A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century. Henry A. Beers

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СКАЧАТЬ were alien to Scott's manly and eminently practical turn of mind. It is hardly possible to fancy him reading the "Roman de la Rose" with patience—he thought "Troilus and Creseyde" tedious, which Rossetti pronounces the finest of English love poems; or selecting for treatment the story of Heloise or Tristram and Iseult, or of "Le Chevalier de la Charette"; or such a typical mediaeval life as that of Ulrich von Liechtenstein.[53] These were quite as truly beyond his sphere as a church legend like the life of Saint Margaret or the quest of the Sangreal. In the "Talisman" he praises in terms only less eloquent than Burke's famous words, "that wild spirit of chivalry which, amid its most extravagant and fantastic nights, was still pure from all selfish alloy—generous, devoted, and perhaps only thus far censurable, that it proposed objects and courses of action inconsistent with the frailties and imperfections of man." In "Ivanhoe," too, there is something like a dithyrambic lament over the decay of knighthood—"The 'scutcheons have long mouldered from the walls," etc.; but even here, enthusiasm is tempered by good sense, and Richard of the Lion Heart is described as an example of the "brilliant but useless character of a knight of romance." All this is but to say that the picture of the Middle Age which Scott painted was not complete. Still it was more nearly complete than has yet been given by any other hand; and the artist remains, in Stevenson's phrase, "the king of the Romantics."

APPENDIX A.

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      "Jamais homme de génie n'a eu l'honneur et le bonheur d'être imité par plus d'hommes de genié, si tous les grands écrivains de l'époque romantique depuis Victor Hugo jusqu'à Balzac et depuis Alfred de Vigny jusqu'à Mérimée, lui doivent tous et se sont tous glorifiés de lui devoir quelque chose. … Il doit nous suffire pour l'instant d'affirmer que l'influence de Walter Scott est à la racine même des grandes oeuvres qui ont donné au nouveau genre tant d'éclat dans notre littérature; que c'est elle qui les a inspirées, suscitées, fait éclore; que sans lui nous n'aurions ni 'Hans d'Islande,' ni 'Cinq-Mars,' ni 'Les Chouans,' ni la 'Chronique de Charles IX.,' ni 'Notre Dame de Paris,' … Ce n'est rien moins que le romantisme lui-même dont elle a hâté l'incubation, facilité l'eclosion, aidé le développement."—MAIGRON, "Le Roman Historique," p. 143.

      "Il nous faut d'abord constater que c'est véritablement de Walter Scott, et de Walter Scott seul, que commence cette fureur des choses du moyen âge, cette manie de couleur locale qui sévit avec tant d'intensité quelque temps avant et longtemps après 1830, et donc qu'il reste, au moins pour ce qui est de la description, le principal initiateur de la génération nouvelle. Sans doute et de toute part, cette résurrection du moyen âge était des long-temps préparée. Le 'Génie du Christianisme,' le 'Cours de litterature dramatique' de Schlegel, l''Allemagne' de Mme. de Staël avaient fait des moeurs chrétiennes et chevaleresques le fondement et la condition de renouvellement de l'art français. Et, en effet, dès 1802, le moyen âge était découvert, la cathédrale gothique restaurée, l'art chretien remis à la place éminente d'où il aurait fallu ne jamais le laisser choir. Mais où sont les oeuvres exécutées d'après ce modèle et ces principes? S'il est facile d'apercevoir et de déterminer la cathédrale religieuse de Chateaubriand, est il donc si aisé de distinguer sa cathédrale poétique? … Un courant vigoureux, que le 'Genie du Christianisme' et les 'Martyrs' ont puissamment contribué à detérminer, fait dériver les imaginations vers les choses gothiques; volontiers, l'esprit français se retourne alors vers le passé comme vers la seule source de poésie; et voici qu'un étranger vient se faire son guide et fait miroiter, devant tous les yeux éblouis, la fantasmagorie du moyen âge, donjons et créneaux, cuirasses et belles armures, haquenées et palefrois, chevaliers resplendissants et mignonnes et délicates chatelaines. … Sur ses traces, on se précipita avec furie dans la voie qu'il venait subitement d'élargir. Ce moyen age, jusqu'à lui si convoité et si infécond, devinait enfin une source inépuisable d'émotions et de productions artistiques. La 'cathédrale' était bien restaurée cette fois. Elle le fut même trop, et borda trop obstinement tous les sentiers littéraires. Mais de cet excès, si vite fatigant, c'est Walter Scott et non Chateaubriand, quoi qu'il en ait pu dire, qui reste le grand coupable. Il fit plus que découvrir le moyen âge; il le mit à la mode parmi les Français."—Ibid., pp. 195 ff.

APPENDIX B.

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      "The magical touch and the sense of mystery and all the things that are associated with the name romance, when that name is applied to 'The Ancient Mariner,' or 'La Belle Dame sans Merci,' or 'The Lady of Shalott,' are generally absent from the most successful romances of the great mediaeval romantic age. … The true romantic interest is very unequally distributed over the works of the Middle Ages, and there is least of it in the authors who are most representative of the 'age of chivalry.' There is a disappointment prepared for any one who looks in the greater romantic authors of the twelfth century for the music of 'The Faery Queene' or 'La Belle Dame sans Merci.' … The greater authors of the twelfth century have more affinity to the 'heroic romance' of the school of the 'Grand Cyrus' than to the dreams of Spenser or Coleridge. … The magic that is wanting to the clear and elegant narrative of Benoit and Chrestien will be found elsewhere; it will be found in one form in the mystical prose of the 'Queste del St. Graal'—a very different thing from Chrestien's 'Perceval'—it will be found, again and again, in the prose of Sir Thomas Malory; it will be found in many ballads and ballad burdens, in 'William and Margaret,' in 'Binnorie,' in the 'Wife of Usher's Well,' in the 'Rime of the Count Arnaldos,' in the 'Königskinder'; it will be found in the most beautiful story of the Middle Ages, 'Aucassin and Nicolette,' one of the few perfectly beautiful stories in the world."—"Epic and Romance," W. P. Ker, London, 1897, p. 371 ff.

      [1] Scott's translations from the German are considered in the author's earlier volume, "A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century." Incidental mention of Scott occurs throughout the same volume; and a few of the things there said are repeated, in substance though not in form, in the present chapter. It seemed better to risk some repetition than to sacrifice fulness of treatment here.

      [2] "The Development of the English Novel," by Wilbur L. Cross, p. 131.

      [3] Vol. i., p. 300.

      [4] The sixth canto of the "Lay" closes with a few lines translated from the "Dies Irae" and chanted by the monks in Melrose Abbey.

      [5] Vol. i., pp. 389–404.

      [6] Vol. i., pp. 48–49.

      [7] "Scott was entirely incapable of entering into the spirit of any classical scene. He was strictly a Goth and a Scot, and his sphere of sensation may be almost exactly limited by the growth of heather."—Ruskin, "Modern Painters," vol. iii., p. 317.

      [8] "Marmion": Introduction to Canto third. In the preface to "The Bridal of Triermain," the poet says: "According to the author's idea of Romantic Poetry, as distinguished from Epic, the former comprehends a fictitious narrative, framed and combined at the pleasure of the writer; beginning and ending as he may judge best; which neither exacts nor refuses the use of supernatural machinery; which is free from the technical rules of the Epée. … In a word, the author is absolute master of his country and its inhabitants."

      [9] Scott's ascription of "Sir Tristram" to Thomas the Rhymer, or Thomas of Erceldoune, was doubtless a mistake. His edition of the romance was printed in 1804. In 1800 he had begun a prose tale, "Thomas the Rhymer," a fragment of which is given in the preface to the General Edition of the Waverley Novels (1829). This old legendary poet and prophet, who flourished circa 1280, and was believed to have been carried off by the Queen of Faerie into Eildon Hill, fascinated Scott's imagination strongly. See his version of the "True Thomas'" story in the "Minstrelsy," as also the editions СКАЧАТЬ