Ñàéò ïîå糿, â³ðø³, ïîçäîðîâëåííÿ ó â³ðøàõ :: John Lydgate :: Êðèòèêà

John Lydgate :: Êðèòèêà

For a couple of centuries Lydgate's reputation equalled, if it did not surpass, that of his master. This was in a sense only natural, since he was the real founder of the school of which Stephen Hawes was a distinguished ornament, and which "held the field" in English letters during the long and dreary interval between Chaucer and Spenser. One of the most obvious defects of this school is excessive attachment to polysyllabic terms. Lydgate is not quite so great a sinner in this respect as are some of his successors, but his tendency cannot be mistaken, and John Metham is amply justified in his censure, Eke John Lydgate, sometime monk of Bury, His books indited with terms of rhetoric And half-changed Latin, with conceits of poetry. Pedantry was an inevitable effect of the early Renaissance. French literature passed through the same phase, from which indeed it was later in emerging; and the ultimate consequence was the enrichment of both languages. It must be conceded as no small merit in Lydgate that, in an age of experiment he should have succeeded so often in hitting the right word. Thomas Warton remarks on his lucidity. Since his writings are read more easily than Chaucer's, the inference is plain — that he was more effectual as a maker of our present English. In spite of that, Lydgate is characteristically medieval — medieval in his prolixity, his platitude, his want of judgment and his want of taste; medieval also in his pessimism, his Mariolatry and his horror of death. These attributes jarred on the sensitive Ritson, who racked his brains for contumelious epithets such as "stupid and disgusting," "cart-loads of rubbish," &c.; and during the greater part of the 18th and 19th centuries Lydgate's reputation was at its lowest ebb. Recent criticism has been far more impartial, and almost too much respect has been paid to his attainments, especially in the matter of metre, though Lydgate himself, with offensive lightheartedness, admits his poor craftsmanship. Lydgate's most doughty and learned apologist is Dr Schick, whose preface to the Temple of Glass embodies practically all that is known or conjectured concerning this author, including the chronological order of his works. With the exception of the Damage and Destruction in Realms — an account of Julius Caesar, his wars and his death — they are all in verse and extremely multifarious — narrative, devotional hagiological, philosophical and scientific, allegorical and moral, historical, satirical and occasional. The Troy-book, undertaken at the command of Henry V, then Prince of Wales, dates from 1412-1420; the Story of Thebes from 1420-1422; and the Falls of Princes towards 1430. His last work was Secreta Secretorum or Secrets of Old Philosophers, rhymed extracts from a pseudo-Aristotelian treatise. Lydgate certainly possessed extraordinary versatility, which enabled him to turn from elaborate epics to quite popular poems like the Mumming at Hertford, A Ditty of Women's Horns and London Lickpenny. The humour of this last is especially bright and effective, but, unluckily for the author, the piece is believed to have been retouched by some other hand. The longer efforts partake of the nature of translations from sundry medieval compilations like those of Guido di Colonna and Boccaccio, which are in Latin.