Note 84 — Chapter I · THE TREATMENT OF NATURE IN ENGLISH CLASSICAL POETRY

Ruskin (“Modern Painters,” III, 248) comments on Dante’s “intense detestation of all mist, rack of cloud or dimness of rain.” McLaughlin says of clouds, moonlight, etc.: “Let any reader of mediaeval poetry recall how imperceptible a part they play in it, even as plain facts of description. A line in one of the Latin songs expresses the feeling: their thought of clouds is how delightful not to see them. Moonlight, too, is seldom dwelt on as poetical; the most romantic touch that comes to my mind with it, is in Chrestien de Troyes where it shines over the reconciliation of estranged lovers. Just as we find little notice of sunrise, sunset, clouds, and moon, we find little feeling for the stars. They are mentioned occasionally in a facile way, though scarcely ever with manifest sentiment.”—“Studies in Mediaeval Life and Literature,” p. 21. Mr. Symonds says of the same period: “The earth is felt chiefly through the delightfulness of healthy sensations. The stars and clouds, and tempests of the heavens, the ever-recurring miracle of sunrise, the solemn pageant of sunsetting are almost as though they were not in this literature.”—J. A. Symonds, “Essays Speculative and Suggestive,” p. 300.