BRITISH CRITICISM DURING THE 17th CENTURY –Blamiers
M.
Phil English, Bharathiar University--Blamiers—
Approaches--Unit
II
Summary
by Dr. S. Sreekumar
Unit II The
Seventeenth Century II: Rymer to Dennis
The
public who came to witness the Restoration Dramas were very different from
those who went to the Globe to see the plays of Shakespeare. The Restoration
theatre provided amusement for a leisured and degenerate society. Puritans
shunned it. Respectable Londoners seldom visited it.
However,
it is not proper to assume that the court of Charles II contained only
libertines and that Wycherley’s The
Country Wife represented the spirit of the kingdom as a whole. Milton’s Paradise Lost was published in 1667 and
Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress in 1678.
Thomas Rymer (1641-1713)
Rymer
was the principal supporter of rules and regulations during the neo-classical
period. He tried to display the unfortunate consequences of flouting the rules
of the ancients by English playwrights.
Rymer’s The Tragedies of the Last Age is highly
critical of Beaumont and Fletcher. Rymer submits The Maid’s Tragedy to a detailed examination. The improbability of
the events narrated in the drama is brought into sharp focus. Rymer’s analysis
is both shrewd and entertaining but he fails to recognize the emotional
qualities of the play.
In his
next work, A Short View of Tragedy with
Some Reflections on Shakespeare and other Practitioners for the Stage,
Rymer makes a full-scale onslaught on Othello.
He judges the play in terms of commonsense. Rymer is ruthless in his
application of rules. “Whosoever heard of a Moor so exalted as Othello is?
Whoever heard of a Senator’s daughter so taken in as to run off and marry a
black moor without her parents’ consent? What civilized state would promote a
negro to general and entrust him with its defence ?”.
If
Othello is an incredible study as a soldier, Iago is a nonsensical one. As for
Desdemona it is absurd to imagine that such a noble woman could be won over by
talk such as Othello’s to treat black as
white. But where his criticism really strikes home is in his analysis of errors
in the time-sequence touching the development of Othello’s jealousy, Cassio’s
supposed part in it, and Iago’s exploitation of it. At the end of his scathing
attack, he concludes that the play is a ‘bloody farce, without salt or savor’. Dr. Johnson commented thus: ‘Dryden’s
criticism has the majesty of a queen, Rymer’s has the ferocity of a tyrant’.
Rymer
was remarkably insensitive to poetry. His view was that some of the supposedly
most moving high points in Shakespearean tragedy would be improved if the words
were left out. The rich poetry that delights us he regarded as bombast.
Rymer
makes a notorious statement:
In the
neighing of an Horse, or in the growling a mastiff, there is a meaning, there
is as lively expression, and, may I say, more humanity, than many times in the
Tragical flights of Shakespeare.
Rymer
made many enemies in the theatre. Addison remembers that snow showers in the 17th
century theatre were created by shredding the rejected plays of unsuccessful
playwrights. When Rymer offered his play Edgar,
or The English Monarch, it was used to ‘fall in snow at the next acting of King Lear, a play which Rymer had
denigrated.
Edward Phillips (1630-96)
Philips,
the nephew of Milton, wrote a collection of rather undistinguished biographical
sketches entitled, Theatrum Poetarum, or
a Complete Collection of the Poets. The only worthwhile part of the book is
its preface. Philips’ sense of literary tradition gives the preface its
importance.
·
Philips deals
with the complaint that the language during the period of Chaucer was uncouth.
He argues that it is unfair to make the language of one’s own day a criterion.
This language will also become obsolete in course of time.
·
His
historic sense makes him put all temporary fashions in their place.
·
He
questions the appropriateness of the Heroic couplet or the quatrain for epic
poetry.
·
Philips
says that dispensing with rhyme altogether will give greater freedom to the
poet. For the nephew of Milton, this view appears as natural.
II. The Ancients and the Moderns
The
relative superiority or otherwise between the ancients and moderns was a hot
topic of controversy in the 17th century. This controversy later led
Swift to write The Battle of Books.
Sir William Temple
Temple
was a diplomat and a noble man under whose patronage the early years of Swift
were spent.
Temple
took up the position supporting the ancients in an essay entitled, ‘An Essay
Upon the Ancient and Modern Learning’. He took up the position that ‘whoever
converses much among the old books will be something hard to please among the
new’.
Temple
demolishes the view that moderns know much more than the ancients. He asserts
that the moderns stand on the shoulders of the ancients. In any case the
dependence of modern scholarship on the pioneering thought of the Greeks is
indisputable.
Temple’s
arguments conclude with a series of rhetorical questions.
·
Has
Boileau surpassed Virgil and Davenant surpassed Homer?
·
Does a
Welsh or Irish harp outclass Orpheus’s musical instrument?
Temple’s views on Poetry
Ø It is the business of poets to profit and
please.
Ø Though Greek and Latin attribute divine
qualities for poets and poetry, temple argues that there is no supernatural
dimension to the making of poetry.
Ø The origins of poetry are purely natural.
Ø Invention is the mother of poetry, but the many
gifts of nature needful for its composition have to be supplemented by learning
and art, by a fertile, wide-ranging imagination.
His views on Aristotelian Rules
In
dealing with the rigid application of Aristotelian rules by the French, Temple
displays a delightful vein of commonsense. He says that the truth is ‘there is
something in the Genius of poetry too libertine to be confined to so many
rules’.
To
formulate rigid regulations for poets is like cutting off the wings of bees and
restricting their power to roam, in the attempt to improve the honey. The most
that can be claimed for rules is that they
might prevent some men from becoming bad poets without helping anyone to
become a good one. It is by the power of the poet to work on your feelings that
he can be judged.
Temple on drama
He says
that it is a genre in which the English have excelled ancients and moderns
alike. ‘The secret of their success is their venin of ‘humour’, by which he
seems to mean the capacity to represent striking but not unnatural characters
of great variety in their temperaments and their oddities’.
Temple
thinks that the English got the gift from political liberty which has generated
‘fierce religious and political factions’ and bred a generation of
‘controversialists, fanatics, and hypocrites, not to mention libertines and
debauchees, toadies and self-seekers’.
III. The moral debate
The
moral laxity during the Reformation infected contemporary poetry and drama with
a vein of licentiousness.
Earl of Rochester was a
notorious libertine and writer of the age. He came under attack by Earl of Mulgrave in his Essay Upon Satire. Mulgrave dealt with different poetic forms in
this book. His efforts were appreciated by Dryden and Pope.
However, Mulgrave was severely attacked by Robert Wolseley. He defended Rochester against the
charges of Mulgrave. Wolseley’s argument was that Rochester wrote his poems not
for reading in King’s Chapel but for private circulation among his friends.
Therefore bawdry might be forgiven as youthful effervescence.
Another
controversialist of the period was Sir Richard
Blackmore. His Prince Arthur, An
Heroick Poem was accompanied by a Preface
in which the account of current decadence is more impressive than the standard
neoclassical recommendations for poetic composition. The aim of poetry, to give
pleasure and delight, is subordinate to the prime end which is to instruct. On
these terms, Blackmore analyses the contemporary situation and finds out that
the aims of poetry are perverted as never before.
·
The
typical hero of the comedy has become a witty, idle, pleasure-loving libertine
who debauches women and derides religion.
·
The
typical heroine is brazen, shameless, and profane in her chatter. She is the
mistress of intrigue, scoffs at modesty, despises the advice of elders, and
disobeys parents and guardians.
·
Clergymen
are represented as objects of contempt, pimps, blockheads or hypocrites.
·
Citizen’s
wives are induced to despise their husbands and accept the favors of the rakish
heroes.
Blackmore
made many enemies with his comments against bogus poets. Many of them hit back
at him trotting out his early days as schoolmaster.
Jeremy Collier (1650-1726)
The most
hard-hitting attack on the profligacy and licentiousness of Restoration theatre
came from this bishop. He was a polemicist who was twice imprisoned for his
refusal to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary. He was finally outlawed
for giving absolution to two men who tried to assassinate William III.
Collier
in Short View of the Immorality and
Profaneness of the English Stage deals with the immodesty of the stage, the
profanity, the treatment of the clergy, and the immoral influence of the Plays
on the audience.
Collier
examines the plays of Dryden, Wycherley, and Congreve and concludes that ‘A
fine Gentleman, is a fine Whoring, Swearing, Smutty, Atheistical Man. . .The
Restrainst of Conscience and the Pedantry of Virtue are unbecoming a Cavalier.’
Collier
develops the charges earlier leveled by Blackmore:
·
Learning,
industry and frugality are ridiculed in comedy.
·
Fine
ladies are rude to their seniors, given to sauciness, indecency and profanity.
·
Dryden’s
view on the differences between tragedy and comedy is castigated. Dryden
believed that in tragedy it is necessary to punish vice whereas in comedy it is
not necessary as less serious follies are exposed.
Dryden
later accepted the criticism of Collier, ‘I shall say the less of Mr Collier,
because in many things he has taxed me justly’.
Today
when we look at the criticism of Collier we are astonished at his lack of
literary sensitivity.
His
detailed analysis of Vanbrugh’s The Relapse is irritating, not because it is
fallacious, but because it is irrelevant. We do not need to have the
implausibilities of the plot or even the clumsinesses of the construction put
under the microscope. They are self-evident.
All the
constructive aspects of the play, ‘the riotous satiric caricature’, the humour,
the exaggerations, the wit and vitality are ignored by Collier and his
criticism ‘collapses into absurdity’.
However,
Collier’s criticism had the effect of driving away the Restoration drama from
the theatre. A official proclamation against immorality backed up by the
imposition of fines on offending playwrights and actors came from the
Government putting an end to Restoration dramas.
John Dennis (1657-1734)
He was
one of the major critics of England during the time of Dryden and Pope.
The Impartial Critic
This was
written in reply to Rymer’s Short View of
Tragedy . The book is in the form of dialogues.
Ø Dennis criticizes Rymer’s insistence of the
use of the Greek chorus in modern tragedy. He says that the Greek practices
would be absurd on the modern stage.
Ø Dennis does not agree with the denigration
of Dryden by Rymer. All the faults of Dryden are forgotten because of the
mesmerizing power of Dryden’s poetry.
Ø He criticizes Rymer for seeing only the
merits of Waller and only the defects of Shakespeare.
Ø Dennis says that a Chorus is not necessary
to the structure or substance of a tragedy as it can add nothing in the way of
moral instruction.
Ø Dennis was himself a neo-classical critic
and for him the rules of Aristotle are nothing but ‘Nature and Good Sense
reduc’d to a Method’.
The Advancement and
Reformation of Modern Poetry
In this
book he tries to lay ‘foundations for a systematic and comprehensive philosophy
of poetry’. He gives us a definition of poetry: ‘Poetry, then, is an imitation
of Nature by a pathetic and numerous speech’.
Ø Poetry is ‘pathetic’—that passion is necessary
for it.
Ø It is numerous—that it is rhythmical
Ø Passion must be everywhere in poetry, but it
is not the passion of real life. Dennis says that it is passion whose ‘cause is
not clearly comprehended’.
The Grounds of
Criticism in Poetry
In this
work Dennis explores the nature of poetry. He argues for ‘rules’. If the aim of
Poetry is to instruct and reform the world, then poetry must avoid all
confusion through rule and order.
Speaking
about the material for poetry, Dennis says that since the most intense and
exalted emotions are to be stirred by great poetry, religion is the most
fitting material for poetry. Dennis defends this idea by quoting Aristotle and
Longinus and illuminating his argument with detailed reference to Paradise Lost. For him Paradise Lost is the greatest poem ever
written by man. Yet he says that Milton has committed a blunder. In the first
eight books we are ‘divinely entertained’ with the wonderful works of God but
in the later books ‘an angel entertains us with the works of corrupted man’.
According
to Dennis modern poetry has fallen from dignity and excellence into contempt
through ‘divesting itself of religion’.
In his
later days, Dennis degenerated into a dogmatic pedant and became the butt of
ridicule by neo-classicists like Pope. ‘Yet he deserves credit for the way he
gave neoclassical rules respect without literal servitude, for his emphasis on
the essential role of emotion in poetry, and for his determination to
corroborate his judgments with detailed scrutiny of the literature he criticized.
Please wait
for this material in the subsequent posts
To be posted
The Eighteenth Century I: The Age of Addison and Pope
The Eighteenth Century II: Johnson and his Successors
Materials
are for the students of MPhil. These can be used as lecture notes by teachers
of English in Bharathiar University area.
Dr. S. Sreekumar
·
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