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Thomas Warton and the Historical Method in Literary Criticism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Thomas Warton's Observations on the ‘Fairy Queen’ of Spenser has hardly yet received due recognition as the first important piece of modern historical criticism in the field of English literature. By the variety of its new tenets and the definitiveness of its revolt against pseudo-classical criticism by rule, it marks the beginning of a new school. Out of the turmoil of the quarrel between the ‘ancients’ and the ‘moderns’ the pseudo-classical compromise had emerged. The ‘moderns’, by admitting and apologizing for a degree of barbarity and uncouthness in even their greatest poets, had established their right to a secure and reputable place in the assembly of immortals, although on the very questionable ground of conformity with the ancients and by submitting to be judged by rules which had not determined their development. It was thus by comparisons with the ancients that Dryden found Spenser's verse harmonious but his design imperfect; it was by applying the classical rules for epic poetry that Addison praised Paradise Lost, and that Steele wished an ‘Encomium of Spencer also.‘
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References
1 London, 1754. Second edition, corrected and enlarged, 2 vols., 1762. References in this article are to the third edition, 1807.
2 Essay on Satire.
3 Spectator, January to May, 1712.
4 Spectator, No. 540.
5 A Short View of Tragedy, 1693. See Chapter v.
6 Observations, i, p. 21.
7 History of English Poetry, 1774, 1778, 1781. Milton's Poems upon Several Occasions, 1785.
8 Hughes, Remarks on the ‘Fairy Queen‘ prefixed to Ed. Spenser's Works, 2nd. ed., 1750, i, p. lxvii.
9 Prior: Ode to the Queen, written in Imitation of Spenser's Style, 1706, Preface. Whitehead: Vision of Solomon, 1730, and two Odes to the Hon. Charles Townsend. Boyse: The Olive: an Heroic Ode, etc., in the stanza of Spenser (ababcdcdee), 1736-7. Vision of Patience: an Allegorical Poem, 1741; Psalm XLII: In Imitation of the Style of Spenser (aoabcc, no Alexandrine), 1736-7. Blacklock: Hymn to Divine Love, and Philantheus (ababbcc), 1746. T. Warton, Sr.: Philander (ababcc), 1748. Lloyd: Progress of Envy (ababcdedd), 1751. Smith: Thales (ababbccc), 1751. See W. L. Phelps: Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement, Boston, 1902. Ch. on Spenserian Revival, and Appendix I, for a more complete list.
10 Pope: The Alley, date unknown, an exercise in versification, and ill-natured burlesque. Croxall: Two Original Cantos of the Fairy Queen, 1713 and 1714. Akenside: The Virtuoso, 1737, mild satire. G. West: Abuse of Travelling, 1739, satire. Cambridge: Archimage, 1742-50, a clever parody. Shenstone: The Schoolmistress, 1742, satirical. Pitt: The Jordan, 1747, vulgar burlesque. Ridley: Psyche, 1747, moral allegory. Mendez: The Seasons, 1751, Squire of Dames, 1748-58. Thomson: Castle of Indolence, 1748. See also Phelps, as above.
11 Such slips as ‘nor ceasen he from study’ and ‘he would oft ypine’ in Akenside's Virtuoso, and even Thomson's note: ‘The letter y is frequently placed in the beginning of a word by Spenser to lengthen it a syllable; and en at the end of a word for the same reason’ (Glossary to the Castle of Indolence).
12 I cannot agree with Professor Phelps that, ‘as people persisted in admiring “The School-Mistress” for its own sake, he finally consented to agree with them, and in later editions omitted the commentary explaining that the whole thing was done in jest’ (The Beginning of the English Romantic Movement, p. 66). On the contrary, it seems pretty clear that although Shenstone had probably not come to any very profound appreciation for the older poet, his admiration for him became more and more serious, but that he lacked the courage of his convictions, and conformed outwardly with a public opinion wholly ignorant of Spenser. Two later letters of Shenstone's indicate pretty clearly that it was he, and not ‘the people,’ whose taste for Spenser had developed. In November, 1745, he wrote to Graves (to whom he had written of his early contempt) that he had ‘read Spenser once again and added full as much more to my School-mistress in regard to number of lines; something in point of matter (or manner rather) which does not displease me. I would be glad if Mr. ——— were, upon your request, to give his opinion of particulars, etc.’ Evidently the judgment was unfavorable, for he wrote the next year, ‘I thank you for your perusal of that trivial poem. If I were going to print it, I should give way to your remarks implicitly, and would not dare to do otherwise. But so long as I keep it in manuscript, you will pardon my silly prejudices, if I chuse to read and shew it with the addition of most of my new stanzas. I own, I have a fondness for several, imagining them to be more in Spenser's way, yet more independent on the antique phrase, than any part of the poem; and, on that account, I cannot yet prevail on myself to banish them entirely; but were I to print, I should (with some reluctance) give way to your sentiments' (Shenstone's Works, 1777, iii, pp. 105-6).
13 And the first attempt at an annotated edition. Spenser's Works, to which is prefix'd …. an Essay on Allegorical Poetry by Mr. Hughes, 6 vols., London, 1715. Second edition, 1750. There is a second preface, Remarks on the ‘Fairy Queen.‘ References are to the second edition.
14 Remarks on the ‘Fairy Queen,‘ i, p. xliii.
15 Essay on Allegorical Poetry, i, p. xxi.
16 Remarks on the ‘Fairy Queen,‘ i, p. xlii.
17 i, p. xliv.
18 i, p. xl.
19 i, p. 1.
20 The neglect of Spenser is best shown by the few editions of either the Fairy Queen or the complete works which had appeared since the first three books of the former were published in 1590. Faerie Queene, 1st ed., 4to., 1590-6; 2nd, 1596; 3rd, fol., 1609; Birch ed., 3 vols., 4to., 1751. Poetical Works, 1st fol. ed., 1611; 2nd, 1617-18; 3rd, 1679. Hughes, 1st ed., 1715, 2nd, 1750.
21 Jortin's conclusion quoted in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, ii, p. 53. H. E. Cory says nothing of Jortin's Remarks in his monograph, The Critics of Edmund Spenser, Univ. of California Pub. in Mod. Phil., ii, 2, pp. 81-182.
22 Dryden had done the same thing in the Dedication to the Translation of Juvenal by pointing out how the ‘character of Prince Arthur shines throughout the whole poem,‘ and Warton took issue squarely with him on the point and denied any such unity. See Observations, i, pp. 10-11. Addison used the same method in his papers on Paradise Lost. Beni was probably the originator of this sort of misapplied criticism in his comparison of Tasso with Homer and Virgil (i, p. 3).
23 i, pp. 11 ff.
24 i, p. 17.
25 i, p. 18.
26 i, p. 21.
27 ii, p. 72.
28 Warton used the word romantic as a derivative of ‘romance,‘ implying the characteristics of the mediaeval romances, and I have used the word frequently in this paper with that meaning.
29 i, p. 22.
30 i, p. 23.
31 Without the same precision in nomenclature but with equal clearness of idea Warton distinguished between creative and imitative power in exactly the same way that Coleridge differentiated imagination and fancy. He did not compose exact philosophical definitions of the two qualities, but in a careful contrast between the poetic faculties of Spenser and Ariosto, he made the same distinction. Spenser's power, imagination, he described as creative, vital; it endeavours to body forth the unsubstantial, to represent by visible and external symbols the ideal and abstracted (II, p. 77). Ariosto's faculty, fancy, he called imitative, lacking in inventive power (i, p. 308; ii, p. 78). Although Warton at times applied the term imagination loosely to both, there was no confusion of ideas; when he used both terms it was with the difference in meaning just described. In speaking of the effect of the marvels of romance upon the poetic faculty he said they ‘rouse and invigorate all the powers of imagination’ and ‘store the fancy with … images’ (ii, p. 323).
32 I, p. 24.
33 Rasselas, Ch. xliv.
34 Crabbe Eobinson's Diary. Ed. Sadler, Boston, 1870, ii, p. 43.
35 Somewhat later he took a not insignificant part in the romantic movement in poetry.
36 i, pp. 168-170.
37 In his opinion that ‘Spenser, in affecting the ancients, writ no language’ (i, p. 184).
38 i, p. 185. This parallel does not greatly help the case in an age when Atterbury could write to Pope that he found ‘the hardest part of Chaucer … more intelligible’ than some parts of Shakespeare and that ‘not merely through the faults of the edition, but the obscurity of the writer’ (Pope's Works, Elwin-Courthope ed., ix, p. 26).
39 ii, p. 71.
40 Warton ably and sharply met Pope's attack on Theobald for including in his edition of Shakespeare a sample of his sources, of “‘——All such reading as never was read,’ ”and concluded ‘If Shakespeare is worth reading, he is worth explaining, and the researches used for so valuable and elegant a purpose, merit the thanks of genius and candour, not the satire of prejudice and ignorance’ (ii, p. 319). In similar vein he rebuked such of his own critics as found his quotations from the romances ‘trifling and uninteresting’: ‘such readers can have no taste for Spenser’ (i, p. 91).
41 ii, pp. 317-18.
42 i, p. 26.
43 And even later to the time of Milton. Warton found Milton's mind deeply tinctured with romance reading and his imagination and poetry affected thereby (i, pp. 257 and 350). Even Dryden wanted to write an epic about Arthur or the Black Prince but on the model of Virgil and Spenser, not Spenser and the romances (Essay on Satire).
44 i, p. 27 and ii, pp. 71-72. Warton cited Holinshed's Chronicles (Stowe's contin.) where is an account of a tourney for the entertainment of Queen Elizabeth, in which Fulk Grevill and Sir Philip Sidney, among others, entered the lists (Holin., Chron., ed. 1808, iv, pp. 435 ff.).
45 Warton quotes Laneham's ‘Letter wherein part of the Entertainment untoo the Queen's Majesty at Killinworth Castl in Warwick-sheer in this Soomer's progress, 1575, is signified,’ and Gascoigne's ‘Pleasures of Kenilworth Castle,’ Works, 1576.
46 i, pp. 50-74.
47 i, pp. 53-57.
48 i, pp. 27-57.
49 i, pp. 69-71.
50 i, p. 76. Warton says an ‘ingenious correspondent communicated' to him this ‘old ballad or metrical romance.’ Part of Le Court Mantel he found in Sainte Pelaye's Mémoires sur l'ancienne Chevalerie, 1760. Other details, which could not he traced to particular romances, Warton attributed to ‘a mind strongly tinctured with romantic ideas.’ One of these, the custom of knights swearing on their swords, Upton had explained as derived from the custom of the Huns and Goths, related by Jornandes and Ammianus Marcellinus, but Warton pointed out that it was much more probably derived from the more familiar romances (ii, p. 65). A Bodleian MS. containing Sir Degore and other romances is quoted from and described (ii, pp. 5-9).
51 i, pp. 77-89. Warton often used the terms Celtic and Norse very loosely without recognizing the difference. Like Huet and Mallet and other students of romance he was misled by the absurd and fanciful ethnologies in vogue in the 17th and 18th eenturies. For his theory of romance see his dissertation On the Origin of Romantic Fiction in Europe prefixed to the first volume of his History of English Poetry, 1774. In spite of the absurdity of his theory as a whole, many details are surprisingly correct and illuminating.
52 Essay on Satire. Dryden frequently referred to Chaucer as Spenser's master, meaning in the matter of language. See also Dedication of the Pastorals and Preface to the Fables.
53 Section V, Of Spenser's Imitations from Chaucer.
54 In his Remarks on Spenser's Poems. See Observations I, p. 190.
55 i, p. 205. Warton showed many instances of Spenser's interest in Cambuscan, including his continuation of part of the story. See also pp. 210 ff.
56 i, p. 221.
57 Warton found opportunity to express more fully his enthusiasm for Chaucer in a detailed study comparable to this of Spenser, in his History of English Poetry twenty years later. This contributed quite as much to the restoration of Chaucer as did Tyrwhitt's accurate elucidation of textual difficulties.
58 i, pp. 269-71. Warton extended this criticism to translations of classical authors as well. Of course the greatest of the classicists, Dryden and Johnson, realized the limitations of translation, that it was only a makeshift. See Preface to translation of Ovid's epistle, to Sylvae and to the Fables, and Boswell's Johnson, Hill Ed., iii, p. 36. But the popularity of Dryden's translations, and the large number of translations and imitations that appeared during his and succeeding generations, justified Warton's criticism.
59 ii, p. 78.
60 ii, pp. 78-81. ‘Spenser expressly denominates his most exquisite groupe of allegorical figures, the Maske of Cupid. Thus, without recurring to conjecture, his own words evidently demonstrate that he sometimes had representations of this sort in his eye.‘
61 ii, pp. 93-103. Beginning with Adam Davy and the author of Piers Plowman. Like Spence, Warton recognized in Sackville's Induction the nearest approach to Spenser, and a probable source of influence upon him.
62 ii, p. 92.
63 i, pp. 92-156.
64 i, p. 147.
65 i, p. 133.
66 i, p. 1.
67 i, p. 2.
68 i, p. 2.
69 ii, pp. 324-5.
70 ii, pp. 322-3.
71 There is a digression on Milton in the Observations (i, pp. 335-353) the prelude to his edition of Milton, 1785 and 1791.
72 ii, pp. 106-8.
73 In his critical essays in the Spectator.
74 July 16, 1754. ‘I now pay you a very honest acknowledgement, for the advancement of the literature of our native country. You have shewn to all, who shall hereafter attempt the study of our ancient authours, the way to success; by directing them to the perusal of the books which those authours had read. Of this method, Hughes and men much greater than Hughes, seem never to have thought. The reason why the authours, which are yet read, of the sixteenth century, are so little understood, is, that they are read alone; and no help is borrowed from those who lived with them, or before them’ (Boswell's Johnson, Hill Ed., i, p. 270).
75 Warburton's Letters, No. clvii, Nov. 30, 1762. Works, xiii, p. 338.
76 Walpole to Warton, October 30, 1767. Walpole's Letters, Toynbee Ed., vii, p. 144.
77 August, 1754, xi, pp. 112-124.
78 Probably Upton's Edition of the Fairy Queen, which is frequently referred to in the second edition of the Observations. There is ample evidence in Johnson's letters and Warton's comments upon them, as well as his own manuscript notes in his copy of Spenser's Works that he intended a companion work of remarks on the best of Spenser's works, but this made so little progress that it cannot have been generally known. See Boswell's Johnson, i, p. 276, and Warton's copy of Spenser's works, ed. 1617. This quarto volume, which I have examined in the British Museum, contains copious notes which subsequently formed the basis for the Observations. The notes continue partly through the shorter poems as well as the Fairy Queen. Some of them were evidently made for the second edition, for they contain references to Upton's edition.
79 Mon. Rev., July, 1756, xv, p. 90. Grit. Rev., May, 1756, i, p. 374.
80 An impartial Estimate of the Rev. Mr. Upton's notes on the ‘Fairy Queen,‘ reviewed in Crit. Rev., viii, pp. 82 ff.
81 Crit. Rev., vii, p. 106.
82 H. E. Cory: The Critics of Edmund Spenser, Univ. of California Pub. in Mod. Phil. ii, 2, pp. 81-182, pp. 149-50.
83 While even Dr. Johnson had only praise for the Observations, Joseph Warton'a Essay on Pope, on the whole a less revolutionary piece of criticism, touched a more sensitive point. He found the essay instructive, and recommended it as a ‘just specimen of literary moderation’ (Johnson's Works, Ed. 1825, v, p. 670). But as an attack on the reputation of the favourite Augustan poet, its drift was evident, and pernicious. This heresy was for him an explanation of Warton's delay in continuing it. ‘I suppose he finds himself a little disappointed in not having been able to persuade the world to be of his opinion as to Pope’ (Boswell's Life, Hill Ed., i, p. 448).
84 Grit. Rev., xvi, p. 220. It is perfectly evident, however, that the debt does not lie on that side. Hurd's Letters and the second edition of the Observations appeared in the same year, which would almost conclusively preclude any borrowings from the first for the second. But Warton's first edition, eight years before, had enough of chivalry and romance to kindle a mind in sympathy. Hurd was a less thorough student of the old romances themselves than Warton was. He seems to have known them through Sainte Palaye's Mémoires sur l'Ancienne Chevalerie (1750-81); for he said ‘Not that I shall make a merit with you in having perused these barbarous volumes myself…. Thanks to the curiosity of certain painful collectors, this knowledge may be obtained at a cheaper rate. And I think it sufficient to refer you to a learned and very elaborate memoir of a French writer’ (Letters on Chivalry and Romance. Letter iv, Hurd's “Works, ed. 1811, iv, p. 260). Warton also new this French work (Ste. Pelaye's at least) and quoted from it, Observations, i, p. 76, and frequently in his History of English Poetry.
85 ‘May there not be something in the Gothic Romances peculiarly suited to the views of a genius, and to the ends of poetry?’ (Hurd, iv, p. 239). ‘Under this idea than of a Gothic, not classical poem, the Fairy Queen is to be read and criticized' (iv, p. 292). ‘So far as the heroic and Gothic manners are the same, the pictures of each … must be equally entertaining. But I go further, and maintain that the circumstances, in which they differ, are clearly to the advantage of the Gothic designers … could Homer have seen … the manners of the feudal ages, I make no doubt but he would certainly have preferred the latter,’ because of ‘the improved gallantry of the Gothic Knights and the superior solemnity of their superstitions' (iv, p. 280).
86 Hurd's Letters, iv, p. 350.
87 Joseph Warton placed Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, ‘our only three sublime and pathetic poets’ in the first class, at the head of English poets. The object of the essay was to determine Pope's place in the list. ‘I revere the memory of Pope,’ he said, ‘I respect and honour his abilities; but I do not think him at the head of his profession. In other words, in that species of poetry wherein Pope excelled, he is superior to all mankind: and I only say, that this species of poetry is not the most excellent one of the art’ (Dedication i-ii). ‘The sublime and pathetic are the two chief nerves of all genuine poetry. What is there transcendently sublime or pathetic in Pope?’ (Ded. vi). After a careful examination of all Pope's works Joseph Warton assigned him the highest place in the second class, below Milton and above Dryden. He was given a place above other modern English poets because of the ‘excellencies of his works in general, and taken all together; for there are parts and passages in other modern authors, in Young and in Thomson, for instance, equal to any of Pope, and he has written nothing in a strain so truly sublime, as the Bard of Gray' (ii, p. 405). References are to the fifth edition, 2 vols., 1806.
88 The first volume of Joseph Warton's Essay on Pope appeared in 1756, two years after the Observations. Though its iconoclasm was more apparent, the latter essay made little advance in the way of new theory upon the earlier one, and there is rather more of hedging in the discussion of Pope than in that of Spenser. The greater variety of revolutionary dicta enunciated by the younger brother, and his greater activity in promulgating them, lead us to regard him as the more original thinker of the two.