“Pathetic” literary criticism in the essays by Joseph Warton: a compromise between augustanism and pre - romanticism

Abstract

K e y w o r d s : neo-classicism; pre-romanticism; the sublime; the pathetic; the ancient-modern controversy; the category of imagination; Joseph Warton; The Adventurer «ПАТЕТИЧЕСКАЯ» КРИТИКА В ЭССЕИСТИКЕ ДЖОЗЕФА УОРТОНА: МЕЖДУ АВГУСТИАНСТВОМ И ПРЕДРОМАНТИЗМОМ Поляков О. Ю. Вятский государственный университет (Киров, Россия) ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9362-7720 Поляков О. Ю. «Патетическая» критика в эссеистике Джозефа Уортона: между августианством... 274 А н н о т а ц и я . Статья посвящена анализу литературно-критических эссе видного английского писателя, публициста XVIII в. Джозефа Уортона, которого представляют, как правило, лишь в качестве зачинателя пересмотра ценности художественного наследия А. Поупа и одного из родоначальников предромантического движения в Англии. При этом корпус публикаций Уортона в журнале «Эдвенчерер» дает возможность более полно и объективно изучить истоки и фундаментальные положения его эстетической теории, отличавшейся гетерогенностью и отразившей состояние переходности в английской литературе и литературной критике середины XVIII в. Цель данной статьи – всесторонне рассмотреть эссеистику Дж. Уортона с целью уточнения особенностей его литературно-критического метода и определения его роли в процессе формирования английского предромантизма. Методология исследования опирается на обновленную концепцию английского литературного процесса XVIII в., которая представляет его не столько с позиций стадиальности, сколько как комплексный феномен, отличающийся компромиссностью идейно-художественных исканий писателей и критиков и взаимопроникновением ведущих литературных методов. В статье анализируются в широком контексте античной и английской эстетической мысли генезис эстетики Уортона и специфика его взглядов на миметическую природу творчества, рассматриваются основные положения его концепций воображения, возвышенного и патетического, проявленные в литературно-критических текстах журнала «Эдвенчерер», раскрываются позиция Уортона в споре «древних и новых» и его представления о жанровой поэтике. В ходе исследования показано, что определяющее значение в эстетике Уортона имеет категория возвышенного, представления о которой у него сложились под влиянием Псевдо-Лонгина, Квинтилиана и Аддисона и которая определяет особенности его рецепции библейских текстов, творчества Гомера и Шекспира. При этом литературная теория английского мыслителя восходит в равной мере к как к псевдо-лонгиновскому, так и к горацианскому началам, актуализирующим, соответственно, оригинальное и универсальное в художественной репрезентации, что обусловливает взаимодействие в его литературной критике классицистических (августианских) и предромантических подходов. К л ю ч е в ы е с л о в а : классицизм; предромантизм; возвышенное; патетическое; спор «древних и новых»; категория воображения; Джозеф Уортон; «Эдвенчерер» Д л я ц и т и р о в а н и я : Поляков, О. Ю. «Патетическая» критика в эссеистике Джозефа Уортона: между августианством и предромантизмом / О. Ю. Поляков // Филологический класс. – 2021. – Т. 26, No 4. – С. 273–283. – DOI: 10.51762/1FK-2021-2604-24. F o r c i t a t i o n : Polyakov, O. Y. (2021). “Pathetic” Literary Criticism in the Essays by Joseph Warton: a Compromise between Augustanism and Pre-Romanticism. In Philological Class. Vol. 26. No. 4, pp. 273–283. DOI: 10.51762/1FK-2021-26-04-24. Introduction Joseph Warton (1722–1800) was an outstanding man of letters who, after studying at Oxford, took up spiritual, pedagogical and literary career, that of a church rector, a schoolmaster and a poet. His most prominent achievement was made in the field of literary criticism: he is considered one of the precursors of Romanticism, a defender of genius, enthusiasm and poetic “fire”. As a periodical critic of the 18th century, Joseph Warton deserves to be honoured together with J. Addison and R. Steele, S. Johnson and O. Goldsmith, although he is mostly known and merited as the author of the fundamental Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope (1756–1782). His essays, published in the Adventurer (1752–1754), are outstandingly representative of the aesthetic search of his epoch concerned with the problems of original art and the sources of literary imitation, the categories of genius, the sublime, and the pathetic. Joseph Warton tended to analyse particular literary texts, relying mainly on his own emotive response and general psychological attitudes rather than normative criticism, and his critical method, being descriptive and based on inductive empirical approach, anticipated significant changes in reviewing, associated with overcoming the neo-classical taste. A complex study of J. Warton’s essays is an actual matter, as it makes it possible not only to present his criticism in a wider context of aesthetic ideas of his time, but also to reveal border elements in his literary theory representative of the compromising character of English NeoClassicism as a whole, which is seen in the interrelation of neo-classical, sentimental and pre-romantic poetics in it. Considering J. Warton’s periodical criticism an insufficiently studied issue, we aim to outline the aesthetic foundations of his reviewing by analysing the Adventurer essays in the context of the critic’s predecessors’ and contemporaries’ opinions. We will consider the specificity of J. Warton’s views on the mimetic nature of art, highlight his Polyakov O. Y. “Pathetic” Literary Criticism in the Essays by Joseph Warton: a Compromise... 275 conceptions of imagination, the pathetic, and the sublime, reveal his attitude to the ancientmodern controversy, genre theories of his time and characterize his contribution to the advancement of psychological and historical methods of criticism. Finally, relying on the provided data, we will focus on evaluating J. Warton’s role in forming the theoretical basis of PreRomanticism in English literature. Methodological framework of the study The methodology of the study is based on the previous research of Joseph Warton’s critical heritage and, more essentially, on the reconsidered conceptions of the eighteenthcentury English literary evolution, which is seen nowadays not as a straightforward movement from NeoClassicism to PreRomanticism, but as a complex phenomenon distinguished by heterogeneity of aesthetic basis and interpenetration of the leading literary trends. This approach was anticipated by the works of N. Frye, B. Bronson, and R. Wellek [Frye 1956: 144–152; Bronson 1968: 3–4; Wellek 1981, 1st ed. 1955: 30], and in Russian literary studies it was developed by O. Y. Polyakov [Polyakov 2003: 7–10]. The number of works, devoted to the Adventurer essays on literature, is rather scarce. In the late 19th and early 20th c. G. Saintsbury [Saintsbury 1904] and H. Beers [Beers 1926] forwarded the problem of “romantic” tendencies in J. Warton’s literary criticism. H. Trowbridge studied the genesis of Warton’s aesthetic theory and his conception of imagination on the material of his essays more profoundly [Trowbridge 1937]. Nevertheless, he did not consider the category of the pathetic in the critic’s works published in the Adventurer. In the 1930–1950s, several generalizing works on the history of criticism appeared, in which Warton’s essays on Shakespeare were estimated. R. Wellek, in particular, marked their importance as one of the first specimens of a new kind of criticism, “probably, psychological” [Wellek 1981: 117]. A. Bosker, who appreciated the critic as a “defender of taste”, relied on the Essay on Pope, leaving Warton’s periodical essays without attention [Bosker 1953]. J. Atkins, who represented the development of the 18 c. English literary criticism as a steady movement towards romantic ideas, declared Warton one of the first apologists of original art, ignoring neo-classical elements of his aesthetics [Atkins 1951]. Then followed a break in studying J. Warton’s critical heritage, which ended in the 1970s, when J. Pittock’s book The Ascendancy of Taste was published. This work considers mainly aesthetic context of Warton’s criticism [Pittock 1973]. Then J. Vance gave a brief survey of the Adventurer essays on literature and emphasized that, in spite of undervaluing Homer’s Iliad and English Restoration comedy, Warton judged literary pieces objectively and contributed much to the eighteenth century Shakespearean and Miltonian criticism [Vance 1983]. In the 1990–2010s, J. Warton’s works attracted attention of scholars only occasionally: mostly, his Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope was referred to in surveys of the history of English neo-classical criticism [Nisbet, Rawson 2005] or in the studies of particular aspects of 18 c. English literary process, such as the classical reception in the national literature of the period [Hopkins, Martindale 2012] and the formation of the national literary canon [Kramnik 1997]. In Russia, J. Warton’s criticism is predominantly viewed as an aesthetic source of PreRomanticism [Solov’eva 2005: 34–35; Lukov 2006: 160–161]. His periodical essays were once considered in the context of transformations of genre criticism in mid-18 c. England [Polyakov 2003: 129–155]. Undoubtedly, putting forward the issue of the sources of pre-romantic aesthetics in J. Warton’s literary criticism may sound disputable, as it tends to ignore a long and fruitful tradition in English literary theory, which helped to promote new aesthetic values (original imagination, the sublime, etc.). Warton’s conceptions were anticipated by T. Hobbes, J. Locke, J. Addison, D. Hume and M. Akenside, whose works were to become true sources of pre-romantic theory. Nevertheless, the most active shaping of new critical approaches occurred in the mid-eighteenth century, and from this point of view, J. Warton’s works, especially his periodical publications, are of considerable interest. Results and discussion Joseph Warton was the author of the greater part of critical essays published in the Adventurer to which he