tively human charm that the book is still read with interest in spite of its obvious faults. 66 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield." One of the most delightful books of the period is Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. The plot is artlessly absurd, the situations comical, the humor delightful, the style graceful. The wholesome optimism of the book is in marked contrast with the work of Sterne and of Swift, and not altogether characteristic of classicism. Goldsmith is not a realist; he does not accept the world as it is; he insists upon idealizing it. Nor does his story have to do with the social life of cities. It is an account of simple family life, and treats "the out-of-doors" with real feeling. Indeed Goldsmith has much in common with the new romantic tendencies. The Vicar of Wakefield belongs to the literature of transition. (e) CRITICISM Criticism. The ideas of the classicists about literature are expressed in their critical writings. The earliest important work is Dryden's Essay of Dramatic Poesy. In his defense of contemporary English writers, he takes for granted that they are to be judged in general by the classical rules formulated by the French. Reference is made to Shakespeare, and his genius commended; but as a technical artist Ben Jonson is considered his superior. The argument is that Jonson and those who have followed his example in English have conformed to the classical standards quite as rigidly as the great French dramatists. Dryden argues also for the heroic couplet as the most satisfactory verse form for tragedy. A few years later, Pope put the classical ideas into poetic form in his Essay on Criticism. A few quotations will illustrate its prevailing ideas the dependence on rules, the emphasis upon form, the appeal to reason and restraint: "Be Homer's works your study and delight: "Those rules of old discovered, not devised, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." "A Boileau still in right of Horace sways." Later Criticism. - Addison's critical essays in The Spectator follow the same lines, though he departed from conventional notions in praising Milton, whom the classicists, in general, neglected, and especially in commenting with favor on the old ballad literature as illustrated in Chevy Chace. As the century advanced the critical formulas became less rigid. Dr. Johnson praised Shakespeare, and refused strict adherence to the rules for the three dramatic unities. A little later Thomas and Joseph Warton paid tribute to Spenser, the greatest of early romanticists, in their Observations on the Faerie Queene. This book led the critical revolt against classicism. The last important critical work of the classicists was Burke's Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas on the Sublime and the Beautiful. SUGGESTED READINGS 1 Pope The Rape of the Lock. Addison and Steele: The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. 1 Except where special editions are mentioned, the works are to be found in the Pocket Series of English Classics, published by The Macmillan Company. Defoe Robinson Crusoe, or The Journal of the Plague Year. Swift: Gulliver's Travels. Johnson Life of Pope in The Lives of the Poets. (Cassell's National Library.) Goldsmith: The Deserted Village, She stoops to Conquer, Retaliation, The Vicar of Wakefield. Sheridan: The Rivals. Burke: Speech on Conciliation with America. Irving: Life of Goldsmith. Thackeray Henry Esmond. CHAPTER XII ROMANTICISM (a) POETRY Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century. Although the spirit of classicism, with its emphasis upon reason and common sense, and with its interest in literary form over subject matter, was in control in the eighteenth century, it was not the only influence at work. Side by side with it were other interests, growing in importance through the century, until, in the end, they became the dominant forces, and resulted in the great outburst of romanticism in the early nineteenth century. Influence of Spenser. One of the first of the new influences was a renewed interest in the older English writers, especially Spenser and Milton. The earliest interest was in poetic form merely. Although the prevailing meter was the heroic couplet, still the Spenserian stanza consisting of nine lines, eight iambic pentameter lines supplemented by one iambic hexameter or Alexandrian, riming ababbcbcc was used to a limited extent from the beginning of the century. At first, however, it was employed only for purposes of satire, with no effort to get the atmosphere of mystery and romance or the rich melody of the verse. The first poet to get the real Spenserian manner was Shenstone. He began a satire called The Schoolmistress in the Spenserian stanza, studying Spenser as he wrote. He soon became genuinely interested, and before his poem was finished, he had changed it into a sincere Spenserian imitation. James Thomson (1700-1748) also imitated Spenser sympathetically in The Castle of Indolence. Compare the following stanza from Thomson with the stanza from Spenser quoted on page 222. "A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; Was far, far off expelled from this delicious nest." The Wartons, by their Observations on the Faerie Queene, increased the appreciation of Spenser. The Influence of Milton. Milton also was imitated both in form and thought. The octosyllabic couplet of Il Penseroso and later the blank verse of Paradise Lost were used by Parnell, Joseph and Thomas Warton, and others; and this mood of "meditative comfortable melancholy"- the Il Penseroso mood gave rise to an entire school of " graveyard poetry," of which Robert Blair's The Grave and Edward Young's Night Thoughts are examples, and of which Thomas Gray's An Elegy in a Country Churchyard is the most finished product. Romance. A second tendency away from classicism was a new interest in medieval ideas and customs. Horace Walpole, the model of fashion, started the interest by building a Gothic castle on Strawberry Hill, and gathering together there a collection of antiquities. He also wrote a medieval romance full of mystery and superstition. This |