127 

VL The Triumph of BomantioiBm 159 



ABSOLUTE CRITICISM. A POREWORD 

No age, by its own resources alone, can appreciate the many 
sides of a supreme poet. How can we then escai>e f rem the nar- 
rowness of onr times and gain a really large and adequate appre- 
ciation of our Titans Y For some time I have been meditating 
upon an absolute method in criticism — ^a scheme by which our 
own estimate of a poet may be modified and enriehed through 
a study of his eritics in the ages previous to our own. We can- 
not test the poet and our glittering generalities by the superior 
wisdom of unbom generations. But we can subject our ideas to 
a most severe examination in the light of the wisdom of a spacious 
past — a wisdom which I do not think, despite my belief in human 
progress, will be ever improved in fundamentals as long as 



82 üniversity of CaXifomia Fublications in Modem Phüolagy. [YoL 2 

mankind has the fundamental habits of loving, hating, and of 
occasionally enjoying poetry. Spenser, for instance, will be thor- 
oughly appreciated for the first time when we leam what the men 
of consequence in bis own days and since have thougbt of him 
and when we place our own ideas, warped by our times and our 
Personalities, in a proper perspective. But I hear a still, small 
voice saying that eyen this cannot be absolute criticism, that my 
investigations cannot be absolutely exhaustive, that I cannot 
absolutely escape from my own personality. I recognize the 
the presence of this voice, but I scom it. In an age whose chief 
disease is doubt I will not administer to the widespread evil by 
apologizing for the grandiloquence of my phrase — ^absolute 
criticism. Nor am I tormented by the populär disease of the 
academic mind, the absurd worry as to whether my idea of abso- 
lute criticism is old or new. The only thing that disturbs me is 
that absolute criticism, because it involves some dreary citation, 
partakes too much of the nature of the catalogue to be as pleas- 
urable and therefore as profitable as impressionistic criticism. 
Yet I believe that my method has a right to exist as a sister of 
the more artistic method. I purpose, therefore, to recount the 
history of Spenserian criticism and its significance in relation to 
our opinion of Spenser to-day. 

Of the Golden Age of English literature, the Age of Enthu- 
siasm, I will say little, for the moment, because it is well under- 
stood by all lovers of good English books. Volcanic floods of 
rhetoric on the subject now harden and glisten in countless 
volumes. It is enough to remember that in the spacious days of 
Queen Elizabeth Shakespeare made the splendors of English 
history move in a vast, heroic pageant across a little wooden 
stage. It was the age of Spenser-worship because the English 
worshipped everything English. It has long been a populär 
superstition among the ignorant and the leamed that great poets 
are not appreciated in their own day. It is true, as I have said, 
that they are not completely appreciated, but nothing could be 
more ill-supported by evidence than the notion that they are not 
appreciated by contemporaries within certain limits. It is true 



1911] Cory: The Critics of Edmund Spenser, 83 

that the world often allows a great poet to go threadbare because 
the World has a disgusting habit of being loth to pay for 
what it can get free. But the world is always liberal in the 
appreciation of great poets, even in their own age. As a matter 
of faet, poets are generally more heartily if less shrewdly appre- 
ciated in their own day than later. Shakespeare, for instance, 
when we make due allowanee for the f reer intercourse of nations 
and the increase of eheap editions and text-books was mueh more 
widely appreeiated in his own day than in this. He is a fairly 
popnlar poet now except with certain critics who have grown 
ashamed of our sturdy English worship and who point out, with 
breathless psendo-radicalism, the faults that we all have long 
known and indulgently loved. For thousands he is a delectable 
bündle of aphorisms. Whether the words are taken from the 
mouth of Desdemona or lago, Hamlet or Polonins, they are 
quoted as Scripture with that damnable label, ** Shakespeare 
says — ". But compare with these days when Shakespeare is occas- 
ionally **revived" on the stage the times when Shakespeare was i^ 
living force in the theatres, when he was talked about in the 
adjoining stews, when his words held fine nobles and dirty 
apprentices, when, despite the jealousies of the craft, he was 
loved by many a feUow-writer. Take another example. For a 
long time the misanthrope could teil us, with cloudy brow, how 
insigniöcant was the f ame of Milton in his own day. But recent 
scholarship has dispelled the fantasy. Provided that a poet is 
supreme, provided that his worth is dazzlingly undeniable, the 
world has always been ready to nourish a starving poet with 
appreciation to the choking point. Now Phineas Fletcher wrote a 
rhetorical alexandrine about Spenser which nins : 

**Poorly — ^poore man — ^he liv'd; poorly — poore man — he di'd" 

And Ben Jonson, when he was delightfuUy sour and fantastical, 
told Drummond wild tales of Spenser 's poverty and misery. 
Many more spread the myths. Hence some students of English 
literature have taken it for granted that Spenser was of little 
consequence to his contemporaries. Whether Spenser could rea- 
sonably complain to his empty purse is a matter which biogra- 



84 Univertiiy of QUifarwia PfthUeations in Modem PhiMogy. [YoL 2 

phers have yet to settle. But I will ahow presently that it was 
the age of Si>en8er-worship as it was the age of worship of all 
things English. 

Then came the Age of Reason, and England developed a real 
literary criticism f or the first time. When we find Davenant and 
others complaining about certain def ects in the Faerie Queens we 
must not say, as some have said, that Spenser had fallen into the 
hands of the Philistines. We must ask ourselves whether these 
censors had not just cause f or eomplaint and whether their appre- 
ciation, if less wildly enthusiastic, was not more true for all time. 
Of course we cannot date the Age of Beason or any other age. 
We can only say vaguely that Ben Jonson of the rocky face and 
mountain belly stood like a rock of reason in the very midst of 
the turbulent ocean of enthusiasm, scarred, sullen, but immov- 
able, a prophet of the age at band. We can only say that by 
about the middle of the seventeenth Century the seas of enthus- 
iasm were stagnant and the rock of reason stood dominant but not 
triumphant. For reason has no feelings and therefore never 
triumphs. England needed an Age of Reason to develop literary 
criticism as an art. And many of the words written about 
Spenser in those days will enrich our appreciation of the master. 

But England had to pay the inevitable penalty for her Age 
of Beason. When reason comes in at the window faith is rather 
likely to fiy out at the door. I think we may better understand 
the currents of English literature in the latter half of the seven- 
teenth Century if we call it the Age of Literary Anarchy. We 
can understand if we think for a moment of our own age. The 
Bomantic Age was a time of great faiths. Now if mankind is to 
progress all faiths must be tried in the balance. So we had a 
Victorian Age of reason and doubt. Now we have an age of 
intellectual anarchy. It is a breach of decorum now to try to 
believe less than five conflicting theories at once. It is unpardon- 
able to suppose that theory and practice have the remotest rela- 
tions. Science has destroyed religion, we wail. But never was 
the World so fuU of creeds, innumerable variations of Chris- 
tianity, the worship of mankind, the worship of the superman, 



1911] Cory: The Critios of Edmund Spenser, 85 

the worship of the Unknown Qod, neo-paganism, the religion of a 
literary man, the religion of an nndergraduate, the religion of 
the free-thinking proprietor of a conntry grocery störe. We have 
a magnificent choice. We preach democraey and practice 
oligarchy. We believe in socialism after a fragal breakf ast and 
after an eight-conrse dinner we call it twaddle. Never was the 
hnman mind in a more active and a more healthy State. So it 
was at the elose of the seventeenth Century. **Hallelujah!" 
shouted the Elizabethans. ''Bat hold/' murmured the ration- 
alists. After that, the deluge. There was the same confusion in 
theories of literature that there was in politics. There was the 
same deafening discord in matters religious. Dryden, as we 
shall see, epitomizes the age. I should like to cast a vote for 
Dryden's much-debated sincerity. Men changed creeds, literary, 
political, and religious, every day not only for reasons of policy 
but because they could not honestly cling long to one faith. A 
man dogmatized on page one and roundly contradicted himself on 
page two because it was an age of anarchy. There was a score of 
schooLs, sometimes sharply separated, sometimes overlapping. We 
often talk of our Augustan Age as though it was established by 
Waller or Denham or Dryden. But before the eighteenth Cen- 
tury, classicism in England struggled desperately for a bare 
ezistence against a horde of f oes. Even in the days of Pope, clas- 
sicism never attained the splendid perf ection and unity that we 
find in France when Racine and Boileau reigned. And before 
Pope what a riot there was! Think of Henry More and the 
Cambridge Platonists losing a noble cause against Hobbes and 
the materiaHsts. Think of Bunyan, inconsistency incamate, with 
his intense hopes and fears, at the beck and call of the least mood 
of the moment. It was the age when Locke could write that man 
**must not be in love with an opinion, or wish it to be true, until 
he knows it to be so, and then he will not need to wish it. '' Mil- 
ton, in his maturest days, kept scomfully aloof f rom the restless 
yeas and nays of the age and chose his ideals with calm, sure 
certainty. Samuel Butler, a child of the age, sought cheap 
refuge f rom the bewildering maze of opinions in indiscriminate 
mockery. Dryden, another child of the age, groped about like all 



86 Univer»ity of California Fublications in Modem Philology, [Vol. 2 

the otherSy hesitated, prof essed, recanted, dallied with neo-classi- 
cism, almost retumed to Elizabethanism, and at last struggled to 
a Position not as high as Milton's but above his age and the next. 
Lyric poets like Sedley and Rochester showed the complete 
Pyrrhonism of the age by their attitude toward love. Love could 
bring them no Yita Nuova, no white faith to lead them to the 
fnlfillment of vast enterprise. It was their lot to write of false 
love or love whieh they knew to be already on the wing. Cowley, 
Sprat, Waller, Dryden, and others convened to form an Academy 
that would dispel the murky anarehy in letters. But nothing 
came of it. 

Then came the Augustan Despotism. Wise scholars are 
slowly and painfully teaching us to appreciate how much the neo- 
classicists did for England when they finally brought a faith to 
the tortured sceptics and the hundred jarring sects. But it will 
take time to right the wrongs inflicted by the great Bomanticists 
in their splendid youth. For Eeats wrote of the Augustans : 

"Yes, a Bcism 
Nurtured by foppery and barbarism, 
Made great Apollo blush for this his land. 
Men were thought men who could not understand 
His glories: with a puling infant's force 
They sway'd about upon a rocking horse, 
And thought it Pegasus. Ah dismal soul'dt 
The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roU'd 
Its gathering waves — ye feit it not. The blue 
Bar'd its eternal bosom, and the dew 
Of Summer nights eoUected still to make 
The morning precious; beauty was awakel 
Why were ye not awakef But ye were dead 
To things ye knew not of, — were closely wed 
To musty laws lined out with wretched rule 
And compass vile: so that ye taught a school 
Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip, and fit, 
Till, like the certain wands of Jacob 's wit, 
Their verses tallied. Easy was the task; 
A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask 
Of Poesy. Hl-fated, impious racel 
That blasphem 'd the bright Lyrist to his face, 
And did not know it, — no, they went about, 
Holding a poor, deerepid Standard out 
Mark'd with most flimsy mottos, and in large 
The name of one Boileaul" 



1911] Cory: The Critics of Edmund Spenser. 87 

Of course there is much truth in this glorious abuse. Neverthe- 
less we are beginning to see that af ter all the Augustans were not 
heavy villains but very useful ancestors. Their apologists, how- 
ever, still make the mistake of thinking that they are not worth 
while nnless they contain some Symptoms of romanticism, real 
er faneied. Too much current seholarship on eighteenth Century 
England is a mad scramble in search of romanticism. I would 
try to prove how much the Augustans, with their purely classi- 
cal ideals, have done for a fuUer appreciation of Spenser if we 
would only listen to them. 

But the principles of Augustanism, in their turn, served 
their purpose, were distrusted, and flung aside. Then came the 
Triumph of Romanticism. I do not need to rhapsodize the great 
days of the new faith. In spite of the pasteboard dragons, real- 
ism, science, commercialism, romanticism still flourishes and is, 
in some aspects, even a menace. Poe, in his sonnet on science, 
Yoiced a thought still populär when he accused the men of scal- 
pels and acids of driving the faun f rom the forest, the light of 
romance f rom men 's eyes. As a matter of f act the romanticists, 
whatever they may have said by way of theory, have developed a 
highly organized method that may be often quite accurately 
termed Scientific Romanticism. Sometimes the romanticist 
makes of himself a delicately adjusted machine with works of 
f airy f railty that responds to the least shadow of a Sensation and 
records it with painf ul accuracy. Hair is no longer merely golden 
to the eyes of the romanticist. **A citron colour gloomed in her 
hair." And man no longer merely rejoices. He is said to suflfer 
in some glorious agony of delight. Like the Seismograph which 
registers to the watching scientist the least tremor of the earth, 
this sensation-loving Scientific Romanticist, with body and soul 
magnetized to the point of disease, shudders exquisitely and lux- 
uriously at the most dim adumbration of a feeling. Sometimes 
the romanticists have practically taken over the realistic methods 
of Zola. But instead of examining all human nature in a 
scientist 's laboratory, as Zola advocates, they have confined them- 
selves to an elaborate vivisection of the ego. Too often we mis- 



88 Unwertity of CaUfamia PubUeatUm$ in Modem TMUAogy. [Yol. 2 

U8e Spenser, who projected vaster, sauer things, as a mere pictore- 
gallery, a mere bündle of imr^^nlated emotions, an exotic drag to 
f eed an already over-developed part of onr organisms. Bat we 
are not as decadent as our Jeremiahs and even some of onr poets 
themselves wonld have ns believe. When our poets are disceming 
enough to nse the materials instead of the methods of science, 
when they abandon themselves to the magnificent f airy-land of 
the crowded skies, of a liehen, which the scientists have given ns 
in place of the already outwom f airy-land that they took away, 
then tmly onr poets walk erect. Like reckless nature, we indnlge 
in a princely waste of energy and hopes and f ears. Something 
¥dll come of onr snperb restlessness. How mnch poorer were the 
Elizabethans in source of inspiration with only Drake, Frobisher, 
and the round world to fire their sense of mystery I 

By a study of all the critics who have feit these mighty cur- 
rents of thought which I have sketched with such impertinent 
brevity we ought to come, f or the first time, to a füll apprecia- 
tion of Spenser. 



1911] Cory: The Cr%tio8 of Sdmund Spenser. 89 



II 

THE AGB OP ENTHUSIASM AND SPENSEE-WORSHIP 

I have said that Spenser 's day was aglow with ardent faifh 
in everything English and therefore with Spenser-worship. At 
the very outset, The Shepheards Calender was acclaimed with a 
füll Chorus of idolatrous panegyries. There were those who de- 
mnrred at praising The Faerie Queene. Gabriel Harvey was, 
for the moment, pnrblind with his plethora of eccentric dassi- 
cism. Poets like Michael Drayton and Phineas Fletcher, to whom 
The Shepheards Calender was not a cold pastoral but an inti- 
mate song of youth's joys and sorrows and aspirations, of the 
delightfol miseries of calf-love, preferred their master's maiden 
effort nntil matnrity taught them to f eel the sultry splendour 
and the more impersonal note of The Faerie Queene. A belated 
and perhaps solitary relic of this opinion appears in 1679 in Dr. 
Samuel Woodford 's preface to his Legend of Lave, a translation 
of the Caniicles. Woodford was no obscure eccentric outside the 
literary circles of his day. In his Epoda to the Legend of Love, 
moreover, he used the stanza of The Faerie Queene and borrowed 
from the allegorical lore of the epic. But in spite of the good 
divine's religiosity he could not refrain from expressing a boyish 
preference for the work of Spenser 's dawn, and his devotion to 
the love of Gtod did not keep him from sharing with Spenser a 
keen interest in Bosalind, the widow's scomful daughter of the 
Glen. The Shepheards Calender has been justly classed by Mr. 
Schelling with the Arcadia and the Euphues as being one of the 
greatest contemporary influences. It is difficult for us, among 
whom formal pastorals have f aUen into disrepute, to understand 
how the light of this first great poem of modern England dilated 
the eyes of those who were hungering for a countryman with a 
poet's insight. And those who do realize the immense popularity 
of the poem are too apt to attribute it merely to the flow of easy 



90 University of California Fuhlications in Modem Phüology, [Vol. 2 

melody, the variety and perf ection of form. But to young men, 
poets and lovers, in the age of Elizabeth, The Shepheards Galen- 
der, despite its so-called artificiality, was a scripture to meditate 
upon. Those who were less enthusiastic at first about Tke Faerie 
Queene were, in the main, those who wished to hear more about 
Colin and his fortunes with Rosalind. Even Harvey, lost in 
learned meditations over the introduetion of classieal prosody 
into Englishy feit the same mood. 

"CoUyn, I See, by thy new taken taske, 
Some sacred fory kath enrieht thy braynes, 
That leades thy muse in haughty verse to maske, 
And loath the layee that longg to lowly swaynes; 
That lifts thy notes from Shepheardes unto kinges: 
So like the lively Larke that mounting singes. 

''Thy lovely Bosalinde seems now forlorne, 
And aU thy gentle flockes forgotten quight: 
Thy chaunged hart now holdes thy pypes in scome, 
Those prety pypes that did thy mates delight: 
Those trusty mates, that loved thee so well; 
Whom thou gav'st mirth, as they gave thee the bell.''i^ 

But those whose enthusiasm for Spenser's personal confessions 
made them at first reluctant to see him retire to the heights of the 
epie poet, came forward, almost without exception, a little later, 
with the highest praise. And their hesitant protests had already 
been lost in a storm of laudation with which others had weleomed 
the poet 's masterpiece. Even Harvey, though he has been always 
recorded as a most uneompromising enemy of The Faerie Queene, 
appears, on investigation, to have recanted. 

The relations of Spenser and Harvey have not been carefuUy 
stated. It is probable that we have been overestimating the influ- 
enae of the seif -made dictator on the young poet. It is true that 
Spenser revered Harvey. He did not, however, share unre- 
servedly his would-be mentor's enthusiasm for classieal metres 
in English ; his own experiments seem to have been f ew and the 
product of almost whimsical moments. He made restrictions on 



1 Verse bj Harvej, To the learned Shepheard, prefixed to the first three 
books of The Faerie Queene when pnblished in 1590. 



1911] Cory: The Critics of Edmund Spenser. 91 

classical metres in a letter to Harvey where he shows one of his 
f ew glimmerings of humour. 

''For the onely or Chief est hardness; whjche seemeth, is in the 
aecente; whieh sometime gapeth, and, as it were yawneth illflavouredly, 
eomming shorte of that it should, and Bometimes exceeding the measure 
of the Number, as in Garpenter the middle sillable, being nsed shorte in 
speache, when it shall be read long in Verse, seemeth like a lame Gosling 
that draweth one legge after her; and Heaven being used shorte as one 
sillable, when it is in Verse stretehed out with a Diastole, is like a lame 
Dogge that holds up one legge. Bat it is to be wonne with Castome and 
rough words must be subdued with use." 

And it is to be observed that all Spenser's real efforts were being 
spent on poems that bristled with rhymes. By 1580, at a time 
when Harvey 's star was still in the aseendant, Spenser had at 
least begun work on his Faerie Queene, Harvey, to be sure, had 
mostly golden words for his friend. He liked the Dreams **pass- 
ingly well" because **they savour of that singular extraordinarie 
veine and invention which I ever fancied moste, and in a manner 
admired onely in Lucian, Petrarche, Aretine, Pasquila." He 
gave his younger brother ''a certaine famous Book called the 
newe Shepheardes Calender" telling him to make WiUye's and 
Thomalin's emblems in March into English verse. Above all, in 
his address to the reader in The First Booke of the Preservation 
of King Henry VII, though he is praising classical metres and 
poets, he adds: 

' ' Nevertheless I confesse and acknowledge we have many singular 
good poets in this our age .... whom I reverence in that kind of prose 
rhythme [viz. rhyming]; wherein Spenser (without offense spoken) hath 
surpassed them all." 

It is not even safe to follow the beaten path of the historians 
of English literature and set down Harvey as the enemy of The 
Faerie Queene. It is trae that his first attitude was cold. The 
strictures in his famous letter to Spenser are a commonplace of 
Quotation. 

"To be plaine, I am voyde of all judgement if your nine Gomoedies 
.... eome not neerer Ariostoes Gomoedies eyther for the fineness of 
plausible eloeution or the rareness of Poetieal Invention, than that elvish 
queene doth to his 'Orlando Furioso'.''^ 



2 Harvey 's letter of April 7, 1580. Spenser eertainly could not have 
gone far with The Faerie Queene thus early. 



92 Univeraiiy of CaUfamia Publieation9 in Modem Phüology. [Yol. 2 

Hifl commendatory verses, with their ^rudging praise of the new 
poem and their regret f or the abandoned vein of paatoral poetry, 
have already been transcribed. On the other hand we find a 
manuscript note in his own writing in his copy of Gascoigne's 
Certain Notes of Instruction which shows a dear appreciation of 
the stanza of The Faerie Queene. To Gkiscoigne's adviee, ''To 
hold the jnst measure wherewith you begin youp verse," Harvey 
added : **The diflerence of the last verse from the rest in everie 
stanza, a grace in the 'Faerie Queene'."* In the New Letter of 
notable Contents (1593) there is a more general Statement that 
certainly is not reconcilable with Harvey 's earlier animadver- 
sions: **0r is not the verse of M. Spencer in his brave Faery 
Queene the Yirginall of the divinest Muses and gentlest GracesY" 

Among Spenser's other friends Sidney's generous praise is a 
matter of both f act and tradition. In his Apology for Poesie he 
saw in the anonymous author of The Shepheards Calender a great 
poet in an age of little achievement, although he disapproved of 
''that same framing of his stile to an old rustick language." 
Tradition, too, has it that the terrible picture of Despair, in the 
ninth canto of the örst book of The Faerie Queene, opened the 
fioodgates of Sidney's generous praise and loosened the tasseis 
of his purse. 

Nor were the earlier Elizabethan eritics who were less elosely 
connected with the poet less enthusiastic. William Webbe, in his 
Discourse of EngUsh Poetrie (1586), is füll of enthusiasm for 
the new poet. He longed for the appearance of the Dreames, 
Legends, Court of Cupid, and the prose English Poet, He depre- 
ciated English poetry in general but judged Spenser not inferior 
to Theocritus and Yirgil. In his remarks on eclogues, after prais- 
ing Theocritus and Virgil and after approving of Chaucer with 
qualifications, he remarks : 

''But nowe yet at the last hath England hatehed uppe one Poet of 
this Sorte, in my eonscience eomparable with the best in any respeet; 
even Master Spenser." 



s Quoted by Professor E. P. Morton in <'The History of the Spenserian 
Stanza before 1700," Modem Phüology, IV, no. 4, April, 1907. 



Idll] Cory: The Crities of Edmwnä Spenser. 93 

Again: 

''What one thing is there in them so worthy admiration whereunto 
we may not adjoyne something of his of eqnall desert. ' ' 

Thomas Nashe, in his preface to Oreene's Menaphon (1589), in 
which he heartily championed the glory of English poetry, held 
f orth in praise of Spenser with his cnstomary exuberance. 

''And shoold the challenge of deepe eoneeit be intended by any 
foireiner to bring our English wits to the tutchstone of Arte, I woold 
preferre diyine Master Spenser, the mirade of wit to bandie line f or line 
for my lifo in the honor of England, gainst Spaine, France, Italie, and 
all the worlde. ' ' 

When he dedieated his Christs Tears over Jerusalem to Lady 
Elizabeth Carey, the highest compliment he could pay was that 
'* Farnes eldest favourite, Maister Spencer, in all his writings hie 
prizeth you." Puttenham, or the author of The Art of English 
Poesie (1859), mentions ''that other gentleman who wrote the 
late Shepheards Callender" among the English poets to be com- 
mended. Soon all England shared Nashe's sublime faith in the 
native poets. Francis Meres wrote his Palladis Tamia (1598) to 
prove them the peers of the singers of all the world. Conceming 
Spenser he uttered a stately pageant of elaborate compliments : 

"As Sextus Propertius said 'nescio quid magis nascitur Iliade': so I 
say of Spenser 's If'airy Queene, I know not what more ezcellent or 
exquisite poem may be written.'' 

In his remarks on the epic poets he declared : 

''As Homer and Vergil among the Oreeks and Latins are the Chief e 
Heroie Poets: So Spenser and Warner be our ehiefe heroieall makers.'' 

Spenser, it seems, was perf ect in everything : 

"As Pindarus, Anaereon, and Callimachus among the Oreeks, and 
Horaee and Catullus among the Latines are the best Lyriek poets; so in 
this faeulty the best among our poets are Spenser (who excelleth in all 
kinds), Daniel, Drayton, Shakespere and Breton. ... As Theoeritus in 
Greek, Virgil and Mantuan in Latine, Sanazar in Italian and the 
Anthour of Amintae Gaudia and Walsingham's Melibaeus are the best 
for Pastorall, so amongst us the best in this kind are Sir Philip Sidney, 
Master Ghallener, Spenser, Stephen Gössen, Abraham Fraunce and Barne- 
fleld." 

This is typical work of the Age of Enthusiasm. Unbounded 
faith in Spenser, appreciation of Shakespeare, Drayton, and 



94 University of CcUifamia Publioaiians in Modem Phüology. [Vol. 2 

Daniel is accompanied by a grotesque lack of discrimination in 
citing such names as those of Fraunce and Oosson without a 
smile. We can see from the literary swashbuckling of men like 
Nashe and Meres what England had to leam before literaiy 
criticism became an art and what a rare world of fine frenzy 
England had to lose to buy her discrimination. 

We can touch upon but a f ew of the more interesting poems in 
the torrent which sang the praises of Spenser. Samuel Daniel 
requires special attention. In one of the best known sonnets to 
Delia, Daniel had cried somewhat scomfully : 

"Let others sing of knights and paladins 
In ag6d accents and untimely words." 

This has often been plausibly assumed to be a reference to The 
Faerie Queene. In consequence some have thought that Daniel 
did not reciprocate Spenser 's kindly admiration.* But it is easy 
to show that Daniel had the same rapturous faith that stirred 
Nashe and Meres to intemperate eloquence. . In his Dedication of 
Cleopatra he lamented that England is bounded by the ocean and 
longed that her songs might be known to other nations. 

"Whereby Great Sidney and our Spenser might 
With those Po Singers being equalled, 
Enchant the World with aneh a sweet Delight 
That their eternal Songs forever read, 
May shew what great Elisa 's Beign hath bred. ' ' 

Michael Drayton's weighty Epistle to Henry Reynolds of Poets 
and Poesie should be always remembered as a piece of remark- 
ably acute criticism at a time when national self-confidence and 
the spirit of eulogy ran so high that literary criticism was prac- 
tically impossible. Drayton's estimate of his immediate prede- 
cessors was genial, sympathetic, and extraordinarily shrewd. Por 
Spenser, however, nothing but hallelujahs could be expected from 
his pen. His noble lines are f amous. 

''Grave moral Spenser after these came on, 
Than whom I am persuaded there was none, 
Since the blind bard his Iliads np did make, 
Fitter a task like that to undertake; 
To set down boldly, bravely to invent, 
In all high knowledge snrely ezcellent. ' ' 

«See Colin Clouts Come Home Again, IL 405-416, for Spenser 's kindly 
praise of the younger poet. 



1911] Cory: The Crities of Edmund Spenser, 95 

Joseph Hall, bishop and rough-and-ready satirist, has per- 
plexed more than one critic with what they consider his incon- 
«stent attitade toward Spenser.*^ He has been named as an 
admirer of Spenser, as an enemy of Spenser, as hopelessly, even 
treacherously, inconsistent. But with those who have found him 
at any time hostile lies the bürden of proof . All the definite ref er- 
enees to Spenser laud him. The harsh lines teil no tales and have 
been quoted too often without any explanation of their general 
eontext. A careful examination of Hall 's poems in toto makes 
his attitude perfectly elear. He called himself the first English 
satirist. He believed that the age of creative poetry was at least 
temporarily over. His was the academic or bookish attitude 
common in many ages. The great writers have said it all. What 
is the use oi writing feeble echoes? And to Hall one of the 
supreme writers who had left nothing more to be done was 
Edmund Spenser. In 1597 the disgruntled bishop brought out 
his Yirgidemiarum eontaining six books of satires. As a kind of 
prefaee h^wrote a Defiance of Envy, the seventh^stanza of which 
has offended the admirers of Spenser. He asserted that he did 
not care to 

''.... Sconre the rusted swords of Elvish Knights, 
Bathed in Pagan blood; or sheath them new 
In misty morall Types, or teil their fights, 
Who mightie Giants, or who Monsters slow. 
And by some stränge inchanted speare and shield, 
Vanqaisht their foe, and won the doubtfol field." 

This eertainly seems, by itself , like girding at The Faerie Queene. 
But let US look at the poem as a whole. It begins humbly enough 
with the Statement that the pines of Ida may fear the sudden 
fires of heaven. With his lowly shrubs, in their humble dales, he 
may feel secure. If his muse did attempt to "scoure the rusted 
swords of Elvish Enights, ' ' then Envy might attack him. 

"Bat now such lowly Satyres here I sing, 
Not worth oor Muse, not worth their envying.'' 

sThiiB Dr. Grosart, HäU's Poems ed. Manchester, 1879, p. zvüi: "I 
eannbt help regretting his donble-dealing treatment of Spenser as the most 
nnpleasant alloy of the satires." Thomas Warton, too, (quoted by Grosart, 
ih%d.)y was Tery mneh disturbed over the same problem. Other crities have 
eonTejed even more unfortunate impressions by tearing fragmentary selec- 
tions ineonsiderately from Hall 's references or possible references to 
Spei 



»6 University of CaUfarnia Publioation9 in Modem Phüology, [Vol. 2 

The swords are rusted, then, because there is no Spenser to draw 
them. That is the point. The poem is fall of Spenserian phrases 
and ends with an unmistakable tribute. He dares try no high 
pastoral strain bat 

"At Collin'B feete I throw my yeelding reede." 

It is not possible to ose these lines as evidence that Hall loved 
The Shepheards Calender bat thoaght meanly of The Faerie 
Queene. For elsewhere he writes : 

<'Th' etemall Legends of thy Faerie Mase, 
Benowned Spenser: whom no earthly wight 
Dares onee to emulate, mueh less dares despight 
Salust of France and Tuscan Ariost 
Teeld np the Lawrell garland je have lost: 
And let all others willow wear with me 
Or let their undeserving Temples bared be."* 

It is important to know, moreover, that oar qaotation eloses with 
a vigorous attack on Romantic poems, particularly the Orlando 
Furioso, bat makes carefal exception in the case of Spenser. And 
we should note Hall 's convietion of the fatility of writing new 
poems in emalation of the master. It is the satiety of the bookish 
mind. 

'^Whilome the sisters nine were Vestal maides, 

Now is Pamassus tomed to a stewes 

And on Bay-stocks the wanton Myrtle grewes."^ 

The great poets have written. Times are degenerate. What 
seem like attacks on Spenser generally close with self-abasement. 
So it was with the Defiance of Envy. So we find it in another 
passage that has worried the eritics. 

"Nor Ladies wanton love, nor wandering knight, 
Legend I out in rimes all riehly dight," 



bat 



' * Bather had I, albee in careless rymes, 
Check the mis-ordered world and lawlesse times. ' 's 



This is the eharacteristie attitade of the Jeremiah who thinks 
that all the beaatifal things have been said and that the present 



• Book I, Bat. IV, U. 21 sq. 

7 Book I, Bat. n, IL M8. 

8 Book I, Sat. I, IL 80 sq. 



1911] Cary: The Crities of Edmwnd Spenser. 97 

is diseased. A few lines below he is more specific in self-effaoe- 
ment. 

''Ot if we list [viz. to make lofty songs] what baser muse can bide, 
To (dt and sing by Gxantaes naked sidef 
They haunt the tyded Thames and salt Medway 
£re Binoe the fame of their late Bridall day."^ 

This is evidently a reference to Spenser 's beautiful description 
of the marriage of the Thames and the Medway^® and an expres- 
sion of diffidence. We may complete our citations by quoting 
from Hall 's lines to William Bedell on his poem, Ä Protestant 
Memorial,^^ which are at once imitative of Spenser and a tribute. 

"Willy, thy Bhythms so sweetly mn and rise 
And answers rightly to thy tnneful Bead 

That Collin dying, his Immortal Muse, 
Into thy Leamed Breast did late inf use. ' ' 

It is ridiculous to attempt, in the face of all this, to attack Hall 's 
attitnde toward Spenser. 

We cannot pause over the myriad voices of the other poets 
who threw their garlands at the f eet of the great singer. Every- 
one should know Bamfield's exquisite sonnet, ^'If Music and 
sweete Poetrie agree." Peele, Breton, Browne, Davies, William 
Basse, Francis Beaumont, a legion, glowed with the most gener- 
ous praise. The sweet persuasiveness of some well-known lines 
from The Retum from Parnassus may fitly represent the full- 
ehorused laud. 

"A sweeter swan than ever sang in Po, 
A shriUer nightingale than ever blessed 
The prouder groves of self-admiring Borne t 
Blithe was each valley, and eaeh shepherd proud, 
While he did ehant his mral minstrelsy; 
Attentive was füll many a dainty ear; 
Nay, hearers hung upon his melting tongue, 
While sweetly of his Faerie Queene he sang, 
While to the waters' fall he tun'd his fame." 



• Book I, Sat. I, U. 80 sq. 

10 Faerie Queene, Book IV, Canto 11. 

11 Bedell 's poem is an Imitation of The Shephearde Cälender. 



98 ünivernty of California TublicaiionB in Modem Phiiology. [Vol. 2 



III 

THE AGB OP REASON AND THE RISE OP LITERARY 

CRITICISM 

While the Elizabethans were in the first rapture of self-dis- 
covery, extravagant mutual eulogy was to be expected. But when 
they dropped back to the C-major of this life and rodomontade 
eeased to be the fashion, a genuine literary eriticism was bom. 

Even in the Age of Enthusiasm, Dra3i;on and Hall have been 
Seen to show some critical discrimination. But Ben Jonson's 
burly figure looms largest among the first English writers of 
critical works. Unfortunately he gave us no well-rounded esti- 
mate of Spenser although he was liberal with tantalizing aUus- 
ions. With Spenser 's stanza and diction he was clearly out of 
tune. He told Drummond (Conversatioits, 1619), that ** Spenser 's 
stanzaes pleased him not, nor bis matter ; the meaning of which 
Allegorie he had delivered in papers to Sir Walter Rauglie." 
But Jonson was grumbling almost unintermittently at this 
famous Symposium. And perhaps Drummond tinged bis record 
more deeply with bis own apparent impression of Ben 's perennial 
surliness. Jonson, at all events, had some good words for Spen- 
ser 's matter in bis Discoveries (1625-35 1) . 

"Spenser, in affeeting the Ancients writ no Language. Yet I would 
have him read for his matter, but as Virgil read Ennius." 

The attack on Spenser 's archaisms was promptly caught up by 
subsequent critics.^ In another part of the Discoveries Jonson 
Bsyn, somewhat inconsistently : 

''Words borrow'd of Antiquity doe lend a kind of Majesty to style, 
and are not without their delight sometimes." 



1 There is a bare possibility that Jonson was influeneed in his distaste 
for Spenser 's diction by Sidney. Professor J. £. Spingam (Grit, Essays 
of the 17th Century Introd. p. xiü) points out that the Prologue to Every 
Man in his Eumour is "a noble patchwork of passages from the Apology 
for Poesie. Jonson may have leamed his distaste for Spenser 's old woi% 
from the strieture in the same work. 



1911] Cory: The Critics of Edmund Spenser. 99 

But, on the whole, he prefers the newest words. That Ben Jon- 
son of the roeky face and mountain belly was not always imper- 
vious to Spenserian appeal is attested in Drummond's record that 

''He hath by heart soxne verses of Spenser's Calender about wyne, be- 
tween Coline and Percye." 

Jonson's masque, The Golden Age Restored, introduees Chaucer, 
Gower, Lydgate, and Spenser as ideal figures of the good old days. 
When Pallas has driven away Iron Age and her rout of Vices, 
she summons Astraea and Golden Age with a flourish of her 
aegis. And f or their retinue she calls : 

"You far-famed spirits of this happy isle, 
That, for yonr saered songs have gained the style 
Of Phoebus' sons, whose notes the air aspire 
Of the old Egyptian, or the Thracian lyre 
That Chaueer, Gower, Lydgate, Spenser hight, 
Put on yonr better flames and larger light, 
To wait npon the Age that shall yonr names new nourish, 
Since Virtue pressed shall grow, and buried Arts shall flourish." 

This readiness to accept Spenser as at least a traditional classic 
is also apparent in a characteristic fiing at the rascal many in the 
Discoveries. 

''There were never wanting those that dare prefer the worst poets. 
. . . Nay, if it were put to the qnestion of the water-rimers works 
against Spenser 's, I donbt not but they would find more suffrages; be- 
cause the most favor common vices out of a prerogative the vulgär have 
to lose their judgements and like that whieh is nought. " 

It is not unlikely that Jonson, on the whole, was an admirer of 
Spenser. And his animadversions are those of a man who prob- 
ably loved Spenser as he loved Shakespeare — ^**on this side 
idolatry." 

Edmund Bolton, although his contribution to Spenserian 
criticism is slight, should not be f orgotten, becanse he has con- 
siderable significance in the history of English criticism. He 
reacted against the irresponsible sentences and parti-coloured dic- 
tion of Elizabethan novelists and pamphleteers. In feeling the 
need of conscious ideals in prose style he was of the new age. His 
Hypercritica, Or A Rtde of Judgment For Writing Or Beading 



100 Univeriitf of Calif<>rwa PiihUcatums in Modem PhOolog^ [Vol. 2 

Our Hisiories (completed c. 1618 bat firat published in 1722)* 
treated not only the problem of aources but the kind of prose 
tbat was suitable f or good historical writing. For this purpose 
Bolton considered the manner of both English poetry and prose. 
He seems to have had a wide knowledge and a fair appreciation 
of English literature. For prose suitable to the writing of his- 
tories he preferred, sensibly enough, the poetry of Jonson and 
the prose of Bacon as supreme modeis. Bat he found Spenser's 
Hytnns valuable for the same purpose. 

"In verae there are Ed. Spencer 's Hymna. I eannot advise the 
aUowanee of other of bis Poems, as for praetiek English, no more than 
I ean do Jeff Chancer, Lydgate, Pieree Ploughman, or Laureate Skelton. ' ' 

For the use of **old outwom words" in history was, in Bolton 's 
opinion, to be eondemned. 

In the tenth ehapter of his Campleat Oentleman (1622) 
Henry Peacham pointed out the value of the study of poetry and 
closed his review of great poets with a brief but flattering pic- 
ture of those of Elizabeth 's days. 

''In the time of our late Queen Elizabeth whieh was truly a golden 
age .... above others who honoured Poesie with their pennes and 
praetise .... were Edward Earle of Oxford, the Lord Buekhurst, Henry 
Lord Paget; our Phoenix, the noble Sir Philip Sidney; M. Edward Dyer, 
M. Edmund Speneer, M. Samuel Daniel, with sundry others whom .... 
not out of Envie but to avoide tediousnesse I overpasse. This mueh of 
Poetrie. ' ' 

William L'isle in prefatory words to the reader before his 
translation of Du Bartas (1625) made a thoroughly neo-dassical 
comment on Spenser's alexandrines that should be quoted as 
among the comparatively few definite eritieisms of Si>enser's 
stanza in the seventeenth Century. 

''The Bartasian verse (not unlike herein to the Latin Pentameter) 
hath ever this propertie, to part in the mids betwixt two wordes: so mueh 
doe Freneh prints signifie with a stroke interposed. . . . The neglect of 
this hath caused many a brave stanza of the Faerie Queene to end but 
harshly« whieh might have been prevented at the flrst; but now the fault 
may be sooner found than amended." 



3B7 Anthony Hall, at the end of his ^tcolat Trweti Annaliwn Contin- 
uatio, Oxford, 1722. 






• . • 



• • * •• - - - 



• •••••• ••• •• • • • 



1911] Cory: The Critioa of Edmund Speyer. 101 

In the next Century a critic as acute as Thomas Warton expressed 
the same insistence on the middle caesura and the same blindness 
to the charm of the flowing, pauseless alezandrine that Spenser 
used, at times, with such f elicity. 

The self-abasement or doubt that comes with an Age of Bea- 
son appears in Henry Reynolds, the mystic, to whom Drayton 
addressed his Epistle, Of Poets and Poesie. Beynolds lamented 
the bad State of English poetry, a mood which would not have 
occurred to a full-fledged Elizabethan, in his Mythamestes 
ioherein a short survay is täken of the nature and valiie of true 
Poesie, and the depth of the Ancients above our Moderne Poets 
(1633). It is significant of the growing sense for criticism care- 
fully weighedy and significant of Spenser 's impregnable fame, 
that Reynolds included him in a brief list of well-selected poets 
whom he regarded as exempt f rom the sweeping condemnation 
that he had bestowed on most modems. With the judgment of 
the acute connoisseurs who always know what will last in litera- 
ture, Reynolds selected Chaucer (especially in his Troüus), Sid- 
ney, Spenser, Daniel, and Drayton as the true elect. 

''Nezt, I must approve the leanied Spencer, in the rest of his Poems 
no lesse than his Fairy Queene, an exact body of the Ethieke doetiine; 
thongh some good jadgments have wisht, and perhaps not without cause, 
that he had therein been a little freer of his fiction, and not so dose 
rivetted to his MoraU/' 

This guarded criticism of Spenser 's didactic method is an expres- 
sion of an attitude toward the Faerie Queene which we have 
inherited as a birthright and an affliction principally from the 
later romanticists who are responsible for many of our limita- 
tions in appreciating Spenser. But they are less careful in their 
Statements than this gentle, f ar-seeing mystic of the seventeenth 
Century. 

The general tendency, however, throughout the seventeenth 
Century and the first part of the eighteenth was to take Spenser 's 
moralistic aspect very seriously and, on the whole, more justly 
and sympathetically than many of us do to-day. Sir Eenelm 
Digby's Observations on the Twenty-Second Stanza of the Ninth 
Canto of the Second Book of Spencer' s Faery Queen (1644) is , IJ 



• • • 



■ • • • • 



• • 






• ■ 



•_ • 



• • • 
• • • • • 



« •• • •••• 



• . • 



• • • • • • 



■ • • 



102 Univertity of California Fuhlicaiions in Modem Fhüology. [Vol. 2 



typical of the attitude of so many who accepted Spenser as poet 
and teacher. Sir Kenelm Digby took one of the most abstruse 
stanzas in The Faerie Queene and gave it an elaborate philosophi- 
cal Interpretation. 

We approach a figure who was so signiöcant in his own day 
and such a bare name at the present time that he must be elab- 
orately eonsidered. I have said that the Age of Beason inevit- 
ably begot a doubt which scattered into anarehy. Henry More, 
the Cambridge Piatonist, is a figure to be expected at such a crisis. 
Serene-eyed with the still-deep wisdom of Plato, he turned 
proudly and cahnly f rom the growing materialism of the day and 
wrought Strange, dim tapestries of mystical dreams. His cult 
was a power in its time against the rationalism of Descartes so 
ready to link hands with the ideals of the new classicists, **vrai- 
semblance," **nature," ''commonsense." He was one of the 
many forces that kept this neo-classicism starving in England 
for a half-century. In 1642 More published his Psychodia 
Platonica and in 1647 he brought out an enlarged edition of this 
Platonick Song of the Soul under the general heading Phüosophi- 
call Poems, This gigantic affair in Spenserian stanzas was cer- 
tainly not calculated to captivate the masses who run. But it was 
the profound if eccentric utterance of a man who stood on the 
battle-line of a great controversy of the day. More 's dedication 
to his f ather indicates how much of his idealism must have grown 
out of a life-long intimacy with Spenser 's poems. 

''You deserve the Patronage of better Poems than these though you 
may lay a more proper claim to these than to any. You having from my 
childhood tuned mine ears to Spenser 's rhymes, entertaining us on winter 
nights, with that incomparable Piece of his, The Fairy Queen a Poem 
as riehly fraught with divine Morality as Phansy. " 

To More, then, the poet was a noble priest, a conception too 
unpopulär in our own day since the romanticists have taught us 
to toy with his seductive music alone. More, indeed, was at the 
other pole. He was one of those quixotic idealists who reared, 
with pathetic enthusiasm, towers of Babel in a noble but almost 
f ruitless cause. He wrote in the days when men dared to justify 
the ways of Ood to man, though he wrote when the doubting 



1911] Cory: The Critics of Edmund Spenser. 103 

Thomases were becoming legion. In the eighteenth Century men 
took to celebrating in song the cotton indnstry or The Art of 
Preserving Health. Today some of us have fallen lower and 
write for "Art 's sake." 

In the growing Age of Literary Anarchy we have already 
noted another figure proudly independent of the frailties of one 
age — John Milton. He, too, gave sturdy praise to the moralistic 
aspect of Spenser 's genins. In the Areopagitica (1644) he wrote 
of "Oor sage and seiious Spenser, whom I dare be known to 
think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas. " Edward Dowden 
has made this the text of the riebest essay on Spenser that our 
age can elaim. 

We come now to one of the earliest apostles of that neo-classi- 
eism which in England struggled only with great difficulty 
through the Age of Literary Anarchy and gained supremacy at 
last when Pope and Addison planted the Standard on the heights. 

The first important critical document of the neo-classicists 
was Sir WiUiam Davenant's preface to Oondibert, This has been 
inconsiderately damned as crass and unsympathetic in its atti- 
tude toward Spenser. In Davenant 's own day Aubrey wrote : 

"Sir John Denham told me that A. BP. XJsher, Lord Primate of 
Armagh was acquainted with him [Spenser], by this token, when Sir W. 
Davenant 's 'Gondibert' came forth, Sir John askt the Lord Primate if 
he had seen itf Said the Primate, 'Out upon him, with his vaunting 
preface, he speaks against my old friend, Edmand Spenser'." 

Something like the Lord Primate 's idea seems to have prevailed 
ever since. But to call Davenant hostile to Spenser is to read his 
preface without any sense of perspective. Davenant shared the 
generally increasing objections to the archaisms. 

''But as it is false husbandry to graft old branehes upon young 
Stocks: so we may wonder that our language . . . should receive from his 
[Spenser 's] hand, new grafts of old wither'd words." 

Again: 

"The unlucky ehoice of his stanza hath by repetition of Bime brought 
him to the necessity of many exploded words. ' ' 

Although the preface is emphatic in its identification of the ideal 
poet and the moralist, yet Davenant was not in sympathy with 



104 Ufmertity of California PuhUcaiioM in Modem PhiMogy. [Vol. 2 

\ Spenser's method of inculcating virtue, — *'Hi8 allegorical Story 

I . . . . resembling (methinks) a continuation of extraordinary 

j Dreams ; such as excellent Poets, and Painters, by being over- 

; studious may have in the beginning of Feavers. ' ' These are the 

shrewd complaints of Sir William Davenant, a sane literary 

critie who believed eriticism to be the noble art of praise with 

intelligent qnaUöcations. We mnst consider the general scheme 

of his essay to understand his füll estimate of Spenser. He was 

about to propound the roles f or an ideal epie and he began by 

naming those whom he eonsidered the supreme writers of heroie 

poetry. He thus plaeed Spenser with Homer, Yii^l, Lucan, 

Statins, and Tasso. He then pointed out the failings of eaeh 

writer and Spenser hardly fared worse than any of the others. 

In this way Davenant gave Spenser implicitly the highest praise. 

''Spencer may stand here as the last of this short File of Heroiek 
Poets — Men whose inteUectuals were of so great a making (thoagh some 
have thooght them lyable to those few Censures we have mentioned) as 
perhaps thej will in worthy memory outlast even the Makers of Laws 
and Foonders of Empires, and aU but such as must live equally with 
them becanse they have reeorded their manner; and eonsequently with 
their own hand led them to the Temple of Farne. And sinee we have 
dar'd to remember those exeeptions whieh the Ourions have against 
them, it will not be expeeted I shoold forget what is objeeted against 
Spenser whose obsolete Language we are constrain'd to mention, though 
it be grown the most vulgär aceusation that is laid to his Charge. ' ' 

Davenant 's tone was distinctly apologetie. He more than once 
foisted his adverse criticisms on 'Hhe Gurions." He feared that 
his censures of **this short File of Heroiek Poets" would make 
Hobbes, to whom he addressed his prefaee, think him ''malieious" 
in observing the faults whieh **the Gurions" had found with the 
revered writers. His detailed criticisms, restored to their con- 
tent, become then of minor importance. There have been ardent 
admirers of Spenser, in every period, who could subscribe with 
little emendation to Davenant 's complaints. 

Abraham Gowley's delightful tribute needs no comment. 

''I believe I ean teil the partieular little chance that fiUed my head 
first with such chimes of verse, as have never sinee left ringing there: 
for I remember, when I first began to read, and to take some pleasure 
in it, there was wont to lie in my mother's parlour (I know not by what 



1911] Cory: The Critioa of Edmund Spenser. 105 

a«eidexit, for she henelf never in her life read any book bat of devo- 
tion) — ^bat there was wont to lie Spenser's works; thus I happened to 
faU upon, and was iniinitely delighted with the stories of the knights, 
and giants, and monsters, and brave houses, whieh I f ound everywhere 
there (though my understanding had little to do with all this); so that, 
I think I had read him all over bef ore I was twelve years old, and thus 
was made a poet as irremediably as a ehild is made a eonnch. ' 's 

In 1669 Edward Howard, Dryden's disputant and a fairly 
stannch neo-classicist, brought out his The British Princes. Spen- 
ser was remembered as ''the first of England 's poets" and ''by 
many granted a Parallel to most of the Antients." 

The Age of Beason, meanwhile, had been verging rapidly 
into the Age of Literary Anarchy. Bat it seems fitting to begin 
onr review of the later period with John Dryden who, as I have 
said, epitomizes its spirit. 



s Eisays in Prose and Verse 1668. No. ZI. 



106 Univeraity of Ccdifamia Publicatiofu in Modem Phüology, [Vol. 2 



IV 
THE AGB OP LITEBABY ANABCHY 

Many times already, in this study, we have had occasion to 
note the change f rom the Elizabethan Age of rapturous faith to 
an age of doubt, of unrest, finally of absolute literary anarchy 
whieh corresponded well with the great political upheavals which 
distressed England throughout the reign of the Stuarts. Eliza- 
bethan ideals were unified by their abounding faith. In spite 
of our disgust for the fulsome eulogies of Elizabeth, we must 
admit that, when the last shred of the courtier's mask is torn 
away, there glows a genuine admiration, a deep faith in the 
sovereign. We have seen that the climax of the Elizabethan Age 
was the time of boyish panegyric, and that England 's faith in 
her literature was so immense that sanely regulated literary 
eriticism was impossible until the canker doubt had done deadly 
work. Then English poetry, whieh had moved in comparative 
harmony, gradually divided and subdivided itself into a hundred 
jarring sects. Hostile schools despised eaeh other and doubted 
themselves. Men became inconstant or inconsistent members of 
two warring cults. The neo-classical credo, which was to unify 
literature onee more, gained ground slowly, and did not, as some 
have thought, triumph in the days of Waller, Denham, or Dryden. 
It struggled for bare existence tili Pope and Addison became 
dictators. 

The Age of Literary Anarchy had no well-defined beginning. 
It came about very slowly. Such men as William Drummond of 
HaA\i;hornden, Ben Jonson, and Edward Fairfax spread, con- 
seiously or unconsciously, the spirit of sedition. Drummond 
and Fairfax combined the Elizabethan love of sensuousness with 
a truly classical interest in form. Fairfax lived in the limelight 
and bis tastes deseended to Waller, who was glad to acknowl- 
edge him as a model. Drummond was unusually fond of using 



1911] Cory: The Criiics of Edmund Spenser, 107 

and polishing the couplet, the form that the neo-classicists were 
to accept as supreme. His bookishness sent him directly back to 
the Latin poets again and again. His love of form stimulated 
bim to experiment more witb sonnet-scbemes tban any man in 
tbe language. In tbe abandon of the Elizabethan genius^ then, 
his almost over-cultivated mind must have found some rough 
dissonances. Ben Jonson was a more definite classicist and his 
inflnence was immense. Of these earlier ögures Edward Fair- 
fax interests us most of all because, as the ardent Student of 
Spenser and the acknowledged master of Waller, he linked Spen- 
serian traditions with neo-classicism, the two currents of English 
literature that critics have long mistakenly regarded as anti- 
pathetic. In 1600 Fairfax published his translation of Tasso's 
Jerusalem Delivered (Oodfrey of Bulloigne or The Recoverie of 
Jerusalem Done into English Heroicall Verse), a poem which, 
though in ottava rima, taught Waller how to f ashion the smooth 
Couplets that made him the model of all true believers in neo- 
classicism. Fairfax was an enthusiastic foUower of Spenser, and 
frequently departed f rom his original to draw more near to The 
Faerie Queene. Spenser, for instance, had already translated 
and in many cases improved passages f rom Tasso in his sensuous 
account of the Bower of Bliss. As Fairfax tumed his Italian 
into English, memories of Spenser often led him delightedly 
astray. He describes the two wantons, who would have lured 
Carlo and Ubaldo from their quest for Rinaldo, with an evident 
relish of Spenser 's exquisite translation in his mind.^ One siren 
loosed her long tresses so that they feil down and half hid her 
naked body. 

''Withal she smil^d and she blushed withal. 
Her blush, her smilings, smiles her blushing graeed. 
Over her face her amber tresses fa]I, 
Whereunder Love himself in ambush placed. '' 

The play on words is ultimately Tasso 's. But Spenser wrote : 

^'WithaU she laughöd, and she blusht withall 
That blashing to her laughter gave more grace. ' ' 



1 Tasso, C. 15. St. 62. Spenser, B. II, C. 12, St. 68. 



108 Unwertity of CaUfomia PublicationB in Modem Philology. [Yol. 2 

Fairfax was plainly captivated by the charming cadence of the 
repeated "withal" and pillaged Spenser's first line. In his 
description of the amorous Armida (C. 16, St. 18), Fairfax adds 
to the conceits of Taaso with a phrase from Spenser. 

"Her breasts were naked for the daj was hot. 
Her loeks unboond waved in the wanton wind; 
Some deal she sweat tired with the gsme you wot. 
Her sweat-drops bright, white, round, like pearls of Inde; 
Her humid ejes a firej smile forthshot 
That like sanbeams in sUver fonntains shined, 
O'er him her looks she hang and her soft breast 
The pillow was, where he and love took rest." 

From Spenser's interpolation, '*pure Orient perles," (2, 12, 78) 
Fairfax borrowed his simile, **like pearls of Inde," (for there is 
no trace in the original) to overweight a picture already langor- 
ons to the last degree. He constantly sought words as well as 
fancies from his master, making free nse of Spenser's archaisms. 
In emulating the highly wrought technique of Spenser and Tasso 
the lesser man doubtless f ound himself foreed into that more 
conscious attention to finish which caught the eye of Edmund 
Waller. At all events, Waller and Dryden considered Fairfax 
as one of their sacred authorities for the new couplet. 

In decadent Elizabethans, who outlived the Elizabethan spirit 
of youth, ruddy enthusiasm became hectic disease, careless f ancy 
was metamorphosed into ingenious artifice, the sensaousness of 
Petrarch was laid aside for the conceits of Marini. Such a spirit 
laid prematurely a blighting finger on the lai^e soul of Donne and 
spread even more insidiously through the religions ecstasy of 
Crashaw. By 1630 England 's poetry was visibly disturbed by 
the struggles of these discordant forces. 

From about 1650 to the end of the Century the influence of 
Spenser was at its lowest ebb in the history of English poetry. 
The cause of this lies precisely in that multiplicity of artistic 
theories that brought about the literary civil wars. When the 
Elizabethans thought that they tallied all antecedents they can- 
nonized Spenser in a thoroughly uncritical way. He was their 
moming star, their high priest of poetry. He was with Homer. 



1911] C&ry: The Critica of Edmund Spenser, 109 

The admiration of later writers was no less deep and sincere, but 
doubt had sharpened their critical insight. The infiuence of 
Spenser was no less great than that of any other writer. It was 
only that influences were legion. There were no great central 
convictions like those which inspired the Elizabethans, Augostans, 
and romanticists at their highest point of development. The 
wonder is that Spenser was hospitably received in so many antag- 
onistic groui)8 of writers. In this way, indeed, a slender bond of 
nnity remained. But it was a mere shadow of the old commiinity 
of f eeling. 

The spirit of elassicism had as yet but a thin voiee in the 
literary affairs of the age. The heavy cloth of gold of the renais- 
sance made a mantle which the poets were loth to relinquish. 
Oiles and Phineas Fletcher, for instance, those pastor-poets of 
Cambridge University who sang, in Spenser 's allegorical manner , 
of the sacrifice of Christ and the soul of man, f ounded a school 
of poets who perpetuated the sensuous Spenserian manner even 
into the eighteenth Century. Quarles, Thomas Robinson, Dr. 
Joseph Beaumont, and others published ambitious attempts in 
imitation of Spenser and the Fletchers, and emulated their spirit 
in an age when chaotic sectarianism was vitally connected with 
the issues of the day. As late as 1679 this movement was very 
much alive in Samuel Woodford 's Legend of Love and its Epoda 
in Spenserian stanzas. Even in the eighteenth Century, when 
neo-classicism held füll sway, William Thompson registered his 
name as the last in this school with his Hymn to May (1757), a 

piece which dosely foUowed Spenser 's Epithalamion and Phineas 

• 

Fletcher's Purple Island and which is pure Elizabethan even in 
an age of trim paterres. From Cambridge came a man who owed 
a debt to the school of the Fletchers although he was too large 
to be imprisoned as a member, John Milton, the supreme poet of 
his age, who leamed from Spenser much of the eloquence with 
which he wrought his great religious and political experiences 
into immortal song. The spirit of the dreamer of The Faerie 
Queene was not, af ter all, so f ar remote from the great issues 
of the middle decades of the seventeenth Century. These poets, 



110 Univertiiy of California Tublieations in Modem TMMogy, [Vol. 2 

with the exception of Milton (who, like all snpreme artists, knew 
how to reconcile dassicism and romanticism), formed one of the 
many groups of seventeenth Century poets who still preferred to 
worship beauty with Elizabethan exuberanee and childlike 
enumeration of infinite detail rather than by attention to finish, 
the sense of finiteness, of repression which attracted the new 
elassicists. 

Literary anarchy became bewildering toward the close of the 
Century because English poetry had fallen among li'ttle men. 
During the last two decades of the seventeenth Century, except 
f or Dryden, there were only the very dregs. The various warring 
creeds quarreled to the end. Marinism, which found its most 
brilliant supporter in Crashaw, was upheld by men like John 
Norris of Bemerton in his Miscellanies (1678). Two very dif- 
ferent schools worked against them: the boisterous satirists of 
the type of John Cleveland and Dr. Robert Wild, who battled 
with the decadent poets by using a rugged style which constantly 
broke down into doggerei; Waller, Denham, and Sidney Godol- 
phin, who fought for neo-classicism. Then there was the great 
number of belated Elizabethans, the school of the Fletchers and 
many more. These men were generally perfectly conscious of 
their conservatism. Mr. Edmund Gosse notes a volume by Philip 
Ayres, Lyric poems, made in Imitation of the Italians, as **the 
very last eflPort made to restore romantic poetry to its old place 
in English literature.'' There were some who inconsistently 
wrote in different veins. Such a man was Sir Richard Fanshawe, 
a good friend of the classicist Denham, but having many sym- 
pathies with the Elizabethans and Marinists. In 1676 a number 
of his miscellaneous poems appeared along with his translation of 
Guarini 's II Pastor Fido. A Canto of the Progress of Learning, 
though in Spenserian stanzas, is far less florid than someof his 
sonnets and lyrics. On the other band its opening line, **Tell me, 
Muse, and teil me Spencer 's Ghost," seems to indicate that the 
master's poetry was not far from his thoughts. Again he trans- 
lated Virgil, the idol of the Augustans, in the Spenserian stanza, 
a form quite generally regarded, even by its admirers in that day, 



1911] Cory: The Criiios of Edmund Spenser, 111 

as unfit f or beroic poetry. The civil wars in English poetiy might 
easily be illustrated far beyond due proportion in this study. 
Charles Cotton eontinued at onee the wholesome naturc poetry 
of Browne, Herrick, and Marvel and wrote amorous lyrics in 
the vein of Suckling, Lovelace, Carew, men who cared little 
for the quiet country, who preferred the rustle of the silk gowns 
of court ladies to the wind among the trees. Cowley's eccentric 
Pindaric ödes feil into disrepute toward the close of the Century. 
Yet Thomas Flatman, one of the very f ew lyrists who wrote with 
high seriousness at the end of the Century, f oUowed Cowley almost 
exclusively. Flatman 's friends, Dr. Samuel Woodford, the Spen- 
serian, and Katherine Philips, **the matchless Orinda,*' wrote 
often in the manner of Cowley. Yet Katherine Philips, with her 
affected elegance and her importation of French ideals from the 
Hotel Rambouillet, contributed definitely to the rise of neo- 
classicism. Finally Dryden, who was to give the death-blow to 
Abraham Cowley, wrote one of bis maturest poems, To Mrs, Anne 
KülegreWf (1686) in the Pindaric and metaphysical vein of the 
despised poet. Against the lyrics of the court amorists we may 
pit the long line of religious lyrics from Crashaw, himself as 
ardent a royalist as Lovelace or Suckling, to Vaughn. In the 
love-lyric, too, the approach of the dissolution of faith, of the 
Age of Anarchy, may be seen in Habington's Castara, a some- 
what uneasy, overconscious attempt to fuse the erotic cavalier 
poetry with religion and Platonism, utterly unlike the fiery 
Platonism of the Elizabethans. Then complete cynicism broke in. 
At the close of the Century Rochester, Sedley, Aphra Behn, and 
others were retailing the commonplaces of the amorists, striving 
to eke out their slender originality and to heal their shattered 
faith in the finer things of life with feverish sensuality, cynicism, 
and obscenity. Except for the slow and hotly contested rise of 
neo-dassicism, this degradation of the court lyric is typical of 
the degradation of English poetry. Neo-classicism promised at 
least a wholesome repression. in style and a theory, if no more, 
of the moral responsibility of poetry in its highest moods. It 
promised a much needed increase of intellectuality as opposed to 
unbridled fancy. 



112 Univenity of California PubUcations in Modem Phüoloffy. [Vol. 2 

In toming to the heralds of AufiTOstanism we must never f or- 
get that they were not outside the infiuence of Spenaer and did 
not regard Spenaer as necessarily opposed to their regime. We 
shall see how they came more and more to reconcile him with 
their Ideals much as they reconciled Yirgil. Sir John Denham 
classed Spenser and Jonson together as exponents of ''Art" as 
opposed to the less revered native woodnotes wild which were 
falling into disrepute. 

"Next (like Aurora), Spenser rose 
Whose purple blnsh the day foreshows; 
Old Mother Wit and Nature gave 
Shakespeare and Reicher all they have, 
In Spenser and in Jonson, Art 
Of slower Nature got the start."' 

Edmund Waller, as we have noted, leamed his devotion to finish 
f rom Fairfax. He seems to have retnmed to Spenser as well for 
that melliäuonsness which is characteristic of his smooth, sen- 
snous verse. His most elaborate poem, The Battle of the Midr- 
summer Islands, foUows Spenser and Fairfaz in the creation of 
a sort of tropical Bower of Bliss, or Eden.* A reference in the 
third canto seems to show that Waller, unlike many prof essed 
students of English literatnre, had arrived as f ar as the fifth 
book of The Faerie Queene. For he describes a wonnded whale 
scourging the waves ''like Spenser 's Talus with his iron flail." 
Similarly Eatherine Philips, whom we have described as mainly 
neo-classical, draws from Spenser to adom a polite and languid 
Sapphic effasion. Content, To my dearest Lucasia. 

"Content, the false World 's best disgnise, 

The search and faction of the wise, 

Is so abstruse and hid in night 

That, like that Eairy Bed-Cross Knight, 
Who treacherous Falsehood for clear Truth had got, 
Men think they have it when they have it not." 

But it was Dryden who sanetified Spenser for the Augustans 
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. With Dryden Eng- 



2 On Mr. Abraham Cotoley's Death, 

s Canto I. See Mr. G. Thom Drury's notes on this poem in the Muses' 
Ldbnuy edition of Waller. 



1911] Cory: The CHtie8,of Edmund Spenser, 113 

lish critioism came to a brilliant dimax and the Age of Literary 
AmtTfSfy received complete and powerfid expression. England 
feit A growing interest in the superbly unified French theories 
of poetry, but fonnd them practically impossible to reconcile 
with her sturdy native traditions and the restless spirit of the 
age. When we leam to realize thoroughly how some writers took 
refuge in an idolatrous worship of the classics, how others clam- 
ored for the perpetuation of the Elizabethan manner, how many 
caught up the extravagances of the English Marinists, the attempt 
to goad jaded emotions with the highly spieed diet of jaded con- 
ceitSy and carried the hectie f aneies of Cowley, Crashaw, and their 
crew to excess beyond excess, how some gave up hope of Solution 
and sought f alse relief in cynicism and rough mockery, how the 
exquisite idyllic vein of Andrew Marvel could tum to harren 
and querulous satire, when we realize *that it was the day of a 
hundred schools, the age of literary anarchy, as it was the age of 
civil broils and political plots, then we can understand Dryden 
with some human sympathy. In Dryden 's day uncertainty ran 
not. His admirers and detractors have long puzzled over his 
vaeillations in matters religious, literary, and political. How- 
ever servile he may have been, it is difficult to deny that he was 
a man of strong if somewhat fickle convictions that changed, not 
merely with the breeze of public opinion, but with his own true 
moods. Some of his inconsistencies are readily explainable by his 
enthusiasm for the subject under immediate consideration. In 
his Discourse on Epick Poeiry (1697), he devoted mueh time to 
proving triumphantly, in spite of Aristotle, that heroic poetry is a 
greater form than tragedy. But in his Essay of Dramatick Poesie 
(1667), where all his eloquence was being spent on the drama, 
he did not even pause to support a confident parenthesis: 
**ThQUgh tragedy may be justly preferred to the other," [viz., 
epic]. In his Preface to the second Miscellany (1685), Spenser 's 
«ehdeavour to Imitate the rustic speech of Theocritus by an infus- 
ion of archaic and dialect words is adjudged unsuecessf ul. 

"Spenser has endeavoured it [to Imitate the Doric of Theocritus] in 
his Shepherds Kalendar; but neither will it auceeed in English [any more 



114 Univernty of Cdlifomia Publicaiians in Modern Phüology. [Vol. 2 

than in the severe Latin tongue] for which reaaon I have^forbore to 
attempt it, " „^^- 

Yet in his Dedicaiion of the Pastorais of Virgil (1697), he wrote : 

"Bnt Spencer being master of our northern dialect, and' sküled in 
Chaueer's Engliah, has bo exaetly imitated the Dorick of Theoeritus, that 
his love is a perfeet image of that passion which God infused into both 
sexes, before it was eorrupted with the knowledge of arts, and the eere- 
monies of what we call good manners." 

Without pausing to consider any more of Dryden's many 
self-contradietions, we may turn to his comments on Spenser as 
disclosing matters most signiöcant. for our general conception 
of Dryden as a eritic. His first ref erence to Spenser oeeurs in a 
preface Of Heroic Plays, published in 1672 with an edition of 
The Conquest of Oranada, where he merely cites The Faerie 
Queene in support of the use of gods, spirits, and '*enthusiastic 
parts" in poetry. In his youth Dryden, like many young writers, 
was a victim of the poets of his own generation. His early servi- 
tude to the conceit-hunters is well known. He himself teils us 
in his Dedication of The Spanish Friar (1681), that he once 
thought '*inimitable Spenser a mean poet in comparison of Syl- 
vester 's Dubartas." But he came to dub the idol of his callow 
days a writer of "abominable fustian." 

In his maturity Dryden spoke enthusiastically and discem- 
ingly about Spenser. In his Essay on Satire (1693), he made his 
most elaborate criticism. In a long digression on heroic poetry, 
in which he asserted that no one equalled Homer and Virgil, he 
criticised Lucan, Statius, Ariosto, and Tasso, scomed utterly the 
Prench epics, and added : 

"The English have only to boast of Spenser and Milton, who neither 
of them wanted either genius or learning, to have been perfeet poets; 
and yet, both of them are liable to many censures. For there is no uni- 
formity in the design of Spenser: he aims at the accomplishment of no 
one action: he raises up a hero for every one of his adventures; and 
endows each of them with some particular moral virtue which renders 
them all equal, without Subordination or Performance. Every one ,i^ 
most valiant in his oWh legend; only we must do them that justice to 
observe, that magnanimity, which is the character of prince Arthur, 
shines throughout the whole poem; and succours the rest, when they are 
in distress. The original of every knight was then living in the court 



1911] Cory: The Criiics of Edmund Spenser, 115 

of queen Elizabeth; and he attributed to each of them, that virtue which 
he thought most eonspieuous in them: an ingenious piece of flattery, 
thongh it tumed not much to his account. Had he lived to finish the 
Poem, in the six remaining legende^ it had eertainly been more of a 
piece; but could not have been perfect, because the model was not true. 
But prince Arthur, or his chief patron, Sir Philip Sidney, whom he 
intended to make happy by the marriage of his Gloriana, dying before 
him, deprived the Poet both of means and spirit to accomplieh his design : 
for the rest his obsolete language and ill choice of his stanzas, are . 
faults but of the second magnitude; for, notwithstanding the first, he is 
still intelligible, at least after a little practiee: and for the last, he is 
the more to be admired, that, labouring under sueh a difficulty, his verses 
are so numerous, so various, and harmonious, that only Yirgil, whom he 
professedly imitated, has surpassed him among the Bomans; and only 
Mr. Waller among the English. ' ' 

It is important to observe that this very just criticism of the 
general structure of The Faerie Queene began with Dryden and 
has become the eurrent comment to our own day. Even Thomas 
Warton had nothing to add to it. It is moreover worth special 
attention that Dryden did not share Jonson's and Davenant's 
aversion for the use of obsolete words. Nor did he always regard 
them as even '*faults of the second magnitude." We have seen 
that he first condemned but later praised the archaisms in The 
Shepheards Calender. And in his discussion of Milton in this 
same digression in the Essay on Satire he treats archaisms with a 
justice that is beyond reproach: 

"His [Milton 's] antiquated words were his choice, not his necessity; 
for therein he imitated Spenser as Spenser imitated Chaucer. And though, 
perhaps, the love of their master may have transported both too far, in 
the frequent use of them; yet, in my opinion words may then be laud- 
ably revived, when either they are more sounding or more significant, 
than those in practiee; and, when their obscurity is taken away, by join- 
ing other words to them which clear the sense; according to the rule of 
Horace, for the admission of new words. But in both cases a moderation 
is to be observed in the use of them. For unnecessary coinage, as well 
as unnecessary revival runs into affectation; a fault to be avoided on 
either hand." 

Dryden 's association of the names of Spenser and Virgil in 
the discussion of the structure of The Faerie Queene quoted above 
is only one of many passages that indicate that Spenser and the 
darling of the neo-classicists were endeared to him as poetical 



116 rfMv^Mty o/ Coltfoniia PwbliMttoiw i» ifodam PMIoIo^y. [YoL2 

comrades. In bis Discourse an Epick Poetry (1697) Dryden 
wrote: 

''I must acknowledge that Virgil in Latin and Spencer in Bngliah, 
have been my mästen." 

Again : 

"If the detign be good and the draught be true, the eolouring is the 
fint beantj that strikee the eye. Spencer and Milton are the nearest, in 
English, to Virgil and Horace in Latin; and I have endeavoored to form 
my style by imitating their masters." 

The association of Virgil and Spenser is very significant because 
it throwB a dear light on an aspect of neo-classicism completely 
misunderstood. The Augustans did not, as has been so con- 
stantly averred, folget or despise Spenser. They fonnd him, on 
the whole, sufficiently reconcilable with their ideals and appre- 
ciated sides of his poetry to which the romanticists, to oor own 
day, have remained blind. Dryden taught the Augostans to 
accept Virgil and Spenser as common modeis. The cherished 
project of his own life was to write an epic about Arthur, the 
hero of The Faerie Queene, or the Black Prince, "wherein, after 
Virgil and Spenser, I would have taken occasion to represent 
my living friends and patrons of noblest families, and also 
shadowed the events of f uture ages, in the succession of onr Im- 
perial lines."* But he was unfortunately encouraged only by 
the **fair words of Charles II'* and "my little salary ill paid." 
But the thom which seems to have pricked the sides of all who 
read Dryden, devoutly or sacrilegiously, is his admiration for 
the fatdtless commonplaces of WaUer and Denham with their 
rippling heroic Couplets. In his Dedication of The Bivtü Ladies 
(1672) Dryden asserted of ''rhyme" that: 

''The ezcellence and dignity of it were never folly known tili Mr. 
Waller taught it. " 

In the Defence of the Epilogue to The Conquest of Qranada he 
Said : 

''Well-placing of words, for the sweetness of pronunciation, was not 
known tiU Mr. Waller introduced it." 



« The Essay on Satire. 



1911] Cary: The Critics of Edmund Spenser. 117 

By the time we arrive at the Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1667) 
we become belligerent when we read : 

"They [the Elizabethans] can produee .... nothing so even sweet, 
and flowing aa Mr. Waller nothing so majestie, so correct, as Sir John 
Denham. ' ' 

In the Essay an Satire, to be sure, this fetish-worship lends op- 

portunity f or gratifying praise of Spenser and a new interweav- 

ing of hia name with Virgirs. For, having been advised by Sir 

G^eorge Maekenzie to Imitate *'the tums of Mr. Waller and Sir 

John Denham/' it ^'first made me sensible to my own wants, and 

brought me afterwards to seek for the supply of them in other 

English authors." Not even **the darling of my youth, the 

famous Cowley/' rewarded a seareh. 

''Then I eonanlted a greater genius (without offense to the manes of 
that noble author) I mean Milton; bnt as he endeavours everywhere to 
expresa Homer, whose age had not arrived to that fineness, I f onnd in him 
a trne sublimity, lofty thoughts which were clothed with admirable 
Greeisnis, and ancient words which he had been digging from the mines 
of Chaucer and Spenser, and which, with all their rusticity, had some- 
what of venerable in them. At last I had recourse to his master, 
Spenser, the author of that immortal poem called The Fairy Queen; and 
there I met with that which I had been looking for so long in vain. 
Spenser had studied Yirgil to as mnch advantage as Milton had done 
Homer and among the rest of his excellencies, had copied that. ' ' 

This is truly mellifluous to the ear of the ardent Spenserian. 
Bnt a famous passage in the Preface to the Fahles (1700), the 
brilliant work of Dryden's maturity, has been most unduly 
exalted into prominenee and eited as an example of that crass- 
ness which is said to have tainted even the large mind of Dryden 
in an age of literary narrowness. We expect only the choicest 
wisdom in this preface. We gloat over the damnation of the once 
revered Cowley. We breathe the fire of the noble eloquence which 
exalts Chaucer. But, as Dryden 's thought reverts to metrics, 
our enthusiasm grows pale. 

''Eqoality of numbers in every verse which we call heroick, was 
either not known or not always practised in Chaucer 's age. . . . We can 
only say that he lived in the infancy of our poetry, and that nothing is 
brooght to perf ection at first. We must be children before we grow men. 
There was an Ennius, and in process of time a Lucilius and a Lucretius 
before Yirgil and Horace. Even after Chaucer, there was a Spencer, a 



118 Univernty of California Publieations in Modem Phüology, [Vol. 2 

Harrington, a Fairf ax, before Waller and Denham were in being and onr 
numbeni were in their nonage tiU these appeared." 

These sentences have brought reproach on the memory of 
Dryden. It is surprising to see how widespread is the opinion 
that here Dryden, in his splendid maturity, capriciously expressed 
a senile preference for Waller and Denham over Chaucer and 
Spenser. Bnt it is to be observed that most of Dryden 's refer- 
ences to Denham and Waller have to do with technique — ^and 
with the technique of the heroic couplet solely. It is the **num- 
bers" and **rhyme" (which readers of the Essay of Dramatick 
Poesie will recognize as practically technical terms for the coup- 
let) which Dryden admired in Waller and Denham. When Dry- 
den wrote of the peers of the ancients and con^idered poetry in 
all its aspects he praised Chaucer, Tasso, Spenser, Jonson, Shake- 
speare, Milton, and Corneille in the highest terms. But Waller 
and Denham were not mentioned. That he did not rate mere 
technique highest among the qualifications of a poet is proved 
by a glance at his preference for Chaucer over Ovid in the 
Preface to the Fahles, Prom his point of view Chaucer was an 
inferior metrist. The best he could say of Chaucer 's melody was 
that **there is the rüde sweetness of a Scotch tune in it, which 
is natural and pleasing though not perfect." As a confirmed 
lover of Latin poetry he could not but greatly prefer the artful 
cadences of Ovid 's lines, though he was probably not blind to 
their saccharine qualities as compared with the stronger music 
of Virgil. But, though he was emphatic in favor of Ovid 's 
metrical superiority, the Latin poet came oflf very badly in the 
comparison and was ranked definitely below Chaucer. It is evi- 
dent that he ranked Chaucer, whom he considered somewhat 
primitive, far above Ovid, a poet of the days of a great nation's 
mature culture and formal perfection. By the same token it is 
not fanciful to argue that while Dryden considered Waller and 
Denham to be great as the perfectors of the popidar heroic coup- 
let of the day, he woidd not have dreamed a moment of placing 
them as high as Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton. 

We have observed that whenever Dryden took a i)oet or an 



1911] Gary: The CHtica of Edmund Speyer, 119 

ideal as the topic of an essay or a text for the exploitation of a 
pet theory he exalted the subject with a youthful enthusiasm 
for the interest of the hour and a fine indifference to what he 
had ever said before. When we consider the consistent and high 
praise in his many ref erences to Spenser, it does not seem illogi- 
cal to suppose that had he written an essay on his acknowledged 
master he would have glowed with an eloquence sublimated with 
his patriotie preference for English poets over the ancients and 
over the immaculate French mle-worshippers.^ As it is, he has 
Teft some generalizations on Spenser that are at once in the spirit 
of warm and rational admiration. In the Discourse on Epick 
Poetry he found that ''the file of heroick poets is very short/' 
There had been only one Iliad and Aeneid. 

"After these are entered some Lord Chamberlain should be appointed, 
some critick of an authority should be set before the door to keep out a 
erowd of little poets, who press for admission, and are not of quality. 
. . . The next; but the nezt with a long Intervall betwixt was' the 
Jerusalem; I mean not so much in distance of time as in excellency. " 

Pulci, Bojardo, Ariosto, Le Moine, Scudery, Chapelain are hud- 
dled together and reeeive scant graee. But : 

''Spencer has a better plea for his Fairy Queen had his action been 
finished, or had been. one; and Milton, if the devil had not been his hero, 
instead of Adam. . . . After these the rest of our English poets shall not 
be mentioned. I have that honour for them which I ought to have; but 
if they are worthies, they are not to be ranked amongst the three whom 
I have namedy and who are established in their reputation.'' 

In the same essay we are told that : 

"Spenser wanted only to have read the rules of Bossu; for no man was 
ever bom with a greater genius, or had more knowledge to support it."< 

Today we voice precisely the same complaints against Spenser 's 
form. To be sure, we fancy that we eould preseribe something 
better than the f ossilized Bossu. But though we all bow to Spen- 
ser 's marvellous genius we wish, with Dryden, that he had ehosen 



> See the Essay of Dramatick Poesie for his preference for English and 
modern poetry. 

«Luke Melbourne, a contentious parson, gained much notoriety, includ- 
ing a savage trust from Pope (Essay on Critioism, 11. 462, sq.) for a book 
of observations on Dryden 's translation of Virgil. But Melbourne at least 
made just and grim BX>ort of Dryden 's prescription of Bossu for Spenser. 



120 UnwerHty of CaUforwia PubUcation» in Modem Phüology. [YoL 2 

or perfected a monld more vertebrate into which to pour the 
inunense treasures of his mind. In the Dedicaiion of his transla- 
tion of the Pastorais of Vii^l (1697) Dryden, besides praising 
the Limitation" of the Doric of Theocritus, as before noted, gave 
Spenser the highest rank among the shepherd-poets. Having 
diseussed the bncolics of Theocritus and Yirgil he added : 

"OüT own nation has produeed a third poet in this kind, not inferior 
to the two former. For the Shepherd's Calendar of Spencer ia not to be 
matched in any modern language, not even by Taseo's Aminta, which 
inflnitely transeends Gnarini's Pastor-Fido, as having more of nature in 
it, and being almost whollj clear from the wretched affectation of leam- 
ing. I will saj nothing of the piscatory eclognes, because no modern 
Latin can bear criticism« It is no wonder that rolling down through so 
many barbarous ages, from the spring of Virgil, it bears along with it 
the filth and ordures of the Gotha and Vandals. Neither will I mention 
Monsieur Fontenelle, the living glory of the French. It is enough for 
him to have ezcelled his master, Lncian, without attempting to compare 
our miserable age with that of Virgil or Theocritus. Let me only add, 
for his repntation, , 

si Pergama dextra 

Defendi possent, etiam hac defensa foissent. 

But Spencer being master of onr north em dialect, and skilled in Ghancer 's 
Englishy has so ezactly imitated the Dorick of Theocritus, that his love 
is a perfect image of that passion which God infused into both sezes, 
before it was eorrupted with the knowledge of arts, and the ceremonies 
of what we call good manners.'' 

The obvious conclnsions from these citations certainly add 
little but lußtre to Dryden's fame as a eritic. Mr. Waller and Mr. 
Denham are given credit only for what they actually aceom- 
plished. To be sure, Dryden overrated the heroic eouplet, which 
from his point of view they perfected, as a measure. But it is 
absurd to suppose that he placed them, on these grounds, above 
the acknowledged masters of English poetry. As for Spenser, 
no man has praised more nobly and more rationally than Dryden. 
We have little occasion to question the opinions of those who hold 
him to be the greatest English eritic. 

Thomas Rymer interests us because he was an important man 
in his own d^y, because he espoused neo-classicism, in an age of 
struggle and doubt, with an uncompromising faith, and because 
he shows how readily the Augustans reconciled Spenser, on the 



1911] Cary: The Critica of Edmund Spenser, 121 

whole, with their Ideals. In hia preface to the translation of 
Bapin's Beflections on Aristotle's Treatise of Poesie (1674) he 
wrote: 

"Speneer, I think, m&j be reckon'd the first of our Heroick Poets; 
lie had a large spirit, a sharp judgement, and a Genius f or Heroick Poesie, 
perhaps above any that ever wiit since Virgü. Bnt our misfortnne is, 
he wanted a trae Idea, and lost himself by f ollowing an unf aithf nl guido. 
Though besides Homer and Virgil, he had read Tasso, yet he rather 
Buffer 'd himself to be misled by Ariosto; with whom blindly rambling on 
marvellous adventures he makes no conscienee of Probability. All is 
fanciful and chimerical, without any unif ormity, without any foundation 
in truth; his Poem is perfect Fairy-land. . . . They who can love Ariosto 
will be raTish'd with Speneer, whilst men of juster thoughts lament that 
such great Wits have misearried in their Travels for want of direction 
to set them in the right way. But the truth is, in Spencer 's time, Italy 
itself was not well satisfied with Tasso; and few amongst them would 
allow that he had excell'd their divine Ariosto. And it was the vice of 
these times to affect snperstitiously the Allegory; and nothing would 
then be current without a mystical meaning. We must blame the Italians 
for debauehing great Spencer 's judgement; and they cast him on the 
unlncky ehoice of the stanza which in no wise is proper for our Lan- 
g^age. ' ' 

In 1675 Edward Phillips published his Theatrum Poetarum 
Anglicanorum, a work which became very poptdar as a handbook 
of criticisms and acconnts of English Poets, and from which 
writers of similar treatises, Gterard Langbaine, William Win- 
stanley, and others, borrowed with great freedom. Critics have 
doubtl^ss been right in ascribing some of the real wisdom and 
largeness of Phillips' utterances to the influence of his uncle, 
Milton. Thus it was, perhaps, that he never bowed in blind wor- 
ship to the heroic couplet. Indeed his curious preference of an 
irregulär lyrical verse, which he called '*Pindarick," to the coup- 
let for tragedy suggests that his mind may have been füll of the 
rarified choroses of Samson Agonistes, The keynote of his atti- 
tude toward poetry is opposed to the Augustan worship of reason 
and Sounds like Milton. 

"Wit, ingenuity and leaming in verse, even elegancy itself, though 
that comes nearest, are one thing; true native poetry is another; in 
which there is a eertain air and spirit, which, perhaps, the most learned 
and judicious in other arts do not perfectly apprehend; much less is it 
attainable by any study or industry." 



122 ünivertity of California Tublicaiions in Modem PhOology. [Vol. 2 

His appreciation of the Spenserian stanza is notable and almost 
unique in his period. 

"How mach more stately and majestic in epie poems, especially of 
heroic argumenta Spenser's stanza (which I take to be but an improve- 
ment upon Taaso 's Ottava Bima, or the Ottava Rima itself , used by many 
of oar once-esteemed poets) is above the way, either of couplet, or altera- 
tion of four verses only, I am persnaded were it revived, would soon be 
acknowledged. ' * 

Phillips may have influenced Dr. Samuel Woodford who pub- 
lished, in 1679, A Paraphrase Upon the Canticles with a preface 
that is füll of interest f or us. 

''Among the several other Papers that we have lost of the Exeellent 
and Divine Spenser, one of the happiest Poets that this Nation ever 
bred (and out of it the world it may be (all things considered) had not 
his Fellow, ezcepting only such as were immediately Inspired) I bewail 
nothing methinks so much, as his Version of the Canticles. For doubt- 
less, in my poor Judgement, never was Man better made for such a Work, 
and the Song itself as directly suited, with his Genius and manner of 
Poetry (that I mean wherein he best shews and even ezcels himself, His 
Shepherd's Kalender, and other occasional Poems, for I cannot yet say 
the same directly for his Faery Queen design'd for an Heroic Poem) 
that it could not but from him receive the last Perfection, whereof it 
was capable out of its original.'' 

Woodford 's eecentric notions and terrifying plesiosaurian sen- 
tences do not prove that he was out of the literary world of his 
day. He was the friend of Sprat, the famous biographer of 
Cowley, and seems to have commanded no small respect from 
Platman, "the matchless Orinda," and other distinguished con- 
temporaries that are now with the snows of yesteryear. His 
opinions are always interesting and often sound and suggestive. 
He thinks that Couplets are best in an heroic poem, ''as in Mr. 
Cowley 's Davideis (for the Quatrains of Sir William Davenant, 
and the Stanza of Nine in Spenser's Paery Queen, which are but 
an Improvement of the Ottava Bima, to instance in no more, 
seem not to me so proper)." But that he had some admiration 
for the Spenserian stanza, for other purposes, seems certain, for 
he employed it himself in his most pretentious poem, The Legend 
of Love. 

In his Paraphrase of the Canticles Woodford carried the 
dialogue-setting of Quarles {Sion's Sonnet s) even farther and 



1911] Cory: The CHiies of Edmund Spender, 123 

attempted an approximation of the classical drama and the dassi- 
cal epithalamium. The verses are not only assigned to the Spouse 
and the Beloved but to the f riends on either side and to a chorus. 
Woodf ord takes oecasion, incidentally, to condemn blank verse as 
nsed by Milton, though he is an enthusiastic lover of Paratdise 
Lost. Por blank verse, he thinks, as ' * likest prose, ' ' is unfit f or 
any form but the drama. The Song of Solomon may be divided, 
he thinks, into such parts as a Protasis, the ''Divine Amoris 
Eestasis, an Epitasis or the countertum of aetion, the Dolor de 
Absentia Sponsi," and a third division. The unity of aetion, 
we are told, is ''strictly observed in this Hynm, and the Chorus, 
which is everywhere re^ar." In short, Woodford is a Com- 
pound of the Spenserians, the Marinists, and the neo-classicists, 
a very characteristic poet of the late seventeenth Century. 

To his Version of the Canticles Woodford prefixed a stem 
Proazma bidding the profane to "avoid." He was evidently 
somewhat disturbed over the possible influence of the Oriental 
love-language. In his preface he was scandalized by some un- 
speakable freethinkers who dared to murmur that the Song of 
Solomon might, after all, be a literal love-lyric and have nothing 
to do with an allegory of Christ and the Chureh. To make his 
cheveux de frise perfect against any loose lovers of wanton lyrics 
who should Chance on his ground in search of amorous poetry to 
their taste, he added his moralistic Epoda or Legend of Love, imi- 
tated partly from Spenser's Hymne to Divine Love and partly 
f rom the pageant of the Seven Deadly Sins in The Faerie Queene. 
We may let Woodford describe its content in his own words. After 
def ending his use of the term * * Epoda, ' ' he says : 

''The 'Legend,' forther, of 'Love' I have stiled it, for honour's sake 
to the great Spenser, whose Btanza of Nine I have used, and who has 
Intitnled the six Books which we have compleat of his Faery Qneen, by 
the several Legends of Holiness, Temperance, Ohastity, Friendship Jus- 
tice and Conrtesy, and to any who knows what the word Legend there, 
or in its tnie and flrst notion signifies, it will neither seem stränge, 
ridicnloQs, or improper. I have made it to consist of three Cantos, agree- 
able enongh to the natare of an Epode or Legend, if it be jndged indecent, 
as indeed it is, eonsidering its length, for an Epilogue; the first whereof 
taking oecasion from the Canticles, to which in the beginning it refers, 



124 ünwertity of Cälifamia Publicaiums in Modem PhiMogy. [VdL 2 

I have endeavoured to shew the tme Nature of Love, and what it was in 
the State of Innocence, deBeribing it by the liveliest Images, which I 
form to myself miitable to a poetical eomposition. In the second I have 
eonsidered the thing whatever it be, vulgarly called Love, under the 
dominion and govemment of Sense, ezclnsive of Beason, whieh it too 
often either draws to its party or wholly eztinguishes, than whieh noth- 
ing can be eoneeived more absurd, unreasonable, extravagant, and 
inhumane. The third eanto, in the elose of it, is design 'd f or the Bestau- 
ration of Love, by Saered Marriage, or Wedlock, aceording to the Divine 
Institution, to its aneient Dignity and Lustre. ' ' 

John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave and Duke of Buckingham- 
shire, published in 1682 a very clever Essay on Poetry in the last 
Couplet of which he asserted that the ideal pK>et 

"Must above Cowley, nay, and Milton too, preyail 
Sueceed where great Torquato and our greater Spenser fail." 

In the edition of 1713 he revised these lines, significantly striking 
out the name of Cowley, who had then been dashed from the 
firmament of poets. Here he decided that the poet 

"Must aboTe Milton 's lofty flights prevail 
Sueceed where Spenser and even Torquato fail. ' ' 

In 1723 the couplet was made to read : 

"Must above Tasso's lofty flights prevail, 
Sueceed where Spenser and even Milton fail." 

Dr. Johnson was the first to comment on these revisions as a mark 
of the increase of Milton 's fame. But they have another import- 
ance as well. The names of Tasso, Spenser, and Milton were 
plainly not marshalled merely to make a high-sounding couplet, 
but the shifts in the order and the Omission of Cowley indicate 
that these men were carefully selected because of their eminence 
and, most probably, with a shrewd eye to their populär eminence. 
I must not omit some lines from a satire by John Oldham 
(Poems and Translations 1683) because, though their connection 
with Spenserian criticism is of the slightest, there is something 
in their grim despair that is typical of the poet 's attitude at the 
end of the seventeenth Century. Poets are always complaining 
that their times care not for the muse. But there is something 
in the raw power of these lines that is more than the proper and 
customary protest against the indifference to those who practice 
the humble slighted shepherd's trade. 



1911] Cory: The Critica of Edmund Spenser, 125 

"One night, as I was pondering of late 
On all the mis'ries of my hapless Fate, 
Cursing my rhiming Stars, raving in vain 
At all the Pow'rs, who over Poets reign: 
In came a ghastly Shape, all pale and thin, 
As some poor Sinner, who by Priest had been 
Under a long Lent's Penanee, starvM and whip'd, 
Or par-boil'd Lecher, late from Hot-house erept: 
Famish'd his Looks appear'd his eyes sank in, 
Like Moming-Gown about him hnng his Skin: 
A Wreath of Laurel on his Head he wore, 
A book inserib'd the Fairy Queen he bore." 

This spectre, who is no other than Spenser himself , dissuades the 

young poet from the imrewarded allegiance to the muses. It is 

difiSeult to realize that this harsh, crude verse was written by 

a poet highly esteemed in his day. But Dryden wrote one of his 

noblest, most genuine poems in his memory. Crude as these 

yerses are, they show a spirit mueh more real than the complaints 

of the Elizabethan shepherd-poets in the Age of Enthusiasm and 

are much more manly than the everlasting whines of our dis- 

gruntled magazine poets of the twentieth Century against com- 

mereialism. They show a f eeling f or a real fin de stiele. 

In Sir WiUiam Temple's essay Of Poetry (1685) Ariosto, 

Tasso, and Spenser are selected as the three supreme modern 

poets to name with the Ancients. 

''After these three I know none of the Modems that have made any 
achieTements in Heroic poetry worth recording. " 

Of Spenser in particular he wrote : 

"Spenser endeavonred to supply this with morality to make Instruc- 
tion instead of story, the sabject of an epie poem« His ezecution was 
ezcellent and his flights of faney very noble and high, bat his design 
was poor, and his moral lay so bare that it lost the effect. ' ' 

Those timid tasters of The Faerie Queene who believe with 
Lowell that the allegory is the grit in the dish of strawberries 
and Cream, will find this critcism in some accord with their views. 
views. 

William Winstanley has been long spumed as a wretched 
barber and a graceless thief from the writings of Edward 
Phillips. In his account of Spenser (Lives of the most famous 
English Poets, 1686), he referred to him as: 



126 Univernty of Cdlif&mia PubUcationg in Modem Philology. [V<d. 2 

"Especially yery happy in English Poetry, as hifl leamed, elabomte 
Works do dedare .... and though some blame his Writings for the 
many Chaucerisms nsed by him, yet to the Leamed they are known not 
to be blemishes bnt rather beauties to his Book. ' "* 

Again : 

"But his main Book, and whieh I think Envy itself cannot carp at, 
was his Fairy Queen, a Work of such ingenuous composure as will last as 
long as time endures." 

In 1694 Sir Thomas Pope Blount brought out a coUection of 
remarks on poets and pK)etry called De Be Poetica, an important 
document to determine the standing of critics of that period and 
the ideas of an author apparently held by the reading public. 
Spenser fares exeellently. The eulogies of Edward Phillips, 
Camden, and Füller are quoted together with the high praise, 
with its rational qualifications, of Temple, Rymer, and Dryden 
(Essay on Satire). 

In these days English poetry was at its lowest ebb and Spen- 
ser 's inäuenee at its faintest was eoineident with this drab age. 
The f act that it was an Age of Literary Anarchy, that there 
were many eonflicting inäuences and many hostile ideals, was the 
cause of this degeneration. It is remarkable, under the circum- 
stanees, to find Spenser admired and followed by poets in other 
respects so inimical to one another. Neo-classicism was neces- 
sary to save English poetry. But it grew only very slowly and 
painfuUy. Neo-classicism, when it did prevail, found inspiration 
in Spenser and reconciled him, for the most part, with its Ideals. 
It is significant, as we have already seen, to note how often he 
was named with Virgil. It is not true that Spenser feil into dis- 
repute and so remained until the romanticists **revived" him. 



7 This sentence is Ufted bodily from Thomas Füller 's aecount of Spenser 
in The Eiatory of the WortUea of England 1662. 



1911] Cory: The Critics of Edmund Spenser, 127 



THE NEO-CLASSICAL DESPOTISM 

All scholarship on eighteenth Century literature has of late 
been a mad scramble in search of romanticism. Since Professor 
Phelps and Professor Beers traced its growth in the eighteenth 
Century it has become so fashionable to detect signs of revolt, 
even among the most hard-shelied neo-classicists, that some 
brilliant critic of the future may gain distinction by tuming 
the tables and by proving that a school of Pope actually existed. 
It becomes necessary, then, to attempt to describe romanticism 
at the very outset of this section of our study. 

For our purposes it is best to enumerate a number of the 
mofit commonly accepted types of romanticism, realizing how 
seldom they exist in combination, and that they are often utterly 
unlike one another, occasionally even irreconcilable. The most 
distinctive feature of Coleridge's romanticism, in bis greatest 
poems, is the passion for mystery in the most exalted sense, the 
X>ower of Suggestion, the devotion to things that may be real. 
In Woodsworth, romanticism lies in the intimate relating of 
man 's soul and nature. The romanticism of Byron is intense 
subjectivity and the spirit of revolt. Sometimes the roman- 
ticism of Eeats, a luxurious heaping up of exquisite details, is 
the exact opposite. It may be the passion for things as they are. 
The delight in the bee and the flower brings no yeaming for 
things as they should be. Often, however, Eeats is the idealist 
with a spirit of intense longing. Again, in a few lines in the Ode 
to the Nigktingale, in La Belle Dame Sans Merci, in The Eve of 
8t. Markf Eeats is with Coleridge. In Shelley it is, more broadly, 
the spirit of revolt; at its best, a peculiarly refined and intense 
spirit of aspiration and of intellectual adventure. In Scott it is 
a passion for the grandeur of the past which, however, by no 
means implies a dissatisfaction with the present. Professor 



128 ünivernty of CaUfomia Pub\ieat%on$ in Modem Philology, [Vol. 2 

Phelps finds the most notable characteristics of romanticism to 
be: **Subjectivity, Love of the Picturesque, and a Beactionary 
Spirit.'* Theodore Watts-Dunton's phrase, '*The Renaissance 
of Wonder," is worth a book on romanticism. These assertions, 
while they do not absolutely define romanticism, are sofficiently 
inclusive of those qualities generally nrged in defence of all 
newly discovered eighteenth Century romanticists so that we may 
use them as touchstones. 

It is certainly true that the great poets, if not all poets, are 
both romantic and classical. But one temper generally predom- 
inates. It will take a hardy inyestigator to find much roman- 
ticism in the first f ew decades of the eighteenth Century. Por my 
part, beginning as romanticism-hunter, I have gradually parted 
with my hopes. The amount of neo-classical survival even among 
the poets of the first third of the nineteenth Century, is much 
more striking than the amount of significant romantic material 
even in the last half of the eighteenth. The classicism of Byron 
is much more remarkable than the romanticism of Oray and 
Collins. The Neo-classical Despotism, once fuUy established, 
was prof ound and lasting. 

In the search f or neo-classical beginnings, in the last infirmity 
of noble scholars, the desire to find signs of a new movement 
f arther back than any investigator has hitherto indicated, we 
exaggerate the relations of Ben Jonson, Waller, Denham, even 
Dryden, to this Neo-classical Despotism. I have already tried to 
make it clear that the latter part of the seventeenth Century 
was not an Augustan Age, as the text-books would have it, but 
an Age of Literary Anarchy, that neo-dassicism gained head- 
way only with desperate slowness. The Neo-classical Despotism 
may be said (for convenience only, for exact dates are impossible), 
to have struggled into supremacy by 1709, the date of the appear- 
ance of the Pastoräls of Pope and Ambrose Philips, of Priores 
first poems, of the opening numbers of the Tatler, of the writing 
of Pope 's dictatorial Essay on Criticism, 

There is a wholesome lesson in a study of the development, 
for better or worse, of Spenser-criticism in the hands of the 



1911] Cary: The Critios of Edmund Spenser. 129 

classicists and romanticists. It shows the inability of one age 
to appreciate all the merits of a supreme poet at one time. Be- 
cause of ephemeral whims men term one aspect bad which the 
next age will admire. The neo-classieist appreeiated sides of 
Spenser to which the romanticists became stone-blind. The 
romanticists revealed beauties in Spenser that had been tamished 
by the disregard of a Century and some beauties, perhaps, that 
had never bef ore been discerned. 

Two fallacious ideas about the neo-classical attitude toward 
Spenser are current ; that he was unpopulär even among literary 
men, and that the Augustans approached him in a spirit of 
mockery. Professor Phelps, for instance, quotes some platitudes 
in Addison 's boyish Epistle to Sacheverel to indicate how little 
Addison knew or cared about Spenser. But he does not take 
into consideration a long series of admiring references in Addi- 
son 's mature work, induding a prose allegory professedly in 
the manner of Spenser which Addison once aspired to develop 
in poetic form. Similarly Professor Phelps makes too much of 
the Spenserian burlesque, The Alley, which Pope and Gay wrote 
in a f ew moments of triviality. If we examined consistently all 
the vulgär parodies in eighteenth Century poetry and made the 
same deductions, we should be f orced to conclude that the eigh- 
teenth Century admired nobody, ancient or modern. Eighteenth 
Century England devoted occasional moments of recreation to 
that peculiarly pointless type of obscenity that is now current 
among boys at grammar schools. It is of little significance. 

The essential truth is that the neo-dassicists had a genuine 
admiration for Spenser, and that they appreeiated a great aspect 
of his genius now misunderstood through the influence of literary 
epicures, from Leigh Hunt down to our *'Art for Art 's Sake" 
men who know not what they do. The Augustans appreeiated 
Spenser 's moral eamestness and his allegory. Nowada3rs we have 
a morbid fear of didacticism. We consider it all bad. The 
Augustans considered it all good. The golden mean is to know 
the difFerence between crude didacticism — ^almost any sermon, 
the Essay on Man — ^and artistic didacticism — ^the last lines of the 
Ode to a Orecian Um, the first lines of Tennyson's Ulysses. 



130 ünivertity of California Tublieations in Modem Phiiology. [VoL 2 

The Augustans also knew and often named many of Spenser's 
qualities which we admire today, his sweetness, his peculiar kind 
of naive simplicity, his tendemess, his copious f ancy. 

They wrote so-called Spenserian "Imitations," not as a mere 
literary exercise but because one of their fundamental ideals 
was to imitate. And the Augustan imitations of Spenser are no 
more unlike the model than their Virgilian imitations are nnlike 
their idol, Virgil. 

It is well to begin an aceount of the attitude of the Augustan 
critics towards Spenser with an investigation of the ideas of the 
two dietators, Addison and Pope. In 1694 Addison 's Epistle to 
Sacheverel, a very youthf ul aceount of the greatest English pK)ets, 
appeared. It is simply a succession of boyish platitudes in 
deeorous eouplets and is insignificant from every point of view. 
Whatever he may have known or thought about Spenser at first, 
Addison became, in his mature years, a deep admirer of The 
Faerie Queene. A comment in the Spectat or (No. 62) where he 
made famous Classification of the kinds of "Wit," is extremely 
significant because it is at once thoroughly Augustan and in 
praise of Spenser. Whatever romantic tendencies Addison may 
have feit, he here admires Spenser because Spenser, if you please, 
is at one with all true believers. He is with Monsieur Boileau. 

"As tme Wit eonsists in the Resemblanee of Ideas, and false Wit in 
the Besemblance of Words, according to the foregoing Instances; there 
is another kind of Wit which eonsists partly in the Resemblanee of 
Ideas, and partly in the Besemblance of Words; which for Distinction 
Sake I shaU caU mixt Wit. This Kind of Wit is that which abonnds in 
Cowley more than in any Author that ever wrote. Mr. Waller has Uke- 
wise a great deal of it. Mr. Dryden is very sparing in it. Milton had 
a Genius much above it. Spencer is in the same dass with Milton. The 
Italians, even in their Epic Poetry are fall of it. Monsienr Boileau, who 
formed himself upon the Ancient Poets, has everywhere rejected it with 
Scorn." 

For US the significant points to notice are : the neo-classical mania 
for mechanical definition and Classification, the surprising attack 
on the immortal Mr. Waller, the usual Augustan onslaught on the 
Italian pK)ets, the fact that Spenser and Milton are classed with 
the divine Monsieur Boileau and the venerable Ancients, even 



1911] Cory: The Crities of Sdtnund Bpenser. 131 

above Dryden. Plainly the Augnstan had no need to think 
meanly of Spenser here. It must be added, however, that Spen- 
ser, from another pK)iiit of view, was once grouped by bis urbane 
critic with the censured Italians. In the Speciaior, Number 297, 
he wrote: 

"Milton has interwoven in the Teztnre of his Fable some partieulars 
whieh do not seem to have Probability enoagh for an Epie Poem, particu- 
larly in the Actions whieh he ascribes to Sin and Death. . . . Sueh alle- 
gories rather savour of the Spirit of Spencer and Ariosto, than of Homer 
and Vergil. ' ' 

But our critic seenus to have recanted. For in a subsequent num- 
ber (419), Addison wrote of what Dryden called **The Fairy 
Way of Writing'^ in a tone that has been called romantic, and 
lauded these ' ' allegories. ' ' 

"There is another sort of imaginary Beings, that we sometimes meet 
with among the Poets, when the Author represents any Passion, Appetite, 
Virtue or Vice, nnder a visible Shape and makes it a Person or an Aetor 
in his Poem. . . . We find a whole Creation of the like shadowy Persons 
in Spencer, who had an admirable talent in Bepresentations of this kind. ' ' 

However romantic the general tenets of this paper may be con- 
sidered, the comments on Spenser are bnt that praise of allegory 
whieh was becoming orthodox among the Augustans. We may 
assnme that, at this latter date, Addison would have been less 
ready to have his fling at Milton 's Sin and Death, at Spenser and 
the Italians. Indeed the neo-classical admiration for the allegory 
of The Faerie Queene, though native to the didactic temperament 
of the eighteenth Century, doubtless received some Stimulus from 
the words of the revered Addison. He asserts that : 

''Allegories, when weU chosen, are like so many Tracks of Light in 
a discourse, that makes everything about them dear and beautifal."i 

Identifying "Pables," for the moment, with allegory he writes 
approvingly : 

"Spencer 's Fairy Qneen is one continned Series of them from the 
Beginning to the end of that admirable Work. ''s 

He regrets the little cultivation of allegory and, in the 0%iardian 
for September 4, 1713, leaves us his most interesting tribute to 
Spenser: 



1 Speetatar, 421. 
s Spectator, 1S3. 



132 üniversiiy of Cälifamia PubUcatunu in Modern PhOology. [Vol. 2 

' ' ThoQgh this kind of eomposition was praetised by the finest authoTB 
among the ancients, our coontry-man, SpenBer, is the last writer of note 
who has applied himself to it with sueeeBS. 

I was onee thinking to haye written a whole canto in the spirit of 
SpenseTy and in order to do it, contrived a fable of imaginary persona 
and eharaetera. I raised it on that common dispute between the com- 
parative perf ections and preeminence between the two sexes. 

8inee I have not time to accomplish this work, I shall present my 
reader with the naked fable, reserving the embeUishments of verse and 
poetry to another opportunity. " 

The ''fable" is then transcribed.* It is apparent that Spenser 
was not only favored by Addison the critic, but was no small 
foree in the making of those graeeful and attractive allegories 
which were widely imitated by the host of urbane essayists in the 
eighteenth Century who took Addison f or their model. 

Pope 's admiration for Spenser is emphatically expressed in 
his words to Hughes (1715).* He wrote: 

"Spenser has been ever a favorite poet to me; he is like a mistrem, 
whose faults we see, but love her with them all." 

But Pope left little detailed eriticism. His only elaborate com- 
ments are to be found in the Discourse on PcLstoral Poetry which 
he prefixed to the 1717 edition of his PcLstorals. This is partially 
borrowed from Dryden's preface to his translation of VirgiFs 
eclogues but contains the füllest and best consideration of The 
Shepheards Cälender that had yet appeared. The tendency to 
reconcile Spenser with the ''Ancients" in true Augustan fashion 
is again apparent. 

"Among the modems, their suceess has been greatest who have most 
endeavoured to make these ancients [vic Theocritus and Virgil] their 
pattern. The most considerable genias appears in the f amoas Tasso and 
our Spenser. . . . Spenser 's Calendar, in Mr. Dryden's opinion, is the most 
complete work of this kind which any nation has produced ever since 
the time of Yergil." 



s Samuel Wesley 's Poems on Several Oocasions (second edition, 1763) 
contains a yersification of The Battle of the Sexes in Prior-Spenserian 

Stanxas. 

« Quoted by Phelps, The Beginninga of the Sngliah Bofnantic Movement, 
Boston, 1893, p. 53. 



1911] Cary: The Criiiea of Edmund Spenser. 133 

He critcises Spenser justly for his imitation of Mantuan's 
satirical eclogues and crassly for one of his chief merits, the 
introduction of varied stanza-f orms in the poem. Spenser should 
have nsed the everlasting couplet, of course. Pope criticises 
Spenser for imitating the Doric of Theocritus by the use of **old 
English and country phrases." In this he may have followed 
Dryden who, as we have seen, onee condemned and once praised. 
Yet Pope writes with discemment when he adds : 

"As there is a differenee betwixt simplieity and msticity, so the 
ezpression of simple thoughts should be piain, but not elownish. ' ' 

He is the first to give Spenser credit for inventing the device of 
a "calendar:" 

' ' The addition he has made of a calendar to his eclogues is very beau- 
tiful; sinee by this, besides the general moral of innocence and sim- 
plieity, whieh is common to other authors of Pastoral, he has one peculiar 
to himself ; he compares human lifo to the several seasons, and at once 
ezposes to his readers a view of the great and litUe worlds, in their 
various changes and aspects." 

Tet Pope, whose name is aknost always connected with decorous 
lawns, was the first to point out that Spenser 's natnre descrip- 
tions are not alwayB appropriate to the month, that : 

"Some of his eclogues (as the sixth, eighth, and tenth for ezample) 
have nothing but their titles to distinguish them/' 

Beginning with Dryden 's criticism, then, Pope developed the 
first detailed study of the Shepheards Calender. His contribu- 
tions are brilliant when we examine all that was written before. 
Never had the Shepheards Calender been at once admired and 
judged so discemingly. It is evident that the obscene Spen- 
serian stanzas, The AUey (the product of a trivial hour with 
Gay) ean be relegated to their deserved insignificance. 

We have seen that the two chiefs of the Augustans of the 
early eighteenth Century were not only warm admirers of Spen- 
ser but that they made distinct contributions to the development 
of Spenserian criticism. It is worth emphasizing that they did 
this by no f oreshadowing of doctrines that may by any means 
be calied romantic. They weighed him in the neo-classical bal- 
anee and f ound him wanting in f ew respects. 



134 UniverHty of California Puhlusatums in Modem PhOölogy, [VoL 2 

Pope was not the only Augustan who was stimulated bj The 
Shepheards Calender. Mr. Phelps writes misleadingly : 

"Some interest in Spenser on the Pastoral side was aroased bj 
Ambrose Philips (1671-1749), who was mainlj inspired by Spenser in 
writing his TastoraU (1709)." 

This is to suggest that there was a mere shadow of interest in 
the Spenserian pastoralist at this time. Since there was a good 
deal of interest, since the pastoral of this i)eriod is never noticed 
by the literary historians, and since it involves some important 
truths in connection vrith the Augustan attitude toward Spenser, 
I must examine a f ew of the more important figores with some 
detail. 

The formal eclogue which, by the close of the seventeenth 
Century, contained, for the most part, the dregs of poetry, is 
nevertheless of very considerable importance for the Student of 
Augustan poetry. It was, in general, a decadent form with the 
neo-classicists. Elsewhere I have shown how the Elizabethan 
pastoral, which became sprightly and lyrical and füll of careless 
charm soon after Spenser, through the influence of innovations 
which he suggested when he naturalized the form in England, 
sank rapidly into hopeless insipidity as the classical influences 
came to mingle more f reely with that of Spenser.* The Virgilian 
bucolic song was always sickly on English soil. 

Decay and oblivion would seem inevitable for such anaemic 
verse. Yet the Augustan pastoral attained an immense vogue 
which lasted even into the early nineteenth Century. In the skill- 
f ul hands of Ambrose Philips, Pope, and Gay it became one of 
the minor forces which established the Neo-classical Despotism. 
In another path rough burlesque, combined with a genuine relish 
for the homely, led up to Allan Aamsay's blithe, fresh Oentle 
Shepherd and to the spirited notes of Bums ; it had its share in 
stimulating an interest in nature not to be f ound in books. The 
immense vogue of the pastoral may have given it some share in 



B I have diseussed this in * ' The Golden Age of the Spenserian Pas- 
toral," Publicationa of the Modem Language Association of America, June, 
1910. 



1911] Gary: The Criiios of Edmund Spenser, 135 

the rise of the (xothic-romanticism, that jaded passion for some- 
thing merely new and stränge which gradually became exalted 
into the fine spirit of revolt against what Watts-Dunton calls 
the Age of Aeceptanee. The titles of Colin 's Oriental Eclogues, 
Chatterton 's Arabian Eclogues, if not their content, show a 
vague desire to pass beyond **Nature" as Boileau coneeived it, 
beyond the town, beyond pseudo-imitations of the ancients, be- 
yond the decorous lawns of an English manor. The craze for 
this romantic pose which became romanticism may be indicated 
by one title: '^ Exaltation, An Eclogue; Translated front the 
Original Bahylonian,"^ 

In the first half of the eighteenth Century the influence of 
Spenser over the formal eclogue was remote but pervasive. In 
1709 Ambrose Philii)s published his Pastorais in the Sixth Part 
of Tonson's Poetical MisceUanies, Philips, in his preface, com- 
plains unaccountably at the neglect of pastoral poetry. Per- 
haps, however, he was only hitting at its insipidity : 

''It 18 Bomewhat stränge to eoneeive, in an age so addieted to the 
Moses, how pastoral poetry eomes to be never so much as thought npon; 
eonsidering, espeeially, that it is of the greatest antiquity, and hath 
ever been aceoonted the foremost, among the smaller poems in dignity." 

Philips is explicit in the choice of masters : 

''Virgil and Bpenser made use of it as a prelude to epic poetry: But, 
I fear, the innoceney of the subject makes it so little inviting. . . . 
Theoeritus, Virgil, and Spenser, are the only poets who seem to have hit 
upon the true nature of pastoral compositions; so that it will be sufficient 
praise for me, if I have not altogether failed in my attempt/' 

In the first eclogue, Lobbin (a character in Spenser 's Novem- 
ber), like Colin Clont in Januarie and December, complains of 
his unrequited love : 

"Lobbin, a shepherd-boy, one evening fair, 



Thns plained him of his dreary discontent 

WhilomT did I, all as this poplar fair, 
Upraise my heedless head then void of care. '' 



7 The Spenserian veneer will be apparent to all stndents of the 8hep- 
heard$ Calender in sueh phrases as "whilom" and "aU as" and many 
more. 

6 This poem is printed in an anthology called' The Poetry of the World, 
London, 1791, voL 3, p. 274. 



136 Univernty of Ccdifornia Puhlicatians in Modem ThSUAogy. [Vol. 2 

Bnt now Colin is the victim of the heedless Lucy. Readers of 

Spenser will recognize at once that Philips colors his Augustan 

Couplets with a slight infusion of Spenserian diction. 

"The jolly grooms I flj, and all alone, 
To roekfl and woods ponr forth mj fruitless moan. 
The giftB, alike, and giver she disdains 
And now, left heirei» of the glen> she'U deem 
Me, landlos« lad, unworthy her esteeuL" 

Lobbin sings, with some real charm, of his devotion if Lucy wonld 
listen. 

' ' How would I wander, every day, to find 
The choice of wildings, blnshing throngh the rind! 
For glossy plums how lightsome elimb the tree, 
How risk the vengeanee of the thrifty beet" 

In the second Pastoral, **Thenot and Colinet," Colinet* com- 
plains to Thenot, who is an aged shepherd as in Spenser 's 
Februarie, that he had left his native land for greater gain but 
had become poor and ill. 

"My sheep quite spent throngh travel and ill-fare 
And, like their keeper, ragged grown and bare, 
The damp cold greensward for my nightly bed, 
And some slant willow's trank to rest my head." 

Por this motive Philips could find inspiration in Virgil, Man- 
tuan, and Spenser 's September. Eclogue three, "Albino," con- 
tains a resolution to write pastorals because they were cultivated 
by Virgil and Spenser. 

"And Bpenser, when amid the rural throng 
He earol'd sweet and graz'd along the flood 
Of gentle Thames, made every sonnding wood 
With good Eliza's name to ring around.''^® 

Angelot and Palin sing an elegy for Albino. Angelot laments, 
but Palin sings of hope in the vein popularized for English pas- 
toral elegy by Spenser in his lament for Dido. The old Sp>en- 
serian fashion of flower-passages is revived. 



8 Spenser deseribes his Bosalind as "the widow's daughter of the glen." 

9 A diminutive for Colin once used by Spenser himself (December, 1. 18, 
"carefnlColinet.") 

10 Spenser sang to EUza and Thames in April. Perhaps Philips remem- 
bered also the Epithakttnion: 

"The woods shall to me answer and my Eceho ring." 



1911] Cory: The Criiics of Bdmtmd Spenser. 137 

"0 now, if ever, bring 
The laurell green, the smelling eglantine, 
And tender branehes from the mantling vine, 
The dewy eowdip whieh in meadow grows, 
The fonntain violet and the garden rose, 
Marah-lilies sweet and tnfts of daffodiL''^^ 

The fonrth eclogue, "Myco and Argol," opens with a pretty 
picture which shows a genuine interest in natnre, however f rag- 
mentary Philips' real knowledge of rural seenery may have been. 

"This place may seem for shepherd'B leisnre made, 
So dose these elms inweave their lofty shade; 
The twining woodbine, how it elimbs to breathe 
Befreshing sweete around on aU beneath: 
The groond with grass of cheerful green bespread, 
Throngh whieh the springing flower up-rears the head: 
Medley 'd with daisies white and endive blue, 
And honeysneklee of a purple dye, 
Conf nsion gay bright waving to the eye. ' ' 

Myco sings to Argol the elegy on Stella which Colinet taught 
him. In the fif th Pastoral, * * Cuddy, ' ' many shepherds sing. 

''Then Cuddy last (who Cnddy ean ezcel 
In neat devieef) his tale began to teil. "12 

Cuddy 's pipes are outsung by the nightingale. He takes a harp 
and wins. The nightingale falls dead, Cuddy bewails her, and 
breaks the cruel strings. The sixth Pastoral is one of the con- 
ventional singing contest. 

Philips had some real love for nature, though little apparent 
knowledge at first band. He was a master of smooth verse. The 
inäuence of Spenser upon him is very marked. Like most Augus- 
tans, he fused the Spenserian vein with the spirit of neo-classi- 



11 Compare the famons flower set-piece in Spenser 's Song io Elisa in 
Aprü, and its many imitations, some of which are cited in The Chlden Äge 
0I the Spenserian Pastoral referred to above. In this eclogue occur two 
other of Spenser 's shepherd-names, Cuddy and Hobbinol. 

12 The regulär Spenserian trick much cultivated by Spenser and his f ol- 
lowers. Compare: 

"A shepeheards boye (no better doe him call)." — Januarie, 
"Poore Colin Clont (who knows not Colin Clont f)." — Faerie Queene, 6, 
10, 16, etc., etc. 



138 üniverHty of California FublicatioM in Ködern Phüology, [Vol. 2 

cism. The general qualities of Philips 's style may be best seen 
in his Version of Strada's famous ^'Nightingale," already men- 
tioned, in **Cuddy." Strada's poem was very populär. It had 
been translated with rare fineness by John Ford. Crashaw's 
unpruned and exquisite faney had twined it in a maze of true- 
lover's-knots. It is instruetive to eompare with these the liquid 
passionless cadenees of Philips, a dear brook which has flowed 
out of its wonderful forest haunts to a flat land adomed with 
trim paterres. 

The same volume of Tonson's Miscellanies (1709) contained 
the Pastorais of Alexander Pope, whose prefaee, written later, 
with its interesting praise and censure of the Shepheards Calen- 
der, has already been treated. His admiration for Spenser's 
Calendar-idea indueed Pope to name eaeh of his four eelogues 
after a season. Spenser's failure to make month, mood, and 
nature correspond, Pope attributed, with true Augustan ignor- 
ance, to the f aet that : 

'^The year has not enough variety in it to fumish every month with 
a particular deseription, as it may every season. ' ' 

Pope Claims for his Pastorais : 

'*That they have as mnch variety of description, in respect to the 
several seasons, as Spenser's, that, in order to add to this variety, the 
several times of the day are observed, the rural employments in eaeh 
season or time of day, and the rural scenes or plaees proper to such 
employments, not without some regard to the several ages of man, and the 
different passions proper to eaeh age. 

^^But after aU, if they have any merit, it is to be attributed to some 
good old authors, whose works, as I had leisure to study, so, I hope, I 
have not wanted care to imitate. ' ' 

The World has long laughed and sneered at Pope 's jealousy 
which led him to encourage the mad wag John Gay to pillory 
' * namby-pamby Philips ' ' with coarse pastoral banter. As a result 
the remarkable Shepherd's Week appeared in 1714. Steele, as 
we shaU see, had placed Philips in a flattering genealogy of 
bucolic poets as descendant of Theocritus, Virgil, and Spenser. 
Pope had vented his spieen in a masterpiece of irony which he 



1911] Cory: The Critics of Edmwnd Spenser. 139 

had deluded the good-natured Addison into printing. Now, 
being imable to take issue with the cudgel which the stalwart 
**namby-pamby Philips" had hung up in a tavem for future 
argoment, he was glad to crouch behind Gay 's wit. But Gay 
proved to be something more than a mere rhymster-mercenary. 
In his burlesque he took pride in treading the "piain highway 
of Pastoral " in Opposition to the '*rout and rabblement of 
critical gallimawfry" that was **made of late days by certain 
young men of insipid delicacy concerning, I wist not what, golden 
age, and other outrageous conceits, to which they would confine 
the Pastoral." Gay 's introductory words throughout show the 
strong influence of E. K.'s preface and glosses of The Shep- 
heards Calender. That he got mueh Stimulus f rom the more un- 
couth aspects of some of Spenser 's eclogues may well be believed. 
His comments on Spenser and avowals of indebtedness may be 
taken with a degree of seriousness. 

"For as mueh as I have mentioned maister Spenser, soothlj I must 
acknowledge him a bard of sweetest memorial. Yet hath his shepherd's 
boy at Bome times raised his rustie reed to rhimes more rumbling than 
raral. Diverse grave points also hath he handied of churehly matter and 
doubts in religion daily arising, to great elerks only appertaining. What 
liketh me best are his names, indeed right simple and meet for the 
eonntry, such as Lobbin, Cuddy, Hobbinol, Diggon, and others, some of 
which I have made bold to borrow. Moreover, as he caUed his eclogues, 
the shepherd's calendar, and divided the same into twelve months, I 
have chosen (peradventure not over-rashly) to name mine by the days 
of the week." 

There is enough of the pieturesque in Spenser 's eclogues to have 
given Gay mueh inspiration. Doubtless the memory of the good 
rustie words in The Shepheards Calender which Gay used occas- 
ionally gave him the main Suggestion for doing something more 
than merely mocking Philips and stimulated him to write with 
some real interest of shepherdesses not ''idly piping on oaten 
reeds, but milMng the kine, tying up the sheaves, or if the hogs 
are astray driving them to their styes." He rose above mere 
burlesque when he wrote : 



140 ünwersity of Califomia Publioaiiona in Modem Phüology. [YoL 2 

"Now he goes on, and rings of fairs and shows, 
For still new fairs before bis eyes arose. 
How pedlar's Stalls with glitt 'ring toys are laid, 
The various fairings of the country maid. 
Long Silken laees hang upon the twine, 
And rowB of pins and amber bracelets shine; 
How the tight lass, knives^ eombs, and seissors spies. 
And looks on thimbles with deriring eyes. 
Of lott'ries nezt with tnnefnl note he told, 
Where rilver spoons are won, and rings of gold. 
The lads and lasses tmdge the street along. 
And all the fair is erowded in bis song." 

Gay 's merry notes cleared a path for such true song of the 
countryndde as Bamsay's Oentle Shepherd. His satirical town- 
edogues, with those of Swift, Pope and Lady Mary Wortly Mon- 
tague, stimulated wide-spread imitation. But the langoid, seri- 
ous pastoral with a Spenserian tinge continued. 

Indeed, in the ntteranees of Isaac Browne we find a protest 
against the irreverent spirits whieh may, with plausibility, 
be taken as typical of many writers of the time. For Browne, 
despite the choking dust and the mildew whieh his valiant or 
docile reader encounters in puUing him off the shelves of a 
twentieth Century library, was a live figure in his day. His 
Piscatory Eclogues (1729)^* went through a nuinber of editions 
in answer to a demand whieh seems to have remained unabated 
to the end of the Century. Gay had not ruined the artificial pas- 
torals for the Augustans. They were actively cultivated, as I 
have Said, even within the portals of the nineteenth Century. And 
in Browne 's Essay in Defence of Piscatory Eclogue scoffers like 
Gay and Swift were scorned. 

''The Griticks, an arbitrary positive sort of men, have taken apon 
them to make a much too niee comparison between the snceess of 
Heroie and Pastoral Poetry: for they allow scarcely more than three 
who are deservedly ranked in the elass of writers of either sort; not- 
withstanding there have been numerous performers in each kind, in 
several ages; .... for besides Theoeritus, Yirgil and Tas8o,i^ whom 
they make to have been the only writers of the true Pastoral, our Spon- 
sor, Fletcher, and Milton, and I am free to add Mr. Phillips, Mr. Oon- 
greve and many others have a deserved praise for the pieees they have 
given US of this kind. 

18 Browne says they were written during the'summer of 1727. 



^ 



1911] Cary: The Critics of Edmund Spenser, 141 

''Glownish and low expressions, quaint obsolete phrases, on the one 
band, tbough thej eover a false and improper sentiment; and on the 
otber, laboored tnms of wit and amorons eztravagancies, appear to be 
mistook by some, for its distingoishing graees.'^ 

The last sentence is doubtless a hit at Oay, whose enmity he defies 

by his defence of Philips. Browne would have plaeed pastoral 

poetry in ''as high estimation as the epic." He pointed out that 

many good poets, Yirgil, Tasso, Spenser, succeeded in both. Like 

a good Augustan he went to Bapin for definitions. 

"Pastoral is the imitation of the aetion of a Shepherd, or one taken 
nnder that charaeter." 

Nature, contended Browne, is a wide field for contemplation and 
beautiful ideas. Shepherds, however, were to be lovers as well 
as shepherds. Angling was praised. The Piscatorie Eclogues of 
the sednlous Spenserian, Phineas Fletcher, were mentioned with 
admiration. It is a striking faet that Browne, endowed with an 
enthnsiastic angler's passion for real natore, believed in the 
artificial pastoral and imitated Spenser in the Augustan manner. 

It would be painful and unprofitable to stay longer in these 
arid fields. Perhaps I have buUied the reader, with my dull 
details, into accepting my conclusions. Through the early de- 
cades of the eighteenth Century the formal eclogue was definitely 
infiuenced by Spenser and played some part in the development 
of Augustan ideals. When the taste for ''Oriental" eclogues 
developed, Spenserianism waned before this pastoral side of the 
romantic pose. We must insist, with monotonous iteration, that 
Spenser and neo-classicism were perfectly reconciled, that Spen- 
ser sowed few seeds of romanticism. As for the insipid pastoral 
it did, however, point vaguely to a revival of interest in nature 
at first band through the brisk verses of Bamsay, Ferguson, and 
the more vigorous in proportion as they broke away from the 
shadows of Spenser and Yirgil. 

Jolly quixotic Dick Steele, who has been mentioned as the 
unwitting cause of that most unpastoral feud which involved 
Pope, Philips and Gay, had some gallant words for Spenser. It 



1^ The critics generally chose Spenser rather than Tasso, as we have 
Seen. I have quoted Dryden's ezpiiclt praise of Spenser above Tasso. 



142 UniverHty of CoXifomia Tublicaiions in Modem PMlology. [YoL 2 

is easy to understand Sir Richard 's admiration for Spenser's 
chivalric spirit. On November 19, 1712, he published a Spectaior 
essay on Spenser. Professor Phelps, intent on proving the indif- 
f erence to Spenser during the first decades of the eighteenth Cen- 
tury, mentions the article under consideration but is inclined 
to question the sincerity of Steele's appreciation. But the paper 
certainly shows some knowledge of The Faerie Queene. Steele 
characteristically fixes upon Britomart, or Chastity, for special 
admiration. He says justly that the ** Legend of Priendship" is 
more diffuse. At least, then, he has been reading the third and 
fourth books of The Faerie Queene, a pastime that our ravens 
would have us believe quite out of date in our days of hurried and 
djrspeptic reading. He is one of those who praised Spenser's 
use of archaisms. 

''His old Words are all true English and Numbers exquisite; and 
since of Words there is the Multa Benaseentur, since they are all 
proper, sueh a Poem should not (any more than Milton's) subsist all of 
it of common ordinary Words." 

Still, were this all, we might share Mr. Phelps 's doubt as to 
Steele 's sincerity. '*How far Steele was prompted to all this by 
real love of Spenser, or by the necessity of writing his sheet is 
hard to say," writes Mr. Phelps. No doubt we might conjure up 
pictures of our beloved knight, somewhat muddled with port, 
tearing his hair at blear dawn over a Spectator article. A clouded 
but ecstatic memory of Addison on Milton and lo! our hero's 
pen wags madly about Spenser, upon whom he has nothing to 
write except what wells from his good nature unsupported by 
knowledge. This would make a plausible and attractive picture. 
But there is more evidence, besides the article quoted, to make 
US believe that Steele 's admiration for Spenser was fuU of his 
wonted sincerity and was founded on knowledge. In the Guar- 
dian for April 15, 1713, he again praised Spenser and asserted 
that Spenser and Ambrose Philips, in their pastorals, **have 
copied and improved the beauties of the Ancients." He fol- 
lowed Dryden in asserting that the English rustic language 
makes Imitation of the Doric of Theocritus more possible than 



1911] Cary: The Criiica of Edmund Spenser. 143 

the langnage of the Latin poets. In the Gtiardian for April 17, 

1713, he wrote a prose pastoral in which the great writers of 

eclogues were treated allegorically. Spenser is made the son of 

Virgil and the father of Philips. In 1762 Sir William Jones, the 

famons Orientalist, versified Steele's pastoral allegory. We may 

quote from the description of Spenser : 

''High in the midst the plaintive Colin rose, 
Born on the lilied banks of royal Thame, 
Which oft had rung with Bosalinda's name; 

And, like the nymph who fir'd his youthful breast, 
Green were his boskins, green his simple vest. 
With eareless ease his rustiek lays he sung, 
And melody flow'd smoothly from his tongue: 
Of June 's gay fmits, and August 's com he told, 
The bloom of April, and December's cold; 
The loves of Shepherds, and their harraless cheer 
In every month that decks the varied year." 

That Steele read Spenser con amore is further confirmed by a 
very representative article in the Tatler for July 6, 1710. 

"I was this morning reading the tenth canto of the fourth book of 
Spenser, in which Sir Scudamour relates the progress of his courtship 
of Amoret under a very beautiful allegory, which is one of the most 
natural and unmixed of any in that most excellent author. ' ' 

Steele appends a brief prose paraphrase "for the benefit of many 
English Lovers, who have, by f requent letters desired me to lay 
down some rules for the conduct of their virtuous Amours." 
Spenser is adroitly tumed into the graeeful eighteenth Century 
style. Surely we may eonelude that Dick Steele, devoted if not 
always thoughtful lover of Prue, eould hardly have resisted the 
fascination of Spenser 's court of love. 

Another one of the most urbane spirits of the day and a tower 
of Augostanism, Mat Prior, paid liberal homage to Spenser. In 
1706 he brought out An Ode, Humbly Inscribed tö the Queen, 
on the Olorious Success of Her Majesty's Arms, Written in Imi- 
tation of Spenser's style, His preface is a eapital example of 
the ease which the Augustan found in reconciling Spenser with 
Augustan ideals. 

''As to the style, the choiee I made of foUowing the ode in Latin 
determined me in English to the stanza: and herein it was impossible 



144 üniversity of CaUfamia Pubheaiions in Modern FhOology. [VoL 2 

not to have a mind to follow our great eonntTyman Spenser; which I 
have done (aB well, at least, aB I could) in the manner of my expression, 
and the tum of my nomber; having only added one vene to his stanza, 
which I thought made the number more hannonione; and avoided sueh 
of Mb words as I foond too obBolete. I havoi however, retained aome 
few of them, to make the colouring look more like SpenBer's. . . . 

"My two great ezamples, Horaee and SpenBer, in many thingB re- 
semble eaeh other; both have a height of imagination, and a majoBty 
of expresBion in deseribing the sublime; and both know to temper those 
talentBy and Bweeten the deeeription, so as to make it lovely as well aa 
pompouB; both have equally that agreeable manner of mizing morality 
with their story, and that curio9a felicÜM in the choiee of their diction, 
which every writer aimB at and bo few have reached; both are partien- 
larly flne in their images, and knowing in their nombers." 

Mr. Phelps quotes this passage as ezhibiting ''that confusion of 
Ideals so often shown by the Angostans." He smiles at Prior 's 
comparison of Spenser and Horaee. Bat the eomparison is per- 
fectly sound. Here is an Angustan who appreciated the moral- 
istie aide of Spenser which we romanticists are too likely to neg- 
leet or despise. He respects Horaee, a mueh better authority than 
our ''Art for Art 's sake" men, for his association of the i>oet and 
seer of morality. Prior 's distortion of the Spenserian stanza 
was indeed an example of Augustan stupidity. He was influ- 
enced by the deadening cadence of the heroic eonplet. In his 
pref ace to Solamon, however, Prior shows a restless dissatisf ac- 
tion with the couplet, along with an admiration of Spenser that 
Mr. Phelps should not have neglected. 

''In our Language Spenser has not contented himself with this sab- 
missive Manner of Imitation [i.e., the methods of the Freneh and Italian 
imitations of the orthodox Classical epics] : He lannches out into flowery 
Paths, which still seem to eonduct him into one great Boad. His Fairy 
Queen (had it been finished) must have ended in the Account, which every 
Knight was to give of his Adventures, and in the accumulated praises of 
his Heroic Poem, but in another Gast and Figure, than any that had ever 
been written bef ore. Yet it is observable, that every Hero (as far as We 
can judge by the Books still remainiiig) bears his distinguished Char- 
acter and represents some particular Virtue conducive to the whole 
Design. 

"If striking out into Blank Verse as Milton did (and in this kind 
Mr. Philipps, had he lived, would have excelled) or running the thought 
into Altemate and Stansa, which aHows greater Yariety and still pre- 



1911] Cory: The Criiies of Edmund Spenser. 145 

serves the Dignitj of the Verse; as Spenser and Fairfax have done; If 
either of these, I say, be a proper Remedy for mj Poetieal Complaint, 
or if any other may be found, I dare not determine: I am only enquiring, 
in Order to be better informed, withont presuming to direet the judg- 
ment of Others." 

With all his diffidence, Prior was outspoken in his objection to 
the Couplet. He eonsidered it "too confined," '*too broken and 
weak for Epic," and that it tires both writer and reader. God 
knowB this is all true enough of poor Prior 's Solomon, the ambi- 
tion of his life. 

We may now approach the Augustan attitude toward Spenser 
through another medium, that of the Spenser-seholar of the 
period. John Hughes (1677-1720), a contributor to The Spec- 
tator, was the greatest Spenser-seholar of the early eighteenth 
Century. His edition of Spenser (1715) must still be taken into 
account by students of The Faerie Queene}^ Hughes 's methods 
were for the most part thoroughly Augustan. He displays the 
neo-dassical interest in allegory and essays an elaborate discus- 
sion of allegory as a type of literature in the same manner in 
which Bossu had discussed the epic. A short citation will show 
how strongly Hughes was influenced by the French makers of 
mechanical rules for the creation of poetry. 

^'There is no doubt but men of critieal leaming, if they had thought 
fit, might have given us rules about Allegorical writing, as they have 
done about Epick, and other kinds of poetry; but they have rather 
ehosen to let this forest remain wild, as if they thought there was some- 
thing in the nature of the seil which could not be so well restrained and 
eultivated in enelosures." 



iB It may be worth noting here that Mr. Beere makes capital of Hughes 's 
glossary to indicate how Httle the eighteenth Century knew of Spenser. The 
fact that it contains ezplanations of such words as * * balef ul, " ' ' aghast, ' ' 
"bebest,'^ *'dreary," '*craven," *'forlom," "carol," *'foray,'' "guer- 
don," "plight," **weUdn," "yore," — ^words well-known today through 
our poets — argues, thinks Mr. Beers, for eighteenth Century ignoranee of 
Spenser. Yet, to go no further, I find in the latest and best one-volume 
editions, the Globe and the Cambridge, that all these words, except 
"dreary," "craven," and "yore," are carefully ezplained in the glos- 
saries. Furthermore, eighteenth Century love of leamed lumber, of foot- 
lesB footnotes, and the like is enough explanation. Poems are constantly 
adomed with notes ezplaining allucdons to the commonplaces of Greek 
myth. Why not argue from this that the Augustans did not know Homer, 
Virgil, and Ovidf 



146 üniverHiy of California PuMicattoiw in Modem Phüology, [ToL 2 

Nothing dauntedy however, Hughes f ormulates four rules. Tried 
by thiB Standard Spenser is found praiseworthy. 

"Spenser'B conduet [in respect to allegory] is mach more reasonable 
[than TasBo's]. As he designed Ms Poem upon the Plan of the Yirtnee 
bj which he has entitled his several Books he searce ever loses sight of 
his design." 

Since Hughes 's fourth rule is that the allegory '"must be clear 
and intelligible, ' ' he censures Temple f or his judgment that Spen- 
ser 's "moral lay too bare." But we must not come to consider 
the Augustans as obsessed by their devotion to Spenser as an 
allegorist. They knew many of his other essential qualities. In 
his Remarks on the Faerie Queene Hughes writes : 

"The ehief merit of this poem consists in that snrprising vein of 
fabuloas invention which runs through it everywhere with imagery and 
description more than we meet with in any modern poem. . . . His abund- 
anee betrays him into excess, and his jadgement is overborne by the 
torrent of his Imagination." 

These phrases should be remembered beeause, whoever first used 
them, they were quickly adopted by a number of writers of band- 
books on poetry just as our Compilers of short histories of English 
literature paraphrase or adopt the orthodox Statements of larger 
works. Hughes followed Dryden in his eriticism of imity in The 
Faerie Queene as a whole. 

"The several Books appear rather like so many several poems than 
one entire fable: each of them has its pecnliar Knight, and is independent of 
the rest; and though some of the persons make their appearance in dif- 
ferent Books, yet this has very little effect in conneeting them. Prince 
Arthur is, indeed, the principal person and has a share given him in 
every legend: but his part is not considerable enough in any one of them; 
he appears and vanishes again like a spirit; and we lose sight of him too 
soon to consider him as the hero of the Poem. ' ' 

Thomas Warton also imitated Dryden in his investigation of the 
unity of The Faerie Queene and the aasertions in the preface to 
the translation of the Aeneid became, with Warton 's powerful 
aid, the accepted utterance. To our own day crities have merely 
paraphrased or agreed with Dryden, whether they knew his 
comments at first band or not. 

We now come to Hughes 's most significant contribution to 
Spenserian eriticism. He argues that the whole frame of The 



1911] Cary: The Critics of Edmund Spenser, 147 

Paerie Queene would appear monstrous if it were examined by 
mies of epic poetry drawn from the practice of Homer and 
Virgü. 

"Bat as it is plain the Author never designed it by those rules, I 
think it oaght rather to be considered as a poem of a particular kind, 
deseribingy in a series of Allegorieal adventures or episodes, the most 
noted yirtaes and vices. To compare it . . . . with the modeis of An- 
tiquity would be like drawing a parallel between the Boman and the 
Gothiek arehiteetore. In the first there is, doubtless, a more natural 
^andeur and simplieity; in the latter we find great mixtures of beauty 
and barbarism, yet assisted by the invention of inferior ornaments; and 
though the former is more majestick in the whole, the latter may be 
very surprising and agreeable in its parts." 

This looks as though it might lead us by degrees to romanticism. 
But in a moment we are brought stoutly back within the Augus- 
tan enelosure. The Orlando FuHoso of Ariosto was frequently 
compared with The Faerie Queene, by the neo-classicists, mueh 
to the reproach of the former. Like a trne Augustan, Hughes 
insists that it is Spenser's moral allegory which exalts Ariosto 's 
Romantie trash into heroic poetry. 

'^In the Orlando Furiose we every^here meet with an exuberant 
invention, joined with great liveliness and faeility of deseription, yet 
debased by frequent mixtures of the eomick genius, as well as many 
shocking indecorums. . . . On the other hand, Spenser's Fable, though 
often wild, is, as I have observed, always emblematieal; and this may 
very mueh exeuse likewise that air of romance in which he has followed 
the Italian author. The perpetual stories of knights, giants, Castles, and 
enchantments, and all that train of legendary adventures, would indeed 
appear very trifling, if Spenser had not found a way to turn them into 
Allegory, or if a less masterly hand had filled up the draught; but it is 
surprising to observe how mueh the strength of the painting is superior 
to the design." 

It is characteristic neo-classicism in Hughes to seleet, as one of 
the great cantos of The Faerie Queene, the very unimpressive 
episode of Duessa's visit to Hell, doubtless because it seems like 
an "Imitation'' of Virgil." But his taste is generally of a high 
Order. He takes delight in the first appearance of Prince Arthur, 
the first description of Belphoebe, the Mammon episode, the 



^9 Faerie Queene ^ 1. 5. 



148 UniverHiy of Califamia Publieaiion$ in Modem PhUology. [YcL 2 

Bower of Bliss, the Gkirden of Adonis, the Masque of Cupid, the 
marriage of the Thames and the Medway, Colin Clont piping 
to the Graces, the Mntability f ragment. He names, indeed, prae- 
tically all of the snpreme passages as his chosen reading. There 
was, perhaps, a tinge of romanticism in Hughes. Some interest- 
ing lines in his Essay on AUegorical Poetry might be claased as 
romantic with considerable plausibility. 

''AUegoTj ifl indeed the Fairy Land of poetry, peopled by imagina- 
tion; its inhabitants are 8o many apparitions; its woods, eaves, wild 
beastBy riven, mountainSy and palaees, are prodneed by a kind of magieal 
power, and are all visionary and typieal; and it abounds in sueh Ueensea 
aa wonld be ahoeking and monstrous, if the mind did not attend to the 
myetiek sense eontained ander them. ' ^ 

Bat few romanticists would defend allegory with such warmth. 
Romantic eloquence and neo-classical reasoning I should call this. 
Doubtless Hughes, like all large men, was both romantic and 
claasical. But the essential feature to us is that, like the other 
critics of his time, he found Spenser, judged by purely Augustan 
Standards, a great poet. We may dismiss him by citing what 
seems to have been his most ambitious attempt to hit off Spen- 
ser 's qualities concisely and comprehensively. It is one of the 
most acute and inclusive criticisms of Spenser ever made. 

" [Spenser] was of the serions tum, had an ezalted and elegant mind, 
a warm and bonndless fancy, and was an admirable imager of virtnes and 
viees, whieh was his partieular talent. The embellishments of deseription 
are rieh and lavish in him beyond eomparison; and as this is the most 
striking part of poetry, especiaUy to yonng readers, I take it to be the 
reason that he has been the father of more poets among us than any 
other of our writers. ' ' 

Joseph Spence, the Boswell of Pope, was another important 
Augustan admirer of Spenser who may be grouped among the 
scholars with Hughes. In a Dissertation on the Defects of Spen- 
ser 's Allegory he found the foet not fulfilling certain neo-classi- 
cal requirements. Spenser, it seems, should not have mixed the 
**fables of Heathendom with the truths of Christianity." 
Boileau had damned this procedure. Spenser, too, was occasion- 
ally guilty of misrepresenting the allegories of the ancients. This, 



1911] Gary: The Criiica of Eämtmä Spenser. 149 

to be sure, is mere neo-classical pedantry. But conceming *'the 
Allegories of bis [Spenser's] own invention" the censor wrote 
some slirewd eriticisms that speak well f er the soundness of neo- 
claasicism at its best. Though he considered the invention in 
The Faerie Queene to be * ' one of the riebest and most beautiful 
that perhaps ever was," he found good cause for complaint. 
Spenser's allegories are sometimes too complicated, overdone. 
Discord, who looks in two directions, whose tongue, even heart, 
is split, is jnstly cited as an example of distorted f aney. Spenser 
is fairly taken to task for bis freedom in describing loatbsome 
figures with filthy detail. The poet is unf ortunately sometimes 
merely extravagant rather than great. So it is when he describes 
the Dragon's tail as three furlongs in length. These and similar 
sensible complaints are made. The usual regret that Spenser fol- 
lowed Ariosto too closely and the ancients too little is retailed. 
There is the orthodox lament at the need of rules. 

''The reason of my reproducing these instanees, is only to show what 
fanltB the greatest AUegorist may commit; whilst the manner of allegor- 
izing is left upon so unfized and irregulär a footing as it was in his time, 
and is still among us." 

And Spenee goes on to apologize profusely for his strietures and 
shows nnmistakable enthusiasm for The Faerie Queene, 

"II they [the fanlts noted] shonld prejndiee a reader at all against 
so fine a writer; let him read almost any one of his entire Gantos, and it 
will reeoneile him to him again.'' 

Mr. Phelps and Mr. Beers, in asserting that the Augustans 
looked with dull eyes on Spenser, write of the apologetie tone of 
his def enders. But here, at least, is a solid Augustan who apolo- 
gizes to Augustans for presuming to take Spenser to task. 

John Upton, the editor of Spenser, passed far beyond any 
other neo-classicist in his reconeilement of The Faerie Queene 
and augustanism. His Bemarks on ihe Action and History of 
the Faerie Queene strove zealously but somewhat speciously to 
defend Spenser's unity on purely elassical grounds. 

"How readily has every one acquiesced in Dryden's opinionf 'That 
the action of this Poem is not one '. ' ' 



150 UniverHiy of Califomia Publieations in Modem PhUology, [Tal. 2 

Critics, we are told, attacked old Homer once in the same way. 
So üpton sets out to vindicate Homer and Spenser in one breath 
'^as they have both fallen nnder one common eensure." Spen- 
ser 'b aetion centres around Arthur as Homer 's around Achilles. 

"Nor can it be fairly objeeted to the unity of the Iliad, that, when 
Aehilles is removed from the seene of aetion, you Bcarcely hear him 
mentioned in seyeral books." 

Agammemnon, Diomed, Hector become the heroes of successive 
books. 

"FoT hiB extensive plan reqoired hie different heroes to be shown in 
their different characters and attitndes. What, therefore, jou allow to 
the old Grecian, be not so ungracions as to deny yonr own eountiyman." 

"Again 'tis observable that Homer 's poem though he sings the anger 
of Achilles, is not ealled the Achilleid, bnt the Iliad; because the aetion 
was at Troy. So Spenser does not caU his Poem by the name of his chief 
hero: but because his chief hero sought for the FaSrie Qneene in Fairy 
Land, and therein performed his varions adventnres, therefore he entitied 
his Poem The Faerie Qneene." 

Homer 's device of keeping Achilles away from the field until he 
outshines all is compared with the purposed holding off of Arthur 
tili the end where he was to accomplish all that the other knights 
had failed to do. 

Upton is unique in so stoutly maintaining Spenser 's absolute 
agreement with Homer. But it is obvious that he did not strike 
at the roots of the matter. His glittering palace of argument 
was erected on sand like the House of Pride : 

"A stately Pallace bnilt of squared bricke, 
Which cunningly was withont mortar laid, 
Whose wals were high, bnt nothing strong nor thick, 
And golden foile all over them displaid." 

These more authoritative voices were swelled by many less 
elaborate but equally laudatory utterances. The good Wesley 
f amily left tributes. Samuel Wesley, the eider, laid do¥m poetic 
precepts in his Epistle to a Friend concerning Poetry (1700) and 
exhorted him that he might ''Some new Milton or a Spenser 
grow." Samuel Wesley, the younger, versified Addison 's Spen- 



1911] Cory: The Criiies of Edmund Spenaer. 151 

serian allegory of The Battle of the Sexes already mentioned.^^ 
«John Wesley among other works, recommended to Methodists 
Spenser's Faerie Queene in the second year of a course in aca- 
demic leaming. An essay Of the Old English Poets and Poetry 
in The Mttses^ Mercury for June, 1707, praised The Faerie 
Queene which ''Surpriz'd and eharmed everybody, and still has 
the same Effect/' Qiles Jacob, in An Historical Account of the 
Lives and Writings of Our most Considerable English Poets 
(1720) and in the Poetical Register (1723), praised Spenser in 
the manner of Dryden and Hughes. 

''He was the iirst of our English Poets that ever brooght Heroiek 
Poesy to any Perfection; and Bryden says the English have only to 
boast of Spenser and Milton in Heroiek Poetry. 

'^His Pairy Queen, for great Invention and Poetiek Height, is judged 
little inf eriour, if not equal to the chief of the antient Greeks and Latins. 
He had a large Spirit, a sharp Judgement, and a Genius beyond any that 
have writ since Yirgil; his Flights of Fancy are noble and his Execution 
ezeellent; but sometimes his Judgement is o verhorne by the Torrent of 
his Iniagination,is and he seem'd to want a true Idea and Uniformity; 
though whatever Fault this may be, he endows all his Heroes with some 
moral Yirtue (though in a romantick Story) and makes Instruetion the 
Subjeet of his Epick Poem, which is very much to his Praise.'' 

Elizabeth Cooper's Historical and Poetical Medley or Muses 

Library (1737) shows considerable knowledge of Spenser's con- 

temporaries and some novelty of critical opinion. In praise of 

Buckhurst 's combination of ''allegory and fable" she adds: 

'' Spencer made a Noble Use of so flne a model, overflowing with 
Tenderness, Courtesy, and Benevolence, reconeiling Magnificenee with 
Deeorum, Love, Fidelity; and, together with Fairfax, opening to us a new 
World of Ornament, Elegance, and Taste. 

She voices a sentiment that grows clamorous with men like the 
Wartons : 

' ' Though Chaueer and Spenser are ever nam 'd with much Bespect, not 
many are intimately acquainted with their beauties. ' ' 

But this afisertion cannot be taken as an argument for any 
notable unpopularity of Spenser in the eighteenth Century when 



i7Poem9 on Severäl Oceasions, second edition, 1763. Wesley says the 
first edition was printed without his knowledge. 

IS This clause is almost verbatim from Hughes. 



152 UniverHty of (Miforwia PyitUeaiitmt in Modern PhOoloffy. [VöLS 

we oonsider how narrow is his andience today. Like all good 
Augoatans, ehe bemoans the fact that Spenser ^'debaneh't his 
taste vnOi the extravagancies of Ariosto." She obsenres, like 
the other eritics, that his influence has been great. And she 
chooses for her selection the Masque of Cupid, not beeause it is 
the best passage possible but beeause she thinks it is less known. 
Of greater importance is Mr. Cibber^s Lives of the Poets^^ 
beeause it is a patehwork of critical dicta from Dryden, Hnghes 
and others, and represents the consensus of opinions among the 
cnltivated Augostans of the first half of the Century. It shows, 
moreover, some leaming and a real knowledge of Spenser 's minor 
works. 

"No writer ever foond a nearer way to the heart than he^'o and hie 
Teraes have a pecnliar happiness of reeommending the author to our 
friendship aa weU as raising onr admiiation; one eannot read without 
fancyiiig oneself transported into Fairy Land, and there converaing with 
the Graees, in that enchanted region.si In eleganee of thinking and fer- 
tility of imagination, few of onr English anthors have approached him 
and no writers have sueh power as he to awake the spirit of poetry in 
others. Cowley owns that he derived his Inspiration from him; and I 
have heard the celebrated Mr. James Thomson, the author of the Seasons, 
and jnstly esteemed one of onr best deseriptive poets, say, that he formed 
himself upon Spenser: and how dosely he pursned the model, and how 
nobly he has imitated him, whoever reads his Castle of Indolenee with 
taste will readily conf ess. ' ' 

The critic announces emphatically : 

"To produce anthorities in favour of Spenser, as a poet, I should 
reckon an affront to his memory." 

He thinks that "the works of Spenser will never perish." He 
attacks the obsolete words. He criticizes the unity of The Faerie 
Queene exactly as Dryden, Hughes, and Thomas Warton eriti- 
cized it. But there is enough enthusiasm and enough that is new 
to convince us. 



10 The ezact anthorship of this work is, I believe, still a matter of dis- 
pute. Nor do I know the date of the first edition. I have used the edition 
of 1758. 

so Yerbatim in Mrs. Elizabeth Cooper. 

21 This clause is substantially from Hughes. 



1911] Cartf: The Critica of Edmund 8pen$er, 153 

A reference in William Whitehead's A Charge io the Poets 
(1762), a plea for catholic taste, has something of the interest of 
Cibber's Lives in that it gives us a Suggestion of the opinions of 
the cultivated many. 

"Some bäte all rhyme; some serioasly deplore 
That Milton wants that one enehantment more. 
Tir'd with th' ambigaous tale or antique phrase, 
O'er Spenser'8 happiest paintings, loveliest lays, 
Some heedless pass: while some with transport yiew 
Eaeh quaint old word, which searee Eliza knew. 
And, eager as the faneied knights, prepare 
The lance, and combat in ideal war 
Dragons of lust, and giants of despair 
Why be it so; and what eaeh thinks the best 
Let eaeh enjoy: bat not eondemn the rest/' 

We now tum to the great dictator. It is unfortunate that 
Samuel Johnson left us no rounded estimate of Spenser. His 
allusions to him are f requent, but they are mainly due to a vigor- 
ons and wholesome Crusade which Johnson was making against 
two hollow literary fashions: the insipid pastoral and the arti- 
ficial "Imitation." In his Life of West Dr. Johnson laid his 
heavy hand on ''Imitation." 

'^His Imitations of Spenser are very snecessfully performed, both 
with respect to the metre, the language, and the fietion; and being 
engaged at once bj the ezcellenee of the sentiments, and the artüice of 
the eopy, the mind has two amusements to-gether. But saeh composi- 
tions are not to be reckoned among the great achievements of inteUect, 
beeause their effect is local and temporary, they appeal not to reason or 
passion, bat to memory, and pre-suppose an aecidental or artifieial State 
of mind. An imitation of Spenser is nothing to a reader, however aeate, 
by whom Spenser has never been perased. Works of this kind may de- 
serve praise, as proofs of great indnstry, and great nieety of Observa- 
tion; bat the highest praise, the praise of genias, they eannot Claim. 
The neblest beanties of art are those of which the eifect is co-eztended 
with rational nature, or at least with the whole cirde of polished life; 
what is less than this ean be onlj pretty, the plaything of fashion and 
the amasement of a day. ' ' 

It is absurd, of course to quote this admirable criticism as evi- 
dence that Johnson thought meanly of Spenser. The impressive 
f act is that the doctor had hit upon one of the greatest causes 
of the insignificance of eighteenth Century x>oetry. The Augos- 



154 Univertittf of California Publieatians in Modem PhOology, [YdL. 2 

tan ideal of imitation has its good points. The more romantic 
poets have imitated too, but with a noble independence as welL 
As practised by the Augustans it became mere langaid academie 
exercise. Except for Thomson 's Castle of Indolence and Shen- 
stone's SchooUMisiress, which transcend the mere exercise in 
versification, the Spenserian imitation of the eighteenth Century 
deserved the doctor's censure. In the Rambler for May 14, 1751, 
Johnson proved that imitation, not Spenser, was bis aversion by 
a well-directed attaek on the ideal of imitation in general. In a 
spirit far from Augustan he strikes at the very roots of the 
matter. 

"In the boundless regions of possibility, which fietion Claims for her 
dominion, there are a thousand flowers unplueked, a thousand fonntaiiiB 
unezhausted, combinations of imagery yet unobserved, and races of ideal 
inhabitants not hitherto described." 

Imitation, he thinks, is ruinons to the imagination. Even Virgil 
is shown to have been of ten seduced into blemishes in bis imita- 
tions of Homer because he was too eager to use all of Homer 's 
material. The doctor then tums to the pestiferous Spenserian 
imitation. 

''To imitate the fictions and sentiments of Spenser can inenr no 
reproach, for allegory is perhaps one of the most pleasing vehides of 
instmction. But I am far from eztending the same respect to his diction 
or his stanza. His style was in his own time allowed to be vieious, so 
darkened with old words, peculiarities of phrase, and so remote from 
common use, that Jonson boldly pronounees him to have written no 
langoage. ' '>> 

Outside of the attaek on imitation, Johnson is here purely neo- 
classical. He praises the moral allegory and damns the stanza 
and diction. Yet in the Preface to his Diciionary, compiled at 
the same time he was at work upon the Rambler, he cites Spen- 
ser 's language as Standard for its time.^' 

The burly doctor smote the pastoral, another curse of Augus- 
tan poetry, in the Rambler for July 24, 1750. He was plainly 



22 Johnson doubtless knew only the critioisms of Sidney, Jonson, Daven* 
ant, none of the host of admiring sixteenth and seventeenth Century refer- 
ences to Spenser bef ore Drjden 's. 

28 Preface, edition 1825, p. 48. 



1911] Cory: The Criiies of Edmund Spenser. 155 

infuriated by the languid eclogues of his day and was hardly in 
the mood to sing the praises of the masters who were indireetly 
responsible for their existence. Johnson gives some praise to 
Virgil but has much to blame. His only ref erence to The Shejh 
heards Calender is a just and severe attack upon the crabbed 
archaisms of November. His general animadversions are per- 
f eetly sound. He points out the inconsistency between the homely 
dialect and the leamed thought that many pastorals affeet. 

Yet praise of Spenser is not lacking in Johnson 's works. In 
his Life of Ambrose Phüips he retails the high praise of Spen- 
ser 's pastoral poetry in the Chiardian which we have already 
Seen, though he says nothing at first hand. That he could appre- 
ciate a good Spenserian imitation is proved by his admiration 
for Shenstone's School-Mistress, Two passages in the Preface 
to Shakespeare (1765) imply some praise of Spenser. Of Shake- 
8i>eare's diction and versification he writes: 

' ' To him we muBt ascribe the praise, unless Spenser may divide it with 
him, of having first diseovered to how mncli smoothness and harmony the 
English language conld be sof tened. ' ' 

A propos of A Mxdsummer-NighVs Dream we read : 

"Fairies in his time were mueh in fashion; common tradition had 
made them familiär, and Spenser 's poem had made them great.'' 

It is greatly to be regretted that Johnson never wrote defin- 
itely on Spenser. His sane criticism, his clear-eyed kindliness 
would have made a great eontribution. Reports coneeming the 
Omission of Spenser in The Lives of the Poets are confiieting. 
A Life of Johnson by Thomas Tyson in The Qenileman^s Magch 
ziThe for Deeember, 1784** states that : 

"His [Johnson 's] employers wanted him to undertake the lifo of 
Spenser. But he said Warton had left little or nothing for him to do." 

In Hannah More's Anecdoies she relates : 

"Johnson told me he had been with the king that morning, who en- 
joined him to add Spenser to his Lives of the Poets. I seconded the 
motion; he promised to think of it but said the booksellers had not 
inelnded him in their list of poets. ' '26 



24Boswell (^lAfe, ed. Hill, 3, 308) says Tyson 's Statements are unre- 
liable. 

SB Hill 's note says the Lives were not directed by Johnson but "he was 
to fumish a Preface to any poet the booksellers pleased." {Life, 3, 137.) 



166 üniverHttf of (kilifornUi Puhlicaiiona in Modern PMlolofnf. [yol.2 

Johnson 's letters to Warton are füll of a kindly interest in the 
forthcoming Observations on ihe Faerie Queene. He offers 
assistance. But a eritique on Spenser never came. 

It seems to me fair to assume that Johnson 's admiration for 
Spenser was genuine and considerable. His most harsh animad- 
vendons appear only where he is heated in the act of striking 
some contemporary affectation, imtation or the pastoral, and they 
were probably exaggerated for his main purpose. Johnson was 
a tmer classicist than the earlier Augostans and pointed to 
some of their most serious faults with unerring skill. 

Johnson 's Phillipics against imitation were echoed by many 
who saw their justice. Robert Lloyd, wayward debauchee and 
light-hearted imitator of Mat Prior 's Familiär Verse, wrote a 
Spenserian poem, before he damned the genre, whieh demands 
attention because of its literary eritieism. In 1751 he published 
The Progress of Envy, a Spenserian imitation, in which he 
abused poor Lander, the Scotch tutor who spent his leaming in 
the endeavour to convict Milton of plagiarism. The poem is cast 
in a form perhaps a compromise of the Spenserian stanza and 
Prior 's adaptation in his Ode to ihe Queen,^^ The poem opens 
with the favorite Augustan imitation of Spenser 's moralistie 
overtures — ^here a lament at the power of Envy. Mount Par- 
nassus is described. On either side of Phoebus sat ''a peerless 
wight," Spenser and Milton. Not far from these Dan Chaucer, 
with reverend locks silvered with eld, was seated in lofty emi- 
nence. Next was Shakespeare, **irregularly great." Nearby 
stood the beautiful maids Fancy and Nature. But Envy, leav- 
ing Aeheron, went to the gloomy cave of her def ormed sister 
Malice and exhorted her to attack Milton. Li a serpent-drawn 
chariot they went to Caledonian plains, where dwelt the eldest 
son of Malice (Lander). Together they attacked Parnassus and 
the son of Malice overcame Milton by his venom. But the poet 
recovered when "Douglas and Truth" appeared. 

In 1755 Lloyd raised his voice, with Johnson and other dis- 



MababbcbeC and ababededeE. Lloyd used a stansa 
rhjming ababededD. 



1911] Gary: The Criiics of Edmund 8pen$er. 157 

senters, against this very modish passion of Imitation. In To 
.... ahout to Publish a Volume he attacked even those who 
strove to imitate ''Hat Prior 's onaffected ease," a thing which 
he himself never ceased doing throughout his career. Equally 
corsed are those who imitate Swift, Milton, or Pope. 

''Others, who aim at faney, ehoose 
To woo the gentle Spenser's Muse. 
The poet fixes for his theme 
An aUegory or a dream: 
Fiction and truth to-gether joins 
Through a long waste of flimsy lines: 
Fondlj believes his faney glows 
And image upon image grows: 
Thinks his strong Muse takes wondrous flights, 
Whene'er she sings of peerless wights, 
Of dens, of palfreys, spells and knights, 
Till allegory, Spenser's veil 
T ' instruct and please in moral tale, 
With him 's no veil the tmth to shroud, 
Bat one impenetrable eload." 

All this is very true, but the outcries of Johnson and his f ol- 
lowers were of no avail. With Oliver €k)ldsmith, Johnson 's 
gentle admirer, we mnst eease our examination of the bootless 
complaints against imitation and of the long role of Augostan 
critics, though their opinions were still voiced by many sur- 
vivers for some time after the Bomantic Triumph.'^ €k)ldsmith 
foUowed Johnson in his admiration for Shenstone but general 
Opposition to Spenserian imitation.^ Bat he showed a warm 
appreciation of Spenser himself in a review of Church's edition 
of The Faerie Queene in SmoUett's Critical Review (February, 
1759 ) . Thanks to Chnrch : 

"We ean now tread the regions of faney withont interruption, and 
expatiate on fairy wilds sneh as our great magician has been pleased to 
represent them." 

Unlike Johnson, €k)ldsmith shared the romanticists' distaste for 
the allegory. 



27 Among the many protests against Spenserian Imitation is one which 
shonld not be completely passed over. Tlus is by Hume {History of Eng- 
land, ed. 1773, V, 492, VI, 195). 

<s The Beautiee of Enghsh Foety, 1767, yoL 1, introduetory remarks to 
Shenstone 's Sehool-wUtresi. 



158 üniversiiy of Califamia Publieaiians in Modem PhUology. [Vol. 2 

'^There is a pleasing tranqnillity of mind which ever attends the 
reading of this aneient poet. We leave the w&yn of the present world, 
and all the ages of primeval innocence and happiness rise to oor view. 
. . . The Imagination of his reader leaves reason behind, pnrsues the 
tale without considering the allegory, and npon the whole, is eharmed 
withont instmetion. " 

But there are plenty of fashionable Augustan dicta. ''No poet/' 
he States, ''enlarges the imagination more than Spenser." He 
cites Cowley, Gray, Akenside, and others as examples. He wams 
poets to Imitate ''bis beauties" not ''his words" whieb are 
''justly fallen into disuse." He makes the usual complaint tbat 
Spenser foUowed Virgil too little and vicious mediaeval and 
Italian modeis too mucb. Bat the essay shows clearly bow native 
to Ooldsmitb's gentle irresponsible spirit were tbe lovely dreams 
of The Faerie Queene, 

I believe tbat we bave evidence a plenty, probably €td Ttav^eam, 
for my contentions. But my conception of tbe Augustans is 
wortb establisbing at tbe expense of mucb dry-as-dust catalogu- 
ing. We are gradually outgrowing tbe ill-considered contempt 
witb wbicb our romantic grandf athers estimated tbe Augustans. 
Let US now give over tbat somewbat supercilious or even false 
spirit of toleration witb wbicb we try to justify tbe Augustans in 
so f ar as tbey show Symptoms, real or cbimerical, of romanticism. 
Take tbem for wbat tbey were and wbat do we find? We find 
tbat tbey could at least accord a poet like Spenser warm appre- 
ciation f rom a purely neo-classical point of view and tbat interest 
in Spenser did not necessarily bave anytbing wbatever to do 
witb romanticism. We find tbat tbe term *'Spenserian Revival,*' 
wbicb bas long decked tbe cbapters oiE many a text-book, is a 
misnomer. We find tbat tbe Augustans, like ourselves, occas- 
ionally said asinine tbings about Spenser but tbat tbey bad an 
appreciation of bis bigb seriousness mucb sounder tban tbat 
wbicb bas gone current since tbe Triumph of Romanticism. 



1911] Cory: The Criiics of Edmund Spenser. 159 



VI 
THE TRIUMPH OP ROMANTICISM 

In the f oregoing pages it has been maintained that a thorough- 
going neo-classicist could admire Spenser discerningly and 
Imitate him with perf ect consistency. Yet the influence of Spen- 
ser has been considered by Professor Phelps and Professor Beere 
as one of the great causes of the romantic revival. With this 
idea I cannot agree. It is rather that, onee romanticism had 
gained a f oothold, Spenser was imitated in a romantic way. The 
Augustans had admired Spenser f or his moral earnestness — ^as 
Milton had admired him. They appreeiated the beauties of his 
allegory which we often mock hastily and inconsistently. Despite 
their occasional disapproval of his stanza and diction, they were 
naturally always impressed by his highly wrought technique. 
It was in no spirit of romantic revolt, then, that an Augostan 
penned his mechanical ^'Imitation of Spenser." But onee the 
romantic seeds were sown there was infinite Suggestion to be 
f ound in Spenser f or an Apostle of Wonder. 

The earliest exponents of what they vaguely termed Qothic 
or romantic were often not strong men with a new faith, but 
decadents weary of the old. It was the passion of jaded, bookdsh 
minds for novelty in no exalted sense rather than that spirit 
of idealised aspiration by which Professor W. A. Neilson has 
finely characterized the force which stirred the great poets of 
the early nineteenth Century. The tinsel trappings of a Walpole, 
surely, are not romanticism according to our exalted ideas. The 
eighteenth Century men often connected romanticism with a com- 
fortable melancholy and crocodile teare. Even in our own day 
Edgar Allan Poe has argued for the indispensability of melan- 
choly (much more sincere, to be sure), in poetry. The jaded 
writera of the latter half of the eighteenth Century cultivated 
graveyards, gloomy abbeys, thunderstorms, all comf ortably con- 



160 üniverHty of Cdlif&rnia Publioations in Modern Phiiology, [VoL 2 

jured up in the warm and snug seclusion of the study. It was 
as artificial as Pope 's pastorals. And we must be cautious about 
linking this romantic pose too closely with the various types of 
romanticism represented by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, 
Byron, Shelley, and Keats. With this waming in mind we may 
tum to the men who are of ten named as the foreronners of 
romanticism. 

The name of William Thompson, a minor poet of talents ill 
rewarded by posterity, should be mentioned as that of the earUest 
romanticist who has any proper connection with our study. 
Thompson had a very catholic taste. He admired Elizabethan, 
Marinist, and Augostan alike. But he is only a romanticist in 
80 far as he is a belated Elizabethan, and he sounds none of the 
new notes that we shall find in the later romanticism. 

The preface to Thompson 's An Hymn io May, a luxuriant 
imitation of Spenser, contains, however, some rather remarkable 
doctrine for the first decades of the eighteenth Century.^ It is 
a defence of his Elizabethan sensuousness. 

"As Spenser is the most deseriptive and florid of all our English 
writers, I attempted to Imitate his manner in the foUowing vemal poem. I 
have been very sparing of the antiquated words whieh are too frequent 
in most of the imitations of this author; however I have introdueed a few 
here and there whieh are ezplain 'd at the bottom of each page where they 
occur. ... I foUowed Fletcher's measure in his Purple Island; a poem 
printed at Cambridge in twelve cantos, in quarto, scarce heard of in thia 
age, yet the best in the allegorical way (nezt to the Fairy Queen), in the 
English language. I hope I have no apology to make for describing the 
the beauties, the pleasures, and the loves of the season in too tender or 
too florid a manner. The nature of the subject required a luxuriousness 
of versification, and a softness of sentiment; but they are pure and ehaste 
at the same time: otherwise this eanto had neither ever been written or 
offered to the public." 

Here is romanticism of a kind. Thompson is certainly one of the 
first of the eighteenth Century poets to seek Spenser rather as a 
poet of ardent emotion and sensuous glow than as a poet of vast 
moral visions. But Thompson uses many neo-dassical authori- 



^An Hymn to May was not published until 1757, but Thompson was 
writing poetry with this same romantic richness of colour at least as early 
as 1736. 



1911] Cory: The Critics of Edmufiä Spenser, 161 

ties, induding Prior, Davenant, and Scaliger. He made a wide 
bat short-lived reputation and eertainly could not have had any 
appreciable influence on the rise of romanticism. 

Perhaps no men among the early romanticists have loomed 
larger and larger in the eyes of recent critics than the brothers 
Joseph and Thomas Warton. Both must occupy a eonsiderable 
Position in any history of Spenser 's influence. Their passion for 
The Faerie QfAeene was doubtless leamed from their father, 
Thomas Warton, senior, who wrote a very Augustan Spenserian 
Imitation in the stanza adopted by William Whitehead and a 
group of the most harren f ollowers of Spenser that fiU the dull 
pages of a history of eighteenth Century poetry. The eider War- 
ton 's poem, Phüander, An Imitation of Spencer: Occtmoned by 
the Death of Mr. William Jening, Nov,, 1706, is only a typical 
pastoral elegy of the time. Two stanzas may be resurrected to 
show from what loins sprang the great Wartons. 

' ' When raral Spencer sung, the listening Swains 

Wou'd oft' forget to feed the fleecy Throng; 

The fleecy Throng, charm'd with the melting Strains, 

Fed not— but on the Musiek of his Song 

His Mulla would in lingering Bubbles play, 
Till his pleas'd waters stole unwillingly away. 

"And cou'd my Verse bnt with its Theme compare, 

Moving as Spencer I my Grief wou'd teU; 

The ravish 'd Bard shou 'd to Elysium hear 

A second Colin moum a seeond Astrophel. 

My lays shon'd more than eqnal glory boast 
And the fam'd Mulla be in smoother Channel Iost."s 

The good man 's two sons, though to be ranked among the great- 
est students of Spenser, did not improve upon their father on 
the matter of Spenserian imitations. In The Pleasures of the 
Melancholy Thomas Warton aUudes to Spenser in a somewhat 
romantic spirt. 



SA referenee, of course, to Spenser 's Astrophel, an elegy to Sidney, in 
the same stanza as Warton 's elegy, though Spenser did not here employ 
his final alezandrine. Joseph Warton, in an Ode on his brother's death has 
a similar desireful allusion to Spenser 's Astrophel and this stansa was 
almost ezdusiTely employed by the Wartons in their imitations of Spenser. 



162 üniversity of Califomia Publicat%on$ in Modem Phüologf. [VoL 2 

''Such mystie yisions send aa Spenser saw 
When throagh bewilderini^ Faney 's magie maze, 
To the feil faouse of BusTrane, he led 
Th * unshaken Britomart. ..." 

But his own imitations are so frigid and remote f rom their model 
that were they our only evidence we should suspect that Warton 
had no first-hand knowledge of Spenser. 

It is practically as critics only that the Wartons have achieved 
any permanence. Here they have been scarcely awarded the higfa 
Position they should oceupy. Joseph Warton 's magnum opus 
is the famous Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope (1756). 
To call it, as Lowell does, ''The earliest public official declaration 
of war against the reigning mode" is to tempt the reader into a 
rather too exalted notion of Warton 's spirit of revolt. To be sure, 
there is much talk about things that are ''Bomantic" and about 
things which have ''a pleasing wildness." But the reverence for 
things "elegant" and *'decorous" and the horror of "impro- 
priety" is even more frequently expressed. Certainly, at all 
events, Joseph Warton had an acute appreciation of Spenser. 
Apropos of an attack on JPope's Aüey, he wrote a sustained pane- 
gyric on The Faerie Queene. Like the Augustans, he praised 
the allegorical ''living figures whose attitudes and behaviour 
Spenser has minutely drawn with so much deamess and truth, 
that we behold them with our eyes, as plainly as we do on the 
ceiling of the banqueting-house. " He quotes several examples, 
Gonduding with the picture of Jealousy, and cries out with con- 
tagious enthusiasm : 

"Here aU is in life and motion; here we behold the tme Poet or 
Maker; this is ereation; it is here, might we ery out to Spenser, it is here 
that you display to us, that you make us feel the sure eifects of genuine 
poetry." 

For those who have any temptation to suspect that the criticisms 
of Johnson and others on Spenserian imitations implied any 
hostility to Spenser, it may be well to note that Warton looked 
askance at the practice. 

''It has been fashionable of late to Imitate Spenser; but the likeness 
of most of these eopies hath eonsisted rather in using a few of his aneient 



1911] Cory: The CTiii4Ss of Edmund Spenser, 163 

expresdoxui than in eatehing hifl real maimer. Some, however, have been 
exeeuted with happiness, and with attention to that simplieitj, that ten- 
demess of sentiment, and those little touehes of nature, that constitute 
Spenser's character." 

It is to be observed that this is only the usual Augustan criticism 
of Spenser and that these are the very poiuts which have too 
often been culpably forgotten by romantie critics to our own 
day. Warton's ranking of English poets, at the close of the 
Essay, is the mpst famona passage. 

"Where^ then, . . . shall we with justice be authorized to place our 
admired Popef Not, assuredly, in the same rank with Spenser, Shake- 
speare, and Milton." 

The whole passage is a remarkably acute bit of criticism. It is 
not because the three great poets were exalted. That was unnec- 
essary. They were praised by aU. But the placing of Pope was 
the great stroke. The age was close to a great man, in the same 
Situation as certain sonneteers who sang, a few years ago, to 
' ' Shakespeare, Milton, Tennyson. " It is not a limitation peculiar 
to the eighteenth Century to overestimate their own poet. War- 
ton 's prophetic view is certainly striking in an age of smug seif- 
sufficiency. He seems to me to be an almost thoroughgoing 
Augustan. But the Augustans produced some great critics. It 
was perhaps romantie but not remarkably romantie to write : 

''Where are the lays of artful Addison, 
Coldly correct to Shakspear's warblings wild." 

Occasionally he adopted the romantie pose. But when he was 
true to his best instincts he was solid Augustan. 

Thomas Warton 's temperament was larger, more mellow than 
that of his brother. It is not that he was more of a romanticist. 
His attitudes toward romanticism and Spenser may be best inter- 
preted through two lines of his verse : 

''As oft, reclinM on GherweU's shelving shore, 
I trac 'd romantiek Spenser 's moral page. ' ' 

The Word ''romantick" here is in a precisely opposite Situation 
of that of today. Then it was vague because it had little or no 



164 üniveriity of Califomia Publieations in Modem PhOology. [Yol. 2 

meaning. Now it is vague because it has a thousand meanings. 
It is significant, too, that Spenser was to Warton the pleasant 
''moral" Spenser of the Augustans. Bat Warton was rieh- 
spirited enongh to be the first English eritic to apply the his- 
torical method with any skill. All centuries of literature swam 
into his leamed ken. His Observations an the Faerie Queene 
still remains the best book ever written about Spenser. But 
Thomas Warton mnst not be considered as a very serious roman- 
tic revolter and theref ore f orced, as an ardent admirer of Spenser, 
to be apologetie in an unsympathetic age. His complaint that 
Spenser was "admired" but ''neglected" is not to be taken as 
tnie in the sense of being a peculiar and widespread limitation 
of his age. We have examined a considerable body of evidence 
that Spenser was widely appreeiated in the first half of the eigh- 
teenth Century by those who were ordained then, as in all ages, 
to love him. And any seholar of our own day might very 
accurately refer to Spenser as ^^this admired but neglected poet." 
We shall presently see, too, how much Warton owed to his Augus- 
tan predecessors in Spenserian criticism. 

The Observations begins* with a brief review of romantic 
poetry, from Proven^al to that of Ariosto and Tasso, in which 
we at once perceive, however inadequate the account from the 
point of view of modern investigators, the wide vision and schol- 
arly solidity of the man. He tums a ealm brow from grovelling 
pedants and he is equally exalted above the slap-dash trifler in 
letters who is bound in by his own age. Warton insists that in 
Order to appreciate a poet we must study the times in which 
he lived. He finds that ** Ariosto — rejecting truth for magie 
and preferring the ridiculous excursions of Boyardo, to the pro- 
priety and uniformity of the Grecian and the Roman modeis" — 
wrote a very heterodox poem. Beni is scored for comparing 
Ariosto and Homer. Trissino is praised for having ''taste and 
boldness enough to publish an epic poem written in professed 
Imitation of the Iliad." 



8 Chapter I, On the Plan and Conduot of the Faerie Queene. 



1911] Cartf: The Criiiea of Edmund Spenser. 165 

''Tasso took the aneients tot his ^ides but was still too sensible of 
the populär prejudiee in favonr of ideal beings, and romantic adventures 
to negleet or omit them entirely. 

''Sneh was the prevailing taste when Sponsor projected the Faerie 
Qneene. ' ' 

This is Augastan criticism — ^the regret that Spenser was misled 
by the damnable Ariosto — ^pure and simple. Warton does not 
attempt to praise Ariosto and to approve Spenser 's ehoice of 
modeis as we shall find the early romanticists doing. He only 
attempts an ample explanation by the use of the historical 
method. 

The plan of the Faerie Queene is now examined and eritieized 
JQst as Dryden, Hughes, and many more had analysed it and 
f onnd it wanting. Nay, Warton thinks Dryden is too mild in his 
condemnation of the unity of the poem. Augostanism is ram- 
pant. Warton says it is ''inartificial" to introduce the hero of 
one book on a less dangerous exploit later. It sullies the hero 's 
Instre and does little f or the unity. 

"The poet might have established twelve knights without an Arthur 
or an Arthur without twelve knights. ' ' 

Hughes had already made this Suggestion. It is all neo-classi- 
eal and it is all perfectly just. But Warton abruptly strikes a 
blow for the defence. Again he is indebted to Hughes for the 
idea. 

"But it is absurd to think of judging Ariosto or Spenser bj precepts 
whieh they did not attend to. We who live in the days of writing by rule, 
are apt to try everj eomposition by those laws whieh we have been taught 
to think the whole criterion of ezeeUenee. ' ' 

Spenser 's poetry is "the careless exuberance of a warm imagina- 
tion and a strong sensibility." He "wrote rapidly from his own 
feelings whieh at the same time were naturally noble." "We 
searcely regret the loss" of "that arrangement and economy 
whieh Epic severity required" in the appeal of "feelings of the 
heart rather than the cold approbation of the head." "In read- 
ing Spenser; if the critie is not satisfied, yet the reader is trans- 



166 ürmernty of California Fublicaiuyns in Modem Philology. [Vol. 2 

ported/' Here, at last, was a critic large enough to appreciate 
Augustan sanity, yet able, at the same time, to look beyond the 
rules if so required. Now we stand on the brink of romanticism. 
Warton now leads ns through a pleasant maze of f acts and 
speculations conceming Spenser's sonrces in the romances, Oreek 
legends, Ariosto, and Chaucer/ Here, indeed, is a romantic 
spirit of childlike wonder as, like Spenser himself , he pores over 
the immense treasures of the past. He writes a charming and 
unanswerable apologia f or source-hunting. 

''We feel a Bort of malieious trinmpli in detecting the latent and 
obscure sonrce from which an original author has drawn some eelebrated 
description: jet this .... soon gives way to the raptore that naturally 
results from contemplating the ehjmical energy of true genius, whieh can 
produee so' noble a transmutation. ' ' 

With Spenser's stanza Warton is ahnost as unsympathetic as 
Jonson, Davenant, and an occasional Augustan who happened to 
dislike it. Its ^'eonstraint led our author into many absurdi- 
ties," **to dilate with triäing and tedious circumlocutions," to 
run **into a ridiculous redundancy and repetition of words." 
Warton was plainly blind to some of Spenser's most graceful 
artifiees. Yet he realizes certain advantages. The stanza, for 
instance, causes fullness of details. ''Some Images/' he writes, 
'*perhaps were produced by a multiplicity of rhymes." Dryden 
is quoted as saying that a rhyme often helped him to a thought. 
Spenser's extraordinary virtuosity is praised, but he is deseribed 
as "laden with .... many shackles." Spenser's archaisms 
receive sensible and sympathetic treatment. But with an Augus- 
tan worship of decorous monotony, Warton eould not see why 
Spenser did not place the caesura of his alexandrines invariably 
in the middle. 

The tenth section, Of Spenser's Allegorical Character, is of 
particular interest. Warton borrows Hughes 's theory that it 
was a produet of Spenser's age, of the pageants and spectacles 
which he considers more like Spenser's peculiar mode of allegor- 



* Chaptem n, III, V, and VI. 



1911] Cory: The Criiiea of Edmund Spenser. 167 

inng **than any other possible sources." Spenser's allegoristic 
method is compared with Ariosto's to the discredit of the latter^ 
(Warton gives Ariosto credit, like all the Augustans, for being a 
much more serious moralist than he really is). Warton follows 
Spence in condemning justly the meaningless confnsions of alle- 
gory and reality, like the House of Alma. Warton, after Spence, 
like a good Student of Boileau, attacks Spenser for mingling 
"divine mystery" with human allegory. He gives the same 
exainple as Spence, that the Mount of Olives and Pamassus are 
*'impertinently linked together.'' But our critic decides **that 
allegorical poetry, through many gradations, at last received its 
ultimate consummation in the Fairy Queen." He concludes 
tamely by quoting **the just and pertinent sentiments" of Abb6 
du Bos : 

*'It is impossible for a piece, whoee subject is of an allegorical aetion 
to interest us very much. . . . Onr heart reqnires truth even in fiction 
itself; and when it is presented with an allegorical fiction, it cannot 
determine itself, if I may be allowed the expression, to enter into the 
sentiments of those chimerical personages." 

Warton, poring too long by a fatal minute over this stupid 
Frenchman, was made as Midas when he heard Marsyas. He could 
not see in Spenser 's allegory the magic that Gray saw with his 
poet's eye when he wrote beautifuUy of The Fuerie Queens, of 

' ' Fierce war and f aithful love. 
And tmth severe, by fairy fiction drest. ' ' 

Thomas Warton hajs been described as apologetic in champion- 
ing The Faerie Queene. On the contrary, he apologizes in the 
Postscipt, like Spence, for having been **more diligent in remark- 
ing the faults than the beauties of Spenser." There was no 
necessity for a defence of The Faerie Queene. Wharton was 
enabled to take many excellent ideas from Augustan critics of 
Spenser. He did not often fall into their absurdities. But he 
united their soundest principles to the historical method and 
to something of the romantic spirit. It was this last, this spirit 
of childlike wonder, that led him to close his book with an enthus- 
iastic and delightful Quotation from Spenser. 



168 Univergity of CMfwmia FuhlicatioM in Modem PhUology. [Y<A. 2 

' ' The waies, throngh which mj weary steps I gujrde 
In this delightful land of Faerj, 
Are so ezeeeding spaeioas and wyde. 
And spnnckled with such sweet varietj 
Of all that pleasant is to eare or eje, 
That I, nigh ravisht with rare thoughts delight, 
My tedions travell doe forget therebj; 
And when I gin to f eele decay of might, 
It strength to me sapplies, and ehears my dnlled spright. ' ' 

With Richard Hurd (1720-1808) we come to the first import- 
ant critic of the rebellious school who concems us. His remarks 
on the ''Plan and Conduct" of The Faerie Queene open with a 
fine romantic swagger. 

''Spenser, though he had long been nonrished with the spirit and sub- 
stanee of Homer and Virgil, chose the times of ehivalry for his Theme, 
and Fairy Land for the Scene of his fictions. He eould have planned, no 
doubt, an heroick design on the ezaet classic model: Or, he might haye 
trimmed between the Gothick and Classick as his contemporary Tasso did. 
But the charms of Fairy prevailed. And if any think he was sednced by 
Ariosto into his choice, they should consider that it eould be only for the 
sake of his subject; for the genius and charaeter of these poets was widely 
different. 

"Under this idea then of a Gothick, not classical, Poem, the Faerie 
Queene is to be read and criticised. And on these principles, it would not 
be difficult to unfold its merit in another way than has been hitherto 
attempted. ' ' 

Hurd now becomes apologetic. 

* * I have taken the f ancy to try my hand on this curious subject. ' ' 

Here the apology of the Spenserian critics really begins. And it 
is not due to any unpopularity of Spenser but to the fact that 
they were advancing a somewhat new coneeption of him. We 
have Seen that the neo-clafisicists apologized only when they were 
censuring Spenser. The romantieists apologized because they 
wished to link Spenser more closely with their brotherhood. Hurd 
draws the usual parallel between classical and Gk)thic architec- 
ture, which had some vogue since Hughes ventured upon it as 
throwing some light on Spenser, and adds : 

''The question is not which of the two is conducted in the simplest or 
truest taste; but, whether there be not sense and design in both, when 
scrutinized by the laws on which each is projected. • . . It was as 



1911] Cwry: The CHtie$ of Edmund Spenser, 169 

reqnisite for the Faerie Queen to eonsist of the adventuTes of twelve 
knights, as for the Odyssey to be confined to the adventures of one Hero: 
justice had otherwise not been done to his snbjeet. 

"If it be asked then, what is this ünity of Spenser's Poemf I say, 
it eonsists in the relation of its several adventures to one common origin, 
the appointment of the Faerie Qneene; and to one common end, the com- 
pletion of the Faerie Qneene 's injunctions. ' ' 

This is not urged as classical unity but unity of another sort. 
Hurd ihiiiks that the introduction of Arthur was a mere after- 
thonght, an expedient f rom classical modeis which narrated only 
one action. 

''The trath was, the violence of dassick prejudices forced the poet to 
affeet this appearance of Unity, thongh in contradietion to his Gothick 
System." 

Spenser, according to Hurd, never should have attempted to ally 
the Gothic and the classical unities. It is interesting to compare 
Hurd and the Augustans at this point. The Augustans, includ- 
ing Warton, lamented that Spenser was compelled by the roman- 
tic prejudices of his time to f ollow the vicious example of Ariosto. 
Hurd lamented that Spenser was compelled by the prejudices of 
his time to allow classical ideals to play havoc with his natural 
€k>thic inclinations. 

Hurd now tums to an entirely different def ence of The Faerie 
Queens, based on its allegorical character. 

''His twelve knights are to exemplify as many virtues, ont of which 
one iUnstrious character is to be composed. And in this yiew, the part 
of Prince Arthur in each Book becomes essential not principal, ezactly as 
the poet has contrived it. ' ' 

Hurd thinks the objection to Prince Arthur and the unity of the 
poem is unanswerable on any other grounds. 

"Bat how faulty soever this eonduct be in the literal story, it is per- 
feetly right in the moral: and that for an obvions reason, though his 
criticks seem not to have been aware of it. His ehief hero was not to 
have the twelve virtuos in the degree in which the knights had each of 
them, their own; (such a character would be a monster;) but he was to 
have so much of each as were requisite to form his superior character. 
Each virtue, in its perfection, is exemplified in its own knight: they 
are all, in a due degree concentered on Prince Arthur. 

"The conelusion is, that, as an allegorical Poem the method of the 
Faerie Queene is govemed by the justness of the moral: as a narrative 



170 Univertity of Cdlifamia Püblieationg in Modem PJkOoIo^. [VoL 2 

Poem, it ifl eondncted on the idea« and nsagea of ehivalrj. In either 
▼iew, if taken hy itself , the plan ia def ensible. Bnt from the union of the 
two deeigna there arisea a perplezitj, and confusion, which ia the proper, 
and only eonaiderable def eet of thia eztraordinarj Poem. ' ' 

Hurd now launches forth in breezy defence of the (Gothic 
method. Tasso is sneered at becaose "he thought fit to trim 
between Gothic and classical modeis." The French depreciation 
of Ariosto is ronndly abused. We must remember that the Augos- 
tans had patted Tasso on the back and girded at Ariosto. And 
Hurd scores **our obsequions and over modest critics" for allow- 
ing themselves to be ovemdden by French authority. 

"It grew into a aort of eant, with which Bymer, and the reat of that 
Sehooly filled their flimsy eaaays, and rambling prefaces. . . . A lucky 
Word in a yerae which sonnds well and everybody geta by heart, goes 
further than a volume of juat criticiam. In ahort, the exaet bnt cold 
Boileau happened to aay aomething of the clinqnant of Taaso; and the 
magick of thia word, like the report of Astolfo's hom in Arioato, over- 
turned at onee the solid and well-bnilt repntation of Italian poetry. ' ' 

Hurd closes with an utterance of even more glowing roman- 
ticism that lifts him safely above the jaded connoisseurs of 
''Gothick" of his time. He defends the ''tales of the Faery" 
and the f antastic exploits of the unf ettered imagination as the 
greatest material for epic poetry. Bad criticism, which had 
relegated such matters to children, is blamed as the result of the 
abuse of terms. 

''A poet, they aay, must follow Natura; and by Nature we are 
to suppose ean only be meant the known and ezperienced eourae of 
affairs in this world. Whereas the poet has a world of his own where 
experience has less to do than consistent imagination. . . . Without ad- 
miration (which cannot be affected but by the marvellous of celestial 
intervention, I mean, the agency of superior natures really existing, or 
by the illusion of fancy taken to be so) no epick poem can be long-lived. 
I am not afraid to instance the Henriade itself ; which, notwithstanding 
the elegance of the eomposition, will in a short time be no more read 
than the Gondibert of Sir William Davenant, and for the same reason." 

The **pomp of verse, the energy of description" and even **the 
finest moral paintings'' will not produce a great epic without the 
quality of **admiration.'' By **admiration,'' I take it, Hurd 
means, in a slightly more restricted sense, what Mr. Theodore 



1911] Cary: The Crities of Edmund Spenaer. 171 

Watts-Dunton means when he characterizes romanticism as the 
spirit of "Wonder" which revolted against the Augustan **Age 
of Acceptance." 

Hnrd's last words on Spenser explain what I have been fre- 
qnently aasertiiig — ^that the romanticists, though they discovered 
new beanties in Spenser, became blind to certain of the qualities 
of The Feierte Queene that had long been wisely eherished by 
Milton and by the Augustans. From the ridicule of chivalry 
and magic, thinks Hurd, Spenser was foreed to give ''an air 
of mystery to his subject" and to pretend '*that his stories of 
knights and giants" were but the mantle ''of an abundance of 
profound wisdom.'* 

"In Short, to keep off the eyes of the prophane from prying too nearly 
into his snbjeet he threw about it the mist of allegory. 

"Eancy that had wantoned it so long in the world of fiction was now 
eonstrained, against her will, to ally herseif with striet Truth if she 
wonld gain admittance into reasonable Company. 

"What we have gotten by this revolution, it will be said, is a great 
deal of good sense. What we have lost, is a world of fine fabling; the 
iUusion of which is so gratefnl to the charmed spirit; that, in spite of 
philosophy and fashion, Faery Spenser still ranks highest among the 
Poets. I mean with all those that either come of that house, or have any 
kindness for it. Earth-born criticks may blaspheme: 

'But all the gods are ravish'd with delight 
Of his celestial song, and musick's wondrons might.' " 

Hurd merits the highest praise for his spirited defence of 
the romantic side of Spenser. But, for all his eloquence, his 
depreciation of Spenser 's allegory deserves reproach. Anyone 
who reads Spenser 's contemporaries in Italy, France and Eng- 
land can see that, despite the rapid growth of Augustan eriticism 
on the continent, Fancy eould easily wanton it at her own sweet 
will without feeling constained to go masked in moral allegory. 
Spenser was not foreed to constrain his eopious visions within 
bounds, but the beautiful high seriousness that always dwells 
with the greatest poets made him choose allegory uncommanded. 
Hurd and most sueceeding romanticists have forgotten that 
there is much rieh beauty in Spenser of which the moral alle- 
gory is the direct cause, that many of the passages which they 



172 ünivernty of CaUf&mia PvhlieatwM in Modem Phüology. [YoL 2 

admire cannot be cherished consistently unleas the allegory be 
accepted as artistic. Enthusiasm for the canto on Despair, to 
which the coldest reader of Spenser accordfi high praiae, implies 
enthusiasm for the episode as allegory no matter what fine- 
spuii theories the reader chooses to flaunt. The restraining 
power and architectonic value of Spenser 's allegory, despite its 
incomplete working-ont, will be apparent to any man who reads 
the Poly-Olbion of Drayton and the Britannia^s Pastorais of 
Browne, huge poems by men who had much of Spenser 's heaped 
treasures of fancy and glimmering lore but none of the deeper 
dream that strove to ponr the riches into the vast, the too vast, 
mould of the allegory that strove to erect that gorgeous Utopia 
which would have shaped and perfected even the spacious court 
of Queen Elizabeth. 

Among other beanties of Spenser which the romanticists 
taught all England to appreciate fuUy for the first time was 
the Spenserian stanza. It is stränge that it remained for Beattie, 
the gentle poetaster who was once lionized for his Minstrel, to 
write the first elaborate and thoroughly appreciative comments 
on the marvellous stanza which Spenser fashioned subtly for his 
Faerie Queene. A letter to Dr. Blacklock (September 22, 1766), 
reveals the placid Beattie in the process of composition. 

''Not long ago I began a poem in the style and stanza of Spenser, in 
which I propose to give füll seope to my inclination, and to be either 
droU or pathetic, descriptive or sentimental, tender or satirical, as the 
humour strikes me; for, if I mistake not, the manner whieh I have adopted 
admits equally of all these kinds of composition. I have written one 
hundred and fifty lines, and am sorprised to find the strueture of that 
complicated stanza so little troublesome. . I was always fond of it, for I 
think it the most harmonious that ever was contrived. It admits of more 
Tariety of pauses than either the Couplet or the alternate rhyme; and it 
eoncludes with a pomp and majesty of sound, which, to my ear, is won- 
derfully delightful. It seems also very well adapted to the genius of our 
language, which, from its irregularity of infiezion and number of mono- 
syllables, abounds in diversified terminations, and consequently renders 
our poetry susceptible of an endless yariety of legitimate rhymes. But I 
am so far from intending this Performance for the press, that I am 
morally certain it will never be finished. I shall add a stanza now and 
then, when I am at leisure, and when I have no humour for other amuse- 
ment; but I am resolved to write no more poetry with a view to publica- 



1911] C&ry: The Critica of Edmund Spenser. 173 

tion, tili I See some dawnings of a poetical taste among the generalitj of 
readers, of which, however, there is not at present anything like an 
appearanee. ' ' 

Beattie shows the bookish man 's ignorance of bis times. Tbe 
public was waiting to devour stuflP like The Miiistrel. And when 
he did publish the first book, in 1771, there was a thunder of 
applanse. 

These opinions have brought us well into the camp of the 
romanticistSy where f ewer citations and explanations are neces- 
sary f or the reader of today. The Augustan attitude lingered on 
with certain critics, but most men followed in the wake of Hurd. 
We are near enongh out own time to conclude this long survey 
of Spenserian criticism with the opinions of three of the most 
delightfxQ romantic admirers of Spenser — Sir Walter Scott 
(1771-1832), WUliam Hazlitt (1778-1830), and Leigh Hunt 
(1784-1859). 

In Order thoroughly to appreciate Scott 's attitude toward 
Spenser we must glance at bis poetry along with bis prose. Like 
many poets he bas left evidence of bis early delight in Spenser, 
to wbose works he was introduced by Dr. Blacklock. 

"Spenser I eould kave read forever. Too yonng to trouble myself 
about the aUegory, I eonsidered all the knights and ladies and dragons 
and giants in their outward and exoteric sense, and God only knows how 
delighted I was to find myself in such soeiety." 

And in the days of bis maturity Scott 's boyish appreciation of 
Spenser remained essentially the same. For Scott was always 
a boy. Beyond a certain interest as a man of affairs and an 
antiquarian, in Spenser 's political allegory," he rather abandoned 
himseU, like all the full-fledged romanticists, to the delights of 
the rieh succession of pictures that was stirred by Spenser 's 
lofty purposes. Scott 's romanticism, with its love of antiquar- 
ianism, was not a streng spirit of rebellion, nor even a very 
strong spirit of wonder. Allowing for its immensely superior 



s See his essay on Todd 's edition of Spenser {Edinburgh Review, 1805) . 
"Bat although everything belonging to the reign of the Virgin Queen 
carries with it a seeret charm to Englishmen, no commentator of the Faery 
Queen has taken the trouble to go very deep into those annals, for the pur- 
poee of illustrating the seeret, and as it were, esoteric allusions of Spen- 
ser 's poems." 



174 Vnivergiiy of Cdlif<fmia Puhlieatiana in Modem PMMoffy. [Vol. 2 

vigor and its wholesome scom of introspection, it has something^ 
in common with the pretty trifling of Seattle. Scott 's roman- 
ticism involved little more than a change in what the Augostans 
called **machinery." Take out your pagan divinities; put in 
your knights. Add to this a change of landscape. Describe a 
mountain or forest scene. Put in an indispensable moon and a 
Castle. This was the setting, not for the sentimental reflections 
of Beattie, but for the stirring narrative and ring so like the old 
ballad that Matthew Arnold has well called it the only English 
equivalent of Homer. 

What Scott found in Spenser was the dim forest, the furtive 
flash of armor as the sun stole through at intervals, silent maidens 
who were to Scott mere vague flowers of mediaeval landscape, 
and ever and anon a great Castle upleaping unexpectedly in the 
silver winding path. Even in the breathless flow of bis narra- 
tive Scott delighted to pause and to consider these lovely scenes. 
So he hit upon the happy device of using Spenser in a rather 
novel way. In almost all his narrative poems he introduced 
Spenserian stanzas, generally at the opening of his cantos, to 
make a setting before the quick beat of the free tetrameters 
called to arms. He showed a relic of Augustan-Spenserianism 
by occasionally employing the stanza of The Faerie Queene for a 
moralistic prelude or interlude, as the master himself did. Fin- 
ally he strewed his narrative with allusions to the beautiful pic- 
tures in The Faerie Queene, In some of his later poems the 
influence of Byron 's Chüde Harold tinged his introductory Spen- 
serian stanzas. But, in general, the landscapes thus introduced 
are not disturbed by the more personal, stormier note of Byron. 
Almost any of these stanzas taken at random will illustrate. The 
idyllic scenes on the Island in the second canto of The Lady of 
the Lake are introduced by a charming setting. 

"At morn the black-eoek trims bis jetty wing , 
'Tis moming prompts the linnet's blithest l&y, 
AU Nature's children feel the matin spring 
Of life reviving, with reviving day; 
And while yon little bark glides down the bay, 
Wafting the stranger on his way again, 
And sweetly o 'er the lake was heard thj strain, 
Mix'd with the sounding harp, O white-hair'd Allan-Bane. " 



1911] C&ry: The Criiics of Edmund Spenser. 175 

The Spenserian alltisions, with which the Ariosto of the 
North, ever haunted by visions of The Faerie Queene, strewed 
richly his poems, may be illustrated by a passage f rom Marmion 
whieh conjures up scenes with the delight of a ehild rocking him- 
seif into ecstasy by a fire-place and recalling his störe of fairy- 
tales. 

''Not she, the championess of old. 
In Spenser 's magic tale enroU'd, 
Bhe, for the charmed spear renown'd, 
Whieh f orced each knight to kiss the ground, — 
Not she more ehanged, when, placed at rest, 
What time she was Malbecco 's gnest, 
She gave to flow her maiden vest; 
When from the corslet's grasp relieved, 
Free to the sight her bosom heaved; 
Sweet was her blne eye 's honest smile, 
Erst hidden by the aventayle; 
And down her Shoulders gracefnll roll'd, 
Her locks profuse, of paly gold. 
They who whilom, in midnight fight, 
Had marvell'd at her matchless might, 
No less her maiden eharms approved, 
But looking liked, and liking loved. 
The sight could jealous pangs beguile, 
And eharm Malbecco 's cares a while; 
And he, the wandering Squire of Dames, 
Forgot his Columbella 's Claims, 
And passion, erst unknown, could gain 
The breast of blunt Sir Satyrane; 
Nor durst light Paridel advance, 
Bold as he was, a looser glance. 
She charmed at once, and tamed the heart, 
Incomparable Britomarte! " 

Thus, too, The Vision of Don Boderick closes with Spenser 's 
favorite figurative method of saying adieu. 

"But all too long, through seas unknown and dark, 
(With Spenser 's parable I close my tale,) 
By shoal and rocks hath steer'd my venturous bark. 
And landward now I drive before the gale. 
And now the blue and distant shore I hail. 
And nearer now I see the port expand. 
And now I gladly furl my weary sail, 
And as the prow light touches on the Strand, 
I strike my red-cross flag and bind my skiff to land. ' ' 



176 üniversity of Califamia PuhUcations in Modem PMUOogy. [YoL 2 

Scott was always a hearty, delighted boy and this lovable 
trait is no better illustrated than in bis Spenser-worsbip. 

Tbe beautiful tbings in Spenser were ever stra3ring in some 
convenient comer of Hazlitt's mind. Haziitt sbares witb Byron 
in Don Juan tbe sapreme bonors in Englisb literature for tbe 
mastery of tbe fine art of quoting. So adroitly does Haziitt slip 
a fine pbrase or verse from a beloved writer into tbe rieb tex- 
ture of bis own prose tbat be becomes a second creator, as great 
as tbe first, and we forget tbat it was merely quoted. Tbis is 
one of tbe most effective and difScult of stylistic tricks. Haziitt 
quoted Spenser k propos of tbings in general, of ten very quaintly. 
''We feit as mncb disconcerted/' be writes, "by tbe uncalled for 
pbrensy of tbis tbeatrical Amazon, as tbe Squire of Dames in 
Spenser did, when be was carried off by tbe giantess Orgygia." 
Coleridge's Lay Sermon reminded bim of ''A gentle busber 
Vanitie by name." 

Haziitt certainly penned tbe most brilliant detacbed com- 
ments on Spenser ever written. *'Tbe essence of Spenser 's 
poetry," be teils us, "was a continuons, endless flow of inde- 
scribable beauties like tbe galaxy or milky way.** He says pene- 
trating tbings about tbe vexed question of Spenser 's passion. 

^'But he has been unjnstly charged with a want of passion and of 
strength. He haa both in an immense degree. He has not indeed the 
pathos of immediate action or sulfering, which is more properly the 
dramatic; bnt he has all the pathos of sentiment and romance — all that 
belongs to distant objeets of terror, and uncertain, imaginary distress. ' ' 

After all tbe endless talk about Ariosto and Spenser, Haziitt 
makes tbe best comparison ever written. 

"If Ariosto transports us into regions of romance, Spenser 's poetry is 
all fairj-land. In Ariosto we walk npon the ground, in a Company, gay, 
fantastie, and adventurous enongh. In Spenser, we wander in another 
World, among ideal beings. The poet takes us and lays us in the lap of 
a lovelier nature, by the sound of softer streams, among greener hüls and 
fairer Valleys. He paints nature, not as we find it, but as we expeeted to 
find it, and f ulfills the delightf ul promise of onr youth. ' ' 

Haziitt is quaintly non-committal on tbe problem of Spenser 's 
allegory. 



1911] Cary: The Crities of Edmund Spenser. 177 

"Bat 8ome p«ople will say that all this maj be very fine, but that tliej 
eaimot onderatand it on aeeount of the allegorj. They are afraid of the 
allegory, as if they thonght it would bite them: tliey look at it as a child 
looks at a painted dragon, and think it will strangle them in its shining 
f olda. This is very idle. If they do not meddle with the allegory, the 
allegory will not meddle with them. Withont minding it at all, the whole 
Ib as piain as a pike-staff. ' ' 

Hazlitt was a literary epicurean, the product of the romantie 
attitude toward Spenser, who has done incalenlable good f or the 
master and yet has encouraged men to take The Faerie Queene as 
an intellectual anesthetie (if they are not unfortunate enough 
to have taken it as a soporific). If we tempered our Hazlitt and 
all the romanticists with Milton, Dryden, and Addison for an 
antidote, then we should get the perfeet coneeption of Spenser. 
But I mnst leave the reader with a relish of Hazlitt rather than 
of my polemics. 

''In reading the Faery Qneene, you see a little withered old man by a 
wood-side opening a wicket, a giant and a dwarf lagging far behind^ a 
damsel in a boat upon an enehanted lake, wood-nymphs, and satyrs; and 
all of a sadden yon are transported into a lof ty palaee, with tapers burn- 
ing, amid knights and ladies, with danee and revelry and song, ' and mask, 
and antiqne pageantry. ' * ' 

From boyhood to the days of his sunny maturity, when he 
poored out his graceful garrulous essays, Spenser haunted Leigh 
Hnnt like a passion. He teils us, in his Autobiography, that he 
seeured an odd volume of Spenser at Christ 's Hospital and com- 
completed about a hundred stanzas called The Fairy King which 
''was to be in emulation of Spenser." From that time Spenser 
was his favorite among all poets. In 1801 he published his 
Juvenüia, or a Collection of Poems, Written between the Ages of 
Tivelve and Sizteen, The most ambitious poem is The Palace of 
Pleasure; An AUegoricäl Poem in Two Cantos. Written in Imita- 
tion of Spenser. His epicurean Story of Bimini (1816), so im- 
portant in the history of nineteenth Century romanticism, 
shows the influence of Spenser, the sensuous builder of the Bower 
of Bliss, both for better and for worse. But in his beautiful 
essay, Imagination and Fancy, we find the key-note of Hunt 's 



17S Univeniiy of Cdlifomia Fublicaiion$ m Modem Phüology. [Yd. t 

attitude toward Spenser. Here he fumishes a wonderful pic- 
ture-gallery. He compares scene after scene of concentrated 
lovelmess with some appropriate picture which hangs in the 
great galleries of Europe. No book could be more perfect to 
teaeh both youth and crabbed age to love Spenser. Yet I must 
be ungracious enough to Charge Hunt with a good deal of respon- 
sibility for the common conception current today of Spenser as 
a pictorial poet and nothing more. Spenser 's pictnres have been 
admired tili he is given absolntely no credit as a writer of narra- 
tive. This is absurd extreme. Had Hunt appreciated some of 
Spenser 's larger qualities, bis own verse would doubtless have 
been less saccharine and spineless. But it seems almost sacri- 
legious to quarrel with this charming old literary epicurean. 
How eloquently he could write of Spenser may be seen in one 
Short apostrophe. 

"Aronnd ns are the woods; in our distant ear is the sea; the glimmer- 
ing forme that we behold are those of nymphs and deities; or a hermit 
makes the loneliness more lonely; or we hear a hom blow, and the 
gronnd trembling with the Coming of a giant; and our boyhood is again 
existing, füll of belief^ though its hair be tnrning grey; because thou, a 
man, hast written its books, and proved the surpassing riches of its 
wisdom. ' ' 



•A catalogue of later opinions is unnecessary. We all know 
the current notions about Spenser. Endless are the pale com- 
ments of writers of text-books who have bolted The Faerie Qvsene 
with all the terrif ying velocity with which the ghastly Amerieans 
in Martin Chuzzlewit devoured their dinner — **in huge wedges." 
A few words about Spenser 's worship of beauty, a fling at his 
allegory, and the necessary paragraphs in any proper history of 
English literature are complete. Such is the baneful infiuence 
of the literary epicureanism of Hurd, Scott, Leigh Hunt, and 
other brilliant writers whose utterances culminate in Lowell's 
glowing but dangerous essay on Spenser, which, with all its real 
appreciation of one side of the master's genius, has had a blight- 
ing influence on many. Professor Dowden, whose perfect essay 
on Spenser will be mentioned presently, has conveniently com- 



1911] Cary: The Crities of Edmund Spenser. 179 

pressed the splendid Lucif erian assertions of Lowell into a Para- 
graph. 

"A teacher, — what is the Import of thisf 'The true use of Spenser/ 
sajrs a poet of our own day, Mr. J. B. Lowell, ' is as a gallery of pictnres 
which we visit as the mood takes us, and where we spend an hour or two 
at a time, long enough to sweeten our perceptions, not so long as to 
eloy them.' And again: 'Whenever in the Faery Queen you come sud- 
denly on the moral, it gives jou a shoek of unpleasant surprise, a kind 
of grit, as when one's teeth elose on a bit of gravel in a dish of straw- 
berries and eream.' This, then, is the Faery Queen — a dish of straw- 
benies and cream mized np unfortunately with a good deal of grit. And 
as for the allegory, we may 'fairly leave it on one side; ' Spenser employed 
it to 'eonvinee the seorners that poetry might be seriously useful, and 
show Master Bull his new way of making fine words butter parsnips, in 
a rhymed moral primer.' Shall we aecept this view, or that of Milton«- 
'a better teacher than Bcotus or Aquinasf ' Was Bpenser such a teaeher 
'sage and serious' to his own agef If so, does he remain such a teacher 
for this age of oursf " 

This age of ours, about which Professor Dowden has bis f ears, 
is too much devoted to the doctrine of Art for Art 's sake to be in 
harmony with the ideals of Spenser and Milton. Poets who are 
ineffectually concerned with pale, anaemic Isoldes gazing sadly 
into the solitary West cannot understand the füll beauty of fig- 
ures like Una, who symbolizes Truth. They only admire the 
eolors, not the exquisite lines of the picture. Had they Spenser 's 
richer view, their poetry would not so of ten confuse the white- 
ness of beauty with the pretematural whiteness of leprosy, They 
are for all the world like the exclusive and selfish people in Boc- 
caccio who assembled in rural Sequestration to divert each other 
with stories while their comrades in the city groaned with the 
plague and stretched out imploring hands for help. If you make 
poetry the gilded plaything of an exclusive and esoteric cult, you 
are doing as did Boccaccio 's fine lords and ladies. You will have 
none of the humanity of the Man of Law and the Prioress, you 
will have none of the high poetry of the Knight and the Squire. 
Spenser studied Plato and knew Sidney. Therefore he had a 
profound understanding of the function of poetry. 

Our present-day romanticists sometimes look upon Spenser 
askance because of his idealism and sum it up with the accusa- 






180 Unwernty of CaUfaniia PiibUMtioni in Modern PhOoUnn, [Vol. 2 

tion that he has no human interest. They ihink ihis becauae 
present-day romanticism often means the reverse of idealism. 
Many people who would be realistic, yet who have romantic 
tastes, gratify their love of mystery and Sensation by realistic 
stndies of pathological cases. Sentünentalism so intimately con- i 

nected with the first years of romanticism as it rose in its glori- 
ons youth and smote the dead ideals of Acceptance is now held in 
disrepute not only by the eommercialists, with their rule-of- 
thumb realism, but by the most adventurous romanticists. The | 

later-day romanticists, with a false sense of shame, have hard- * 

ened themselves against it. Nowadays, for instance, an orthodox 
mnsician does not dare to admire the sweet, wholesome roman- 
ticism of Mendelssohn. The lover of poetry who prefers the 
gentle pensiveness of Longfellow to Poe 's inarticulate Ulalume 
is eonsidered senile. It is certainly true that contemporary 
romanticists need a revival of sentimentalism as badly as the 
eighteenth Century, though for a different reason. The Augus- 
tans were hard because they believed in repression and glittering 
reason. Present-day romanticists are hard because they are 
jaded and do not respond to normal emotions. 

And better for us than sentimentalism would be the beautiful 
idealism of Edmund Spenser. His sweet leisureliness would 
eure US of our literary dyspepsia induced by our breathless short- 
story technique which we admire with such blind exclusiveness. 
His profound moral consciousness would impress us again with 
the high function of poetry and make us laugh at Art for Art 's 
sake. 

But I would close in a major key. As it has always been so, 
we can boast of a few critics who have written great essays on 
Spenser. I should like space to dilate on the rare essays of that 
fine-souled poet Aubrey de Vere with their sober and profound 
adoration of the qualities that run deep in Spenser. I should 
like to plunder from the many fervid passages that Professor 
Saintsbury, one of the truest of Spenser 's Champions, has drawn 
from his perennial contagious enthusiasm. But I must confine 
myself to what I believe to be the greatest essay on Spenser ever 



1011] Ccry: The Criiies of Edmund Spenser. 181 

written, to Professor Edward Dowden's Spenser, the Poet and 
Teacher. Since Warton 's Observations on the Faery Queene, I 
know of nothing so many-sided and so near the ideal method 
which I have advocated at the cost of so much dull pedantry and 
raucous polemic. Now, at last, I will gladly disappear and leave 
the rostnun to Professor Dowden. 

"In England of the age of Elizabeth what place is filled bjr the 
poetry of Spenser f What blank would be made by its disappearancef 
In what, for each of us who love that poetry resides its special virtuef 
Bhall we say in answer to these questions that Spenser is the weaver of 
spellSy the creator of illusions, the enchanter of the Elizabethan age; and 
that his name is to us a word of magie by whieh we conjure away the 
pain of actual lifo, and obtain entrance into a world of faery f Was 
Spenser, as a poet of our own time names himself, 'the idle singer' of 
his day — ^that day not indeed 'an empty day/ but one filled with heroic 
daring and achievementf While Baleigh was exploring stränge streams 
of the New World, while Brake was chasing the Spaniard, while Bacon 
was seeking for the principles of a philosophy which should enrich man 's 
life, while Hooker, with the care of a wise master-boilder, was laying the 
fonndation of polity in the National Church, where was Spenser f Was 
he forgetfnl of England, forgetful of earth, lulled and lying in some 
bower of fantasy, or moving in a dream among imaginary Champions of 
chivalry, distressed damsels, giants and dragons and satjrs and skvage 
men, or shepherds who pipe and shepherdesses who dance forever in a 
serene Arcadyf 

"Assuredly it was not thus that a great Englishman of a later age 
thought of Spenser. When Milton entered upon his manhood, he entered 
upon a warfare; the peaceful days, days of happy ingathering of varied 
enlture, days of sweet repose amid rural beauty, were past and gone; and 
he stood with loins girt, prepared for battle in behalf of liberty. And 
then, in London, when London was a vast arsenal in which weapons were 
forging for the defence of truth and freedom, Milton in his moment of 
highest and most masculine ardour, as he wrote his speech on behalf of 
unlicensed printing, thought of Spenser. It was not as a dreamer that 
Milton thought of him. Spenser had l^een a power with himself in youth, 
when he, 'the lady of his College,' but such a lady as we read of in 
'Comus,' grew in virginal beauty and virginal strength. He had listened 
to Spenser 's 'sage and solemn tunes,' 

'Of tumeys and of trophies hung; 
Of f orests and enchantments drear, 
Where more is meant than meets the ear. ' 

And now, in his manhood, when all of life had grown for him so grave, 
so glorious with heroic effort, Milton looks back and remembers his 
master, and he remembers him not as an idle singer, not as a dreamer of 



188 ünweraity of (kOifi^ia Publieations in Modem PhOology. [Vol. 2 

drMuni, bat as 'our sage and aerioni Spenaer, whom I dare to name a 
better teaeher tban Seotns or Aquinas. ' 

' ' ' A better teaeher than Seotus or Aquinas. ' Yet we are told by the 
Dean of St. Paul 's, that in giving himself credit for a direct pnrpose to 
instruet, Spenser 'only eonformed to the utUitarian spirit whieh pervaded 
the literature of the time.' It is the heresj of modern art that only 
useless things should be made beaatiful. We want beauty only in play- 
things. In eider days the armour of a knight was as beaatiful as sunlight, 
or as flowers. 'In unaffeeted, uneonscious, artistie excellenee of inven- 
tion,' says one of our ehief living painters, 'approaching more nearly to 
the Strange beauty of nature, especially in Vegetation, mediaeval armour 
perhaps surpasses any other effort of human ingenuity. ' What if Spenser 
wrought armour for the soul, and, because it was preeious and of finest 
temper, made it fair to look uponY That whieh gleams as bright as the 
waters of a sunlit lake is perhaps a breastplate to protect the heart; that 
whieh appears pliant as the blades of summer grass may prove at our need 
to be a sword of steel. ' ' 



Transmitted September 27, 1910, 



UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS 

IN 

MODERN PHILOLOGY 

Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 183-237 November 2, 191 1 



SOME FORMS OF THE RIDDLE QUESTION 

AND THE EXERCISE OF THE WITS 

IN POPULÄR FICTION AND 

FORMAL LITERATURE 

BT 

BUDOLPH SCHEVILL 



THE POTJRTEENTH PATRAftA OP TIMONEDA 

The study of the Spanish short story and the romance of the 
Bixteenth and seventeenth centuries demands more careful con- 
sideration of the related field of populär fiction, specifically of 
the eosmopolitan folktale, than has been hitherto admitted. Not 
only has a large amount of widely current material been incor- 
porated into the novel, but many types of the latter, notably 
Short tales and anecdotes, are nothing more than variant forms 
of matter whieh had already become hnown through the recorded 
populär fiction of many different nations. In this sense, certain 
national literary produets have become from time to time the 
repository or storehouse of populär material of a whoUy eos- 
mopolitan character; now and then a collection of tales merely 
gives a modified form to its Contents which, with innumerable 
variations, have been handed down through the penturies in the 
uninterrupted course of fiction. Even the long novels of the 
Benascence contain a great deal of matter which, owing to a 



184 University of California PubHeatians in Modem Phüology, [YoL 2 

narrow or traditional conception of literary history, has hitherto 
found no place in the study of prose romances. The Persües y 
Sigismunda of Cervantes, for example, contains a veiy large 
amonnt of populär and traditional material, as I hope to ghow 
elsewhere in one of my studies in the sources of that much 
neglected romance. 

Every investigation in the field of the cosmopolitan folktale 
must be comparative, and can therefore be limited neither by 
raeial nor by national boundaries. And, as we may contend, 
moreover, that the creative period of the genuine folktale has 
long passed, that such stories, fairy tales or motifs as were once 
actually gathered out of the traditions of the ages are no longer 
invented by civilized mankind, as was the case when primitive 
man put a naive construction on his environment, it can be 
safely assumed that we have now reached the period in which 
folktales may be more definitely analyzed and compared. More- 
over, apart from the little which can still be honestly gleaned 
f rom oral tradition, the already vast printed collections of tales 
not only yield ample material for a comprehensive view of what 
has come down to us ; they also reveal by various peculiar quali- 
ties the secret which has kept them alive through the ages. 
There is but one obstacle to a profitable study of these many 
hundreds of stories: the collections which have been printed in 
modern times do not in every case record faithful gleanings made 
by the editor himself out of populär local traditions. Not only 
the style of the writer, but the large number of close parallels 
indicate that the collector was tempted to päd his particular 
group of stories by simply rewriting material already in print.^ 

The contention that populär, current fiction may be included 
to great advantage in the study of the literature of the Renas- 
cence is supported especially by the type of story or anecdote 



1 Gf. for ezample, a eoUection of anecdotes entitled Cluohihoeok (1576), 
deseribed bj Johannes Bolte in the Tijdachrift voor Nederlandsohe Taal- 
en Letterhunde, 1891, pp. 127ff., with a review by a A. L. Stiefel in the 
Arohiv für das Studiwm der neueren Sprachen, etc., vol. 94, pp. 129 ff.; 
from these artides it is clear that a presumably new coUeetion of stories 
may be merely a compilation of material gathered from numerous sources 
already printed in various languages. 



1911] ScheviU: Same Forms of the Siddle Queation. 185 

'with which the name of Juan Timoneda is connected. Of him, 
too, it may be said, that perhaps no gatherer of populär tales has 
been more guilty of retelling such as were already known in 
some form or other. His best known coUection, las patrancLS, 
received some attention during the last Century at the hands of 
the eminent folklorist Leibrecht,^ and of the great scholar Ferdi- 
nand Wolf;' and latterly, in the second volume of his Origenes 
de la novela, Menendez y Pelayo devotes some space to an exam- 
ination of its contents. Yet, in spite of these scholarly studies, 
the f act remains that in the case of Timoneda much is left to be 
done. Above all, a critical edition of the text of this little collec- 
tion of patranas,* and a comparative study of related f olklore and 



s Ct. F. Liebrecht in Nettes Jahrbuch der Berlinischen Gesellschaft für 
deutsehe Sprache, etc., viii (1848), pp. 201 ff., ''Der Patrafiuelo des Timo- 
neda," reprinted with slight ehanges and additions in Dunlop-Liebreeht, 
Geschichte der Prosadichtungen, etc. (Berlin, 1851), p. 500. 

»Cf. Ferdinand Wolf in Wiener Jahrbücher der Literatur, vol. 122 
(1848), for a review of Aribau's three volumes in the Biblioteca de 
autares espanoles, pp. 113 ff., a study to which many a writer since Wolf 's 
day owes something. Timoneda is also mentioned occasionally, by way of 
comparison, in Stiefel 's numerous artides on drama and fiction. 

* As regards the flrst edition of the Patrafiuelo, it seems f utile as weU 
as unwarranted to eontinue the seareh for a theoretie edition of 1566, 
supposedly printed at Valencia. No one, to my knowledge, has ever 
Said that he saw such an edition. Perhaps the prestige of the name 
Hayans y Siscar established the tradition started by a remark of D. 
Juan Antonio (not to be eonfused with the more famous D. Gregorio) 
in his prologue to the sixth edition of Luis Gälvez de Montalvo's El 
Pastor de Filida, Valencia, 1792. All that he says, however, is: Juan 
Timoneda, Impressor, i Librero, mui aficionado a las Letras, que f omentö, 
eon el caudal de su ingenio, eomponiendo el Patranuelo, impresso en Valen- 
cia, afio 1566, que D. Nicolas Antonio tenia por la mas antigua de nuestras 
novelas [sie.] In the first place, the patraHuelo is not a novela; in the 
second place, D. Nicolas Antonio says: [Timoneda] auctor est primus 
fabularum, quas dicimus Italico verbo Novelas (Bibl. nova, I, 1788, p. 787), 
the earliest edition mentioned by him being that of Alcalä, 1576. The 
assertion of Mayans therefore means nothing, and the belief in an earlier 
edition seems to rest solely upon the date of the approbatio, Valentiae 
die 22 Septembris Anno Dfii 1566. But it is a weU-known fact that 
mach time may elapse between the date of the preliminaries and that 
of the publication of the book itself. Tirso's Cigarrales, for example, 
has an aprobadon dated 1621, and appeared in 1624, whUe the Inventario 
ot Antonio de Villegas, printed in 1565, was licensed as early as 1551. 
The royal license for the Patraüuelo is dated October, 1576, and if care- 
fully read, implies that the book was appearing for the first time. It is 
as foUows: Don Phelipe por la gracia de Dios Key de Gastilla, etc., etc. 
Por quanto por parte de vos, Alonso Pieardo, impressor de libros, nos 
fue feeha relacion, diziendo, que vos teniades vn libro intitulado, El 
Patrafiuelo, compuesto por Juan Timoneda: el quäl era librero prouechoso. 



IM UnivenU^ of Caiifomia F^bUca$um§ üt Modem PhOotogy. [YoL 2 

fictioD, wonld not be nnweleome to those intereeted in Spanish 
literature of the sixteenth Century. 

In what follows, the resolts of a study of the fourteenth 



soplieandonos oi mandaasemoi dar lieencia para lo poder imprimir, o 
eomo la nueBtra mereed fuesse: lo quäl viato por loe del nuestro eonsejo, por 
qnanto en el dieho libro se hiao la diligenda qne la pragmatiea por noa 
agora noevamente sobre ello feeha dispone, foe aeordado qae deoiamoe 
mandar dar eata nnestra earta para von en la dieha razon, y nos tuuimofllo 
por bien. Por lo quäl damoi lieeneia y faeoltad a qnalquier impreaaor 
desto« nueatros rejmos. para que por esta vez pneda imprimir el diebo 
libro que de suao se hase meneion, sin que por ello eayga ni iucurra en pena 
alguna. T mandamos que la tal Impression se haga por el dicho Ubro 
original, que va rubrieada eada plana 7 ilrmado al fin del de Alonso de 
Vallejo, nuestro eseriuano de eamara, y vno de los que en el nuestro 
eonsejo residen: 7 despues de impresso no se pueda vender ni venda 
sin que primero se tra7ga al nuestro eonsejo juntamente eon el original, 
para que se vea si la dicha Impression esta eonforme al original, 7 se 
tasse en lo que eada volumen se vuiere de vender: so pena de eaer e 
ineurrir en las penas contenidas en la dicha pragmatiea 7 Ie7e8 de 
nuestros re7nos, 7 no fagades ende al, so las diehas penas, 7 mas de la 
nuestra mereed, 7 de dies mil marauedis para nuestra eamara. Dada en 
Madrid, a oeho dias del mes de Octubre de mil 7 quinientos 7 setenta 7 
se7S afios. There is, therefore, no mention of a previous edition, no refer- 
enee to emendations or omissions as was the ease with the Alivio de 
eaminantes (Medina del Campo, 1563): en esta ultima impression van 
quitadas muehas eosas supernuas; or the Sobremesa ( Valencia, 1569): 
Agora de nuevo afiadido, ete. The demand of the ro7al lieenee that the 
edition be printed in eonf ormit7 with the ' ' original ' ' might readil7 mean 
the MS form of Timoneda himself or an authoritative cop7. This eon- 
jeeture is strengthened b7 the fact that the spelling, eapitalization and 
punctuation of the Patranuelo printed at Aleal& in 1576 are ezceedingl7 
like those of the Buen Aviso printed at Valencia in 1564, preBumabl7 
from Timoneda 's MS and under bis own 0708. Again, the word ofH^tiuiI 
frequentl7 means the author's eop7; Lope de Vega uses it in that sense 
in various prologues and letters; and numerous first editions of works 
eontain in the fe de erratae or in the lieenees (ef. the ro7al lieenees of 
both parts of Don Quixote) the Statement that the edition corresponds to 
its original. The edition of the Patranuelo of 1576 was soon followed b7 
others in 1578 (Barcelona), 1580 (BUbao), 1580 (Lisbon), 1583 (Seville) 
and 1586 (Alcal&f). If there was an edition of 1566, there would have 
been others between that date and 1576. Nor is there an7 ground for 
asserting that an edition printed elsewhere than at Valencia would not 
be the first, because Timoneda generall7 had bis works printed where he 
lived. The earliest mentioned edition of the Sohremesa is that of Zaragoza, 
1563, and Timoneda, who was known as a book-seller (meroader de libros 
and librero are the titles applied to him) and not as a printer, could have 
had bis books printed outside of Valencia. The text of the edition of 
1576 leaves much to be desired; the t7pe is the Gothic Üack letter, read- 
able enough, but carele8sl7 punctuated and phrased. Timoneda 's 8t7le 
is generall7 far from polished, a trait ver7 apparent in the edition of 
Alcal&; perhaps the original of the aged Timoneda was responsible for 
the shortcomings of this text; perhaps the venerable Compiler whom 
Cervantes had called older than Father Time had left to some one eise 
the task of seeing the Patranuelo, rehäj since 1566, through the presB. Cf. 
no. 31 of Appendix II. 



1911] SoheviU: Same Forms of iKe BidcUe Questian, 187 

patrana are set forth. The story, well known and widely spread, 

is as f ollows 'J^ 

A vn muy honrado abbad 
Sin doblez, sabio, sincero, 
Le saco su eozinero 
De vna gran neeessidad. 

Qaeriendo cierto rey quitar el Abbadia a vn muy honrado Abad, y 
darla a otro, por eieTtos rebolaedores, Ilamole y dizole: Beuerendo padre, 
porque soy informado que no soys tan docto quäl conuiene y el estado 
vuestro requiere, por paeificacion de mi reyno y descargo de ml eon- 
aeieneia, ob quiero preguntar tres preguntas, las quales, si por vos me 
8on declaradas, haroTs dos eosas: La vna, que queden mentiroaaa laa 
personas que tal ob han leuantado: la otra, que ob conflrmare para toda 
vuestra vida el Abbadia, y si no, aureys de perdonar. A lo quäl respondio 
«1 Abad: Diga vuestra alteza, que yo hare toda mi possibilidad de auellas 
de deelarar. Pues sus, dizo el rey: La primera que quiero que me de- 
clareys, es que me diga3r8y yo quanto valgoY Y la segunda, que adonde 
«sta el medio del mundo f T la tercera, que es lo que yo piensof Y 
porque no penseys que os quiero apremiar, que me las declarejs de im- 
prouiso, andad, que vn mes os doy[8] [sie] de tiempo para pensar en ello. 

Buelto el abbad a su Monesterio, por bien que miro sus libros y diuersoB 
jauctores, por jamas hallo para las tres preguntas respuesta que suffieiente 
fuesse. Gon esta ymaginacion, eomo fuesse por el Monesterio argumen- 
tando entre si miamo muy eleuado, dizole vn dia su eozinero: Que es lo 
que tiene su patemidadf Gelandoselo el abbad, tomo a replicar el eozi- 
nero, diziendo: No deze de dezirmelo, se&or, porque a vezes debazo de 
ruyn eapa yaze buen bebedor, y las chicas piedras suelen mouer las 
grandes carretas. Tanto se lo importuno, que se lo vuo de dezir. Dieho, 
dizo el eozinero: Uestra paternidad haga vna eosa, y es, que me preste 
sus Topas, y rapareme esta barba, y eomo le parezeo algun tanto, y vaya 
de [da in tezt] par de noehe en la presencia del rey, no se dara aeato del 
«ngano; assi que teniendome por su paternidad, yo le prometo de sacarle 
desto trabajo, a f e de quien soy. 

Goneediendoselo el Abbad, vistiose el Gozinero de sus ropas, y eon su 
eriado detras, con toda aquella cerimonia que conuenia, vino en presencia 
del rey. El Bey eomo le vido, hizole assentar eabe si, diziendo: Pues, 
que ay de nueuo, abbad Y Bespondio el eozinero: Uengo delante de 



• The tezt here given is that of the edition of 1576, presumably the 
first; a eopy is in the library of the Hispanic Soeietj of America. In it 
the f ourteenth patraüa wiU be f ound between f olios ciüi and ev, a part of 
the thirteenth (four pages or two leaves), all of the f ourteenth (three 
pageB), and one page of the fifteenth being out of place; signatures L v, 
vi, vii, viii are misbound, or four leaves in all, numbered Izzzv, Izzzvi, 
Izzzvii, Izzzviii. Only the punctuation has been changed; other peeuliar- 
ities and ineonsistencies do not, as a rule, interfere with the sense. Some 
diserepancies between this edition and the reprint of Aribau as well as 
that of Men6ndez y Pelayo in his OHgenes, etc., II, p. Ivii, may be noted. 
Cf. note 16, p. 196. 



188 UnivetMity of California Fublieations in Modem Philology. [YoL 2 

vnettra alteza paxm aatiafaser por mi honra. Anif dixo el rey: veamos, 
que respaesta traejs a mis tres pregnntasY Bespondio el cozinero: 
Primeramente a lo que me pregnnto Tuestra alteza, que qnanto valia, 
digOy que vale veynte y nneue dineroB, porqae Chriito valio treynta. Lo 
segnndoy que donde esta el medio mundo [sie], es a do tiene eu alteza IO0 
pies: la causa, que eomo sea redondo eomo bola, adonde pusieren el pie 
es el medio del; y esto no se me puede negar. Lo tercero, que dize vuestra 
altesa, que diga: que es lo que piensaf Es que eree hablar eon el abad, 
7 esta hablando eon su Cozinero. Admirado el rey desto, diso: Que esse 
passa en Terdadf Bespondio: Si Sefior, que B07 su cozinero: que pars 
semejantes preguntas era 70 suffieiente, 7 no mi sefior, el Abbad. Uiendo 
el re7 la osadia 7 viueza del Cozinero, no solo le confirmo el Abbadia al 
Abbad para todos los dias de su vida, pero hizole inflnitissimas mercedes 
al Cozinero. 

Men^dez 7 Pelayo, in the second volume of bis excellent 
work, Origenes de la novela, gives this patrana in fuU, prefacing 
it with the f ollowing remarks : 

Quiero transcribir la versiön de Timoneda, no s61o por ser la m&s 
antigua de las publicadas en Espafia* 7 quiz4 la m^s fiel al dato tradi- 
cional, sino para dar una muestra de su estilo eomo cuentista, m^s sabroso 
que limado. 

An earlier, though different, frame of these riddle questions 
in Spanish may be fonnd, however, in the last episode of the 
second part of Lazarillo de Tormes, por incierto autor, printed at 
Antwerp in 1555. Certain ridiculous questions, historicall7 re- 
lated, as will be seen, to those in Timoneda, receive answers in 
kind. Their seeming absurdity leads D. Buenaventura Carlos 
Aribau, the editor of the Lazarillo in Novelistas anteriores ä 
Cervantes (1850) to remark (p. xxiii) : 

Vuelve por flu L&zaro & su primitiva forma, 7 recobra su gracejo al 
contar lo que le sueediö en Toledo; pero lo pierde de repente en la 
defensa de las ridfculas eondusiones que sostuvo ante el claustro de 
Salamanca, eon lo eual concIu7e, prometiendo al lector que eon el tiempo 
sabr& lo demas. 

Aribau, however, was unacquainted with the origin of this 
episode, and with the well-established tradition of whieh these 
ridiculas conclusiones" have formed a part the world over, since 



<< 



• Cf. the Introäuccidn, p. Ivii; the same opinion is expressed: "Zu 
Bürgers Ballade, Der Kaiser und der Abi," in Archiv für lAtteratwrge- 
aohichie, vol. 9, p. 423, b7 J. E. Seidemann. 



1911] ScheviU: Some Forma of the Biddle Question. 189 

time immemorial. The text of the LazariUo de Tormes (1555) 
reads as follows^ (ehapter xvüi) : 

Hablamos de muchas eosas estando eomiendo, y replieaua jo de tal 
manera con ellos, que bien eonoeieron ambos auer 70 alean^do mas por 
mi experieneia qne eUoB por su saber. Conteles algo de lo que auia a 
Lazaro aeonteeido, 7 con tales palabras que eierto todos me preguntauan 
adonde auia estndiado: en Franeia, o en Elandes, en Ytalia, 7 aun si 
Bios me dezara aeordar alguna palabra en Latin, 70 los espantara; tome 
la mano en el hablar por no darles ocasion de preguntar algo, que me 
pnsieseen en confusion. Todauia ellos, pensando que 70 era mueho mas 
de lo qne por entonces auian de mi conoeido, determinaron de hazerme 
def ender ynas eondusiones; pero pues sabia que en aquellas eseuelas 
todos eran Bomaneistas, 7 que 70 lo era tal que me podia mostrar sin 
verguen^ a todos, no lo rehuse, porque qnien se vale entre Atunes, que 
no juegan sino de hoeico, bien se valdria entre los que no juegan sino de 
lengua. El dia fue el signiente, 7 para vel el espectaeulo, fue conuidada 
toda la Tnluersidad. Viera vuestra mereed a Lasaro en la ma7or honrra 
de la eiudad, entre tantos Doetores, Liceneiados 7 Bachilleres, que por 
eierto con el diezmo se podrian talar quantos eampos a7 en toda Espafia, 
7 con las primicias se temia el mundo por contento; viera tantas colores 
de vestir, tantos grados en el sentar, que no se tenia euenta con el 
hombre, sino segun tenia el nombre. Antes de parecer 70 en medio, 
quisieronme vestir segun era la vsan^a dellos, pero Lazaro no quiso, 
porque pues era estrangero, 7 no auia professado en aquella vniuersidad, 
no se deuian marauillar, sino juzgar mas segun la doctrina, (pues que tal 
era esta) que no segun el habito, aunque fuesse desacostumbrado. Vi 
a todos entonces con tanta grauedad 7 tanta manera, que si digo la 
verdad, pnedo dezir que tenia mas miedo que verguen^a, o mas verguen^ 
que miedo no se burlassen de mi. Puesto Lazaro en su lugar (7 quäl 
estudiante 70), viendo mi presencia doctoral, 7 que tambien sabia teuer 
mi grauedad eomo todos ellos, quiso el reetor ser el primero que comigo 
argumentasse, cosa desaeostumbrada entre ellos. Assi me propuso vna 
question harte dificil 7 mala, pidiendome le dizesse quantos toneles de 
agua auia en la mar; pero 70 como hombre que auia estudiado, 7 salido 
poco auia de alla, supele responder mu7 bien, diziendo que hiziesse detener 
todas las aguas en vno, 7 que 70 lo mesuraria mu7 presto, 7 le daria 
dello razon mu7 buena. 07da mi respuesta tan breue 7 tan sin rodeos, 
que mal afio para el mejor la diera tal, viendose en trabajo pensando 
ponerme, 7 viendo serle impossible hazer aquello, dexome el cargo de 
mesuraria a mi, 7 que despues 70 se lo dizesse. Auergon^do el Bector 
con mi respuesta, echame otro argumento, pensando que me sobraua a 
mi el saber o la Ventura: 7 que como auia dado resolucion en la primera, 
assi la diera en la segunda, pideme que le dixesse quantos dias auian 



f From La Segunda Parte de Laeariüo de Tormes : y de 9ub fortunas y 
aduertidades. En Anvers (Martin Nucio) 1555; the cop7 belonging to 
the Hispanic Societ7 of America; cf. folio 65 verso, wrongl7 numbered 53. 



190 ünivernty of Cdlifamia Pitblieations in Modem PhUology. [YoL 2 

paflado desde que Adam fne eriado hasta aquella hora: eomo si 70 Tuiera 
estado liempre en el mundo eontandolos eon vna pendola en la mano, 
pues a bnena fe que de IO0 mioe no se me acordauan [sie], sino que tu 
tiempo faj mo^o de yn elerigo, 7 otro de tu ciego, 7 otiai eoaae talee, 
de las quales era ma7or contador que no de dias. Pero todauia le res- 
pondiy diziendo, que no mae de Biete, porque quando ettos eon acabadoe, 
otroB Biete vienen siguiendo de nueuo, 7 que assi auia sido hasta alli, 
7 seria tambien hasta la flu del mundo. Viera yuestra mereed a Lazaro 
entoneeB 7a mu7 Doetor entre los Doetores, 7 mu7 maestro entre los de 
Liceneia. Pero a las tres va la veneida, pues de las doB auia tambien 
Balido, penso el sefior Beetor, que en la tereera 70 me enlodara, aunque 
Dios sabe que tal estaua el animo de Lazaro en este tiempo, no porque no 
moBtrasse mueha grauedad, pero el eora^n tenia tamafiito. Dizome el 
Bector, que Batisfluesse a la tereera demanda; 70 mu7 prompto respondi, 
que no solo a la tereera, pero hasta el otro dia se podia detener. Pidiome, 
que a do estaua el fin del mundo f Que PhiloBofias son estasf dixe 70 
entre mi; pues, eomof No auiendolo 70 andado todo, eomo puedo res- 
ponderY Sime pidiera el flu del agua, algo mejor se lo dixera. Todauia 
le respondi a su argumento, que era aqnel auditorio a do estauamos, 7 
que manifiestamente hallaria ser assi lo que 70 dezia si lo mesuraua, 7 
quando no fueese verdad, que me tnuiesse por indigno de entrar en 
Oolegio. Viendose eorrido por mis respuestas, 7 que siempre pensando 
dar buen zaque, reeebia mal mate, eehame la quarta question mu7 en- 
tonado, preguntando, que quanto auia de la tierra hasta el cielof Viera 
vuestra mereed mi gargajear a mis tiempos eon mueha manera, 7 eon ello 
no sabia que responderle, porque mu7 bien podia el saber que no auia 70 
heeho aun tal Camino. Si me pidiera la orden de vida que guardan los 
Atunes, 7 en que lengua hablan, 70 le diera mejor razon; pero no ealle 
eon todo, antes respondi, que mu7 cerca estaua el cielo de la tierra; 
porque los eantos de aqui se o7en alla por baxo que hombre eante o hable, 
7 que si no me quisiesse creer, se subiesse el al cielo, 7 70 eantaria eon 
mu7 baja voz, 7 que si no me 07a, me condenasse por neeio. Prometo 
a vuestra mereed, que vuo de eallar el bueno del Beetor, 7 dezar lo de- 
mas para los otros. Pero quando le vieron eomo eorrido, no vuo quien 
osasse ponerse en eUo, antes todos eallaron 7 dieron por mu7 ezcelentea 
mis respuestas. 

Not onl7 the questions, however, but this whole episode of the 
Lazarülo can be found in the adventures of Till Ealenspiegel," 
the biograph7 of a rogue, probably first written late in the 
fifteenth Century in the Low-Saxon dialect, and frequently re- 



8 Cf. Morel-Patio Vie de Lazarille de Torm^, etc. (Paris, 1886) Pr6face. 
p. 21; F. W. Ghandler, Bamances of Eoguery; Part I, The Pioaresque Novel 
in apain (New York, 1899), p. 208. 



1911] Sohevill: Same Form of ihe Biddle Questian, 191 

printed in a Dutch translation in the Netherlands. This source 
rons as f oUows :* 

Die zzviii histori sagt wie Ylenspiegel zu Brag in Behemen uff der 
hohen sehfll mit den Studenten eonuersiert, vnd wol bestond: Also zoeh 
Ylenspiegel inn Bohemen gen Brag da er von Marckburg zoch. Vnnd zu 
der zeit woneten da selbest noch gut Cristen zu der zeit als Wieklieb vsz 
Engelland die ketzery in Bohemen thete, ynd durch Johannen hussen 
geweitert ward, ynd gab sieh da vsz für ein grossen meister, zu berichten 
grosse fragen, dy snnst ander meister nit ysz legen oder bericht kunten 
geben. Das liesze er in zedele schreiben, vnd schlügs an die kirchthüren, 
vnd an die GoUegien. Dz ward den Bector yerdrieszen, die Gollegaten 
doctores vnd magistri waren vbel daran mit der gantzen vniuersitet. Vnd 
giengen zusammen zft rat fragen, wie sie Vlnspiegln möchten questiones 
vff geben, die er nit soluieren künd, so er dan vbel bestund, so künten 
sie mit glimpff an in kummen, vnd in verschamen. Ynd dz ward vndei 
inen also verwilligt, vnd zu gelassen, vnd eoncordierten vnd ordinierten 
das also, dz der rector die frag thün solt, vnd lieszen Ylenspiegel da ver- 
bieten durch iren pedellen das er des andern tags zu erschynen zu den ques- 
tiones Tnd fragen, so er im dan in schrifften gab, vor der gantzen vniuersitet 
zu antwurten. Ob er also probiert vnd sein kunst recht gefunden würt, 
snnst solt er nit zugelassen werden. Dem Ylenspiegel also antwurt. Sag 
deinen herren ich wil den Sachen also th&n, vnd hoff noch für ein frumen 
man zu besten, als ich vor lang gethon hab. Des andern tags versamleten 
sich alle doctores vnd gelerten. In dem so kam Ylenspiegel, vnd bracht 
mit im seinen wirt, vnd etlich andere burger, vnd etlich gute gesellen, vmb 
vberfals willen, die im von den Studenten beschehen möchte. Ynd da er 
nun in ir samlung kam, da hiessen sie yn vff den stül steigen, vnd hieszen 
in antwurten vff die fragen, die im für gelegt weren. Ynd die erst frag 
dj der Bector an in thet, dz er sagen vnd mit der warheit bewem sollt. 
Wy mancher om wasser im meer wer, wa er die frag nit vfflosen vnd 
berichten künd, so weiten sie in für ein vngelerten anf echter der kunst 
verdammen vnd straffen. Zu der selben frag er behend antwurt. Wir- 
diger herr rector heiszen die anderen wasser stil ston, die an allen enden 
in dz meer lauffen, so will ich euch messen, beweisen, vnd die warheit 
sagen dauon, vnd es ist begrifBieh zu thü. Dem rector wz vnmüglieh 
die wasser z&behalten, vnd also zoch er dz ab, vnd erliesz in des messens, 
vnd der Bector stund da verschampt, vnd thet sein ander frag vnd 
sprach. Sag mir, wie vil tag sein vergangen, von Adams Zeiten bis vff 
disen tag. Er antwurt kurtz. Nur vii. tag, vnd so die umbhin kumen, 
so heben vii ander tag an dz wert bis zu end der weit. Der Bector 
sprach zu im, die drit frag, sag mir bald. Wie oder waran sieh dz 
mittel in der weit halt. Ylenspiegel antwurt. Dz is dz hie, das stot 
recht mitten in der weit, vnd das es war sei, so lond es messen mit einer 



• Of . NeudntcJce deuUeher Litteraturwerhe des XVI und XVII Jahrhund- 
erts; Till Eulenspiegel (1516), Halle a S, 1885, p. züi; also Dr. Thomas 
Mwmers Ulenspiegel herausgegeben von J. M. lAppenberg, Leipzig, 1854. 



192 üniversity of California PubUeatians in Modem PhHology. [Vol. 2 

■elmfir, vnd wa es feit vmb ein etrohalm so wil ich ynreeht hon. Der 
rector, ee ers messen wolt, ee verliesze er Ylnspiegln der frag. Da thet 
er die flerd frag an VInspiegeln gantz in zorn vnd sprach. Sag an, wie 
ferre ist von der erden bis an den hymmeL Vlenspiegel der antwurt, es 
gat nach hie beL Wan man redt oder riiift in dem himel, das kan man 
hie niden wol hören, steigen ir hinuff, so wil ich hie niden senfft rüfPen, 
das solt ir im himel hören, vnd hörent ir das nit, so wil ich aber vnrecht 
hon. Der Beetor was mit im bestanden vnd fragt die f ünfft frag. Wie 
weit der himel wer. Vlenspiegel antwurt im bald vnd sprach. Er ist 
tusent klafftem breit, vnnd tosent ellenbogen hoch, das mag mir nit 
feilen, wollen ir das nit glauben, so nemen son, mon vnnd alles gestim 
von dem himel, vnd messent es recht vber, so finden ir das ich recht hab 
wie wol das ir nit gern daran kamen. Was selten sie sagen, Vlenspiegel 
was in allen zu bescheid, vnd müsten im alle recht geben vnd er tobt 
nitt lang, als er die gelerten vber wunden het mit schalkheit. Da was 
im leid das sie etwas im zu trincken geben dardurch er zu schänden kern, 
des halben zoch er sich vsz dem langen rock, vnd zohe hinweg vnd kam 
gen Ertford. 

Now, at Antwerp, where the first Dutch edition of Tai Eulen- 
spiegd was printed between 1520 and 1530, as well as a French 
translation in 1539, several other editions saw the light in the 
course of the sixteenth Century. As has been stat^d, it was also 
at Antwerp that the second part of Lazarülo appeared in 1555. 
If the conjecture be admissable that this book was the work of 
some Spanish Protestant living in the Low Countries, then it 
becomes more than likely that its author was acquainted with the 
northem f orerunners of the picaresqne novel ;^® one of the earliest 



loThis little tale does not deserve all the scorn with which it has 
been treated by writers on the rogue story, for they generally content 
themselves with calling this yam of "the man converted into a fish'' a 
tissue of absurdities. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that the tale 
is a political satire yet to be ezplained; that a man-fish was once held to 
be a possibility and belongs to the stock of belief s of folklore; that his 
experiences in the sea merely serve as a medium for the author 's attack 
on certain political and social conditions. On the peje Nicolas mentioned 
in Don Quixote, cf. Clemenein's edition, note 23 to chap. 18, Pt. 11 ; also 
Bowle 's Anotaciones to his edition, II, 49; Men^ndez y Pelayo, Origenes 
de la novelOf 11, p. zxxi; also the story of the Arabian Nights, which teUs 
of the inhabitants of a submerged town, who were converted into fish, 
Origenes, I, p. czcv; for the story of the transformed city Lucema 
in the third chap. of the pseudo-Turpin, cf. Gaston Paris, review of 
Dozy's Beeherches in the Bomania, vol. 11, p. 423, and Gaston Paris, Eis- 
toire poStique de Charlemagne (Paris, 1905), p. 269 ff.; this miracle of 
Saint James may have been imitated from Ovid, Met, viii, 620 ff., the 
story of Philemon and Baucis, in which the inhospitable town is con- 
verted into a marsh by the anger of Jupiter and Mercury; cf. also the 
transformation of human beings into frogs, bk. vi; among the adven- 



1911] SeheviU: Some Forms of the Biddle Qnestion, 193 

and moet populär was the above mentioned Tül Eulenspiegel. 
Inasmuch as a füll discussion of the character of the anonymous 
Spanish story woold be out of place here, the mere comparison of 
the Gtennanic with the Spanish adventure will have to suffice; 
this will serve also to reveal their identity. 

By tracing the above adventure f arther back, it will be f ound 
that the twenty-eighth chapter (histori) of the biography of Till 
is nothing more than an adaptation of an episode from the 
Stricker 's Pf äff Amis, a mediaeval parallel to Timoneda's 
patraiia, for in it a bishop and a priest play the parts which in 
the latter are taken by a king and an abbott. From what f oUows 
below it may be inferred that the probable source of Timoneda's 
tale and the Stricker 's Version were also related. 

But let US retum to the ''ridiculas condusiones" which 
Lazarillo agrees to maintain bef ore the rector and the assembled 
body of the University of Salamanca; as can be seen from the 
text given above, there are four of them. The first question put 
to Lazarillo by the rector is: ''How many casks of water are 
there in the seaf"^^ Lazarillo gives the traditional answer: 
''Betain all the waters which flow into it, and I shall measure it." 
Second : ' ' How many days have passed since the time of Adam f ' ' 
He answers: ''Seven, and when those have passed, other seven, 



tnres of Alexander the Great is his descent into the sea in a kind of 
diying bell, where he reeeived the homage of the fish, cf. Dunlop, Hisiory 
of Prose Fictian (new ed., London, 1906), I, p. 429; for an analjsis of 
the legendary deeds of Alexander ef. Bohde, Der Griechische Boman (2te 
Anfl., Leipzig, 1900), p. 197 ff.; for sabmarine adventures cf. Dunlop, 
op. eit, I, p. 807, II, 363; Dunlop-Liebrecht, Geschichte der Pros<idich' 
tungen, etc. (Berlin, 1851), p. 129 and note p. 478, also 351 on Sannazaro's 
Areadia, In The Tempest, ii, 2, Trinculo, speaking of Caliban, seems to 
refer to him as a man-fish: A stränge fishl Were I in England now, as 
once I was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but 
would give a pieee of silver: there would this monster make a man, etc.; 
also The Winter 's Tale, iv, 4, 297 ff. 

11 The questJon in Laearülo: "cuÄntos toneles de agua hay en la mar," 
and the form from which it is taken: "wy mancher om wasser im meer 
wer," appear to be translations of the early Latin yersions which read: 
"quot modii aquae sunt in mari (or, quanti modii)Y" which reallj means 
simplj: "how much water Y" and not "how many casks of water Y" 
Cf. for example, Anecdotes histariques, Ligendes et Apologues, tir^s du 
receuil in^dit d' ^tienne de Bourbon, publils par A. Lecoy de la Marche, 
Paris, 1877, no. 86, p. 81; and Vineentlus Bellovacensis, Bibliotheca mundi, 
Speeuhtm morale, I, 4, 10; nos. 45 and 46 of Appendix IL 



194 Univertity of Cdlifomia PubUeatiam in Modem PhiMogy. [VoL 2 

etc." Third: "Where is the center of the worldt*' The reply 
ifl : "Here, where Stands this hall."" And fourth : ''What is the 
distance from the earth to the aky (or heayen) f " to which he 
answers: "It cannot be gpreat, for singing and speaking here on 
earth can be heard up there." In TiU Eulenspiegel, the source 
of Lazarillo, a fifth question is added, which evidently grew out 
of the more common fourth demand. It is: "How great is the 
expanse of the sky ?" Till gives some figures, and bids the rector 
measure for himself . The same five questions exist, as was said, 
in Till 's source, the Stricker 's poem on the priest Amisi/* where 
they are contained in a f rame which no doubt represents one of 
the earliest versions. But this was changed by the author of Till 
Eulenspiegel with the object of parodying the discussions of 
leamed scholastic bodies, much given to that kind of thing during 
the Reformation. Thus, the patrana of Timoneda, which has no 
direct connection with the episode in the LazariUo, is much 
nearer the thirteenth Century Version of the priest Amis;^* for 
in the latter the priest 's leaming is tested by a superior, and the 
questions are put to him under penalty of dismissal, if he fails 



12 Here again the Laeariüo wrongly prints fin for medio or centro, the 
usual Word, and to be found in both Till Eulenspiegel and the latter 's 
souree. The answer shows that middle and not end was meant in the 
question. 

IS Of . Koloceaer codex altdeutseher Gedichte, Pesth, 1817 ; aooessible also 
in Benecke, Beiträge eur Kenntniu der altdeutschen Sprache wnd LitteratWp 
Göttingen, 1810, 1832; in The Dialogue of Solomon and Satumus, etc., by 
John M. Kemble, London, 1848; and in Deutsche Classiker des MittelaXters, 
Yol. 12: Erzählungen und Schwanke, herausgegben von Hans Lamb^, Leip- 
zig, 1872, p. 18. Cf. also Archiv, für Litteraturgeschichte, z, p. 3: ''Eulen- 
Spiegel, ' ' by Karl Goedeke. 

1« Another important eoUection of tales in Spanish, El Conde Lueanor, 
by Don Juan Manuel, has material in common with Till Eulenspiegel and 
the priest Amis; cf. enxemplo zxzii, ''Escritores en prosa anteriores al 
siglo XV'* (edit. Gayangos) p. 402: De lo que conteseio & un rey con los 
burladores que ficieron el paiLo; Tili Eulenspiegel: Die xxvii histori sagt 
wie Ulenspiegel dem Landgroffen von Hessen malet, vnd in weiss macht, 
wer vnelich wer der künt es nit sehen (edition 1515) ; the priest AmU, op. 
eit,, TS. 509-804. The first jam, as well as related ones, is evidently from 
a mediaeval fund earried from one monastery to another, and to judg^ 
by its presence in the Conde Lueanor, it is of oriental origin like so many 
others of that coUection; cf. also Wolf, Studien, etc., pp. 92flf; cf. also 
enxemplo vi! of El Conde Lueanor, Timoneda, in his Buen Aviso teils the 
Story of the hermit with a jar of honey, II, 49, and also one about a 
painter whose painting is inviaible to cuckolds (ningun comudo la puede 
ver), I, 49. 



1911] Sehevül: Some Farms of the Biädle Questian, 195 

to give satififactory replies. The Substitution of a third person, 
a servant or any one of humble Station, who answers in place of 
his superior or employer, is probably a later invention. This may 
be clearer f rom what follows below. 

The question of the source of Timoneda's fourteenth patrana 
demands brief eonsideration, although it may seem to involve us 
in that inextrieable tangle of attempting to decide both the origin 
and the transmission of such a tale ; a thing which its na'ive and 
populär eharacter makes well-nigh impossible. Nevertheless, a 
conjecture is sometimes very suggestive. The difficulty here is 
increased by the f act that all who have treated any form of these 
riddle questions have contented themselves with merely increas- 
ing the already vast number of parallels. The object of this 
artide is to show that an examination and a comparison of the 
separate questions to be found in these particular tales are not 
only apt to reveal more about the probable history of the latter; 
they may also throw some light upon the peculiar form in which 
such riddles are usually cast. 

Now, taken as a whole, the fourteenth paircma does not abso- 
lutely reproduce any one of the parallel versions which have 
come to my notice; nor would such a procedure represent 
Timoneda's method of copying his sources. In this particular 
case, either the characters are slightly different, while the ques- 
tions are more or less the same; or the persons correspond, 
while the riddles are whoUy diflferent.^' Where, with the 
ezception of unimportant details, practically all of the main 
featnres are identical, it seems difficult to establish any direct 
connection owing to the wide Separation of the nations or peoples 
among whom the stories were known. The latter is especially 
the case with a version which may be considered a possible source 
of Timoneda's patrana. It is the little tale recorded by Johannes 



iB Questions y, u, jj, of Appendix I (the three which oceur in Timo- 
neda) ean be found together also in nos. 1, 4, 14, 18, 19, 20, 23, 25, 27, 
81, 32 of Appendix U, on the bibliography of this tale; in four of these 
tales, only the three questions are found, in six another question is added, 
and in one there are seven in aU. The variations of the four with three 
questions are slight, and Pauli 's version (26), whieh is the oldest, is 
probably the source, direct or indirect, of them alL 



196 University of California Puhlicatiam in Modem PhHology. [YoL 2 

Pauli, the fifty-fifth of his Schimpf und Ernst, printed in Strass- 
burg in 1522. Both anecdotes are told in the same biief manner, 
while the salient features are identieal.^* The persons correspond 
as f oUowB : Timoneda, to give his tale a more Spanish character, 
may intentionally have put a king in place of the nobleman 
(Edelman), while a cook takes the place of Pauli 's swineherd. 
The questions are practically the same, the first and second in 
both being: "What is my worth (in money)?" and: **Where 
is the center of the worldf The third: **What am I think- 
ing?" (in Timoneda) and: ''How far apart are fortune and 
misfortune?" (in Pauli) receive similar replies which are 
prompted by the same Situation, as will be seen by comparing 
with the tale of Timoneda given above, the anecdote of Pauli 
which follows:^^ 

Von scfaimpfF das Iv.; Von ordenszlüten vnd guten brfidern: Yf ein 
zeit was ein apt der het ein edelman zu einem kastenfogt. Der edelman 
was dem apt nit holt, vnd kunt doch kein Trsaeh wider in finden, vnd 
beschickt den apt vnd sprach zu im. Münch du solt mir drei fragen 
verantwurten in dreien tagen. Zu dem ersten soltu mir sagen was du von 
mir haltest. Zu dem andern, wa es mitten vif dem erdtreieh sei. Zu 
dem dritten wie weit glück vnd vnglück von einander sei. Yerantwurtestu 
die drei fragen nit, so soltu kein apt me sein. Der apt was trurig vnd 
kam heim, vnd gieng vif das feit spacieren, vnd kam zu einem sawhirten, 
der sprach. Her ir sein gar traurig, was brist euch. Der apt sprach, das 
mir an ligt, da kanstu mir nit helff en. Der sawhirt sprach, wer weisz es, 
sagen mir es. Der apt sagt es im, die drei fragen musz ich verantwurten. 
Der hirt sprach, her sein guter ding vnd frölieh, die fragen wil ich alle 
wol verantwurten, wan der tag kumpt, so legen mir ein kutten an. Der 
tag kam, vnd der apt mit seinem bruden kam, oder er schickt in dar in 
seinen namen. Der edelman sprach, eptlin bistu hie. Ya iuncker, sprach 
der apt. Wolan was sagstu vif die erst frag, was haltestu von mir. Der 



!• Aribau, in his edition, as well as Men6ndez y Pelayo, in reprinting 
the fourteenth patraüa, leaves out the words al abbad (no solo le con- 
firmo el Abbadia al Abbad) which would mean that the king gave to 
the cook the position of the abbot; while this end does not agree with 
the Version of 1576, it does with that of Pauli, in whose story the swine- 
herd is made abbot. That the question: '^what do I think" is identical 
with: ''what is the distance between fortune and misfortune," ^'what 
is the distance to poverty," and "to whom is fortune nearest" can be 
Seen from nos. 16, 21, 26, 29, 37 of Appendix 11. 

iTTaken from vol. 85 of the BibliotheJe des Litterarischen Vereins in 
Stuttgart: Schimpf und Ernst, von Johannes Pauli, herausgegeben von 
Herman Oesterley (Stuttgart, 1866), p. 46. 



1911] SeheviU: 8<me Forma of the Biddle Quesiion. 197 

apt sprach, inneker ieh sehetz euch für .zxviii. pfennig. Der iuncker 
sprach, nit besser. Der apt hirt sprach, nein. Der iuncker sprach, 
warumb. Der apt sprach, darumb Cristus ward für .xxz. pfennig geben 
80 acht ich den keiser für .xzix. pfennig vnd euch für .zxvüL pfennig; 
das ist wol verantwurt. Yff die ander frag, wa ist es mitten vff dem 
erdtreich. Der apt sprach, mein gotzhausz ist mitten vfl dem erdreich, 
wollen ir es mir nit glauben, so meszen es vsz. Yff die drit frag, wie 
weit ist glück vnd vnglück von einander. Der apt sprach, nit weiter dan 
▼ber nacht, wan gestert was ich ein sawhirt, heüt bin ich ein apt. Der 
iuncker sprach, bei meinem eid, so mustu apt bleiben, vnd bleib auch 
also apt, er hielt aber den alten apt auch in eren als auch billieh was. 

Thus it may be said that the main features of these two 
yersions correspond, though it seems a f ar cry from Pauli to 
Timoneda. Nevertheless, that Timoneda should have made use 
of Pauli 's anecdote need not seem much more extraordinary than 
the undeniable indebtedness of the Lazarülo to Till Eulenspiegel; 
and yet it may never be possible to establish a direct relation 
conelusively. Pauli 's book was printed more than a score of 
times before 1566, assuming that in that year the collection of 
the patranas was ready for press. Within forty-five years the 
populär Schwankbuch had been re-issued in Strassburg, Augs- 
burg, Frankfurt, and Bern, and must, therefore, have been well 
known to Gterman printers. Of the relation between the latter 
and their compatriots in the Spanish peninsula this is not the 
place to speak at length.^* But G^rmans were among the first 
to set up presses in Spain, and Gterman and Dutch names are 
common among the printers of the Peninsula well into the six- 
teenth Century. It therefore seems possible that Pauli 's Schimpf 
und Ernst became known to Spanish, specifically to Yalencian 
Printers, through Oerman coUeagues or partners. 



18 The names of some of the early printers, and of the places in which 
they set up their presses can be found in such works as Robert Proctor's 
Index io the early j^rinted hooka in the British Museum from the invention 
of printing to the year MD, with notes of those in the Bodleian library, 
London, 1898; as late as 1543 Johannes Baldovinus and Johannes Mey 
(the latter Flemish), printing at Valencia, call themselves natione Ger- 
manos; cf. Josd £. Serrano j Morales, Bese^a histörica en forma de diccio- 
nario de las imprentas que han existido en Valencia, etc. (Valencia, 1898-99), 
p. 286; cf. also Tipografia espafiola, etc., by Fray Fr. M6ndez, segunda 
ediciön, etc., by D. Dionisio Hidalgo (Madrid, 1861), p. vii: Los (impre- 
sores) del siglo XV, y aun hasta la mitad del XVI, los mas eran estran- 
jeros, eomo lo demuestran sus nombres y apellidos, y algunos lo declaran 



198 UniverHty of California PüblieatUms in Modern Philology. [YoL 2 

This, however, was not the only Channel in which Gkrman 
culture, and more especially literature, could have been carried 
into Spain. The influence of Gtermany and of the Nether- 
lands upon Spanish architecture, sculpture, and wood-carving 
had crowded out that of France and Italy during the fifteenth 
Century; it took root in such a way that the Peninsula could 
hardly boast of any distinctive Spanish art, either in that or in 
the foUowing Century.** But the introduction of the fine arts 
f rom the f ar north, and the Coming of Dutch and Gkrman artists, 
was greatly facilitated by the active commerce which was car- 
ried on between Spanish and northem merchants. The pres- 
ence of the latter in considerable numbers in the mercantile 
Centers of Spain can be inferred from such passages as that in 
the LazariUo (anonymous second part), in which Lazaro teils of 
his friendship for some tudescos in Toledo, and jovial, well-to-do 
people they seem to have been: ''Y lo mejor desto es, que todo 
este tiempo, maldita la blanca Lazaro de Tormes gastö ni se la 
consentian gastar; antes si alguna vez yo de industria echaba 
mano a la bolsa fingiendo quererlo pagar, tomabanlo por afrenta, 
y mirabanme con alguna ira y decian : Nite, nite, Asticot, lane, 
reprehendiendome diciendo, que do ellos estaban nadie habia de 
pagar blanca." (cap. i.) There is also an amusing passage in 
Don Quixote, II, 54, where Sancho, who has just left his unfor- 
tunate goyemment of the insxila, meets his f riend, the morisco 
Bicote, upon the highway. The latter, it appears, had retumed 
to Spain (which was against the law) disguised as an aleman or 
tudesco, and he and his companions demand guelte from Sancho. 
The scene which foUows allows us to assume that Bicote 's G^r- 



espresamente en sus notas y escudos. Cf. also Karl Haebler, Deutsche 
Buchdrucker in Spanien und Portugal, in CentraXblatt für Bibliothekswesen^ 
zi (1894), pp. 529 fF.; at the beginning of the seventeenth Century 
Oristöbal Su&rez de Figneroa wrote: Si Be alentaran los libreros espanoles, 
y se diera cumplido fauor a las emprentas, en ninguna parte de Europa 
se hizieran impressioues de menos erratas, ni mas luzidas. Assi se 
escusaran las venidas de estrangeros, que codiciosos sobremanera intro- 
duzen quantos libros les piden, sean, o no, prohibidos; eon que se seguiria 
tambien el ahorro de mucho dinero que se saca de Espafia para jamas 
boluer a ella. (El Pasagero, edition of 1618, f. 73 verso). 

1» Cf. Royall Tyler, Spain, a Study of her Life and Arts (New York, 
Mitchell Kennerley, 1909), pp. 86 £f. 



1911] SeheviU: Same Forma of the Biddle QuestUm. 199 

man garb would attract no especial attention, because it was 
frequently seen in Spain. Moreover, are we not to infer that 
there existed a friendly feeling between snch Oerman travelers 
and the native Spaniards from the following! ''De euando ^i 
coando jnntaba alguno sn mano derecha con la de Sancho, y decia : 
Espanol y tudesqui tnto nno bon compano ; y Sancho respondia : 
Bon compano jura Di, y disparaba con una risa que le duraba una 
hora, etc." Again, pilgrimages into Spain appear to have been 
nndertaken by Oermans every year and in considerable numbers, 
although with the added purpose of making money; Bicote 
continues: ''llega6 & Alemania, .... dej6 tomada casa en un 
pueblo junto ä Augusta, junt^me con estos peregrinos, que tienen 
por costnmbre de venir & Espana muchos dellos cada ano a visitar 
los santuarios della, que los tienen por sus Indias y por certisima 
granjeria y conocida ganancia. Andanla casi toda, y no hay 
pueblo ninguno de donde no salgan comidos y bebidos, como suele 
decirse, y con un real por lo menos en dineros, y al cabo de su 
viaje salen con mas de cien escudos de sobra, que trocados en oro, 
6 ya en el hueco de los bordones, 6 entre los remiendos de las 
eselavinas, 6 con la industria que ellos pueden los sacan del reino 
y los pasan a sus tierras, etc." Upon the stage, too, the meaning- 
less Jargon of Spaniards disguised as Gkrmans seems to have 
been a source of amusement. For example, in El cabaUero del 
Sacramento by Lope de Yega,'^ Don Luis and his lacayo Crispin 
appear ' ' en habito de tudescos ' ' : Luis : — ^No seremos conocidos ; 
Que el habito que he tomado Mucho nos ha disfrazado. Crispin\ 
— Mucho encubren los vestidos, Mas si nos Uegan k hablar, Par- 
diez, que yo quedo fresco! Que solo s6 de tudesco Esto que 
llaman brindar. . . . Como me traten de vino, Dir6 trinque non 
denece, Y ni te gote fertece, T pasar6 mi Camino ; Y si en alguna 
ocasion Tales el tiempo las f ragua, Me convidaren con agua. . . . 
Luis : — Qu6 diras ? Crispin : — Niti fiston. Luis : — Tu vienes bien 
instruido. (The last being, of course, niet versiaan or nicht 



20 In the edition of the Spanish Academy: Ohraa de Lope de Vega, 
with prefaees by Mendndez y Pelayo, Madrid, 1890-1902, 13 vols.; ef. vol. 
8, p. 467. 



200 University of CäUfamia PublicatioM in Modem PhOology, [VoL 2 

verstanden.) In the Diablo cojuelo*^ we find another iudesco, 
though the usoal nonsense whieh is spoken, nitesgui, is put into 
the mouth of an Englishman, perhaps by an oversight of the 
Printer. Finally, the diccionario de autoridades has gtielire (last 
edition, guelte)^ money, which it calls ''voz de los Bufianes." If 
the Word had really become a part of the rogaes' vocabulary, it 
could have done so only through the presence of nnmerous 
German traders. 

Forther relations** between Gtermany and Spain were brought 
about by the important financial aid which not only Spanish 
rulers, but also mercantile lif e in general, reeeived f rom wealthy 
Germans. We need bat recall the phrase in Don Quixote, 
''quisiera ser un Pucar," II, 23, to be reminded of the power of 
the FHigger f amily of Augsburg. Moreover, how Gtermans and 
Spaniards f ought together in France and Italy in the early six- 
teenth Century ; or how, in the growth of the Oerman book market, 
at the beginning of the seventeenth, the importation of Spanish 
works** by way of Munich has a share, need not be dwelt upon 
here. But it cannot be supposed that the large number of f oreign- 
ers who were drawn to Spain because of all these activities, came 
without any books in their own tongue. What could be more 
probable than that they brought with them some libros de enire- 
tenimiento from their own land? Finally, it may be mentioned 
that many foreign works came to Spain by way of the Nether- 
lands, which played a significant part in these international rela- 
tions. Indeed, in the sizteenth Century, the Low Countries were 
the most cosmopolitan part of Europe, and the intermingling 
of languages must have been striking within their boundaries; 
there certain districts were inhabited by a mixed French or 
Flemish population, while in others the Dutch subjects were 



31 Cf . the edition by D. Adolf o Bonilla y San Martin in the new series 
Bibliöfllo8 Madrüeüos (Madrid, Imprenta de Fortanet, 1910), p. 206; 
here the derivation of nitesgut is given as naughty gttesi, but there can be 
no doubt that the word is merely garbled Dutch or German. 

SS Cf . A. Farinelli, Spanien und die Spanische Literatur im Lichte der 
DeuUehen Kritik und Poeeie (Berlin, 1892), pp. 14, 40. 

» Cf. Wilhelm Seherer, Geschichte der Deutschen Litteratur, 7te Auf- 
lage, p. 316. 



1911] ScheviU: 8ome Forma of the Biddle Question. 201 

controlled by Italian and G^nnan soldiers garrisoned in towns 
which were govemed by Spanish authorities. Thus to writers 
and Printers especially the Low Countries must have been an 
intellectual or literary clearing-house, through which, by means 
of both translations and oral transmission, the producta of one 
nation became known to the other. 

It was, theref ore, much more possible f or a bookseller, who, 
like Timoneda, was also author and editor, to be in touch with 
many kinds of people, and to make use of all available material. 
The above circumstances could, at all events, give more weight 
to the conjecture that Timoneda may have heard f rom foreign 
acquaintances some of the anecdotes told in Oerman Schwank- 
bücher which were so populär in northem Europe in his day.** 

It may be contended, however, that we are hardly getting out 
of the realm of theory in dealing with the sources of these trifling 
jests. Thus a Croatian story recorded in our own times, as well 



3« There are in all 26 Btories in Pauli 's Schimpf und Ernst which are 
related to tales in the eoUectiona of Timoneda. Of the 26, seven bear 
enough resemblanee to the Spanish versions to be ealied identical; they 
are, Pauli (edition cited above) no. 55 (the three questions) = Timoneda, 
patra^ 14; Pauli 351 (robber complains to Alexander that big thieves 
eateh little ones) ^Söbremesa, I, 57; Pauli 435 (father dupes ungrateful 
ehildren) ^Buen Äviao, I, 26; Pauli 503 (bed of debtor who sleeps weU 
must be eomfoTtshle) = Sohremesa I, 70; Pauli 507 (Alexander vows to 
cut off the head of the first person who crosses the bridge) = Buen Av%80 
I, 39; Pauli 7, of appendix, 234 of Strassburg edition, 1533 (man con- 
Torses with fish at table) =Buen Aviso II, 3; Pauli 34, of appendix, 511 
of Strassburg edition, 1538, (thief robs priest while trying on a gar- 
ment) ^ Söbremesa I, 34; Pauli teils the latter story as one originally 
German, for he begins: Zu Franckfurt inn der Mesz begäbe sich, etc. 
Of these Timoneda could have heard some repeated (nos. 7, 34, 55, for 
example) by foreign coUeagues acquainted with Pauli 's book. Seven 
others are fairly identical, and retain the main features of the story; 
they are: Pauli 210 (honest wife thought that all husbands have a bad 
hre&th) ^Buen Aviso I, 68; Pauli 364 (man runs off to save his ears, 
pursuer wants partridges [hühner] ) ^ jSo^r «me«a ü, 51; Pauli 412 
(painter paints by day, begets at night) = Btten Aviso I, 60; Pauli 502 
(resemblance between Emperor and boy: Was your mother ever in Komet 
No, but my father was.) = Sohremesa I, 60; Pauli 508 (Alexander vows to 
destroy the city of Lampsaeus) = Söbremesa n, 17; Pauli 517 (man claims 
to be King 's brother because we are all brothers) ^=.Buen Aviso n, 85; 
Pauli 595 (drowning woman by signs proves her obstinacy) = Buen Aviso 
n, 52. Twelve others are more or lesa related and must be included in 
the same bibliography; they are: Pauli, 16 of appendix (man about to 
hang himself from a beam pulls out treasure concealed behind it) =JB«6n 
Aviso II, 101 ; Pauli 48 (payment by clink of coins) = Sohremesa II, 58 ; 
Pauli 57 (story of the crane with one leg) ^Söbremesa II, 45; Pauli 115 
(man who has lost his money Claims more than Ander produces and gets 



202 University of California Publioations in Modem PMlology. [YoL 2 

as a Sicilian variant, are both like Timoneda's fourteenth 
patrana as regards the personages, and if we are to consider them 
as tales honestly gathered out of actual oral tradition, we behold 
in them merely another manifestation of the sunrival of a brief 
narrative under the surface of that unintemipted eurrent of 
fiction. Two other versions which have been considered as pos- 
sible sources of Timoneda can hardly have any direct relation 
with the fourteenth patrana. They are the fourth story of Sac- 
chetti" and the eighth canto of Teofilo Polengo 's Orlandino. 
Sachetti's story belongs to the same group of folktales; never- 
theless, of its three personages only the abbots are identieal, while 
but one question out of Sacchetti's four is found in Timoneda. 
Besides, the latter could have seen the Italian stories only in a 
manuscript form, for, though written in the fourteenth, they 
were not printed until the eighteenth Century.** The Oriandino 
is also very unlike Timoneda,*^ and much closer to Sacehetti in 



nothing) = patra^ 6; Pauli 141 (boast of the Boman mother) = Buen 
Aviso 1, 44; Pauli 142 (wife who always did opposite of what husband 
asked floate up str^am when drowned) ^Söhremesa 1, 1; Pauli 206 (trial 
of wife 's chastity [la boea de la verdad]) ^patrana 4; Pauli 395 (the 
boy in the Senate and the spread of a secret told to a woman) = Buen 
Aviso 1, 55; Pauli 436 (son treats father shabbily, graudson prepares to 
do same with his father )= Bueti Aviso II, 74; Pauli 470 (husband mar- 
ries shrew to leam lesson of patienee; he keeps sUent) =B«en Aviso I, 42 
(shrew, to be cured, is taught to keep silenee) ; Pauli 478 (you are master 
of your tongue, I of my ears [you may talk, but I do not have to listen]) 
^=^8ohremesa I, 25; Pauli 506 (Emperor gives poet verses as payment for 
Verses [with the added touch that the poet pays the Emperor] ) =3tien 
Aviso I, 36 (covetous poet is paid for verses by other verses for whieh 
the king had paid a hundred escudos) ; this also recaUs the flf th story by 
Juan Aragon^s in which the king gives a rabano for a membriXlo, Another 
of Pauli 614 (porter demands one-half of the reward and gets a beating) 
is the third of Juan Aragon6s. Oceasionally Pauli (ex. 143) eloses with a 
verse as does Timoneda. What seems to be a unique copy of the B%ken 
Aviso y Portacuentos by Timoneda is in the possession of the Hispanie 
Society of America, and I hope to reprint it in the near future. 

2sTicknor suggests this source; ef. Ticknor- Julius, 11, 241 & note. 
Sacehetti, in the second version of his story mentions a cook and a 
gardener among the servants who are consulted by the abbot. In tales 
printed subsequently, the gardener is found as rarely as the cook, and 
both probably owe their existence to Sacehetti. 

2« At Florence, 1724. 

27 K. Pietsch, in Modem Philology, v, no. 1 (July, 1907), ''Notes on 
Spanish Folklore, ' ' calls attention to the similarity between Folengo and 
Torres Naharro, in that both give "the distance from earth to heaven" 
as un salto, which, however, as a rime-word may be purely accidentaL 



1911] Schevill: Some Forma of the Biddle Quesiian. 203 

its details. It may be noted, however, that in the Orlandino, as 
well as in the Spanish pairana, a ''cook"^ answers the questions 
for the abbot, a coineidence which is not enough to offset the 
numerous differenees which exist otherwise. 

If Timoneda was not acquainted with any of the versions 
mentioned, we are forced to infer that he copied his tale in 
aeeordance with his usual methods from some sonrce not yet 
pointed out, possibly from some one of the numerous Italian 
noveUieri. It is hard to believe'® that he gleaned it from a local 
oral tradition; that was not Timoneda 's eustom. Not only he, 
but other coUectors of f olktales have in so many cases given us 
merely a slightly modified version of some tale which had already 
been preserved in print. 

II 

THE CUSTOM OP ASKING RIDDLE QUESTIONS 

Owing to their naive character, their power of stimulating 
the curiosity of idle listeners, riddles, enigmas, and ''hard 
questions/' to use the Biblical term, have played a considerable 
part in folktale and legend the world over. But the process 
by which fiction came to make use of a series of puzzling ques- 
tions cast in a definite f ramework was no doubt a slow one, and 
must have become universal only in the course of many cen- 
turies. While it is impossible to speak condusively of the 
origin of riddles, the evidence of fiction and folklore indicates 
that the habit of propounding them received an impetus from 
a eustom extremely common among oriental peoples.'* Never- 
theless, though they still frequently bear the stamp of a tradition 
brought from the east, the form in which they are cast quite 
generally shows the influence of purely occidental society, of 
the religion or philosophy of Christian Europe. This is espec- 



28 The eook oceun only flve or süc times in these scores of parallel 
tales; ef. 12, 15, 28 (29), 31, 35, bibliographieal appendix IL 

M Cf . Men6ndez y Pelayo, Origenes, etc, ü, p. Ivi. 

so Cf. G. Maspero, Les Contes popiäaires de L'igypte ancienne, 3me 
Mition, ete., Paris, 8.a., p. zzv. 



204 Univeniiy of CMfamia PuhUcatUms tu Modern Phiiologif. [YoL 2 

iaily the case with such a yam as that of Timoneda. But, even 
80, it would be impossible to ezplain the wide currency of 
enigmas, riddles and the like, if every race had not always taken 
pleasure in some form of mental gymnastics, or ezercise of the 
wits. So it need not seem stränge that a test of intelligence 
through the Solution of enigmatic questions is also to be found 
in the earliest Qermanic tradition.*^ 

In this particular custom, however, the races of the Levant, 
Persians, Arabs and Jews, have always predominated.** A start- 
ing-place f or brief consideration of this custom may be found in 
the Old Testament (I Kings, 10), aceording to which the Queen of 
Sheba sought out Solomon to try him with hard questions. What 
these were is not stated; they may have touched matters of 
philosophy and natural history, or the like. But legends of 
subsequent eres, notably of the early Middle Ages, invented 
what thereupon passed into fiction as the actual questions of the 
queen, and the answers given by Solomon. Be this as it may, 
the episode was of influence, having been strengthened at an 
early date by Jewish traditions aceording to which Solomon 's 
name was connected with the gift of solving riddles.** Then 
confusion arose: instead of representing Solomon as one who 
pronounces sound judgment or answers hard questions, on the 
basis of the Book of Kings, fiction makes of him the propounder 



si Gf . Karl Bimrock, Handbtich der deutsehen Mythologie (ed. 3, Bonn, 
1809), pp. 249 ff.; on the Traugemundeslied cf. A. Kobersteln, Geschichte 
der deutschen NationaUitteratur (6te umgearbeitete Auflage von Karl 
Bartsch, Leipzig, 1884), vol. I, p. 258: das .... mit seinen Fragen und 
Antworten, seinen aufgegebenen und gelösten Räthseln das volksmässige 
Gegenbild zu aem Meistersängerisehen Bäthselspiel im Wartburger Kreise 
abgibt; also the Grundriss aer Germanischen Phüologie (Strassburg, 1893), 
II, 1, p. 371. 

8>How common a trial of the wits is in oriental literatures is dear 
from some of the bibliographical material given on pp. 198 ff. of Die 
Beise der Söhne Giafers aus dem Italienischen, etc., herausgegeben von H. 
Fischer und J. Holte, Tübingen, 1895, vol. 208 of the Bibliothek des Lit- 
terarischen Vereins in Stuttgart. Of. also: Zeitschrift des Vereins für 
Volkskunde, ii (1892), p. 296: "Sagenschriftliche ParaUelen aus dem 
babylonischen Talmud," by S. Singer, the reference being to a Bätsel- 
wettkampf. 

ssCf. J. B. Friedreich, Geschichte des Bäthsels (Dresden, 1860), p. 70; 
Wilhelm Hertz, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, Stuttgart und Berlin, 1905, 
'^Die Bäthsel der Königin von Saba," p. 413; Calderön, La Sibila del 
Oriente y gran Beina de Säbä. 



1911] SeheviU : Some Forma of the Biddle Question. 205 

of aenigmata, poesibly upon the basis of the wisdom expressed 
in bis proverbs (i, verse 6). This was no doubt so, because a 
wise, aphoristic saying, or a striking maxim was supposed to 
demand something of tbe elevemess displayed in solving an 
enigma. 

But the legend of Solomon, who became a character in medi- 
aeval fietion, was far from being the only means through which 
certain riddle questions became current. Similar stories, well 
known in the Orient, which tumed upon a trial of brains, that 
is, upon the answers to difficult questions, have been the most 
common vehicles by which riddles or enigmas got into occidental 
folktales.*^ Among the earliest coUections made, an excellent 
example of this fact will be found in the Cento noveUe aniiche, 
some of which show oriental influence in so far as they tum 
on the exercise of the wits.** Many of the ''hard questions," 
however, which have the ear-marks of antiquity, lead us to sup- 
pose that their Solution was looked upon as a serious task. Thus, 
several riddle questions which appear in European folktales in 
a naive or burlesque tone are found in oriental or classical liter- 
ature in a form which does not permit us to put a humorous 
construction upon them ; first propounded in ancient times, they 
reappear in the Middle Ages or in the Benascence with no 
vestige of tbe circumstances under which they originated. The 



M Maxims and, no doubt, riddlefl ascribed to Solomon were at an early 
dato a part of the storehouse of flction in the convents to whieh wander- 
ing monkB or friars eonld bring what they had gleaned in other landfl. 
Thns the Buodlieh, which has been called the earliest romance of the 
Middle Ages, shows a snrprising abundance of these elements of fletion 
whieh must have been widely known at that time. Precisely some of the 
populär maxims attributed to Solomon are mentioned by the author of 
that poem. Cf. Buodlieb, etc., herausgegeben von H. Beiler (Halle a.S., 
1882), p. 45 ff.; and Aristotle also was put by the romaneers of the 
Middle Ages into the same eategory of sages who dispense wisdom as 
did Solomon, for the maxims which he teaches Alexander are much the 
same as those of the King of Israel. Cf. Chassang, Bisiavre du Boman 
äauB Vaniiquiti, etc., (Paris, 1862), p. 459. 

M Cf. for example, no. 101, the tale of the clever smith who gets the 
better of Emperor Frederick; in Die Hundert alten Ereählungen, deutseh 
von Jacob Ulrich, in Boman%8che Meieterereähler, (Leipzig, 1905), an excel- 
lent rendering of the cento novelle antiche. 



206 Univeraity of California Pyhlicaii&ns in Modem Philology, [YoL 2 

best example of this is to be found in the Moralia of Plutarch.*® 
In the Banquei of the Seven Soges, which forms a portion 
of that work, we are told of the custom which Amasis, king of 
the Egyptians, had, of sending an ambassador to Bias, one of 
the Wise Men of Greece, with a hard question which the latter 
was to answer. This affords more evidence of what mnst have 
been a common oriental custom, namely to propound difficnlt 
riddles for the sake of the mere intellectual satisfaction to be 
derived f rom their Solution. Plutarch does not teil us to what 
extent we are to consider as a hoax the episode according to which 
one king submits to another a puzzling enigma, with the condition 
that failure to give the correct answer is to entail the loss of 
several cities on the part of the vanquished. His narrative is 
conceived in a serious tone, and is important to the matter in 
band. It is as follows. 

Diocles (p. 327) is talking of the guests who are going to 
the banquet: — ^**a third there was, who bare us Company, to wit 
Niloxenus of Naucratia, a man of good worth, and one who had 
been familiarly acquainted with Solon and Thaies before-time 
in Aegypt, and as then was he sent a second time unto Bias, 
but wherefore, himselfe knew not, unlesse (as hee suspected) it 
were to bring unto him a second question inclosed and sealed 
within a packet; for this Charge and commandement he had: 
that if Bias refused and would not take upon him to assoile and 
expound the same, he should show it to the wisest Sages of the 
Greeks. Then began Niloxenus: An happy feast (quoth he) 
is this to me (my masters) , and unexpected, wherein I shall finde 
you all together, for I carrie with me thither a packet as you 
See, and with that he shewed it unto us: then (quoth Thaies 
smiling) if you have therein any hard and untoward question 
to bee dissolved, cary it again to Pyrene, for Bias will declare 



seFrom the pleasing tranfllation: The Philosophie commonlie called 
The Morals written by the learned Philosopher Plutarch of Chaeronea. 
Translated out of Greek into English, etc. (London, 1603); The Banquet 
of the Seven Sages, p. 325. The Spanish version reads: Morales de Flu- 
tareho, traduzidos de lengua Griega en Castellana. Por el Secretario Diego 
Graeian etc. Va de nueuo afiadida la quarta parte que nunca ha sido 
Impressa. Salamanca, 1571, f. 240 : combite de los siete Sabios. 



1911] ScheviU: 8<me Worms of the Biddle Queation. 207 

the meaning thereof like as he assoiled the former. ' ' The enigma 
was: take out the best and the worst part of a sheep about to 
be saerificed, and send it to me, — and he sent the tongue. Later 
the subjeet of the letter of Amasis to Blas is taken up again 
(p. 330) : **Diocles, how hapneth it that you teil not Blas, that 
your friend and guest Niloxenus of Naueratia is come from 
beyond sea a second time, sent from his lord the King unto him 
with new questions and riddles for to assoile, to the end that 
he may take knowledge of them while he is sober." Apart from 
several riddles and questions propounded at the banquet, the 
enigma of Amasis is all that concems us here. The king 's letter 
foUows (p. 331) : ''Amasis, King of the Aegyptians, unto Bias, 
the wisest Sage of all the Greekes, sendeth greeting. So it is, 
that the King of the Aethiopians is entred into contestation and 
contention with me, as touehing wisdom ; and being in all other 
propositions put down by me and f ound my inferior, in the end 
after all, he hath imposed upon me a commandement very 
Strange, wonderfuU, and hard to be performed, willing me for- 
soothe to drinke up the whole sea. Now if I may compasse 
the Solution of this riddle and dark question, I shall gaine 
thereby many townes, villages and cities of his: but in ease I 
cannot assoile the same, I must yeeld unto him all my cities 
within the country Elephantine, etc." Bias answers (p. 332) : 
''Let him send word to the Aethiopian King, and enjoine him 
to stay the course of all rivers that discharge themselves into 
the sea, untill he have drunke up in the meane time all the 
water in the sea that is now at this present; for of that only 
his demand and commandement is to be understood, and not of 
the sea that shall be hereafter." The questions submitted by 
Amasis to the King of the Aethiopians were: ''What thing in 
the whole world is eldest? What is the fairest? What the 
greatestT What most wise? What most common? What most 
profitable? What most hurtfuU! What most puissantT What 
most easie?"*^ The Solutions sent by the King of the Aethi- 



S7 For the same questionB in a very different setting see Ghassang. 
op, eit, p. 171. 



208 üniverHiy of California Puhlieati<mi in Modem PhUology. [YoL 2 

opians are considered inadequate, and better ones substituted 
by the Sages. Amasis can thus claim that bis own questions 
have been incorrectiy axiswered, and that be may conaequently 
retain bis eitles. 

In sucb eases as tbe above, tbe penalty of failure to show 
wit enougb to give the eorreet answer seems out of all proportion 
to the nature of the shorteoming. Bat serious narratives very 
frequently agree with the legends, tales and folklore in this 
respeet: the penalty is the severest possible. In the realm of 
the folktale this resolt might seem to violate the naive or hnmor- 
ons tone of the story,** but it must be remembered that the 
nursery looks upon bloody violenee with great approval. Thns 
the king in the fairy story could say threateningly to the little 
shepherd, ''guess how many hairs I have in my beard, and be 
quiek about it, or off goes your head," and many a youthful 
listener will eonsider the act as a delightful and eommendable 
proceeding. In ApoUaniiu öf Tyre^ we are told of the enigma 
whieh Antiochus propounded to all who sought in marriage the 
band of bis daughter. Here, too, the i>enalty of failure was 
death, and the episode of the old romance allows us to Inf er what 
may, in some eases, have been the origin of so severe a puni^- 
ment. The Solution of the riddle led to the discovery of some 
crime committed by the propounder, and the mere attempt to 
solve it was a menace to be met by the severest penalty. This f ea- 
ture became wide-spread in the folktale in which failure to answer 
a question is frequently punished by confiseation of the eul- 
prit's possessions, bis utter disgraee, or even bis death. In an 
early form of the riddle legend in Oreece, for example, in the 



88 For examples of this penalty (death) see the bibliographical appen- 
diz, no8. 7, 8, 10, 13, 21 (variant), 28, 36, 40, etc. 

80 Cf. E. Bohde, op, cii., for this romance, pp. 436 ff.; Shakespeare 's 
Pericles; Timoneda, pairana oncena; on the Solution of riddles and the 
conditions ezaeted from suitors, cf. Bohde, p. 448, n.; in this connectioa 
See el Conde Lucanor, enxemplo L, in which the wife of a vassal of 
Saladin will not comply with his desires before he has answered the 
question which she puts to him: ^'cu&l era la mejor eosa que home 
podria haber en sif " 



1911] ScheviU: 8<me Farms of the Biddle Question. 209 

Story of Oedipus, the proper Solution resulted in the death of 
the Sphinx that put the riddle.*^ 

Furthermore, romanees and legends which were gathered and 
embroidered in the Middle Ages and which have their fountain- 
head in antiquity, teil us of Alexander 's youth; how he was 
able to answer difficult questions, chiefly of a philosophical 
nature, put to him by his masters. And an apocryphal life of 
Homer repeats the story that the great poet, being unable to 
Bolve an enigma propounded to him by some fishermen, actually 
died of chagrin/^ This, again, seems like reducing the serious 
nature of riddles to the absurd, but may serve as evidenee of 
the frequency with which this f eature occurs. In all this, how- 
ever, there can be no doubt that the chief incentive to this peculiar 
exercise of the wits came f rom the Orient. 

The practice indudes also a f ondness f or intellectual f encing 
in which quick-wittedness serves, not to solve a riddle, but to 
answer hard questions or to win in any intricate discussion of 
leamed topics. Of this, the old tale of the Maid Theodora 
{la dancella Teodory^ is an excellent example. This is an ori- 
ental story in character, and has all the marks of an ancient 
origin. A Version may be found in the Arabian Nights' tales, and 
the narrative is best characterized as a coUection of riddle ques- 



40 This f eatnre which flurvives in romanees of antiquity, in the Greek 
and Byzantine novel, is found also in mediaeval fletion and in that of 
the early Renascence. Gf. Boiardo, Orlando, eie,, I, 5, 69 & 70; Ghassang, 
op. cit,, p. 439. 

«1 Gf . W. Hertz, op. eit., pp. 357 ff., an eztremely erudite piece of 
work; R. Koehler, Kleinere Schriften, vol. I, p. 87; if one were to inter- 
pret this death of Homer merely from the Standpoint of populär super- 
stitions or beliefs, one would say that the poet could not survive the 
ordeäl of solving an enigma, beeause he had lost the pouewing spvrit 
which inspired him. In the most primitive forms of culture the gift 
of answering riddles or solving enigmas must be connected with the 
belief s of animism and fetishism; any one peculiarly endowed with 
quick-wittedness was held to be under the protection of some spirit. 

«2Gf. Homenaje ä D. Francisco Codera, etc. (Zaragoza, 1904), La Don- 
cella Teodor, etc, by Men^ndez y Pelayo, pp. 483 ff.; and Origenes, etc, 
op. oit,, I, pp. lizff.; Wiener Jahrbücher, etc, exni, p. 122, containing 
Ferdinand Wolf 's discussion of the subjeet; SitBungsherichte der König- 
lichen Bayerischen Akademie, den 6ten Juni, 1863; Koehler, op. dt,, voL 
m, p. 28; H. Knust, Mittheilungen aus dem Eskurial, in voL 141 of the 
Bibliothek des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart (Tübingen, 1879), pp. 
607, 613. 



210 UniverHty of California Publioatiam in Modern PhHology, [VoL 2 

tions and answers. The framework is very slight, and merely 
offers an opportonity for those subtleties of wit of which the 
Eastem mind is so fond. The clever maiden Tawaddud offers 
herseif for sale to the Caliph Harun al-Bashid for an exorbitant 
priee,^* in order to replenish the purse of her ruined master, Abu 
al-Husn. She Claims to possess unusual attainments, and to prove 
her worth she agrees to take part in an intellectual duel with 
certain wise men, who test her wits with hard questions. Her 
examiners broach questions of astrology, physiology, philosophy, 
in Short, matters in which folklore also pla3rs a large part. The 
maiden naturally defeats her interlocutors on every point. In 
the Spanish version the original oriental form is much modified; 
numerous features indicate that the novel was taken from a 
mediaeval Christian version which made use of the original frame 
merely to introduce scholastic disputes, so common among the 
leamed bodies of the schools and monasteries. 

The doncella Teodor has parallels in many populär tales in 
which a maiden deverly solves enigmas, or answers hard ques- 
tions. Qower, in his Confessio Amantis (first book), teils of the 
daughter of a knight/^ who, by answering three questions, saves 
her f ather from death and the loss of all his possessions. Gk)wer 
adds that the tale was told of a Spanish king, Alphonse, a 
knight, Danz Petro, and of the latter 's daughter, Peronelle, and 
it may be presimied that he got it from some French or Latin 
source. The questions which the girl answers have a purely 
scholastic character. A similar tale is included in the Gesta 
Bomanorum,*^ in which an emperor demands of a knight the 
correct answers to certain questions under penalty of death, but 



4sCf. The Book of the ihouaand NighU and a Night, translated by 
Sir B. F. Burton (Library Edition), vol. 4, p. 144 ff., Abu al-Husn and hifl 
slave-girl, Tawaddud. 

**Ct. The Complete Works of John Gower, etc, by G. G. Maeaulay, 
M.A. (Oxford, 1901), vol. II, p. 119 ff., Tale of the three questions; it 
would be interesting to find Gower 's sonree. A historieal PeroneUe 
before Gower 's time was PetronHa, daughter and heiress to Bamiro el 
Monje, King of Aragon; she married in 1187 Bam6n Berenguer IV, Count 
of Barcelona. Zurita, in his Anales de la Corona de Aragon, speaks of 
her at length. 

M Of . Appendix n, no. 41, and Kemble, op. dt,, pp. 319 ff. 



1911] ScheviU: Same Forma of ihe Biädle Question, 211 

the questions there put show contamination with other current 
versions belon^g to the domain of the f olktale. 

These are, thus far, some ezamples of tales in which riddle 
quefitions are seriously propounded. It may now be worth while 
to consider the history of some of the riddles mentioned above, 
as f ar as they can be traeed through the centuries. 

III 
SOME RIDDLE QUESTIONS 

Side by side with the oriental story which uses the riddle 
qnestion as a serious exercise of the wits, the f olktale may be 
found, which preserves in mock seriousness the apparent pro- 
f ondity of the questions, and the severe penalty in case of f ailure 
to give a satisfactory response. The familiarity of the people 
with that kind of anecdote of which Timoneda's patrana is a 
good example was due to two cogent reasons: the tale was not 
only capable of infinite variety, of afCording amusement to old 
and young alike, but it eould be used with countless others of its 
class by preachers and humanists in their oral teachings and 
writings. How some of these riddles could senre the purpose 
of teacher or preacher in school or pulpit, will be clearer when 
we have ezamined the particular questions to be f ound in Laza- 
riUo de Tormes, and in the patrana of Timoneda. 

They are, to begin with the earliest version: first, **how 
many casks of water are there in the sea?'* with the variants: 
**how many drops of water,** or simply, **how much water does 
the sea contain?" or, instead of a question, the task is set to 
drink up the sea. Another is: '^what is the depth of the seaT" 
It is probable that the task to drink up the whole sea represents 
the oldest form. It occurs, as we saw, in Germanic mythology, 
as well as in Plutarch's Banquet of ihe Seven SageSy at which 
Bias hits upon the proper Solution for the king of the Egyptians 
who had been asked to drink up the whole sea, or lose some of his 



MAn outgrowth of these qnestions is: "how many seconds are there 
in etemityf '' whieh can be fonnd together with them; ef. no. 66 of the 
Appendix, IL 



212 Univer9ity of CaUfamia Puhlieationg in Modem ThSMogy. [VoL 2 

cities. Plutarch no doubt took this proposition from genuine 
oriental tradition.^^ Its reappearanee in fiction of Persian and 
Arabic origin ia sufficient evidence of that fact, although the 
frame in which it has soirived in those langoages may be 
ascribed to a later date. Thus, it occnrs in the Arabian Nights, 
in the story of the Sharpers and the Sandalwood-seller, who 
plays at f orf eits with them and is beaten ; he is givien the choice 
of either drinking up the sea, or of losing his wealth/* It is 
found also in el Libro de los enganos y los asayamientos de las 
mngeres (13th Century),^* in the related books of the Seven 
Wiae Men, such as the Oreek Syntipas, the Hebrew Mischie 
Sinbad, the Sindibad nameh, and others. How the Solution of 
this question came to be attributed to Aesop in the Vita Esopi 
fabtdaioris (14th Century) is hard to say, unless the author 
Planudes took the idea from Plutarch 's Banquet, at which Aesop 
is present.'^ On that occasion, however, Bias is the wise man 



47 ct. Mischie Sindhad, Seewadue Syntipae, edirt, emendirt and erklart 
von D. Paulus CaBsel (3te Auflage, Berlin, 1891), pp. 158 ff.; several 
elements of the tale in which is mentioned the task of "drinking np 
the sea" are of Indian (buddhistie) origin; cf. also p. 173 and note. 

4Slt is a part of the foUowing tale: Of a King and of his son, and 
the damsel and the seven weeseers. Cf. Lane 's translation, One thoueand 
and one Nighte (London, 1841), vol. 3, p. 178; and that of Sir B. F. 
Burton, op. dt., edited by Smithers in 12 volumes, vol. 5, London, 1894, 
p. 115: "I played at f orf eits with a man today and beat him, and quoth 
I to him: 'If thou drink the sea, I will give thee all my wealth'." . . . 
"and he will, he may worst thee." "How sof . . . "He hath but to 
say, hold for me the mouth of the sea in thine hand, and give it to me 
and I will drink it." 

«9 Publfealo Adolfe Bonilla y San Martin, in the Bihlioiheca hispaniea, 
(Barcelona and Madrid, 1904), p. 62 ff.; cf. also Menßndes y Pelayo, 
OrigeneSy etc., op. dt., vol. I, p. xxvfl.; Domenieo Ck>mparetti, Besearchee 
respeeting the Book of Sindibad, in The Folklore Society (London, 1882); 
for the Syntipas translated from the Greek, cf. Ulrich, Bomaniache 
Schelmennovellen (Leipzig, 1905), p. xxxiii. The answer given to the 
task of "drinking up the sea," as found in the Arabian Nights is prob- 
ably not the original one, but a literary variant of the one found in 
Plutarch and in the Libro de lo8 Enganos; "vieda tu que non entre en 
ella rrio nin fuente que non cayga en la mar; eston^es la beuere" (p. 
63). 

BoGf. Steinhöwels Äsop, herausgegeben von H. Oesterley, Bibliothek 
des Utterariechen Vereins in Stuttgart, vol. 117 (Tübingen, 1873): Vita 
Esopi fäbülatoris clarissimi, etc., wherein Aesop solves the problem of 
drinking up the sea in the usual way, p. 58; for further questions and 
apt replies, cf. p. 70; for a detailed reference to Planudes (14th Cen- 
tury), author of the vita Esopi, cf. Archiv, für Slavische Litteratur, vol. 7, 
p. 88; also Zeitschrift für vergleichende lAtteraturgeschichte, n.F., vol. 5, 
p. 468. 



1911] Sohevia: Same Forma of tke Biddle Queaiion, 213 

who suggests the Solution. The representation of Aesop as a 
shrewd fellow, capable of finding loopholes out of difSculties, is 
a mediaeval development. 

The Solution of this hard task quite universally is: stop all 
the streams which flow into the sea, and I will drink it up.*^ 

The circumstances under which the task is set in the account 
of Plutarch may approximate more than any other the form and 
conditions under which the question was first propounded; Sc- 
tion, however, could have been influenced very little by that 
narratiTC on account of its serious character. But the Version 
of the tale as it exists in the Arabian Nights and related stories, 
which originally came f rom the Orient and puts the riddle into 
the mouth of a rogue or sharper ,^' must have been responsible 
for its presence in so many folktales of the Occident. All 
yariants of the question, and they are not many, considering 
the vagaries of oral transmission, may be easily explained f rom 
the first form of the oriental tale. To all forms^' of the riddle. 



^^The occurrence of the question — ^but without a Solution — in 0er- 
manic mythology (cf. note 31 above and no. 70, appendiz II), seems 
like a mere coincidenee. The Norse tale has nothing in common with 
other versions; above all, the task of drinking the sea is left unsolved. 
Thor, in some games with his companions, is set this task whioh he 
cannot perform. 

»2 Cf . The Tale of Beryn, etc., re-edited by F. J. Furnivall and W. G. 
Stone, with an English abstract of the French original and Asiatie 
versions of the tale, by W. A. Glouston (London, 1887). The probable 
origin of this tale was some Version of the Seven Wise Men; cf. also 
Dunlop, History of Prose Fioiionf II, p. 168; the tale of Beryn has been 
reprinted from the Chaueer Society edition by the Early English Text 
Society, extra series cv, London, 1909. 

S3An interesting variant is that of Wuk Stephanowitsch (Karad- 
schitsch) Volksmärchen der Serben (Berlin, 1854), no. xxv: von dem Mäd- 
chen das an Weisheit den Kaiser übertraf. I quote from Du M6ril, 
6tudes 8ur quelques pointa d'archSologie et ä'histoire Utt&raire (Paris and 
Leipzig, 1862), p. 492: enfin [l'Empereur] prit un petit verre, le donna 
au pauvre homme, et parla ainsi: "Porte ce verre k ta Alle, et com- 
mande-lui de me vider la mer au plus vite; j'ai envie de m'y promener 
ä pied sec." Le pauvre homme ob^it en pleurant, et remit le verre k sa 
Alle; mais eile le consola et l'assura qu'elle satisferait l'Empereur. Le 
lendemain matin, eUe appela son pdre, et l'envoya porter une livre d' 
6toupe k l'Empereur. "Tu lui diras qu'ü doit d'abord dtouper tous les 
ruisseaux et tous les fleuves de la terre, aprds quoi je viderai la mer." 
The answer to the question: "how many casks of water are there in the 
seat" namely, "one cask, if it is large enough," is a late populär devel- 
opment; the same is true of the question: "how many ladders will reach 
the skyf with the answer: "one if lone enough"; and {Pauli, 96), 
how many fox-tails will reach to the skyt cf. note 70, p. 218. 



214 Univertity of Cdlifamia Puhlications in Modem PhUology, [Vol. 2 

except one, the answer is the same as that given above ; and the 
exception, ^'what is the depth of the seaf '' is usually answered 
by : "a stone's throw."" 

The last question: ''how deep is the seaf" suggested another 
which is often found with it, as in Luzarülo: ''how high is the 
skyf " Other variants are, ''what is the distance between earth 
and heavenf" or, ^'how far is it from heaven to hellf" the 
answers being given either in measures of time or of distance.^' 
Lazarillo's answer, ''that the distance is equal to the space 
through which the human voice can be heard," was suggested 
by the teaching of the priests, that Ood can hear our songs of 
praise and our prayers; while the more common answer, that 
the distance is not a day's joumey, since Christ said ''today 
shalt thou be with me in paradise," is taken from the Gospel 
according to Luke. 

A subject of discussion fit for scholastic disputes was the 
question regarding the age of the world, which in LazariUo and 
its sources takes the form: "how many days have passed since 
Adam livedf "^* In serious disquisitions Old Testament chron- 
ology was frequently cited authoritatively, but the answer in 
Lazarülo was no doubt intended to parody such questions,"^ as 



B«Gf. Tlie Demaundes jcyoua, Kemble, op, dt.f pp. 287, 315: ''what 
Space is from ye hyest space of the se to the depestt But a stone's east." 

BB Gf. nos. 4, 7, 12, 15, 17, 21, 28, 29, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 of the bibHo- 
graphical Appendix, U. Different forms of this question are: ''how far 
is it from the east to the westf" "what is the length and breadth of 
the worldf " <'what is the expanse of the skyf " Gf. nos. 2, 12, 52, 60, 
62, 63. 

B^Gf. ErBoMwigen und Schwanke, op. dt, (note 13 above), p. 13, on 
the time which has elapsed since Adam 's day, and on the distance between 
heaven and earth; for the serious type of question with regard to Adam 
See: Las quatrocientas respuestas a otras tantas preguntas, quel Blus- 
trissimo sefior don Fadrique enrriquez Almirante de Gastilla y otras 
personas embiaron a preguntar en diuersas vezes al autor no nombrado, 
etc. [Valladolid] 1550; folio xxiii, pregunta xxxviii: Qual persona viuio 
mas en este mundo t respuesta; fueron los afios de Adam nouecientos 7 mas 
otros treynta con ellos: tambien viuio quatrocientos el Mathusalem, etc.; 
cf . also chap. 5, of the book of Genesis with its sums of years. 

BT For a parody on scholastic disputes, ef . the 29th tale of the cento 
novelle antiche: how some wise astrologers had a dispute conceming the 
empyrean. See also Pauli, op dt,, xcvii, civ, cv, cvü. In El Crotal^ the 
f also leaming of academic cirdes is satirized to show how ridiculous 
their serious arguments were at times: cf. Men^ndez y Pelayo, Origenes, 
n, op, dt., p. 192. 



1911] Scheviü: Barne Forma of the Biddle QuesiUm, 215 

had been the case in the early version of the priest Amis, The 
answer, therefore, is given as: ''seven days, and when those have 
paased, another seven, and so forth." The riddle belongs to a 
large group of qnestions which deal with time, space and dis- 
tance in eonnection with the earth and the sky. 

The riddle question: 'Vhere is the center of the earth f"" 
which occurs in both LazariUo and in Timoneda is related to an 
old snbject not so much of a geographica! as a theological char- 
acter, and belongs to early Christian doctrine. The variants of 
the question: ''where is the earth heaviestf" ''where is the 
earth 's center of gravityt" or the scholastic form: **where is 
the earth higher than the skyf "** probably had as the original 
answer : ' * where Christ 's body was buried. ' '•*• After the question 
had become current in populär fiction, the answer became quite 
generally: ''the church is the center of the world." In tales in 
which monks and abbots play the chief parts, their own local 
church is given as the center, probably because it held the body 
of Christ in the Sacrament. And at a much later date, during 
the Benascence, when it was finally admitted that the world was 
round, the answer became : ''the center is here where I am Stand- 
ing, because the earth is a sphere." 

A riddle question which exists independently and whose 
original frame may be inferred from various similar legends is 
the first in Timoneda: "what is my worthf" The earliest 
Version which was used by priests in their teaching was some- 
thing like the f oUowing : — ^A wealthy and arrogant emperor who 
represents earthly splendor commands a humble squire to teil 
him how great he deems his, the emperor 's worth. The squire, 
or some one of mean rank, answers : "Our Lord and Saviour was 
valued at thirty silver-pieces ; would you rate yourself at more 
than twenty-ninet" The emperor thereupon with due humility 
admits the insignificance of all power in this world/^ The ques- 



Mit alao got into the Bahylonian Talmud: ef. note 32: Zeitschrift des 
Vereine für VoUeehunde, vol. 2 (1892), p. 296. 

s» Uhi est terra altior omni eoelof ef. Jacobi a Voragine, Legenda aurea, 
etc., edited by Oraesse (Dresden and Leipzig, 1846), eap. n, no. 9, p. 19. 

•0 Cf . Kemble, op. eit,, p. 315. 

•1 Cf . no8. 42, 43, 44, Appendix IL 



216 Univenity of California Publioatiant in Modem PhOoloin- [VoL 2 

tion was later absorbed by folktales in which there is but litüe 
left to show its original moral purpose.** 

The last question in Timoneda: "what do I thinkf "^ can be 
explained only in connection with the f rame in which it is f onnd, 
that is, it has a point only when it turns on mistaken identity. 
The one obliged to answer the question put to him within a given 
time lacks the wit to do so satisfactorily, and sends for an 
inferior who takes his place in disguise. Thus the question .- 
''what do I thinkf " came to be answered by the Substitute: you 
think that I am he whose place I have taken. A comparison 
of all available parallels of Timoneda 's version makes it highly 
probable that this question originally had a different form which, 
however, prompted almost the identical answer. This earlier 
form must have been more in keeping with some of those already 
treated, namely: "what is the distance between heaven and 
earthf " ^'between the east and the westf " '^between heaven and 
hellt" or ''the distance around the worldf" And it is still to 
be found in several versions as: ''what is the distance between 
good fortune and badf " In every one of the latter versions in 
which a humble inferior (a swineherd, a cook, a gardener or the 
like) represents his superior (an abbot or a priest), the answer 
is: ''hardly a day, for yesterday I was but a swineherd, a cook, 
etc. ; today I am an abbot. ' '•* The first story of Sacchetti 's two 
variants is a good ezample of those in which the Substitution (of 
a milier for an abbot) has no point, since there is no question 
asked which makes the milier inadvertently reveal himself .^ A 



«3Cf. variants with question y of Appendix I; and related riddlee: 
what is the value of the king's beardt what is the value of my palaeef 
etc., ef . note 70 below. 

«sCf. an aneedote in which the king asks a curate to guess three 
thoughts which he has in his mind; it is a story told aboat Philipo II y 
el cwra, and is interesting in this connection. See D. Bemardino Fer- 
n&ndez de Velasco y Pimentel, Deleyte de la diacreeian y faeÜ e$cuela de 
agudeea, etc. (Madrid, 1749); other editions of 1764 and 1770; the story 
is reprinted with some arbitrary ehanges in Appleton 's Nueva Biblioteca 
de la Bisa (New York, 1907), p. 35. 

•« Cf . variants in Appendix 11, nos. 16, 21, 26, 29, 37, 45. 

es Such a tale as Sacchetti 's first version may be a mere copy of an 
older story, just as no. 28 of Appendix II is a manifest rifaoimento of 
Sacchetti (29). 



1911] Soheviü: Some Forma of the Biddle Queation. 217 

similar violation of the ori^nal purpose of this particular kind 
of tale occurs in a few stories badly told. 

The probable ori^ of the f rame in which the Version of 
Timoneda and parallel tales are cast, may be explained as fol- 
lows : the anecdote was örst invented by some oriental teacher or 
by a Christian priest who desired to illustrate the superiority of 
Spiritual and intellectual gifts over material qualities and physi- 
eal well-being. This may be inferred from some of the older 
extant versions taken apparently out of oral tradition, the moral 
purpose of which is clear: they constitute variants which, like 
Timoneda 's tale, have three characters, and in their simplest 
original form must have been told in some such way as this : A 
man of great worldly wealth, but without brains, is commanded 
by his lord or king to solve some riddles or give up a part of his 
wealth.** Thus far we have a pürely oriental trait. The rieh 
man is f orced to call upon the assistance of a poor neighbor, who 
is a humble Gk)d-fearing individual. The poor, but clever, man 
rescues the wealthy fool out of his quandary, and the lesson 
which was no doubt intended as a consolation to the indigent is 
apparent. Those tales in which one of the characters is a fat, 
self'Satisöed priest, f ond of the good things of this lif e, and the 
other some humble soul like a shepherd or a swineherd who shows 
mental superiority over the priest, seem purely occidental, and 
acquired currency at. a time when criticism of the self-indulgent 
life of certain priests was populär. This does not necessarily 
make them as late aa the Reformation, though it is evident that 
some versions were specifically aimed at the Romanist priests, 
and re-shai)ed at that time together with other satirical skits 
against individual ministers of the Church. 

In numerous versions there are only two interlocutors, since 
the one questioned answers for himself . In an Armenian story,«' 
for example, a Turkish monarch asks a hermit who lives in a 
hogshead: ''how far is it to heavenf ''what am I worthf and 

•• Ct. nos. 45, 46, 47. 

•^Cf. no. 59; the question "which is the best religionf shows a 
eontamination with the story of the three rings. 



218 University of California PublieatiMU m Modem PhOohgy. [Vol. 2 

'^which is the better relig^on, the Christian or the Moham- 
medan f ' ' The replies to the first two are taken f rom the Bible, 
but the third, in admitting that both religions are eqnally good, 
does not voiee the sentiments of either f aith.** Finally the hermit 
bids the monarch stand aside so as not to obstruct the rays of 
the snn, a trait which eonnects the tale with the traditional anec- 
dotes retailed in the early Middle Ages about Diogenes and 
Alexander the Great. This form of the story with two char- 
acters is therefore f airly old. In the indireet source of the epi- 
sode in LazariUo, the Stricker 's priest Amis, there are bnt two 
characters, the priest and a bishop; and one of Orinun's fairy 
tales, Das Hirtenbübleifif teils of a king who interrogates a clever 
shepherd boy in the usual way. The bright answers of the lad 
appeal to the king who takes him into his Service. This story 
also was no doubt meant to shöw the value of being quick-witted, 
and represents the pnrest type of the folktale. There is no other 
Version which so plainly retains a cosmopolitan character with 
no clue to time or place of origin as this tale of Orimm. 

It can be assumed, then, that the simpler form with two inter- 
locutors is the more primitive,** and that it could easily have 
suggested the form with three personages, in which either an 
arrogant or ignorant rieh man, or a fat, worldly priest needs a 
Substitute to answer the questions for him. 

Whatever may be our conclusions to these tempting specula- 
tions in the Seid of the folktale and of ancient traditions, we can 
at all events see how a riddle question propounded in the far 
past, may disappear only to tum up again/^ but deprived of its 



08 On the other hand, note the Mohammedan character of 39. 

«•Gf. for a Berions example no. 41 (Gesta Bomanomm) and Kemble, 
op. dt,, p. 320; for a humorous example (fairy story) see no. 56. 

70 It is evident that there are nomerous riddles similar to those pro- 
pounded in the kind of tale under consideration; sometimes they are 
found independently; that is, not connected with any particiliar story, 
or they are recorded in a framework partially or wholly unlike any 
story given in the appendix. Gontamination in these matters is of fre- 
quent occurrence, inasmuch as currents of fiction are bound to cross, and 
exchanges and modifications of certain elements naturaUy take place. For 
some reUited riddles see B. Koehler, Kleinere Schriften, I, pp. 445 ff., 481, 
492 ff., 267 ff.; notably ni, pp. 499 ff; <<Zwei nnd vierzig alte Bätsei und 
Fragen;" B. Wossidlo, Mecklenhurgiache Volkeüherlieferungen, Wismar, 



1911] acheviU: 8(me Forma of the Biddle Question. 219 

independence by being attached to the f ramework of some popu- 
lär Story. In the same way a historic f act may be transf ormed 
into an embroidered legend and live on in the realm of the f olk- 
tale.'^^ And questions like those treated above, which represent 
a pastime characteristie of a particular people, may thus be 
carried over the whole world, and though seriously propounded 
at first; be ultimately reeorded in some humorous story. 

IV 

RIDDLB QUESTIONS IN LITBRATÜRB 

Without going too far afield, it may prove of interest to 
examine other manif estations of intellectual ingenuity related to 
that displayed in the above-mentioned f olktales. Not only stories 
of a purely populär eharacter, but various types of formal litera- 
ture, both prose and verse, show that any evidence of intellectual 
skill, wit and leaming has at aU times been in high favor. 
Whether this elevemess assume the cruder form of the folktale 
in riddle questions, enigmas or humorous dialogues, or whether 
it be displayed in novel or verse through subtle or leamed con- 
versations, ingenious queries, or in scholastic or poetic conten- 
tions and disputes, there is a continuity in the history of these 



1897, 1, p. 327, no. 987; J. Holte, Martin Montantu Schwanhlmoher (Tübin- 
gen, 1899), vol. 217 of the Bibliothek des lAtterarisehen Vereins in Stutt- 
gart: Drei Dorfbäurinnen bezahlen einen Wirt za Hagenau mit drei 
Bätneln; and vol. 177, Bnrlaei, Vita philosophorum, p. 378. Oermania, 
▼ol. 4, p. 308, vol. 26, p. 116, being a review by F. Liebreeht of Bonde- 
8on, HaUändeha Sagor, Lnnd, 1880. Graeese, lAtterärgesohiehte, IV, 2, 
pp. 466-471; Archiv für Slavische Philologie, Y, for related riddles ''aus 
dem südslavisehen Märchenschatz" by Jagi^ and Koehler, pp. 48, 56, 
57; Zeitschrift für vergleichende Literaturgeschichte, n.F., vol. 4 (1891), 
p. 110; a little book fiül of related questions gathered from the common 
treasures of the people: Questions enigmatiques, recreatives, et propres powr 
deuiner, et y passer le temps aux vt^lies des longues nuicts, Ävec les re- 
sponces subtiCss et autres propos ioyeux, Lyons, MDOXIX, and Paris, 
MDGLXXIY. W. A. Clouston, Populär Tales and Fictions (New York, 
1887), n, p. 112. Cf. Pauli, op. oit., xcvi, ''wie vil müst man fuchsz- 
Bchwentz haben, die bisz an den himmdi giengent" .... "wan sie 
lang gnüg weren, so het man mit dreien genftg." Also Timoneda, Buen 
Aviso, n, 25: an inn-keeper (a widow) promises to share some partridges 
with that one of three guests who gives the best answer to three ques- 
tions; and Shakespeare, Two noble Kinsmen, V. ii, 67: How far is't now 
to the end o' the world, my masterst Why, a day's journey, weneh. 

Ti Gf. Du M6ril, op, dt., p. 481. 



220 University of California Fublicaiions in Modem Phüology. [YoL 2 

manifestations. The links which join them, however, may not 
always be apparent. In the folktale ingenious questions are much 
the same in their nature; in formal literature they assume the 
character of the age or of the literary atmosphere in which they 
are produced. 

Cervantes, who was influeneed as much by populär fiction and 
current tradition as he was by the formal types of literature 
in poetry and romance which had preceded him, shows better 
than any contemporary what forms mental ingenuity had as- 
sumed in his day. ' When, for example, Don Quixote's joumey 
(II, 62) has brought him to Barcelona, amongst other royal 
fooling may be found the episode of the enchanted head. His 
host teils him : 

esta eabeza, sefior Don Qaizote, lia sido heeha 7 f abrieada por uno de los 
mayores eneantadores y heehieeros que lia tenido el mundo, que creo era 
polaeo de naeion, y discfpulo del famoso Eseotillo de quien tantas maravi- 
Uas 86 euentan, el caal estuvo aquf en mi casa, 7 por preeio de mil escudos 
que le di, labrö esta eabeza, que tiene la propiedad 7 virtud de responder 
6 cuantas eoaas al oido le preguntaren. . . . En este tiempo podr4 vuesa 
mereed prevenirse de lo que querrft preguntar, que por experiencia s^ que 
diee verdad en euanto responde. 

On the foUowing day the test of the wisdom of the head is 
made, and the first question asked by Don Antonio is: *'qu6 
pensamientos tengo yo ahorat" (what am I thinking?) This is 
the one which so frequently appears in the folktale. Unfor- 
tunately, as here put, it has no point, and the answer: ''yo no 
juzgo de pensamientos," is without any humor. The remaining 
questions and answers are supposedly ingenious or witty, but are 
by no means in the best manner of Cervantes. They belong 
rather to the order of the apothegm or maxim which was populär 
in the sixteenth century,^^ and of which various collections were 
printed. Thus, a young lady asks the magic head: ''que har6 
yo para ser muy hermosat " and receives as an answer : "se muy 
honesta." All of this is repeated in the flor de aforismos pere- 
grinos, in Persäes y Sigismunda, IV, 1:^* "la hermosura que se 



72 Cf. Men6ndez 7 Pela70, Origenes, etc., op. cit,, ü, p. Ixxii. 

78 Cf • also the f ollowing aforismo in the Pernies : La mejor dote que 
puede Uevar la mujer principal, es la honestidad, porque la hermosura 7 
la riqueza el tiempo la gasta, la fortuna la deshaee, IV, 1. 



1911] SoheviU: 8ome Forma of ihe Biddle Questum. 221 

acompana con la honestidad, es hermosura, y la que no, no es mas 
de un buen parecer. ' ' 

The ingenuity of the young literary light in the Persües, who 
makes a coUection of aphorisms, is something like that of the 
Licenciado Vidriera of the Novelds, who answers questions and 
characterizes events and situations by a pat aphoristie reply. A 
f ew of them, however, belong rather to the f olktale than to this 
formal, conventional kind of literary ingenuity. Thus, when the 
clever licentiate is asked: ''cu&l habia sido el mas dichoso del 
mundo?" he makes use of that ancient pun of Odysseus: 
"nemo;''^ porque nemo novit patrem: nemo sine crimine vivit: 
nemo stta sorte contentv^i nemo ascendit in coelum." The larg- 
est part of Vidriera 's ingenious remarks, however, belongs to 
those whieh Cervantes himself calls sentencias sacadas de la 
misma verdad,""^ or dichos agudos, A certain foreed eflfort to 
f ormulate them is occasionally to be noted, so that they seem 
extremely unlike traditional sayings, or like the proverbs surviv- 
ing in the folktale, whieh sound far more natural, and are more 
pat and more universally applicable. 

A more populär tone can be found in the riddles whieh the 
shepherds in the Odiatea, bk. vi, propound to one another, in spite 
of the unusual frame in whieh they appear. Here again Cer- 
vantes touches upon what was a f avorite exercise of the wits. The 
shepherds are gathered together and Aurelio addresses them : 

bien 8er&, sefioree, que los que aqui estamos, ya que entregamos al dulee 
Buefio no habemos querido, que este tiempo que le hurtamos, no dejemos 
de aprovecliarle en cosa que mas de nuestro gusto sea; y la que a mi me 
parece que nö podrä dejar de damosle, es que eada cual, como mejor 



74 For further ref erences to the pun on i^ctm, et, Hanns Oertel, ' ^ Altin- 
dische Parallelen zu abendländischen Erzahlungsmotiven/ ' in Studien Sfur 
vergleichenden Literaturgeschichte, vol. 8, 1, p. 117 (Berlin, 1908) ; Cervan- 
tes took the phrase nemo sine crimine iHiHt from disticha de morxbus 
nomine Catonis inscripta; the others may go back to a work by Badulf us 
of Anjou whieh treats of a Saint Nemo, cf. Bolte, in Jahrbuch der deut- 
schen Shakespearegesellschaft, vols. 29-30, p. 4, on Niemand und Jemand, 

7BCf. PersHes, TV, 1, cf. note 56 above; also GFon^les de la Torre 
(Juan): Doseientas preguntas con sus respuestas en versos diferentes 
(Madrid, 1590); others are mentioned by Ticknor, II, 3 ff.; such collec- 
tions of a didaetic character had the purpose of instructing as well as 
amusing. A similar French work was mentioned in note 70, p. 218: 
Questions enigmatiques, etc. 



222 Un%ver9ity of California Pyhlicatumi in Modem PMUOogy. [YoL 2 

sapiere, mnestre aqnf la agadeca de sa ingenio, proponiendo algona pre- 
gunta 6 enigms, & qnien estS obligado 6 responder el companero qne 4 an 
lado ettnviere, ete. 

The first riddle describes the qualities and effects of wine, 

which is promptly gaeased; the aecond is "charcoal;'' the next 

ifl ''a letter" {caria y pliego de cartas) ; then follows one on 

''jealoosy," and an interesting one on the ''enigma" itself {que 

es cosa y casat) ; one on a "man with shacUes on his feet/' and 

one on "the candle-snuffer and the candle." The popnlar char- 

aeter of these riddles ne^ no comment. Their presence in this 

particular pastoral novel can be aeeonnted f or, if we consider the 

similar preguntas y respuestcts in Oaspar Oil Polo 's Dianas (libro 

quinto). The mimic chase of a white stag by some nymphs has 

been pictured, but Diana has failed to aseertain its hidden 

meaning: 

domo habia jo, dijo Diana, de entender tan difieultoso y moral enigma, 
n las pregontas en qae las pastoras nos ejereitamos, aunque f nesen mny 
Uanae y ficiles, nnnca las supe adivinart No te amengües tanto, dijo 
Selvagia, qne lo contrario he visto en ti, pues ninguna vi qne te fnese 
difieultosa. A tiempo estamos, dijo Felieia, que lo podremos probar y no 
8er6 de menos deleite esta flesta que las otras. Diga eada cual de vosotros 
una pregunta, que yo s^ que Diana las sabr6 todas declarar. 

The first enigma has for its Solution "the flute," one "the 
hair in a horse's tail," one "thoughts," another "a book," an- 
other "a ship," and the last "a galley." Here, too, the purely 
populär character of these riddle questions may be noted, and 
from the words of one of the contestants it is likely that all were 
taken from oral tradition: Dijomela un patron de una nave, 
cuando yo navegaba de Napoles & Espana, y la encomend6 k la 
memoria. 

Biddle questions, however, were a kind of intellectual activity 
which has been in as great f avor with the aristocracy as with the 
simple country folk. We need not, therefore, be surprised to 
find them in the pastoral novel, whose tone, far from answering 
a populär demand, met rather the taste of those higher cultured 
circles, who were subservient to certain Conventions and to 
etiquette. But a f alse note is introduced into the pastoral novels 
by another kind of mental ingenuity not characteristic of shep- 
herds or rustics in general. This is found in the leamed dis- 



1911] Sohevill: a<me Forma of ihe Biddle Questüm. 223 

quisitions upon love and its intrinsic nature, as can be seen, for 
example, in the Gdtatea!'^ The whole represents a purely literary 
inheritance, a fad, so to speak, which the early sentimental prose 
fiction of Italy received f rom the poets of the Provence, and then 
handed down through the sueeeeding romanoes in which it unf or- 
tnnately met with undiminished favor. Thus, in Boccaccio 's 
Läberinto de amar''' (to nse the Spanish title) may be found 
thirteen questions designed to prompt such absurd arguments as, 
for example, what is preferable, the love of a widow, a wife, or a 
maid? 

In a Spanish novel well known to Cervantes, the Clareo y 
Florisea of Nünez de Beinoso, we meet with an old custom, that 
of asking questions and propounding enigmas af ter the meal has 
been served, the table deared, and ladies and gentlemen are 
gathered for an intellectual cantiendaJ'^ But the questions are 



7« Cf . pp. 40, libro tercero, and 55, libro cuarto, of the Galatea (Bivade- 
neyra); Cervaiites had nnmerouB predeeassors in this kind of discussion: 
disquisitions on love are very common; ef. Men^ndez j Pelayo, OHgenes, 
ete,, op, dt,, I, ecciv, on la dootrina del amor y la hermosura; cf. also the 
anonymous tale, La queation de Amor, 1527, and Origenea, I, ccczxyii, 
eccxzxii-iv; in the Diana (Montemayor), libro cuarto, we have these 
Sophistries in the form of questions and answers, the subjeet being the 
analysis of the nature of love; Sireno says: Affirman todos los que algo 
entienden, que el uerdadero amor nas^e de la razon: y si esto es ansi, 
qu&l es la causa porque no hay eosa mas desenf renada en el mundo, ni 
que menos se dexe gouernar por ellaf Felicia le respondiö: Assi eomo essa 
pregunta es mas que de pastor: assi era ne^essario que fuesse mas que 
muger la que a ella respondiesse, etc. The anthor of El Crot<U6n, op, oit., 
mentions this custom of the social world: otras a la sonbra de muy 
apazibles arboles nouelan, motejan, rien con gran solaz; quäl demanda 
questiones y preguntas de amores; hazen sonetos, eoplas, villan^icos, y 
otras agude^s en que a la contina re^iben plazer, p. 149 in Origenea, U, 
See also Dunlop, op, dt,, vol. II, p. 550, on Euphues, and I, p. 21, on a 
prize in the discussion of love in lamblichus; also F. W. V. Schmidt in the 
Wiener Jahrbücher der Literatur, vol. 26, p. 24; Clemencin, edition of Don 
Quixote, I, 13, note 40, II, 18, note 24; Cristobal Su&rez de Figueroa, El 
Paaagero, op. dt., V, p. 164, touches the subjeet: si se puede hallar amor 
sin zelos. Calderön put it on the stage; cf. for example, El aecreto d 
voeea, act I, where we learn that love and jealousy constitute la mayor 
pena, edition Keil, HE, p. 345, col. 2. 

TT The title of the Spanish translation which lies before me is: 
Läberinto de amor: que hizo en toscano el famoso Juan Bocacio: agora 
nuevamente traduzido en nuestra lengua castellana: afio de 1546 
[Sevilla]. 

78 Edition Rivadeneyra, pp. 442-3 (questions on love, jealousy, etc.) ; 
apostrophe to love, p. 437, col. 2; disputa entre Venus y Palas, p. 462, 
cols. 1 and 2; cf. also Gontreras, Selva de aventuraa, for a complaint to 
love with some verbal ingenuity, p. 480, col. 2. 



224 Universiiy of California Publieations in Modem Philology. [YoL 2 

no longer of the populär kind, and appear whoUy of a sophistical 
nature, as for example: '^cuäl es mas dificultoso, fingir amor con 
no tenelloy o encubrillo con tenellof Or, "qu6 se debe tener en 
m&3 : una dama hermosa y no avisada, o discreta y no hermosaf '^ 
Or, ^'si puede haber amor sin ceiosf" and others of a similar 
nature. But in all this sophistry and mental ingenuity we miss 
any real populär element. 

At an earlier period similar captious questions and answers, 
preguntus y respuestds, although they were the expression of a 
courtly literature, had, in an occasional note, betrayed the more 
populär tradition of the riddle question. Thus, in Hemando del 
Castillo's Cancionero general,^^ no. 721 on *'time,"*® p. 634, col. 
1 ; no. 772 : cuäl es la cosa m&3 eierta que no tiene punto cierto f 
(la muerte) p. 654, col. 2; and no. 686, p. 617, being that of 
Oedipus addressed to the Sphinx, have the character of the true 
enigma, while no. 731, p. 637, col. 1, for example, reveals the char- 
acter of the literary taste of that epoch. 

Without attempting to enter into details, it will be manifest 
that for the chief indebtedness of this rather conventional mental 
gymnastics we must go back to the poetic contentions or tengons 
of the Middle Ages, noted chieäy as a product of the Troubadour 
poets. Their tengons and partimens,*^ with their metaphysical, 
dialectic character, were the forerunners of the above preguntas 
y respuestds, which as lineal descendants of what had been an 
imported taste show the character of the courtly poetic world in 
which they flourished. As an exercise of the wits in a formal 
literary guise, they are naturally f ar removed f rom the tone of 
the folktale. But this spirit of argument, of enigmatic or sophis- 
tical questions, and of dispute, shown by the troubadour poets 
was no doubt influenced by the scholastic disputations or aca- 



79 Printed in the Bibliöfilos espaüoles, vol. 21, 1. 

soThere is a aimilar one on Urne in Plutareh's Banquet of the 8even 
Soges, op. dt,, pp. 333-4: ''what in most ancientf " Answer: Time; also: 
''what is the wisestf" Time, for it hath found all things alreadie 
devised, and will find ont all inventions hereafter. 

81 Ct. F. Wolf, Studien, etc. (Berlin, 1859), pp. 202, 549; BMier, Lee 
Fabliavx, deuxiöme Edition (Paris, 1895), chap. xiii, p. 384; L. Selbaeh, 
Da» Streitgedicht in der AltprovenBolischen Lyrik, etc (Marburg, 1886), 
in Stengel's Auggäben und Abhandlungen, etc,, vol. 57, pp. 21, 32. 



1911] Sehevill: 8ome Forms of the Biddle Questian. 225 

demic debates which were so common in the mediaeval centers 
of leaming, and which under the impulse of religious question- 
ings received new vigor at the time of the Reformation. It was 
but a matter of Converting the tone of an academic atmosphere 
into one of courtly gallantry. In the former the disputants 
tested each other's wits and information, indnlging very fre- 
quently in a mere pedantic display of leaming ; in the latter, the 
opponents vied in poetic skill, resorting very often to artificial 
ideas and forms. Bat these exercises of the wits, whether 
scholastic or literary, are expressions of the mind's ingenuity, 
which varies in accordance with the traditions and the culture 
which give it form. 

In the Lazarülo, as in the episode of Tül Eulenspiegel, we 
have a combination of the scholastic examinations which had 
influenced the poetry of contention, the preguntas y respuestas of 
later times, with some of the traditional qnestions of the f olktale. 
It is evident that the author of Till Eulenspiegel wished to satir- 
ize the disputations and arguments in vogue among academic 
bodies and at the universities ; he theref ore introduces quite aptly 
some riddle questions which were always a naive feature of the 
folktale. Here, then, two widely different forms of exercise of 
the wits meet, the scholastic disputation and the homorous riddle 
question. 

Competition in mental ingenuity has thus produced the most 
varied forms in poetry and fiction, and the possible influence of 
any one kind upon another, whether it be a traditional riddle 
question, or a metaphysical characterization of the nature of love, 
will be apparent.'^ Manif estations common to the spirit of human 
Society the world over spring up again and again independently, 
and, therefore, some form of the riddle question has been dis- 
covered everywhere. But these various expressions of mental 
gymnastics cannot pursue an independent course, uninfluenced 



83 Cf. GescMehte des deutschen Streitgedichtes im Mittelalter, etc, by 
Hermann Jantzen, Breslau, 1896, in Oermanistische Abhandlungen, xiii 
Heft, p. 19: Die mittelalterlichen, lateinischen Bätselspiele und Weisheits- 
proben gehören bis auf sehr wenige Ausnahmen der Prosa-litteratur an; 
allein wir müssen sie doch hier mit in Betracht ziehen, da sie für die 
Weiterentwicklung der ganzen Gattung von hoher Wichtigkeit sind und 



226 University of California Publication,8 in Modem PMlology, [VoL 2 

by one another; it is only becanse of this law that the ingenuity 
of the folktale exerts influence upon a formal literary creation 
or an academic production, or that a story may be changed in 
tone by the introduction of elements taken from a literary or 
scholastic atmosphere. This interinfluence beeomes all the more 
plausible when we take into consideration how priests and 
leamed churchmen, on the one band, gathered tales which were 
living in oral tradition, while their oecupation, on the other band, 
kept them employed in a bookish atmosphere of leaming. Thus 
it is easy to see how such questions as ''what is the greatest 
miradet"'* or "what is the greatest good fortunef " which can 
be found in the folktale, were taken out of {Kxssible academic 
contests in which they had been seriously propounded. 

Unquestionably our interest will always be keener in the 
devemess which is manifested in the universal folktale than in 
any formal or colorless literary product of a passing kind of cul- 
ture. For we are more in sympathy with that which is bound up 
with our history all the world over. The peculiar exercise of the 
wits which has always been a pronounoed oriental custom that 
has left a trace in widely current traditions and folktales, and 
influenced fiction and verse everywhere, will always attract the 
curious reader f ar more than any subtle contentions in prose or 
poetry, designed to please the äeeting taste of an epoch. All of 
which is equivalent to saying, that the substance of immemorial 
traditions will always have a greater vitality than the products 
of a temporary fad or of a misguided taste. The farther we get 
away in time from the latter, the less we understand them; but 
the imperishable elements of countless traditions constitute a part 
of the history of our race. 



zugleich besonders deutlich ihren Znsammenhang mit der gelehrten 
Bildung und dem Unterrichtswesen zeigen. Die Denkmäler unserer Art 
sind grösstenteils Zusammenstellungen von allerhand Fragen und Ant- 
worten aus dem Gebiete der Theologie, Naturwissenschaft, Astronomie, 
manche auch allgemeinen Inhalts, mitunter scherzhaft gehalten, die in 
ihrer katechismusartigen Form meist mehr Proben des Wissens als des 
Verstandes sind, und wohl ausser zur Unterhaltung auch zum Lehren und 
Lernen gedient haben mögen. 

8<Cf. no. 48, the Legenda aurea. 



1911] 



SchevtU: Same Formt of the Bidäle Queation. 



227 



BIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX 



A list of the characters in ihe tales to be mentioned below 
(II) is given to simplify numerous references to them. They are : 



1. Abbot 

2. Aeaop 

3. Andrew (Saint) 

4. Bishop 

5. Bride or Maiden (Devil in 
disgnise) 

6. Chareoal-bumer 

7. Clerk 

8. Cook 

9. Court Fool 

10. Cnrate or priest 

11. Daugfater of a Knight 

12. Emperor 

13. Friar or Monk 

14. Gardener 

15. Hermit 

16. King 

17. Knight (hidalgo) 

18. Lazarillo 

19. Master (teaeher) 

20. Master of choir (Kantor) 



21. Merchant 

22. MUler 

23. Nobleman or Duke 

24. Peasant 

25. Philosopher 

26. Pope 

27. Prince 

28. Prisoner 

29. Queen 

30. Beetor of University 

31. Bieh man 

32. Beholar (young) 

33. Bervant (valet) 

34. Bhepherd (sometimes a boy) 

35. Boldier 

36. Bquire 

37. Bultan 

38. Bwineherd 

39. Tsar (Bussian and Turkish) 

40. Ulrich (Baint) 

41. Valet 



Some of the riddles, enigmas and hard questions to be found 
in the appended bibliography : 

a. One of the oldest enigmas is the task of drinking the sea; ef. 
group C below. AUied with this is the task: to measure 
the amount of water in the sea, in the form of the ques- 
tions: 

h. How much water is there in the seaf 

e. How many drops of water, etcf 

d. How many casks of water are there in the seaf 

e. How deep is the seaf 

Other questions belonging to this group are : 

f. How many stars are there in the skyf 

g. How many seconds are there in eternityf 

h, How much time has elapsed since the days of Adamf 



228 Univertity of Cdlifomia Püblieatiom in Modem Phüology. [VoL 2 

i, How mueh time does it take to go aronnd the worldf (sometimes, 

ride). 
j, How many people are there in the worldf 
h. How many leaves are there on a particular treef 
I. How many hairs are there in my beardf 

A second group takes up the questions which deal with the 
meagurement of distance, space, weight, and the like : 

m. What is the distanee from the earth to the skyf With the 

Variante: 
n. How high is the skyf or How many ladders would it take to 

reach the skyf or How many foz-tails, etc.f 
o. What is the distanee from heaven to hellf 
p. Where is the earth higher than the skyf 
g. What is the breadth of the skyf 
r. How far is it from the east to the westf 
8, What is the length and the breadth of the worldf 
t. What is the distanee from Bome to Toledo f 
u. Where is the center of the worldf 
V. Where is the world heaviestf 
w. What is the weight of the moonf 
X. Where does the sun risef 

Then comes a group of questions which ask the value of 
things or persons not to be appraised ; all seem to have grown out 
of the Single question : 

y. What is my worthf (originally foond by itself); it always has 
ref erence to a king, emperor or person of ezalted rank. Cf. 
group B below. 

0. What is the Queen 's worthf 

aa. What is the value of the king 's beardf 

hb. What is the value of the king 's palaeef 

cc, What is the value of my golden plowf 

dd, What is the world 's worthf 

Attempts to guess another's thought are among the most 
ancient of all tasks, but the various f orms of this group show eon- 
fusion and eontamination. Thus certain questions were origin- 
ally inspired by the group which deals with measurements : 

ee, What is the distanee to povertyf 

ff. How far apart are fortune and misfortunef 

gg, What is the greatest Fortune f 

hh. To whom is Fortune nearestf 

iL How great is the merey of €h>df (a moral or religious variant). 



1911] Sehevül: Some Forma of the BidcUe Questian. 229 

But when the whole point of the tale tumed on disguise and 
mistaken identity, it was a simple matter to Substitute the logieal 
question : 

jj. What am I thinkingf (as in Timoneda) for one of the others, 
sinee each question bringe about the same result, that is, 
it makes the disguised Substitute reveal himself. 

Jck, What do I believef A variant suggested hy jj. So also: 

U. 1 ean guess your thought. 

Yarious riddles which attach themselves to these specific 
groups with diflBculty are : 

mm, Which is the best religionf 

nn. What are they doing in hellf 

oo. What are the savages in India doing f 

pp. What is God doing in heavenf 

qq, Which is the most honorable, which the poorest professionf 

rr. Which is the greatest miradef 

SS. What is the mysterious number in two eggsf 

it. What is better than a golden eoaehf 

uu, Why does a dog revolve before lying downf 

vv. (Gomplieated task) Come neither naked nor dressed, neither on 

foot nor in any conveyance, etc., etc. 
ww, What is it that men need least and yet helps them mostf 
XX. What costs the most and is worth least f 
yy. What is worth most and costs least f 

It is not credible that these questions were in every case taken 
out of oral tradition ; some variants seem to be arbitrary f abrica- 
tions based on printed sources. 

n 

The following bibliography of the fourteenth patrana of 
Timoneda, though naturally not complete, is intended to give 
various tales of interest in connection with the study of riddle 
questions. The first group contains those whose resemblance is 
most evident ; they generally have three principal characters and 
three or more questions : 

GEOUP A 

1. Ärmana Prauven^^au pdr lou bdl an de didu 1874, adouba e publica 
de la man di Felibre, joio, soulas e passo-t^ms de tout lou pople döu 
Miejour (Avignoun), p. 33: Li Quatre Questioun; with the characters 
4, 10, 14, and the questions u, w, y, jj. 



230 ünivernty of CaUfomia Publieaiiatu m Modem PhiMogy. [VoL 2 

2. Asbjömsen, P. Chr., TaieM frcm ihe FjMf A teeond series of popu- 
lär Tales, from the None, by G. W. Dasent, D.G.L. (London, 1874), p. 
158: The Priest and the Clerk; with tbe eharaeters 16, 10, 7, and the 
qnestions r, y, jj, 

3. Biiekström, P. O., Sventika FdUc Böeker, Säger, Legender oeh Äfven- 
tyr, efter äldre npplagor oeh andra Kallor, Sednare Bandet Stockholm, 
1848, jemte 9f versigt af svensk folklaaning fr&n aldre tili narvarande 
tid, p. 82, no. 40 of öfversigt: Rangen, Presten oeh Kloekaren (king, 
priest and sexton) with the qnestions y, h, JJ. 

4. Bartseh, E>trl, Sagen Märehen und Gebramcke oMi Meehlenbwrg. 
Gesammelt nnd heransgegeben in zwei Banden von- (Wien, 1879), I, p. 
496: Der Glückliche Pater, with the eharaeters 16, 10, 34, and the qnes- 
tions Wf e, n, 10, y, u, JJ. 

5. Binder, E., in ZeitMchrift für Vergleichende Litteratwrgeechiekte, 
n.F., 5 (1892), p. 467, gives a Hnngarian Version with the eharaeters 
16, 10, 20, and the qnestions x, y, JJ, 

6. Blad6, M. Jean-Francis, Cantei popuUUrei de la Qcseogne, 3 vols., in 
Lei LitiSraiuree populoiree, voL zzi, 1886, ni, p. 297, and note : " L '^vdqne 
et le meanier, ' ' with the eharaeters 4, 10, 22, and the qnestions w, JJ, «. 
Also: "une Variante de Gascogne," p. 300, with the eharaeters 4, 10, 22, 
and the qnestions y, JJ, kk. 

7. Braga, T., Contos Tradicianaee do Povo Pöriuguee, 2 vols., Porto 
[1883], I, p. 157, no. 71: Frei Jo&o sem enidados, with the eharaeters 16, 
13, 22, and the qnestions w, h, JJ; and a variant, ü, p. 86, no. 160: Dom 
Bim&o, with the eharaeters 16, 17, 14, and the qnestions u, n, JJ. Ct. also 
Literatwrhlatt, 1881, col. 413. 

8. Campbell, J. F., Populär Tales of the West Eighlands, 4 vols., Edin- 
burgh, 1860-62, n, p. 391 ff: The Three Questions, with the eharaeters 
19, 32, 22, and the qnestions n, u, dd; for'a better variant ef. p. 392, with 
the same eharaeters, and the qnestions n, i, JJ. 

9. Cerquand, M., Ligendes et BScits populaires du pays Basque, 5 vols., 
Pan, 1875-82, vol. IV, p. 121, no. 108: Le prince et le moine (el Justiciero), 
with the eharaeters 16, 1, 13, and the qnestions t, y, JJ. 

10. Child, J. F., edition of The English and Seottish Populär Ballads, 
5 vols., 1883-98, I, 403-14, 508; H, 506 ff.; IV, 459; V, 216, 291; and I, 1, 
for related riddles: King John and the Ähhot of Canterbury, with the 
eharaeters 16, 1, 34, and the qnestions y, i, JJ; for Gottfr. Aug. Bürger 's 
translation see F. W. V. Sehmidt, Balladen und Bomaneen der deutschen 
Dichter, Bürger, StoUherg und Schüler (Berlin, 1827), p. 83 ff.; also 
Zoreles (Bchamsch), de Chosef und der Bow, Jüdisehe Parodie des Ge- 
dichtes der Kaiser und der Abt von G. A. Bürger, travestirt vün Beb 
8. Z. (Leipzig, 1846); Joh. Jacob Bodmer also made a German Version: 
Der Abt von Kantelburg; cf. also W. Dönniges, Ältschottische und alten' 
glische Volksballaden nach den Originalen bearbeitit (München, 1852), 



1911] Schevül: Some Farms of the Biddle Questian. 231 

p. 152; A. von Maries, Alt-englische und schottische Dichtungen der Perey- 
sehen Sammlung, übereetzt von (Berlin, 1857), p. 7, no. 2; Dr. Bitter in the 
ÄrehM) fwr das Biud/mm der neueren Sprachen, ete., toL 22, p. 222. 

11. Erman, in the Ärckw für wissenschaftliche Kunde in Hussland, voL 
24, p. 146, ''Eine rassische Sage: das kummerlose Kloster, Legende von 
Peter dem Grossen," with the eharaeters 39, 1, 22, and the questions y, 
1f 33 9 Orimm in the notes to tale no. 152 gives an aneedote abont a king 
of France, which seems to be the same story; cf. also Koehler, op, dt,, I, 
493, on Balt. Schnpp's Schriften, 

12. Folengo, Teofilo, Orlandino di Limemo Pittoeeo (Venice, 1550), 
Londra, 1775, 8th canto, with the eharaeters 22, 1, 8, and the questions 
m, r, c, jj. 

13. Hartman, "Schwanke nnd Schnurren im islamischen Orient," in 
Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde, voL 5 (1895), p. 64, gives a paral- 
lel to Nasr-eddin found in Nuzhat, Y, 173 if., with the eharaeters 16, 21, 
33, and the questions e, y, jj, 

14. Holland, Die Schauspiele des Hereogs Heinrich Jul, von Braun- 
schweig, in vol. 36 of Bibliothek des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart 
(Stuttgart, 1855), "Comoedia Hibaldeha von einem Edelman welcher 
einem Abt drey Fragen aufgegeben," with the eharaeters 23, 1, 6, and 
and the questions u, y, jj, 

15. Imbriani, La Noveliaja Fiorentina, fidbe e noveHline, Stenograf ate da 
y. L, Livorno, 1877, p. 621, no. v: el coeugh, with the eharaeters 16, 1, 8, 
and the questions f, m, jj. 

16. Keller, edition of Fastnaehtspiele aus dem löten Jahrhundert, in vol. 
30 of Bibliothek des Litterarischen Vereins in Suttgart (Stuttgart, 1853), 
I, p. 199, no. 22 (also pp. 1490-1): "Ein spil von einem Keiser und eim 
apt," with the eharaeters 12, 1, 22, and the questions b, hh, y. 

17. Krauss, F. S., Sagen und Märchen der Südslaven (Leipzig, 1884), 
n, p. 252, no. 112: "the Emperor and the milier 'ohne Sorgen V with 
the eharaeters 12, 22, 34, and the questions m, y, jj. 

18. Kureweiliger Zeitvertreiber, herausgegeben durch 0. A. M. v. W., 
1668, p. 70 (cf. Grimm 's notes), with the eharaeters 29, 28, 24, and the 
questions y, u, jj. 

19. Le Metel, Antoine, Sieur D'Ouville, L* Slite des contes, rdimprim6e 
par G. Brunet, 2 vols. (Paris, 1883), vol. I, p. 184, with the eharaeters 
17, 10, 22, and the questions u, y, jj, kk. 

20. Luzel, F. M., Contes popuHaires de la Basse-Bretagne, 3 vols. (Paris, 
1887), (vol. 26 of Les littiratures poptOaires), UI, p. 370-78, no. 12: "L' 
Abb^ Sans souci," with the eharaeters 16, 1, 33, and the questions w, 

ijf Vf «. 

21. Meier, Dr. E., Deutsche Volksmärchen aus Schwaben, 3rd edition 
(Stuttgart, 1864), no. 28, p. 99: "Hans ohne Sorgen," with the char- 



232 ünivernty of California Publieationa in Modem Phüology. [VoL S 

aetera 23, 22, 33, and problem vv; here the frame has reallj no eonnee- 
tion with the task to be performed. On p. 305 a variant "ana Bühl" ia 
given: ''Der Bisehof ohne Kreus,'' with the eharaeten 16, 4, 34, and the 
qneations m, e, k, ee. 

22. Moiaant de Brienz, Originei de quelques coütumee aneiennee et de 
plueieurs fagone de parier trivialee, 2 toIs., (Caen, 1874-75), with the ez- 
planation of the phraee: X>' Evesque devenir meusnier, I, p. 147, and n, 
p. 100, for its eonnection with the storj of the abb6, or a biahop and hia 
milier. 

23. Moneaut, C6nae, lAttSrature popuiaire de la Gascogne (Paris, 1868), 
p. 50 if., "Le mennier et le marquis;" with the eharacters 23, 10, 22, 
and the questions u, y, jj, m. 

24. Müllenhoif, Karl, Sagen, Märchen und Lieder der Herzogthümer 
Schleswig Holstein und Lauenhurg, herausgegeben von - (Eael, 1845), 
p. 153: "Der Müller ohne Sorgen," with the eharacters 16, 22, and the 
questions jj, w, e. 

25. Nouveaux Contes ä Bire et Ävantures Plaisantes ou Becreatiues 
frangoises, vingti^me Edition, 2 vols., (Ck>logne, 1722), I, p. 112: "D'on 
Seigneur de Village, et de son Mednier," with the eharaeters 17, 10, 22, 
and the questions u, y, jj, hk; ef. Le Metel. 

26. Pauli, Johannes, Schimpf und Ernst, herausgegeben von H. Oester- 
ley, in vol. 85 of the Bibliothek des Litterarisohen Vereins in Stuttgart 
(Stuttgart, 1866), no. 55, p. 46: ''Von ordenszlüten und guten brüdem," 
with the eharaeters 23, 1, 38, and the questions y, u, f; some of Oester- 
ley's bibliographieal notes are eonnected with Pauli onlj in so far as 
they deal with riddles in general; an aneedote communicated by Goedeke 
to Holland (ef. no. 14 above, p. 896) in the Angenehmer Anekdotenwirth 
(Nördlingen, 1815), pp. 47-50, seems to be the same as that of Pauli; ef. 
also J. W. Wolf, Hessische Sagen (Göttingen und Leipzig, 1853), p. 166, 
for a similar tale. 

27. Pineau, L^n, Les contes populaires du Poitou (Paris, 1891), p. 237, 
no. viii: ''L' Abb6 Sans-soins," with the eharaeters 16, 1, 22, and the 
questions u, w, y, jj, 

28. Pitr6, G., Fidbe, Novelle e Bacconti popolari sicüiani raeeolti da - 
(Palermo, 1875), n, p. 323, no. 97: "L'abbati senza pinseri," with the 
eharaeters 16, 1, 33, and the task f; ef. also referenees II, pp. 326-7 to 
Imbriani, and to Gradi, Saggio, etc.; and Pitr6, I, no, 5, p. 35, with notes 
p. 44; two other Variante are given in Pitr6, IV, p. 392, with the ehar- 
aeters 27, 1, 24, and the questions m, b, oo, y, and IV, p. 437, with the 
eharaeters 26, 1, 8, and the questions m, pp, jj, 

29. Saeehetti, Novelle, no. 4, with the eharaeters 23, 1, 22, and the 
questions m, b, nn, y; and the better variant with the eharaeters 26, 1, 
14 (8), and the questions m, b, y, gg; ef. also Keller, ItaUenischer 
NovelleTischatB (Leipzig, 1851), I, p. 52; and Dunlop-Liebrecht, op, eit., 
p. 491, n. 333. 



1911] Schevül: Some Forms of the BiddU Question. 233 

30. Tarlton, B., Jests and Newa out of Pwrgatory, reprinted in vol. 18 
of the pnblications of the Shakespeare Society (London, 1844) , p. 59: a 
Cardinal, to beeome Pope, must answer three unusual questions; a baker 
in disguise gives the correct answers. 

31. Timoneda, Juan, El Pairaüuelo (Primera parte de las Patranyas 
en las quales se tratan admirables euentos, graciosas maranas y delieadas 
inneneiones para saber contar el sabio j disereto relatador. Con liceneia 
en Alcal& de Henares, en easa de Sebastian Martinez, 1576, no. 14, cf. 
note 4 above), with the characters 16, 1, 8, and the questions y, u, jj. 

32. Troyes, Nicolas de, Le granä paragon des nouveUes nouveUea, 
publik par E. Mabille (Paris, 1868), no. 40, p. 177, with the characters 
23, 1, 22, and the questions y, u, jj, 

33. Trueba, Antonio de, Cuenios populäres (Leipzig, 1866), p. 287: 
"Gram&tica parda," with the characters 16, 10, 34, and the questions 

y, h jj- 

34. Unterhaltende Bäthselspiele in Fragen und Antworten, gesammelt 
von C. H. W. (Merseburg, 1824), with the characters 16, 1, 34, and the 
questions m, e, tt; cf. no. 10 above, Child, n, p. 507. 

35. Yaljavac, M. E. (a Croation version) in his Populär Tales, 1890: 
"Frater i turski car," with the characters 39, 1, 8, and the questions 
u, pp, jj; cf. Afanas'ev, A. N. (Populär Bussian Tales), 8 parte, in 4 
vols. (Moscow, 1873), viii, p. 460. 

36. Yinson, Julien, Le FoUc-lore du Pays Basgue (Paris, 1883), p. 106: 
"Le cur6," with the characters 16, 10, 22, and the questions m, y, jj. 

37. Waldis, Burchard, Esopus, edited by Tittmann, Leipzig, 1882, 92te 
Fabel: "Wie ein Seuhirt zum Apte wird," with the characters 23, 1, 38, 
and the questions m, h, e, f; also Oermania, vol. 7, p. 506. 

38. Wlislocki, H. v., in Zeitschrift für Vergleichende lAtteraturge- 
schiehte, n.F., vol. 4, p. 108, with the characters 16, 22, 34, and the ques- 
tions m, y, jj, 

89. One kind of story, while it is much like others of this group, 
Shows that many different influences have produced it; it is a mixture 
of the oriental ezercise of the wits and the occidental tale in which a 
third person (not the one questioned) gives the answer. But the Cle- 
ments of disguise and mistaken identity were not incorporated at the 
same time with the others, thus making the purpose of the story merely 
to show the ready wit of the ordinary man, or the superiority of even 
a fool over the professor or the priest. A good example of this kind is 
the story of the Sultan, the three monks and the court fool; cf. Meister 
Nasr-Eddins Schwanke, etc, übersetzt von W. v. Camerloher und Dr. W. 
Prelog, Triest, 1857, no. 70, in which the monks are willing to beeome 
Mohammedans, if the questions are correctly answered; these are u, f, l; 
tt, also B. Koehler, op, dt,, L p. 492. 



284 Üniversity öf California PubUcation» in Modem Philology, [Vol. 2 

40 and 41. Another kind of tale whieh preBeires the tone of the 
serious enigmas and hard questions of ancient times, also introduees a 
third peraon who suggesta the anawer, bnt the f rame is yerj onlike the abore, 
the qnestions are more irabtle, the penalty for failure is the severest 
possible, while the reward of the clever person in the ease of eueeess is 
great honor. A good example of this kind is: ''the Tale of the three 
questions;" cf.: The Complete Works of John Gawer, edited bj Q-. C. 
Maeaulay, M.A., (Oxford, 1901), vol. I. p. 119 (and note p. 478), of the Con- 
fe$sio Amantis, Über primus, in which a knight is threatened by the 
king with death and the eonfiseation of his possessions, if he does not 
answer three qnestions. His daughter suggests the answers, and marriee 
the king as the reward of her sagacity. The questions are ww, xx, yy. 
Gf. also the Gesta Bomanorum, edited by the Rey. Charles Swan, rerised 
and corrected by W. Hooper, M.A., London, 1905, Introduetory chapter, 
p. zl; also tale Ixz, p. 124; Kemble, op. dt,, p. 319; Madden's Old Engliah 
versxons (Boxburghe Club, London, 1858), no. xix and note p. 508. 



GBOUP B 

The second group in which the interlocutors seem originally 
to have been only two in number (42-44), represents various 
earlier versions of the exercise of the wits, as they have been 
gathered out of folklore, or preserved in literaxy tradition and 
fietion. This group throughout shows a more interesting variety. 
The simpler forma are given first. 



42. Troyes, Nicolas de, cf. no. 32 above, edited by Mabille, who gives 
on p. X of the Introduction the simplest variant of the type: a fool is 
asked to determine the king 's worth, and replies ''thirty deniers, and 
not more, since God was sold for that price," whereupon the king re- 
pents and lays aside his pride. 

43. Hollant, Jan van. Van den Verwenden Keyser, printed by J. F. 
Willems in the Belgisch Museum voor de Nederduitsohe Tael- en Letterhunde, 
etc., X, Te Gent, 1846, p. 57: a mere Squire is asked by a very proud 
Emperor to determine his worth, and answers, 'Hwenty-nine silver 
pieces, since Christ was sold for thirty;'' the Emperor shows the proper 
humility. 

44. In the mediaeval stories of the lifo of Aesop the same tale occurs: 
cf. Archiv für Slavische Philologie, voL 7, p. 90 ff., P. Syrku: <'Zur mit- 
telalterlichen Erzählungsliteratur aus dem Bulgarischen," where the 
Version is: Rez: Aestimate nunc pretium mei. Josopus: Sane triginta 
aureorum pretio non stas, p. 96. 



1911] SeheviU: Some Farms of ihe Siddle Questian. 235 

2 

45. Going one step farther, we find a test of quick-wittedness in a 
more elaborate form; ef. Anecdotes historigueSf Ligendes et Äpologues 
tii6ß dn reeeuil in^dit d'£tienne de Bonrbon (1193-1261), publik par A. 
Lecoy de la Marche (Paris, 1877), no. 86, p. 81, in which a king asks 
a wealthy man the questions u, d, ü, and the penalty of failure is to be 
the payment of a large eum of money; the latter trait is purely oriental. 

46. Vieentius Bellovaeensis (d. 1264) in bis Bihlioiheca mundi, Specn- 
lum morale, I, 4, 10, teils tbe same story. 

47. Tbe moral features of tbis story (for example, sncb questions as: 
quam magna est miserieordia Deif) account for its presenee in mediaeval 
sermons; ef. Sermones Martini ordinia predioatorum penitentiariorum, im- 
pressi Argentine Anno domini, 1488; eum promptuario ezemplorum: de 
pietate dei ad pecatores, cap. iz, ezemplum k. 

3 

48-54. (48). Anotber tale of tbe moral or sermon type can be fonnd in 
tbe legenda aurea, cf . Jacobi a Yoragine, Legenda Äurea, vulgo bistoria lom- 
bardica dicta, edited by Oraesse (Dresden and Leipzig, 1846), cap. U: 
De sancto Andrea apostolo, no. 9, p. 19. Here tbe devil in tbe sbape of 
a maiden asks tbe Saint tbe questions rr, p, m=zo; (49) for a Version of 
tbis legend of Baint Andrew, cf. el libro de los enxemplos, in Escritores en 
prosa anteriores äl siglo XV (edition Gayangos, Madrid, 1898), ez 
ccczzzii, p. 527; (50) Coleceiön de Autos, Farsas, y Coloquios del siglo 
XVI, publice par L^ Bouanet, Bihliotheca Hispaniea (Barcelona and 
Madrid, 1901), I, no. xzviii, ''Aneto de un milagro de Sancto Andres,'' 
p. 468; Creizenacb, Geschichte des Dramas, UI, p. 137; (51) Pitr6, G., 
Canti popolari sioüiani, op. cit., U, p. 232: ' ' Monsignore " (tbe devil 
as maiden); (52) Anastasius Griin, Gesammelte Werke, 5 vols., Berlin, 
1877: "Volkslieder aus Krain'' (vol. 5), Sankt Ulrich, p. 135, in wbicb 
ülricb takes tbe part of Andrew and tbe Pope tbat of tbe usual bisbop, 
wbile tbe devil impersonates tbe Jfride of tbe Pope; (53) in B. H. Bar- 
bam's Ingoldshy Legende: "Tbe Lay of St. Nicbolas," an imitation of tbe 
story of St. Andrew; (54) St. Bartbolomew is also represented as driving 
off tbe devil wbo tempts a man by assuming tbe sbape of a virgin, for 
wbicb see " Bätbself ragen aus einem alten Passional," in Mone's An- 
zeiger für Kunde der deutsehen Voreeit, 1839, mentioned p. 156 of Griin 's 
Ges. Werke, op. cit., vol. 5; references to Satan 's fall, wbicb according to 
tbe tbird question measured tbe distance between beaven and eartb (or 
beaven and bell) are not uncommon; ef. V61ez de Guevara 's El Diablo 
cojuelo, edited by Bonilla, Trance V, p. 45: beme tardado mucbo en el 
▼iage, sefior Licenciadof — el le respondio sonriendose: — ^menos se tardö 
V. m. desde el Cielo al infiemo, con auer mas leguas, quando rodö con 
todos essos Prineipes, etc. Cf. also: Antonio de Torquemada, Jardin de 
flores etc., Salamanca, 1577, folio 130 verso. 



236 ünivertity of Califomia Publieations in Modem PhOology. [Yol. 2 



60. Mere dialoguee which exercise the wits and have absorbed related 
material are found in literary works, ef. Torres Naharro, Adiciön del Diä- 
logo, TL, p. 378 ff., some of the qnestionfl being r, m, j, i, uu, U, ete. 



6 

61. Ck>mpUer8 of fletion or of anecdotes frequently make nse of the 
writings of predeceseors; cf LoMariUo de Tormee, Antwerp, 1555, in whieh 
tke Bector pnts to Lazaro the questions d, h, u, m, the aource being the 
next work. 

62. Murner, Dr. Thomas, Till Eulenspiegel, cf. note 9, p. 191; with the 
questions d, h, u, m, q; on the English Howleglasee, cf. p. 308 of Lappen- 
berg 's edition of Till Eulenspiegel, op. eit.; the source of Murner was the 
passage of a poem on the priest Amis contained in the f ollowing work. 

63. Koloczaer Codex altdeutscher Gedichte, herausgegeben von Joh. 
Nepomuk Grafen Mail&th und Joh. Paul Köffinger, Pesth, 1817, V, 38, p. 
289, with the charaeters 4, 10, and the questions b, h, u, m, q; cf. also 
Archiv für lAtteraturgeschichte, X, p. 3, Goedeke, on ''Eulenspiegel." 



i 



55. Some of the simpler folktales are the f ollowing: Afanas'ev, A.N., 
op. eit,, Vin, p. 460, the charaeters being a Tsar, and a soldier dressed 
as a monk (the latter feature showing contamination with gronp A), and 
the questions c, f, jj. 

56 and 57. Grimm 's Household Tales, no. 152: ''The shepherd boy," 
with the charaeters 16, 84, and the questions e, f, g; Grimm 's notes eon- 
tain a reference to Wnk Stephanowitseh (Karadschitsch) VoVksntarehen 
der Serben, no. 45, in which a shepherd outwits a king; cf. also Du 
M6ril, op. eit., p. 494. 

58. The rhymed tale of the Knight who will marry a maid if she * 
answers three questions can be induded here [no. 2, what is deeper than 
the seaf — ^love]; cf. Bob't Jamieson, PopuUtr BaXlads and Songs, etc., 
2 vols., Edinburgh, 1806, II, p. 156, and variant p. 159. 

59. Wlislocki, H. v., in Zeitschrift für vergleichende lAtteraturge- 
schichte, n.F., vol. 4, p. 106; the charaeters being a Turkish monarch and 
a hermit who lives in a barrel, with the questions m, y, mm; it doses with 
the Statement made by Diogenes to Alezander: "stand aside and let the 
snn shine on my barrel" and betrays indebtedness to the dassieal anee- 
dote. Cf. also: Märchen und Sagen der Bukowinaer und Siehenbürger 
Armenier, Hamburg 1891, no. 30, p. 83 ff.: der weise Mann. 



1911] Sehevül: 8ome Forms of the Biddle Questian. 237 



64. An ezcellent ezaxnple of the historical or literary aneedote is that 
told of Philip n, and the priest, hy Fern&ndez de Velasco, cf. note 63, p. 
216, above. 



GBOUP C 

This ^oup contains only references to the Single task of 
drinking the sea, or of measoring its waters. 

65. Cf. Plntareh's Moralia, ''the banqnet of the seven Sages," note 
36, p. 206, above. 

66. El lAbro de los enganos y los asayamientos de las mugeres, op. cit.f 
cf. note 49, p. 212, above. 

67. The Book of the ihousand nights and a night (Arabian Nights), 
tranalations hj Lane, and hj Burton, ef. note 43, p. 210, above; also note 
52 on The Tale of Beryn, p. 213. 

68. Caasel, D. Paulus, The Sinbad Tcdes (or the Seven Wise Men) 
Misehle Sindbad, secundas Byntipas, edit. hy Cassel, (3rd edition) Berlin, 
1691, p. 24, 3 ff., also pp. 158, 172, 295; and note 47, p. 212, above. 

69. The mediaeval viia Äesopi by Planudes (14th Century) teils us 
that Aesop had to solve the task of drinking up the sea, cf. note 50, p. 
212, above. 

70. Simrock, Karl, Handbuch der deutsehen Mythologie, 3rd edition, 
Bonn, 1869, pp. 249-250; in connection with the Edda stories he mentions 
''die Wettspiele die Thor mit seinen Gefährten bestehen muss'^ . . . . 
"das Meer auszutrinken, eine uralte Aufgabe, vermag er freilich nicht," 
p. 250. 



UNIVERSITY OP CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS 

IN 

MODERN PHILOLOQY 

Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 239-309 June 15, 1912 



HISTRIONICS IN THE DRAMAS OF 
FRANZ GRILLPARZER* 

BT 

ELIZABETH ADELAIDE HEERMANN 



CONTENTS 

PAGI 

L Symbolism in Gestare and Action 239 

n. Pantomime 251 

m. The Details of Gesture and Action 260 

1. Face and Head ~ 260 

2. The Voice ^ 283 

3. Hand and Arm - 286 

4. Kneeling 299 

5. The Feet ~ 304 

6. Sundriee 305 

rV. Oonelnsion . — 306 

I. SYMBOLISM IN GBSTÜRE AND ACTION 

Qrillparzer designates symbolism as a characteristic of all 
art. Science has to do with the naked thought: ''nur in der 
Wifisenschaft macht das Kleid nicht den Mann."^ But in art 
the perfection of the form in which the thought is embodied is 
of equal importance with the actual content: ''Gediegenheit der 
Form ist die zweite gleich wichtige Hälfte jeder Kunst. "^ The 
relationship between prose and poetry, as he defines it, makes 



*A thesis snbmitted in partial satisf action of the reqnirements f or the 
degree of Master of Arts in the Universitj of California. 

iFrom an nndated letter to N. Karhan: Orülpareera Briefe und Tage- 
Jfüeher, herausgegeben von Carl Glossy und August Bauer, Stuttgart 
[1903]. Vol. i, p. 295. 



\ 



240 Üwi9enitf of Cdifarma FybUeatu»$ %% Moden PhiMogy. [VoL 2 

dear bis position. ^'Die prosaische Wahrheit ist die Wahrheit 
des Verstandes, des Denkens. Die poetische ist dieselbe Wahr- 
heit, aber in dem Kleide, der Form, der Gestalt, die sie im 
Gemüte annimmt. Man hat die poetische Wahrheit auch die 
subjektive genannt. Unrichtig! denn die Orondlage ist ebenso 
objektiv als die andere, denn alle Wahrheit ist objektiv. Aber 
die Gestalt, das Büd, die Erscheinuitg, ist atis dem Subjekt 
genommen. Man würde sie am besten die symbolische Wahrheit 
nennen} Warum nimmt denn aber die Wahrheit Gestalt t Weil 
alle Kunst auf Gestaltung, Formgebung, Bildung beruht und die 
nackte Wahrheit ihr Beich ohnehin in der — ^Prosa hat" (zv, 58).* 
To Grillparzer, then, symbolism is the form which poetic 
truth takes, and this form lends to the thought a peculiar effec- 
tiveness. For the mind is so accustomed to the literal expression 
of an idea that the latter no longer has the power to awaken a 
train of thought or to produce an image. Given, however, the 



s See also Friedrieh Jodl, * ' Grillparzers Ideen zur Aesthetik, ' ' Jdht' 
hwih der Or%llparßer-€^eU$chaft, x, p. 61 f.: 

''Aber dies Hindrängen auf Wirkliefakeit oder wenigstens Möglieli- 
keit ist nur ein Moment in Grillparsers Kunstbegrül. Nie ist es ihm 
eingefallen, dabei stehen bleiben zu wollen, wie der Verismus und Natur- 
alismus unserer Tage tut, oder gern tun x^öehte. Als blosse Nachahmung 
würde die Kunst überflüssig sein. Warum sollten wir etwas nachahmen, 
das wir in Wirklichkeit schon besitzen f Sie ist auch keine Verschönerung 
der Natur; denn wer könnte die Natur im Einzelnen schöner machen, als 
sie istf Die Kunst gibt ja in gewisser Weise unvermeidlich weniger als 
die Natur; sie muss darum, soll sie sich der Natur gegenüber behaupten, 
auf der anderen Seite notwendig mehr geben. Wo lie^ dieses Mehrf 

"Zunächst in dem, was Grillparzer mit einem glücklichen und in der 
neueren Aesthetik zu immer grösserer Geltung gelangten Ausdruck: 'das 
Symbolische' der Kunst genannt hat. Bei diesem Begriff — es ist ein 
Gentralbegriff der Aesthetik Grillparzers — ^ist selbstverständlich nicht an 
dasjenige zu denken, was man gewöhnlich unter dieser Bezeichnung 
versteht: ein mehr oder minder willkürlich gewähltes Zeichen, um einen 
bestimmten Begriff zu versinnlichen oder in abgekürzter Weise zum 
Ausdruck zu bringen. ... So ist die Eule ein Symbol der Weisheit. . . . 

"Das Symbolische aber, welches Grillparzer als eine Eigenschaft aller 
Kunst in Anspruch nimmt, besteht eben darin, 'dass sie nicht die Wahr- 
heit an die Spitze ihres Beginnens stellt' — ^ich möchte verdeutlichend 
sagen: weder den Begriff der Sache, noch die Sache selbst — ^'sondern ein 
Bild der Wahrheit, eine Incarnation derselben, die Art und Weise, wie 
sich das Licht des Geistes in dem halbdunklen Medium des Gemütes 
färbt und bricht.' " 

s Orülparzers sämtliehe Werke in zwanzig Bänden. Herausgegeben und 
mit Einleitungen versehen von August Sauer. Stuttgart und Berlin, J. 
G. Cotta. [1892.] Beferences are throughout to volume and page in this 
edition. 



I 



1912] HerriMnn: HiitriarUc» in the Dramas of Frana QriUpareer, 241 

same idea in an nnaccustomed, that ia, figurative guise, and the 
mind is at once roosed out of its lethargy.* The new and figora« 
tive form, moreover, invests the eold abstract eonoept of a truth 
with a sense of reality, and it is this which charms us rather 
than the actual thought itself : ''Nicht die Ideen machen den 
eigentlichen Beiz der Poesie ans; der Philosoph hat deren viel- 
leicht höhere: aber dass die kalte Denkbarkeit dieser Ideen in 
der Poesie eine Wirklichkeit erhält, das setzt uns in Entzücken. 
Die Körperlichkeit der Poesie macht sie zu dem, was sie ist, und 
wer sie, wie die Neuem, zu sehr vergeistigt, hebt sie auf. — 
Hierher gehört der Beiz des Bildes, der Metapher, der Verglei- 
chung, und warum z. B. eine Fabel mehr überzeugt als der ihr 
zugrunde liegende moralische Satz" (xv, 64). 

It is therefore entirely consistent with Qrillparzer's theory of 
esthetics that even in such action as does not necessarily advance 
the plot of his dramas many instances of symbolism should be 
found. Especially at the close of the drama is he fond of giving 
an epitomized embodiment of the main thought of the whole. 
As the curtain goes down in Ein treuer Diener seines Herrn, we 
are left with the picture of Bancbanus kneeling before the son 
of his king, reverently and loyally bowing his head upon the 
hand of little Bela, illxistrating in this typical posture the mental 
attitude of the faithful Steward (vi, 253). Of symbolic purport 
is also the action of Duke Otto 's attendants, who throw a dark 
mantle about his Shoulders as he is dismissed by the king toward 
the close of the act (vi, 252). Duke Otto has been the repre- 
sentative of that immoral life which the latter would banish 
from his realm (245). As he steps forward at the king 's words 
"Kein Fluch sei über Euch!" the cloak is thrown about him to 
hide, as it were, all that had brought evil and distress to the 
country while its sovereign was absent. — Grillparzer has used the 
action of covering with a mantle again symbolically in König 



4 ''Die Gewalt des bildlichen, also uneigentlichen Ausdrucks in der 
Poesie kommt daher, dass wir bei dem eigentlichen Ausdruck schon 
längst gewohnt sind, nichts mehr zu denken oder vorzustellen. Das Bild 
nnd, weiter fortgesetzt, das Gleichnis, nötigt uns aber aus dieser stumpfen 
Gewohnheit heraus, und die unentsprechende Bezeichnung wirkt starker 
als die völlig gemässe" (zv, 58 f.). 



242 Univenity of CiOifanUa PubUcaiiom in Modem PhOology, [YoL 2 

Ottokars Olück und Ende, where Rudolf spreads his own im- 
perial mantle over the dead body of Ottokar, as he says : 

"Den Kaisermantel, dem da nachgestrebt, 
Ich nehm' ihn ab und breit' ihn über dich, 

[er tut es] 
Dass als ein Kaiser da begraben werdest, 
Der da gestorben wie ein Bettler bist. ' ' (vi, 144) 

To him who had devoted his life to ambitious ends, who had 
overridden all who were in his path, breaking even the dosest 
ties in his struggle toward the goal, to him comes at last bat 
the empty vestment of power; with terrible pathos he lies before 
US utterly crushed and def eated but decked with the semblanoe 
of greatness which a magnanimous enemy has accorded him. In 
Blanka von Kiistüien there is a similar significance attached to 
the robe of rank, in Fedriko's words: 

"Mit diesem Mantel werf' ich die Schimäre 
Von Rahm and Grösse von mir." (x, 45) 

This instance does not appear at the elose of the drama. Die 
Jüdin von Toledo ends with a scene which represents the re- 
covery of the king f rom his temporary intoxication of pleasore, 
his newly awakened interest in the affairs of state, his complete 
reconciliation with the queen and Dona Clara, who symbolize 
purity of life, and his retum of confidence in the sapport of a 
true friend. He places the prince, his son, upon a shield, which 
is bome alof t, the two wom^i hold Bela on either aide by the 
hand, the king himself f ollows leaning upon Garceran (ix, 214) . 
In Libti^sa the symbolism of the three girdles reaches its culmina^ 
tion at the close of the last act (viii, 218). They had been the 
Spiritual legacy of King Krokus to his daughters : 

"So oft ihr sie vereint, 
Will ich im Geist bei euch sein and mit Bat" (viii, 128) 

Throughout the drama they symbolize the old natural order of 
things, with which Primislaus and his plans for the building of 
a city, for the beginning of commerce, and the inevitable intro- 
duction of other customs and manners, are bound to come into 
conflict. Libussa feels the impossibility of a reconciliation be- 



1912] Herrmann : Histrionios in the Dramaa of Frans Orülpareer. 243 

tween the old and the new, and hence her sense of oppression, the 
weighing down of the girdle, and her request to her maid to 
loosen it: 

' < Der Ofirtel drückt, bind ihn mir loser. ' ' (210) 

Finally comes her deeision to make the sacrifice of the old lif e at 
any cost: 

''Fort alles, was um mich noch Gegenwart, 
Die Luft der Zukunft soll mieh frei umspielen. 
Fort, dunkler Schleier, und du, teures Kleinod, 
Du drückst die Brust, belastet zentnerschwer. 
[Schleier und Gürtel von sich und den Hügel herabwerfend] 
Nun ist mir leicht. ' ' (218) 

With the Casting aside of that which was elosely bound np with 
her inmost being, with the uprooting of tradition, of belief, of 
the very philosophy of life handed down by her fathers, eomes 
death. The casting aside of the girdle and of the veil, which 
is part of the garment which she wore in the old life, is the 
ontward symbol of the inner deeision. Then Kascha and Tetka, 
her sisters, f oUow her example and cast f rom them their girdles, 
thereby removing symbolically the last obstacles f rom Primis- 
laus' path in the founding of the city, and at the same time, by 
heaping aU three girdles together and destining their gold f or 
the fnture crown, leaving unbroken the chain of succession with 
its accumulated legacy. — The girdle serves again as a symbol in 
Des Meeres und der Liebe Wetten. The dead body of Leander 
has been f onnd and brought to the temple. Hero begs that he 
be buried near by on the shore, and when the priest stemly 
ref uses, she takes leave of her lover there, laying upon his body 
her wreath and her girdle : 

"Als Zeichen nur, als Pfand beim letzten Scheiden, 
Nimm diesen Kranz, den Gürtel lös' ich ab 
Und leg' ihn dir ins Grab. Du schönes Bild, 
All, was ich war, was ich besass, du hast es. 
Nimm auch das Zeichen, da das Wesen dein. 
Und so geschmückt, leb' wohl!" (vii, 100) 

In Der Trauma ein Leben the passing of Zanga and the dervish 
(vii, 218), as they play upon the flute and the harp the melody 



244 Univenity of Cdliforwia Pmblieatians i» Modern FhSMogy, [ VoL 2 

which in the first act (132) was to recall Bustan to a contented 
life without ambition, is symbolic of the real ehange that haa 
come npon him through his dreams. Even Zanga^ who haa been 
his evil geniua sporring him on to a life of adventure and gloiy, 
now pipes the old melody : 

''Schatten sind des Lebens Güter, 
Schatten seiner Freuden Schar, 
Schatten Worte, Wünsche, Taten, 
Die Gedanken nur sind wahr 

Und die Liebe, die da fühlest. 
Und das Gate, das da tost; 
Und kein Wachen als im Schlafe, 
Wenn da einst im Grabe rahst." 

Grillparzer has made effective use of symbolism in the body 
of his dramas as well. The dove episode in the first act of Des 
Meeres und der Liebe Wellen is an instance of this (vii, 18 f.)- 
It is the day of Hero's consecration as priestess of the temple, 
and her parents have come to be present at the ceremony. The 
mother is grief -stricken, first, at the thought of losing her child, 
for she is old and lonely, and second, at Hero's fate, for, she says, 
' ' Das Weib ist glücklich nur an Qattenhand. ' ' While Hero and 
her mother are thus conversing, in the background is being 
enacted a significant scene, — a dove has built her nest within the 
precincts of the temple grove and the priest has commanded 
one of the attendants to remove it, for ''so will's des Tempels 
Übung." The mother notices what the slave is doing and says: 

"Unscholdig fromme Vögel stören sie 
Und nehmen ans ihr Nest. So reissen sie 
Das Kind auch von der Mutter, Herz von Herzen, 
Und haben des ihr SpieL O, weh mir, weh ! ' ' 

Hero takes the basket containing the dove f rom the servant, both 
to soothe the trembling bird and to calm her mother, who sees 
her own fate in that of the bird. As the priest remonstrates 
with her for violating the custom of the temple in that she 
harbors the dove — "All, was sich paart, bleibt ferne diesem 
Hause" — ehe gives the basket again to the attendant, biddingr 
him set free the bird. The little scene not only throws into 



1912] Hemnann: Hittrumicg in the Dramas of Franz Grülpareer, 245 

higher relief the sorrow and f orebodings of ihe old mother, but 
symbolizes as well the abnormality of a State in which the common 
lawB of natare must be set aside to make room f or a f alse kind 
of yirtue. In its inhumanity it is a dramatie foreshadowing of 
Hero's own fate. 

There are a number of similar instances in the action of 
Orillparzer's dramas. The representative of the Reichstag who 
has come to ask Ottokar whether he will accept the imperial 
crown, in his loyal zeal raises aloft the shield which he thinks 
bears the white lion of Bohemia bnt which instead presents the 
red lion of the honse of Habsburg (vi, 39). — ^Leander chances 
to take his place by the altar of Hymen, while the ceremony of 
the consecration takes place, and it is here that Hero sees him 
while sacrificing, and the sight so affects her that she feeds the 
äame too bounteously, whereupon it flares up more brightly than 
nsaal, giving portent of the future (vii, 28 f.). — Jason tears the 
veil, which is woven through with cabalistic signs, from Medea's 
head, saying: 

''So reiss' ieh dich von all den Banden los, 
Die dich geknüpft an dieses Landes Frevel. 
Hier, Griechen, eine Griechin! Grüsset siel" (v, 100) 

In Esther King Ahasveros appears for the first time after a 
scene between several conrtiers, who have been discussing the 
Situation at conrt, the banishment of the queen, and its effect 
npon the king. We gather from their words and sabsequently 
from those of the king that the momentons step was taken as a 
resolt of nndne influence brought to bear on him by his courtiers, 
who in fact are the sonree of all his misery. The king enters 
through an arbor, where he picks various leaves and drof» them 
to the ground. These are the leaves that are infected with a 
pest and if allowed to remain on the vine will ultimately cause 
it to wither away. Their destruction is symbolic of the fate that 
he feels should meet the courtiers who in the realm are ''Feinde 
alles Blähns" (viii, 229). — ^At the very beginning of Der Traum, 
ein Lehen (vii, 113), the little scene between Ealeb and his wife 
and ehild serves as a picture of the true happiness for which 



246 University of CiOifomia Publications in Modem Fhüology. [VoL 2 

Mirza longa for herseif and Bustan and which he leams to 
recognize after the dream as the only happiness worth strivin^ 
for. It puts into tangible and theref ore effective form the ideal 
which nins through the drama as its central thought : 

'*MirMa. Jener Jager, Kaleb ist's. 

Sieh, sein Weib kommt ihm entgegen 
Mit dem Kleinen an der Brust. 
Wie er eilt, sie zu erreiebenl 
Und der Knabe streckt die Hände 
Janehzend nach dem Vater aus. 
Ihr seid glücklich!— Ja, ihr seid 's I " 

The characters do not appear again (except as Bustan gives the 
name Kaleb to the blind old father in the dream), and simply 
serve this symbolic purpose. So the scene in Die Jüdin between 
Bahel and the weapon-bearers of the king who, at her bidding, 
use his lance as a prop for her tent-cloth, hold his shield as her 
mirror, and give over to her his helmet as a plaything, is the 
symbolic representation of the complete subservience to the 
allurements of pleasore in a strong man who has until then led 
a puritanical existence in which virtue was not attractive, but 
only estimable (ix, 179). The act of throwing Bahel's picture 
into the crjrpt, where her dead body lies, symbolizes the last step 
in the complete recovery of the king (213) ; as he retums from 
yiewing the body and enters the room where the queen and 
Manrique and Oarceran are gathered, he passes his hands one 
over the other, then over his neck and body, as though cleansing 
them. The actions are unaccompanied by words and are meant 
to convey to us vividly what is going on within the king 's 
mind, — ^his sudden awakening to a feeling of repulsion for Bahel, 
his realization of the contamination that for a while entered his 
life, and now his wish to dispel every trace of the comipting 
intercourse (211). We are reminded of the sleep-walking scene 
in Mucbeih where Lady Macbeth tries to wash the bloodstains 
from her hands. — ^In Der Traum, ein Leben the action of the two 
spirit boys who appear at the end of the first act and again in 
the last act, is a symbolic device used by Orillparzer to make 
piain to the audience the exact moments when the dream begins 



1912] Herrmann : Sistrianics in the Dramas of Franz Grillparser, 247 

and ends. The spirit of consciousness is clothed in a brown 
garment and in the first act bears a flaming torch, until the 
spirit of sleep, dressed in many colors, leans over Bustan's bed 
and lights bis torch f rem the flame of the other, whereupon the 
dark spirit dashes bis light against the earth. At the end of the 
dream the action is reversed, the spirit of the waking Bustan 
lighting bis torch at that of the spirit of the dream, whereupon 
the latter eztinguishes bis light (vii, 210). — The wreath is used 
symbolieally in Esther wbere at the importunities of the king 
the Jewish maiden sets upon her head a golden circlet as an 
indication of her wiUingness to become bis queen (viii, 252). — In 
Sappho the poetess removes the wreath of victory from her head 
and gazes pensively upon it (iv, 153). She has just retumed 
from new triumphs, but even with the plaudits of multitudes still 
ringing in her ears she sadly meditates upon the inadequaey of 
ambition and fame to fill the longings of her soul for real happi- 
ness; honor and applause from the world cannot take the place 
of affection from dear ones. And yet in a moment she sets 
the Symbol of success again upon her head as Melitta recalls to 
her how many have sought for the crown and have not won it. 
She repeats Melitta 's words and replacing the wreath reflects 
upon its worth : 

"Es Bcbmähe nicht den Buhm, wer ihn besitzt, 
Er ist kein leer-bedeutungsloser Sehall, 
Mit Götterkraft erfüllet sein Berühren I 
Wohl mirl Ich bin so arm nicht! Seinem Beichtum 
Kann gleichen Beichtum ich entgegensetzen: 
Der Gegenwart mir dargebotnem Kranz 
Die Blüten der Vergangenheit und Zukunft I *' 

The two simple gestures with the wreath symbolize the pathos 
in Sappho 's fate, — ^through her devotion to the develppment of 
her inner life and ideal of art she has forf eited her ability to 
live normally in that very world which has given her the highest 
applause, and so she has shut herseif out from the normal happi- 
ness for which she longs. In setting the wreath upon her head 
she determines to use its power to win Phaon. When the final 
realization of her f ailure comes she says : 



248 Ufwwrnty of CäHforwia PubUcatians tu Modem PhOoloffy. [VoL 2 

''Was ieh vermag und kann und bin und heitse, 
Als Kranz wollt ' ich es winden um sein Haupt, 
Ein mildes Wort statt allen Lohns begehrend, 
Und er — ^lebt ihr denn noch, gerechte Gtötterf " (190) 

Sappho was Grillparzer's aecond drama; it was written before 
bis bitter experiences with an ungrateful and unappreciative 
contemporary world. And so Melitta 's and Sappho 's words: 

"Der schöne Kranz! Wie lohnt so hohe Zier! 
Von Tausenden gesucht und nicht errungen/' (153) 

sound to US only presagefol; they do not yet come out of the 
fulness of the poet's own experience. We are reminded, too, of 
the lack of domestic happiness in Grillparzer's own life, and of 
bis Isolation generaUy. There was not in his eharacter the 
warmtb and stability that f oster abiding äff ection ; and that lack, 
inereased by the inharmony between a lif e given over to art and 
the life of the real, practieal, and often harsh world without, 
produeed a Situation whieh is somewhat comparable to that in 
Sappho. — One other instance of symbolism in Sappho is that of 
the decking of the house with flowers in token of the love that 
has entered there (iv, 158). Eucharis bids the maidens wreathe 
with garlands hall and pillar, door and threshold, nay even the 
very flower-beds themselves, 

" .... denn heute feiert 
Das Fest der Ldebe die Gebieterin." 

In eaeh of the instances of symbolic gesture and pantomime 
above cited, the symbolic meaning of the act has been of more 
importance than the possible link that the act itself f ormed in 
the chain of dramatic action. In other words, to Orillparzer 
an act as a symbol was the most vivid and forceful way of 
emphasizing or reiterating an abstract thought. 

We should expect many personifications in the dramas, for 
our author himself has said that ''poetry is what it is becanse 
of its concreteness."*^ In them we find abundant proof of the 
important part which action and movement play in concreteness 
of representation. The following, while not belonging to sym- 



B ' ' Die Körperliehkeit der Poesie macht sie zu dem, was sie ist. ' ' cf . 
p. 241. 



1912] Herrmann: HUtrümics in the Dramas of Frans Crrillpareer. 249 

bolic gestare or action, should be mentioned here as fumishing 
other illnstrations of Orillparzer's habit of clothing common- 
place phenomena of life in unusual garb and of investing them 
with action and movement. Out of the gloomy east night climbs 
up into the heavens, puts out the candles of the day, and lets 
down a dark curtain about the heads of her beloved (vii, 112) ; 
the heavens stare down at the earth out of hoUow sockets (iv, 
16) ; the day is making preparations to awaken (viii, 93) ; the 
fingen of the sun raise the veil of night (xi, 130) ; Phoebus, at 
early mom, looks blessings (vii, 7) ; the sun has elimbed the 
mountain and seems to point in astomshment at Rustan, who 
is tarrying instead of setting out into his new life (vii, 214) ; 
the fields are putting on new garments (iv, 16) ; the trees Stretch 
out bare, naked arms to heaven imploring help (iv, 16) ; nature 
walks dark paths (iv, 196), and beckons to Jaromir to enter his 
grave (iv, 50) ; the brook struggles to get to the river (viii, 214) ; 
the year has grown old, its pulses are weaker, and it totters to 
the grave (iv, 16) ; the flower, awakening from its sleep, like a 
child raises its head from the soft white pillow, opens its clear 
eyes and smiles (iv, 16; xi, 124). Very characteristic is the 
f oUowing : 

"Wie, wenn des jnngen Frühlings lauer Finger 
Den Sehnee streift von der Erde starren Gliedern, 
Das Gras hervortritt aus der Winterhülle, 
Der Böse zarte Wangen süss erröten, 
Die blauen Glöcklein holde Freude tonen. 
Die Knospe auszieht ihren rauhen Pelz, 
Des Bäehleins Wellen durch die Wiesen hüpfen, 
Und alles lebt und atmet und sieh freut — 
So sehwand aus seiner Seele jener Frost, 
Der so oft mit Verzweiflung mich erfüllte." (zi, 134) 

Not only does Orillparzer personify the phenomena of nature in 
terms of action, but thoughts, f eelings, and varions states of mind 
as well, take form and move vividly bef ore ns : 

"Unsre Neigungen, Gedanken, 
Scheinen gleich sie ohne Sehranken, 
Qehn doch, wie die Binderherde, 
Eines in des andern Tritt." (vii, 136) 






250 Univernty of California Publicatians in Modern FhOoiogy. [VoL 2 

Sorrow and pain place their seal upon Queen Margaret 's lips 
and from them smiles flee in terror (vi, 21) ; sleep drops down 
upon Ottokar 's eyelids (vi, 120) ; mistmst descends upon the 
brow like a doud of mist (ix, 24) ; peace and contentment pillow 
themselves softly on Phaon's brow (iv, 174) ; suspicion, tuming 
red with shame, would have refused to enter the halls of bis 
ancestors, the count declares (iv, 62) ; craftiness is a skiUful 
Spinner who spins so fine a thread that it break» of its own 
delicacy (ix, 119) ; memory with gentle band unveils the golden 
past (iv, 164) ; Blanka's dreadful secret has plueked with mur- 
derous hands the blossom of her life (x, 36). In Grillparzer's 
imagination, time takes on the form of an insistent creditor who 
knocks at the door and demands bis own (iv, 47). Again, the 
present age with its evils is a hideous hag who pusbes her way 
past hundreds of sentries and f orces us to look into her horrid 
countenance (ix, 22) ; civil war Stretches forth its flame-encircled 
head (x, 44); the swords of the Turks devour the Hungarian 
soldiery (ix, 31). Sin throws away its mask and lies in wait 
with arms outstretched (x, 126, 113) ; the grave embraces with 
icy arm the brave man (x, 75, 84) ; hell extends its fiery arms 
to Protect Blanka from Rodrigo's vengeance (x, 179). Stern 
necessity interposes her ruthless scepter between the entwining 
arms of lovers (x, 37). 



1912] Serrmann: Hisirionies w ihe Dramas of Franz GriUpareer. 251 



II. PANTOMIME 

Orillparzer gives a vivid characterization of Budolf II in 
the first act of Ein Bruderzwist in Hdbsburg (ix, 16 f.) , and he 
does this almost entirely through pantomime. The emperor enters 
leaning upon a walking-stiek. Two painters have brought their 
work for his inspection. He pauses before the pictures, points 
ont an error in the first, but indicating his approval of the second 
signs to Bumpf with three uplifted fingers that he is to purchase 
it. Rumpf mistakes the number for two and on repeating ' 'Zwei- 
tausend f" is curtly corrected by the emperor with the one word 
"Drei." . Rudolf then steps up to the table, picks up one of 
the books and expresses his delight on discovering that it is by 
Lope de Vega. Rumpf calls his attention to some dispatehes 

• 

that have come f rom the court at Madrid, but without heeding 
him he contemptuously pushes back the papers lying on the table, 
seats himself, and begins to read. Rumpf briefly announces 
that Duke Ferdinand has arrived and that Don Caesar has called ; 
after eaeh announcement the emperor looks up for a moment 
from his book and then reads on. Presently he bursts out laugh- 
ing, expresses his admiration of the author, and as Matthias 
approaehes and begins his plea, reflects aloud on what he has 
just read, exclaiming: ^* 'Ring des Yergessens' — Ja, wer den 
besässe!" Matthias continues his supplication, laying his band 
upon the arm of the emperor 's ehair in his zeal; whereupon 
Rudolf, roused out of his abstraction, calls out to Rumpf that 
he would be alone. When Matthias is still insistent, he twice, 
with ever increasing anger, repeats the word ** Allein," threat- 
ening Rumpf with bis cane. Kiesel in trepidation leads Matthias 
away. Rudolf mutters the word ''Allein" twice again to him- 
self, and as Rumpf in his despair picks up the book that he has 
cast aside and hands it to him, he refuses it. Rumpf tries him 
again with important news from the scene of war, but gaining 
no response aimoimeeg the arrival of a merchant with cut gems. 



252 UnwenUy of CMfarma FubliottUom t» Modem PhOoiopy. [Vol. 2 

This rouses the emperor to the laconic reply ''Sehn!" Again 
the distracted Rumpf asks a hearing f or an ambaasador, at which 
Rudolf shakes bis head ; and as he mentions the word ''Berichte," 
his majesty raps angrily upon the floor with his cane. It is only 
when Don Caesar enters and begs f or mercy f or his friend Russ- 
worm that he ia roused out of himself . He searches among the 
papers on the table for Russworm's sentence. Rumpf fetches it 
from the emperor 's private office and hands it to him. He laughs 
scomfuUy and retums it to Rumpf. Thereupon Don Caesar 
begins his pleadings again. By this time Rudolf is thoroughly 
awake to the Situation and stemly replies : 

''Er stirbt I— Und da mit ihm, 
Wagst ferner da 's, ein Wort für ihn zu spreehen." 

This brief scene throws a flood of light upon Rudolf. He is 
moody, tacitum, easily irritated when misunderstood or crossed, 
fonder of books than of human society, impatient of the routine 
of his office, more interested in art than in affairs of State. His 
silent entrance, his impatient gestures, his abstraction, the 
violence of his anger, pointing as they do to an abnormal inner 
State of mind and to the realization on his part of the ineffective- 
ness of his rule, are dramatic and productive of the atmosphere 
that the poet had to create for the subsequent political Situation. 
Again in the fourth act (99 f.) Orillparzer has effectively 
used pantomime to draw with a f ew sharp lines the pathos of 
Rudolf 's ezistence. The troops that he had summoned to his 
aid and admitted into the city at the point where the palace 
is located have been repulsed and the castle itself is closely 
guarded. He steps out into the garden of the palace with Rumpf 
and Stands bef ore a flower-bed which has been trampled upon 
in the preceding night of battle. The solicitous Rumpf tries to 
explain away the sad condition of the emperor 's beloved flowers 
by saying : ' ' Das that der böse Sturm in heut 'ger Nacht. ' ' When 
Rudolf nods his head in silent affirmation, Rumpf hastens to 
correct any impression of having referred to the rout of the 
Passau troops by saying: "Den Sturmu^ind mein ich eben, 
Majestät." But the emperor realizes fuUy that the marks in the 



1918] Herrmann: Hi8trionie$ in the Dramas of Franz ChnUparzer, 253 

garden mean the precipitous flight of bis army, and with his 
staff passes repeatedly over the footprints. The Duke of Bruns- 
wick has been approaching, and to his faithful friend Rudolf 
holds out his hand in greeting. Julius stoops to kiss it but the 
emperor withdraws it and holds it out f or the hand-clasp of 
friend to friend. The duke seines it in both his own as he says -. 

"Nun denn: wiUkoznmenl 
Mieh freut das Wohlsein Eurer Majestät." 

At this Rudolf laughs a mocking laugh, and when Julius tries 
to comf ort bim with the words : 

"Nach Wolken, sagt ein Sprichwort, kommt die Sonne, 
Die Sonne aller aber ist das Becht." 

the emperor mutely points heavenward with his eane. Grill- 
parzer gives US with a f ew vivid and graphic strokes an insight 
into Rudolf 's mind, the foreshadowing of the end of his life, 
whieb came early in the next year, as well as the end of his rule 
as King of Bobemia, whieb f ollowed at onee upon the def eat and 
retreat of his army. We see that same reticenee that was so 
marked at bis first entranee, as well as a definite expression 
(''weist mit dem Stab gen Himmel") of his feeling of absolute 
inability to cope with the Situation, whieb was but indicated in 
the Pantomime in the first act. — ^While Julius is remonstrating 
with Rudolf, saying that right will in the end prevail on earth as 
well as in Heaven, the sentry who has been posted by the Citizens 
of Prague to guard the wall at this point against a possible 
second entranee of the emperor 's troops, ealls out a challenge. 
Rudolf Starts at the call but says not a word. Rumpf explains 
who those sentries are, stationed to guard the gates. At this the 
emperor shakes his finger violently in the direction of the city ; 
and when Julius announces the Coming of the other dukes to beg 
pardon of Rudolf, saying that the earth is of itself retuming to 
its former State of peace and order out of very horror at the 
conditions that have prevailed so long, the emperor points at the 
ground and strikes it repeatedly with his staff; then he retires. 
The same gesture of striking the ground was used in the first act 
as a mark of extreme impatience. 



254 Univenity of CaUfcmia PtthlieatioM in Modem PhOology. [ VoL 2 

FoUowing immediately npon this scene is a similar one, again 
with almost exclnsive pantomime on the part of the emperor. 
Don Caesar has been brought to one of the towers of the palace 
half demented. He has killed Lucretia and in the fever of his 
madness would destroy himself . It is theref ore imperative that 
there be free entrance to his room to protect him from himself 
and to continue the care which the physicians have given him; 
they have opened one of his veins to relieve the fever. The 
Castle, however, is nnder the dose surveillance of the Citizens of 
Pragae and the keys are in their hands. Julius has succeeded 
in securing the key to Don Caesar 's room, and one of the servants 
now hastens up to him and requests it, f or the prisoner has tom 
the bandages from his arm and is in danger of bleeding to death. 
At this the emperor tums and looks sharply at the messenger; 
Julius repeats the message and is about to deliver the key 
when Budolf motions that he will take it himself. Despite the 
remonstrance of the duke he walks silently up to the well in the 
yard and drops the key down into it. Only then does he speak 
and, with a voice that beginning resolutely finally chokes with 
tears, pronounces judgment upon his son : 

"Er ist gerichtet, 
Von mir, von seinem Kaiser, seinem — Herrn I ' ' 

The actions of the emperor, unaccompanied as they are by any 
words of explanation, are appalling in their f orce and inexorable- 
ness. Wonderful is the effect then of the few words that he does 
utter as the climax of his silent judgment. Then he totters from 
the stage, leaning upon Bumpf , a pathetic picture of defeat as a 
ruler and of victory as the upholder of the social order, which 
has been vindicated with the blood of his son. — ^In none of his 
dramas has Orillparzer made so f requent and so dramatic a use 
of gesticulation, unaccompanied in the main by words, as in this 
delineation of Budolf 's character in Ein Bruderzimst. There is 
one other instance of its effective use at the very end of the 
play (132). The last picture that is left with us is that of 
Matthias, the new emperor, alone, kneeling at some distance from 
the imperial insignia which have just been brought. With his 



1912] Serrmann: Histrionics in the Dramas of FratiB GriUpareer. 255 

face tamed toward them he beats bis breast in an agony of 
remorse. Then, as the cries ' * Vivat Matthias ' ' reach bis ears f rom 
tbe multitudes, be Covers bis face witb bis bands at tbe realiza- 
tion of bis impotence in coping witb a Situation wbicb be bimself 
has created. Tbere is a poetic justice in tbis tableau-ending to 
tbe drama wbicb gives a sense of satisf action and of completeness. 

In Die Jüdin von Toledo Babel 's cbaracter is early tbrown 
into relief by means of tbe masquerading scene in tbe garden- 
bouse (ix, 158 f.). Her imaginativeness, ber vanity, ber unusual 
naivete in disclosing tbougbt and feeling, ber worldly wisdom, 
ber utter selfisbness, ber powers of seif -control, tbe absence of all 
self-conscionsness, are at once reyealed. It is tbe same device tbat 
we bave found in Ein Bruderzwist in Habsburg, — an early scene 
in tbe drama in wbicb by very füll pantomime and corresponding 
dialogue mncb ligbt is tbrown upon a leading cbaracter/ — In 
Weh dem, der lügt Galomir's first important introduction (viii, 
78 f.) 9 bere Coming in tbe fourtb act, is made vivid in tbe same 
way. At once, tbrougb bis constant gesticulation and discon- 
nected speecb, we bave tbe picture of tbe simple-minded, animal- 
like, clumsy fellow, very slow of tbongbt, and incapable of 
elaborate reasoning. 

GriUparzer sometimes opens an act of a drama witb a scene 
wbicb is to create tbe atmospbere f or tbe ensuing act. In 
Libussa, act II (viii, 134 f.), tbe curtain rises on an animated, 
idyllic scene in tbe open. Men are laugbing, talking, drinking, 
and playing cbeckers; dancing is going on in tbe background; 
a woman in tbe f oreground is playing witb a little cbild. Pres- 
ently a number of f arm laborers enter singing, and tbe next relay 
of men witb joyons readiness leave tbe scene to take np tbe work 
in tbe fields. Tbe game of cbeckers comes to a crisis, one of tbe 
players bas staked all bis money and lost, wberenpon tbe otber 
sboves back balf of tbe beap, tbat tbey may go on playing. Now 
a young pair of dancers come f orward ; tbe old f atber of tbe girl, 
wbo is remonstrating at tbe love affair tbat is flourisbing before 
bis eyes, is tben and tbere balf won over to give bis consent. 

• Cf . p. 251. 



256 Univernty of Cälifomia Püblicatians in Modem PhiMogy. [VoL 2 

Enter then, amid great jnbilation on the part of the women and 
children nearby, a troop of miners making mnsic and carrying on 
their Shoulders a large tray upon which is an exhibit of metals. 
The whole seene represents the condition of the people iinder 
Libussa 's gentle reign. They are leading a very ideal lif e givai 
over to agricultural pnrsuits, are contented and happy and seem 
to be dominated by nnselfishness and love f or one another. The 
introduction of the miners gives opportunity for Libussa 's later 
remark when Wlasta calls her attention to them as they bring 
their off ering : 

"Mich ekelt an der anspruehsvolle Tand. 
Die Butterblumen hier sind helles Gold, 
Und reines Silber nickt in diesen Glöckchen. 
Hat jemand Last an ihrem toten Hort 
Zu Sehmnek und zu Gerat, sei's ihm gegönnt.'' (143) 

So the description at the beginning of the fifth act (198), of the 
maids who are busied with sewing and spinning, suggests to us 
the simplicity of Libussa 's life since her marriage with Primis- 
laus. — Der Qasifreund opens with a picture of Medea standing 
bow in hand in the pose of one who has just discharged an 
arrow; before the altar in the background lies the deer which 
she has brought low and which she is presently to offer as a 
sacrifice (v, 9). We are immediately transported to a bar- 
barian land, where the Princess Medea is at the same time 
priestess and huntress. — ^Atalus at the beginning of the third act 
of Weh dem, der lügt (viii, 53) is discovered idly toying with a 
stick, while Leon is busily engaged in preparing food for the 
banquet. At a glance we have a forewaming of the part that 
he will play in the flight. So in the third act of Der Traum, ein 
Leben (vii, 156) the king enters, leading by the hand Rustan and 
Oülnare. We see at once that Bustan has reached the goal for 
which he has been striving. 

Grillparzer has twice made use of the motive of tying some 
article of personal apparel belonging to the beloved maiden about 
the staff or sword of the lover. The act is done, however, with 
two very different ends in view. Leander binds Hero's veil about 
a staff and calls it his Standard. He lays it before his shrine, 



1912] Herrmann: HUtrionics in the Dramas of Franz Grülparzer, 257 

calling upon the god to gnard it f or him. Later he carries it with 
him when he swims across for the last time to Hero's tower. It 
is discovered by lanthe cast up on the shore just before she finds 
the body. Leander 's act is a symbolic expression of his feeling 
that Hero is hereafter his gaiding star (vii, 75 f.) . He will wear 
her colors, as it were. The act in its purport is comparable with 
fhe mediaeval custom in accordance with whieh the lady tied her 
sash to her lover's arm before his departure for battle. — ^More 
nearly like this custom is Edrita's cunning device in Weh dem, 
der lügi, by means of which she diverts Galomir and so wins 
time and opportunity for the approach of Leon and Atalus. 
Galomir has tracked the fugitives and is almost upon them when 
Edrita discovers herseif to him and then so skillfuUy occupies 
him that the two youths can steal up unawares and take the 
ungainly f ellow prisoner. Her plan is to seem to consent to his 
Position as her recognized betrothed and so to bewilder his simple 
mind with complete acquiescence that he does not notice that she 
is gaining possession of his weapons (viü, 811). She seats 
herseif beeide him and says : 

''Euer ist dein Schwert, das gut und stark, doch schmucklos. 
Was gibst du mirf so knüpf ich dir ein Bändchen, 
Das, etwa blan, ich trag an meinem Hals, 

[sie macht eine Schleife am Halse los] 
Wie, schau' nur, dies, das knüpf ich an dein Schwert." 

Galomir lunges at her with his band as she removes the ribbon 
at her throat, whereupon she bids him go gently. This suggests 
to her an old custom : 

"Zieh aus dein Schwert und lehn es zwischen uns, 
So machen sie 's bei der Vermählung auch, 
Da liegt ein Schwert erst SEwischen beiden Gatten." 

He obeys her bidding and so without arousing his suspicions she 
secures the sword and proceeds with the binding of the ribbon 
about its hilt, coughing as she does so to let Leon know that 
now is the time to approach. When the adomment of the sword 
is complete, she claps her hands with joy at its beauty and as 
if accidentally lets the sword fall to the ground. When Oalomir 
stoops to pick it up, Leon and Atalus step forward and the 



268 Univerniy of CäUfcmia Püblieations in Modem Phüology, [ YoL 2 

saccess of the rase is complete. The significance of the action 
of binding the ribbon to the sword is most effective in its irony, 
and so Stands in glaring contrast to the deep serionsness of the 
corresponding scene in Hero, In the latter, however, the ineident 
does not form an essential part of the dramatic action. 

It is interesting to note in Der Tratim, ein Lehen how dosely 
and skillfully Grillparzer has foUowed the typieal features of 
our usoal dreams. Bnstan's efForts to stop the drinking cap 
which the old witch has roUed out f rom behind the cortains 
about the king's bed, his repeated attempts to pick it up, and 
his exhaustion when he finally sacceeds (vii, 181), are an admir- 
able copy of the agony through which we go in our dreams when 
the simplest act seems well-nigh impossible. Again, the action 
of *'der Mann vom Felsen" (180), who is about to hurl at 
Bustan the adder which he holds in his band and which gnaws 
at his breast, and who disappears when Bustan falls to the 
ground crying ''Entsetzen," is a very typieal and frequent 
occurrence in dreams, — ^the sudden hurling of a missile which we 
cannot escape and its disappearance as we move or cry out. . 

In Blanka von Kastüien the struggle that goes on in 
Fedriko's heart between his passionate determination to save the 
queen's life and his sense of honor as commandant of the fort 
is effectively depicted by a few moments of silent pantomime 
after his description of the secret passage (x, 128). At the 
Word ''Kommandant" the whole enormity of the disloyalty to 
his ofSce, of which he is about to be guilty in delivering up one 
of the keys, comes over him with telling f orce and he suddenly 
stops Short. He hastily looks about him for a possible eaves- 
dropper; then his head drops upon his ehest and with folded 
hands he stares at the floor. Presently he pulls himself together 
and then goes on with the unf olding of his plan. 

One other significant instance of the dramatic use of panto- 
mime should be mentioned. At the moment when the chief 
priest in Des Meeres und der Liehe Wellen extinguishes the lamp 
in the tower which is to guide the daring swimmer, Hero moves 
in her sleep and sighs, and just as we are beginning to hope 



1912] Herrmann: Bisirionies tn ihe Dramas of Frone QriUparger. 259 

that she may awaken to avert the impending disaster she sinks 
more deeply into sleep, her head glides from the hand that has 
snpported it and rests upon her upper arm, while the lower arm 
hangs limply beside the bed (vii, 89) ; the whole change in 
postore snggests her f alling into prof ound slmnber. It is a 
delicate and very beantiful bit of action; it is followed by the 
words of the Tempelhüter: "Mich schaudert. Weh! Hätt' ich 
mein Oberkleid !'' and these, with the sudden eoming of complete 
darknesSy enhanee the dramatie effect of the movements of the 
sleei)er and increase our forebodings. The important element 
in produeing the effect is, however, the coupling of the priest 's 
action with Hero's stirring in her sleep. 



260 ünivernty of CaUfomia PüblieaUant in Modem Phüology. [VoL 2 



III. THE DETAILS OP GESTÜEE AND ACTION 

Grillparzer said that he could read in the faces of the com- 
monplace people about him^ in their gait, in the attitude of 
members of the same family one toward the other, and in the 
half involuntary words dropped by them, whole biographies/ 
Nay more, he maintains that this divination of the lives of the 
obscure through a ^ympathetie scnitiny of the outward expres- 
sdon of their thoughts and feelings is a necessary prerequisite to 
the understanding of those characters who, being above the 
average, become the theme of the dramatist. He calls himself 
''ein leidenschaftlicher Liebhaber der Menschen" and goes on 
to say : ''als einem solchen ist mir jedes Volksfest ein eigentliches 
Seelenfesty eine Wallfahrt, eine Andacht." Certain gestures, 
expressions of the face, tones of the voice, and so forth, become 
then to Grillparzer unmistakable signs of particular emotions 
and moods. 

1. Faob and Heao 

There are certain stereotyped movements of the head that we 
find in the dramas. Queen Gertrude dismisses her councillors 
with a nod (vi, 174) ; Rudolf nods in silent and scomful affirma- 
tion when Julius assiduously tries to explain away the challenge 
that the guards call out to the emperor in his own palace yard 
(ix, 105) ; when Rumpf announces the request of Zuniga for a 
hearing, he simply shakes his head in refusal (ix, 18). Edrita 
calls out so that Galomir may hear, that they are going straight 
into the woods now, all the while, however, shaking her head at 
Leon, as a token that that is simply to hoodwink their pursuer 
(yiii, 83) ; Bertha shakes her head in disbelief when Jaromir 
reveals to her his identity (iv, 75) ; the shoemaker shakes his 
head dolefully as he prophesies evil (xi, 223). "Still," "schwei- 
gend," "heftig," "schmerzlich" are used to characterize this 



7 Der arme Spielmann, ziii, 227. 



1912] Herrmann: Sistrioniea in ihe Dramas of Frans ChiUparBer, 261 

movement of the head; and in the case of the ehaneellor whose 
duty it is to announce Ottokar 's defeat in the election of the 
emperor, the phrase ''mit gefalteten Händen" is added, giving 
the sense of calm resignation and finality (vi, 64) . The head is 
nncovered during prayer (vi, 145) or for other religious cere- 
monies, as in f orming in procession in order to proceed to mass 
(ix, 29) ; in the presence of death (iv, 101) ; also before royalty 
(vi, 88) . Badolf commands those about him to eover their heads 
again as soon as Ottokar speaks to him as one human being to 
another, not as vassal to lord or as prinee of the realm to the 
emi)eror (vi, 88). — The head is laid upon the arm which rests 
upon a table or a pillow, as a sign of mental or physical 
weariness: 

"li&BB mich hier in diesem Stuhl, 
Bis die Sinne sieh gesammelt 
und ich wieder selber bin," 

says Jaromir, as he rests his head on his arm (iv, 34). — In Die 
Jüdin, Isaak has been in hiding since the uproar attending the 
murder of Bahel and, as Esther enters and would relate the 
horrid tale, refoses to believe or even to listen; he crouehes 
on the floor leaning his head against the chair, an image of 
wretched cowardice (ix, 203). — ^In a letter to Julie Löwe,* the 
sister of the actor who was to take the part of Otto at the first 
presentation of Ein treuer Diener seines Herrn, Grillparzer wrote 
the following directions for Otto 's attitude in the fourth act 
after the death of Emy: **Otto wird stumpf .... Eine 
klanglose Stimme, ein dumpfes Vorsichhinstieren, im Sitzen den 
Kopf zwischen die Schultern gezogen, würde die beste Haltung 
nach aussen hin sein." The attitude is one of vacant brooding. 
''Nur das Gefühl der gegenwärtigen Gefahr ist in ihm lebendig," 
Grillparzer goes on to say. This goads Otto to spasmodie out- 
bursts, after which he sinks back into his former state of dull 
lethargy, this time, however, leaning his head back in the arm- 
chair in which he is sitting (vi, 224). One other instance of this 
gesture may be here mentioned: at the end of the first act of 



8 Briefe und TagebOcher, ed. Glossj and Sauer. Vol. i, Briefe, p. 90. 



202 Ufiiversity of C4a%fomia Publioatümt in Modem PhOology, [YoL 2 

Sappho, after the poetess has sung her ode in which she has 
invoked Aphrodite to her aid in the impending struggle for 
Phaon's love^ ahe leans her head wearily back against the terraoe 
(iv, 155). 

The gesture which is directly opi>08ed to this, that of raising 
the head, is typical of coorage and action : 

''Den Kopf empor und alles friseli bekannt 1 " (iv, 159) 
''und 80, gehobnen Haupta, mit furchtlos offnen Bücken, 
Entgegen kühn den kommenden Geschicken. ' ' (viii, 132) 

The raising of the head is also connected with an aggressive 
f rame of mind, or with arrogance : 

' ' Der Undank hob sein Haupt auf gegen mich ' ' (yi, 130) ; 

" .... Wie er einhergeht. 
Mit aufgeworfnem Nacken, hohem Haupt, 
Als fordert ' er Gott selber auf zum Kampf. ' ' (xi, 167) 

It may, on the other band, be merely a mark of attention : Medea 
says to the maiden who kneels at her f eet begging her pardon, 
''Was ist!" at the same time raising her head from her brown 
study (y, 56). In Hero both head and arms are thrown into the 
air as a gesture of intense and despairing longing (yii, 102). 

To retum to the gesture of resting the chin upon the breast. 
We find it again in Die Argonauten (v, 85) accompanying brood- 
ing, though in this instance the gesture is expressed in the stage 
direction; in the characterization of Rudolf it is typical of bis 
habit of dreaming (ix, 26) ; with Babel it is an expression of fear 
and aceompanies the action of embracing the knees of the king 
in supplication (ix, 146) ; again, though insincerely, it expresses 
in her self-consciousness and timidity (160) ; in Leander, irreso- 
luteness (vii, 36). When Phaon gives Melitta the rose, the 
depth of her emotion is shown by the f act that she Stands im- 
movable with head and eyes cast down (iv, 165), a posture 
identical with that of Medea after Jason kisses her and says : 

"Und dieser Kuss sei dir ein sichres Pfand, 
Dass wir uns wiedersehn." (v, 54) 

This is again a supreme moment of emotion too deep for im- 
mediate expression. — The sinking of the head is an expression of 



1912] Serrmann: Histrionics in the Dramas of Frans Orülparger. 263 

humiliation in Ottokar, who has just knelt as a vassal before 
Rudolf (vi, 97) ; in Hero, of impotence, when she is hindered 
from going to her dead lover (vii, 96) ; in Bustan, of despair, 
when flight seems impossible after the death of the king (vii, 
183) ; in Jason, of distracted bewilderment, as he comes out of 
the cave with the fleece, which he has wrested from the guardian- 
ship of the dragon (v, 115). It is the stereotyped attitude for 
deep thought (vii, 171) ; for prayer (vi, 138) ; in the presence 
of death (vi, 144). 

With Grillparzer the most violent physieal expression of 
despair is that of pressing the face upon the ground. In Ottokar 
Bertha, who has been the sueeessf ul f avorite of the king, leams 
that she is abandoned and that the king is about to wed another. 
With a ery she throws herseif on the ground and presses her 
face against it (vi, 13). Later she goes mad with grief. There 
is a similar Situation in Sappho (iv, 181), where Melitta enters 
after having carefully clothed herseif, with roses in her hair and 
at her breast, and Sappho is overwhelmed by her beauty and 
youth and evident advantage in the struggle for Phaon's love. 
She Starts as she sees the maiden and, eovering her face with 
her hands, buries it in the grassy bank where she has been sitting. 
In Psyche (xi, 126) it is an attitude of pensive longing. In 
Der Traum, ein Lehen Bustan presses his brow against the floor 
in an agony of contrition as Oülnare announces that she will 
share the crown, left vacant by the death of her f ather, with her 
supposed rescuer (vii, 185). Violent grief at the death of a 
beloved one is expressed by burying the head in the pillows upon 
which the body lies (vii, 101) ; a feeling of guilt at being instru- 
mental in causing death, combined with great sorrow, is mani- 
fested in the same way by Bertha at the couch of her father, in 
Die Ähnfrau (iv, 93). 

The eovering of the face is in general the natural expression 
of a feeling of overwhelming sorrow or of shame and remorse. 
It is of ten accompanied by weeping. The face is either covered 
with hands or garment, or it is buried on the Shoulder or breast 
of another, who is either the comf orter or the one in jured. When 



264 Univenity of Cälifarnia PübUeatUmt in Modem PhiMogy. [ YoL 2 

Medea buries her face on Krensa's Shoulder and weeps as she 

says: 

<'£8 war 'ne Zeit, da hätt' ieh Mlbst geaehaudert, 
Hätt' ieh ein Wesen mir gedacht, gleich mir! " (v, 147) 

the f eelings that prompt the gesture are a combination of sorrow, 
contrition, and despair. As Phaon and Melitta plead their 
cause at Sappho's feet, she Stands with her face leaning upon 
Eucharis' Shoulder, pain, pride, resentment, and a feeling of 
numbed hopelessness battling within her (iv, 217). But the 
attitude is a wistful one in Medea when Peritta eomes as a sup- 
pliant telling of the imprisonment of her young husband and 
the buming of their home; love for Jason has begun to stir in 
Medea 's heart, and she who was wont to be cold and harsh is 
suddenly moved to tears as she rests her brow upon Peritta 's 
Shoulder (v, 58). Later, when Jason leads her to her father 
after he has tried to f orce her to confess that she loves him and 
she has withstood the temptation to break away from the old 
lif e and to f ollow him, the struggle within her that attends the 
choice is so cruel that she says: **In schwarzen Wirbeln dreht 
sich 's um mich" (95) ; and so she buries her face on her father 's 
breast and weei». Similarly Blanka, pressing her hands upon 
her breast, leans her head upon Jaqueline's Shoulder, overcome 
by pain at parting from Fedriko (x, 51). Milota covers his head 
with his mantle and departs, after he has laconically announced 
to Ottokar the death of his brother and the madness of his niece 
(vi, 141). Eunigunde covers her face as Rudolf and the others 
about the bodies of Ottokar and Margarete bare their heads and 
pray for the dead (vi, 145). Aietes covers his head in an atti- 
tude of prof ound gloom as he broods over the killing of Phryxus 
and the coming of the Argonauts to avenge the murder (v, 39). 
Medea covers her face as the prophetic words of her father sud- 
denly come to her mind, that Jason will cast her from him; 
now the fulfillment seems at band, in that he bids her remain 
without the city while he goes within to greet King Kreon (v, 
139). The gesture is again used by Medea in consequence of a 
certain hideous thought that comes to her, when Oora, the nurse, 



1912] Hertfnann: HUtriomcs in ihe Drama» of Frans Grülpareer. 265 

hints at fhe murder of her riyal, Ereusa, as a Solution f or her 
imhappy Situation (v, 181). She tries at once to dismiss the 
thought f rom her mind and Covers her face in shame and fear 
at its possible power over her. — Shame at a confession which has 
to be made leads Emy to hide her face on her husband's breast 
{vi, 193) ; he says to her: 

" .... Scham dich an meiner Brust I 
8o recht, den Kopf im Winkel eingeduckt, 
Die Augen zu; recht wie der Vogel Strauss. 
Und so läse sprechen uns. ' ' 

Shame and remorse cause Marie to cover her face at the word 
"Buhlerin" (x, 94). When Oarceran, before the assembled 
nobles protests his innocenee of complicity in the king's moral 
aberration, Dona Clara, his betrothed, Covers her face with shame 
and confusion at the equivocal position in which he finds himself 
(ix, 190). 

Taking the head of another in one's lap is an affectionate 
gesture, as when the chancellor f ondles his dead king, to whom 
he has always given his deepest loyalty (vi, 144) ; or it may be 
done to protect a loved one against a threatened blow (v, 119). 

Tuming the face away is either indicative of disapproval 
(iv, 77), or it may express repugnance at something that is 
impending; Medea tums her face away as she is about to strike 
Jason with the uplifted dagger (v, 90). Tuming the face 
toward an object expresses the opposite emotion (v, 96). Frown- 
ing, an expression which occurs but rarely in Qrillparzer, is 
indicative of disapproval. The king 's ''Stime runzelt sich'' 
when the queen requests of him her brother as an assistant in 
carrying on the affairs of State during Andreas' absence (vi, 
165) ; in Die Ahnfrau (iv, 31) the term is "die [Augen-] 
Braunen runzeln," but the two actions are, of course, identical. 

Among the very f ew adjectives used by Qrillparzer in deserib- 
ing the face or head the foUowing may be noted: of the face, 
listig, grotesk (with Attsdruck), kraus, as well as the descriptions 
''Doch ünwiU glüht in ihrem Angesicht" (vi, 182), ''Entzücken 
belebt seine Züge" (x, 153) ; of the head, süss. 



266 Univenity of CaUfomia PubUeatiant in Modem Phüologjf. [YoL 2 

GriUparzer does not often represent his characters as blnsh- 
ing. In fhe few instances fhat appear he nses the worda Böte, 
Erröten, Schamerröten, schamgefärhte Stime, flammende Glut, 
Flammenglut, Olut, schamrot, glühend rot, erhitzt, erröten, sich 
röten, Überftammen. The eanses for this indication of aelf-con- 
seiousness are the usual ones : shame, modesty, shyness.* Blnsh- 
ing is, besideS) not confined to the women characters: Phaon 
blushes at Sappho's exaggerated praise of him when she presents 
him to her people (iv, 143) ; the blood mounts to Ferdinand 'a 
forehead for shame at the thought and menticm of the treaaon 
of which he and bis associates haye been goilty toward their 
rightfui master {ix, 113) ; Qomec reddens at having told bis 
friend a falsehood (x, 19) ; the count saya to the captain of the 
Boldiers who has asked bis permission to search the castle for 
the robbers: 

"leh gedachte meiner Ahnen, 
Deren Wort hier, weit und breit 
Mehr galt, als der höchste Eid, 
Unter denen der Verdacht 
Und des Argwohns finstre Macht 
Schamrot sich geweigert hätten, 
Diese Hallen sni betreten.'' (iv, 62) 

Babel speaks of Dona Clara, the chaste and modest betrothed 
of Oarceran, as being too pale for "wangenfrische Liebe" but 
adds that her lack of color is ofEset by the constant blushes which 
her excessive modesty induces (ix, 176) ; Mardochai asks Esther 
whether she can mention the insult to their race (''Man reicht 
nicht gern der Jüdin Hand und Bing," viii, 236) without 
blushing with shame; Melitta blushes vividly at the ridicule in 
Sappho's smiles at table (iv, 158) ; Maria, at Fedriko's implied 
insult (x, 78). 

The other instances of blushing have to do with the relation 
between maiden and lover. Melitta blushes when Sappho men- 
tions Phaon 's name (iv, 184). The blush on the cheeks of Medea 
is interpreted by Jason as a proof of her love for him : 



Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotums in Man and AnimaU, 
1873, p. 326. 



1912] Herrmann: Hisirümiea in the Dramas of Frane GriUparzer. 267 

<<Ieh seh '8 an deiner Wangen Flammenglut, 

du liebst, 

Liebst miebl" (v, 94) 

Blushing is often accompanied by an effort to hide the face. So 
here, Jason finally forces Medea to look into bis eyes. Again 
when Medea promises to be her father's support in bis old age, 
renouncing her love f or Jason, she says : 

''Lass dieb niebt stören die flammende Glut, 
Die mir, ieb ffibl' es, die Wangen bedeekt! " (81) 

— ^meaning thereby, that though this be a proof of her love f or 
the stranger, Aietes need not heed it, since it is within the power 
of mortal to refuse to follow an inclination, no matter how far 
out of his power it may be to awaken one. As in the other two 
instances, blashing here is a eonfession of love for the i)erson 
under discussion. Earlier in the play Aietes asks whether it is 
tme that Jason has dishonored her with a kiss, and Medea 
simply says, ''Las dir's sagen die Böte meiner Wangen" (63). 
Orillparzer conceives of the ability to blush as a mark of 
beauty in a woman and a characteristie entirely to be desired. 
In the scene between Primislaus and Wlasta, Primislaus com- 
mends the warlike maiden for her change to a more woman-Iike 
demeanor : 

"So bist du scbon, dein Auge, nicbt mebr starr, 
Es baftet milden Glanzes an dem Boden; 
Die Wange färbt ein mädehenbaft Erröten." (yüi, 188) 

Wlasta 's attitude is the result of eonfusion, for Libussa is 
Standing veiled in the background and Primislaus, seemingly 
nnaware of her presenee, has been addressing Wlasta in a more 
and more eonfidential manner, critieizing to her the very char- 
acteristie in woman which is so evident in her mistress. Here 
again embarrassment is manif ested not only by the blush bnt by 
the Casting down of the eyes as well. 

But the face flushes not alone f rom a feeling of shyness, 
shame, or embarrassment ; excitement, especially anger, canses a 
sndden rush of blood to the face. 'Thaon says of Sappho: 

** .... Die Wange rötet sieb, 
Von Zornes beissen Glnten aberflammt." (iv, 213) 



268 UniverHty of Cdliforwia Publteations in Modem PhOology. [VoL 2 

Mirza relates how Bastan's cheeks glowed with the fire of am- 
bition as Zanga told him stories of wars and battles and vietories. 
With this manifestation of bis excitement others are also bound, — 
he trembles, clenches bis hands, bis eyes sparkle, and he finally 
mshes out of the house with bow and arrows. The flushing of 
the face is, however, the first sign of the rising excitement that 
bis stimulated imagination produces (vii, 115). 

There is a more frequent use of the opposite expression of 
emotion, namely, the blanching of the cheeks. We find the fol- 
lowing terms : Blässe, Todesilässe, des Todes fahle Farbe; bleich, 
leichenblass, fahl; erbleichen, sich entfärben, sich verfärben, 
The combination of pallor with trembling is frequent; we also 
find ''wankend und bleich/' ''mit fahlen Wangen und schlot- 
terndem Qebein/' "bleich .... und tief betrübt," "bleich und 
verstört." The lips tremble and grow pale. Pallor is an un- 
mistakable evidence of fear and is recognized as such. Kiesel 
says to Matthias: "Verfärbt Ihr EuchT Nur Mut, nur Mut!" 
(ix, 16). When there seems to the observer to be no occasion 
for fear, pallor is interpreted as an evidence of physical illness, 
especially when accompanied by other evidences such as icy cold 
hands, trembling, or an unusual expression of the eyes. Banc- 
banus says to Emy, who has just had a disturbing interview 
with Otto: 

''Nicht krank f Und Todesblässe deckt die Wangen, 
Aufzuckend fiebert eisig jedes Glied ' ' (vi, 190) ; 

the count begs Jaromir to go to bed, for he is pale as death and 
bis eyes bum f everishly ever since the captain said that one of 
bis men knew by sight every one of the robbers (iv, 60). — The 
mere recounting of a piece of news f rom which one may ezpect 
dire results causes the blood to leave the cheeks : Kreon announces 
to Medea the finding of the magic ehest, which she had carefully 
buried with the hope of thus doing away with the old lif e, and 
her cheeks pale (v, 211). So the unexpected sight of the burial 
of the count, bis father, affects Jaromir deeply; he totters back 
into bis hiding-place with blanched face (iv, 116). — The imagina- 
tion will sometimes invest an insignificant occurrence with deeply 



1912] Herrmann: Histrionies in the Dramas of Frans Grülpareer. 269 

symbolic and presagefui meaning for one's own fate, with the 
corresponding physical reaction on the person coneemed : Hero's 
mother trembles and grows pale as she sees the mother dove 
despoiled of her nest in the sacred grove, interpreting the simple 
and eommonplace act in terms of her own impending, enforeed 
Separation from Hero (vii, 21). — ^A continued state of sorrowing 
marks itself upon the face with pallor: after Emy's death and 
burial Peter remarks upon Bancbanns' pallor (vi, 216) ; Gregory, 
the aseetiCy is pale and wom with sorrow over Atalus' fate (viii, 
11). — ^A mental struggle has the same effect: Libussa finally 
determines at Primislaus' importunity to don the vestments of 
the old lif e and with ceremony to eonsecrate the work of build- 
ing the new city, and as she enters, Primislans exelaims at her 
pallor (viii, 209) ; sinee the wanton slaying of Phryxus and bis 
eompanions, Medea has lived apart from her f ather, alone in her 
tower, sorrowing over the murderoos deed which eries for 
vengeance against her house, and now only at her f ather 's Coming 
to ask her aid against the Argonauts does she appear, gloomy 
and pale and changed from the bright and cheerfal maiden whom 
they knew before the deed (v, 39). — A sudden Coming face to 
face with a misf ortune which one has tried not to conf ront in 
its füll signifieance, or which one has forcibly put behind one, 
will blanch the cheeks : Günther relates to Bertha in all its grew- 
some detail the story of the ancestral ghost, and she reads in the 
pallor of her f ather 's face that it is true (iv, 32). — The eflort to 
renounce what is bound up irrevocably with one's happiness will 
cause the cheeks to grow pale : Leander says he will recover from 
bis love before evening, and bis jovial f riend replies : 

''und sagst mir das mit zuckend fahlen Wangen 
Und sehlottemdem Gebein und meinst, ich glaub 'sf " (vii, 35) 

In only one instance has an emotion of an entirely different 
nature the same effect upon the face : Hero tums pale with joy 
at the sight of her parents, whom she has not seen for many 
years (vii, 16). 

Altemating flush and pallor are an evidence of extreme fear, 
and of conf usion and despair as to the right course to pursue in a 



270 Univenity of Cälifcmia Püblioaiumt in Modem PhOology. [VoL 2 

crisis. While Bertha is binding Jaromir's wonnd he is sharply on 
the alert f or the step of the soldier whom he has barely escaped 
and whom he expects to see burst into ihe room at any moment 
His identity has not yet been disclosed to Bertha ; theref ore com- 
bined with the fear of capture is his dread of her discovery of 
his deeeption. In this instanee the twitchii^ of the Ups accom- 
panies great fear : "Gichtrisch zuckt der bleiche Mund" (iv, 70). 
Bustan's mouth twitches similarly and his eyes are wild with 
the fear of being finally discovered as the murderer of the man 
on the diff ; the king has just left him, having had his suspicions 
aroused, saying that he will examine the dead body while Bustan 
finds the dagger given him by the king and which is said to haye 
been found with the body (vii, 169). 

It is a significant fact that in Grillparzer's dramas there 
are less than half a dozen instances of kindly, merry laughter, 
and even these cannot all be classed under Darwin 's definition of 
the primary purpose of laughter, "the expression of mere joy 
or happiness. "^® There was little in the poet himself or in his 
life that would call out such expressions of happiness. Silent, 
moody, incapable of making strong friends or of securing the 
happiness of a union with a loving helpmate, harassed by 
financial cares and racked by physical pain, and during the 
greater part of his life misunderstood and unappreciated, he 
certainly could have known little of the spontaneous laughter 
that Springs from pure joy of living. Even his one comedy, 
Weh dem, der lügt, while exquisite in its humor, contains little 
of light joyousness and none of the broadly humorous situations 
(with the exception of Oalomir's mishap) to which we are accus- 
tomed in a comedy. The only instances of laughter untinged by 
scom or ridicule or malice are these : Budolf laughs out loudly 
while he reads in Lope de Yega (ix, 16), and again at the ruse 
by which Julius gains admittance to him (63). In Die Jüdin 
the king laughs indulgently at Bahel, who in a fit of petulance 






10 Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, 
1878, p. 198. 



1912] Herrmann: Histrianiea in ihe Dramas of Franz OriUparßer, 271 

is tossing the pillows about in the arbor, though pretending to 
be ill and weary : 

''Die Mattigkeit, zum Glück, läset etwas nach. 
Ah, GaTceran! Sieh nur, sie ist ein Kind! " (ix, 175) 

In Ottokar the queen laughs against her will at the antics of 
Zawisch, who has written her a love-letter and now pretends it 
was meant for the lady-in-waiting (vi, 50). Edrita's laughter 
when Leon relates to her the plot abont the bridge is pure 
merriment unmixed with ridicule (viii, 68). 

Laughter at a ridiculous Situation often yerges on contempt 
for the person who is exeiting the merriment. So Edrita laughs 
at Atalus' plight as he comes out of the ditch, where he has been 
sawing through one of the beams of the bridge, and Stands bef ore 
her covered with mud ; she touches him with her finger and mak- 
ing Sport of him says: ''Du siehst recht artig aus!" (viii, 69). 
Later, when Oalomir BteipH out upon the bridge and, as it gives 
way under him, falls into the ditch, Edrita bursts out laughing 
at the stupid, dumsy fellow, who though her betrothed, ezcites 
in her nothing but contempt and disgust (viii, 70). — ^Blois laughs 
as he relates how at the request of several pretty ladies he played 
a practical joke on a surly pedant, strewing peas on the steps 
which he had to ascend to do homage to the king and thus caus- 
ing him to fall prone, to the merriment of the Mng and his 
court (xi, 92). 

The words designating laughter are: lachen^ hohnlachen 
(frequent), auflachen, in Lachen ausplatzen; and the following 
terms are used to characterize laughter: laut, grimmig, unld, 
heiser, widerlich, höhnisch, verbissen, verzerrt, teuflisch. These 
terms throw light upon its usual purpose in the dramas. Ottokar 
"lacht höhnisch auf" when the servant says: 

"Zwei Tage habt Ilir nicht gegessen, nicht 
Geschlafen; denkt an Euer teures Leben 1" (vi, 101) 

Budolf responds in the same way to the words of Duke Julius: 
"Mich freut das Wohlsein Eurer Majestät" (ix, 100). Both 
have sufficient reason to know that their lives are no longer of 



272 Unwenity of CäUfornia Püblioatiant in Modem PkiMogy. [VoL 2 

great moment in their comitry's welfare. — The porter dismisses 
Mardochai 's inqniry about bis danghter with a sneer and a laugh : 
''Er [der König] aber wählte: nicht za wählen" (viii, 254); 
the councillor speaks in the same vray of King Ahasveros' enter- 
prise in summoning maidens to bis court and finding none to bis 
liking (239). We find taunting langbter in the dramas: the old 
witch laugbs sbrilly when Bnstan draws the enrtain about bis 
misdeed, saying, 

"Warum Decken denn nnd Hüllen, 
Wenn wir Rechtes nnr erfüUent" (vii, 170); 

and again, when Bostan presses the cup upon her saying, to 
soothe bis consdence, that he wiU have none of her poison, but 
is nevertbelees careful to pick up instead the harmless drink, thus 
leaving the possibility of mnrdering the king still open (171). 
The man on the cliff laugbs in mockery at Bostan when he slays 
the snake at which Bustan has aimed and which he has missed : 
''Ha, ha! Schlechte Schützen! Lernt erst treffen" (139). The 
mob gathered about Bancbanus' home taunts bim with having 
married so young a wife, laugbter and cries and ciapping of 
hands coming up to bim from the street beiow (vi, 153). Otto 
jeers at bim with loud laugbter when Bancbanus suddenly dis- 
covers that the counciilors have left the room, impatient of the 
long Session (174), and later the servants do the same when they 
discover bim still busied with bis papers wbile Otto courts bis 
wife (179). Hereford twice breaks out into beartlessly cruel 
laugbter as he recounts to Robert of Normandy the f earful f ate 
that has met bis loyal followers (xi, 96, 97). Atalus laugbs 
maliciously when the key upon which Leon depended to aid them 
in their flight is withdrawn and carried away by the servant ; he 
says in explanation of bis laugbter : " 's ist nur, weil du für gar 
so klug dich hältst" (viii, 55). Ottokar laugbs boarsely when he 
pictures to bimself the pligbt into which he will force bis enemy 
(v, 125). Maria, who is madly jealous of Blanka's hold on the 
king 's affections and who bates Fedriko for the insult which he 
cast in her teeth, suddenly leams of a secret which will work the 
certain ruin of these two, and her triumph at the unexpected 
revelation contorts her face into a laugh as she vows to con- 



1912] Herrmann: Siatrionioa in the Dramas of Franst OrtUparser. 273 

suminate their fall (x, 101). Later she laughs like a demon as 
ahe flaunts Fedriko's death sentence in his face and jeers at his 
horrified amazement (x, 117). 

We hear the cynical laugh in Zawisch, the worldly, reckless 
adventurer who stops at nothing, not even at trying to win the 
love of the queen. As he enters for the first time, the pathetie 
seene with Bertha is just being enacted; he Stands on the thresh- 
old regarding the group and then without a word bursts into 
laughter. After having goaded her to de8X)eration by his ironical 
description of the efforts of her family to bring about a union 
with the king, he laughs again loudly as she rushes f rom the room 
crying that she wishes to die at the feet of the queen who has 
been so wronged (vi, 14, 16). At the beginning of the second 
aet (44) he enters again, laughing; but this time it is at him- 
self, at the spectacle of himself in love with Kunigunde. In 
Gh)ra's grim laugh as Medea says 

"Läse nii8 die GR)tter bitten nm ein einfaeh Herz, 
Gar leicht ertragt sich dann ein einfaeh Lose," (v, 131) 

there is strong disbelief in the possibility of any happiness in the 
future for Medea and Jason. Medea 's wild laughter (v, 109) 
as Jason shrieks and staggers back from the cave where the 
snake which guards the fleece has darted out its head at him, 
is akin to the laughter of the mad, so great is the strain of the 
Situation, — ^the danger to Jason in securing the fleece -and the 
probability of dire results in the event that he does succeed in 
securing it. This laughter can in no way be connected with any 
feelings of possible satisfaction at an outcome which she had 
predicted, but must be regarded as a natural outlet for pent-up 
nervous energy, which is set free by Jason 's shrieks and sudden 
retum from the cave. Jason 's subsequent laughter as he lays 
hold of Archytas' Shoulder and takes the mantle, which he wraps 
about the fleece to hide it from his sight, must be interpreted 
in the same way, — Jason is almost beside himself with the horror 
of the experience through which he has just gone and his laugh 
is an actual physical relief (115). — There is cutting sarcasm in 
Ottokar 's laugh when he is told of the demands of the emperor 



274 Univenity of CaUfomia Püblicatumt in Modem PhiMogy. [VoL 2 

for fhe provinces which have been wrongfolly withheld by him 
from the empire : 

"Ha, ha, ha, hal 'ne Inst'ge Mar fürwahr I 
Und sonst begehrt der nene Kaiser nichts f (vi, 68) 

It is an ironically bitter laugh with which Mortaigne greets 
Norton 's conjeeture that a compromise will be the outcome of 
Dnke Robert of Normandy 's visit to King Henry, for he knows 
that sovereign's treachery too well to be anything but sceptieal 
about his keeping faith with Robert (xi, 54). 

There is one other nse of laughter in the dramas ; viz., to eover 
the embarrassment which one who has a secret goilt in his heart 
feels in the presence of straightforward honesty and which is 
only increased by the efFort to temporize. Eing Henry 's attempt 
to still the admonishings of his conscience and to divert the un- 
f avorable verdict of the world by calling him whom he is about 
to betray **duke" instead of "brother" fails with loyal Lacy, 
and the nnmistakable reproof contained in the latter 's emphasis 
on the Word ''brother" calls out an uneasy laugh from the king 
(a, 78). 

Grillparzer's characters do not often smile; and here again, 
in the majority of instances, there is mockery or malicious joy. 
Sappho smiles at Melitta, thus mildly taunting her with her 
absent-mindedness (iy, 158) ; there is a twinkle in the eye of the 
youth who has accompanied the three princes into the wood, 
bearing upon a cushion the riddle which they are to solve in 
Order to win Libussa; Domaslav says : ''Mir dünkt, ich sehe Spott 
in seinen Augen" (viii, 147), and later, as they are about to 
leave, Biwoy says: "Und lach nicht wieder, wie du vorerst 
getan" (156) ; Eleanore smiles in a superior way at the king 's 
attempts to construct an English garden to her taste : 

"So sind sie nun, Britanniens Kinder, aUe; 
Trifft man aufs Haar nicht den gewohnten Brauch, 
So weisen sie 's zurück und lächeln vornehm. ' ' (ix, 142) 

The smile as an expression of malicious satisfaction at another's 
misf ortune occurs in Blaiika von Kdsiüien when Bodrigo realizes 
that he has succeeded in inciting Maria against Blanka (x, 94) ; 



1912] Herrmann: HUtrionics in the Dramas of Franz GriUparBer. 275 

when he gloats over Blanka's and Fedriko's constemation at bis 
request for the keys (here it becomes a grin: "Er weidet sich 
grinsend an beider Schrecken," z, 142); and finally when he 
reads the letter that gives Fedriko fuUy into bis power (x, 162). 
Also in Robert, Herzog von der Normandie, when Hereford 
promises the king that he will undertake to captnre Robert (xi, 
82) and when the king mocks at Robert 's declaration that he will 
leave the camp against all odds (xi, 88). In the first scene of 
Blanka Fedriko 's smile during the conversation with Haro is one 
of contempt (x, 11). Toward the end of the drama, after the 
slaying of Haro, he looks f rom the bloody sword to the keys with 
a confused smile on bis face, for the enormity of bis deed bas 
not yet dawned ui>on bim and he is stiU half-crazed (x, 190). 

Instances of the smile prompted by the kinder emotions are 
the following: Robert forces a smile at Mortaigne's pledge of 
loyalty unto death (xi, 75) ; Hero's mother smiles at her jest that 
she will carry her to the ceremony if she wiU not come of her 
own will (vii, 23) ; Leander smiles at Naukleros' dramatic 
recital of Hero's actions at the altar of Hymen (34). 

** Lachen" and ** lächeln" are twice used figuratively: 

"Wohin der Blick sich wendet, 

Laeht'8 [das Land] wie dem Bräutigam die Braut engegen." (vi, 86) 
"Der Lenz senkt sieh lächelnd hernieder." (zi, 29) 



(( 



Lächeln' is once used in the very special meaning of ^'to bid 
defiance to" when Jaromir soliloquizes on the blessings that 
belong to bim who knows a father 's love : 

"Der schifft durch des Lebens Klippen, 
Lächelnd ob der Stürme Wut. " (iv, 112) 

Wbile Grillparzer bas not made frequent use of the act of 
kissing in bis dramas, there is exemplified in them a wide ränge 
of this act, f rom the kiss of maiden and lover to that exchanged 
between lord and vassal. 

There is a striking though hardly significant similarity in 
the stage directions for the first kiss exchanged between maiden 
and lover: in Hero, ''Sie küsset ihn rasch (vii, 60) ; in Sappho, 
Er drückt rasch einen Euss auf ihre Lippen" (iv, 167) ; in 



tt 



276 Univertity of CaUforma PvibUoaiumB in Modem Phüology. [Vol. 2 

Die Argonauten, ''Sie bei der Hand fassend und rasch küssend" 

(v, 54). In Hero the kiss is a pledge of love, in Die Argonauten 

a pledge that Jason will meet Medea again. — In Die Argonauten, 

BS Jason is about to leave Medea to secure the fleece at the risk of 

his life, Medea kisses him again and again passionately (v, 108) , 

realizing vagaely that with the gaining of the fleece the destmc- 

tion of their love and happiness will begin. In Ein treuer Diener 

Bancbanus and his wife Emy kiss one another f arewell when he 

leaves for the court (vi, 159). — The kiss on the forehead, while 

lacking all amatory significance, is bestowed by Sappho on the 

sleeping Phaon as she bids him waken (iv. 175), and again when 

she takes f arewell of him saying : ' ' Es küsset dich ein Freund aus 

fernen Welten*' (226) ; Medea kisses her brother on the brow 

(v, 120), and the spirit of the ancestress kisses Jaromir as she 

bids him depart in peace (iv, 123). Children kiss their fathers 

upon the brow and upon the locks in token of reverence (iv, 160) . 

The kiss of a parent brings with it a blessing: ''So, noch diesen 

Segenskuss" says the count to Jaromir (iv, 37) ; it is the symbol 

of complete confidence : 

^' .... dieser Vaterknas 
Sehliesst dich ein in nnsre Leiden, 
Sehliesst dich ein in unsre Frenden, Sohn" (iv, 47); 

Aietes kisses Medea in proof of his restored faith in her (v, 84). 
Kreusa kisses the younger of Jason 's children because his fea- 
tures are like his father's (v, 144). Sappho kisses Melitta with 
the affection of a mother (iv, 151), — and then again, as she notes 
the change that has come over her since her absence f rom home, 
with an increase of understanding sympathy (151) ; so Hero 
kisses lanthe, who before has meant little to her, after love has 
come to her and has opened and warmed her heart (vii, 69). 
Medea closes Gora's lips with her kisses when the old nurse 
declares that the glorious stranger whom Medea takes for a god 
is a mortal and a bold adventurer (v, 61). 

There is but one instance of a kiss exchanged between men, 
when Budolf kisses Ottokar as a symbol of vassalship : 

" . ... mit diesem Kubs 
Begrüss' ich Eneh als Lehnsmann und als Bmder." (vi, 97) 



1912] Herrmann: Hiatrianiet in the Dramas of Frans Qrittpareer. 277 

Joy at saccess is expressed by kissing the object which has 
been instnimental in the happy outeome (ix, 57). 

The kissing of the f ootprints of a person is an expression of 
the deepest possible reverence on the part of vassal to lord : 

"Solang' die Fürstin Vasthi seine Gkittin [des Königs], 
Drück ' ieh anf ihren Fnsstritt meinen Mund. ' ' ( vüi, 262) 

The kissing of another's haad is usually a stereotyped, cere- 
monial gesture in the dramas : as Don Caesar enters, he greets the 
king with the words, ''Ich küss' Eu'r Majestät die hohen Hände" 
(ix, 19) ; when Duke Robert 's generals take leave of him they kiss 
his hands (xi, 75) ; at a sign of recognition from Rudolf, Leopold 
kisses his band eagerly (ix, 30) ; the king bids Bancbanus kiss the 
band of the queen as a symbol of his willingness to be her loyal 
minister during Andreas' absence and at the same time to 
Petition thus for her favor (vi, 171). It may also be an expres- 
sion of gratitude, as when Peritta kisses Medea's band after she 
has wept with sympathy at her former maid's tale of distress 
(v, 58) ; a sign of deep emotion, as in the case of Bancbanus, 
who presses the band of little Bela to his lips, convincing himself 
thus that he for whom he risked his life is alive and well (vi, 
253). In one instance, the band is extended to a subject to be 
kissed, as an indication of forgiveness and retum to favor 
(viii,250). 

The expression of the eyes plays an important role in the 
dramas. The emotions are truthfully and unmistakably reäected 
in them, and so Grillparzer takes great care in deseribing them. 
For the fact that the dramatist attached the greatest importance 
to what might be read in the eyes and placed his entire reliaace 
upon their inf allibility in reflecting the feelings, we have abun- 
dant proof : Blanka calls the eye ''der plauderhafte Zeuge" 
(x, 125) ; Edred says : 

"Gottes Schrift in eines Mensehen Ange 
Ist wie der Schreiber wahr und kann nicht lügen." (zi, 203) 

Phaon says to Melitta (iv, 216) : 

"EnthüU der Angen schimmernden Kristall, 
Dass sie dir blicke in die fromme Brust. ' ' 



278 Unwenity of Cdlifamia Publieatians in Modem PhiMogy. [VoL 2 

When Otto avows that his intentions toward Emy for the future 
shall be only of the purest and best, she catches sight of the 
trinmph in his eyes and says (vi, 211) : 

"Ha, was war dast EnthfiUst dn selber dicht 
Tilg' erst den Schimmer dort ans deinem Auge." 

In Blanka we find : 

"Es rächt die Wahrheit ihr verletzt' Ghesetz 
Und macht dein eignes Aug' dir zom Verräter." (z, 19) 

The inability to look one straight in the eye is synonymons 
with treaehery and nntruth (ix, 82, 164 ; iv, 215) . The realization 
that the eyes can speak only the truth lies back of the impulse 
to east them to the ground : 

"Tritt hin vor mich und sag: Ich bin 'st Hörst dnt 
Ich bin 's, bin schuldlos t Und sieh mir ins Augel 
Nichts dal Den Blick nicht auf den Boden I Hier, 
Auf mich dein Aug! " 

(Bancbanus to Emy in Ein treuer Diener, vi, 193) 

A bad conscienee is a leaden weight which lies upon the eye- 
lids, forcing one to look upon the ground (x, 133). When Jason 
first comes upon Medea in the tower, he bids her look into his 
face so that he may read in her clear eyes the Solution to the 
riddle of her aetions ; he cannot conneet consistently in his mind 
her beauty and her reputation as a sorceress (v, 53). — To test 
a person's sincerity one gazes fixedly in his eyes: "er misst ihn 
mit durchdringendem Blick'' (x, 164), ''er fasst ihn ins Auge" 
(X, 19). 

But not only are the eyes important as absolute mirrors of 
the soul ; Grillparzer goes still f arther and imputes to them great 
power to affect those upon whom their glance falls : 

''Und war ein Funke Glut in diesen Männern, 
Die sich Vertreter nennen eines Volks, 
War irgend etwas nur in ihrem Blick, 
Das mehr als Eigennutz und Schadenfreude, 
Ich stünde jetzt mit ihnen drauss im Feld 
Und tötete mit Blicken den Verrat." (ix, 82) 

Seyf ried cries out to Ottokar, who has kiUed his f ather : 

"Der Kaiser hat verboten, dich zu töten 
Mit Waffen; doch ich will, ein Basilisk, 
Versuchen, mit den Augen dich zu töten. ' ' (vi, 140) 



1912] Hemnann: Histrionios in the Dramas of Fram GriUparser. 279 

Phaon declares that there are two daggers hidden linder Sappho's 
eyelids (iv, 187) ; and similarly Coiint Barotin: 

" .... noch haften 
Deine starren Leiehenblicke 
Mir, gleich Dolchen, in der Bmst." (iv, 25) 

Phaon says of Sappho: ''Ihr Auge tötet so wie ihre Hand" 
(iv, 187) ; Jason stares at the ground as though he would foree 
from its bosom his two ehildren who are dead (v, 224) ; Bahel 
toys with the king's hehnet, saying 

" .... Zweckwidrig für den Krieg, 
Denn er verhüllt, was siegreich meist, die Augen." (ix, 179) 

The expression of the eyes is with Grillparzer an important 
f actor in proving to the lover that the maiden retums his love : 
in the straggle through which Medea goes in resisting the temp- 
tation to f oUow Jason, she is twiee forced by him to look into his 
eyes and so give proof to him of her love (v, 76, 94). So the 
look in the eyes of the lover ealls f orth a response in the heart 
of the maiden : 

"Aas seinem Ang, seiner Hand, seinen Lippen 
Gingen sprühende Funken über mich aus. 
Und flammend loderte auf mein Innres." (v, 82) 

Bertha says to Jaromir : 

"Besser stund' es dem, zu schweigen, 
Der nicht weiss, wie Liebe spricht. 
Kann der Blick nicht überzeugen. 
Überred 't die Lippe nicht." (iv, 48) 

Jason, to Ereusa : 

"Wenn nach genützter Jugendzeit 
Der Jüngling auf ein Mädchen wirft den Blick 
Und sie zur Gattin macht von seinen Wünschen. 
Er späht nach ihrem Aug, ob es ihn trifft. 
Und trifft 's ihn, ist er froh in seinem Sinn. ' ' ( v, 160) 

The terms employed in describing the expression of the eyes 
throw mueh light upon the very fall use that Orillparzer makes 
of this method of characterization. To "Blick" and **Auge'' he 
applies the f oUowing attributes : aufgerissen, bang, beobachtend, 
blitzend, dunkel (not of the color of the iris), durchdringend. 



280 Unweniiy of CaUfonUa Püblioaiiotu in Modem PMMogy. [VoL 2 

düster, eisig, ernst, voll Erwartung, feurig, finster, freudeglänr 
zend, freudetrunken, funkelnd, furchtlos, grimmig, gross, heiss, 
hohl, hold. Klar, lebensmutig, lichtscheu, lieh, müd, milden 
Glanzes, mitleidig vorwerfend, sanft, scharf, scheu, schroff, starr, 
teünahndos, tief, tot, trocken, trüb, umherschweifend, unbeweg- 
lich, verächtlich, vernichtend, verstört, weitgeöffnet, wild, zornig. 
Of verbs denoting the use of the eyes, and of modifiers connected 
with such verbs, we find : ängstlich starren, jemanden ernst und 
fremd anblicken, jemanden flehend ansehen, forschend blicken, 
jemanden fragend ansehen, jemanden fremd ansehen, fromm 
und schelmisch blicken, grass or grässlich starren, jemanden mit 
Hoheit anblicken, jemanden lang und bedeutend ansehen, leblos 
starren, jemanden liebkosend anblicken, jemanden mistrauisch 
ansehen, jemanden rauh ansehen, ruhig vor sich hinblicken, 
sich schreckhaft umsehen, schweigend starren, jemanden starr 
anblicken or betrachten, die Augen staunend aufziehen, trüb 
starren, unverwandt blicken, jemanden verachtend ansehen, 
jemanden vertrauensvoll anblicken, jemandem verwundert nach- 
sehen, wehmütig gen Himmel blicken, jemanden mit erkünstel- 
tem Zweifel ansehen. The expression ''die Augen im Kopf 
heromdrehen" (v, 222) is conceived of as indicating horror; the 
roUing of the eyes may also be the resalt of anger (x, 92). The 
attitude of head thrown back and eyes raised heavenward ex- 
presses ecstasy (viii, 29). — ^''Starren" is a favorite word of Grill- 
parzer 's ; we find, in addition to the uses of the word recorded 
above, vor sich hinstarren, starr sehen, auf einen Punkt starren; 
it may indicate extreme preoccupation or meditation, fear, sor- 
row, horror, disappointment, reaction from great excitement 
(**Er [der Herzog] liegt, und starrt, und schweigt," vi, 197), 
despair, failure to grasp at once the fuU imi>ort of a blow, or 
silent accusation. 

In the Casting down of the eyes we find the stereotyped atti« 
tude of the seeress (viii, 124) ; an expression of the sense of one's 
unworthiness in the presence of a revered being (iv, 68) : 

^'Seh' ich diese reinen Züge, 
Senkt zu Boden sieh mein Blick'' (iv, 68) ; 



1912] Herrmann: Hisirianies in the Dramas of Franst QrülparBer. 281 

a confession of gailt (iv, 71) ; fear of the possible effeet of one's 
words npon the listener (iv, 98). It is also the natural posture 
of maidenly modesty (iv, 165) ; it may be the mark of a thought- 
ful character (viii, 260) or may indicate worry (v, 91), dejection 
(vi, 105), gloom (viii, 221), or mockery (iv, 158). — ^Placing the 
hand over the eyes is indicative of mental pain (x, 127). — GriU- 
parzer personifies the abstraction 'envy,' giving to it ''hollow 
eyes" (iv, 113) ; and he imagines that the stars stand about their 
master's throne blinking wisely with their eyes (ix, 25). 

OriUparzer attaches no shame to weeping and is far from 
coneeiving of tears as a sign of weakness ; they are to him, nnder 
oertain eonditions, a natural, sincere, and whoUy praiseworthy 
expression of f eeling belonging to men as well as to women, and 
in one instance they are cited as a proof of a man 's goodness: 

"Da bist gerührt, dne weinst I O gater Gott, 

Ich wnsst' es, mein Fedriko ist nicht bösel " (z, 67) 

Tears cannot be indueed hypocritically : *' Tränen lügen nicht," 
he says (ix, 204). He calls them ''des Schmerzes heilig Recht" 
(iv, 185), and even goes so far as to regard weeping in the light 
of a duty which we owe to the dear departed : 

"Und eh ich weiter rede, so erlanb, 
Dacifl ich, das Ang gedrückt an deine Knie, 
In Tränen derer denke, die gewesen'' 

(Bancbanos in Ein treuer Diener, Ti, 247) 

and 

' * Ach I ich sehe deine Tränen 
Treu sich schliessen an die meinen." 
(Graf Barotin relates to Hertha the story of her brother, iv, 19) 

Again he calls tears ''der Unschuld stumme Sprache" (iv, 185) 
and regards them as an evidence of the presence of kindness in 
the human soul (v, 58) ; Ereusa exclaims : 

Sie [Medea] ist nicht wild. Sieh, Vater, her, sie weint ' ' (▼, 147) 

— the faet that Medea can weep is sufficient to convince Kreusa 
that she is not a wild barbarian. — Even a robber, Jaromir says, 
may weep when the füll realization of his fate comes over him 
(iv, 75) ; the good that is in him has not been so stifled but that 



282 Univertity of Cdlifomia PvhlioatumB in Modem Phüology. [VoL 2 

it is still capable of manifesting itself throogh tears. Absyrtus 
says (v, 118) : ''Ich schäme mich der Tränen nicht, Genossen!" 
as he weeps with Medea at the struggle that is going on within 
her soul. — ^Bnt while no reproach attaches to weeping, we natur- 
ally finds sorprise expressed at tears in a strong man or woman 
when their cause is not apparent : 

" .... Dein [Wlastas] Aag' ist feucht. 
Was nnr erpresst der Starken diese Tranent" (vüi, 199) 

Jason says that they will ask him on his retum : 

" .... Wem gilt die Trane, 
Die fremd dir da im Männeraug^ funkelt t" (v, 96) 

Weeping is sometimes an expression of gratitude : 

'< .... Freund, weisst du uns Bat, 
So sprich und nimm des alten Mannes Dank, 
Des Landsgenossen Träne dir zum Lohn." (vii, 227) 

There is a peculiar respect, almost amounting to reverence, in 
this interpretation of the act of weeping which is significant of 
the whole dignity with which Grillparzer invests it. Emperor 
Budolf 's voice chokes with tears as he pronounces sentence on 
Don Caesar, his natural son (ix, 103) ; King Alphonso weeps 
with rage at Bahel's murder (ix, 204) ; Max, Rudolfs brother, 
is nigh unto tears at the indignity to which he and Ferdinand 
have subjected the emperor (ix, 106) ; Bancbanus, the strong and 
loyal minister, weeps at Queen Qertrude's affront to him — 
''Ich sagt' Euch 's, Herr! Ich tauge nicht dafür" (vi, 171), and 
again at the thought of his murdered wife (247) ; the hitherto 
calm, unmoved Leander sheds tears at the hopelessness of his 
love for Hero (vii, 34) ; Günther, at the death of his master (iv, 
123) ; Jaromir, at his desperate plight (iv, 75) ; the Jew Israel 
weeps with fear (ix, 204) ; Absyrtus, at losing his beloved 
sister (v, 117). — Among the women in the dramas, Bahel as 
well as Queen Eleanore, Melitta and Sappho, Medea, Blanka, 
Bertha, and Emy, all find relief for their pain in tears. Neglect 
from a loved one (ix, 176) ; sudden relief from long pent-up 
sorrow (ix, 192) ; loneliness (iv, 161) ; in justice at the hands of 
a dear friend (x, 38) ; sorrow (vii, 17; iv, 19) ; unrequited love 



1912] Herrmann: Histrioniea in ihe Drama» of Frone OriUparBer. 283 

(iv, 188, 206) ; wistful longing for a confidaut (v, 58) ; a fare- 
well (Yy 84) ; the conflict that comes from indecision as to the 
right path to be chosen in a crisis (v, 96) ; extreme self-deprecia^ 
tion {v, 147) ; emotional excitement (vi, 193) ; eamestness in 
pleading (vi, 188) ; these are the canses of the shedding of tears 
among Grillparzer's women characters. But one may weep for 
joy as well as from pain: Kallisto and Rhodope shed tears of 
joy at Sappho's retum (iv, 142) ; the old man whose grandson 
Fedriko has rescued from drowning weeps with joy at receiving 
the gift of money (x, 16). 

Hero's extreme sorrow calls out the metaphor, ''a sea of 
tears." Shesays: 

"O, ich will weinen, weinen, mir die Adern öffnen, 
Bis Tränen mich und Blnt, ein Meer, umgeben, 
So tief wie seine, so grauenhaft wie seins, 
So tödlich wie das Meer, das ihn verschlungen! " (vii, 96) 

2. The Voicb 

To Grillparzer the expression of the voiee is an important 
index of the feelings. Joy and sorrow and all the other emotions 
express themselves involnntarily in the voiees of his characters. 
He takes it for granted that overpowering feelings have their 
vent here beyond the control of the person concemed. Ottokar, 
who has expected the election to ofSce as emperor, on hearing 
the chancellor's announcement of his defeat, finishes what he 
has been saying in broken tones (vi, 65). So closely are the two 
bound together, mental condition and tone of voice, that Grill- 
parzer often States simply the emotion, leaving the reader to 
dednce from it the exact efFect on the voice: 

** Sappho, Gebt mir den Sieg, erlasset mir den Kampf! 

[Begeistert] 
Die Flamme lodert, und die Sonne steigt. 
Ich fühl '8, ich bin erhört I ' ' (iv, 226) 

How eareful Grillparzer is to suggest every change in the 
feelings of his characters by this means and how much imi)ort- 
ance he attaches to this method of characterization may be judged 
from the wealth of his vocabulary in describing the voice. 



284 UnMfenity of CaUfarnia Publicatiant in Modem PhOology. [VoL 8 

AgeSn here, as in the case of langhter, of wfaich we foand few 
joyous instanoes, ezpressions of joy f or the voice are compara- 
tively rare: heiter (Rudolf in Ein Bruderzurist, as he mentiona 
the Spanish author'a name, ix, 16) ; freudig (Bertha imaginea 
that her brother has retomed, iv, 102) ; schreiendf iumultuarisch 
(Jason, monmed for as lost, suddenly retnms, v, 67) ; jubelnd 
(the people, as Sappho retoms after her victories, iv, 141) ; 
Freudengeschrei (little Bela is safe, vi, 249) ; begeistert (Sappho 
feels that her prayer is heard, iv, 226) ; entzückt (Blanka 
describes her first meeting with Fedriko, x, 35). The foUowing 
epithets are applied to the voice affected by mental pain: 
tränenerstickt, mit unterdrückter Rührung, behend, zitternd, 
aufgelöst, überwältigt, von Schluchzen unterbrochen, klanglas, 
unbetont, kaum vernehmlich, fast unhörbar, halblaut, unruhig, 
furchtsam, ängstlich, erschrocken, schreckhaft, entsetzt, dumpf, 
gezwungen lustig, schmerzlich, schmerzhaft, schreiend, krei- 
schend, stark, streng, heftig, knirschend, unuriUig, grimmig, 
zornig, fast redend, rasch, schnell, übereilt, bitter, rauh, urild, 
urild erfreut, *^ schaurig, widrig, wirren Klanges,'' bewegt, matt, 
erschöpft, scheu und düster, kläglich, beleidigt, kleinlaut, 
niedergeschlagen, wehmütig, ruhig und ernst. There oceur also 
such expressions as die Stimme versagt einem; die Stimme 
stottert, bricht bebend; mit Absätzen sprechen, stockend. Other 
eharacterizations of the voice are: schnell, eifrig, lebhaft, 
mit Nachdruck, fest, stark, laut, übermütig, feurig, stolz, 
gebieterisch, ruhig, gefasst, gemässigt, mUd, ohne Strenge, 
ohne Tücke, gedämpft, leise, htUblaut (und verwundert), mit 
Würde, langsam, weich, schwärmerisch, demütig, verschämt, 
besänftigend, einschmeichelnd, zierlich, verbindlich, innig, ver- 
traulich, gutherzig, gütig, zart, mitleidig, mit Bedeutung, 
gedehnt, gespannt, frappiert, launicht, komisch, .trocken, feier- 
lich, tückisch, beissend, spottend, verächtlich, höhnisch, mit 
grimmigem Hohn, kriechend, betroffen, verlegen, verwirrt, mit 
erhöhter Stimme, mit geändertem Ton, wie im Traume. 

It is interesting to note to what extent in the characterization 
of Medea the tones of her voice play a part. While we must 



1912] Herrmann: Hittriomea in the Vramaa of Fran$ OriUparzer, 285 

recognize the f act that no dramatist attempts to prescribe all the 
changing shades of voice that the actor mtist observe, it is 
evident that Grillparzer considered a eertain amoitnt of such 
actaal stage direction entirely essential in the clear delineation 
of his characters. Medea, the heroine of the dramas which form 
the trilogy, is in her origin and training a ehild of nature; 
when Phryxns (v, 21) asks her, with the beauty of expreasion and 
the appreciation of what is lovely which we should expect of a 
Oreek, who she may be, she replies dryly and laconically, ''I am 
Medea, this king's child." There is none of the gentle sympathy 
in her voice that we find later in the Oreek Ereusa's and that 
speaks to us of culture and refinement. Then comes in Die 
Argonauten and Medea the conflict between barbarian and Greek, 
Medea's longing for something better, her final suceumbing to 
Jason, and the struggle within herself in trying to fit into a 
civilization to which she does not belong, with the tragic dose 
which mnst foUow upon such a conflict. Medea is not at peace 
with herself at any time; this is reflected in her voice. She has 
lived apart from her father and brother since the murderons 
deed which gave into Aietes' possession the golden fleece. She 
has brooded over the misfortnne that this will bring upon her 
house, and when her father calls upon her to come to his aid, 
even before she leams what the impending trouble is, her 
response is such that Absyrtus cries out : 

''Wie kläglich, Vater, ist der Schwester Stimme. 
Was mag ihr fehlen t Sie dauert mich! " (v, 39) 

So when she leams that the enemy have landed she fairly shrieks 
the words : * * Es ist geschehn ! Der Streich gefallen ! Weh ! " (42 ) . 
Her grief expresses itself in a natural, uncontroUed outburst. 
Her character as sorceress is illumined by the close of her 
prayer for light in the Coming conflict, where her voice mounts 
almost to frenzy (51). After the first meeting with Jason in 
the tower her awe at the apparition is disclosed in the whispered 
words to Gora, "Warst du zugegen heut Nacht?" (59). It 
is the gentle side of Medea that is emphasized here. Then f oUow 
such passages as ' ' [aufschreiend] Er ! Lass uns fliehen, Bruder I ' ' 



286 Univeriity of CaUfamia PublieatumB in Modem PhUology. [ VoL 2 

(88), when, despite her attempts to avoid Jason, she comes upon 
him in the forest; "[dtunpf] Geh — in deinen Tod!" (102); 
'' [halblaut] In der Höhle liegt's verwahrt'' (102) ; '* [weich und 
schmeichelnd] Qeh nicht!" (106) when Jason insists upon secur- 
ing the fleece. The conflicting emotions in Medea's heart are 
dearly shown, when with a voice choked with tears she says 
'^0 Bruder! Bruder!" to Ab^yrtus' question whether she would 
leave him, her home, and her father, and then, on his neck, in 
a scarcely audible voice ^'O, könnt' ich gehn mit dir!"; while 
when Jason steps up saying ''Du willst mit ihmf" she replies 
"furchtsam": **Ich?" (v, 1171). 

With some characters the same stage directions f or voice are 
repeatedly given, thus emphasizing some salient characteristic : 
for Matthias (Bniderztoist) we find streng and zornig; for the 
priest in Hero, streng, stark, and ruhig are used; for Gregor 
{Weh dem), the stem ascetic with quixotic ideas of virtue, 
stark; for Gtora (Medea), the carrier of the uncorrupted bar- 
barian ideal, dumpf and mit grimmigen Hohn; for the Emperor 
Budolf {Bruderzurist), in whom is the unrest resulting from 
inharmony with environment, we find heftig, also dumpf and 
bitter; for Ottokar {König Ottokar's Olück und Ende), the king 
with unsatisfied ambition, dumpf and zornig; for Jaromir 
{Ahnfrau), behend, schreiend, düster, wHd. 

3. Hand and Arm 

GriUparzer is able, through almost every conceivable gesture 
of arms and hands, to reveal great diversity of emotions. There 
is no phase of action (using this word in its broadest sense) of 
which he makes more thorough and more sympathetic use. The 
sense of touch is an important one to the poet, and he has 
observed dosely its manifestations in lif e. 

The person who has gone through great danger assures 
himself that he is still living by involuntarily feeling of his 
body: Bustan, awaking out of his terrifying dream, jumps up 
and passing his hands over his arms cries : 

"Leb' ich nochf Bin ich gefangen f 
So verschlang mich nicht der Strömt' ' (vii, 211) 



1912] Herrmann: Histrionies in the Dramas of Frans Grinpareer. 287 

It is not enough to see the object of one 's solicitude to be assured 
of his saf ety, the absolute test is to lay one 's hands upon him : 

" .... Ha, ieh rnuBS dich sehen! 
Dich umfangen, dich umschlingen. 
Sehen, fühlen, dass du lebst! '^ (iv, 66) 

Feeling of one 's neck is a more specific gesture, suggesting as it 
does execution, and is expressive of apprehension for the safe 
outcome of a venture which is about to be undertaken (viii, 59). 
More complex are the feelings that lie back of the instinctive 
grasping of a wounded part of the body, the effort to ease the 
pain and to afford the protection which comes too late (v, 52). 
Bertha tries to hold fast the count with her arms, away f rom 
death which is stealing upon him : 

"Vater, nein! — ^Nieht sterben! Nein! 
Nein, Ihr dürft nicht, dürft nicht sterben! 
Seht, ich klammre mich an Euch, 
Seht, Ihr dürft, Ihr könnt nicht sterben! " (iv, 94) 

To touch a beloved person is an instinctive gesture: Hero 
says to Leander in the tower, '^Lass das! Berühr' mich nicht!" 
(vii, 57) ; Edrita touches Leon 's band in her eamestness as she 
speaks to him of the new religion which is his and which has 
just come into her land (viii, 67) ; Melitta Starts violently as 
Phaon touches her band when he gives her the rose (iv, 165) ; 
Hannchen caresses her f ather as he sets out to make amends for 
the wrong which he has done Wilhelm, her betrothed (x, 225). 
The touch of the band may bring misfortune or contagion: as 
Kreusa retreats from Medea's hand-clasp the latter says ''Die 
Hand verpestet nicht!" (v, 146). An inanimate object may 
exert a mysterious influence upon him who lays hold upon it: 
Queen Eleonore begs the king not to touch Hähers picture, she 
fears it may in some way ensnare him again (ix, 197). The 
person who has wrongfully accused the king of crime may not 
touch even his garment without first recanting {vii, 163) ; the 
thought is similar to that lying back of the refusal to give one 's 
band to him who has been dishonorable, — ^acquiescence in the 
gesture would carry either approval or f orgiveness with it. 



288 Univenity of California Ptiblicatiofu in Modem Phiiology. [ VoL 2 

Grillparzer personifies abstractions as well as phenomena of 
nature, giving to them hands or arms : 

''Die Erinnerung mit schmerzlich süsser Hand 

Enthüllt die goldumflorte, lichte Feme'' (iv, 164); 
"Die Kunst zu schlürfen aus der Hand des Lebens" (iv, 148) ; 
"Der Augenblick pocht wie ein Gläubiger" (vi, 47). 

Not 80 unusual are these : 

' * Und im Staube liegt die Eiche, 

Die die reichen Segensäste 

Weit gebreitet ringsumher" (iv, 15); 
"Die Sonne .... 

Scheint erstaunt auf dich zu weisen" (vii, 214); 
"Die Natur winkt mir zu Grabe" (iv, 50). 

The resting of the head in the band is significant of weari- 
ness (**Legt ermattet den Kopf in die Hand," iv, 172) ; of 
thoughtfulness (''Sie legt, in (bedanken versanken, die Stirn 
in die Hand," iv, 154; of sorrow (**Bertha sitzt, den Kopf in die 
flachen Hände und diese auf den Tisch gelegt," iv, 86) ; of 
despair (vi, 122) ; of brooding (vi, 203) ; of pensive dreaminess 
(Hero waiting for the Coming of the night, vii, 81). 

Covering the face with the hands is a typical gesture of despair 
and sorrow: 

''Weh mirl wehM — Es ist geschehnl [die Hände vors Gesicht 

schlagend]" (iv, 74); 
"Birg nicht das Aug' in deine Hand, O Jüngling I 
Nein, frischen Mutes geh aus diesem Hain" (vii, 40). 

The gesture is connected with weeping, the hands being used to 
conceal the tears : 

** .... Nimm des alten Mannes Dank, 

Des Landgenossen Träne dir zum Lohn [Die Hand am Auge]." 
(viii, 227) 
"Verbirgst du dein Gesicht f Fort mit den Fingern! .... 

Das sind ja Tränen. Wief Leander! weinst f" (vii, 34) 

It is also an ezpression of horror and remorse : Bustan Covers bis 
face with bis hands as the man from the cliff, whom he has 
stabbed, plunges down into the river (vii, 155) ; Don Caesar 
falls upon bis knees and Covers bis eyes with bis hands as he sees 



1912] Herrmann: HUtrionics in the Dramas of Frane Grülpareer. 289 

that he has slain Lucretia (ix, 96). With Matthias (ix, 132), a 
combination of feelings prompts the gesture: remorse and the 
despairing realization of his unworthiness and inability to fill 
the Position of emperor. — The gestnre may also be caused by the 
expeetation of a death-dealing blow. Primislaus sinks through 
the trap-door and is alone in the throne-room surrounded by 
armed men : he sinks upon one knee and eovering his eyes bids 
the murderers strike (viii, 191) ; so Hero Covers her eyes with 
her band, as she awaits discovery by the watehman who opens 
the tower door suspecting that unusual things are happening 
(vii, 54). — Or the eyes are covered to hide some object from their 
sight: Gülnare Covers them to shut out the sight of the great 
serpent (vii, 143) ; Gora, the sight of the buming palace (v, 220) ; 
Medea covers her eyes as Jason becomes more and more insistent 
and as she struggles within herseif against the impulse to yield, 
— ^the gesture reveals the struggle as well as the desire to shut 
out from her view him who makes the temptation the harder to 
resist (v, 78). — The gesture may indicate indecision (v, 93) ; or 
pain at the recital of a distressing occurrence (iv, 210) ; or an 
effort to hide one 's thoughts: ''Birg nicht dein AugM zu spät! 
Denn es gestand (vii, 76). 

Placing the band upon the forehead indicates mental con- 
fusion and distress : as when Medea begs Jason to teil her whether 
her father's prophecy will come true; she cannot grasp its füll 
import and yet she has a presentiment that his wamings are well 
founded (v, 100) ; Otto rises from his bed at the queen's com- 
mand and rubs his forehead in sullen indecision as to his next 
Step (vi, 203). The movement is also connected with an endeavor 
to recall something that has been forgotten (v, 166), or with an 
effort to wipe out a painful memory : 

''O, presse nur die Stirn I du strebst vergebens, 
Du löschest die Erinnrung nimmer ausi " (iv, 221) 

Besides expressing mental strain it is a gesture indicating great 
physical weariness (ix, 150). — Impotent anger expresses itself 
most forcibly in the barbarian Kattwald, who Stands at the 
window tearing his hair, while Leon and Atalus escape with 
the connivance of Edrita (viii, 71). Two other gestures con- 



290 Univenity of Cälifomia Publicatimig in Modem PhOology. [Vol. 2 

nected with head and hands may be mentioned: Haman puts 
his hands over his ears as he says with a hyxK>critical display of 
virtue: '*Ich höre nichts. Bin taub" (viii, 263). The finger is 
laid upon the ups to command silence: ''Der Kanzler le^ 
Schweigen gebietend, den Pinger auf den Mund" (vi, 121); 
''Bustan bedeutet ihm mit auf den Mund gelegtem Finger, 
umzukehren" (vii, 186). 

The hand-clasp is a form of greeting or a farewell: the 
Argonauts press about Jason on his retum to them, shouting 
a joyous welcome as they grasp his hands (v, 68) ; the gesture 
especially expresses joy at escape f rom danger, — 

"Kiesel [Sich vor ihm (Matthias) auf die Kniee werfend nnd seine 
Hand fassend] Ihr seid 's, Ihr lebtl O, uns ist allen Heill " (ix, 40); 

the lords in Ein Bruderzwist shake Wallenstein by the band as 
they leave him (ix, 131). It carries with it the sense of a certain 
equality between the participants : Gregor will not allow Leon 
to kiss his band but insists upon the clasp, after the kitchen-boy 
has retumed from his successful mission (viii, 98) ; there is a 
similar Situation in Ein Bruderzwist where Rudolf greets with 
a hand-dasp the loyal Julius after he has been def eated by his 
own city, refusing to allow the prince to kiss his band in token 
of his allegiance to him as emperor (ix, 100). The shaking of 
the band is commonly an expression of regard or affection : 

"Nun, Freund, gib mir die Hand! Nun erst mein Freund" (vii, 35) ; 
' ' Im Lager hier sind alle Tapf em Brüder, 
und somit meine Hand" (iz, 35); 
" [Emys Hand in ihre beide fassend] Glaubt, ich lieb' Euehl 

Mein sehönes £[ind, ieh lieb' Euch, weiss es Gott! " (vi, 177) ; 
"So, noch diesen Händedruck. . . . 
So, mein Sohn, jetzt geh zur BuhM" (iv, 37). 

It is symbolic, too, of the closing of a compact : two of the princes 
in Libussa nnite against the third, whom they mistrust, and their 
trast in one another is sealed by a hand-clasp (viii, 156) ; it is 
a gnarantee of the sincerity of a promise : 

"Versprich es mir! Gib mir die Hand darauf! " (vii, 101) 

Of the symbolic use of the hand-clasp Orillparzer has the fol- 
lowing to say : 



1912] Eerrmann: Eiairianics in ihe Dramas of Frans OriUparser. 291 

"Die Beehte nur, obgleich dem Herzen femer, 

Gibt man zum Pfand von Bündnis und Vertrag, 
Vielleieht um anzudeuten: nicht nur das Gefühl, 
Das seinen Sitz' im Herzen aufgeschlagen, 
Auch der Verstand, des Menchen ganzes Wollen 
Hubs Dauer geben dem, was man versprach; 
Denn wechselnd wie die Zeit ist das Gefühl, 
Was man erwogen, bleibt in seiner Kraft." (ix, 193) 

Varions other f eelings and states of mind may prompt the clasp- 
ing, seizing, or touching of a person's band: gratitnde (Queen 
Gertrade thanks Otto with a pressure of the band f or the birth- 
day gif ts with whicb be bas bedecked the little prince, vi, 176 ; 
Gregor says to Atalus, ''Vorerst reich ihm als Schützer deine 
Hand,'* viii, 101) ; sympathy (Kreusa's gentle beart is touched 
by Medea's loneliness, and taking her band she says, ''Du 
Arme!", v, 146) ; remonstrance (Medea remonstrates with Gora 
at her commonplace and entirely unsatisfactory interpretation 
of the apparition of the stranger, v, 62) ; repentance of a basty 
Word ("Jason fasst entschuldigend seine Hand," v, 46) ; a 
desire to reassure one who is timid (Leopold takes Lucretia's 
band in bis as be says, "Erholt Euch, schönes Eind," ix, 59). 
Sometimes the gesture bas for its purpose the attracting and 
bolding of anotber's attention for an earnest appeal: Medea 
seizes Jason 's band as she pleads with bim not to seek the fleece 
(v, 102) ; Otto pusbes bis way througb the crowd and seizing 
Emy's band cries: "Warum verachtet Ihr mich? Ihr! 
Warum t" (vi, 195) ; in the fictitious deatb-bed scene whicb 
Gomez describes to Fedriko Blanka grasps bis band as she gives 
bim her last message to her lover (x, 18) . — Standing or Walking 
band in band suggests a high degree of intimacy or a close 
relationsbip : Kreusa leads Jason by the band to her father 
(v, 141) ; the king enters leading Giünare and Bustan, indicat- 
ing thereby the existenee of a close bond between them (vii, 156) ; 
Bertha and Jaromir stand band in band before the count (iv, 47) . 
The touching of anotber's face is in every instance a caress- 
ing gesture. Jason strokes Medea 's forebead as be takes one of 
her hands in bis and says: "Du liebst mich. Ich verkenn' es 



292 University of Caiifamia Pvhlieatiam in Modem Pltüology. [VoL 2 

nicht, Medea" (v, 138) ; Phaon raises Melitta 's face by the chin 
up to his (iv, 161) ; Ottokar tries the same gesture with his 
youBg wife, but here it smacks of condescension and a mere 
sense of duty, which is little to the taste of the proud, high- 
spirited Kunigunde (vi, 54) ; Rahel prophesies that the king will 
pinch her cheeks in recognition of her beauty (ix, 138) ; in the 
excess of his joy at their happy reunion with Oregor, Leon takes 
Edrita's face between both his hands as he says : * ' Edrita, schau ! 
Da sind wir bei den ünsem'* (viii, 98). 

Laying one's hands on another's head is likewise a earess but 
indicates at the same time tender solicitude: as Leander kneels 
at Hero's feet, she touches his head and wistfully dwells upon 
the danger of the joumey that lies before him (vii, 56) ; the 
king lays his hands ui>on the heads of Jason 's children when 
they are brought to him for the first time and says: ''Du arme, 
kleine, nestentnommne Brut!" (v, 144). 

Placing the band upon another's Shoulder indicates trust and 
confidence: Libussa lays her band on Primislaus' Shoulder as he 
unf olds his plan for the new city and says : 

' * Wohl, ich verstehe das, mein Primislaus, 
Und also bau nur immer deine Stadt" (viii, 203). 

It is usually an affectionate gesture (vii, 81) and suggests mutual 
understanding (iv, 160) ; King Andreas uses it as he speaks with 
Bancbanus about the loss of the queen and Emy (vi, 248). 

Embracing the knees of another is a stereotyx>ed gesture of 
prayerful entreaty: 

''Hin werf' ich mich vor dir und fass' dein Knie, .... 
Gewähre, was ich bat, gib Schutz und Zuflucht! " (v, 141) 

To lend emphasis to a command, the Speaker lays hold of the 
one addressed : Medea seizes Gora f orcibly by the arm as she bids 
her be silent (v, 132). 

Beating the breast is the most forceful of the gestures ex- 
pressing remorse : 

' * Dann schlägst du wohl auch reuig an die Brust ' ' (iz, 215) ; 
' * Der Herr ist kaum sein mächtig, schlägt die Brust. ' ' (iz, 86) 



1912] Herrmann: EUirionios in the Dramas of Frane GriUparzer. 293 

It also indicates despair and a realization of impotence, as when 
Jason, beating his breast, addresses the heart within it : 

"Zerspreng dein Hans nnd mach dir brechend Lnft! " (v, 136) 

This gesture appears to be based upon the idea of self-castigation 
by repeated blows with the elenehed fist, and is different in nature 
and meaning from the act of striking the breast with the open 
band, usually but onee, to emphasize expressions of self-eon- 
fidence or pride (the heart as the seat of strength and courage !) ; 
as when Banebanus quiets his wife's fears for his safety, saying: 

' ' und dann — hätt ' ich dies Haupt an sechzig Jahre 
Aufrecht getragen unter Sturm und Sonne, 
Damit ein junger Fant sich mutig fühlte 
Zu mehr, als drauss zu lärmen vor der Tiirf 
[Auf die Brust schlagend] Sei ruhig, Kind, mein Wächter geht 
mit mir!" (vi, 158); 

or when Ottokar exclaims : 

"Ich will sie lehren, an das Reich sich wenden I 
[Auf die Brust schlagend] Hier ist das Reich! " (v, 62) 

More commonly the heart is thonght of as the seat of the 
emotions: Libussa lays her band upon her heart as she says, 
"Ist's hier denn etwa Friedet" (viii, 146). "When this gesture 
is sudden and energetie, it indicates f right or mental suffering — 
especially when the band is pressed upon the heart and the 
fingers eontraet: "Medea, erschrocken die Hände auf Brust und 
Stirn legend" (v, 116); legt die Hand auf die tief atmende 
Brust (v, 78) ; Bertha, demented with grief, clutches convulsively 
at her breast where, she imagines, her brother has put a gnawing 
scorpion in the place of her heart (iv, 103). — The crossing of the 
hands over the breast occurs once as a symbol of retuming peace 
of mind (iv, 206). 

The f olding of the hands is an act which involuntarily accom- 
panies a prayer of thanksgiving or entreaty, or a fervent wish 
(ix, 83; vi, 71) ; it expresses likewise reverent awe at an oppor- 
tune happening which seems almost supematural in its response 
to need: Leon gazes with folded hands at the key which makes 



294 Univenity of CdUfamia PübUcatiam in Modem PhUMofn. [YoL 2 

poasible their flight and which has become available in some in- 
ezplicable way (yiii, 66) . It indicates resignation : ' ' Der Elanzler 
schüttelt mit gefalteten Händen das Haupt" — Ottokar has not 
been elected (vi, 64). The typical gesture of hopeless despair 
is the wring^ng of the hands: Kreusa is dead, Jason 's children 
likewise have been slain, and the hing and Jason wring their 
hands in their sorrow (v, 224). — Clapping of hands is used to 
summon servants: ''Er klopft in die Hände, Sklaven treten aus 
der Türe*' (viii, 251) ; or to ezpress joy : **Sie schlägt wie erfreut 
die Hände zusammen'' (viii, 81), ''Weiber und Kinder hüpfend 
und in die Hände schlagend'' (the miners are approaching with 
music, viii, 139). — ^The clenching of the hands indicates muscular 
tenseness under excitement: while Zanga relates to the eager 
Bustan tales of prowess, his hands instinctively clench (vii, 115) ; 
so do those of Robert, at his brother's insolence (zi, 85). 

Arms hanging limply at the side indicate a yielding to a 
Situation or condition after a sudden realization of its füll 
Import : Merenberg, thirsting f or revenge, gives way to a sudden 
impulse and slays Ottokar; Emerberg, who has seen the deed, 
cries out in horror: "Was tatst du? Das Qebot verletzt des 
Kaisers ! " At his words, Merenberg Stands immovable, his hands 
dropped to his sides, overcome by the enormity of his act and 
incapable of anything but acquiescence in the punishment which 
is sure to follow (vi, 143). — The gesture is often accompanied by 
a sinking of the head upon the breast and a general paralyzing 
of the resistant force in the body; at times the word ''kraftlos" 
characterizes the gesture and despondency is an dement in the 
feelings that prompt it. Hero wishes to visit once more the dead 
body of her lover but is hindered by the Tempelhüter ; she makes 
a violent gesture of appeal and remonstrance and then yields, 
her head drops, and her hands fall limply (vii, 96). At the 
giving of the rose, Melitta suddenly realizes that she loves 
Phaon; "mit hochklopfender Brust" she Stands motionless before 
him, head drooping and both arms hanging at her sides; she 
succumbs to an overpowering emotion (iv, 165). The gesture 
belongs to the gentle, sensitive side of human nature : 



1912] Eemnann: Histrionies in ihe Dramas of Frans OrtUparser. 295 

''Weil die Augen Waaeer blinken. 
Weil die Arme kraftlos sinken. 
Weil die Stimme bebend bricht, 
Glaubst du, £[ind, ich sei es [der Räuber Jaromir] nicht f" (iv, 75} 

Hands lying in the lap are symbolic of idleness : 

"Da Sassen wir die Hände nicht im Schoss 
Und suppten Frieden aus mit breiten Löffeln" (viii, 134); 

the attitude is also suggestive of powerlessness (vii, 39). 

Standing or pacing up and down with f olded arms aecom- 
panies deep thought: Milo says to Jason, ''Was überdenkst du, 
Freund?" (v, 85). 

The stretching upwards of arms or hands expresses entreaty : 

"Der alte Kaleb .... streckt flehend die Hände empor" (vii, 194) ; 
^'Hin werf ich mich vor dir und fass' dein Knie 
"Und nach dem Kinne streck' ich meinen Arm: 
Gewähre, was ich bat, gib Schutz und Zuflucht." (v, 141) 

It is the stereotyped gesture accompanying a prayer to (Jod for 
help (viii, 85; x, 39) or, in ancient Qreeee, a solemn reference 
to the gods : Bhamnes raises his arms as he says, at the close of 
Sappho : 

"Es war auf Erden ihre Heimat nicht. 

Sie ist zurüekgekehret zu den Ihren. ' ' (iv, 227) 

The stretching out of the hand aecompanies the conferring of 
a blessing: ''Streck aus die kalte Hand und segne mich" (vi, 
130) ; but with uptumed pahn it typifies begging (viii, 23). — 
The raising of the hand aecompanies an oath (v, 82), or a com- 
mand for silence (v, 220). — Extending the arms toward another 
expresses longing (iv, 188) ; it is also a sign of complete forgive- 
ness after a confession has been made, in its motive verging on 
the shaking of hands in sealing a compact (Ix, 193) ; or the 
hands may be extended to repel an approach (iv, 83). 

The act of embracing occurs frequently in Grillparzer's 
dramas. The terms describing the gesture are varied : umarmen, 
umfassen, umschlingen; umarmt or umschlungen halten; an 
jemandes Brust kommen, or sinken, or fliehen; an das Herz (die 
Brust) drücken (pressen), an sich drücken; den Nacken um- 
schlingen, sich um jemandes Nacken schmiegen, an jemandes 



296 University of Cälifomia Publieatu^ns in Modem Phüciogy, [ VoL 2 

Hals sein, jemanden um den Hals fassen, or jemandem u. d, H. 
fallen, an jemandes Hals stürzen or sich werfen; jemandem in 
die Arme stürzen, sich in jemandes Arme werfen, sich in die 
Arme stürzen, in die Arme geben, die Arme um jemanden 
schlingen, jemanden in die Arme schliessen or fassen, jemanden 
mit dem Arm umschlingen, jemandem die Arme öffnen; in 
jemandes Armen liegen; das Gesicht an jemandes Busen (Hals) 
verbergen, das Gesicht auf jemandes Schulter verbergen (lehnen), 
die Stirn an jemandes Brust legen or an jemandes Schulter 
lehnen. 

Jaromir begs Bertha to put her arms about him that the 
spirits of night and of hell may not approach that consecrated 
circle; her embrace protects him alike from the apparition that 
has disturbed him and from his torturing thoughts (iv, 45). 
Medea, made gentle by the love that has entered her life, throws 
her arm about Peritta, her former maiden, as she listens to her 
tale (v, 57) ; the same Situation is repeated with Hero, who 
suddenly becomes tender toward lanthe, her helper, after 
Leander 's visit, and as she goes to the task which the priest has 
set for her, puts her arm about the maiden who accompanies her 
(vii, 73) ; and onee again the motive is used, when the erstwhile 
cold, undemonstrative Leander throws himself into the arms of 
the astounded Naukleros and asks, "Fühlst du den Euss? Und 
weisst du, wer ihn gab?" (vii, 77). In each instanee the action 
f oUows a sudden warm expanding of a heart touched by a new 
experienee and in its fullness craving a confidant. The gesture 
is the s3nnbol of a bond of sympathy, affection, or common joy 
or sorrow, and is usually evoked by a strong realization of that 
bond under emotional stress : Ottokar says, 

''Wer aber gern mir folgt and denkt wie ich. 
Den drück' ich an mein Herz und nenn' ihn Bruder" (vi, 118) ; 

friends embrace when they meet after a long Separation (iv, 226; 
X, 14) ; embraces occur between father and son (iv, 47), between 
children and older persons who have cared for them and been 
kind to them (v, 145), between husband and wife (v, 138), 
and between brothers (v, 19) ; Medea falls upon Jason 's neck as 



1912] Herrmann: Hisiri(mics in the Dramas of Frans OriUparser. 297 

he 18 about to start on his dangerous joumey after the fleece 
(y, 108) ; Milo embraees the Argonaut next him as he catches 
sight of Jason retuming nnharmed (v, 68) ; Oregor and 
AtalnSy reunited, hold one another in a long embrace (viii, 97) ; 
Gülnare and the king fall into one another 's arms with joy 
at the king 's iniraculous escape (vii, 143) ; Bustan and Mirza, 
Leon and Edrita embrace with joy at the consonunation of their 
Union (vii, 219 ; viii, 104) ; Bahel moans out her hopeless un- 
happiness on Esther 's bosom (ix, 183) ; Libussa inoums over her 
father's death as she and Tekta hold one another in embrace 
(viiiy 126, 127) ; Medea weeps on Kreusa's Shoulder as she sor- 
rows over her life and fate (y, 147) ; Blanka sinks upon 
Jaqueline's breast when she confesses her unhappy loye for 
Fedriko (x, 32). One flees to the arms of another for protection 
(x, 40), or sinks into them oyerpowered by emotion (x, 39). 
Most commonly, of course, embraees occur between loyers (iy, 
175; yii, 58; x, 44, 191, etc.) ; here should also be mentioned 
Bahers embracing of the king 's portrait: 

"Das nimmt sie von der Wand und trägt's herum, 
Nennt es Gemahl, spricht's an mit süssen Worten 
Und drückt's an ihre Brust." (x, 157) 

Embracing the feet of another, while carrying with it the 
affection that usually attaches to the gesture, is indicatiye of 
humility: Otto fondles the feet of little Bela and presses them 
to his bosom (yi, 235) ; or it may accompany a frenzied appeal 
for protection to one who is high in authority : Bahel fleeing to 
the king for protection from the mob (ix, 146). In the latter 
instance the gesture is an exaggerated one, serving well Bahel 's 
purpose of winning the king 's interest and finally his affection. 

One 's attention is arrested by the yery many instances of the 
gesture of embracing that are to be found in Medea 's role. It 
is one of the deyices which the poet has used to bring out the 
restless, stormy, passionate nature of his heroine. It almost 
always accompanies a mental struggle; the only other cases 
are the incident with Peritta cited aboye^^ and the occasion of 



11 



p. 296. 



298 UwivenUp of CaUfomia PüblieaÜamB ts Moden ThSMogw. [YoL 2 

the convenation wiih old Gora, who maintiiiTi» that the '^appar- 
ition" which Medea has aeen is nothioir l>^t a bold intrader, 
wherenpon Medea falla upon her neck and ailences her Ups witfa 
her own (v, 61). Most frequently is the gesture naed as an 
expression of her agony of mind as she wayers between her filial 
devotion to father and honse and her overpowering love for 
Jason (y, 84, 95, 117, 120). In addition the gestnre is connected 
with Jason 's attempt to make her confess her love for him (94) ; 
with her frenzy of fear for his lif e as he goes into the cave to 
overcome the dragon (108) ; and with her wistfol sorrow at the 
change that has come in Jason 's attitnde toward her (138). 
Finally her badding f riendship with Krensa and her sad realiza- 
tion of her ineapability to fit into the new life or to relieve the 
seemingly hopeless Situation, call out the gesture in its tenderer 
aspect (147, 158). 

As f ar as embraeing between men is concemed, the instances 
are few and have already been cited in other connections. It 
should be stated that in each case the embrace is prompted by 
an unusually deep emotion, such as the joy at the retum of 
Atalus (yiii, 97) and of Jason (v, 69), Leander 's exaltation at 
Hero's love (vii, 77), and the count's deep gratitude to Jaromir 
and love for him as he expresses his determination to join his 
fate with theirs, come what may (iv, 47). 

Other isolated gestures may be mentioned in passing: the 
motion of the band signifying dismissal (iv, 177), acquiescence 
(vi, 164), reassuranee (v, 58); pointing with the finger in 
derision (vi, 179), and raising it as a threat (viii, 256) ; tearing 
with the hands at the earth in a parozym of rage (vi, 195). The 
shrugging of the Shoulders in doubt is not a frequent gesture; 
but in Weh dem, der lügt it pla3n9 an important part, with the 
words that foUow, in revealing the point of view from which 
Leon undertakes Atalus' rescue under the difficult condition 
which the bishop has laid down for him (viii, 26) : 

"Leon, sei erst Leon, und eins bedenke: 
* Weh dem, der lügt. ' So mindstens will 's der Herr. 

[ Aohselzuckend. ] 
Man wird ja sehn.'' 



1912] Herrmann: Histrianics in ilie Dramas of Frane GrülparBer. 299 

4. Eneeling 

For the act of kneeling Grillparzer has again a large and 
varied vocabulary: knieen, hinknieen, niederknieen; nieder- 
stürzen, niederfdllen, auf die Kniee fallen, or sinken, or stürzen, 
in die Kniee sinken, auf ein Knie niedersinken, sich auf ein Knie 
niederlassen, ein Knie auf die Erde setzen, ein frommes Knie 
heugen, ein Knie zur Erde beugen, halb die Kniee beugen; einen 
PussfaU tun; zu jemandem niederknieen, sich vor jemanden 
niederwerfen, vor jemandem niederfallen, zu jemandes Füssen 
stürzen, sich jemandem zu Füssen werfen, jemandem das Knie 
neigen; knieend liegen, auf den Knieen liegen, zu jemandes 
Füssen liegen; im Staub flehen; mit gebeugtem Knie; das Knie 
gesenkt; jemandes Kniee umfassen. 

The act of kneeling is with Orillparzer first of all a very 
definite act of homage, a legitimate sign of reeognition of a 
superior : Bancbanus bids bis brother Simon kneel bef ore the king, 
saying, ''Es ist dein Herr, du kannst es ohne Schande" (vi, 247) ; 
Zanga falls upon his knees erying, ''Herr, dein Knecht," when 
the stranger annonnces himself as the king of the country (vii, 
141) ; Bustan commands the assembled warriors to kneel bef ore 
Oülnare in reeognition of the fact that with the death of the 
king, her father, she has become the ruler of the land (vii, 185) ; 
König Ottokars Olück und Ende doses thus (vi, 145) : "Heil! 
Heil! Hoch Österreich! Habsburg für immer! [Indem alle 
unter Trompeten und Jubelgeschrei niederknien, um die Huldi- 
gung zu leisten, fällt der Vorhang] "; Bancbanus, who is receiv- 
ing supplicants in place of the king, will not suffer those present- 
ing their petitions to kneel bef ore him, saying, "Ich bin ein 
Untertan, wie andere" (vi, 179) ; the ambassador kneels bef ore 
the king to whose court he has been sent (vi, 25) and so does 
the recipient of an honor from royalty: "Er [Rudolf] nimmt 
eine Kette vom Halse und hängt sie Komecken um, der niederge- 
kniet ist" (vi, 87, also vii, 161). But Emperor Rudolf will not 
suffer the Archdukes Max and Feminand to kneel bef ore him, as 
they come to ask his pardon : 

' ' Vom Boden auf! Soll unser edles Hans 
Vor jemand knieen als vor seinem Gottf (ix, 106); 



800 Unwernty of California Püblieatians in Modem PhUology. [Vol. 2 

and when Queen Eleonore is about to bend her knee before the 
king at bis retum to the court after his long infatuation with 
Babel, he says, with ref erence to his moral lapse : 

"MadofiAy straft Ihr michf Wollt Ihr mir seigen 
Die Stellung, die mir ziemte gegen Euehf " (ix, 213) 

The motive of kneeling as a sign of f ealty plays an all- 
imi>ortant part in König Ottokars Olück und Ende. Its first 
occurrenee there is ironical and foreshadows the poetic justice 
that will ultimately be done. The deputies from Steiermari^ 
enter to do homage as vassals but kneel before Margaret instead 
of before the king. The gentle queen, who is later to sufFer such 
shameful treatment at Ottokar 's hands, disclaims the honor of 
their fealty and directs them to the king. The king brusquely 
commands: 

" .... Zu mir, mit Gunst I 
Der König ist, der Königinnen macht!" 

Then, after a few curt words in regard to their mission at the 
court he dismisses them thus : 

"Im übrigen betrachtet mich genau. 
Damit ein andermal ihr gleich beim Eingang wisst, 
Vor wem ihr habt zu knien. ' ' (36) 

The Speech is typical of some of the characteristics in Ottokar 
which lead to his downf all, — his overweening confidence and his 
arrogance, which, coupled with his unscrupulous ambition, con- 
stitute his chief weaknesses. — The second occurrenee of the motive 
is exceedingly dramatic and is the pivotal x>oint of the whole 
play. Ottokar has come to the camp of the emperor to receive 
from him Bohemia and Moravia as fiefs; he remonstrates when 
Rudolf announces to him that he must kneel as a part of the 
ceremony, but he is reassured and enters the tent when the 
emperor sa3n9: 

' ' Das Zelt verbirgt uns jedem Auge. 
Dort sollt Ihr knien vor Gott und vor dem Reich, 
Vor keinem, der ein Sterblicher, wie wir." (vi, 96 f.) 

The relation between emperor and king is thus being amicably 
adjusted, Ottokar consenting to kneel on the assurance that no 



1912] Herrmann: Hiatrionios in the Dranuu of Frans GrillparBer, 301 

humiliation is being implied in the act, when Zawisch tears apart 
the tent curtains, revealing to the assembied Bohemians their 
king in an attitude compromising, in their minds, to his dignity 
as their roler. As Ottokar becomes aware that his posture has 
been observed and interpreted as an attitude of humiliation, he 
Springs up and with the words ''Ha, Schmach!'' is about to rush 
from the presence of all when the emperor detains him, asking 
whether he would not have the fief of Moravia; whereupon the 
king once more kneels. Then with every evidence of a feeling 
that he has been humbled beyond endurance he cries "Fort!" 
and leaves the stage precipitately, followed by his subjects. He 
retums to Prague and is there obliged to listen to the queen's 
taunts at the unhappy incident of the kneeling : Eunigunde asks 
Zawisch whether he has ever knelt before any man out of fear 
or out of a desire f or reward or remuneration ; the king, she goes 
on to say, did thus, kneeling before his enemy, before a man 
whom he despised : 

"Ich aber wiU nicht heissen: Knechtes-Fraa I 
Nicht eines schnöden Dienstmanns Bette teilen; 
WiU nicht, wenn Euch der Kaiser heischt nach Wien, 
Die Schleppe tragen seiner Gräfin Hausfrau; 
Will nicht vor Bndolf knien, wie Ihr getan. 



Ihr, Bosenberg, den Arm! und nichts mehr weiter 
Von jener Schmach, die Ihr mitangesehn! " (vi, 107) 

Despised and jeered at, deserted by his wife and by all his court 
save the faithful chancellor, he perpetrates a final deed of 
tyrannical cruelty at the remembrance that Merenberg's son saw 
his humiliation and laughed at it (113). Thus, step by step, 
driven almost to a f renzy by the thought of the shame that rests 
upon him through the indignity that he has sufFered, he arrives 
at the conclusion that he can retrieve himself only by a renewal 
of hostilities ; he tears in two the charter which binds him to the 
emperor in loyalty : 

"Vor aller Welt ward Ottokar beschimpft, 
Vor aller Welt muss er auch rein sich waschen ! ' ' (115) 

Then foUows the war which ends so disastrously for the king 's 



802 UnivenUy of Cälifomia Pvhlieatiant in Modem PhOology. [YoL 2 

caiise and in which he loses his lif e. Signifieant of the depth of 
the wound which his hiuniliation has Struck in his heart are his 
words to the Bohemians who are about to kneel and renew their 
oath of allegiance to him : 

"Kniet nicht 1 Steht anfl Ich kann nicht knieen sehnl 
Und schwört auch nicht! — ^Denn man kann knien nnd schwören, 
Und doch das Wort nicht halten, das man gab." (118) 

And once more, at the end of the drama, Grillparzer emphasizes 

this especial interpretation of the act of kneeling: Budolf has 

jnst conf erred upon his two sons the fief of Austria ; he bids them 

rise saying : 

''Steh aufl nnd dn! Und niemals kniee wieder I 
Ich grüsse dich als dieses Landes Herrn. ' ' (145) 

Eneeling is also the s3nnboIic position of the vanquished bef ore 
the Victor: when Jason wrestles with Medea and forces her to 
her knees, she remains in that position, covering her face in 
humiliation, until he lifts her up again (v, 93) . 

To fall upon one's knees in supplication is recognized as the 
strongest form of appeal: ''Sieh mich denn zu deinen Füssen, 
Sieh ein flehendes (Geschöpf" (vii, 153) ; ''so fleh' ich denn im 
Staube" (vii, 184) ; "rächt Euch jetzt nicht, jetzt nicht! Seht 
mich knien" (vi, 12) ; "hier lieg' ich auf den Knien ! Lass dich 
erflehn !" (iv, 197). Fedriko throws himself on his knees bef ore 
his father's picture and prays him either to save his son from 
despair or to receive him into Heaven. The depth of his emotion 
is still further shown in that he Covers his face with his hands, 
resting them on one knee and remaining immovable in that 
posture until interrupted by Haro's entrance (x, 132). The 
gesture is usually accompanied by words, but Leander simply 
throws himself at Hero's feet without a word, in the hope of 
attracting her attention as well as to express his adoration f or 
her and to entreat her mercy (vii, 37). It is a stereotyped 
attitude accompanying an appeal to royalty (ix, 17), especially 
for protection (ix, 145), or a display of affection for a royal 
patron : 

"Gebt BaumI Gebt Banm! Ich mnss zu meinem Herrn I 
[Sich vor ihm auf die Knie werfend und seine Hand fassend.] 
Ihr seid 's, Ihr lebt ! O, uns ist allen Heil ! ' ' (iz, 40) . 



1912] Herrmann: Hisirionies in the Dramas of Frans Griüpareer. SOS 

It 18 f requent with pleadings f or f or^veness : 

'^ .... erlaubt; dass knieend 

Abbitte wir für dae Vergangne leisten" (ix, 106); 
"Hier will ich knien, bis mir ein milder Blick, 

Ein gütig Wort Verzeihung angekündigt" (iv, 217). 

It is a combination of remorse, of an appeal for mercy, and of 
a desire to assare the tdng of bis loyalty that makes Otto fall 
npon bis knees before bim as he retnrnB little Bela unharmed 
(vi, 249). 

In prayer to the Deity, the kneeling posture is, of conrse, the 
rule, whether the prayer be one of entreaty (iv, 101), of thanks- 
giying (vii, 214), or of remorse: 

"Wenn dich eines Mannes Beu erfreut, 
Den nicht die Strafe, den sein Unrecht sehreckt: 
8o sieh mich hier vor deinem Antlits knien " (vi, 138) ; 

Leon prays with ontstretched arms to God to help bim in his last 
extremity, and as bis despair rises and his prayer increases in 
fervor, he sinks npon his knees (viü, 96) ; the Greeks Phryxus 
and Leander also kneel as they pray to their gods (v, 18 ; vii, 80) ; 
and so does Primislaus wben, in expeetation of the deathblow, 
he commends his soul to the gods (viü, 191). A solemn oath is 
aeeompanied by gennfleetion, for it calls the Ueity to witness: 
Emy throws herseif before her husband as she swears to the 
innocence of her relations with Otto (vi, 192). The reverenee 
expressed by the aet is sometimes also shown the priesthood : at 
the approaeh of the priestess Hero (vii, 28) all kneel; Atalns 
sinks upon his knees before Bishop Gregory (vii, 98). 

The attitude of worship may be assumed by the lover before 
the object of his adoration: Leander throws himself at Hero 's 
feet crying, "O, himmlisch WeibI" (vii, 41); Zawisch throws 
himself at Ennigunde's feet, ostensibly to reeeive the prize of 
the Victor in the tonmament, bnt in reality in rapture at the 
discovery that she has in her possession his love-letter : 

"O Königin, habt tausend, tausend Dank — 

[langsam] 
Im voraus tux den Preis, den Ihr mir reichet." (vi, 56) 



304 Univenity of California Publicatians in Modem PhOology. [YoL 2 

Some of Grillparzer's characters kneel also in the stress of other 
profound emotions: grief, remorse, and horror. Hero teils 
lanthe: ''Laut jammernd, auf den Knien, fand mich der Tag^" 
(vii, 90) ; Ottokar kneels at the hier of Margaret, whom he 
divorced and whose worth he recognized too late (vi, 130) ; Don 
Caesar, after killing Lncretia, falls upon bis knees and, with his 
face in his hands, cries ''Weh mir! O meine Taten!" (ix, 96) ; 
Bustan kneels before the prineess, who has been praising him f or 
killing the snake, and exelaims with remorse at his deception, 
"Herrin, O, ich bin vernichtet!" (vii, 144); (3ora roshes out 
from the colonnade where she has witnessed the slaying of the 
children, and covering her face with her hands, throws herseif 
upon her knees, crying "Was hab' ich gesehnt Entsetzen!" 
(v, 220). 

5. The Peest 

The emotions expressed through movements of the feet in 
Orillparzer's dramas fall under two main heads: contempt for 
an object is shown by spuming it; impatience and anger, by 
stamping upon the ground. Atalus kicks aside spade and mattock 
as he says : 

''Nicht rühr' ich an dies niedrige Gerät, 
leh bin der Besare, darum muss das Kühnre 

Mir anvertraut sein, mir" (vüi, 56); 

"Ottokar stampft ungeduldig mit dem Fusse" (vi, 101) ; Emy 
stamps upon the ground as she says to Otto, who is importun- 
ing her: "Ich will nicht, sag' ich Euch, ich duld' es nicht!" 
(vi, 188). When King Andreas stamps his foot as he cries 
"Holla" (vi, 168), it is not quite clear whether he does so from 
impatience at the queen's pertinacity, or merely to emphasize 
the summons to his chamberlain, just as elsewhere attendants 
are called by the clapping of hands. 

The gesture is associated with arrogance of manner; as the 
heartless queen rails at the unf ortunate Ottokar, she says : 

''Da sitzt er und starrt leblos auf den Grund, 
Den er zuvor gestampft mit stolzen Füssen!" (-vi, 105) 



1912] Herrmann: Histrianict in the Dramat of Franz GriUpareer, 305 

Setting the f oot upon another is symbolic of complete con- 
qiiesty if not annihilation : 

'^Hätt' ich den Brief, so keimt' ieh den Verräter, 
Und meine Ferse setzt ' ich auf die Brut. ' ' (vi, 55) 

6. SUNDBIES 

There are certain gestures which are preseribed by eustom in 
polite Society, and have thus largely lost the signifieance of 
spontaneity. Grillparzer's charaeters are ptmctilious in the 
observanee of the conventional forms of courtesy. Some of these 
have been mentioned under Kneeling and nnder Hand and Arm ; 
bnt there are others which do not belong in any of the eategories 
above. We find, beside the polite inclination of the head, the 
more formal bow in all scenes at court and in the presence of 
a person of high rank; instances of rising (iv, 34; viii, 17), or 
of Standing respectfuUy at a distance nntil bidden by a superior 
to approach (xi, 80) ; of nncovering the head (ix, 30), and in 
the case of soldiers, of lowering their weapons (vii, 185), as a 
mark of respect. 

There are a f ew other gestnres and actions not coming under 
any of the preceding headings and varying in nature from the 
conventional to the purely spontaneous: Swords are laid upon 
the ground in token of surrender (ix, 210) ; spears are stuck into 
the ground at the cessation of hostilities (v, 67) ; a quick reach- 
ing of the hand toward one's sword hilt is the instinctive indica- 
tion of the impulse to defend or avenge (v, 77; vii, 155; x, 53) ; 
laying flowers at the f eet of the queen is a Symbol of affectionate 
loyalty (viii, 143) ; clinging to the altar (iv, 201) is the gesture 
of strengest appeal to the gods f or protection ; holding high the 
wine cup accompanies the giving of a toast (vii, 177) ; maidenly 
modesty prompts Melitta to rise and prepare to leave when the 
stranger Phaon addresses her (iv, 161). 



806 Unw^riU^ of Califcrnia Fubheationa •» Modem PhUöhgy- [VoL S 



IV. CONCLUSION 

Grillparzer is much concemed with the stage businesa of his 
plays. The minutest directions are given as to rising, sitting 
down, Walking np and down, halting, standing, the speed and 
natore of one's galt, one's physical bearing. Bspecial preference 
18 shown f or the motions denoted by aufschrecken, zusammen- 
schrecken, zusammenfahren, emporfahren, auffahren, auf- 
springen, zurückprallen, zurückstürzen, zurücktaumeln; the 
canaes of theee motions ränge from joy, astonishment, and di»- 
appointment through different grades of fear to terror and 
horror. Other frequent worda are stürzen with its componnda, 
zurückweichen and its synonyms, wanken, sich ab- or wegwenden, 
zurücktreten. 

He shows this same care in the description of all gestores, 
his stage directions being generally very specific. In a com- 
paratiyely small nnmber of cases only are gestures referred to 
in vague or general terms: ''Königin gegen den Kämmerer, der 
indes Gebärden gemacht hat'' (vi, 168); ''Wlasta zeigt mit 
Gebärde auf die umgebenden Gegenstände" (yii, 199) ; ''indem 
sie ihr Misstrauen gegen ihn und ihr Einverständnis durch 
Gebärden ausdrücken" (viii, 156) ; "mit einer (durch eine) 
Handbewegung"; "Ein Gewaffneter und Wlasta haben wie 
beaufsichtigend die Menge durchschritten" (viii, 135); "Wie 
von einem plötzlichen Gedanken durchzuckt" (iv, 190); "mit 
Zeichen des Entsetzens (vi, 232) ; "mit allen Zeichen der Ver- 
wirrung" (vii, 193) ; "wie von einer Betäubung sich erholend" 
(x, 123); "sucht seine Rührung zu verbergen" (xi, 75); "in 
heftigem Kampf" (xi, 70) ; "mit dem höchsten Ausdruck des 
Erstaunens und der Freude" (x, 224). With the words 
Bewegung and Oebärde we find the adjectives abhaltend (v, 54), 
bittend (vi, 98), entschuldigend (ix, 101), fragend (vi, 64) ; 
heftig (often, e.g. ix, 201), schmerzlich abwehrend (ix, 88), 
sprechend (x, 172), stumm (vii, 188), unwillig (v, 35) ; there is 
also the phrase "mit Erwartung erregenden Gebärden" (viii, 



1912] Herrmann: Bi$irionie$intheDrafM$ of FraiiB GfiUparger, 307 

154), and a few that are somewhat more definite: "mit einer 
geringschätzigen Handbewegung (viii, 177), ''mit der linken 
Hand das Zeichen der Einwilligung gebend" (vii, 219), ''die 
Hand schmerzlich .... hinbreitend" (y, 137). 

Qrillparzer sometimes contents himseU with recording simply 
the emotion without suggesting the particular gestures or atti- 
tude to which it may give rise, leaving these to the Interpretation 
of the individual actor: "Jason schliesst ängstlich die Pforte 
zu" (v, 111), "Melitta naht schüchtern" (iv, 216), "die Ahn- 
frau .... beugt sich schmerzlich über ihn" (den schlafenden 
Grafen) (iv, 24), Sappho speaks "mit Überwindung" (iv, 169), 
Phaon says to Sappho, "Du bist bewegt" (iv, 177), Ottokar to 
Kunigunde, "Auch bist du ganz verstört" (vi, 58). But in 
these cases the emotions are either very simple and readily 
expressed by characteristic gestures; or they are evinced mainly 
by facial expression. 

It must be noted that, while Qrillparzer suggests much general 
stage business in his plays, there are no meaningless or purpose- 
less details of attitude or gesture such as we are accustomed to 
connect with an attempt on the dramatist's part to fiU in the 
action and to lend naturalness and effectiveness to his dramas: 
when Bertha drops her handkerchief , it is with the very definite 
purpose of concealing the scarf on the floor; when Rudolf of 
Habsburg is disdosed in his tent, coatless, in a leather jerkin, 
hammering out the dents in his helmet (vi, 83), or when 
Rudolf II picks up a book and reads while his chamberlain is 
vainly endeavoring to call his attention to affairs of State, — ^we 
get in each case a clever and effective piece of characterization 
that is essential to an understanding of the plot. There are a 
few other realistic touches in the detail of gesture which should 
be mentioned: one of the laborers in Libtissa comes in wiping 
the Perspiration from his brow with his sleeve (viii, 136) ; 
the same gesture occurs later in LibiAssa, though without ref er- 
ence to a sleeve (202), and in Esther (viii, 240) when Haman 
retums after the unsuccessful review of the maidens by the king; 
Hannchen dances with joy about her uncle, who is about to fetch 



308 Univernty of California Publieationä in Modem PhOology. [VoL 2 

her lover (z, 227) ; Zawisch twists his baret in bis hands in pre- 
tended embarrassment at having been discovered by the queen 
hiding bis love-letter (vi, 48) ; Heinrich looks about him fear- 
f ully as the thought of maJdng away with the last possible con- 
testant of bis throne enters bis mind (zi, 78) ; the queen tears 
her handkerchief in rage at the ehamberlainy who has nnwittin^y 
done her brother an ill tarn by revealing to the king bis habits 
of dissipation (vi, 169) ; Don Pedro plucks open his doublet as 
he chokes with rage at the thought of Fedriko's escaping with 
Blanka (x, 188) ; Matthias adjusts bis mantle while discussing 
the Situation with Kiesel (ix, 40) ; at our first introduction to the 
absurd and bombastic Don Eusebio he is engaged in killing the 
flies which persistently buzz about his wounded nose (xi, 247). 
The realistie and detailed deseriptions of the life of the common 
people in the second act of Libussa (viii, 134 f.) have already^' 
been mentioned as serving a very definite purpose; the stage 
directions at the beginning of act V similarly give a picture of 
the simplicity of Libussa 's life and of the changed occupations 
of her maids. Wolf Bumpf, the emperor's chamberlain and 
general factotum, enters ''gebückten Ganges" (ix, 12) ; the idle 
arrogance of the youth Atalus is disclosed in his attitude of 
toying with a stick in the kitchen where Leon is bustling about 
on the eve of their escape (viii, 53) ; Leon 's naive independence 
manifests itself in his emptying the pepper upon the floor and 
throwing out the carrots (viii, 37), Isaac's sordid greed in the 
realistie little episode of the ring (ix, 171) the amazon nature of 
Wlasta in her taking up a sword and testing it (viii, 37). 

Finally a word as to Qrillparzer's various methods of indi- 
cating or recording gestures and actions. Most commonly, of 
course, he does this in stage directions. There are, however, 
numerous examples in the text itself of ref erences to gestures 
either by a second person who is an onlooker or by the person 
in action himself: Rhamnes cries out to Sappho, ''Weh! du 
wankst!" (iv, 206); Zawisch says to the queen, "In Demut 
beugt sich Euch mein dienstbar Haupt!" (vi, 57). The gesture 

"p. 256. 



1912] Herrmann: Histrianics in the Dramas of Frans Grülparzer. 309 

is occasionally indicated by a question on the part of a spectator : 
Emperor Rudolf asks those around him at the arrival of King 
Ottokar: "Warum steht ihr entblössten Hauptes da?" (vi, 88) ; 
and Haman interrupts his remarks with the query, "Theres, 
schüttelt Ihr den Köpft" (viii, 229). Sometimes there is a 
combination of both stage direetion and deseription: '*8appho 
[stürzt sich vom Felsen ins Meer.] .... Melitta. Weh! sie 
stürzt, sie stirbt!" (iv, 226). The stage direetion is sometimes 
omitted after a command, the vehemence of the order giving 
assurance of its being obeyed : '^ Jason. Vom Schwert die Hand ! 
Die Hand vom Schwerte, sag' ich!" (v, 77) ; in other instances 
a laconic '' [Es geschieht] " is added: 

"Sappho. Die Flamme zündet Aphroditens an, 

Das8 hell sie strahle in das Morgenrot! [Es gesehieht.] ' ' (iy, 225) . 



UNIVER8ITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATION8 

IN 

MODERN PHILOLOGY 

Vol. 2, No. 5, pp. 31 1-373 June 17, 1912 



SPENSER, THE SCHOOL OF THE 
PLETCHERS, AND MILTON 



BT 

HEBBEBT E. COBY 



Critics have made merry with the literary alchemists who 
have striven to analyze Milton. By this study I confess alle- 
giance to what Mr. Walter Raleigh calls *'the ledger school of 
criticism." Professor Masson asserted that all attempts to find 
the sources of Milton are **for the most part duU and laborious." 
Yet many adventurers in the delightful land of poetry will 
remain nnsatisfied. We all know that a supreme genius exercises 
mnch of his creative instinct in the subtle art of seleetion. He 
ransacks the supreme poets of the past until they stir him to 
write. He chooses even f rom the Conventions and eommonplaces 
of a hundred minor men of his day, letting the worthless die, 
giving final expression to the best. When we foUow him in his 
academe, play the eavesdropper as he listens to the eiders of his 
deep-browed brotherhood, steal after him on his quiet walks to 
his favorite nooks, we are not blaspheming him. The figure of 
the exquisite flower, rent by the ruthless hands of the scientist, 
is overworked. When the analyzer of a great poet has finished 
his work he has not only inereased our understanding and 
sympathy, but deepened the mystery and our reverence. 

Milton, one of the most composite of poets, certainly leamed 
much of his eloquence from the gentle dreamer Edmund Spenser, 
who, in his tum, had distilled his magic from a myriad Springs. 
The younger poet, indeed, was proud to call the singer of The 



312 Unwertity of Cälifomia Puhlications in Modem Phüology, [Vol. 2 

FaSrie Queene bis master. ''Milton," said Dryden, ^'has ac- 
knowledged to me that Si>eiiser was bis original. '^^ It has been 
said tbat Mathew Lownes, wbo publisbed the folio edition of 
The Faerie Qiieene in 1609, fomisbed tbe boy Milton witb a copy 
of Spenser.* Tbe publisber of tbe volume of 1645 contribnted 
a prefaee in wbicb, tbinks Professor Maekail, ''We can certainly 
bear an ecbo of Milton 's own voiee and judgment." ^^I know 
not .... bow barmonious tby soul is/' writes tbe pubUsber, ] 

''perbaps more trivial Airs may please tbee better. But .... 
let tbe event guide itself wbicb way it will, I sball deserve of tbe 
age, by bringing into tbe Ligbt as true a Birtb, as tbe Muses * 
bave brongbt f ortb since onr f amons Spencer wrote ; wbose Poems 
in tbese .... are as rarely imitated, as sweetly excell'd." In 
bis maturity Milton wrote of bis master as "our admired 
Spenser''' and, witb cbaracteristie appreciation of tbe lofty 
moral purpose of The Faerie Queene, as ''our sage and serious 
Spenser, wbom I dare be known to tbink a better teacber tban 
Scotus or Aquinas."* Prom Spenser, tbe well-beloved of all 
young poets, Milton leamed mucb of tbat love f or sensuous beauty 
tbat f ougbt against bis barsber Puritan ebaracteristics and made 
bim more wbolesome. From Spenser 's diction, a rieb composition 
from cboice obsolete words, from racy dialects and coUoquial- 
isms, and from tbe poet's own faney, Milton probably drew 
mucb wbicb be fused witb bis sonorous borrowings from tbe 
Latin to build up a matcbless poetic speeeb.' Dryden, in bis 

1 Prefaee to the Fahles. 

sMasson, Life, 1, 89, can find no authority for this Statement of 
Todd's. See also John Mitford, Aldine Edition of Milton, 1857, p. iy: 
"Humphrey Lownes, the printer who lived in the same street, supplied 
him with Spenser." 

s Animadversions upon the Bemonstrant 's Defence against Smectymnuus, 
edition of Prose Works, Symmons, 1, 197. 

4 Areopagitioa, 

B The question of Milton 's borrowings from Spenser 's diction would 
make an elaborate linguistic thesis in itself. Many words, of course, 
could not be settled absolutely. We could not always teil whether Milton 
was drawing from Spenser or from some Ohaucerian predecessor. We 
could not often teil whether he was borrowing from Spenser directly or 
from one of the many poets for whom Spenser had given the word cur- 
rency. I append a brief list of typical ezamples drawn from hundreds 
of words which the eommentators have set down in their notes as taken 



1912] Cory: Spenser, The Sehool of the FUtohera, and Müton. 313 

Essay on Satire, gives interesting contemporary (if not infal- 
lible), testimony conceming Milton's free nse of Spenser's 
words: 

^'Hifl antiqnated words were his ehoice, not his neceesitj, for therein he 
imitated Spenser as Spenser imitated Ghaueer." 

Even if Milton did not take many worda from The Shepheards 
Cälender or The Faerie Queene, he f onnd in Spenser stimulating 
Suggestion for enriching poetic utterance with the negleeted 
jewels of antique poets. 

But the boy Milton took some of his Spenser seeond-hand 
from contemporary Spenserians who, for the moment, loomed 
large becanse they were in the foreground. The juvenilia of 
great poets are ahnost always tinged with the intermediary 
inflnence of the poetae minimi of the day who echo their masters 
with faeile prettiness. So Eeats, in his early work, took some 
of his Spenser with sugar and water from Hunt. By 1627 the 
names of Oiles and Phineas Fleteher must have been prominent 
at Milton's own university, Cambridge, where he was a novitiate 
in poetry for seven years. The Fletchers seized upon subjects 
which were in the air. In an age of religious poetry they wrote 
quaintly and often beautifuUy, in ingenious and eccentric 
aUegory, of the life of Christ and of the soul of man. They 
1 borrowed reverently, but with naive freedom, from the riches 

T 

; of The Faerie Queene, which they ransacked from end to end 
l for allegorical %ures, memorable lines, sometimes nearly whole 
stanzas. Over all they embroidered the curious, stiff conceits 
that were everywhere high in favor. They were enthusiastic 
Imitators of the Spenserian stanza. As Spenser had given new 
music to the eight-line stanza by the addition of a final alex- 
andrine, so the Fletchers experimented by adding the long line 
to the rhyme-royaly the ottava rima, and many other current 



from Spenser. I do not wish to defend them individnaUy but to make a 
brief specimen list for the sake of general impressions. 

Assays (^assaults), cease (cause to cease), joUy (handsome), ragged 
(rugged), deacry (deseribe), äainty limba, hosting (an Irish word), 
arhorets, infämaug (so aeeented also in Spenser), say (teU), daintett, 
y-ehain'd (and numerous other participles with y-), recure (recover), 
appaid, far-fei, reoreant, in place (on this occasion), pwrfled, prancht, 
turhia, prowett hnight, captiv'd, ete. 



314 University of California PnhUcaiions in Modem FMMogy, [Yol. 2 

forma. The influence of the Fletchers was far greater than has 
generally been realized. They founded a dktinct school of 
poetry which outlived the chilling influence of the Bestoration. 
Even in the eighteenth Century the school survived in the work 
of William Thompson, one of the earliest deönite romanticists 
of that period. In Milton's day, most of the Cantabrigians, 
Crashaw, Joseph Beaumont, Thomas Robinson, and others, 
wrote more or less in their manner. In his boyhood Milton 
was enlisted in the School of the Fletchers and their influence 
is traceable even in his mature poems. Any study of Spen- 
serian material in Milton, then, should include an elaborate 
examination of the work of the School öf the Fletchers. As 
the reader f oUows my elaborate analysis of these old poets he may 
well criticise me for rummaging in the dustiest rooms of the 
storehouse of poetry. But if his patience carries him to the dis- 
cussion of Milton himself he will see that an investigation of 
what we may call the immediate poetic environs of Milton throws 
an interesting light on the work of the great poet without in the 
least besmirching it. 

THE SCHOOL OF THE FLETCHERS 

In 1603, in Sorrowe's Joy, a book of elegies on Queen 
Elizabeth, Qiles and Phineas Fletcher made their first un- 
obtrusive appearance in print by joining the group of poets who 
fiUed this volume with starched lamentations over their adored 
Eliza. The contribution of Phineas, the eider and more prolific, 
is significant as a much more elaborate stanzaic experiment than 
that of his brother. And throughout his many poems Phineas 
is notable for playing a considerable number of variations on 
the Spenserian stanza.* Oiles chose to imitate his master simply 
by taking the rhyme-royal ready-made and by adding an alex- 
andrine. To this measure he remained faithful in his master- 



• An enumeration of Fleteher's experiments may be worth while: 
ahdbabooC, äbah&C, ahäbB, ahabhcoC, ahofitbhecC, ahäbhaaocC, aaaäbhS, 
abäbhoC (a stanza used by Milton in certain early poems which show the 
influence of the Fletchers), ahahccc, ahäbahcC, äbäbhcC (with all the &'< 
feminine rhymes), ahhadbcacC, aaAbhBocC etc., ahabeeC, 



1912] Cory: Spenser, The School of the Fletchers, and Müton. 315 

piece. Significant, too, is the fact that the younger poet's A 
Canto upon the Death of Eliza, though very boyish, shows far 
more promise than Phineas Fletcher's On the Death of Queen 
Elizabeth. The younger brother was the first to publish his 
ambitious masterpiece, greater than anything Phineas ever did. 
With its rapturous close his inspiration seems to have flickered 
out. The gentle, öuent muse of the eider poet was with him 
throughout the leisurely course of his whole lifeJ 

Phineas Fletcheb 

Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650) served his apprenticeship in 
that green-siekness of love which distressed young Colin Clont. 
Various love-lyrics, now ardent, now bitter, now cynieal, all 
bearing the stamp of extreme youth, establish this. He came 
into the more ample and pure air of the best sonnets of the 
Amoretti and the EpithcUamion as is evidenced by To My Onely 
Chosen Valentine and Wife and a Hymen in close imitation of 
Spenser's marriage-hymn. Finally he bid regretful farewell to 



7 Text-bookB usuaUy assert that Giles ileteher made his stanza by 
dropping the seventh line of Spenser's stanza {ahahhe[h]cC) , thns, 
perhaps, shirking the demands of a difficult extra rhyme. Simüarly many 
eritics, from Edward Phillips to Lowell, give us an impossible description 
of the Spenserian stanza in the making — an awkward and elaborate shift- 
ing of lines in the ottava rima, The psychology of the whole matter is far 
more obvious. Sponsor found a solid structure in the ahahhchc stanza, 
used somewhat by Chaueer and more f reely by the fif teenth Century poets. 
Whether or not there had been a suggestive and more than sporadic use 
of the alezandrine in some of the poetry which Higgins contributed to 
The Mirror far Maffistrates, as Professor Morton argues, it was Sponsor 
who first began any elaborate experimentation with this long line as a 
regulär part of an elaborate stanza eomposed mainly of shorter verses. 
As early as the days of The Shepheards Calendar wo find him testing the 
value of the alexandrine as the first line of an elaborate stanza employed 
in his elegy to Dido {November), He made oecasional use of it as the 
final line of his own peculiar sonnet-form. (See the Amoretti, nos. 10 and 
45, and, among those prefixed to The Faerie Queene: To the Bari of 
Ormond, To Lord Grey, To Baleigh, To the Countess 6f Pemhroke, and To 
all the gratious and heautifull Ladies in the Court,) He used it for the 
refrain of eaeh stanza in the Epithalamion, All that the Spenserian 
stanza is, then, is the ahahhchc form with an alexandrine added. This 
is all familiär enough to many, but the frequent errors in text-books 
seem to make a elear Statement necessary here. Now the method of 
the Fletchers was simply to take, as Sponsor did, a current stanza form, 
the rhyme-royal, the ottava rima, the ahdboc stanza, and add a final 
alexandrine 



316 üniversity of California Publieations in Modem PhOology. [YoL 2 

the little pipe that sang of the seductions of ''Norfolk maids 
and Ida Cme" after a long stmggle, which is dnly set forth 
in one of his Piscatorie Eglogs. None of these more subjective 
poems are of particular interest to us in this study. We may 
fairly begin with Fletcher's earliest printed religious poem, The 
Äppolyonists, publiahed in 1627. 

The Locusts or Äppolyonists is practically a free paraphrase 
and expansion of Phineas Fletcher's Latin poem, the Locustae, 
into English stanzas made in imitation of Spenser by an addition 
of a final alexandrine to the regulär oftava rima, Fletcher's 
utter extravagance, relieved now and again by fiashes of vivid 
power, is more adequately represented in the turbulent rhetoric 
of the Latin verses, especially in the magnificent speech made 
by Satan to his cohorts in Hell, the fierce seom of which was 
certainly an Inspiration to Milton. But the English expansion 
is naturally more Spenserian and faUs more definitely within 
our province. The allegorical description of Sin is compounded 
of Spenser 's Errour and Duessa, and Stands midway between the 
allegories of The Faerie Queene and of Paradise Lost. 

In the first canto of Fletcher's poem Hell's pursuivants come 
with dreadful noise to their domain where the gates are opened 
by friends below. The porter is Sin, shapeless, foul, deformed, 
''of that first woman and th' old serpent bred." Yet to some 
she appears beautiful and Fletcher, tempted in true Spenserian 
fashion to dilate on the deceitful loveliness of Sin, gives a 
sensuous description of her allurements. Despair (a woman, 
but very similar to Spenser 's male figure), sits dose by Sin. 
In the entrance dwell also Sickness, Languor, Horror, and other 
figures similar to those whom Mammon showed to Spenser 's 
Sir Quyon before the mouth of Hell and similar to those in 
Milton 's In Quintum Novembris, a poem which might be re- 
garded in some respects as a youthful study for his Paradise 
Lost. Fletcher then teils us how Satan rises to deliver a fiery 
speech. Earth is smiling in peace. Superstition and Ignorance 
fiy before Truth and Religion. England especially fiourishes. 
Virginia, which belonged to us, is lost. Arm yourselves against 
Earth. 



1912] Cory : Spenser, The School of the Fletchers, and Milton. 317 

''Dare we with Heayen and not with Earth to fightf " 

Tumult reigns in the Council. Equivocus, a prototype of Mil- 
ton 's wily Belial, rises to speak. Fletcher's readers are fairly 
launched by this crafty demon's speech into a review of con- 
temporary events. We read a violent attack on the Catholic 
Church which evidently owes quite as much to the first book of 
The Feierte Queene as to Fletcher's own animus. Spenser's 
allegorical vituperation — Duessa, or Falsehood and Catholicism, 
who leads Holiness away from his love Una, or Truth, to the 
iHouse of Pride where dwell the Seven Deadly Sins; Kirkrapine, 
jthe villain who stalks through the forest to the squalid abode 
(Where he lives in lust with Abessa, or Superstition, the daughter 
-of Blind Devotion; the giant Orgoglio, who Stands for the 
■worldly pride of a corrupt church in temporal power, paramour 
'[)f Duessa whom he dothes in scarlet and mounts on a mis- 
shapen beast like the Whore of Babylon — all this distempered 
fancy fires Fletcher in his intemperate abuse. Equivocus laments 
Ihe unmasking of the Church of Bome which is described, as 
ISpenser describes Duessa stripped of her false beauty, in foul 
Sianguage that foUows Spenser almost verbatim.^ When lustful 
JBome was stripped of her scarlet Ornaments, says Equivocus, 
i'then her friends feil away from her. Who helped the demons 
Ithen to make her seem fair againf The Jesuits. Let us employ 
I their aid once more. Let us rush to arms and England will fall. 

' ' With that the bold blacke Spirit invades the Day, 
And Heav'n and Light and Lord of both defies. 
AU Hell mn out and sooty flags display, 
A fool deformed rout." 



Most of the evil spirits scatter through Russia, Oreece, Spain, 
. and elsewhere. Alone Equivocus goes to Bome. 

"There that stale pnrple whore in glorioos maske 
Of holy Mother Church he mumming spies, 
Dismounting from her seven-headed beast 
Inviting all with her bare painted breast 
Thej suek, steep, swell, and burst with that enyenom'd feast."» 



9 Fletcher, canto 1, st. 29. Compare Spenser, bk. 1, e. 8, sts. 45 sq. 
• Cf. Spenser, TJie Faerie Queene, 1, 7, 16-17: 



318 üniversity of California Publieations in Modern FhUology. [YoL 2 

The good fishero of Jordan, now enjoying Heaven's bliss, are 
supplanted by a crew of idle rascals. For them a great Fiaher 
'builds a Babel to Heaven, enlarges bis seas and subjects. His 
tower walls, which are described like Spenser's House of Pride, 
^'seeme porphyr faire" but are really **base lome."" The 
portal seems f ar off ; the lights are f alse. There sits duU Ignor- 
anee, a loathly dame.^^ Beside her sit her two children: he, 
called Erronr, begot by Hate of Truth, she, called Superstition, 
falsely called Devotion.^* These two störe the world with an 
incestuous brood. The usher of the vast hall is loosest Liberty, 
its waiters Lusts, its caterer Yain Expense, its bedmakers Base, 
Sloth, and soft, wanton Sense, its steward Oluttonie, its high- 
ichamberlain perfumed Lechery, like the creatures who wait upon 
Pride in The Faerie Queene}^ Equivoens poisons the Pope*8 
mind. Plots are laid, among which the worst is that of Qny 
Fawkes who has been norsed by Borne on wolfish milk. But 
Gk>d, always watchful, calls an eagle to warn the Council at 
London. Fawkes is seized and Borne and Spain lament. The 
poem ends with an apostrophe and prayer to Gk>d. 

Prom The Purple Island Pletcher still claims some honor and 
something not unlike notoriety. One is f orced to admire, if with 
a smile, the astounding ingenuity with which Fletcher con- 
structed allegorical poetry, almost always clever, sometimes of 
rare beauty, out of the physiology of the human body. As his 



' ' From that day f orth Dnessa was his [Orgoglio 's] deare, 
And highly honourd in his hanghty eye: 
He gave her gold and purple pall to weare," 
and a monstrous beast, more terrible than the Hydra, 

' ' For seven great heads ont of his body grew, ' ' 
to ride upon. Compare also the brood of Erroar {The Faerie Q^eene, 1, 1, 
25-26), who suck the venom of their dead mother tili they barst. 

10 Cf. The Faerie Queene, 1, 4, 4-6: 

* ' A stately Pallace built of squared bricke, 
Which cunningly was without mortar laid, 
Whose wals were high, but nothing strong nor thick 
And golden foile all over them displaid." 

11 Of . The Faerie Queene, 1, 8, 30 sq., Ignaro, porter of Orgoglio 's Castle, 
a childish old man. 

12 Cf. The Faerie Queene, 1, 3, 18, " Abessa, daughter of Corceca slow," 
that is, Superstition, daughter of Blind Devotion. 

iB Cf . The Faerie Queene^ 1-4, paseim, but particularlj sts. 43 sq. 



1912] . Cory: Spenser, The Sehool of the Fletchera, and Müton, 319 

i'point of departure in The Apollyonists was mainly from the 
jfirst book of Ths Faerie Queene, here the description of the 
Castle of Alma (the soul), in the second book of the same poem, 
was doubtless Fleteher's most inänential source. In the ninth 
canto Spenser allegorized the human body, which is the House 
of Alma, more elaborately than one can endure without a laugh. 
The bulwarks of the House of Alma are the five senses. Its 
\cook, Concoction, and his abode, the stomach, are described with 
a fidelity which one could well wish less conseientious. In a 
tower of Alma 's Castle dwell Pancy, Memory, and Common- 



! 



; Sense, a conceit which we shall find Fletcher unblushingly imitat- 

! ing in great detail when it falls to his lot to describe the human 

/head. The attacks of a motley crew of Vices on the bulwarks 

1 of sense gave Fletcher a Suggestion f or his marshalling and battle 

of the Yirtues and Yices. Spenser 's imitator, lost in his fetish- 

worship, multiplied details and made a complete redttcUo ad 

absurdum of his master's aUegory. But Fletcher 's poem is not 

a mere slavish Imitation or merely an ingenious expansion of the 

episode in The Faerie Queene. Its exuberant stanzas abound in 

splendid and original bursts that make one feel querulous with 

Time who denies their enjoyment to all but a few patient 

students of seventeenth Century literature. In The Apollyonists 

Fletcher lef t the shadow of his teacher to limn with bold strokes 

an imposing and noble picture of the rebel Lucifer and his 

I hosts. In The Purple Island his legions of Yirtues and Yices are 

sometimes strikingly independent of many possible modeis in 

The Faerie Queene. As an example of Fletcher 's own fancy, 

tinged only with the general quality of the Spenserian pictures, 

we may anticipate by quoting the artificial but beautiful lines 

which describe Tapinus or Humility : 

"Nezt TapinuB, whose sweet, though lowly graee 
All other higher than himself osteem'd; 
He himBelf priz'd things as mean and base, 
Which yet in others great and glorious seem'd 
All ill dae debt, good andeserv'd he thought; 
His heart a low-roof t houae, but Bweetly wrought 
Where God Himself woold dwell, thongh he it dearlj bought. 



320 üniveraity of Caiifomia FubUeations in Modem FhiMogy, [ YoL 2 

"So choieest dmgs in meanest shrubs are foand; 
So preeions gold in deepest eentre dwells; 
So sweetest violets trail on lowly gronnd; 
So riebest pearls ly elos'd in vilest Shells; 
So lowest dales we let at highest rates; 
So creeping strawberries yield daintiest cates 
The Highest highlj loves the low, the lof tie hates. * ' 

It is Senser's cloth-of-gold sown more stiff with extravagant 
f ancies and antitheses, bat it has its own quaint charm. 

The Purple Island begins with a concourse of shepherds who 
enduce Thirsil, after some difficulty, to sing. To Christ, the 
great prinee of shepherds, he gives lofty praise and then speaks 
of Qod's creation of man. God took pnrple dust and made "the 
jlittle Isle of man or Purple Island." 

Forthwith we find onrselves lost in a most astonnding museom 
of fancy. The general f abric of this island is of bone, gristle, 
and fiesh whieh is described as a curious stuff like undivided 
brick, soft, yet durable and concealing the rougher f rame. The 
veins are a thousand brooks in azore chamiels. The whole isle 
has three kingdoms ruled by the liver, heart, and brain. The 
j mouth is a cave with twice sixteen porters** and the tongue, **a 
groom with wondrous volubilitie. "" An astonnding joumey 
over the road of the alimentary canal brings us to where 

"Below dwells in this Citie's market- place 
The Island 's common cook, Goneoction. "i« 

Having been educated conseientiously in all the f unetions of the 
stomach we are eonducted to the kingdom of Hepar, the liver, 
where the Steward of the whole isle is placed. So the poet, with a 
desperately grave face, guides us through the realms of the heart 
until, with the allegorizing of the head, we find him pillaging 



1* Cf. The Faerie Queene, 2, 9, 26: 

''And round abont the porch on every syde 
Twise sixteen warders satt, all armed bright." 

iB et The Faerie Queene, 2, 9, 25: 

"Within the barbican a porter säte, 
Day and night keeping watch and ward; 
His larumbell might lowd and wyde be hard, 
When cause requyrd." 

i«Cf. The Faerie Queene, 2, 9, 31: 

"The maister cooke was cald Goncoction." 
For further parallels see: The Purple Island, 3, 36; The Faerie Queene, 
2, 9, 30 sq., and The Purple Island, 3, 43. 



1912] Cary: Spenser^ The Sohool of the Fletehers, and Milion. 321 

.almost entire stanzas from the description of the House of Alma. 
In fhe head dwell the counsellors of Intellect, the Lord of the 
Ide. The five lesser counsellors are the Pive Senses. The three 
privy counsellors are, as in the House of Alma, Common-Sense, 
1 Phantastes, and Eumnestes. Common-Sense, 

"Of middle years and seemly personage 
Father of laws, the rule of wrong and right/'i^ 

dwells in the midst of the high tower. 

"Not thoBe seven Sages might hün parallel, 
Nor he whom Pythian maid did whilome teil 
To be the wisest man that on our earth did dwell. "i* 

/ Phantastes is ''The next that in the Castle 's front is plac't." 

" .... His yeares are fresh and green, 
His visage old, his face too much defac't 
With ashes pale, his eyes deep sunken been. ' 'i» 

f The third is Eumnestes, father of memory, very old, wom of 
I body but fresh of mind :^^ 



17 In The Faerie Queene, 2, 9, 53, the wall of Conunon-Sense's room haa 
pietnres "of magistrates. of eourts, of tribnnals." 

18 Compare Spenser 's general description of the three <flt. 48) : 

"Not he, whom Greeee, the nourse of all good arts, 
By Phaebos doome, the wisest thought alive, 
liäght be eompar'd to these by many parts." 

19 The Faerie Queene, st. 52: 

"Emongst them all säte he whieh wonned there, 

That hight Phantastes by his nature trew, 

A man of yeares yet fresh, as mote appear 

Of swarth complezion and of erabbed hew, 

That him fnll of melancholy did shew. 

Bent, hoUow beetle browes, sharpe staring eyes. ' ' 
In The Purple Island, Phantastes has "Often thoughts and never slakt 
Intention." In The Faerie Queene, he "never idle was ne onee would rest 
a whit. ' ' In The Furple Island, through his brain 

"Thousand thin forms, and idle fancies flit; 



Whieh in the world had never being yet." 
In The Faerie Queene his ehamber is painted with 
"Infnite shapes of things dispersed then 
Some such as in the world were never yit 

Sueh as in idle fantasies doe flit." 

soCf. Spenser 's Eumnestes, st. 55: 

"And therein sat an old, old man hälfe blind 
And all deerepit in his f eeble corse, 
Yet lively vigour rested in his mind." 
And cf. The Furple Island, st. 50: 

"Therefore his body weak his eyes hälfe blinde. 
But minde, more fresh and streng; — ah better fate! " 



322 üniversity of California Fiiblieation$ in Modem PhOology. [YoL 2 

"Well he reealls Nimrode first tymuiiiie 
And Babel 'b pride daring the loftie 8kie;"2i 

Like bis body is bis Chamber: 

"And as hie eareaee, so hie honae deelin'd; 
Yet were the walle of finn and able state; 



Onely on him a nimble page attends 
Who when in onght the aged Grandaire eends, 
With Bwift, yet baekward stepe hie helping aidanee lend8."ss 

Tbe Island 's queen is Yoletta, tbe Will» more beautifal tban 
Gloriana, but often caugbt in the toils of vice and thereby cans- 
ing her husband, Intellect, sad wars and misf ortones. Synteresis, 
Conscience, is her f aithful counsellor. When Yoletta disregards 
this attendant's wamings, a *'sad-fair maid Bepentance" holds 
her f ainting. Just now she is prostrated with grief over a recent 
error and the Yices are marshaUing, inspired with a new hope of 
razing the Castle of Intellect. 

In this latter part of the poem, in which the Yices and 
Yirtues gather and hold battle, Fletcher departs somewbat more 
freely from the inäuence of Spenser. But it is evident that 
Fletcher used the denizens of the House of Pride to some extent 
and found material elsewhere in The Faerie Queene for other 
Yices. Thus Caro, the Flesh, is another one of his morbid 
imitations of Duessa unmasked. But when the last jeer has been 
cast by the painful seeker of parallel passages, one can but 
admire the bold strokes of originality that äash out capriciously 



21 Cf. The Faerie Queene, st. 56: 

"The warres he well remembred of Eling Nine, 
Of old Assaraeus, and Inachns divine." 

22 et, The Faerie Queene, st. 55: 

"The Chamber seemed nünous and old, 

Yet were the wals, that did the same uphold, 

Bight firm and streng." 
And st. 58: 

"A little boy did on him still attend, 

To reach, whenever he for ought did send. ' ' 
Lingua, or the Combat of the Tongue and the Five Sensee for Superiority 
(1657), an anonymoas comedy, may be mentioned here in passing as nsing 
the same allegorieal material as that in Spenser 's House of Alma and 
eertainly deriving as much from Spenser as from Phineas fletcher. But 
the work is of no importance for this study. 



1912] Gary: 8penser,The 8€hooloftheFleteh€r»,andMilt<}n. 323 

in many places. Parthenia (Chastity in the Single life), is, to 
be sure, derived from Spenser's Belphoebe and Britomart. But 
Spenser himself would have admired these lines : 

"Her armour seem'd a goodly garden green, 
Where thousand spotlesa lilies freshly blew; 
And on her shield the 'lone bird might be seen, 
The Arabian bird, shining in colonrs new; 
Itself unto itself was onely mate; 
Ever the same, bnt new in newer date; 
And undemeath was writ, 'Such is ehaste Single State.' 

' ' Thns hid in arms, she seem 'd a goodly knight, 
And fit for any warlike exereise; 
And when she list lay down her armour bright. 
And baek resume her peacefol maiden's gnize; 
The fairest maid she was, that ever yet. 
Prison'd her locks within a golden net, 
Or let them waving hang, with roses fair beset. ' ' 

It is unnecessary to illustrate Fletcher's methods by a further 

enmneration of these personages. The ensuing battle is managed 

with nice allegorical but rather doubtful moral propriety. First 

Parthenia jousts with Pomeios (Fomication), and overthrows 

'him. Aselges (Lascivionsness), is bent on revenge but falls 

jbefore the warlike maid. Other rascals swarm around her but 

jshe defends herseif valiantly tili the Old Dragon sends False 

I Delight, in f riendly attire, who wounds her in the side. Agneia 

. (Chastity in married life), and her husband Eucrates (Temper- 

•ance), ride to her rescue. Soon there is a general melee in which 

i Fletcher's allegory works with the preciseness of a machine. It 

is a rare puppet show, like the first part of the battle of Bon- 

cesvalles in the Chanson. Often the Vices pretend to yield and 

jthen wound their conquerors treacherously. When the Virtues 

have abnost won the field the Old Dragon suddenly marshals 

a new loathsome crew: Hamartia (Sin), Despair, like a dead 

man, with a raven on his crest, armed with ropes and knives,^' 

Time, and Death. They work havoc, though Faith, Experience, 

land Hope rally the drooping Virtues. Suddenly an Angel with 

28 Cf . Spenser 's Despair, 1, 9, whose hello w eyes look deadly dull. A 
ghastly owl perehes on his cave. He tempts his victims to suicide with 
ropes and kniyes. 



324 üniversity of Califomia PubUeationa in Modem FhOoHogy. [YoL 2 

a silyer trampet drops into their midst. The Old Dragon knows 
bis doom but mshes fiercely against bis f oe in blinding arms. 
:He is wounded and botind. Now is tbe time of festivaL Eclecta, 
'long widowed, weleomes her bridegroom, Christ, wbo is described 
with all tbe pagan rapture of tbe Canticles, or as an Italian poet 
of tbe Renaissance would linm an Adonis : 

''HiB locke like raven's plames, or shining jet 
Falls down in cnrls along hii iyory neck; 
Within their eirelets hnndred Graees sei, 
And with love-knots their comely hangings deck: 
His mighty shoulderB, like that giant swain, 
AU heav'n and earth, and all in both sustain; 
Yet knows no wearinese, nor feels oppressing pain." 

We are left not quite certain wbetber we onght to regard 
Fletcher as a cbarlatan or as a true poet. It would be impossible 
to give Space to a complete enmneration of Fletcher 's echoes. 
There are many formal tricks, too, which tbe zealons pupil is no 
less assiduoos in reproducing. We have seen that Fletcher is 
indefatigable in bis experiments with variations of tbe Sx>en- 
serian stanza. But be never tries tbe more difScult stanza itself . 
And a study of bis use of tbe alexandrine, a dangerous line for 
Englisb poets, does not add much to our faitb in bim. Yarious 
cheap and easy devices, violent antitbeses, elaborate play on 
words, are made use of to make tbe final lines prominent.^^ For 



24 For example: 

' ' Whereof three noble are, and thinne, three thiek and vile. ' ' 
"All daj he rent receives; retums it all the day." 
"Whose death she all too late, too soon, too much repented." 
'^To give an end to griefe tili endless griefs did end her." 
"So spring some dawns of joy, so sits the night of sorrow." 
"Poorly — ^poore man — ^he liv'd; poorly — ^poore man — he di'd." 

Other members of the School of the Fletchers resort to the same device. 
Here are a f ew examples taken at random from hundreds equally typical. 

"How worthily he died, that died unworthily." 

' ' That bloody man to save, man 's Saviour shed his blood. ' ' 

"Enjoying but one joy — but one of all joyes best." 

' ' That all might come to see, and all might see that came. ' ' 

— Giles Fletcher. 
"So fast to spend the time that spends your time so fast." 
"And fit love to reward, and with love be rewarded." 
' ' Thou wilt not love to live, unless thou live to love. ' ' 

— Brittain 's Ida, 
' * How sorrowe, joye, and joye again did sorrowe close. ' ' 

— ^Thomas Robinson. 



1912] Cory: Spenser, TTie School of the Fletchers, and Müton. 325 

Fletcher had leamed f rom his master that each alexandrine in 
a perf ect stanza must be memorable to bring about the supreme 
close. But he did not, like Spenser, have an inexhanstible 
treasury of f ancy and sensuous mosic to draw from. The Sehool 
of the Fletehers indulged too of ten in alexandrines both rhetorical 
and halting. Ahnost invariably a very heavy caesura, in the 
middle of the line, divides it unpleasantly and destroys the rieh 
flow. But Fletcher can, on oecasion, display real Imagination 
and write verses heavy with rieh musie. And he is a poet of 
distinet merit when he is bearing the torch for Milton as he 
iconeeives his gloomy and majestic picture of Satan. Most un- 
erringly is he a poet when he sings, with no small share of his 
master 's gentle sensuousness, of Tapinus and Parthenia. 

GiLES Flbtcheb 

It is probable that Phineas Fletcher was at work on his 
Purple Island at the same time that Giles was singing of Christs 
Victarie arid Triumph in Heaven, and Barth, over, and after 
Death. Both poets borrowed freely from each other and in- 
dulged in considerable mutual praise.^*^ There is, indeed, a 
Ireference at the close of the Christ to the last episode in The 
\Purple Island, the marriage of Christ and Eclecta : 



"So I my best beloved'B am; as he is mine." 

— Francis Qoarles. 
Of eourse Spenser is not entirely innoeent of such devices; e.g,, The 
Faerie Queene, 1, 9, 9: 

'^Whieh still wez old in woe, whiles woe still wexeth new." 
Bat Spenser 's lapses of this sort are remarkably few considering the 
immense demands of his huge poem on his metrieal resourees and the 
manj artificial ezcesses of his time. 

SB Space will not permit a detailed acconnt of this. For an ezample of 
verbal similaritj, compare Giles Fletcher: 

* * How may a worme, that crawls along the dust 
Clamber the aznre mountaines thrown so high," 
and Phineas Fletcher: 

''How shall a worm, on dust that crawls and feeds 
Glimb to th' empyreall eourt, where these States reignf 
Both poets give an elaborate picture of the debate of Justice and Mercy 
over mankind before God which abounds in similarities. See also the 
descriptions of Christ in both poets which are almost identical and which 
seem to derive ultimatelj from The Song of Bong». For Phineas Fletcher 's 
eulogy of his brother see Preliminary Verse» for Giles Fletcher 's ChrUt, 
Giles Fletcher 's panegyrical rejoinder is noted in the tezt below: 



326 



üniversity of Cdlifamia Fublieatiom in Modem Phüology. [YoL 2 



''Bat my greene Muse, hiding her jonnger head 
Under old GhamuB' flaggy banks, . ' . 

Dares not those high amoura and love-siek songs assay. " 

Giles Fletcher, we see, was not a love-poet despite hia sensuouB 
picture of the bower of Vaine-Delight. Though bis one im- 
portant poem was pnblished in 1610, perhaps before bis brotber 
bad bidden farewell to tbe little pipe wbicb emulated tbe youth- 
f ul love-plaints of Colin, be is austere sometlmes to the point of 
asceticism. He bas a vatie fervor tbat plaees tbe Christ among 
tbe greatest religious poems of tbe period. 

Tbe Christ begins witb a noble and impressive allegory of 
tbe debate of Justice and Merdy before God. Justice bas tbe 
winged ligbtning for ber Mercury. About ber tbrong pale 
Sickness, **witb kercber'd bead," Pamine, bloodless Gare, Age, 
Fear, and many more. Justice leans ber bosom on two stony 
tables. Her speecb inflames tbe Heavenly Hierarcbies to destroy 
corrupted mankind. But Mercy steps f orward like tbe sun f rom 
tbe clouds. Upon ber breast sleeps Deligbt. Sbe pleads for 
man, especially since Cbrist is now wandering on eartb ; and ber 
' effortB are saecessfol. 

On eartb Cbrist is dwelling in tbe wildemess. Satan comes 
as an aged bermit, just as Arcbimago comes to tbe Bed Gross 
Knigbt in The Faerie Queens, Under pretence of leading Cbrist 
to bis bermitage, Satan leads bim to tbe bower of Despair and 
we come to Pletcber's süperb borrowing from The Faerie 
Queene, bis most important imitation. Headly condemned tbis 
passage as ''a curious instance of plagiarism." Grosart, tbe 
Fletcbers' militant cbampion, protests angrily witb some of bis 
cbaracteristic rbetoric: '*Wbo but a man witb nose for *plagiar- 
ism' as eager-nostrilled as tbat of your ortbodox bunter after 
'beresy' will deem tbese of any moment."** He asserts tbat two 
flines were intended as a quotation. But many lines wbicb 
• Grosart cbooses to ignore are lif ted almost bodily out of Spenser. 

26 GroBart, bnrning with zeal to establish the striking originality of the 
Fletchen, overlooks the numerous parallele I am noting, but cites scores of 
passages to prove Milton's indebtedneBS to the Fletehers that would puule 
eyen the ''eager-nogtrilled" Headly to appreeiate. 



1912] Cory: Spenser,The8ehoolofth€Fl€iehers,andMilt(m. 827 

My own notion is that fhe whole quarrel is futile and that, 
althongh Fletcher's indebtedness amounts to liberal borrowing, 
,!he has created a picture which is hardly leas impressive after 
!we know its source. Christ comes to the baleful bower, 

" .... The mouth of that infenuül eaye, 
j That gaping stood, all eommers to deyoure." 

About the den are venomous herbs and **ragged trees."*' Every- 
where 

' ' Dead bones and skollB were east and bodies hanged wear. ' 'm 

i Here dwells Despair. 

"His blaek uncomböd loekes disheyelled feil 
About hia faee; through which, as brands of Hell, 
Sank in hia sknlly his staring eyes did glowe, 
That made him deadlj looke 



Hia eloathes were ragged Clonts, with thomes pind fast."^^ 

Fletcher does not attempt to reproduce Despair 's subtle elo- 
quence in The Faerie Queene that nearly ruins the Bed Gross 
Enight. Christ steals away and flies with Satan to where 

'' .... Preanmption her payiUon spread 
Orer the temple the bright Btarres among." 

Here, too, all temptations prove futile and angels bring the 
Saviour to a monntain-top at first snowy. Here he endures the 
supreme temptation. In the deseription which foUows, a famous 
passage in the Christ, everyone who has read Spenser's mag- 
nificent outburst on the Bower of Bliss will see both the general 
indebtedness and the originality of Fletcher. 



» Cf. Spenser, 1, 9, 34: 

''And all abont old etooks and stubs of trfiea 
Whereon nor f mite nor leaf was ever seene, 
Did hang npon the ragged rocky knees." 

2sCf. The Faerie Queene, 1, 9, 34: 

''On which had many wretehes hanged beene, 
Whose carcases were seattered on the greene." 

2« The Faerie Queene, st. 35 : 

"His griesie loekes, long growen and nnboond, 
Disordered hong about hu Shoulders round. 
And hid his face; through which his hollow eyne 
Lookt deadly dull, and stared as astound;'' 
and st. 36: 

"His garments nought but many ragged elouts, 
With thomes together pind and patdied was. ' ' 



328 University of Cßlifomia Publioati<m8 in Modem PhUology. [Vol. 2 

* * All suddenlj the hiU his inowe devoun, 
In lieu whereof a goodly garden grew 
Ab if the snowe had melted into flow'ra 
Whieh their sweet breath in subtill vapours threw, 
That all about perfnmed spirite flew: 
For what aa erer rnight aggrate the sense, 
In all the world, or please the appetence, 
Here it was poured out in laviah affluenee. 

' ' For in all these*® some one thing most did growe, 
But in thifl one grew all things elae beside; 
For sweet Yarietie herseife did throw 
To everj banke; here all the ground she dide 
In lillie white; there pinks emblazed wide; 
And damask 't all the earth ; and here shee shed 
Blew yioletSy and there eame roses red; 
And eyery sight the yielding sense, as captive led. 

''The garden like a lady faire was cut, 
That lay as if she slomberM in delight. 
And to the open skies her ejes did shut; 
The azure fields of heav'n wear 'sembled right 
In a large round, set with the flowr's of light, 
The flow're-de-lnce, and the round sparks of deaw, 
That hung upon the azure leaves, did shew, 
Like twinkling starrs, that sparkle in th' eavning blew. 

''Upon a hilUe banke her head shee east, 
On whieh the bowre of Yaine-delight was built; 
White and red roses for her faee was plac't. 
And for her tresses marigolds wear spilt; 
Them broadly shee displaid, like flaming guilt, 
Till in the oeean the glad daj wear drown'd; 
Then up again her jellow lockes she wound. 
And with greene filletts in their prettie calls them bound. ' * 

The quaint, stiff extravagance with whieh Fleteher strives to 
outdo his master's gorgeousness is here only delightful. Both 
poets have fountains adomed with naked, wanton boys. Both 
have groves where branehes twine in drunken abandon. Both 
jSpenser and Fleteher have beds of roses where naked women 
disport. The ''faire witeh/' so called by both poets, has a herd 
of enehanted beasts, onee men, in both poems. In Fleteher 

soViz: Ida, Tempe, etc., whieh Fleteher says cannot be compared with 
this garden. 



1912] Cory: Spenser, The School of the Fletehers, and MUtan. 329 

Ambition, too, sits enthroned. In Spenser Guyon finds a similar 
Ambition sitting in State in Mammon 's cave. Christ hears 
someone sing a volnptuous lay like that with which one of 
f Acrasia 's damsels greets Sir Guyon 's ears : 

' ' See see the flowen that belowe, 
Now as fresh as moming blowe; 
And of all the Virgiii rose, 
Ererything doth passe awaj 
Thear is danger in delay 
Gome, eome gather then the rose, "si 

^Above all Panglorie sits enthroned, crowned with her golden 
hair and a garland of rosebuds. In one band she holds a silver 
wand; in the other, a hollow globe of glass whose colors, like 

jthose of the rainbow, are always vanishing. Christ dispels her 
enchantments and she äees to Hell. Angels bring a banquet to 
the Lord. 

Prom now on Pletcher ceases to employ allegory to any 

fextent. The poem gains distinctly in eamest eloquence, greater 
vigor, and nobler simplicity. Christ passes over the Cedron 

i singing to his death. 

' ' So downe the silver streames of Eridan, 
.On either side bank't with a lilljr wall, 
Whiter than both, rides the triumphant swan. 
And sings his dirge and death, and propheeiee his fall. ' ' 

The betrayal and crucifixion are deseribed with an eremite's 
ecstasy and with occasional incursions into the reabns of 
grotesque horror.'^ All earth moums. But the second dawn is 



si Cf. The Faerie Queene, 2, 12, sts. 74 sq: 

''The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay: 
Aht see the Virgin Böse, how sweetly shee 

Doth first peepe f orth in bashf oll modestie, 
That fairer seemes the less ye see her may, 
Lol see soone after how more bold and free 
Her bared bosom she doth broad display; 
Lol see soone after how she fades and falls away. 

"Gkither therefore the Böse whilst yet is prime 
For soone eomes age that will her pride deflowre.'' 

"The curious may compare the Devil here with Erronr in The Faerie 
Queene and the Old Dragon in The Purple Island. 



330 UniverHty of Cdlifi>mia Publications in Modern Phüology. [VoL 2 

an ecstasy of light. The flowers spring Inxnriantly to welcome 
their Lord. Triumphant from bis harrowing of Hell, Christ 
retums to earth and thence aseends into Heaven. With a real 
rapture the poet visions the splendors of Paradise. He rejoices 
in the love of Egliset for Christ. But he is too hmnble to sing 
of the great marriage. That is reserved for Thirsil. And with 
this modest note the noble poem doses. 

"Beittain's Ida" 

' In 1628 Thomas Walkley publisbed a fanciful version of the 
fStory of Yenns and Anchises called Brittain's Ida, ''written by 
that renowned poet Edmond Spencer." Its anthorship remained 
^nnquestioned for nearly two centuries, although it seems incred- 
ible to a Student of Spenser that its apocrs^phal nature should 
have remained so long unnoticed. It is in the stanza of ChrisVs 
Victorie (ababbccC), and is either the work of one of the 
Fletchers, more probably of Phineas, or of a member of their 
school. Grosart sought to fix its anthorship on Phineas Fletcher 
by the oseless and wom-out method of piling up parallels with 
the poet 's established works (as if most imitators, especially of 
this period, did not fumish parallels a plenty), and by certain 
more convincing repentant references to the looser poems of 
youth. He has but increased the probability at best. 

The poem is a lovely work of youth, sensual, to be sure, but 
tabnost too delicate for Phineas Fletcher at any period of bis life. 
|It is in six brief cantos. The first simply introduces Anchises. 

' ' In Ida vale (who knows not Ida vale) 
When hannless Troy yet feit not Greeian spite," 

Üwelt a hundred shepherds, of whom the most beautiful by far 
Was Anchises. Canto two is a description of the Oarden of 
3elight, in imitation of Spenser 's Bower of Bliss. Here Venus 
Iwelt and here Anchises came on a day when he was tired from 
;he chase. Prom the grove came **dainty music." Thither 
lalf fearful, half hopeful he stole. Some voice sang a lay like 
that which Ouyon heard in the Bower of Bliss. Anchises entered 



1912] Cory: Bpenser, The Sehool of the FUtehen, and Müton. 331 

and saw Venus reclining on a bed of lillies, dothed in a veil of 

thinnest silk. Anchises swooned. Venus awaking almost 

thought she saw Adonis onee more dying at her feet. She 

revived the youth with tender care. By her surpassing beauty 

he knew that she eould be no other than the Gtoddess of Love. 

Ardently he pleaded to be admitted into her service. The 

gracious goddess granted his suit, gave him a bow and arrows, 

and plaeed him with the pretty Oraces f rom whom he won great 

love. But he nursed a growing passion for Venus in seeret until 

Jone day she overheard his eomplaints and begged him to teil her 

I the cause. Falteringly he disclosed his longing and, begging for 

a Single kiss, he won her love. His happiness was long; but one 

' day he rashly disclosed his bliss to woods and heaven and earth : 

"That Joye npon him downe his thnnder darted 
BlaBÜng his splendent face, and all his beauty swarted." 

'And here the poet steps in quaintly in his own person, blames 
Anchises for blabbing, and avows his own powers of secrecy 
would his obdurate mistress but yield. The poem shows a dose 
dependence on Spenser and a äuent mastery of his sensuous 
cadences, though th^ rhetorical alexandrine creeps in at times. 
It is a delightful piece of youthful lawlessness. 



Thomas Bobinson 

About 1620, Thomas Bobinson, who has suffered more 
obscurity than many worse poets of his period, wrote his Life 
and Death of Mary Magdalene in the stanza of Giles Fletcher's 
Christ and enrolled himself in the School of the Fletchers. The 
inäuence of the Christ, in fact, is quite as marked as that of 
The Faerie Queene, Bobinson begins with a quaint paradoxieal 
Statement of the argument exactly in the manner of Giles 
Pletcher's prelude: 



332 Universiiy of California Publieatians in Modem PMlology. [YoL 2 

"The deatli of her that was bat newly bome: 
The birth of her that long agoe was dead: 
The life of her whom heaven and earth did scoitie: 
Her beawty, that was erat debellished: 
How snowy white inveild the crimson red. 
And yet the lily spränge nnto the rose, 
Under his spiny fortresse to repose; 
How sorrowe, joye, and joye againe did sorrowe eloee.s« 



<< 



This be the dutjr of my oaten reed." 



What reader having sped through these astounding lines wonld 
not hasten on in search of the wonders that the poet promises 
f rom his humble oaten stops Y 

The narrative begins with an accoont of the gorgeous Palace 
of Pleasure where dwelt 

"Amorous, younge, faire, slender Aphrodite. 



A gonlden bowle in her right band shee bore, 
Wherein all pleasure and delight were bred," 



as Panglorie, in the Christ, holds a hoUow glass globe whieh 
lE^ymbolizes man 's vain pleasures. Two ladies held the train of 
Aphrodite, "Plumpe, pursive Lnxury, and qnainter Pride." 
Oilded Plattery supported her right hand, Wantonnesse her left. 
''Foolish dame Langhter" painted her eyelids. There too were 
Idleness, Jealousy, Inconstancie, and ''a thonsand graceless 
Oraces." A song, like those always sung in these Bowers of 
Bliss, allured. 

"This Said, a thonsand prostitute delights, 
Flewe up and downe the courts as bright as day.'' 

Oluttonie and Bacchus were invited to the f east. After an orgy 
all dispersed into the arbors. Some were tumed to beasts. 

88 Cf. the opening stanzas of the Christ: 

"The birth of Hirn that no beginning knewe, 
Yet gives beginning to all that are bome. 
And how the Infinite farre greater grewe, 
By growing lesse, and how the rising Mome, 
That shot from heav'n, did backe to heav'n retoume; 
The obsequies of Hirn that eould not die 
And death of life, ende of etemitie 
How worthily he died that died unworthily; " etc. 



1912] Cary : Spenser, The Sckool of ihe Fletchera, and Müton, 333 

Among the revelleis the most beautifal was Mary Magdelene. 
From many rivals she chose the strongest, one who obtained 
her after a Woody contest. They went into a garden of flowers 
like those of Spenser strewed at the f eet of Elisa. 

' ' The Damaske-roses heere were brought a bed, 
Just oppoeite the Lilie of the Vale, 
The Woody Primrose and the pretly Paunce 
The Pineke, the Daffodill and Chevisanee 
All in Perfumed sets their fragrant heade advance/'s« 

Heaven, beholding, sent Syneide (Good Conscience), daughter 
of light. She went to Mary, admonished her, and wounded her 
with a goad. Mary, however, soon went back to her ways of 
lust. Then Heaven was angered and sent a tormenting Cön- 
science, ''a dreary hagge," who came with other fories. The 
snakes of Conscience twined around Mary. Sorrow and Care 
mied her. She was carried to the Cave of Melaneholy, Robin- 
son 's contribiition to the Spenserian Despair-poetry. Near the 
tarn was a steep path leading to Hell. Nemesis hastened thither 
and ealled up seven fiery spirits to torture Mary, who wandered 
distraught through a great desert. But new hope dawned. 
Christ was approaching. He saw Mary and cast out the evil 
spirits. Syneide retumed to the penitent and bade her go to the 
Palaee of Wisdom. Jt was surrounded by rieh forests like 
fragrant Lebanon. 

" Pomegranates sweet, and saffron theie eontend; 
Spiknard and Camphire and browne Ginnamon." 

Wisdom 's palaee Stands on a hill beeause her glory is high; 
on a rock beeause she is constant. Thorns grow before it beeause 
it is difficult of approach. Though the poet's own glosses refer 



M Cf. Spenser 'b Sang to Elisa (Aprü). 

"Bring hether the pineke and purple eullambine 

With gelliflowers; 
Bring coronations, and sops in wine, 
Wome of paramoures; 
Strowe me the ground with daffadowndillies, 
And cowslips, and kingeups, and loved liUies; 
The pretie pawnce 
And the ehevisaunce 
Shall match with the fayre flowre delice." 



334 Uiwoenity of Caiifomia PubUoatianB in Moden PhOology. [YoL 2 

throoghout to the Wisdom of Solamon, hia more sabstantial 
indebtednesB to Speiuser 's episode of the House of Holinease is 
unquestionable. Ab in Spenser, ''watchful Hunility still kept 
the dore'' and brought Mary before beaatifol Wisdom. In the 
Apocryphal book the only allegorical element is the vagae per- 
sonification of Wisdom. In Robinson 's poem Mary was led to 
Bepentance, a woman clothed in sackcloth who continnally 
weeps. Bepentance, in The Faerie Queene, bathed the Bed Cross 
Enight in ''salt water smarting sore" after he had been scourged 
by "bitter Penaunce" and ''sharpe Bemorse." Mary repented 
and was soothed by Conscience, as the Bed Gross Knight was 
comforted by Gharissa. Bobinson's poem closes with an accoont 
of Mary 's devotion to Christ, her lamentation at the cross, and 
her meeting with Christ after the resurrection. 

Fbancis Quables 

Francis Qoarles (1592-1644) should be noted as member of 
the School of the Fletchers. For Phineas Fletcher he had the 
highest admiration. He prefized commendatory verses to The 
Purple Island f hailing its anthor as the ''Spencer of this age." 
And he was very partial to the variations of the Spenserian 
stanzas employed by the Fletchers. He added two similar 
variations to the group of stanzas in regulär pentameters and 
he experimented further by varying the length of the lines. 
jMost of his Spenserian variations appear in Emblemes and 
Hieroglyphikes of the life of Man, groups of poems in which he 
took a Biblical Quotation as a text and either expanded it into 
a poem in the same mood or wrote a sort of homily in verse on 
I thoughts suggested by it. Probably he was led to vary Fletcher 's 
stanzas occasionally, by the introduction of some shorter lines, 
from a desire to make his stanzas more suitable to the mood of 
Isome of his texts. The Emblems seem to have achieved consider- 
lable popularity and in fact do contain about all his best work. 
lAlmost all those which are based on quotations from the Can- 
ticles are at least worthy of the Fletchers and rise above the 
^eadly mediocrity of the body of his work. Their content is 



1912] C&ry: Spenser, The Sehool of the Fleiohers, and Müton. 335 

seldom notably Spenserian, but a few significant verses may be 
noted as containing material at least familiär to Spenser and bis 
followers. Thus in one Emblem (Book 5, Emblem 3), on the 
passage in the Caniicles (2:5), ''Stay me with flowers, and 
comfort me with apples for I am sick with love," he contributes 
a flower passage and writes in a manner perhaps vaguely 
reminiscent of the Bpithaiainion, 

' ' VirginB, tuck np your silken laps and fill ye 
With the fair wealth of Flora 's Magazine ; 
The porple violet, and the pale-fae'd lilly; 
The pancy and the organ eolombine; 
The flo wring thjme, the goilt-boul daffadilly; 
The lowly pink, the lofty egientine; 
The bluBhing rose, the queen of flowers and best 
Of Flora 's beauty; but above the rest, 
Let Jessens soveraigne flower perfmne my quahning breast." 

Joseph Beaumont 

The illnstrious family of Beaumonts fiimished their member 
of the School of the Fletchers in the person of Dr. Joseph Beau- 
mont (1615-1699) whose Psyche is the most ponderous of all 
(the ambitious allegories of this group. Beaumont was a placid 
dreamer who, however, was shrewd enough to avoid the con- 
tomely of the howling world. Although he was driven from 
Cambridge along with bis friend Crashaw and other prominent 
royalists dnring the troublous times, he eontrived to be one who 
sofFered no härm thereby. He oceupied several snug positions 
as pastor and teacher, and discreetly married the danghter of 
bis patron, the Bishop of Ely. His leisure hours were devoted 
to the prodnetion of his unwieldy epic. Spenser 's mighty 
seheme, proponnded in the famous letter to Baleigh, was no more 
Iheaven-storming. Beaumont linked to the life of Christ an 
[elaborate allegory of Psyehe, the soul of man. In 1648 he 
published his poem in a veraion said to have been much milder 
than the one which is now extant. He then devoted himself to 
putting an edge on the seetarian passages and, in cahn certainty 
of deathless fame, dauntlessly added four cantos to the leviathan. 



336 üniversity of Califomia Publicationa in Modem PhUology. [VoL 2 

In 1702 his son, prompted, he teils us, by the demand for the 
poem, the first edition of which was even then rare, published 
Psyche, or Love's Mystery, In Twenty-four Cantos: Displaying 
the Intercourse BeUvixt Christ, and the Soul, The Second 
Edition, With Corrections throughout and Pour new Cantos, 
never before Printed, 

The Psyche begins with a seene in Hell which may be grouped 

with those of The Apollyonists, Christas Victorie, and Paradise 

\Lost. With a speech of fiery scom Satan fills his benehmen with 

ja new spirit of rebellion and lays plots to begoile Psyche. Lust 

)is first despatched against the unsuspecting maiden. She is 

jfound feasting with Phylaz, the emissary of Christ, who pre- 

-pares her for her Coming danger by a detailed account of 

Joseph 's life and his temptation by Potiphar's wife. Psyche slips 

out alone, but sage Syneidesis (Conscience), follows. Charis, 

an old f riend, is also on the watch but decides to let Psyche have 

a severe lesson. Syneidesis falls asleep and Psyche, pursued by 

a boar, is rescued by a gallant knight, Aphrodisius. Her rescuer, 

however, proves to be the seductive emissary of Satan who would 

have ruined her with his lying tongue had not Charis and 

Phylax intervened. Aphrodisius is bound, and when rex>entant 

Psyche is brought back to behold evil unmasked he proves to be 

a hideous fiend. 

/ Beaumont now describes a rebellion which is in the manner 
^of Spenser's episode of the House of Alma and Phineas 
^jPletcher's Purple Island. Psyche 's friends murmur against her 
tand meet in an upper Chamber of the house whose master is 
jCommon-Sense. The maidens Opsis (Sight), Ophresis (Smell), 
jGeusis (Taste), Acoe (Hearing), and Haphe (Touching), all 
jdispute for the supremacy. Opsis begins by describing the 
|wonders of her house in terms of physiological allegory preeisely 
jsimilar to the manner of Phineas Fletcher. She then shows 
exterior glories, a pageant of the seasons. Here Beaumont 
derives hints from an analogous scene in the fragmentary 
jseventh book of The Faerie Queene. First : 



1912] 



Cory : Spenser, The Sehool of the Fletchers, and Müton. 



337 



"The Spring marched forth array'd 
With flagrant Green, whoee sweet embroidery 
In blooma and buds of Virgin smiles display'd 
A seene of living joys all echoed by 
Ten thousand Birds, which, pereh'd on every Tree 
Ton'd their soft pipes to Nature'B harmony/'ss 

In the same mazmer each Sense pnts forth her claim, first by 
physiological allegory, then by presenting a spectacle of the 
extemal wonders which she enjoys. The vision whieh Acoe dis- 
plays is of special interest because of its elaborate account of 
Beaumont's most eherished poets. A grove suddenly Springs up. 
Here Pindar and Flaeeus play rival notes. Homer sits on a 
mountain and Maro echoes his princely voice with tones of 
lequal qnality. In slightly lower State admirable Tasso rests, 

''Not far from whom, though in a lower elime 
Yet with a goodly train doth Colin sweep : 
Though manaded in thick and peevish Bhymes 
A deeent paee his painef ul Verse doth keep ; 
Bight fairly dress'd were his welfeatured Queen 
Did not her Mask too mueh her beauties screen." 

Common-Sense qniets the brawling Senses and advises them 
to send his sister Fancy to the diseontented troop scattered abont 
the Heart. Fancy flies to the Passions and exhorts them to 
insorrection. They march in array. Psyche, terrified, flees to 
her inmost fort and sends Logos (Beason), to urge peace. Bat 
her advice is spumed and he is imprisoned. Phylax and Charis 
are nowhere to be seen. Only Thelema (Will) , is left. She sallies 
jforth in vengefal mood, but the Passions, by fawning homage 
mid by deceit, Iure her to their side. The Passions then send 
iLove, their most subtle champion, to treat with Psyche. He 
wins her over to their lawlessness. Pride arranges Psyche in 
gorgeous apparel and the nnhappy maid revels and rides far and 



w Cf. The Faerie Queene, 7, 7, 28: 

"First lusty Spring, all dight in leaves of flowres 
That freshly budded and new bloosmes did beare 
(In which a thousand birds had built their bowres, 
That sweetly sung, to call forth paramours.) " 
Beaumont's descriptions of the other seasons are also very similar to 
Spenser's. 



338 ünwertUf of California PabUcaUomg m Modem FkOtOogf. [YoL S 

Iwide in a coach of TanitieB. Syneidem protests bat Pajdie 
shrondB her in a black veiL 

; From Heaven Chnst sees his bride*8 fall and despatcheB 
Phylax and Charis to her aid. Phylax atopa her ehariot in üb 
mad course. Angry Thelema, the postülion, woold drive on, bat 
Phylax shatteFB the ear and chides both Thelema and the more 
relactant Psyche to repentance. Pride is ahown in Hell and the 
other paasiona are glad to aabmit to Thelema'a stem ordeis. 
Logos and Syneidesis are freed. Psyche ia instracted by the 
Story of Adam and Eve and by a long aocoont of the life of 
jChrist, freely interspersed with allegory, which Covers nine 
jcantos. 

It seema qaite reasonable f or Phylax to have sapxKMed that, 
after his extraordinary biography of Christ, intellectoal exhaoa- 
tion alone would have so completely subdned Psyche 's moods 
for nnhealthy explorations that she would present in effect an 
adamantine front to sin. Bat as soon as he leaves her the bo^y 
devil seeks oat ''a special Fary's den'' and despatches the 
monster against his victim. In short, Psyche is tempted by 
Heresy and is won over. Bnt Phylax once more intervenes and 
takes her to her new-found Doctor's tower, to the birthplace of 
Heretick Sin, where they find 

''SwamiB of Doora and Gelte and GaUeries, 
Whieli br qnaint Tumings to and f ro did wind. ' ' 

) They come to a room where 

"A goodljr Craeifiz was there dteplaid, 
Altan were rear'd and reyerend Bibles ope, 
By whieh majestiek Liturgies weie laid. 
And loftj-tuned Anthems; on the top 
Art plac'd a quire of Angete hovering 
And made the gorgeous Boof all seem to sing. ' ' 

>^ut at the entranee of Phylax all the falsity becomes apparent. 

"Glozing DeceitB and handsome Lyes stood there, 
With gentle meek demure Hjpoerisy, 
All whieh in goodly State attended were 
By^ treacherouB Bhetoriek and Phylosophy; 
With Syllogisms in rank and flle array'd 
Whose hands three-forked massy halberts sway'd." 



1912] Cory: Spenaer, The School of the FUtehers, and Müton, 339 

No doubt the unmly Psyche needed even more persuasion than 
coTiId come from the disconcerting spectacle of syllogisms in 
human semblance. So she was shown a long procession of the 
heretieal sects of all ages pressing downward to Death's living 
fountains. 

I Beaumont now eontributes to the allegorical purgation seenes 
f¥hich Spenser made populär in this age by his description of the 
nanee of the Bed Gross Enight in the House of Holinesse. 
hylax carries Psyche a fabulous height in his chariot. She is 
rought to a majestic palace. To enter its first gate she is com- 
elled to bend and shrink. This portal, of transparent crystal, 
s kept by Sorrow mouming with dishevelled hair and scourging 
erseif continually. After beholding many wonders Psyche is 
rought before the Queen of the Castle, Ecclesia, the Church 
nd the supreme bride of Christ. In her right band the stately 
iqueen holds the golden key of the Port of Bliss and in her left 
•the iron key which opens the way down to torment. Her maids 
•of honor swarm about her: the sober matron Sanctity, portly 
iMagnanimity with open swelling breasts,'® and other Spenserian 
ifigures. By Truth's embraces Psyche is made whole.*' 
1 After one more vain attempt Satan resorts to a supreme trial. 

''ThuB eame the mozuster to bis dearest Place 
On Earth, a Palaee wondrous large and high, 
Which on seav'n Mountains' heads enthroned was. 

jHere our fantastic poet attacks religious persecution in the 
manner of Phineas Fletcher's onslaught on Catholicism in The 
Appolyonists and even more closely in imitation of Spenser 's 
House of Pride. The exterior walls are of dead men's bones 
surrounded by a ditch filled with innocent blood.*^ Satan finds 



MCompare Gharity in the House of Holinesse, The Faerie Queene, 1, 
10, 30. 

sTGompare Una (Truth), who is reinstated onoe more as the accepted 
lover of the Bed Gross Knight after his penance, and Browne 's Aletheia (in 
Britannia'e PaatoräU), who embraces Biot after his convendon following 
a similar repentance. 

M Gompare The Faerie Queene, 1, 4, 36. The Sins ride forth from the 
House of Pride. 

"And undemeath their feet all scattered lay 
Dead sculls and bonos of men whose lifo had gone astray." 



340 University of California Puhlicationa in Modem Phüology, [YoL 2 

Uhe Castle 's queen, Persecution, and embraces her with great 
Ijoy. She promises to proclaim pardon to all who will repent 
iChristianity and eome to her. Her departure with her hosts is 
pescribed in close imitation of Spenser's great pageant of the 
[Seyen Deadly Sins. It is the first Spenserian attempt to re- 
produee the master's great picture of his abstractions of evil in 
motley prooession, mounted on the backs of uncouth beasts. 

' ' Forthwith, in terrible Magnificenee, 
An handred Tnunpets sent their Voice before, 
To teil the People that their awful Prinee 
Her Progress now began: that stately Boar 
Throogh every Street imperiously flew, 
And warn 'd all eyes this mighty Sight to Tiew 

'<When \0f the sweating Throngs her way bespread 
With admirations of her Pomp and Train. 
Two Bquires before the rest at distanee rid, 
Suspition and Envj; both did rein 
Their fitting Steeds, the one a Fox, the other 
A Wolf and fore'd them on to march together."*« 

' ' Then came the Coach whieh two stränge Monsters drew, 
For one a dreadful Lybian Dragon was, 
Who from his mouth did flaming Solphur spew, 
Empoisoning all the Way he was to pass: 
The other, an enormous erocodile, 
The most accorsed Son of happy Nile. 

' ' On them two fieree Postillions mounted were 
Intolerable headstrong Anger, who 
Her Dragon 's sides with restless Lashes tore 
Tet knew not why she him tormented so:^ 
And Gruelty, whose heart was harder than 
His knotty Croeodile's blaek iron skin. 

"Upon the Coaehbox säte a Driver, hight 
Selfwil, a madbrain'd most outrageous He; 
Who makes devouring Speed his sole Delight, 
Though thonsand Penis chide his Fervency 
Never could Hills or Dales, or Sea or Land, 
Or desperate Precipiees make him stand, "«i 



88 So in Sponsor, The Faerie Queene, 1, 4, 30, Envy ridee on a wolf . 

40 Gf. The Faerie Queene, 1, 4, 34. Sponserte Wrath has equally blind 
passions: 

"Yet, willfall man, he never wonld foreeast, 
How many mischieves should ensue his heedlees hast. ' ' 

41 Gf . The Faerie Queene, 1, 4, 34, Satan, the postillion of Pride 's chariot. 



1912] Cory: Spenser, The School of the Fletchers, and Milt<m. 341 

On the brazen chariot sat the dreadful queen as, in Spenser, 
Pride sat in her car drawn by the six unequal beasts of the 
other Sins: 

"Her Bteely Coat's all smear'd witli göre; her Hands 
Grii>e two impriBon 'd Twists of angrj Snakes, 
With which though still her Goaehman never Stands 
Etemally she threshes him, and makee 
His furious speed more speedy grow, that she 
Might at her Prey as soon 's her Wishes be. ' ' 

Her infernal brood followed her: Bavishment, riding upon a 
goat,*^ Heresy on a Hydra,** and many others. 

Persecution goes to England and, at her summons, many 
flock to her Standards. Psyche and the f ew who stand fast are 
driven forth while the lawless rob, murder, and bum. Psyche 
and a friend, Uranius^ take refuge in a cave. A lion, in search 
of prey, roshes into their harborage. But he saddenly becomes 
mild at the sight of the two sufferers, as does the lion bef ore 
Una in Spenser. The two exiles are captured, Uranius is bumed 
at the stake, and Psyche is tortured in prison. But Phylax 
frees her and teils her that an even more exalted martyrdom is 
reserved for her lot. Psyche is brought to a desert and aban- 
doned to many trials. Satan sends against her Despair, the 
usual Spenserian Agare with hoUow, staring eyes and all the 
foulness of Duessa unmasked, armed with rust-eaten swords and 
'daggers. This fury makes a long and subtle speech, taunts 
•Psyche with her many sins, as Spenser 's apparition taunts the 
IBed Gross Enight with his association with Duessa, and incites 
;her to suicide. But Psyche remains firm and the hag vanishes 

■ 

with a shriek. Psyche bums in a sort of inner fire of religious 
'exaltation. 



«2 Of . The Faerie Queene, 1, 4, 24, Leehery riding on a goat. 

4> Cf . The Filarie Queene, 1, 7, 16 sq., Dneesa rides on a hydra-like beast 
given her by Orgogllo. Cf. also Beaumont: 

' * When lo, the sweating throngs her way bespread 
With admiration of her Pomp and Train." 
and Spenser: 

' ' Hugo ronts of people did about them band 
Shonting for joy." (1, 4, 36) 



342 UMvenüf of Cälif&mia Püblieati(ms m Modem PhiMogy. [ VoL 2 



Samuel Woodfobd 

Beaumont's huge epic was ushered into the world with some 
rapturons eommendatory verses by Samuel Woodford, who, 
although he wrote later than Milton, is worth brief considera- 
tion for the more complete understanding of this eccentric 
though once important school of poetry. Woodford used the 
f avorite stanzas of the Fletchers very f reely in his paraphrases of 
the Psalms. He added variations of his own and ezperimented, 
even more freely than Qaarles, in shortening the lines occasion- 
ally to give more lyrical quality to the paraphrases where the 
Originals seemed to demand it. In 1679 he published A Para- 
phrase upon the Caniicles with a preface that is fall of interest 
to the Student of the history of eriticism.^ But what interests 
US here is that Woodford, lest the frail reader should find 
poison in the Oriental langors of the paraphrase, added an 
Epoda or Legend of Love, so styled ''for honour's sake to the 
great Spenser, whose Stanza of Nine I have used, and who has 
Intituled the six Books which we have compleat of his Faery 
Queen, by the several Legends of Holiness, Temperance, 
Chastity, Friendship, Justice and Courtesy." This Epoda, 
imitated partly from Spenser's Hymne to Divine Love and 
partly from the pageant of the Seven Deadly Sins in The Faerie 
Queene, shows strongly the ezaggerated Puritanism of the School 
of the Fletchers and their prurience, which despite its idealistic 
theory is nothing short of strumpet-minded. We cannot be too 
severe with these tough old divines. 

The first canto of Woodford 's poems sounds in harsh, sturdy 
echoes the thought of Spenser's Hymne. In the second canto he 
juggles fiuently with Spenserian allegory. Lust, or the devil 
Legion, came to possess a lost soul. Before he arrived Idleness 
had swept the empty rooms and darkened the lights and Win- 
dows. Fancy let in loose Desire. After him the Fiend rode in 



M I have diBCUBsed this prefaee at Bome length in ' ' The Gritics of 
Edmund Spenser/' Univ. Calif. Publ. Modem PIMology, voL 2, no. 2, pp. 
122 sq. 



1912] Cary: Spenser, The School of the Fletchera, and Mütan, 343 

in triumph at the head of a pageant like that which issaed f rom 
Spenser 's Honse of Pride : 

"So in Desire eame vainest of the Three, 
And after him in Triumph rode the Fiend ; 
Whom seven Spirits, füll as bad as he. 
And lo sang to Love, that Heav'n did tend 
So sang thej all, but with unequal grace 
As were their looks; for some their brows did bend, 
And grin'd moet horrid with distorted Face; 
Others were blithe and smiled as they along did pass. 

''FoUy, the First, by her Habit seemM a Maid, 
And by her Face, whieh was excelling fair; 



Mirth was a youth of beautiful regard, 

With ehearfnl Eyes, plump downy Gheeks and Chin, 

Him Dallianee f ollowed next, a Damsel gay, 
Of light behaviour, as she well eould feign; 
And wantonly her Brest did open lay, 
The liover who eame next to entertain; 
Tho who the He were of her mighty Train, 
She was not mueh solicitous to know." 

Then eame G^ius or Comus : 

"A right good Fellow, as his Belly show'd 
Which in a Swath reacht almost to his Knee 
And made him passage through th' admiring crowd, 
Which shooting to him louted, as to them he bow'd." 

More grisly figures f ollowed like consequenees : Sin with a 
thonsand heads, wretched Poverty, and Death, described with a 
line plondered from Milton, 

"But Death the third, the same shape always kept. 
If Shape it might be call M, that shape had none. ' ' 

"Wherever he went he was attended by unquiet Care, Suspicion, 
Impndence, Riotice, and Irreligion. Without the door waited 
Distrost, Jealonsy, Fear. Such was the eompany that entered 
the sonl of a wretched man who sought only earthly Love. 

We need not foUow Woodford in his third canto, where he 
writes of the moral anarchy described in some of the historical 
passages in the Old Testament and hymns the rise of lawfnl 



844 Unwersity of Califcmia FubHeation$ in Modern PhiMogy. [YoL 2 

marriage. Nor ia it neoessary to meddle farther with the 
work of other poets of this Bchool who persisted even into the 
eighteenth Century. Indeed to many readers I ahall seem to have 
exhumed freakish x>oems out of all proportion. Bnt it is high 
time that we understood more clearly than any critic has yet 
set forth the immediate poetic environment of Lycidas, Patudise 
Lost, aad Paradise Begained, the welter of religion and senau- 
ality, of lofty idealism and ferocious bigotry, from which the 
great Puritan drew far more than we eommonly realize. Too 
much attention has been given to Vondel, Andreini, and other 
remote influences. Apart from the great Oreek and Latin poets 
and from the great books of philosophy and religion, Milton's 
literary lineage is to be traeed from his master Spenser and from 
these Strange perverted works of a group of poets who had a 
much greater academic vogue than is now generally understood, 
the School of the Pletchers.*' 

These curious, half-diseased, half-divine poets were in one 
respect the truest Spenserians who ever lived. They did not 
distil the rarest essence of their master as did Milton and Eeats 
and other great English poets. But they did more than merely 
loot The Faerie Queene for lines and stanzas. With the passing 
of the School of the Fletchers there passed the last ambitious, 
absurd attempts to rear the cumbersome, tottering f ramework 
of The Faerie Queene to the very stars. The eighteenth Century 
poets imitated Spenser elegantly and superficially, for the most 
part, as they imitated all their masters. The romanticists, when 
they reached their period of füll triumph, did not Imitate ; they 
were inspired. But the Fletchers and their crew, besides plun- 
dering and botehing lines and stanzas, outlined gigantic schemes 
like that set forth in Spenser 's letter to Baleigh, that süperb 
manifesto of idealism, and tumed Milton from his dreams of 
Arthur to write audaciously of Qod and Satan. With the School 
of the Fletchers such heaven-storming became the fashion in 



45 1 have analyzed the work of the last known poet of this school, 
William Thompson, in my '^ Spenser, Thomson, and Bomantieism, " Publ. 
Mod. Lang, Äsoc., xzyi, 1. 



1912] Ccry: ßpenser, The Sehool of the FUtehers, and Mütan. 345 

England as it was already the fashion on the continent. We 
cannot fairly bat admire as well as laugh at the rare audacity 
with which the Sehool of the Fletchers strove to rear Babels of 
poetry. And in this chaos Milton saw light. 

This is the wholesome value of noting the relation of such 
queer stuff (if you will), and the master work. And the literary 
historian wonders as he looks down the long avenues of literature 
at great men and small, whether our hordes of little realists and 
little romanticists who huddle about the f eet of our living masters 
will have as much to give, two centuries hence, as these Fletchers 
at whom it is so easy to laugh. 

MILTON 

For a while Milton was certainly definitely enlisted in this 
sehool. And even when he rose above it in many respects, some 
inäuence lingered long. In his earliest poems he foUowed these 
aeademic eiders rather dosely. He moums the death of a fair 
Infant prettily and inappropriately enough in cadences that will 
sound sufficiently familiär to the student of the Fletchers : 

''Yet thou art not ingloriouB in thy fate; 
For BO ApoUo with nnweeting band, 
Whilom did slay his dearly lovöd mate, 
Young Hjacinth, bom on Eurotas' Strand, 
Young Hyaeinth, the pride of Spartan land; 
But then transformed him to a purple flower: 
Alaek, that so to change theo Winter had no powert" 

Like a true Spenserian of his time, he made his subject (in lyric 
poetry), a mere makeshift for the enumeration of lovely details. 
Like the Fletchers, he experimented with stanza forms, making 
!the last line of the rhyme-royal an alexandrine. But he had not 
arrived. In The Passion (1630) he employed the same stanza 
and style to celebrate the subject-matter which was the most real 
to him all his life. The poet is trying to soar. But, like many 
f ar humbler undergraduate poets, he masks his sincerity in the 
affectations of contemporaries. There is no doubt that he was 
profoundly stirred by the passion of Christ. But he wrote : 



34« Univer$ity of California Publieations in Modem PhUology. [YoL 2 

* * Mine eye hath f ound that ead eepiilehral roek 
That WM the easket of Heayen's riebest störe, 
And here, through ^ef mj f eeble hands uploek, 
Yet on the softened qnarry would I seore 
My plaining verse as lively as before; 
For sore so well instmeted are my tears 
That they would fitly fall in ordered eharaeters." 

Milton ooiild not as yet distinguish between Spenser and Spen- 
serians. William Browne, who, in his garrolons Brüannia*s 
Pastorais could often follow Spenser very charmingly, was also 
capableofwriting: 

"My blubb'ring pen her sable tears lets fall 
In eharaeters right." 

Bnt Milton was Coming to a realization of his f aults. At the end 
of The Passion we read : 

' ' This Subjeet the Author finding to be above the years he had when he 
wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begon, left it unilnished." 

Yet Milton 's aspirations were already as immense and as 
impressive as when he began Paradise Lost, I like to compare 
Milton and Eeats when they wrote At a Vacation Exerdse in the 
College (1628) and the Specimen of an Induction to a Poem. 
Both were dreaming vaguely and delightedly with Spenser. 
They were toying with boundless ambitions. Keats was lost in 
the delight of dancing plumes, glittering cuirasses, and Gtothic 
arehes. He had no story to teil. But he was strengthening his 
wingB for The Eve of Saint Agnes. Milton 's dreams were pleas- 
antly obscured by his luxarious memories of Spenser and his 
foUowers. He was poring over Drayton's Poly-Olbion and its 
sonrce, the description of the marriage of the Thames and the 
Medway in The Faerie Queene. He was dazzled by the pageants 
of stately rivers and aglow with the historical and legendary 
associations that haunted their banks. With boyish ardor he 
invoked them: 

"Bivers arise; whether thou be the son 
Of utmoBt Tweed, or Onse, or gulfy Dun, 
Or Trent, who, like some earth-bom Giant spreads 
His thirty arms along indented meads, 
Or sullen Mole, that mnneth nndemeath, 



1912] Gary : Spenser, The School of the Fletphera, and MUtan. 347 

Or Seyren swift, guilty of maiden's death, 

Or rock7 Avon, or of sedgy Lea, 

Or eoaly Tyne, or aneient hallowed Dee, 

Or Humber loud, that keepB the Seythian's name, 

Or Medway smooth, or royal-towered Thame. ' ' 

But bis desires were not luUed to slumber by the warm glow and 
pomp of these visions. He longed to use bis langoage for greater 
purposes: 

"Yet I had rather, if I were to choose, 
Thy Service in some graver subject use, 
Saeh as may make thee search thy coffers round, 
Before thou elothe my fancy in fit sound: 
8ueh where the deep transported mind may soar 
Above the wheeling poles, and at Heaven's door 
Look in, and see each blissf ul Deity 
How he before the thunderous throne doth lie, 
Listening to what unshom Apollo sings/' 

Hifl youthful Latin poems were more often playful becanse 
they f ollowed the lighter verse of Ovid and Horace rather than 
Ithe high seriousness of Vii^l, Tasso, and Spenser. But his In 
Quintum Novembris (1626), a poem on the anniversary of the 
Gunpowder Plot, eelebrated the supposed attempts of Satan and 
the Pope to ruin England .through the ageney of Quy Fawkes 
in the academie Spenserian manner then in vogue. In 1626, too, 
Phineas Fletcher probably completed or was completing his 
Latin poem on the same subject, the Loctistae with its English 
Paraphrase The Appolyonists, already discnissed. Fletcher 's 
poem was not published until the f oUowing year and we can 
establish no definite relationship between his work and Milton's. 
•Both used populär contemporary ideas. Both treated a populär 
superstition in a vein of classical and Spenserian allegory. But 
we know that upon Paradise Lost Fletcher 's poem left a strong 
impress. And in this academie exercise of Milton's the young 

I 

iPoet was strengthening himself for the great epic. He was 
imaking his first studies for his picture of the Prince of Darkness : 

"And now, in bis flight, Satan sees appear the fielda girdied by white 
wave-beaten eliffs, the land lored by the aea-god, named of old from 
Neptnne's son Albion 

"Now hia swift flight had earried him beyond the rimy Alps to the 



348 üniversity of Califamia Publieatiom in Modem PhUologff, [VoL 2 

bordert of Italj. On his left hand were the aneient land of the Sabines 
and the eloud-wrapped Apenmne; on hü light Etmria, ill-famed for its 
ipoisonera. Thee too, Tiber, he saw, giving fnrtive kiaseB to Thetia." 

jThere foUows fierce satire on Catholicism, of the kind which 
jMilton and the Fletchers took too readily from The Faerie 
yueene. Satan came to the Pope as the vile Archimago came to 
the Bed Gross Knight and as the Tempter came to Christ in 
iQiles Fleteher's poem — ^in the gaise of a hermit. In dreams he 
incited the Pope against England. The poet conjures up a place 
jof horror in the manner of the classical poets and of Spenser's 
description of Hell in his tale of Quyon's visit to Mammon 's 
dark realms: 

"There is a plaee girt etemallj with the darknees of night, the vast 
f oondations of a building long sinee given to min, now the eave of fierce 
Marder and double-tongued Treaehery, whom the hag Diseord brought f orth 
at one birth. Here amid heaps of nibble and broken stones lie the nnbnried 
bodies of men, corpees impaled on steel. Here forever sits Graft, blaek, 
with distorted eyee; and Fury; and Fear; and a thoufuind types of death. 
Pale Horror flies abont the plaee."** 

These apparitions ''the Babylonish priest" sent against England. 

Bnt the Heavenly Father pitied his people and frustrated **the 

Idaring cruelty of the Papists." This crude and abusive poem, 

Ithough drawing the most tasteless Clements from Spenser and 

ithe Spenscrians, foreshadowcd vaguely the epic to come.^^ 

Bat Milton's mind was not yet embittered. From some of 
his more intimate Latin poems we leam that England, at least, 
was still Fairyland to him. While in Italy he confessed his 
aspirations to Manso in his most interesting Latin poem. His 
thoughts go back to his own land and its poets, to Chaucer whom, 
like Spenser in The Shepheards Calendar, he worships as ''onr 
Tityrus. " * * Tou, ' ' he writes Manso, 



«ecf. The Faerie Queene, 2, 7, 22-23. In Mammon 's cave, hard by the 
gates of Hell, lurked ''eruel Bevenge," Despight, Treaaon, ''gnawing 
Qealosj/' Feare, and many more. 

"And over them sad Horror with grim hew 
Bid always sore, beating his yron wings. * * 
Of eourse the f amous Bimilar description in the sixth book of Yirgil probably 
stimulated most of these passages. 

47 The quotations above and all subeequent citations from Milton 's Latin 
poems are from William Yaughn Moody 's translation, the Cambridge Edition 
of Milton, Boston and New York, 1899. 



1912] Cory: 8p€Mer,The Seltoolof theFl€tchera,andMilt(m. 349 

" .... Youi who are so kind, will not seom a straoger's muse, she who 
nourished sparelj in the frozen north, lately dared a Tonturesome flight 
through the eitiee of Italy. I too, methinks, have heard, through the obsenre 
shades of night, the swans einging in mj river at home, where Thames, 
bending her argent ums, lets her glaueous locks stream wide into the ocean. 
What do I sayf did not Chaucer himself, our Tityrus, eome onee to theee 
shoreef " 

He speaks of bis haunting desire to write of Arthur, the Dational 
hero whom Spenser had chosen for his Faerie Queene. And 
it seems reasonable to believe that the hero of Spenser was 
as mueh in Milton's mind as the hero of the chronicles and 
romanees. For he writes of him as: ** Arthur, who carried war 
into f airyland. "*• To the end his dreams of Arthur were tinged 
by Spenser 's vague, magnificent abstraction. One thinks as 
mueh of the dim paths of The Faerie Queene as of Malory, 
despite the citation of names familiär from the Morte Darthur, 
when, in Paradise Regained, the blind poet describes the "ladies 
of the Hesperides,'* with a eharaeteristie, wistful reminiscence 
of his earlier epie dreams, as : 

'' Fairer than feigned of old, or fabled since 

Of faery damsels met in forest wide \ 

By knights of Logres, or of Lyones, \ 

Launoelot, or Pelleas, or Pellenore. ' '** ^ 

* ' On the Mornino dp Christ 's Nativity ' ' 

Bef ore Milton had lef t eoUege, while he was writing for the 

most part in the ephemeral modes of his day, he spoke out bold 

and clear onee with his own voice. The hymn, On the Moming 

of Christas Nativity (1629) is far more significant than its 

Islightly later companion-pieee The Passion, whieh I have already 



48 It is more ükely that this is inspired by Spenser than by the legend 
of Arthur brought to Avalen. The wounded Arthur did not sail to Avalen 
to earry on war. 

^9 Paradise Begained, book 2, lines 357 sq. As significant evidenee in 
eonneetion with Milton's fusion of Spenser vnith sources like Geoffrey of 
Monmouth, we may note that Milton, in his HUtory of England (ed. Sym- 
mons, YoL 4, p. 13), quotes a passage from Spenser to Supplement Geoffrey 
mueh as a modern historian draws from two sources of equal repute. Lest 
I give false impression here I should add that Milton was seeptical enough 
a^ut the historical Arthur. The point is that Spenser was clearly almost 
always in his mind when he thought of the British king. 



I 



350 Üniversit9 of California Publieations in Modem PhiMog^. [YcL 2 

diflcuflsed. It opens with a typical seventeenth Century Spen- 
aerian prelude in that Spenserian Variation of the rhyme-royal 
for which we have already seen bis partiality. William Yaughn 
Moody chooees a word with a very expressive connotative valne 
when he speaks of the ''quaint dulcity'' which, through the 
influence of Oiles Fletcher, appears in the opening stanzas. 

"See how from far npon the Eastem road 
The Btar-led Wizards haste ¥nith odoura sweet! 
Oh! run; prevent them with thj humble ode, 
And laj it lowlj at hia blessM f eet. ' ' 

Then the poem leaps into the swift, abrupt, ringing music of 
The Hymn, proper. Whatever lyrical strophes may have been 
suggestive, the stanza was Milton's own. And here was the first 
distinctly creative use of a final alexandrine since Spenser had 
shown its possibilities when he used it to give delicate music to 
the heavy, pedantic stanza-of-eight (dbabbcbc). In Milton's 
new stanza the sharp strokes of the trimeter couplets were con- 
trolled by the succeeding pentameters and a tetrameter modu- 
lated not too abruptly into the long, solemn swing of the final 
lalexandrine. There are tasteless conceits here and there. But 
tunhappy is he whose sensibilities are so fragile that the flaws 
blind him to the süperb l3rrical flashes that abound. Milton 
6eems to have had Spenser as well as the Spenserians in his 
bonsciousness. It is probable that he borrowed an elaborate 
conceit from the Song to Elisa in the Aprü eclogue of The 
Bhepheards Calender, unhappily, to gild over his gold. Spenser 
Wrote: 

"I eawe Phoebaa thruat out his golden hedde, 

Upon her to gase: 
But when he sawe how broade her beames did spredde, 

It did him amaze. 
He blusht to see another Sunne belowe, 
Ne durst againe his fyrie face out showe: 

Let him, if he dare, 

His brightnesse eompare 
With hers, to have the overthrowe. * ' 

The more sonorous lines of Milton, despite their imitative 



l 



1912] Cory : Spenser, The School of the FUtchera, and Milian. 351 

artificiality of concept, are significant in the development of the 
music of his maturity : 

"And, though the shady gloom 
Had given day her room, 
The Sun hünself withheld his wonted speed. 
And hid his head f or shame, 
As hiB inferior flame 
The new-enlightened world no more should need: 

He saw a greater Sun appear 
Than his bright Throne or buming axletree could bear. * * 

Bat Milton was not yet large enough to borrow maaterfully, to 
combine subtly from a dozen sources. How little he had yet 
aceomplished he himself admitted, as he left Cambridge, in the 
famous sonnet that has been as a quiet, heartening hymn to 
thonsands of young men who have that noble combination of 
pride and humility. 

' ' How 8oon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, 
Stolen on hia wing my three and twentieth yearl 
My hasting days fly on with füll career, 
Bat my late spring no bnd or blossem shew'th. 

Perhaps my semblance might deceive the tmth, 
That I to manhood am arrived so near, 
And inward ripeness doth mach less appear, 

That some more timely-happy spirits indu'th. 

Tet be it less or more, or soon or slow, 
It shall be still in strictest measure even 
To that same lot, howerer mean or high, 

Toward whieh Time leads me, and the wiU of Heaven. 
All is, if I have grace to ose it so, 

As ever in mj great Task-master's eye." 



^'L'Alleobo akd '^II Pensbroso" 

In roral retirement at Horton Milton 's genius developed by 
leaps and bonnds. That Spenser was good leaven in those days 
of golden quietude we can hardly doubt when we think of 
Milton 's ideal surroundings and youthful idealism, perfectly 
appropriate for a continued perosal of the leisurely Faerie 
Queene. The days of L'Allegro and II Penseroso were the 



352 University of Califcmia Publieationa in Modem Philology. [YoL 2 

füllest days of detachment and dreams. L^AUegro derives 
remotely from the Spenserian pastoral as developed hy Drayton 
and bis friends, Brown and Wither/^ Spenser, though he had, 
in the main, foUowed the beaten path of the Renaissance pas- 
toral, had suggested much to his ingenious foUowers in his 
Shepheards Calender, He strove to nationalize the pastoral by 
transfering the crown from the '*Eomish Tityrus," Virgil, to the 
English Tityrus, Chaucer. He introduced the more brisk style 
lof the fable, following Chaucer at a great distance. Above all, 
in the airy roundelay of Willy and Perigot, with its adroit Sug- 
gestion of populär Improvisation, he enlivened the pastoral with 
a species of light-hearted, semi-popular song like the French 
/pastourelle — ^which had been forgotten in England since the days 
lof Henryson's Bobin and Makyne but which had been preserved 
in effect in France in the blithe notes of Clement Marot. Of the 
many imitators of The Shepheards Calender Drayton and his 
group were by far the most astute in seizing upon and develop- 
ing those most f ertile ideas which Spenser had barely suggested. 
Drayton introduced tangibly the much needed element of humor. 
The languid, plaining shepherd lived on, but Drayton and his 
friends were for the most part more interested in such lilting 
jcreations as the ballad of bonny Dowsabelle, imitated from Sir 
Thopas at the Suggestion of Spenser 's pseudo-Chaucerian poems. 
Drayton and Browne gossiped with real countrywives and conned 
their wondrous lore about Queen Mab and her fairy rout. 
Browne and Wither sang of may-poles and country-folk so 
blithely in the light tetrameter measure that Milton doubtless 
leamed much from them when he chose the same metre and very 
similar subject-matter. L'Allegro — ^peering through the two 
aged oaks at the cottage chimney, watching Corydon and Thyrsis 
at their savory dinner, 



soThiB and the following generalizations, relating Milton 's L'AÜegro 
even remotely with the Spenaerian pastorals maj seem fanciful to many here. 
In my ' ' Golden Age of the Spenserian Pastoral, ' ' Ptihl. Mod. Lang, AssoCf 
xzT, 2, I have tried to show in detail what I eonceive to have been the 
peeuUar development of the Spenserian pastoral towards a delicate gaiety 
that distingoishes it sharply from the English edoguee of Yirgilian and 
ItaUan lineage. 



1912] Cary: 8penser,Th€ 8choolofiheFletch€r8,andMilt(m. 363 

"Whieh the neat-handed Phillia dreases," 

attending a holiday with young and old, drinking the spicy ale 
while some one told of fairy Mab and the drudging Gk)blin — ^is 
the kinsman of Willy and Perigot, of Drayton's Batte and 
Gorbo, Browne 's Willy and Böget, and Wither's Philarete who 
sang of fields and dainty nosegays even in prison. II Penseroso 
is a bit more personal. We catch the young poet at his dearer 
dreams. Like Spenser he is poring over Chaucer's alluring 
fragment, The Squire's Tale: 

* * The Story of Cambuscan bold, 
Of Gamball and of Algarsife, 
And who had Canaee to wif e, 
That owned the virtuouB ring and glass, 
And of the wondrous horse of brass 
, On which the Tartar King did ride." 

jinto the magic glass that Chaucer and Spenser described with 
wondering delight, Milton had peered aa eagerly as Britomart 
in search of Arthegal. For in earlier days, too, At a V€K>aUon 
Exercise, he dreamed of a cave like Spenser 's and Ariosto's cave 
of Merlin wherein dwelt 

"A Sybil old, bow-bent with erooked age, 
That f ar events füll wisely eonld presage. 
And in Time 's long and dark prospective-glass 
Foresaw what future days should bring to pass." 

II Penseroso was reading, too, of the great battle of Camball 
and Triamond in Spenser 's continnation of The Squire's Tale. 
He writes of what 

" .... Great Bards beeide 
In sage and solemn tunes have sung, 
Of turneys and inchantments drear, 
Where more is meant than meets the ear." 

iCritics have hardly been fanciful in describing this last line as 
la reference to the allegory of The Faerie Queene. And when 
Milton prepared his Arcades for Lady Strange, Conntess of 
Derby, he must have remembered the prodigal honors that 
Spenser had heaped upon her in The Teares of the Muses and 
in his graceful picture of his other two cousins and her as 



354 Universitjf of California Fublications in Modem PhiMogy. [ VoL 2 

**Phyllis, Carilis, and sweet Amarylis," in Colin Clauts Come 
Home Again. The yonnger poet wrote : 

' ' Fune, that her high worth to raiae 
Seemed erst bo laviah and pTofuBe, 
We maj juatlj now aeeuae 
Of detraetion from her praiae." 

Perbaps these last lines have in them a touch of that bitter- 
ness which came to the yonng idealist, even in the seclnsion of 
Horton, with a growing sense of real life. It is the bittemess 
that aflSicts a young poet when he first lifts bis eyes from the 
charmed books over which he has been poring, intolerant, 
becauae of bis idealism, of human failing, and oppressed with a 
belief that bis own times are degenerate. 

**COMUS" 

In Comus and Lycidas, despite the lofty faiths which Milton 
brought to bear against bis doubts, the tone of complaint is 
insistent and impressive. He was tuming from the realms of 
pure romance, from the dim lands of Cambuscan and of 
Qloriana. Or rather he was Coming to question their reality. 
In Spenser he had read : 

' ' Of Court, it seemes, men Gourtesie doe call, 
For that it there most uaeth to abound: 
And well beaeemeth that in Prineea hall 
That vertue ahould be plentif ully f onnd, 
Which of all goodly mannera ia the groond, 
And roote of eivill eonveraation: 
Bight ao in Faery court it did redonnd, 
Where eurteoua Knighta and Ladiea moat did won 
Of all on earth, and made a matehleaae paiagon. ' '^^ 

In Comus Milton accepted from bis master the etymology of 
the Word *'courtesy" but found the virtue no longer in the plaoe 
where it originated. His heroine imagined that in the magician 
disguised as a rustic she had seen 



Bi The Faerie Queene, 6, 1, 1. 



1912] Cory: Spenser, The School of the Fletehers, anä Müton. 355 

*' .... Honest-offered eourtesy, 
Whieh oft is sooner found in lowly sheds, 
With smoky rafters, than in tapestry halls 
And conrtB of princes, where it first was named, 
And yet is most pretended. "b2 

When Milton came to create a Bower of Bliss in Comus he could 
no longer write with the irresponsible, almost innocent, delight 
in voluptuoiisness with whieh Spenser deseribed the arbors and 
dmnken vines of the langaorons Acrasia. The Circe of Homer, 
Tasso's Armida, Spenser's Acrasia, who all doubtless lingered 
lin the mind of the poet of Comus, seduced their victims by sheer 
bodily beauty. Hazlitt has an ingenious remark worth ponder- 
ing at this point : 

"The eharaeter whieh a living poet has given of Sponsor would be 
mneh more true of Milton. 

' . . . . Tet not more sweet 

Than pure was he, and not more pure than wise 

High Priest of all the Muses' mysteriös.' 
Sponsor, on the eontrary, is very apt to pry into mysteriös whieh do not 
belong to the Muses. Milton 's voluptuousness is not laseivious or sensual. 
He deseribes beautiful objeets for their own sakes. Sponsor has an eye 
to the eonsequenees and steeps everything in pleasure not of the purest 
kind. ' ' 

This is a reasonable comparison. But I still ui^e that Spenser 
had an almost innocent delight in voluptuousness when he made 
yivid the temptations of Acrasia ostensibly for the glory of 
Ouyon's temperanee. It is to be remembered that in an age of 
enthusiasm art and morals may be perfectly reconciled by the 
greater minds, while in an age of reason comes restless doubt. 
Men take sides violently and become cynics or militant moral- 
istSy voluptuaries or prüdes. In Milton 's age sophistication 
had foUowed the death of the ''first, fine, careless rapture." 
Acrasia, as I have said, enticed her victims by frankly exposing 
her beautiful, naked body. It does not seem necessary to Spenser 
to inform us that this attractive creature would have us reel 
back into the beast. Sin may be lovely, but Temperanee is so 
strong that it needs no sight of ugliness to fire it to conquest. 



82 Camus, linee 322 sq. 



356 üniveraity of California Publioations in Modem PhOology. [YoL 2 

Ariosto, writing in a very sophisticated period and eountry, was 

fain to show that the beautiful Alcina unmasked was a loath- 

some hag, though he was not, of conrse, seriously concemed with 

morality. Spenser borrowed this picture bnt only for the pnr^ 

poses of religious satire when he created Duessa. Acraaia 

remained beautiful even when overcome. Milton is more nearly 

like Ariosto, in this one respeet, in temper. But he is even more 

severe. He never allows us to lose sight of the bestial that leers 

: through all the allurements of sin in Comus. Then too, while 

j Acrasia proudly displays her body, Comus must appeal to 

, reason. He is the polished sophist who argues with wonderful 

! plausibility. It is necessary for him to try to buttress frank 

; desire with sneaking reason. 

But enough on the sensual in Spenser and Milton. From his 
''sage and serious Spenser" Milton could certainly draw high 
moral truths. Belphoebe, Spenser 's huntress wandering like 
Diana through the deep woods, Britomart, the warrior-maiden 
eonquering all lustful knights, Spenser 's perfect types of 
chastity, inspired Milton with faith to write his credo boldly in 
Comus, He speaks through the steadfast brother who believes 
that chastity is a defence in itself . Still the benignant influence 
of Spenser 's dreams keeps Milton from absolute bittemess: 

" 'Tis Chastity, my brother, Chastity, 
She that has that is clad in complete steel, 
And like a quivered nymph with arrows keen, 
May traee huge f orests, and unharboured heaths, 
Inf6mou8 hüls, and sandy perilous wilds; 
Where, throngh the saered rays of chastity, 
No savage fieree, bandite, or mountaineer 
Will dare to soil her virgin purity." 

Spenser also had made his Bed Gross Enight give Una lofty 
assurance as he entered the dark and squalid den of Error : 

''Vertue gives her seife light through darknesse for to wade." 

And the poet of Comus made the confident eider brother say: 

' * Virtue could see to do what Virtue would 
By her own radiant light. ' ' 



1912] Cory: 8penser,The8ohoolofth€FUiohera,andMxlion. 357 

Everywhere the presence of Spenser's influence is elusively 
apparent. Where Milton borrowed so masterfully from Homer, 
TassOy Spenser, Peele, John Fletcher, and perhaps many more, it 
becomes mere pedantry to attempt a collection of unquestionable 
parallels. Yet the temptation is great. Ab Milton wrote of his 
Lady, Virtne incamate, perhaps it was the memory of Spenser's 
Sir Guyon or Temperanee who, under similar temptations, was 
protected by the sage advice of a pabner, to describe twilight as 

" .... Grey-hooded Even, 
Like a sad Votarist in palmer 's weed." 

This is an example instruetive of how a Spenserian f ancy might 
ding in the background of Milton 's eonscionsness. More strik- 
ing parallels are not wanting. Spenser writes of **Payre 
Cynthia," who through a cloud 

' * Breaks f orth her silver beames and her bright head 
Diseovers to the world diseomfited: 
Of the poore traveller that went astray, 
With thousand blessings she is herried. * * 

In Comus the moon is similarly apostrophized : 

" .... And thon, fair Moon, 
That wont'st to love the traveller 's benison, 
Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud, 
And disinherit Chaos, "bs 

When, at the close of Milton 's poem, the gaardian spirit teils 
how he had heard from Meliboeus, 

"The soothest Shepherd that ere piped on plains," 

how to sunmion the water-nymph Sabrina, we remember how 
tenderly she had been sung by Spenser and feel that this 
Meliboeus, hovering in the background, more powerful even than 
the protector of the Lady, is a veiled reference, of the kind of 
which Milton was particularly fond, to his own guardian spirit, 
Spenser, whose lofty faith in chastity and virtue eneouraged 
Milton to overrule his bittemess in Comus. 



BS The Faerie Queene, 3, 1, 43, and Comu8, lines 331 sq. 



358 Universum of Ciüifomia Publieatiatu in Modem Phüology. [VoL 2 



tin Lycidas this bittemess is more unruly and is, in this case, 
lansibly traceable, in part, to the inäuence of Spenser. At 
»st as early as Thomas Warton, critics have pointed out the 
similarity between the abnsive digreasion of religions polemics 
in Lycidas and the religions janglings of IMers and Palinode in 
the Maye eclogae of The Shepheards Calender. Mantuan and 

i^Petrarch had attaeked bad clergy in their eclogaes. But their 
influence is more remote than that of Milton's chosen master. 
Moreover Spenser 's eclogue was the specific attack of Protestant 
upon Catholic. In this he was foUowed by some of his imitatorsy 
notably Phineas Fletcher, in The Appolyanists and in his 

iPiscatarie Eclogues (1633). We have good evidence that Spen- 
ser 's abnsive eclogae appealed particnlarly to Milton. In 
Animadversions upon the Benumstrant's Defence againsi 

iSmectymnuus^^ he quotes from Maye one of Spenser 's fierce 

'thmsts at comipt prelates. And the satire in Milton's elegy is 
markedly similar in spirit and phrase to the harsh Hnes in 
Spenser 's discordant pastoral. Milton makes Saint Peter, ''the 
Pilot of the Qalilean Lake," utter characteristic reproof : 

' ' How well eould I have spared f or thee, yonng swain, 
Anow of such as, for their bellies' sake, 
Greep, and intnide, and climb into the fold! 
Of other care they little reekoning make 
Than how to scramble at the shearer's feast, 
And shove away t*he worthy bidden guest. 
Blind mouthsl that scaree themselves know how to hold 
A sheep-hook, or have leamt aught eise the least 
That to the faithful Herdman's art belongsl 
What recks it themf What need theyf They are sped; 
And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs 
Grate on their seannel pipes of wretched straw; 
The hungry sheep look np, and are not fed, 
But Bwoln with wind and the rank mist they draw, 
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread. " 



6« Ed. Symmons, vol. 1, p. 197. 



1912] Cory: Spenser, The Sehool of the FUtchers, and Mütan. 359 

And Spenser wrote: 

"Those faytours little regarden their Charge, 
WhUe they, letting their sheepe ranne at large, 
Passen their time, that shonld be sparely spent. 
In Instihede and wanton merjment. 
Thilke same bene shepeheardes for the Devils Btedde, 
That playen while their flockes be nnfedde." 

It is interesting to observe that while Lycidas, in its general 
eharacter, tums away from the Spenserian pastoral to the Vir- 
gilian, its digressions, the most eamest and personal parts of the 
Ipoem, derive ahnost eertainly from The Shepheards Calender, 
The ecdesiastical satire, though the lines bum with Milton's 
fine strength, is not pleasant reading. But the other famous 
digression — ^the momentary doubt of the youthful idealist— con- 
tains the most beautiful and the most hmnan lines in the elegy. 

"Alas! what boots it with uncessant care 
To tend the homely, slighted, Shepherd's trade, 
And strictly meditate the thankletss Musef 
Were it not better done, as others use, 
To sport with Amarylis in the shade, 
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hairf 
'Fsme is the spur that the elear spirit doth raise 
(That last infirmity of noble mind) 
To seom delights and live laborious days; 
Bnt the fair guerdon when we hope to find, 
And think to bnrst out into sudden blaze, 
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorr6d shears, 
And slits the thin-spun lifo. 'But not the praise,' 
Phoebus replied, and toa<Shed my trembling ears; 
'Farne is no plant that grows on mortal soil, 
Nor in the glistering foil 
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies, 
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes 
And perfeet witness of all-judging Jove; 
As he pronounees lastly on eaeh deed, 
Of so much f ame in heaven expect thy meed. ' ' ' 

It is important, for stndents of literary influence, to notice that 
while Milton took some of his impulse for this passage from the 
despair of the young poet Cuddie and the lofty enconragement 
of Piers in Spenser 's October, yet he was experiencing, at first 
band, precisely the mood which Spenser expressed. Spenser 



360 University of Cdlifamia Publications in Modem PhUology. [YoL 2 

was doubting, bat aspiring to rise to epic heights in bis Faerie 
Queene. Milton was expressing the same temporary unfaitb and 
discouragement of yonth bnt meditating none the less upon bis 
great national poem. 

In tbe serene Areadia of Spenser and bis foUowers, wbere 
came no botanists, Milton leamed the graceful trick of weaving 
artificial garlands of flowers f rom every season. Spenser adopted 
tbe flower-passage from earlier Elizabetbans and gave it cur- 
rency in bis song to Elisa and bis elegy to Dido in The Shep- 
heards Calender. He was entbusiastically imitated in the pas- 
torals of Drayton, Bamefield, Witber, Basse and by tbe Scbool 
of tbe Fletcbers many times. Milton foUowed exquisitely tbe 
fasbion when he bid tbe Valleys — 

''Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes, 
That on the green turf snck the honeyed showers, 
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. 

' Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, 

The tufted crow-toe, and pale gessamine, 
The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet, 

; The glowing violet, 

The musk-rose, and the well-attired wood-bine, 

With eowslips wan that hang with pensive head, 

And every flower that sad embroidery wears; 

Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, 

And daffadillies fill their eups with tears, 

To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies." 

It is likely, too, that Spenser bad bis share in inculcating one 
more faith with which Milton answered tbe various question- 
'ings of bis ''still small voice." Spenser, when, in bis lament 
for Dido, he bad popularized tbe pastoral elegy in England, 
employed a Renaissance Convention, tbe abrupt bopeful tum at 
tbe close. In tbis he was followed by bis Imitators, Drayton. 
Browne, and others, and finally by Milton when he wrote : 

"Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, 
For Lyddas, jour sorrow, is not dead, 
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. 
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, 
And yet anon repairs his drooping head, 



1912] Cory: Spenser, The School of the Fletchers, and Milton. 361 

So Lyeidas sunk low, bat mounted high, 

Through the dear might of Hirn that walked the waves, 

And hears the unexpressive nnptial Bong, 
In the blest kingdoms meek of J07 and love. 
There entertain him all the Baints above, 
In Bolemn troops and sweet soeieties, 
That sing, and einging in their glory move, 
And wipe the tears for ever f rom his eyes. 
Now, Ljcidas, the Shepherds weep no more." 

In the same manner, in Imitation of Marot, Spenser had written : 

"Why wayle we thenf why weary we the gods with playnts, 
As if Bome evill were to her betightf 
She raignes a goddess now emong the saintes, 
That whilome was the sajnt of shepheards light: 
And is enstalled nowe in heavens hight. 
I see thee, blessed soule, I see, 
Walke in Elisian fieldes so free. 
O happy herset 
Might I once eome to theet O that I might! 
O joyful versel"" 

We have already seen, from his Latin poem to Manso, that 
Milton in Italy was still as much in Fairyland as he was when 
at Horton. The rüde awakening, signs of which appear in 
Comtts and Lycidas, was delayed by travel. But when he 
retumed to England and devoted his activities to the bitter 
political struggles (1642-1658) he bade farewell to all dreams 
of an ideal England and an ideal Arthur. The tragedy of the 
fall of man and the loss of Paradise was more appropriate to his 
distressed mind. From now on the gentle, passionless visions 
came back to him only in moods of momentary and wistfol 
reminiscence. Dryden has suggested that Spenser was dis- 
couraged from continning The Faerie Queen because the living 
coort of Qloriana feil more and more short of his dreams. 
Arthegal, or Lord Orey, was ignominiously deprived of his high 
trost. Sidney, the noblest knight in Fairyland, was slain at the 



65 In my treatment of Lyoidas I am nnder great obligations to Dr. J. H. 
Hanford. He has made a sound study of this type in his essay on ''The 
Pastoral Elegy and Milton 's Lydäas/' Pvbl. Mod. Lang, Äuoe,, voL xxfr, 
no. 3, September, 1910, pp. 403 sq. 



362 üniversity of CdUfarnia Publicationa in Modem PhOology, [VoL 2 

climax of his career. Perhaps Milton gave up Arthur becauae 
long years of political wrangling made him, like Spenser, lose 
faith in England 's brilliant futnre. Sir Calidore, Sir Lamorack, 
and Sir Pelleas had failed to bind Slander, the Blatant Beast. 
The monster lived on to bring shame and distress and disillusion- 
ment upon Milton. 

''Pabadisb Lost" 

But when the storm and stress period ceased f or Milton he 
bethought him of another sabject upon which, along with that 
of King Arthur, he had long pondered. Milton manuscripts 
have preserved for us a number of drafts of a projeeted play 
on the subject of the fall of Adam. Qne striking fact has not 
been hitherto commented upon. Had Milton worked out Para- 
dise Lost along the lines of these early drafts he would un- 
questionably have written a Si>enserian poem quite in the manner 
of the School of the Fletchers. His sketches are füll of the 
allegories particularly cultivated by his early favorites, the 
seventeenth Century Spenserians. He may have seen the Adamo 
of Andreini while in Italy and have derived inspiration f rom its 
allegorical episodes. But the allegories of Spenser and the 
! Fletchers are much doser to the manuscript jottings. And we 
know that Spenser and the Fletchers ranked high among his 
favorite poets. Faith, Hope, and Charity are called in to 
instruct Adam at his repentance as they instruct Spenser 's 
remorseful Bed Gross Enight in the House of Holiness. Spen- 
ser 's allegory of repentance was dosely imitated by William 
Browne in his Brüannia's PastoräU and, as we have seen, by 
Thomas Robinson and Dr. Joseph Beaumont, two members of 
the School of the Fletchers. Mercy and Justice debate as they 
debated in Giles Fletcher's Christ^* and Phineas Fletcher's 
[Purple Island. Conscience, a favorite with Phineas Fletcher, 
Thomas Robinson, and Dr. Joseph Beaumont, was to have been 
active in the story of Adam. There is more than enough to 
$how that Milton was füll of the fancies of Spenser and of his 



B« A verj populär mediaeval all^ory, of cotirae. See Miss Hope Travera' 
The AUegary of the Four Daughters of Goä, Bryn Mawr Diflsertation, 1908. 



1912] Cory: 8peMer,The 8choolofiheFleieher8,andM%lt<m, 363 

Cambridge f oUowers. And Milton never passed utterly beyond 
this type of influenee even in bis mature epic period. I have 

b-eady stated that Pbineas Fletcber had given in bis ApoUyon- 

ists and Locustcte a spirited picture of tbe conclave in Hell. 

itb bim tbe cbaracter of Lucifer, tbe fiery orator and un- 

pentant rebel, assumed some of tbe grandeur tbat we now 
'call Miltonie.^^ Tbe Psyche of Dr. Josepb Beaomont bas been 
plausibly coneeived to bave influeneed Milton in bis portrait of 
Satan and bis coborts, tbougb Milton 's fiends are far less 
grotesque. As Macaolay puts it: ''Tbey bave no boms, no tails, 
none of tbe fee-faw-fom of Tasso and Elopstock," — and^ we 
may well add, of Beaumont. Vondel and otber Continental poets 
bad been mindful of tbe impressiveness of Lueif er. But f or our 
purposes we migbt even aecept witbout question every new 
source tbat ifi suggested f or Paradise Lost witbout taking from 
tbe importanee of tbe Fletebers in tbeir relation to Milton.'^ 
Milton seldom coneeived a picture tbat was not vivified by com- 
bined impressions from a dozen sources from wbicb be extracted 
bis elixir. 

From now on, except for brief and exquisite allusions to tbe 

land of Faerie, we sball find Milton influeneed mostly by tbe 

stemer side of Spenser. In tbe very first book of Paradise Lost 

tbe picture of Mammon among tbe fallen angels derives from 

1 Spenser 's grim Mammon wbo lured Sir Guyon Underground: 

'' Mammon, the least ereeted Spirit that feil 
From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts 
Were always downward bent, admiring more 
The riehes of Heaven 's pavement, trodden gold, 
Than aught divine or holj eise enjoyed 
In Vision beatific " 



BT We may note here that Dr. Grosart, in his pref ace to his edition of 
Phineas Fletcher, lists a great number of passages from Milton 's works which 
he eonsiders to be verbiü echoes of the poems of the two Fletchers. Some 
of these are certainly convincing; others as certainly absurd. 

BS In regard to Vondel 's influenee it is to be observed that Mr. Edmond- 
son's exceUent, if too enthusiastie, Milton and Vondel pleads very per- 
suäsively for Yondellian inspiration. Tet Mr. Yerity in the preface to his 
edition of Paradise Loet, denies the possibility with streng argumenta. The 
present writer has already stated that this paper is, to a eertain eztent, 
a Protest against the over-emphasis which he conceives to be plaeed on 
Milton 's Continental sources. 



364 University of Cdlifamia PuhlieatUms in Modem PhUology, [YoL 2 

Spenser had already placed Mammon 's abode near the gate of 
Hell where sat the terrible figores of Bevenge, Treason, Hate, 
Jealousy, and Fear, — a soene which we have f onnd Milton doselj 
imitating in his In Quintum Novembris. In both Spenser and 
Milton, Mammon is aasisted by fiends who in cells and fumaces 
Iprepare the liquid gold. It is a stimulating stady in artistry to 
compare the quaint, grotesque lines of Spenser with the gloomy 
pomp of Milton. In The Faerie Queens : 

''One with great bellowes gathered filling ayre 
And with forst wind the fewell did inflame; 
Another did the dying bronds repayre 
With yron tongs, and sprinekled of te the same, 
With liquid waves, iien Vnleans rage to tarne, 
Who, maystring them, renewd his former heat; 
Some scumd the drosse, that from the metall came."B» 

So Milton 's fiends, in three groups, with "hands innumerable" 
and ''incessant toil" were bnsy 

''Severing eaeh kind, and senmmed the bnllion-dross. " 

Spenser 's fiends are grim as Durer 's grotesque woodeuts are grim. 
The figures in Milton 's passages have the impressive Miltonic 
vagueness. There are, as in Spenser, imps with bellows who 

"By Strange eonveyanee fiUed eaeh hollow nook; 
As in an organ, from one blast of wind, 
To many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes. ' ' 

a sounding and inappropriate simile that would have stirred 
Spenser with a childlike delight if he eould have read it. But 
these Spenserian demons, in Milton 's hands, reared Pande- 
monium, a massive strueture which human eyes had never really 
Seen tili Milton sang grandly of it : 

"Anon out of the earth a fabrie huge 
Rose like an exhalation, with the sound 
Of duleet symphonies and voices sweet — 
Bullt like a temple, where pilasters round 
Were set, and Dorie pillars overlaid 
With golden architrave; nor did there want 
Comice or frieze, with bossy seulptures graven: 
The roof was fretted gold. Not Babilon 



5» The Faerie Queene, 2, 7, 35 sq. 



1912] Cory: Spenaer, The School of the Fletchers, and Mütan. 365 

Nor great Alcairo such magnificence 
Equalled in all their glories, to enshrine 
Beins or Serapis their gods, or seat 
Their kings, when Aegypt with Assyria strove 
In wealth and inzurj." 

The famous allegory of Sin and Death, in the second book, 
has a long and complicated genealogy including a number of 
Spenserian ancestors. Satan, ascending to aeek the World and 
Man found the gates of Hell closed and 

''On either side a formidable Shape. 
The one seemed woman to the waist, and fair, 
But ended foul in many a sealy fold, 
Voluminons and vast — ^a serpent armed 
With mortal sting. Abont her middle round 
A etj of Hell-hounds never-eeasing barked 
With Wide Gerberean mouths füll loud and rung 
A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep, 
If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb, 
And kennel there; yet there still barked and howled 
Within unseen. Far less abhorred than theee 
Vexed Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts 
Calabria from the hoarse Tinacrian shore." 

Homer 's Scylla is indeed like Milton's Sin. But Homer 's en- 
chantresses and monsters, Ciree, Calypso, the Sirens, Scylla, had 
a complicated development which must be glanced at here. 
Sometimes the enchantress became merely a beautiful mortal 
tempting the hero to give over his perilous quest. So Virgil's 
Dido allured Aeneas. Tasso's Armida, the Venus of Camoens, 
Spenser's Acrasia are poetic daughters of Circe, portrayed with 
l all the charm that exquisite art can give to wantonness. Ariosto's 
Alcina and Spenser's Duessa, for whose loathsomeness the poet 
of The Faefie Queen was impelled to borrow unhappily from 
Ariosto's picture of the unmasking of Alcina, ai^e beautiful to 
the deluded sinner whom they enchant but in reality are horrible 
and filthy hags. From Duessa Phineas Fletcher developed those 
unspeakably nasty figures of Caro (the Flesh), and Harmatia 
(Sin), in The Purple Island and of Sin in The ApoUyonists. 
We have already seen that Spenser adopted from Virgil the 
device of placing grim allegorical figures at the gates of Hell 



866 UnwenUy of CoHfamia Publioatiant m Modem PhUology. [YoL 2 

and that Milton followed him dosely in bis yicions attack upon 
Boman Catholiciciam, In Quintutn Navembrü. We have also 
aeen that in the first canto of The ApoUyonists Phineas Fletcher 
Combines Spenaer's scenes at tbe gates of Hell and tbe concep- 
tion of Dnessa. We must remember, too, that we find here in 
Fletcher the apirited condave in Hell, the fiery Speeches of 
Satan, the advice of various subtle demons, an episode which 
immediately precedes Satan 's ascent to the gates of Hell in 
Paradüe Lost. The porter of Hell in Fletcher 'a poem is Sin, 
depicted with an imaginative vagueness that is in striking antici- 
pation of Milton 's manner : 

"The Porter to th' infernal gate ia Sin, 
A BliapeleBse shape, a fonle deformed thing, 
Nor nothingy nor a substance: as thoae thin 
And empty f ormes whieh through the ayer fling 
Their wandring shapes/'^o 

Like Milton 's figare she is the daughter of the Devil. But to 
deluded youth she is beautiful : 

"Her rosie eheeke, quick eye, her naked brest, 

And whatsoe'er loose fancie might entiee, 
She bare expos'd to sight, all lovel/ dreet 

In beauties livery, and quaint devise." 

Glose by her sits Despair. In the entrance dwells Sickness, 
Langaor, Fear, Horror. Milton 's only other guardian of Hell 's 
gate in Paradise Lost is Death : 

" . . . . The other Shape— 
If shape it might be called that shape had none 
Distinguishable in member, Joint, or limb; 
Or Bubstanee might be called that shadow seemed, 
For each seemed either — ^black it stood as Night, 
Fieree as ten Faries, terrible as Hell, 
And shook a dreadful dart ''«^ 

Spenser, who frequently described Death, anticipated Milton in 
the effective ose of vagueness : 



«0 The ApoUyoniaU, canto 1, st. 10. 
«1 Paradise Lost, book 2, lines 666 sq. 



1912] Cory: Speruer, The Sehool of ihe Fletchers, and Müton. 367 

''Death with most gnm and griedj visage seene 
Yet is he nonght bnt parting of the breath; 
Ne ought to see but like a shade to weene, 
Unbodiedy unsotQ'd, unheard, uiiseene."*^ 

: A sentence in The Qospel of James (1, 15) suggested the allegory 
of Satan '8 offspring, Sin and Death, whlch became a Convention 
[in mediaeval and Renaissance literature. 

But we have looked closely enough at the epic charaeters who 
did the most to inspire the terrible figares in Milton. To pry 
fnrther would be vain and pedantic here. On the other band, 
frail mnst be the sensibilities of the Milton admirer who finds 
thia study of sources any occasion for depreciation of Milton 's 
f athomless creative power. Thomas Warton well says : 

"We feel a sort of malicious triumph in deteeting the latent and 
obBenre sonree from which an original anthor has drawn Bome eelebrated 
deeeription: yet this .... soon gives way to the rapture that naturally 
resolts from contemplating the ehymieal energy of true genios, which can 
produce so noble a transrnntation. " 

And Shelley feit no shame in prefacing Prometheus Unboundj 

which has the very white-heat of creative power, with a passage 

that should be deeply pondered by those who think that imitation 

is only the faith of the scomed critic and the second-rate poet. 
''Ab to imitation, poetry is mimetic art. It creates, bnt it ereates by 
combination and representation. Poetieal abstractions are beautiful and 
new, not beeause the portions of which they are composed had no previouB 
exiatenee in the mind of man or in Nature, but beeause the whole pro- 
duced by their combination has some intelligible and beautiful analogy 
with those sources of emotion and thought and with the eontemporary 
eondition of them. One great poet is a masterpiece of Nature which 
another not only ought to study but must study. He might as wiBoly 
and as easily determine that his mind should no longer be the mirror of 
all that is lovely in the visible nniverse as exdude from his eontemplation 
the beautiful which exists in the writings of a great eontemporary. The 
pretence of doing it would be a presumption in any but the greatest; 
the efPect, even in him, would be strained, unnatural and inefPectual. A 
poet is the combined product of such internal powers as modify the 
nature of others, and of such extemal influences as excite and sustain 
these powers; he is not one, but both. Every man 's mind is, in this 
respeet, modified by aU the objeets of Nature and art; by every word and 
every Suggestion which he ever admitted to aet upon bis consciousness; 



•2 The Faerie Queene, 7, 7, 46. 



368 Universitjf of California Publicatiant in Modem PMMogy, [YoL 2 

it ifl the mirror Qpon whieh all forma are refleeted and in wfaich thej 
eompose one form. Poeta, not otherwiae tban philoaophera, paintera, 
aeolptora and mnsieiana are, in one aenae, the ereatora, and, in another, 
the creationB of their age. From this aubjeetion the loftieat do not 
eseape. There ib a aimilarity between Homer and Heaiod, between 
Aesehylaa and Enripidea, between Virgil and Horaee, between Dante and 
Petrareh, between Shakespeare and Fleteher, between Dryden and Pope; 
eaeh haa a generic reaemblance under which their apeeific diatinetions are 
arranged. If this aimilarity be the result of imitation, I am willing to 
confeaa that I have imitated."** 

To the disceming reader a stndy of these intricate sources of 
Milton's Sin and Death g^ves a wonderful glimpse into the poet's 
Workshop. More mTsterious than ever, with his manif old sources, 
he is like Spenser's sage Phantastes: 

"Hia Chamber was diapainted all with in 
With flondry eolonra, in the which were writ 
Infinite ahapea of thinges disperaed thin; 
Borne such as in the world were never yit, 
Ne can devized be of mortaU wif 

The stemer side of Spenser, I have said, was what Milton 
f ound most eongenial during the composition of Paradise Lost, 
Many of the minute traces of Spenser's influence here, fonnd in 
abnndanee by the commentators, support my assertion as well, 
in their way, as the examination of the Sin and Death allegory. 
Such an imposing example of Milton's grandenr, for ezample, as 
the famous picture of Satan staggering under Michael's terrific 
stroke like a toppling mountain has been shown to bear striking 
resemblance to Spenser's identical simile in the magnificent if 
rhetorical passage which describes the fall of the old Dragon who 
symbolizes the Devil.*^ Interesting, too, it is to compare many 
other parallel passages. Loads of leamed lumber on the subject 
are easily accessible in the numerous editions of Milton where the 
younger poet's possible indebtedness in line and phrase seems 
now convincing, now doubtful. Out of so many possible borrow- 
ings a fair proportion may be saf ely accepted. It is hardly neces- 
sary, however, to transcribe them here. 



^^ Shelley 's Compleie Poetical WorJcs (Cambridge Edition, Boaton and 
New York, 1901), p. 164. 

*« Paradise Lost, book 6, lines 195 sq. The Faerie Qveene, 1, 11, 54. 



1912] Cofy : Spenser, The Sohool of the Fletchers, and Mütan. 369 

Though the stemer side of Spenser illiunined Milton's gloomy 
sublimity at times when he dwelt upon the tragic eontest of pas- 
sions and forces good and evil, there is another striking aspect of 
Spenser 's infiuence upon Milton in his maturity that is eharm- 
ingly inconsistent. We have already seen, in our examination of 
the later poems at Horton, how Spenser 's idealism helped Milton 
to overrule his rising bittemess. So too in the stem epics one 
finds, at times, a spirit of wistful reminiseenee gracious and heal- 
ing as well as melaneholy, which is certainly due in part to the 
persuasive inspiration of the acknowledged master. The coldest 
readers of Milton are won completely by the austere poet when 
he allows himself brief recoUeetions of the sensuous dreams of 
The Faerie Queene. Eden is described with Spenserian ardor. 
In a passage rieh with allusion Milton recalls one of Spenser 's 
most enehanting additions to classical mythology, the Oardens 
of Adonis.*' Satan saw : 

' ' Among thiek-woyen arborets, and flowers 
Imbordered on each bank, the band of Eve: 
Spot more delieiouB than tbose gardens f eigned 
Ot of revived Adonis, or renowned 
Alcinoüs, host of old Laertes' son, 
Or that, not mystic, where the sapient king 
Held dalliance with bis fair Egyptian spouBe. ' ' 

Thongh Milton was stemly renouncing these fancies he was 
renouneing them with an audible sigh. The beautiful lines in 
the ninth book in which he puts them from him, touching them, 
as he tums from them, with a splendor like a lingering sunset, 
eannot be read without a feeling of longing for what Milton 
might have done. He invokes 

" .... My celestial Patroness, who deigns 
Her nigbtly Visitation nnimplored, 
And dietates to me slnmbering, or inspires 
Easy my unpremeditated verse 
Sinee first tbis subjeet for heroie song 
Pleased me, long ehoosing and beginning late, 
Not sedolouB by natnre to indite 



«5 Milton, Paradise Lost, 9, 437 sq. Spenser, The Faerie Queene, 3, 6. 
Unsneeessful attempts have been made to find the tradition of the Gardens 
of Adonis in Pliny, Nat Eist, xiz, 4. 



370 Universiiy of Cdlifomia Publicaiiant in Modem Phüology. [YoL 2 

Wan, hitherto the onlj argument 
Heroie deemed, ehief maistrie to disaeet 
With long and tedious havoe f abled knights 
In battles feigned (the better fortitude 
Of patienee and heroie matyrdom 
ünsong), or to deeeribe racee and gamee, 
Or tilting fumitnre, emblazoned Bhields, 
Impreees qnaint, eapanaons and eteeds, 
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeons knights 
At jonst and tonmament. "^ 

'^Paradisb Regained" 

Yet with all his austerity this spirit of wistful reminiacence 

was to survive, throughout Paradise Begaified, although that 

poem begins to show traces, as everybody knows, of the severity 

which culminates in the rarified music of Samson Agonistes. 

j Qiles Fletcher's Christ 's Triumph and Victory had dwelt with 

. the subject of the Saviour's temptation, always with quaint, stiff 

' beanty, occasionally with religious fire that bums clear white 

^even to-day. We have seen how dosely he foUowed Spenser. 

Satan, disgaised as an ai^ed hermit, is no more than Archimago 

who masqueraded in similar fashion to deceive the Bed Gross 

Knight. Like the Bed Gross Enight, Ghrist is brought to the 

Gave of Despair where, as we have seen, Fletcher follows his 

'master almost verbatim. Satan then tempts Ghrist with the tme 

luxurious abandon of the Renaissance. Ghrist 's worldly am- 

bition is tested by Presumption in her airy pavilion, 

"Over the Temple, the bright stars among." 

He is then brought to the **Bowre of Vaine-Delight. " It is 
'worth while intrinsically to quote once more two of the stanzas 

which foUow Spenser 's Bower of Bliss so quaintly and prettily: 

« 

"The garden like a Ladie faire was cut, 
That laj as if shee slumber'd in delight, 
And to the open skies her eyes did shut; 
The azore fields of heav'n wear sembled right 
In a large round, set with flow'rs of light, 
The flow 'rs-de-luee, and the round sparks of deaw, 
That hung upon their azure leaves, did shew 
Like twinkling starrs, that sparkle in the eavning blew. 

«« Paradise Lost, book 9, lines 20 sq. 



1912] Cary: Spenser, The School of the Fletehers, and Mütan, 371 

'^Upon a hillie banke her head shee east, 
On whieh the bowre of Vaine-Delight was buHt, 
White and red roses for her face wear plae't, 
And for her tresses Marigolds wear spilt: 
Them broadly shee displaid, like flaming gnilt, 
Till in the ocean the glad day wear drown'd, 
Then np againe her yellow loeks ehe wound. 
And with green fillets in their prettie calls them bound.'' 

This is exactly what we should expect from a pleasure-loving 
worldly son of the Renaissance. These voluptuous ascetics were 
fain to decorate the spare lines of the Scriptural stories with 
delight on delight until they forgot the motif of their poems in 
their naive joy in the World and the Flesh. Milton seems to 
have intended a conscious revolt against the Bowre of Bliss 
device. ''Set women in his eye and in his walk," said dissolute 
Belial to Satan, meditating an assault on Christ. But Satan 
rejects the advice with magnificent scom. Here the poet speaks 
in person. Practice, however, feil somewhat short of what Milton 
nndoubtedly intended in theory. As Spenser tempted Guyon 
with Philotime (Worldly Ambition), and the lascivious Acrasia, 
BS Qiles Fletcher foUowed by- choosing Ambition and Wanton- 
ness, so Milton, f oUowing too at a greater distance, did nothing 
more than discard the allegory and chose precisely the same 
(epicurian type of temptation. Such Spenserianism lent only 
a gaudy color to the sober measures of Paradise Begained and 
we cannot thank Milton 's master for an influence which caused 
such futile divagations. What does, however, dwell with the 
lover of Spenser is Milton 's brief, wistful recoUection of what he 
might have written had he remained in Fairyland, the thoughts 

''Of faery daniBels met in forest wide 
By knights of Logres, or of Lyones, 
Laneelot, or Pelleas, or Pellenore." 



(( 



Samson AoojnsTBs" 



There is no Spenser in Samson Agonisies. It is the most 
peisonal of Milton 's poems. In music rarified like mountain 
air Milton spoke entirely of his own griefs and closed with a 
hymn of victory so austere that to the weak majority of men it 



372 University of California Publieaiians in Modem PMlology, [VoL 2 

sounds like despair. The last gleam of the faiths that Spenser 
cherished had waned. It is difficult for us to realize with 
sufficient dramatic intensity the awful depth of the spiritual 
tragedy that reached its catastrophe for Milton with the Bestora- 
tion. Elsewhere I have written of this age as an Age of Literary 
Anarchy, a period of intellectual strife and bewilderment that 
Struck dead most faiths. Samson Agonistes, if we understand it 
with dramatic sympathy, should appeal to us more than any of 
Milton 's other poems. It should set fire to the spirit of hero- 
worship that is in all of us. For while this grand poem bums 
with his sorrow over his blindness, his bittemess towards women, 
the def eat of his political cause, while it breathes his large hatreds 
and his petty hatreds, yet f rom the depths Samson emerges. The 
poem trumpets Milton 's love and fear of Qod, a Qod as terrible as 
the Hebraic Jehovah, but a God who has his appeal to all good 
fighting-men. Milton drew proudly aloof f rom his age and rose 
above it — ^not selfishly but to show to his distracted f ellow-men 
the triumph of life. He who would truly love Milton must leam 
to love him not only when he dreamed delightedly with Spenser 
and when he looked back longingly to the Fairyland of Spenser 
which he had elected to leave, but also finally when in all his 
gloom he f orged out the proud f aith that is uttered in the noble 
stoical lines of Manoa : 

"Come, eome; no tiine for lamentation now, 
Nor much more eause. Samson hath quit himself 
Like Samson, and heroidy hath finished 
A life heroic." 

Here, not in the noisy bravado of Nietzche's creation, de we find 
the true superman. This stemness was not Spenser 's. The spirit 
of wistful reminiscence had faded. The gentle land of Faerie 
had crumbled away. But out of all the sorrows of its loss what 
a mighty victory had Milton won when his voice uttered the 
last words of his chorus ! I am not concemed with the truth or 
untruth of its orthodox tenets. It is so easy to jeer at high 
heaven that these last words of Milton may seem superficial 
enough to many. But as a faith sounded forth f rom the depths, 



1912] Cory: 8pen8er,The Schoolof theFl€toher8,andMilton, 373 

after the bitterest of life-struggles, is there not the awe of divine 
things in its calm? 

"All is best, though wo oft doubt 
What the unsearehable dispose 
Of Highest Wisdom bring about, 
And ever best found in the dose. 
Oft He seems to hide his face, 
Bnt nnezpectedly retums, 
And to his faithful Champion hath in place 
Bore witnesB gloriously; whence Gaza moums, 
And all that band them to resist 
His uncontroUable intent. 
His servants He, with new acquist 
Of trae ezperience from this great event, 
With pride and consolation hath dismissed, 
And calm of mind, aU passion spent/' 



/ .