being, among very many peoples, as a natural outgrowth of the faculty of
mimicry in human nature. Among the South Sea Islanders there is a rude
drama, and in China such representations have existed from remote ages.
Greece first brought the art to high perfection; and her greatest tragic
artists, AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, of the fifth century B. C.,
are still the highest names in tragedy. The Greek drama with AEschylus
was only a dialogue. Sophocles introduced a third actor. It would be a
dull play to us that should fill the evening with three players. In
another thing the Grecian play was widely different from ours. The aim
of ancient playwrights was to bring to view some thought in giant form
and with tremendous emphasis. The whole drama was built around, moulded,
and adapted to one great idea. The aim of English writers is to give an
interesting glimpse of actual life in all its multiplicity of interwoven
thought and passion, and let it speak its lessons, as the great
schoolmistress, Nature, gives us hers. The French and Italian drama
follow that of Greece, but Spain and England follow Nature.
_Mystery and miracle plays_ were introduced about 1100 A. D., by
Hilarius, and were intended to enforce religious truths. God, Adam, the
Angels, Satan, Eve, Noah, etc., were the characters. In the beginning of
the 15th century, _morality plays_ became popular. They personified
faith, hope, sadness, magnificence, conceit, etc., though there might
seem little need of invention to personify the latter. About the time of
Henry VIII., _masques_ were introduced from Italy. In them the
performers wore extravagant costumes and covered the face, and lords and
ladies played the parts. It was at such a frolic that King Henry met
Anne Boleyn. The first English comedy was written in 1540, by Udall; and
the first tragedy in 1561, by Sackville and Norton. It was called
"Ferrex and Porrex." From this time the English drama rapidly rose to
its summit in Shakspeare's richest years at the close of the same
century. At first the theatre was in the inn-yard,--just a platform,
with no scenery but what the imagination of the drinking, swearing,
jeering crowd of common folk standing in the rain or sunlight round the
rough-made stage could paint.
On the stage sat a few gentlefolk able to pay a shilling for the
privilege. They smoked, played cards, insulted the pit, "who gave it to
them back, and threw apples at them into the bargain." Such were the
beginnings of what in Shakspeare's hands became the greatest drama that
the world has ever seen.
The manner of reading all good poetry should be: R. D. C. G.
If the reader wishes to study poetry critically, he will find abundant
materials in Lanier's "Science of English Verse" and Dowden's "Mind and
Art of Shakspeare" (books that once read by a lover of poetry will ever
after be cherished as among the choicest of his possessions); Lowell's
"Fable for Critics," "My Study Windows," and "Among my Books;" Arnold's
"Essays;" Hazlitt's "English Poets;" "English Men of Letters;" Poe's
"Essay on the Composition of the Raven;" Taine's "English Literature;"
Swinburne's "Essays and Studies;" Stedman's "Victorian Poets;" Shairp's
"Studies in Poetry;" Warton's "History of English Poetry;" Ward's
"History of English Dramatic Literature;" and Schlegel's "Dramatic
Literature."
[20] Shakspeare is the summit of the world's literature. In a higher
degree than any other man who has lived on this planet, he possessed
that vivid, accurate, exhaustive imagination which creates a second
universe in the poet's brain. Between our thought of a man and the man
himself, or a complete representation of him with all his thoughts,
feelings, motives, and possibilities, there is a vast gulf. If we had a
perfect knowledge of him, we could tell what he would think and do. To
this ultimate knowledge Shakspeare more nearly approached than any other
mortal. He so well understood the machinery of human nature, that he
could create men and women beyond our power to detect an error in his
work. This grasp of the most difficult subject of thought, and the
oceanic, myriad-minded greatness of his plays prove him intellectually
the greatest of the human race. It is simple nonsense to suppose that
Bacon wrote the dramas that bear the name of Shakspeare. They were
published during Shakspeare's life under his name; and Greene, Jonson,
Milton, and other contemporaries speak with unmistakable clearness of
the great master. Donnelly's Cryptogram is a palpable sham; and to the
argument that an uneducated man like Shakspeare could not have written
such grand poetry, while Bacon, as we know, did have a splendid ability,
it is a sufficient answer to remark that Shakspeare's sonnets, the
authorship of which is not and cannot be questioned, show far higher
poetical powers than anything that can be found in Bacon's acknowledged
works. Richard Grant White's edition is the best; and certainly every
one should have the very best of Shakspeare, if no other book is ever
bought. (16th cent.) See Table III. No. 1.
With Shakspeare may be used Dowden's "Shakspeare Primer," and "The Mind
and Art of Shakspeare," Abbott's "Shakspearian Grammar," Lanier's
"Science of English Verse," Hazlitt's "Characters of Shakspeare's Plays"
and "Age of Elizabeth," Lamb's "Tales from Shakspeare," Ward's "English
Dramatic Literature, and History of the Drama," Lewes' "Actors and the
Art of Acting," Hutton's "Plays and Players," Leigh Hunt's "Imagination
and Fancy," and Whipple's "Literature of the Age of Elizabeth."
[21] Homer is the world's greatest epic poet. He is the brother of
Shakspeare, full of sublimity and pathos, tenderness, simplicity, and
inexhaustible vigor. Pope's translation is still the best on the whole,
but should be read with Derby's Iliad and Worsley's Odyssey. In some
parts these are fuller of power and beauty; in others, Pope is far
better. Flaxman's designs are a great help in enjoying Homer, as are
also the writings of Gladstone, Arnold, and Symonds. (Greece, about 1000
B. C.) See Table III. No. 2.
[22] Ruskin thinks Dante is the first figure of history, the only man in
whom the moral, intellectual, and imaginative faculties met in great
power and in perfect balance. (Italy, 14th cent.) Follow the advice
given in Table III. No. 5, and, if possible, read Longfellow's
translation. See note 24, p. 30.
Among writings that will be found useful in connection with Dante, are
Rossetti's "Shadow of Dante," Lowell's Essay in "Among my Books,"
Symonds' "Introduction to the Study of Dante," Farrar's "Lecture on
Dante," Mrs. Ward's "Life of Dante," Botta's "Dante as a Philosopher,"
and Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero Worship."
[23] Goethe is unquestionably the greatest German, and one of the first
six names in literature. His "Faust" is a history of the soul. Read
Bayard Taylor's translation, and the explanation of the drama's meaning
given in Taylor's "Studies in German Literature." "Faust" was the work
of half a century, and completed in 1818, when Goethe was past eighty.
As a preparation for Goethe it is interesting to study the story of
Faust in Butterworth's "Zigzag Journeys," and read Marlowe's "Drama of
Faustus." The novel "Wilhelm Meister" has been splendidly translated by
Carlyle, and is full of the richest poetic thought, crammed with wisdom,
and pervaded by a delicious sweetness forever provoking the mind to
fresh activity. As a work of genius, it is preferred by some critics
even to Hamlet. See Table III. No. 15.
[24] Milton stands in his age like an oak among hazel-bushes. The
nobility of his character, the sublimity of his thought, and the classic
beauty of his style give him, in spite of some coldness and some lack of
naturalness in his conception of the characters of Adam and Eve, the
second place in English literature. His "Lycidas" is a beautiful elegy.
His "Comus" is the best masque in English, and certainly a charming
picture of chastity and its triumph over temptation. It should be read
along with Spenser's "Britomart." His "L' Allegro" and "Il Penseroso,"
on mirth and melancholy, are among the best lyrics of the world. His
"Paradise Lost" is the greatest epic in English, and the greatest that
any literature has had since Dante's "Divine Comedy." The two books
should be read together. Milton shows us Satan in all the pride and pomp
and power this world oft throws around his cloven Majesty. Dante tears
away the wrappings, and we see the horrid heart and actual loathsomeness
of sin. (Eng., 17th cent.) See Table III. No. 2.
The writings of Stopford Brooke, Macaulay, Dr. Johnson, De Quincey, and
Pattison about Milton may be profitably referred to.
[25] AEschylus was the greatest of the noble triumvirate of Greek tragedy
writers. Sublimity reached in his soul the greatest purity and power
that it has yet attained on earth. One can no more afford to tread in
life's low levels all his days and never climb above the clouds to
thought's clear-ethered heights with AEschylus, than to dwell at the foot
of a cliff in New Mexico and never climb to see the Rockies in the blue
and misty distance, with their snowy summits shining in the sun. Read,
at any rate, his "Prometheus Bound" and his "Agamemnon." (5th cent. B.
C., the Golden Age of Grecian literature.) See Table III. No. 4.
The student of AEschylus will find much of value to him in Mahaffy's
"Greek Literature," "Old Greek Life," and "Social Life in Greece;"
Schlegel's "Dramatic Literature;" Donaldson's "Theatre of the Greeks,"
and Froude's "Sea Studies." Following the "Prometheus" of AEschylus, it
is a good plan to read the works of Goethe, Shelley, Lowell, and
Longfellow on the same topic. We thus bring close the ideas and fancies
of five great minds in respect to the myth of Prometheus.
[26] Many a selection in Table III. is of very high merit, and belongs
on the world's first shelf, although the poetic works of the author as a
whole cannot be allowed such honor. In the section preceding Table V.
also will be found a number of short writings of the very highest merit.
See explanatory note to Table I.
[27] Edmund Spenser is the third name in English literature. No modern
poet is more like Homer. He is simple, clear, and natural, redundant and
ingenuous. He is a Platonic dreamer, and worships beauty, a love sublime
and chaste; for all the beauty that the eye can see is only, in his
view, an incomplete expression of celestial beauty in the soul of man
and Nature, the light within gleaming and sparkling through the loose
woven texture of this garment of God called Nature, or pouring at every
pore a flood of soft, translucent loveliness, as the radiance of a
calcium flame flows through a porcelain globe. Spenser was Milton's
model. The "Faerie Queen," the "Shepherd's Calendar," and the "Wedding
Hymn" should be carefully read; and if the former is studied
sufficiently to arrive at the underlying spiritual meaning, it will ever
after be one of the most precious of books. (Eng., 16th cent.) See Table
III. No. 6. See also Lowell's "Among my Books," Craik's "Spenser and his
Poetry," and Taine's "English Literature."
[28] Lowell is one of the foremost humorists of all time. No one, except
Shakspeare, has ever combined so much mastery of the weapons of wit with
so much poetic power, bonhomie, and common-sense. Every American should
read his poems carefully, and digest the best. (Amer., 19th cent.) See
Table III. Nos. 12 and 24.
[29] Whittier is America's greatest lyric poet. Read what Lowell says of
him in the "Fable for Critics," and get acquainted with his poetry of
Nature and quiet country life, as pure as the snow and as sweet as the
clover. (Amer., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 11.
[30] Tennyson is the first poet of our age; and though he cannot rank
with the great names on the upper shelf, yet his tenderness, and noble
purity, and the almost absolutely perfect music of much of his poetry
commands our love and admiration. Read his "In Memoriam," "Princess,"
"Idylls of the King," etc. (Eng., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 11.
[31] Burns is like a whiff of the pure sea air. He is a sprig of
arbutus under the snow; full of tenderness and genuine gayety, always in
love, and singing forever in tune to the throbs of his heart. Read "The
Jolly Beggars," "The Twa Dogs," and see Table III. No. 11. (Scot., 18th
cent.)
[32] Probably nothing is so likely to awaken a love for poetry as the
reading of Scott. (Scot., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 7.
[33] Byron is the greatest English poet since Milton, and except Goethe
the greatest poet of his age in the world. His music, his wonderful
control of language, his impassioned strength passing from vehemence to
pathos, his fine sense of the beautiful, and his combination of passion
with beauty would place him high on the first shelf of the world's
literature if it were not for his moral aberration. Read his "Childe
Harold." (Eng., 1788-1824.) See Table III. No. 13.
[34] Shelley is indistinct, abstract, impracticable, but full of love
for all that is noble, of magnificent poetic power and marvellous music.
Read "Prometheus Unbound," and see Table III. No. 13. (Eng., 19th cent.)
[35] Keats is the poetic brother of Shelley. He is deserving of the
title "marvellous boy" in a far higher degree than Chatterton. If the
lives of Shakspeare, Milton, and Wordsworth had ended at twenty-five, as
did the life of Keats, they would have left no poetry comparable with
that of this impassioned dreamer. Like Shakspeare, he had no fortune or
opportunity of high education. Read "Hyperion," "Lamia," "Eve of Saint
Agnes," "Endymion," and see Table III. No. 13. (Eng., 19th cent.)
[36] Campbell clothed in romantic sweetness and delicate diction, the
fancies of the fairy land of youthful dreams, and poured forth with a
master voice the pride and grandeur of patriotic song. Read his
"Pleasures of Hope," "Gertrude of Wyoming," and see Table III. No. 12.
(Eng., 19th cent.)
[37] Moore is a singer of wonderful melody and elegance and of
inexhaustible imagery. Read his "Irish Melodies." (Eng., 19th cent.) See
Table III. No. 11.
[38] Thomson is one of the most intense lovers of Nature, and sees with
a clear eye the correspondences between the inner and outer worlds upon
which poetry is built. Read his "Seasons" and "The Castle of Indolence."
(Eng., 18th cent.)
[39] Read Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome." "Horatius" cannot fail to
make the reader pulse with all the heroism and patriotism that is in his
heart, and "Virginia" will fill each heart with mutiny and every eye
with tears. (Eng., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 12.
[40] Dryden's song is not so smooth as Pope's, but doubly strong. His
translation of Virgil has more fire than the original, though less
elegance. He was the literary king of his time, but knew better _how_ to
say things than _what_ to say. (Eng., 17th cent.) See Table III. No. 14.
[41] Collins was a poet of fine genius. Beauty, simplicity, and sweet
harmony combine in his works, but he wrote very little. Read his odes,
"To Pity," "To Evening," "To Mercy," "To Simplicity." See Table III. No.
14. (Eng., 18th cent.)
[42] Jean Ingelow's poems deserve at least tasting, which will scarcely
fail to lead to assimilation. (Eng., 1862.) See Table III. No. 14.
[43] Bryant's "Thanatopsis," written at eighteen, gave promise of high
poetic power; but in the life of a journalist the current of energy was
drawn away from poetry, and America lost the full fruitage of her best
poetic tree. He is serene and lofty in thought, and strong in his
descriptive power and the noble simplicity of his language. (Amer., 19th
cent.) See Table III. No. 13.
[44] Longfellow's poetry is earnest and full of melody, but _as a whole_
lacks passion and imagery. Relatively to a world standard he is not a
great poet and has written little worthy of universal reading, but as
bone of our bone he has a claim on us as Americans for sufficient
attention at least to investigate for ourselves his merits. (Amer., 19th
cent.) See Table III. No. 10.
[45] Lowell says that George Herbert is as "holy as a flower on a
grave." (Eng., 1631.) See Table III. No. 13.
[46] Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" and "Traveller" will live as long as
the language. They are full of wisdom and lovely poetry. His dramas
abound in fun. Read "The Good-Natured Man" and "She Stoops to Conquer."
(Eng., 18th cent.) See Table IV.
[47] Read Coleridge's "Christabel," and get somebody to explain its
mysterious beauty to you; also his "Remorse," "Ode to the Departing
Year," "Ancient Mariner," and "Kubla Khan." The latter is the most
magnificent creation of his time, but needs a good deal of study for
most readers to perceive the beautiful underlying thought, as is the
case also with the "Mariner." Coleridge is difficult reading. He wrote
very little excellently, but that little should be bound in gold, and
read till the inner light of it shines into the soul of the reader. The
terrible opium habit ruined him. Read his life; it is a thrilling story.
(Eng., 1772-1834.) Table III. No. 11.
[48] Lowell says, in his "Fable for Critics," that he is always
discovering new depths
"in Wordsworth, undreamed of before,--
That divinely inspired, wise, deep, tender, grand--bore."
Nothing could sum up this poet better than that. His intense delight in
Nature and especially in mountain scenery, and his pure, serene,
earnest, majestic reflectiveness are his great charms. His "Excursion"
is one of the great works of our literature, and stands in the front
rank of the world's philosophical poetry. Its thousand lines of blank
verse roll through the soul like the stately music of a cathedral organ.
(Eng., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 13.
[49] Pope is the greatest of the world's machine poets, the noblest of
the great army who place a higher value on skilful execution than on
originality and beauty of conception. The "Rape of the Lock" is his most
successful effort, and is the best of all mock-heroic poems. "The
sharpest wit, the keenest dissection of the follies of fashionable life,
the finest grace of diction, and the softest flow of melody adorn a tale
in which we learn how a fine gentleman stole a lock of a lady's hair."
Read also his "Essay on Man," and glance at his "Dunciad," a satire on
fellow-writers. (Eng., 1688-1744.) See Table III. No. 13, and Table IV.
[50] Southey had great ideas of what poetry should be, and strove for
purity, unity, and fine imagery; but there was no pathos or depth of
emotion in him, and the stream of his poetry is not the gush of the
river, but the uninteresting flow of the canal. Byron says, "God help
thee, Southey, and thy readers too." Glance at his "Thalaba the
Destroyer" and "Curse of Kehama." (Eng., 1774-1843.)
[51] Walton's "Compleat Angler" is worthy of a glance. (Eng., 1653.)
[52] Browning is very obscure, and neither on authority nor principle a
first-rate poet; but he is a strong thinker, and dear to those who have
taken the pains to dig out the nuggets of gold. Canon Farrar puts him
among the three living authors whose works he would be most anxious to
save from the flames. Mrs. Browning has more imagination than her
husband, and is perhaps his equal in other respects. (Eng., 19th cent.)
[53] Read Young's "Night Thoughts."
[54] Jonson, on account of his noble aims, comparative purity, and
classic style, stands next to Shakspeare in the history of English
drama. Read "The Alchemist," "Catiline," "The Devil as an Ass,"
"Cynthia's Revels," and "The Silent Woman." The plot of the latter is
very humorous. (Eng., 1700.)
[55] The dramas of Beaumont and Fletcher are poetically the best in the
language except those of Shakspeare. Read "Philaster," "The Fair Maid of
the Inn," "Thierry and Theodoret," "The Maid's Tragedy." (Eng., 17th
cent.)
[56] Marlowe's "Mighty Line" is known to all lovers of poetry who have
made a wide hunt. His energy is intense. Read "The Tragical History of
Dr. Faustus," based on that wonderfully fascinating story of the doctor
who offered his soul to hell in exchange for a short term of power and
pleasure, on which Goethe expended the flower of his genius, and around
which grew hundreds of plays all over Europe. (Eng., 17th cent.)
[57] For whimsical and ludicrous situations and a rapid fire of
witticisms, Sheridan's plays have no equals. Read "The School for
Scandal" and "The Rivals." (Eng., 18th cent.)
[58] Carleton's poetry is not of a lofty order, but exceedingly
enjoyable. Read his "Farm Ballads." (Amer., 19th cent.)
[60] Virgil is the greatest name in Roman literature. His "AEneid" is
the national poem of Rome. His poetry is of great purity and elegance,
and for variety, harmony, and power second in epic verse only to his
great model, Homer. (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.) Read Dryden's translation if
you cannot read the original.
[61] The Odes of Horace combine wit, grace, sense, fire, and affection
in a perfection of form never attained by any other writer. He is
untranslatable; but Martin's version and commentary will give some idea
of this most interesting man, "the most modern and most familiar of the
ancients." (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.)
[62] Lucretius is a philosophic poet. He aimed to explain Nature; and
his poem has much of wisdom, beauty, sublimity, and imagination to
commend it. Virgil imitated whole passages from Lucretius. (Rome, 1st
cent. B. C.)
[63] Ovid is gross but fertile, and his "Metamorphoses" and "Epistles"
have been great favorites. (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.)
[64] The "Antigone" and "OEdipus at Colonus" of Sophocles are of
exquisite tenderness and beauty. In pathos Shakspeare only is his equal.
(Greece, 5th cent. B. C.)
[65] Euripides is the third of the great triumvirate of Greek
dramatists. His works were very much admired by Milton and Fox. Read his
"Alcestis," "Iphigenia," "Medea," and the "Bacchanals." (Greece, 5th
cent. B. C.)
[66] Aristophanes is the greatest of Greek comedy writers. His plays are
great favorites with scholars, as a rule. Read the "Clouds," "Birds,"
"Knights," and "Plutus." (Greece, 5th cent. B. C.)
[67] Pindar's triumphal odes stand in the front rank of the world's
lyric poetry. (Greece, 5th cent. B. C.)
[68] Hesiod's "Theogony" contains the religious faith of Greece. He
lived in or near the time of Homer.
[69] Heine is the most remarkable German poet of this century. He has
written many gems of rare beauty, and many sketches of life unmatched
for racy freshness and graphic power.
[70] Schiller is the second name in German literature; indeed, as a
lover of men and as a poet of exquisite fancy, he far excels Goethe. He
was a great philosopher, historian, and critic. Read his "Song of the
Bell," and his drama of "Wallenstein," translated by Coleridge.
(Germany, 18th cent.)
[71] Corneille, Racine, and Moliere are the great French triumvirate of
dramatists. Their object is to produce one massive impression. In this
they follow the classic writers. A French, Greek, or Roman drama is to a
Shakspearean play as a statue to a picture, as an idea carved out of
Nature and rendered magnificently impressive by its isolation and the
beauty of its modelling, to Nature itself. The historical and ethical
value of the French plays is very great. Corneille is one of the
grandest of modern poets. Read "The Cid" ("As beautiful as the Cid"
became a proverb in France), and "Horace" (which is even more original
and grand than "The Cid"), and "Cinna" (which Voltaire thought the best
of all). Racine excels in grace, tenderness, and versatility. Read his
"Phedre." Moliere was almost as profound a master of human nature on its
humorous side as Shakspeare. He hates folly, meanness, and falsehood; he
is always wise, tender, and good. Read "Le Misanthrope," or "The
Man-Hater," and "Tartuffe," or "The Impostor." (17th cent.)
[74] Alfred de Musset is a famous French poet of this century, and is a
great favorite with those who can enjoy charming and inspiring thoughts
though mixed with the grotesque and extravagant.