Chapter IV: Part II: The Study of Literature (1)

We are told there is no royal road to learning; no short cut to the understanding and appreciation of literature. We are told that we must admire Homer, or Addison, or some other immortal author, but no one tells us _why_ or _how_. No explanation is given of the reason why their work is deservedly immortal. Our schools do not introduce us to the delights of good reading; instead, they handle a few stories and essays as if they were Latin or algebra, making drudgery out of what ought to be enjoyment. The result is that we are frightened away from the great writers; their work is supposed to be a mystery, only to be revealed to those who give years of labor to its study.

But no one is so dull or so heedless of pleasure as not to accept the means of lasting delight when it is put right in front of them. Thousands of people are waiting for the chance to get in touch with the good sense, rousing style, and splendid ideas of the masters of literature. That is why this volume has been prepared. It furnishes a direct and attractive road straight to the heart of literature. It has been laid out systematically so as to be a simple and practical guide.

The leading characteristics of each era, each nation, and each division of literature have been tersely stated, with the authors under each of these classifications listed beneath. The noblest and most fascinating works gain tenfold in interest through the knowledge of these fundamental facts. With them before you, you command a view, not merely of one single author, but of the whole movement of which he was a part. You see the ideas and lines of thought from which a book has sprung, the hidden forces which went into the making of it. Each book stands in association with those of the same literary class, or nation, or period; their relationship with the rest of literature is at once apparent. In this way the wasteful drudgery and folly of aimless reading is avoided. The study of literature pursued with the means here given cannot be tedious, for it is straightforward, simple, and clear.

The results that are to be expected from the limited time which most of us can devote to reading are more extensive than might be thought. In this connection read the following selections, practical and full of common sense, each of them throwing light on the subject of reading.

THE PREFACE, I, 3.

HAMERTON, "To a Man of Business," VI, 236.

HARRISON, from "The Choice of Books," VI, 275.

MORLEY, "Popular Culture," IX, 236.

SCHOPENHAUER, "On Books and Reading," X, 374.

THE DECISIVE PERIODS IN LITERATURE

FIRST OF ALL: =What is Literature?=

=The expression of thought upon the countless phases of life and the universe as felt by the greatest intellects.=

There are innumerable views to be taken of this world of ours; each of us sees it a little differently, the problem of life strikes a nation or an age or an individual in ever changing ways. Homer saw it in heroic terms, Swift, in "Gulliver's Travels," looked at it savagely and sadly, Bunyan, in the "Pilgrim's Progress," saw the religious side. These authors not only saw but felt; their feelings took possession of them, they had to write them down and give them expression. Gray, the author of the immortal "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," took seven years to perfect the expression of the feelings roused by what he saw in that secluded village nook. Poe chose every word of his "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" with the utmost care. The labor of composition was solely for the purpose of giving the reader exactly the impression and emotion desired; for the sake of clearness, force, and ease.

In the second place: Each of the great periods in history has had certain traits and has excelled in some particular field of literature. The traits and the works of an era have been molded by preceding ages and likewise have brought about the development of the periods which followed. Vergil was influenced by Homer and the whole tradition of Greek literature; Shakespeare and the rest of the Elizabethan writers are products of the fresh outburst of activity which we call the Renaissance; Kipling has profited by the work of Dickens, Poe, Milton, Chaucer, and a host of other authors. If we are to appreciate a writer, then, we must know the chief characteristics of these great literary epochs.

=The Age of the Ancients.= 1500 B.C.-500 A.D. From the dawn of history to the fall of the Roman Empire, all the principal forms of literary expression were developed, at least two of which, epic poetry and tragedy, have never been surpassed. Yet the world was very small then; it was merely the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Its ideals were narrow, limited by paganism and slavery. For those who wrote and those who read there was no struggle for existence, they were waited on by their slaves, they had no faith in a life after death; whether thinkers or heedless wasters, they were selfishly living for to-day and not for the morrow. The bulk of the people were ignorant, even when not enslaved. As their literature was the product of an aristocracy, leading a life of leisure, it was inevitably stately, reserved, and formal in its tone, except in the earliest productions before society had emerged completely from barbarism.

POETRY

Catullus
Cleanthes
Egyptian
Lit.
Homer
Horace
Ovid
Pindar
Sappho
Theocritus
Vergil

FICTION

Æsop
Apuleius

HISTORY

Cæsar
Herodotus
Josephus
Livy
Suetonius
Tacitus
Thucydides

BIOGRAPHY

Plato
Pliny
Plutarch

DRAMA

Æschylus
Euripides
Sophocles

PHILOSOPHY

Aurelius
Cicero
Epictetus
Lucretius
Plato
Seneca

=The Dark Ages.= 500 A.D.-1000 A.D. Crippled by pride and selfishness Roman civilization was swept away by wave after wave of barbarian invasions. Goths, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Huns, Lombards, and Vandals in turn swarmed over the face of Europe, spreading terror and desolation. Learning, art, industry, and government perished. But the invaders brought a love of freedom, a hatred of bondage and captivity, to offset their contempt for the progress effected by the great thinkers and rulers of antiquity.

There is but little left to us of the scanty literature produced in those dim centuries. It is all primitive, Homeric; rhythmic tales of the heroic lives and deaths of national leaders constitute the sole endeavor that has lasted. But in these is _the note of freedom_, for the masses of the people as well as the rulers and nobles delighted in Charlemagne and his peerless knight Roland, or in Eric, the Viking adventurer, who dared to sail far forth to Vinland. The great ruler was not a mere commander but a leader whom men of every class gladly followed with love as well as respect. Yet the ideals were low, mainly of physical prowess and sheer brute strength.

Anglo-Saxon Lit.
French Lit.
German Lit.
Norse Lit.
Spanish Lit.

=The Middle Ages.= 1000 A.D.-1400 A.D. However, as soon as the dread of barbarian havoc had passed and peace and government had been restored to some extent, a new and brighter era began. The thirst for learning has never been greater than at this time. Students flocked to the universities of Paris, Oxford, and Bologna in thousands, begging their way, traveling on foot for hundreds of miles. Religion seized men even more firmly, finding them active or meditative occupations either in the monasteries or in the Crusades. The aspirations of the time appear in the legends of King Arthur and the Round Table, as told in the prose of the day by Sir Thomas Malory or in the more recent verse of Tennyson's "Idylls of the King." This is the chivalric ideal of perfect knighthood. The religious feeling is shown in such hymns as the "Stabat Mater," the "Dies Iræ," or "Jerusalem the Golden." Dante, commonly reckoned the second of the world's poets, proves the zeal for learning and scholarship. The spirit of freedom gleams from the "Old English Ballads" of Robin Hood, the enemy of the oppressive nobles and the friend of the poor and the humble. It is even more evident in the work of John Wyclif, who translated the Bible into English so that the common peasant might have the advantage of hearing the Gospel message read to him in a tongue that he understood, and that he might feel that the teachings of religion were meant for him as much as for the wealthy and the learned.

But science and thought had not yet startled men into recognition of the wonder round about them. Knowledge was assumed to be complete. To probe into the mysteries of nature was unholy and wicked in those days. The awakening from unseeing and unreasoning childhood to the adventuresome zest of youth and young manhood was yet to come.

POETRY

Chaucer
Dante
Old English
Ballads
Petrarch
Tasso

FICTION

Boccaccio
Malory

HISTORY

Froissart

TRAVEL

Mandeville
Polo

RELIGION

Bernard, St.
Bernard of Cluny
Jacopone
à Kempis
Thomas of Celano
Wyclif

=The Renaissance.= 1400-1600. The gradual increase of knowledge and better government toward the close of the Middle Ages caused a desire for higher things. This hidden desire suddenly broke loose with astonishing force when the art of printing was discovered, about 1450. Information had hitherto been spread only by word of mouth or by laboriously copying a volume by hand. The process in either case was slower than we can imagine. But now new ideas, rare books, foreign teaching could be spread broadcast like wildfire.

It also happened at just this time that Constantinople was taken by the Turks (1453). The greatest treasures of Greek literature had been jealously hidden away there for centuries. Now that the scholars had to fly for their lives they let loose a store of new thought on the nations of western Europe. Taking refuge in Italy they brought with them these rich volumes. The Italian enthusiasm and the ardor with which these discoveries were published to the world spread like fire through France and Germany and England.

Everywhere mankind awoke; never before or since have people lived so strenuously. Their newly awakened curiosity drove them round the Cape of Good Hope and across the Atlantic Ocean. Exploration and adventure, the invasion of Mexico and the Americas as well as the Orient, the search for gold and for happiness went hand in hand. At the same time Luther roused northern Europe with his demand for religious reform and founded the Protestant church. In England Shakespeare and his companions had discovered a new field of literary venture and produced plays by the hundred, many of them immortal. The modern world of action and progress had at last come of age.

The passing of the old ideals, of chivalry and monkish study, is nowhere better shown than in "Don Quixote." The love of creative art hand in hand with adventure echoes through every page of Cellini's "Autobiography." Francis Bacon discovered a new method of reasoning; Montaigne did what had not been thought of for hundreds of years, and began to study his own personality, the workings of his mind, and the problems which he found in his own life within himself; Sir Thomas More also took up a subject that had not been touched for seventeen centuries and drew a wonderful picture of an ideal government in his "Utopia." Columbus and a whole squadron of others sailed the unknown seas. The Elizabethan nobles, like Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Walter Raleigh, were poets, statesmen, courtiers, and generals all at once.

POETRY

Michelangelo
Ronsard
Shakespeare
Spenser
Villon

FICTION

Cervantes
Rabelais

HISTORY

Holinshed
Raleigh

BIOGRAPHY

Cellini

DRAMA

Jonson
Marlowe
Shakespeare

PHILOSOPHY
& SCIENCE

Ascham
Bacon
Luther
Machiavelli
Montaigne
More
Sidney

=The Age of Classicism.= 1600-1776. By 1600 imagination and the creative spirit were running riot. The exuberance of wonder and discovery had led to a wordy and confused style of writing. It was time for this unbalanced disorderly manner to be subjected to sound criticism and to be regulated by laws of composition.

This is precisely what happened. Enthusiasm and inventive power were wearied, and thinking men began to criticize and judge the work that was being done. It was clear to them that there was need of proportion and symmetry, that each act of a play, for example, should do its special part in the development of the plot and in the revelation of the characters. The problem in the scholar's mind was: What is the best possible form or model to follow in making a play, a song, or a speech? Wise men came to the conclusion that the classic authors of ancient literature furnished the best examples, and this is why the period is called the Age of Classicism.

It was characterized by the use of reason and judgment, rather than feeling and inspiration, by convention and law, by restraint and dignity. In fact the wilder side of nature was actually disliked; the Alps were not grand, but barbaric and odious, in the eyes of the literary men of that day. Dr. Johnson, in his famous Dictionary, defines a mountain as "a protuberance on the face of nature." The rich land-owners altered the landscapes on their great estates, smoothed out the inelegances of the meadows, cut trees down and planted others, laid out geometrically correct roads and paths, and altogether 'improved' nature until the whole scene was thoroughly artificial; very trim and neat, but very unnatural.

In literature it was much the same. Poetry, such as Pope's, seems stilted and affected to us; the plays of Racine, the opposite of Shakespeare's, are formal and long-winded, so exalted in tone and so restrained in their phrasing that they are dignity indeed, but nothing else.

Yet the movement was beneficial because it cut away the extravagances of the earlier period. It also produced a new branch of literature, the critical essay. The essays of Bacon and Montaigne had been philosophical. Those of Addison and Steele dealt with life and literature critically, using fable and fiction to give point to their verdicts in enforcement of law and convention.

But writing based on the ancient classics demanded a highly educated public. Only the wealthy could obtain the education necessary. Besides, the aristocracy held that the common people should be kept in their place, that learning and scholarship were not for them. The life of thought and progress was remote from the mass of the population, just as the government was carried on without reference to their needs or wishes.

POETRY

Dryden
Goldsmith
Gray
Herbert[1]
Milton[1]
Pope

FICTION

Bunyan[1]
Defoe
Fénelon
Fielding
Goldsmith
Johnson
Le Sage
Sterne
Swift

HISTORY & ORATORY

Burke
Gibbon

ESSAY & BIOG.

Addison
Boswell
Steele
Voltaire

DRAMA

Calderon
Lessing
Molière
Racine
Sheridan

RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY

Browne[1]
Bunyan[1]
Herbert[1]
Kant
Smith, A.
Watts
Wesley

=The Age of Romanticism.= 1776-1832. The Revolution in America, soon followed by that in France, is the historical sign of the passing of the aristocratic spirit of classicism. Freedom, equality, the destruction of the bondage that had held the common people back from education and advancement, these are the new ideas. In literature as in life a reaction broke out against the formal, stilted, unemotional style of classicism. Wordsworth and Byron in England, Rousseau in France, and Goethe and Schiller in Germany were the leaders in the intellectual activity. Their writings and their principles were directly opposed to their predecessors. Liberty, instead of convention; free expression of passion and feeling, in the place of cold reasoning; individual expression instead of imitation and studied restraint; simple words and direct, clear statement in the place of an affected and artificial style; a love for the wild and picturesque in scenery rather than for the smooth and cultivated parks of the past century. Contrast Byron with Pope, or Scott's novels with Johnson's "Rasselas" to see the radical difference in tone.

This outburst of freedom and self-expression meant progress. To increase the advance, steam and machinery came into use; just as printing accomplished marvels in the days of the Renaissance, so now there was again a blaze of creative genius and inventiveness. National education at the expense of the state and the growth of newspapers and magazines put rich and poor, noble and peasant more nearly on a level than any bloodshed or lawmaking could ever have done.

POETRY

Blake
Burns
Byron
Coleridge
Keats
Musset
Shelley
Uhland
Wordsworth

FICTION

Chateaubriand
Fouqué
Hugo
Manzoni
Scott

ESSAY

De Quincey
Hazlitt
Heine
Lamb
Richter
Southey

DRAMA

Goethe
Schiller

PHILOSOPHY

Rousseau
Schopenhauer

=The Nineteenth Century=. The first glow of the romantic enthusiasm soon died away and the new forces of industry and commerce took possession of Europe and America.

But the swift onrush of manufacturing and trading called for armies of accountants, skilled workers, and salesmen. These made up a new class of society; hitherto there had been aristocrats and peasants, educated and ignorant, rich and poor. The army of business employees, alert, vigorous, ready for any quantity of reading-matter that would amuse or furnish knowledge, added their countless numbers to the reading public. Fiction, at first in the novel, and later in the short story, was published as fast as it could be printed. This great middle class itself provided material for genius to work on. Dickens and George Eliot are striking examples of authors who wrote about this new middle class in order to amuse it. The influence of business life made the world more matter of fact and in consequence literature became rather more prosaic, with a tendency to present a realistic picture of everyday life and manners. Science, aided by a multitude of mechanical inventions, made unprecedented progress and assumed a more important place in the minds of men than ever before. History was treated scientifically, thought was more systematic than ever, the nineteenth century presented a union of the enthusiasm of the Renaissance, the love of system of the Classic Age, and the devotion to nature of the Romantic Period.

The following lists have been selected from the great array of nineteenth-century authors with the view of presenting those whose work has been peculiarly significant of the period.

POETRY

Arnold, M.
Browning, E. B.
Browning, R.
Bryant
Longfellow
Lowell
Morris, W.
Poe
Rossetti
Swinburne
Tennyson
Whitman

FICTION

Austen
Balzac
Dickens
Dumas
Eliot
Hardy
Harte
Hawthorne
Irving
Kipling
Poe
Stevenson
Thackeray
Tolstoi
Zola

HISTORY

Bancroft
Carlyle
Ferrero
Green
Guizot
Hodgkin
Michelet
Mommsen
Motley
Parkman
Prescott
Symonds
Taine

ESSAY & BIOG.

Arnold, M.
Chesterton
Emerson
La Ramée
Lewes
Lockhart
Lowell
Morley
Pater
Sainte-Beuve
Stephen
Thoreau
Villari

PHILOSOPHY & SCIENCE

Carlyle
Darwin
Emerson
Galton
Hamilton
Ruskin
Shaler
Spencer

RELIGION

Bowne
Brierley
Brooks
Channing
Robertson

NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS

Each of the nations, like each of the great eras of human progress, possesses definite characteristics of its own. Frenchmen differ from Englishmen in their faces, their customs, and also in intellectual trend. Shakespeare is unlike Ibsen not simply because he lived at an earlier date, in another epoch, but also because he was the native of another country. Kipling's point of view is not the same as that of Thomas Bailey Aldrich; their national traditions and surroundings varied sufficiently to leave a mark upon their work so legible that one is recognized as English and the other as American without need of referring to their biographies.

It is necessary, then, to have in mind the traits that individualize nations and races. For this reason the national characteristics are here set forth briefly, with lists of the principal authors of each country.

=Greek Literature.= An unequaled perception of beauty, with a love of symmetry and proportion: the reason and the feelings, the intellect and the emotions are perfectly blended. The powers of imagination and creation are highly trained, as well as the logical faculty, resulting in the perfection of skill and insight in epic poetry (Homer), tragedy (Æschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles), and philosophy (Plato).

POETRY

Cleanthes
Homer
Pindar
Sappho
Theocritus

FICTION

Æsop

HISTORY

Herodotus
Thucydides

BIOGRAPHY

Plato
Plutarch

DRAMA

Æschylus
Euripides
Sophocles

PHILOSOPHY

Epictetus
Plato

=Latin Literature.= The power of organization, with an ardor for law and order, combined with a genius for adapting and utilizing the best products of the nations which came under the Roman rule. This talent for adaptation and imitation stands in contrast to the Greek creative talent. Inasmuch as Rome's greatest literary works belong to a period four centuries after the best Greek production, it follows that the Roman authors profited not only by Greek achievement but also by the increased knowledge of the world due to the vast extension of the Roman Empire. Apart from this broader point of view, Latin authors borrowed method and style from the Greek; Vergil follows Homer and Theocritus, who was also imitated by Horace. Cicero and Seneca took both thought and style from Greek philosophers. In fact, Athens was the university at which all well-educated Romans had studied.

POETRY

Catullus
Horace
Ovid
Vergil

FICTION

Apuleius

HISTORY

Cæsar
Josephus[2]
Livy
Suetonius
Tacitus

BIOGRAPHY

Pliny

PHILOSOPHY

Aurelius
Cicero
Lucretius
Seneca

=English Literature.= England's isolation as an island has enabled her to develop a national literature continuously for nine centuries with only the slightest interruption from the world without. Foreign ideas have been introduced, certainly, but by Englishmen instead of by foreigners. Where a slothful race would have lain dormant and inactive, the vigorous and adventurous islanders have even led the way in two fields of literary endeavor, for fiction and the essay reached their successive stages of growth more quickly in England than elsewhere. Throughout poetry and prose, with but few exceptions, there is a blend of shrewdness and inspiration which in daily life is called common sense; Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Browning continually sound the practical note, evincing their knowledge and appreciation of material affairs. Another trait is that of searching out the moral lessons in life and thought. "Books in the running brooks, sermons in stones" are constantly sought by English authors. Chaucer, Bunyan, Milton, Dickens, Carlyle, Browning, and many others from the forefront of English letters play the part of teacher and preacher again and again.

POETRY

Anglo-Saxon
Literature
Arnold, M.
Blake
Browning, E. B.
Browning, R.
Burns
Byron
Chaucer
Clough
Coleridge
Dryden
Goldsmith
Gray
Henley
Keats
Kingsley
Macaulay
Milton
Morris, W.
Old English Ballads
Patmore
Pope
Rossetti, C.
Rossetti, D. G.
Scott
Shakespeare
Shelley
Sidney
Spenser
Swinburne
Tennyson
Wordsworth

FICTION

Austen
Barrie
Blackmore
Borrow
Brontë
Caine
Defoe
Dickens
Doyle
Eliot
Fielding
Gaskell
Goldsmith
Hardy
Hughes
Kingsley
Kipling
Lever
Lytton
Macdonald
Macleod
Malory
Meredith
Reade
Richardson
Scott
Stevenson
Swift
Thackeray
Watson

HISTORY

Carlyle
Creasy
Farrar
Freeman
Froissart
Froude
Gibbon
Gladstone
Green
Grote
Hodgkin
Holinshed
McCarthy
Mahaffy
Raleigh
Smith, G.
Symonds

BIOGRAPHY

Boswell
Chesterton
Evelyn
Lewes
Lockhart
Pepys
Southey

ESSAY

Addison
Arnold, M.
Bacon
Benson
De Quincey
Hamerton
Harrison
Hazlitt
Lamb
Lang
La Ramée
Macaulay
Milton
Morley
Pater
Ruskin
Sidney
Steele
Stephen
Stevenson
Thackeray
Walton
White, G.

HUMOR

Barham
Carroll
Cowper
Dickens
Gilbert
Hood
Hope
Jerrold
Sterne
Swift
Thackeray

TRAVEL

Hearn
Kinglake
Mandeville
Stevenson
Tyndall

DRAMA

Jonson
Marlowe
Shakespeare
Sheridan

ORATORY

Bright
Burke

SCIENCE
& PHILOSOPHY

Bacon
Carlyle
Darwin
Galton
Mill
More
Ruskin
Smith, A.
Spencer

RELIGION

Bonar
Bowring
Brierley
Browne, Sir T.
Cowper
Faber
Heber
Herbert
Hooker
Keble
Lyte
Milman
Newman
Robertson
Toplady
Watts
Wesley
Wyclif

=American Literature.= Obviously akin to English literature, yet more democratic in tone, owing to national tendencies, such as the character of the settlers, and the subsequent historical developments. Longfellow, Emerson, Whitman, and the other leading American authors wrote for the nation and not for any restricted class; the aristocratic note characteristic of much of eighteenth-century English literature is not to be found in American writers.

POETRY

Aldrich
Bryant
Emerson
Field
Holmes
Howe
Key
Lanier
Longfellow
Lowell
Morris, G. P.
Payne
Poe
Read
Riley
Smith, S. F.
Story
Taylor
Whitman
Whittier
Woodworth

FICTION

Aldrich
Cooper
Crawford
Hale
Harte
Hawthorne
Irving
Poe
Stowe

HISTORY

Bancroft
Fiske
Irving
McMaster
Motley
Parkman
Prescott

ESSAY

Emerson
Fields
Howells
Lowell
Mitchell
Thoreau
Warner

HUMOR

Browne, C. F.
Harris
Harte
Holmes
Irving
Lowell

TRAVEL

Audubon
Dana
Melville

ORATORY

Choate
Henry
Lincoln
Phillips
Sumner
Washington
Webster

SCIENCE
& PHILOSOPHY

Emerson
Hamilton
Shaler

RELIGION

Bowne
Brooks
Channing
Palmer
Sears

=French Literature.= A marked love of beauty, almost Greek in its nature, with a feeling for accuracy and organization which is decidedly Latin. These qualities have produced delicacy and clearness of expression; but their tendencies lead to perfection of style and form rather than to depth of thought, giving an effect of lightness and brilliance, and at times of superficiality.

POETRY

French Lit.
La Fontaine
Musset
Ronsard
Rouget de Lisle
Verlaine
Villon

FICTION

Balzac
Bernardin de
Saint-Pierre
Chateaubriand
Daudet
Dumas
Fénelon
Feuillet
French Lit.
Hugo
Laboulaye
Le Sage
Maupassant
Perrault
Zola

HISTORY

French Lit.
Guizot
Michelet
Taine
Voltaire

ESSAY

Montaigne
Sainte-Beuve

DRAMA

Molière
Racine
Rostand

PHILOSOPHY

Pascal
Rousseau

RELIGION

Bernard, St.
Bernard of Cluny

=German Literature.= Depth of thought and forceful expression, which are in part responsible for the complex character of the national style as opposed to the clarity of the French. Owing to the unsettled condition of Germany for many centuries, the arts in general, and literature especially, did not begin to flourish to a noteworthy degree until the eighteenth century. While Luther was the first great author to use the language in its present form, it was not until two centuries later that the next eminent writers, Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe, appeared, whose work marks the highest point in the history of German letters.

POETRY

Arndt
German Lit.
Goethe
Heine
Schneckenburger
Uhland

FICTION

Fouqué
Grimm
Raspe

HISTORY

Mommsen

DRAMA

Lessing
Schiller
Goethe

PHILOSOPHY

Kant
Schopenhauer

RELIGION

à Kempis
Luther

=Italian Literature.= Emotional and imaginative rather than reflective, and therefore at its best in the brilliant and exuberant era of the Renaissance, which first came into full bloom in Italy.

POETRY

Dante
Jacopone
Michelangelo
Petrarch
Tasso

FICTION

Boccaccio
Manzoni

HISTORY

Ferrero

TRAVEL
& BIOG.

Cellini
Pellico
Polo
Villari

PHILOSOPHY

Machiavelli

RELIGION

Jacopone
Mazzini
Thomas of Celano

=Spanish Literature.= Marked by the dignity that is the predominating characteristic of the nation. Just as Spain has had but one brief period when she was supreme among the European nations, so she has produced but one supreme author, Cervantes. Her literature, for the most part, and notably at the present day, is imitative, behind rather than ahead of the times.

POETRY

Spanish Lit.

FICTION

Cervantes

DRAMA

Calderon

=Scandinavian Literature.= Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are nations of the same race; their history, literature, and civilization are inseparably associated. Climate, racial character, historical developments, and other causes have combined to retard the growth of their literature. Apart from the sagas little of universal interest appeared until the nineteenth century, in which Ibsen created a sensation with his dramas of relentless criticism of the vanity and pettiness of life in the prosperous, democratic society of Norway.

POETRY

Ewald
Norse Lit.

FICTION

Andersen
Björnson

HISTORY

Norse Lit.

DRAMA

Ibsen

=Russian Literature.= In some respects more closely related to the East than to the West, and hampered by despotism until the twentieth century, Russia produced nothing of value until a century ago. The novelists mentioned below then began a series of vivid pictures of the struggle for freedom, knowledge, and civilization as opposed to tyranny, universal ignorance, and barbarism. Their work has a strong national flavor, coupled with a youthful energy and an enthusiasm for the mission of enlightenment that recalls the spirit of the Renaissance and its zeal for discovery and progress.

POETRY

Derzhavin

FICTION

Russian Lit.
Sienkiewicz
Tolstoi
Turgenieff

=Oriental Literature.= Arabia, Persia, India, China, and Japan live and think along lines utterly at variance with our mode of life. Their points of difference from each other are by no means as distinct as the radical contrast between their customs and ours. As we all know, Arabic and Hebrew are written from right to left, so that a book's first page corresponds to the last page with us; in China and Japan people write down the page in vertical columns. Again, with us energy and activity, wisely used, form the basis of our life and our religion, whereas in the Orient it is held best to abstain from all action, to lead a life of absolute quiet and inactivity, if possible.

It follows that the literature of the East is first of all exceedingly difficult to translate well and in the second place is not to be judged in the same fashion as Western writings.

POETRY

Hafiz
Omar Khayyám
Sadi

FICTION

Arabian Nights
Jewish Lit.

HISTORY

Japanese Lit.
Josephus[3]

RELIGION

Confucius
Hindoo Lit.
Jewish Lit.
Mohammed

THE DIVISIONS OF LITERATURE

Poetry, history, the novel, the short story, the essay, and other branches of literature have all passed through successive stages of change and progress. To trace one of these divisions from its beginnings is not only interesting, but affords an excellent method of study, easily carried out and immediately beneficial. The novel of to-day, for example, is the product of centuries of authorship, in which various elements were gradually blended; the contributions of Cervantes, Defoe, Addison, and Scott, extending over a space of two hundred and thirty years, have each played a decisive part in its formation. So it is with history, poetry, and the rest of the forms of intellectual expression. The origin and nature of each of these divisions is considered in the pages that follow, with the usual lists and examples under each heading.

POETRY

How did poetry originate? In every nation the beginnings of its literature have been poems. This highest form of literary expression is also the oldest; it is not the final triumphant product of a highly civilized age, after centuries of slow development and gradual growth of power and art in the use of words. It is exactly the opposite; the earliest authors are the poets who sang and chanted the brave deeds of the leaders of their nation; the "Iliad," the Norse sagas, the "Song of Roland" are well-known examples of this primitive yet glorious poetry. But why is this, that one of the greatest of the arts should be already highly perfected in barbaric times? Because poetry rests on two principles: it is imaginative in its nature and rhythmic in its form. Man's imagination stirred him to conquest for the sake of glory and dominion, and then his imagination was again roused to tell in words of splendid imagery of his honor and fame and valor, of loveliness and happiness and power. Man's instinct for the regular cadence that he heard in the tramp of marching feet led him to chant aloud in firm, even measure while the words he sang fitted themselves to the beat of his music. It was only a slight matter to vary the length of the lines or group them in stanzas or use rhyme in order to increase the beauty of verse construction. However, the true test of poetry has always been the value of its imaginative power; no matter how accurate or elaborate its form, unless it expresses great ideas it cannot rank as great poetry, but merely as good verse. Like all art, poetry is the expression of genuine feeling in beautiful form. (See Sidney's "Defense of Poesy.")

THE CHIEF DIVISIONS OF POETRY

=Epic poetry= tells the story of a great sequence of events, such as the wanderings and home-coming of Odysseus, in the "Odyssey." It is the earliest form of literature and one of the grandest. No great period or nation has failed to produce its epic.

For examples in Ancient Literature see "The Epic of Pentaur" under Egyptian Literature; Homer; and Vergil. The works of the last two are known as 'heroic epics.'

In the Dark Ages: "Beowulf" under Anglo-Saxon Literature; "The Song of Roland" under French Literature; "The Nibelungenlied" under German Literature; "The Saga of Eric the Red" under Norse Literature; and "The Chronicle of the Cid" under Spanish Literature.

In the Middle Ages: Dante and Tasso, who wrote 'sacred epics.' The "Old English Ballads" are excellent examples of the shorter poetic tales from which such epics as the "Iliad," the "Nibelungenlied," and the "Song of Roland" were built up.

In the Renaissance: Spenser, whose "Faerie Queene" is an epic of chivalry. Milton's great epics of "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained" are sacred epics, reflecting the Puritan influence that came over England at the close of the period.

In the Age of Classicism: the mock-epic of Pope's "Rape of the Lock," and the epic tale in prose, "Telemachus," by Fénelon.

In the Age of Romanticism: Scott's "Lady of the Lake," and Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," although this last is perhaps best regarded as a study of the poet's emotions upon visiting the grandest scenes in Europe.

In Nineteenth Century Literature: Longfellow's "Evangeline" and "Hiawatha" are short epics. Owing to the central, unifying figure of King Arthur, Tennyson's "Idylls of the King" have much of the epic effect.

=Lyric poetry= includes all verse that presents the poet's feelings and passions; it is characterized also by plentiful use of varied ideas, rich and fanciful imagery, and rhythmical flow of language.

From the beginning there were shorter songs, as well as the epic, often accompanied on the lyre, a small harp, from which this branch of poetry takes its name. To-day lyric poetry tends toward a lighter tone and spirit than in the Romantic Period; in length it may vary very widely, from the little quatrain, of four lines, to an ode or a ballad of almost epic extent. Burns, Milton, Moore, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Shakespeare, and Wordsworth are among the foremost in this field; among the ancients Catullus, Horace, and Sappho are prominent; while the writings of Goethe, Heine, Uhland, Longfellow, Whittier, Browning, Tennyson, and Swinburne contain many that are familiar. Musical accompaniment is no longer essential. There are several forms of the lyric, chief among which are the following:

The Ode, addressed to a person or a personified idea or else
expressing the poet's emotions at a moment of great exaltation.
In form it either follows a varying sequence of lines of
irregular length or else employs a series of uniform stanzas.
Illustrative of the former are Dryden's "Alexander's Feast"
and "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day," and Wordsworth's "Ode on
Intimations of Immortality"; among the latter are Collins's "Ode
to Evening," Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian
Urn," Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" and "To a Skylark," and
Wordsworth's "To the Cuckoo" and "Ode to Duty."

The Sonnet, of Italian origin, was brought to its perfection
by Petrarch; it consists of fourteen lines of equal length
(in English usually of ten syllables), the first eight lines
constituting the _octave_ and the last six, the _sestet_. In
the octave the rhymes are arranged _a b b a a b b a_, and in
the sestet, either _c d c d c d_ or _c d e c d e_. The sonnet
should contain one idea, which may be treated from two points of
view, in the octave and sestet respectively. As used by Milton
and later poets in England this double treatment was not often
observed and there is no break of thought at the end of the
octave. Owing to its restrictions the sonnet is considered one
of the most difficult forms in which to achieve distinction,
as metrical ingenuity without sublimity of thought bars mere
versifiers. The most noted examples by English authors are E.
B. Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese," Keats's "On First
Looking into Chapman's Homer," Milton's "On His Blindness,"
Shelley's "England in 1819," and those selected from Wordsworth.

The Ballad, partaking somewhat of the epic, is a tale in verse,
usually arranged in short stanzas. "Old English Ballads,"
Cowper's "The Diverting History of John Gilpin," Drayton's
"Ballad of Agincourt," and Rossetti's "The White Ship" are
specimens of this form. It originated among the peasantry, who
commemorated the prowess of their favorite heroes in rough verse
sung by the cottage hearth.

The Elegy is devoted to the memory of the dead and therefore is
grave and stately in its metrical form as well as in thought.
Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," Milton's
"Lycidas," Shelley's "Adonais," and Tennyson's "In Memoriam" are
the most famous.

=Idyllic poetry= briefly presents a picture, complete and lovely, usually pastoral and romantic. Tennyson's "Idylls of the King," Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," the Idylls of Theocritus, and the Eclogues of Vergil are the best examples.

=Dramatic poetry=, in which the form of a play or drama is used, has always been chosen for the deepest and most majestic presentations of the problems and wonders of human life. The dramatic poets of the ancients as well as those of modern times rank among the most far-seeing thinkers and ablest writers of the world. No philosopher or historian has ever been able to reach the people or express the profoundest reflections so readily and forcibly.

The tragedies of Æschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles, with those of Shakespeare and the "Faust" of Goethe, are the highest achievements in literature; their effect, from the stage, is instantaneous, and even in reading them the mind receives a direct impression of wonder and awe not elsewhere given. The Greek tragedies mentioned above have for their underlying theme the power of relentless fate, the inevitable omnipotence of right, and the final destruction of wrong and falsehood. In these and "Macbeth," "Hamlet," and "King Lear" the mastery of plot and action is superb; the play gathers force and momentum until the catastrophe sweeps down upon the evil-doers and unfortunates like a tidal wave. Yet each step in its progress, even the least trifle, is so natural as to seem unavoidable. Here is the proof of the poet's genius, in that he selects the message to be presented to his audience or readers, chooses his characters, and outlines his plot, then combines the three elements with such skill and with such inspiration as to leave an effect of perfect truth and actuality. Aristotle, the ancient philosopher and critic, declared that the very souls of the audience were cleansed and rid of pettiness and self-seeking by beholding such works as these; that the spectacle of disaster brought down upon men by their own vanity and wrong-doing, and portrayed in language of such vivid grandeur, was the most impressive means of reaching the hearts of men.

In addition to the authors mentioned above, Calderon, Jonson, Lessing, Marlowe, Molière, Racine, Rostand, and Schiller have made notable contributions to the poetic drama. (See also Drama, p. 49.)

FICTION

The practice of telling tales of love and heroism is older than history itself. Ever since men sat about the fire of an evening and recited the deeds of their chieftains or extolled the beauty of their princesses, in other words, ever since the days when poetry first began, stories and tales have been handed down, first by word of mouth, then by carvings and inscriptions and at last by writing and printing. The first fiction was a simple, imaginative invention of adventure, told to pass the time. Æsop's "Fables" and Apuleius's "Story of Cupid and Psyche," ancient as they are, show the progress already made in the art of narration, the one simple and insistent in its purpose of teaching common sense by whimsical anecdotes, the other a delicately artistic legend told with exquisite grace. In "Jewish Literature" the story of Tobit's wonderful adventures at once calls to mind the "Arabian Nights," which were of similar origin, told by professional story-tellers for centuries before they were finally written down and translated for our perpetual delight.

=The novel=, a new feature in fiction, shows its first faint beginnings in the tumult and enthusiasm of the Renaissance, that strenuous age of new ideas and discoveries. Cervantes in writing "Don Quixote" had a definite purpose in mind beyond mere entertainment; the passing of the age of chivalry and the pathos and humor of life form the true subject of his tale. Bunyan in the "Pilgrim's Progress" shows the same intent of doing something more than providing interesting reading; the growth of a noble character through struggle and temptation on the journey through life is the central thought of his work. His hero, Christian, changes in character, becoming a stronger, better man as the story goes on. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe goes through much of the same evolution. And this is the underlying principle of the novel, that it has a purpose beyond simple story-telling, possessing a plot or unified succession of incidents, with actors whose characters develop. It is a picture of human life, with strength and weakness, happiness and misery, all bound together and forming a united and well-proportioned whole.

However, it was not until Addison and Steele, in the "Spectator" essays, had shown such skill in drawing characters and depicting manners and customs that the time was ripe for the true novel to appear. For one of the chief duties of the novel is to criticize life, to furnish comment on the social conditions and tendencies of the day. Among the earliest and also the greatest of the English novelists, Fielding, whose work appeared about thirty years after the "Spectator," not only draws sturdy and truthful pictures of the life of his day, but also makes the reader see the true value of that life and estimate its good and its bad qualities. In the same way Dickens and Thackeray, not very long after, supplied unending amusement and fun for the world and at the same time did far more by making the nations sit up and think, pointing out with almost brutal clearness the need of unselfish action and the love of truth and simplicity. There is not a novel of high rank but contains more than meets the eye at first glance. It is the readiest means of putting a critical estimate of history, of life and society, directly before the world.

NOVELS AND GENERAL FICTION

Austen
Balzac
Beaconsfield
Blackmore
Borrow
Brontë
Bunyan
Caine
Cervantes
Chateaubriand
Cooper
Daudet
Defoe
Dickens
Doyle
Dumas
Fénelon
Feuillet
Fielding
Gaskell
Goldsmith
Hugo
Kingsley
Le Sage
Lever
Lytton
Macdonald
Manzoni
Meredith
Reade
Richardson
Scott
Shorthouse
Sienkiewicz
Stowe
Thackeray
Turgenieff
Zola

=The short story=, as distinct from a story that is short, is a nineteenth-century development in fiction. During the last hundred years the magazines grew so rapidly in numbers and circulation that they could not depend entirely on continued stories; they had to have tales that would be complete in one number, which could be read at one sitting. The demand brought the needed solution, a story which instead of length, with intricate action and complex studies of personality, supplied rapid action, brilliantly imaginative description, and a terse portrayal of character. Scenes, persons, and events were stamped immediately on the reader's mind; the effect desired by the writer was attained by force and bold decision. Edgar Allan Poe was one of the first to excel in this field, utilizing his critical powers as well as sheer inspiration to meet the situation.

The variations in style and manner are as manifold in the short story as in the novel. Boccaccio, "The Arabian Nights," French Literature, and the "Gesta Romanorum" show the work of the Middle Ages, from mere anecdote with a moral tagged on, in the "Gesta," to the graceful prose poem of "Aucassin and Nicolete." Barrie, Brown, and Hawthorne do little more than draw quiet sketches of simple life, while Björnson, Eliot, Hardy, Harte, Irving, Kipling, Macleod, Maupassant, Stevenson, and Tolstoi deal powerfully with situations that bring home to us the force of fate which lurks hidden in petty incidents. Aldrich, Collins, Crawford, Hale, and Watson have all used this type of fiction effectively. Indeed, Hale's "Man Without a Country" drives home the idea of patriotism so vigorously that Italy recently issued a translation in an edition of a million copies for distribution to her army.

HISTORY

Like poetry and fiction, history emerges from the darkness of the unknown ages, at first no more than a boastful record of slaughter and usurpation, such as shows through the gloss and splendor of epic poetry. The sagas in "Norse Literature," the crisp record of invasion and conquest by Cæsar, and that of Josephus on the Roman conquest of the Jews are all of this type, a chronicle by an eyewitness of the succession of deeds that made up some event in a nation's life.

An improvement came with Herodotus in ancient times and again with Froissart in the Middle Ages. Both of these historians added zest to their tale by including some account of the principal personages as well as picturesque, well-drawn pictures of the scene. In other words, they filled in the background of their pictures, their wars were waged by people with definite personalities and in a country with certain individual features and peculiarities.

From this method to the modern scientific style was a further advance. It is now understood that we must perceive the growth of a nation, its social changes, its increase of intellectual as well as physical power, its innermost secrets of success or failure. Thucydides, the Greek historian, and Tacitus, the Roman, felt something of this and have left us far more than a mere list of battles and rulers. Gibbon, in "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," and later still, Guizot, Mommsen, and Ferrero, have carried on the work of analyzing the complex mysteries of history and civilization and have brought it to its highest development. The more stirring visions of heroism and kingly dominion have been replaced by pages in which not an emperor but a nation is born, passes through childhood to maturity and wisdom, succumbs to disease or an enemy's murderous attacks, and perishes.

The study of history nowadays may involve the scholar in years of drudgery, such as searching out and listing the exports and imports of the city of London between the years 1340 and 1400. However, the conclusions drawn from his discoveries may be of world-wide importance. The questions of tariff reform, wage-scales, taxation, and representative government will all be affected by the data which his scientific investigation will have brought to light. Those of us whose life-work lies in other directions can give no attention to the details of toilsome labor like this. But the results must always be significant for us. The great movements in the troublous advance of the nations from barbarism to civilization are full of lessons which we must learn. History, regarded as a series of wars, an unceasing fury of bloodshed and misgovernment, is of slight interest to peace-loving people. But history as a series of pictures, showing the conditions of life in various ages and countries, picturing the spread of liberty and equality, and the slow yet sure increase of justice--history viewed in this manner is one of the most stirring and educative subjects for reading and study.

How was the Roman Empire built up? What was the condition of the people in the days of Homer? How did the ancient tribes live from which the German nation is descended? What was England like in Shakespeare's time? These are some of the questions which we should ask. Many of the ablest brains in Europe and America have spent their lives in finding out the answers.

The following lists group the historians according to the nation which they discuss.

GREECE

Froude
Gladstone
Grote
Herodotus
Mahaffy
Plutarch
Thucydides

ROME

Cæsar
Farrar
Ferrero
Freeman
Gibbon
Hodgkin
Josephus
Livy
Mommsen
Pliny
Suetonius
Tacitus

ENGLAND

Cæsar
Creasy
Evelyn
Froissart
Green
Holinshed
McCarthy
Pepys
Raleigh
Smith, G.
Southey
Taine

AMERICA

Bancroft
Fiske
Irving
McMaster
Parkman

FRANCE

Cæsar
Carlyle
Creasy
French Lit.
Froissart
Michelet
Parkman

ITALY

Cellini
Hodgkin
Symonds
Villari

SPAIN

Creasy
Prescott
Spanish Lit.

Egyptian Literature, Guizot's "History of Civilization in Europe," Japanese Literature, Josephus on the conquest of the Jews by Rome, Motley's "Relief of Leyden," Norse Literature, Tacitus's "Customs of the Germans," and Voltaire's account of Charles XII of Sweden are other selections.

BIOGRAPHY

The lives of great men have always been of interest not merely for the sake of satisfying curiosity, but because of the value of further knowledge about their habits, thoughts, and actions. The personality of a great man attracts us; perhaps through reading an intimate account of his life we may see into the reasons for his superiority, possibly we may find the key to the secret of power. So much can be learned from biography that it seems absurd how little importance is given to the subject even in our best colleges. Yet Christianity rests upon the life and teachings of one Personality, nation after nation has been saved or ruined by the deeds of one individual, wisdom and contentment have been found by the great minds of the world. By considering their lives, their principles, their virtues, and their failings we can get an extraordinary insight into the problems of happiness and wholesome living. Carlyle rightly called a Great Man "the most precious gift that Heaven can give to the Earth; a man of 'genius' as we call it; the Soul of a Man actually sent down from the skies with a God's-message to us." To see such a man at his work, at his play, thinking, dreaming, attaining greatness little by little or in a flash, to spend hours with him in thought, learning from him or from his friends and critics wherein he proved his power and how he labored to express it: to be in such close touch with one of the giants of the earth is a privilege which we must not dare to neglect. The opportunity is ours, ours be the blame and the failure if we neglect it.

Boswell
Cellini
Chesterton
Eckermann
Evelyn
Fields
Franklin
Lewes
Lockhart
Pellico
Pepys
Plato
Pliny
Plutarch
Renan
Southey
Stephen
Villari

ESSAY

Originally intended, as its name implies, to be a tentative effort rather than a finished production, the essay has none the less become one of the most perfect forms of prose. Its subject and the treatment thereof may be of almost any nature, provided it is well wrought and finished in style; for an essay is the artistic consideration of a topic, often critical, as in the case of Matthew Arnold's masterpieces, humorous, as with Lamb, philosophical as with Emerson, Carlyle, and Ruskin, and so on through a dozen diverse manners. In general the essay is brief, critical, and scholarly, and bears the stamp of the author's personality and individual opinion in his most polished style.

Bacon and Montaigne were the first to use it, Milton followed, and then Addison and Steele brought it to a high state of light and pungent perfection. Lamb, Macaulay, and Stevenson are perhaps the leaders in its later development. The work of such writers as Walton and Gilbert White, though not perhaps within the stricter limits of the definition, is closely related to the essay in tone and style.

Addison
Arnold, M.
Benson
De Quincey
Hamerton
Harrison
Hazlitt
Howells
Lamb
Lang
La Ramée
Lowell
Macaulay
Mill
Mitchell
Montaigne
Morley
Pater
Ruskin
Sainte-Beuve
Sidney
Steele
Stephen
Stevenson
Thackeray
Thoreau
Walton
Warner
White, G.

HUMOR

Humor is the most subtle of intellectual modes of expression. To define it and lay down its laws and principles is all but beyond human power. For it ranges from the inspired nonsense of Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass" or the rough and ready gusto of Browne's "Showman's Courtship" to the airily intangible delicacy of Lamb's "Essays of Elia" and the venomous sarcasm of Swift's "Gulliver's Travels." Mere wit turns on an absurd similarity in words or ideas, as in Hood's lines:

"They went and told the sexton, and
The sexton tolled the bell."

Yet the deepest humor is all but pathos; Don Quixote's demented visions of giants that prove to be windmills and of castles that turn out to be taverns provoke our laughter while they stir our pity.

Humor would seem to depend, according to some, upon the association of ideas or circumstances that have no true relation to each other, as if they actually possessed a natural relationship. For this reason a cat or a cow dressed in coat and trousers provokes laughter, or a village bully described as a proud monarch causes a smile. An unexpected answer made as seriously as if it were appropriate is one of the commoner examples of the ludicrous. It is much for the same reason that actual misfortune may appear laughable, if the element of suffering is suppressed, as in Joel Chandler Harris's "Uncle Remus" stories, or Gilbert's "Yarn of the Nancy Bell." Its very subtlety limits the appeal of humor. "One man's meat is another man's poison" applies more closely to this division of authorship than to any other. What tickles the fancy of one person, and more especially, one nation, may not afford even passing amusement to another. Englishmen find our comic papers dull, while many Americans see little to laugh at in "Punch."

Barham
Browne
Carroll
Cervantes
Cowper
Gilbert
Harris
Harte
Holmes
Hood
Hope
Irving
Jerrold
Jonson
Lamb
Lowell
Richter
Sheridan
Sterne
Swift

FOR THE CHILDREN