Chapter XII: The Post-Victorian Age (2)

(_b_) _His Contribution to the Drama._ Mr. Shaw’s long experience as a dramatic critic taught him at least what he was to avoid. When he began his career as a dramatist the theater was given up to the production of frivolous and even immoral pieces. Mr. Shaw vitalized this stuffy atmosphere, gave to play-writing a strong and vigorous tone, and added to it a spirit of broad comedy. From the purely formal point of view, he employed all the devices of stagecraft to give his plays an attractive and realistic setting. As regards the literary side of his plays, he marks in his work a great increase in the importance given to the stage-directions. Like Ibsen, he elaborates this feature of his plays till on the printed page they are almost as important as the dialogue. He is reverting to the precepts of Aristotle, who maintained that the drama is an affair of _action_, not of speech. Consequently Mr. Shaw’s plays often read like an interesting hybrid between the novel and the drama. We add an extract to illustrate this combination of speech and action:

_Behind the Emperor’s box at the Coliseum, where the
performers assemble before entering the arena. In the middle
a wide passage leading to the arena descends from the floor
level under the imperial box. On both sides of this passage
steps ascend to a landing at the back entrance to the box. The
landing forms a bridge across the passage. At the entrance to
the passage are two bronze mirrors, one on each side._

_On the west side of this passage, on the right hand of
anyone coming from the box and standing on the bridge, the
martyrs are sitting on the steps. Lavinia is seated half-way
up, thoughtfully trying to look death in the face. On her left
Androcles consoles himself by nursing a cat. Ferrovious stands
behind them, his eyes blazing, his figure stiff with intense
resolution. At the foot of the steps crouches Spintho, with his
head clutched in his hands, full of horror at the approach of
martyrdom._

_On the east side of the passage the gladiators are standing
and sitting at ease, waiting, like the Christians, for their
turn in the arena. One (Retiarius) is a nearly naked man with a
net and trident. Another (Secutor) is in armour with a sword.
He carries a helmet with a barred visor. The Editor of the
gladiators sits on a chair a little apart from them._

_The Call Boy enters from the passage._

_The Call Boy._ Number six. Retiarius _versus_ Secutor.

_The gladiator with the net picks it up. The gladiator with
the helmet puts it on; and the two go into the arena, the
net-thrower taking out a little brush and arranging his hair
as he goes, the other tightening his straps and shaking his
shoulders loose. Both look at themselves in the mirrors before
they enter the passage._

_Lavinia._ Will they really kill one another?

_Spintho._ Yes, if the people turn down their thumbs.

_The Editor._ You know nothing about it. The people indeed! Do you suppose we would kill a man worth perhaps fifty talents to please the riff-raff? I should like to catch any of my men at it.

_Spintho._ I thought----

_The Editor_ [_contemptuously_]. You thought! Who cares what _you_ think? _You’ll_ be killed all right enough.

_Spintho_ [_groans and again hides his face_].!!!...

_Lavinia._ Does the Emperor ever interfere?

_The Editor._ Oh yes; he turns his thumb up fast enough if the vestal virgins want to have one of his pet fighting men killed. _Androcles and the Lion_

(_c_) _His Defects._ As a dramatist Mr. Shaw has many faults. When he is anxious to expound one of his opinions he subordinates the dramatic interest and permits his characters to become merely the mouthpieces of his views. Jack Tanner, the chief character in _Man and Superman_, is the stock example of such a personage. Nearly all his characters, moreover, though they are galvanically active, hardly impress the reader as being actually alive. Like Dickens, Mr. Shaw is skillful in the creation of freaks and oddities, but he is weak in the presentation of living and ordinary people.

(_d_) _His Opinions._ Like Mr. Wells, Mr. Shaw holds decided views on many subjects, from phonetics to the construction of the universe, and he is not backward in expressing them. More than once he has declared that he would never have written a word if he had not some message to convey. He has, however, a curious method of exposition, which he has purposely developed in order to shock his opponents into attention: a jesting, paradoxical mishandling of the truth, often glaringly personal, and stated with almost brutal clearness. As a result Mr. Shaw rarely finds himself taken seriously by the superficial reader, though the deep underlying seriousness of his opinions is nearly always perceptible to the attentive mind. It has often been urged that his opinions are purely destructive; and his efforts to provide alternatives to the institutions he condemns are not always of the happiest.

(_e_) _His Style._ Like his great fellow-countryman Swift, Mr. Shaw has a powerful and logical mind, with the same fierce satiric purpose and (it may be added) the same type of Irish nationalism. His prose is more amusing, less destructive, more diffuse, and less simple than that of the great Dean. In his dramatic dialogue, however, Mr. Shaw is pithy, direct, and absolutely clear. The example already given shows its character.

We add a brief specimen of his expository prose. It is the peroration to a long preface, and therefore somewhat more elevated in style than the average. It contains a characteristic mock-serious personal reference which sheds light on Mr. Shaw’s own opinion of his work.

I now find myself inspired to make a second legend of Creative
Evolution without distractions and embellishments. My sands
are running out; the exuberance of 1901 has aged into the
garrulity of 1920; and the war has been a stern intimation that
the matter is not one to be trifled with. I abandon the legend
of Don Juan with its erotic associations, and go back to the
legend of the Garden of Eden. I exploit the eternal interest of
the philosopher’s stone which enables men to live for ever. I
am not, I hope, under more illusion than is humanly inevitable
as to the crudity of this my beginning of a Bible for Creative
Evolution. I am doing the best I can at my age. My powers are
waning; but so much the better for those who found me unbearably
brilliant when I was in my prime. It is my hope that a hundred
apter and more elegant parables by younger hands will soon leave
mine as far behind as the religious pictures of the fifteenth
century left behind the first attempts of the early Christians
at inconography. In that hope I withdraw and ring up the curtain.
_Preface to “Back to Methuselah”_

OTHER DRAMATISTS

=1. Oscar O. W. Wilde (1856–1900)= was the son of a famous Irish surgeon, and was educated at Dublin and Oxford. At Oxford he distinguished himself both as a scholar and as an eccentric. In the latter capacity he posed as an “æsthete” in opposition to the common type of “athlete,” wearing fantastic garments, and behaving with an extraordinary combination of folly, extravagance, and presumption. On leaving the university he dabbled in literature in an amateurish fashion, writing poems, novels, and plays, and contributing to magazines and reviews. His opinions--he held that “morality” does not exist in “art”--led to much heated discussion, and to many charges being made against his moral character. Wilde instituted proceedings for libel, which in turn brought to light many unpleasant facts against him, and in the end landed him in jail (1895). On regaining his liberty (1897) he lived a wandering life on the Continent, and died miserably in Paris.

Wilde’s early poems and novels, an example of which latter is _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ (1891), are sumptuous in detail, cynically phrased, and richly ornamented in style;[237] but over them all is a curious taint, a faint malodorous corruption, that repels the healthy-minded reader. His plays, however, almost escape this infection. In tone they are hard and cynical, and in the portrayal of character they are exceedingly weak, but they are brilliant with epigram and telling phrase, are ingeniously contrived, and have many clever situations. They are the cleverest society comedies since the days of Wilde’s great fellow-country-man Sheridan. The best of them are _Lady Windermere’s Fan_ (1892) and _The Importance of Being Earnest_ (1895).

=2. John Galsworthy= (born in 1867) in drama takes the place occupied in the novel by Gissing. In sincerity, in his close scrutiny of the vexed problems of to-day, and in his deep sympathy for the poor and wretched Mr. Galsworthy much resembles the earlier novelist. As a playwright, however, he is too deeply engrossed with his problems to do complete justice to his talents. He is too serious, his humor is wan and meager, and the severe detachment of his plays makes them rather cold and depressing. _The Silver Box_ (1906) deals with the inequality of “justice” as it is administered in the police courts; _Joy_ (1907), _Strife_ (1909), and _Justice_ (1910) discuss various social and domestic problems; and _The Skin Game_ (1920) deals with the post-war profiteer.

Mr. Galsworthy has written a considerable number of novels, which culminate in _The Forsyte Saga_ (1922). This immense work includes three longish novels and two shorter tales, all of which had previously been published individually. In its breadth and power of comprehension, and in its keen and destructive vision into social and personal weaknesses, the book takes rank as one of the most noteworthy of the present day.

=3. Sir James Barrie= was born in 1860 at Kirriemuir, a small town in Forfarshire. Educated at Dumfries and at Edinburgh University, he became a journalist, settling ultimately in London. His early sketches and novels, such as _Auld Licht Idylls_ (1888), _A Window in Thrums_ (1889), and _Sentimental Tommy_ (1896), squared with the average Englishman’s notions of Scotland, and were exceedingly successful. The element of pathos was heavily drawn upon, and their quaint and attractive humor--a delicate compound of fancy, pathos, and whimsical sentiment--was something quite new of its kind.

His plays strongly resemble the novels. In them he displays a sweet ethereal fancy that adds to the humor and pathos. _The Admirable Crichton_ (1903) is fresh and delightful; _Peter Pan_, a golden venture into unashamed nonsense, is to the stage what _Alice in Wonderland_ is to literature--a children’s classic; and _Quality Street_ (1901), _What Every Woman Knows_ (1908), _A Kiss for Cinderella_ (1916), _Dear Brutus_ (1917), and _Mary Rose_ (1920) have the sweetly sensitive tears-in-laughter that make the Barrie plays quite different from all others.

=4. John M. Synge (1871–1909)= deserves mention as being the most important playwright of the purely Celtic school. He was always in delicate health, and his period of play-writing was very brief. During the years of his literary output he lived in close association with Irish peasantry, especially that of the Aran Islands, where the Celtic spirit is least affected by modern movements.

_The Shadow of the Glen_ (1903) and _Riders to the Sea_ (1904) are short plays of one act; and with the longer plays called _The Well of the Saints_ (1905), _The Playboy of the Western World_ (1907), _The Tinker’s Wedding_ (1909), and _Deirdre of the Sorrows_ (1910), they represent his published works. All portray the life of the Irish peasant; but it is the peasant as viewed from the outside by the cultured literary man. The observation is often keen, and the satiric intention apparent; but the peasant remains an idealized literary figure, and his language is idealized language. As acting plays, moreover, they are heavy and lifeless, for Synge was little skilled in stage technique. Their real importance lies in their style: a slow-moving, wonderful prose, rich in poetic embellishment and sonorous rhythms, and full of the typical Celtic mysticism. Consequently Synge’s plays will be read far more than they will be acted. A specimen of his style will be found on p. 568.

WRITERS OF MISCELLANEOUS PROSE

=1. Gilbert K. Chesterton= was born in London in the year 1874. He was educated at St. Paul’s School, then studied art, but ultimately became a journalist. He wrote much literary and miscellaneous prose for journals, and distinguished himself as a writer of much ingenuity, topsy-turvy humor, and a robust, rampageous style. His books of verse, such as _Gray-beards at Play_ (1900), _The Wild Knight_ (1900), and _Wine, Water, and Song_ (1915), are quite excellent in their way: clever and vigorous, skillfully constructed, and genuinely funny. His novels are fine-spun webs of ingenious nonsense, and include _The Club of Queer Trades_ (1905) and _The Man Who was Thursday_ (1908). His literary and miscellaneous work, often apparently willful and inconsequent, is usually sane and substantial at bottom. His critical work is well represented by his books on Dickens and Browning, and his miscellaneous writing, gloriously Chestertonian, by _Tremendous Trifles_ (1909) and _A Shilling for my Thoughts_ (1916).

=2. Hilaire Belloc=, the son of a Frenchman, was born in France in 1870. He was educated in England, served two years with the French Artillery, and finished his education at Oxford University. Mr. Belloc has contributed to most kinds of literature. His serious verses are noteworthy for their ease and vigor, and his nonsense verses, such as _A Bad Child’s Book of Beasts_, are excellent fooling. As a humorist Mr. Belloc specializes in a super-solemnity of manner while he is stating the most ridiculous problems. His humor, however, rarely lacks the sharp stab of satire. His novels, like those of Disraeli, are a shrewd commentary upon our political life. They have an unwinkingly solemn humor, biting scorn scarcely concealed, and a clear and incisive style. _Mr. Clutterbuck’s Election_ (1908) and _A Change in the Cabinet_ (1909) come high in the thin ranks of the first-rate political novel. His miscellaneous work is often clever, whimsically learned, and often distinguished by the same parade of grave nonsense. _On Nothing_ (1908) sets him high among modern essayists. His two travel volumes, _The Path to Rome_ (1902) and _The Pyrenees_ (1909), in spite of their somewhat labored mannerisms, deserve to become classical.

=3. Lord Morley (1838–1923)= is the sole writer of serious miscellaneous prose that we have space to mention. He was born at Blackburn, took his degree at Oxford, and became a journalist of a Radical and philosophical type. He was in turn editor of more than one important review, entered Parliament (1883), and was closely associated with Mr. Gladstone during the struggles over the Irish Home Rule Bills. He held high offices under the Liberal Government, was created Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1908), and on the outbreak of war in 1914 retired from public life.

Lord Morley wrote a great deal of literary, philosophical, and miscellaneous work, distinguished by its scholarly care and accuracy, by a deep but placable seriousness, and by a strong and flexible style. His monographs on _Voltaire_ (1872), _Burke_ (1879), and _Walpole_ (1889) are models of what such brief works ought to be; his _Life of Cromwell_ (1900) is a sane and scholarly treatment of a difficult subject; and his monumental _Life of Gladstone_ (1903), though it lacks proportion in some respects, is a well-filled storehouse of historical fact, and, on this side of idolatry, a reverent tribute to a great man.

THE POETS

In the section that follows we have made a careful selection from the poets of the period. Many more names might have been included, of a value and interest little inferior to those given a place. In any case, a selection such as this must be in the nature of an experiment, for time alone will sift out the poems of permanent value.

=1. Sir William Watson= was born in 1858, the son of a Yorkshire farmer, and was educated privately. His life has been devoted to letters: a devotion that was recognized by Mr. Gladstone, who transferred to him (1893) the Civil List pension that had been granted to Tennyson. He was knighted in 1917.

His fairly abundant poetry includes _The Prince’s Quest_ (1880), after the manner of Tennyson; _Wordsworth’s Grave_ (1890), the style of which suggests the meditative poetry of Matthew Arnold; _Lacrymæ Musarum_ (1893), which contains a fine elegy on the death of Tennyson; _The Muse in Exile_ (1913); and _The Superhuman Antagonists_ (1919). Sir William Watson is at his best as an elegiac poet, when, though he is apt to become diffusely meditative, he writes with sincerity and a scholarly enthusiasm. In the heroic vein, such as he attempted in the last poem mentioned above, he is merely violent, without being impressive. His political poetry, such as _The Year of Shame_ (1897), is strong rhetorical verse, palpably sincere, but of no high poetical merit.

=2. Francis Thompson (1859–1907)= had a career suggestive of that of the poets of the eighteenth century. He was born in Lancashire, and was dedicated to the profession of medicine. He abandoned medicine, and went to London as a friendless literary adventurer. Then followed the tragically familiar tale of loneliness, poverty, opium, and disease. After a time (1893) his poems drew a little attention to himself, and he was rescued just in time from the fate of Chatterton. His health, however, was never fully restored, and finally he died of consumption.

In style and temper Thompson is a strange blend of the poets of past epochs. He has the rapt religious enthusiasm and the soaring imagination of the Metaphysical poets, as can be clearly seen in his truly magnificent _Hound of Heaven_; or again, as in _The Daisy_, he is the inspired babbler of the type of William Blake. In one sense he wrote too much, when he marred his splendid lyrical energy with too abundant detail; in another sense he wrote too little, for the fire that was within him was extinguished before it could burn clear. He is not quite another Coleridge, hag-ridden with opium, but at least he is a lyrical poet far above mediocrity.

=3. John Masefield= (born 1874) has contributed much poetry to modern literature. Quite a budget of long descriptive-narrative poems has come from him, including _The Widow in the Bye Street_ (1912), a grimly realistic tale; _Dauber_ (1913), full of the splendor and terror of the sea; and _Reynard the Fox_ (1920), a bustling tale of the foxhunt. These long poems are well informed and masterfully narrated, with many purple passages of description, and in the grimmer incidents a strong fidelity to fact that does not stop short of strong language. Mr. Masefield’s shorter poems, though they do not include any great lyrics, are dignified, reticent, and tuneful. He is undoubtedly at his best when he writes of the sea, a subject that was never far from the hearts of his great poetical predecessors.

=4. William H. Davies= was born at Newport, Monmouthshire, in 1870. In his youth he emigrated to America, where he became a tramp, and then served as a cattleman on a steamer. An accident in which he lost a foot made him incapable of hard physical work, so for a living he sang in the streets and lived in common lodging-houses. His first volume of verse, _The Soul’s Destroyer_ (1906), rescued him from penury. His _Collected Poems_ (1916) and _Forty New Pieces_ (1918) contain his best work.

Like Burns, Mr. Davies is the natural, untaught lyrical genius. His capacity is neither so deep nor so intense as that of Burns, but within his limits he can write poems of great beauty. When he writes of nature he almost recreates the spirit of Wordsworth, he shows such insight, freshness, and ease. His artless simplicity is at times almost grotesque, yet the reader cannot help admitting that it is in keeping with his subject. This marked naïveté, however, is often given a queer metaphysical twist; or it sometimes rises, with a mighty rhythm, into passages of noble harmony. At least half a dozen of his shorter pieces--the expressive _Thunderstorms_; the exquisite _Moon_, so old in theme and so original in expression; the dainty _Sweet Stay-at-Home_, with its haunting Caroline meter and phrasing; the absolutely perfect _The White Cascade_, eight lines long; the provokingly beautiful _Dreams of the Sea_, that one cries out upon as being too wonderful to be merely imitative of the grand Marlowe manner; and the amazing verses, Elizabethan to the core, beginning _When I Am Old_--are stamped with immortality. The temptation to quote is irresistible:

(1) When I am old, and it is spring,
And joy leaps dancing, wild and free,
Clear out of every living thing,
While I command no ecstasy;
And to translate the songs of birds
Will be beyond my power in words:

* * * * *

For when these little songs shall fail,
These happy notes that to the world
Are puny mole-hills, nothing more,
That unto me are Alps of gold--
That toad’s dark life must be my own,
Buried alive inside a stone.

(2) Thou knowest the way to tame the wildest life,
Thou knowest the way to bend the great and proud:
I think of that Armada whose puffed sails,
Greedy and large, came swallowing every cloud.

But I have seen the sea-boy young and drowned,
Lying on shore, and, by thy cruel hand,
A seaweed beard was on his tender chin,
His heaven-blue eyes were filled with common sand.

And yet, for all, I yearn for thee again,
To sail once more upon thy fickle flood:
I’ll hear thy waves wash under my death-bed,
Thy salt is lodged for ever in my blood.
_Dreams of the Sea_

=5. John Drinkwater= (born 1882) was educated at Oxford High School, and for a time worked in insurance offices. He has done much to revive the modern drama, helping to found the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. As a poet he is representative of the work of his day: meditative rather than passionate, descriptive rather than narrative, and always clear, competent, and precise. He is one of the best of modern blank-verse writers. His shorter poems will be found in his _Poems of 1908–1914_ (1914) and _Swords and Ploughshares_ (1915).

=6. Rupert C. Brooke (1887–1915)= was educated at Rugby and Cambridge, and for a time traveled in America. In 1914 he enlisted in the Royal Naval Division, took part in the fighting at Antwerp, and died of fever while on active service in the Dardanelles.

Brooke’s lamentably early death gave rise to a quite natural tendency to overpraise his poetry. The exaggerated estimates made at his death must be revised, and real justice done to his name. As a poet he is not consistently great, but he is always readable, often delightfully mannered and humorous (as in the poem called _Heaven_), and on at least one occasion, in the splendid sonnet called _The Soldier_, touches greatness. His sonnets are perhaps his best achievement. In this very difficult species of composition he has the requisite technical skill and delicate ear for rhythm, and he can catch the unmistakable surge and swell that mark the successful sonnet.

We quote from his piece called _Heaven_. In felicity of phrasing and aptness of humor it is of the best Metaphysical tradition.

But somewhere, beyond Space and Time,
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.

=7. William B. Yeats= was born in Dublin in 1865, and was educated both in London and in his native city. He studied art, but his real bent was literary. He was one of the chief supporters of the Celtic Revival, helped to found the Irish Literary Theatre (1899), wrote plays for it, and discovered other literary talent, including that of Mr. Synge.

Mr. Yeats’s poetry was published in several volumes, and was issued in a collected edition in 1908. _The Wanderings of Oisin_ (1889) was his first volume, and among the rest we may mention _The Countess Cathleen_ (1892), a romantic drama, _The Wind among the Reeds_ (1899), containing some of his best lyrics, and _The Wild Swans of Coole_ (1917). Of his poetical plays _The Land of Heart’s Desire_ (1894) is perhaps the best, and of the prose dramas _Cathleen ni Hoolihan_ (1902) is a fine example.

Mr. Yeats is a fastidious poet, writing little and revising often. As a consequence the average merit of his poetry is very high; and sometimes, as in the often-quoted _Lake Isle of Innisfree_, he breathes the pathos and longing that are generally regarded as typical of the Celtic spirit. His style has the usual Celtic peculiarities: a meditative and melancholy beauty, a misty idealism, and a sweet and dignified diction. Mr. Yeats is the most important of the modern Irish poets.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY FORMS

=1. The Novel.= In mass of production the novel easily outdoes all other species of literature; in general workmanship it has advanced exceedingly; and in importance it probably deserves to take the first place. We shall comment briefly upon a few of the outstanding lines of development.

(_a_) _The Novel as Propaganda._ The “purpose novel” has long been a feature of our literature, but was never so prominent as it is to-day. It seems as if the novel were swallowing up the duties of the sermon, the pamphlet, and the text-book. Of all the subjects that are discussed social and religious questions are the most popular.

(_b_) _The Realism of the Novel._ This will probably be regarded as typical of the age. The realistic novel certainly forms a large proportion of the whole. In subject it deals with modern life in all its complexity; in detail it seeks to reflect faithfully the world we live in; and in style it is studiously subdued. How much this modern development makes for the improvement of the novel is a question still unsolved. In the hands of a novelist of the caliber of Mr. Hardy realism becomes actual beauty, and George Gissing and Mr. Galsworthy are able to make it artistically important. In lesser hands, however, realism is apt to degenerate into squalor and ugliness, and the studious simplicity of style becomes a dreary burden.

(_c_) _The Romantic Novel._ Along with the flood of realistic novels, there is a steady stream of the romantic kind. Mr. Kipling, who seems to delight in such mundane things as machinery, is concerned with showing the intense romantic beauty behind them. Other writers, such as =Maurice Hewlett= and =Kenneth Grahame=, are openly absorbed in things that are remote and beautiful--the essential qualities of the romance. On the other hand, it is unfortunately true that the historical novel shows hardly a flicker of life.

(_d_) _The Commercializing of the Novel._ It is a common habit to decry the age one lives in, and the present age is no exception. It is freely declared that, in spite of the importance attained by the novel, there are few great novelists, and that the level of merit, such as it is, will rapidly fall. The decline, moreover, is (it is declared) due to the stress that is being laid upon the commercial value of fiction. Novels are now expensive things to publish; to make each one of them worth publishing a large circulation must be assured; to ensure this circulation the novel must appeal to the vulgar taste, and must avoid originality and teasing literary devices--these are the charges levelled against the modern novel. Such assertions are exaggerated, but there is no doubt that the persistent desire to turn the novel into a commercial chattel will lead to its decline as literature.

=2. The Short Story.= This type of fiction has become so important that it is here necessary to give a very brief sketch of its development.

(_a_) _Definition._ To define a “short” story, we must clearly come to some conclusion as to length. We can approximately define this length by saying that a short story should be capable of being read at one brief sitting.

(_b_) _Medium of Publication._ At the very outset a difficulty met the writer of the short story: how was he to get his work published? The short story is not long enough to appear as a book by itself. There were two ways of overcoming the difficulty: by inserting (or interpolating) the short story in the midst of a long one, or by using it as an item in a magazine. We shall trace the development of both these methods. The publication of collections of short stories in volume form is a comparatively modern practice.

(_c_) _The Interpolated Story._ This was the earliest form of the short story. As early as the romance of _Don Quixote_ we have one or more of the characters of the main story relating some short tale that acts as a foil to the principal narrative. The interpolated story is a common device in the picaresque novel, and it is freely employed by Defoe, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne. Scott, in his famous _Wandering Willie’s Tale_, which is introduced in _Redgauntlet_, continues the practice; and as late as Dickens we have the common use of short stories, some of them of very inferior quality, in _The Pickwick Papers_. At this point the interpolated story becomes quite rare in good fiction, for the magazine has appeared on the scene and has provided the natural medium for the genuine short story. In many cases the interpolated tale is of great merit, but it spoils the unity of the main story, and so it is better out of the way.

(_d_) _The Magazine Short Story._ The development of the popular magazine led to the establishment of this class of tale. In English its history can be said to begin with Addison, whose Coverley papers are really a collection of short stories; the record continued through the eighteenth century in the miscellaneous work of Goldsmith and Dr. Johnson. During the first half of the nineteenth century there was a decline in the production of the short story. The lighter type of magazine was not yet in favor, and the more ponderous journals, like _The Quarterly Review_ and _The Edinburgh Review_, which specialized in literary and political articles, held the stage. _Blackwood’s Magazine_ and _The London Magazine_ encouraged the more popular kinds of fiction. Among their contributors were James Hogg, De Quincey, and Charles Lamb. Some of the essays of these writers, such as Lamb’s famous tale of roast pig, are short stories thinly disguised. Another contributor of the same kind was =Douglas Jerrold (1803–57)=, whose _Cakes and Ale_ (1842) is one of the first collections of short stories and sketches. After the middle of the century there was a rapid increase in part-fiction magazines, such as Dickens’s _All the Year Round_ (1859) and Thackeray’s _Cornhill Magazine_ (1860). As the century drew near its close the number of lighter magazines largely increased, until nowadays we have a large proportion entirely given over to the supply of fiction. Nearly all the writers of the modern epoch have taken to the short story, and most of them have issued this class of their work in volume form. To the names already mentioned in this chapter we may add those of =Sir Arthur Conan Doyle= (born 1859) and =W. W. Jacobs= (born 1863). The former struck a rich vein in the popular detective story, and the latter specialized in the humorous presentation of the longshoreman.

=3. The Drama.= (_a_) _The Poetical Drama._ In this class of drama there is little to set on record. The blank-verse tragedy is still written with skill and enthusiasm, but there is little of outstanding merit, and nothing of originality. The poetical dramas of Mr. Yeats--for example, _The Countess Cathleen_ (1892) and _The Shadowy Waters_ (1900)--have all his mystical beauty, and are the most original of their class. =Stephen Phillips (1868–1915)= achieved some distinction, and even considerable stage success, with his smooth and Tennysonian blank-verse tragedies, such as _Paolo and Francesca_ (1899), _Ulysses_ (1902), and _The Virgin Goddess_ (1910). Mr. Hardy’s _Dynasts_ is dramatic only in form; it is rather a philosophical poem with a dramatic setting.

(_b_) _The Prose Drama._ In this age the activity of the prose drama is second only to that of the novel. The mood of the time is essentially critical, and the prose drama is an excellent medium for expressing such a mood. Among the earliest of the modern dramatists is =Sir Arthur Pinero= (born 1855), and we can trace the development through the work of Mr. Galsworthy, already mentioned, and of =St. John Hankin (1869–1909)= and =Granville Barker= (born 1877). Their plays have the note of the realistic novel in the emphasis they lay upon common life and common speech. The plays of Mr. Shaw, by reason of their wit and high spirits, stand rather apart from this class; and the brilliance of the Wilde comedies is that of a past age.

=4. Poetry.= (_a_) The main poetical tendency of the time is toward the _lyric_, especially toward a chastened and rather tepid form of it. Of this class, the lyrics of Sir William Watson are fairly typical. Mr. Davies’s best pieces, and some of Mr. Hardy’s, are good examples of the simple and direct lyric, and Francis Thompson excels in the descriptive style.

(_b_) In the class of _descriptive-narrative poetry_ we have the sea-pieces of Mr. Masefield and the rustic poetry of Mr. Drinkwater. To these we must add the work of =Ralph Hodgson= (born 1871), several of whose poems, in particular _The Bull_ and _The Song of Honour_, have some of the ecstatic energy of the young Coleridge.

(_c_) In addition to what we may call the standard types of poetry, there are experiments in _vers libre_, or _free verse_ (that is, rhymeless verse of the type of Matthew Arnold’s _The Strayed Reveller_), and the more daring efforts of others who defy the conventions of rhyme, meter, and even intelligibility. Experiments such as these are all for the good of poetry, which, if it is to live at all, must live by progressing. So far, the attempts of the innovators have produced nothing that is really noteworthy; and with that we must leave them.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY STYLE

=1. Poetry.= As can easily be understood, in such a troubled age there is little uniformity in style. The average verse is distinguished by a correct and scholarly diction, somewhat ornate, but clear and ably used. Of the highly ornate style there is little to mention, except the more elaborate compositions of Francis Thompson; but from the scholarly elegance of =Dr. Bridges= (born 1844) we may run down the scale of simplicity through the mannered graces of Mr. Kipling, the crabbed satiric verses of Mr. Hardy, the high simplicity of Mr. Davies, to the sweet child-verse of =Walter de la Mare= (born 1873), whose _Songs of Childhood_ (1902), _Peacock Pie_ (1913), and other volumes are the almost perfect expression of artless youth. When we arrive here we cannot allow to pass unnoticed the lyrics of =James Stephens= (born 1882), whose poems of country life are simplicity itself, but full of the deepest sympathy. His short poem called _The Snare_ is a little masterpiece.

When simplicity develops further it becomes realism, and in poetry the prevailing taste is revealed. The European War, as was natural, produced a crop of realistic poems. Of this kind are the verses of =Siegfried Sassoon= (born 1886), whose war-poems are distinguished by a passionate desire to get to grips with reality.

=2. Prose.= In this age, as in most other ages, there is much lamentation over the decay of English prose. There is probably a great deal of truth in the charge that our prose is lapsing into slovenly ways, and there is no doubt that the stress of modern methods leads to haphazard and makeshift production. On the other hand, we have but to glance at the names that have a place in this chapter to find exponents of prose styles who represent the best traditions: the reverent respect shown for English in the ornate prose of Mr. Conrad; the massive middle prose of Mr. Hardy; the sonorous and poetical mannerisms of the Celts; the eighteenth-century grace and precision of Lord Morley; the swift, clean swoop of the Shavian manner; and the quick ease of Mr. Wells. Surely such an age is not unblessed. With regard to the future none dare dogmatize; but, with a confidence born of the knowledge of nineteen centuries, one can look forward undismayed.

GENERAL QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

NOTE.--_In answering some of the following questions the
General Tables (Appendix I) will be of use._

1. With the aid of the following and other quotations, give an account of the origin and development of English blank verse. Compare and contrast the styles of the given extracts.

(1) Now came still evening on, and twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied, for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale--
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleased. Now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light
And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.
MILTON, _Paradise Lost_

(2) At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam
Startles the pensive traveller while he treads
His lonesome path, with unobserving eye
Bent earthwards; he looks up--the clouds are split
Asunder,--and above his head he sees
The clear Moon, and the glory of the heavens.
There, in a black-blue vault she sails along,
Followed by multitudes of stars, that, small
And sharp and bright, along the dark abyss
Drive as she drives: how fast they wheel away,
Yet vanish not!--the wind is in the tree,
But they are silent;--still they roll along
Immeasurably distant; and the vault,
Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds,
Still deepens its unfathomable depth.
At length the Vision closes; and the mind,
Not undisturbed by the delight it feels,
Which slowly settles into peaceful calm,
Is left to muse upon the solemn scene.
WORDSWORTH, _The Prelude_

(3) And from the reading, and that slab I leant
My elbow on, the while I read and read
I turned, to free myself and find the world,
And stepped out on the narrow terrace, built
Over the street and opposite the church,
And paced its lozenge brickwork sprinkled cool;
Because Felice-church-side stretched, a-glow
Through each square window fringed for festival,
Whence came the clear voice of the cloistered ones
Chanting a chant made for midsummer nights--
I know not what particular praise of God,
It always came and went with June. Beneath
I’ the street, quick shown by openings of the sky
When flame fell silently from cloud to cloud,
Richer than that gold snow Jove rained on Rhodes,
The townsmen walked by twos and threes, and talked,
Drinking the blackness in default of air--
A busy human sense beneath my feet:
While in and out the terrace-plants, and round
One branch of tall datura, waxed and waned
The lamp-fly lured there, wanting the white flower.
Over the roof o’ the lighted church I looked
A bowshot to the street’s end, north away
Out of the Roman gate to the Roman road
By the river, till I felt the Apennine.
BROWNING, _The Ring and the Book_

2. Point out the features of each of the following extracts that are typical of the author or his period. Write a brief critique of the style of each.

(1) Although there be none so ignorant that doth not know,
neither any so impudent that will not confess, friendship to
be the jewel of human joy: yet whosoever shall see this amity
grounded upon a little affection, will soon conjecture that
it shall be dissolved upon a light occasion: as in the sequel
of Euphues and Philautus you shall soon see, whose hot love
waxed soon cold: for as the best wine doth make the sharpest
vinegar, so the deepest love turneth to the deadliest hate. Who
deserved the most blame, in mine opinion, it is doubtful and
so difficult, that I dare not presume to give verdict. For love
being the cause for which so many mischiefs have been attempted,
I am not yet persuaded whether of them was most to be blamed,
but certainly neither of them was blameless.
LYLY, _Euphues and his England_

(2) A doubtful truce restored the appearances of concord, till
the death of Abu Taleb abandoned Mahomet to the power of his
enemies, at the moment when he was deprived of his domestic
comforts by the loss of his faithful and generous Cadijah. Abu
Sophian, the chief of the branch of Ommiyah, succeeded to the
principality of the republic of Mecca. A zealous votary of
the idols, a mortal foe of the line of Hashem, he convened an
assembly of the Koreishites and their allies, to decide the fate
of the apostle. His imprisonment might provoke the despair of
his enthusiasm; and the exile of an eloquent and popular fanatic
would diffuse the mischief through the provinces of Arabia.
His death was resolved; and they agreed that a sword from each
tribe should be buried in his heart, to divide the guilt of the
blood, and baffle the vengeance of the Hashemites. An angel or a
spy revealed their conspiracy; and flight was the only resource
of Mahomet. At the dead of night, accompanied by his friend
Abubeker, he silently escaped from his house: the assassins
watched at the door; but they were deceived by the figure of
Ali, who reposed on the bed, and was covered with the green
vestment of the apostle.
GIBBON, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_

(3) There was no sleeping in the daytime on the planter’s
clearing: the wages were too high to risk. Deesa sat on Moti
Guj’s neck and gave him orders, while Moti Guj rooted up the
stumps--for he owned a magnificent pair of tusks; or pulled at
the end of a rope--for he had a magnificent pair of shoulders;
while Deesa kicked behind the ears and said he was the king of
elephants. At evening time Moti Guj would wash down his three
hundred pounds’ weight of green food with a quart of arrack,
and Deesa would take a share and sing songs between Moti Guj’s
legs till it was time to go to bed. Once a week Deesa led Moti
Guj down to the river, and Moti Guj lay on his side luxuriously
in the shallows, while Deesa went over him with a coir-swab and
a brick.... Then Deesa would look at his feet, and examine his
eyes, and turn up the fringes of his mighty ears in case of
sores or budding ophthalmia. After inspection, the two would
“come up with a song from the sea,”

Moti Guj all black and shining, waving a torn tree branch twelve
feet long in his trunk, and Deesa knotting up his own long wet
hair.
KIPLING, _Moti Guj--Mutineer_

(4) As the dawn was just breaking he found himself close to
Covent Garden. The darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint
fires, the sky hollowed itself into a perfect pearl. Huge carts
filled with nodding lilies rumbled slowly down the polished
empty street. The air was heavy with the perfume of the flowers,
and their beauty seemed to bring him an anodyne for his pain. He
followed into the market, and watched the men unloading their
waggons. A white-smocked carter offered him some cherries. He
thanked him, and wondered why he refused to accept any money for
them, and began to eat them listlessly. They had been plucked at
midnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them.
A long line of boys carrying crates of striped tulips, and of
yellow and red roses, defiled in front of him, threading their
way through the huge jade-green piles of vegetables. Under the
portico, with its grey sun-bleached pillars, loitered a group of
draggled, bareheaded girls, waiting for the auction to be over.
Others crowded round the swinging doors of the coffee-house in
the Piazza. The heavy cart-horses slipped and stamped upon the
rough stones, shaking their bells and trappings. Some of the
drivers were lying asleep on a pile of sacks. Iris-necked and
pink-footed, the pigeons ran about picking up seeds.
WILDE, _The Picture of Dorian Gray_

3. With the aid of the following extracts, and of others known to you, say what subjects are best suited to the simple style in poetry. State the merits of the style, and its limitations. Write a critical note upon each of the given extracts.

(1) Dreamers, mark the honey bee;
Mark the tree
Where the blue cap “_tootle tee_”
Sings a glee,
Sung to Adam and to Eve--
Here they be.
When floods covered every bough,
Noah’s ark
Heard that ballad singing now;
Hark, hark,

“_Tootle, tootle, tootle tee_”--
Can it be
Pride and fame must shadows be?
Come and see--
Every season owns her own;
Bird and bee
Sing creation’s music on;
Nature’s glee
Is in every mood and tone
Eternity
CLARE, _The Blue Tit_

(2) Few months of life has he in store
As he to you will tell,
For still, the more he works, the more
Do his weak ankles swell.
My gentle Reader, I perceive
How patiently you’ve waited,
And now I fear that you expect
Some tale will be related.

O Reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in every thing.
What more I have to say is short,
And you must kindly take it:
It is no tale; but, should you think,
Perhaps a tale you’ll make it.
WORDSWORTH, _Simon Lee_

(3) Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:

“Pipe a song about a lamb!”
So I piped with merry cheer.
“Piper, pipe that song again!”
So I piped; he went to hear.

* * * * *

“Piper, sit thee down, and write
In a book that all may read.”
So he vanished from my sight;
And I plucked a hollow reed,

And I made a rural pen,
And I stained the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.
BLAKE, _Songs of Innocence_

4. Sketch the history of the prose drama from the Restoration to modern times. The following extracts are fairly typical of the style and formal features of the drama:

(1) (_To them_) Lady WISHFORT _and_ FAINALL

_Lady Wishfort._ Nephew, you are welcome.

_Sir Wilfull Witwoud._ Aunt, your servant.

_Fainall._ Sir Wilfull, your most faithful servant.

_Sir Wilfull._ Cousin Fainall, give me your hand.

_Lady Wishfort._ Cousin Witwoud, your servant; Mr.
Petulant, your servant--nephew, you are welcome again. Will
you drink anything after your journey, nephew, before you eat?
Dinner’s almost ready.

_Sir Wilfull._ I’m very well I thank you, aunt--however, I
thank you for your courteous offer. ’Sheart, I was afraid you
would have been in the fashion too, and have remembered to have
forgot your relations. Here’s your cousin Tony, belike, I mayn’t
call him brother for fear of offence.

_Lady Wishfort._ O he’s a rallier, nephew--my cousin’s
a wit; and your great wits always choose to rally their
best friends. When you have been abroad, nephew, you’ll
understand raillery better. [FAINALL _and_ Mrs.
MARWOOD _talk apart_.

_Sir Wilfull._ Why then let him hold his tongue in the
meantime; and rail when that day comes.
CONGREVE, _The Way of the World_

(2) _Mrs. Candour._ What do you think of Miss Simper?

_Sir Benjamin Backbite._ Why, she has very pretty teeth.

_Lady Teazle._ Yes, and on that account, when she is
neither speaking nor laughing (which very seldom happens), she
never absolutely shuts her mouth, but leaves it always on a jar,
as it were--thus--[_Shows her teeth._

_Mrs. Candour._ How can you be so ill-natured?

_Lady Teazle._ Nay, I allow even that’s better than the
pains Mrs. Prim takes to conceal her losses in front. She
draws her mouth till it positively resembles the aperture of
a poor’s-box, and all her words appear to slide out edgewise
as it were thus: _How do you do, madam? Yes, madam._
[_Mimics._

_Lady Sneerwell._ Very well, Lady Teazle; I see you can be
a little severe.

_Lady Teazle._ In defence of a friend, it is but justice.
But here comes Sir Peter to spoil our pleasantry.

_Enter_ Sir PETER TEAZLE

_Sir Peter._ Ladies, your most obedient. [_Aside_]
Mercy on me, here is the whole set! a character dead at every
word, I suppose.
SHERIDAN, _The School for Scandal_

(3) _Sarah_ [_tidying herself, in great excitement_].
Let you be sitting here and keeping a great blaze, the way he
can look on my face; and let you seem to be working, for it’s a
great love the like of him have to talk of work.

_Michael_ [_moodily, sitting down and beginning to work
at a tin can_]. Great love, surely.

_Sarah_ [_eagerly_]. Make a great blaze now, Michael
Byrne.

[_The_ Priest _comes in on right; she comes
forward in front of him_.

_Sarah_ [_in a very plausible voice_]. Good evening,
your reverence. It’s a grand fine night, by the grace of God.

_Priest._ The Lord have mercy on us! What kind of living
woman is it that you are at all?

_Sarah._ It’s Sarah Casey I am, your reverence, the Beauty
of Ballinacree, and it’s Michael Byrne is below in the ditch.

_Priest._ A holy pair, surely! Let you get out of my way.

[_He tries to pass by._

_Sarah_ [_keeping in front of him_]. We are wanting a
little word with your reverence.
SYNGE, _The Tinker’s Wedding_

(4) HORNBLOWER _enters--a man of medium height, thoroughly
broadened, blown out, as it were, with success. He has thick,
coarse hair, just grizzled, very bushy eyebrows, a wide mouth.
He wears quite ordinary clothes, as if that department were in
charge of someone who knew about such things. He has a small
rose in his buttonhole, and carries a Homburg hat, which one
suspects will look too small on his head._

_Hornblower._ Good morning! good morning! How are ye,
Dawker? Fine morning! Lovely weather!

[_His voice has a curious blend in its tone of brass and oil,
and an accent not quite Scotch nor quite North country._

Haven’t seen ye for a long time Hillcrist.

_Hillcrist_ [_who has risen_]. Not since I sold you
Longmeadow and those cottages, I believe.

_Hornblower._ Dear me, now! that’s what I came about.

_Hillcrist_ [_subsiding again into his chair_].
Forgive me! Won’t you sit down?

_Hornblower_ [_not sitting_]. Have ye got gout? That’s
unfortunate. I never get it. I’ve no disposition that way. Had
no ancestors, you see. Just me own drinking to answer for.

_Hillcrist._ You’re lucky.
GALSWORTHY, _The Skin Game_

5. What do you understand by “Romanticism” in poetry? Point out any Romantic features in the following extracts. Does Romanticism take any other forms than those apparent in the given passages? Give an account of what is commonly known as the Romantic Revival. Are there any other periods in our literature in which Romanticism flourished?

(1) Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Hark! now I hear them--ding-dong, bell.
SHAKESPEARE, _The Tempest_

(2) And they are gone: aye, ages long ago
These lovers fled away into the storm.
That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe,
And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form
Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm,
Were long be-nightmared. Angela the old
Died palsy-twitched, with meagre face deform;
The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,
For aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold.
KEATS, _The Eve of St. Agnes_

(3) _At the Gate of the Sun, Bagdad, in olden time._

THE MERCHANTS (_together_)

Away, for we are ready to a man!
Our camels sniff the evening and are glad.
Lead on, O Master of the Caravan:
Lead on the Merchant-Princes of Bagdad.

THE CHIEF DRAPER

Have we not Indian carpets dark as wine,
Turbans and sashes, gowns and bows and veils,
And broideries of intricate design,
And printed hangings in enormous bales?

THE CHIEF GROCER

We have rose-candy, we have spikenard,
Mastic and terebinth and oil and spice,
And such sweet jams meticulously jarred
As God’s own Prophet eats in Paradise.

THE PRINCIPAL JEWS

And we have manuscripts in peacock styles
By Ali of Damascus; we have swords
Engraved with storks and apes and crocodiles,
And heavy beaten necklaces, for Lords.
J. E. FLECKER (1885–1915),
_The Golden Journey to Samarkand_

6. In what respects are the following passages realistic? What are the chief aspects of realism in poetry? Are there any periods in our literature when realism was a prominent feature?