The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton

First published: 1653

Type of work: Philosophy

The Work:

The Compleat Angler is a practical guide to the art of angling, or fishing. The work has a nominal plot: Piscator (a fisherman), Venator (a hunter), and Auceps (a falconer) meet by chance and fall to discussing the merits of each man’s preferred sport. Piscator’s eloquent description of the joys and virtues of fishing convinces Venator to accompany him for several days of fishing. The bulk of the work, however, consists of practical advice to fishermen, as told by Piscator to Venator, about such topics as bait and fishing equipment, the habits of different kinds of fish, and methods of catching and cooking various fish.

The Compleat Angler was by no means the only fishing handbook of its day. It was certainly the most popular, however, and by the middle of the twentieth century, The Compleat Angler had been reprinted and translated nearly four hundred times. What sets The Compleat Angler apart from other practical handbooks and puts it firmly in the realm of literature is its delightful style that is technically polished and charming to read and its abundance of insight into human nature.

Being a fishing handbook, The Compleat Angler does not fit neatly into any traditional literary category. It at times was described as a pastoral (that is, an idealized description of country life), a georgic (a poem dealing with rural concerns, not usually as idealized as a pastoral), or an eclogue (a poetic dialogue between shepherds or other rural characters), and it was even credited with originating a category of its own, the “piscatory.” The difficulty in categorizing The Compleat Angler and in separating the voluminous practical information from its more “literary” aspects may be one of the reasons that the work historically suffered from critical neglect. From a critical point of view, however, The Compleat Angler is interesting for its structure (which owes much to plays and other dramatic pieces of its day), its witty and rhetorically complex style, and its political and historical underpinnings.

To understand fully the subtle themes of The Compleat Angler, it is necessary to understand the historical era in which Izaak Walton wrote. Walton published The Compleat Angler in 1653, when he was sixty years old, and when England was in social upheaval. Walton was alive at the time that Oliver Cromwell’s army overthrew the monarchy and in 1649 executed King Charles I. The Puritan movement, with its austerity and religious fanaticism, was in full swing. Persecution of Anglican and Catholic believers was widespread. The struggle of the Royalists (supporters of the monarchy and the king’s son Charles) against the theocratic rule of Cromwell and his successors would soon succeed, resulting in a hedonistic backlash against Puritanism during the Restoration. It was a time of social, religious, and political extremes.

Walton was not an extremist by nature. A successful merchant and biographer, Walton had during the course of his life befriended many leading Anglican thinkers, including John Donne and Richard Hooker. In the gentle, intelligent theology of these friends and colleagues, Walton saw an ideal “middle path” between the extremes of Puritan and of Royalist. One of the themes of The Compleat Angler centers on finding this ideal (and theologically based) compromise between two extremes of thought. Early in the work, Piscator and his student Venator encounter a hunter pursuing otters. Although Piscator and the hunter enjoy a pleasant enough exchange, Piscator later confides to Venator that he does not care much for the company of the hunter, because he swears excessively and is given to sacrilegious and lewd jests. Piscator is not a prude, however; he explains that he does not enjoy the company of serious and overly grave men, of “sowre complexion” and “anxious care,” any more than he enjoys the company of the foul-mouthed hunter. Piscator describes the qualities of the type of company he prefers: “learned and humble, valiant, and inoffensive, vertuous, and communicable.”

Walton’s belief in the middle way is not confined simply to questions of personality, however; it encompasses a wider theological view. Piscator expounds at length on the relative virtues of the two traditional paths of religious life, the active and the contemplative. Piscator ultimately argues for a “via media” (middle way) that reconciles action and contemplation. What better emblem of the via media, he argues, than the art of angling: time spent peacefully enjoying nature but still accomplishing something worthwhile. Walton embraces a naturalistic theology that finds God through contemplation of his creation; Walton’s praise of the countryside and of country life is often couched in religious terms. Walton’s religious beliefs require action, too, and specifically acts of charity. The bounty of fish that Piscator catches allows him to make charitable offerings of food to poorer characters such as the group of beggars and the milkmaid and her mother.

While the opposing attractions of the active and contemplative lives are nothing new to literature or theology, for Walton and others of his day they had a special meaning. With the tensions inherent in the religious and political extremes of the English civil war and Restoration eras, many prominent men chose to retire from public life to a life of seclusion in the country rather than take sides with the Puritans or the Royalists. While Walton’s religious views seemed to incline him to reject worldliness and involvement in political affairs, his active social conscience made him acutely aware that running from the pressing issues of the day was socially and politically irresponsible. Walton’s paean to angling can thus be seen as a wider social and political analogy for the importance of reconciling quiet, unostentatious retirement with productive, benevolent activity.

The art of fishing has another religious significance for Piscator (and Walton). One of Piscator’s lectures to Venator describes the many fishermen in the Old Testament. Walton, through the voice of Piscator, makes the New Testament parallels clear: Most of the Apostles, after all, were fishermen, whom Christ proposed to make fishers of men. The brother that Piscator meets at the inn (it is unclear whether Walton uses the term “brother” in its genealogic sense or in the wider sense of belonging to what he calls “the brotherhood of the angle”) is named Peter.

Walton’s themes are not purely religious, however; he also expresses very definite political views. For example, the social class of Piscator and Venator is deliberately left undefined. It seems clear that they are neither very rich nor very poor; however, they are definitely not snobbish or class-conscious. When they meet the lowly milkmaid and her mother, Piscator and Venator do not talk down to them or treat them as inferiors; instead they jovially offer the trade of fish for songs and milk. It is interesting to note Walton’s choice of songs for the milkmaid and her mother. The milkmaid sings Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” (“Come live with me and be my love”), a romantic verse about idealistic pastoral love. Her mother replies by singing Sir Walter Ralegh’s “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” (“If all the world and love were young”). Once again, Walton contrasts opposing views, this time extreme romanticism and cynicism about love, suggesting that extreme views can tell only part of the story.

Piscator’s story of his meeting with the Gypsies and beggars is illustrative of his political view. Piscator describes how the Gypsies got into an argument over how to divide a sum of money. Likewise, the beggars argued over the answer to a riddle about whether it was easier to rip or to “unrip” a cloak. In each case, the dispute was resolved peacefully and diplomatically by the “government” of each group. Instead of looking down on these traditional outcasts as inferiors, Piscator seems to admire the democracy of their way of life, using the favorable terms “commonwealth,” “government,” and “corporation” to describe their social organization. In Piscator’s other encounters with men who may be his social superiors, equals, or inferiors (the hunter, innkeeper, brother, and friend), all are treated with exactly the same courtesy and frankness.

No study of Walton’s work could be complete without a discussion of his style. By choosing a dialogue as the structure of his work, Walton is able to maintain an informal, conversational tone. He constantly lightens the lengthy technical passages with humorous verses or observations, and his philosophical and theological observations are neither pedantic nor belabored. Walton uses devices such as Piscator’s seeming to lose his train of thought or wander from the subject, and his crediting things like recipes and bits of fishing lore to friends (who are sometimes named and sometimes not), to make the dialogue seem as if it were really spoken by a living person rather than formally composed by an author. This apparent artlessness is a very careful construction used by Walton to give the dialogue a warm, intimate, and often humorous tone. It is this easy and pleasant tone, along with Walton’s intelligent observations on a wide variety of political and religious subjects, that makes The Compleat Angler more than a sportsman’s handbook. It is also a finely crafted work of literature that for centuries has been enjoyed by fishermen and lovers of literature alike.

Bibliography

Bevan, Jonquil. Izaak Walton’s “The Compleat Angler.” New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988. Provides a thorough discussion of the religious and political underpinnings of The Compleat Angler, placing the work in its social and historical context. Demonstrates the relation of The Compleat Angler to other literature of its time. Includes an extensive bibliography.

Bottrall, Margaret. Izaak Walton. London: Longmans, Green, 1955. Discusses Walton’s religious and political beliefs and offers some general criticism on The Compleat Angler. Examines Walton’s biographical works.

Cooper, John R. The Art of “The Compleat Angler.” Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1968. Cooper’s study of Walton’s technique focuses on his form, style, and sources. Provides a good discussion of the different traditions that influenced Walton’s work as well as an interesting section detailing Walton’s borrowings from other authors.

Keynes, Geoffrey. The Compleat Angler. New York: Random House, 1945. This edition of Walton’s work is of interest for its textual variations section, which shows some of the major differences between successive editions of the work. It also contains a biography of Walton and detailed bibliographical notes.

Semenza, Gregory M. Colón. “The Danger of ’Innocent, Harmless Mirth’: Walton’s Compleat Angler in the Interregnum.” In Sport, Politics, and Literature in the English Renaissance. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2003. Examines the significance of sports in sixteenth and seventeenth century England, where educators, physicians, and military scientists praised participation in athletic events as beneficial to the individual, vital to military preparedness, and necessary to maintain the class hierarchy. Analyzes The Compleat Angler and other books about sports, placing them within the political and literary context of their time.

Stanwood, P. G. Izaak Walton. New York: Twayne, 1998. Critical introduction to Walton’s life and writings. Analyzes The Compleat Angler and his other works, discussing their interrelationship. Examines the events of his life and his ideas within the context of his times.

Walton, Izaak. The Compleat Angler. Edited by Jonquil Bevan. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. Offers two different editions of The Compleat Angler (1653 and 1676) in their entirety, along with an extensive introduction covering Walton’s life, his literary sources, and a comprehensive discussion of the many different editions of The Compleat Angler. Includes reproductions of the original illustrations.