M. SAURAT AND MILTON
[To the Editor of TILE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Mr. Bonamy Dobree, in a friendly review of a small life of Milton by myself, says that he is surprised at two omissions in my short bibliography. He might have said, at least a hundred omissions. I only gave a very brief selection. Professor Grierson's invaluable collection of seventeenth- century lectures I did not include because it was only in part about Milton. But the Miltonie writings of M. Denis Saurat are another matter. I did not include them (after some hesitation) because, though very able and interesting, they seem to me to be largely unsound, from the point of view of scholars who believe that psychological analysis must not run ahead of textual evidence. I should be interested to know, for instance, what Mr. Dobree thinks of M. Saurat's interpretation of the Divorce Pamphlets, in La Pens!e de Milton (p. 63 et seq.). Taking for granted that they were written immediately after marriage and before Mary's desertion (he wrote, of course, before Mr. Wright's establish- ment of the 1642 marriage date), he 'writes, against (as it seems to me) the evidence of passage after passage in the Pamphlets : " it parait certain" (my italics) " que cette passion fut fru.stree par la jet= femme, qui se refusa It la satisfaire." Further, he calls in Mark Pattinson, who only alludes quite noncommittally to this theory, to support him in it. In the translation and enlargement of these lectures this view is repeated. It seems to me almost incredible that anyone should have read through the Divorce Pamphlets and hold this. This is only one point, of course, in a con- siderable body of Miltonic interpretation, much of it very interesting, but much of it also tainted with the readiness to jump to conclusions which marks the psycho-analyst let loose
upon literature. This tendency vitiates (to me) much of the interesting and learned investigation of the epies, and of Milton's religious theories. If space allowed, I could give many instances. Further, M. Saurat's literary style is so heavy and so devoid of grace as to remind one of David MaSson's ; though this would not matter if one could trust his conclusions. However, Mr. Dobree probably thinks my objections pedantically over-cautious, and that I jump to too few conclusions myself.—I am, Sir, &c.,
ROSE MACAULAY.
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