The Modern Language Review, Vol. 13: A Quarterly Journal Devoted to the Study of Medieval and Modern Literature and Philology (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from The Modern Language Review, Vol. 13: A Quarterly Journal Devoted to the Study of Medieval and Modern Literature and PhilologyThe following notes attempt to throw light on some vexed passages in Chapman's plays. 'Where the thread of his meaning, ' says Professor Boas, 'seems to disappear amidst his fertile imagery - one feels not that sense is lacking, but that one has failed to find the clue to the zigzag movements of Chapman's brain.' This clue often lies in his learned allusiveness. His mind was saturated with Stoic doctrine, and the language of his characters is drawn freely from that tradition. But his references are often indirect because he was so much at home in that older world. He may merely imply distinctions familiar to him though obscure to his audience, or, with an inborn love of paradox, he allows his characters to distort the original argument for their immediate purpose, or sometimes he mistakes or mistranslates his source. Although I give sources when I happen to meet them, that is not the primary purpose of this paper. Many of his references seem to be to the general doctrine rather than to particular passages. I think that it can be shown, in some cases at least, that he had no book open before him, but linked images and allusions together through some association aroused by the immediate situation.This sensitiveness to images has called forth the harshest criticism. Chapman is accused of heaping up metaphors to no definite purpose. Now such passages are generally at salient points in the dramas, like Bussy's first speech or his last, and it would be a serious indictment of Chapman's literary skill if they had no internal coherence or appropriateness. As I hope to show, he is obscure at these times for two reasons. When he approaches a climax, his speech becomes concentrated, and thus doubly difficult for those who do not move in his atmosphere, also he uses metaphors to establish successive points in the argument. Though the images may be disparate, yet they are held together by an underlying thought which is developed by means of them, and the whole passage is thus fused into a unity.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.