And the want of a full and free life
in creative art goes far to account for the shortcomings of Elizabethan
criticism.
Vague the Elizabethan critics undeniably are; they tend to lose
themselves either in far-fetched analogies or in generalities that
have but a slight bearing upon the distinctive problems of literary
appreciation. When not vague, they are apt to fritter their strength
on technical details which, important to them, have long lost their
significance for the student of literature. But both technicalities
and vagueness may be largely traced to the uncertain practice of the
poets upon whom, in the first instance, their criticism was based. The
work of Surrey and of Sackville was tentative; that of Webbe and
Puttenham was necessarily the same. It is the more honour to Sidney
that, shackled as he was by conditions from which no man could escape
altogether, he should have struck a note at once so deep and so strong
as is sounded in the _Apologie_.
II. In turning from Sidney to Dryden we pass into a different world.
The philosophy, the moral fervour, the prophetic strain of the
Elizabethan critic have vanished.
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