I. THE "BAROCCO".

The Italian term barocco appeared in the 17th century. Whatever its disputed etymology may be, it used at first to denote something ridiculous, absurd, bizarre. In the 18th century the Italian word and its French equivalent baroque — were applied to some works of art of the preceding period: the architecture of a Guarini, a Borromini, was called Baroque. In this way the age of sober classicism expressed its contempt for irregular design and excessive ornamentation.1

Later, with the increasingly higher valuation of 17th century art, the term lost much of its depreciatory meaning. The historians of art have come to recognize the Baroque as a definite style of architecture, painting etc. The critics of literature have adopted the term and used it for what was extravagant and mannered in 17th century poetry for the works of such as Marini and Góngora.

The poems of these men were but a grotesque embodiment of the temper of the time. Similar tendencies made themselves felt in life, in manners, and in all artistic creation. Many theories have been put forward to explain what historical circumstances, what ways of action and reaction conditioned the character of the Baroque epoch and its style.

Literary scholarship should not disregard parallel research in the departments of art and history, yet it should concentrate on forming its own methods, for instance approaching the prose and poetry of that time with stylistic analysis.

German scholars have done much to investigate the Baroque literature written in German,3 an even in French4 and English.5 But their criteria of the Baroque, entirely formal, have given some results not quite in accordance with the historical development of literary expression in England; not only Shakespeare, but also John Lyly have been classified as Baroque writers!6 In examining these results, then, special care should be taken that the elements common both to the Renaissance and the Baroque are not regarded as characteristic of the Baroque style only.

Thus for instance an incongruity between the idea and the words by which it is uttered, is considered a distinguishing mark of Baroque writing. We read in the essay of Dr. Michels:7

"Die Renaissance war eine realistische Epoche. Von ihr wurde das Wort in den Dienst der Sache gestellt. Barock erwuchs aus der Renaissance durch die übertreibung der in dieser üblichen Mittel." This statement might be questioned; the liking for rhetorical redundancy of words, the consideration of manner rather than of matter, was inherent in the Renaissance movement from its very beginning. Most humanists, especially in Italy, devoted their energy to polishing their style.8 John Ruskin has expressed it fittingly: "They discovered suddenly that the world for ten centuries had been living in an ungrammatical manner, and they made it forthwith the end of human existence to be grammatical. And it mattered thenceforth nothing what was said, or what was done, so only that it was said with scholarship, and done with system. Falsehood in a Ciceronian dialect had no opposers; truth in patois no listeners. A Roman phrase was thought worth any number of Gothic facts."9

Lest Ruskin should be considered too biassed a critic, I quote a contemporary witness, Sir Francis Bacon, who was just as strongly conscious of the Renaissance verbalism. Surveying the trend of the 16th century he declared: "So that these four causes concurring, the admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen, the exact study of language, and the efficacy of preaching, did bring in an affectionate study of eloquence and copy of speech, which then began to flourish. This grew speedily to an excess; for men began to hunt more after words than matter; and more after the choiceness of the phrase and the round and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with tropes and figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment. Then grew the flowing and watery vein of Osorius, the Portugal bishop, to be in price. Then did Sturmius spend such infinite and curious pains upon Cicero the orator and Hermogenes the rhetorician, besides his own books of periode and imitation and the like. Then did Car of Cambridge, and Ascham, with their lectures and writings, almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes... Then did Erasmus take occasion to make the scoffing echo: Decem annos consumpsi in legendo Cicerone... etc.10

The imitation of the Ciceronian grand manner - genus grande was the goal of the humanists writing in Latin, and had a far-reaching influence upon vernacular literatures. All ornate Renaissance prose tended to a Ciceronian balanced structure and rhythm.

As the 17th century turned distinctly anti-Ciceronian both