Читать книгу Lectures on the English Poets; Delivered at the Surrey Institution - William Hazlitt - Страница 5

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Having, in the former Lecture, given some account of the nature of poetry in general, I shall proceed, in the next place, to a more particular consideration of the genius and history of English poetry. I shall take, as the subject of the present lecture, Chaucer and Spenser, two out of four of the greatest names in poetry, which this country has to boast. Both of them, however, were much indebted to the early poets of Italy, and may be considered as belonging, in a certain degree, to the same school. The freedom and copiousness with which our most original writers, in former periods, availed themselves of the productions of their predecessors, frequently transcribing whole passages, without scruple or acknowledgment, may appear contrary to the etiquette of modern literature, when the whole stock of poetical common-places has become public property, and no one is compelled to trade upon any particular author. But it is not so much a subject of wonder, at a time when to read and write was of itself an honorary distinction, when learning was almost as great a rarity as genius, and when in fact those who first transplanted the beauties of other languages into their own, might be considered as public benefactors, and the founders of a national literature.—There are poets older than Chaucer, and in the interval between him and Spenser; but their genius was not such as to place them in any point of comparison with either of these celebrated men; and an inquiry into their particular merits or defects might seem rather to belong to the province of the antiquary, than be thought generally interesting to the lovers of poetry in the present day.

Chaucer (who has been very properly considered as the father of English poetry) preceded Spenser by two centuries. He is supposed to have been born in London, in the year 1328, during the reign of Edward III. and to have died in 1400, at the age of seventy-two. He received a learned education at one, or at both of the universities, and travelled early into Italy, where he became thoroughly imbued with the spirit and excellences of the great Italian poets and prose-writers, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccace; and is said to have had a personal interview with one of these, Petrarch. He was connected, by marriage, with the famous John of Gaunt, through whose interest he was introduced into several public employments. Chaucer was an active partisan, a religious reformer, and from the share he took in some disturbances, on one occasion, he was obliged to fly the country. On his return, he was imprisoned, and made his peace with government, as it is said, by a discovery of his associates. Fortitude does not appear, at any time, to have been the distinguishing virtue of poets.—There is, however, an obvious similarity between the practical turn of Chaucer's mind and restless impatience of his character, and the tone of his writings. Yet it would be too much to attribute the one to the other as cause and effect: for Spenser, whose poetical temperament was an effeminate as Chaucer's was stern and masculine, was equally engaged in public affairs, and had mixed equally in the great world. So much does native disposition predominate over accidental circumstances, moulding them to its previous bent and purposes! For while Chaucer's intercourse with the busy world, and collision with the actual passions and conflicting interests of others, seemed to brace the sinews of his understanding, and gave to his writings the air of a man who describes persons and things that he had known and been intimately concerned in; the same opportunities, operating on a differently constituted frame, only served to alienate Spenser's mind the more from the "close-pent up" scenes of ordinary life, and to make him "rive their concealing continents," to give himself up to the unrestrained indulgence of "flowery tenderness."

It is not possible for any two writers to be more opposite in this respect. Spenser delighted in luxurious enjoyment; Chaucer, in severe activity of mind. As Spenser was the most romantic and visionary, Chaucer was the most practical of all the great poets, the most a man of business and the world. His poetry reads like history. Every thing has a downright reality; at least in the relator's mind. A simile, or a sentiment, is as if it were given in upon evidence. Thus he describes Cressid's first avowal of her love.

"And as the new abashed nightingale,

That stinteth first when she beginneth sing,

When that she heareth any herde's tale,

Or in the hedges any wight stirring,

And after, sicker, doth her voice outring;

Right so Cresseide, when that her dread stent,

Open'd her heart, and told him her intent."

This is so true and natural, and beautifully simple, that the two things seem identified with each other. Again, it is said in the Knight's Tale—

"Thus passeth yere by yere, and day by day,

Till it felle ones in a morwe of May,

That Emelie that fayrer was to sene

Than is the lilie upon his stalke grene;

And fresher than the May with floures newe,

For with the rose-colour strof hire hewe:

I n'ot which was the finer of hem two."

This scrupulousness about the literal preference, as if some question of matter of fact was at issue, is remarkable. I might mention that other, where he compares the meeting between Palamon and Arcite to a hunter waiting for a lion in a gap;—

"That stondeth at a gap with a spere,

Whan hunted is the lion or the bere,

And hereth him come rushing in the greves,

And breking both the boughes and the leves:"—

or that still finer one of Constance, when she is condemned to death:—

"Have ye not seen somtime a pale face

(Among a prees) of him that hath been lad

Toward his deth, wheras he geteth no grace,

And swiche a colour in his face hath had,

Men mighten know him that was so bestad,

Amonges all the faces in that route;

So stant Custance, and loketh hire aboute."

The beauty, the pathos here does not seem to be of the poet's seeking, but a part of the necessary texture of the fable. He speaks of what he wishes to describe with the accuracy, the discrimination of one who relates what has happened to himself, or has had the best information from those who have been eye-witnesses of it. The strokes of his pencil always tell. He dwells only on the essential, on that which would be interesting to the persons really concerned: yet as he never omits any material circumstance, he is prolix from the number of points on which he touches, without being diffuse on any one; and is sometimes tedious from the fidelity with which he adheres to his subject, as other writers are from the frequency of their digressions from it. The chain of his story is composed of a number of fine links, closely connected together, and rivetted by a single blow. There is an instance of the minuteness which he introduces into his most serious descriptions in his account of Palamon when left alone in his cell:

"Swiche sorrow he maketh that the grete tour

Resouned of his yelling and clamour:

The pure fetters on his shinnes grete

Were of his bitter salte teres wete."

The mention of this last circumstance looks like a part of the instructions he had to follow, which he had no discretionary power to leave out or introduce at pleasure. He is contented to find grace and beauty in truth. He exhibits for the most part the naked object, with little drapery thrown over it. His metaphors, which are few, are not for ornament, but use, and as like as possible to the things themselves. He does not affect to shew his power over the reader's mind, but the power which his subject has over his own. The readers of Chaucer's poetry feel more nearly what the persons he describes must have felt, than perhaps those of any other poet. His sentiments are not voluntary effusions of the poet's fancy, but founded on the natural impulses and habitual prejudices of the characters he has to represent. There is an inveteracy of purpose, a sincerity of feeling, which never relaxes or grows vapid, in whatever they do or say. There is no artificial, pompous display, but a strict parsimony of the poet's materials, like the rude simplicity of the age in which he lived. His poetry resembles the root just springing from the ground, rather than the full-blown flower. His muse is no "babbling gossip of the air," fluent and redundant; but, like a stammerer, or a dumb person, that has just found the use of speech, crowds many things together with eager haste, with anxious pauses, and fond repetitions to prevent mistake. His words point as an index to the objects, like the eye or finger. There were none of the common-places of poetic diction in our author's time, no reflected lights of fancy, no borrowed roseate tints; he was obliged to inspect things for himself, to look narrowly, and almost to handle the object, as in the obscurity of morning we partly see and partly grope our way; so that his descriptions have a sort of tangible character belonging to them, and produce the effect of sculpture on the mind. Chaucer had an equal eye for truth of nature and discrimination of character; and his interest in what he saw gave new distinctness and force to his power of observation. The picturesque and the dramatic are in him closely blended together, and hardly distinguishable; for he principally describes external appearances as indicating character, as symbols of internal sentiment. There is a meaning in what he sees; and it is this which catches his eye by sympathy. Thus the costume and dress of the Canterbury Pilgrims—of the Knight—the Squire—the Oxford Scholar—the Gap-toothed Wife of Bath, and the rest, speak for themselves. To take one or two of these at random:

"There was also a nonne, a Prioresse,

That of hire smiling was ful simple and coy;

Hire gretest othe n'as but by seint Eloy:

And she was cleped Madame Eglentine.

Ful wel she sange the service divine

Entuned in hire nose ful swetely;

And Frenche she spake ful fayre and fetisly,

After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,

For Frenche of Paris was to hire unknowe.

At mete was she wel ytaughte withalle;

She lette no morsel from hire lippes falle,

Ne wette hire fingres in hire sauce depe.

* * * * * *

And sikerly she was of great disport,

And ful plesant, and amiable of port,

And peined hire to contrefeten chere

Of court, and ben estatelich of manere,

And to ben holden digne of reverence.

But for to speken of hire conscience,

She was so charitable and so pitous,

She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous

Caughte in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde.

Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde

With rosted flesh, and milk, and wastel brede.

But sore wept she if on of hem were dede,

Or if men smote it with a yerde smert:

And all was conscience and tendre herte.

Ful semely hire wimple ypinched was;

Hire nose tretis; hire eyen grey as glas;

Hire mouth ful smale; and therto soft and red;

But sickerly she hadde a fayre forehed.

It was almost a spanne brode, I trowe."

"A Monk there was, a fayre for the maistrie,

An out-rider, that loved venerie:

A manly man, to ben an abbot able.

Ful many a deinte hors hadde he in stable:

And whan he rode, men mighte his bridel here,

Gingeling in a whistling wind as clere,

And eke as loude, as doth the chapell belle,

Ther as this lord was keper of the celle.

The reule of Seint Maure and of Seint Beneit,

Because that it was olde and somdele streit,

This ilke monk lette olde thinges pace,

And held after the newe world the trace. [*]

He yave not of the text a pulled hen,

That saith, that hunters ben not holy men;—

Therfore he was a prickasoure a right:

Greihoundes he hadde as swift as foul of flight:

Of pricking and of hunting for the hare

Was all his lust, for no cost wolde he spare.

I saw his sleves purfiled at the hond

With gris, and that the finest of the lond.

And for to fasten his hood under his chinne,

He had of gold ywrought a curious pinne:

A love-knotte in the greter end ther was.

His hed was balled, and shone as any glas,

And eke his face, as it hadde ben anoint.

He was a lord ful fat and in good point.

His eyen stepe, and rolling in his hed,

That stemed as a forneis of a led.

His botes souple, his hors in gret estat,

Now certainly he was a fayre prelat.

He was not pale as a forpined gost.

A fat swan loved he best of any rost.

His palfrey was as broune as is a bery."

The Serjeant at Law is the same identical individual as Lawyer Dowling in Tom Jones, who wished to divide himself into a hundred pieces, to be in a hundred places at once.

"No wher so besy a man as he ther n'as,

And yet he semed besier than he was."

The Frankelein, in "whose hous it snewed of mete and drinke"; the

Shipman, "who rode upon a rouncie, as he couthe"; the Doctour of

Phisike, "whose studie was but litel of the Bible"; the Wif of Bath, in

"All whose parish ther was non,

That to the offring before hire shulde gon,

And if ther did, certain so wroth was she,

That she was out of alle charitee;"

—the poure Persone of a toun, "whose parish was wide, and houses fer asonder"; the Miller, and the Reve, "a slendre colerike man," are all of the same stamp. They are every one samples of a kind; abstract definitions of a species. Chaucer, it has been said, numbered the classes of men, as Linnaeus numbered the plants. Most of them remain to this day: others that are obsolete, and may well be dispensed with, still live in his descriptions of them. Such is the Sompnoure:

"A Sompnoure was ther with us in that place,

That hadde a fire-red cherubinnes face,

For sausefleme he was, with eyen narwe,

As hote he was, and likerous as a sparwe,

With scalled browes blake, and pilled berd:

Of his visage children were sore aferd.

Ther n'as quicksilver, litarge, ne brimston,

Boras, ceruse, ne oile of tartre non,

Ne oinement that wolde clense or bite,

That him might helpen of his whelkes white,

Ne of the knobbes sitting on his chekes.

Wel loved he garlike, onions, and lekes,

And for to drinke strong win as rede as blood.

Than wolde he speke, and crie as he were wood.

And whan that he wel dronken had the win,

Than wold he speken no word but Latin.

A fewe termes coude he, two or three,

That he had lerned out of som decree;

No wonder is, he heard it all the day.—

In danger hadde he at his owen gise

The yonge girles of the diocise,

And knew hir conseil, and was of hir rede.

A gerlond hadde he sette upon his hede

As gret as it were for an alestake:

A bokeler hadde he made him of a cake.

With him ther rode a gentil Pardonere—

That hadde a vois as smale as hath a gote."

It would be a curious speculation (at least for those who think that the characters of men never change, though manners, opinions, and institutions may) to know what has become of this character of the Sompnoure in the present day; whether or not it has any technical representative in existing professions; into what channels and conduits it has withdrawn itself, where it lurks unseen in cunning obscurity, or else shews its face boldly, pampered into all the insolence of office, in some other shape, as it is deterred or encouraged by circumstances. Chaucer's characters modernised, upon this principle of historic derivation, would be an useful addition to our knowledge of human nature. But who is there to undertake it?

The descriptions of the equipage, and accoutrements of the two kings of Thrace and Inde, in the Knight's Tale, are as striking and grand, as the others are lively and natural:

"Ther maist thou se coming with Palamon

Licurge himself, the grete king of Trace:

Blake was his berd, and manly was his face,

The cercles of his eyen in his hed

They gloweden betwixen yelwe and red,

And like a griffon loked he about,

With kemped heres on his browes stout;

His limmes gret, his braunes hard and stronge,

His shouldres brode, his armes round and longe

And as the guise was in his contree,

Ful highe upon a char of gold stood he,

With foure white bolles in the trais.

Instede of cote-armure on his harnais,

With nayles yelwe, and bright as any gold,

He hadde a beres skin, cole-blake for old.

His longe here was kempt behind his bak,

As any ravenes fether it shone for blake.

A wreth of gold arm-gret, of huge weight,

Upon his hed sate full of stones bright,

Of fine rubins [sic] and of diamants.

About his char ther wenten white alauns,

Twenty and mo, as gret as any stere,

To hunten at the leon or the dere,

And folwed him, with mosel fast ybound.—

With Arcita, in stories as men find,

The grete Emetrius, the king of Inde,

Upon a stede bay, trapped in stele,

Covered with cloth of gold diapred wele,

Came riding like the god of armes Mars.

His cote-armure was of a cloth of Tars,

Couched with perles, white, and round and grete.

His sadel was of brent gold new ybete;

A mantelet upon his shouldres hanging

Bret-ful of rubies red, as fire sparkling.

His crispe here like ringes was yronne,

And that was yelwe, and glitered as the Sonne.

His nose was high, his eyen bright citrin,

His lippes round, his colour was sanguin,

A fewe fraknes in his face yspreint,

Betwixen yelwe and blake somdel ymeint,

And as a leon he his loking caste.

Of five and twenty yere his age I caste.

His berd was wel begonnen for to spring;

His vois was as a trompe thondering.

Upon his hed he wered of laurer grene

A gerlond freshe and lusty for to sene.

Upon his hond he bare for his deduit

An egle tame, as any lily whit.—

About this king ther ran on every part

Ful many a tame leon and leopart."