An Image of the Times. Nils-Johan Jorgensen
nigh befits the comic sock. Let each style keep the becoming place allotted it.)
But Horace adds that sometimes the tragic and the comic laguage may overlap to convey the right feelings, ‘at times even comedy raises her voice’. Jonson had also marked the section on tradition and originality in art, which gives preference to conventional models in artistic imitation:
Si quid inexpertum scenae committis et audes
Personam formare novam, servetur ad imum:
Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.
(If it is an untried theme you entrust to the stage, and if you boldly fashion a fresh character, have it kept to the end as it came forth at the first, and have it self-consistent.)
The remarks on convention in imitation is part of the whole concept of decorum in character and links up perfectly with the next annotation which expands the section on decorum of age to express the psychological features appropriate to the four ages of Man – childhood, youth, maturity and old age:
Multa ferunt anni venientes commoda secum,
Multa recedentes adimunt. Ne forte seniles
Mandentur iuveni partes pueroque viriles:
Semper in adiunctis aevoque morabimur aptis.
(Many blessings do the advancing years bring with them; many as they retire, they take away. So, lest haply we assign a youth the part of age, or a boy that of manhood, we shall ever linger over traits that are joined and fitted to the age.)
Added to the psychological appropriateness of age the manuscript outlines the correct behaviour for the child, the unbearded youth, the grown man and the old man.
The section on the principle of dramatic unity, the unity of beginning, middle and end, is clearly annotated with stress on the line Primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum (the middle is not discordant with the beginning, nor the end with the middle). Further, the parallels between creative writing and painting are noted, ut pictura, pöesis (a poem is like a picture), and the way art pleases, Haec placuit semel, haec deciens repetita placebit (this pleased but once; that, though ten times called for, will always please). The warning against the average and minor poet and publication of inferior works, Nescit vox missa reverti (the word once sent forth can never come back) is also underlined.
Jonson’s translation of the Ars Poetica and the frequent references to Horace and his works both in the conversations with Drummond and in the Discoveries defines Horace as the classical inspirator who had been selected to play a main part. The Horatian rules, decorum of speech, age (and the relevant psychology and behaviour for each age), occupation, social position, nationality and genre were not challenged. To Jonson, Horace was the master of virtue and wisdom:
Either follow tradition or invent what is self-consistent. If haply, when you write, you bring back to the stage the honouring of Achilles, let him be impatient, passionate, ruthless, fierce; let him claim that laws are not made for him, let him ever make appeal to the sword. Let Medea be fierce and unyielding, Ino tearful, Ixion forsworn, Io a wanderer, Orestes sorrowful. If it is an untried theme you entrust to the stage, and if you boldly fashion a fresh character, have it kept to the end even as it came forth at the first, and have it self-consistent.22
But Horace was not the only guide among the ancients. Horatian theories reached back to similar concepts in the Aristotelian writing. Jonson had strong views on ancestry and the importance of mentors and masters. Few men, he insisted, were wise by their own counsel or learned by their own teaching. Jonson’s signature and even his motto are found in some of the copies of Aristotle’s works in his library without annotations and underlining, but the importance of Aristotelian critical theory was made perfectly clear by Jonson:
Aristotle was the first accurate Criticke, and truest Judge; nay, the greatest Philosopher, the world ever had: for, hee noted the vices of all knowledges, in all creatures, and out of many men’s perfections in a Science, has formed still one Art. So hee taught us two Offices together, how we ought to judge rightly of others, and what wee ought to imitate specially in our selves.23
Again, the focus is on judgment and imitation according to a set of rules. The Aristotelian comment on decorum of age, sex and nationality comes very close to the later Horatian ideal. The same standard is apparent in the four Aristotelian qualities of the dramatic character. The first point is that the character must be good. Natural goodness can be found in any type of person, independent of birth, rank and position. Thus, a slave may be portrayed as good. It is only in the ‘dramatic picture of the Ridiculous’ that the bad, unworthy or ugly characters appear. The second quality is appropriateness that outlines the differences between the sexes and, for example, rules out cleverness in a woman, but Jonson portrayed the intelligent woman (cf Sempronia in Catiline). The third requirement is to identify character with reality, the obedience to an accepted pattern of man in society. The final point is consistency in characterization. It rules out any change or development of character away from the original conception: ‘Even if inconsistency be part of the man before one for imitation as presenting that form of character, he should still be consistently inconsistent.’24
Hippocrates’25 essay on decorum has reference to the medical science and sets out to instruct physicians in correct manners and behaviour. The didactic aim in the treatise is moral as well as practical and the author identifies wisdom with the qualities of medicine:
Between wisdom and medicine there is no gulf fixed; in fact medicine possesses all the qualities that make for wisdom. It has disinterestedness, shamefastness, modesty, reserve, sound opinion, judgment, quiet, pugnacity, purity, sententious speech, knowledge of the things good and necessary for life…26
The members of the medical profession should behave in a way proper to the religious and cultural beliefs of their society. The physician was no rebel against the religion of his day, but had ‘given place to the gods’. Hippocrates also highlights the importance of good manners and conduct by the phycisian in his relationship with the patient. The essay is not limited to the rules of conduct for the medical profession, but favours a behaviour which ‘make for good reputation and decorum … in the arts generally’.27
He issues a warning against the misuse of wisdom and the love of unseemliness, vulgarity and hypocrisy. He portrays the hypocrites in this way:
You should mark them by their dress, and by the rest of their attire; for even if magnificiently adorned, they should much more be shunned and hated by those who behold them.28
In contrast, he highlights the ideal of a Stoic balance and modesty of behaviour. This ideal reflects the idea of the Golden Mean and points forward to the Renaissance concept of the perfectly balanced man in whom the elements and humours are equally mixed.
The gang of four mainly responsible for the introduction and elaboration of the term decorum, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Cicero and Horace, did not make a distinction between a general and social, and a particular and aesthetic use of the term. The Ciceronian account of decorum is closely related to the ideas set down by Aristotle, but Erasmus, as Terentian commentator, pointed to two types of decorum of character. On the one hand was social decorum, the established rules and mirror of custom and on the other the aesthetic or artistic decorum which gave the writer the freedom of judgement to distinguish between characters, to present characters of the same general type differently, he might present two old men, of the same rank, but of opposite temperament and disposition. This difference between a social and an aesthetic approach was formulated by Erasmus in De Ratione Studii (1511). The comic writer created a vast variety of characters and situations and Erasmus illustrates this with particular reference to Terence (Andria and The Brothers). The playwright must use his own judgment:
In comedy, first of all decorum must be preserved, and the imitation of common life; the emotions milder, pleasant rather than sharp. Not only must a general decorum be regarded, namely that young people fall in love, panders swear falsely, the courtesan