Literary criticism began in this period and employed for the most part the prose style whose tradition goes back to Ascham. In con tent and structure its models were Italian, either directly or through the French; and its significance consists in the fact that it was the means of introducing literary ideals which had been current in Italy for nearly a century. The group of the Areopagus, which parallels the Pleiade of France in a few more or less important respects, found its highest critical expression in the 'Defence of Poesy' of Sir Philip Sidney, written about 1580, and pub lished posthumously in 1595. Sidney's ideals of prose style are not those of Ascham, but his practice here is without those excesses and affectations which in the 'Arcadia' furnish the model for a whole school of imitators. His book is an impassioned apology for the poetic art against the onslaught of the Puritans; but the objections which it refutes are universal, and its answers to these questions have in themselves, too, the temper of universality. There are parallels for all its ideas in the al most contemporary works of Frenchmen and Italians. They, too, from the dawn of the Re naissance, as in Boccaccio's 'Genealogy of the Gods,' which Sidney doubtless knew, had writ ten defenses of poetry; but Sidney's is an Eng lish book, and in its passion, unity and general spirit seems the native product of Elizabethan genius. Puttenham's 'Arte of English Poesie' conforms more to the model of the formal treatises which the Italians devoted to the the ory and practice of poetry. Its purpose, like theirs, is to consider the whole range of criti cism; it deals with the history, dignity, forms, metre and ornaments of poetry, continually illustrating the theory both by example and by anecdote. The critical work of Jonson be longs to the Jacobean age, and its ideals and its style indicate the great changes that had taken place since the 'Defence of Poesy.) It is impossible to date the 'Discoveries' with any degree of certainty, but no word it contains antedates the death of Elizabeth. Jonson, de spite the fame of this work, enunciates no single original idea in regard to the art of literature; but the luminous utterances of the later Latin rhetoricians, and the rational classicism of the Dutch critics, are alike embedded in his robust prose, and become an influence on English crit icism even after the Restoration.
The formal treatise or preface was the vehi cle of criticism in the Elizabethan Age; the chief vehicle which it was to use in future was introduced into England by Bacon at the very end of the 16th century. Montaigne is the father of the modern essay; and to him Bacon owed the name and a number of definite ideas. But in everything else no two works could differ more than theirs. The air of loquacity, the personal anecdote, the amused curiosity, the vivid imagery of Montaigne are not to be sought for in the essays of Bacon. The states man utters his brooding thought in curt and clipt sentences; Seneca and Pliny here speak English; and•the sententious manner enters our speech, destined to saturate prose and verse, and resulting after many changes in the pointed couplets of Pope. Each sentence is its own world and has its own message. Bacon, even in his scientific work, has been called a mere phrase maker by a modern scientist whose dis tinction in this respect is not unlike his own; in the essays this power is unrestrained by the need of argument and experiment. Emerson is the great American example of this dogmatic use of the disjointed sentence, and like Bacon he, too, has fed deeply on the thought of Mon taigne.
A wholly different ideal of prose style, dis daining directness and simplicity, was current throughout the Elizabethan Age, and found its most natural expression in the novel. Fenton's version of Bandello, adapted through the French, and the varied collection of Painter's 'Palace of Pleasure,' introduced the Italian novella into England. Their interest is almost wholly in the story, and Herodotus and Boc caccio are made to speak the same language of fiction. In Pettie's 'Petite Pallace of Pettie
his Pleasure,' which is modeled on the work of Painter, a new element intrudes itself, and the style which culminates in Lyly may be said to have been inaugurated. The sources of Euphuism have been sought in individual works of Continental literature, notably in those of Guevara; but modern scholarship finds in it simply one manifestation of a disease which was rife throughout Europe at this as a result of the disintegration of Humanism. The excesses of the Ciceronians find a parallel in the antithetical balance of Lyle's sentences; and the absurd imagery was a natural result of a literature which had exhausted its content and sought for originality in affectation of man ner. This explains the kindred writings on the Continent; and although English prose was young, it could not fail to be affected by these influences. The well-known marks of euphu ism, the so-called aparisonic antithesis,* the *unnatural natural history,* and the like, may all be explained on these grounds. (Euphues) itself is in some senses a novel of psychology and character rather than of incident; but its chief purpose is the fashioning of a perfect gentleman after the manner of Castiglione's 'Courtier.' Here Lyly's purpose meets Spen ser's; and may be considered as the connecting link between the purely pedagogical treatise like the and the final poetic idealisation of Renaissance education in the (Faerie Queene.' The vogue of Euphuism is indicated by the number of its imitators; but it is unnecessary to consider the forms which Euphuistic romance assumed at the hands of Lodge, Greene and others.
Sidney is credited by his contemporaries, notably Drayton, with having put an end to this fashion; but if the (Arcadia' is referred to, it can only be said that one affectation has suc ceeded another. The (Arcadia,' which has come down to us as a large, posthumous f rag ment, is the chief representative in English of the pastoralized romance. It owes much to Herberay des Essarts's French version of the 'Amadis of Gaul,' and something to the (Diana' of Montemayor; in it the Renaissance transmutations of Greek romance find a climax. The mannerisms of Sidney's style are not those of the archaic or affected word, nor of "un natural natural history,* nor of alliterative antithesis; but the exaggerated imagery, the pomp, the prettiness of the Spanish romances are mingled in the 'Arcadia' in an inextricable jungle of sentence and paragraph. Its vices are those of conceptismo rather than of the paral lel Spanish vice of cultesanismo. The mild and modulated Ciceronianism of Hooker, and all of Latin eloquentia that Cheke and Ascham had hoped to introduce into English speech, are wholly absent. The 'Unfortunate Traveller' of Nash may be mentioned as an indication of a tendency antipodal to the chivalric pastoral ism of Sidney; it introduces in a racier style a picaresque experiment in English fiction be tween the period of 'Guzman' and But the novelist and the preacher in general succumbed to the temptations of the ornate style: the novel throughout the period of its origins was tainted with Euphuism or Arcad'an ism, and pulpit oratory acquired a definite man nerism, which persisted until Eachard, Glanvill and other pamphleteers ridiculed it out of existence.
With the accession of James I Jacobean erudition and science superseded the creative impulse of the Elizabethans. Bacon and Jon son represent the new sententious manner at its best; other writers lose themselves in a sea of detail; still others add a hectic fervor to thought or feeling. But these things do not properly belong to the Elizabethan spirit. The opposition of the vernacular and ornate styles; the inauguration of formal criticism and prose fiction; the passion for controversy; these are the main imnulses of Elizabethan arose.