Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
[Footnote 536: Brut. A poetical version of the legendary history of
Britain, by Layamon. Its hero is Brutus, a mythical King of Britain.]
[Footnote 537: Arthur. A British King of the sixth century, around
whose life and deeds so many legends have grown up that some
historians say he, too, was a myth. He is the center of the great
cycle of romances told in prose in Mallory's _Morte d'Arthur_ and in
poetry in Tennyson's _Idylls of the King_.]
[Footnote 538: The royal Henries. Among the dramas popular in
Shakespeare's day which he retouched or rewrote are the historical
plays. Henry IV., First and Second Parts; Henry V; Henry VI., First,
Second, and Third Parts; and Henry VIII.]
[Footnote 539: Italian tales. Italian literature was very popular in
Shakespeare's day, and authors drew freely from it for material,
especially from the _Decameron_, a famous collection of a hundred
tales, by Boccaccio, a poet of the fourteenth century.]
[Footnote 540: Spanish voyages. In the sixteenth century, Spain was
still a power upon the high seas, and the tales of her conquests and
treasures in the New World were like tales of romance.]
[Footnote 541: Prestige. Can you give an English equivalent for this
French word?]
[Footnote 542: Which no single genius, etc. In the same way, some
critics assure us, the poems credited to the Greek poet, Homer, were
built up by a number of poets.]
[Footnote 543: Malone. An Irish critic and scholar of the eighteenth
century, best known by his edition of Shakespeare's plays.]
[Footnote 544: Wolsey's Soliloquy. See Shakespeare's _Henry VIII._
III, 2. Cardinal Wolsey was prime minister of England in the reign of
Henry VIII.]
[Footnote 545: Scene with Cromwell. See _Henry VIII._ III, 2. Thomas
Cromwell was the son of an English blacksmith; he rose to be lord high
chamberlain of England in the reign of Henry VIII., but, incurring the
King's displeasure, was executed on a charge of treason.]
[Footnote 546: Account of the coronation. See _Henry VIII._ IV, 1.]
[Footnote 547: Compliment to Queen Elizabeth. See _Henry VIII._ V, 5.]
[Footnote 548: Bad rhythm. Too much importance must not be attached to
these matters in deciding authorship, as critics disagree about them.]
[Footnote 549: Value his memory, etc. The Greeks, in appreciation of
the value of memory to the poet, represented the Muses as the
daughters of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory.]
[Footnote 550: Homer. A Greek poet to whom is assigned the authorship
of the two greatest Greek poems, the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_; he is
said to have lived about a thousand years before Christ.]
[Footnote 551: Chaucer. (See note 33.)]
[Footnote 552: Saadi. A Persian poet, supposed to have lived in the
thirteenth century. His best known poems are his odes.]
[Footnote 553: Presenting Thebes, etc. This quotation is from Milton's
poem, _Il Penseroso_. Milton here names the three most popular
subjects of Greek tragedy,--the story of Oedipus, the ill-fated King
of Thebes who slew his father; the tale of the descendants of Pelops,
King of Pisa, who seemed born to woe--Agamemnon was one of his
grandsons; the third subject was the tale of Troy and the heroes of
the Trojan war,--called "divine" because the Greeks represented even
the gods as taking part in the contest.]
[Footnote 554: Pope. (See note 88.)]
[Footnote 555: Dryden. (See note 35.)]
[Footnote 556: Chaucer is a huge borrower. Taine, the French critic,
says on this subject: "Chaucer was capable of seeking out in the old
common forest of the Middle Ages, stories and legends, to replant them
in his own soil and make them send out new shoots.... He has the right
and power of copying and translating because by dint of retouching he
impresses ... his original work. He recreates what he imitates."]
[Footnote 557: Lydgate. John Lydgate was an English poet who lived a
generation later than Chaucer; in his _Troy Book_ and other poems he
probably borrowed from the sources used by Chaucer; he called himself
"Chaucer's disciple."]
[Footnote 558: Caxton. William Caxton, the English author, more famous
as the first English printer, was not born until after Chaucer's
death. The work from which Emerson supposes the poet to have borrowed
Caxton's translation of _Recueil des Histoires de Troye_, the first
printed English book, appeared about 1474.]
[Footnote 559: Guido di Colonna. A Sicilian poet and historian of the
thirteenth century. Chaucer in his _House of Fame_ placed in his
vision "on a pillar higher than the rest, Homer and Livy, Dares the
Phrygian, Guido Colonna, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the other
historians of the war of Troy."]
[Footnote 560: Dares Phrygius. A Latin account of the fall of Troy,
written about the fifth century, which pretends to be a translation of
a lost work on the fall of Troy by Dares, a Trojan priest mentioned in
Homer's _Iliad_.]
[Footnote 561: Ovid. A Roman poet who lived about the time of Christ,
whose best-known work is the _Metamorphoses_, founded on classical
legends.]
[Footnote 562: Statius. A Roman poet of the first century after
Christ.]
[Footnote 563: Petrarch. An Italian poet of the fourteenth century.]
[Footnote 564: Boccaccio. An Italian novelist and poet of the
fourteenth century. See note on "Italian tales," 539. It is supposed
that the plan of the _Decameron_ suggested the similar but far
superior plan of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_.]
[Footnote 565: Provençal poets. The poets of Provençe, a province of
the southeastern part of France. In the Middle Ages it was celebrated
for its lyric poets, called troubadours.]
[Footnote 566: Romaunt of the Rose, etc. Chaucer's _Romaunt of the
Rose_, written during the period of French influence, is an incomplete
and abbreviated translation of a French poem of the thirteenth
century, _Roman de la Rose_, the first part of which was written by
William of Loris and the latter by John of Meung, or Jean de Meung.]
[Footnote 567: Troilus and Creseide, etc. Chaucer ascribes the Italian
poem which he followed in his _Troilus and Creseide_ to an unknown
"Lollius of Urbino"; the source of the poem, however, is _Il
Filostrato_, by Boccaccio, the Italian poet already mentioned.
Chaucer's poem is far more than a translation; more than half is
entirely original, and it is a powerful poem, showing profound
knowledge of the Italian poets, whose influence with him superseded
the French poets.]
[Footnote 568: The Cock and the Fox. _The Nun's Priest's Tale_ in the
_Canterbury Tales_ was an original treatment of the _Roman de Renart_,
of Marie of France, a French poet of the twelfth century.]
[Footnote 569: House of Fame, etc. The plan of the _House of Fame_,
written during the period of Chaucer's Italian influence, shows the
influence of Dante; the general idea of the poem is from Ovid, the
Roman poet.]
[Footnote 570: Gower. John Gower was an English poet, Chaucer's
contemporary and friend; the two poets went to the same sources for
poetic materials, but Chaucer made no such use of Gower's works as we
would infer from this passage. Emerson relied on his memory for facts,
and hence made mistakes, as here in the instances of Lydgate, Caxton,
and Gower.]
[Footnote 571: Westminster, Washington. What legislative body
assembles at Westminster Palace, London? What at Washington?]
[Footnote 572: Sir Robert Peel. An English statesman who died in 1850,
not long after _Representative Men_ was published.]
[Footnote 573: Webster. Daniel Webster, an American statesman and
orator who was living when this essay was written.]
[Footnote 574: Locke. John Locke. (See note 18.)]
[Footnote 575: Rousseau. Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French philosopher
of the eighteenth century.]
[Footnote 576: Homer. (See note 550.)]
[Footnote 577: Menn. Menn, or Mann, was in Sanscrit one of fourteen
legendary beings; the one referred to by Emerson, Mann Vaivasvata was
supposed to be the author of the laws of Mann, a collection made about
the second century.]
[Footnote 578: Saadi or Sadi. (See note 552.)]
[Footnote 579: Milton. Of this great English poet and prose writer of
the seventeenth century, Emerson says: "No man can be named whose mind
still acts on the cultivated intellect of England and America with an
energy comparable to that of Milton. As a poet Shakespeare undoubtedly
transcends and far surpasses him in his popularity with foreign
nations: but Shakespeare is a voice merely: who and what he was that
sang, that sings, we know not."]
[Footnote 580: Delphi. Here, source of prophecy. Delphi was a city in
Greece, where was the oracle of Apollo, the most famous of the oracles
of antiquity.]
[Footnote 581: Our English Bible. The version made in the reign of
King James I. by forty-seven learned divines is a monument of noble
English.]
[Footnote 582: Liturgy. An appointed form of worship used in a
Christian church,--here, specifically, the service of the Episcopal
church. Emerson's mother had been brought up in that church, and
though she attended her husband's church, she always loved and read
her Episcopal prayer book.]
[Footnote 583: Grotius. Hugo Grotius was a Dutch jurist, statesman,
theologian, and poet of the seventeenth century.]
[Footnote 584: Rabbinical forms. The forms used by the rabbis, Jewish
doctors or expounders of the law.]
[Footnote 585: Common law. In a general sense, the system of law
derived from England, in general use among English-speaking people.]
[Footnote 586: Vedas. The sacred books of the Brahmins.]
[Footnote 587: Æsop's Fables. Fables ascribed to Æsop, a Greek slave
who lived in the sixth century before Christ.]
[Footnote 588: Pilpay, or Bidpai. Indian sage to whom were ascribed
some fables. From an Arabic translation, these passed into European
languages and were used by La Fontaine, the French fabulist.]
[Footnote 589: Arabian Nights. _The Arabian Nights' Entertainment or A
Thousand and One Nights_ is a collection of Oriental tales, the plan
and name of which are very ancient.]
[Footnote 590: Cid. _The Romances of the Cid_, the story of the
Spanish national hero, mentioned in note on _Heroism_139:5, was
written about the thirteenth century by an unknown author; it supplied
much of the material for two Spanish chronicles and Spanish and French
tragedies written later on the same subject.]
[Footnote 591: Iliad. The poem in which the Greek, poet, Homer,
describes the siege and fall of Troy. Emerson here expresses the view
adopted by many scholars that it was the work, not of one, but of many
men.]
[Footnote 592: Robin Hood. The ballads about Robin Hood, an English
outlaw and popular hero of the twelfth century.]
[Footnote 593: Scottish Minstrelsy. _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish
Border_, a collection of original and collected poems, published by
Sir Walter Scott in 1802.]
[Footnote 594: Shakespeare Society. The Shakespeare Society, founded
in 1841, was dissolved in 1853. In 1874 The New Shakespeare Society
was founded.]
[Footnote 595: Mysteries. See "Kyd, Marlowe, etc." 531.]
[Footnote 596: Ferrex and Porrex, or Gorboduc. The first regular
English tragedy, by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, printed in
1565.]
[Footnote 597: Gammer Gurtor's Needle. One of the first English
comedies, written by Bishop Still and printed in 1575.]
[Footnote 598: Whether the boy Shakespeare poached, etc. For a fuller
account of the facts of Shakespeare's life, of which some traditions
and facts are mentioned here, consult some good biography of the
poet.]
[Footnote 599: Queen Elizabeth. Dining her reign, 1558-1603, the
English drama rose and attained its height, and there was produced a
prose literature hardly inferior to the poetic.]
[Footnote 600: King James. King James VI. of Scotland and I. of