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CHAPTER 2: SIGMUND FREUD

Chapter Outline

I. Biographical Sketch
A. Born May 6, 1856, in Freiberg, Austria (now Pribor, Czech Republic)
B. Entered medical school at University of Vienna at 17 years of age
C. Entered private practice as a clinical neurologist in 1886
D. Married in 1886
E. Died September 23, 1939
II. Early Influences on Freud's Theory
A. Studied with Charcot (1885): Experiments with hypnotism
B. Visit with Bernheim (1889): Further experiments with hypnotism
C. Collaboration with Breuer (late 1870s) and the case of Anna O.
D. The development of free association
III. Instincts and Their Characteristics
A. All aspects of human personality are derived from biological instincts.
B. Characteristics of instinct
1. Source (biological deficiency)
2. Aim (correct the deficiency/restore balance)
3. Object (goal that satisfies)
4. Impetus (strength and direction of motive)
C. Life and death instincts
1. Libido or Eros/the Life Instincts
2. Thanatos/the Death Instinct
IV. Divisions of the Mind
A. The id (pure, unconscious instinctual energy)
1. Governed by the pleasure principle
2. Acts through reflexes and wish fulfillment (primary processes)
B. The ego (brings individual into contact with real goal objects)
1. Identification (matching id images with real objects)
2. Governed by the reality principle
3. Reality testing (secondary processes)
C. The superego (the moral arm of personality)
1. Conscience (from past punishments)
2. Ego ideal (from past rewards)
V. Cathexis and Anticathexis
A. Influenced by Helmholtz’s principle of conservation of energy
1. Applied the principle to psychic energy
B. Cathexis
1. Investment of psychic energy in wish-images as ideas or fantasies
2. Persists until the wish is satisfied
C. Anticathexis
1. Investment of psychic energy to prevent undesirable cathexes
D. Displacement
1. Superego and ego divert undesirable cathexes to alternative objects
 Chapter 2: Sigmund Freud

VI. Anxiety
A. All anxiety derived from the birth trauma
1. Functions to warn us if actions or thoughts are dangerous
B. Reality anxiety—related to real-world dangers
C. Neurotic anxiety—fear that id will overpower the ego
D. Moral anxiety—fear of actions or thoughts contrary to superego
VII. Ego-Defense Mechanisms
A. Irrational attempts to protect against anxiety
1. All ego defenses are unconscious
2. All ego defenses falsify or distort reality
B. Repression
1. The basic defense mechanism—must occur before any of the others
2. Prevention of ego-threatening thoughts from entering consciousness
a) Primal repression: Protects against id impulses
b) Repression proper: Protects against painful memories
C. Displacement
1. Substitution of one goal/activity for another that provokes anxiety
2. Sublimation: Displacement that is advantageous for society
D. Identification
1. Self-protection through affiliation with powerful persons or groups
E. Denial of reality
1. Denial of facts despite evidence to the contrary
F. Projection
1. Anxiety-provoking truths about the self are attributed to others
G. Undoing
1. Using ritualistic acts to atone for past actions that provoke anxiety
H. Reaction formation
1. Overt actions that are the opposite of anxiety-provoking thoughts
I. Rationalization
1. Logically explaining anxiety-provoking actions or thoughts
J. Intellectualization (isolation of affect)
1. Stripping emotional content from anxiety-laden thoughts via analysis
K. Regression
1. Returning to an earlier mode of gratification or anxiety relief
L. Altruistic surrender
1. Living in accordance with the values of a person perceived as superior
M. Identification with the aggressor
1. Internalizing the values and mannerisms of a feared person
VIII. Psychosexual Stages of Development
A. Each stage has an erogenous zone as its greatest source of pleasure
B. Too much or too little gratification causes fixation (substantial cathexes)
C. Oral stage
1. Pleasure from stimulation of mouth, lips, and tongue
2. Early fixations result in oral-incorporative character
3. Later fixations result in oral-sadistic character
D. Anal stage
1. Pleasure from stimulation of anus/buttocks
2. Early fixations result in anal-expulsive character
3. Later fixations result in anal-retentive character
An Introduction to Theories of Personality

E. Phallic stage
1. Pleasure from stimulation of penis
2. Oedipus complex occurs during this stage
F. Latency stage
1. Sexual interests are repressed and displaced
G. Genital stage
1. Characterized by adult, heterosexual interests
IX. Summary of Freud’s Views on Feminine Psychology
A. Viewed women as failed or inferior men
B. Believed women to be morally inferior due to weak superego development
C. Admitted failure to understand women
X. Tapping the Unconscious Mind
A. Free association
B. Dream analysis
C. Parapraxes in everyday life: Unconscious revealed in action
XI. Freud's View of Religion
A. Religion as an illusion to prevent anxiety
XII. Freud's View of Human Nature
A. A pessimistic, biological view of human nature
XIII. Modifications of the Freudian Legend
A. Problems with revisions of the seduction theory
B. Problems with repression of memories
C. Problems with distortion of the “Freudian History”
XIV. Evaluation

2.1 Multiple Choice

1) Charcot observed that while a patient was hypnotized, he could create and remove paralyses in the
patient at will. This demonstrated that
A) patients were malingerers.
B) physical symptoms could have a psychological origin.
C) physical symptoms had a physical origin.
D) physicians had supernatural powers.
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 23
Skill: Applied

2) Hysteria is a term used to describe

A) psychosis.
B) a variety of symptoms such as paralysis and disturbances of sight and speech.
C) a general release of emotional tension.
D) all of the above
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 23
Skill: Factual
 Chapter 2: Sigmund Freud

3) Hysteria is the Greek word for

A) uterus. B)
hysteria. C)
neurosis. D)
psychosis.
Answer: A
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 23
Skill: Factual

4) The inability or difficulty in remembering what one did under hypnosis is referred to as
A) posthypnotic suggestion.
B) posthypnotic amnesia.
C) the Hippolyte effect.
D) hysteria
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 24
Skill: Factual

5) From Bernheim’s demonstration of posthypnotic suggestion, Freud

learned that
A) behavior could be caused by unconscious ideas.
B) some patients could be hypnotized while others could not be.
C) previously unconscious thoughts could be made conscious.
D) hysteria was a “real” disorder and, therefore, had to be taken seriously by
the medical community.
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 25
Skill: Applied

6) Breuer found that Anna O.’s condition improved when she openly expressed her feelings. He referred
to this phenomenon as
A) hysteria.
B) transference.
C) catharsis.
D) transference.
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 25
Skill: Applied

7) The phenomenon where an analyst forms an emotional attachment to a patient is called

A) catharsis.
B) transference.
C) countertransference.
D) cathexis.
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 25
Skill: Factual
An Introduction to Theories of Personality

8) Which of the following did Freud call the fundamental rule of psychoanalysis?
A) hypnosis
B) free association
C) hand pressure
D) chimney sweeping
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 27
Skill: Applied

9) The major tool that Freud used in his self-analysis was

A) the interpretation of his own dreams.
B) looking at pictures of Anna O.
C) self-hypnosis.
D) free association.
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 28
Skill: Applied

10) Freud’s theory is because it assumes that humans continually seek pleasure and avoid pain.
A) deterministic
B) hedonistic
C) humanistic
D) rationalistic
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 28, 29
Skill: Applied

11) A bodily deficiency of some type is the of an instinct.

A) source
B) aim
C) object
D) impetus
Answer: A
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 29
Skill: Factual

12) Those experiences or objects that reduce or remove a bodily deficiency are the of an instinct.
A) source
B) aim
C) object
D) impetus
Answer: C
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 29
Skill: Factual
 Chapter 2: Sigmund Freud

13) The removal of a bodily deficiency constitutes the of an instinct.

A) source
B) aim
C) object
D) impetus
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 29
Skill: Factual

14) The magnitude of a bodily deficiency represents the of an instinct.

A) source
B) aim
C) object
D) impetus
Answer: D
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 29
Skill: Factual

15) The psychic energy associated with the life instincts is called
A) libido.
B) impetus.
C) eros.
D) thanatos.
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 29
Skill: Conceptual

16) Freud referred to the life instincts collectively as

A) thanatos.
B) eros.
C) impetus.
D) none of the above
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 29
Skill: Applied

17) Freud referred to the death instinct as

A) eros.
B) libido.
C) thanatos.
D) more than one of the above
Answer: C
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 29
Skill: Applied
An Introduction to Theories of Personality

18) Freud claimed that the aim of all life is

A) sexual enjoyment.
B) self-actualization.
C) to benefit others.
D) death.
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 29
Skill: Applied

19) According to Freud, the most important derivative of the death instinct is
A) sexual enjoyment.
B) eros.
C) aggression.
D) death, of course.
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 29
Skill: Applied

20) The consists of pure, unadulterated, instinctual energy.

A) superego
B) ego
C) id
D) ego-ideal
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 29
Skill: Conceptual

21) The demands immediate gratification of bodily needs.

A) superego
B) ego
C) id
D) ego-ideal
Answer: C
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 29
Skill: Conceptual

22) The is governed by the pleasure principle.

A) superego
B) ego
C) id
D) ego-ideal
Answer: C
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 29
Skill: Conceptual
 Chapter 2: Sigmund Freud

23) Freud suggested that the images conjured up by the id in order to temporarily reduce the tension
associated with a need were
A) innate.
B) products of an individual’s experiences.
C) learned from one’s parents.
D) always sexual in nature.
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 29
Skill: Applied

24) When a bodily need arises, the id conjures up an image of an object that will satisfy the need. This
exemplifies
A) reflex action.
B) wish fulfillment.
C) substitution.
D) identification.
Answer: B
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 30
Skill: Conceptual

25) Which of the following exemplifies a primary process?

A) eating when hungry
B) drinking when thirsty
C) thinking of food when hungry
D) Both A and B
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 30
Skill: Conceptual

26) The ego attempts to match the images of the id with objects and events in the real world. This process
is called
A) the primary process.
B) sublimation.
C) identification.
D) primary gratification.
Answer: C
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 30
Skill: Factual

27) The ego operates in accordance with the

A) reality principle.
B) pleasure principle.
C) ego-ideal.
D) primary process.
Answer: A
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 30
Skill: Conceptual
An Introduction to Theories of Personality

28) Which of the following is associated with the secondary processes?

A) superego
B) ego
C) id
D) ego-ideal
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 30
Skill: Conceptual

29) Which of the following exemplifies a secondary process?

A) eating when hungry
B) drinking when thirsty
C) thinking of food when hungry
D) both A and B
Answer: D
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 30, 31
Skill: Conceptual

30 The reflects the internalized experiences for which the child had been consistently punished.
A) conscience
B) ego
C) ego-ideal
D) id
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 31
Skill: Conceptual

31) The is the internalized experiences for which the child has been consistently rewarded.
A) conscience
B) ego
C) ego-ideal
D) id
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 31
Skill: Conceptual

32) The constantly strives for perfection.

A) id
B) ego
C) superego
D) libido
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 32
Skill: Conceptual
 Chapter 2: Sigmund Freud

33) The ego must find objects or events that

A) satisfy the needs of the id.
B) cannot be attained by primary processes.
C) do not violate the values of the superego.
D) all of the above
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 32
Skill: Conceptual

34) refers to the investment of energy in an image of an object that will satisfy a need.
A) Catharsis
B) Cathexis
C) Anticathexis
D) Displacement
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 33
Skill: Factual

35) According to Freud, the most overwhelming experience of anxiety humans have is when they are
A) sexually aroused.
B) out of money.
C) separated from their mother at birth.
D) in danger.
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 33
Skill: Applied

36) The function of anxiety, according to Freud, is to

A) make civilization possible.
B) assure ethical behavior.
C) warn a person that if he or she continues thinking or behaving in a certain way, he or she will be in
danger.
D) aIlow parents to control their children.
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 34
Skill: Applied

37) The fear of real sources of danger in the environment is called anxiety.
A) moral
B) neurotic
C) reality
D) environmental
Answer: C
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 34
Skill: Factual
An Introduction to Theories of Personality

38) anxiety is the fear that the impulses of the id will overwhelm the ego
and cause the individual to do something for which he or she could be punished.
A) Moral
B) Neurotic
C) Reality
D) Environmental
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 34
Skill: Factual

39) is experienced when one feels that he or she is about to do something contrary to the values of
his or her superego, and thus will experience guilt.
A) Moral anxiety
B) Neurotic anxiety
C) Reality anxiety
D) Signal anxiety
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 34
Skill: Conceptual

40) Moral anxiety is

A) caused by real environmental dangers.
B) the fear of being punished by others for impulsive actions.
C) the internal punishment (guilt) experienced when the dictates of one’s superego are
violated.
D) the same as objective anxiety.
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 34
Skill: Conceptual

41) is the most basic ego-defense mechanism because, for any of the other ego-defense
mechanisms to occur, it must occur first.
A) Displacement
B) Rationalization
C) Projection
D) Repression
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 34
Skill: Factual

42) is the basic mechanism by which the ego prevents anxiety, provoking thoughts from
being entertained in consciousness.
A) Displacement
B) Identification
C) Repression
D) Rationalization
Answer: C
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 35
Skill: Factual
 Chapter 2: Sigmund Freud

43) According to Freud, anxiety-provoking id images can come from

A) repressed experiences occurring in one’s lifetime.
B) the anxiety-provoking experiences of our ancestors.
C) both A and B
D) neither A nor B
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 35
Skill: Applied

44) Because Freud believed that the recurring anxiety-provoking experiences of our ancestors are
inherited as part of our psyche, he can be considered a
A) Darwinian.
B) Lamarckian.
C) creationist.
D) behaviorist.
Answer: B
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 35
Skill: Applied

45) You decide to call a friend and then conjure up his or her telephone number. According to Freud, in
what part of the mind was that number before it was conjured up?
A) preconscious
B) unconscious
C) conscious
D) repressed
Answer: A
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 36
Skill: Applied

46) When a cathexis that first involved one object now involves another object, is said to have
occurred.
A) development
B) displacement
C) need reduction
D) a primary process
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 36
Skill: Conceptual

47) When displacement results in something advantageous to civilization, it is called

A) identification.
B) sublimation.
C) projection.
D) reaction formation.
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 36
Skill: Factual
An Introduction to Theories of Personality

48) The term is used to describe the tendency to increase personal feelings of worth by taking on
characteristics of someone who is viewed as successful.
A) displaced affection
B) projection C)
sublimation D)
identification
Answer: D
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 36
Skill: Factual

49) Refusal to believe that a loved one has died exemplifies the ego defense of
A) denial of reality.
B) projection.
C) undoing.
D) reaction formation.
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 37
Skill: Conceptual

50) The criminal who says, “The world is filled with crooks,” is probably exemplifying
A) identification.
B) sublimation.
C) projection.
D) reaction formation.
Answer: C
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 37
Skill: Conceptual

51) Apologizing after committing an unacceptable act exemplifies which of the following defense
mechanisms?
A) intellectualization
B) denial of reality
C) undoing
D) reaction formation
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 37
Skill: Conceptual

52) involves repressing objectionable thoughts and expressing their opposites.

A) Reaction formation
B) Rationalization
C) Identification
D) Projection
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 37
Skill: Conceptual
 Chapter 2: Sigmund Freud

53) If a young woman is too extravagant in describing the love she has for her boyfriend, Freud would
conclude that the
A) two should get married.
B) two are probably deeply in love.
C) relationship is probably in trouble.
D) woman is a nymphomaniac.
Answer: C
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 37, 38
Skill: Applied

54) Which of the following defense mechanisms did Anna Freud add to those developed by her father and
his colleagues?
A) undoing
B) intellectualization
C) denial of reality
D) altruistic surrender
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 39
Skill: Applied

55) Which of the following defense mechanisms explains why some hostages develop affection toward
their captors?
A) altruistic surrender
B) identification with the aggressor
C) reaction formation
D) undoing
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 39
Skill: Conceptual

56) Freud believed that adult personality was formulated by

A) 62 years of age.
B) the end of the fifth year of life.
C) the end of the first year of life.
D) 40 years of age.
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 39
Skill: Applied

57) Each psychosexual stage has a(n) associated with it, which is the greatest source of stimulation
and pleasure during that stage of development.
A) anxiety point
B) inferiority
C) erroneous zone
D) erogenous zone
Answer: D
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 40
Skill: Conceptual
An Introduction to Theories of Personality

58) In order to make a smooth transition from one psychosexual stage to the next, the child must not be
A) undergratified.
B) fixated.
C) overgratified.
D) all of the above
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 40
Skill: Conceptual

59) Undergratification or overgratification at a certain psychosexual stage results in

A) normal development.
B) sexual perversions.
C) fixation.
D) psychosis.
Answer: C
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 40
Skill: Conceptual

60) The character places great importance on such activities as eating, drinking, smoking, and
kissing.
A) oral-sadistic
B) oral-incorporative
C) anal-expulsive
D) anal-retentive
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 40
Skill: Conceptual

61) Sarcasm, cynicism, and ridicule typify the character.

A) oral-sadistic
B) oral-incorporative
C) anal-expulsive
D) anal-retentive
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 40
Skill: Conceptual

62) The character possesses the traits of stinginess, parsimony, orderliness, and perfectionism.
A) oral-incorporative
B) oral-sadistic
C) anal-expulsive
D) anal-retentive
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 41
Skill: Conceptual
 Chapter 2: Sigmund Freud

63) Freud believed that the phallic stage of development applied to both male and female children
because
A) genital stimulation was not a factor in the development of either gender before the age of five.
B) he believed the clitoris to be a small penis and therefore both genders possessed a phallus.
C) both genders were sexually attracted to their mothers.
D) he completely ignored the development of female children.
Answer: B
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 41
Skill: Applied

64) According to Freud, adult sexual preferences are determined during the
A) oral stage.
B) anal stage.
C) phallic stage.
D) genital stage.
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 41
Skill: Applied

65) During which psychosexual stage does the Oedipus complex emerge?
A) oral stage
B) anal stage
C) phallic stage
D) genital stage
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 41
Skill: Factual

66) Which of the following, according to Freud, describes the healthy resolution of the Oedipus conflict
for the male child?
A) He identifies with his father.
B) He identifies with his mother.
C) He becomes hostile toward his father.
D) He becomes hostile toward his mother.
Answer: A
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 41
Skill: Applied

67) According to Freud, the female Oedipal complex is partially resolved when
A) her desire for her father generalizes to other men.
B) she identifies with her mother.
C) she begins to play with dolls.
D) she represses all sexual desires.
Answer: A
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 42
Skill: Applied
An Introduction to Theories of Personality

68) During the stage, sexual interests are displaced to substitute activities such as learning,
athletics, and peer group activities.
A) latency
B) phallic
C) anal
D) oral
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 43
Skill: Conceptual

69) The cornerstone of Freud’s explanation of feminine psychology was

A) penis envy.
B) electra complex.
C) mother envy.
D) identification with the mother.
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 43
Skill: Applied

70) Concerning his efforts to understand feminine psychology, Freud

A) essentially admitted defeat.
B) was very pleased.
C) concluded that he had never really tried.
D) was disappointed that his explanation portrayed women more positively than men.
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 44
Skill: Applied

71) The statement “Say whatever comes to your mind” describes the method of
A) hypnosis.
B) free association.
C) condensation.
D) dream analysis.
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 45
Skill: Conceptual

72) During the course of free association, Freud believed that signs of were especially informative.
A) tranquility
B) friendship
C) resistance
D) all of the above
Answer: C
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 45
Skill: Applied
 Chapter 2: Sigmund Freud

73) In a dream, one dream element can represent several things at the same time. This exemplifies
A) synthesis.
B) dislocation.
C) condensation.
D) manifest content.
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 46
Skill: Conceptual

74) The fact that sexual intercourse may be symbolized in a dream as dancing exemplifies
A) displacement.
B) synthesis.
C) condensation.
D) extreme frustration.
Answer: A
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 46
Skill: Conceptual

75) When we recall a dream, we describe its or what it appears to be.

A) synthesis
B) latent content
C) manifest content
D) dream work
Answer: C
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 47
Skill: Conceptual

76) For Freud, the most important thing about a dream was its
A) manifest content.
B) latent content.
C) dream work.
D) synthesis.
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 47
Skill: Applied

77) Parapraxes refer to

A) the ability to see into the future.
B) the manifestation of repressed thoughts in a variety of “mistakes” in everyday life.
C) the translation of mental conflicts into bodily disorders.
D) praxes that are not quite real.
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 47
Skill: Factual
An Introduction to Theories of Personality

78) Which of the following, according to Freud, can provide information about the contents of the
unconscious mind?
A) “accidents”
B) slips of the tongue
C) lapses of memory
D) all of the above
Answer: D
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 47
Skill: Applied

79) According to Freud, in order for a joke to be funny it must

A) provoke anxiety.
B) involve a sexual theme.
C) contain aggressive statements.
D) involve death, sex, or politics.
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 48
Skill: Applied

80) According to Freud, religion

A) will probably always be needed by the uneducated.
B) is an infantile illusion.
C) should be replaced by rational, scientific principles.
D) all of the above
Answer: D
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 48
Skill: Applied

81) In Freud’s 1896 paper “The Aetiology of Hysteria,” in which he presented his seduction theory of
hysteria, all of the following were reported among the seducers of his female patients when they were
children except
A) adult strangers.
B) nursemaids.
C) parents.
D) slightly older brothers.
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 50
Skill: Applied

82) Freud’s seduction theory concerning the origin of hysteria claimed that it
A) resulted from a real sexual attack during childhood.
B) resulted from an imagined sexual attack during childhood.
C) did not have a sexual origin.
D) resulted from the guilt one experiences after having sex.
Answer: A
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 50
Skill: Applied
 Chapter 2: Sigmund Freud

83) Freud abandoned his seduction theory

A) because it was scientifically refuted.
B) for reasons that are unclear and still a matter of speculation.
C) because it was too simplistic.
D) because he discovered that it was simply wishful thinking.
Answer: B
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 50
Skill: Applied

84) According to Jeffrey Masson, Freud abandoned his seduction theory because
A) his wife urged him to do so.
B) he (Freud) lacked personal courage.
C) the theory was not a useful guide during analysis.
D) scientific evidence proved the theory to be incorrect.
Answer: B
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 51
Skill: Applied

85) According to Loftus, the reason so many patients enter therapy without memories of sexual abuse but
leave with them is
A) therapists tell patients what they want to hear.
B) therapists are perceived by patients as similar to their parents and that perception triggers memories of
sexual abuse.
C) therapy releases such memories, that otherwise would remain repressed, for conscious consideration.
D) therapists often strongly suggest the existence of such memories in their patients.
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 52
Skill: Applied

86) According to Henri Ellenberger, Freud

A) was only slightly hampered by anti-Semitism in his professional development.
B) was not nearly as original as he and his followers claimed.
C) experienced no more than a normal amount of hostility toward his ideas from his fellow physicians.
D) all of the above
Answer: D
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 53
Skill: Applied

87) A major criticism of Freudian theory is that it engages in rather than .

A) rationalism; empiricism
B) hedonism; vitalism
C) postdiction; prediction
D) prediction; postdiction
Answer: C
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 55
Skill: Conceptual
An Introduction to Theories of Personality

88) According to Popper, Freud’s theory does not qualify as scientific because
A) it is not based on empirical observations.
B) it is not falsifiable.
C) the predictions it makes are too risky.
D) it employs no mathematics and therefore its concepts cannot be precisely measured.
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 55
Skill: Applied

89) Freud theory has been praised for

A) demonstrating the importance of anxiety as a determinant of human behavior.
B) showing that conflicts from childhood have lifelong consequences.
C) showing the importance of childhood sexuality in personality development.
D) all of the above
Answer: D
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 55
Skill: Applied

2.2 Questions for Essay or Discussion

1. Many students come to psychology courses with naive ideas about Freud’s theory. After reading this
chapter, which of your previously held ideas have been changed? Which have been confirmed?

2. Freud’s theory places great importance on the role of unconscious processes. What evidence do you see
from other areas in psychology or in your observations of human behavior to support the idea that people
are often motivated by processes that are not under conscious control?

3. Discuss and develop examples from your own behavior that demonstrate the dynamics of cathexis,
anticathexis, and displacement.

4. After reading about the ego-defense mechanisms, do you recognize any of these behaviors in yourself
or others? Explain your answer with examples.

5. How would a Freudian use the concepts of fixation and regression to explain the behavior of a student
who overeats during final examination week?

6. According to Freud, most humor will contain material that is either racist, sexist, or mean and insulting.
Why is this the case?

7. How could it be possible for a therapist to “create” false repressed memories for a patient?

8. Freudian psychotherapy attempts to lead the patient to insights about unresolved childhood conflicts
and unconscious processes. From your understanding of memory and the unconscious, is it possible for a
patient to gain accurate insights into these processes? Why or why not?

9. Do you find Freud’s view of human nature to be pessimistic or optimistic? Explain.

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 THE CRYSTALLISING OF THE NEO-CLASSIC CREED.

CHAPTER I.

FROM MALHERBE TO BOILEAU.

The supplanting of Italy by 240 The history of Boileau’s 280
France reputation
Brilliancy of the French 241 The Art Poétique 281
representatives Its false literary history 281
Malherbe 242 Abstract of it 282
The Commentary on 244 Critical examination of it 286
Desportes Want of originality 287
What can be said for his 246 Faults of method 287
criticism
Obsession of good sense 288
Its defects stigmatised at 247
once by Regnier Arbitrary proscriptions 289
His Ninth Satire 247 Boileau’s other works 290
The contrast of the two a 249 The Satires 290
lasting one The Epigrams and Epistles 292
The diffusion of seventeenth 250 Prose—The Héros de 292
century criticism Roman; the Réflexions sur
Vaugelas 251 Longin
Balzac 252 The “Dissertation on 293
Joconde”
His Letters 252
A “Solifidian of Good Sense” 295
His critical Dissertations 253
The plea for his practical 296
Ogier and the Preface to Tyr 254 services
et Sidon
Historical examination of this 296
Chapelain: the 257
hopelessness of his verse Concluding remarks on him 299
The interest of his criticism 257 La Bruyère and Fénelon 300
The Sentiments de 258 The “Des Ouvrages de 301
l’Académie sur le Cid l’Esprit”
Prefaces 259 General observations 302
Sur les Vieux Romans 260 Judgments of authors 303
Letters, &c. 261 Fénelon. The Dialogues sur 305
l’Eloquence
Corneille 261
Sur les Occupations de 306
The Three Discourses 263 l’Académie Française
The Examens 263 A d it h ll t 307
The Examens 263 And its challenge to 307
La Mesnardière—Sarrasin— 264 correctness
Scudéry The Abbé D’Aubignac 309
Mambrun 266 His Pratique du Théâtre 309
Saint-Evremond 268 Rapin 310
His critical quality and 269 His method partly good 311
accomplishment
His particular absurdities as 311
His views on Corneille 270 to Homer in blame
On Christian subjects, &c. 270 As to Virgil in praise 312
On Ancients and Moderns 270 As to others 313
Gui Patin—his judgment of 272 The reading of his riddle 313
Browne
Le Bossu and the Abstract 314
Tallemant, Pellisson, 273 Epic
Ménage, Madame de
Sévigné Bouhours 315
The Ana other than 274 Encyclopædias and 316
Ménage’s, especially Newspapers
The Huetiana 275 Bayle 316
Valesiana 275 Baillet 317
Scaligerana 276 The ethos of a Critical 318
Pedant
And Parrhasiana 276
Gibert 319
Patru, Desmarets, and 277
others The Ancient and Modern 320
Quarrel
Malebranche 279
Its small critical value 321

CHAPTER II.

THE ITALIAN DECADENCE AND THE SPANIARDS.

Decadence of Italian 323 Poetics: Rengifo 337
Criticism Pinciano 338
Paolo Beni 324 La Cueva 341
Possevino: his Bibliotheca 325 Carvallo 341
Selecta Gonzales de Salas 341
Tassoni: his Pensieri Diversi 326 The Cigarrales of Tirso de 343
Aromatari 328 Molina
His Degli Autori del Ben 329 Lope’s Arte Nuevo, &c. 344
Parlare His assailants and 346
Boccalini and Minors 329 defenders
Influence of the Ragguagli 330 The fight over the Spanish 347
The set of Seicentist taste 331 drama
Spanish criticism: highly 331 Cervantes and Calderon 347
ranked by Dryden? Gongorism, Culteranism, &c. 349
The Origins—Villena 333 Quevedo 349
Santillana 333 Gracián 349
Encina 335 The limitations of Spanish 350
Valdés 335 criticism
The beginning of regular 336
Criticism. Humanist
Rhetoricians

CHAPTER III.

GERMAN AND DUTCH CRITICISM.

The hindmost of all 352 Heinsius: the De Tragœdiæ 356
Origins 353 Constitutione
Sturm 353 Voss 357
Fabricius 354 His Rhetoric 358
Version A. 354 His Poetics 359
Version B. 354 Opitz 360
Jac. Pontanus 355 The Buch der Deutschen 361
Poeterei

CHAPTER IV.

DRYDEN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.

Dead water in English 365 The Essay on Satire and the 385
Criticism Dedication of the Æneis
Milton 365 The Parallel of Poetry and 386
Cowley 366 Painting
The Prefatory matter of 367 The Preface to the Fables 386
Gondibert Dryden’s general critical 386
The “Heroic Poem” 368 position
Davenant’s Examen 369 His special critical method 387
Hobbes’s Answer 370 Dryden and Boileau 389
Dryden 371 Rymer 391
His advantages 372 The Preface to Rapin 392
The early Prefaces 373 The Tragedies of the Last 394
The Essay of Dramatic 376 Age
Poesy The Short View of Tragedy 395
Its setting and overture 376 The Rule of Tom the Second 397
Crites for the Ancients 377 Sprat 398
Eugenius for the “last age” 378 Edward Phillips 398
Lisideius for the French 378 His Theatrum Poetarum 399
Dryden for England and 379 Winstanley’s Lives 400
Liberty Langbaine’s Dramatic Poets 400
Coda on rhymed plays, and 380 Temple 401
conclusion Bentley 401
Conspicuous merits of the 381 Collier’s Short View 402
piece Sir T. P. Blount 404
The Middle Prefaces 382 Periodicals: The Athenian 406
Mercury, &c.
INTERCHAPTER V. 407

BOOK VI.

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ORTHODOXY.

CHAPTER I.

FROM ADDISON TO JOHNSON.

Criticism at Dryden’s death 426 Trapp 462
Bysshe’s Art of English 426 Blair 462
Poetry The Lectures on Rhetoric 463
 Poetry The Lectures on Rhetoric 463
Gildon 429 The Dissertation on Ossian 464
Welsted 430 Kames 465
Dennis 431 The Elements of Criticism 466
On Rymer 432 Campbell 470
On Shakespeare 434 The Philosophy of Rhetoric 470
On “Machines” 435 Harris 473
His general theory of Poetry 435 The Philological Enquiries 474
Addison 437 “Estimate” Brown: his 476
The Account of the Best 438 History of Poetry
known English Poets Johnson: his preparation for 477
The Spectator criticisms 440 criticism
On True and False Wit 441 The Rambler on Milton 480
On Tragedy 441 On Spenser 482
On Milton 443 On History and Letter-writing 483
The “Pleasures of the 444 On Tragi-comedy 483
Imagination” “Dick Minim” 484
His general critical value 447 Rasselas 484
Steele 448 The Shakespeare Preface 485
Atterbury 449 The Lives of the Poets 486
Swift 450 Their general merits 487
The Battle of the Books 450 The Cowley 489
The Tale of a Tub 451 The Milton 489
Minor works 451 The Dryden and Pope 490
Pope 452 The Collins and Gray 491
The Letters 453 The critical greatness of the 493
The Shakespeare Preface 454 Lives and of Johnson
Spence’s Anecdotes 454 Minor Criticism: Periodical 496
The Essay on Criticism 455 and other
The Epistle to Augustus 457 Goldsmith 498
Remarks on Pope as a critic 457 Vicesimus Knox 499
And the critical attitude of his 460 Scott of Amwell 500
group
Philosophical and 461
Professional Critics

CHAPTER II.
 THE CONTEMPORARIES OF VOLTAIRE.
Close connection of French 501 Examples of it 515
seventeenth and Causes of his failure 518
eighteenth century Others: Buffon 519
Criticism: Fontenelle
“Style and the man” 520
Exceptional character of his 502
criticism Vauvenargues 521
His attitude to the “Ancient 503 Batteux 522
and Modern” Quarrel His adjustment of Rules and 523
The Dialogues des Morts 503 Taste
Other critical work 504 His incompleteness 524
La Motte 507 Marmontel 525
His “Unity of Interest” 508 Oddities and qualities of his 526
criticism
Rollin 509
Others 529
Brumoy 509
Thomas, Suard, &c. 529
Rémond de Saint-Mard 510
La Harpe 530
L. Racine 511
His Cours de Littérature 530
Du Bos 511
His critical position as 531
Stimulating but desultory 512 ultimus suorum
character of his Réflexions
The Academic Essay 533
Montesquieu 514
Rivarol 534
Voltaire: disappointment of 515
his criticism

CHAPTER III.

CLASSICISM IN THE OTHER NATIONS.

Preliminary remarks 537 Neo-classicism triumphs in 546
Temporary revival of Italian 538 Spain
Criticism The absurdities of Artiga 547
Gravina 538 Luzán 548
Muratori: his Della Perfetta 541 The rest uninteresting 549
Poesia Feyjóo, Isla, and others 549
Crescimbeni 542 Rise at last of German 550
Quadrio 542 Criticism
The emergence of literary 545 Its school time 551
history Classicism at bay almost 552
Further decadence of Italian 545 from the first—Gottsched
criticism The Versuch einer 553
Metastasio 546 Critischen Dichtkunst
Its chief idea 553
Specimen details 555
Gellert: he transacts 557

INTERCHAPTER VI.
§ I. THE NEMESIS OF CORRECTNESS 559
§ II. THE BALANCE-SHEET OF NEO-CLASSIC CRITICISM 566

INDEX 579
 BOOK IV

RENAISSANCE CRITICISM

“Le materie da scienza, o da arte, o da istoria

comprese, possano esser convenevoli soggetti a
poesia, e a poemi, pure che poeticamente sieno
trattate.”—Patrizzi.
 CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY—ERASMUS.
THE CRITICAL STARTING-POINT OF THE RENAISSANCE—INFLUENCES AT
WORK: GENERAL—PARTICULAR—WEAKNESS OF VERNACULARS—
RECOVERY OF ANCIENT CRITICISM—NECESSITY OF DEFENCE
AGAINST PURITANISM—THE LINE OF CRITICISM RESULTANT—NOT
NECESSARILY ANTI-MEDIÆVAL, BUT CLASSICAL AND ANTI-PURITAN—
ERASMUS—THE ‘CICERONIANUS'—THE ‘COLLOQUIES’—THE
‘LETTERS’—DISTRIBUTION OF THE BOOK.

We saw, in the second section of the Interchapter which served as

Conclusion to the first volume of this work, to what a point the Middle
The Critical starting- Ages had brought the materials and the
point of the methods of Literary Criticism, and what the
Renaissance. new age with its combined opportunities
might have done. We also endeavoured to indicate generally, and so
to speak, proleptically, what it did not do. It is now time to examine
what it did: and in the course of the examination to develop the
reasons, the character, and the consequences, both of its
commission and of its abstention.[1]
If no period has ever been more guilty of that too usual injustice to
predecessors which we noted, it is fair to acknowledge that none had
greater temptations to such injustice. The breach between the
Classical and the Dark Ages had been almost astonishingly gradual
—so gradual that it has needed no great hardiness of paradox to
enable men to deny that there was any breach at all. On the other
hand, though the breach at the Renaissance[2] is capable of being,
and has sometimes been, much exaggerated; though it was
preceded by a considerable transition period, and though mediæval
characteristics survived it long and far, yet the turning over of the
new leaf is again incontestable, and was as necessary in the order of
thought as it is certain in the sequence of fact.
It is not much more than a hundred years since the French
Revolution, a single event in one department only of things actual,
Influences at was sufficient to precipitate a change which is only
work: General. less—which some would hold likely to be not less—
than the change at the beginning of the Dark Ages, and the change
at the end of the Middle. At the Renaissance, not one but three or
four such events, in as many different departments, brought their
shock to bear upon the life and mind of Europe. The final
disappearance of the Eastern Empire, and the apparent—perhaps,
indeed, a little more than apparent—danger of a wide and
considerable barbarian invasion of even Western Europe, with the
balancing of this after a sort a little later by the extinction of the
Moorish power in Spain, coincided, as regards politics, with a
general tendency throughout Europe towards the change of feudal
into centralised monarchy. The determination (resulting no doubt
from no single cause, and taking effect after long preparation) of
direct, practical, and extensive study to the Classics, especially to
Greek, affected not merely literature, but almost everything of which
literature treats. The invention of printing enormously facilitated, not
merely the study but, the diffusion and propagation of ideas and
patterns. The discovery of America, and of the sea-route to the East,
excited that spirit of exploration and adventure which, once aroused,
is sure not to limit itself to the material world. And, lastly, the long-
threatened and at last realised protest against the corruptions of the
Christian Church, and the domination of the Pope, unsettled, directly
or indirectly, every convention, every compromise, every accepted
doctrine. In fact, to use the words of one of the greatest of English
writers,[3] in what is perhaps his most brilliant passage, “in the fabric
of habit which they had so laboriously built for themselves, men
could remain no longer.”
Their critical habits, as we have seen sufficiently in the last Book,
had been mainly negative; and for this reason, if for no other, a
considerable critical development would have been certain to spring
up. But there were other reasons, and powerful ones. In the first
place, the atmosphere of revolt which was abroad necessarily
breeds, or rather necessarily implies, criticism. A few, whom the
equal Jove has loved, may be able to criticise while acquiescing,
approving, even loving and strenuously championing; but this equity
is not exceedingly common, and the general tendency of
acceptance, and even of acquiescence, is distinctly uncritical. On the
other hand, the rebel is driven either to his rebellion by the exercise
of his critical faculty, or to the exercise of his critical faculty in order
to justify his rebellion. I do not myself hold that the Devil was the first
critic. I have not the slightest desire to serve myself and my subject
heirs to that spirit unfortunate; but I recognise the necessity of some
argument to rebut the filiation.
And that these generalities should become particular in reference
to Literary Criticism more especially, there were additional and
Particular. momentous inducements of two different kinds. In
the first place, the malcontents with the immediate
past must in any case have been drawn to attack the literary side of
its battlements, because of their extreme weakness. Everywhere but
in the two extremities of the West, Italy and Scotland (the latter,
owing to the very small bulk of its literary production, and the
rudimentary condition of its language, being hardly an exception at
all), the fifteenth century, even with a generous eking from the
earliest sixteenth, had been a time of literary torpor and literary
decadence, relieved only by a few—a very few—brilliant individual
performances. In England the successors of Chaucer, not content
with carrying his method and his choice of subject no further, had
almost incomprehensibly lost command of both. In France the
rhétoriqueur school of poets had degenerated less in form, but had
been almost equally unable to show any progress, or even any
Weakness of maintained command, of matter. Germany was far
Vernaculars. worse than either. If Chaucer himself could criticise,
indirectly but openly, the faults of the still vigorous and beautiful
romance—of the romance which in his own country was yet to boast
Chester in verse and Malory in prose—how much more must any
one with sharp sense and sound taste, at the beginning of the
sixteenth century, have been tempted to apply some similar process
to the fossilised formalism of rondeau and ballade; to the lifeless and
lumbering allegory of the latest “Rose” imitations; to the “aureate,” or
rather tinselled, bombast of Chastellain and Robertet?
But, as it happened, no inconsiderable part of the newly
disinterred classics dealt with this very subject of Literary Criticism,
and, having been most neglected, was certain to be most attended
Recovery of to. Later mediæval practice had provided the
Ancient examples of disease: earlier classical theory was to
Criticism. provide the remedy. Plato, the most cherished of the
recovered treasures, had—in his own peculiar way, no doubt—
criticised very largely; the Poetics and the Rhetoric were quickly set
afresh before the new age in the originals; Horace had always been
known; Quintilian was, since Rhetoric had not yet fallen into
disfavour, studied direct;[4] and, before the sixteenth century was half
over, Longinus himself had been unearthed and presented to a world
which (if it had chosen to attend thereto) was also for the first time
furnished with Dante’s critical performance.[5] With such an arsenal;
with such a disposition of mind abroad; and with such real or
imagined enemies to attack, it would have been odd if the forces of
criticism, so long disorganised, and indeed disembodied, had not
taken formidable shape.
There was, however, yet another influence which is not very easy
to estimate, and which has sometimes perhaps been not quite rightly
estimated, but which undoubtedly had a great deal to do with the
Necessity of matter. Almost as soon as—almost before indeed—
defence the main battle of the Renaissance engaged itself,
against certain phenomena, not unusual in similar cases,
Puritanism.
made their appearance. Men of letters, humanists,
students, were necessarily the protagonists of revolt or reform. There
had always, as we have seen, been a certain jealousy of Letters on
the part of the Church; and this was not likely to be lessened in the
new arrangement of circumstance. But the jealousy was by no
means confined to the party of order and of the defence. It had been
necessary, or it would have had no rank-and-file, for the attack to
enlist the descendants of the old Lollards and other opponents of the
Romish Church in different countries. But in these, to no small
extent, and in men like Calvin, when they made their appearance,
perhaps still more, the Puritan dislike of Art, and of Literature as part
of Art, was even more rampant than in the obscurest of obscuri viri
on the Catholic and Conservative side. And so men of letters had not
merely to attack what they thought unworthy and obsolete foes of
literature, but to defend literature itself from their own political and
ecclesiastical allies.
 The line which they took had been taken before, and was no doubt
partly suggested to them by Boccaccio in the remarkable book
already referred to[6]—the De Genealogia Deorum—which was
The line of repeatedly printed in the early days of the press.
criticism There can be very little question that this anticipates
resultant. the peculiar tone of what we may call anti-Platonic
Platonism, which is so noticeable in the Italian critics of the
Renaissance, and which was caught from them by Englishmen of
great note and worth, from Sidney to Milton. The excellent historian
of the subject—whom I have already quoted, and my indebtedness
to whom must not be supposed to be repudiated because I cannot
agree with him on some important points—is, I think, entirely wrong
in speaking of mediæval “distrust of literature,” while the statement
with which he supports this, that “popular literature had fallen into
decay, and, in its contemporary form, was beneath serious
consideration,”[7] is so astonishing, that I fear we must class it with
those judicia ignorantium of which our general motto speaks. In his
context Mr Spingarn mentions, as examples of mediæval treatment
of literature, Fulgentius, Isidore, John of Salisbury, Dante, Boccaccio.
What “popular” (by which I presume is meant vernacular) literature
was there in the times of Fulgentius or of Isidore? Is not the
statement that “popular literature had fallen into decay” in the time of
Dante self-exploded? And the same may be said of Boccaccio. As
for John of Salisbury, he certainly, as we have seen,[8] was not much
of a critic himself; but that popular literature was decaying in his time
is a statement which no one who knows the Chansons de Gestes
and the Arthurian Legend can accept for one moment; while the
documents also quoted supra, the Labyrinthus, the Nova Poetria,
and the rest—entirely disprove any “distrust” of letters.
The truth is, with submission to Mr Spingarn, that there never was
any such, except from the Puritan-religious side, and that this was by
Not no means specially conspicuous in the Middle Ages.
necessarily The “Defence of Poesy,” and of literature generally,
anti-mediæval, which animates men so different as Boccaccio and
Milton, as Scaliger and Sidney, is no direct revolt against the Middle
Ages at all, but, as has been said, a discourse Pro Domo, in the first
place, against the severer and more obscurantist partisans of
Catholicism, who were disposed to dislike men of letters as
Reformers, and literature as the instrument of Reformation;
secondly, and much more urgently, against the Puritan and Philistine
variety of Protestantism itself, which so soon turned against its
literary leaders and allies. And the special form which this defence
took was in turn mainly conditioned, not by anti-mediæval animus,
but in part by the circumstances of the case, in part by the character
of the critical weapons which men found in their new arsenal of the
Classics.
Classical Criticism, as we have seen in the preceding volume, had
invariably in theory, and almost as invariably in practice, confined
itself wholly or mainly to the consideration of “the subject.” Although
but classical Aristotle himself had not denied the special pleasure
of art and the various kinds of art, although Plato, in
distrusting and denouncing, had admitted the psychagogic faculties
thereof; yet nobody except Longinus had boldly identified the chief
end of it with “transport,” not with persuasion, with edification, or
anything of the kind. Accordingly, those who looked to the ancients to
help them against the Obscuri Viri on the one hand, and against
good Puritan folk like our own Ascham on the other, were almost
bound to keep the pleasure of poetry and literature generally in the
background; or, if they brought it to the front at all, to extol it and
defend it on ethical and philosophical, not on æsthetic grounds.
Taking a hint from their “sweet enemy” Plato, from Plutarch, and from
such neo-Platonic utterances as that tractate of Plotinus, which has
been discussed in its place,[9] they set themselves to prove that
poetry was not a sweet pleasant deceit or corrupting influence in the
republic, but a stronghold and rampart of religious and philosophical
and anti- truth. Calling in turn Aristotle to their assistance, and
Puritan. working him in with his master and rival, they dwelt
with redoubled and at length altogether misleading and misled
energy on “Action,” “Unity,” and the like. And when they did consider
form it was, always or too often, from the belittling point of view of
the ancients themselves in spirit, and from the meticulous point of
view of Horace (who had always been known) in detail. Here and
there in such a man as Erasmus (v. infra), who was nothing if not
sensible, we find the Gellian and Macrobian particularisms taken up
with a really progressive twist towards inquiry as to the bearing of
these particularities on the pleasure of the reader. But Erasmus was
writing in the “false dawn”; the Puritan tyranny of Protestantism on
the one side, and of the Catholic revival on the other, had not
brought back a partial night as yet; and some of the best as well as
some of the worst characteristics of the new age inclined those of his
immediate successors rather than contemporaries, who adopted
criticism directly, to quite different ways.
It would, however, be a glaring omission if the critical position of
Erasmus himself were not set forth at some length.[10] Standing as he
Erasmus. does, the most eminent literary figure of Europe on
the bridge of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
nothing if not critical as he is in his general temperament, and on the
textual and exegetical, if not on the strictly literary sides of the Art,
one of its great historical figures—his absence from this gallery
would be justly regarded as inexcusable. And if his voluminous work
does not yield us very much within the more special and fully
enfranchising lines of our system, it might be regarded as a sufficient
answer to say that the imperfection of the vernaculars, his own
concentration on particular forms of Biblical and patristic text-
criticism, and that peculiar cosmopolitanism which made him
practically of no country at all, served to draw him away from a
practice in which he would, but for these circumstances and
conditions, have certainly indulged.
It may, however, be doubted whether Erasmus would ever have
made a capital figure as a purely literary critic. Very great man of
letters as he was, and almost wholly literary as were his interests,
those interests were suspiciously directed towards the applied rather
than the pure aspects of literature—were, in short, per se rather
scientific than literary proper. It is at least noteworthy that the
Ciceronianus (though Erasmus was undoubtedly on the right side in
it) was directed against a purely literary folly, against an
exaggeration of one of the tastes and appetites which spur on the
critic. And it is almost enough to read the Adagia and
Apophthegmata—books much forgotten now, but written with
enormous zest and pains by him, and received with corresponding
attention and respect by two whole centuries at least—to see how
much is there left out which a literary critic pur sang could not but
have said.
The Ciceronianus, however, must receive a little fuller treatment,
both because of its intimate connection with our subject, and
because hardly any work of Erasmus, except the Colloquies, so
definitely estates him in the new position of critical man of letters, as
distinguished from that of philosophical or rhetorical teacher. The
The piece[11] (which has for its second title De Optimo
Ciceronianus. Dicendi Genere) did not appear, and could not have
appeared, very early in his career. He might even, in the earlier part
of that career, have been slow to recognise the popular exaggeration
which, as in the other matter of the Reformation itself, struck his
maturer intelligence. He glances at its genesis in divers of his letters,
to Budæus, to Alciatus, and others, from 1527 onwards, and the
chief “begetter” of it seems to have been the Flemish scholar,
Longolius (Christophe de Longueil), who during the latter part of his
short life was actually very much such a fanatic as the Nosoponus of
the dialogue. This person is described by his friends Bulephorus and
Hypologus as olim rubicundulus, obesulus, Veneribus et gratiis
undique scatens, but now an austere shadow, who has no aspiration
in life but to be “Ciceronian.” In order to achieve this distinction, he
has given his days and nights wholly to the study of Cicero. The
“copy” of his Ciceronian lexicon would already overload two stout
porters. He has noted the differing sense of every word, whether
alone or in context; and by the actual occurrence, not merely of the
word itself, but of its form and case, he will be absolutely governed.
Thus, if you are to be a true Ciceronian, you may say ornatus and
ornatissimus, but not ornatior; while, though nasutus is permitted to
you, both comparative and superlative are barred. In the same way,
he will only pass the actual cases and numbers found in the
Arpinate; though every one but, let us say, the dative plural occurs,
the faithful must not presume to usurp that dative. Further, he
intends to reduce the whole of Cicero to quantitative rhythm, fully
specified; and in his own writing he thinks he has done well if he
accomplishes one short period in a winter night. The piece begins
with the characteristic Erasmian banter,—Nosoponus is a bachelor,
and Bulephorus observes that it is just as well, for his wife would in
the circumstances either make an irruption into the study, and turn it
topsy-turvy, or console herself with somebody else in some other
place,—but by degrees becomes more serious, and ends with a sort
of adjustment of most ancient and many modern Latin writers to the
Ciceronian point of view.
That Erasmus, with his usual shrewdness, hits the great blot of the
time—the merely literal and “Capernaite” interpretation of the
classics—is perhaps less surprising than that he should hit such
much later crazes as the Flaubertian devotion of a night to a clause,
and the still prevalent reluctance of many really literary persons to
allow a reasonable analogy and extension from the actual practice of
authority. It was inevitable that he should offend the pedants (from
Scaliger downwards), and be attacked by them with the usual
scurrility; and it is not quite certain that any but very few of his
readers thoroughly sympathised with him. In this as in other matters
he was not so much before his time (for the time of the wise is a
nunc stans), as outside of the time of his contemporaries. But even
here we see that he was still of that time as well. He has no real
sympathy with the vernaculars, nor any comprehension of the fact
that they are on equal literary terms with the classical tongues; and
even in regard to this—even when he is vindicating the freedom of
the letter—his thoughts are fixed on the letter mainly.
That it was better so, there can be no doubt. Literary criticism
proper could wait: correction of the mediæval habit of indiscriminate
acceptance of texts could not. And still, as it is, we have from
Erasmus not a little agreeable material of that kind which we have
sedulously gathered in the preceding volume; which, from men like
him, we shall not neglect in this; but for which there will be
decreasingly little and less room, both here and still more in the “not
impossible” third.
Considering the very wide range in subject of the Colloquies,[12] it
is not quite insignificant that literary matters have but a small place in
them; there is perhaps more significance still in the nature of the
The treatment where it does occur. The chief locus is
Colloquies. inevitably the Convivium Poeticum, where, except
the account of the feast itself, and the excellent by-play with the
termagant gouvernante Margaret, the whole piece is literary, and in a
manner critical. But the manner is wholly verbal; or else concerned
with the very mint and anise of form. A various reading in Terence
from a codex of Linacre’s; the possibility of eliding or slurring the
consonantal v; whether Exilis in the Palinode to Canidia is a noun or
a verb; whether the Ambrosian rhymes are to be scanned on strict
metrical principles; the mistakes made by Latin translators of
Aristotle,—this is the farrago libelluli. I must particularly beg to be
understood as not in the least slighting these discussions. They had
to be done; it is our great debt on this side to the Renaissance that it
got over the doing of them for us in so many cases; they are the
necessary preliminary to all criticism—nay, they are an important
part of criticism itself. But they are only the rudiments.
The Concio, sive Merdardus, after an explanation of the offensive
sub-title (which has less of good-humoured superiority, and more of
the snappish Humanist temper, than is usual with Erasmus), declines
into similar matters of reading and rendering—here in reference not
to profane but to sacred literature. And the curious Conflictus Thaliæ
et Barbariei, which is more dramatically arranged than most of the
Colloquies, and may even have taken a hint from the French Morality
of Science et Asnerye,[13] loses, as it may seem to us, an opportunity
of being critical in the best and real kind. The antagonists exchange
a good deal of abuse, which on Thalia’s part extends to some
mediæval writers cited by Barbaries (among whom our poor old
friend John of Garlandia rather unfairly figures), and the piece, which
is short, ends with a contest in actual citation of verse—Leonine and
scholastic enough on the part of Barbaries, gracefully enough
pastiched from the classics on the part of Thalia. But Erasmus either
deliberately declines, or simply does not perceive, the opening given
for a critical indication of the charms of purity and the deformities of
barbarism.
To thread the mighty maze of the Letters[14] completely, for the
critical utterances to be picked up there, were more tempting than
strictly incumbent on the present adventurer, who has, however, not
neglected a reasonable essay at the adventure. The adroit and
good-humoured attempt to soothe the poetic discontent of Eobanus
Hessus, who thought Erasmus had not paid him proper attention,[15]
contains, for instance, a little matter of the kind, and several
references to contemporary Latin poets. The most important thing,
perhaps, is the opinion—sensible as usual with the writer—that, as
the knowledge of Greek becomes more and more extended,
translation of it into Latin is more and more lost labour. But Erasmus,
as we should expect, evidently has more at heart the questions of
“reading and rendering” which fill his correspondence with Budæus
and others. To take the matter in order, a curious glimpse of the
literary manners, as well as the literary judgments, of the time is
afforded by an enclosure in a letter to John Watson of Cambridge.
Watson wanted to know what Erasmus had been doing, and
Erasmus, answering indirectly, sends him a letter on the subject by
The Letters. one Adrian Barland of Louvain to his brother. Some
incidental expressions here about Euripides as
nobilissimus poeta, and Apuleius as producing pestilentissimas
facetias, are more valuable to us than the copious laudations of
Barland on Erasmus’ own work, which pass without any “Spare my
blushes!” from the recipient and transmitter. We note that the moral
point of view is still uppermost, though the observations are taken
from a different angle. Aristophanes would have regarded Euripides
as much more “pestilent,” morally speaking, than Apuleius. The long
and necessarily complimentary letter (ii. 1) to Leo the Tenth contains
some praise of Politian and much of Jerome, on whom Erasmus was
then engaged; and while the language of this correspondence
naturally abounds in Ciceronian hyperbole, it is not insignificant that
Erasmus describes the Father with the Lion as omni in genere
litterarum absolutissimus, which, assuming any real meaning in it, is
not quite critical, though Jerome was certainly no small man of
letters. The letter to Henry Bovill (ii. 10), which contains the famous
story of “mumpsimus” and “sumpsimus,” as well as the almost
equally famous account of the studies of the University of Cambridge
in the ninth decade of the fifteenth century, contains also a notable
division of his own critics of the unfavourable kind. They are aut
adeo morosi ut nihil omnino probent nisi quod ipsi faciunt; aut adeo
stolidi ut nihil sentiant; aut adeo stupidi ut nec legant quod carpunt;
aut adeo indocti ut nihil judicent; aut adeo gloriæ jejuni avidique ut
carpendis aliorum laboribus sibi laudem parent. And their children
are alive with us unto this day.
 There is a very curious, half modest and severe, half confident
criticism of his own verses in ii. 22. He admits that there is nothing
“tumultuous” in them, “no torrent overflowing its banks,” no deinosis:
but claims elegance and Atticism. It would be perhaps unfair to
attach the character of deliberate critical utterance to his effusive
laudation of the style of Colet in an early letter (v. 4, dated 1498, but
Mr Seebohm has thrown doubt on these dates, and Mr Nichols
appears to be completely redistributing them), as placidus sedatus
inaffectatus, fontis limpidissimi in morem ditissimo e pectore scatens,
æqualis, sui undique similis, apertus, simplex, modestiæ plenus, nihil
usquam habens scabri contorti conturbati. But it is interesting, and
significant of his own performances, as is the comparison (v. 19) of
Jerome and Cicero as masters of rhetoric. The somewhat
intemperate and promiscuous contempt of mediæval writing which
appears in the Conflictus (vide supra) reappears, with the very same
names mentioned, in an epistle (vii. 3), Cornelio Suo, of 1490, which,
if it be rightly dated, must be long anterior to the Colloquy. But a
much more important expression of critical opinion than any of these
appears in v. 20 to Ammonius, where Erasmus gives his views on
poetry at large. They are much what we should suspect or expect
beforehand. Some folk, he says, think that a poem is not a poem
unless you poke in all the gods from heaven, and from earth, and
from under the earth. He has always liked poetry which is at no great
distance from prose—but the best prose.[16] He likes rhetorical poetry
and poetical rhetoric. He does not care for far-fetched thoughts; let
the poet stick to his subject, but give fair attention to smoothness of
versification. “Prose and sense,” in short: with a little rhetoric and
versification added.
But on such matters he always touches lightly, and with little
elaboration; and to see where his real interest lay we have but to
turn to the above-quoted verbal discussions with Budæus on the one
hand, to the minute and well-known account of More’s life and
conversation given to Hutten in x. 30 on the other. Nor do I think that
it is worth while to extend to the remaining two-thirds of the letters
the more exact examination which has here been given to the first
third or thereabouts.[17]