EARLY TUDOR POETRY CHAPTER I THE BACKGROUND TO THE LITERATURE That which separates peoples, far more than geographical boundaries or "the unplumbed, salt, estranging sea," is the basic philosophy that underlies their national life, the unwritten assumptions that, like axioms in geometry, are accepted without the need of proof. The difficulty of the difference in language may be surmounted. The denotation of a word is given in any dictionary; it is the connotation which counts. An American may learn to speak Turkish, but it is impossible for him to think like a Turk because he is an American. If this be true today when personal contact is possible, it is still more true in dealing with the languages of the past. Words at best are tricky instruments, and Marlowe, that great master of self-expression, complains of their inadequacy. Yet to his contemporaries his mighty line must have come charged with a fullness of meaning that we can only guess at, and it is probable that no one would be more surprised at the elucidations of the commentators than Shakespeare himself. To comprehend a poem written three hundred years ago requires creative imagination. The negative part of such creation is not difficult. It is not difficult to strip the world of steam, electricity and gasoline and to picture to ourselves the result. But positively for the modern American to adopt the point of view of the sixteenth century Englishman, to see that life unmodified either by the glamour of romanticism or by the working of his own personal equation, and fully to appreciate the unconscious and unexpressed motives for their actions, is impossible. Nevertheless the degree of our success in achieving this impossibility measures the value of our literary judgments. An attempt at least to realize this ideal is essential in dealing with works composed during an age of transition. As the term 1 Oh happy retribution! Short toil, eternal rest. A mansion with the blest.1 There is no need to multiply illustrations. The medieval hymnology teaches that this world is a temporary place of trial, that it is a battle-ground, that we are pilgrims journeying to our eternal home where the faithful will be recompensed. Nunc tribulatio; Tunc recreatio, Sceptra, coronæ; Clarificabit, Est ibi civibus Hic peregrinis. That such an extreme was practiced by society at large at any time is, of course, untrue; it would imply the cessation of the business of living, and during the middle ages, as in every other age, men were chiefly occupied by their petty private concerns. Yet it was (and is) realized in some religious establishments and was held as an ideal by the world in general, and affected every human relationship. Care of the body was considered as a concession to the weakness of the flesh; the love of parents, home, wife, country, or the approbation of the community was regarded, theoretically at least, as a distraction from the pursuit of the highest life. This may be illustrated by the life of Saint Alexis. |