Childhood and Cultural Despair: A Theme and Variations in Seventeenth-Century Literature (review)

Childhood and Cultural Despair A Theme and Variations In Seventeenth-Century Literature by Leah Sinanoglou Marcus (Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1978. 305 pp. $15.95) by Claude J. Summers Leah Sinanoglou Marcus' new book is a major contribution to seventeenth-century studies. Focusing on the themeofchildhood inthe work of six poets — Herbert, Herrick, Crashaw, Vaughan, Traherne, and Marvel! — Marcus vividly demonstrates the intersection of literature and ideology. She quite properly regards literature as an expression of cultural history, yet she is sensitive to the integrity of individual works of art. She places the poetry solidly in its historical and sociological contexts, and uses these contexts to illuminate •the poetry and to expose the profound significance of the interest in childhood and childishness. Clearly and gracefully written, extraordinarily well informedand full of critical vitality, Childhood end Cultural Despelr convincingly argues the central literary and political importance of what has too often been regarded as merely a minor preoccupation of a handful of seventeenth-century poets and divines. Confuting the critical cliche that the romantic poets discovered the theme of childhood, Marcus scrupulously documents the changing attitudes toward the subject from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, when sentimental depictions of childishness became commonplace. These changes in attitude reflect the gradual embourgeoisement of English culture and parallel the gradual development of smaller, more intimate family units. They are, thus, part of the larger social and political changes that transformed England from a feudal to a capitalistic economy. In the earlier seventeenth century, perhaps the most crucial period of this transformation, the debate on the relative worth of 69 Claude J. Summers childishness mirrored an ideological struggle more fully than has previously been perceived and with literary consequences more significant than has heretofore been appreciated. Ironically, however, the conservative poets who are the subjects of Marcus' book embraced childishness not in allegiance to the progressive movement away from feudal values, but as expressions of the cultura I despair induced by that movement. The controversy over childishness in the seventeenth century was in effect an ideological confrontation between futureonented Puritans and nostalgic conservatives The Puritans, who stressed the ravages of original sin, were opposed to childishness though not to children They condemned traditional ceremonialism in all forms, from the liturgy to the May games, on the grounds that such ceremonies were fundamentally childish. Yet they prized their children as the best hope for a better future and they emphasized social reform, including the need for child education and welfare. In contrast, conservative Anglicans, influenced by the child motifs so prominent in Counter Reformation devotionalism, discovered in childhood a symbolic link with an idealized past. They interpreted the natural playfulness of children not as evidence of original sin. but as remnants of angelic purity. In reaction against humanism'semphasis on the intellectandagamst what they perceived as chaotic change and the erosion of traditional values, conservative Anglicans celebrated ritual observances and envisioned a return to childhood "They were fighting," Marcus comments, "however belatedly and ineffectually against the passing of medieval England." The distinctive poets at the center of Marcus' book, writing over a period of thirty years around mid-century, all subscribe to some variation of Herbert's belief that "Childhood is health." Their advocacy of childishness can best be understood as a poetic revolt against the individualistic and intellectual ideals that seventeenth-century Puritans had inherited from sixteenth -century humanism. It reflects a deeply pessimistic cultural malaise. Themselves members of an intellectual elite, they translated childhood into a symbol of obedience, humility, and simplicity ata time when they thought those virtues sorely needed. As a defense against the complexities of their age, they saw in childhood "a whole range of values associated with an England of the past and rapidly disappearing under 70 REVIEW CHILDHOOD AND CULTURAL DESPAIR Puritan attack in the divided England of their own time " This generalization applies less well to Marvell than to the other poets, and one of the great virtues of Marcus' method is that she resists the temptation to homogenize the individual artists or to fit them neatly into a pattern of cultural determinism. The discussion of The Temple emphasizes Herbert's arduous achievement ol an...