After
Claudian
we pass into the final darkness.
Oxford Book of Latin Verse
At least two of them, Palladius and
Asclepiadius, exhibit genuine poetical accomplishment. But the schools
both of Ausonius and of Asmenius show at least in one particular how
relaxed had become the hold even upon its enthusiasts of the true
classical tradition. All these poets have a passion for triviality, for
every kind of _tour de force_, for conceits and mannerisms. At times they
are not so much poets as the acrobats of poetry.
The end of the century gives us Claudian, and a reaction against this
triviality. 'Paganus peruicacissimus,' as Orosius calls him, Claudian
presents the problem of a poet whose poetry treats with real power the
circumstances of an age from which the poet himself is as detached as
can be. Claudian's real world is a world which was never to be again, a
world of great princes and exalted virtues, a world animated by a
religion in which Rome herself, strong and serene, is the principal
deity. Accident has thrown him into the midst of a political nightmare
dominated by intriguing viziers and delivered to a superstition which
made men at once weak and cruel. Yet this world, so unreal to him, he
presents in a rhetorical colouring extraordinarily effective. Had he
possessed a truer instinct for things as they are he might have been the
greatest of the Roman satirists. He has a real mastery of the art of
invective. But, while he is great where he condemns, where he blesses he
is mostly contemptible. He has too many of the arts of the cringing
Alexandrian. And they availed him nothing. Over every page may be heard
the steady tramp of the feet of the barbarian invader.
After Claudian we pass into the final darkness. The gloom is illuminated
for a brief moment by the Gaul Rutilius. But Rutilius has really
outlived Roman poetry and Rome itself. Nothing that he admires is any
longer real save in his admiration of it. The things that he condemns
most bitterly are the things which were destined to dominate the world
for ten centuries. Christianity is 'a worse poison than witchcraft'. The
monastic spirit is the 'fool-fury of a brain unhinged'. The monasteries
are 'slave-dungeons'.
It was these 'slave-dungeons' which were to keep safe through the long
night of the Middle Ages all that Rutilius held dear. It was these
'slave-dungeons' which were to afford a last miserable refuge to the
works of that long line of poets of whom Rutilius is the late and
forlorn descendant. Much indeed was to perish even within the fastnesses
of these 'slave-dungeons': for the monasteries were not always secure
from the shock of war, nor the precious memorials which they housed from
the fury of fanaticism. Yet much was to survive and to emerge one day
from the darkness and to renew the face of the world. Rutilius wrote his
poem in 416 A. D. If he could have looked forward exactly a thousand
years he would have beheld Poggio and the great Discoverers of the
Italian Renaissance ransacking the 'slave-dungeons' of Italy, France,
and Germany, and rejoicing over each recovered fragment of antiquity
with a pure joy not unlike that which heavenly minds are said to feel
over the salvation of souls. These men were, indeed, kindling into life
again the soul of Europe.
Asclepiadius, exhibit genuine poetical accomplishment. But the schools
both of Ausonius and of Asmenius show at least in one particular how
relaxed had become the hold even upon its enthusiasts of the true
classical tradition. All these poets have a passion for triviality, for
every kind of _tour de force_, for conceits and mannerisms. At times they
are not so much poets as the acrobats of poetry.
The end of the century gives us Claudian, and a reaction against this
triviality. 'Paganus peruicacissimus,' as Orosius calls him, Claudian
presents the problem of a poet whose poetry treats with real power the
circumstances of an age from which the poet himself is as detached as
can be. Claudian's real world is a world which was never to be again, a
world of great princes and exalted virtues, a world animated by a
religion in which Rome herself, strong and serene, is the principal
deity. Accident has thrown him into the midst of a political nightmare
dominated by intriguing viziers and delivered to a superstition which
made men at once weak and cruel. Yet this world, so unreal to him, he
presents in a rhetorical colouring extraordinarily effective. Had he
possessed a truer instinct for things as they are he might have been the
greatest of the Roman satirists. He has a real mastery of the art of
invective. But, while he is great where he condemns, where he blesses he
is mostly contemptible. He has too many of the arts of the cringing
Alexandrian. And they availed him nothing. Over every page may be heard
the steady tramp of the feet of the barbarian invader.
After Claudian we pass into the final darkness. The gloom is illuminated
for a brief moment by the Gaul Rutilius. But Rutilius has really
outlived Roman poetry and Rome itself. Nothing that he admires is any
longer real save in his admiration of it. The things that he condemns
most bitterly are the things which were destined to dominate the world
for ten centuries. Christianity is 'a worse poison than witchcraft'. The
monastic spirit is the 'fool-fury of a brain unhinged'. The monasteries
are 'slave-dungeons'.
It was these 'slave-dungeons' which were to keep safe through the long
night of the Middle Ages all that Rutilius held dear. It was these
'slave-dungeons' which were to afford a last miserable refuge to the
works of that long line of poets of whom Rutilius is the late and
forlorn descendant. Much indeed was to perish even within the fastnesses
of these 'slave-dungeons': for the monasteries were not always secure
from the shock of war, nor the precious memorials which they housed from
the fury of fanaticism. Yet much was to survive and to emerge one day
from the darkness and to renew the face of the world. Rutilius wrote his
poem in 416 A. D. If he could have looked forward exactly a thousand
years he would have beheld Poggio and the great Discoverers of the
Italian Renaissance ransacking the 'slave-dungeons' of Italy, France,
and Germany, and rejoicing over each recovered fragment of antiquity
with a pure joy not unlike that which heavenly minds are said to feel
over the salvation of souls. These men were, indeed, kindling into life
again the soul of Europe.
