Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/683

* CRITICISM. 589 CRITICISM. have as function the iileasuiegivinj; ropresenta- tion or 'imitation' of wliat was vinivcrsal — apper- taining to all liuman nature, and not partieularly or insignificantly individual; and that great art was measured by the liigli and lasting pleasure it aiTorded to society. To study the impressive works that have stood the test of time — the Bible, Homer. Vergil. Dante, Shakespeare. Milton, and lesser hut well-loved poets — in the light of Aris- totle's illuminating laws, is to discover how strik- ing in its essence is the similarity in the greatest art; the sameness of man's soul, its passions and aspirations, remaining the ke3note of art as it is of life. The technical side of criticism — questions of metrical and dramatic construction and minor points of style — was approached b.y Aristotle, and the systematic nature of the Poetics is probably the chief reason for the reaction that has now and again set in against what is sometimes termed purely academic criticism. Yet it is just because Aristotle appreciated and showed that all art must have laws that the student will find him so use- ful ; more so even than Plato, whose lightning flashes of interpretation must be ranked with the highest creative critical literature. The critical writers after Aristotle are so numerous — Greek, Byzantine, Latin — and for the most part so oc- cupied with the linguistic phase of composition, that one is glad to pass swiftly by all their rhe- torical treatises until there looms up in the third century the figure of Longinus, whose refreshing enthusiasm for the beauty of letters places him above the mechanical student of rules. The most important of his successors were Cicero, Horace, and Quintilian, whose observations on style have been of uermanent service. From the time of Quintilian to Dante there is no great name in criticism ; nor is this to be wondered at when one reflects that the medifeval attitude toward lit- erature was, on the whole, that of distrust and disapprobation. Dante's poetry has so overshad- owed his critical treatises that there are probably many lovers of the Divine Comedi/ who have no conception of the interest of the master's reflec- tions on poetic form and beauty, nor any knowl- edge of his limitations of the subject-matter of great poetry to love, war. and virtue, or moral philosophy. Of more service than Dante's trea- tises were the writings of the poets and critics of the Italian Renaissance. Through them the classical tradition was passed on to England and to the rest of Europe: in art and literature, as in science and in politics, the Italy of the Renais- sance was the great rejuvenator and originator in the realm of the intellect. In more modern times the names of Corneille, Boileau, Voltaire, Diderot, Hugo, and Sainte- Beuve in France; of Kant, Schiller, and Mes- sing in Germany; of Sidney, Pope, Addison, Dryden, Wordsworth, and Shelley in England, represent diftering views and opinions. Boileau's Art poctitjKc. reminiscent of Horace's Ars Poe- tica. and Pope's 7?s.W)/ on Criticism have their distinct value as vohnnes of often authoritative formal instruction furnishing useful analyses of the difTcrent kinds of verse compositions. Of far more worth is Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesie (an essay richly reminiscent of the Ital- ian Renaissance), wherein he quaintly reminds us that "though the poet conieth to you with words set in delightful proportion," yet "it is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet." Lessing's great achievement was to disperse the fog that Corneille had i-aiscd around the dra- matic principles of Aristotle, and by clarifying tile classic doctrines, to make possible their ap- l)lication to all art under modern condi- tions. And here, without going into any details concerning any present-day doctrines, even though they be so interesting as the evolutionary theories with which we read- ily connect the name of M. Brunei i^re, it may t<e well to suggest the wider paths open to criti- cism through modern conditions. The Greek and Roman critics had only their own work to study. We of to-day have the dramas, the epics, the novels of many nations and ages. The study of comparative literature, now possible. o])cns up opportunities for tracing those influences which all'ected the literatures of all Europe, iinil afl'ords the student the chance of building up from vary- ing yet interrelated sources a standard of criti- cism. The dill'erences due to national character and individual genius will teach him the limita- tions of hard and fast formal rules, while his faith in the fundamental canons of great art can only be made firmer by such comparative study. He will learn that criticism is of use as a method of judgment for the reader, rather than an inspiring guide to the poet, whose highest achievements are never the result of the rules whose vitality they attest. The critic who disre- {;ards the universal message of great art, and, maintaining that there is no disputing concern- ing taste, claims for his personal opinion as much value as can attach to any judgment, rejects for his impressionistic mess of pot- tage the birthright of many ages of culture. The subjective element of criticism is not. however, precluded by the positive laws revealed through the inductive method applied to works of art. As Lowell pointed out in his essay on Don Quixote, a book is great in proportion to what can be gotten from it, an<l many an artist has builded better than he knew. The individual critic can be so keen and yet true in his interpre- tations and so inspiring in his expression as to make his criticism itself creative literature. The qualities which are necessary to the ideal critic are, therefore, not alone knowledge of human na- ture and of the characteristics of the literature which has endured; he must himself have true power of intuition, snnpathy combined with im- partiality in judgment, a rational appreciation of the relative importance of form and content, the sense of beauty which will enable him to judge style, and the capacity for making others see what he sees. Method and technique are al- ways valuable, and we of .ineriea have much reason to thank t'hild and Tieknor and Longfel- low, who introduced scholarship into Qur coun- try ; for we must think of criticism first of all, not as a formidable and narrowing system, but in- deed as a bro.-id view-point, occupying the same relation to literature that literature holds to life: and as law is the condition of true liberty in life, so criticism is the bar to anarchy in lit- erature. "We do not possess what we do not un- derstand." said Goethe. The true critic, like the rliapsodist of old, can be the connecting link be- tween the artist and the pviblic, leading his read- ers to understand the beauty of a work, and so to possess it. The technical beauty may well be a matter of formal development, but the emotional beauty and appeal rest on the basis of the essen-