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out typical qualities, to be sure, but first of all of an individual, whom one is bound to believe the poet had actually seen, whose appearance he had minutely observed and vividly remembered. Since, then, he is not seeking to place her in a class, the method of allusion by the simile is not employed: there is no gaining of a general idea by a traditional comparison; and in place of vague and general terms, everything is specific and capable of identification. The sense of fact, of what has been actually observed, dominates the piece, while in the contrasted passage from Virgil the result we have noted is the effect of a reasoned selection, the comparatively few details being chosen because they combine well into a picture which harmonizes with the epic whole of which it forms a part. A crowd of homely familiar details, such as give Chaucer's realistic portrait its peculiar actuality, would be hopelessly out of place in the classical narrative. It would be like a flannel patch on a silk gown. Actuality of Chaucer's kind was not Virgil's aim, but rather a formal beauty for which the law had already been given by tradition, and which could be achieved only by a conscious restraint, by severe selection, by the use of a trained judgment in matters of harmony and proportion in short, by the domination of reason.

So numerous and so exquisite are the instances of this kind of beauty in the literature of Greece and Rome, that, though the art of these countries exhibits a great variety of phases and tendencies, and is at times romantic or realistic as well as classic, it is still the most obvious source to which we turn when we want examples of the classic in the sense in which we are seeking to define it. We must recognize that it is by no mere accident that classic is so often used to describe antique art as a whole, however much we regret the loss of discrimination which this equation implies.

IV

There is still a third connection in which the term Classical is used. All the greater European literatures, to say nothing of some of the Asiatic, contain sections which are described in the text-books as the Classical Period. In so far as this is used to imply merely that in such a period the national literature reached its highest point, the phrase has no immediate interest for us; and this application of the word must be set aside with that already disposed of, by which any undisputed masterpiece is termed a classic. But in France, for example, the age of Corneille, Racine, and Molière is known as the classical period, not only because of the excellence of the literature then produced, but because of the nature of that excellence; and the name is employed even by those who are hostile to its whole spirit and who depreciate its achievement. So in England we have a classical age and a classical school of poetry, which is not the age of the greatest masters, and the poetry of which has even been charged with lacking altogether the essential spirit of poetry. What, then, do we mean when we call Pope the head of the classical school in England? Is the reference to Greek and Roman antiquity? or is it to that essence of classicism which we found characteristic, indeed, of antiquity, but by no means always present there?

The answer to these questions is that it is partly both, but neither altogether. The period conventionally known as the Eighteenth Century in English Literature, the period, that is, extending from Waller and Dryden to the death of Dr. Johnson, had, in fact, quite discernible relations with antiquity, though these relations were perhaps hardly as close as the writers of that age supposed. Their criticism, for example, was based, as they believed, upon the precepts of Aristotle and Horace and on the practice of Homer and Virgil and of the Greek dramatists; and they made valiant efforts to carry their critical principles into operation. Underlying these efforts were certain assumptions that are of profound importance in testing the claims of this period to the name classical in any sense. It was assumed that from the criticism of Aristotle, and from the masterpieces of his contemporaries, rules could be deduced, which, if followed, would lead to the production of similar classical masterpieces. And the chief aid to the following of these rules was to be found in imitation, in the use, say, of Homer as a model for the epic poet, or of Sophocles for the dramatic poet. The traditionalism which we have noted as already apparent in the epic manner of Virgil is here carried to an extreme, and experience and the personal vision are alike ignored in the quest for the secret of the ancients. The nature of the rules they deduced is well known. The dramatic unities are the most notorious. Another is the law of decorum, which forbade any speech or action out of character, the character intended being not individual but typical. A typical gentleman, for example, fought only with men of his own rank, therefore it was laid down that no man in a tragedy could kill another, unless the laws of the duel permitted them to encounter. Othello is thus condemned for murdering Desdemona, not because his suspicions were unfounded, but because decorum forbade a man to kill a woman, since he was not allowed to meet her on the field of honor. Philosophy, says a typical critic of the time, tells us that it is a principle in the nature of man to be grateful. Ingratitude is therefore unnatural, and a poet must not depict the unnatural, however history and fact may present him with instances of it. Therefore an ungrateful character is a blot on a play.

This last instance shows us that, as we noted in the discussion of the romantic senses of " nature," the eighteenth century also claimed to follow nature. For this age, nature is what normally happens; and the rules of that day found a double sanction - in nature so defined, and in the practice of the ancients.

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