The Palace of Pleasure | Page 3

equally though conversely in works written only for
sections of a nation. Now in the sixteenth century any literature that
should address the English nation as a whole--not necessarily all
Englishmen, but all classes of Englishmen--could not be in any literary
form intended to be merely read. For the majority of Englishmen could

not read. Hence they could only be approached by literature when read
or recited to them in church or theatre. The latter form was already
familiar to them in the Miracle Plays and Mysteries, which had been
adopted by the Church as the best means of acquainting the populace
with Sacred History. The audiences of the Miracle Plays were prepared
for the representation of human action on the stage. Meanwhile, from
translation and imitation, young scholars at the universities had become
familiar with some of the masterpieces of Ancient Drama, and with the
laws of dramatic form. But where were they to seek for matter to fill
out these forms? Where were they, in short, to get their plots?
Plot, we know, is pattern as applied to human action. A story, whether
told or acted, must tend in some definite direction if it is to be a story at
all. And the directions in which stories can go are singularly few.
Somebody in the Athenæum--probably Mr. Theodore Watts, he has the
habit of saying such things--has remarked that during the past century
only two novelties in plot, Undine and Monte Christo, have been
produced in European literature. Be that as it may, nothing strikes the
student of comparative literature so much as the paucity of plots
throughout literature and the universal tendency to borrow plots rather
than attempt the almost impossible task of inventing them. That
tendency is shown at its highest in the Elizabethan Drama. Even
Shakespeare is as much a plagiarist or as wise an artist, call it which
you will, as the meanest of his fellows.
Not alone is it difficult to invent a plot; it is even difficult to see one in
real life. When the denouement comes, indeed--when the wife flees or
commits suicide--when bosom friends part, or brothers speak no
more--we may know that there has been the conflict of character or the
clash of temperaments which go to make the tragedies of life. But to
recognise these opposing forces before they come to the critical point
requires somewhat rarer qualities. There must be a quasi-scientific
interest in life quâ life, a dispassionate detachment from the events
observed, and at the same time an artistic capacity for selecting the
cardinal points in the action. Such an attitude can only be attained in an
older civilisation, when individuality has emerged out of nationalism.
In Europe of the sixteenth century the only country which had reached

this stage was Italy.
The literary and spiritual development of Italy has always been
conditioned by its historic position as the heir of Rome. Great nations,
as M. Renan has remarked, work themselves out in effecting their
greatness. The reason is that their great products overshadow all later
production, and prevent all competition by their very greatness. When
once a nation has worked up its mythic element into an epos, it contains
in itself no further materials out of which an epos can be elaborated. So
Italian literature has always been overshadowed by Latin literature.
Italian writers, especially in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,
were always conscious of their past, and dared not compete with the
great names of Virgil, Ovid, Horace, and the rest. At the same time,
with this consciousness of the past, they had evolved a special interest
in the problems and arts of the present. The split-up of the peninsula
into so many small states, many of them republics, had developed
individual life just as the city-states of Hellas had done in ancient times.
The main interest shifted from the state and the nation to the life and
development of the individual.[3] And with this interest arose in the
literary sphere the dramatic narrative of human action--the Novella.
[Footnote 3: See Burckhardt, Cultur der Renaisance in Italien, Buch II.,
especially Kap. iii.]
The genealogy of the Novella is short but curious. The first known
collection of tales in modern European literature dealing with the tragic
and comic aspects of daily life was that made by Petrus Alphonsi, a
baptized Spanish Jew, who knew some Arabic.[4] His book, the
Disciplina Clericalis, was originally intended as seasoning for sermons,
and very strong seasoning they must have been found. The stories were
translated into French, and thus gave rise to the Fabliau, which allowed
full expression to the esprit Gaulois. From France the Fabliau passed
to Italy, and came ultimately into the hands of Boccaccio, under whose
influence it became transformed into the Novella.[5]
[Footnote 4: On