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Further examples could be cited; but these are enough to bring before us clearly the impossibility of assuming in all the artists of Greek and Roman antiquity even an approximately uniform proportioning of our fundamental elements, and the impossibility of gaining from their work in the mass any substantial help towards a clear conception of "classical," as the mark of a tendency as distinct from a period.

III

But if we turn to the second alternative, and give our attention to the qualities which we have in mind when we contrast the antique with the medieval or the modern, we are more likely to be rewarded. This contrast appears perhaps most distinctly, not in literature, but in the arts of sculpture and architecture. When we think of the difference between the Parthenon and the Cathedral of Chartres, we are at once aware of clearly opposed tendencies. In the one we find exquisite proportion and clearly marked symmetry, a strict avoidance of everything unnecessary and irrelevant, resulting in a chaste simplicity, a fine adjustment of means to ends, a marked unity of conception due largely to a parsimony of detail. In the other, proportion and symmetry are less satisfying; much that is irrelevant, from a rational point of view, is piled on in the effort to obtain richness rather than simplicity; and unity is not so much realized as suggested by a multitude of details, that, in their combined effect, do succeed in rousing a powerful if often vague emotion. The one satisfies through a sense of perfect achievement; the other inspires through a sense of infinite striving. The one expresses a temperament fundamentally rational, refusing to attempt the impossible, setting before it a clearly defined aim, and, by virtue of an admirable power of fitting means to ends, achieving that aim. The other expresses a temperament fundamentally imaginative, enamoured of mystery, ever striving to grasp the infinite, and, by virtue of the intensity of its vision, drawing others to share its aspiration, but failing of perfect expression. The one satisfies with a sense of repose; the other stirs an insatiable yearning. The one is classical; the other romantic.

This conception of classicism can be still farther defined by contrast with realism. Com

1

pare, for example, two descriptions of persons, each fairly representative of its kind. In the first book of the Æneid, Virgil introduces Dido in the following terms:

While on such spectacle Æneas' eyes

Looked wondering, while mute and motionless
He stood at gaze, Queen Dido to the shrine
In lovely majesty drew near; a throng
Of youthful followers pressed round her way.
So by the margin of Eurotas wide

Or o'er the Cynthian steep, Diana leads
Her bright processional ; hither and yon
Are visionary legions numberless
Of Oreads; the regnant goddess bears
A quiver on her shoulders, and is seen
Emerging tallest of her beauteous train;
While joy unutterable thrills the breast
Of fond Latona: Dido not less fair

Amid her subjects passed, and not less bright
Her glow of gracious joy, while she approved
Her future kingdom's pomp and vast emprise.
Then at the sacred portal and beneath
The temple's vaulted dome she took her place,
Encompassed by armed men, and lifted high
Upon a throne; her statutes and decrees
The people heard, and took what lot or toil
Her sentence, or impartial urn, assigned.1

The classical quality of this description appears both in the aim and in the method. The poet is seeking to present, not a portrait, but a type; to convey a general, not a particular, impression of beauty and majesty, and so is concerned with large outlines, definite enough to place the figure in its class, rather than with specific details which might serve to identify an individual. The method by which this is accomplished is seen in the use of general terms, "forma pulcherrima," " supereminet," "laeta" (made, unfortunately, more specific and elaborate in the translation), by the singleness of the action described, a stately processional approach, then the administration of justice, as the queen sits enthroned with an appropriately imposing architectural background; and, finally, by the method of the epic simile. Here direct description is abandoned, and the main impression is produced, not by terms that draw on first-hand sensuous experience, but by allusion to another typical figure, by the resort to a traditional image in which the main conceptions of beauty and majesty are conventionally embodied in the moon goddess, and which had already been used by Homer for a similar purpose.

1 Eneid, 1, 494-519; trans. Williams.

Consider, now, a personal description by Chaucer:

A good wif was ther of bisidė Bathe,

But she was som-del deef, and that was scathe.

Of clooth makyng she hadde swich an haunt
She passed hem of Ypres and of Gaunt.
In al the parisshe wif ne was ther noon
That to th' offrynge bifore hire sholdė goon :
And if ther dide, certeyn so wrooth was she,
That she was out of alle charitee.

Hir coverchiefs ful fynė weren of ground, -
I dorste swere they weyeden ten pound,
That on a Sonday weren upon her heed.
Her hosen weren of fyn scarlet reed,
Ful streite y-teyd, and shoes ful moyste and newe;
Boold was hir face, and fair, and reed of hewe.
She was a worthy womman al her lyvė ;
Housbondes at chirche dore she hadde fyvė
Withouten oother compaignye in youthe
(But ther of nedeth not to speke as nowthe).
And thries hadde she been at Ierusalem;
She haddė passed many a straungė strem :
At Rome she hadde been, and at Boloigne,
In Galice at Seint Iame and at Coloigne.
She koudė muchel of wandrynge by the weye,
Gat-tothed was she, soothly for to seye.
Upon an amblere esily she sat,
Y-wympled wel, and on her heed an hat
As brood as is a bokeler or a targe;
A foot mantel about hir hipes large,
And on hire feet a paire of spores sharpe.
In felaweship wel koude she laughe and carpe ;
Of remedies of love she knew per chaunce,
For she koude of that art the olde daunce. 1

Here both aim and method are clearly in contrast with those we have observed in Virgil. We have now to deal with a portrait, not with

1 Canterbury Tales, Prologue, vv. 445-476.

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