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The French Aristotelian Formalists and Thomas Rymer
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
That the critical theories of the seventeenth-century French school of rules find numerous parallels in the work of Thomas Rymer has been perceived by various students of literary criticism. But the recognition of general resemblances has not served, apparently, to secure uniformity of opinion in classifying Rymer as a critic, or in determining the extent to which he represented, in English criticism, the French codification of the rules. Professor Saintsbury states that Eymer had a “charcoal-burner's faith in ‘the rules.‘” On the other hand, Professor Spingarn, who has gone farthest in tracing the parallelisms between Eymer's work and that of preceding critics, regards his work as rationalistic, or based upon common sense, rather than formalistic, based upon rule and precedent. The one would regard Eymer as a participant in the French tradition; the other, as primarily a continuator of certain previously existing English methods. An analysis of the relationship between Rymer and the French critics of the school of rules, more systematic than has yet been attempted, may aid in determining to what extent the critical standards and methods of the French Aristotelian formalists are approximated in Rymer, and what influence the French school had upon one whose criticism, however it may be regarded now, was of great weight and importance for years after it was written.
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References
1 Saintsbury, A History of Criticism, Vol. ii, p. 392.
2 J. E. Spingarn, Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, Vol. i, Introduction, pp. lxv, lxxi, etc.
3 Certain parallelisms are pointed out by Prof. Spingarn in the second volume of the work cited, in the notes to the Rymer selections. But the notes of course deal only with the selections included in the volume, and for these are not exhaustive, and sometimes seem of doubtful value. Any indebtedness will be acknowledged.
4 The lectures of Professor Irving Babbitt at Harvard University were my introduction to the study of the French school of rules. Professor Saintsbury's account is striking but is vitiated by his hostility to neo-classicism in general. M. Brunetière in his L'Évolution des Genres, Tome i, pp. 14, 15, etc., does indeed distinguish the period of the rules from what precedes and what follows it, but the treatment of the period is scant and does not even mention some of the critics most important for the purposes of this study.
5 Les Sentiments de L'Académie Françoise sur … le Cid (1638). Published in the edition of Corneille by Marty-Laveaux, Vol. xii, pp. 463 ff. Cf. Armand Gasté, La Querelle du Cid (Paris, 1898), appendix, for references to Chapelain's letters showing his attitude in the quarrel.
6 Ed. Marty-Laveaux, op. cit., p. 468.
7 Op. cit., pp. 468, 471.
8 Tragedies of the Last Age, p. 47.
9 Jules de la Mesnardière, La Poëtique, 1640; pp. 36 ff.
10 Poëtique, p. 51.
11 Pierre Mambrun, De Poemate Epico, 1652. This book unfortunately is not accessible to me, but through the kindness of Professor Irving Babbitt, who put at my disposal his notes, I am able to give some account of its contents.
12 Op. cit., p. 138.
13 Op. cit., p. 173.
14 Op. cit., p. 31. This work appeared in 1657. I have used the edition published in Amsterdam, 1715.
15 Ibid., p. 65.
16 Ed. Marty-Laveaux, Vol. i, p. 84.
17 If other citations are desired, cf. Rapin, Réflexions sur la, Poëtique, Œuvres, Amsterdam, 1709, Vol. ii, pp. 113, and 149; Le Bossu, Traité du Poërne Épique, éd. 1677, p. 9; André Dacier, La Poëtique d'Aristote … avec des Remarques Critiques, Amsterdam, 1692, passim.
18 Op. cit., p. 9.
19 Ibid., p. 16.
20 Op. cit., p. 19.
21 Ibid., p. 59.
22 Ibid., p. 107.
23 Op. cit., p. 92.
24 Ed. Marty-Laveaux, Vol. xii, p. 472.
25 Op. cit., p. 5.
26 Ed. Marty-Laveaux, Vol. i, p.
27 Op. cit., p. 19.
28 Ibid., p. 37.
29 Op. cit., preface, p. xiv.
30 Trag, of Last Age, p. 26.
31 Cf. T. of L. A., pp. 23, 26, 35, 37, 42, 126, etc.
32 Short View, pp. 139, 144.
33 Ibid., p. 146.
34 Op. cit., p. 471.
35 Op. cit., p. 106.
36 Op. cit., pp. 467-8.
37 Op. cit., pp. 120 ff.
38 Op. cit., pp. 119 ff.
39 Op. cit., p. 239.
40 Op. cit., p. 206.
41 Op. cit., p. 68.
42 Op. cit., p. 116, etc.
43 Op. cit., Part II, Chap. ii.
44 Op. cit., p. 293.
45 Introd. to Rapin, p. 11.
46 Ibid., p. 22.
47 T. of L, A., p. 61.
48 Ibid., p. 63.
49 Ibid., p. 64.
50 Ibid., p. 113.
51 Ibid., p. 117.
52 Op. cit., p. 94.
53 Hist, of Lit. Crit., Vol. ii, pp. 258, 260.
54 Ed. Marty-Laveaux, Vol. xii, p. 463.
55 Op. cit., pp. 4-5.
56 Pref. to Rapin, p. 4.
57 Ed. Marty-Laveaux, Vol. xii, p. 475.
58 Op. cit., pp. 20 and 21.
59 Op. cit., p. 104.
60 Op. cit., pp. vi and vii.
61 Op. cit., p. 7.
62 La Mesn., pi 371.
63 Cf. Pref. to Rapin, p. 26.
64 S. V. of T., p. 59.
65 S. V. of T., p. 60; cf. Corneille, Vol. v, p. 11.
66 S. V. of T., p. 160; cf. Corneille, Vol. i, pp. 137 ff.
67 De Poemate Epico, p. 20 (Prof. Babbitt's notes).
68 Cf. Pref. to Rapin, p. 30, and T. of L. A., p. 4. It seems probable that the latter refers to Malherbe, whose commentary on Desportes might be thus characterized by one impatient of the minutiæ of language.
69 Pref. Rap., p. 9.
70 Op. cit., p. 67 ff.
71 Mambrun, p. 133; Pref. Rap., p. 15.
72 Pref. Rap., p. 12. Italies mine.
73 Mambrun, p. 173 ff. Pointed out by Professor Babbitt.
74 He has just quoted Aristotle, Chap, xiii, to the effect that a good man should not be represented as persecuted.
75 Cf. T. L. A., p. 23; Poetics, Chap, xiii; La Meanardière, p. 20.
76 T. L. A., p. 43.
77 Cf. La Mesn., p. 120; T. L. A., p. 61.
78 T. L. A., p. 115. Prof. Spingarn points out this parallelism.
79 La Mean., p. 104. Quoted also by Spingarn, Vol. ii, p. 346.
80 La Mean., p. 102.
81 T. L. A., p. 64.
82 La Mesn., p. 304.
83 Cf. T. L. A., p. 122; La Mean., p. 294.
84 La Mesn., p. 47. Cited by Spingarn, op. cit., Vol. ii, p. 345, who also cites other critics, much less likely to have been heeded by Rymer.
85 T. L. A., p. 105.
86 S. V. of T., p. 135.
87 Cf. Mesn., p. 114, and S. V. of T., p. 148.
88 Rapin, Œuvres, Amsterdam, 1709, Vol. ii, p. 91; and Pref. to Rap., p. 8.
89 Rapin, Vol. ii, pp. 171, 164; Pref., pp. 5 and 6.
90 T. L. A., p. 8; Rapin. ii, p. 108; Rymer's trans., p. 23.
91 Cf. Crit. Essays 17th Cent., Vol. ii, p. 346; T. L. A., pp. 112, 113; Rapin, Vol. ii, p. 117.
92 Rapin, Vol. ii, p. 103; S. V. of T., p. 22.
93 S. V. of T., p. 62 (italics mine); Rapin, Vol. ii, p. 165; Rymer's translation, p. 119.
94 Ed. Marty-Laveaux, Vol. xii, p. 472; p. 476.
95 Op. cit., p. 481.
96 Hédelin, op. cit., pp. 153 ff.
97 Cf. Hédelin, p. 161; T. L. A., p. 12.
98 T. of L. A., p. 29; Hédelin, Book ii, p. 62. The English translation is quoted by Prof. Spingarn (iii, p. 341) but not with reference to this passage in the T. of L. A.
99 Prof. Spingarn (op. cit., Vol. ii, p. 347) gives general references to both Hédelin and Dacier.
100 Cf. Hédelin, pp. 190 ff.; S. V. of T., p. 161; italics mine.
101 Crit. Essays 17th Cent., Vol. ii, p. 347. No specific reference is given.
102 Ed. Marty-Laveaux, Vol. i, p. 17; T. L. A., p. 140.
103 T. L. A., p. 115; Ed. Marty-Laveaux, Vol. i, pp. 270 ff.
104 Cf. Le Bossu, p. 25; T. of L. A., p. 8; Pref. Rap., p. 5.
105 Darier, La Poétique, p. 330. Italics mine.
106 S. T. of T., p. 1.
107 Ibid., p. 161. Italics mine.
110 Dacier, pp. 516-517.
108 Ibid., p. 160.
111 S. V. of T., p. 2.
109 Ibid., p. 2.
112 S. V. of T., p. 93; Ars Poet., line 121.
113 Of course this is not to deny that Rymer knew Scaliger, or Sidney and Jonson, or even that he presents resemblances to them' in occasional unimportant details.
114 L. Charlanne, L'Influence Française en Angleterre, etc., cf. especially pp. 95-120.
115 Charlanne, pp. 309 S., gives proofs that these critics were known in England at this time. Indeed, Dryden refers to Le Bossu and Rapin as early as 1679, in the Preface to Troilus and Cressida. Ed. Ker., I, pp. 213, 228.
116 Cf. Arber's reprint of the Term Catalogues. Also, the Catalogue of the British Museum, etc.
117 It is true that Rapin's comparison between the eloquence of Demosthenes and that of Cicero was translated in 1672, the comparison between Plato and Aristotle in 1673. But these are not pieces of formalistic criticism.
118 An inquiry which I hope to put in shape soon.