The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 34, August, 1860. Various
the power of material expression.
Thus art was the main category of the Greeks, the absolute form which embraced all their finite forms. It moulded their literature, as it did their sculpture, architecture, and the action of their gymnasts and orators. They therefore delighted only in the highest orders and purest specimens of literature, refused to retain in remembrance any of the unsuccessful attempts at poetry which may be supposed to have preceded Homer, and gave their homage only to masterpieces in the dignified styles of the epic, the drama, the lyric, the history, or the philosophical discussion. Equal to the highest creations, they refused to tolerate anything lower; and they knew not the novel, because their poetical notions were never left in a nebulous, prosaic state, but were always developed into poetry.
Another reason, doubtless, was the wonderful activity of the Greek mind, finding its amusement and relaxation in the forum, theatre, gymnasium, or even the barber's shop, in constant mutual contact, in learning wisdom and news by word of mouth. The long stories which they may have told to each other, as an outlet for their natural vitality, as extemporaneous exercises of curiosity and wit and fancy, did not creep into their literature, which included only more mature and elaborate attempts.
The modern novel was born of Christianity and feudalism. It is the child of contemplation,—of that sort of luxurious intellectual mood which has always distinguished the Oriental character, and was first Europeanized in the twilight of the mediæval period. The fallen Roman Empire was broken into countless fragments, which became feudal baronies. The heads of the newly organized society were lordly occupants of castles, who in time of peace had little to do. They were isolated from their neighbors by acres, forests, and a stately etiquette, if not actual hostility. There was no open-air theatre in the vicinity, no forum alive with gossip and harangues, no public games, not even a loquacious barber's shop. During the intervals between public or private wars,—when the Turks were unmolested, the crescent and the dragon left in harmless composure, and no Christians were in mortal turmoil with each other,—it is little wonder that restless knights went forth from their loneliness errant in quest of adventures. What was there to occupy life in those barricaded stone-towers?
It was then that the domestic passion, love, rose into dignity. Homage to woman assumed the potency of an idea, chivalry arose, and its truth, honor, and obeisance were the first social responses from mankind to Christianity. The castle was the emblem and central figure of the time: it was the seat of power, the arena of manners, the nursery of love, and the goal of gallantry; and around it hovered the shadows of religion, loyalty, heroism. Domestic events, the private castellar life, were thus exalted; but they could hardly suffice to engross and satisfy the spirit of a warrior and crusader. A new diversion and excitement were demanded, and soon, in response to the call, minstrels began to roam from castle to castle, from court to court, telling long stories of heroism and singing light songs of love. A spark from the Saracenic schools and poets of Spain may have flitted into Provence to kindle the elements of modern literature into its first development, the songs of the Troubadours. Almost contemporary were the lays of the Minnesingers in Germany and the romances of the Trouvères in Northern France. Beneath the brooding spirit of a new civilization signs of life had at length appeared, and Europe became vocal in every part with fantastic poems, lyrical in the South, epical in the North. They were wildly exuberant products, because severe art was unknown, but simple, naïve, and gay, and suited to the taste of a time when the classics were regarded as superstitiously as the heavens. Love and heroism, which somehow are the leading themes of literature in all ages, now assumed the chivalric type in the light hands of the earliest modern poets.
Yet these songs and metrical romances were most inadequate representatives of the undeveloped principles which lay at the root of Christian civilization. Even Hellenic genius might here have been at fault, for it was a far harder task to give harmonious and complete expression to the tendencies of a new religion and the germs of new systems, than to frame into beauty the pagan clear-cut conceptions. The Christian mind awoke under a fascination, and, for a time, could only ejaculate its meanings in fragments, or hint them in vast disproportions, could only sing snatches of new tunes. Its first signs were gasps, rather than clear-toned notes, after the long perturbations and preparations of history. The North and the South, the East and the West had been mingled together; the heated and heaving mass had been tempered by the leaven of Christianity:—and had all this been done only to produce an octo-syllabic metre in praise of fantastic and semi- barbaric sentiments and exploits? Had there been such commotions of the universe only for a song? Surely these first creations of art, these first attempts at literature, these first carvings of a rude spiritual intensity, were only such as the Greeks may have forgotten any quantity of before Homer came, their first glory and their oldest reminiscence.
One reason, perhaps, why mediæval literature assumed so light and unartistic a form was, that by necessity it could not be full-orbed. Religion could not enter into it as a plastic element, but was fixed, a veiled, external figure, radiating indeed color and fragrance, but not making one of the struggling, independent vitals of the heart. Literature could play about this figure, but could not grasp it, and take it in among the materials to be fashioned. The Church, through its clergy, held jealous command of divine knowledge, beneath divine guidance, and left no developments of it possible to the lay mind, which culminated in minstrels and romancers. The Greeks, on the contrary, whose religion was an apotheosis of the earth, framed upwards and only by fiction of fancy handed downwards, derived all their theology from the poets. Prophecy and taste were combined in Homer,—Isaiah and the king's jester in Pindar. The care of the highest, not less than the lowest departments of thought, fell upon the creative author, and a happy suggestion became a new article in the Hellenic creed. His composition thus bore the burden and was hallowed by the sanctity of piety, the key to every human perfect thing. But the Provençal celebrators of love and chivalry had no such dignity in their task. The solemnities of thought and life were cared for and hedged about by the Church as its own peculiar treasure, and to them there remained only the lighter office of amusing. The age was eminently religious, but the poet could not aid in erecting and adorning its temples. Every fair work of art must have a central idea; but the proper principle of unity for all grand artistic efforts not being within the reach of authors, it followed that their productions were not symmetrical, did not have an even outline nor cosmical meaning, did not consist of balanced parts, were poorly framed and articulated, and were charming only by their flavor, and not by their form. The cultured intellect will not seriously work short of a final principle; and if a materialized religion, an ecclesiastical structure, be firmly planted on the earth by the same hand that established the universe and tapestried it with morning and evening, and if its gates and archways, its altar, columns, and courts be given in trust to chosen stewards as a divine priesthood, then the highest problem of being is not a human problem, and the mind of the laity has nothing more important to do than to play with the flowers of gallant love and heroism. Such was the feeling, perhaps the unconscious reasoning, of the founders of modern literature, as they began their labors in the alcoves of that church architecture which covered Christendom, embracing and symbolically expressing all its ideas and institutes. Therefore some vice of imperfection, a character of frivolity, or an artificially serious treatment of lightsome subjects marked all the literature of the time, which resembled that grotesque and unaccountable mathematical figure that has its centre outside of itself.
Modern literature thus had its origin in romantic metrical pieces, which, in the next stage, were transformed into prose novels. Two circumstances contributed to this change,—a change which could not have been anticipated; for the Trouvère fabliaux and romans promised only epics, and the Troubadour chansons and tensons promised only lyrics and dramas. But the mind was now obliged to traverse the unbeaten paths of the Christian universe; it was overwhelmed by the extent of its range, the richness and delicacy of its materials; it could with difficulty poise itself amid the indefinite heights and depths which encompassed it, and with greater difficulty could wield the magician's rod which should sway the driving elements into artistic reconstruction. This mental inadequacy alone would not have created the novel, but would only have made lyrics and epics rare, the works of superior minds. The second and cooperating circumstance was the prevalence of the Christian and feudal habit of contemplation, which made constant literature a necessity. Nothing less than eternal new romances could save the lords, the ladies, and the dependents from ennui. But to supply