written, he should be required to answer by a complete sentence, a
properly phrased assertion. He is not unlikely to begin by giving
a single term, an incomplete and tentative phrase, or at best a
fragmentary statement. For the sake of the clearness of his own
idea and of the habit of accurate thinking, he should be encouraged
and expected to make the idea clear and the statement finished.
Student-criticism, as I have said perhaps often enough already, cannot
in the nature of things be either profound or exhaustive, but it should
be intelligent and well defined as far as it goes.
XV
LITERARY WORKMANSHIP
The appreciation of literary workmanship dawns very slowly on the
child's mind. In the secondary schools not much can be accomplished
in the way of making students feel the niceties of literary art;
but something should be done to enforce the nature and the worth of
technique. Much that touches the undergraduate's feelings he cannot
analyze, and should never in any work of the secondary schools be
asked to criticise. He should, however, if he is to be systematically
trained in the study of masterpieces, have knowledge enough of the
qualities which distinguish them from lesser work to perceive on what
their claims to superiority are founded. Children so naturally and
so generally feel that distinctions which do not appeal to them are
arbitrary, and it is of so much importance to guard against any feeling
of this sort in the case of literature, that it is worth while to be
at some pains to make distinctions perceptible, even if they may not
always be made entirely clear.
One of the tests of rank in civilization is appreciation of
workmanship. The savage knows nothing of mechanics beyond the power
of a lever in prying up a rock, the action of a bowstring, or crude
facts of this sort. A machine to him is not only incomprehensible,
but supernatural: a locomotive is a fire-devil, and a loom or a
printing-press, should he see one, a useful spirit. At the other end of
the scale of appreciation of mechanical appliances is the inventor who
devises or the trained engineer who understands the most complicated
engines of modern ingenuity. Somewhere between stands any one of
us,—the ordinary pupil presumably far above the savage, but far below
the expert. In the appreciation of the art of the painter, at the
bottom of the scale is the bushman who can look at the clever painting
of a man and not know what it represents, and at the top the great
painters of the world and those who can best enter into the spirit of
their productions. In this scale again each of us stands somewhere; the
average school-boy is unhappily likely to be so far down as to take
delight in the colored illustrations of the Sunday newspapers and to
be utterly indifferent to a Titian or a Rembrandt. In comprehension
of the value and effect of language, the same principle obtains. The
scale extends from the savage tribes with a vocabulary of but a few
hundred words for the entire speech of the race and no power of making
combinations beyond the simplest, to the cultivated nations with
perhaps a couple of hundred thousand words and the art of producing the
highest forms of prose and of poetry. The scale is a long one, and its
development has taken uncounted ages; but somewhere in the line each
individual has his place. The degree of the civilization of a race is
unerringly determined by its command of the written word; the mental
rank of the individual is no less certainly fixed by his power of using
and of comprehending human speech.
This general truth is easily brought home to young people by reminding
them how they began their knowledge of language with the acquirement of
single words and went on to appreciate how much more may be expressed
by word-combinations. After the infantile "give" came in turn "p'ease
give" and "please give me a drink." From such stages each of them has
gone on learning. They have constantly increased their vocabulary,
their knowledge of the value of words, of word-arrangement, and of
sentence-construction. Gradually by practical experience they have
gained some appreciation of all those points which make up the sum of
instruction in classes in composition. They now need to be shown that
literary appreciation is the extension of this knowledge along the same
lines; that it is the means of advancing toward a higher place in that
scale which extends from the ignorant savage to the sages. They may in
this way be brought to a conception of literary technique as a matter
connected with the process of perception which they have been carrying
on from childhood.
How value in all workmanship is to be judged by the effects produced is
admirably illustrated by machinery, but it is hardly less evident in
the case of language. The simpler forms of sentence come to be used by
the child in place of single disconnected words because with sentences
he can do more in the way of communicating his ideas and obtaining what
he desires. To illustrate more complicated forms of language we have
only to remind the child how carefully he orders his speech when he is
endeavoring to coax a favor from an unwilling friend or a reluctant
parent. The child feels himself clever just in proportion as he is
able so to frame his plea that it secures his end. He may be reminded
that he selects most carefully the terms which suggest such things and
ideas as favor his wish and avoids any that might hint at possible
objections. Out of these homely, universal experiences of childhood it
is possible to build up in the mind of the pupil a very fair notion of
the nature and the use of literary workmanship; a notion, moreover,
which is at once sound in principle and entirely adequate as a working
basis.
Teaching consists principally in helping pupils to extend ideas
which they have received from daily life. In this matter of literary
workmanship, for instance, it means showing them that they have,
without being especially conscious of the fact, a responsiveness
to well-turned forms of speech and to skilful use of words. They
may perhaps be made to appreciate this with especial vividness by
having their attention called to the pleasure they take in clever or
apt sayings from their fellows or from joking speeches. This form
of illustration must, it is true, be used with discretion. It is
always difficult to lead the mind of a child from the concrete to
the general. Not a few children—and children, too, of considerable
intelligence—are not unlikely, if jesting remarks are instanced, to
conclude that good literary workmanship means something amusing. With
due care, however, a class may be led to see how the same quality
of apt presentation in word which pleases them in the sayings of
schoolmates is what, carried farther, is the foundation of literary
technique.
Concrete examples of thoughts so well expressed that they have come to
be almost part of common speech are abundant. The crisp, dry phrases of
Pope lend themselves admirably as illustration, they are so neat, so
compact, and, it may be added, so free from delicate sentiment which
might be blurred in the handling.
Order is heaven's first law.
An honest man's the noblest work of God.
The class can supply examples in most cases, and be pleased with itself
for being able to do so. The finer instances from greater writers may
be led up to, the epigrams of Emerson, the imaginative phrases of
Shakespeare; and so on to longer examples, with illustrations from the
rolling paragraphs of Macaulay, the panoplied prose of De Quincey,
and after that from lyrics and passages in blank verse. Thus much
may be done in the way of instruction in technique fairly early in
high-school work. With it or after it at a proper interval should
follow instruction in regard at least to the mechanical differences
between prose and poetry and what they mean. I have mentioned
earlier[212:1] the impression students often bring from the reading
of Macaulay's "Milton." The remarks there quoted are selected from
answers to a question of an entrance paper in regard to the difference
in form and in quality between prose and poetry. Others from the same
examination show yet more strikingly the general haziness of conception
in the minds of the candidates:
In prose words are thrown together in a way to make good sense
and to form good English. Poetry is the grouping of words into
a metric [_sic_] system.
Poetry is often written in rhyme, while prose is expressed in
sentences.
Poetry is the name given to writing that is written in verse
form. One does not as a rule get the meaning of things when
they are written in verse form.
Prose may be verse when dealt with by such an author as
Shakespeare or Milton, but prose usually consists of words
arranged in sentences and paragraphs without any special order.
Poetry is used as a pastime, and as such is all right.
Between good blank verse and prose there is not much difference
except in the form of wording in which it is put upon the page.
For me, the difference between prose and poetry is this: Prose
does not rhyme and poetry does. Under such a definition, all
literature not poetry must be prose. Therefore Shakespeare's
works are prose.
The illustrations might be much extended, but these will show the
confusion which existed in the minds of boys who had been painfully
drilled in the college entrance requirements. I have not selected
the examples for their absurdity, although in a melancholy way they
are droll enough; but I have meant them to illustrate the confusion
which existed in the minds of a large number of the candidates at that
particular examination of what makes the vital difference between prose
and poetry. It is not my contention that teachers in the secondary
schools are to go into minute details in regard to poetic form; but I
do believe that it is idle to talk about the rank of a writer as a poet
or of the beauty of Shakespeare's verse to students who do not know the
difference between verse and prose.
I may be allowed to remark in passing that to my mind the influence of
the theories of Macaulay's "Milton" alluded to above illustrates the
difference in effect of that which appeals to the personal experience
and feelings of boys and that which they are forced to receive without
such inward interpretation. The boys who were trained in the "Milton"
were trained also in Carlyle's "Burns." The Carlyle, with its eloquent
appreciation of the office of the poet, the seer to whom has been given
"a gift of vision," had apparently left no trace upon their minds. They
had, however, been forced, too often unwilling, over numerous pages of
what they were assured was poetry of the highest quality, yet which to
them was unintelligible and wearisome. When Macaulay declared that
poetry was a relic of barbarism they seized upon the theory eagerly
because it justified their own feelings, because it coincided with
their own impressions; and thenceforth they doubtless held complacently
to their faith in the obsolete uselessness of verse, fortified by so
high an authority.
In the whole body of papers in the examination from which I have been
quoting very few gave the impression that the writer had a clear
conception that somehow, even if he could not express it, a vital
difference exists between poetry and prose. The greater number of
the boys seemed to think that rhyme made the distinction, or that
distortion of sentences was the leading characteristic. Not one
teacher in a score had succeeded in impressing upon his pupils the
fundamental truth that the only excuse poetry can have for existing
is that it fulfils an office impossible for prose. Yet nothing which
can properly be called the study of poetry can be done until this
prime fact is recognized with entire clearness. Beyond the entirely
unanalytical enjoyment of verse, the native responsiveness to rhythm,
and the uncritical pleasure with which one learns to love literature
and to seek it as a means of pleasure, the first, the most primary, the
absolutely indispensable fact to be thoroughly impressed on a young
student is that poetry uses form as a part, and an essential part, of
its language. The boy must be made to understand that just as he tries
by his tone, by his manner, by his smile, to produce in his hearers
the mood in which he wishes them to receive what he has to say, so the
poet by his melody, by the form of his verse, by his ringing rhythms or
long, melting cadences, by his rhyme or his pauses, is endeavoring to
interpret the ideas he expresses as surely as he is by the statements
he makes. The truth which the teacher knows, that not infrequently the
metrical effect is really of more value and significance than the ideas
stated, is naturally for the most part too deep for the comprehension
of pupils at this stage. It would only confuse a class to go so far as
this; but if we are to "study" poetry, we must have at least a working
definition of what poetry is, and one which shall commend itself to the
children with whom we are working.
As a mere suggestion which may be of practical use to some teachers, I
would call attention to what may be done by comparing certain pieces of
prose with the poems which have grown out of them. I know of nothing
better for this use than Tennyson's "Ballad of the Revenge" and the
prose version of Sir Walter Raleigh from which it is taken. In many
parts the language is almost identical,—but with the differences
between robust prose and a stirring lyric. The teacher who can make a
class see what the distinction is, what the ballad accomplishes that
Raleigh has not attempted, will have made clear by concrete example
what poetry does and why it is written. Another example is Byron's
"Destruction of Sennacherib" compared with the original version of the
incident as given in the Bible.
It may seem to some teachers that I am going rather deep, but to such I
should simply propound the question what they understand by the study
of poetry. The natural error of the untrained mind is to regard the
intellectual content of a poem as its reason for being, and to foster
such an error as this is to make forever improbable if not impossible
any intelligent or genuine insight into poetry whatever. If we are
not to protect children against this mistake, fatal as it is to any
perception of the real province and nature of poetic art, what do we
expect to accomplish in all the extensive attention which is under the
present system devoted to the works of the masters?
That so many boys failed to answer satisfactorily in this matter of
distinguishing between prose and poetry is of course not conclusive
evidence either of general ignorance or of conscious fault on the part
of instructors. Boys often fail in attempts to state distinctions
about which they are yet reasonably clear in their minds, and it may
well be that many who gave absurd replies would have no difficulty in
discriminating between verse and prose,—at least when verse fulfilled
the specification of the candidate who wrote:
A jagged appearance is the main form-characteristic of blank
verse. Each sentence is a separate line, and every other
sentence is indented about a quarter of an inch.
It would be interesting to present to pupils who have finished the
study of the college requirements half a dozen brief selections, some
prose and some poetry, but all printed in solid paragraphs. The number
of students who could accurately and confidently distinguish in every
case would be a not unfair test of the extent to which the distinction
is understood.
Teachers probably fail to make this matter clear because they not
unnaturally assume that of course any intelligent lad in his teens
must know the distinction between prose and poetry. Natural as such an
assumption may be, however, it is often—indeed, I am tempted to say
generally—wrong. The chief business of the modern teacher is after
all the instructing of pupils in things which they would naturally be
supposed to know already. It is certainly safer never to assume in
any grade that a student knows anything whatever until he has given
absolute proof. The weakest points in the education of the modern
student are certainly those which are continually taken for granted.
One of the most serious obstacles in the way of bringing young people
to understand technical excellence and to appreciate literary value is
the difficulty of having school-work done with proper deliberation. It
is doubtful if any process in education can profitably be hurried; it
is certain that nothing of worth can be done in the study of literature
which is not conducted in a leisurely manner. The first care of an
instructor in this delicate and difficult branch must be to insure a
genial atmosphere: an atmosphere of tranquillity and of serenity. No
matter how tall a heap of prescribed books may block the way to the
end of the school year, each masterpiece that is dealt with should be
treated with deference and an amount of time proportioned not to its
number of pages but to the speed with which the class can assimilate
its worth and beauty. If worst comes to worst, I would have a teacher
say honestly to his pupils: "We have taken up almost all of the term
by treating what we have studied as literature instead of huddling
through it as a mechanical task. For the sake of examinations we are
forced to crowd the other books in. The process is not fair to them or
to you; so do not make the mistake of supposing that this is the proper
way of treating real books." Children who have been properly trained
will understand the situation and will appreciate the justice of the
proposition.
In this connection is of interest the remark of an undergraduate
who said that he obtained his first impression of style and of the
effectiveness of words from translating. "I suppose the truth is,"
he explained with intelligence, "that in English I never read slowly
enough to get anything more than the story or what was said. When I was
grubbing things out line by line and word by word I at last got an idea
of what my teachers had meant when they talked about the effect of the
choice of words." Many of us can look back to the days when we learned
grammar from Latin rather than from English, although we had been over
much the same thing in our own tongue. In the foreign language we had
to go deliberately and we had to apply the principles we learned. Only
when the student is treating literature so slowly and thoroughly that
these conditions are reproduced does he come to any comprehension of
style or indeed of the real value of literature.
Readers of all ages naturally and normally read anything the first
time for the intellectual content: for the story, for the information,
for that meaning, in short, which is the appeal to the intellectual
comprehension. The great majority are entirely satisfied to go no
farther. They do not, indeed, perceive the reason for going farther;
and they are too often left in ignorance of the fact that they have
entirely missed the qualities which entitle what they have read to be
considered literature in the higher sense.
In this they are often encouraged, moreover, by the unhappy practice
of making paraphrases. The paraphrasing of masterpieces is to me
nothing less than a sacrilege. It degrades the work of art in the mind
of the child, and contradicts the fundamental principle that poetry
exists solely because it expresses what cannot be adequately said in
any other way. A paraphrase bears the same relation to a lyric, for
instance, that a drop of soapy water does to the iridescent bubble
of which it was once the film. The old cry against the selection of
passages from Milton for exercises in parsing should be repeated with
triple force against the use of literature as material for children to
translate from the words of the poet into their own feeble phraseology.
The parsing was by far the lesser evil. It is often necessary to have
an oral explanation of difficult passages; but this should be always
expressly presented as simply a means to help the child to get at
the real significance of a lyric, a sort of ladder to climb by. Any
paraphrasing and explaining should be carefully held to its place as an
inadequate and unfortunate necessity. The class should never be allowed
to think that any paraphrase really represents a poet, or that it is to
be regarded in any light but that of apologetic tolerance.
In this matter of workmanship, as everywhere else in the process of
dealing with literature, much depends upon the character of the class.
Much must always be left unaccomplished, and much is always wisely
left even unattempted. Often the teacher must go farther in individual
cases than would naturally have been the case in a given grade
because questions will be asked which lead on. It is often necessary,
for instance, to explain that the crowding forward of events made
unavoidable by stage conditions is not a violation of truth, but a
conforming to the truth of art. A lad will object that things could not
move forward so rapidly, and it is then wise to show him that dramatic
truth does not include faithfulness to time, but may condense the
events of days into an hour so long as it is true to human nature and
to the effects those events would have had if occurring at intervals
however great. Again children will object in a tale that the incidents
are not likely to have happened; and it is then necessary to make clear
the distinction between probability and possibility, and how fiction
may deal with either. These matters, however, are to be left to the
intelligence of the individual instructor. If he cannot manage them
wisely without advice, he cannot do it with arbitrary rules.
For a last word on the matter of training students in the appreciation
of literary form and workmanship I should offer a warning against
attempting too much. Something is certainly unavoidable, but of
minutiæ it is well to exercise what Burke calls "a wise and salutary
neglect." Literary language must be learned or all intelligent work is
utterly impossible; since form is an important element in all artistic
language, it is not possible to ignore this. The extent to which work
can and should go in the study of form in a given class is one of the
matters which the instructor has to decide; and when he has decided it
he must resolutely refuse to allow himself to be unhappy because in the
great realm of literature are so many noble tracts of which he has not
even hinted to his class the existence. If he has done the lesser work
well he has at least put his students in a condition to do the greater
for themselves; if he had attempted more he might have accomplished
nothing.
FOOTNOTES:
[212:1] Page 36.
XVI
LITERARY BIOGRAPHY
How far the biography of authors shall be a part of the school-work is
a question which deserves attention. I began these talks by calling
attention to the fact that it is so much easier to teach details
about the life of a writer than it is to train the youthful mind to a
true appreciation of literature itself. Teachers naturally and almost
unconsciously fall into the habit of over-emphasizing this division of
the history of literature, and questions about the lives of authors are
dangerously easy to formulate for recitation or for examination-paper.
Nothing, however, should be allowed to obscure the idea that the work
and not the worker is the thing with which study should be concerned;
and everybody would agree that in theory the limit to biographical
inquiry in secondary-school study is the extent to which a knowledge of
an author's career or personality aids to the understanding of what he
has written.
To say this, however, is much like restating the question. Like a good
deal that passes for argument, it only puts the problem in other words;
for we are at once confronted with the doubt how far a pupil in the
secondary school is likely to be helped by knowing about the facts of
a writer's life. At the beginning of the "Spectator" Addison remarks: