Literary Imitation in the Renaissance

REVIEWS 103 the New Atlantis: "to extend the bounds of human empire over nature, to the effecting of all things possible." But we can rejoice that Mr. Anderson, instead of reiterating this familiar theme, leads us onto less trodden ground. Nor does Mr. Anderson discuss the ethics of the power which knowledge brings. He does not, ~n the current fashion, indulge in moralizing over the right use of that power, or over the question ot whether some things -possible might better not be effected. His book is not about our present discontents, but about what Bacon said and thought. On the possible perv~rsions of the power conferred by technology , he is content to allow Bacon to speak for himself. "Now while it is true that the arts and sci~nces may be debased 'to wickedness, luxury, and the like,' the same may be said 'of all earthly goods, of wit, courage, strength, beauty, wealth, light itself and the rest.' And there is this- sound principle through whose application. knowledge in use, like other goods, may be kept from working evil: Let knowledge be 'governed by right ·reason and sound religion.' " For all his prophetic power, Bacon may not have felt .this problem so keenly as the least of us do today. But despite our feverish concern, on the me!hod of dealing with it, has any of us managed to say much more? LITERARY IMITAT10N IN THE RENAISSANCE·» H. s. WILSON This exceJlent study does for students of Milton what Professor T. W. Baldwin did for students of Shakespeare in William Sha"k~ spereJs Small Latine & Lesse Greeke (1944)----that js, it traces the curriculum of studies Milton followed as a schoolboy, analyses and explains the textbooks he used and the school exercises he performed, and offers many valuable suggestions for relating this programme of studies to- the criticism· of Miltonjs works. Between them, Professor Baldwin and Professor. Clark have provided an invaluable basis for our understanding of how English schoolboys in the Renaissance learned to write. Of the two studies, Professor Baldwin's is the more encyclopaedic, Professor Clark)s the simpler and more concise. Those who have been dismayed by the massive volumes of Professor Baldwin will find the heart of the matter lucidly set forth in the·- two chapters, "Authors for Imitation'> (chap. 7) and "Exercises for *John Milton at St. Paul's School: A Study of Ancient Rhetoric in English Renaissance Education. By DoNALD LEMEN CLARK. New York: Columbia University Press [ToroT"Ito: Oxford University Press). 194-8. Pp. xi, 269". ($4.50) 104 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY Praxis'' (chap. BL of Professor· Clark's more· compendious book. These two chapters might well become required reading for all serious students of the literature of the English Renaissance. Professor Clark begins llli study with an outline of the tradition of the Trivium (Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic) which the Renaissance inherited from the schools of the Middle Ages as the fundamental programme of. all school studies. He then reviews what is known of the famous school John Milton attended, St. Paul,s, and Df Milton's schoolmasters, especially the .two who seem to have had most to do with the young Milton, Alexander Gil and his son Alexander. There follows a survey of the course of studies pursued at St. Paul's in Milton's day and .the textbooks prescribed; and then, the two chapters, above referred to, which contain the essential matter of the book and to which the earlier chapters are really introductory. The author appropriately divides these two chapters according to the Ramist dichotomy of "Analysis, and "Genesis," since Milton was hi-mself a good Ramist and followed, in the main, a Ram.ist method in his own studies. According to the Ramist Method) "Analysis" consists in resolving the examples of an art into thcir principles and relating the parts so analysed to their appropriate precepts. Thus, in chapter 7, we learn how ~1ilton was taught to choose the right authors as literary models and to study in the classroom their methods of writing through exercises in memory, translation, and paraphrase. In chapter 8, we follow the complementary exercises of "Genesis," according to which the...