THE POST-VICTORIAN AGE
THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (1890–1920)
The period covered by this chapter, thirty years in extent, begins
with the decline of the Victorian tradition, and practically ends with
the European War. It is a time of unrest, of a hardening of temper, of
the decay of the larger Victorian ideals, and of the growth of a more
critical, cynical, and analytic spirit. The period, one will find, is
not very rich in literature of the highest class; and looking back over
our literature, and studying the rise and fall of the literary impulse,
the alternation of rich harvest with lean years, one is tempted to
regard the post-Victorian age as an interval between two epochs,
between the great Victorian age and another, still to be, that will be
as truly great.
LITERARY FEATURES OF THE AGE
=1. Decline of Poetry.= For almost the first time in the history
of English literature the poetical product must be relegated to a
subordinate position. Much verse, some of great charm and considerable
power, has been written, but very little of real outstanding literary
importance. It is this decided decline in the poetical spirit that must
make the period take an inferior place in our literary history. Even
the Great War failed to produce a poet who might proclaim its ideals
as Wordsworth did those of the French Revolution. One is reluctantly
driven to conclude that the divine poetical impulse was not there.
=2. The Domination of the Novel.= Comparatively late in its
appearance, the novel has now become the most prominent of the
literary forms. The output is enormous, the general level quite
high, and the scope of its subject almost all-embracing. The growth
of the popular press, including the cheap magazine specializing in
the production of fiction, the cheapening of books and journals, the
increasing use of shorthand and the typewriter, all combine to add to
the torrent of fiction.
=3. Modern “Realism.”= The tendency of the time is to avoid
sentiment, and to look upon life critically and even cynically. There
is a supercilious attitude toward enthusiasm, which is banned as
being “Victorian,” a word which has assumed a derogatory meaning.
In the domain of fiction this feeling is the strongest. Victorian
convention is anathema; all subjects are explored, and handled with
a frankness that would have horrified the moralists of the earlier
age. A particularly strong school of novelists is interested in social
subjects, and is affected with the prevailing economic unrest.
=4. Foreign Influences.= In other countries the same tendency
toward realism is apparent, and has helped the movement in England.
In Europe there were two geniuses of international importance, and
both of them were fired with revolutionary social ideals: Henrik Ibsen
(1828–1906), the Norse dramatist, and Leo Tolstoï (1828–1910), the
Russian novelist. The influence of Ibsen went right to the roots of
English drama, and the works of Tolstoï awoke English readers to the
importance of Russian fiction, which is strongly realistic. French
novelists of the realistic school, such as Émile Zola (1840–1902), had
their share in the development of the English novel.
=5. The Celtic Revival.= The revival of Irish literature is of
much interest. It began in the effort of a group of writers to preserve
and reanimate Irish sentiment and (to a certain extent) the Irish
language. It has affected all branches of literature: it has affected
poetry, producing poems such as those of Mr. Yeats; it has created
a type of drama, and a theater in which to act it; its dramatists
include Mr. Synge, Lady Gregory, and (partly) Mr. Shaw; it has added a
novelist of importance in George Moore; and it has a worthy example of
a man of letters in George Russell, whose _nom de plume_ is “A. E.”
THOMAS HARDY
We shall deal with three outstanding novelists, each of whom is
representative of a different class. We shall have space sufficient for
a small number only of the other novelists.
=1. His Life.= Thomas Hardy was born (1840) in Dorsetshire, and
after being educated locally finished his studies at King’s College,
London. He adopted the profession of an architect, being specially
interested in the architecture of early churches. Ambitious to achieve
fame as an author, he began, as so many other literary aspirants have
done, with poetry. In this branch of literature he met with scant
recognition; so, when he was over thirty years old, he took to the
writing of novels. These too had no popular success, though they did
not go unpraised by discerning critics. Nevertheless, Hardy continued
uninterruptedly to issue works of fiction, which gradually but surely
brought him fame. He was enabled to abandon his profession as an
architect and retire to his native Dorchester, where he lived the life
of a literary recluse. Popular applause, which he had never courted, in
the end came in full measure. On the occasion of his eightieth birthday
the greatest literary figures of the day united to do him homage, and
the King, with characteristic felicity, sent a message of gracious
compliment. Some years previously (1910) he had received the Order of
Merit, no inappropriate distinction.
=2. His Poetry.= As early as 1865, and thence onward, Mr. Hardy
issued fugitive pieces of poetry, which were at length collected
and published as _Wessex Poems_ (1898). Many of the poems,
none of which is very long, are of the dramatic monologue type. The
typical Hardy note is apparent in nearly all of them; a careful and
measured utterance, a stern eye for the tragedy of common things,
and a somber submission to the dictates of an unkind fate. One or two
of them are brighter, with a wry kind of humor, like the well-known
_Valenciennes_. A second collection, _Poems of the Past and
Present_ (1901), has a deeper and more sardonic note, but the
feeling of pitiful regret is still predominant. This is particularly so
in the poems on the South African War. _The Dead Drummer_, a poem
of this group, three brief stanzas in length, tells of Drummer Hodge
slain and buried in the veld. The Hardy attitude is almost perfectly
revealed in the last stanza:
Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge for ever be;
His homely northern breast and brain
Grow up a southern tree;
And strange-eyed constellations reign
His stars eternally.
In _The Dynasts_, which was published in several parts between
1903 and 1908, we meet with Mr. Hardy’s most ambitious poetical effort.
In scope the poem is vast, for it deals with the Napoleonic wars, with
all Europe for its scene. In length it is prodigious, and before the
reader has reached the end he is overwhelmed with the magnitude of
it. In form it is dramatic, in the sense that Shelley’s _Prometheus
Unbound_ is dramatic; the scene shifts from point to point, the
historical figures utter long monologues, and superhuman intelligences,
such as Pity and the Spirit of the Years, add commentaries upon the
activities of mankind. Above and behind all of it broods a sense of
stern fatalism--the Immanent Will, as the author calls it; and in
front of this enormous curtain of fate and futility even the figure of
Napoleon is dwarfed and impotent.
_Satires of Circumstance_ (1914) is another collection of shorter
pieces. The satires themselves, which occupy quite a small portion of
the book, are almost brutal and rancorous in their choice and treatment
of unhappy incidents. No doubt their author judges such a tone to be
necessary in the production of satire. The effect is very impressive.
For example, in the short piece called _In the Cemetery_ he begins:
“You see those mothers squabbling there?”
Remarks the man of the cemetery.
“One says in tears, ‘_’Tis mine lies here!_’
Another, ‘_Nay, mine, you Pharisee!_’
Another, ‘_How dare you move my flowers
And put your own on this grave of ours!_’
But all their children were laid therein
At different times, like sprats in a tin.”
And the cemetery man goes on to say that all the bodies had been
removed to make room for a drain-pipe, and that the quarreling was
taking place over the drain-pipe.
A further group of poems in this same volume is called _Poems of
1912–1913_. In this group of poems, which are elegiac in nature,
Mr. Hardy’s lyrical genius develops a late but splendid bloom. It is
unique in our history for a poet over seventy years old to surpass all
the efforts of his prime. In the depth of their emotion and the terse
adequacy of their style they represent the consummation of his poetry.
We quote briefly:
(1) I found her out there
On a slope few see,
That falls westwardly
To the sharp-edged air,
Where the ocean breaks
On the purple strand,
And the hurricane shakes
The solid land.
(2) Nobody says: Ah, that is the place
Where chanced, in the hollow of years ago,
What none of the Three Towns cared to know--
The birth of a little girl of grace--
The sweetest the house saw, first or last;
Yet it was so
On that day long past.
Nobody thinks: There, there she lay
In a room by the Hoe, like the bud of a flower,
And listened, just after the bed time hour,
To the stammering chimes that used to play
The quaint Old Hundred-and-Thirteenth tune
In Saint Andrew’s tower
Night, morn, and noon.
* * * * *
Nay: one there is to whom these things,
That nobody else’s mind calls back,
Have a savour that scenes in being lack,
And a presence more than the actual brings;
To whom to-day is beneaped and stale,
And its urgent clack
But a vapid tale.
_Places_
=3. His Novels.= Mr. Hardy’s first novel, _Desperate Remedies_
(1871), is, even as a first attempt, a little disappointing. _Under
the Greenwood Tree_ (1872) is an improvement, and in its sweet and
faithful rendering of country life suggests _Silas Marner_. Next
appeared _A Pair of Blue Eyes_ (1873), much more powerful, in which
coincidences combine to produce a pitifully tragic conclusion. This
is a fine specimen of the Hardy “pessimism.” By this time Mr. Hardy
had matured his style and developed his views, and the succeeding
novels display a masterly power that rarely deserts him: _Far from the
Madding Crowd_ (1874), _The Hand of Ethelberta_ (1876), _The Return of
the Native_ (1878), _The Trumpet-Major_ (1879), _A Laodicean_ (1881),
_Two on a Tower_ (1882), _The Mayor of Casterbridge_ (1885), and _The
Woodlanders_ (1887). Then Mr. Hardy’s career as a novelist culminated
in two novels which have already taken rank among the great books
of the language: _Tess of the d’Urbervilles_ (1891) and _Jude the
Obscure_ (1894). The first is the story of a woman (“a pure woman,” the
novelist calls her), of a noble line long decayed, who, as the victim
of a malign and persistent destiny, commits murder and perishes on
the scaffold; the second is the life-history of an obscure craftsman,
fired by the noblest ideals, who struggles to attain to better things,
but dies broken and disappointed, like Job cursing the day he was
born: drab and somber tales, lit by rare gleams of delicious humor and
sentiment, and lifted to the level of great art by boundless insight
and pity. After this _The Well Beloved_ (1897) was of the nature of an
anti-climax, and Mr. Hardy wrote no more novels.
=4. Features of his Novels.= (_a_) _Their Literary Quality._ Of the
novelists of his time Mr. Hardy is the most assiduous in his attention
to the practices of his great literary predecessors, such as Sophocles,
Shakespeare, and Shelley. This, perhaps, gives his novels rather a
heavy touch, so that he will never find a facile popularity; but he is
never cheap and never tawdry, he builds broad and square, and his work
will surely endure.
(_b_) _Their English Quality._ Like Chaucer and Shakespeare, Mr.
Hardy, though he includes all humanity in his outlook, is profoundly
and essentially English. His works embrace English folk and strike
their roots deep into English soil. His most successful creations are
those of peasants bred in his own native shire, or in the adjacent
shires. Hence he has given us a notable gallery of men and women who
are true to their breed and satisfying in their actuality. The scene
of the majority of his novels is a section of England that he calls
Wessex. This includes approximately all the south and west of England
south of a line joining Oxford and Bristol. Within this boundary he
moves with ease and precision, and there he finds adequate literary
sustenance. From a man of the caliber of Mr. Hardy such parochialism
hardly requires an apology, but if it does he has given it fully. We
quote a passage in which he defends his practice, and which in addition
provides a good specimen of his expository prose:
It has sometimes been conceived of novels that evolve their
action on a circumscribed scene--as do many (though not all) of
these--that they cannot be so inclusive in their exhibition of
human nature as novels wherein the scenes cover large extents
of country, in which events figure amid towns and cities,
even wander over the four quarters of the globe. I am not
concerned to argue this point further than to suggest that
the conception is an untrue one in respect of the elementary
passions. But I would state that the geographical limits of the
stage here trodden were not absolutely forced upon the writer
by circumstances; he forced them upon himself from judgment.
I considered that our magnificent heritage from the Greeks in
dramatic literature found sufficient room for a large proportion
of its action in an extent of their country not much larger
than the half-dozen counties here reunited under the old name
of Wessex, that the domestic emotions have throbbed in Wessex
nooks with as much intensity as in the palaces of Europe, and
that, anyhow, there was quite enough human nature in Wessex for
one man’s literary purpose. So far was I possessed by this idea
that I kept within the frontiers when it would have been easier
to overleap them and give more cosmopolitan features to the
narrative.
_General Preface to the Wessex Edition_
(_c_) _Their Pessimism._ It cannot be denied that the novels are
somewhat oppressive in the gloom of their atmosphere. As a novelist
Mr. Hardy seems to conceive mankind as overlooked by a deliberately
freakish and malignant Fate. His characters are consistently
unfortunate when they deserve it least. In places, as in the case of
Tess, he appears to bear down the scales, throwing against them the
weight of repeated unhappy coincidences. Such a dismal method would
in the end be repulsive to the reader’s sense of pity and justice if
Mr. Hardy did not add to it a certain largeness and detachment of view
and a somber but sympathetic clarity of vision that make the reader’s
objections seem paltry and spiritless.
(_d_) _Their Humor and Pathos._ In many places, as in the rustic
scenes of _The Mayor of Casterbridge_, the novels have a delicacy and
acuteness of humor that strongly resembles that of George Eliot. At
other times the humor is hard and heavy, as it is in his satires; at
others, again, it has an odd grotesqueness. A short poetical extract
will illustrate the last type:
That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares.
We thought it was the Judgment-day
And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worms drew back into the mounds.
_Channel Firing_
His pathos is deep, sure, and strong, never degenerating into
mawkishness or sentimentality. The conclusion of _Tess of the
d’Urbervilles_ is a pattern of the dignified expression of sorrow:
Upon the cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed. Their eyes
were riveted on it. A few minutes after the hour had struck
something moved slowly up the staff, and extended itself upon
the breeze. It was a black flag.
“Justice” was done, and the President of the Immortals,
in Æschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess. And
the d’Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs
unknowing. The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to
the earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a long time,
absolutely motionless: the flag continued to wave silently. As
soon as they had strength they arose, joined hands again, and
went on.
(_e_) _His Style._ Like many other great novelists, Mr. Hardy has no
outstanding tricks of style. The general impression given is one of
immense strength and dignity. His vocabulary is copious, but handled
with scholarly care and accuracy. He is apt in phrase and pithy in
expression, and in moments of emotion his prose moves with a strong
rhythmic beauty. In his poetry the style may sometimes be crabbed and
unorthodox, but only to suit a definite satiric purpose. We may sum up
by saying that in his style, as in all the other constituents of his
writing, he is always the sane and catholic artist.
JOSEPH CONRAD (1857–1924)
=1. His Life.= “Joseph Conrad” is the pen-name of =Teodor Jozef
Konrad Korzeniowski=, who was born in the south of Poland in 1857.
His father was implicated in the Nationalist plots of the Poles, and
the son shared some of his father’s wanderings and exile. For a time
the boy was educated at Cracow, but very soon an obstinate love of
the sea manifested itself; and in 1874, in spite of all obstacles,
he shipped as a seaman at Marseilles. His earliest seafaring was
done in the Mediterranean. In 1878 he satisfied a lifelong desire by
visiting England and making his first practical acquaintance with the
English language. He had long wished to sail under the English flag,
and for the remainder of his career he continued to do so. Till 1894
he led the life of a deep-sea sailor, rising from the position of an
ordinary seaman to that of a master-mariner in the Mercantile Marine.
Bad health, partly occasioned by a voyage up the Congo, stopped his
seafaring; and then his first novel was accepted by a London publisher.
Henceforth he was able to devote himself to writing novels, for his
books, after a moderate beginning, have brought him a rapidly widening
circle of readers.
=2. His Novels.= Mr. Conrad’s first novel, _Almayer’s Folly_, was begun
about 1889 and not finished till 1894, when it was published. In some
respects the novel is immature, for it is halting in plot, and there
is a tendency to fumble in the handling of some of the characters; but
the power and originality of the work are unquestionable. The scene
is that of an Eastern river, fatally beautiful, haunted with disease,
death, and the destinies of mysterious men. The principal characters
are wild and diabolical, of strange race and stranger desires. Over the
whole of the book hangs the glamour of a style quite new to English
prose: rich and exotic as a tropical blossom, subtly pervasive and
powerful, languorous and debilitating, but most fascinating. The
book is typical of the remainder of Mr. Conrad’s novels; he was to
improve upon it; but only in degree, not in substance. We have space
to mention only the more important of his later works: _An Outcast of
the Islands_ (1896), a kind of sequel to the first book; _The Nigger
of the Narcissus_ (1898), a brighter tale, full of the glory of the
deep seas; _Lord Jim_ (1900), an astonishing story, detailed with
microscopic care, of a broken sailor who “makes good”; _Youth_ (1902),
perhaps Mr. Conrad’s masterpiece--briefer, more direct, and instinct
with the beauty of romantic youth; _Nostromo_ (1903), a tale of South
American politics and treasure-hunting; _The Secret Agent_ (1907), in
which the novelist leaves his favorite Eastern scenes for the grimmer
purlieus of London; _’Twixt Land and Sea_ (1912), three short stories,
containing some of his best work; _Chance_ (1914); _Within the Tides_
(1915); _Victory_ (1915); _The Shadow Line_ (1917); _The Arrow of Gold_
(1919), in which the interest shifts to Spain and the Carlist plotters;
and _The Rescue_ (1920). In addition there are several other volumes
of short stories; two volumes of memories and impressions, extremely
valuable as specimens of the Conrad manner, called _The Mirror of the
Sea_ (1906) and _Some Reminiscences_ (1912); and two volumes written
in collaboration with Ford Madox Hueffer, _The Inheritors_ (1901) and
_Romance_ (1903).
=3. Features of his Novels.= (_a_) _Their Exotic Quality._ Just as Mr.
Hardy is probably the most English of the greater novelists, so Mr.
Conrad is, in no disparaging sense of the term, the most un-English.
No other novelist can so well convey the charm and repulsiveness of
alien regions. The impression is borne upon the reader through every
constituent of the novels. The setting, in the best examples, is among
tropical islands, or upon the deep seas. The characters are men and
women thoroughly in tune with the scene: nautical people, generally
of mixed or alien breed--Danish, Malay, or Italian. Even when Mr.
Conrad introduces English scenes and people in some fashion they always
succeed in conveying the impression of being un-English.
(_b_) The _style_ of the books, moreover, adds to the prevailing
feeling. It is haunting and beautiful, sumptuous in detail, delicate in
rhythm, but curiously and decidedly exotic.
A brief extract cannot do justice to the style of Mr. Conrad, but we
shall quote two passages in illustration. The first shows his prose in
its less happy mood: somewhat mechanical and cumbrous in its imagery,
and forced and overloaded with epithet. The second is much better.
Here every word is necessary and appropriate, the rhythm is free, and
the music sweet and persuasive.
(1) Shaw tried to speak. He swallowed great mouthfuls of tepid
water which the wind drove down his throat. The brig seemed
to sail through undulating waves that passed swishing between
the masts and swept over the decks with the fierce rush and
noise of a cataract. From every spar and every rope a ragged
sheet of water streamed flicking to leeward. The overpowering
deluge seemed to last for an age; became unbearable--and, all
at once, stopped. In a couple of minutes the shower had run its
length over the brig and now could be seen like a straight grey
wall, going away into the night under the fierce whispering
of dissolving clouds. The wind eased. To the northward, low
down in the darkness, three stars appeared in a row, leaping
in and out between the crests of the waves like the distant
heads of swimmers in a running surf; and the retreating edge of
the cloud, perfectly straight from east to west, slipped along
the dome of the sky like an immense hemispheric iron shutter
pivoting down smoothly as if operated by some mighty engine. An
inspiring and penetrating freshness flowed together with the
shimmer of light through the augmented glory of the heaven, a
glory exalted, undimmed, and strangely startling as if a new
universe had been created during the short flight of the stormy
cloud. It was a return to life, a return to space; the earth
coming out from under a pall to take its place in the renewed
and immense scintillation of the universe.
The brig, her yards slightly checked in, ran with an easy motion
under the topsails, jib, and driver, pushing contemptuously
aside the turbulent crowd of noisy and agitated waves. As the
craft went swiftly ahead she unrolled behind her over the uneasy
darkness of the sea a broad ribbon of seething foam shot with
wispy gleams of dark discs escaping from under the rudder.
Far away astern, at the end of a line no thicker than a black
thread, which dipped now and then in its long curve in the
bursting froth, a toy-like object could be made out, elongated
and dark, racing after the brig over the snowy whiteness of her
wake.
_The Rescue_
(2) The _Narcissus_, left alone, heading south, seemed to stand
resplendent and still upon the restless sea, under the moving
sun. Flakes of foam swept past her sides; the water struck her
with flashing blows; the land glided away, slowly fading; a few
birds screamed on motionless wings over the swaying mastheads.
But soon the land disappeared, the birds went away; and to the
west the pointed sail of an Arab dhow running for Bombay rose
triangular and upright above the sharp edge of the horizon,
lingered, and vanished like an illusion. Then the ship’s wake,
long and straight, stretched itself out through a day of immense
solitude. The setting sun, burning on the level of the water,
flamed crimson below the blackness of heavy rainclouds. The
sunset squall, coming up from behind, dissolved itself into the
short deluge of a hissing shower. It left the ship glistening
from trucks to water-line, and with darkened sails. She ran
easily before a fair monsoon, with her decks cleared for the
night; and, moving along with her, was heard the sustained and
monotonous swishing of the waves, mingled with the low whispers
of men mustered aft for the setting of watches; the short plaint
of some block aloft; or, now and then, a loud sigh of wind.
_The Nigger of the Narcissus_
(_c_) _Their Graphic Power._ The strongest appeal of Mr. Conrad’s
novels is to the eye and the ear. His pictures of seafaring life and of
life connected with the sea have never been surpassed. Their veracity
and beauty are due to his personal acquaintance with the subject; to
a scrupulous and artistic selection of detail, often of the technical
kind that the sailor loves; and, once more, to the charm of the
expression. In addition, his faculty of graphic description is often
revealed in the deft manner in which he can outline some personality
that flits across the pages of a story:
He held up his head in the glare of the lamp--a head vigorously
modelled into deep shadows and shining lights--a head powerful
and misshapen with a tormented and flattened face--a face
pathetic and brutal: the tragic, the mysterious, the repulsive
mask of the nigger’s soul.
_The Nigger of the Narcissus_
(_d_) _Their Narrative Method._ Mr. Conrad has evolved a narrative
method of his own, which, while it is usually successful in his
own hands, would probably be disastrous in hands less careful and
adroit. The method is, first, indirect. The author’s favorite device
is to create some character (a Captain Marlow often appears for this
purpose) who relates the story, or part of the story, in his own
words. Often another story crops up in the original story, adding
complications, with, as can be seen in _Lord Jim_, results that are
a little bewildering. Secondly, the greatest attention is given to
details. The motives and impressions of the characters are discussed
and analyzed, and their trivial actions faithfully recorded. Moreover,
Mr. Conrad delights in leading his characters into morasses of doubt
and hesitation. He may be called the novelist of doubt and hesitation,
so skilled is he in the elaborate suggestion of such emotions.
Consequently many a Conrad story, like one of his ships, is becalmed
in its career, and stirs uneasily without making much progress. Hence
he who runs must not read Conrad. This author demands a reader who is
patient and wary, and who follows the course of the narrative very
carefully, for he has a troublesome habit of inserting important matter
in the midst of less essential details. If the reader will but observe
these cautions, he will be led, deviously perhaps, but none the less
certainly, into many regions of delightful romance.
HERBERT GEORGE WELLS
=1. His Life.= Mr. Wells was born in Kent in the year 1866. His
early education was private, and later he studied at London University.
Here he finally graduated in science, zoology and kindred subjects
being his special choice. But he had his living to earn while he
carried on his studies, and the experiences of these early years are
reflected in his novels. Teaching, lecturing, and journalistic work
followed; but literature was not long in exercising its fascination,
and an early measure of success was soon his portion. Henceforth he
devoted himself to the writing of books, which command a wide public
both in England and America.
=2. His Works.= For the literary historian the books of Mr. Wells
provide an interesting study, as, in the course of their production,
they register a clear development of manner. The books themselves are
so numerous that here we can mention only the more important among them.
As was only to be expected, Mr. Wells began by utilizing his scientific
training as an adjunct to his story-telling. His first efforts in
fiction were a series of scientific romances, extremely ingenious in
their mingling of fact and fiction, rapidly and felicitously narrated,
and casting shrewd side-glances at many social problems. The best of
this class were _The Time Machine_ (1895), _The Invisible Man_ (1897),
and _The Food of the Gods_ (1904). The second stage of the novelist’s
career (slightly overlapping the first stage) was represented by a
series of genuine novels, which reveal considerable talent in the
manipulating of plot, a faculty, amounting to positive genius, for
depicting ordinary people with zest, accuracy, and humor, and a clear
and flexible style admirably in keeping with his subject. _Love and
Mr. Lewisham_ (1900), _Kipps_ (1905), and _The History of Mr. Polly_
(1910) were representative of this group. In the third stage problems
of modern society, social, religious, political, and commercial, which
had all along strongly attracted the attention of Mr. Wells, elbowed
themselves into the midst of the fictitious material, claiming an
equal place. Of such a nature were _Tono-Bungay_ (1909), which is
almost an epical treatment of modern commercialism, _Ann Veronica_
(1909), concerning a modern love-affair, and _The New Machiavelli_
(1911), on contemporary politics. In the fourth stage the discursive
and dogmatic elements take the principal place, subordinating the
fictitious portions, as can be seen in _Boon_ (1915), an extraordinary
book, crammed with excellent lively literary criticism, but chaotic,
splenetic, and irresponsible; _Mr. Britling Sees It Through_ (1916), a
book treating of the Great War, with an able beginning, but a hazy and
unsatisfactory conclusion; and _Joan and Peter_ (1918), also dealing
partly with the War, but much concerned with educational matters.
A collection of short stories, _The Country of the Blind_ (1911),
contains, along with much that is scamped and trashy, some first-rate
work, notably in the tale that gives the title to the book.
In addition to his numerous works of fiction Mr. Wells has written
books that are almost entirely pamphlets, expressing his ideas on
social and other problems; _The Island of Doctor Moreau_ (1896), _A
Modern Utopia_ (1905), and _New Worlds for Old_ (1908) are only a
few out of many. He has also, with much hardihood and considerable
success, given the world _The Outline of History_ (1920), a work
that antagonized the pedants and charmed and instructed the ordinary
intelligent man.
=3. Features of his Novels.= (_a_) _Their “Modern” Quality._ Possessed
of an eager and inquiring mind, of great energy, and of a wide public
ready to give ear to his opinions, Mr. Wells has come more and more
to use the novel as a means of voicing his hopes, his criticisms, and
his fears. Such a course must in the end bring about the decay of his
novels as works of art. It is possible, indeed, that his later works
will rapidly fall into oblivion, as did the later novels of George
Eliot, who pursued a course in some respects similar to that of Mr.
Wells. No one, however, can question the force and vivacity of his
expressed opinions, and the eager reception that awaits them in many
quarters. To many of his time he is the sage and prophet, as Carlyle,
in his own fashion, was to the Victorian age; and as the need for
Carlyle passed away with the problems that he handled, so, perhaps,
will the need for the pen of Mr. Wells. It is possible that _Kipps_
will be widely read when such works as _The Soul of a Bishop_ have been
entirely forgotten.
(_b_) _Their Literary Quality._ In addition to his intellectual gifts,
Mr. Wells possesses an imagination of great power and grasp. This
appears all through his works, being perhaps most prominent in the
earlier romances, such as _The First Men in the Moon_, and in the
earlier novels. In the novels the strength of Mr. Wells’s imagination
becomes a positive drawback when it leads to overproduction, which in
its turn brings a certain mechanical quality in the plot and in the
central characters. His descriptions, however, alike of homely English
scenes and of the most fantastic and barbarous regions, are brilliantly
dashing and real. Like Dickens, he excels in the creation of ordinary
folks, of the type of tradesmen and clerks, upon whom he expends a
wealth of observation and humorous comment.
(_c_) _Their Humor._ Freshness and abundance are the outstanding
qualities of Mr. Wells’s humor. Sometimes he is almost juvenile in
his high spirits. In its more sober moments the humor is the urbane
acceptance of men’s little weaknesses, somewhat patronizing perhaps,
but sharply scrutinizing and faithfully recording. In other moods it is
satirical, and then it is swift and destructive. In its more reckless
phase it passes into jeering and irreverent laughter. The humor of Mr.
Wells is a powerful weapon, and he is somewhat careless in his handling
of it.
(_d_) _His Style._ The clearness and rapidity of Mr. Wells’s style has
undoubtedly led to a lack of taste and balance and (in the mind of the
reader) to a sense of improvisation. In its more careless passages
it conveys the impression of a brilliant but shallow loquacity. The
style, nevertheless, has some great and positive virtues: an instant
command of epithet, a vivid pictorial quality, and sometimes a rich
suggestiveness of romance. As an example of this last quality, the
love-passages in _The Country of the Blind_ are idyllically beautiful.
The two brief extracts that follow illustrate two different aspects
of his style. The first is a picture of a tropical scene, the style
resembling in some respects that of Mr. Conrad. It lacks the intimate
detail of Mr. Conrad’s descriptions, but it is much less labored. The
second is an example of the pictorial narrative power that is Mr.
Wells’s chief claim to literary greatness:
(1) Here and there strange blossoms woke the dank intensities
of green with a trumpet-call of colour. Things crept among the
jungle and peeped and dashed back rustling into stillness.
Always in the sluggishly drifting, opaque water were eddyings
and stirrings; little rushes of bubbles came chuckling up
lightheartedly from this or that submerged conflict and
tragedy; now and again were crocodiles like a stranded fleet of
logs basking in the sun. Still it was by day, a dreary stillness
broken only by insect sounds and the creaking and flapping of
our progress, by the calling of the soundings and the captain’s
confused shouts; but in the night as we lay moored to a clump
of trees the darkness brought a thousand swampy things to life,
and out of the forest came screamings and howlings, screamings
and yells that made us glad to be afloat. And once we saw
between the tree stems long blazing fires. We passed two or
three villages landward, and brown-black women and children came
and stared at us and gesticulated, and once a man came out in a
boat from a creek and hailed us in an unknown tongue; and so at
last we came to a great open place, a broad lake rimmed with a
desolation of mud and bleached refuse and dead trees, free from
crocodiles or water birds or sight or sound of any living thing,
and saw far off, even as Nasmyth had described, the ruins of
the deserted station and hard by two little heaps of buff-hued
rubbish under a great rib of rock. The forest receded. The land
to the right of us fell away and became barren, and far off
across a notch in its backbone was surf and the sea.
_Tono-Bungay_
(2) There was a fumbling at the latch of the front door.
“’Ere’s my lord,” said Mrs Coombes. “Went out like a lion and
comes back like a lamb, I’ll lay.”
Something fell over in the shop: a chair, it sounded like.
Then there was a sound as of some complicated step exercise in
the passage. Then the door opened and Coombes appeared. But
it was Coombes transfigured. The immaculate collar had been
torn carelessly from his throat. His carefully brushed silk
hat, half-full of a crush of fungi, was under one arm; his
coat was inside out, and his waistcoat adorned with bunches of
yellow-blossomed furze. These little eccentricities of Sunday
costume, however, were quite overshadowed by the change in his
face; it was livid white, his eyes were unnaturally large and
bright, and his pale blue lips were drawn back in a cheerless
grin. “Merry!” he said. He had stopped dancing to open the door.
“Rational ’njoyment. Dance.” He made three fantastic steps into
the room and stood bowing.
“Jim!” shrieked Mrs Coombes, and Mr Clarence sat petrified, with
a drooping lower jaw.
“Tea,” said Mr Coombes. “Jol’ thing, tea. Tose-stools, too.
Brosher.”
“He’s drunk,” said Jennie in a weak voice. Never before had she
seen this intense pallor in a drunken man, or such shining,
dilated eyes.
_The Purple Pileus_
OTHER NOVELISTS
=1. George Gissing (1857–1903)= was born at Wakefield, and concluded
his education at Owens College, Manchester. He took to literature, but
with little success, and for years lived in dire poverty. In time his
books met with a somewhat wider acceptance, though they were never
popular; and his scholarship and the high quality of his literary
criticism always commanded respect. He died in the Pyrenees, whither
failing health had compelled him to go.
His novels are almost entirely devoted to the lives of the poorer
classes: _Workers of the Dawn_ (1880), _The Unclassed_ (1884), _Demos_
(1889), _Grub Street_ (1891), and _The Odd Women_ (1893) are only a
selection from his books. His _Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft_ (1903)
is partly autobiographical, and is an excellent example of his style.
He handles his subjects with a depressing fidelity that will always
restrict his novels to a narrow circle of readers. He lacks Mr. Hardy’s
Elizabethan largeness of vision, and will not rank as a really great
writer, but he deserves honorable mention as a novelist who in poverty
and distress would not bow the knee to false gods, who steadily kept in
view the highest ideals, and who died true to his literary faith.
=2. George Moore=, born in Mayo in the year 1857, is the son of
a landowner in that county. He was educated at Oscott, and then for
some years studied art in Paris. During those years he imbibed that
passion for French art and French fiction that was never to leave him.
As an artist he had no success; but as a novelist, after a moderate
beginning, he has won the admiration of an important section of the
reading public. He is a man of varied but unstable enthusiasms, which
are reflected in his novels. In the course of time he was caught up in
the Celtic Revival, which he valiantly served with his pen, though he
was not backward in candid criticism of it.
Mr. Moore began authorship with two volumes of verse, the first of
which was _Flowers of Passion_ (1878). Neither of them was of any
great merit. He started his career as a novelist as disciple of the
great French realist Zola, publishing in this manner _A Mummer’s Wife_
(1884). This novel, a squalid tale unrelieved by any bright touches,
followed the example of Zola with much audacity, and shocked the more
staid opinion in England. Other stories of the same kind followed, the
more noteworthy being _A Drama in Muslin_ (1886) and _The Confessions
of a Young Man_ (1888). His more mature works, though they never lacked
frankness, were rather more restrained in manner; characteristic
specimens were _Esther Waters_ (1894) and _Sister Teresa_ (1901).
Subsequently he wrote some attractive books of reminiscence, of which
the best is _Hail and Farewell_, published in three volumes between the
years 1911 and 1914.
In his later books Mr. Moore’s style is delightfully sweet and clear.
The earlier books, in which he followed his model with a devoted
fidelity, are devoid of the ornaments of style. In humor he is often
whimsical and charming, though his wit seldom lacks the sharp touch of
satire.
=3. Rudyard Kipling= was born (1865) at Bombay, where his father was an
official. He was educated in Devonshire, and wished to join the Army,
a project that had to be abandoned. Returning to India, he joined the
editorial staff of the Lahore _Civil and Military Gazette_ and of _The
Pioneer_. For these journals he began writing short stories, which very
soon attracted an attention that became worldwide. After some years’
residence in the United States, Mr. Kipling settled in England. For a
time his popularity was immense, and received international recognition
in the award of the Nobel Prize for literature (1907). Passing years
have dimmed his brightness, and recently his voice has fallen nearly
silent.
Mr. Kipling first became known as a writer of short stories, and it is
upon the short story that his fame will probably rest. As the writer
of such a type of fiction he is very well equipped: he has a genius
for terse narrative, a swift eye for dramatic incident and detail, a
capacity for touching off men’s characters, and a style which, though
it may be cocksure and jerky, is none the less attractive and intensely
individual. _Plain Tales from the Hills_ (1887) and _Soldiers Three_
(1888) are among the most enjoyable of the volumes of short stories. In
his longer tales he is less at his ease. _The Light that Failed_ (1891)
is not a great success; but _Kim_ (1901), a kind of picaresque Indian
tale, is crammed with a rich abundance of observation and description.
The two _Jungle Books_ (1894 and 1895) are among the most delightful of
books written for children.
As a poet of Army life and of British Imperialism Mr. Kipling was
long a notable figure. The climax came during the South African War
of 1899–1902; after that the patriotic poem began to suffer eclipse.
A good deal of Mr. Kipling’s poetry is brazen and commonplace, but it
rarely lacks energy and picturesqueness. In such pieces as _Mandalay_,
however, he touches the deeper springs of humanity, and becomes a real
poet; and in _The Recessional_ (1897), a short poem that in essence
expresses the negation of all his usual teachings, he has attained to
poetical greatness.
=4. Arnold Bennett=, whose full name is Enoch Arnold Bennett, was born
in North Staffordshire in 1867. He was educated at Newcastle, and
studied for the law, which he later forsook for journalism (1893). He
was on the staff of _Woman_ till 1900, when his books claimed all his
time.
Mr. Bennett’s most notable contribution to the novel is a group of
interrelated stories dealing with his native Staffordshire. These
stories, very full in detail, are realistic presentations of the
squalid life of the pottery district; the personages introduced are
commonplace, and the style, though it does not lack vivacity and humor,
is studiously subdued. _Anna of the Five Towns_ (1902), _The Old Wives’
Tale_ (1908), _Clayhanger_ (1910), _Hilda Lessways_ (1911), and _These
Twain_ (1916) represent this group. _The Card_ (1911) is lighter and
more humorous; and _The Pretty Lady_ (1918), rather unequal, contains
some telling reflections upon modern society.
Like Mr. Hardy, Mr. Bennett has essayed to render with artistic
completeness the life of one section of England; unlike Mr. Hardy,
however, he tends to become swamped with detail, so that he fails to
give his works unity and singleness of purpose. In addition, his style
has a certain aridity and a lack of flavor and attraction. On the other
hand, he writes with clearness and care, his humor is reticent but
keenly penetrating, and his character-drawing able and realistic.
=5. Compton Mackenzie= may be taken as the latest type of novelist
who will claim our attention. Born at West Hartlepool in 1883, he was
the son of Mr. Edward Compton, the well-known actor. He was educated
at St. Paul’s School and at Oxford, and then became associated with
literature and the stage. He served in the South African War, and in
the Great War he was with the Naval Division in the Dardanelles.
After publishing _Poems_ (1907), Mr. Mackenzie produced _The Passionate
Elopement_ (1911), a novel of much promise, that was realized in
_Carnival_ (1912), a story dealing partly with theatrical life, and
revealing much shrewd insight and satirical humor. Like Thackeray and
Mr. Bennett, Mr. Mackenzie developed the novel series, introducing the
same people into several successive stories. _Sinister Street_ (1914),
_Guy and Pauline_ (1915), _Sylvia Scarlett_ (1918), and _Sylvia and
Michael_ (1919), are more or less closely interrelated in theme. _Poor
Relations_ (1919) revealed a rich and somewhat unexpected vein of light
comedy, which Mr. Mackenzie did not improve upon in _Rich Relatives_
(1921). Much of Mr. Mackenzie’s work is of unnecessary length, and
much of it, in comformity with the modern manner, is laboriously and
somewhat unpleasantly detailed in its revelation of personal and social
relations; but his writing is seldom lacking in competence; it has
ease, versatility, and a certain cool urbanity; and at its best it
reaches a high level.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
=1. His Life.= Mr. Shaw, born in Dublin in 1856, is the son of a
retired civil servant. His early education was received in Dublin, and
at the age of fifteen he was earning his living as a clerk. Coming to
London (1876), he tried novel-writing as an alternative to clerking,
but with no success at all. He was one of the first members (1884) of
the Fabian Society, and took a vigorous part in its socialistic work.
A witty and voluble speaker, not without moments of real eloquence, he
was much in demand as a lecturer. In 1885 he began his connection with
journalism, and was successively on the staff of several London papers,
writing on music, painting, and the drama. In music he was a strong
advocate of Wagner. The dramatic works of the great Norwegian Ibsen
were for long his pet subject. During the years 1895–98 his dramatic
articles in _The Saturday Review_ attracted much attention owing
to the freshness of their opinions and the vitality of their style.
About this time he started to write and produce plays of his own; and
with them he began his long verbal contest with the British public
over their failure to appreciate the merit of his work. In the end,
owing partly to his own voluble persistence, but chiefly to the virtues
inherent in his dramas, he won the day; so that a new play by Mr. Shaw,
if indeed it does not command a wide acceptance of its views, is at
least received as a powerful and stimulating addition to the dramatic
literature of our time.
=2. His Novels.= Mr. Shaw began his career as an author by
writing four novels which were rejected by every publisher in London,
and subsequently saw the light in obscure periodicals of socialistic
sympathies. The best of the four are _The Irrational Knot_ (1880)
and _Cashel Byron’s Profession_ (1882). He republished the books
in 1901, calling them “Novels of my Nonage.” To readers acquainted with
the later writings of Mr. Shaw there are several familiar features
plainly to be seen: the straight, clean thrust of the style, the
bold and dramatic portraiture of the characters, and the irreverent
mishandling of treasured institutions. There is even the note typical
of the earliest plays--a curious frigidity and barrenness of emotion,
as if the novelist had made a vow to cut sentiment clean out of his
books. The crude socialism preached in the stories probably scared the
publishers; for, though they by no means represent even the average of
Mr. Shaw’s work, they are always readable and often amusing.
=3. His Plays.= As a playwright Mr. Shaw began as a disciple of
Ibsen. In his early attempts he succeeded in reproducing the cold and
intellectual realism of the great Norwegian, but he quite failed to
catch the humane and intensely romantic idealism that lies deep within
the heart of the Ibsen plays. _Widowers’ Houses_ (1885), a didactic
play on the subject of slum-property, was a discouraging beginning to
his play-writing. It was hard and repulsive in sentiment; it lacked
the later Shavian high spirits and verbal acrobatics; and it appealed
only to a small circle of enthusiasts. _The Philanderer_ (1893) was
much lighter and more attractive, though it did not lack harsher
touches, almost callous in their nonchalance; it showed, however,
the beginning of that mastery of the technique of the stage that was
henceforth to distinguish nearly all Mr. Shaw’s plays. _Mrs. Warren’s
Profession_ (1893), grimmer and abler, was refused a license by the
censor of plays; and then with _Arms and the Man_ (1894) Mr. Shaw had
his first successful bout with the British public. In the play the
satiric intention was obvious, for the “glories” of war were freely
ridiculed; but the satire was so overlaid with a briskness of action,
with a rocketing interchange of witticisms, and with an almost reckless
display of high spirits that both the general public and the cautious
critics were taken by storm. From this point Mr. Shaw never looked
back, and his plays appeared in a steady procession. We can mention
only the more important of them: _Candida_ (1894), an attempt at the
romantic sentimental comedy, only too rare with Mr. Shaw; _You Never
Can Tell_ (1896), purely and hilariously comic, and masterly from
beginning to end; _Cæsar and Cleopatra_ (1898), quaintly serio-comic,
but picturesque and brilliant; _Man and Superman_ (1903), containing
many of its author’s opinions expressed with startling audacity, but
too long and voluble; _John Bull’s Other Island_ (1904), on the Irish
question; _The Doctor’s Dilemma_ (1906), very censorious on the medical
profession; and _Androcles and the Lion_ (1912). At this point the
War intervened, and the effects of it on Mr. Shaw’s acutely sensitive
mind, along with the pressure of increasing years, can be seen in the
style of the later plays. One can detect a certain waning strength.
The energy and gayety are still visible, but they appear fitfully; the
high scorn is apt to degenerate into querulousness; and there is a
hardening of temper, for which the dramatist tries to atone by fits of
puerile burlesque. _Heartbreak House_ (1917) is abrupt and even savage
in places; and _Back to Methuselah_ (1920), in spite of its infinity of
range and the brilliance of disconnected passages, is heavy with the
weight of mortality.
We have still to mention Mr. Shaw’s prefaces, which are remarkable
features of his plays. As the plays successively appeared, the prefaces
increased in length, till they began to rival in importance the
plays themselves. Each of them is a tractate on some question that
for the time engrossed the attention of the playwright. For example,
the preface to _Cæsar and Cleopatra_ deals in Shavian fashion with
Shakespeare, that to _Androcles and the Lion_ with early Christianity,
and that to _Back to Methuselah_ with what he calls Creative Evolution.
The prefaces are diffuse, paradoxical, and egotistical; but they are
brilliant and incisive, and they represent the best of Mr. Shaw’s
non-dramatic prose.
=4. Features of his Plays.= (_a_) _Their Wit._ The distinction between
wit and humor is commonly expressed by saying that humor appeals to
the emotions, whereas wit touches only the intellect: humor deals
with incidents and actions, wit with words and phrases. Mr. Shaw
ranks among the greatest wits in the language. He delights in the
quick cut and thrust of verbal sword-play, in the clever distortion
of a phrase, and in the brilliant paradoxical sally of the intellect.
It is this wittiness that has given him his commanding position in
foreign countries. It is not that Mr. Shaw is inhumanly devoid of
emotion and sympathy, but he is afraid of such emotions, and often
deliberately stifles them. In _Candida_ he attains to a high level of
delicate sentimentality, but in _How He lied to Her Husband_ he jeers
at the admirers of his own handiwork. In his later plays he wearies a
little over this exuberant play of wit. In _Back to Methuselah_, for
example, perhaps the most attractive feature is a mood of sere romantic
melancholy.
(_b_) _His Contribution to the Drama._ Mr. Shaw’s long experience as a
dramatic critic taught him at least what he was to avoid. When he began
his career as a dramatist the theater was given up to the production
of frivolous and even immoral pieces. Mr. Shaw vitalized this stuffy
atmosphere, gave to play-writing a strong and vigorous tone, and
added to it a spirit of broad comedy. From the purely formal point of
view, he employed all the devices of stagecraft to give his plays an
attractive and realistic setting. As regards the literary side of his
plays, he marks in his work a great increase in the importance given
to the stage-directions. Like Ibsen, he elaborates this feature of his
plays till on the printed page they are almost as important as the
dialogue. He is reverting to the precepts of Aristotle, who maintained
that the drama is an affair of _action_, not of speech. Consequently
Mr. Shaw’s plays often read like an interesting hybrid between the
novel and the drama. We add an extract to illustrate this combination
of speech and action:
_Behind the Emperor’s box at the Coliseum, where the
performers assemble before entering the arena. In the middle
a wide passage leading to the arena descends from the floor
level under the imperial box. On both sides of this passage
steps ascend to a landing at the back entrance to the box. The
landing forms a bridge across the passage. At the entrance to
the passage are two bronze mirrors, one on each side._
_On the west side of this passage, on the right hand of
anyone coming from the box and standing on the bridge, the
martyrs are sitting on the steps. Lavinia is seated half-way
up, thoughtfully trying to look death in the face. On her left
Androcles consoles himself by nursing a cat. Ferrovious stands
behind them, his eyes blazing, his figure stiff with intense
resolution. At the foot of the steps crouches Spintho, with his
head clutched in his hands, full of horror at the approach of
martyrdom._
_On the east side of the passage the gladiators are standing
and sitting at ease, waiting, like the Christians, for their
turn in the arena. One (Retiarius) is a nearly naked man with a
net and trident. Another (Secutor) is in armour with a sword.
He carries a helmet with a barred visor. The Editor of the
gladiators sits on a chair a little apart from them._
_The Call Boy enters from the passage._
_The Call Boy._ Number six. Retiarius _versus_ Secutor.
_The gladiator with the net picks it up. The gladiator with
the helmet puts it on; and the two go into the arena, the
net-thrower taking out a little brush and arranging his hair
as he goes, the other tightening his straps and shaking his
shoulders loose. Both look at themselves in the mirrors before
they enter the passage._
_Lavinia._ Will they really kill one another?
_Spintho._ Yes, if the people turn down their thumbs.
_The Editor._ You know nothing about it. The people indeed! Do you
suppose we would kill a man worth perhaps fifty talents to please the
riff-raff? I should like to catch any of my men at it.
_Spintho._ I thought----
_The Editor_ [_contemptuously_]. You thought! Who cares what
_you_ think? _You’ll_ be killed all right enough.
_Spintho_ [_groans and again hides his face_].!!!...
_Lavinia._ Does the Emperor ever interfere?
_The Editor._ Oh yes; he turns his thumb up fast enough if the
vestal virgins want to have one of his pet fighting men killed.
_Androcles and the Lion_
(_c_) _His Defects._ As a dramatist Mr. Shaw has many faults.
When he is anxious to expound one of his opinions he subordinates the
dramatic interest and permits his characters to become merely the
mouthpieces of his views. Jack Tanner, the chief character in _Man
and Superman_, is the stock example of such a personage. Nearly all
his characters, moreover, though they are galvanically active, hardly
impress the reader as being actually alive. Like Dickens, Mr. Shaw is
skillful in the creation of freaks and oddities, but he is weak in the
presentation of living and ordinary people.
(_d_) _His Opinions._ Like Mr. Wells, Mr. Shaw holds decided
views on many subjects, from phonetics to the construction of the
universe, and he is not backward in expressing them. More than once he
has declared that he would never have written a word if he had not some
message to convey. He has, however, a curious method of exposition,
which he has purposely developed in order to shock his opponents into
attention: a jesting, paradoxical mishandling of the truth, often
glaringly personal, and stated with almost brutal clearness. As a
result Mr. Shaw rarely finds himself taken seriously by the superficial
reader, though the deep underlying seriousness of his opinions is
nearly always perceptible to the attentive mind. It has often been
urged that his opinions are purely destructive; and his efforts to
provide alternatives to the institutions he condemns are not always of
the happiest.
(_e_) _His Style._ Like his great fellow-countryman Swift,
Mr. Shaw has a powerful and logical mind, with the same fierce satiric
purpose and (it may be added) the same type of Irish nationalism. His
prose is more amusing, less destructive, more diffuse, and less simple
than that of the great Dean. In his dramatic dialogue, however, Mr.
Shaw is pithy, direct, and absolutely clear. The example already given
shows its character.
We add a brief specimen of his expository prose. It is the peroration
to a long preface, and therefore somewhat more elevated in style
than the average. It contains a characteristic mock-serious personal
reference which sheds light on Mr. Shaw’s own opinion of his work.
I now find myself inspired to make a second legend of Creative
Evolution without distractions and embellishments. My sands
are running out; the exuberance of 1901 has aged into the
garrulity of 1920; and the war has been a stern intimation that
the matter is not one to be trifled with. I abandon the legend
of Don Juan with its erotic associations, and go back to the
legend of the Garden of Eden. I exploit the eternal interest of
the philosopher’s stone which enables men to live for ever. I
am not, I hope, under more illusion than is humanly inevitable
as to the crudity of this my beginning of a Bible for Creative
Evolution. I am doing the best I can at my age. My powers are
waning; but so much the better for those who found me unbearably
brilliant when I was in my prime. It is my hope that a hundred
apter and more elegant parables by younger hands will soon leave
mine as far behind as the religious pictures of the fifteenth
century left behind the first attempts of the early Christians
at inconography. In that hope I withdraw and ring up the curtain.
_Preface to “Back to Methuselah”_
OTHER DRAMATISTS
=1. Oscar O. W. Wilde (1856–1900)= was the son of a famous Irish
surgeon, and was educated at Dublin and Oxford. At Oxford he
distinguished himself both as a scholar and as an eccentric. In the
latter capacity he posed as an “æsthete” in opposition to the common
type of “athlete,” wearing fantastic garments, and behaving with an
extraordinary combination of folly, extravagance, and presumption.
On leaving the university he dabbled in literature in an amateurish
fashion, writing poems, novels, and plays, and contributing to
magazines and reviews. His opinions--he held that “morality” does not
exist in “art”--led to much heated discussion, and to many charges
being made against his moral character. Wilde instituted proceedings
for libel, which in turn brought to light many unpleasant facts against
him, and in the end landed him in jail (1895). On regaining his liberty
(1897) he lived a wandering life on the Continent, and died miserably
in Paris.
Wilde’s early poems and novels, an example of which latter is _The
Picture of Dorian Gray_ (1891), are sumptuous in detail, cynically
phrased, and richly ornamented in style;[237] but over them all
is a curious taint, a faint malodorous corruption, that repels
the healthy-minded reader. His plays, however, almost escape this
infection. In tone they are hard and cynical, and in the portrayal
of character they are exceedingly weak, but they are brilliant with
epigram and telling phrase, are ingeniously contrived, and have many
clever situations. They are the cleverest society comedies since the
days of Wilde’s great fellow-country-man Sheridan. The best of them are
_Lady Windermere’s Fan_ (1892) and _The Importance of Being Earnest_
(1895).
=2. John Galsworthy= (born in 1867) in drama takes the place occupied
in the novel by Gissing. In sincerity, in his close scrutiny of the
vexed problems of to-day, and in his deep sympathy for the poor and
wretched Mr. Galsworthy much resembles the earlier novelist. As a
playwright, however, he is too deeply engrossed with his problems to do
complete justice to his talents. He is too serious, his humor is wan
and meager, and the severe detachment of his plays makes them rather
cold and depressing. _The Silver Box_ (1906) deals with the inequality
of “justice” as it is administered in the police courts; _Joy_ (1907),
_Strife_ (1909), and _Justice_ (1910) discuss various social and
domestic problems; and _The Skin Game_ (1920) deals with the post-war
profiteer.
Mr. Galsworthy has written a considerable number of novels, which
culminate in _The Forsyte Saga_ (1922). This immense work includes
three longish novels and two shorter tales, all of which had previously
been published individually. In its breadth and power of comprehension,
and in its keen and destructive vision into social and personal
weaknesses, the book takes rank as one of the most noteworthy of the
present day.
=3. Sir James Barrie= was born in 1860 at Kirriemuir, a small town
in Forfarshire. Educated at Dumfries and at Edinburgh University, he
became a journalist, settling ultimately in London. His early sketches
and novels, such as _Auld Licht Idylls_ (1888), _A Window in Thrums_
(1889), and _Sentimental Tommy_ (1896), squared with the average
Englishman’s notions of Scotland, and were exceedingly successful.
The element of pathos was heavily drawn upon, and their quaint and
attractive humor--a delicate compound of fancy, pathos, and whimsical
sentiment--was something quite new of its kind.
His plays strongly resemble the novels. In them he displays a sweet
ethereal fancy that adds to the humor and pathos. _The Admirable
Crichton_ (1903) is fresh and delightful; _Peter Pan_, a golden venture
into unashamed nonsense, is to the stage what _Alice in Wonderland_
is to literature--a children’s classic; and _Quality Street_ (1901),
_What Every Woman Knows_ (1908), _A Kiss for Cinderella_ (1916), _Dear
Brutus_ (1917), and _Mary Rose_ (1920) have the sweetly sensitive
tears-in-laughter that make the Barrie plays quite different from all
others.
=4. John M. Synge (1871–1909)= deserves mention as being the most
important playwright of the purely Celtic school. He was always in
delicate health, and his period of play-writing was very brief. During
the years of his literary output he lived in close association with
Irish peasantry, especially that of the Aran Islands, where the Celtic
spirit is least affected by modern movements.
_The Shadow of the Glen_ (1903) and _Riders to the Sea_ (1904) are
short plays of one act; and with the longer plays called _The Well
of the Saints_ (1905), _The Playboy of the Western World_ (1907),
_The Tinker’s Wedding_ (1909), and _Deirdre of the Sorrows_ (1910),
they represent his published works. All portray the life of the Irish
peasant; but it is the peasant as viewed from the outside by the
cultured literary man. The observation is often keen, and the satiric
intention apparent; but the peasant remains an idealized literary
figure, and his language is idealized language. As acting plays,
moreover, they are heavy and lifeless, for Synge was little skilled
in stage technique. Their real importance lies in their style: a
slow-moving, wonderful prose, rich in poetic embellishment and sonorous
rhythms, and full of the typical Celtic mysticism. Consequently Synge’s
plays will be read far more than they will be acted. A specimen of his
style will be found on p. 568.
WRITERS OF MISCELLANEOUS PROSE
=1. Gilbert K. Chesterton= was born in London in the year 1874. He
was educated at St. Paul’s School, then studied art, but ultimately
became a journalist. He wrote much literary and miscellaneous prose
for journals, and distinguished himself as a writer of much ingenuity,
topsy-turvy humor, and a robust, rampageous style. His books of verse,
such as _Gray-beards at Play_ (1900), _The Wild Knight_ (1900), and
_Wine, Water, and Song_ (1915), are quite excellent in their way:
clever and vigorous, skillfully constructed, and genuinely funny. His
novels are fine-spun webs of ingenious nonsense, and include _The
Club of Queer Trades_ (1905) and _The Man Who was Thursday_ (1908).
His literary and miscellaneous work, often apparently willful and
inconsequent, is usually sane and substantial at bottom. His critical
work is well represented by his books on Dickens and Browning, and
his miscellaneous writing, gloriously Chestertonian, by _Tremendous
Trifles_ (1909) and _A Shilling for my Thoughts_ (1916).
=2. Hilaire Belloc=, the son of a Frenchman, was born in France in
1870. He was educated in England, served two years with the French
Artillery, and finished his education at Oxford University. Mr. Belloc
has contributed to most kinds of literature. His serious verses are
noteworthy for their ease and vigor, and his nonsense verses, such as
_A Bad Child’s Book of Beasts_, are excellent fooling. As a humorist
Mr. Belloc specializes in a super-solemnity of manner while he is
stating the most ridiculous problems. His humor, however, rarely lacks
the sharp stab of satire. His novels, like those of Disraeli, are a
shrewd commentary upon our political life. They have an unwinkingly
solemn humor, biting scorn scarcely concealed, and a clear and incisive
style. _Mr. Clutterbuck’s Election_ (1908) and _A Change in the
Cabinet_ (1909) come high in the thin ranks of the first-rate political
novel. His miscellaneous work is often clever, whimsically learned,
and often distinguished by the same parade of grave nonsense. _On
Nothing_ (1908) sets him high among modern essayists. His two travel
volumes, _The Path to Rome_ (1902) and _The Pyrenees_ (1909), in spite
of their somewhat labored mannerisms, deserve to become classical.
=3. Lord Morley (1838–1923)= is the sole writer of serious
miscellaneous prose that we have space to mention. He was born at
Blackburn, took his degree at Oxford, and became a journalist of a
Radical and philosophical type. He was in turn editor of more than one
important review, entered Parliament (1883), and was closely associated
with Mr. Gladstone during the struggles over the Irish Home Rule Bills.
He held high offices under the Liberal Government, was created Viscount
Morley of Blackburn (1908), and on the outbreak of war in 1914 retired
from public life.
Lord Morley wrote a great deal of literary, philosophical, and
miscellaneous work, distinguished by its scholarly care and accuracy,
by a deep but placable seriousness, and by a strong and flexible style.
His monographs on _Voltaire_ (1872), _Burke_ (1879), and _Walpole_
(1889) are models of what such brief works ought to be; his _Life of
Cromwell_ (1900) is a sane and scholarly treatment of a difficult
subject; and his monumental _Life of Gladstone_ (1903), though it lacks
proportion in some respects, is a well-filled storehouse of historical
fact, and, on this side of idolatry, a reverent tribute to a great man.
THE POETS
In the section that follows we have made a careful selection from the
poets of the period. Many more names might have been included, of a
value and interest little inferior to those given a place. In any case,
a selection such as this must be in the nature of an experiment, for
time alone will sift out the poems of permanent value.
=1. Sir William Watson= was born in 1858, the son of a Yorkshire
farmer, and was educated privately. His life has been devoted
to letters: a devotion that was recognized by Mr. Gladstone, who
transferred to him (1893) the Civil List pension that had been granted
to Tennyson. He was knighted in 1917.
His fairly abundant poetry includes _The Prince’s Quest_ (1880),
after the manner of Tennyson; _Wordsworth’s Grave_ (1890), the
style of which suggests the meditative poetry of Matthew Arnold;
_Lacrymæ Musarum_ (1893), which contains a fine elegy on the death
of Tennyson; _The Muse in Exile_ (1913); and _The Superhuman
Antagonists_ (1919). Sir William Watson is at his best as an elegiac
poet, when, though he is apt to become diffusely meditative, he writes
with sincerity and a scholarly enthusiasm. In the heroic vein, such as
he attempted in the last poem mentioned above, he is merely violent,
without being impressive. His political poetry, such as _The Year of
Shame_ (1897), is strong rhetorical verse, palpably sincere, but of
no high poetical merit.
=2. Francis Thompson (1859–1907)= had a career suggestive of that
of the poets of the eighteenth century. He was born in Lancashire, and
was dedicated to the profession of medicine. He abandoned medicine, and
went to London as a friendless literary adventurer. Then followed the
tragically familiar tale of loneliness, poverty, opium, and disease.
After a time (1893) his poems drew a little attention to himself, and
he was rescued just in time from the fate of Chatterton. His health,
however, was never fully restored, and finally he died of consumption.
In style and temper Thompson is a strange blend of the poets of
past epochs. He has the rapt religious enthusiasm and the soaring
imagination of the Metaphysical poets, as can be clearly seen in his
truly magnificent _Hound of Heaven_; or again, as in _The
Daisy_, he is the inspired babbler of the type of William Blake. In
one sense he wrote too much, when he marred his splendid lyrical energy
with too abundant detail; in another sense he wrote too little, for the
fire that was within him was extinguished before it could burn clear.
He is not quite another Coleridge, hag-ridden with opium, but at least
he is a lyrical poet far above mediocrity.
=3. John Masefield= (born 1874) has contributed much poetry to modern
literature. Quite a budget of long descriptive-narrative poems has come
from him, including _The Widow in the Bye Street_ (1912), a grimly
realistic tale; _Dauber_ (1913), full of the splendor and terror of
the sea; and _Reynard the Fox_ (1920), a bustling tale of the foxhunt.
These long poems are well informed and masterfully narrated, with many
purple passages of description, and in the grimmer incidents a strong
fidelity to fact that does not stop short of strong language. Mr.
Masefield’s shorter poems, though they do not include any great lyrics,
are dignified, reticent, and tuneful. He is undoubtedly at his best
when he writes of the sea, a subject that was never far from the hearts
of his great poetical predecessors.
=4. William H. Davies= was born at Newport, Monmouthshire, in 1870. In
his youth he emigrated to America, where he became a tramp, and then
served as a cattleman on a steamer. An accident in which he lost a
foot made him incapable of hard physical work, so for a living he sang
in the streets and lived in common lodging-houses. His first volume
of verse, _The Soul’s Destroyer_ (1906), rescued him from penury. His
_Collected Poems_ (1916) and _Forty New Pieces_ (1918) contain his best
work.
Like Burns, Mr. Davies is the natural, untaught lyrical genius. His
capacity is neither so deep nor so intense as that of Burns, but
within his limits he can write poems of great beauty. When he writes
of nature he almost recreates the spirit of Wordsworth, he shows such
insight, freshness, and ease. His artless simplicity is at times almost
grotesque, yet the reader cannot help admitting that it is in keeping
with his subject. This marked naïveté, however, is often given a queer
metaphysical twist; or it sometimes rises, with a mighty rhythm,
into passages of noble harmony. At least half a dozen of his shorter
pieces--the expressive _Thunderstorms_; the exquisite _Moon_, so old in
theme and so original in expression; the dainty _Sweet Stay-at-Home_,
with its haunting Caroline meter and phrasing; the absolutely perfect
_The White Cascade_, eight lines long; the provokingly beautiful
_Dreams of the Sea_, that one cries out upon as being too wonderful
to be merely imitative of the grand Marlowe manner; and the amazing
verses, Elizabethan to the core, beginning _When I Am Old_--are stamped
with immortality. The temptation to quote is irresistible:
(1) When I am old, and it is spring,
And joy leaps dancing, wild and free,
Clear out of every living thing,
While I command no ecstasy;
And to translate the songs of birds
Will be beyond my power in words:
* * * * *
For when these little songs shall fail,
These happy notes that to the world
Are puny mole-hills, nothing more,
That unto me are Alps of gold--
That toad’s dark life must be my own,
Buried alive inside a stone.
(2) Thou knowest the way to tame the wildest life,
Thou knowest the way to bend the great and proud:
I think of that Armada whose puffed sails,
Greedy and large, came swallowing every cloud.
But I have seen the sea-boy young and drowned,
Lying on shore, and, by thy cruel hand,
A seaweed beard was on his tender chin,
His heaven-blue eyes were filled with common sand.
And yet, for all, I yearn for thee again,
To sail once more upon thy fickle flood:
I’ll hear thy waves wash under my death-bed,
Thy salt is lodged for ever in my blood.
_Dreams of the Sea_
=5. John Drinkwater= (born 1882) was educated at Oxford High School,
and for a time worked in insurance offices. He has done much to revive
the modern drama, helping to found the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.
As a poet he is representative of the work of his day: meditative
rather than passionate, descriptive rather than narrative, and always
clear, competent, and precise. He is one of the best of modern
blank-verse writers. His shorter poems will be found in his _Poems of
1908–1914_ (1914) and _Swords and Ploughshares_ (1915).
=6. Rupert C. Brooke (1887–1915)= was educated at Rugby and Cambridge,
and for a time traveled in America. In 1914 he enlisted in the Royal
Naval Division, took part in the fighting at Antwerp, and died of fever
while on active service in the Dardanelles.
Brooke’s lamentably early death gave rise to a quite natural tendency
to overpraise his poetry. The exaggerated estimates made at his death
must be revised, and real justice done to his name. As a poet he is
not consistently great, but he is always readable, often delightfully
mannered and humorous (as in the poem called _Heaven_), and on at least
one occasion, in the splendid sonnet called _The Soldier_, touches
greatness. His sonnets are perhaps his best achievement. In this very
difficult species of composition he has the requisite technical skill
and delicate ear for rhythm, and he can catch the unmistakable surge
and swell that mark the successful sonnet.
We quote from his piece called _Heaven_. In felicity of phrasing and
aptness of humor it is of the best Metaphysical tradition.
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time,
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.
=7. William B. Yeats= was born in Dublin in 1865, and was educated
both in London and in his native city. He studied art, but his real
bent was literary. He was one of the chief supporters of the Celtic
Revival, helped to found the Irish Literary Theatre (1899), wrote plays
for it, and discovered other literary talent, including that of Mr.
Synge.
Mr. Yeats’s poetry was published in several volumes, and was issued in
a collected edition in 1908. _The Wanderings of Oisin_ (1889) was his
first volume, and among the rest we may mention _The Countess Cathleen_
(1892), a romantic drama, _The Wind among the Reeds_ (1899), containing
some of his best lyrics, and _The Wild Swans of Coole_ (1917). Of his
poetical plays _The Land of Heart’s Desire_ (1894) is perhaps the best,
and of the prose dramas _Cathleen ni Hoolihan_ (1902) is a fine example.
Mr. Yeats is a fastidious poet, writing little and revising often.
As a consequence the average merit of his poetry is very high; and
sometimes, as in the often-quoted _Lake Isle of Innisfree_, he breathes
the pathos and longing that are generally regarded as typical of
the Celtic spirit. His style has the usual Celtic peculiarities: a
meditative and melancholy beauty, a misty idealism, and a sweet and
dignified diction. Mr. Yeats is the most important of the modern Irish
poets.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY FORMS
=1. The Novel.= In mass of production the novel easily outdoes all
other species of literature; in general workmanship it has advanced
exceedingly; and in importance it probably deserves to take the first
place. We shall comment briefly upon a few of the outstanding lines of
development.
(_a_) _The Novel as Propaganda._ The “purpose novel” has long been a
feature of our literature, but was never so prominent as it is to-day.
It seems as if the novel were swallowing up the duties of the sermon,
the pamphlet, and the text-book. Of all the subjects that are discussed
social and religious questions are the most popular.
(_b_) _The Realism of the Novel._ This will probably be regarded
as typical of the age. The realistic novel certainly forms a large
proportion of the whole. In subject it deals with modern life in all
its complexity; in detail it seeks to reflect faithfully the world we
live in; and in style it is studiously subdued. How much this modern
development makes for the improvement of the novel is a question still
unsolved. In the hands of a novelist of the caliber of Mr. Hardy
realism becomes actual beauty, and George Gissing and Mr. Galsworthy
are able to make it artistically important. In lesser hands, however,
realism is apt to degenerate into squalor and ugliness, and the
studious simplicity of style becomes a dreary burden.
(_c_) _The Romantic Novel._ Along with the flood of realistic novels,
there is a steady stream of the romantic kind. Mr. Kipling, who seems
to delight in such mundane things as machinery, is concerned with
showing the intense romantic beauty behind them. Other writers, such as
=Maurice Hewlett= and =Kenneth Grahame=, are openly absorbed in things
that are remote and beautiful--the essential qualities of the romance.
On the other hand, it is unfortunately true that the historical novel
shows hardly a flicker of life.
(_d_) _The Commercializing of the Novel._ It is a common habit to decry
the age one lives in, and the present age is no exception. It is freely
declared that, in spite of the importance attained by the novel, there
are few great novelists, and that the level of merit, such as it is,
will rapidly fall. The decline, moreover, is (it is declared) due to
the stress that is being laid upon the commercial value of fiction.
Novels are now expensive things to publish; to make each one of them
worth publishing a large circulation must be assured; to ensure
this circulation the novel must appeal to the vulgar taste, and must
avoid originality and teasing literary devices--these are the charges
levelled against the modern novel. Such assertions are exaggerated, but
there is no doubt that the persistent desire to turn the novel into a
commercial chattel will lead to its decline as literature.
=2. The Short Story.= This type of fiction has become so important that
it is here necessary to give a very brief sketch of its development.
(_a_) _Definition._ To define a “short” story, we must clearly come to
some conclusion as to length. We can approximately define this length
by saying that a short story should be capable of being read at one
brief sitting.
(_b_) _Medium of Publication._ At the very outset a difficulty met
the writer of the short story: how was he to get his work published?
The short story is not long enough to appear as a book by itself.
There were two ways of overcoming the difficulty: by inserting (or
interpolating) the short story in the midst of a long one, or by using
it as an item in a magazine. We shall trace the development of both
these methods. The publication of collections of short stories in
volume form is a comparatively modern practice.
(_c_) _The Interpolated Story._ This was the earliest form of the
short story. As early as the romance of _Don Quixote_ we have one or
more of the characters of the main story relating some short tale that
acts as a foil to the principal narrative. The interpolated story is
a common device in the picaresque novel, and it is freely employed by
Defoe, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne. Scott, in his famous _Wandering
Willie’s Tale_, which is introduced in _Redgauntlet_, continues the
practice; and as late as Dickens we have the common use of short
stories, some of them of very inferior quality, in _The Pickwick
Papers_. At this point the interpolated story becomes quite rare in
good fiction, for the magazine has appeared on the scene and has
provided the natural medium for the genuine short story. In many cases
the interpolated tale is of great merit, but it spoils the unity of the
main story, and so it is better out of the way.
(_d_) _The Magazine Short Story._ The development of the popular
magazine led to the establishment of this class of tale. In English
its history can be said to begin with Addison, whose Coverley papers
are really a collection of short stories; the record continued through
the eighteenth century in the miscellaneous work of Goldsmith and Dr.
Johnson. During the first half of the nineteenth century there was
a decline in the production of the short story. The lighter type of
magazine was not yet in favor, and the more ponderous journals, like
_The Quarterly Review_ and _The Edinburgh Review_, which specialized in
literary and political articles, held the stage. _Blackwood’s Magazine_
and _The London Magazine_ encouraged the more popular kinds of fiction.
Among their contributors were James Hogg, De Quincey, and Charles
Lamb. Some of the essays of these writers, such as Lamb’s famous tale
of roast pig, are short stories thinly disguised. Another contributor
of the same kind was =Douglas Jerrold (1803–57)=, whose _Cakes and
Ale_ (1842) is one of the first collections of short stories and
sketches. After the middle of the century there was a rapid increase in
part-fiction magazines, such as Dickens’s _All the Year Round_ (1859)
and Thackeray’s _Cornhill Magazine_ (1860). As the century drew near
its close the number of lighter magazines largely increased, until
nowadays we have a large proportion entirely given over to the supply
of fiction. Nearly all the writers of the modern epoch have taken to
the short story, and most of them have issued this class of their work
in volume form. To the names already mentioned in this chapter we may
add those of =Sir Arthur Conan Doyle= (born 1859) and =W. W. Jacobs=
(born 1863). The former struck a rich vein in the popular detective
story, and the latter specialized in the humorous presentation of the
longshoreman.
=3. The Drama.= (_a_) _The Poetical Drama._ In this class of drama
there is little to set on record. The blank-verse tragedy is
still written with skill and enthusiasm, but there is little of
outstanding merit, and nothing of originality. The poetical dramas
of Mr. Yeats--for example, _The Countess Cathleen_ (1892) and _The
Shadowy Waters_ (1900)--have all his mystical beauty, and are the most
original of their class. =Stephen Phillips (1868–1915)= achieved some
distinction, and even considerable stage success, with his smooth
and Tennysonian blank-verse tragedies, such as _Paolo and Francesca_
(1899), _Ulysses_ (1902), and _The Virgin Goddess_ (1910). Mr. Hardy’s
_Dynasts_ is dramatic only in form; it is rather a philosophical poem
with a dramatic setting.
(_b_) _The Prose Drama._ In this age the activity of the prose drama is
second only to that of the novel. The mood of the time is essentially
critical, and the prose drama is an excellent medium for expressing
such a mood. Among the earliest of the modern dramatists is =Sir
Arthur Pinero= (born 1855), and we can trace the development through
the work of Mr. Galsworthy, already mentioned, and of =St. John Hankin
(1869–1909)= and =Granville Barker= (born 1877). Their plays have the
note of the realistic novel in the emphasis they lay upon common life
and common speech. The plays of Mr. Shaw, by reason of their wit and
high spirits, stand rather apart from this class; and the brilliance of
the Wilde comedies is that of a past age.
=4. Poetry.= (_a_) The main poetical tendency of the time is toward the
_lyric_, especially toward a chastened and rather tepid form of it. Of
this class, the lyrics of Sir William Watson are fairly typical. Mr.
Davies’s best pieces, and some of Mr. Hardy’s, are good examples of the
simple and direct lyric, and Francis Thompson excels in the descriptive
style.
(_b_) In the class of _descriptive-narrative poetry_ we have the
sea-pieces of Mr. Masefield and the rustic poetry of Mr. Drinkwater. To
these we must add the work of =Ralph Hodgson= (born 1871), several of
whose poems, in particular _The Bull_ and _The Song of Honour_, have
some of the ecstatic energy of the young Coleridge.
(_c_) In addition to what we may call the standard types of poetry,
there are experiments in _vers libre_, or _free verse_ (that is,
rhymeless verse of the type of Matthew Arnold’s _The Strayed
Reveller_), and the more daring efforts of others who defy the
conventions of rhyme, meter, and even intelligibility. Experiments such
as these are all for the good of poetry, which, if it is to live at
all, must live by progressing. So far, the attempts of the innovators
have produced nothing that is really noteworthy; and with that we must
leave them.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY STYLE
=1. Poetry.= As can easily be understood, in such a troubled age
there is little uniformity in style. The average verse is distinguished
by a correct and scholarly diction, somewhat ornate, but clear and ably
used. Of the highly ornate style there is little to mention, except the
more elaborate compositions of Francis Thompson; but from the scholarly
elegance of =Dr. Bridges= (born 1844) we may run down the scale
of simplicity through the mannered graces of Mr. Kipling, the crabbed
satiric verses of Mr. Hardy, the high simplicity of Mr. Davies, to
the sweet child-verse of =Walter de la Mare= (born 1873), whose
_Songs of Childhood_ (1902), _Peacock Pie_ (1913), and other
volumes are the almost perfect expression of artless youth. When we
arrive here we cannot allow to pass unnoticed the lyrics of =James
Stephens= (born 1882), whose poems of country life are simplicity
itself, but full of the deepest sympathy. His short poem called _The
Snare_ is a little masterpiece.
When simplicity develops further it becomes realism, and in poetry
the prevailing taste is revealed. The European War, as was natural,
produced a crop of realistic poems. Of this kind are the verses of
=Siegfried Sassoon= (born 1886), whose war-poems are distinguished
by a passionate desire to get to grips with reality.
=2. Prose.= In this age, as in most other ages, there is much
lamentation over the decay of English prose. There is probably a great
deal of truth in the charge that our prose is lapsing into slovenly
ways, and there is no doubt that the stress of modern methods leads to
haphazard and makeshift production. On the other hand, we have but to
glance at the names that have a place in this chapter to find exponents
of prose styles who represent the best traditions: the reverent respect
shown for English in the ornate prose of Mr. Conrad; the massive
middle prose of Mr. Hardy; the sonorous and poetical mannerisms of the
Celts; the eighteenth-century grace and precision of Lord Morley; the
swift, clean swoop of the Shavian manner; and the quick ease of Mr.
Wells. Surely such an age is not unblessed. With regard to the future
none dare dogmatize; but, with a confidence born of the knowledge of
nineteen centuries, one can look forward undismayed.
GENERAL QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
NOTE.--_In answering some of the following questions the
General Tables (Appendix I) will be of use._
1. With the aid of the following and other quotations, give an account
of the origin and development of English blank verse. Compare and
contrast the styles of the given extracts.
(1) Now came still evening on, and twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied, for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale--
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleased. Now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light
And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.
MILTON, _Paradise Lost_
(2) At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam
Startles the pensive traveller while he treads
His lonesome path, with unobserving eye
Bent earthwards; he looks up--the clouds are split
Asunder,--and above his head he sees
The clear Moon, and the glory of the heavens.
There, in a black-blue vault she sails along,
Followed by multitudes of stars, that, small
And sharp and bright, along the dark abyss
Drive as she drives: how fast they wheel away,
Yet vanish not!--the wind is in the tree,
But they are silent;--still they roll along
Immeasurably distant; and the vault,
Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds,
Still deepens its unfathomable depth.
At length the Vision closes; and the mind,
Not undisturbed by the delight it feels,
Which slowly settles into peaceful calm,
Is left to muse upon the solemn scene.
WORDSWORTH, _The Prelude_
(3) And from the reading, and that slab I leant
My elbow on, the while I read and read
I turned, to free myself and find the world,
And stepped out on the narrow terrace, built
Over the street and opposite the church,
And paced its lozenge brickwork sprinkled cool;
Because Felice-church-side stretched, a-glow
Through each square window fringed for festival,
Whence came the clear voice of the cloistered ones
Chanting a chant made for midsummer nights--
I know not what particular praise of God,
It always came and went with June. Beneath
I’ the street, quick shown by openings of the sky
When flame fell silently from cloud to cloud,
Richer than that gold snow Jove rained on Rhodes,
The townsmen walked by twos and threes, and talked,
Drinking the blackness in default of air--
A busy human sense beneath my feet:
While in and out the terrace-plants, and round
One branch of tall datura, waxed and waned
The lamp-fly lured there, wanting the white flower.
Over the roof o’ the lighted church I looked
A bowshot to the street’s end, north away
Out of the Roman gate to the Roman road
By the river, till I felt the Apennine.
BROWNING, _The Ring and the Book_
2. Point out the features of each of the following extracts that are
typical of the author or his period. Write a brief critique of the
style of each.
(1) Although there be none so ignorant that doth not know,
neither any so impudent that will not confess, friendship to
be the jewel of human joy: yet whosoever shall see this amity
grounded upon a little affection, will soon conjecture that
it shall be dissolved upon a light occasion: as in the sequel
of Euphues and Philautus you shall soon see, whose hot love
waxed soon cold: for as the best wine doth make the sharpest
vinegar, so the deepest love turneth to the deadliest hate. Who
deserved the most blame, in mine opinion, it is doubtful and
so difficult, that I dare not presume to give verdict. For love
being the cause for which so many mischiefs have been attempted,
I am not yet persuaded whether of them was most to be blamed,
but certainly neither of them was blameless.
LYLY, _Euphues and his England_
(2) A doubtful truce restored the appearances of concord, till
the death of Abu Taleb abandoned Mahomet to the power of his
enemies, at the moment when he was deprived of his domestic
comforts by the loss of his faithful and generous Cadijah. Abu
Sophian, the chief of the branch of Ommiyah, succeeded to the
principality of the republic of Mecca. A zealous votary of
the idols, a mortal foe of the line of Hashem, he convened an
assembly of the Koreishites and their allies, to decide the fate
of the apostle. His imprisonment might provoke the despair of
his enthusiasm; and the exile of an eloquent and popular fanatic
would diffuse the mischief through the provinces of Arabia.
His death was resolved; and they agreed that a sword from each
tribe should be buried in his heart, to divide the guilt of the
blood, and baffle the vengeance of the Hashemites. An angel or a
spy revealed their conspiracy; and flight was the only resource
of Mahomet. At the dead of night, accompanied by his friend
Abubeker, he silently escaped from his house: the assassins
watched at the door; but they were deceived by the figure of
Ali, who reposed on the bed, and was covered with the green
vestment of the apostle.
GIBBON, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_
(3) There was no sleeping in the daytime on the planter’s
clearing: the wages were too high to risk. Deesa sat on Moti
Guj’s neck and gave him orders, while Moti Guj rooted up the
stumps--for he owned a magnificent pair of tusks; or pulled at
the end of a rope--for he had a magnificent pair of shoulders;
while Deesa kicked behind the ears and said he was the king of
elephants. At evening time Moti Guj would wash down his three
hundred pounds’ weight of green food with a quart of arrack,
and Deesa would take a share and sing songs between Moti Guj’s
legs till it was time to go to bed. Once a week Deesa led Moti
Guj down to the river, and Moti Guj lay on his side luxuriously
in the shallows, while Deesa went over him with a coir-swab and
a brick.... Then Deesa would look at his feet, and examine his
eyes, and turn up the fringes of his mighty ears in case of
sores or budding ophthalmia. After inspection, the two would
“come up with a song from the sea,”
Moti Guj all black and shining, waving a torn tree branch twelve
feet long in his trunk, and Deesa knotting up his own long wet
hair.
KIPLING, _Moti Guj--Mutineer_
(4) As the dawn was just breaking he found himself close to
Covent Garden. The darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint
fires, the sky hollowed itself into a perfect pearl. Huge carts
filled with nodding lilies rumbled slowly down the polished
empty street. The air was heavy with the perfume of the flowers,
and their beauty seemed to bring him an anodyne for his pain. He
followed into the market, and watched the men unloading their
waggons. A white-smocked carter offered him some cherries. He
thanked him, and wondered why he refused to accept any money for
them, and began to eat them listlessly. They had been plucked at
midnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them.
A long line of boys carrying crates of striped tulips, and of
yellow and red roses, defiled in front of him, threading their
way through the huge jade-green piles of vegetables. Under the
portico, with its grey sun-bleached pillars, loitered a group of
draggled, bareheaded girls, waiting for the auction to be over.
Others crowded round the swinging doors of the coffee-house in
the Piazza. The heavy cart-horses slipped and stamped upon the
rough stones, shaking their bells and trappings. Some of the
drivers were lying asleep on a pile of sacks. Iris-necked and
pink-footed, the pigeons ran about picking up seeds.
WILDE, _The Picture of Dorian Gray_
3. With the aid of the following extracts, and of others known to you,
say what subjects are best suited to the simple style in poetry. State
the merits of the style, and its limitations. Write a critical note
upon each of the given extracts.
(1) Dreamers, mark the honey bee;
Mark the tree
Where the blue cap “_tootle tee_”
Sings a glee,
Sung to Adam and to Eve--
Here they be.
When floods covered every bough,
Noah’s ark
Heard that ballad singing now;
Hark, hark,
“_Tootle, tootle, tootle tee_”--
Can it be
Pride and fame must shadows be?
Come and see--
Every season owns her own;
Bird and bee
Sing creation’s music on;
Nature’s glee
Is in every mood and tone
Eternity
CLARE, _The Blue Tit_
(2) Few months of life has he in store
As he to you will tell,
For still, the more he works, the more
Do his weak ankles swell.
My gentle Reader, I perceive
How patiently you’ve waited,
And now I fear that you expect
Some tale will be related.
O Reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in every thing.
What more I have to say is short,
And you must kindly take it:
It is no tale; but, should you think,
Perhaps a tale you’ll make it.
WORDSWORTH, _Simon Lee_
(3) Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:
“Pipe a song about a lamb!”
So I piped with merry cheer.
“Piper, pipe that song again!”
So I piped; he went to hear.
* * * * *
“Piper, sit thee down, and write
In a book that all may read.”
So he vanished from my sight;
And I plucked a hollow reed,
And I made a rural pen,
And I stained the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.
BLAKE, _Songs of Innocence_
4. Sketch the history of the prose drama from the Restoration to modern
times. The following extracts are fairly typical of the style and
formal features of the drama:
(1) (_To them_) Lady WISHFORT _and_ FAINALL
_Lady Wishfort._ Nephew, you are welcome.
_Sir Wilfull Witwoud._ Aunt, your servant.
_Fainall._ Sir Wilfull, your most faithful servant.
_Sir Wilfull._ Cousin Fainall, give me your hand.
_Lady Wishfort._ Cousin Witwoud, your servant; Mr.
Petulant, your servant--nephew, you are welcome again. Will
you drink anything after your journey, nephew, before you eat?
Dinner’s almost ready.
_Sir Wilfull._ I’m very well I thank you, aunt--however, I
thank you for your courteous offer. ’Sheart, I was afraid you
would have been in the fashion too, and have remembered to have
forgot your relations. Here’s your cousin Tony, belike, I mayn’t
call him brother for fear of offence.
_Lady Wishfort._ O he’s a rallier, nephew--my cousin’s
a wit; and your great wits always choose to rally their
best friends. When you have been abroad, nephew, you’ll
understand raillery better. [FAINALL _and_ Mrs.
MARWOOD _talk apart_.
_Sir Wilfull._ Why then let him hold his tongue in the
meantime; and rail when that day comes.
CONGREVE, _The Way of the World_
(2) _Mrs. Candour._ What do you think of Miss Simper?
_Sir Benjamin Backbite._ Why, she has very pretty teeth.
_Lady Teazle._ Yes, and on that account, when she is
neither speaking nor laughing (which very seldom happens), she
never absolutely shuts her mouth, but leaves it always on a jar,
as it were--thus--[_Shows her teeth._
_Mrs. Candour._ How can you be so ill-natured?
_Lady Teazle._ Nay, I allow even that’s better than the
pains Mrs. Prim takes to conceal her losses in front. She
draws her mouth till it positively resembles the aperture of
a poor’s-box, and all her words appear to slide out edgewise
as it were thus: _How do you do, madam? Yes, madam._
[_Mimics._
_Lady Sneerwell._ Very well, Lady Teazle; I see you can be
a little severe.
_Lady Teazle._ In defence of a friend, it is but justice.
But here comes Sir Peter to spoil our pleasantry.
_Enter_ Sir PETER TEAZLE
_Sir Peter._ Ladies, your most obedient. [_Aside_]
Mercy on me, here is the whole set! a character dead at every
word, I suppose.
SHERIDAN, _The School for Scandal_
(3) _Sarah_ [_tidying herself, in great excitement_].
Let you be sitting here and keeping a great blaze, the way he
can look on my face; and let you seem to be working, for it’s a
great love the like of him have to talk of work.
_Michael_ [_moodily, sitting down and beginning to work
at a tin can_]. Great love, surely.
_Sarah_ [_eagerly_]. Make a great blaze now, Michael
Byrne.
[_The_ Priest _comes in on right; she comes
forward in front of him_.
_Sarah_ [_in a very plausible voice_]. Good evening,
your reverence. It’s a grand fine night, by the grace of God.
_Priest._ The Lord have mercy on us! What kind of living
woman is it that you are at all?
_Sarah._ It’s Sarah Casey I am, your reverence, the Beauty
of Ballinacree, and it’s Michael Byrne is below in the ditch.
_Priest._ A holy pair, surely! Let you get out of my way.
[_He tries to pass by._
_Sarah_ [_keeping in front of him_]. We are wanting a
little word with your reverence.
SYNGE, _The Tinker’s Wedding_
(4) HORNBLOWER _enters--a man of medium height, thoroughly
broadened, blown out, as it were, with success. He has thick,
coarse hair, just grizzled, very bushy eyebrows, a wide mouth.
He wears quite ordinary clothes, as if that department were in
charge of someone who knew about such things. He has a small
rose in his buttonhole, and carries a Homburg hat, which one
suspects will look too small on his head._
_Hornblower._ Good morning! good morning! How are ye,
Dawker? Fine morning! Lovely weather!
[_His voice has a curious blend in its tone of brass and oil,
and an accent not quite Scotch nor quite North country._
Haven’t seen ye for a long time Hillcrist.
_Hillcrist_ [_who has risen_]. Not since I sold you
Longmeadow and those cottages, I believe.
_Hornblower._ Dear me, now! that’s what I came about.
_Hillcrist_ [_subsiding again into his chair_].
Forgive me! Won’t you sit down?
_Hornblower_ [_not sitting_]. Have ye got gout? That’s
unfortunate. I never get it. I’ve no disposition that way. Had
no ancestors, you see. Just me own drinking to answer for.
_Hillcrist._ You’re lucky.
GALSWORTHY, _The Skin Game_
5. What do you understand by “Romanticism” in poetry? Point out any
Romantic features in the following extracts. Does Romanticism take any
other forms than those apparent in the given passages? Give an account
of what is commonly known as the Romantic Revival. Are there any other
periods in our literature in which Romanticism flourished?
(1) Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Hark! now I hear them--ding-dong, bell.
SHAKESPEARE, _The Tempest_
(2) And they are gone: aye, ages long ago
These lovers fled away into the storm.
That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe,
And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form
Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm,
Were long be-nightmared. Angela the old
Died palsy-twitched, with meagre face deform;
The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,
For aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold.
KEATS, _The Eve of St. Agnes_
(3) _At the Gate of the Sun, Bagdad, in olden time._
THE MERCHANTS (_together_)
Away, for we are ready to a man!
Our camels sniff the evening and are glad.
Lead on, O Master of the Caravan:
Lead on the Merchant-Princes of Bagdad.
THE CHIEF DRAPER
Have we not Indian carpets dark as wine,
Turbans and sashes, gowns and bows and veils,
And broideries of intricate design,
And printed hangings in enormous bales?
THE CHIEF GROCER
We have rose-candy, we have spikenard,
Mastic and terebinth and oil and spice,
And such sweet jams meticulously jarred
As God’s own Prophet eats in Paradise.
THE PRINCIPAL JEWS
And we have manuscripts in peacock styles
By Ali of Damascus; we have swords
Engraved with storks and apes and crocodiles,
And heavy beaten necklaces, for Lords.
J. E. FLECKER (1885–1915),
_The Golden Journey to Samarkand_
6. In what respects are the following passages realistic? What are
the chief aspects of realism in poetry? Are there any periods in our
literature when realism was a prominent feature?
(1) Tam was able
To note upon the haly table
A murderer’s banes in gibbet airns;[238]
Twa span-lang, wee unchristened bairns;
A thief new-cutted frae a rape,[239]
Wi’ his last gasp his gab[240] did gape;
Five tomahawks, wi’ blude red-rusted;
Five scimitars wi’ murder crusted;
A garter, which a babe had strangled,
A knife, a father’s throat had mangled,
Whom his ain son o’ life bereft,
The grey hairs yet stack to the heft.
BURNS, _Tam o’ Shanter_
(2) Here is a thing that happened. Like wild beasts whelped, for
den,
In a wild part of North England, there lived once two wild men
Inhabiting one homestead, neither a hovel nor hut,
Time out of mind their birthright: father and son, these--but--
Such a son, such a father! Most wildness by degrees
Softens away: yet, last of their line, the wildest and worst
were these.
* * * * *
Thus were they found by the few sparse folk of the countryside;
But how fared each with other? E’en beasts couch, hide by hide,
In a growling, grudged agreement: so, father and son aye curled
The closelier up in their den because the last of their kind in
the world.
BROWNING, _Halbert and Hob_
(3) (_A newcomer overhears some men discussing his wife._)
“And he knows nothing of her past;
I am glad the girl’s in luck at last;
Such ones, though stale to native eyes,
Newcomers snatch at as a prize.”
“Yes, being a stranger he sees her blent
Of all that’s fresh and innocent,
Nor dreams how many a love-campaign
She had enjoyed before his reign!”
That night there was the splash of a fall
Over the slimy harbour-wall:
They searched, and at the deepest place
Found him with crabs upon his face.
HARDY, _Satires of Circumstance_
(4) Some ancient man with silver locks
Will lift his weary face to say:
“War was a fiend who stopped our clocks
Although we met him grim and gay.”
And then he’ll speak of Haig’s last drive,
Marvelling that any came alive
Out of the shambles that men built
And smashed, to cleanse the world of guilt.
But the boys, with grin and sidelong glance,
Will think, “Poor grandad’s day is done.”
And dream of those who fought in France
And lived in time to share the fun.
SASSOON, _Songbooks of the War_
7. Trace the presence of realistic elements in the English novel from
Fielding to Thomas Hardy.
8. The following extracts illustrate the history of the ballad. What
features have they in common, and in what respects do they differ?
Trace the history of the ballad in English literature.
(1) The lady she walked in yon wild wood,
Aneath the hollin tree,
And she was aware of two bonny bairns
Were running at her knee.
“Now why pull ye the red rose, fair bairns,
And why the white lilie?”
“O we sue wi’ them at the seat of grace
For the soul of thee, ladie.”
She heard a voice, a sweet, low voice,
Say, “Weans, ye tarry lang”--
She stretched her hand to the youngest bairn,
“Kiss me before ye gang.”
She sought to take a lily hand,
And kiss a rosy chin--
“Oh nought sae pure can abide the touch
Of a hand red-wet wi’ sin!”
“O! where dwell ye, my ain sweet bairns,
I’m woe and weary grown!”
“O! lady, we live where woe never is,
In a land to flesh unknown.”
There came a shape that seemed to her
As a rainbow ’mang the rain;
And sair these sweet babes pled for her,
And they pled and pled in vain.
“And O! and O!” said the youngest babe,
“My mother maun come in.”
“And O! and O!” said the eldest babe,
“Wash her twa hands frae sin.”
“And O! and O!” said the youngest babe,
“She nursed me on her knee.”
“And O! and O!” said the eldest babe,
“She’s a mither yet to me.”
ANONYMOUS
(2) Good people all, of every sort,
Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wondrous short,
It cannot hold you long.
In Islington there was a man
Of whom the world might say,
That still a goodly race he ran
When’er he went to pray.
A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad
When he put on his clothes.
And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
And curs of low degree.
This dog and man at first were friends;
But when a pique began,
The dog, to gain some private ends,
Went mad and bit the man.
Around from all the neighbouring streets
The wondering neighbours ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits,
To bite so good a man.
The wound it seem’d both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;
And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.
But soon a wonder came to light,
That showed the rogues they lied:
The man recover’d of the bite,
The dog it was that died.
GOLDSMITH, _Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog_
(3) Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall
meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment
Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor
Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from
the ends of the earth!
Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the Border-side,
And he has lifted the Colonel’s mare that is the Colonel’s
pride:
He has lifted her out of the stable-door between the dawn and
the day,
And turned the calkins upon her feet, and ridden her far away.
KIPLING, _The Ballad of East and West_
9. What effects had Milton’s politics and public work upon his prose
and verse? In this respect compare him with Dryden. Write a general
essay upon “The Influence of Contemporary Events upon the Poet and the
Man of Letters.”
10. Observe the style and subject of each of the following extracts,
and name the author of each. Write a critical comparison of the
extracts. In what respects is each typical of its period?
(1) Then said Christian, “You make me afraid, but whither shall
I fly to be safe? If I go back to mine own country, that is
prepared for fire and brimstone; and I shall certainly perish
there. If I can get to the celestial city, I am sure to be in
safety there. I must venture. To go back is nothing but death;
to go forward is fear of death, and life everlasting beyond it.
I will yet go forward.” So Mistrust and Timorous ran down the
hill; and Christian went on his way. But thinking again of what
he heard from the men, he felt in his bosom for his roll, that
he might read therein and be comforted; but he felt and found it
not.
(2) His prose is the model of the middle style: on grave
subjects not formal, on light occasions not grovelling; pure
without scrupulosity, and exact without apparent elaboration;
always equable and always easy, without glowing words or pointed
sentences. Addison never deviates from his track to snatch a
grace; he seeks no ambitious ornaments and tries no hazardous
innovations. His page is always luminous, but never blazes in
unexpected splendour.
(3) Two men I honour, and no third. First, the toilworn
Craftsman that with earth-made Implement laboriously conquers
the Earth, and makes her man’s. Venerable to me is the hard
Hand; crooked, coarse; wherein notwithstanding lies a cunning
virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of the Sceptre of this Planet.
Venerable too is the rugged face, all weather-tanned, besoiled,
with its rude intelligence; for it is the face of a Man living
manlike. O, but the more venerable for thy rudeness, and even
because we must pity as well as love thee! Hardly-entreated
Brother! For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight
limbs and fingers so deformed: thou wert our Conscript, on whom
the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so marred.
11. Compare Shakespeare’s methods of description and characterization
with those of Chaucer. Wherein lies the difference, and wherein the
resemblance?
12. Give a historical account of the sonnet in English, from its
inception to the death of Tennyson. Who were the most successful
writers in this type of poetry, and why were they so successful?
13. Distinguish between wit and humor. In which class would you place
the works of Chaucer, Bernard Shaw, Swift, Thackeray, Charles Lamb,
Wilde, Goldsmith, and Shakespeare? Give reasons for your classification.
14. In what respects is Burns a national poet? Try to explain why in
this respect he is unique in British literature.
15. It has been said that Shakespeare’s women characters are more
important in his comedies than they are in his tragedies. Quote the
examples of some of his plays in support of this statement, and try to
account for it.
16. Compare any one of Shakespeare’s comedies with one by Goldsmith or
Sheridan.
17. Trace the Celtic (Irish and Scottish) influence in English
literature. Can you account for the comparative poverty of the Welsh
influence in English?
18. Mention some of the great English nature-poets. What is their
outlook upon nature? What aspects of nature particularly appealed to
them? State your preference among the poets you mention, quote from his
works, and give reasons for your choice.
19. Discuss the statement that “Wycliff, Langland, and Chaucer are the
three great figures of English literature in the Middle Ages.” Would
you place any of their contemporaries along with them?
20. What is Chaucer’s attitude to chivalry and to the Church? Compare
his Knight (in _The Prologue_) with a similar character of Spenser
and Tennyson.
21. Give a historical account of the English essay (_a_) from its
origin to the death of Addison; (_b_) from the death of Addison to the
death of Charles Lamb; (_c_) from the time of Lamb to modern times.
Then give a brief summary of the history of the essay, indicating its
periods of progress and decay.
22. What are the chief merits of the literary essay? Mention some
English essayists who approach the ideal essay-manner.
23. Distinguish between the tale and the novel. Show how the one
developed into the other. Give some account of one medieval and one
modern prose tale-teller.
24. Mention five books of exploration and travel. Give a more detailed
account of the one that appeals most strongly to you. What are the
ideals to which in your opinion the travel-book ought to aspire?
25. Compare Milton’s _Samson Agonistes_ with any tragedy by
Shakespeare.
26. Account for the late appearance of historical literature, and
sketch its subsequent development.
27. In the light of your knowledge of the English lyric criticize
Shelley’s statement that “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of
saddest thought.”
28. Give an account of the verse-tale (_a_) from Chaucer to Dryden
and (_b_) from Crabbe to William Morris. What style and meter are
best adapted to the verse-tale? Illustrate by means of extracts.
29. Estimate the importance of journalism as an aid to literature;
give a short account of its rise; and add a note upon the literary
attainments of modern journalism.
30. What effect had the attitude of the Church upon the early drama?
Has the Church exerted any influence, good or bad, on any other kind of
literature?
31. Mention some of the earliest literary critics in English; and
continue with a brief history of literary criticism up to modern times.
32. Mention three important biographies in English. In what respects do
they conform to the ideal biography?
33. Consider the works of Dickens, Wordsworth (especially his sonnets),
Samuel Butler (1835–1902), Milton (both prose and verse), Gibbon,
Bunyan, and Shelley as political, religious, or social propaganda.
Write a general essay on the use and abuse of propaganda in works of
literature.
34. Estimate the value of the work of the female novelist and the
poetess. In which of these two departments of literature is woman’s
achievement the higher? Does the level of her accomplishment show any
signs of rising?
35. Discuss Charles Lamb, Meredith, Walter Pater, John Ruskin, and R.
L. Stevenson as prose stylists. Write an account of prose style during
the nineteenth century.
36. What are the qualities of good poetical satire? Trace the course of
the satire in English from Dryden to Byron.
37. Compare Scott and Byron as poetical tale-tellers, as lyrical
writers, and as men. Comment upon the history of their respective
reputations.
38. What is meant by an “ode”? What are the requirements of a good ode?
Mention the chief odes in English, from those of Spenser to those of
Tennyson.
39. Compare _Lycidas_, _Adonais_, and _The Scholar-Gipsy_ as elegies.
Add to this an account of other important English elegies, and sketch
the growth of this type of poem.
40. Give a short account of six heroines in standard English novels;
add an account of six heroines of poems; and conclude with a
description of six of Shakespeare’s heroines.
41. What was Scott’s contribution to the historical novel? How far has
the historical novel advanced since his death?
42. Mention some patriotic poems in English. What are the merits and
chief weaknesses of this particular kind of poetry?
43. In Irish and Scottish literature are there any literary
peculiarities that are essentially Irish and Scottish? Discuss the
general question of nationality in literature.
44. Taking Lamb, Scott, George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, and Junius as
the chief examples, consider the use of the _nom de plume_ or
of anonymity in literature. To what extent is anonymity a feature of
modern journalism?
45. What novels dealing with life in India or British colonial life are
known to you? Have they any features in common?
46. Has the spread of modern education affected the standard of
literature? What species of literature has it encouraged, and which has
it depressed?
47. Discuss the statement that “the English epic began and ended with
Milton.” Trace the course of the epic in English.
48. Justify the statement that “English poetry is full of the color and
odor of the sea.” Who are the chief sea-poets in English?
49. Is the cinematograph likely to affect the literature of the future?
Is it likely to affect in any way the literature of the past?
50. (_a_) Write a paragraph of description and criticism upon each
of the following works:
_Gulliver’s Travels_, _Sesame and Lilies_, _The Fortunes of Nigel_,
_Doctor Faustus_, _Ancren Riwle_, _Henry Esmond_, _The Nigger of the
Narcissus_, _Absalom and Achitophel_, _Euphues and his England_,
_The Faithful Shepherdess_, _Locksley Hall_, _Jude the Obscure_,
_Il Penseroso_, _The Pickwick Papers_, _Abt Vogler_, _Urne Buriall_,
_Northanger Abbey_, _The Blessed Damozel_, _To a Mouse_, _The Vanity
of Human Wishes_, _The Egoist_, _Paradise Regained_, _Satires of
Circumstance_, _The Woman in White_, _Lady Windermere’s Fan_, _The
Dance of the Sevin Deidlie Sins_, _Old Mortality_, _Tono-Bungay_,
_Plays for Puritans_.
(_b_) Write a paragraph on each of the following characters. Mention
the work in which each appears, and write a critical estimate:
Jeanie Deans, Prospero, Sir Charles Grandison, Michael Fane, Delilah,
Sir Galahad, Mr. Collins, Jos Sedley, Mrs. Proudie, Falstaff, Roderick
Random, Major Barbara, Enoch Arden, Mr. Worldly Wiseman, Arthur Kipps,
Maggie Tulliver, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Childe Harold, Hilda Lessways,
Marmion, Angel Clare, Archimago, Sairey Gamp, Alan Breck, Peter Pan,
Dr. Primrose, Amyas Leigh, the Wife of Bath, Mrs. Battle, Lord Jim.
(_c_) Mention works in which the following types or professions are
depicted. Estimate the degree of success attained in each character.
Miser; hypocrite; jester; soldier of fortune; adventuress;
undergraduate; surgeon; country parson; detective; Puritan;
peasant-farmer; artist; cook; innkeeper; magician; statesman; religious
fanatic; garrulous woman; dominie; shepherd; dunce; usurer; boaster;
murderer; fisherman; tramp; carpenter; naval officer; conspirator;
antiquary.
APPENDIX I
GENERAL TABLES
(1) Authors’ names appear in roman type; the titles of books are
given in _italics_.
(2) Every author and book that is mentioned in the tables has
already found a place earlier in this history. Reference to the
index at the end will lead to further information.
(3) The chief use of each table is to provide a clear view of
some aspect of English literature. To effect this a certain
amount of =rigidity= is unavoidable in the classification.
The reader should clearly understand that a greater elasticity
of opinion is possible than appears in the tables. Caution,
therefore, is necessary in the use of them.
I. PROSE FORMS
+------+----------+-----------+------------+---------------+
| DATE | TALE AND | ESSAY | NOVEL | MISCELLANEOUS |
| | ROMANCE | | | |
+------+----------+-----------+------------+---------------+
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | Pecock |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | Malory | | | |
| 1500 | | | | |
+------+----------+-----------+------------+---------------+
| | | | | |
| | | | _Utopia_ | |
| | | | | Ascham |
| | | | Nash | |
| | _Arcadia_| | _Arcadia_ | |
| 1600 | Ford | Bacon | | Hooker |
+------+----------+-----------+------------+---------------+
| | | Overbury | | |
| | | | | Bacon |
| | | | | Burton |
| | | | | Browne |
| | Boyle | | | Clarendon |
| | | Dryden | | Milton |
| | | Temple | Behn | Dryden |
| 1700 | | | | |
+------+----------+-----------+------------+---------------+
| | | Addison | | |
| | Defoe | Steele | Defoe | Swift |
| | | | Richardson | |
| | | Johnson | Fielding | |
| | Johnson | Goldsmith | Smollett | Burke |
| | | | Sterne | |
| | | | Goldsmith | Gibbon |
| 1800 | | Coleridge | Austen | |
+------+----------+-----------+------------+---------------+
| | | | | Southey |
| | | Hazlitt | Scott | |
| | | Lamb | | Lockhart |
| | Marryat | | Dickens | |
| | Lever | | Thackeray | Ruskin |
| | Borrow | Thackeray | | |
| | | Stevenson | Meredith | |
| 1900 | | | Hardy | Stevenson |
+------+----------+-----------+------------+---------------+
II. THE NOVEL
+------+-------------------+--------------+-------------------+----------+
|DATE | PICARESQUE | SOCIETY AND | HISTORICAL | DIDACTIC |
| | | DOMESTIC | | |
+------+-------------------+--------------+-------------------+----------+
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
|1500 | | | | |
+------+-------------------+--------------+-------------------+----------+
| | | | | _Utopia_ |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| |_The Unfortunate | | | _Arcadia |
|1600 | Traveller_ | | | |
+------+-------------------+--------------+-------------------+----------+
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | Head | | | |
|1700 | Behn | | | |
+------+-------------------+--------------+-------------------+----------+
| | | Addison | | |
| | Defoe | | | |
| | | Richardson | | |
| | | Fielding | | Johnson |
| | Smollett | | | |
| | Sterne | Burney | | |
|1800 | | Austen | | |
+------+-------------------+--------------+-------------------+----------+
| | | Edgeworth | Porter | |
| | Marryat | | Scott | |
| | | Dickens | Bulwer-Lytton | |
| | Borrow | Thackeray | G. P. R. James | |
| | | Meredith | Thackeray | |
|1900 | | Hardy | Stevenson | Pater |
+------+-------------------+--------------+-------------------+----------+
III. THE ESSAY
+-------+---------------------------+----------------------+---------------+
|DATE | SCIENTIFIC AND DIDACTIC | LITERARY CRITICISM | MISCELLANEOUS |
+-------+---------------------------+----------------------+---------------+
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
|1500 | | | |
+-------+---------------------------+----------------------+---------------+
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | |_Apologie for Poetrie_| |
|1600 | | | Bacon |
+-------+---------------------------+----------------------+---------------+
| | | | |
| | Milton | | Cowley |
| | | Dryden | Howell |
| | | | |
|1700 | Locke | Temple | |
+-------+---------------------------+----------------------+---------------+
| | | Addison | Addison |
| | | Steele | Steele |
| | Bolingbroke | | Swift |
| | Hume | Johnson | Johnson |
| | | Goldsmith | Goldsmith |
|1800 | | | |
+-------+---------------------------+----------------------+---------------+
| | Cobbett | Jeffrey | Hazlitt |
| | | Coleridge | Lamb |
| | | Hazlitt | Thackeray |
| | | Carlyle | Froude |
| | | Macaulay | Stevenson |
|1900 | | Symonds | |
+-------+---------------------------+----------------------+---------------+
IV. PROSE STYLE
N.B.--_In this table the classification is often only approximate._
+-----+--------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+
|DATE | PLAIN | MIDDLE | ORNATE | POETIC |
+-----+--------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+
| | Mandeville | | | |
| | (_d._ 1372) | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | Malory | | | |
|1500 | | | | |
+-----+--------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+
| | | More | | |
| | | | Fisher | |
| | Ascham | | | |
| | | | | |
| | Nash | | | |
| | | Hooker | Lyly | |
|1600 | | Bacon | | |
+-----+--------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+
| | Overbury | | | The Bible |
| | | Burton | Milton | |
| | | | Browne | |
| | | | | |
| | Walton | Hobbes | Jeremy Taylor | |
| | Bunyan | Dryden | | |
| | Locke | Temple | | |
|1700 | | | | |
+-----+--------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+
| | | Addison | | |
| | Swift | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | Fielding | Goldsmith | Johnson | |
| | | | Burke | Macpherson |
| | | Cowper | Gibbon | |
|1800 | | | | |
+-----+--------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+
| | Cobbett | Southey | | De Quincey |
| | | | Lamb | Wilson |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | Macaulay | Ruskin | Carlyle |
| | | | | |
| | | Thackeray | Meredith | W. Morris |
|1900 | G. B. Shaw | | | |
+-----+--------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+
V. THE DRAMA
N.B.--_Some cross-classification is unavoidable in this table._
+-------+------------------+------------------------+---------------------------------+
| DATE | TRAGEDY | COMEDY | HISTORICAL AND PASTORAL |
+-------+------------------+------------------------+---------------------------------+
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
|1500 | | | |
+-------+------------------+------------------------+---------------------------------+
| | | _Ralph Roister Doister_| |
| | | | |
| | _Gorboduc_ | | |
| | Kyd | | _The Famous Victories of |
| | Marlowe | J. Heywood | Henry the Fifth_ |
| | Greene | Lyly | |
|1600 | Nash | Shakespeare | Shakespeare |
+-------+------------------+------------------------+---------------------------------+
| | Shakespeare | Jonson | Jonson |
| | Jonson | Massinger | Fletcher |
| | Webster | | |
| | | | |
| | Ford | | |
| | Milton | Dryden | |
| | Dryden | | |
|1700 | Lee | Congreve | |
+-------+------------------+------------------------+---------------------------------+
| | Addison | Steele | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | Johnson | | |
| | | | |
| | | Goldsmith | Home |
| | | Sheridan | |
|1800 | | | Baillie |
+-------+------------------+------------------------+---------------------------------+
| | Byron | | Byron |
| | Shelley | | |
| | Browning | | |
| | | | |
| | Swinburne | | |
| | Tennyson | Wilde | Tennyson |
|1900 | | G. B. Shaw | Swinburne |
+-------+------------------+------------------------+---------------------------------+
VI. POETICAL FORMS
+-------+------------+----------------------+-------------------------+------------+
|DATE | EPIC | LYRIC AND ODE | NARRATIVE-DESCRIPTIVE | DIDACTIC |
+-------+------------+----------------------+-------------------------+------------+
| | | | | |
| | |_The Nut-brown Maid_ | Chaucer (_d._ 1400) | |
| | | | James I of Scotland | Lydgate |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
|1500 | | | Hawes | Hawes |
+-------+------------+----------------------+-------------------------+------------+
| | | | | |
| | | Wyat | Sackville | |
| | | Surrey | | |
| | | | | |
|1600 | | Shakespeare | Spenser | Drayton |
+-------+------------+----------------------+-------------------------+------------+
| | | Donne | P. and G. Fletcher | |
| | | | | |
| | Cowley | Herbert | | |
| | Davenant | Carew | | |
| | | | | |
| | Milton | | | |
| | | Dryden | Dryden | Dryden |
|1700 | | | Butler | |
+-------+------------+----------------------+-------------------------+------------+
| | Blackmore | Prior | Pope | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | Pope |
| | | Collins | | |
| | | Gray | | Johnson |
| | | | Cowper | |
| | | Burns | Crabbe | |
|1800 | | Wordsworth | Coleridge | |
+-------+------------+----------------------+-------------------------+------------+
| | | Keats | Scott | Shelley |
| | | Shelley | Byron | Byron |
| | | Tennyson | Tennyson | |
| | | Browning | | Tennyson |
| | Tennyson | | Browning | |
| | | Arnold | Arnold | |
| | | D. G. Rossetti | Swinburne | |
|1900 | | | | |
+-------+------------+----------------------+-------------------------+------------+
VII. MISCELLANEOUS FORMS (PROSE AND POETRY)
+------+----------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| DATE | ALLEGORY[241] | SATIRE[241] | ELEGY[241] | LETTERS AND |
| | [242] | [242] | | DIARY[242] |
+------+----------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | Lydgate[241] | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| 1500 | | Skelton[241] | | |
+------+----------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| | Douglas[241] | Barclay[241] | Dunbar[241] | |
| | Dunbar[241] | | | |
| | | Lyndsay[241] | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | Spenser[241] | | | |
| 1600 | | Donne[241] | | |
+------+----------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| |P. Fletcher[241]| | | |
| | | | | Howell[242] |
| | | | Milton[241] | |
| | Bunyan[242] | Dryden[241] | | Pepys[242] |
| 1700 | | | | Evelyn[242] |
+------+----------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| | Addison[242] | Swift[242] | | |
| | | Pope[241] | | Lady M. W. |
| | | | | Montagu[242]|
| | | | | |
| | | Johnson[241] | Gray[241] | Gray[242] |
| | | | | Cowper[242] |
| | Goldsmith[242] | Burns[241] | | |
| 1800 | | | | |
+------+----------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| | | | | Lamb[242] |
| | | Byron[241] | Shelley[241]| Scott[242] |
| | | | | |
| | | |Tennyson[241]| |
| | Tennyson[241] | | Arnold[241] | |
| | | | | |
| | | Butler[242] | | |
| 1900 | | | | |
+------+----------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
VIII. CHIEF METRICAL FORMS: PART I
+----+----------------------+----------------------+--------------------+-------------+
|DATE| HEROIC COUPLET[243][244]| OCTOSYLLABIC COUPLET| BALLAD METER | BLANK VERSE |
| | [244] | | | |
+----+----------------------+----------------------+--------------------+-------------+
| | | | | |
| | Chaucer[243][244] | Chaucer | Numerous ballads | |
| | (_d._ 1400) | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | _Sir Patrick Spens_| |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
|1500| | | _Chevy Chace_ | |
+----+----------------------+----------------------+--------------------+-------------+
| | | | | |
| | | | | Surrey |
| | | | | |
| | Spenser[244] | Spenser | | Marlowe |
|1600| | | | Shakespeare |
+----+----------------------+----------------------+--------------------+-------------+
| | Wither[243] | P. Fletcher | | Jonson |
| | | | | |
| | Cowley[243] | Milton | | |
| | _Cooper’s Hill_[243] | | | |
| | | | | Milton |
| | Dryden[243] | Butler | | |
| | | | | Dryden |
|1700| | | | |
+----+----------------------+----------------------+--------------------+-------------+
| | Pope[243] | Swift | | |
| | | | | Thomson |
| | | | Percy | |
| | Johnson[243] | | | |
| | | | Chatterton | |
| | | | | |
| | Goldsmith[243] | | Goldsmith | Cowper |
|1800| | Coleridge | Coleridge | Wordsworth |
+----+----------------------+----------------------+--------------------+-------------+
| | Keats[244] | Scott | Scott | Keats |
| | Byron[243] | Byron | | Shelley |
| | | | | |
| | | | Tennyson | |
| | Arnold[244] | | | Tennyson |
| | W. Morris[244] | W. Morris | D. G. Rossetti | Browning |
| | | | | Arnold |
|1900| Swinburne[244] | | | Swinburne |
+----+----------------------+----------------------+--------------------+-------------+
IX. CHIEF METRICAL FORMS: PART II
+-------+--------------------+-----------------------+---------------------+-------------------+
|DATE | SPENSERIAN STANZA | OTTAVA RIMA | RHYME ROYAL | SONNET |
+-------+--------------------+-----------------------+---------------------+-------------------+
| | | | | |
| | | | Chaucer (_d._ 1400) | |
| | | | | |
| | | | James I of Scotland | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
|1500 | | | Henryson | |
+-------+--------------------+-----------------------+---------------------+-------------------+
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | Sackville | Wyat[246] |
| | Spenser | | | Surrey[245] |
|1600 | | | | Spenser[245] |
+-------+--------------------+-----------------------+---------------------+-------------------+
| | |_Britannia’s Pastorals_| | Shakespeare[245] |
| | | | | Drayton[246] |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | Milton[246] |
| | | | | |
|1700 | | | | |
+-------+--------------------+-----------------------+---------------------+-------------------+
| | | | | |
| | Thomson | | | |
| | Shenstone | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
|1800 | | | | Wordsworth[246] |
+-------+--------------------+-----------------------+---------------------+-------------------+
| | Keats | Byron | | Byron[246] |
| | Shelley | Keats | | Keats[246] |
| | Byron | | | Shelley[246] |
| | Tennyson | | | Tennyson[246] |
| | | | W. Morris | |
| | | | |D. G. Rossetti[246]|
|1900 | | | | |
+-------+--------------------+-----------------------+---------------------+-------------------+
APPENDIX II
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. GENERAL WORKS
_The Cambridge History of English Literature._
_A Short History of English Literature_, G. Saintsbury.
_Cyclopædia of English Literature._
_A History of English Poetry_, W. J. Courthope.
_A History of English Prosody_, G. Saintsbury.
_History of English Dramatic Literature_, Sir A. W. Ward.
_Chronicle of the English Drama_, F. G. Fleay.
_The English Novel_, Sir W. Raleigh.
_The English Novel_, G. Saintsbury.
_English and Scottish Popular Ballads_, F. J. Child.
_Scottish Vernacular Literature_, A. Henderson.
_Early English Literature_, Stopford A. Brooke.
_Early English Literature_, B. ten Brink.
_English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer_,
W. H. Schofield.
_The Transition Period_, G. Gregory Smith.
_Elizabethan Literature_, G. Saintsbury.
_History of Eighteenth-Century Literature_, E. Gosse.
_The Age of Dryden_, R. Garnett.
_The Augustan Age_, O. Elton.
_Nineteenth-Century Literature_, G. Saintsbury.
_A Survey of English Literature, 1830–1880_, O. Elton.
_English Prose_ (extracts), H. Craik.
_English Poets_ (extracts), T. H. Ward.
_The Encyclopædia Britannica._
_Dictionary of National Biography._
II. BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM
NOTES.--1. _Abbreviations_:
_E._, “English Men of Letters.”
_S.W._, “Studies of Living Writers.”
_W.D._, “Writers of the Day.”
_P.B._, “The People’s Books.”
2. When the title of a book is not given it is identical with
the name of the writer being dealt with. For instance, the title
of Courthope’s work on Addison is _Joseph Addison_.
Addison, Joseph
_E._, W. J. Courthope.
See _English Humourists_, Thackeray, and _English Comic
Writers_, Hazlitt.
Arnold, Matthew
_E._, Herbert Paul.
See _Studies in Literature_, Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch.
Austen, Jane
_E._, F. W. Cornish.
S. F. Maldon.
Bacon, Francis
_E._, R. W. Church.
See _Essays_, Macaulay.
_P.B._, A. R. Skemp.
Bennett, Arnold
_W.D._, F. J. Harvey Dalton.
See _Some Impressions of my Elders_, St. John G. Ervine.
Brontë, Charlotte
_Charlotte Brontë and her Circle_, Clement K. Shorter.
_Life of_, Mrs. Gaskell.
Browne, Sir Thomas
_E._, E. Gosse.
Browning, Robert
_E._, G. K. Chesterton.
_P.B._, A. R. Skemp.
E. Gosse.
_Introduction to the Study of_, A. Symons.
_The Poetry of_, Stopford A. Brooke.
See _Obiter Dicta_, A. Birrell, and _Literary Studies_, W. Bagehot.
Bunyan, John
_E._, J. A. Froude.
_Life of_, W. Hale White.
See _The Art of Letters_, R. Lynd, and _Essays_, Macaulay.
Burke, Edmund
_E._, Lord Morley.
_Life of_, Sir J. Prior.
See _Obiter Dicta_, A. Birrell.
Burney, Fanny
_E._, A. Ainger.
Burns, Robert
_E._, Principal Shairp.
_Life of_, J. G. Lockhart.
_Primer of_, W. A. Craigie.
See _English Poets_, Hazlitt; _Essays_, Carlyle;
_Familiar Studies of Men and Books_, R. L. Stevenson;
_Essays_, W. E. Henley.
Butler, Samuel (1612–80)
See _English Comic Writers_, Hazlitt.
Butler, Samuel (1835–1902)
_Life of_, H. Festing Jones.
_Records and Memorials of_, R. A. Streatfield.
Byron, Lord
_Life of_, T. Moore.
_E._, John Nichol.
See _Essays_, Macaulay; _Essays_, W. E. Henley;
_English Poets_, Hazlitt.
Carlyle, Thomas
_E._, John Nichol.
_Life of_, J. A. Froude.
_P.B._, L. Maclean Watt.
See _Obiter Dicta_, A. Birrell, and _My Study Windows_, J. R.
Lowell.
Chaucer, Geoffrey
_E._, Sir A. Ward.
See _My Study Windows_, J. R. Lowell, and _Riches of_, C.
Cowden-Clarke.
Coleridge, S. T.
_E._, H. D. Traill.
_P.B._, S. L. Bensusan.
See _English Poets_, Hazlitt; _Essays and Studies_, A. C. Swinburne;
_Studies in Literature_, Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch; _The Art of
Letters_, R. Lynd.
Collins, William
See _Lives of the Poets_, Dr. Johnson, and _The Art of Letters_,
R. Lynd.
Congreve, William
_Life of_, E. Gosse.
See _Lives of the Poets_, Dr. Johnson; _English Comic Writers_,
Hazlitt; _Essays_, Macaulay; _English Humourists_, Thackeray.
Conrad, Joseph
_S.W._, R. Curle.
_W.D._, Hugh Walpole.
See _The Moderns_, J. Freeman.
Cowper, William
_E._, Goldwin Smith.
See _English Poets_, Hazlitt; _Literary Studies_, W. Bagehot;
_The Art of Letters_, R. Lynd.
Crabbe, George
_E._, A. Ainger.
T. H. Kebbel.
Defoe, Daniel
_E._, W. Minto.
See _British Novelists_, D. Masson, and _Hours in a Library_,
Sir Leslie Stephen.
De Quincey, Thomas
_E._, D. Masson.
See _Hours in a Library_, Sir Leslie Stephen.
Dickens, Charles
_Life of_, J. Forster.
G. K. Chesterton.
_E._, Sir A. W. Ward.
_P.B._, S. Dark.
See _Literary Studies_, W. Bagehot.
Donne, John
_Life and Letters of_, E. Gosse.
See _English Poets_, Hazlitt; _Studies in Literature_, Sir A. T.
Quiller-Couch; _The Art of Letters_, R. Lynd.
Dryden, John
_E._, G. Saintsbury.
See _Lives of the Poets_, Dr. Johnson, and _Essays_, Macaulay.
Eliot, George
_E._, Sir Leslie Stephen.
Oscar Browning.
Fielding, Henry
_E._, Austin Dobson.
See _English Humourists_, Thackeray, and _Essays_, W. E. Henley.
Galsworthy, John
_W.D._, Sheila Kaye-Smith.
See _Some Impressions of my Elders_, St. John G. Ervine.
Gibbon, Edward
_E._, J. C. Morrison.
See _Literary Studies_, W. Bagehot, and _Essays Political and
Biographical_, Sir Spencer Walpole.
Goldsmith, Oliver
_E._, W. Black.
Austin Dobson.
See _English Comic Writers_, Hazlitt, and _English Humourists_,
Thackeray.
Gray, Thomas
_E._, E. Gosse.
See _Essays in Criticism_, Matthew Arnold, and _The Art of
Letters_, R. Lynd.
Hardy, Thomas
_W.D._, H. Child.
_The Art of_, L. P. Johnson.
H. C. Duffin.
See _Studies in Literature_, Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch, and
_The Moderns_, J. Freeman.
Hazlitt, William
_E._, A. Birrell.
See _Essays_, W. E. Henley, and _Hours in a Library_, Sir Leslie
Stephen.
Johnson, Samuel
_Life of_, J. Boswell.
_E._, Sir Leslie Stephen.
See _Essays_, Macaulay, and _Obiter Dicta_, A. Birrell.
Jonson, Ben
_Life of_, J. A. Symonds.
_E._, G. Gregory Smith.
See _English Comic Writers_, Hazlitt.
Keats, John
_Life of_, Lord Houghton.
_Life of_, Sir Sidney Colvin.
_E._, Sir Sidney Colvin.
_P.B._, E. Thomas.
See _Essays_, F. Jeffrey; _Essays in Criticism_, Matthew Arnold;
_Four Poets_, Stopford A. Brooke.
Kipling, Rudyard
_Rudyard Kipling: A Criticism_, R. Le Gallienne.
_W. D._, J. Farmer.
Lamb, Charles
_Life of_, E. V. Lucas.
_E._, A. Ainger.
_P.B._, Flora Masson.
See _The Spirit of the Age_, Hazlitt, and _Obiter Dicta_, A.
Birrell.
Landor, W. S.
_E._, Sir Sidney Colvin.
Macaulay, Lord
_Life and Letters of_, Sir G. O. Trevelyan.
_E._, J. C. Morrison.
See _Literary Studies_, W. Bagehot; _Critical Miscellanies_, Lord
Morley; _Hours in a Library_, Sir Leslie Stephen.
Marlowe, Christopher
See _English Dramatic Poets_, C. Lamb, and _English Comic
Writers_, Hazlitt.
Meredith, George
_The Poetry and Philosophy of_, G. M. Trevelyan.
_Some Characteristics_, R. Le Gallienne.
See _Studies in Literature_, Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch; _The Art of
Letters_, R. Lynd; _Studies in Prose and Verse_, A. Symons.
Milton, John
_Life of_, D. Masson.
_E._, Mark Pattison.
Sir Walter Raleigh.
See _Essays_, Addison; _Lectures_, S. T. Coleridge; _Literary
Studies_, W. Bagehot; _Essays_, Macaulay; _Obiter Dicta_, A.
Birrell.
Morris, William
_Life and Letters of_, J. W. Mackail.
_E._, Alfred Noyes.
See _The Art of Letters_, R. Lynd, and _Studies in Prose
and Verse_, A. Symons.
Pope, Alexander
_E._, Sir Leslie Stephen.
See _Lives of the Poets_, Dr. Johnson; _My Study Windows_, J. R.
Lowell; _English Poets_, Hazlitt; _The English Humourists_,
Thackeray; _Obiter Dicta_, A. Birrell; _Hours in a Library_,
Sir Leslie Stephen.
Richardson, Samuel
_E._, Austin Dobson.
See _The English Comic Writers_, Hazlitt, and _Hours in a
Library_, Sir Leslie Stephen.
Rossetti, D. G.
_Record and Study of_, W. Sharp.
F. G. Stephen.
See _Essays and Studies_, A. C. Swinburne.
Ruskin, John
_E._, Frederic Harrison.
_Life of_, W. G. Collingwood.
_Studies in_, E. T. Cook.
Scott, Walter
_Life of_, J. G. Lockhart.
_E._, R. H. Hutton.
G. Saintsbury.
See _The Spirit of the Age_, Hazlitt; _Essays_, Carlyle; _Hours
in a Library_, Sir Leslie Stephen; _Literary Studies_, W.
Bagehot; _Four Poets_, Stopford A. Brooke.
Shakespeare, William
_Life of_, Sir Sidney Lee.
_E._, Sir Walter Raleigh.
_P. B._, C. Herford.
_Studies in_, J. C. Collins.
_Shakespearian Tragedy_, A. C. Bradley.
_Ten Plays of_, Stopford A. Brooke.
_Among my Books_, J. R. Lowell.
See _English Comic Writers_, Hazlitt; _Literary Studies_, W.
Bagehot; _Lectures on Dramatic Literature_, Hazlitt; _Essays
and Lectures on_, S. T. Coleridge; _Essays_, Carlyle;
_Shakespeare’s Mind and Art_, E. Dowden.
Shaw, George Bernard
_George Bernard Shaw: His Life and Works_, A. Henderson.
G. K. Chesterton.
_S.W._, J. McCabe.
See _The Moderns_, J. Freeman; _Dramatists of To-day_, E. E. Hale;
_Some Impressions of my Elders_, St. John G. Ervine.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
_Life of_, E. Dowden.
_E._, J. A. Symonds.
_P.B._, Sydney Waterlow.
See _Essays_, D. Masson; _Essays_, R. H. Hutton; _Literary
Studies_, W. Bagehot; _The Art of Letters_, R. Lynd; _Four
Poets_, Stopford A. Brooke.
Smollett, Tobias
See _English Comic Writers_, Hazlitt; _English Humourists_,
Thackeray; _Essays_, W. E. Henley.
Southey, Robert
_E._, E. Dowden.
See _Essays_, Macaulay.
Spenser, Edmund
_E._, R. W. Church.
_Life of_, J. W. Hales.
See _English Poets_, Hazlitt, and _Essays_, Leigh Hunt.
Steele, Richard
See _English Humourists_, Thackeray, and _Studies in
English Literature_, Dennis.
Sterne, Laurence
_Life of_, P. Fitzgerald.
See _English Humourists_, Thackeray, and _Literary Studies_, W.
Bagehot.
Stevenson, R. L.
_Life of_, G. Balfour.
Sir Walter Raleigh.
See _Studies in Prose and Verse_, A. Symons.
Swift, Jonathan
_E._, Sir Leslie Stephen.
See _Lives of the Poets_, Dr. Johnson; _English Comic Writers_,
Hazlitt; _English Humourists_, Thackeray.
Swinburne, A. C.
See _Studies in Literature_, Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch, and
_Victorian Poets_, Stedman.
Taylor, Jeremy
_Life of_, R. Heber.
_E._, E. Gosse.
See _Lectures_, S. T. Coleridge.
Tennyson, Alfred
_Life of_, H. Tennyson.
_Life of_, A. C. Benson.
_E._, Sir Alfred Lyall.
_P.B._, A. Watson.
See _The Art of Letters_, R. Lynd; _Literary Studies_, W. Bagehot;
_Essays_, R. H. Hutton; _Essays_, P. Bayne; _Victorian Poets_,
Stedman.
Thackeray, W. M.
_Life of_, Merivale and Marzila.
_E._, Anthony Trollope.
See _Characters and Sketches_, Hannay, and _Literary Studies_, W.
Bagehot.
Thomson, James
_E._, G. C. Macaulay.
See _Lives of the Poets_, Dr. Johnson, and _English Poets_,
Hazlitt.
Wells, H. G.
_W.D._, J. D. Beresford.
See _The Moderns_, J. Freeman, and _Some Impressions of
my Elders_, St. John G. Ervine.
Wilde, Oscar
See _Studies in Prose and Verse_, A. Symons, and _The Art
of Letters_, R. Lynd.
Wordsworth, William
_Life of_, C. Knight.
_E._, T. W. H. Myers.
Sir Walter Raleigh.
_P.B._, Rosaline Masson.
See _English Poets_, Hazlitt; _Biographic Literaria_, S. T.
Coleridge; _Essays in Criticism_, Matthew Arnold; _Literary
Studies_, W. Bagehot; _Essays_, D. Masson; _Essays_, R. H.
Hutton; _Appreciations_, W. Pater; _Hours in a Library_, Sir
Leslie Stephen.
=III. ESSAYS ON LITERARY SUBJECTS.= A series of books of essays
arranged in order of composition. These volumes form the basis
of a history of English criticism.
Sidney, Sir Philip, _Apologie for Poetrie_.
Dryden, John, _Essay of Dramatic Poesie_.
Addison, Joseph, _Spectator_ essays.
Johnson, Dr., _Lives of the Poets_.
Coleridge, S. T., _Biographia Literaria_; _Essays and Lectures on
Shakespeare_.
Hazlitt, William, _Lectures on the English Poets_; _The English
Comic Writers_.
Lamb, Charles, _English Dramatic Poets_.
Hunt, Leigh, _Imagination and Fancy_.
Macaulay, Lord, _Essays_.
Thackeray, W. M., _The English Humourists_.
Arnold, Matthew, _Essays in Criticism_.
Hutton, R. H., _Essays_.
Bagehot, W., _Literary Studies_.
Swinburne, A. C., _Essays and Studies_.
Quiller-Couch, Sir A. T., _Studies in Literature_.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, _Hours in a Library_.
Henley, W. E., _Views and Reviews_; _Essays_.
Collins, J. Churton, _Essays and Studies_.
Gosse, E., _Seventeenth-Century Studies_; _Some Diversions of a
Man of Letters_.
Dobson, A., _Eighteenth-Century Studies_.
Saintsbury, G., _Corrected Impressions_.
Freeman, J., _The Moderns_.
Lynd, R., _The Art of Letters_.
Ervine, St. John G., _Some Impressions of my Elders_.
INDEX TO EXTRACTS
A
_Absalom and Achitophel_, 196, 227–228, 274
=Addison, Joseph=, 243, 246, 277
_Address to the Deil_, 359
_Address to Edinburgh_, 311
_Address to the King_ (Burke), 353
_Adonais_, 392, 449
=Ælfric=, 13–14
_Æneid_ (Surrey), 97, 150
=Alfred, King=, 9, 51
_All for Love_, 200
_Althea, To_, 185
_Alysoun_, 30
_Amoretti_, 152
_Anatomy of Melancholy, The_, 154
_Ancient Mariner, The Rime of the_, 378, 445
_Ancren Riwle_, 23
_Androcles and the Lion_, 543–544
_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, The_, 10
_Antiquary, The_, 447
_Antony and Cleopatra_, 121, 122–123
_Areopagitica_, 163
=Arnold, Matthew=, 156, 229, 516
=Ascham, Roger=, 155
_Ask Me no More_, 172
_Asolando_, 463–464
_Astræa Redux_, 195
=Austen, Jane=, 420–421
_Autobiography_, Gibbon’s, 359
_Autumn, Ode to_ (Keats), 443
_Autumn_ (Shelley), 443
B
_Back to Methuselah_, 545–546
=Bacon, Francis=, 136–137
=Bale, John=, 85
_Ballad of East and West, The_, 574
_Ballad upon a Wedding, A_, 186
=Barbour, John=, 44
_Beaux’ Stratagem, The_, 225–226
_Bee, The_, 296, 347
=Behn, Aphra=, 221–222
_Beowulf_, 4–5
_Bible, the_, 83–84, 132, 133
_Biographia Literaria_, 368, 381, 443–444
_Black-eyed Susan_, 275
=Blake, William=, 314, 352–353, 566–567
_Blessed Damozel, The_, 515
_Blue Tit, The_, 565–566
=Boswell, James=, 329, 358–359
_Break, break, break_, 460
=Brooke, Rupert=, 555
=Browne, Sir Thomas=, 176
=Browne, William=, 125, 223
=Browning, Robert=, 462, 463, 464, 465, 466, 512, 514, 516, 563,
571
_Brus, The_, 44
_Brut_, 18, 29
=Bunyan, John=, 210–211, 225, 574
=Burke, Edmund=, 332, 353
=Burney, Frances=, 354
=Burns, Robert=, 309, 310, 311, 312, 359, 570
=Burton, Robert=, 154
=Butler, Samuel= (1612–80), 208–209
=Byron, Lord=, 383, 384, 385, 386, 387, 388, 446–447, 449
C
=Cædmon=, 12–13
_Caliban upon Setebos_, 465
_Caller Water_, 346
_Campaign, The_, 243
=Campion, Thomas=, 101
=Carew, Thomas=, 172
=Carlyle, Thomas=, 495–496, 513, 575
_Castaway, The_, 301
_Castle of Indolence, The_, 292–293
_Cato_, 277
=Caxton, William=, 67
_Cenci, The_, 392
=Chamberlayne, William=, 216
_Channel Firing_, 525–526
=Chaucer, Geoffrey=, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40
_Cherry Ripe_ (Campion), 101
=Chesterfield, Lord=, 342
_Chevy Chace_, 54–55
_Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage_, 385, 448
_Christabel_, 377
=Clare, John=, 565–566
_Cleannesse_, 31
=Cleveland, John=, 182, 185–186
_Clive, Essay on_, 498–499
=Clough, Arthur Hugh=, 515–516
=Cobbett, William=, 440
=Coleridge, Samuel Taylor=, 377, 378, 379, 380, 381, 443–444,
445–446
_Colin Clout_ (Skelton), 81–82
=Collins, William=, 352
_Complaint, The, or Night Thoughts_, 271, 278
_Compleat Angler, The_, 184
_Comus_, 186
_Confessio Amantis_, 53
_Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, The_, 430, 444
=Congreve, William=, 204, 567
=Conrad, Joseph=, 529, 530
=Coverdale, Miles=, 84
=Cowper, William=, 301, 343–344, 352
_Coy Mistress, To his_, 185
=Crabbe, George=, 356
=Crawford, Robert=, 276
_Cymon and Iphigenia_, 197–198
D
_Daffodils, To_ (Herrick), 222
_Dance of the Sevin Deidlie Sins, The_, 61
=Davies, William H.=, 553
=De Quincey, Thomas=, 430, 444
_Dead Drummer, The_, 521
_Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, The_, 327, 564
=Defoe, Daniel=, 250–251, 272, 277
=Dekker, Thomas=, 150
_Deluge, The_, 84–85
_Deserted Village, The_, 295, 356
_Diary_, Pepys’, 213
=Dickens, Charles=, 477
_Dictionary_, Johnson’s, 349
_Doctor Faustus_, 153–154
_Don Juan_, 386–387, 449
=Donne, John=, 103, 184
_Dramatic Poesie, The Essay of_, 202
_Dreams of the Sea_, 553
=Drummond, William=, 224
=Dryden, John=, 185, 194, 195, 196, 198, 199, 200, 202, 214, 217,
222–223, 227–228, 274
=Dunbar, William=, 61
_Dunciad, The_, 258
E
_Ecclesiastical Polity, The Laws of_, 152–153
_Education of Nature, The_, 374–375
_Egoist, The_, 484
_Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog_, 573
_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, 383
_English Comic Writers, The_, 432
_Enoch Arden_, 457
_Epicene_, 149
_Epistle to Arbuthnot_, 259, 274
_Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke_, 125
_Epithalamion_, 92
_Essay on Clive_, 498–499
_Essay on Criticism, An_, 256, 261
_Essay of Dramatic Poesie, The_, 202
_Essay concerning Human Understanding, An_, 219–221
_Essay on Johnson_, 360
_Essays_, Bacon’s, 136–137
_Essays of Elia, The_, 428, 444
_Euphues and his England_, 138–139, 154, 563
_Eve of St. Agnes, The_, 398–399, 446, 569
_Eve of St Mark, The_, 400
_Evelina_, 354
_Everyman_, 75
_Examiner, The_ (Tory periodical), 279
F
_Fables_ (Dryden), 222–223
_Faerie Queene, The_, 95, 155–156
=Farquhar, George=, 225–226
_Ferdinand, Count Fathom_, 360
=Fergusson, Robert=, 346
=Fielding, Henry=, 318, 320–321, 354–355
=Fisher, John=, 68, 80
_Flaming Heart, The_, 174
=Flecker, James Elroy=, 569–570
_Fra Lippo Lippi_, 512
_French Revolution, The_, 513
_Frost at Midnight_, 379
_Funeral Sermon on Henry VII_ (Fisher), 80
G
=Galsworthy, John=, 568–569
_Garden Fancies_, 465
=Gascoigne, George=, 151
=Gay, John=, 275
=Gibbon, Edward=, 327, 358–359, 564
_God’s Promises_, 85
=Godric=, 24
_Golden Journey to Samarkand, The_, 569–570
_Golden Wings_, 514
=Goldsmith, Oliver=, 295, 296, 347, 356, 573–574
=Gower, John=, 53
=Gray, Thomas=, 188, 345
_Grecian Urn, Ode on a_, 402
=Greene, Robert=, 142–143
_Groatsworth of Wit, A_, 142–143
_Gulliver’s Travels_, 241, 277
H
_Halbert and Hob_, 571
_Hamlet_, 118, 121
_Handlyng Synne_, 30–31
=Hardy, Thomas=, 521, 522, 524, 525, 526, 571
_Havelock the Dane_, 30
=Hazlitt, William=, 432
_Heaven_, 554
_Henry Esmond_, 581
=Henryson, Robert=, 60
_Heroic Stanzas_ (Dryden), 194, 195
=Herrick, Robert=, 222
_Hind and the Panther, The_, 217
_History of England, The_ (Hume), 350–351
_History of England, The_ (Macaulay), 513
_Holy Sonnetts_, 103
_Holy Willie’s Prayer_, 310
=Hooker, Richard=, 152–153
_Hous of Fame, The_, 39
=Howard, Henry, Earl of Surrey=, 97, 150, 151
_Hudibras_, 208–209
_Human Understanding, An Essay concerning_, 219–221
=Hume, David=, 350–351
=Hunt, Leigh=, 445
_Hydriotaphia_, 176
_Hyperion_, 399
I
_Iliad_ (Pope), 256
_In the Cemetery_, 522
_In Memoriam_, 459
_Induction, The_, 98
_Intimations of Immortality_, 372, 374
_Isabella_, 401
J
=James I of Scotland=, 59, 81
=John of Trevisa=, 52
_Jonathan Wild the Great_, 318
=Johnson, Samuel=, 288, 289, 290, 349–350, 355, 357, 575
_Johnson, Life of_ (Boswell), 329, 359
_Johnson, Essay on_ (Macaulay), 360
=Jonson, Ben=, 125, 149
_Journal of the Plague Year, A_, 272, 276
K
=Keats, John=, 398, 399, 400, 401, 402, 446, 569
_Killigrew, On the Death of Mrs. Anne_, 214
_King Arthur’s Tomb_, 512–513
_King Lear_, 120, 157
_King of Tars, The_, 25
_Kingis Quhair, The_, 59, 81
=Kipling, Rudyard=, 564–565, 574
_Knight’s Tale, The_, 38
_Knight’s Tomb, The_, 379
_Kynge Johan_, 85
L
_Lady of the Lake, The_, 446
=Lamb, Charles=, 428, 444–445
_Lamia_, 400
=Langland, William=, 43, 53
=Latimer, Hugh=, 81
_Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, The_, 152–153
_Layamon_, 18, 29
_Letter to his Wife_ (More), 80
_Letters to his Son_ (Chesterfield), 342
_Letters_, Cowper’s, 343–344
_Letters_, Leigh Hunt’s, 445
_Letters_, Johnson’s, 290, 357
_Letters_, Walpole’s, 358
_Life of Doctor Johnson, The_ (Boswell), 329, 358–359
_Life of John Sterling, The_, 496
_Lives of the Poets, The_, 350, 575
=Locke, John=, 219
_Lord Hastings, Upon the Death of_, 185, 228
_Love in Fantastic Triumph sate_, 221–222
_Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe, The_, 106
=Lovelace, Richard=, 185
_Lycidas_, 165
=Lyly, John=, 138, 154, 563–564
=Lyndsay, Sir David=, 82
M
=Macaulay, Lord=, 359, 498–499, 513
=Macpherson, James=, 349
=Malory, Sir Thomas=, 46–47, 52
=Mandeville, Sir John=, 45, 51–52, 153
=Marlowe, Christopher=, 109, 153–154
_Marmion_, 412–413
=Marvell, Andrew=, 185
_Masque of Anarchy, The_, 392
_Measure for Measure_, 121, 122
_Melibæus, The Tale of_, 37
_Merchant of Venice, The_, 157
=Meredith, George=, 484
_Midsummer Night’s Dream, A_, 120
=Milton, John=, 163, 165, 166, 167, 168, 186, 187, 562
_Milton_ (Ernest Myers), 188–189
_Modern Painters_, 513–514
_Moral Ode_, 29
=More, Sir Thomas=, 80
=Morris, William=, 512–513, 514
_Morte d’Arthur_ (Malory), 46–47, 52
_Moti Guj--Mutineer_, 564–565
_My First Play_ (Lamb), 428
=Myers, Ernest=, 188–189
N
_Natural History of Selborne, The_, 355
_Nigger of the Narcissus, The_, 529–530
_Night Thoughts_, 271, 278
_Noctes Ambrosianæ_, 441
=North, Christopher=, 441
_Northanger Abbey_, 420–421
_Nun’s Priest’s Tale, The_, 40
O
_O, My Luve is like a Red, Red Rose_, 309–310
_O, Willie brewed a Peck o’ Maut_, 309
_Ode: Intimations of Immortality_, 373–374
_Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College_, 345
_Ode on a Grecian Urn_, 402
_Ode to the West Wind_, 393
_Oh, to be in England_, 516
_Old Curiosity Shop, The_, 477
_Old Mortality_, 440–441
_On his Own Death_ (Swift), 237
_On the Death of Mrs. Anne Killigrew_, 214
_On Phillis_, 182
_On Prayer_ (Jeremy Taylor), 187
_Ormulum_, 20
_Orphan, The_, 217–218
_Ossian_, 349
=Otway, Thomas=, 217–218, 226
P
_Pacchiarotto_, 464
_Paracelsus_, 462
_Paradise Lost_, 144, 161, 562
_Passions, The_ (Collins), 352
_Pastoral Care_, 9, 51
_Pastorals_ (Pope), 255
_Pearl_, 149–150
=Peele, George=, 106
=Pepys, Samuel=, 213
=Philips, Ambrose=, 271
_Phœnix, The_, 13, 29
_Pickwick Papers, The_, 477
_Picture of Dorian Gray, The_, 565
_Pied Piper of Hamelin, The_, 514
_Piers Plowman_, 43, 53–54
_Pilgrim’s Progress, The_, 210–211, 225, 574–575
_Pine Forest, The_, 395
_Pippa Passes_, 466
_Places_, 522–523
=Pope, Alexander=, 224, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 274, 351
_Praise of Chimney-sweepers, The_, 444–445
_Prelude, The_, 562
_Princess, The_, 458
_Proclamation of Henry III_, 51
_Progress of Poesy, The_, 188
Psalms, the Book of, 133
_Purple Pileus, The_, 535
Q
_Queen Mab_, 390
R
_Ralph Roister Doister_, 78, 85–86
_Rambler, The_, 289–290
_Rape of the Lock, The_, 257–258, 351
_Rarely, rarely, comest Thou_, 394
_Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, The_, 67
_Reflections on the French Revolution_, 332
_Rejected Addresses_, 410
_Rescue, The_, 529
_Resolution and Independence_, 372
_Rhapsody on Poetry_, 278
_Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The_, 378, 445
_Ring and the Book, The_, 465, 563
=Robert of Gloucester=, 25
_Robinson Crusoe_, 250
_Roderick Random_, 346
_Rokeby_, 413–414
=Rossetti, Dante Gabriel=, 515
_Rural Rides in England_, 440
=Ruskin, John=, 501, 513–514
S
=Sackville, Thomas, Earl of Dorset=, 98
St. Luke, the Gospel of, 132
_Samson Agonistes_, 167
_Sappho_ (A. Philips), 271
_Sartor Resartus_, 495
=Sassoon, Siegfried=, 571–572
_Satires of Circumstance_, 571
_Satyre of the Thrie Estatis, Ane Pleasant_, 82–83
_Say not the Struggle Naught Availeth_, 515
_Scholemaster, The_, 155
_School for Scandal, The_, 567–568
_Schoolmistress, The_, 351–352
=Scott, Sir Walter=, 412, 413, 414, 417–418, 446, 447–448
=Sedley, Sir Charles=, 218
_Sensitive Plant, The_, 395
_Sermons_, Latimer’s, 81
=Shakespeare, William=, 113, 118, 120, 121, 122, 151, 157, 569
_Shakespeare_ (Matthew Arnold), 156
=Shaw, George Bernard=, 543–544, 545–546
=Shelley, Percy Bysshe=, 390, 392, 393, 394, 395, 443, 449
=Shenstone, William=, 351–352
=Sheridan, Richard Brinsley=, 567–568
_Simon Lee_, 374, 566
=Skelton, John=, 63, 81–82
_Skin Game, The_, 568–569
_Sleeping Beauty, The_ (Tennyson), 459
=Smart, Christopher=, 304
=Smith, Horace=, 410
=Smith, James=, 410
=Smollett, Tobias=, 346, 360
_Song to David, The_, 304
_Songs of Experience_, 314
_Songs of Innocence_, 352~353, 566–567
_Songbooks of the War_, 571–572
=Sonnet=, by Matthew Arnold, 156;
by Drayton, 152;
by Ernest Myers, 188–189;
by Shakespeare (cvi and cxvi), 113;
by Spenser, 152;
by Surrey, 151;
by Wordsworth, 188
_Spectator, The_, 246, 277
=Spenser, Edmund=, 92, 95, 155–156
_Steel Glass, The_, 151
=Steele, Sir Richard=, 218
=Sterne, Laurence=, 323, 360
=Stevenson, Robert Louis=, 510
_Stones of Venice, The_, 501
_Strew on her Roses, Roses_, 516
=Suckling, Sir John=, 186
_Sumer is i-cumen in_, 26
=Surrey, Earl of=, 97, 150, 151
_Sweet Content_, 150
_Sweet Lullaby, A_, 155
=Swift, Jonathan=, 237, 239, 241, 277, 279
=Synge, J. M.=, 568
T
_Tale of Melibæus, The_, 37
_Tale of a Tub, The_, 239
_Talisman, The_, 447–448
_Tam o’ Shanter_, 570
_Tamburlaine the Great_, 109
_Task, The_, 352
_Tatler, The_, 248
=Taylor, Jeremy=, 187
_Tempest, The_, 122, 151, 569
=Tennyson, Lord=, 457, 458, 459, 460, 512
_Tess of the d’Urbervilles_, 526
_Testament of Cresseid, The_, 60
=Thackeray, William Makepeace=, 481–482
=Thomson, James= (1700–48), 292
_Three Maries, The_, 73–74
_Thrie Estatis, Satyre of the_, 82
_Tinker’s Wedding, The_, 568
_Tintern Abbey_, 448
_To Althea_, 185
_To Autumn_ (Keats), 443
_To his Coy Mistress_, 185
_To Daffodils_ (Herrick), 222
_To Mary in Heaven_, 309
_To Milton_ (Wordsworth), 188
_To Spring_ (Surrey), 151
_Tom Jones_, 320, 354
_Tono-Bungay_, 534–535
_Travels_ (Mandeville), 45, 51–52, 153
_Tristram Shandy_, 323, 360
_Triumph, The_, 125
_Troilus and Cressida_ (Chaucer), 35
_Twelfth Night_, 121
=Tyndale, William=, 83–84
U
=Udall, Nicholas=, 78, 85–86
_Ulysses_ (Tennyson), 512
_Upon the Death of the Lord Hastings_, 185, 228
V
_Valediction forbidding Mourning, A_, 184
_Vanity of Human Wishes, The_, 288, 355–356
_Venice Preserved_, 226
_Village, The_, 356
_Vision of Judgment, The_, 446–447
W
=Waller, Edmund=, 217, 224
=Walpole, Horace=, 358
=Walton, Isaac=, 184
_Waverley_, 417
_Way of the World, The_, 204, 566
_Ways to Perfect Religion, The_, 68
_Wedding, A Ballad upon a_, 186
_Weir of Hermiston_, 510
=Wells, H. G.=, 534–535
_West Wind, Ode to the_, 393
_When I am Old_, 553
=White, Gilbert=, 355
_Why come ye not to Court?_, 63–64
=Wilde, Oscar=, 565
=Wilson, John=, 441
_Winter Night, A_, 312
=Wordsworth, William=, 188, 371, 372, 373, 374, 375, 448, 562, 566
=Wyclif, John=, 83
Y
=Young, Edward=, 271, 278
GENERAL INDEX
The pages on which authors are more particularly dealt with are given
in =black type=.
A
_A Man’s a Man for a’ That_, 310
_A Weary Lot is Thine_, 413
_Abbot, The_, 415
_Abou Ben Adhem_, 406
_Absalom and Achitophel_, 195, 215, 227, 274
_Absentee, The_, 421
_Acis and Galatea_, 262
_Adam Bede_, 488
_Adam Blair_, 434
=Addison, Joseph=, 169, 219, =242=, 259, 267, 269, 270, 272, 276,
277, 339, 347, 431, 439, 558
_Address to the Deil_, 359
_Address to Edinburgh_, 311
_Address to the King_ (Burke), 353
_Admirable Crichton, The_, 548
_Adonais_, 392, 449
_Advancement of Learning, The_, 135
_Adventurer, The_, 344
_Adventures of Harry Richmond, The_, 483
_Adventures of Philip, The_, 480
_Advice to a Daughter_, 211
_Ae Fond Kiss_, 308
=Ælfric=, =9=, 13–14, 71
_Æneid_ (Douglas), 62
_Æneid_ (Surrey), 97, 150
_After Dark_, 488
_Afton Water_, 308
_Agnes Grey_, 486
_Aids to Reflection_, 381
=Ainsworth, William Harrison=, =422=, 438
_Airly Beacon_, 490
=Akenside, Mark=, =303=
_Alarum to the Counties of England and Wales, An_, 178
_Alastor_, 390
_Alchemist, The_, 124
_Alcibiades_, 206
_Alciphron_, 252, 270
_Alexander’s Feast_, 198
=Alfred, King=, =8=, =14=, 18, 50, 61
_Alfred_ (Thomson), 293
_Alfred, The Proverbs of_, 20
_Alice in Wonderland_, 548
_All Fools_, 127
_All for Love_, 200, 215
_All the Year Round_, 474, 475, 558
_All’s Well that Ends Well_, 116
_Allegory, the_, 48, 69, 93
_Allegro, L’_, 164, 180
Alliteration, 5, 43, 49
_Alma_, 262
_Almayer’s Folly_, 527
_Alphonsus, King of Arragon_, 106
_Alroy_, 425
_Althea, To_, 173, 185
_Alton Locke_, 489
_Alysoun_, 26, 30
_Amazing Marriage, The_, 484
_Amelia_, 319
_America, The History of_, 328
_American Notes_, 475
_Amis and Amiloun_, 22
_Amoretti_, 91, 152
_Amours de Voyage_, 469
_Anatomy of Melancholy, The_, 140, 146, 154, 175, 400
_Anatomy of the World, An_, 102
_Ancient Mariner, The Rime of the_, 376–377, 378, 446
_Ancren Riwle_, 17, 23
_Andreas_, 3
_Androcles and the Lion_, 542, 543–544
Anglo-French language, in medieval England, 15
_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, The_, 10, 11
_Ann Veronica_, 532
_Anna of the Five Towns_, 538
_Annals of the Parish, The_, 422
_Annus Mirabilis_, 194
_Anthea, To_, 170
_Antiquary, The_, 415, 447
_Antonio and Mellida_, 128
_Antonio’s Revenge_, 128
_Antony and Cleopatra_, 117, 119, 121, 123
_Apologie for Poetrie, An_, 90, 269
_Apophthegms_ (Bacon), 135
_Appius and Virginia_ (early tragedy), 77
_Appius and Virginia_ (Webster), 129
_Appreciations_, 502
_Araygnement of Paris, The_, 105
=Arbuthnot, John=, =251=
_Arcadia_, 146, 337
_Areopagitica_, 163–164
_Arms and the Man_, 541
=Arnold, Matthew=, 156, 229, 370, 453, =467=, 509, 516, 560
_Arrow of Gold, The_, 528
_Art of Political Lying, The_, 251
_Arthur and Merlin_, 22
_As You Like It_, 116
=Ascham, Roger=, =137=, 155
_Ask me No More_, 172
_Asolando_, 463
_Astræa Redux_, 195
_Astrophel and Stella_, 99
_Atalanta in Calydon_, 471
_Atheist’s Tragedy, The_, 129
_Auld Lang Syne_, 311
_Auld Licht Idylls_, 547
_Aurengzebe_, 199
_Aurora Leigh_, 467
=Austen, Jane=, 325, =418=, 438, 440
Authorized Version, the, 72, 130
_Autobiography_ (Gibbon), 326, 359
_Autobiography_ (Leigh Hunt), 406
_Autumn, Ode to_ (Keats), 401, 443
_Autumn_ (Shelley), 443
_Ayenbite of Inwyt_, 23
_Ayrshire Legatees, The_, 422
B
_Back to Methuselah_, 542, 545
=Bacon, Francis=, =134=, 147, 269
_Bad Child’s Book of Beasts, A_, 549
=Baillie, Joanna=, =336=
_Balaustion’s Adventure_, 463
=Bale, John=, 85
Ballad, the, 47, 70, 335
_Ballad of Bouillabaisse, The_, 480
_Ballad of East and West, The_, 574
_Ballad upon a Wedding, A_, 173, 186
_Ballads and Poems_ (Meredith), 482
_Ballads of Policeman X, The_, 480
_Ballads and Sonnets_ (D. G. Rossetti), 469
Ballantyne, James, 411
Ballantyne, John, 411
_Baltic, The Battle of the_, 405
=Barbour, John=, 33, =44=
_Barchester Towers_, 487
=Barclay, Alexander=, =65=, 69
_Bard, The_, 298, 335
=Barker, Granville=, 559
_Barnaby Rudge_, 475
_Barons’ Wars, The_, 100
=Barrie, Sir James=, =547=
=Barrow, Isaac=, 181
_Barry Lyndon_, 479
_Bartholomew Fair_, 124
_Bastard, The_, 263
_Battle of the Baltic, The_, 405
_Battle of Blenheim, The_, 403
_Battle of the Books, The_, 238
_Battle of Brunanburgh, The_, 6
_Battle of Hastings, The_, 314
_Battle of Maldon, The_, 6, 11
_Battle-song_ (Ebenezer Elliott), 408
=Baxter, Richard=, =181=
_Beauchamp’s Career_, 483
=Beaumont, Francis=, =126=
_Beaux’ Stratagem, The_, 205, 215, 225–226
_Becket_ (Tennyson), 458
=Beckford, William=, =324=
=Bede=, 7, 8, 9
_Bee, The_, 296, 344, 347
_Beggar’s Opera, The_, 262, 266, 267
=Behn, Aphra=, 222, =339=
_Belle Dame sans Merci, La_, 401, 402
=Belloc, Hilaire=, =549=
=Bennett, Arnold=, =538=
Bentley, Richard, 256
_Beowulf_, 2, 4, 11, 12, 179
_Beppo_, 385
=Berkeley, George=, =252=, 270, 509
=Berners, Lord=, 70
=Besant, Walter=, =490=
_Bestiary, The_, 20
_Betrothed, The_, 415
_Bevis of Hampton_, 22
Bible, the, 70, 83, 130;
Authorized Version, 130;
the Bishops’, 72;
the Geneva (“Breeches,”), 72;
the Great, 72, 84;
other early translations of, 71, 83
_Bible in Spain, The_, 490
_Biographia Literaria_, 368, 380, 443–444
_Black Arrow, The_, 491
_Black Dwarf, The_, 415
_Black-eyed Susan_, 262, 275
=Blackmore, Sir Richard= (1650–1729), =264=, 266
=Blackmore, Richard D.= (1825–1900), =491=
_Blackwood’s Magazine_, 365, 397, 424, 429, 434, 467, 488, 558
=Blair, Robert=, =305=
=Blake, William=, =314=, 334, 345, 353, 556–557
Blank verse, 97, 183, 271, 437, 456
_Bleak House_, 475