At 09:40 AM 11/24/00 -0500, Roger Kuin wrote:
>Were the attitudes to Chaucer not essentially those of earlier poets,
>readers, critics and humanists toward Homer? One always gave a nod to Homer,
>as guests and midshipmen coming aboard might salute the quarterdeck; but
>what one *really* admired was Virgil, so much more polished, so much more in
>tune with imperial themes. Homer was the pater patriae literarum, but Virgil
>and of course Horace were the real role models? This did not stop anyone
>admiring Homer, but really, my dear, would one want to write an *Iliad*
>nowadays?
Quite. The one thorough-going attempt to write a modern _Iliad_ was
Trissino's _Italia liberata dai Gotti_.* It was, by most accounts, a
spectacular failure. Tasso and Cinzio disagree about a lot of things, but
Trissino's epic is not one of them: this is a _bad_ poem. What's surprising
to me is that neither critic associates Trissino's badness with his
allegiance to Homer. According to Tasso and Cinzio, the problem with
Trissino is not that he is crude (a Homeric failing), but that his
classicism leaves us cold (a Virgilian failing; see, for instance, book 3
of Tasso's _Discorsi dell'arte poetica_ on _il magnifico_ and _il freddo_).
Ronsard also tried to write an epic on the Homeric model, but then changed
his mind. In the first preface to the _Franciade_ (1572), Ronsard boasts
that he patterned his work "plustost sur la nai:ve facilite/ d' Homere, que
sur la curieuse diligence de Virgile." The third and final preface (1587)
takes a different stance. Instead of sniping at Virgil's "curieuse
diligence," Ronsard now remembers reading and memorizing Virgil in his
schooldays, "portant toujours son livre en la main," and cites examples
from Virgil with unmitigated approval.
Roger continues,
> And Spenser does seem to send a different message: I can acknowledge the
>Homeric well of English undefiled [undefiled by what, incidentally?] *and*
>I can be the English Virgil *and* at the same time I can write ultra-modern
>Italian stuff while acknowledging Chaucer/Homer's language in every other
>word *and* I can celebrate Queen and country *and* I can fashion a gentleman
>or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline. Top that, Sir Philip. No?
Yes and no.
No. Insofar as the poet is talking about the well of English, Spenser is to
Chaucer as Virgil was, not to Homer, but to Ennius, the Old Latin chronicle
poet. Cf. Du Bellay on Virgil and Cicero in _Deffence et illustration_ 1.7
et passim.
Yes. Chaucer is crude but good (like Homer). Ennius is just crude. This, it
seems to me, is where Spenser departs from the Continental theorists.
According to Du Bellay, Virgil and Cicero enriched Latin, not by going back
to their ancestors, but by going outside of the Latin tradition altogether,
to the Greeks (to Homer and Demosthenes); French writers, says Du Bellay,
should follow their example. Spenser takes a different path. Like a good
humanist, he announces a return to the source (ad fontes). The difference
is that Spenser's fons (the well of English) is on native soil. He doesn't
have to go outside of the English tradition because, unlike Du Bellay, what
he's really interested in is reform. Like Eliot, in the fourth movement of
"Little Gidding," Spenser wants to _purify_ the dialect of the tribe.
Or so his reference to the unsullied well would seem to suggest. This
brings us back to Roger's question: undefiled by what? Here's a tentative
suggestion: Euphuism, perhaps as practiced in the _Arcadia_.
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David Wilson-Okamura http://geoffreychaucer.org [log in to unmask]
Macalester College Chaucer: An Annotated Guide to Online Resources
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