太子爷小说网 > 英语电子书 > essays and lectures >

第1节

essays and lectures-第1节

小说: essays and lectures 字数: 每页4000字

按键盘上方向键 ← 或 → 可快速上下翻页,按键盘上的 Enter 键可回到本书目录页,按键盘上方向键 ↑ 可回到本页顶部!
————未阅读完?加入书签已便下次继续阅读!







Essays and Lectures



by Oscar Wilde












Contents



The Rise of Historical Criticism

The English Renaissance of Art

House Decoration

Art and the Handicraftman

Lecture to Art Students

London Models

Poems in Prose









THE RISE OF HISTORICAL CRITICISM









CHAPTER I







HISTORICAL criticism nowhere occurs as an isolated fact in the

civilisation or literature of any people。  It is part of that

complex working towards freedom which may be described as the

revolt against authority。  It is merely one facet of that

speculative spirit of an innovation; which in the sphere of action

produces democracy and revolution; and in that of thought is the

parent of philosophy and physical science; and its importance as a

factor of progress is based not so much on the results it attains;

as on the tone of thought which it represents; and the method by

which it works。



Being thus the resultant of forces essentially revolutionary; it is

not to be found in the ancient world among the material despotisms

of Asia or the stationary civilisation of Egypt。  The clay

cylinders of Assyria and Babylon; the hieroglyphics of the

pyramids; form not history but the material for history。



The Chinese annals; ascending as they do to the barbarous forest

life of the nation; are marked with a soberness of judgment; a

freedom from invention; which is almost unparalleled in the

writings of any people; but the protective spirit which is the

characteristic of that people proved as fatal to their literature

as to their commerce。  Free criticism is as unknown as free trade。

While as regards the Hindus; their acute; analytical and logical

mind is directed rather to grammar; criticism and philosophy than

to history or chronology。  Indeed; in history their imagination

seems to have run wild; legend and fact are so indissolubly mingled

together that any attempt to separate them seems vain。  If we

except the identification of the Greek Sandracottus with the Indian

Chandragupta; we have really no clue by which we can test the truth

of their writings or examine their method of investigation。



It is among the Hellenic branch of the Indo…Germanic race that

history proper is to be found; as well as the spirit of historical

criticism; among that wonderful offshoot of the primitive Aryans;

whom we call by the name of Greeks and to whom; as has been well

said; we owe all that moves in the world except the blind forces of

nature。



For; from the day when they left the chill table…lands of Tibet and

journeyed; a nomad people; to AEgean shores; the characteristic of

their nature has been the search for light; and the spirit of

historical criticism is part of that wonderful Aufklarung or

illumination of the intellect which seems to have burst on the

Greek race like a great flood of light about the sixth century B。C。



L'ESPRIT D'UN SIECLE NE NAIT PAS ET NE MEURT PAS E JOUR FIXE; and

the first critic is perhaps as difficult to discover as the first

man。  It is from democracy that the spirit of criticism borrows its

intolerance of dogmatic authority; from physical science the

alluring analogies of law and order; from philosophy the conception

of an essential unity underlying the complex manifestations of

phenomena。  It appears first rather as a changed attitude of mind

than as a principle of research; and its earliest influences are to

be found in the sacred writings。



For men begin to doubt in questions of religion first; and then in

matters of more secular interest; and as regards the nature of the

spirit of historical criticism itself in its ultimate development;

it is not confined merely to the empirical method of ascertaining

whether an event happened or not; but is concerned also with the

investigation into the causes of events; the general relations

which phenomena of life hold to one another; and in its ultimate

development passes into the wider question of the philosophy of

history。



Now; while the workings of historical criticism in these two

spheres of sacred and uninspired history are essentially

manifestations of the same spirit; yet their methods are so

different; the canons of evidence so entirely separate; and the

motives in each case so unconnected; that it will be necessary for

a clear estimation of the progress of Greek thought; that we should

consider these two questions entirely apart from one another。  I

shall then in both cases take the succession of writers in their

chronological order as representing the rational order … not that

the succession of time is always the succession of ideas; or that

dialectics moves ever in the straight line in which Hegel conceives

its advance。  In Greek thought; as elsewhere; there are periods of

stagnation and apparent retrogression; yet their intellectual

development; not merely in the question of historical criticism;

but in their art; their poetry and their philosophy; seems so

essentially normal; so free from all disturbing external

influences; so peculiarly rational; that in following in the

footsteps of time we shall really be progressing in the order

sanctioned by reason。







CHAPTER II







AT an early period in their intellectual development the Greeks

reached that critical point in the history of every civilised

nation; when speculative invades the domain of revealed truth; when

the spiritual ideas of the people can no longer be satisfied by the

lower; material conceptions of their inspired writers; and when men

find it impossible to pour the new wine of free thought into the

old bottles of a narrow and a trammelling creed。



From their Aryan ancestors they had received the fatal legacy of a

mythology stained with immoral and monstrous stories which strove

to hide the rational order of nature in a chaos of miracles; and to

mar by imputed wickedness the perfection of God's nature … a very

shirt of Nessos in which the Heracles of rationalism barely escaped

annihilation。  Now while undoubtedly the speculations of Thales;

and the alluring analogies of law and order afforded by physical

science; were most important forces in encouraging the rise of the

spirit of scepticism; yet it was on its ethical side that the Greek

mythology was chiefly open to attack。



It is difficult to shake the popular belief in miracles; but no man

will admit sin and immorality as attributes of the Ideal he

worships; so the first symptoms of a new order of thought are shown

in the passionate outcries of Xenophanes and Heraclitos against the

evil things said by Homer of the sons of God; and in the story told

of Pythagoras; how that he saw tortured in Hell the 'two founders

of Greek theology;' we can recognise the rise of the Aufklarung as

clearly as we see the Reformation foreshadowed in the INFERNO of

Dante。



Any honest belief; then; in the plain truth of these stories soon

succumbed before the destructive effects of the A PRIORI ethical

criticism of this school; but the orthodox party; as is its custom;

found immediately a convenient shelter under the aegis of the

doctrine of metaphors and concealed meanings。



To this allegorical school the tale of the fight around the walls

of Troy was a mystery; behind which; as behind a veil; were hidden

certain moral and physical truths。  The contest between Athena and

Ares was that eternal contest between rational thought and the

brute force of ignorance; the arrows which rattled in the quiver of

the 'Far Darter' were no longer the instruments of vengeance shot

from the golden bow of the child of God; but the common rays of the

sun; which was itself nothing but a mere inert mass of burning

metal。



Modern investigation; with the ruthlessness of Philistine analysis;

has ultimately brought Helen of Troy down to a symbol of the dawn。

There were Philistines among the Greeks also who saw in the 'Greek

text which cannot be reproduced' a mere metaphor for atmospheric

power。



Now while this tendency to look for metaphors and hidden meanings

must be ranked as one of the germs of historical criticism; yet it

was essentially unscientific。  Its inherent weakness is clearly

pointed out by Plato; who showed that while this theory will no

doubt explain many of the current legends; yet; if it is to be

appealed to at all; it must be as a universal principle; a position

he is by no means prepared to admit。



Like many other great principles it suffered from its disciples;

and furnished its own refutation when the web of Penelope was

analysed into a metaphor of the rules of formal logic; the warp

representing the premises; and the woof the conclusion。



Rejecting; then; the allegorical interpretation of the sacred

writings as an essentially dangerous method; proving either too

much or too little; Plato himself returns to the earlier mode of

attack; and re…writes history with a didactic purp

返回目录 下一页 回到顶部 0 0

你可能喜欢的