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What Is A Classic?
What Is A Classic?
A delicate question, to which somewhat diverse solutions might be given
according to times and seasons. An intelligent man suggests it to me, and I
intend to try, if not to solve it, at least to examine and discuss it face to
face with my readers, were it only to persuade them to answer it for
themselves, and, if I can, to make their opinion and mine on the point clear.
And why, in criticism, should we not, from time to time, venture to treat some
of those subjects which are not personal, in which we no longer speak of some
one but of some thing? Our neighbours, the English, have well succeeded in
making of it a special division of literature under the modest title of
"Essays." It is true that in writing of such subjects, always slightly
abstract and moral, it is advisable to speak of them in a season of quiet, to
make sure of our own attention and of that of others, to seize one of those
moments of calm moderation and leisure seldom granted our amiable France; even
when she is desirous of being wise and is not making revolutions, her
brilliant genius can scarcely tolerate them.
A classic, according to the usual definition, is an old author canonised
by admiration, and an authority in his particular style. The word classic was
first used in this sense by the Romans. With them not all the citizens of the
different classes were properly called classici, but only those of the chief
class, those who possessed an income of a certain fixed sum. Those who
possessed a smaller income were described by the term infra classem, below the
pre-eminent class. The word classicus was used in a figurative sense by
Aulus Gellius, and applied to writers: a writer of worth and distinction,
classicus assiduusque scriptor, a writer who is of account, has real property,
and is not lost in the proletariate crowd. Such an expression implies an age
sufficiently advanced to have already made some sort of valuation and
classification of literature.
At first the only true classics for the moderns were the ancients. The
Greeks, by peculiar good fortune and natural enlightenment of mind, had no
classics but themselves. They were at first the only classical authors for the
Romans, who strove and contrived to imitate them. After the great periods of
Roman literature, after Cicero and Virgil, the Romans in their turn had their
classics, who became almost exclusively the classical authors of the centuries
which followed. The middle ages, which were less ignorant of Latin antiquity
than is believed, but which lacked proportion and taste, confused the ranks
and orders. Ovid was placed above Homer, and Boetius seemed a classic equal to
Plato. The revival of learning in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries helped
to bring this long chaos to order, and then only was admiration rightly
proportioned. Thenceforth the true classical authors of Greek and Latin
antiquity stood out in a luminous background, and were harmoniously grouped on
their two heights.
Meanwhile modern literatures were born, and some of the more precocious,
like the Italian, already possessed the style of antiquity. Dante appeared,
and, from the very first, posterity greeted him as a classic. Italian poetry
has since shrunk into far narrower bounds; but, whenever it desired to do so,
it always found again and preserved the impulse and echo of its lofty origin.
It is no indifferent matter for a poetry to derive its point of departure and
classical source in high places; for example, to spring from Dante rather than
to issue laboriously from Malherbe.
Modern Italy had her classical authors, and Spain had every right to
believe that she also had hers at a time when France was yet seeking hers. A
few talented writers endowed with originality and exceptional animation, a few
brilliant efforts, isolated, without following, interrupted and recommenced,
did not suffice to endow a nation with a solid and imposing basis of literary
wealth. The idea of a classic implies something that has continuance and
consistence, and which produces unity and tradition, fashions and transmits
itself, and endures. It was only after the glorious years of Louis XIV. that
the nation felt with tremor and pride that such good fortune had happened to
her. Every voice informed Louis XIV. of it with flattery, exaggeration, and
emphasis, yet with a certain sentiment of truth. Then arose a singular and
striking contradiction: those men of whom Perrault was the chief, the men who
were most smitten with the marvels of the age of Louis the Great, who even
went the length of sacrificing the ancients to the moderns, aimed at exalting
and canonising even those whom they regarded as inveterate opponents and
adversaries. Boileau avenged and angrily upheld the ancients against Perrault,
who extolled the moderns - that is to say, Corneille, Moliere, Pascal, and the
eminent men of his age, Boileau, one of the first, included. Kindly La
Fontaine, taking part in the dispute in behalf of the learned Huet, did not
perceive that, in spite of his defects, he was in his turn on the point of
being held as a classic himself.
Example is the best definition. From the time France possessed her age of
Louis XIV. and could contemplate it at a little distance, she knew, better
than by any arguments, what to be classical meant. The eighteenth century,
even in its medley of things, strengthened this idea through some fine works,
due to its four great men. Read Voltaire`s Age of Louis XIV., Montesquieu`s
Greatness and Fall of the Romans, Buffon`s Epochs of Nature, the beautiful
pages of reverie and natural description of Rousseau`s Savoyard Vicar, and say
if the eighteenth century, in these memorable works, did not understand how to
reconcile tradition with freedom of development and independence. But at the
beginning of the present century and under the Empire, in sight of the first
attempts of a decidedly new and somewhat adventurous literature, the idea of a
classic in a few resisting minds, more sorrowful than severe, was strangely
narrowed and contracted. The first Dictionary of the Academy (1964) merely
defined a classical author as "a much-approved ancient writer, who is an
authority as regards the subject he treats." The Dictionary of the Academy of
1835 narrows that definition still more, and gives precision and even limit to
its rather vague form. It describes classical authors as those "who have
become models in any language whatever," and in all the articles which follow,
the expressions, models, fixed rules for composition and style, strict rules
of art to which men must conform, continually recur. That definition of
classic was evidently made by the respectable Academicians, our predecessors,
in face and sight of what was then called romantic - that is to say, in sight
of the enemy. It seems to me time to renounce those timid and restrictive
definitions and to free our mind of them.
A true classic, as I should like to hear it defined, is an author who has
enriched the human mind, increased its treasure, and caused it to advance a
step; who has discovered some moral and not equivocal truth, or revealed some
eternal passion in that heart where all seemed known and discovered; who has
expressed his thought, observation, or invention, in no matter what form, only
provided it be broad and great, refined and sensible, sane and beautiful in
itself; who has spoken to all in his own peculiar style, a style which is
found to be also that of the whole world, a style new without neologism, new
and old, easily contemporary with all time.
Such a classic may for a moment have been revolutionary; it may at least
have seemed so, but it is not; it only lashed and subverted whatever prevented
the restoration of the balance of order and beauty.
If it is desired, names may be applied to this definition which I wish to
make purposely majestic and fluctuating, or in a word, all-embracing. I
should first put there Corneille of the Polyeucte, Cinna, and Horaces. I
should put Moliere there, the fullest and most complete poetic genius we have
ever had in France. Goethe, the king of critics, said: -
"Moliere is so great that he astonishes us a fresh every time we read
him. He is a man apart; his plays border on the tragic, and no one has the
courage to try and imitate him. His Avare, where vice destroys all affection
between father and son, is one of the most sublime works, and dramatic in the
highest degree. In a drama every action ought to be important in itself, and
to lead to an action greater still. In this respect Tartuffe is a model. What
a piece of exposition the first scene is! From the beginning everything has an
important meaning, and causes something much more important to be foreseen.
The exposition in a certain play of Lessing that might be mentioned is very
fine, but the world only sees that of Tartuffe once. It is the finest of the
kind we possess. Every year I read a play of Moliere, just as from time to
time I contemplate some engraving after the great Italian masters."
I do not conceal from myself that the definition of the classic I have
just given somewhat exceeds the notion usually ascribed to the term. It
should, above all, include conditions of uniformity, wisdom, moderation, and
reason, which dominate and contain all the others. Having to praise M.
Royer-Collard, M. de Remusat said - "If he derives purity of taste, propriety
of terms, variety of expression, attentive care in suiting the diction to the
thought, from our classics, he owes to himself alone the distinctive character
he gives it all." It is here evident that the part alloted to classical
qualities seems mostly to depend on harmony and nuances of expression, on
graceful and temperate style: such is also the most general opinion. In this
sense the pre-eminent classics would be writers of a middling order, exact,
sensible, elegant, always clear, yet of noble feeling and airily veiled
strength. Marie-Joseph Chenier has described the poetics of those temperate
and accomplished writers in lines where he shows himself their happy
disciple: -
"It is good sense, reason which does all, - virtue, genius, soul, talent,
and taste. - What is virtue? reason put in practice; - talent? reason
expressed with brilliance; - soul? reason delicately put forth; - and genius
is sublime reason."
While writing those lines he was evidently thinking of Pope, Boileau, and
Horace, the master of them all. The peculiar characteristic of the theory
which subordinated imagination and feeling itself to reason, of which Scaliger
perhaps gave the first sign among the moderns, is, properly speaking, the
Latin theory, and for a long time it was also by preference the French theory.
If it is used appositely, if the term reason is not abused, that theory
possesses some truth; but it is evident that it is abused, and that if, for
instance, reason can be confounded with poetic genius and make one with it in
a moral epistle, it cannot be the same thing as the genius, so varied and so
diversely creative in its expression of the passions, of the drama or the
epic. Where will you find reason in the fourth book of the Aeneid and the
transports of Dido? Be that as it may, the spirit which prompted the theory,
caused writers who ruled their inspiration, rather than those who abandoned
themselves to it, to be placed in the first rank of classics; to put Virgil
there more surely than Homer, Racine in preference to Corneille. The
masterpiece to which the theory likes to point, which in fact brings together
all conditions of prudence, strength, tempered boldness, moral elevation, and
grandeur, is Athalie. Turenne in his two last campaigns and Racine in Athalie
are the great examples of what wise and prudent men are capable of when they
reach the maturity of their genius and attain their supremest boldness.
Buffon, in his Discourse on Style, insisting on the unity of design,
arrangement, and execution, which are the stamps of true classical works,
said: - "Every subject is one, and however vast it is, it can be comprised in
a single treatise. Interruptions, pauses, sub-divisions should only be used
when many subjects are treated, when, having to speak of great, intricate, and
dissimilar things, the march of genius is interrupted by the multiplicity of
obstacles, and contracted by the necessity of circumstances: otherwise, far
from making a work more solid, a great number of divisions destroys the unity
of its parts; the book appears clearer to the view, but the author`s design
remains obscure." And he continues his criticism, having in view Montesquieu`s
Spirit of Laws, an excellent book at bottom, but sub-divided: the famous
author, worn out before the end, was unable to infuse inspiration into all his
ideas, and to arrange all his matter. However, I can scarcely believe that
Buffon was not also thinking, by way of contrast, of Bossuet`s Discourse on
Universal History, a subject vast indeed, and yet of such an unity that the
great orator was able to comprise it in a single treatise. When we open the
first edition, that of 1681, before the division into chapters, which was
introduced later, passed from the margin into the text, everything is
developed in a single series, almost in one breath. It might be said that the
orator has here acted like the nature of which Buffon speaks, that "he has
worked on an eternal plan from which he has nowhere departed," so deeply does
he seem to have entered into the familiar counsels and designs of providence.
Are Athalie and the Discourse on Universal History the greatest
masterpieces that the strict classical theory can present to its friends as
well as to its enemies? In spite of the admirable simplicity and dignity in
the achievement of such unique productions, we should like, nevertheless, in
the interests of art, to expand that theory a little, and to show that it is
possible to enlarge it without relaxing the tension. Goethe, whom I like to
quote on such a subject, said: -
"I call the classical healthy, and the romantic sickly. In my opinion the
Nibelungen song is as much a classic as Homer. Both are healthy and vigorous.
The works of the day are romantic, not because they are new, but because they
are weak, ailing, or sickly. Ancient works are classical not because they are
old, but because they are powerful, fresh, and healthy. If we regarded
romantic and classical from those two points of view we should soon all
agree."
Indeed, before determining and fixing the opinions on that matter, I
should like every unbiassed mind to take a voyage round the world and devote
itself to a survey of different literatures in their primitive vigour and
infinite variety. What would be seen? Chief of all a Homer, the father of the
classical world, less a single distinct individual than the vast living
expression of a whole epoch and a semi-barbarous civilisation. In order to
make him a true classic, it was necessary to attribute to him later a design,
a plan, literary invention, qualities of atticism and urbanity of which he had
certainly never dreamed in the luxuriant development of his natural
inspirations. And who appear by his side? August, venerable ancients, the
Aeschyluses and the Sophocles, mutilated, it is true, and only there to
present us with a debris of themselves, the survivors of many others as
worthy, doubtless, as they to survive, but who have succumbed to the injuries
of time. This thought alone would teach a man of impartial mind not to look
upon the whole of even classical literatures with a too narrow and restricted
view; he would learn that the exact and well-proportioned order which has
since so largely prevailed in our admiration of the past was only the outcome
of artificial circumstances.
And in reaching the modern world, how would it be? The greatest names to
be seen at the beginning of literatures are those which disturb and run
counter to certain fixed ideas of what is beautiful and appropriate in poetry.
For example, is Shakespeare a classic? Yes, now, for England and the world;
but in the time of Pope he was not considered so. Pope and his friends were
the only pre-eminent classics; directly after their death they seemed so for
ever. At the present time they are still classics, as they deserve to be, but
they are only of the second order, and are for ever subordinated and relegated
to their rightful place by him who has again come to his own on the height of
the horizon.
It is not, however, for me to speak ill of Pope or his great disciples,
above all, when they posses pathos and naturalness like Goldsmith: after the
greatest they are perhaps the most agreeable writers and the poets best fitted
to add charm to life. Once when Lord Bolingbroke was writing to Swift, Pope
added a postscript, in which he said - "I think some advantage would result to
our age, if we three spent three years together." Men who, without boasting,
have the right to say such things must never be spoken of lightly: the
fortunate ages, when men of talent could propose such things, then no chimera,
are rather to be envied. The ages called by the name of Louis XIV. or of Queen
Anne are, in the dispassionate sense of the word, the only true classical
ages, those which offer protection and a favourable climate to real talent. We
know only too well how in our untrammelled times, through the instability and
storminess of the age, talents are lost and dissipated. Nevertheless, let us
acknowledge our age`s part and superiority in greatness. True and sovereign
genius triumphs over the very difficulties that cause others to fail: Dante,
Shakespeare, and Milton were able to attain their height and produce their
imperishable works in spite of obstacles, hardships and tempests. Byron`s
opinion of Pope has been much discussed, and the explanation of it sought in
the kind of contradiction by which the singer of Don Juan and Childe Harold
extolled the purely classical school and pronounced it the only good one,
while himself acting so differently. Goethe spoke the truth on that point when
he remarked that Byron, great by the flow and source of poetry, feared that
Shakespeare was more powerful than himself in the creation and realisation of
his characters. "He would have liked to deny it; the elevation so free from
egoism irritated him; he felt when near it that he could not display himself
at ease. He never denied Pope, because he did not fear him; he knew that Pope
was only a low wall by his side."
If, as Byron desired, Pope`s school had kept the supremacy and a sort of
honorary empire in the past, Byron would have been the first and only poet in
his particular style; the height of Pope`s wall shuts out Shakespeare`s great
figure from sight, whereas when Shakespeare reigns and rules in all his
greatness, Byron is only second.
In France there was no great classic before the age of Louis XIV.; the
Dantes and Shakespeares, the early authorities to whom, in times of
emancipation, men sooner or later return, were wanting. There were mere
sketches of great poets, like Mathurin Regnier, like Rabelais, without any
ideal, without the depth of emotion and the seriousness which canonises.
Montaigne was a kind of premature classic, of the family of Horace, but for
want of worthy surroundings, like a spoiled child, he gave himself up to the
unbridled fancies of his style and humour. Hence it happened that France, less
than any other nation, found in her old authors a right to demand vehemently
at a certain time literary liberty and freedom, and that it was more difficult
for her, in enfranchising herself, to remain classical. However, with Moliere
and La Fontaine among her classics of the great period, nothing could justly
be refused to those who possessed courage and ability.
The important point now seems to me to be to uphold, while extending, the
idea and belief. There is no receipt for making classics; this point should be
clearly recognised. To believe that an author will become a classic by
imitating certain qualities of purity, moderation, accuracy, and elegance,
independently of the style and inspiration, is to believe that after Racine
the father there is a place for Racine the son; dull and estimable role, the
worst in poetry. Further, it is hazardous to take too quickly and without
opposition the place of a classic in the sight of one`s contemporaries; in
that case there is a good chance of not retaining the position with posterity.
Fontanes in his day was regarded by his friends as a pure classic; see how at
twenty-five years` distance his star has set. How many of these precocious
classics are there who do not endure, and who are so only for a while! We turn
round one morning and are surprised not to find them standing behind us.
Madame de Sevigne would wittily say they possessed but an evanescent colour.
With regard to classics, the least expected prove the best and greatest: seek
them rather in the vigorous genius born immortal and flourishing for ever.
Apparently the least classical of the four great poets of the age of Louis
XIV. was Moliere; he was then applauded far more than he was esteemed; men
took delight in him without understanding his worth. After him, La Fontaine
seemed the least classical: observe after two centuries what is the result for
both. Far above Boileau, even above Racine, are they not now unanimously
considered to possess in the highest degree the characteristics of an
all-embracing morality?
Meanwhile there is no question of sacrificing or depreciating anything. I
believe the temple of taste is to be rebuilt; but its reconstruction is merely
a matter of enlargement, so that it may become the home of all noble human
beings, of all who have permanently increased the sum of the mind`s delights
and possessions. As for me, who cannot, obviously, in any degree pretend to be
the architect or designer of such a temple, I shall confine myself to
expressing a few earnest wishes, to submit, as it were, my designs for the
edifice. Above all I should desire not to exclude any one among the worthy,
each should be in his place there, from Shakespeare, the freest of creative
geniuses, and the greatest of classics without knowing it, to Andrieux, the
last of classics in little. "There is more than one chamber in the mansions of
my Father;" that should be as true of the kingdom of the beautiful here below,
as of the kingdom of Heaven. Homer, as always and everywhere, should be first,
likest a god; but behind him, like the procession of the three wise kings of
the East, would be seen the three great poets, the three Homers, so long
ignored by us, who wrote epics for the use of the old peoples of Asia, the
poets Valmiki, Vyasa of the Hindoos, and Firdousi of the Persians: in the
domain of taste it is well to know that such men exist, and not to divide the
human race. Our homage paid to what is recognized as soon as perceived, we
must not stray further; the eye should delight in a thousand pleasing or
majestic spectacles, should rejoice in a thousand varied and surprising
combinations, whose apparent confusion would never be without concord and
harmony. The oldest of the wise men and poets, those who put human morality
into maxims, and those who in simple fashion sung it, would converse together
in rare and gentle speech, and would not be surprised at understanding each
other`s meaning at the very first word. Solon, Hesiod, Theognis, Job, Solomon,
and why not Confucius, would welcome the cleverest moderns, La Rochefoucauld
and La Bruyere, who, when listening to them, would say "they knew all that we
know, and in repeating life`s experiences, we have discovered nothing." On the
hill, most easily discernible, and of most accessible ascent, Virgil,
surrounded by Menander, Tibullus, Terence, Fenelon, would occupy himself in
discoursing with them with great charm and divine enchantment: his gentle
countenance would shine with an inner light, and be tinged with modesty; as on
the day when entering the theatre at Rome, just as they finished reciting his
verses, he saw the people rise with an unanimous movement and pay to him the
same homage as to Augustus. Not far from him, regretting the separation from
so dear a friend, Horace, in his turn, would preside (as far as so
accomplished and wise a poet could preside) over the group of poets of social
life who could talk although they sang, - Pope, Boileau, the one become less
irritable, the other less fault-finding. Montaigne, a true poet would be
among them, and would give the finishing touch that should deprive that
delightful corner of the air of literary school. There would La Fontaine
forget himself, and becoming less volatile would wander no more. Voltaire
would be attracted by it, but while finding pleasure in it would not have
patience to remain. A little lower down, on the same hill as Virgil, Xenophon,
with simple bearing, looking in no way like a general, but rather resembling a
priest of the Muses, would be seen gathering round him the Attics of every
tongue and of every nation, the Addisons, Pellissons, Vauvenargues - all who
feel the value of an easy persuasiveness, an exquisite simplicity, and a
gentle negligence mingled with ornament. In the centre of the place, in the
portico of the principal temple (for there would be several in the enclosure),
three great men would like to meet often, and when they were together, no
fourth, however great, would dream of joining their discourse or their
silence. In them would be seen beauty, proportion in greatness, and that
perfect harmony which appears but once in the full youth of the world. Their
three names have become the ideal of art - Plato, Sophocles, and Demosthenes.
Those demi-gods honoured, we see a numerous and familiar company of choice
spirits who follow, the Cervantes and Molieres, practical painters of life,
indulgent friends who are still the first of benefactors, who laughingly
embrace all mankind, turn man`s experience to gaiety, and know the powerful
workings of a sensible, hearty, and legitimate joy. I do not wish to make this
description, which if complete would fill a volume, any longer. In the middle
ages, believe me, Dante would occupy the sacred heights: at the feet of the
singer of Paradise all Italy would be spread out like a garden; Boccaccio and
Ariosto would there disport themselves, and Tasso would find again the orange
groves of Sorrento. Usually a corner would be reserved for each of the various
nations, but the authors would take delight in leaving it, and in their
travels would recognise, where we should least expect it, brothers or masters.
Lucretius, for example, would enjoy discussing the origin of the world and the
reducing of chaos to order with Milton. But both arguing from their own point
of view, they would only agree as regards divine pictures of poetry and
nature.
Such are our classics; each individual imagination may finish the sketch
and choose the group preferred. For it is necessary to make a choice, and the
first condition of taste, after obtaining knowledge of all, lies not in
continual travel, but in rest and cessation from wandering. Nothing blunts and
destroys taste so much as endless journeyings; the poetic spirit is not the
Wandering Jew. However, when I speak of resting and making choice, my meaning
is not that we are to imitate those who charm us most among our masters in the
past. Let us be content to know them, to penetrate them, to admire them; but
let us, the late-comers, endeavour to be ourselves. Let us have the
sincerity and naturalness of our own thoughts, of our own feelings; so much is
always possible. To that let us add what is more difficult, elevation, an aim,
if possible, towards an exalted goal; and while speaking our own language, and
submitting to the conditions of the times in which we live, whence we derive
our strength and our defects, let us ask from time to time, our brows lifted
towards the heights and our eyes fixed on the group of honoured mortals: what
would they say of us?
But why speak always of authors and writings? Maybe an age is coming when
there will be no more writing. Happy those who read and read again, those who
in their reading can follow their unrestrained inclination! There comes a time
in life when, all our journeys over, our experiences ended, there is no
enjoyment more delightful than to study and thoroughly examine the things we
know, to take pleasure in what we feel, and in seeing and seeing again the
people we love: the pure joys of our maturity. Then it is that the word
classic takes its true meaning, and is defined for every man of taste by an
irresistible choice. Then taste is formed, it is shaped and definite; then
good sense, if we are to possess it at all, is perfected in us. We have
neither more time for experiments, nor a desire to go forth in search of
pastures new. We cling to our friends, to those proved by long intercourse.
Old wine, old books, old friends. We say to ourselves with Voltaire in these
delightful lines: - "Let us enjoy, let us write, let us live, my dear Horace!
... I have lived longer than you: my verse will not last so long. But on the
brink of the tomb I shall make it my chief care - to follow the lessons of
your philosophy - to despise death in enjoying life - to read your writings
full of charm and good sense - as we drink an old wine which revives our
senses."
In fact, be it Horace or another who is the author preferred, who
reflects our thoughts in all the wealth of their maturity, of some one of
those excellent and antique minds shall we request an interview at every
moment; of some one of them shall we ask a friendship which never deceives,
which could not fail us; to some one of them shall we appeal for that
sensation of serenity and amenity (we have often need of it) which reconciles
us with mankind and with ourselves.
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