If you want some shade-throwing about Fritz's poetry, Macaulay is your man. He also had some interesting (to me) opinions about why Fritz was so bad: The wish, perhaps, dearest to his heart was, that he might rank among the masters of French rhetoric and poetry. He wrote prose and verse as indefatigably as if he had been a starving hack of Cave or Osborn; but Nature, which had bestowed on him in a large measure the talents of a captain and of an administrator, had withheld from him those higher and rarer gifts, without which industry labors in vain to produce immortal eloquence or song. And, indeed, had he been blessed with more imagination, wit, and fertility of thought than he appears to have had, he would still have been subject to one great disadvantage, which would, in all probability, have forever prevented him from taking a high place among men of letters. He had not the full command of any language. There was no machine of thought which he could employ with perfect ease, confidence, and freedom. He had German enough to scold his servants or to give the word of command to his grenadiers; but his grammar and pronunciation were extremely bad.
Yet though he had neglected his mother tongue in order to bestow all his attention on French, his French was, after all, the French of a foreigner. It was necessary for him to have always at his beck some men of letters from Paris to point out the solecisms and false rhymes, of which, to the last, he was frequently guilty. Even had he possessed the poetic faculty—of which, as far as we can judge, he was utterly destitute—the want of a language would have prevented him from being a great poet. No noble work of imagination, as far as we recollect, was ever composed by any man, except in a dialect which he had learned without remember ing how or when, and which he had spoken with perfect ease before he had ever analyzed its structure. Romans of great talents wrote Greek verses; but how many of those verses have deserved to live? Many men of eminent genius have, in modern times, written Latin poems ; but. as far as we are aware, none of those poems, not even Milton's, can be ranked in the first class of art, or even very high in the second. It is not strange, therefore, that in the French verses of Frederick, we can find nothing beyond the reach of any man of good parts and industry.
[Macaulay thinks his histories are slightly better.]
On the whole, however, none of his writings are so agreeable to us as his Letters ; particularly those which are written with earnestness, and are not embroidered with verses. Macaulay is also not the biggest fan of Voltaire as author:
It is not strange that a young man devoted to literature, and acquainted only with the literature of France, should have looked with profound veneration on the genius of Voltaire. Nor is it just to condemn him for this feeling. "A man who has never seen the sun," says Calderon in one of his charming comedies, "cannot be blamed for thinking that no glory can exceed that of the moon. A man who has seen neither moon nor sun cannot be blamed for talking of the unrivaled brightness of the morning star." Had Frederick been able to read Homer and Milton, or even Virgil and Tasso, his admiration of the Henriade would prove that he was utterly destitute of the power of discerning what is excellent in art. Had he been familiar with Sophocles or Shakespeare, we should have expected him to appreciate Zaire more justly. Had he been able to study Thucydides and Tacitus in the original Greek and Latin, he would have known that there were heights in the eloquence of history far beyond the reach of the author of the Life of Charles the Twelfth. But the finest heroic poem, several of the most powerful tragedies, and the most brilliant and picturesque historical work that Frederick had ever read, were Voltaire's.
By "familiar with Shakespeare" I guess you mean reading Shakespeare as opposed to condemning Shakespeare unread?
No noble work of imagination, as far as we recollect, was ever composed by any man, except in a dialect which he had learned without remember ing how or when, and which he had spoken with perfect ease before he had ever analyzed its structure.
Andrew Bisset uses the same argument re: Fritz' poetry, but:
a) Joseph Roth and Vladimir Nabokov are both powerful counter examples in terms of prose writing. (Of great literature produced in a language the writer in question only learned as an adult, and after already having written literature in their mother tongue.)
b) To say nothing of the emigrés scriptwriters making it in Hollywood. I defy anyone to write better dialogue in English, including versatile word play, than Billy Wilder did. Billy Wilder was born Samuel Wilder in the Austrian Empire's final years, and of course grew up with German as his native tongue.
c) Fritz as being between languages and speaking neither correctly - well, Macauly here is assuming he learned French as a second language. He didn't. It was literally his first, the one spoken in his nursery, which he learned without thinking about it; by Macauly's standards, it should have qualified him. That he never stopped aiming to improve himself in it wasn't limited to Fritz, and was something people born in France also did. I mean, the whole idea of the Academie Francaise was to set a high standard of the French language which sure as hell wasn't what they spoke in the provinces.
d) and while we're speaking of bilingual writers: Dylan Thomas certainly qualifies as a great poet in the English language. His mother tongue was Welsh. David Llyod George was one of the great political orators (and yes, wrote his own speeches) of his time in English - again, first language Welsh, second English. There are a great many current day authors with origins in India or Pakistan who use English as their primary language to write in, and they've made their names in it. (Salman Rushdie, to name but one.)
e) I think Macauly's attitude is very English (not British, note) here again, in addition to being very 19th century, and overlooks that growing up with two or sometimes even more langugaes was and is something that actually is true for a great number of people in the world, some of which turn into great writers.
By "familiar with Shakespeare" I guess you mean reading Shakespeare as opposed to condemning Shakespeare unread?
Presumably. Note that Voltaire himself - who had not only read Shakespeare but seen him performed in Britain - while being pro Shakespeare for a while (in his "Letters concerning the English") as a young man in his old age turned against him with a vengeance, more, one feels out of sheer contrariness because by then most of Europe was pro Will. Anyway, Orieux is with Macauly as far as Voltaire's plays and some of his poetry is concerned, but not the historical work - "The Age of Louis XIV" remains a mssterpiece for him - and definitely not the prose of the pamphlets, letters and novel.
That he never stopped aiming to improve himself in it wasn't limited to Fritz, and was something people born in France also did. I mean, the whole idea of the Academie Francaise was to set a high standard of the French language which sure as hell wasn't what they spoke in the provinces.
This part made me think of Joseph Conrad, who was the person my high school English teacher held up as the consummate example of this (though I have read very little by him, and was probably too young to read it at the time so I didn't appreciate it) -- I still remember that he said this about Conrad because I thought it was really cool. But of course that was post-Macaulay as well.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Macaulay - Fritz as poet
Date: 2020-09-03 02:36 am (UTC)The wish, perhaps, dearest to his heart was, that he might rank among the masters of French rhetoric and poetry. He wrote prose and verse as indefatigably as if he had been a starving hack of Cave or Osborn; but Nature, which had bestowed on him in a large measure the talents of a captain and of an administrator, had withheld from him those higher and rarer gifts, without which industry labors in vain to produce immortal eloquence or song. And, indeed, had he been blessed with more imagination, wit, and fertility of thought than he appears to have had, he would still have been subject to one great disadvantage, which would, in all probability, have forever prevented him from taking a high place among men of letters. He had not the full command of any language. There was no machine of thought which he could employ with perfect ease, confidence, and freedom. He had German enough to scold his servants or to give the word of command to his grenadiers; but his grammar and pronunciation were extremely bad.
Yet though he had neglected his mother tongue in order to bestow all his attention on French, his French was, after all, the French of a foreigner. It was necessary for him to have always at his beck some men of letters from Paris to point out the solecisms and false rhymes, of which, to the last, he was frequently guilty. Even had he possessed the poetic faculty—of which, as far as we can judge, he was utterly destitute—the want of a language would have prevented him from being a great poet. No noble work of imagination, as far as we recollect, was ever composed by any man, except in a dialect which he had learned without remember ing how or when, and which he had spoken with perfect ease before he had ever analyzed its structure. Romans of great talents wrote Greek verses; but how many of those verses have deserved to live? Many men of eminent genius have, in modern times, written Latin poems ; but. as far as we are aware, none of those poems, not even Milton's, can be ranked in the first class of art, or even very high in the second. It is not strange, therefore, that in the French verses of Frederick, we can find nothing beyond the reach of any man of good parts and industry.
[Macaulay thinks his histories are slightly better.]
On the whole, however, none of his writings are so agreeable to us as his Letters ; particularly those which are written with earnestness, and are not embroidered with verses.
Macaulay is also not the biggest fan of Voltaire as author:
It is not strange that a young man devoted to literature, and acquainted only with the literature of France, should have looked with profound veneration on the genius of Voltaire. Nor is it just to condemn him for this feeling. "A man who has never seen the sun," says Calderon in one of his charming comedies, "cannot be blamed for thinking that no glory can exceed that of the moon. A man who has seen neither moon nor sun cannot be blamed for talking of the unrivaled brightness of the morning star." Had Frederick been able to read Homer and Milton, or even Virgil and Tasso, his admiration of the Henriade would prove that he was utterly destitute of the power of discerning what is excellent in art. Had he been familiar with Sophocles or Shakespeare, we should have expected him to appreciate Zaire more justly. Had he been able to study Thucydides and Tacitus in the original Greek and Latin, he would have known that there were heights in the eloquence of history far beyond the reach of the author of the Life of Charles the Twelfth. But the finest heroic poem, several of the most powerful tragedies, and the most brilliant and picturesque historical work that Frederick had ever read, were Voltaire's.
By "familiar with Shakespeare" I guess you mean reading Shakespeare as opposed to condemning Shakespeare unread?
Re: Macaulay - Fritz as poet
Date: 2020-09-03 11:20 am (UTC)Andrew Bisset uses the same argument re: Fritz' poetry, but:
a) Joseph Roth and Vladimir Nabokov are both powerful counter examples in terms of prose writing. (Of great literature produced in a language the writer in question only learned as an adult, and after already having written literature in their mother tongue.)
b) To say nothing of the emigrés scriptwriters making it in Hollywood. I defy anyone to write better dialogue in English, including versatile word play, than Billy Wilder did. Billy Wilder was born Samuel Wilder in the Austrian Empire's final years, and of course grew up with German as his native tongue.
c) Fritz as being between languages and speaking neither correctly - well, Macauly here is assuming he learned French as a second language. He didn't. It was literally his first, the one spoken in his nursery, which he learned without thinking about it; by Macauly's standards, it should have qualified him. That he never stopped aiming to improve himself in it wasn't limited to Fritz, and was something people born in France also did. I mean, the whole idea of the Academie Francaise was to set a high standard of the French language which sure as hell wasn't what they spoke in the provinces.
d) and while we're speaking of bilingual writers: Dylan Thomas certainly qualifies as a great poet in the English language. His mother tongue was Welsh. David Llyod George was one of the great political orators (and yes, wrote his own speeches) of his time in English - again, first language Welsh, second English. There are a great many current day authors with origins in India or Pakistan who use English as their primary language to write in, and they've made their names in it. (Salman Rushdie, to name but one.)
e) I think Macauly's attitude is very English (not British, note) here again, in addition to being very 19th century, and overlooks that growing up with two or sometimes even more langugaes was and is something that actually is true for a great number of people in the world, some of which turn into great writers.
By "familiar with Shakespeare" I guess you mean reading Shakespeare as opposed to condemning Shakespeare unread?
Presumably. Note that Voltaire himself - who had not only read Shakespeare but seen him performed in Britain - while being pro Shakespeare for a while (in his "Letters concerning the English") as a young man in his old age turned against him with a vengeance, more, one feels out of sheer contrariness because by then most of Europe was pro Will. Anyway, Orieux is with Macauly as far as Voltaire's plays and some of his poetry is concerned, but not the historical work - "The Age of Louis XIV" remains a mssterpiece for him - and definitely not the prose of the pamphlets, letters and novel.
Re: Macaulay - Fritz as poet
Date: 2020-09-04 12:51 am (UTC)That he never stopped aiming to improve himself in it wasn't limited to Fritz, and was something people born in France also did. I mean, the whole idea of the Academie Francaise was to set a high standard of the French language which sure as hell wasn't what they spoke in the provinces.
Re: Macaulay - Fritz as poet
Date: 2020-09-05 05:32 am (UTC)