Personality in Literature | Page 8

Shakespeare to precede them, were in
bondage to that influential philosopher, had a lasting effect upon
French literature which the mighty influence of Hugo was insufficient

to destroy. But at least the example of these Classicist writers has
proved that literature itself is not only profoundly affected, but made
and unmade, by theories of literature. And Corneille and Racine
bestowed at any rate this immeasurable benefit on their countrymen:
they taught them the lesson of form and technique--a lesson which they
have never forgotten, which is illustrated as much in fiction as in
drama--in Merimée, Flaubert, Maupassant and Anatole France.
Shakespeare, on the contrary, whose influence on English literature has
been supreme since the beginning of the Romantic movement, provided
no obvious model for the student of form. To the casual reader his very
imagination seems to be lawlessness and extravagance, carrying him
tempestuously and recklessly into the mêlée of poetry. But every
careful reader knows that Shakespeare was not so reckless as he seems;
observe how rigidly he conformed to the conditions prescribed by the
Elizabethan theatre and audience; it is to the credit of his technique that
he complied with these exacting conditions without cramping the finer
issues of poetry and drama. And in the broader sense of the term
Shakespeare's form was precisely proportionate to his genius, though it
is seen rather in the transcendence of his poetry and the management by
which his persons are swept along on their own characters than in those
more obvious elements of form--structure of plot, the subservience of
dialogue and incident to the dramatic purpose, and all the minor
probabilities and proprieties. But it is just the obvious elements which
are most noticeable to those who study form in a superficial way; for
those who imitate Shakespeare, or are influenced by him, his careless
freedom and extravagance often bulk larger than the expression of
genius which made trifles of these defects. A result is that throughout
the nineteenth century Shakespeare has been for English authors not
always an inspiration, but a national pretext for decrying technique.
And yet those who had the insight and the power to restore
Shakespeare in all his fulness to English readers were wholly free from
this ignorance--conspicuously Charles Lamb and S.T. Coleridge.
Coleridge was indeed the first of Englishmen to think out anything like
a complete and satisfactory theory of poetry and the fine arts. The
supreme value of his theory comes from the fact that he was one of the
few who had actually experienced those creative impulses which as a

theorist he endeavoured to account for. He had had the inspiration of
poetry; he had achieved it; and to that extent he had indisputable
evidence before him. If only on the one hand he had extended his
method a little further than he did, and taken into consideration that
formal side of art which is dear to classicism, and on the other hand
been more confident--or shall I say less shy?--when he considered the
origin of the creative imagination, the ideal conceiver and creator of
Natura Naturata, then his scheme would have been complete--probably
too complete. On the latter subject, however, he threw out hints which
were broad enough, and did not wholly shun the controversial sphere of
metaphysics. The critic who would avoid the heights and depths of
mysticism would do well to imitate his reserve, and exceed him in
metaphysical diffidence.
"Good Sense is the Body of poetic genius," said Coleridge, "Fancy its
Drapery, Motion its Life, and Imagination the Soul that is everywhere,
and in each; and forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole." It is
by that "synthetic and magical power" which he calls "imagination"
that the poet "brings the whole soul of man into activity," and "diffuses
a tone and spirit of unity." Coleridge's theory of the Fine Arts
presupposes his metaphysic; and it asserts the primacy of the reason.
"Of all we see, hear, feel and touch the substance is and must be in
ourselves: and therefore there is no alternative in reason between the
dreary (and, thank Heaven! almost impossible) belief that everything
around us is but a phantom, or that the life which is in us is in them
likewise.... The artist must imitate that which is within the thing, that
which is active through form and figure, and discourses to us by
symbols."
He defines the beautiful as "that in which the many, still seen as many,
becomes one," and takes as an instance: "The frost on the windowpane
has by accident crystallised into a striking resemblance of a tree or a
sea-weed. With what pleasure we trace the parts, and their relation to
each other and to the whole." "The beautiful arises from the perceived
harmony of an object, whether sight or sound, with