CHAPTER XXV

LITERARY ECHOING: THE CONCEPTION OF LITERATURE AS A SECOND NATURE

I

This will be a short chapter on a very large subject. Indeed, we may almost say that the one half of poetic effect rests upon a basis of what is here called literary echoing. We have already seen' how, in the maturity of poetry that follows the Renaissance, the saneness of its balance depends on the union of the Romantic and the Classic, as the centrifugal and centripetal impulses in poetry: the Romantic, that looks to freshness and novelty; the Classic, that tunes itself in harmony with accepted forms, and gives to what is intrinsically beautiful the added beauty of familiarity and reminiscence.

What is implied is not the mere fact that certain poets use traditional material: the echoing extends to the minutest details epithets, names, sentence structure, conventional turns of expression. An otiose acceptance of the fact that there is resemblance will not do: the resemblances are reminiscences, and yet reminiscences subdued to the delicate faintness of the 'echo.' Readers steeped in the poetry of Virgil and Milton understand well what is meant: for those who need explanation the literary echo can only be illustrated by a large body of detailed examples. Elsewhere, in a discussion of Milton, I have endeavored to provide this at considerable length; though I feel the unsatisfactoriness of such treatment, which is like the attempt to explain humor. What we are here concerned with is the place of all this in literary theory. Two points may be

'Above, chapter iv, page 88.

• World Literature, pages 196–219.

noted. In the phrase of the late Professor Conington1-who more than anyone else has emphasized this feature of poetic art-poetic accumulations of the past become to each poet of the classical succession a 'second nature,' and 'truth to nature' becomes felicitous reminiscence of the familiar. Again: in pure imaginative creation-that contrasts with realistic storyeach new departure involves an imaginative effort on the part of the reader; some coherence with the poetry of the past gives a kind of support for the novelty, and for the world of imagination reminiscence takes the place of evidence.

In any kind of literature the effect of echoing the past may appear: but there are three fields of poetry which are specially 'Classical' in this sense.

When we make Hellenic civilization one of the bases of modern culture, it must be remembered that the literary representation of this is not the national literatures of Greece and Rome, but only that small proportion of these which has grown apart as a separate literature under the name of 'Classics.' The first masterpieces of Greek poetry, and the successors and imitations of these, make a closed circle of poetry, in which the same matter and forms are reiterated, while each poet of this Classical succession seems to value himself most on the degree to which his poetry reflects the poetry that has preceded him. Chief of this Classical succession is Virgil, who comes at the end, and depends more than any other poet upon the reminiscent element in his works. The Eclogues of Virgil seem to have little positive poetic quality except that his Roman creations should think the thoughts, and speak in the forms, and often in the names, of Sicilian predecessors. And even the great epic dedicated to the providential mission of the Roman Empire is occupied with laying the foundations of this conception in the field of Homeric poetry."

'Introduction to the Eclogues in his edition of Virgil. Compare World Literature, pages 157-62.

Again: it is the same with the second of our foundation civilizations: its literary representation is not the whole literary output of the Hebrew people, but that extremely small part of it which constitutes the books of the Bible. Though the term is not often so used, yet in truth these are the 'Classics' of Hebraism. The spirit that binds these into a unity is still closer than that of Greek Classics. Hence the great masterpiece of literary echoing is found in the poem that closes the Bible and serves as its epilogue. This Revelation' takes the form of a succession of mystic visions, moving with increasing mystery to a central point, at which the shout of all heaven's hosts proclaims the key to all mystery in the recognition of Jesus Christ, supreme over all authorities, center of all history. What these visions present is, not events and incidents, but symbols; all of them veiled echoes of Old Testament symbols; the light of prophecy changes into converging rays of light, all pointing to Jesus Christ.

But there is a third field of Classical effect: such modern poetry as leans to the Classical, rather than to the Romantic, of its component elements. Hence a supreme master of literary echoing appears in Milton: he is on a par with Virgil in the degree to which he uses literary reminiscence, and he goes far beyond Virgil in the width of the literary field from which the associations are drawn. To Milton, Greek and Hebrew Classics make a single literature; Hebrew thought for him clothes itself naturally in Greek form; almost every line of Milton strikes a note which finds echoes from all over the poetry of the past. No doubt a Milton is coherent and intelligible apart from the associative value of his writing. But the

For the general effect compare Introduction to Revelation in the Modern Reader's Bible (or Literary Study of the Bible, pages 471-76). For details, see Notes to Revelation in the Modern Reader's Bible, where the original passages and the echoes are given in parallel columns.

difference between such bare intelligence and the full poetic effect is as great as the difference between the cold clearness of a gray day and the radiant warmth of a sunset.

II

It may be well to illustrate two specialized forms which the general principle of literary echoing sometimes takes.

The first case is where the effect of reminiscence attaches solely to the shaping or molding of an incident, while as regards matter and expression there is nothing of resemblance. We may take an example from Spenser's Faerie Queene. The hero of the Second Book, the representative of Temperance, is among other trials subjected to the temptation of Mammon, and the seventh canto is given up to this topic. In its form this incident is closely modeled upon Biblical temptations, though of course personages and matter and thought are altogether unlike. A figure on page 449 (Chart XXVI) suggests the parallelism.

The first nineteen stanzas of Spenser's canto are outside the incident with which we are dealing: they are devoted to the shock of the encounter between two opposite ideals, the ideal of chivalry and the ideal of mammon. The Temptation itself commences where Guyon, amazed at the sight of the vast wealth, wonders whence it could have come, and is bidden to see for himself.

"Come thou" (quoth he) "and see." So by and by
Through that thick covert he him led, and fownd
A darkesome way, which no man could descry,
That deep descended through the hollow grownd,
And was with dread and horror compassed arownd.
At length they came into a larger space,
That stretcht itself into an ample playne;
Through which a beaten broad high way did trace,
That streight did lead to Plutoe's griesly rayne.

Jesus hungers: angels minister to him

Guyon faints: an angel ministers to him