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. 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 Or o'er the Cynthian steep, Diana leads Amid her subjects passed, and not less bright 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 Hir coverchiefs ful fynė weren of ground, - 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. |