Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/284

274 ventured to put forth," he writes, "we will compare early lyric poetry to a placid lake which reflects the clouds and stars; the epic is the stream which flows from the lake, and rushes on, reflecting its banks, forests, fields, and cities, until it throws itself into the ocean of the drama. Like the lake, the drama reflects the sky; like the stream, it reflects its banks; but it alone has tempests and measureless depths." His poet "is a tree that may be blown about by all winds and watered by every fall of dew; and bears his works as his fruits, as the fablier of old bore his fables. Why attach one's self to a master, or graft one's self upon a model? It were better to be a bramble or a thistle, fed by the same earth as the cedar and the palm, than the fungus or the lichen of those noble trees." Mazzini begins his comparison of Byron and Goethe by contrasting an Alpine falcon bravely floating in the midst of a storm, with a tranquil stork impassive amid the warring elements; and Renan prepares us for his conception of Celtic literature by giving us at the outset the characteristic tone of the Breton landscape. What the intellect has firmly outlined, fancy and imagination paint in lively colors.

COMPARISON AND CONFLICT OF OPINION

An essay which has by these means achieved clearness may be pleasant to read but still lacking in power. To give force to his ideas about an author or a literature, the masterful critic exhibits the peculiarity of his subject by the use of contrast. The brilliancy of Mazzini's essay proceeds largely from its striking antithesis between Byron and Goethe. Renan enforces his doctrine of the individuality of Celtic literature by emphasizing the differences between the French "Roland" and the Celtic "Peredur," between the gentle Isolde and the "Scandinavian furies, Gudrun and Chrimhilde." Hugo intensifies our conviction of the complex character of modern life by describing the simplicity of the ancients. If a critic does not observe this principle, we may say of his essay: "These ideas are, to be sure, clear and enjoyable; but what do they matter?" The great critics do not leave us calmly indifferent; they are on occasion critics militant. Even the gentle Sainte-Beuve admonishes the "Montaignologues," who, he feels, do not understand the spirit of Montaigne. Taine manifests the novelty and