The First Half of the Seventeenth Century/Preface
A word by way of preface is requisite, if only to explain to the reader, who may take up this volume without recalling its place in a series, why there is no chapter on Spain in a history of European literature during the first half of the seventeenth century. The present writer undertook his task on the understanding that the Spanish literature of the epoch was covered by Mr Hannay's chapters in The Later Renaissance. It was explained there that the principle of overlapping, which must be admitted in any attempt to divide European literature into epochs, is specially applicable to the case of Spain; and the six chapters devoted to the literature of Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in that volume preclude the necessity of treatment in this.
The same principle has been applied, to a certain extent, in the chapters on Dutch literature, with which this volume opens. Some passing references there have been to the literature of the Low Countries in previous volumes, but it has been thought well to give something of a connected sketch of the earlier literature at this point, when that literature forms an important and independent ganglion in the general European system. The mediæval literature of the Low Countries is doubtless sufficiently interesting to deserve fuller treatment; but it is, in the main, a literature of translation and imitation from the French, with some notable exceptions. This fact may serve as an excuse for the slight sketch of the subject given here—a sketch which, to be intelligible, should be read in close connection with what has been written about mediæval and fifteenth-century literature in earlier volumes of the series. I have reserved the larger portion of the space at my disposal for the period in which the Dutch, having shaken off the Spanish yoke, created for themselves a national literature and a national art.
My work in these chapters, as in those on other foreign literatures, is based on the researches of native scholars, whose results I have endeavoured to present in the light which seemed to me likely to prove most useful and interesting to the reader for whom this series is principally intended—the English student of comparative literature. I had begun my work before I realised that Dutch literature deserved a fuller treatment than had been given to it in other volumes, and it was perhaps rash to venture on the task. I felt tempted to undertake it from an interest in the Dutch people dating back to earliest years, when the harbour of my native town was crowded with Dutch fishing-boats every summer, and its narrow streets thronged with their picturesque costumes. If my chapters fail to satisfy a specialist, perhaps a less critical and exacting reader may derive interest from what, in its preparation, has given myself great pleasure. Holland has no Dante or Shakespeare or Goethe, for the sake of whom alone it would be worth while to study the language in which he wrote, but to the lover of lyrical poetry the work of Hooft and Vondel will give some fresh and intense experiences.
I have indicated in the bibliographical notes the authors on whose work mine is based. But I have received in addition personal encouragement and advice. On the occasion of two short calls, Professor Te Winkel of Amsterdam spoke to me regarding books that would be useful. But my chief debt is to Professor Kalff of Leyden. During two visits to Leyden—one of a fortnight's and one of a month's duration—he introduced me to the University library, in which are stored the books of the Maatschaapij van Nederlandsche Letterkunde, gave me the benefit of his advice on any point regarding which I consulted him, and every possible assistance. He has added to his kindness by reading my pages when in proof, and correcting some errors into which I had fallen. Imperfect as my chapters are, they would have been much more so without his advice and correction. My debt to his written work is clear from the notes. I only regret that the first volume of his new Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Letterkunde did not reach me until my work was in type.
At the same time, Professor Kalff is not to be held in any way responsible either for the manner in which I have treated the subject, for my generalisations, or for my criticisms of individual authors and works, with which he would not always be in agreement. These, be they right or wrong, are the fruit of my own reading, at any rate in the case of the principal authors dealt with. When I have not had time or opportunity to make an independent study of lesser authors, I have tried to indicate in the text the source of any criticism passed upon them. As regards quotation, my plan has been to keep to the original when metre was what I wished to draw attention to. When the sentiment is of importance, I have ventured to translate, believing it would be merely pedantic to assume any such general knowledge of the Dutch language as of French and German, or even Italian. The translations are as close as I could make them, while endeavouring to retain something of the spirit and movement of the original.
As to other literatures, I have indicated in the notes my guides and authorities, and need here only mention some personal aiders. My debt to my teacher, the late Professor Minto, is not covered by the references to his printed work. I have known no one with saner views of the aim and methods of literary history. In him the æsthetic, the historical, and the philosophical critic were happily blended, no one usurping upon the other. In studying the Italian literature of the period, I received much assistance, and advice as to recent work on the subject, from Professor John Purves of the Technical Institute, Johannesburg, formerly English Assistant in the University of Aberdeen, who came to Aberdeen straight from Italy, where he had studied for two years, in Rome and Siena, as Carnegie Scholar. To him, and to others who helped me by reading the proofs, I would express my gratitude. If I do not name them all, it is for fear of making them appear in any way responsible for my errors and oversights. From the outset I have been indebted to the unwearied patience and invaluable criticisms of the general editor. My former pupil, Mr George Herbert Mair, Scholar of Christ Church, Oxford, has supplied the index.
In the last chapter I have endeavoured to indicate some of the forces at work in the period. But I have not felt able to open with a general view, for the epoch does not seem to admit of any such clear general description as does, say, that which follows. All the literatures touched on here have a common debt to Italy and the Classics. In the development, however, which followed the stimulating influence of the Renaissance, each is, in the earlier seventeenth century, at a very different stage. Italy herself is falling into the background, though the superficial influence of Marino is so widespread that a reader might do well to turn to the chapter on Italy among the first. In France, the influence of the Renaissance is practically exhausted, and, despite a taste for Italian and Spanish fashions, the distinctively national movement towards clear thought and symmetrical form proceeds apace. During the first ten years of the century, English literature is still in the full flush of the late Elizabethan efflorescence, but passes, as the century goes on, through a period of very independent and complex changes, determined in great measure by the religious and political history of the time, which it seems to me impossible to describe by any single term, be it disintegration with Mr Barrett Wendell, or decadence with Mr Gosse. Elizabethan literature was never integral, notwithstanding Spenser's effort at reconciliation; and decadence seems a term hardly applicable to a period which opens with Shakespeare and Bacon, and closes with Locke and Milton. For Holland, the period is that of the rapid ripening—to be followed by a too rapid decay—of a literature inspired, as English had been earlier, by admiration of Italy and France as well as the Classics, but thoroughly national in all its essential features. In Germany, a similar movement is too early checked by "inauspicious stars." I have tried to outline these different movements, but to bring them under any single expression of real value is beyond my philosophic capacity.
P.S.—The dates in brackets appended to the names of works are those of first publication, except in the case of Corneille's plays, when they are those of performance as given by Marty-Laveaux. Bacon's Advertisement touching the Controversies of the Church, though written probably in 1589, when the Martin-Marprelate controversy was at its height, was first issued, as a pamphlet, in 1640, when the quarrel was renewed.
- Aberdeen, May 10, 1906.