Rehabilitating "Augustanism": On the Roots of "Polite Letters" in England

More than a quarter of a century has passed since Donald Greene began the assault on Augustanism by calling it a “maddeningly opaque term.” Shortly afterward, Vivian de Sola Pinto defended the concept in the Forum pages of Eighteenth-Century Studies, striking out at Greene forcefully, but suffering some severe buffets in rebuttal. ¹ War began in earnest when Howard D. Weinbrot mustered a new model army of evidence and inference, skillfully deploying his forces in his Augustus Caesar in “Augustan” England. Weinbrot argued not that the term “Augustan” was vague or imprecise, but that for poets and readers of the eighteenth century, it could only represent a form of censure. Augustus had been a tyrant, and historians of the period clearly recognized this fact. In an England deeply concerned with maintaining its own political freedoms, Weinbrot argued, the person of Augustus could be nothing other than a symbol of all that right-thinking Englishmen hated and feared.

At the head of the opposing forces, Howard Erskine-Hill has held his besieged position with confidence and strength, defending any breaches made by Weinbrot’s arguments and rallying partisans behind his own Augustan Idea in English Literature. Erskine-Hill has been reinforced now and then by such auxiliaries as Maximillian E. Novak, whose essay “Shaping the Augustan Myth” helped to establish the historical and political context of Dryden’s Augustanism. ² If in recent years hostilities have subsided somewhat, it is certainly not from either side’s willingness to capitulate. In this essay I am no neutral observer; as I write, I am massing troops at Greene and Weinbrot’s border. ³

Augustanism in literature does not consist solely (or even primarily) in the use of the image of Augustus; rather, it comprises a distinct set of assumptions about the proper nature, function, and value of literature, assumptions based in part on the literary practices of Horace and Virgil, and in even greater part on the ways that French and English authors of the seventeenth century re-imagined the social milieu of the court of Augustus. As I shall show, the values implicit in Augustanism lie at the root of what comes to be known in England as “polite letters.” From the later seventeenth century through much of the eighteenth, these two concepts become intertwined, with such authors as Francis Atterbury, David Hume, and Oliver Goldsmith regularly resorting to one in their efforts to clarify the significance of the other.

Before I pursue the history and development of Augustanism, let me lay out its two basic principles. First, the arts are progressive. The early poets, painters, and musicians in every civilization imitate nature in raw forms, sketching its contours boldly but with little refinement of technique. Subsequent generations gradually perfect the arts, smoothing away rough edges and polishing each piece to an ever finer finish. (In the case of poetry, we find this premise supplemented by the idea that every language goes through a gradual process of perfection, culminating in a period when it is copious yet exact, only to suffer a gradual decline as affectation replaces precise and immediate expression.) Second, these refinements in the arts are directly bound up with a broader trend towards refinement in society. As manners become more polished and conversation more sophisticated, art gains both impetus and direction from its social ambience. Art and society are in fact symbiotic: in writing to the refined taste of his audience, the artist not only satisfies but also continues to form and refine that public taste. In the typically aristocratic society envisioned by the Augustan writer, the link between patron and author becomes particularly productive. As this link breaks down, the potential for continued artistic progress declines. Although different authors emphasize different elements of this mix of literary and social values during the hundred years or so in which Augustanism holds dominance, we shall find the basic concepts articulated in similar form by a large range of authors from John Dryden through Samuel Johnson.

To find the true foundation of these ideas, we must look to France during the first half of the...