Lowell's "Vision of Sir Launfal,"
Tennyson's "Locksley Hall,"
Warner's "A-Hunting of the Deer,"
Shakspeare's "Coriolanus,"
Macaulay's "Horatius" and "Virginia,"
AEschylus' "Prometheus,"
Dickens' "Christmas Carol,"
Sewell's "Black Beauty,"
Chaucer's "Griselda,"
Browning's "Ivan Ivanovitch,"
Arnold's "Forsaken Merman," and "The Light of Asia,"
are fine examples of high motive.
=Magnitude=.--The grander the subject, the deeper the impression upon
us. In reading a book like "The Light of Asia," that reveals the heart
of a great religion, or Guizot's "Civilization in Europe," that deals
with the life of a continent, or Darwin's "Origin of Species," or
Spencer's "Nebular Hypothesis," that grapples with problems as wide as
the world and as deep as the starry spaces,--in reading such books we
receive into ourselves a larger part of the universe than when we devote
ourselves to the history of the town we live in, or the account of the
latest game of base ball.
=Unity=.--A book, picture, statue, play, or oratorio is an artistic
unity when no part of it could be removed without injury to the whole
effect. True art masses many forces to a single central purpose. The
more complex a book is in its substance (not its expression),--that is
to say, the greater the variety of thoughts and feelings compressed
within its lids,--the higher it will rank, if the parts are good in
themselves and are so related as to produce one tremendous effect. But
no intrusion of anything not essentially related to the supreme purpose
can be tolerated. A good book is like a soldier who will not burden
himself with anything that will not increase his fighting power,
because, if he did, its weight would _diminish_ his fighting force. In
the same way, if a book contains unnecessary matter, a portion of the
attention that should be concentrated upon the real purpose of the
volume, is absorbed by the superfluous pages, rendering the effect less
powerful than it would otherwise be. Most of the examples of high motive
named above, would be in place here, especially,--
Prometheus.
The Forsaken Merman.
The Light of Asia.
Other fine specimens of unity are,--
Holmes's "Nautilus."
Hood's "Bridge of Sighs."
Gray's "Elegy."
Hunt's "Abou Ben Adhem."
Longfellow's "Psalm of Life."
Whittier's "Barefoot Boy."
Shelley's "Ode to a Skylark."
Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind."
Byron's "Eve of Waterloo."
Bryant's "Thanatopsis."
Reed's "Drifting."
Drake's "Culprit Fay."
Irving's "Art of Bookmaking," etc. (in "Sketch Book").
Rives' "Story of Arnon."
Dante's "Divine Comedy."
Schiller's "Veiled Statue of Truth."
Goethe's "Erl King."
Humor alone has a right to violate unity even apparently; and although
wit and humor produce their effects by displaying incongruities, yet
underlying all high art, in this department as in others, there is
always a deep unity,--a truth revealed and enforced by the destruction
of its contradictories accomplished by the sallies of wit and humor.
=Universality=.--Other things equal, the more people interested in the
subject the more important the book. A matter which affects a million
people is of more consequence than one which affects only a single
person. National affairs, and all matters of magnitude, of course
possess this quality; but magnitude is not necessary to
universality,--the thoughts, feelings, and actions of an unpretentious
person in a little village may be types of what passes in the life of
every human being, and by their representativeness attain a more
universal interest for mankind than the business and politics of a
state.
The rules of tennis are not of so wide importance as an English grammar,
nor is the latter so universal as Dante's "Inferno" or "The Meditations
of Marcus Aurelius,"--these being among the books that in the highest
degree possess the quality under discussion. Other fine examples are--
Goethe's "Faust."
Shakespeare's Plays and Sonnets.
Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress."
Arnold's "Light of Asia."
Bacon's and Emerson's Essays.
"Uncle Tom's Cabin."
Sewell's "Black Beauty."
Eliot's "Romola."
Curtis' "Prue and I."
Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans."
Tourgee's "Hot Plowshares."
Irving's "Sketch Book."
Plato, Spencer, etc.
In fact, all books that express love, longing, admiration, tenderness,
sorrow, laughter, joy, victory over nature or man, or any other thought
or feeling common to men, have the attribute of universality in greater
or less degree.
=Suggestiveness=.--Every great work of art suggests far more than it
expresses. This truth is illustrated by paintings like Bierstadt's
"Yosemite" or his "Drummer Boy," Millet's "Angelus," or Turner's "Slave
Ship." Statues like the "Greek Slave" or "The Forced Prayer;" speeches
like those of Phillips, Fox, Clay, Pitt, Bright, Webster, and Brooks;
songs like "Home, Sweet Home," "My Country," "Douglas," "Annie Laurie;"
and books like
Emerson's Essays.
AEschylus' "Prometheus."
Goethe's "Faust" and "Wilhelm Meister."
Dante's "Divine Comedy."
"Hamlet" and many other of Shakspeare's Plays.
Curtis' "Prue and I."
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
The Sermons of Phillips Brooks and Robertson.
"My Summer in a Garden," by Warner; etc.
A single sentence in Emerson often suggests a train of thought that
would fill a volume; and a single inflection of Patti's voice in singing
"Home, Sweet Home" will fill the heart to overflowing.
=Expression=.--Like a musician, an author must study technique. A book
may possess high motive, artistic unity, universality, suggestiveness,
magnitude of thought, and yet be lacking in clearness, purity, music,
smoothness, force, finish, tone-color, or even in proper grammatical
construction. The style ought to be carefully adapted to the subject and
to the readers likely to be interested in it. _Force_ and _beauty_ may
be imparted to the subject by a good style. In poetry beauty is the
supreme object, the projection of truth upon the _mind_ being
subordinate. Poetry expresses the truths of the soul. In prose, on the
other hand, truth is the main purpose, and beauty is used as a helper.
As a soldier studies his guns, and a dentist his tools, so a writer must
study the laws of rhythm, accent, phrasing, alliteration, phonetic
syzygy, run-on and double-ending lines, rhyme, and, last but not least,
the melodies of common speech. The first three and the last are the most
important, and should be thoroughly studied in Shakspeare, Addison,
Irving, and other masters of style by every one who wishes to write or
to judge the work of others. Except as to rhyme, the arts of writing
prose and poetry are substantially the same. Theoretically there is a
fundamental difference in respect to rhythm,--that of a poem being
limited to the repetition of some chosen type, that of prose being
unlimited. A little study makes it clear, however, that the highest
poetry, as that of Shakspeare's later plays, crowds the type with the
forms of common speech; while the highest efforts of prose, as that of
Addison, Irving, Phillips, Ingersoll's oration over his dead brother,
etc., display rhythms that approach the order and precision of poetry.
In practice the best prose and the best poetry approach each other very
closely, moving from different directions toward the same point.
It is of great advantage to form the habit of noticing the _tunes_ of
speech used by those around us; the study will soon become very
pleasurable, and will be highly profitable by teaching the observer what
mode of expression is appropriate to each variety of thought and
feeling. There is a rhythm that of itself produces a comic effect, no
matter how sober the words may be; and it is the same that we find in
"Pinafore," in the "Mariner's Duet" in the opera of "Paul Jones," and in
the minstrel dance. For fifteen centuries all the great battle-songs
have been written in the same rhythm; they fall into it naturally,
because it expresses the movement of mighty conflict. See Lanier's
"Science of English Verse," pages 151 _et seq._, 231 _et seq._ This is
the best book upon technique; but Spencer's Essay on the Philosophy of
Style, and Poe's Essay on his composition of "The Raven" should not be
overlooked. Franklin and many others have discovered the laws of style
simply by careful study of the "Spectator."
Of course it is not easy to decide the true rank of a book, even when we
have tested it in respect to all the elements we have named. One book
may be superior in expression, another in suggestiveness, and so on.
Then we have to take note of the relative importance of these various
elements of greatness. A little superiority in motive or suggestiveness
is worth far more than the same degree of superiority as to unity or
magnitude. A book filled with noble sentiment, though lacking unity,
should rank far above "Don Juan," or any other volume that expresses
the ignoble part of human nature, however perfect the work may be from
an artistic point of view. Having now examined the tests of intrinsic
merit, let me revert for a moment to my remark, a few pages back, to the
effect that "Looking Backward" and "Robert Elsmere" deserve a high rank.
They are books of _lofty aim_, great magnitude of subject and thought,
fine unity, _wide universality_, _exhaustless suggestiveness_, and more
than ordinary power of expression. Doubtless they are not _absolute_
classics,--not books of all time,--for their subjects are transitional,
not eternal. They deal with _doubts_, religious and industrial; when
these have passed away, the mission of the books will be fulfilled, and
their importance will be less. But they are _relative_ classics,--books
that are of great value to their age, and will be great as long as their
subjects are prominent.
SUPREME BOOKS
IN THE LITERATURES OF ENGLAND, AMERICA, GREECE, ROME, ITALY,
FRANCE, SPAIN, GERMANY, PERSIA, PORTUGAL, DENMARK, RUSSIA.
PERIODS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The highest summit of our literature--and indeed of the literature of
the world--is Shakspeare. He brings us life in the greatest force and
volume, of the highest quality, and clothed in the richest beauty. His
age, which was practically identical with the reign of Elizabeth, is the
golden age of English letters; and taking it for a basis of division, we
have the Pre-Shakspearian Age from 600 to 1559, the Shakspearian Age
from 1559 to 1620, and the Post-Shakspearian Age from 1620 to the
present.
=The first age= is divided into three periods.
_First_, the Early Period, from 600 to the Norman Conquest in 1066,
which holds the names of Beowulf,[2] Caedmon,[3] Baeda,[4] Cynewulf, and
AElfred, the great king who did so much for the learning of his country,
bringing many great scholars into England from all over the world, and
himself writing the best prose that had been produced in English, and
changing the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle"--till his time a mere record of
noble births and deaths--into a valuable periodical, the progenitor of
the vast horde that threatens to expel the classics in our day. The
literature of this period has little claim upon us except on the ground
of breadth. The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, and the poems of _Beowulf_,
_Caedmon_, and _Cynewulf_, should be glanced at to see what sort of
people our ancestors were.
[2] An epic poem, full of the life, in peace and war, of our Saxon
fathers before they came to England.
[3] The writer of a paraphrase on the Bible; a feeble Milton.
[4] A very learned man, who gathered many scholars about him, and who
finished translating the Gospel of John on his death-bed and with his
latest breath.
_Second_, the Period of Chaucer, from 1066 to the death of Chaucer in
1400. The great books of this period were _Mandeville's Travels_,
Langland's "Piers the Ploughman." Wycliffe's translation of the Bible
(these two books, with Wycliffe's tracts, went all over England among
the common people, rousing them against the Catholic Church, and
starting the reformation that afterward grew into Puritanism, and gained
control of the nation under Cromwell), Gower's Poems, and _Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales_. Those in italics are the only books that claim our
reading. Mandeville travelled thirty years, and then wrote all he saw
and all he heard from the mouth of rumor. Chaucer is half French and
two-thirds Italian. He drank in the spirit of the Golden Age of Italy,
which was in the early part of his own century. Probably he met Petrarch
and Boccaccio, and certainly he drew largely from their works as well as
from Dante's, and he dug into poor Gower as into a stone quarry. He is
still our best story-teller in verse, and one of our most musical poets;
and every one should know something of this "morning star of English
poetry," by far the greatest light before the Elizabethan age, and still
easily among the first five or six of our poets.
_Third_, the Later Period, from 1400 to 1559, in which _Malory's Morte
D'Arthur_, containing fragments of the stories about King Arthur and the
knights of his round table, which like a bed-rock crop out so often in
English Literature, should be read while reading Tennyson's "Idylls of
the King," which is based upon Malory; and _Sir Thomas More's Utopia_
also claims some attention on the plea of breadth, as it is the work of
a great mind, thoroughly and practically versed in government, and sets
forth his idea of a perfect commonwealth.
In this age of nine and a half centuries there were, then, ten
noteworthy books and one great book; eight only of the eleven, however,
have any claim upon our attention, the last three being all that are
entitled to more than a rapid reading by the general student; and only
Chaucer for continuous companionship can rank high, and even he cannot
be put on the first shelf.
* * * * *
=In the Shakspearian Age= the great books were (1) _Roger Ascham's
Schoolmaster_, which was a fine argument for kindness in teaching and
nobility in the teacher, but has been superseded by Spencer's
"Education." (2) _Sackville's Induction_ to a series of political
tragedies, called "A Mirror for Magistrates." The poet goes down into
hell like Dante, and meets Remorse, Famine, War, Misery, Care, Sleep,
Death, etc., and talks with noted Englishmen who had fallen. This
"Mirror" was of great fame and influence in its day; and the
"Induction," though far inferior to both Chaucer and Spenser, is yet the
best poetic work done in the time between those masters. (3) _John
Lyly's Euphues_, a book that expressed the thought of Ascham's
"Schoolmaster" in a style peculiar for its puns, antitheses, and
floweriness,--a style which made a witty handling of language the chief
aim of writing. Lyly was a master of the art, and the ladies of the
court committed his sentences in great numbers, that they might shine in
society. The book has given a word to the language; that affected
word-placing style is known as _euphuistic_. The book has no claims upon
our reading. (4) _Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia_, a romance in the same
conceited style as the "Euphues," and only valuable as a mine for poetic
images. (5) _Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity_, which was a defence of the
church system against the Puritans. The latter said that no such system
of church government could be found in the Bible, and therefore should
not exist. Hooker answered that Nature was a revelation from God as well
as the Bible; and if in Nature and society there were good reasons for
the existence of an institution, that was enough. The book is not of
importance to the general reader to-day, for the truth of its principles
is universally admitted. (6) _The Plays of Marlowe_, a very powerful but
gross writer. His "Dr. Faustus" may very properly receive attention,
but only after the best plays of Shakspeare, Jonson, Calderon, Racine,
Moliere, Corneille, AEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes
have been carefully read. (7) _The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher_,
which are filled with beauty and imagination, mingled with the immodesty
and vulgarity that were natural to this age. The remark just made about
Marlowe applies here. (8) _Fox's Book of Martyrs_, which for the sake of
breadth should be glanced at by every one. The marvellous heroism and
devotion to faith on one side, and cruelty on the other that come to us
through the pages of this history, open a new world to the modern mind.
(9) _Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene_, which combines the poetry of a
Homer with the allegory of a Bunyan. It presents moral truth under vast
and beautiful imagery. In English poetry it claims our attention next to
Shakspeare and Milton. (10) _Ben Jonson's Plays_, which stand next to
those of Shakspeare in English drama. (11) _The Plays of Shakspeare_,
which need no comment, as they have already been placed at the summit of
all literature; and (12) _Bacon's Works_, including the _Novum Organum_,
the _New Atlantis_, and the _Essays_, the first of which, though one of
the greatest books of the world, setting forth the true methods of
arriving at truth by experiment and observation and the collation of
facts, we do not need to read, because the substance of it may be found
in better form in Mill's Logic. The "Essays," however, are world-famed
for their condensed wit and wisdom on topics of never-dying interest,
and stand among the very best books on the upper shelf. The "New
Atlantis" also should be read for breadth, with More's "Utopia;" the
subject being the same, namely, an ideal commonwealth.
From this sixty-one years of prolific writing, in which no less than two
hundred and thirty authors gathered their poems together and published
them, to say nothing of all the scattered writings, twelve volumes have
come down to us with a large measure of fame. Only the last seven call
for our reading; but two of them, Shakspeare and Bacon, are among the
very most important books on the first shelf of the world's library.
* * * * *
=The Post-Shakspearian Age= is divided into four times, or periods,--the
Time of Milton; the Time of Dryden; the Time of Pope; and the Time of
the Novelists, Historians, and Scientists.
THE TIME OF MILTON, from 1620 to 1674, was contemporary with the Golden
Age of literature in France. The great English books of this time were
(1) _Chapman's Translation of Homer_, which is superseded by Pope's. (2)
_Hobbes's Leviathan_, a discourse on government. Hobbes taught that
government exists for the people, and rests not on the divine right of
kings, but on a compact or agreement of all the citizens to give up a
portion of their liberties in order by social co-operation the better
to secure the remainder. He is one of our greatest philosophers; but the
general reader will find the substance of Hobbes's whole philosophy
better put in Locke, Mill, and Herbert Spencer. (3) _Walton's Complete
Angler_, the work of a retired merchant who combined a love of fishing
with a poetic perception of the beauties of Nature. It will repay a
glance. (4) _S. Butler's Hudibras_, a keen satire on the Puritans who
went too far in their effort to compel all men to conform their lives to
the Puritan standard of abstinence from worldly pleasures. In spite of
its vulgarity, the book stands very high in the literature of humor. (5)
_George Herbert's Poems_, many of which are as sweet and holy as a
flower upon a grave, and are beloved by all spiritually minded people.
(6) _Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Dying_, a book that in the strength
of its claim upon us must rank close after the Bible, Shakspeare, and
the Science of Physiology and Hygiene. (7) _Milton's Poems_, of which
the "Paradise Lost" and "Comus," for their sublimity and beauty, rank
next after Shakspeare in English poetry. AEschylus, Dante, and Milton are
the three sublimest souls in history.
From this time of fifty-four years seven great books have come to us,
Milton and Taylor being among our most precious possessions.
THE TIME OF DRYDEN.--From the death of Milton, in 1674, to the death of
Dryden, in 1700, the latter held undisputed kingship in the realm of
letters. This and the succeeding time of Pope were marked by the
development of a classic style and a fine literary and critical taste,
but were lacking in great creative power. The great books were (1)
_Newton's Principia_, the highest summit in the region of astronomy,
unless the "Mecanique Celeste" of Laplace must be excepted. Newton's
discovery of the law of gravitation, and his theory of fluxions place
him at the head of the mathematical thinkers of the world. His books,
however, need not be read by the general student, for in these sciences
the later books are better. (2) _Locke's Works_ upon Government and the
Understanding are among the best in the world, but their results will
all be found in the later works of Spencer, Mill, and Bryce; and the
only part of the writings of Locke that claims our reading to-day is the
little book upon the _Conduct of the Understanding_, which tells us how
to watch the processes of our thought, to keep clear of prejudice,
careless observation, etc., and should be in the hands of every one who
ever presumes to do any thinking. (3) _Dryden's Translation of Virgil_
is the best we have, and contains the finest writing of our great John.
(4) _Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress_ picturing in magnificent allegory the
journey of a Christian soul toward heaven, and his "Holy War," telling
of the conflict between good and evil, and the devil's efforts to
capture and hold the town of "Mansoul," should be among the first books
we read. The "Progress" holds a place in the affections of all
English-speaking peoples second only to the Bible. (5) _Sam Pepys's
Diary_ is the greatest book of its kind in the world, and is much read
for its vividness and interesting detail. It has, however, no claims to
be read until all the books on the first shelf of Table I. have been
mastered, and a large portion of the second shelf pretty thoroughly
looked into.
Of the five great works of these twenty-six years, Bunyan and Locke are
far the most important for us.
THE TIME OF POPE, or the _Time of the Essayists and Satirists_, covers a
period of forty years, from 1700 to 1740, during which the great
translator of Homer held the sceptre of literary power by unanimous
assent. The great works of this time were (1) _The Essays of Addison and
Steele_ in the "Tatler" and "Spectator," which, though of great merit,
must rank below those of Emerson, Bacon, and Montaigne. (2) _Defoe's
Robinson Crusoe_, the boy's own book. (3) _Swift's Satires_,--the "Tale
of a Tub," "Gulliver's Travels," and the "Battle of the Books,"--all
full of the strongest mixture of grossness, fierceness, and intense wit
that the world has seen. The "Battle of the Books" may be read with
great advantage by the general reader as well as by the student of
humor. (4) _Berkeley's Human Knowledge_, exceedingly interesting for the
keenness of its confutation of any knowledge of the existence of matter.
(5) _Pope's Poems_--the "Rape of the Lock" (which means the theft of a
lock of hair), the "Essay on Man," and his translation of Homer--must
form a part of every wide course of reading. Their mechanical execution,
especially, is of the very finest. (6) _Thomson's Seasons_, a beautiful
poem of the second class. (7) _Butler's Analogy_, chiefly noted for its
proof of the existence of God from the fact that there is evidence of
design in Nature.
Of these writers, Pope and Defoe are far the most important for us.