'
It should be helpful also to indicate briefly some of the more specific
mannerisms of pseudo-classical poetry, in addition to the general
tendencies named above on page 190. Almost all of them, it will be
observed, result from the habit of generalizing instead of searching for
the pictorial and the particular. 1. There is a constant preference (to
enlarge on what was briefly stated above) for abstract expressions instead
of concrete ones, such expressions as 'immortal powers' or 'Heaven' for
'God.' These abstract expressions are especially noticeable in the
descriptions of emotion, which the pseudo-classical writers often describe
without really feeling it, in such colorless words as 'joys, 'delights,'
and 'ecstasies,' and which they uniformly refer to the conventionalized
'heart, 'soul,' or 'bosom.' Likewise in the case of personal features,
instead of picturing a face with blue eyes, rosy lips, and pretty color,
these poets vaguely mention 'charms,' 'beauties,' 'glories,'
'enchantments,' and the like. These three lines from 'The Rape of the Lock'
are thoroughly characteristic:
The fair [the lady] each moment rises in her charms,
Repairs her smiles, awakens ev'ry grace,
And calls forth all the, wonders of her face.
The tendency reaches its extreme in the frequent use of abstract and often
absurdly pretentious expressions in place of the ordinary ones which to
these poets appeared too simple or vulgar. With them a field is generally a
'verdant mead'; a lock of hair becomes 'The long-contended honours of her
head'; and a boot 'The shining leather that encased the limb.'
2. There is a constant use of generic or generalizing articles, pronouns,
and adjectives, 'the,' 'a,' 'that,' 'every,' and 'each' as in some of the
preceding and in the following examples: 'The wise man's passion and the
vain man's boast.' 'Wind the shrill horn or spread the waving net.' 'To act
a Lover's or a Roman's part.' 'That bleeding bosom.' 3. There is an
excessive use of adjectives, often one to nearly every important noun,
which creates monotony. 4. The vocabulary is largely conventionalized,
with, certain favorite words usurping the place of a full and free variety,
such words as 'conscious,' 'generous, 'soft,' and 'amorous.' The metaphors
employed are largely conventionalized ones, like 'Now burns with glory, and
then melts with love.' 5. The poets imitate the Latin language to some
extent; especially they often prefer long words of Latin origin to short
Saxon ones, and Latin names to English--'Sol' for 'Sun, 'temple' for
'church,' 'Senate' for 'Parliament,' and so on.]
SAMUEL JOHNSON, 1709-1784. To the informal position of dictator of English
letters which had been held successively by Dryden, Addison, and Pope,
succeeded in the third quarter of the eighteenth century a man very
different from any of them, one of the most forcefully individual of all
authors, Samuel Johnson. It was his fortune to uphold, largely by the
strength of his personality, the pseudo-classical ideals which Dryden and
Addison had helped to form and whose complete dominance had contributed to
Pope's success, in the period when their authority was being undermined by
the progress of the rising Romantic Movement.
Johnson was born in 1709, the son of a bookseller in Lichfield. He
inherited a constitution of iron, great physical strength, and fearless
self-assertiveness, but also hypochondria (persistent melancholy),
uncouthness of body and movement, and scrofula, which disfigured his face
and greatly injured his eyesight. In his early life as well as later,
spasmodic fits of abnormal mental activity when he 'gorged' books,
especially the classics, as he did food, alternated with other fits of
indolence. The total result, however, was a very thorough knowledge of an
extremely wide range of literature; when he entered Oxford in 1728 the
Master of his college assured him that he was the best qualified applicant
whom he had ever known. Johnson, on his side, was not nearly so well
pleased with the University; he found the teachers incompetent, and his
pride suffered intensely from his poverty, so that he remained at Oxford
little more than a year. The death of his father in 1731 plunged him into a
distressingly painful struggle for existence which lasted for thirty years.
After failing as a subordinate teacher in a boarding-school he became a
hack-writer in Birmingham, where, at the age of twenty-five, he made a
marriage with a widow, Mrs. Porter, an unattractive, rather absurd, but
good-hearted woman of forty-six. He set up a school of his own, where he
had only three pupils, and then in 1737 tramped with one of them, David
Garrick, later the famous actor, to London to try his fortune in another
field. When the two reached the city their combined funds amounted to
sixpence. Sir Robert Walpole, ruling the country with unscrupulous