Progress of Wit - From Poetic Device to Aesthetic Category (2006)

8/7/2019 Progress of Wit - From Poetic Device to Aesthetic Category (2006)

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Klra Bicanov, Faculty of Arts, MU, Brno

The Progress of Wit: From Poetical Device to Aesthetic Category

In this paper I will try to briefly present the historical development of the word whose semantic

structure William Empson calls multi-layered and which in its various forms shaped the

English thought and artistic expression during the seventeenth and partly eighteenth centuries.

Witwas defined in The Norton Anthology of English Literature as

one of those words too useful ever to be exactly defined. As employed during the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it might mean general intelligence or the ability to

say something funny, wisdom or ability, prudence, fantasy, vivacity of speech, quickness

of repartee, a good command of sexual innuendo, and many other things including the

current meaning of a verbal thrust or dig (Abrams, 2520).

Wit functioned undoubtedly as all of these. This essays objective is however to trace its

structural features throughout its many years of existence and try to connect them to the

corresponding historical periods. A special emphasis will be put on the French literature of the

first half of the seventeenth century and its exchange of ideas with the English side of the

Channel.

The referential cornerstone of this essay is W. J. Courthopes A History of English Poetry

which, although slightly anachronistic in its conception, represents the most complex treatment

of wit throughout the history of English poetry.

The Historical Origin of Wit as a Poetical Device

Historically, the definition of wit suitable for the longest period of time, was coined by

Samuel Johnson in his The Lives of English Poets where he suggested wit may be considered as

a kind ofdiscordia concors, a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult

resemblances in things apparently unlike (Johnson, 20). W. J. Courthope used this definition as

a basis of his historical analysis of origin and division of wit; and after nearly a hundred years we

can still even if with a slight restriction hold to his interpretation. The origins of wit may be

located somewhere in the middle ages, fourteenth century and its nearly three-hundred-year-long

way we will now try to briefly summarize.

Courthope doubts the plausibility of some of the scholars who explained the appearance

of wit as a poetical device in European literature on a pure aesthetic principle (Courthope,

104). The dispute lies also in the question whether there was a literary itinerary of wit some

scholars suggest that it was hatched in Spain and spread through Italy to France and then, finally,

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to England or whether Courthopes view it appeared in Europe in roughly the same time.

Relatively reliable historical landmarks not only for Courthope seem to be provided by the

Council of Trent, and also the decay of the scholastic philosophy which was a part of a more

complex and gradual collapse of the whole medieval system of viewing the world (in which the

civic standards of antiquity operating on the genius of many rising nations and languages

(105n.). Courthope says: Such a collision of forces is plainly sufficient to account for that

discordia concors which Johnson describes as the essence of Wit (106). It is undoubtedly

disputable whether these historical external facts are indeed enough to explain the spread so

influential and long-range, it is nevertheless useful at least to consider the historical facts and

data.

Paradox, Hyperbole, Excess of Metaphor

Courthope identifiesparadox, hyperbole, and excess of metaphor as three leading features

of wit, saying that all these qualities, which flourish exuberantly in the poetry of seventeenth

century, appear germinally in the poetry of the fourteenth (ibidem). The frequent usage of

paradox is ascribed to the prominence of logic in the medieval scholastic education 1. Logic

became extremely important in scientific explanation of all the important Christian doctrines and

dogmas, such as The Trinity in Unity, free will or the Incarnation.

The popularity in using hyperbole as a poetical device is connected with the chivalrous

poetry. In the Middle Ages, the poetry of the troubadours was based upon instinct prompting the

feudal aristocracy to separate their caste from the vulgar by all the refinements of art and

imagination (107). The ladies of high society invented the Code of Love and established Cours

dAmour, where disputes concerning the chivalric love were judged. These processes

recreational as they were required a high level of originality on part of the troubadours who had

to be able to express themselves with ever increasing novelty. Courthope therefore believes that

in the poetry of the troubadours we can find the germs of the logical hyperbole which is the

leading feature in the concetti of the seventeenth century (108).

The last of the three features of wit Courthope labels the excess of metaphor, signalling, I

believe, certain displeasure at the way Metaphysical poets were dealing with this device. He sees

the reason for the excessive using of metaphor in the decay of allegory as a natural mode of

poetical expression (110) and he seems to be differentiating between the usage of metaphor by

for example Dante, for whom it was the only device possible when conveying the Nature of the

invisible world, i.e. describing Hell, Purgatory and Heaven and its usage by the later poets of

secentisimo like Giambattista Marini or Gongora, whose employment of wit is prompted

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entirely by the desire for novelty in expression(112). This is a rather controversial claim for it

might be understood to suggest that Dantes was not an imagination which strived for new

expressions and subsequently that hisDivine Comedy is a work which merely sums up several

centuries of medieval poetic without any contribution of its own author.

Thus Courthope comes to the conclusion that the Council of Trent, itself the soul of the

counter-Reformation, may be said to have aimed at a kind ofdiscordia concors, a combination

of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike. Its object

was to reconcile the spirit of Catholicism with the spirit of the Renaissance, the individual liberty

with ecclesiastical authority, the dogmas of the Church with pagan literature (113). The cause of

wits popularity in England for him lies in the fact that the English men were pleased with the

exercise of poetical wit for its own sake, because it answered to their notions of unrestrained

liberty (116). Biased as this statement obviously is, it nevertheless hints at a certain remarkable

fact that the treatment of wit, its practical modification and theoretical reflection in England

indeed very much differed from the Continental one. It was introduced during the reign of

James I. who relished in learning and arts and the favourable atmosphere of the royal court

appeared to be a kindly milieu for the development of the wit in its various forms.

Prciosit: The Revival of Chivalric Love

The wordprciosit(preciousness) denotes a literary style or movement of French

aristocracy of the first half of the seventeenth century that pursued refinement of conversation

andgentilesse of manners. The movements core members were aristocratic ladies, even a

dismissed wife of Henry IV., Marguerite de Valois, belonged among this circle. They gathered in

salons;the most eminent one was that of Madame Rambouillet who for more than forty years

(1618-1660) entertained visitors from the art crowd as well as Parisian respectabilities (Mike,

19). LHtel de Rambouillet with its legendary le salon bleu became the workshop of the

movement that was to influence Frances literary scene as well as political course as one of its

many guests were Richelieu, at that time still a bishop of Luon, cardinal de la Valette, marshal

de Souvr and others. The writers included Malherbe, Racan, Conrart, Vaugelas, Chapelain,

Segrais, and Voiture. The literary taste of theprciueses, how they became to be labelled,

revelled in Malherbe, Giambattista Marini or Honor dUrf who wrote the celebrated pastoral

novelAstrea (ibidem). The assessment of the movement differs with the perspective each

commentator takes. Vladimr Mike, for example, views the style in a neutral way:

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Preciozita poznamenala valnou st 17. stolet. V jde po strnce spoleensk

byla snahou vytbit spoleensk mravy, jazyk i literaturu a distancovat se od vulgarit ipedantismu soudob spolenosti. Mla smysl pro hravost i pro kze, zbav, kterou

vynalzala pro dobrou spolenost, ukldala disciplnu dobrch zpsob i vytben

mluvy. Konverzace a literatura byly pro ni jednmi z ostatnch spoleenskch zbav.

V literatue thla k distingovanosti. Tak jako precizka mus mluvit vybranm zpsobema tak, aby j rozumli jen ti, kdo ji rozumt maj, tak poezie vybrouen a pln

pojmovch fines je urena jen zasvcen (Mike, 20-21).

The language and awareness of political endangerment were closely interrelated in the

movements purifying efforts. Pokud lo o jazyk, nezstalo pi snaze vytbit ho, zbavit ho

obhroublost a odliit se jm od zvulgarizovanho, machiavelismem nasklho hedonismu nov

spoleensk vrstvy (Mike, 22). The refinement of the language however gradually became the

over-refinement, the purifying effort produced affectedness and artificiality and, finally, issued in

hypocrisy.Prciositput a ban on words such as cow, pig, breast and to breed because

they all referred to things of vulgar and low origin (Mike, 22); its striving for difference and

originality bred metaphorical, kenning-like expressions like liquid element for water, buttress

of life for bread or inhabitants of Neptunes kingdom for fish (ibidem).

Vladimr Mike summarizes the movement thus: Preciozita, pvodn reakce na hrzy

vlky, ve stabilizovan spolenosti Ludvka XIV. ztratila sv oprvnn. Na venkov expanze

preciozity do prosted naivnch tetilek se stala nesnesitelnou svou romanesknost a

pokryteckou pruderi, pedantstvm modrch punoch a nakonec synonymem patnho vkusu

(Mike, 23).

As it was already foreshowed, probably more than the reaction to wars the movements

main impetus was a need to differentiate the language from that of the French bourgeoisie, the

relatively new class of merchants and bankers and to oppose the political and economic strength

this class was gradually gaining. The seventeenth century saw the last phase of the shift of power

from aristocracy to the capitalist middle class and the aristocratic isolation of language, refuge in

salons safety was a last and desperate act of defence.

It was however also a striking moment of a proto-feminist upheaval as the movements

founding persons were women of high society; apart from the already mentioned Madame

Rambouillet there were Mademoiselle de Scudry, Countess de la Fayette, Madame de Sabl and

others. Many of these noblewomen who entertained writers and artists were themselves writers:

Madeleine de Scudry was the author of the famous novel Artamna neboli Velk Kros and

Kllie, msk pbh. In the latter book, there is the well-known Mapa nhy to be found

allegoric topography of an idealized, romance, heroic love. At the close of this era, several

anthologies codifying theprcieuse idea of love are issued, among themRecueil de Sency (1653-

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1663) orRecuil La Luze-Pellisson (1663) (Mike, 22).2 This idealized, dematerialized love aims

at nothing minor than eternality, it despises institution of marriage; its passion is passion of spirit

and soul. It revives the concept of the medieval chivalric love with the woman as unattainable,

adored deity and man as the gentle and elegant knight.Prciositmodifies this concept by

spiritualizing the love into pleasant exchange of ideas, even the secret ones (ibidem).

Theprciuexbeaux-esprits, the wits of the French salons worshiped exclusiveness as the

highest attainable goal of the social pursuit. Their elegance, refinement and spiritual grandeur

allowed them to express themselves freely in a way that no one else could: Ti, kdo maj

galantnost v dui, mohou asto ci to, na by se jin neodvili ani pomyslit (qtd. in Mike, 22).

The gallantness that is genuine, not assumed one is an entry permit to the land it is possible to

utter paradoxically quite unrefined and non-gallant things.

The Metaphysical Poets: The Interregnum of Wit?

The Metaphysical poets are an unstable group of poets of the first half on the seventeenth

century; it usually includes John Donne, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan and

Richard Crashaw. H. J. Grierson defines the Metaphysical poetry as the poetry which, like that

of theDivina Comedia, theDe Natura Rarum, perhaps GoethesFaust, has been inspired by a

philosophical conception of the universe and the rle assigned to the human spirit in the great

drama of existence (Keast, 3). In expressing the above-described ideas, the metaphysical poetry

uses what Courthope reprobates as the excess of metaphor, in other words extended metaphoror

conceit. These poetical devices are usually regarded as the most characteristic features of this

branch of English poetry.

As a literary term, conceitdenotes a fairly elaborate figurative device of a fanciful kind

which often incorporates metaphor, simile, hyperbole or oxymoron (Cuddon, 165) as well as

paradox. In Andrew Marvells The Definition of Love the conceit goes through the poem to

reveal a final paradox of the nature of the speakers love:

My love is of a birth as rare

As tis for object strange and high:It was begotten by despairUpon Impossibility.

And yet I quickly might arriveWhere my extended Soul is fixt,But Fate does Iron wedges drive,

And alwaies crouds it self betwixt.

For Fate with jealous Eye does see

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Two perfect Loves; nor lets them close:Their union would her ruine be,And her Tyrannick powr depose.

And therefore her Decrees of SteelUs as the distant Poles have placd,(Though Loves whole World on us doth wheel)

Not by themselves to be embracd.[]As Lines so Loves oblique may wellThemselves in every Angle greet:But ours so trulyParalel,Though infinite can never meet.

Therefore the Love which us doth bind,

But Fate so enviously debarrs,Is the Conjunction of the Mind,

And Opposition of the Stars.

This conceit-riddled style made some scholars, e.g. Benedetto Croce, call it concettismo, and

identifying it with the baroque, view this style as inferior one. The wit in regards to the

concettismo is disregarded as a merely mannerist device and its raison dtre as a poetic device is

not acknowledged (Keast, 80).

Molire andLes Prcieuses RidiculesWhen Molire introduced his one-act playLes Prciueses Ridicules in 1659, the strength

of the movement itself was already dying away. As its title suggests, the play is a caricature of

theprciositin a short story of two young silly country girls Magdelon and Cathos who are

coming to Paris to partake in the splendid salon life they till now knew from the novels of Mlle

Scudry. They refuse two suitors on behalf of their artlessness which they regard as a proof of

their bushiness. The lovelorn suitors avenge themselves by sending their two valets de chambre

disguised as squires to pay court to the girls; then appear in the middle of the courting scene, beat

the mock-squires, scold the girls for tempting their servants and in the final scene Magdelons

father makes a moral speech.

According to Dudley Miles, this is the play George Etheredge had in mind when he was

writing hisLove in a Tub (1664) and even more The Man of Mode,or Sir Fopling Flutter(1676)

after his return to England after Paris stay (Miles, 62). The imitation becomes an explicit

borrowing from Molire in some passages of the latter play:

[LADY TOWNLEY, EMILIA, MR. MEDLEY, [MAGDELON, CATHOS, MASCARILLE]

DORIMANT, SIR FOPLING FLUTTER]

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Lady Town. Hes very fine. Mas. Que vous semble de ma petit-oie?Emil. Extreme proper. La trouvez-vous congruante lhabit?Sir Fop. A slight suit I made to appear in Cath.Tout fait.at my first arrival, not worthy your Mas. Le ruban est bien choisi.consideration, ladies. Mag. Furiesement bien. Cest Perdrigeon tout

Dor. The pantaloon is very well mounted. pur.Sir Fop. The tassels are new and pretty. Mas.Que dites-vous de mes canons?Med. I never saw a coat better cut. Mag. Ils ont tout fait bon air.Sir Fop. It makes me show long-waisted, Mas. Je puis me vanter au moins quils ont unand, I think, slender. grand quartier plus que tous ceux quon fait.

Dor. Thats our ladies dot in. Mag. Il faut avouer que je nai jamais vuMed. Your breech, though, as a handful too porter si haut llgance de lajustement.high in my eye, Sir Fopling. Mas. Attachez un peu sur ces gants laSir Fop. Peace, Medley; I have wished it rflexion de votre odorat.lower a thousand times, but a pox ont, twill not be. Mag. Ils sentent terriblement bon.

Lady Town. His gloves are well fringed, large Cath. Je nai jamais respir un oedeur mieuxand graceful. conditione.

Sir Fop. I always was eminent for being bien-gant. Mas. Et celle-l? [Il donne sentir les cheveuxEmil. He wears nothing but what are originals of poudrs de sa perrugue.]the most famous hands in Paris. MagElle est tout fait de qualit; le sublimeSir Fop. You are in the right, madam. en est touch dlicieusement.

Lady Town. The suit? Mas. Vous ne me dites rien de mes plumes:Sir Fop. The Barroy. comment les trouvez-vous?

Emil. The garniture? Cath. Effroyablement belles.Sir Fop. Le Gras. Mas. Savez-vous que le brin me cote un lois dor?Med. The shoes? Pour moi, jai cette manie de vouloir donner Sir Fop. Piccat. gnralement sur tout ce quil y a de plus beau.

Dor. The periwig? Mag. Je vous assure que nous sympathisons vousSir Fop. Chedreux. et moi: jai une dlicatesse furieuse pour tout ce que

Lady Town. andEmil. The gloves? je porte; et jusqu mes chaussettes, je ne puis rienSir Fop. Orangerie: you know the smell, ladies. souffrir qui ne soit de la bonne ouvrire.Dorimant, I could find in my heart for anamusement to have a gallantry with some (Les Prciueses Ridicules, sc.9, qtd. in Miles,

of our English ladies. 136-138.)

(Sir Fopling Flutter, iv. 1)

The historical situation shows that the exile years the English sovereign had to spend in

France (1642-1660) indeed had a significant influence on the Restoration literary scene back in

England. Not only Etheredge but basically the entire first wave of Restoration playwrights

dramatists like William Wycherley who spent his youth days in the circle of Mme Rambouillet,

Thomas Shadwell, Colley Cibber, John Vanbrugh or John Crowne copied Molires ways of

dealing with plot, choice of characters and partly dialogue. Miles comments on the first years of

the influence thus: The first decade of the Restoration comedy of manners developed in France

by Molire was transplanted to England, where it grew as best it could in the thin soil and murky

atmosphere of King Charless court (Miles, 78).

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The Restoration Wit: The Forming of an Aesthetic Category

Under the reign of Charles I. the metaphysical wit is beginning to fade away the

theological themes are started to be handled in less eccentric manner; the hyperboles and

extended metaphors as well as the acute and harsh tone of the metaphysical poetry is on the

decline. Courthope comments on the change thus: [] the poetry of Charles Is reign is

noteworthy as marking the increased strength of the transitional movement away from the old

ideal of wit discordia concors towards the new conception of wit propriety of thought

and language established by the practice of Dryden, and defined in the couplet of Pope: -

True wit is Nature to advantage dressed,What oft was thought, but neer so well expressed (Courthope, 265).

This definition appears in theEssay on Criticism, written by Alexander Pope in 1711

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. Also inJohn Drydens definition of we can see a shift in understanding the term. [H]is definition of wit

in comedy as sharpness of conceit and his belief that the chief ornament of dialogue was repartee,

a constant fusillade of similitudes, paradoxes, antitheses, phrased with the utmost point to

produce a brilliant expression(Miles, 171).

The eighteenth century, being the first century to grapple the aesthetic issues in the

modern sense of the term4, is the period of reflection of wit in various treatises and essays.

According to the Eighteenth-Century Short List Catalogue (ESTC) the word appears in a title

771 times, the only more frequented expression being judgement (Price, 1). In DrydensAn

Evenings Love, the conceit of the metaphysical poets has been transformed into dartling wit:

JACINTHA. I see theres no hope of reconciliation with you; and therefore I give it over as

desperate.WILDBLOOD. You have gained your point, you have my money; and I was only angry, because

I did not know twas you who had it.JAC. This will not serve your turn, sir: what I have got, I have conquered from you.WILD.. Indeed you use me like one thats conquered; for you have plundered me of all I had.WILD. I only disarmed you, for fear you should rebel again; for if you had the sinews of war, I

am sure you would be flying out (Miles, 171n.)

The conceit running along the words reconciliation conquered plundered disarmed rebel

sinews of war flying out and metaphorically juxtaposing the lovers quarrel to warring bears a

striking semblance to the progress of the metaphysical conceit and the usage of wit in it. In the

comedy wit gained the air of repartee and lost some a considerable amount of its metaphysical

profundity, due to the difference of themes dealt with in the poetry of metaphysical period and

the Restoration drama.

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The last phase of this development can be found in the reflection of wit by Joseph

Addison. In The Spectatorno. 13 (15 March 1711), Addison wrote that Audience have often

been reproached by Writers for the Coarseness of Their Taste, but our present Grievance does

not seem to be the Want of a good Taste, but of Common Sense(Price, 2). John Price goes on:

Addison quickly changed his tune when he discovered how avidly his readers were

searching out guidelines for good taste. In a few weeks, he announced his intention to

banish Vice and Ignorance [and] endeavour as much as possible to establish among us

a Taste of polite Writing (no. 58, 7 May 1711) (ibidem).

Wit, after the last decade of the seventeenth century when it became associated with the Court

and its debaucheries, was included by Addison in his design for reform of taste in a very

ingenious and typically neo-classicist way: the motto of the paper was to enliven Morality with

Wit, to temper Wit with Morality.

The Conclusion

Courthopes obsolete normative approach to the assessment of wit is not very helpful;

however his historical analysis should be taken into account when dealing with this theme. It is

for example important to acknowledge the fact that the spread of wit was more or less

contemporaneous in Europe and therefore no simple unilateral influence took place.

Wit was being viewed as a mannerist device of the decadent or even morally corrupt

literary style till Eliots time, H. J. Grierson and T.S. Eliot were the first to acknowledge the

importance of the metaphysical poets and since then a period of the critical rehabilitation of

metaphysical poets can be traced.

In Addisons time the metaphysical wit was begun to seen as obsolete. The French

prcieuse influence of need for language and manners refinement seemed to shape wit in the first

half of the seventeenth century, while the neo-classicist desire for simplicity and propriety of

language influenced it in the first decades of the eighteenth century. The essence of wit did not

change dramatically during that period, however the literary context did: from the poetical device

it transformed into the dramatic one and it became more frequently associated with the comic

effect.

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Endnotes

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Documents

Progress of Wit - From Poetic Device to Aesthetic Category (2006)