AM) THE TRANSITION
FROM
ANCIENT TO MODERN LITERATURE
BY
ISTER MARY DOROTHEA DIEDERICH.S.S.N.D.
Submitted in Partial Fulfilment cf the
Requirements for the
Degree of Master cf Arts.
1926 OUTLINE. CHAPTER ONE.
A. Virgil. His long popularity due to the force of his genius.
1. His chief works
a. ) The Bucolics. Short pastoral poems attracted at tention and gained him fame.
b. ) The Georgies. - his most finished work.
c. ) The Aeneid. Characteristics of his greatest poem. Its widespread and enduring appeal.
d. ) An appreciation of the work and genius of Virgil expressed in Tennyson’s poem, "To Virgil."
B. The immediate acceptance of Virgil’s works in his own age.
1. Virgil, the interpreter of a great national ideal.
x 2. Imperial favor.
3. Patronage of Maecenas.
4. Allusions in Martial, Juvenal to the high esteem in which Virgil was held.
5. Style of Tacitus coloured by Virgilian diction.
C. Reactions in the succeeding age.
1. Assiduous copying of the poet gave Virgil’s reputation a set back. 2. Grammarians and commentators.
D. Virgil’s prestige and predominance not substantially impaired
1. The ambition of Valerius Flaccus, Silius Italicus and Statius. 2. Aelius Donatus, the first to attribute allegorical significance to the Aeneid.
3. Scrtes Virgilianae. = “• ;s ; ; ;'j.; V - M CHAPTER II.
A. The Barbarian Invasions
1. Decay of literary activity.
2. Traditions of refined life fast disappearing. 138840 B. The Christian Church the preserver of classic civilization.
1. Establishment of monasteries of Cassiadorus at Squilace and of St. Benedict at Monte Cassino.
2. The Church safeguarded means to rise again to higher level of civilization. Provision for schools. 3. Strenuous exertions of Christians did not allow classics to be irrevocably lost,
4. Monastic discipline.
5. Copying of manuscripts.
6. Preservation of Latin language by clergy.
7. Significance of monk’s work.
CHAPTER III.
A. Virgil in the Middle Ages.
1. First indication of classical culture in Britain and Ireland in the sixth century.
a. ) Cadoc.
b. ) Gildas.
c. ) Nennius.
d. ) Aldhelm.
e. ) Venerable Bede.
2. Classical revival in Gaul in the eighth century. Alcuin.
B. Virgil - the magician in the Virgilian legends.
1. Poets worship at his tomb.
2. Fourth Eclogue proclaimed a prophecy of the birth of Christ.
3. Service for St. Paul’s day at Mantua an expression of universal love and admiration for the poet.
C. Virgil and Dante. D. Virgil and Petrarch.
E. Force of Yirgilian tradition evident in Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered F. The Renaissance Period.
1. Virgil’s influence on Vida.
2. Rhetorical eulogies of Virgil a portrayal of Renaissance enthusiasm. 3. Bembo. Vittorino da Feltre. 4. Interest in Virgilian literature in France. Ronsard's Granciade.
5. Popularity of Dido story in Italy, France and Germany.
CHAPTER IV.
A. Virgil among the Elizabethans.
1. Spenser.
2. Shakespeare.
3. Ben Jonson.
B. Virgil and Milton.
C. The development of the pseudo-classic theory and practice during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
1. Dryden.
2. Pope.
3. Swift.
D. Eighteenth century prose writers.
1. Burke.
2. Doctor Johnson.
3. Pope. The mock-epic affords opportunities for Virgilian imitations. The Dunciad. E. Didactic poets of the eighteenth century.
1. James Thomson.
2. Ccwper.
CHAPTER V.
A. Virgilian influence upon Friedrich Schiller.
CHAPTER VI.
A. The Romantic Movement in England.
1. Comparative neglect of Latin.
2. Tide of harsh and unsympathetic criticism.
x 3. Scarcity of Virgilian allusions in the poetry of Byron and Shelley. 4. Lander.
B. Historical criticism.
1. Popularity of Greek literature.
C. The Victorian Era.
1. Latin quotations used by Parliamentary orators.
2. Noted prose writers who quote Virgil.
a. ) George Eliot.
b. ) William Makepeace Thackeray.
c. ) Macaulay.
D. Innumerable translations of Virgil in the nineteenth century a clear indication of interest in his poetry.
E. Poets of the nineteenth century influenced by the Master Poet.
1. Wordsworth.
2. Keats.
3. Tennyson F. Conclusion. - 1 -
CHAPTER ONE.
Some writer has said, "If Yirgil were the sole remaining monument of the Roman civilization he would he sufficient," Possibly many a reader would contest a state ment broad as this; all without exception, however, will a- gree that from the days when Virgil’s contemporaries copied his style and wrote epics in imitation of the Aeneid, that the influence of the "Master Poet" upon the literature of the world has been a vital, a constant force. Probably because more than any other poet of antiquity Virgil represents the dominant mood of our own times has he again become a poet of such supreme importance. Even today in this age of aeroplanes, of radio, in short in this practical 20th century, do we hear echoes of his Eclogues in a newspaper column, quotations from his great epic from a soldier in the trenches. Just as a Homer, a Shakespeare remain alive after hundreds of years, so Virgil retains his uplifting and enlarging influence.
Within the limits of this sketch, however, it would be impossible to traverse in the most summary way the immense field of history and certainly impossible to pursue the Virgilian influence through its detailed working in all the parts of the various periods of literature. The thorough erudition of scholars such as Comparetti, Tunison, Mackail - 2 -
preclude from the outset any attempt at tracing the Virgilian
influence in all the great poets or writers of the past; all
that I purpose to do in the limits of this paper is merely
to bring to cur thought some conception in general of the
continuity of the influence of Virgil, how it reaches hack
to the very life time of the poet and has grown into the
inmost substance of modern literary thought,
Virgil no doubt owes his long popularity to the
sheer force of his genius, for his was not the career of a
mighty Caesar, nor his the popularity of the genial Horace,
His love of letters and of country life, as veil as his
feeble health, ill adapted for the strifes of the forum, or
the hardships of military service prevented his indulging
an ambition for a public career and caused him to withdraw
to his farm at Andes, where he occupied himself with hus
bandry. Contemporaries tell us that he was shy and retiring
by nature and that his life was singularly uneventful. The
days spent on his father’s farm tilling fields and raising
timber and bees gave Virgil the knowledge which he turned
to such good account in the Georgies. In the year 42 he began
to write his Bucolics to which the name Eclogues was after
wards given by critics. It was these short pastoral poems,
ten in number which at once attracted attention and gained
him fame and friends and gave promise of future greatness in
the author himself. Though these poems are said to be marked by a certain artificiality which is a frequent characteristic - 3 -
cf imitative and allegorical poetry, their merit,nevertheless,
consists in their versification which was smoother and more
polished than the hexameters which the Remans had yet seen.
With the publication of his most finished work,
"the best poem of the best poet," as Dryden calls the Georgies
in the dedicatory preface to his own translation, Virgil took
his place at the head of both contemporaries and predecessors.
According to Merivale the object of the Georgies was "to re
commend the principles of the ancient Remans, their love of
home, of piety and order; to magnify their domestic happiness
and greatness, to make men proud of their country on better
grounds than the mere glory of its arms and extent of its
conquest ...... To comprehend the moral grandeur of the
Georgies, in point of style the most perfect piece of Roman
literature, we must regard it as the glorification of labor."
And here it may be said that no translation can convey their
music or give more than a faint image of Yirgilian color and
tone.
Due to the greater glory of the Aeneid the beauty
of the Georgies has perhaps been obscured, yet Virgil never
proved himself so surely a "lord of language"as he did in
dealing with the unpromising subjects of "tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd."
His greatest poem, the poem by which Virgil became
the voice of Rome, had long been meditated. The Aeneid, to which the poet gave the last eleven years of his life embodied 4 -
the best that was in him - his passionate love for his country, his veneration for his emperor, his meditations ever the significance and purposes of human life. Virgil
intended to devote three years more to polishing and elabo rating the poem but he died without having given it his final touches. "In language always elegant, often grand and sublime, in feeling sweet, pure and noble - it is no happy accident, but to its own intrinsic perfection, that the Aeneid owes the immortality of fame. True it is that the Aeneid in curred the criticism of being a mere imitation, but in answer, as Seneca well puts it, “Virgil never stole, but only openly imitated. Whatever he took, he wrought over and made his own; it is the unmistakable air of Rome that breathes from every page; the stamp of Virgil is on the whole work."
And is it Virgil's syntax and prosody that moved the great St. Augustine, that made Dante his disciple and
Milton his follower? Is it the plea for a higher patriotism that alone fascinates us < No, we acclaim, there is something in it which still speaks to us after nineteen centuries. It is, according to one writer “the expression of the tenderness of a great spirit, brooding over the cost of human life and the horrors of struggle and warfare, longing for the time of a perpetual pax Romana : the expression of his sense of the pathos of existence epitomized in the oft quoted lacrimae rerum and also of his assurance of the continual presence of a Deity who is a pervading and guiding force." This is the - 5 -
true Virgilian charm. Yes, throughout the centuries it has
been the story of the Aeneid that has appealed to readers
and writers, rather than any philosophical aspect of the
pcem. For centuries readers have been charmed with Virgil's
portrayal of human strength and weakness in the hero,Aeneas,
the vicissitudes of fortune, the tragedy of unhappy lcve,
the deeds of war and the glory of peace. And yet, not only
have the adventures of Aeneas and the tragic fortunes of
Dido won the interest and sympathy of the centuries, but
the structure of the poem has served as a model for epic
poetry throughout the centuries to this. Virgil's mastery
of the hexameter has never been questioned. True it is,
Virgil had together with many others, Ennius, Lucretius and
Catullus before him as models, but he it was who brought
Latin poetry to its full perfection, a perfection which has
never since been equaled. And to many an English reader,
especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this perfection of hexameter, added tc Virgil's positive genius for beautiful wording, has appealed as his greatest beauty.
But the subject of this paper is net exclusively
Virgil as he was, but Virgil as he appeared to and influenced his contemporaries and some of the representative makers of literature under the transitional conditions of the early and later Middle Ages, of the Renaissance period, and of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries in England and the
Virgilian influence upon one of the German poets, Friedrich - 6 -
Schiller, cf the last century.
However, before proceeding tc the subject proper
cf this paper let me quote the appreciation cf the work and
genius cf Virgil which is probably the most satisfactory of
appreciations to lovers of the Mantuan pcet, a poem which
one cf his truest interpreters, Lord Tennyson wrote at the
request of the Mantuans for the nineteenth centenary of the
Roman poet’s death.
TO VIRGIL.
Roman Virgil, thou that singest Ilicn's lofty temples robed in fire Ilicn falling,Rome arising,wars,and filial faith,and Dido’s pyre;
Landscape-lover,lord cf language more than he that sang the Works and Days, All the chosen coin cf fancy flashing cut from many a golden phrase
Thou that singest wheat and woodland,tilth and vineyard,hive and horse and herd; All the charm cf all the Muses often flowering in a lonely word;
Pcet of the happy Tityrus piping underneath his beechen bowers; Pcet cf the pcet-satyr whom the laughing shepherdbound with flowers
Chanter cf the Pollic.glorying in the blissful years again to be, Summers cf the snakeless meadow,unlabcrious earth and earless sea;
Thou that seest Universal Nature moved by Universal Mind; Thou majestic in thy sadness at the doubtful doom cf human kind;
Light among the vanish’d ages;star that gildest yet this phantom shore; Golden branch amid the shadow,kings and realms that pass to rise no m e r e ;
New thy Forum rears no longer,fallen every purple Caesar’s dome - The’ thine ocean-roll cf rhythm sound forever cf Imperial Rome -
New the Rome cf slaves hath perish’d,and the Rome of freemen holds her place, I,from out the Northern Island sunder’d once from all the human r a c e ,
I salute thee.Mantcvanc,I that loved thee since my day began, Wielder cf the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips cf man. - 7 -
Tc what does Virgil owe his immediate acceptance as
the greatest of Latin poets? Why does he still hold his place
among the supreme poets of the world? Is it to he attributed
to his insight into the life of man and nature, to his majesty
and tenderness and the melodious perfection of his verse?
No, ever and above all these reasons, he was the interpreter, we may say, of a great national ideal; a political, a social
and religious ideal. We see the ideal of an Italian Rome
and a Roman Italy before him at first faintly in the Eclogues,
clearly and fully in the Georgies. In the Aeneid we find the
import of the whole poem as the expression of the Italc-
Rcman ideal. Hence the fame of the great pcet, his popularity and admiration for his works were established in his own life
time. True there were some detractors among his would-be pcet contemporaries and among these who held rigidly and
obstinately to the older purist Latin tradition. But it was not long ere he found a powerful backing of imperial favor and the affection of all, w.ho despite his modesty and reti cence, had been admitted to his acquaintance. The Aeneid, as a national pcem, was at once accepted by all classes and had such a reception as perhaps no poem before or since has ever found. Phrases from it were cut on the walls of the public baths in Rome and quotations from it have been found scribbled in stucco in the buried streets of Pompeii. Per the Roman world at large, as since for the world of Latin races, Virgil became what Homer had been to Greece, "the pcet," The Eclogues and Georgies had become school-books already in their author's lifetime. As evidence cf this v.e read in one cf the early Roman writers the description cf the copies cf Virgil smeared and stained which were in the hands of school hoys.
As we have said, the impression that the Eclogues made on the world cf letters was immediate and universal.
Maecenas, the Home Minister of Octavianus, secured to them a ready reception. In the words of Mackail "the Eclogues proved the turning point, not only between two periods of
Latin literature, but between two worlds." Allusions in
Juvenal, in Martial, too, attest the high esteem in which
Virgil was held and Dr. Tyrrell tells us that the Virgilian diction sc coloured the style cf Tacitus that a Vi rgilian parallel often dispels obscurity cf a corrupt passage in the "Annals" or "Histories."
And yet, though the Aeneid was at once accepted as a great national poem and though copies cf it rapidly multiplied to such an extent that it was found in the hands of not only the educated men and women cf the day, but in the hands cf the school bey, it did net take long before reactions set in, reactions such as happen with many great writers, even the greatest. It is said that Caligula proposed to expel Virgil from all the public libraries; that purpose, may be deemed nothing mere than the eccentricity cf a madman.
Later in the age of the Antcnines we again see the older poet - 9 - ccming into favor. Eventually, Virgil’s reputation received a set back due to the assiduous copying of his works "by poets, sc that people grew tired of him. He suffered, too, from the army of grammarians and commentators who were let loose on him. Suetonius says, that I. Gaecilius Epirota, a freedman of Atticus, was the first to use his poems as textbooks of grammar in his school and by the time of Nero, Seneca could say, "Grammaticus futurus Virgilium scrutatur." Sc copious are the quotations in the textbooks of Nonius, Priscian and
Donatus that according to Gcmparetti it would be possible to reconstruct from them practically the whole of the Eclogues,
Georgies and Aeneid, if the manuscripts of Virgil had all been lost.
Despite this series of grammarians, however,
Virgil’s prestige and predominance were net substantially impaired. The highest ambition of Valerius Elaccus, Siluls
Italicus, and Statius, later epicists, was to follow in the wake of the Aeneid. In the schools of the fourth and fifth centuries, Virgil among Latin poets held the foremost place.
Aelius Donatus, the first to attribute allegorical significance to the poems of Virgil found in the three poems, the Eclogues, the Georgies, and the Aeneid, the three stages in man's development, the pastoral, the agricultural, and the martial.
Fondness for writing allegories became a persistent tendency and finally afforded opportunity for every sort of extravagance.
And soon Virgil was used not merely as a text, not only as a -1C work cf literature, but an oracle of Fate. The volumes of
Virgil were opened at random and were imagined to supply to the reader suggestions respecting his future fortune. This custom was known as the Series Virgilianae. Not only the practice, but the belief in its efficacy lingered on into the seventeenth century. Puerile as the fashion was, it showed, nevertheless, the degree of reverence felt for
Virgil's work. - 1 1 -
CHAPTER II.
But now to enter upon another phase of history, X a phase important in the period of transition from ancient
to medieval Latin literature. However, Before passing on
to a consideration of the significance of Virgil in the early Middle Ages, let us first view the historical events of the epoch which had so tremendous an effect on civili
zation itself. Between the third and fifth centuries the
"boundaries of the Roman state were overrun "by hostile tribes,
"bent inwards by persistent pressure and withdrawn so far as to include in the end little more than the Italian peninsula.
Toward the close of the fifth century and the sixth century
A. D. again we see tremendous upheavals, invasions which proved the most terrible catastrophe that ever befell a great civilized society. Many of the most flourishing cities were destroyed, treasures of art including famous libraries were lest. The new ruling class brought with them their dense
ignorance. Old schools perished for lack of material support and the traditions of refined and literary life were fast disappearing. In 476 A. D. Rome, the mistress of the world was plundered, a prey to the northern barbarians.Odovaker, the conqueror, dared not call himself a king of Italy and sent the diadem and royal robes to Constantinople. Not long and Theodoric, "the Civilizer,“ another and more en lightened Ostrogoth, conquered the conqueror of Rome. During his reign Roman and Goth lived in harmony, each under his own law. One of the moat far-reaching results of his splendid - 1 2 reign was the establishment of the monasteries of Cassicdorus at Squilace and of St. Benedict at Monte Cassino - the initial step of the medieval type of monasticism. At the foot of the »0 rock of Monte Cassion, in the year 529 A. D. Benedict found an amphitheatre of the time of the Caesars. From the sum mit of the mountain the prospect extended on one side towards
Arpinum, where Cicero was "born, on the other towards Aquinum celebrated because it is the birthplace of Juvenal and St.
Thomas Aquinas, This was to be the capital of his monastic order. The year 529 A.D. proved noteworthy for other reasons also, for it marked the passing of the old as well as the coming of the new, since it was in this year that Justinian closed the school of Athens. The brilliant victories of
Justinian’s general, Belisarius, only served to prove the desperate case of the old civilization, and pestilence completed the work of barbarism. Between them they changed the whole face of Europe. And straightway the Lombards, the fiercest and most ruthless of the northern hordes were to sweep away Roman and Ostrogoth alike, to end the shadowy remains of imperial power at Ravenna, and to over throw the Greek cities of southern Italy.
When we remember how these barbarians trampled beneath their feet the splendid result of centuries of human effort, how these successive waves of destruction swept over Europe, we marvel, not,that not so much of the old culture was lost, but that anything remained, for - 1 3 -
after all, the classic civilization is the foundation upon
which is built much that is best and most enduring in cur
modern life. And what was the force above all that saved
civilization and reared the new peoples of Europe? The
connecting link v,as the Christian Church. By the time that
the German invaders began to pour into the Roman Empire,
all its provinces were practically Christianized. There was
everywhere a well-established hierarchy. Bishops watched
over the spiritual welfare of the faithful without neglecting
temporal interests. Despite the fact that the conversion of
the newcomers had proceeded slowly, that many of the newly converted often led almost pagan lives, that even among
the hierarchy there were some who lacked the purity of morals
and singleness of purpose required by their exalted vocation, all this notwithstanding, "the Church was the salt that kept
the world from complete corruption and preserved the means
to rise again to a higher level of civilization." The Church always demanded a certain degree of education in her ministers and provided for some kind of schools. She also preserved much of the forms and habits of the Roman law and by her advice and example improved the rude methods of the new rulers.
Only to the strenuous exertions of Christians and the spiritual impulse maintained among mankind by the new religion do we owe it that these ages found any pleasure in the classics of antiquity and did not allow them to be irrevocably lost.
And to repeat the words of another writer: "The Church - 1 4 - made it possible for the scholar, the devotee, the sensitive soul to find a haven in the cloister; and, making common cause, perforce, with its old enemy, it saved the pagan literature.11
Silence, humility and obedience, these were the three virtues of the new monastic discipline; the two governing principles, labor and obedience. Not only spiritual labor, but manual labor was s strict obligation of the rule. In order to banish indolence which St. Benedict called the enemy of the soul, he regulated minutely the employment of every hour of the day according to the seasons and ordained that after having celebrated the praises of God seven times a day, seven hours should be given to manual labor and two hours to reading.
The monks turned to agriculture and became the first farmers of medieval Europe. But crops cannot be raised in winter and all are not equally fitted for the plow. An indoor oc cupation, therefore, was devised and the readiest to the hand was the copying of manuscripts. Then, as the old cul ture receded, as the universal language, the diction of Cicero began to decay becoming more and more mixed with the Teutonic elements, the clergy began to realize that they must save the Latin language or lose touch with the Scriptures, in the form of the Latin Vulgate, the writings of the Fathers, and the services of the Church, So schools w'ere established and the old literature, through which alone the language could be approached, was preserved by copying. Undoubtedly not all - 1 5 - the work was by any means constant in value or in quality.
But even if there were losses of some or other choice treasures, due to ignorant oversight or lax discipline, the manuscripts were copied - "copied while roving chiefs be came princes of states - copied while their semblance of civilization was, in turn, swept away by fresh hordes of barbarians - copied while half-savage feudal chiefs ruled with iron hand over their wretched dependents." For all the classic inspiration which reached cur forefathers during the early formative years of their national life we are in debted to Latin literature, as preserved by the scribes of the monasteries of the West. 1 6 -
CHAPTER III.
Of all the purely literary classic authors,Virgil
was by far the most popular and influential throughout the
Middle Ages. There appears to have been scarcely any intel
lectual movement during the earlier Middle Ages which was
not closely dependent on the Roman heritage. Men who tried
to save a great literary tradition made Virgil their model.
Some, it is true protested against the waste of time upon
the heathen poet, but were forced to acknowledge his exceed-
charm. His classic learning and diction, the delight of his narrative, the glories of his prophetic vision it seems kept Virgil from becoming a lost classic. No portion of his authentic work ever sank into oblivion. About the middle of
the sixth century the first indications of classical culture were seen in Britain and a little later, towards the close of the century, in Ireland. Thenceforth a growing literary movement appears in these islands. We read in the ec clesiastical annals of Britain of a certain Cadoc, the son of a prince of Brecknockshire, who spent twelve years, studying the liberal arts and Divine Scriptures under the direction of an Irish doctor. The young prince lighted his master’s fire and cocked his frugal repast, whilst in the interval of such homely duties he conned his Latin grammar and construedVirgil. Later in his life Cadoc laid the foundation of a church and monastery which became one of - 1 7 -
the most famous of all the British schools. He made his
pupils learn Virgil by heart as well as the Scriptures; in
deed his love for the Mantuan was sc enthusiastic that he
generally carried the Aeneid under his arm and v,as ac
customed to express his regrets to Gildas that Mone who on
earth had sung so sweetly should he forever shut cut from
the joys of heaven.* Another evidence of knowledge of Vir
gil in Britain is found in a book of Bishop Gildas, in which
he quotes from the Aeneid in the midst of his lamentations
over the downfall of his country. The History of the Bri-
tains, which goes under the name of Nennius, also cites
a line from the third book of the Georgies, and in the
curious genealogies of Brutus, gives evidence of some know ledge of the adventures of Aeneas.
There is also certain proof that Aldhelm was familiar with all the works of Virgil. He enumerates the studies pursued in the school of Canterbury as consisting of grammar, that is the Latin and Greek tongues,geometry, arithmetic, music, mechanics and astronomy: his works both in prose and poetry bear witness to his familiarity with the chief Latin poets, such as Virgil, Juvenal, Lucan and
Persius, whom he frequently quotes. In his writings he shows familiarity, not only with single lines, but with long pas sages, such as the description of Fama, which he quotes in one of his Riddles and imitates to some extent in his pic ture of Superbia. In his De Laudibus Virginitates we find - 1 8 -
long passages full of Virgilian reminiscences.
The Venerable Bede, though net so devoted to Vir
gil as his predecessor, does, nevertheless, betray in his
treatises on grammar and versification an acquaintance with
Latin literature which shows us that his libraries must
have been well stored with classics. In the midst of his
narrative, Bk. IV. Gh, 2C in the Ecclesiastical History, we
find, "Conticuere cmnes intentique ora tenebant, quam res
exitum haberet solliciti expectantes,11 and in the De Mira-
culis Sancti Cuthberti there is a description of a storm
which undoubtedly was modeled on the well known tempest in
the Aeneid. Among the authors often quoted by Bede are
Virgil, Horace, Terence, Ovid and others, besides the Latin
Fathers.
Thus, until Charlemagne and Alcuin, intellectual life
was confined to Great Britain and Ireland. It revived in
Gaul in the eighth century, when the classic Latin literature
was again studied with ardour. The study of classical texts,
however, for their own sake was at that period very uncommon.
The pagan authors were read as secondary to Scripture and
theology. Even Alcuin towards the close of his life, for bade his monks to read Virgil, though his own writings evince a perfect familiarity with the ancient poets and philosophers,
Virgil among them.
We shall pass by the curious body of Virgilian myths which sprang up in the later Middle Ages, myths which - 1 9 -
prore, however, the widespread veneration cf Virgil’s name,
even among the ignorant. Nor shall we dwell on the various
theories as to the origin of the Virgilian legends, save to
mention that Virgil was in some sense thought cf and treated
as deified, sc that he was considered capable cf exercising
control ever human affairs. Poets at times worshipped at his
tomb and observed his birthday with sacrifices, and the
Fourth Eclogue was accepted and proclaimed as a direct
prophecy cf the birth of the Saviour. It is said that Con
stantine himself gave expression to this idea to the whole
Christian population of the Empire. And the strong sympathy
roused in those who felt the beauty of his style produced
a belief that if not quite he was almost a Christian. The
pity for Virgil as a gentle soul who had just missed the
salvation offered by the Saviour, found expression in the
service for St. Paul’s day used at Mantua:
"Ad Marcnis mausoleum Ductus, fudit super eum Prae rorern lacryma§; Q.uem te, inquit, reddidissem Si te vivum invenissem Pcetarum maximel"
This verse was occasioned by the legend of St. Paul's visit to Virgil’s tomb on his way from Putecli to Rome, where St.
Paul was said to have wept at the thought that Virgil had died before the Light had come into the world. Ccmparetti m his detailed treatise cf the subject says that Vergil's name still finds a place in the folk-stories of Italy and — 2 0 — even in the peasant games of Poland.
Virgil, as v.e have said, was the interpreter and
the spiritual creator of a great ideal. Thirteen hundred years after his death, that ideal was re-embodied by the culminating figure of the Middle Ages, by Dante, Virgil
it was whom he chose as his acknowledged and adored master.
"It is under Virgil’s direct guidance that he passes through
the realms of punishment and the circles of cleansing, only leaving him when he reaches the edge of the final Purgatorial
fire. On him he lavishes, in endless profusion, all names
of adoring praise, "sage guide, sweet father, high teacher, grand commander, eternal treasure, supreme virtue,faithful
escort, ocean of all wisdom" - these are but a selection
from the titles by which Dante names or invokes him. We are
told that Dante quotes Virgil two-hundred times. The Hell of
Dante in nature and topography is that of Virgil and there
are many details of the great poem in which the influence
of Virgil upon either thought or diction can be easily
traced. There was a special bond of race between them; they
were both not only of Italy but of Tuscany and the tongue
of Virgil was net yet a dead tongue to Dante, though he
himself chose to use the vernacular for the most part.Dante,
whose patriotism was the ruling passion of his life, re
cognized no break between the history of Rome and that of
Italy, and locked upon the Aeneid as the great national
poem of his country. No doubt his conception of Virgil as 2 1 -
essentially a national poet was an important factor in his
sympathy for the author cf the epic of Italy. Hence we see
that it was not a mere compliance with the medieval vener
ation for Virgil which made Dante choose him for a guide,
t>ut a real love of Virgil which was a fundamental part cf his nature.
"If Dante represented at once the climax and the
passing of medievalism; Petraroh is veil described as the
•first modern man!" Although he was net primarily an educator,
his influence v.as nevertheless very great. His successful
search for classical texts, his love and understanding of
the classical authors made them his friends rather than
merely the authors of texts to be studied. He even vent so
far as tc include in his list cf correspondence men of the
past, among them Virgil. Without entering upon the letters
themselves, it is enough to say that they contain criticisms
of our classical authors of immense value to us and have to
us all the realism of contemporaneous correspondence. We
read that the memory of a Virgilian phrase "labor omnia
vicit" cheered Petrarch and more than a hundred quotations
from his favorite poet are scattered through pages cf his familiar letters.
More than two centuries after Petrarch, Tasso, in
his great epic of the Crusades, Jerusalem Delivered, shows
the force cf the Virgilian tradition in literature. This
Christian epic abounds in reminiscences of the pagan poet. - 2 2 -
Wiffen’s translation of the following lines of the poem is
a striking example of only one parallel passage in the
Aeneid I. 156 - 68.
"Safe sleep the silent seas "beneath, above, Black arching woods o ’ershade the circled scene; Within, a grotto opens in the grove, Pleasant with flowers, with moss, with ivies green, And waters warbling in the depths unseen; Needed nor twisted rope nor anchor there For weary ships;into that so serene And sheltered hermitage the maiden fair Entered, her slender sails unfurling to the air."
We have observed the remarkable place Virgil held in the
early and later medieval mind, and the unbroken tradition -
of reverence which had been associated with his name for
centuries. Considered not only the greatest of poets but
the greatest of magicians, his influence continued operative
throughout the Renaissance, the one hundred and fifty years
of the Elizabethan and Stuart reigns and throughout the
classicism of the eighteenth century. Cne of the more interest
ing Renaissance writers is the well known Vida, whose Art
of Poetry, itself full of Virgilian and Homeric echoes teaches
the imitation of the ancients and especially Virgil, who
was tc Vida the "father of verse." Vida won his first laurels
in the field of didactic poetry. Virgilian exercises on the breeding cf silk-worms and the game of chess display his
faculty for investing familiar subjects with the graces cf a polished style. He also proceeds to sketch a plan cf education in which he recommends the early practice of bucolic verse and in his description cf the ideal epic we observe nothing mere or less than a refined analysis cf the - 2 3 -
Aeneid. A percraticn on Virgil, sonorous and impassioned
closes the whole poem, which rightly understood is a monu
ment erected to the fame of the Roman hard. The final lines
are justly faucous:
"0 decus Italiae: lux c clarissima vatum Te cclimus, tibi serta damus, tibi thura,tibi aras, Et tibi rite sacrum semper die emu s hcncrem Carminibus memores, Salve sanctissime vatesl Laudibus augeri tua gloria nil petis ultra, Et nostrae nil vccis eget; nos aspice praesens Pectcribusque tuos castis infude calcres Adveniens,pater,atque animus te insere ncstri s."
Poems such as this concluding with rhetorical eulogies of
Rome’s chief bard, are very numerous and probably portray
better than anything else the Renaissance enthusiasm for
Virgil. Learned courtiers cf that age,such as Bembo, liked
to play the Roman in their villas quoting Horace and Virgil
on the charms of rustic life. Schoolmasters, too, like
Vittorino da Fe4tre, who taught in the "Casa Jcccsa" at
Mantua, a city full cf the memories cf Virgil, all included
in their course of studies, the "Master Poet." It is in
teresting to note how this well loved pedagogue, gifted with
a finer instinct for language than the majority cf his con
temporaries, carefully trained his pupils to distinguish be
tween the different types of literary excellence, not con
founding Cicero with Seneca or Virgil but striving to ap
preciate the special qualities cf each.
But not only in Italy do we see a tremendous in
terest in Yirgilian literature; at about the same time in
France, Rcnsard was working at his Franciade. Inspired with - 2 4 - the desire to become the Virgil of his country, he wrote a classical epic celebratingFrancus, the mythical founder of his race, who was of Trojan blood. In the sixteenth century, the story of Dido was proving its popularity in Italy,France and Germany, by becoming the subject of at least five plays, which paralleled and probably had some influence on the pro duction of similar plays in England, both by the University dramatists and by Marlowe and Nash. The influence of the
Eclogues was emphasized in Marot’s French Eclogues and that of the Georgies in Balf’s Mete’ores and Kirchmayer’s Agri- cultura Sacra. - 2 5 -
CHAPTER IV .
The new appreciation of the great Latin poet
shown by the writers of the Renaissance on the Continent,
by Petrarch and his followers in Italy and Prance, was re
flected later in the poetry and criticism of England.
Chaucer had inherited much of the medieval tradition especially
the desire to make of the Aeneid a chivalric romance. The
sixteenth century was a period of the development of the
pastoral and of the growth of the Renaissance principles of
criticism. Scon imitation was made one of the important prin
ciples of writing and the poetry of the Elizabethans is
filled with echoes of the reading in the classics. The greatest
figure of Elizabethan poetry, outside of the drama was Spen
ser. His range of genius, greater than that of any ether poet
of the time except Shakespeare, covered practically all the phases of Virgilian influence then operative, that of the
Eclogues in particular and also that of the Aeneid. V/e find
echoes of Virgil in Spenser’s pastoral poems quite frequent.
I shall quote but one of the many from his Faerie Queen. The
first reminiscence of the Aeneid is in the adventure of the
Red Crosse Knight and Fidessa with the bleeding tree. Sitting down under the shadow of two trees, the Knight, in his en
deavor to make a garland for the lady, tries to break off a branch.
MHe pluckt a bough; out of whose rift there came Small drops of gory bleed, that trickled down the same.
128840 26
Therewith a piteous yelling voice was heard, Crying, 110 spare with guilty hands to teare My tender sides in this rough rynd emhard; But fly, ahl fly far hence away, for feare Least to you hap that happened to me heare, And to this wretched lady, my deare love; 0 too deare love, love bought with death too deare1.' Astond he stood, and up his heare did hove, And with that suddein horror could no member move”
Throughout the Faerie Queen the epic simile is put to good
use by Spenser, and many of the comparisons have a true Vir-
gilian ring.
Though Gabriel Harvey in 1580 writes that some of
the former reverence for Latin and Greek had departed, we
know, nevertheless, that the study of the classics was still
the basis of all education. Virgil was often included in the
curriculum and that such material as the works of Virgil
afforded was welcomed by Elizabethan readers is attested by
the number of the translations of Virgil. At least eleven
translations from Virgil were printed in the last half ©f
the sixteenth century. This brings us to a consideration of
the much mooted question as to whether Shakespeare knew any
classic poet in the original or whether he depended upon
these translations. According to one critic, if Shakespeare
attended the Stratford Grammar school, where in all probability
a fair training in Latin was given and the chief Roman writers ci prose and poetry were read, he must have carried away with him at least a working knowledge of the Roman tongue, ''little" though it might seem to Jenson’s scholarly mind, and a familiarity with Virgil's great masterpiece. And to quote - 2 7
from another: "That such a man as Shakespeare should not
hare been interested in reading the one poet who was then
regarded not only as the laureate of Rome but as the supreme
poet of all literature is well-nigh incomprehensible." As a
matter of fact, there are several indications in Shakespeare
of a knowledge of Virgil although no conclusive evidence
that such knowledge was at first hand. Among the most famous
allusions to Virgil in Shakespeare v.e have the moonlit scene
of the Merchant of Venice,
"In such a night Stood Dido with a willow in her hand Upon the wild sea banks, and waft her love To come again to Carthage.
The play actor in Hamlet, too, is asked to recite a speech
based on Aeneas' tale to Dido especially where he speaks of
Priam's slaughter. In addition to these we also find references
in Henry VI. Part II. as well as in the final scene of Titus
Andrcnicus* At any rate in each case the literary allusion
seems to ccme from one who had read and appreciated the Ro man poet.
To the work of Shakespeare's predecessors and con
temporaries in the drama Virgil contributes his share of re ferences and allusions and Ben Jensen's comprehensive bor rowings from the classics above all do not fail to include
Virgilian echoes» The debt of other Elizabethan writers to
Virgil is sc large, that the limits of this sketch dees not permit a further discussion of the subject. Of course only the fringe of this phase of the subject, Elizabethan I
- 28- literature , has been touched; and the few facts have been
stated merely to show/ the varied extent of Virgil’s influence.
As we come down through the cavalier pcets, we find the vigorous influence of Virgil no whit abated. The grammar
schools of the period aimed to give each pupil a thorough education in the Latin tongue before he reached the University, and to put him through a course of study which was intended tc produce an accomplished writer of letters, themes, verses and orations in the language of Cicero and Virgil, Some of the greatest names in classical scholarship belong to this period.
“It was a period when even a band of idle young gallants knew their Virgil well enough tc adopt the name of the
’Tityre-tu’s’.”
Towering over all the"lesser lights" who tried tc compose epics was the great Milton, to whose scholarly ap preciation of classic models was united a supreme poetic genius. The early works of Milton, except fcr his Lycidas, shows little Virgilian influence. His preference seems to be for Ovid. On the whole, Milton's classicism is of a Greek nature rather than a Latin. In his treatise On Education, the only Virgilian poem which he recommends is the Georgies.
However, when we come to his great epic, the influence of the
Aeneid is very evident. Though it is usually granted that the
Homeric poems furnished a large number of images and sug gestions, it is certain that Milton depended chiefly in the
Aeneid as the model of his epic. Like Virgil, he too, - 2 9 - laboriously polished each line of his epic until it reached the perfection which is characteristic of the finished work of Both poets. Before concluding these comments on the Eng lish masters let me quote several lines of the great English epic which show evident traces of Virgil. In Book 6, line
788, we find,
"In heavenly Breasts could such perverseness dwell*?"
Compare with their parallel passages from Virgil the follow ing lines,
"So spake the Eternal Father, and fulfill’d All justice: ncr delayed the winged saint After his charge receiv’d.
At once on th’ eastern cliff of Paradise He lights, . . . .Like Maids son he stood,"
And,"
"Here their prison ordained In utter darkness, and their portion set As far removed from God and light of heaven As from the center thrice to the utmost pole."
Again, do we not perceive Milton’s debt to Virgil in the following description in Paradise Lost, 1. 768-775.
As Bees In spring-time, when the Sun with Taurus rides Pour forth their populous youth about the hive In clusters: they among fresh dews and flowers Fly to and fro, or on the smoother plank, The suburb of their straw-Built citadel, New ruBBed with balm, expatiate, and confer Their state affairs."
Hence we see that Milton is almost a sealed book without Virgil, and that in the Paradise Lost, Virgilian in fluence upon English verse reaches high tide.
"With the development of the pseudo-classic theory and practice during the seventeenth and early eighteenth cen^ 30
turies, the emphasis came to be placed more and more on the
form and style of literary production." It was an age of
translation and imitation and in looking over the list of
names of this period of poetry, we find those of Dryden and
Pope. The Renaissance enthusiasm for imitation of the ancients
was again revived with a new significance. Form and style
again took precedence, and Virgil became the god of the
pastoral, the didactic poem and the mock-epic. Of the mottoes
in the Spectator, too, one hundred and thirty-nine are from
Virgil. Dean Swift, who could hardly be considered the pos
sessor of a nature sympathetic with that of Virgil, uses him
constantly. "There is scarcely a poet whom some admirer does
not call the Virgil of his age, scarcely a versifier who does
not refer many times to the story of Aeneas, scarcely a
traveler who does not visit Virgil’s tomb and recall in verse
or prose his emotions on the occasion of this sacred pil
grimage or his memories of the poet's works at Rome and
other places associated with his name, scarcely a prose
critic who does not use his lines again and again for il
lustration or adornment." Almost every poet attempts a
translation of at least an Eclogue or a portion of a book
of the Aeneid or the Georgies; but Dryden's Virgil is per
haps the most eloquent commentary on the literary and
educational standards of the time. Dryden's translation
went through a large number of editions during the eighteenth
century, and its progress was attended by a number of - 3 1 -
satellites, versions of small portions of Virgil's works, following with more or less fidelity the work of their model.
In the Dedication of the Aeneid Dryden comes tc the defense
of Virgil against his detractors, of whom there were many in
these days of controversy, not only over the relative merits of the ancients and moderns, "but also over the superiority
of Homer or Virgil.
Of all the eighteenth century prose writers, we find Burke probably coming closest to the Virgilian polish and perfection, and this is perhaps accounted for by the fact that he always had a "ragged Delphin Virgil* in his hand. He is said to have engaged in a dispute with Doctor
Johnson over the relative merits of Homer and Virgil, and to have been the staunch advocate of the Latin master. Doctor
Johnson himself although he preferred Homer, knew Virgil well, and had practically memorized the Eclogues,
The extent to which Virgil was in the minds of so many writers of the period is to be seen not only in the number of allusions and quotations, but in the general tendency of the critical work to hold up his poems as models to be imitated and as standards by which the achievements of others might be judged.
While the influence of Virgil in this period seems tc be in general a thing of externals, there is in reality a real appreciation of the technical perfection of his work.
The Eclogues of Virgil Pope thought the "sweetest poems in - 3 2 -
the world" and it was this sweetness of versification that he
tried to imitate in his Pastorals. He felt that he had "been
successful, for even in his later life he regarded these
early poems as the most correct and musical of his works.
The phraseology of Virgil was so familiar to Pope that it was inevitable that he should echo it frequently. There is no doubt that the best known of the Eclogues is the Pollio, the poem which was particularly responsible for Virgil's peculiar reputation in the Middle Ages; and the best known of Pope's pastoral poems is probably the Messiah, A Sacred
Eclogue, in Imitation of Virgil's Pollio. It is rather in teresting to note that the practice of the writers of this period was to devote mere time criticizing the Aeneid than imitating it. Some such criticism we find in Pope's Preface to his translation of Homer, with the usual contrast between the "invention" of Homer and the judgment of Virgil and the conclusion that the Greek poet is the superior in most respects. The favorite form of writing at this time, however, was the mock epic which afforded opportunities for Virgilian imitations. Just to mention a few instances, we might turn to the 1728 edition of the Duneiad which began,
"Books and the man I sing, the first who brings The Smithfield muses to the ears of kings.
In that "heroi-comical" poem, the Rape of the Lock, we find
the following,
"And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage?" 3 3 - which corresponds to the famous question in the Aeneid,
" tantaene animis caelestihus irae?"
Innumerable lines occur which can easily be paralleled in
Virgil.
Throughout the eighteenth century, then, our poet holds his own.THere is also a long list of didactic poets,
James Thomsen the most influential among others of the group who combined rules for the countryman with descriptions of nature. It would be easy and perhaps tiresome to enumerate all the passages from Virgil and Thomson, some of them with little justification, the similarity often arising merely fpcm the likeness in subject-matter. But there are many lines which offer conclusive evidence that Thomson was writing with his eye on Virgil as well as on the subject. It is also evident that the Georgies were not far from Cowper’s mind as he wrote The Task judging from the comparison drawn from the fourth Georgic to aid in describing the Russian palace of ice:
"In such a place Aristaens found Gyrene, when he bore the plaintive tale Of his lost Bees to her maternal ear." - 3 4
CHAPTER V .
But was this all pervading Virgilian influence at work upon English poets and men of letters alone? No, in deed, writers on the Continent, toe, felt the charm of his verse, the beauty of his thought, among them Schiller in
M V Germany, Voltaire and Sainte-Benne in Prance,
Time would fail to tell of the influence on each of the national writers of continental Europe; however, my purpose is to concentrate on only one of the German writers and to point to some of the many passages in Schiller’s poems, in which there is question not of a mere accidental similarity of thought or expression, hut a decided Virgilian influence. During the first years spent at an Academy,Schil ler received not only an introduction to the study of Virgil, hut became intensely interested in a translation of the
First Book in hexameter, a translation which appeared under the title, "Der Sturm auf dem Tyrrhener Meer” in Hangs
Schwäbischen Magazine 1780. Later in the spring of 1791,he began the translation of the Second and Fourth Books.
Selecting one or other poem from his anthology, in which there are unquestionable traces of the Aeneid, we might first mention his poem, ’’Di e Schlacht.“
No doubt the expression
“schwarz brütet auf dem Heer die Nacht" recalls the Aeneid I. 89
"pento nex incubat atra” - 3 5 -
and in "Hektor's Abschied*' cne may see evident traces of
"Vestibulum ante ipsum primeque in limine Pyrrhus,exsultat-"
in
"Hoch, der Wilde tobt schon vor den Mauern."
In the second period of Schiller's literary career we find
in a poem “Unüberwindlichen Flotte" an effective application
of Virgil's lines in Book I. 224
"Et jam finis erat, cum Juppiter aethero summo Despiciens mare velivolum terrasque iacentis Litoraque et latos populcs, sic vertice caeli Gcnstitit et Libyae defixit lumina regnis"
in
"Gott, der Allmücht’ge sah herab," etc.
Though the later works of Schiller are less Vir-
gilian in tone, there are, nevertheless, frequent allusions
to the great master poet, the effect perhaps of his intensive
study of the Latin poet and his interest in the translation
of the second and fourth books of the Aeneid.
In 1795 we have the publication of "Pegasus im
Joche." The lines,
"Kaum fühlt das Tier des Meister's sichre Hand So knirscht es in des Zügel's Band,"
is a clear imitation of Aeneid IV. 1. 134,
"estreque insignia et auro Stat sonipes ac frena ferex spumantia mandit."
The German poet appears to have a decided preference for this particular Virgilian description of a horse, for in his work "Monument Moors des Räubers" we read:
"stbrrig knirscht in den Zügel das Sonnenross," and in his “Kampf mit dem Drachen“ again appears,
"ob auch das Ross sich grauend bäumt und knirscht und in den Zttgel schäumt.“
"Der Tanz" published the same year has
“Wie vom zephyr gewiegt der leichte Rauch in die Luft flieszt,"
clearly reminiscent cf the Aeneid V. 740, the apparition of lz Anclvxses to Aeneas in a dream.
Dixerat et temus fugit cen fumus in aurasV
The so-called “Balladenjahre," 1796-1797, the year
in which Goethe and Schiller composed many of their finest
ballads, furnishes us with a series of lyric-epic poems
which probably show mere unmistakable Virgilian traces than
any other poetry. In “Der Taucher" the lines
"Und schwarz aus dem weissen Schaum Klafft hinunter ein gähnender Spalt“
have a parallel in the Aeneid I. 106,
"his unda dehiscens terram inter fluctus aperit." The lines
"Es risz mich hinunter blitzesschnell Und wie einen Kreisel mit schwindelndem Drehen Trieb michs um, ich konnte nich wiederstehen“
seem an exact translation of Aeneid I. 116,
T n + ter fluctus ibidem Torquet agens circum, et rapidus verat aequere vortex."
Hov, perfect a parallel is stanza eleven
"h^,he:Ller u?d heller Sturmeaaausen httrt mans näher un immer näher braussen" a parallel tc Book II. lines 299, 301: 3 7 -
"et magis atque magi a - clarescunt scnitus."
In "Gang nach dem Eisenhammer" I feel the Virgilian fervet
opus in the following lines;
"Denn um die Erntes wars, und huss Im Felde glüht der Schnitter Fleisz" harmonizing with the teeming activity of the bees.
"Spemque metumque inter dubii"
Aeneid Bk. I« 218 is undoubtedly the basis for
"und zwischen Trug und Wahrheit schwebt noch zweifelnd jede Brust," the nineteenth verse cf Schiller’s "Kranichen des Ibykus."
Among the ballads of the year 1798 we find repeated allusions to Virgil’s Aeneid in "Der Kampf mit dem Drachen."
The following lines of the poem
"Doch schnell erfusch ich ihren Mut" recall the Aeneid II. 451,
"instaurati animi,"
Schiller’s lines
"Machtlos wie ein dünner Stab Prallt er von Schuppenpanzer ab" is clearly an echo of Aeneid I. 544,
"telumque imbelle sine ictu Conjecit, raftco quod prctinus aere repulsum" and
"Stosse tief ihm ins Gekrüse Nachbohrend bis ins Heft den Stahl" of Aeneid V. 553
"lateri capulo tenus abdidit ensem."
Stanza twenty-two of the same ballad - 38-
"Und zehnfach am Gewülb gebrochen Wälzt der vermischten St&nmien Schall Sich brausend fort im Wiederhall“
may be borrowed from Aeneid I. 1. 725
"Fit strepitus tectis vccemque per ampla volutant” Atria;"
In the popular lyric "Die Bürgschaft" we may compare
"Da giesst unendlichen Regen herab, Vcn den Bergen stürzen die Quellen," with the Aeneid Bk. II. 164,
"ruunt de mcntibus amnes;
also with Aeneid V. 695
11 ruit aethere tote Turbidus imber aqua .....
"Das Eleusische Fest" of the same year presents
this passage
"Und den Nebel teilt sie leise Der den Blicken sie verhüllt; nützlich in der Wilden Kreise Steht sie da, ein Götterbild."
Compare the foregoing lines with
"Scindit se nubes et in aethera purgat apertum Restitit Aeneas claraque in luce refulsit Os humerosque dec similis."
From "Die Glocke" published in 1769 the rather extraordinary
"Mutterirren" is undoubtedly an allusion to the Aeneid Bk.II.
489,
"turn pavidae tectis matres ingentibus errant" and
"Es fehlt kein teures Haupt" 39
an allusion to Aeneid IV. 354
"capitisque iniuria cari'.'
Particularly rich in allusions to Virgil is "Hero and
Leander“ 1801. In stanza two, the line
"Er, durch die Gebirge ziehend Rüstig im Geräusch der Jagd*'
is a characteristic description of Ascanius Bk. IV.1.156
and
“der Styx, der neunfach flieszet"
a minute translation of Bk. VI. 439,
“noviens Styx interfusa."
Again
"Und die wilden Winde schweigen"
i3 a graphic translation of the subsiding storm in the
Aeneid I. 142.
That the entire motif of “Kassandra" 1802 has
been deduced from the two following passages cannot be con tested .
"Turn etiam fatis aperit Cassandra futuris Ora, dei iussa non unquam credita Teueris" and
"illis ad Trcjam forte diebus Venerat, msano Cassandrae incensus amcre auxilium Priamc Phrygibusque ferebat Inielix, qui non sponsae praecepta furentis Audierat'I -
Finally in “Das Siegesfest“ 1803 the passage
“Schmerzvoll an die Brüste schlagend Bleich, mit aufgelöstem H a a r “ recalls Bk. IV, 673, and II. 403 -40
11 pas sis crinibus."
In conclusion, after surveying the entire field
of German lyrics, perhaps the critic will suggest than in
the enumerated passages there seems to be a mere casual re
semblance or happy coincidence of expression when comparing
the two poets. If one or other quotation be accidently
similar in thought or expression, there can be, nevertheless, no doubt that the majority of allusions are proof of a
powerful Virgilian influence on the German poet, Schillefs poems, particularly his most popular works, are indeed permeated with the thoughts and ideas of the Aeneid. In the words cf Oesterlen "Die Litteratur eines Volkes ist zu nächst national, aber sie ist auch kosmopolitisch: die
Kulturvölker thun gegenseitig ihre Schatze auf und schenken
sich das Edelste und Schönste, das sie haben." 4 1 -
CHAPTER VI.
Thus far we have traced the traditional, un
questioning veneration for the poet, his pervading influence
upon the writers of the centuries, but the Romantic Movement
in England, ushered in a period of comparative neglect of
Latin, and even a tide of harsh and unsympathetic criticism.
About the middle of the eighteenth century, there was a
sudden growth of an interest in Greek literature which for a time threw Latin into the background. The later Romanrtcists also preferred the Greek and their ardent enthusiasm for Hel lenic art and literature was fostered by the brave struggle that the modern Greeks were making for liberty and independence.
These facts explain the scarcity cf allusions to Virgil or
imitations of his poems in the work of men like Byron and
Shelley. Though these poets knew Virgil, they did not give him a prominent place in their poetry. We discover many destructive criticisms which far outnumber constructive criticisms. There are some who even go sc far as to speak cf the fourth Eclogue as "the dullest and poorest poem which Italy has produced and as a sin for which the author needs to be forgiven.1' Lander regards all three poems, Eclogues,
Georgies and Aeneid, as pieces of literary workmanship and criticizes them as such. Inconsistencies and anachronisms in the Aeneid call for his disapproval. His approval is be stowed upon a single line, but he says not a word of praise fer the Aeneid as a great national poem. He shows a tendency - 4 2 - to select individual passages fcr consideration in the same v/ay as the medieval rhetoricians and grammarians did .Unlike them, however, he feels no blind reverence for everything
Virgil wrote, hut blames as veil as praises. It is in short the Romantic method of individual appreciation in criticism.
Between the Romantic Period and the Victorian Per iod, although there was a certain growth toward a more com plete and scholarly understanding and appreciation of Greek and Latin, there was no decided break. It was still a question of individual judgment, but the judgment of the individual trained in a scholarly method of historical criticism. As education became the right of all men, we see a wide spread interest in the classics growing apace, in fact translations of the masterpieces of Greek and Latin literature were issued in such cheap form so as to supply those who were interested in the classics, but whose scholarship was not equal to reading them in the original. It is surprising to note how the knowledge of the classics runs like an undertone through almost all of the literature of the time. Though Virgil's work was no longer the chief literary influence on the poetry of the time, the popularity of Greek having continued, yet he was generally known and loved by many men, and per haps more wisely than before. A more historical method of criticism was being employed and the severe attacks upon
Virgil's poetry for artificiality were laid aside. True, 4 3 -
readers might continue to prefer to read one writer to an
other and in general 11 the Victorians preferred the Greeks,
but the days of literary dictatorship, when one man or one
group of men said, ’Th i s poet only shall be admired and
imitated,’ were gone, it is hoped never to return.”
A knowledge of Virgil’s work was an absolute necessity above all for any man who intended to lead a pub lic life in the nineteenth century. Latin quotations were used by Parliamentary craters with as much ease as English verse, and it was taken for granted that the auditors com prehended what was said in that ancient tongue with equal facility. In the words of Herbert Paul, the modern critic speaking of Virgil, "No Englishman should be indifferent to a writer who has been quoted by illustrious Englishmen in every crisis of modern history, by Walpole and Chatham,by
Fax and Pitt, by Gladstone and Lowe.” And in another essay he says, "In 1866 Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Lowe, both as good scholars as Peel, almost exhausted the second bock of the
Aeneid. Virgil was treated as if he had been a living wri ter of dispatches, instead of a poet whose language was no longer spoken, and who had been dead nearly nineteen hun dred years."
The scope of this paper does net include any detailed consideration of Victorian prose, but it is signi ficant of the widespread knowledge of Virgil that there is scarcely a prose writer of the period who does not quote - 4 4 - him cr allude to him at some time. Among the more noted wri ters who quote him we find George Eliot and Thackeray,whose stories are full of allusions and references and citations.
Andrew Lang says, "Virgil must always appear to us one of the most "beautiful and moving figures in the whole of literature.
Hov. sweet must have "been that personality which can still win cur affections, across eighteen hundred years of change, and through the mists of commentaries, and school-books,and traditions'! Macaulay also manifested his familiarity with the Aeneid and some contemporary of his has remarked that he amused himself as he walked home from the House of Commons at two o’clock in the morning, by translating Virgil.
The almost innumerable translations of the works of Virgil in the nineteenth century is a clear indication of the universal knowledge of and interest in his poetry. But among all the poets of this period, there seems to be only one who caught the real spirit of Virgil. Wordsworth it is true “renews the Virgilian manner, with a deeper and subtler appreciation, in many passages of The Prelude, and more notably in the famous Laodamia;" Keats while still a school boy or little more, turned the whole Aeneid into English for his own satisfactionMatthew Arnold in his celebrated allusion to
* ...... the Virgilian cry, The sense of tears in mortal things,** pays tribute to the potency of Virgil’s art as a living force, but it is in Tennyson that we discover the Virgilian influence - 4 5 -
most obvious and most pervasive. Much has been said and
written about the resemblances between Tennyson and Virgil
and about the indebtedness of the English pcet tc his Roman
predecessor. ’’So m e one once called me the English Virgil,11
said Tennyson himself with evident pleasure. In an unsigned
article in the Quarterly Review for January 19C1, there is
an elaborate parallel drawn between the lives of the two
men, and net only dees the writer set forth the resemblances
in the events of their lives, but he carries cut the com
parison tc include the similarities in their character,
their method of work, their personal appearance, their at
titude toward critics and the attitude of critics toward them,
their coneepticn of their epic heroes, their philosophy,their
knowledge of nature, their patriotism, their scholarship and
their language.
The poem To Virgil, undoubtedly shows that rare
sympathy of Tennyson with the “vanished ages;" but it also
proves his ability tc select these qualities, those gifts,
those purposes in the Roman pcet which are really significant.
The “Universal Nature moved by the Universal Mind" is the
"mens agitat molem" of Aeneid VI. 727; the "Northern Island
sunder’d once from all the human race" is the Britain of
Eel. I, 67: "et penitus teto divisos orbe Britanncs," -
“and Britain cut off utterly from the whole world." But per
haps even more than the "landscape-lover," or the "chanter
of the Pollic," or even the "light among the vanished ages," 46
Virgil was tc Tennyson the
"Wielder cf the stateliest measure ever moulded Toy the lips cf man."
In "The Daisy" Tennyson himself tells how
"we past From Como, when the light was gray, And in my head for half the day, The rich Virgilian rustic measure Cf Lari Maxume, all the way, Like ballad-burthen music kept,"
Of the echoes of Virgilian lines and phrases which occur so frequently in Tennyson’s poetry, and cf the many allusions to the Aeneid, the Georgies and the Eclogues, I wish to say very little. In the notes which Tennyson left with his son many of the parallels were pointed cut by Tenny son himself. Some were intentional paraphrases and translations, others mere accidental parallels or unconscious echoes cf lines which had become almost Tennyson’s own through long familiarity with them. On the whole the investigation cf the classical reminiscences in Tennyson has led tc the conclusion that he is more indebted to Virgil than tc anyone else, with the pos sible exception cf Homer and Horace. "The nature cf the Vir gilian echoes more than any others would indicate that Tenny son had absorbed and assimilated the Virgilian material,that he had lived with Virgil rather than studied him."
So it is quite fitting that the consideration cf the continuity of Virgilian influence upon English writers should close with Tennyson, who is the last cf the great poets of
England tc show in a decided fora the effect cf his Vir- - 4 7 -
gilian reading, and who is the pcet who, more than any
other, can he called Virgilian. True it is, many other poets have been mere imitative than Tennyson, many may have
quoted him more frequently, but perhaps no other modern
poet has penetrated sc deeply into the Virgilian spirit
and certainly nc one has expressed it so fully as Tenny
son in h i 3 poem To Virgil.
Thus we see that Virgil owes his long popularity
to the sheer force of this genius. We have seen that v.ith
the publication of the Georgies he took his place at the head of Latin literature. Throughout the centuries the
story of the Aeneid has appealed to readers and writers.
His mastery of the hexameter has never been questioned and
to many an English reader, especially in the last century,
this perfection of the hexameter and his marvelous power
of expression has appealed as its greatest beauty. Besides
this Virgil has shown a great variety of poetic powers.
There are dramatic qualities in the many scenes of the
Aeneid; oratorical powers have endeared him to men like
Bossuet and Burke; his descriptive powers have been the ad miration and despair of many imitators and translators;in
the music of his verse and the compactness of phrase and varied harmonies of the Aeneid have influenced masters of rhythm like Milton and Tennyson.
We have traced Virgil's place in the Middle Ages during which period he was regarded net only as a great 4 8 - poet, "but also as a writer of a volume that might he used as a text-hcck for grammar and rhetoric. 11 So this many-sided
Virgil, most of whose characteristics were wholly the creation cf the Middle Ages, served the turn of every man, cleric or layman, the scholar who wished illustrative examples for his treatise on grammar or metrics, the pcet who was looking for a model for his Latin hexameters, or the courtier who was searching for marvelous stories with which to entertain his empercrIn fine, the veneration in which his name was held during the long interval "between the overthrow cf western civilization and the Renaissance affords testimony of the depth of the impression which he made on the hear and imagination cf the ancient world.
The traditional "belief in his pre-eminence has been on the whole sustained, though not with absolute unanimity, in modern times, as we have seen. By the scholars and men of letters of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries it was never seriously questioned. Only during the first half of the pre sent century has his right to be ranked among the great poets of the world been disputed by eminent German and English critics. The German mind has always been more in sympathy with the art and genius of Greece than of Rome and Italy, hence there was a strong reaction from the habitual deference paid to these writers who had moulded literary taste in the previous century. The estimation of Virgil, as the most con summate representative of Latin culture, suffered most from 4 9 -
this reaction, but in the present day the effect cf this
reaction shews itself only in a juster estimate cf Virgil's
relative position among the poets of the world. If we could
imagine the place of Virgil in Roman literature vacant, it would be much the same as if we imagined the place of Dante
vacant in modern Italian, and that cf Goethe in German
literature. As a master, a model, and inspiration, he has
not lest and will net lose his place in literature. He will
remain one of the greatest cf artists; and it is as such
that he finally claims the study which he more than repays,
"the love which that study increases the further it is pur
sued and the more largely it is communicated." BIBLIOGRAPHY
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