CHAPTER IV HUMANISM At the same time that some men of the Renaissance were trying to create a new literature by reviving and modifying old medieval forms of verse, others turned to foreign literatures in search of models. This is what was to be expected. In literature there is no protection for the native product; that must compete with foreign importation and is often driven out. Such a catastrophe had fallen upon the alliterative verse forms of Early English poetry; in the fourteenth century they had succumbed before continental verse-forms, which, in turn, had become naturalized, and become English just as the Norman conquerors had become English, and the assimilation was complete. The contest between the established poetry and the foreign, although continuous, is rarely so apparent as in the reign of Henry VII and that of his son. Owing to the break in literary continuity, due to the wars of the fifteenth century, not only were the traditional poetic forms obsolete, but even the very language in which they were written, had changed. When the country was again in a sufficiently peaceful condition to permit of much writing, the question was put to each author what forms to use. Some revived the medieval tradition; 1 others experimented in adapting those from the Medieval Latin; 2 still others turned to classical Latin for their models. And as the classical Latin writers were pagan, rather than Christian, and dealt with mundane affairs rather than with "divine” theology, their imitators and followers were called humanists. Humanism may be defined as a revival of interest in classical life and in classical literature. Such an interest may manifest itself in various ways. Some humanists advocated the substitution of Latin for the vernacular as a literary medium. Others felt that English written according to classical principles would be the ideal condition. Still others were satisfied with assimilating the classical attitude toward life. And there were some writers whose human2 Chapter 3. 1 Chapter 2. ism went little farther than the use of names and allusions drawn from classical stories. It is not possible to date accurately the beginning of the movement. The statement is not true that Latin was not read during the Middle Ages. So far as the language is concerned, it was always known, because it was the language employed in the services of the Church. Consequently as every clerk must know Latin, and as the greater proportion of the educated was to be found among the Clergy, the use of Latin in a book not only did not hinder its circulation, but it was actually an aid, since it freed the thought from the limitations of the vernacular. Consequently, from the very earliest times and aside from any merely ecclesiastical use, books were written in England and by Englishmen in the Latin language. Yet during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there was a shifting of emphasis from the spiritual to the literary interest in the classics. It is one thing to read Ovid as a possible precursor of Christianity, and quite another to read him as an erotic poet. This change is shown by contrasting the proportion of theology and literature in such a list as that of the library of Oriel College in 1379, with the books sold in Oxford by John Dorne in 1520. The first lists almost exclusively works dealing with theology; the second has a large proportion of literature. In 1379 the library of Oriel had but one hundred and twenty books. These were the result of painful hours of weary scribes. They were written, page after page, in longhand, and the initials were illuminated and inclosed minatures of the Virgin and the saints. Each volume bore witness to an age when time was of little value and when readers were few but earnest. Thus the dream of the Clerk of Oxenford in Chaucer's Prologue is to have Twenty bokes, clad in blak or reed, Of Aristotle and his philosophye. When one has the instincts of a scholar and but twenty books, it follows that those books are studied carefully. It follows also that one is quite careful in choosing them. And Aristotle was regarded as the best mental discipline to prepare one for studying theology. But by 1520 with the great decrease in price came an increase in the number of books and a corresponding decrease in the im portance of any one book. Thus if one had to choose between the Bible and Shakespeare, presumably we should all choose the Bible; if, however, we might have both, the result would be an extension of Shakepeare's influence. Automatically, without considering other factors, the invention of printing worked in favor of literature. But while the invention of printing with movable type accelerated the development of the humanistic impulse by making the classical authors accessible, the actual transition was by no means instantaneous, nor is it so marked as the name, re-birth, seems to imply. Naturally, with Latin as the universal medium of communication during the Middle Ages, there was no time when the classical authors were not read and their verse-forms studied. Consequently in medieval authors, such as John of Salsbury, allusions to them are frequent. And John of Garlandia appends a series of hymns in the meters of the Odes of Horace to his Art of Riming. Again in the medieval treatises can be found careful explanations of the quantitative foot. It must be remembered that, although it was the Medieval Latin that was normal, classical Latin was not forgotten. The best illustration of this condition is to be found in the work of Skelton. He had received his training in the medieval manner at three universities, and his reputation was that of one of the learned men of his age. It is in this guise that he appears in the first notice we have of him, namely that by Caxton. But that the poet himself was conscious of these attainments is equally certain. Latin tags, Latin allusions, even Latin reminiscences occur at frequent intervals. In his satire Juvenal and Martial are his shield and his buckler. Over and over again he insists that their plain speaking justifies his plain speaking. And it may be remarked in passing that the practice of Martial would serve as a precedent for any amount of foul personalities! In Skelton's list of authors, the great majority belong to classical literature. Nor did he refrain from versifying in imitation of classical Latin models. In 1512, according to the date given in the title of the poem, he wrote twenty-four lines of elegiacs celebrating the virtues of the late king. As he quaintly remarks, they were written at the request of Islip, Abbot of Westminster; perhaps it is hypercritical, then, to object that they show no personal feeling. Like so much of humanistic verse, they seem artificial. The same classical tendency is apparent when in his own person he apostrophizes his work: Ite, Britannorum lux O radiosa, Britannum Dicite, Skeltonis vester Homerus erat. Nec vos poeniteat livoris tela subire, Immunis nec enim Musa Nasonis erat.1 Naturally, therefore, he practiced the gentle art of Latin verse. To those pieces that have come down to us, conventional elegies on court subjects, Warton gives the epithet "elegant." More to our purpose, however, is the fact that he felt sufficiently at home in the language to write jocosely and easily poems which show a mastery of the medium. This side of his work deserves careful consideration because the originality and vigor of his highly individual manner in his English poems tends to cause it to be ignored. It must be strongly stated that Caxton's enthusiasm was for Skelton, the Latinist. In the same way, there is nothing in Whitington's eulogy that suggests that Skelton wrote in English. However apt we may think the following criticism as applied to the Latin verses, it is comically inappropriate if it is intended to characterize the intentionally rough-and-tumble effect of the English.2 Rhetoricum sermo riguo fecundior horto, Thureque Pantheo, gratior et violis . . . etc. And of course it was because of this reputation as a Latinist that he received the greatest honor of his life, the appointment as tutor 1 Garlande of Laurell. Lines 1521-32. 2 Dyce, 1, xvi-xix. to Prince Henry, later Henry VIII. Together with the poet laureate-ship, this is his great rebuttal against Garnesche. The honor of Englond I lernyd to spelle, I yaue hym drynke of the sugryd welle Me as hys master for to calle That this was the fact, we have unexpectedly the testimony of Erasmus. His visit to the children of Henry VII is too well known to need comment. In the preface to the poem, De Laudibus Britannia, which he wrote on his return home, occurs the statement: "domi haberes Skeltonum, unum Britannicarum literarum lumen et decus," and in the poem itself the verse, Monstrante fonteis vate Skeltono sacros. That here Erasmus with his limited knowledge of English was referring to Skelton's English poems, and this position is sometimes taken,—is inconceivable. There is no patronizing attitude. Erasmus was a poor foreign scholar, with his reputation yet to make, who was then looking for a position and a patron. Skelton was a famous scholar, tutor to a prince. Under these circumstances there is no exaggeration in the statement. Nor is there any avoiding the inference that it was the Latinity of Skelton that gave him his early reputation. But with all this, it yet remains that Skelton not only was not a humanist, but he was a bitter opponent of humanism and the group in England supporting it. The touchstone differentiating the two groups is to be found in the attitude taken toward Greek. When the "Greeks" vanquished the "Trojans" at Oxford, humanism had arrived. The beginning of the movement, of which this was an incident, may be localized in Italy and personified by Petrarch. The Italian language is a natural outgrowth of the Latin; Italy 1 Dyce, i, p. 129. |