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Walter Savage Landor as a Critic of Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Stanley T. Williams
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Extract

As a critic of literature Walter Savage Landor had ideals but few principles. Such a statement is not another paradox in the life of the old lion. It means simply that we look in vain in Landor's numerous judgments on literature for a method or a body of criteria. He never formulated a system, like Coleridge; or standards, like Arnold; nor even consistent prejudices, like Carlyle. The evolution of English criticism between Dryden and Coleridge he disregarded, as indeed he seemed to disregard all consecutive philosophical thought. He did not look into the new worlds of psychological and social criticism. He was not interested in the relations of things, but rather in the things themselves. Such statements are never truer of Landor than when he studies a piece of literature, or a writer. As a critic he never saw literature in perspective-so marvellously increased in his own day-but as something directly before him,—foreshortened. Thus he judged Pindar and Wordsworth each per se; one would think he was a contemporary of both. In all his criticisms we cannot find a body of guiding principles. Personal ideals are the determinants. It need scarcely be added that these are austere and high.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , December 1923 , pp. 906 - 928
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1923

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References

1 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, London 1846, II, 320. The Pentameron.

2 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 11. Southey and Parson. Some of Landor's comments on theories of poetry may be found in ibid., 1, 9, 13, 19, 81, 83, 90, 99 and II, 310, 314, 323, 368, 375, 409; and in Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 570. On rhyme, The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 96, 103; on style, ibid., I, 16, 151ff; on criticism, ibid., II, 320; on epic poetry, ibid., I, 59-60; Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 519; on the sonnet, The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 70-74; on metres, Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 380.

3 The Contemporary Renew, XXIII, 809. Letter to R. H. Horne.

4 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 11. Southey and Porson.

5 Ibid., I, 11. Southey and Porson.

6 Ibid.,11, 323. The Pentameron.

7 Exceptions are the papers on Theocritus, Catullus, and a few other minor pieces.

8 Among the writers on whom, at one time or another, Landor comments in verse are the following: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Cowley, Pope, Goldsmith, Gray, Gibbon, Defoe, Southey, Miss Mitford, Tennyson, Mathias, Gifford, Byron, Ebenezer Elliott, William Bailey, Shelley, Robert Landor, Aubrey de Vere, Macaulay, Dickens, Wordsworth, G. P. R. James, Barry Cornwall, Browning, Thackeray, Jeffrey, Dante, Hugo.

9 Diary, I, 484.

10 Memoirs of Old Friends, p. 267.

11 See the opening pages of the Pentameron.

12 Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, ed. Stephen Wheeler, p. 60.

13 Ibid., p. 61.

14 Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, p. 155.

15 Ibid., p. 63.

16 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, II, 60-61. Southey and Landor.

17 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, II, 58. Southey and Landor.

18 Ibid., II, 60. Southey and Landor.

19 Mixed Essays, pp. 206ff.

20 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, II, 459-60. Opinions of Caesar, Cromwell, Milton and Buonaparte.

21 Ibid., II, 74. Southey and Landor.

22 Memoirs of Charles Dickens, p. 8.

23 Walter Savage Landor, p. 335.

24 Selections from the Writings of Walter Savage Landor, Preface xxviii.

25 Monographs Personal and Social, Walter Landor, pp. 77ff.

26 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 197. Johnson and Tooke.

27 Ibid., I, 80. Southey and Porson.

28 The Last Fruit Of an Old Tree, p. 121. Archdeacon Hare and Walter Landor.

29 A brief but interesting account of some of Landor's preferences may be found in Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 440.

30 See ibid., pp. 9ff, 22, 23, 114.

31 Ibid., p. 13.

32 Ibid., p. 651.

33 See The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 13, 92, 304, 363, 387; II, 60. Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, pp. 62, 110, 131, 160, 162. Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 152, 418, 547.

34 Ibid., pp. 46, 130-31.

35 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 93. See also ibid., II, 370-371. Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 176, 179, 276, 499, 581.

36 Ibid., p. 511.

37 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, II, 363. Pericles and Aspasia. See ibid., II, 444 and Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 418, 511.

38 Ibid., p. 569.

39 Ibid., pp. 385-86.

40 See also The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 227, Landor's essay, The Poems of Catullus, and Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 98, 131, 545, 580.

41 See also The Works of Walter Savage Landor, II, 27, 58.

42 See Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 210-11.

43 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 122; II, 364, 380.

44 Ibid., II, 416, Pericles and Aspasia. See also ibid., II, 373.

45 See Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 42. Landor thought Sophocles the only ancient who portrayed worthily the characters of women.

46 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 102. The Abbé Delille and Walter Landor. See also ibid., I, 122 and Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 151, 179.

47 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, II, 369. Pericles and Aspasia. See also Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 493.

48 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, II, 220. Lord Chesterfield and Lord Chatham.

49 Ibid., I, 229. Aristoteles and Callisthenes.

50 See Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 544, 599.

51 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, II, 58. Southey and Landor.

52 See ibid., I, 103; II, 219, 313, 324. Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, pp. 58-60, 160. Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 236, 543.

53 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 136. Roger Ascham and Lady Jane Gray.

54 Among Landor's other opinions of the classics the following may be noted: Plautus, The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 123; Tibullus, ibid., I, 219; Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, pp. 54, 131; Tacitus, The Works of Walter Savage Landor, II, 58 ; Virgil, ibid., I, 14, 96, 102, 103; II, 219, 322-25; Cicero, ibid., I, 114ff; II, 307, 310, Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 280; Horace, The Works of Walter Savage Landor, II, 340; Mimnercus, ibid., II, 372-73; Phrynicus, ibid., II, 390; Menander, ibid., I, 121-22; Thucydides, ibid., I, 366, II, 413; Xenophon, ibid., I, 229, 366; Aristotle, ibid., I, 220, 221, 451, 461, Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 151; Herodotus, The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 229; Propertius, Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 545; Lucretius, ibid., p. 544; Theocritus, see Landor's essay, The Idyls of Theocritus.

55 See Landor's essay, Francesca. Petrarca.

56 Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 92.

57 Ibid., p. 254.

58 See The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 101 and Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 532.

59 Ibid., p. 277.

60 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 91ff. The Abbé Delille and Waller Landor.

61 Ibid., I, 93. The Abbé Delille and Walter Landor.

62 Ibid., II, 208. La Fontaine and Rochefoucauld. See also Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 203.

63 Among other opinions of Landor's on French literature the following are worthy of notice: French drama, The Works of Walter Savage Landor, II, 160; Montaigne, ibid., I, 268; Rousseau, ibid., I, 254ff, and Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 132; La Fontaine, ibid., p. 273.

64 P. 207.

65 See The Pentameron, passim, and Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, pp. 33, 93, 99, 100.

66 See ibid., 33, 99, 253 and Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 277, 510, 548.

67 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 100. The Abbé Delille and Walter Landor.

68 Ibid., II, 306. The Pentameron.

69 Ibid., II, 310. The Pentameron.

70 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, II, 311. The Pentameron.

71 Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 280.

72 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, II, 312. See ibid., I, 13, 14; II, 306, 308, 310, 311, 312, 313, 319, 320, 322-24, 329, 332, 336. Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 516ff, 548, 637. Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, pp. 33, 34, 39, 44-.

73 Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 282.

74 Ibid., p. 345.

75 See The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 81, 337; II, 165, and Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 156, 569.

76 Ibid., pp. 511-12.

77 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 73. Southey and Porson. See also ibid., I, 13, 91, 102, 104, 105, 123; II, 161; Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, pp. 60-61, 109, 110, 121, 157; Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 511, 542-43, 569, 587, 637, 638.

78 See also ibid., p. 633.

79 The Works of Waller Savage Landor, I, 49. Peter Leopold and the President du Paly. See also ibid., I, 224, 471; II, 236.

80 Ibid., I, 471, Barrow and Newton.

81 Ibid., I, 80. Southey and Porson. See also Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 55-56, 283. Landor preferred Spenser's account of Irish affairs to his poetry. A different version of Landor's attitude towards Spenser may be found in R. H. Horne's A New Spirit of the Age, p. 175.

82 Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 47.

83 Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, p. 101. For full criticisms of Milton see the Imaginary Conversations: Southey and Porson, (two conversations) Southey and Landor, Archdeacon Hare and Landor, passim. See also The Works of Walter Savage Landor, II, 459ff and Forster, Waller Savage Landor, pp. 47, 581, 640.

84 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 69. Southey and Porson.

85 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 69. Soulhey and Porson.

86 Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, p. 53. See also Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 130, 570.

87 See The Works of Walter Savage Landor, II, 58, 73 and The Last Fruit Of an Old Tree, p. 121.

88 Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, p. 61.

89 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 170. Cavaliere Puntomichino and Mr. D. E. Talcranagh.

90 Ibid., I, 73. Southey and Porson. See also ibid., I, 337.

91 Ibid., I, 80. Southey and Parson.

92 Ibid., I, 190. Johnson and Tooke, p. 10.

93 II, 341, note. The Pentameron. See Landor's opinions of: Cowley, I, ibid., 45-46; Warton, ibid., I, 161; Swift, ibid., 198-99 and Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 640; Cowper, The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 79 and Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 632, 637. Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, p. 63; Gibbon, The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 92, and Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 345; Donne, ibid., p. 423; Chesterfield, ibid., p. 474; Blake, ibid., p. 509; Dryden, ibid., p. 580 and Henry Crabb Robinson, Diary, III, 195; Steele, Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 638; Goldsmith, ibid., p. 641; Beattie, Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, p. 205.

94 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 68. Southey and Porson.

95 Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, p. 109.

96 Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, p. 189.

97 Ibid., p. 169.

98 Ibid., p. 169. Byron was not slow to respond to Landor's hostility:

“That deep-mouthed Boeotian Savage Landor

Has taken for a swan rogue Southey's gander.“

(Don Juan, Canto XI.)

See also The Conversations of Lord Byron with the Countess of Blessington, p. 245.

99 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 340. Landor, English Visiter, and Florentine Visiter.

100 Ibid., I, 338. Landor, English Visiter, and Florentine Visiter.

101 Ibid., I, 340. Landor, English Visiter, and Florentine Visiter. See also this conversation and The Abbé Delille and Walter Landor, passim, and ibid., I, 69. See also the Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, pp. 165-70; Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 51, 270, 522, 571; The Last Fruit Of an Old Tree, p. 113.

102 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, II, 157. Southey and Landor. See also Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, p. 173; Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 419, 541, 613, 641.

103 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 339. Landor, English Visiter, ana Florentine Visiter. See also Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, pp. 170-72, 419, 634-35, 691.

104 See Southey and Porson (both conversations) and Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 116, 125, 130, 149, 286, 290, 570.

105 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 70. Southey and Porson. (Second Conversation).

106 Ibid., I, 16. (First Conversation).

107 There are the usual superlatives: “The first poet that ever wrote was not a more original poet than he, and the last is hardly a greater.” See Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 287. See Southey and Porson (both conversations), passim. Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Waller Savage Landor, pp. 63, 157, 158, 159. Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 268, 273, 277, 283, 287, 291, 509, 569, 570-71, 617. Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, p. 204.

108 The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 72. Southey and Porson. See also Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, pp. 61, 160. Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 522, 634-35. Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, p. 204. The Last Fruit Off an Old Tree, pp. 110, 116.

109 See Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, 181. Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 636.

110 See also ibid., pp. 592-93, 637.

111 See Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, pp. 126, 180, 181. Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 509, 634.

112Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, pp. 179-80. Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 570.

113 Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, p. 124.

114 Some of Landor's other opinions of his contemporaries are noteworthy. For his opinion of Coleridge see The Works of Walter Savage Landor, I, 16: Coleridge has “bright colours without form, sublimely void.” See also Forster, Walter Savage Landor, pp. 489, 567, 568. Lamb, Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, p. 177, Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 489; Bulwer Lytton, ibid., p. 636; Macaulay, ibid., pp. 63, 599; Mathias, ibid., p. 56; Moore, ibid., p. 63; Robert Smith, The Works of Walter Savage Landor, II, 155; Bobus Smith, ibid., II, 125; Hazlitt, Forster, Walter Savage Landor, p. 568; E. B. Browning, ibid., pp. 569, 641; Barry Cornwall, ibid., p. 570; Rogers, ibid., p. 600; Beddoes, ibid., p. 674; Gifford, ibid., p. 634; Aubrey de Vere, ibid., p. 634; Sydney Smith, ibid., p. 635; De Quincey, ibid., p. 636; Austen, ibid., p. 650; Carlyle, Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, p. 203.