Cf. Revue d’hist. litt., XVIII, 440. For the Early French history of the word, see also the article Romantique by A. François in Annales de la Soc. J. – J. Rousseau, V, 199-236.
25
First edition, 1698; second edition, 1732.
26
Cf. his Elégie à une dame.
Mon âme, imaginant, n’a point la patienceDe bien polir les vers et ranger la science.La règle me déplaît, j’écris confusément:Jamais un bon esprit ne fait rien qu’aisément.…Je veux faire des vers qui ne soient pas contraints…Chercher des lieux secrets où rein ne me déplaise,Méditer à loisir, rêver tout à mon aise,Employer toute une heure à me mirer dans l’eau,Ouïr, comme en songeant, la course d’un ruisseau.Ecrire dans un bois, m’interrompre, me taire,Composer un quatrain sans songer à le faire.
27
Caractères, ch. V.
28
His psychology of the memory and imagination is still Aristotelian. Cf. E. Wallace, Aristotle’s Psychology, Intr., lxxxvi-cvii.
29
An Essay upon Poetry (1682).
30
The French Academy discriminates in its Sentiments sur le Cid between two types of probability, “ordinary” and “extraordinary.” Probability in general is more especially reserved for action. In the domain of action “ordinary” probability and decorum run very close together. It is, for example, both indecorous and improbable that Chimène in the Cid should marry her father’s murderer.
31
In his Preface to Shakespeare.
32
For a similar distinction in Aristotle see Eth. Nic., 1143 b.
33
The Platonic and Aristotelian reason or mind (νοῦς) contains an element of intuition.
34
In his Lettre à d’Alembert sur les spectacles.
35
Rousseau contre Molière, 238.
36
Letters on Chivalry and Romance.
37
See verses prefixed to Congreve’s Double-Dealer.
38
Change l’état douteux dans lequel tu nous ranges,Nature élève-nous à la clarté des anges,Ou nous abaisse au sens des simples animaux.Sonnet (1657?).
39
See, for example, A. Gerard’s Essay on Genius (1774), passim.
40
The English translation of this part of the Critique of Judgment, edited by J. C. Meredith, is useful for its numerous illustrative passages from these theorists (Young, Gerard, Duff, etc.).
41
Mrs. Katharine Fullerton Gerould has dealt interestingly with this point in an article in the Unpopular Review (October, 1914) entitled Tabu and Temperament.
42
See Biographia literaria, ch. XXII.
43
This message came to him in any case straight from German romanticism. See Walzel, Deutsche Romantik, 22, 151.
44
“De tous les corps et esprits, on n’en saurait tirer un mouvement de vraie charité; cela est impossible, et d’un autre ordre, surnaturel.” Penseés, Article XVII. “Charité,” one should recollect, here has its traditional meaning – the love, not of man, but of God.
45
See poem, Ce siècle avait deux ans in the Feuilles d’Automne.
46
For amusing details, see L. Maigron, Le Romantisme et la mode (1911), ch. V.
47
For Disraeli see Wilfrid Ward, Men and Matters, 54 ff. Of Bulwer-Lytton at Nice about 1850 Princess von Racowitza writes as follows in her Autobiography (p. 46): “His fame was at its zenith. He seemed to me antediluvian, with his long dyed curls and his old-fashioned dress … with long coats reaching to the ankles, knee-breeches, and long colored waistcoats. Also, he appeared always with a young lady who adored him, and who was followed by a man servant carrying a harp. She sat at his feet and appeared as he did in the costume of 1830, with long flowing curls called Anglaises. … In society, however, people ran after him tremendously, and spoilt him in every possible way. He read aloud from his own works, and, in especially poetic passages, his ‘Alice’ accompanied him with arpeggios on the harp.”
48
See essay by Kenyon Cox on The Illusion of Progress, in his Artist and Public.
49
See Creative Criticism by J. E. Spingarn, and my article on Genius and Taste, reviewing this book, in the Nation (New York), 7 Feb., 1918.
50
One should note here as elsewhere points of contact between scientific and emotional naturalism. Take, for example, the educational theory that has led to the setting up of the elective system. The general human discipline embodied in the fixed curriculum is to be discarded in order that the individual may be free to work along the lines of his bent or “genius.” In a somewhat similar way scientific naturalism encourages the individual to sacrifice the general human discipline to a specialty.
51
See his poem L’Art in Emaux et Camées.
52
Quel esprit ne bat la campagne?Qui ne fait châteaux en Espagne?Picrochole, Pyrrhus, la laitière, enfin tous,Autant les sages que les fousChacun songe en veillant; il n’est rien de plus doux.Une flatteuse erreur emporte alors nos âmes;Tout le bien du monde est à nous,Tous les honneurs, toutes les femmes.Quand je suis seul, je fais au plus brave un défi,Je m’écarte, je vais détrôner le sophi;On m’élit roi, mon peuple m’aime;Les diadèmes vont sur ma tête pleuvant:Quelque accident fait-il que je rentre en moi-même,Je suis gros Jean comme devant.
53
Rasselas, ch. XLIV.
54
Nouvelle Héloïse, Pt. II, Lettre XVII.
55
Rostand has hit off this change in the Balcony Scene of his Cyrano de Bergerac.
56
Essay on Simple and Sentimental Poetry.
57
The life of Rousseau by Gerhard Gran is written from this point of view.
58
The world’s great age begins anew,The golden years return, etc.Hellas, vv. 1060 ff.
59
For an excellent analysis of Shelley’s idealism see Leslie Stephen’s Godwin and Shelley in his Hours in a Library.
60
Letters, II, 292.
61
See his letter to Wordsworth, 30 January, 1801.
62
Dramatic Art and Literature, ch. I.
63
Cf. Voltaire: On ne peut désirer ce qu’on ne connaît pas. (Zaïre.)
