PART II

THE STUDY OF LITERATURE

We are told there is no royal road to learning; no short cut to

the understanding and appreciation of literature. We are told that

we must admire Homer, or Addison, or some other immortal author,

but no one tells us _why_ or _how_. No explanation is given of the

reason why their work is deservedly immortal. Our schools do not

introduce us to the delights of good reading; instead, they handle

a few stories and essays as if they were Latin or algebra, making

drudgery out of what ought to be enjoyment. The result is that we are

frightened away from the great writers; their work is supposed to be

a mystery, only to be revealed to those who give years of labor to

its study.

But no one is so dull or so heedless of pleasure as not to accept

the means of lasting delight when it is put right in front of them.

Thousands of people are waiting for the chance to get in touch with

the good sense, rousing style, and splendid ideas of the masters of

literature. That is why this volume has been prepared. It furnishes

a direct and attractive road straight to the heart of literature. It

has been laid out systematically so as to be a simple and practical

guide.

The leading characteristics of each era, each nation, and each

division of literature have been tersely stated, with the authors

under each of these classifications listed beneath. The noblest and

most fascinating works gain tenfold in interest through the knowledge

of these fundamental facts. With them before you, you command a view,

not merely of one single author, but of the whole movement of which

he was a part. You see the ideas and lines of thought from which a

book has sprung, the hidden forces which went into the making of

it. Each book stands in association with those of the same literary

class, or nation, or period; their relationship with the rest of

literature is at once apparent. In this way the wasteful drudgery

and folly of aimless reading is avoided. The study of literature

pursued with the means here given cannot be tedious, for it is

straightforward, simple, and clear.

The results that are to be expected from the limited time which most

of us can devote to reading are more extensive than might be thought.

In this connection read the following selections, practical and

full of common sense, each of them throwing light on the subject of

reading.

THE PREFACE, I, 3.

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

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

MORLEY, "Popular Culture," IX, 236.

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

THE DECISIVE PERIODS IN LITERATURE

FIRST OF ALL: =What is Literature?=

=The expression of thought upon the countless phases of life and the

universe as felt by the greatest intellects.=

There are innumerable views to be taken of this world of ours; each

of us sees it a little differently, the problem of life strikes a

nation or an age or an individual in ever changing ways. Homer saw

it in heroic terms, Swift, in "Gulliver's Travels," looked at it

savagely and sadly, Bunyan, in the "Pilgrim's Progress," saw the

religious side. These authors not only saw but felt; their feelings

took possession of them, they had to write them down and give them

expression. Gray, the author of the immortal "Elegy in a Country

Churchyard," took seven years to perfect the expression of the

feelings roused by what he saw in that secluded village nook. Poe

chose every word of his "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" with the

utmost care. The labor of composition was solely for the purpose of

giving the reader exactly the impression and emotion desired; for the

sake of clearness, force, and ease.

In the second place: Each of the great periods in history has

had certain traits and has excelled in some particular field of

literature. The traits and the works of an era have been molded

by preceding ages and likewise have brought about the development

of the periods which followed. Vergil was influenced by Homer and

the whole tradition of Greek literature; Shakespeare and the rest

of the Elizabethan writers are products of the fresh outburst of

activity which we call the Renaissance; Kipling has profited by the

work of Dickens, Poe, Milton, Chaucer, and a host of other authors.

If we are to appreciate a writer, then, we must know the chief

characteristics of these great literary epochs.

=The Age of the Ancients.= 1500 B.C.-500 A.D. From the dawn of

history to the fall of the Roman Empire, all the principal forms

of literary expression were developed, at least two of which, epic

poetry and tragedy, have never been surpassed. Yet the world was very

small then; it was merely the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Its

ideals were narrow, limited by paganism and slavery. For those who

wrote and those who read there was no struggle for existence, they

were waited on by their slaves, they had no faith in a life after

death; whether thinkers or heedless wasters, they were selfishly

living for to-day and not for the morrow. The bulk of the people were

ignorant, even when not enslaved. As their literature was the product

of an aristocracy, leading a life of leisure, it was inevitably

stately, reserved, and formal in its tone, except in the earliest

productions before society had emerged completely from barbarism.

POETRY

Catullus

Cleanthes

Egyptian

Lit.

Homer

Horace

Ovid

Pindar

Sappho

Theocritus

Vergil

FICTION

Æsop

Apuleius

HISTORY

Cæsar

Herodotus

Josephus

Livy

Suetonius

Tacitus

Thucydides

BIOGRAPHY

Plato

Pliny

Plutarch

DRAMA

Æschylus

Euripides

Sophocles

PHILOSOPHY

Aurelius

Cicero

Epictetus

Lucretius

Plato

Seneca

=The Dark Ages.= 500 A.D.-1000 A.D. Crippled by pride and selfishness

Roman civilization was swept away by wave after wave of barbarian

invasions. Goths, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Huns, Lombards, and Vandals

in turn swarmed over the face of Europe, spreading terror and

desolation. Learning, art, industry, and government perished. But

the invaders brought a love of freedom, a hatred of bondage and

captivity, to offset their contempt for the progress effected by the

great thinkers and rulers of antiquity.

There is but little left to us of the scanty literature produced in

those dim centuries. It is all primitive, Homeric; rhythmic tales of

the heroic lives and deaths of national leaders constitute the sole

endeavor that has lasted. But in these is _the note of freedom_, for

the masses of the people as well as the rulers and nobles delighted

in Charlemagne and his peerless knight Roland, or in Eric, the Viking

adventurer, who dared to sail far forth to Vinland. The great ruler

was not a mere commander but a leader whom men of every class gladly

followed with love as well as respect. Yet the ideals were low,

mainly of physical prowess and sheer brute strength.

Anglo-Saxon Lit.

French Lit.

German Lit.

Norse Lit.

Spanish Lit.

=The Middle Ages.= 1000 A.D.-1400 A.D. However, as soon as the

dread of barbarian havoc had passed and peace and government had

been restored to some extent, a new and brighter era began. The

thirst for learning has never been greater than at this time.

Students flocked to the universities of Paris, Oxford, and Bologna

in thousands, begging their way, traveling on foot for hundreds of

miles. Religion seized men even more firmly, finding them active or

meditative occupations either in the monasteries or in the Crusades.

The aspirations of the time appear in the legends of King Arthur and

the Round Table, as told in the prose of the day by Sir Thomas Malory

or in the more recent verse of Tennyson's "Idylls of the King." This

is the chivalric ideal of perfect knighthood. The religious feeling

is shown in such hymns as the "Stabat Mater," the "Dies Iræ," or

"Jerusalem the Golden." Dante, commonly reckoned the second of the

world's poets, proves the zeal for learning and scholarship. The

spirit of freedom gleams from the "Old English Ballads" of Robin

Hood, the enemy of the oppressive nobles and the friend of the poor

and the humble. It is even more evident in the work of John Wyclif,

who translated the Bible into English so that the common peasant

might have the advantage of hearing the Gospel message read to him

in a tongue that he understood, and that he might feel that the

teachings of religion were meant for him as much as for the wealthy

and the learned.

But science and thought had not yet startled men into recognition of

the wonder round about them. Knowledge was assumed to be complete.

To probe into the mysteries of nature was unholy and wicked in those

days. The awakening from unseeing and unreasoning childhood to the

adventuresome zest of youth and young manhood was yet to come.

POETRY

Chaucer

Dante

Old English

Ballads

Petrarch

Tasso

FICTION

Boccaccio

Malory

HISTORY

Froissart

TRAVEL

Mandeville

Polo

RELIGION

Bernard, St.

Bernard of Cluny

Jacopone

à Kempis

Thomas of Celano

Wyclif

=The Renaissance.= 1400-1600. The gradual increase of knowledge

and better government toward the close of the Middle Ages caused a

desire for higher things. This hidden desire suddenly broke loose

with astonishing force when the art of printing was discovered, about

1450. Information had hitherto been spread only by word of mouth

or by laboriously copying a volume by hand. The process in either

case was slower than we can imagine. But now new ideas, rare books,

foreign teaching could be spread broadcast like wildfire.

It also happened at just this time that Constantinople was taken by

the Turks (1453). The greatest treasures of Greek literature had been

jealously hidden away there for centuries. Now that the scholars had

to fly for their lives they let loose a store of new thought on the

nations of western Europe. Taking refuge in Italy they brought with

them these rich volumes. The Italian enthusiasm and the ardor with

which these discoveries were published to the world spread like fire

through France and Germany and England.

Everywhere mankind awoke; never before or since have people lived

so strenuously. Their newly awakened curiosity drove them round the

Cape of Good Hope and across the Atlantic Ocean. Exploration and

adventure, the invasion of Mexico and the Americas as well as the

Orient, the search for gold and for happiness went hand in hand.

At the same time Luther roused northern Europe with his demand

for religious reform and founded the Protestant church. In England

Shakespeare and his companions had discovered a new field of literary

venture and produced plays by the hundred, many of them immortal. The

modern world of action and progress had at last come of age.

The passing of the old ideals, of chivalry and monkish study, is

nowhere better shown than in "Don Quixote." The love of creative art

hand in hand with adventure echoes through every page of Cellini's

"Autobiography." Francis Bacon discovered a new method of reasoning;

Montaigne did what had not been thought of for hundreds of years, and

began to study his own personality, the workings of his mind, and the

problems which he found in his own life within himself; Sir Thomas

More also took up a subject that had not been touched for seventeen

centuries and drew a wonderful picture of an ideal government in his

"Utopia." Columbus and a whole squadron of others sailed the unknown

seas. The Elizabethan nobles, like Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Walter

Raleigh, were poets, statesmen, courtiers, and generals all at once.

POETRY

Michelangelo

Ronsard

Shakespeare

Spenser

Villon

FICTION

Cervantes

Rabelais

HISTORY

Holinshed

Raleigh

BIOGRAPHY

Cellini

DRAMA

Jonson

Marlowe

Shakespeare

PHILOSOPHY

& SCIENCE

Ascham

Bacon

Luther

Machiavelli

Montaigne

More

Sidney

=The Age of Classicism.= 1600-1776. By 1600 imagination and the

creative spirit were running riot. The exuberance of wonder and

discovery had led to a wordy and confused style of writing. It was

time for this unbalanced disorderly manner to be subjected to sound

criticism and to be regulated by laws of composition.

This is precisely what happened. Enthusiasm and inventive power

were wearied, and thinking men began to criticize and judge the

work that was being done. It was clear to them that there was need

of proportion and symmetry, that each act of a play, for example,

should do its special part in the development of the plot and in the

revelation of the characters. The problem in the scholar's mind was:

What is the best possible form or model to follow in making a play, a

song, or a speech? Wise men came to the conclusion that the classic

authors of ancient literature furnished the best examples, and this

is why the period is called the Age of Classicism.

It was characterized by the use of reason and judgment, rather than

feeling and inspiration, by convention and law, by restraint and

dignity. In fact the wilder side of nature was actually disliked;

the Alps were not grand, but barbaric and odious, in the eyes of the

literary men of that day. Dr. Johnson, in his famous Dictionary,

defines a mountain as "a protuberance on the face of nature." The

rich land-owners altered the landscapes on their great estates,

smoothed out the inelegances of the meadows, cut trees down and

planted others, laid out geometrically correct roads and paths, and

altogether 'improved' nature until the whole scene was thoroughly

artificial; very trim and neat, but very unnatural.

In literature it was much the same. Poetry, such as Pope's, seems

stilted and affected to us; the plays of Racine, the opposite of

Shakespeare's, are formal and long-winded, so exalted in tone and

so restrained in their phrasing that they are dignity indeed, but

nothing else.

Yet the movement was beneficial because it cut away the extravagances

of the earlier period. It also produced a new branch of literature,

the critical essay. The essays of Bacon and Montaigne had been

philosophical. Those of Addison and Steele dealt with life and

literature critically, using fable and fiction to give point to their

verdicts in enforcement of law and convention.

But writing based on the ancient classics demanded a highly educated

public. Only the wealthy could obtain the education necessary.

Besides, the aristocracy held that the common people should be kept

in their place, that learning and scholarship were not for them.

The life of thought and progress was remote from the mass of the

population, just as the government was carried on without reference

to their needs or wishes.

POETRY

Dryden

Goldsmith

Gray

Herbert[1]

Milton[1]

Pope

FICTION

Bunyan[1]

Defoe

Fénelon

Fielding

Goldsmith

Johnson

Le Sage

Sterne

Swift

HISTORY & ORATORY

Burke

Gibbon

ESSAY & BIOG.

Addison

Boswell

Steele

Voltaire

DRAMA

Calderon

Lessing

Molière

Racine

Sheridan

RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY

Browne[1]

Bunyan[1]

Herbert[1]

Kant

Smith, A.

Watts

Wesley

=The Age of Romanticism.= 1776-1832. The Revolution in America, soon

followed by that in France, is the historical sign of the passing

of the aristocratic spirit of classicism. Freedom, equality, the

destruction of the bondage that had held the common people back from

education and advancement, these are the new ideas. In literature as

in life a reaction broke out against the formal, stilted, unemotional

style of classicism. Wordsworth and Byron in England, Rousseau in

France, and Goethe and Schiller in Germany were the leaders in

the intellectual activity. Their writings and their principles

were directly opposed to their predecessors. Liberty, instead of

convention; free expression of passion and feeling, in the place

of cold reasoning; individual expression instead of imitation and

studied restraint; simple words and direct, clear statement in the

place of an affected and artificial style; a love for the wild and

picturesque in scenery rather than for the smooth and cultivated

parks of the past century. Contrast Byron with Pope, or Scott's

novels with Johnson's "Rasselas" to see the radical difference in

tone.

This outburst of freedom and self-expression meant progress. To

increase the advance, steam and machinery came into use; just as

printing accomplished marvels in the days of the Renaissance, so

now there was again a blaze of creative genius and inventiveness.

National education at the expense of the state and the growth of

newspapers and magazines put rich and poor, noble and peasant more

nearly on a level than any bloodshed or lawmaking could ever have

done.

POETRY

Blake

Burns

Byron

Coleridge

Keats

Musset

Shelley

Uhland

Wordsworth

FICTION

Chateaubriand

Fouqué

Hugo

Manzoni

Scott

ESSAY

De Quincey

Hazlitt

Heine

Lamb

Richter

Southey

DRAMA

Goethe

Schiller

PHILOSOPHY

Rousseau

Schopenhauer

=The Nineteenth Century=. The first glow of the romantic enthusiasm

soon died away and the new forces of industry and commerce took

possession of Europe and America.

But the swift onrush of manufacturing and trading called for armies

of accountants, skilled workers, and salesmen. These made up a new

class of society; hitherto there had been aristocrats and peasants,

educated and ignorant, rich and poor. The army of business employees,

alert, vigorous, ready for any quantity of reading-matter that would

amuse or furnish knowledge, added their countless numbers to the

reading public. Fiction, at first in the novel, and later in the

short story, was published as fast as it could be printed. This great

middle class itself provided material for genius to work on. Dickens

and George Eliot are striking examples of authors who wrote about

this new middle class in order to amuse it. The influence of business

life made the world more matter of fact and in consequence literature

became rather more prosaic, with a tendency to present a realistic

picture of everyday life and manners. Science, aided by a multitude

of mechanical inventions, made unprecedented progress and assumed a

more important place in the minds of men than ever before. History

was treated scientifically, thought was more systematic than ever,

the nineteenth century presented a union of the enthusiasm of the

Renaissance, the love of system of the Classic Age, and the devotion

to nature of the Romantic Period.

The following lists have been selected from the great array of

nineteenth-century authors with the view of presenting those whose

work has been peculiarly significant of the period.

POETRY

Arnold, M.

Browning, E. B.

Browning, R.

Bryant

Longfellow

Lowell

Morris, W.

Poe

Rossetti

Swinburne

Tennyson

Whitman

FICTION

Austen

Balzac

Dickens

Dumas

Eliot

Hardy

Harte

Hawthorne

Irving

Kipling

Poe

Stevenson

Thackeray

Tolstoi

Zola

HISTORY

Bancroft

Carlyle

Ferrero

Green

Guizot

Hodgkin

Michelet

Mommsen

Motley

Parkman

Prescott

Symonds

Taine

ESSAY & BIOG.

Arnold, M.

Chesterton

Emerson

La Ramée

Lewes

Lockhart

Lowell

Morley

Pater

Sainte-Beuve

Stephen

Thoreau

Villari

PHILOSOPHY & SCIENCE

Carlyle

Darwin

Emerson

Galton

Hamilton

Ruskin

Shaler

Spencer

RELIGION

Bowne

Brierley

Brooks

Channing

Robertson

NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS

Each of the nations, like each of the great eras of human progress,

possesses definite characteristics of its own. Frenchmen differ from

Englishmen in their faces, their customs, and also in intellectual

trend. Shakespeare is unlike Ibsen not simply because he lived at an

earlier date, in another epoch, but also because he was the native

of another country. Kipling's point of view is not the same as that

of Thomas Bailey Aldrich; their national traditions and surroundings

varied sufficiently to leave a mark upon their work so legible that

one is recognized as English and the other as American without need

of referring to their biographies.

It is necessary, then, to have in mind the traits that individualize

nations and races. For this reason the national characteristics are

here set forth briefly, with lists of the principal authors of each

country.

=Greek Literature.= An unequaled perception of beauty, with a love of

symmetry and proportion: the reason and the feelings, the intellect

and the emotions are perfectly blended. The powers of imagination

and creation are highly trained, as well as the logical faculty,

resulting in the perfection of skill and insight in epic poetry

(Homer), tragedy (Æschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles), and philosophy

(Plato).

POETRY

Cleanthes

Homer

Pindar

Sappho

Theocritus

FICTION

Æsop

HISTORY

Herodotus

Thucydides

BIOGRAPHY

Plato

Plutarch

DRAMA

Æschylus

Euripides

Sophocles

PHILOSOPHY

Epictetus

Plato

=Latin Literature.= The power of organization, with an ardor for

law and order, combined with a genius for adapting and utilizing

the best products of the nations which came under the Roman rule.

This talent for adaptation and imitation stands in contrast to the

Greek creative talent. Inasmuch as Rome's greatest literary works

belong to a period four centuries after the best Greek production, it

follows that the Roman authors profited not only by Greek achievement

but also by the increased knowledge of the world due to the vast

extension of the Roman Empire. Apart from this broader point of

view, Latin authors borrowed method and style from the Greek; Vergil

follows Homer and Theocritus, who was also imitated by Horace. Cicero

and Seneca took both thought and style from Greek philosophers. In

fact, Athens was the university at which all well-educated Romans had

studied.

POETRY

Catullus

Horace

Ovid

Vergil

FICTION

Apuleius

HISTORY

Cæsar

Josephus[2]

Livy

Suetonius

Tacitus

BIOGRAPHY

Pliny

PHILOSOPHY

Aurelius

Cicero

Lucretius

Seneca

=English Literature.= England's isolation as an island has enabled

her to develop a national literature continuously for nine centuries

with only the slightest interruption from the world without. Foreign

ideas have been introduced, certainly, but by Englishmen instead of

by foreigners. Where a slothful race would have lain dormant and

inactive, the vigorous and adventurous islanders have even led the

way in two fields of literary endeavor, for fiction and the essay

reached their successive stages of growth more quickly in England

than elsewhere. Throughout poetry and prose, with but few exceptions,

there is a blend of shrewdness and inspiration which in daily life

is called common sense; Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Browning

continually sound the practical note, evincing their knowledge and

appreciation of material affairs. Another trait is that of searching

out the moral lessons in life and thought. "Books in the running

brooks, sermons in stones" are constantly sought by English authors.

Chaucer, Bunyan, Milton, Dickens, Carlyle, Browning, and many others

from the forefront of English letters play the part of teacher and

preacher again and again.

POETRY

Anglo-Saxon

Literature

Arnold, M.

Blake

Browning, E. B.

Browning, R.

Burns

Byron

Chaucer

Clough

Coleridge

Dryden

Goldsmith

Gray

Henley

Keats

Kingsley

Macaulay

Milton

Morris, W.

Old English Ballads

Patmore

Pope

Rossetti, C.

Rossetti, D. G.

Scott

Shakespeare

Shelley

Sidney

Spenser

Swinburne

Tennyson

Wordsworth

FICTION

Austen

Barrie

Blackmore

Borrow

Brontë

Caine

Defoe

Dickens

Doyle

Eliot

Fielding

Gaskell

Goldsmith

Hardy

Hughes

Kingsley

Kipling

Lever

Lytton

Macdonald

Macleod

Malory

Meredith

Reade

Richardson

Scott

Stevenson

Swift

Thackeray

Watson

HISTORY

Carlyle

Creasy

Farrar

Freeman

Froissart

Froude

Gibbon

Gladstone

Green

Grote

Hodgkin

Holinshed

McCarthy

Mahaffy

Raleigh

Smith, G.

Symonds

BIOGRAPHY

Boswell

Chesterton

Evelyn

Lewes

Lockhart

Pepys

Southey

ESSAY

Addison

Arnold, M.

Bacon

Benson

De Quincey

Hamerton

Harrison

Hazlitt

Lamb

Lang

La Ramée

Macaulay

Milton

Morley

Pater

Ruskin

Sidney

Steele

Stephen

Stevenson

Thackeray

Walton

White, G.

HUMOR

Barham

Carroll

Cowper

Dickens

Gilbert

Hood

Hope

Jerrold

Sterne

Swift

Thackeray

TRAVEL

Hearn

Kinglake

Mandeville

Stevenson

Tyndall

DRAMA

Jonson

Marlowe

Shakespeare

Sheridan

ORATORY

Bright

Burke

SCIENCE

& PHILOSOPHY

Bacon

Carlyle

Darwin

Galton

Mill

More

Ruskin

Smith, A.

Spencer

RELIGION

Bonar

Bowring

Brierley

Browne, Sir T.

Cowper

Faber

Heber

Herbert

Hooker

Keble

Lyte

Milman

Newman

Robertson

Toplady

Watts

Wesley

Wyclif

=American Literature.= Obviously akin to English literature,

yet more democratic in tone, owing to national tendencies, such

as the character of the settlers, and the subsequent historical

developments. Longfellow, Emerson, Whitman, and the other

leading American authors wrote for the nation and not for any

restricted class; the aristocratic note characteristic of much of

eighteenth-century English literature is not to be found in American

writers.

POETRY

Aldrich

Bryant

Emerson

Field

Holmes

Howe

Key

Lanier

Longfellow

Lowell

Morris, G. P.

Payne

Poe

Read

Riley

Smith, S. F.

Story

Taylor

Whitman

Whittier

Woodworth

FICTION

Aldrich

Cooper

Crawford

Hale

Harte

Hawthorne

Irving

Poe

Stowe

HISTORY

Bancroft

Fiske

Irving

McMaster

Motley

Parkman

Prescott

ESSAY

Emerson

Fields

Howells

Lowell

Mitchell

Thoreau

Warner

HUMOR

Browne, C. F.

Harris

Harte

Holmes

Irving

Lowell

TRAVEL

Audubon

Dana

Melville

ORATORY

Choate

Henry

Lincoln

Phillips

Sumner

Washington

Webster

SCIENCE

& PHILOSOPHY

Emerson

Hamilton

Shaler

RELIGION

Bowne

Brooks

Channing

Palmer

Sears

=French Literature.= A marked love of beauty, almost Greek in its

nature, with a feeling for accuracy and organization which is

decidedly Latin. These qualities have produced delicacy and clearness

of expression; but their tendencies lead to perfection of style and

form rather than to depth of thought, giving an effect of lightness

and brilliance, and at times of superficiality.

POETRY

French Lit.

La Fontaine

Musset

Ronsard

Rouget de Lisle

Verlaine

Villon

FICTION

Balzac

Bernardin de

Saint-Pierre

Chateaubriand

Daudet

Dumas

Fénelon

Feuillet

French Lit.

Hugo

Laboulaye

Le Sage

Maupassant

Perrault

Zola

HISTORY

French Lit.

Guizot

Michelet

Taine

Voltaire

ESSAY

Montaigne

Sainte-Beuve

DRAMA

Molière

Racine

Rostand

PHILOSOPHY

Pascal

Rousseau

RELIGION

Bernard, St.

Bernard of Cluny

=German Literature.= Depth of thought and forceful expression,

which are in part responsible for the complex character of the

national style as opposed to the clarity of the French. Owing to

the unsettled condition of Germany for many centuries, the arts in

general, and literature especially, did not begin to flourish to a

noteworthy degree until the eighteenth century. While Luther was the

first great author to use the language in its present form, it was

not until two centuries later that the next eminent writers, Lessing,

Schiller, and Goethe, appeared, whose work marks the highest point in

the history of German letters.

POETRY

Arndt

German Lit.

Goethe

Heine

Schneckenburger

Uhland

FICTION

Fouqué

Grimm

Raspe

HISTORY

Mommsen

DRAMA

Lessing

Schiller

Goethe

PHILOSOPHY

Kant

Schopenhauer

RELIGION

à Kempis

Luther

=Italian Literature.= Emotional and imaginative rather than

reflective, and therefore at its best in the brilliant and exuberant

era of the Renaissance, which first came into full bloom in Italy.

POETRY

Dante

Jacopone

Michelangelo

Petrarch

Tasso

FICTION

Boccaccio

Manzoni

HISTORY

Ferrero

TRAVEL

& BIOG.

Cellini

Pellico

Polo

Villari

PHILOSOPHY

Machiavelli

RELIGION

Jacopone

Mazzini

Thomas of Celano

=Spanish Literature.= Marked by the dignity that is the predominating

characteristic of the nation. Just as Spain has had but one brief

period when she was supreme among the European nations, so she has

produced but one supreme author, Cervantes. Her literature, for the

most part, and notably at the present day, is imitative, behind

rather than ahead of the times.

POETRY

Spanish Lit.

FICTION

Cervantes

DRAMA

Calderon

=Scandinavian Literature.= Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are nations

of the same race; their history, literature, and civilization are

inseparably associated. Climate, racial character, historical

developments, and other causes have combined to retard the growth of

their literature. Apart from the sagas little of universal interest

appeared until the nineteenth century, in which Ibsen created a

sensation with his dramas of relentless criticism of the vanity and

pettiness of life in the prosperous, democratic society of Norway.

POETRY

Ewald

Norse Lit.

FICTION

Andersen

Björnson

HISTORY

Norse Lit.

DRAMA

Ibsen

=Russian Literature.= In some respects more closely related to the

East than to the West, and hampered by despotism until the twentieth

century, Russia produced nothing of value until a century ago. The

novelists mentioned below then began a series of vivid pictures of

the struggle for freedom, knowledge, and civilization as opposed to

tyranny, universal ignorance, and barbarism. Their work has a strong

national flavor, coupled with a youthful energy and an enthusiasm

for the mission of enlightenment that recalls the spirit of the

Renaissance and its zeal for discovery and progress.

POETRY

Derzhavin

FICTION

Russian Lit.

Sienkiewicz

Tolstoi

Turgenieff

=Oriental Literature.= Arabia, Persia, India, China, and Japan

live and think along lines utterly at variance with our mode of

life. Their points of difference from each other are by no means as

distinct as the radical contrast between their customs and ours.

As we all know, Arabic and Hebrew are written from right to left,

so that a book's first page corresponds to the last page with us;

in China and Japan people write down the page in vertical columns.

Again, with us energy and activity, wisely used, form the basis of

our life and our religion, whereas in the Orient it is held best

to abstain from all action, to lead a life of absolute quiet and

inactivity, if possible.

It follows that the literature of the East is first of all

exceedingly difficult to translate well and in the second place is

not to be judged in the same fashion as Western writings.

POETRY

Hafiz

Omar Khayyám

Sadi

FICTION

Arabian Nights

Jewish Lit.

HISTORY

Japanese Lit.

Josephus[3]

RELIGION

Confucius

Hindoo Lit.

Jewish Lit.

Mohammed

THE DIVISIONS OF LITERATURE

Poetry, history, the novel, the short story, the essay, and other

branches of literature have all passed through successive stages

of change and progress. To trace one of these divisions from its

beginnings is not only interesting, but affords an excellent method

of study, easily carried out and immediately beneficial. The novel

of to-day, for example, is the product of centuries of authorship,

in which various elements were gradually blended; the contributions

of Cervantes, Defoe, Addison, and Scott, extending over a space of

two hundred and thirty years, have each played a decisive part in its

formation. So it is with history, poetry, and the rest of the forms

of intellectual expression. The origin and nature of each of these

divisions is considered in the pages that follow, with the usual

lists and examples under each heading.

POETRY

How did poetry originate? In every nation the beginnings of its

literature have been poems. This highest form of literary expression

is also the oldest; it is not the final triumphant product of a

highly civilized age, after centuries of slow development and gradual

growth of power and art in the use of words. It is exactly the

opposite; the earliest authors are the poets who sang and chanted the

brave deeds of the leaders of their nation; the "Iliad," the Norse

sagas, the "Song of Roland" are well-known examples of this primitive

yet glorious poetry. But why is this, that one of the greatest of the

arts should be already highly perfected in barbaric times? Because

poetry rests on two principles: it is imaginative in its nature and

rhythmic in its form. Man's imagination stirred him to conquest for

the sake of glory and dominion, and then his imagination was again

roused to tell in words of splendid imagery of his honor and fame

and valor, of loveliness and happiness and power. Man's instinct for

the regular cadence that he heard in the tramp of marching feet led

him to chant aloud in firm, even measure while the words he sang

fitted themselves to the beat of his music. It was only a slight

matter to vary the length of the lines or group them in stanzas or

use rhyme in order to increase the beauty of verse construction.

However, the true test of poetry has always been the value of its

imaginative power; no matter how accurate or elaborate its form,

unless it expresses great ideas it cannot rank as great poetry, but

merely as good verse. Like all art, poetry is the expression of

genuine feeling in beautiful form. (See Sidney's "Defense of Poesy.")

THE CHIEF DIVISIONS OF POETRY

=Epic poetry= tells the story of a great sequence of events, such as

the wanderings and home-coming of Odysseus, in the "Odyssey." It is

the earliest form of literature and one of the grandest. No great

period or nation has failed to produce its epic.

For examples in Ancient Literature see "The Epic of Pentaur" under

Egyptian Literature; Homer; and Vergil. The works of the last two are

known as 'heroic epics.'

In the Dark Ages: "Beowulf" under Anglo-Saxon Literature; "The Song

of Roland" under French Literature; "The Nibelungenlied" under German

Literature; "The Saga of Eric the Red" under Norse Literature; and

"The Chronicle of the Cid" under Spanish Literature.

In the Middle Ages: Dante and Tasso, who wrote 'sacred epics.' The

"Old English Ballads" are excellent examples of the shorter poetic

tales from which such epics as the "Iliad," the "Nibelungenlied," and

the "Song of Roland" were built up.

In the Renaissance: Spenser, whose "Faerie Queene" is an epic of

chivalry. Milton's great epics of "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise

Regained" are sacred epics, reflecting the Puritan influence that

came over England at the close of the period.

In the Age of Classicism: the mock-epic of Pope's "Rape of the Lock,"

and the epic tale in prose, "Telemachus," by Fénelon.

In the Age of Romanticism: Scott's "Lady of the Lake," and Byron's

"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," although this last is perhaps best

regarded as a study of the poet's emotions upon visiting the grandest

scenes in Europe.

In Nineteenth Century Literature: Longfellow's "Evangeline" and

"Hiawatha" are short epics. Owing to the central, unifying figure of

King Arthur, Tennyson's "Idylls of the King" have much of the epic

effect.

=Lyric poetry= includes all verse that presents the poet's feelings

and passions; it is characterized also by plentiful use of varied

ideas, rich and fanciful imagery, and rhythmical flow of language.

From the beginning there were shorter songs, as well as the epic,

often accompanied on the lyre, a small harp, from which this branch

of poetry takes its name. To-day lyric poetry tends toward a lighter

tone and spirit than in the Romantic Period; in length it may vary

very widely, from the little quatrain, of four lines, to an ode or

a ballad of almost epic extent. Burns, Milton, Moore, Byron, Keats,

Shelley, Shakespeare, and Wordsworth are among the foremost in this

field; among the ancients Catullus, Horace, and Sappho are prominent;

while the writings of Goethe, Heine, Uhland, Longfellow, Whittier,

Browning, Tennyson, and Swinburne contain many that are familiar.

Musical accompaniment is no longer essential. There are several forms

of the lyric, chief among which are the following:

The Ode, addressed to a person or a personified idea or else

expressing the poet's emotions at a moment of great exaltation.

In form it either follows a varying sequence of lines of

irregular length or else employs a series of uniform stanzas.

Illustrative of the former are Dryden's "Alexander's Feast"

and "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day," and Wordsworth's "Ode on

Intimations of Immortality"; among the latter are Collins's "Ode

to Evening," Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian

Urn," Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" and "To a Skylark," and

Wordsworth's "To the Cuckoo" and "Ode to Duty."

The Sonnet, of Italian origin, was brought to its perfection

by Petrarch; it consists of fourteen lines of equal length

(in English usually of ten syllables), the first eight lines

constituting the _octave_ and the last six, the _sestet_. In

the octave the rhymes are arranged _a b b a a b b a_, and in

the sestet, either _c d c d c d_ or _c d e c d e_. The sonnet

should contain one idea, which may be treated from two points of

view, in the octave and sestet respectively. As used by Milton

and later poets in England this double treatment was not often

observed and there is no break of thought at the end of the

octave. Owing to its restrictions the sonnet is considered one

of the most difficult forms in which to achieve distinction,

as metrical ingenuity without sublimity of thought bars mere

versifiers. The most noted examples by English authors are E.

B. Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese," Keats's "On First

Looking into Chapman's Homer," Milton's "On His Blindness,"

Shelley's "England in 1819," and those selected from Wordsworth.

The Ballad, partaking somewhat of the epic, is a tale in verse,

usually arranged in short stanzas. "Old English Ballads,"

Cowper's "The Diverting History of John Gilpin," Drayton's

"Ballad of Agincourt," and Rossetti's "The White Ship" are

specimens of this form. It originated among the peasantry, who

commemorated the prowess of their favorite heroes in rough verse

sung by the cottage hearth.

The Elegy is devoted to the memory of the dead and therefore is

grave and stately in its metrical form as well as in thought.

Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," Milton's

"Lycidas," Shelley's "Adonais," and Tennyson's "In Memoriam" are

the most famous.

=Idyllic poetry= briefly presents a picture, complete and lovely,

usually pastoral and romantic. Tennyson's "Idylls of the King,"

Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," the Idylls of Theocritus, and the

Eclogues of Vergil are the best examples.

=Dramatic poetry=, in which the form of a play or drama is used, has

always been chosen for the deepest and most majestic presentations

of the problems and wonders of human life. The dramatic poets of

the ancients as well as those of modern times rank among the most

far-seeing thinkers and ablest writers of the world. No philosopher

or historian has ever been able to reach the people or express the

profoundest reflections so readily and forcibly.

The tragedies of Æschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles, with those of

Shakespeare and the "Faust" of Goethe, are the highest achievements

in literature; their effect, from the stage, is instantaneous, and

even in reading them the mind receives a direct impression of wonder

and awe not elsewhere given. The Greek tragedies mentioned above

have for their underlying theme the power of relentless fate, the

inevitable omnipotence of right, and the final destruction of wrong

and falsehood. In these and "Macbeth," "Hamlet," and "King Lear"

the mastery of plot and action is superb; the play gathers force

and momentum until the catastrophe sweeps down upon the evil-doers

and unfortunates like a tidal wave. Yet each step in its progress,

even the least trifle, is so natural as to seem unavoidable. Here

is the proof of the poet's genius, in that he selects the message

to be presented to his audience or readers, chooses his characters,

and outlines his plot, then combines the three elements with such

skill and with such inspiration as to leave an effect of perfect

truth and actuality. Aristotle, the ancient philosopher and critic,

declared that the very souls of the audience were cleansed and rid of

pettiness and self-seeking by beholding such works as these; that the

spectacle of disaster brought down upon men by their own vanity and

wrong-doing, and portrayed in language of such vivid grandeur, was

the most impressive means of reaching the hearts of men.

In addition to the authors mentioned above, Calderon, Jonson,

Lessing, Marlowe, Molière, Racine, Rostand, and Schiller have made

notable contributions to the poetic drama. (See also Drama, p. 49.)

FICTION

The practice of telling tales of love and heroism is older than

history itself. Ever since men sat about the fire of an evening and

recited the deeds of their chieftains or extolled the beauty of

their princesses, in other words, ever since the days when poetry

first began, stories and tales have been handed down, first by word

of mouth, then by carvings and inscriptions and at last by writing

and printing. The first fiction was a simple, imaginative invention

of adventure, told to pass the time. Æsop's "Fables" and Apuleius's

"Story of Cupid and Psyche," ancient as they are, show the progress

already made in the art of narration, the one simple and insistent

in its purpose of teaching common sense by whimsical anecdotes, the

other a delicately artistic legend told with exquisite grace. In

"Jewish Literature" the story of Tobit's wonderful adventures at once

calls to mind the "Arabian Nights," which were of similar origin,

told by professional story-tellers for centuries before they were

finally written down and translated for our perpetual delight.

=The novel=, a new feature in fiction, shows its first faint

beginnings in the tumult and enthusiasm of the Renaissance, that

strenuous age of new ideas and discoveries. Cervantes in writing "Don

Quixote" had a definite purpose in mind beyond mere entertainment;

the passing of the age of chivalry and the pathos and humor of life

form the true subject of his tale. Bunyan in the "Pilgrim's Progress"

shows the same intent of doing something more than providing

interesting reading; the growth of a noble character through struggle

and temptation on the journey through life is the central thought

of his work. His hero, Christian, changes in character, becoming a

stronger, better man as the story goes on. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe

goes through much of the same evolution. And this is the underlying

principle of the novel, that it has a purpose beyond simple

story-telling, possessing a plot or unified succession of incidents,

with actors whose characters develop. It is a picture of human life,

with strength and weakness, happiness and misery, all bound together

and forming a united and well-proportioned whole.

However, it was not until Addison and Steele, in the "Spectator"

essays, had shown such skill in drawing characters and depicting

manners and customs that the time was ripe for the true novel to

appear. For one of the chief duties of the novel is to criticize

life, to furnish comment on the social conditions and tendencies of

the day. Among the earliest and also the greatest of the English

novelists, Fielding, whose work appeared about thirty years after the

"Spectator," not only draws sturdy and truthful pictures of the life

of his day, but also makes the reader see the true value of that life

and estimate its good and its bad qualities. In the same way Dickens

and Thackeray, not very long after, supplied unending amusement and

fun for the world and at the same time did far more by making the

nations sit up and think, pointing out with almost brutal clearness

the need of unselfish action and the love of truth and simplicity.

There is not a novel of high rank but contains more than meets the

eye at first glance. It is the readiest means of putting a critical

estimate of history, of life and society, directly before the world.

NOVELS AND GENERAL FICTION

Austen

Balzac

Beaconsfield

Blackmore

Borrow

Brontë

Bunyan

Caine

Cervantes

Chateaubriand

Cooper

Daudet

Defoe

Dickens

Doyle

Dumas

Fénelon

Feuillet

Fielding

Gaskell

Goldsmith

Hugo

Kingsley

Le Sage

Lever

Lytton

Macdonald

Manzoni

Meredith

Reade

Richardson

Scott

Shorthouse

Sienkiewicz

Stowe

Thackeray

Turgenieff

Zola

=The short story=, as distinct from a story that is short, is a

nineteenth-century development in fiction. During the last hundred

years the magazines grew so rapidly in numbers and circulation that

they could not depend entirely on continued stories; they had to

have tales that would be complete in one number, which could be read

at one sitting. The demand brought the needed solution, a story

which instead of length, with intricate action and complex studies

of personality, supplied rapid action, brilliantly imaginative

description, and a terse portrayal of character. Scenes, persons,

and events were stamped immediately on the reader's mind; the effect

desired by the writer was attained by force and bold decision. Edgar

Allan Poe was one of the first to excel in this field, utilizing his

critical powers as well as sheer inspiration to meet the situation.

The variations in style and manner are as manifold in the short story

as in the novel. Boccaccio, "The Arabian Nights," French Literature,

and the "Gesta Romanorum" show the work of the Middle Ages, from mere

anecdote with a moral tagged on, in the "Gesta," to the graceful

prose poem of "Aucassin and Nicolete." Barrie, Brown, and Hawthorne

do little more than draw quiet sketches of simple life, while

Björnson, Eliot, Hardy, Harte, Irving, Kipling, Macleod, Maupassant,

Stevenson, and Tolstoi deal powerfully with situations that bring

home to us the force of fate which lurks hidden in petty incidents.

Aldrich, Collins, Crawford, Hale, and Watson have all used this type

of fiction effectively. Indeed, Hale's "Man Without a Country" drives

home the idea of patriotism so vigorously that Italy recently issued

a translation in an edition of a million copies for distribution to

her army.

HISTORY

Like poetry and fiction, history emerges from the darkness of the

unknown ages, at first no more than a boastful record of slaughter

and usurpation, such as shows through the gloss and splendor of epic

poetry. The sagas in "Norse Literature," the crisp record of invasion

and conquest by Cæsar, and that of Josephus on the Roman conquest of

the Jews are all of this type, a chronicle by an eyewitness of the

succession of deeds that made up some event in a nation's life.

An improvement came with Herodotus in ancient times and again with

Froissart in the Middle Ages. Both of these historians added zest

to their tale by including some account of the principal personages

as well as picturesque, well-drawn pictures of the scene. In other

words, they filled in the background of their pictures, their wars

were waged by people with definite personalities and in a country

with certain individual features and peculiarities.

From this method to the modern scientific style was a further

advance. It is now understood that we must perceive the growth of

a nation, its social changes, its increase of intellectual as well

as physical power, its innermost secrets of success or failure.

Thucydides, the Greek historian, and Tacitus, the Roman, felt

something of this and have left us far more than a mere list of

battles and rulers. Gibbon, in "The Decline and Fall of the Roman

Empire," and later still, Guizot, Mommsen, and Ferrero, have carried

on the work of analyzing the complex mysteries of history and

civilization and have brought it to its highest development. The more

stirring visions of heroism and kingly dominion have been replaced by

pages in which not an emperor but a nation is born, passes through

childhood to maturity and wisdom, succumbs to disease or an enemy's

murderous attacks, and perishes.

The study of history nowadays may involve the scholar in years of

drudgery, such as searching out and listing the exports and imports

of the city of London between the years 1340 and 1400. However,

the conclusions drawn from his discoveries may be of world-wide

importance. The questions of tariff reform, wage-scales, taxation,

and representative government will all be affected by the data which

his scientific investigation will have brought to light. Those of us

whose life-work lies in other directions can give no attention to

the details of toilsome labor like this. But the results must always

be significant for us. The great movements in the troublous advance

of the nations from barbarism to civilization are full of lessons

which we must learn. History, regarded as a series of wars, an

unceasing fury of bloodshed and misgovernment, is of slight interest

to peace-loving people. But history as a series of pictures, showing

the conditions of life in various ages and countries, picturing the

spread of liberty and equality, and the slow yet sure increase of

justice--history viewed in this manner is one of the most stirring

and educative subjects for reading and study.

How was the Roman Empire built up? What was the condition of the

people in the days of Homer? How did the ancient tribes live from

which the German nation is descended? What was England like in

Shakespeare's time? These are some of the questions which we should

ask. Many of the ablest brains in Europe and America have spent their

lives in finding out the answers.

The following lists group the historians according to the nation

which they discuss.

GREECE

Froude

Gladstone

Grote

Herodotus

Mahaffy

Plutarch

Thucydides

ROME

Cæsar

Farrar

Ferrero

Freeman

Gibbon

Hodgkin

Josephus

Livy

Mommsen

Pliny

Suetonius

Tacitus

ENGLAND

Cæsar

Creasy

Evelyn

Froissart

Green

Holinshed

McCarthy

Pepys

Raleigh

Smith, G.

Southey

Taine

AMERICA

Bancroft

Fiske

Irving

McMaster

Parkman

FRANCE

Cæsar

Carlyle

Creasy

French Lit.

Froissart

Michelet

Parkman

ITALY

Cellini

Hodgkin

Symonds

Villari

SPAIN

Creasy

Prescott

Spanish Lit.

Egyptian Literature, Guizot's "History of Civilization in Europe,"

Japanese Literature, Josephus on the conquest of the Jews by Rome,

Motley's "Relief of Leyden," Norse Literature, Tacitus's "Customs of

the Germans," and Voltaire's account of Charles XII of Sweden are

other selections.

BIOGRAPHY

The lives of great men have always been of interest not merely for

the sake of satisfying curiosity, but because of the value of further

knowledge about their habits, thoughts, and actions. The personality

of a great man attracts us; perhaps through reading an intimate

account of his life we may see into the reasons for his superiority,

possibly we may find the key to the secret of power. So much can be

learned from biography that it seems absurd how little importance

is given to the subject even in our best colleges. Yet Christianity

rests upon the life and teachings of one Personality, nation after

nation has been saved or ruined by the deeds of one individual,

wisdom and contentment have been found by the great minds of the

world. By considering their lives, their principles, their virtues,

and their failings we can get an extraordinary insight into the

problems of happiness and wholesome living. Carlyle rightly called a

Great Man "the most precious gift that Heaven can give to the Earth;

a man of 'genius' as we call it; the Soul of a Man actually sent down

from the skies with a God's-message to us." To see such a man at his

work, at his play, thinking, dreaming, attaining greatness little by

little or in a flash, to spend hours with him in thought, learning

from him or from his friends and critics wherein he proved his power

and how he labored to express it: to be in such close touch with one

of the giants of the earth is a privilege which we must not dare to

neglect. The opportunity is ours, ours be the blame and the failure

if we neglect it.

Boswell

Cellini

Chesterton

Eckermann

Evelyn

Fields

Franklin

Lewes

Lockhart

Pellico

Pepys

Plato

Pliny

Plutarch

Renan

Southey

Stephen

Villari

ESSAY

Originally intended, as its name implies, to be a tentative effort

rather than a finished production, the essay has none the less become

one of the most perfect forms of prose. Its subject and the treatment

thereof may be of almost any nature, provided it is well wrought

and finished in style; for an essay is the artistic consideration

of a topic, often critical, as in the case of Matthew Arnold's

masterpieces, humorous, as with Lamb, philosophical as with Emerson,

Carlyle, and Ruskin, and so on through a dozen diverse manners. In

general the essay is brief, critical, and scholarly, and bears the

stamp of the author's personality and individual opinion in his most

polished style.

Bacon and Montaigne were the first to use it, Milton followed, and

then Addison and Steele brought it to a high state of light and

pungent perfection. Lamb, Macaulay, and Stevenson are perhaps the

leaders in its later development. The work of such writers as Walton

and Gilbert White, though not perhaps within the stricter limits of

the definition, is closely related to the essay in tone and style.

Addison

Arnold, M.

Benson

De Quincey

Hamerton

Harrison

Hazlitt

Howells

Lamb

Lang

La Ramée

Lowell

Macaulay

Mill

Mitchell

Montaigne

Morley

Pater

Ruskin

Sainte-Beuve

Sidney

Steele

Stephen

Stevenson

Thackeray

Thoreau

Walton

Warner

White, G.

HUMOR

Humor is the most subtle of intellectual modes of expression. To

define it and lay down its laws and principles is all but beyond

human power. For it ranges from the inspired nonsense of Carroll's

"Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass" or the rough

and ready gusto of Browne's "Showman's Courtship" to the airily

intangible delicacy of Lamb's "Essays of Elia" and the venomous

sarcasm of Swift's "Gulliver's Travels." Mere wit turns on an absurd

similarity in words or ideas, as in Hood's lines:

"They went and told the sexton, and

The sexton tolled the bell."

Yet the deepest humor is all but pathos; Don Quixote's demented

visions of giants that prove to be windmills and of castles that turn

out to be taverns provoke our laughter while they stir our pity.

Humor would seem to depend, according to some, upon the association

of ideas or circumstances that have no true relation to each other,

as if they actually possessed a natural relationship. For this reason

a cat or a cow dressed in coat and trousers provokes laughter, or

a village bully described as a proud monarch causes a smile. An

unexpected answer made as seriously as if it were appropriate is one

of the commoner examples of the ludicrous. It is much for the same

reason that actual misfortune may appear laughable, if the element of

suffering is suppressed, as in Joel Chandler Harris's "Uncle Remus"

stories, or Gilbert's "Yarn of the Nancy Bell." Its very subtlety

limits the appeal of humor. "One man's meat is another man's poison"

applies more closely to this division of authorship than to any

other. What tickles the fancy of one person, and more especially, one

nation, may not afford even passing amusement to another. Englishmen

find our comic papers dull, while many Americans see little to laugh

at in "Punch."

Barham

Browne

Carroll

Cervantes

Cowper

Gilbert

Harris

Harte

Holmes

Hood

Hope

Irving

Jerrold

Jonson

Lamb

Lowell

Richter

Sheridan

Sterne

Swift

FOR THE CHILDREN

The foundations of good taste are best laid in childhood. Fairy

tales, adventures, and all sorts of stories for children may be

well designed and well written, or the opposite, just as much as

books for older people. Choose your children's books as you choose

their food; take care they get no trash, arrange a tempting diet of

wholesome nourishment for their minds. The authors listed below wrote

as carefully and thoughtfully for little folks as when they wrote

for grown-ups. Andersen devoted his life to authorship for children;

the Grimm brothers made a scientific study of folk-lore and fairy

tales throughout the German empire, collecting the stories told by

the firesides in each district. Carroll, Hawthorne, Kingsley, and

many others put their best efforts into books which are unquestioned

examples of great literature and yet were purposed entirely for

youth. There is no occasion for young people to ruin their taste and

their appreciation with ill-written rubbish.

Æsop

Andersen

Arabian Nights

Brown

Fouqué

Grimm

Hughes

Irving

Jewish Lit.

Kingsley

Laboulaye

Perrault

Raspe

Russian Lit.

Swift

TRAVEL

The majority of travelers have been men of action rather than words,

filled with enthusiasm and inspiration for deeds instead of books.

Columbus, Magellan, Drake, and the rest of the leaders of exploration

have left nothing that can be called literature. Their records,

at best, are scientific reports of their discoveries. Still, ever

since the days when Pausanias made his remarkable tour of Greece and

described its wonders and Herodotus jotted down the travelers' tales

of Egypt, there have been able writers to tell of the marvels, real

or imaginary, to be found in foreign lands.

Audubon

Dana

Hearn

Heine

Kinglake

Mandeville

Melville

Pausanias

Polo

Stevenson

Tyndall

DRAMA

In both ancient and modern literature the drama is of religious

origin. Among the Greeks it began as a service in memory of some dead

hero, the choir or chorus chanting the story of his life and deeds.

Their leader presently began to take an actor's part, addressing the

audience or congregation, and then other persons were introduced

who carried on a dialogue with him and at last played the part of

characters in the hero's history. In the Middle Ages, when the great

majority of the people could not read, the Bible story was acted

at Christmas, Easter, and other festivals in order to impress it

on their minds more vividly. From this it was an easy step to the

presentation of historical events, and it was but one more step to

the modern drama's elaborate staging and well-rounded plot. (For the

poetic drama, see p. 40.)

In general the drama has certain limitations which must be taken

into account before passing judgment upon a play. Three hours is the

utmost duration for a play; it must 'get across' within that period,

since an audience becomes wearied during the third hour. It appeals

to two senses, hearing and sight, while other forms of literature

appeal but to one. This is an advantage as far as it enables the

dramatist to tell his story by scenery and action as well as by

speech and incidental music. It is a handicap when the action or

the scenery is faulty and distracts the attention of the audience

from the dialogue. Descriptions of any length, the study or analysis

of personality, all features of ordinary fiction which delay the

action are impossible on the stage. Speech and action must be fitted

together so as to carry the plot through without pause, revealing the

story forcibly, clearly, and yet naturally, within the restricted

time.

These limitations have been handled in widely varying manners:

three systems of presentation have been employed, the ancient,

the medieval, and the modern, all of which are to be seen at the

present day, thanks to the revival of Greek plays in the stadiums

and amphitheaters of our colleges and likewise to the revival of the

Elizabethan drama during the past ten years.

The ancient or Greek drama was presented in a stone amphitheater

against a background of marble, constructed in the form of a palace

or temple; the semicircular space occupied by the orchestra seats

in our theaters contained an altar in the center and was used by

the actors as a part of the stage; the chorus in particular used

this space for their stately dances and stood at one side during

the progress of the action, commenting on the course of events in

odes which they chanted. The lack of movable scenery, and other

limitations, resulted in the restrictions known as =the three

'unities,'= of action, time, and place. No play, according to =the

unity of action=, should introduce incidents that were not a part of

the main action; the plot must be absolutely simple. Thus the story

of Jessica and Lorenzo, in "The Merchant of Venice" would be barred

by this convention, as it does not contribute to the development of

the main story of Antonio and Shylock. The =unity of time= required

that the action should not represent the occurrences of more than a

day at the very outside, and the =unity of place= held the action to

one spot. These latter conventions were to increase the impression

of truth and actuality on the minds of the spectators, heightening

the effect of complete naturalness and leaving their imaginations

free to grasp the problems of the plot without the additional effort

of supposing lapses of time and changes of scene to have occurred.

The number of actors was small; usually two, or at most three, were

permitted to take part at one time in a portion of the dialogue.

These conventions produce a simplicity that was not bare and dull,

but just the reverse; the attention is focused directly upon the

leading character and his fate from beginning to end. The effect is

single and direct, there is no complexity or intricacy to puzzle the

audience or distract its interest in the crisis which is so obviously

approaching. The grandeur of this type of drama is like that of a

great hymn, such as "Old Hundred," sung by a vast congregation.

The medieval plays, which reached their height in Shakespeare's

time, were very different from those of the ancients. The stage was

almost as bare and scenery was not used, but changes of locality were

frequent, indicated by hanging out a sign with the words, "This is

a garden" or "A Street in Venice" and so on. In the same way there

was no restriction upon time; years might be supposed to have passed

between one act and the next. The imagination of the audience was

expected to take care of such matters, and indeed it did so with

the utmost ease. The plot could be supplemented with all sorts of

incidents whether they directly concerned it or not. For example, the

wrestling scene at the beginning of "As You Like It" was inserted to

satisfy the Elizabethan love of sport, not because it could be of

use in advancing the progress of the story, as it did nothing of the

kind. The Greek unities were disregarded completely; however, the

most impressive of Shakespeare's tragedies do adhere to the principle

of the unity of action,--"Macbeth," for example, deals with the

consequences of unscrupulous ambition, each event in the play leads

directly on to the catastrophe without a pause, there are no minor

events or plots.

The modern play differs from both the earlier forms of the drama

in its appeal to the eye. The use of scenery, which came in at

the beginning of the Age of Classicism, has led to an elaboration

of stage effects which sometimes is injurious to the success of

a production. Much of the modern stage-craft is concerned with

scenic effects and therefore does not come into this discussion.

The chief distinction to-day lies in the treatment of problems

of everyday life in an everyday manner. Neither the ancient nor

the Shakespearian playwrights handled tragedy in the setting of

ordinary life. The Greeks portrayed famous heroes and princes and

so did the Elizabethans, but rarely, except in comedy, was there

any presentation of the life of the middle classes of that time.

Sheridan and Ibsen, in common with most of the modern playwrights,

take the life of the mass of the people and draw their illustrations

of success and failure direct. The audience of to-day sees itself

walking and talking on the stage, playing the fool or the hero.

Each style has its merits and its faults, each is powerful in the

hands of a genius and each fails when used by incompetents. The

average drama depends largely upon the actors for its success, it can

hardly be classed among literary efforts. Only the plays wrought by

masters of thought as well as of speech can be given a place in the

realm of literature.

Æschylus

Calderon

Euripides

Goethe

Ibsen

Jonson

Lessing

Marlowe

Molière

Racine

Rostand

Schiller

Shakespeare

Sheridan

Sophocles

ORATORY

The art of addressing a large gathering and winning their support, as

well as their attention, by sound argument and also by eloquence is

a study that is in danger of falling into a decline, owing perhaps

to the prevalence of newspapers and the rapidity with which an

argument or an idea can be spread broadcast over the world by the

telegraph and the press. In reading even the finest speeches of the

past or the present allowance must almost always be made for the

personal magnetism of the speaker, the appeal made by his presence,

his gestures, and his voice. For this reason it is difficult to form

a just estimate of the worth of a speech, especially at a date when

the subject has become less vital or even unfamiliar through the

passage of time. The sole bases of criticism under these conditions

must be the force of the argument and the eloquence of the style.

This is aptly illustrated in the case of Burke, whose arguments were

admitted to be irresistible in their strength, but who had so poor a

delivery that he was called the dinner-bell of the House of Commons,

in reference to the departure of the members when he rose to speak.

The most influential speakers have been those who combined skill in

argument with grace and eloquence and reinforced these qualities with

a commanding personality. These talents are needed to-day if we are

to maintain the standard set by Washington, Webster, and Lincoln.

Bright

Brooks

Burke

Channing

Choate

Demosthenes

Henry

Lincoln

Mirabeau

Phillips

Robertson

Sumner

Washington

Webster

PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE

The aim of philosophy, like that of science, is to probe the mystery

of life, to discover as far as possible the nature of man and of the

universe in which he dwells. These efforts began when men first asked

"What am I? What is this world?" Philosophy attempts the answer by

reasoning and meditation, while science uses inventions, such as the

telescope, mathematical calculation, and all other means of obtaining

accurate information regarding the physical environment and nature

of man. The former is concerned with the spirit, the unseen, the

motives of honor, love, and the like, and the infinite possibilities

of the mind and the soul; the latter deals with the actual, material

conditions of life. The best of scientific literature so closely

borders on philosophy that it has been included among the selections

that treat of philosophic problems.

Aurelius

Bacon

Carlyle

Cicero

Darwin

Emerson

Epictetus

Galton

Hamilton

Kant

Lucretius

Machiavelli

Mill

More

Pascal

Plato

Rousseau

Ruskin

Schopenhauer

Seneca

Shaler

Smith, A.

Spencer

RELIGION

Certain hymns will always linger in the memory from the days of

childhood; and certain sermons and devotional works have so feelingly

expressed the aspirations of Christian life that they have attained

enduring fame. These are here collected without reference to

denominational distinction.

Also, as it is of interest to note the ideals of thinkers in other

than Christian lands, passages are included from the teachings of

Confucius, the Chinese scholar; Cleanthes, the Greek poet; the life

of Buddha, in Hindoo Literature; the Talmud, in Jewish Literature;

and the "Koran" of Mohammed.

HYMNS

Bernard, St.

Bernard of Cluny

Bonar

Bowring

Cowper

Faber

Heber

Herbert

Jacopone

Keble

Luther

Lyte

Milman

Newman

Palmer

Thomas of Celano

Toplady

Watts

Wesley

SERMONS AND DEVOTIONAL WORKS

Bowne

Brierley

Brooks

Browne, Sir T.

Bunyan

Channing

Hooker

à Kempis

Luther

Mazzini

Robertson

Wyclif

FROM SEVEN TO TWENTY-ONE

Lists of readings for young and old.

Showing how to acquire, by easy stages, a knowledge of the best in

literature, year by year.

Unlike poets, painters, and the rest of the world of artists,

booklovers are made, not born. But many a booklover has been spoiled

in the making, too; so that we must needs give thought to the process

of transforming everyday folk into _willing and skilful readers and

lovers of books_. Many boys and girls and many men and women have

lost all interest in the realm of books through lack of suitable

material for enjoyment and adequate opportunity for practice. What

books they could find round the house failed to meet their desires or

hold their attention; probably they were technical or 'dry-as-dust.'

In other words the untrained reader, whether young or old, must be

trained and exercised on the right books at the right time. Not

that he should be coaxed and tempted with light fiction or showy

trash, quite the contrary; he must acquire _strength of mind and

intellectual habits_--he is to be trained to grasp serious thought as

well as highstrung romance. Conan Doyle's thrilling "White Company"

or Blackmore's tender "Lorna Doone" form excellent entertainment, but

they must be supplemented by sturdy common sense, such as one finds

in Franklin's "Autobiography," Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast,"

or Bancroft's account of the Lexington and Concord fight. The young

mind, and the old one as well, cannot grow strong and able without

exercise. Just as tennis, football, swimming, or golf help to develop

and strengthen our physical powers, so the mind likewise must take

exercise that will ripen and enlarge the intellectual powers. The

joy of living is dependent upon full vigor of brain and brawn; the

weakling, whether in intellect or in muscle, loses the best that life

has to give. Our ideal must be not merely a sound mind in a sound

body but, rather, a strong mind in a strong body.

The lists that follow have been devised to meet the requirements for

training the mind to a ready facility and enjoyment of books and

reading. Naturally, these groups are arbitrary, they definitely place

one author or selection in the eleven year old's list, another in

the fifteen; whereas either might well be transferred, in individual

cases. The object manifestly is to group writers and selections as a

means of guidance and help to the average reader whether parent or

child, but not to draw hard and fast lines. The sooner the reader

becomes ready to wander as he will, the sooner will he be a true

booklover.

=Seven to Ten Years of Age.= At this time of life, as every one

knows, fairy tales are an unfailing delight and form the foundations,

moreover, of all thorough literary appreciation. In addition to

these, tales of adventure or of travel, such as Malory's Morte

Darthur, or Marco Polo's astonishing discoveries in China, serve as

admirable supplementary reading at this age.

ÆSOP

Fables

ANDERSEN

Fairy Tales

GRIMM

Fairy Tales

HARRIS

Uncle Remus

IRVING

Rip Van Winkle

KEY

Star Spangled Banner

KINGSLEY

Water Babies

LABOULAYE

Poucinet

MALORY

Morte Darthur

PERRAULT

Fairy Tales

POLO

Travels

RUSSIAN LIT.

The Water King

SMITH, S. F.

America

SWIFT

Gulliver's Travels

=Eleven and Twelve Years of Age.= The next step consists in awakening

the sense of understanding, rousing the mind to grasp actual scenes

and situations. For this purpose the "Pilgrim's Progress," "Two

Years Before the Mast," "The Village Blacksmith," or "Horatius" are

especially suitable. For while the fairy tale element is continued

in "Cupid and Psyche," the "Odyssey," and "Undine," it is to these

more realistic selections that we must look for the stimulus to

imaginative growth that the children need. For this reason,

"Robinson Crusoe" is of paramount value at this time simply because

it trains the young mind to picture the scenes or events with the

utmost care for details; probably no other work of fiction in English

Literature can equal it for realistic vividness and precision.

APULEIUS

Cupid and Psyche

BROWN, J.

Rab

BUNYAN

Pilgrim's Progress

CARROLL

Alice in Wonderland, etc.

COOPER

Pathfinder

DANA

Two Years Before the Mast

DEFOE

Robinson Crusoe

FOUQUÉ

Undine

GESTA ROMANORUM

HAWTHORNE

Snow Image

HEMANS

Casabianca

Pilgrim Fathers

HERODOTUS

Legends

HOMER

Iliad

Odyssey

HOWE

Battle Hymn

HUGHES

Tom Brown

JAPANESE LIT.

The Ronins

LIVY

Legends

LONGFELLOW

Village Blacksmith

Hiawatha

Evangeline

MACAULAY

Horatius

MELVILLE

Typee

MEREDITH

Shagpat

RASPE

Baron Münchausen

READ

Sheridan's Ride

WHITTIER

Barbara Frietchie

=Thirteen and Fourteen Years of Age.= This period should mark

the beginning of true reading power--the faculty of perceiving

and absorbing the pictures, the facts, the ideas that lie within

the printed page. The true joys of reading first-class fiction,

for example, "Don Quixote" or "The Cloister and the Hearth," are

usually first experienced in these years. And in the same manner

young readers delight in the more vivid pages of history, such

as "The Relief of Leyden," or "The Conquest of Peru," or--best

of all--Raleigh's telling account of the fight of the 'Revenge'

together with Tennyson's magnificent poem, built up from the prose

of Raleigh. For it is in such passages as these that the natural

tendency to hero-worship is roused and fostered. Jim Bludso, Sir

Launfal, Alexander the Great, John Halifax, Lorna Doone, and

Constantia, together with the splendid characters in the works

already mentioned, all establish in the minds of the average boy

and girl examples of courage, courtesy, and nobility that are never

forgotten.

ADDISON

Mirza

Arabian Nights

BLACKMORE

Lorna Doone

BOCCACCIO

Constantia

Federigo

BORROW

Lavengro

BROWNE, C. F.

The Showman's Courtship

CELLINI

Life

CERVANTES

Don Quixote

COLLINS, W. W.

A Terribly Strange Bed

CRAIK

John Halifax

DICKENS

David Copperfield

Pickwick

FRENCH LITERATURE

Aucassin

HALE

Man Without a Country

HARTE

Truthful James

HAY

Jim Bludso

HENRY

Speech

HOLINSHED

Princes in the Tower

HOLMES

Nautilus

Old Ironsides

HUNT

Abou Ben Adhem

INGELOW

High Tide

JEWISH LITERATURE

Tobit

KINGLAKE

Eothen

LE SAGE

Gil Blas

LOWELL

Sir Launfal

LYTTON

Pompeii

MCMASTER

Settler Life in 1800

MOTLEY

Relief of Leyden

NORSE LITERATURE

Discovery of Vinland

PLUTARCH

Alexander the Great

PRESCOTT

Conquest of Peru

RALEIGH

The Fight of the "Revenge"

READE

Cloister and the Hearth

SOUTHEY

Inchcape Rock

TENNYSON

The Revenge

The Light Brigade, Etc.

=Fifteen and Sixteen Years of Age.= The appreciation of poetry is

one of the most subtle and difficult developments in the youthful

intellect. Yet some enjoyment of poetry, not merely narrative poems,

but contemplative verse as well, should manifest itself during these

next years. Furthermore, it is high time to form an acquaintance with

writers who will be met again and again in days yet to come. No one

will maintain for a moment that a sixteen year old lad will fully

understand and appreciate Milton's "L'Allegro," with its treasury of

allusion; yet, on the other hand, no one will pretend that this same

lad should not at least be granted the opportunity to listen for the

first time to those immortal lines. For this reason not only Milton,

but Lincoln, Cowper, Pepys, Tolstoi, Hodgkin, Gray, and several

others are included in the list.

But apart from the more serious and contemplative side of the

reading that can be commenced at this age, there is much that will

fascinate and delight those who are looking for pastime rather than

deep thinking. Barham's "Ingoldsby Legends," of which "The Knight

and the Lady" is a most characteristic tale in verse, have long been

the joy of all who love laughter and nonsense; and so with Irving's

"Knickerbocker's New York," which in many respects is unequaled for

wit and delicate fun. Crawford's "The Upper Berth," Doyle's "White

Company," and Dumas's "Three Musketeers" furnish thrill enough for

the most eager adventure seeker. Tolstoi and Goldsmith will satisfy

a quieter mood with their gentle satire on the folly and stupidity

and vanity of everyday people, who none the less are the salt of the

earth, after all.

AGASSIZ

Mountains

AUDUBON

In the Woods

BANCROFT

Lexington and Concord

BARHAM

The Knight and the Lady

BARRIE

Lads and Lasses

BERNARD, ST.

Hymn

NOTE. The reader should take care to read and even to reread

the majority of the selections in the previous lists before

attempting further progress.

BERNARD OF CLUNY

Hymns

BRONTË

Jane Eyre

COLERIDGE

Poems

COWPER

Poems

CRAWFORD, F. M.

The Upper Berth

DOYLE

The White Company

DUMAS

Three Musketeers,

Monte Cristo, etc.

EWALD

King Christian

FRANKLIN

Autobiography

FROUDE

A Cagliostro of the Second Century

GILBERT

The Nancy Bell

GOLDSMITH

Vicar of Wakefield

GRAY

Elegy

HAWTHORNE

The Old Manse

HEINE

Travel Pictures

HODGKIN

Attila the Hun

HOOD

Poems

IRVING

Knickerbocker's New York

JOSEPHUS

Destruction of the Temple

KINGSLEY

Poems

LA FONTAINE

Fables

LINCOLN

Gettysburg Speech

LONGFELLOW

Poems

MAHAFFY

Alexander the Great

MILTON

L'Allegro

Il Penseroso

PEPYS

Diary

PHILLIPS

Toussaint L'Ouverture

ROUGET DE LISLE

The Marseillaise

SCOTT

Selections

STOWE

Uncle Tom's Cabin

TOLSTOI

Where Love Is

WHITTIER

Poems

=Seventeen and Eighteen Years of Age.= With increasing maturity we

may naturally expect the mind to enjoy the more calm and meditative

moods of life: for example, the essays of Addison and Lamb, the more

forceful historical reflections of such writers as Green, Froissart,

and Parkman, the "Utopia" of Sir Thomas More, Thoreau's "Walden," and

Washington's "Farewell Address." These form an excellent introduction

to the deeper thoughts which will shortly be forced upon youth as it

goes out into the world to fight for a career.

At this time, too, interest is stirred to attempt an understanding of

the 'reason for things'--the mind endeavors to arrive at some law or

principle beneath the varied course of life and action in the world.

In other words, boyhood and girlhood are past, and an older view of

life and its responsibilities must naturally take the place of the

carefree spirit of earlier days. The qualities of friendship that

appear in "Tennessee's Partner" and the search for spiritual as well

as intellectual companionship and understanding that is emphasized

in Tennyson or Matthew Arnold are at this time beginning to be more

fully appreciated and understood.

ADDISON

Punning

Good Nature

Westminster Abbey

ALDRICH

Père Antoine

ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE

Beowulf

ARNOLD, M.

The Forsaken Merman

BALZAC

The Purse

BJÖRNSON

Railroad and Churchyard

BROOKS

Lincoln

CAINE

The Bondman

CAMPBELL

Poems

CREASY

Decisive Battles

DAUDET

Tartarin

EDGEWORTH

Castle Rackrent

FIELD

Poems

FROISSART

Battles of Otterbourne and Crécy

GASKELL

Cranford

GREEN

English History

HARDY

The Three Strangers

HARTE

Tennessee's Partner

HINDOO LITERATURE

HUGO

Selections

JERROLD

Mrs. Caudle

LAMB

Essays

LEVER

Charles O'Malley

LINCOLN

Second Inaugural

LOWELL

The Courtin'

MORE

Utopia

OVID

Philemon and Baucis

PARKMAN

La Salle

The Plains of Abraham

POE

Tales

SHORTHOUSE

John Inglesant

STEELE

Essays

SWIFT

Selections

TENNYSON

Poems

THOREAU

Walden

TYNDALL

Ascent of Mont Blanc

VOLTAIRE

Charles XII

WASHINGTON

Farewell Address

=Nineteen and Twenty Years of Age.= Unquestionably, as the years

pass on, we read again the books that have already given us so many

hours of happiness and amusement. For this reason it is well for the

young booklover to return to the lists for the previous years and

renew acquaintanceships there. No doubt some of the authors whom he

found but moderately amusing then will now win far more favor in his

sight. Meanwhile, among the fresh material history and criticism

naturally find a prominent place. Mommsen's estimate of Julius Cæsar

and Chesterton's appreciative critique of Dickens stand among the

foremost studies of great men that the world has yet produced. In

the field of poetry it is high time to spend some quiet hours with

Emerson, Browning, Shakespeare, Shelley, and Wordsworth. These five

poets represent perhaps the very best that English verse has produced

in the way of meditation--insight into the depths of nature and

humanity.

At this point the reader will do well to consider other chapters

in this Handbook, notably that on Literary Criticism, and the rest

of Part II, which deals with the general principles underlying a

fuller comprehension of literature. Part III, Studies of Great

Authors, will be of even greater help to those readers who are

finding increased pleasure in reading as students rather than for

the sake of recreation or light reading alone. By following out the

lines of thought presented in Parts II and III, especially if one

does not attempt to carry too heavy a quantity of reading at a time,

the enjoyment of books and thought will be immensely stimulated and

broadened.

ALDRICH

Poems

ALFRED THE GREAT

Poems

ASCHAM

The Schoolmaster

AUSTEN

Pride and Prejudice

BEECHER

Industry and Idleness

BERANGER

Poems

BOSWELL

Life of Johnson

BROWNING, R.

Poems

BURKE

Speech

BYRON

Poems

CHANNING

Self-culture

CHESTERTON

Dickens

DE QUINCEY

Dreams

Our Ladies of Sorrow

ELIOT

Brother Jacob

Poems

EMERSON

Poems

FARRAR

Corruption of Rome

FERRERO

Empire Building

FIELDING

Selections

FREEMAN

The World Romeless

GIBBON

Roman Empire

HAWKINS

Dolly Dialogues

HEARN

In Japan

HOLMES

The Autocrat

HOWELLS

Essay

HUNT

Autobiography

JOHNSON

Rasselas

KEATS

Poems

KIPLING

Mandalay

Man Who Would be King

LOCKHART

Life of Scott

MACAULAY

Milton

MILTON

Poems

MIRABEAU

Franklin

MOMMSEN

Julius Cæsar

MORRIS, W.

Poem

PAUSANIAS

Description of Greece

PLATO

Trial of Socrates

PLINY

Letters

POE

Poems

POPE

Poems

RILEY

Poems

ROSTAND

Cyrano

SCHILLER

Wilhelm Tell

SHAKESPEARE

Selections

SHELLEY

Poems

SHERIDAN

The Rivals

The School for Scandal

STEPHEN

Hawthorne

STEVENSON

Selections

SUETONIUS

Roman Emperors

SUMNER

Grandeur of Nations

TACITUS

The Histories

THACKERAY

Selections

WHITMAN

O Captain

WORDSWORTH

Poems

=Twenty-one and After.= During these years, through respect for

wisdom and experience, maturity rapidly quickens into being. Once

we get a few hard knocks in the battle of life, our regard for the

learning and understanding of our elders soon increases. We likewise

can enter more thoroughly into the work of such thinkers as Carlyle,

Galton, Emerson, Ruskin, Shaler, or of such poets as Chaucer and

Goethe. For these men have spent the best of their lives in studying

and probing into the causes and developments of our moods and

characters. Carlyle has given us the most terrific and stirring

account ever written of the battle that is waged in every man's soul

between the forces of good and evil. Goethe has dramatized this same

problem, revealing the wretchedness of him who only thinks of self,

who drags his nearest and dearest down to ruin simply to gratify his

lusts or his whims. Ruskin searches architecture, painting, or even

the workmanship of everyday trades in order to discover their true

merit--their greatness and their weakness. From such writings we can

learn more and yet more each time we peruse them. There is no end to

the richness and wealth of thought and experience to be gained from

these alone.

ALCOTT

Thoreau's Flute

ARNOLD, E.

Poems

BACON

Essays

BARNARD

Robin Gray

BENSON

Games

BLAKE

Poems

BOURDILLON

Light

BRYANT

Poems

BURNS

Poems

CARLYLE

Selections

CHAUCER

Poems

CHOATE

Webster

DANTE

Divine Comedy

EMERSON

Essays

EVELYN

Diary

FIELDS

Dickens

FRANKLIN

Poor Richard's Almanac

GOETHE

Faust, etc.

GOLDSMITH

Deserted Village

HAMERTON

Intellectual Life

HARRISON

Choice of Books

HAZLITT

Great and Little Things

HEINE

The Romantic School

HENLEY

Out of the Night

IBSEN

A Doll's House

JACOPONE

Stabat Mater

JEWISH LITERATURE

The Talmud

JOUBERT

Essays

LANG

The Divining Rod

LANIER

Marshes of Glynn

LOWELL

Chaucer

LUTHER

Table Talk

Ein Feste Burg

MCCARTHY

Disasters of Cabul

MARLOWE

Dr. Faustus

MAUPASSANT

The Piece of String

MILTON

Areopagitica

MITCHELL

Dream Life

MOLIÈRE

Imaginary Invalid

ROSSETTI, D. G.

Poems

RUSKIN

Selections

SAINTE-BEUVE

Mme. de Staël

SHALER

The Last of Earth and Man

SIENKIEWICZ

Quo Vadis

STERNE

Selections

THOMAS OF CELANO

Dies Iræ

WALTON

Compleat Angler

Apart from the power to appreciate the thought itself, the reader

by this time is surely ready to take pleasure in the style of such

writers as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Matthew Arnold, Walter Pater,

Herrick, and Spenser. And with respect to the matter, he surely will

profit in the company of Sir Thomas Browne, Thomas à Kempis, Mill,

and Plato, presenting four remarkably valuable points of view in

their studies of what is most worth man's consideration. Further

reading of interest in style and in matter will be found under the

headings of "Essay," "Travel," "Drama," "Oratory," "Philosophy,"

etc., on pages 46-53 of this Handbook.

One of the chief problems of the reader deals with the question of

foreign authors. Perhaps one man in a hundred thousand can find

time to learn to read more than four languages fluently. If he is

to get in touch with the great writers of other tongues than those

which he knows, he must perforce read translations. And for most of

us translations are the only resource. The modern writers have been

translated with but slight difficulty, mainly because their views of

life are so closely akin to ours that their thoughts may be put into

English with slight trouble. But the ancients, the masters of Greek

and Roman Literature, regarded life from other standpoints than ours.

They were mainly interested in interpreting fate and the mysteries

of life. Their work, then, is for the most part philosophic, even

when presented in the form of drama or of poetry. It is so great, so

lofty in tone and so profound in its perception of everlasting truths

that we cannot afford to neglect it. But it can only be grasped by

a mature mind and by calm and patient meditation. The tragedies of

Æschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles, the poetry of Lucretius and

Cleanthes, and the meditations of Marcus Aurelius rank among the

grandest and most sublime works that mortal mind has ever achieved.

For complete lists of foreign authors, see the classified entries on

pages 28-35 of this Handbook.

THE INDEX AND THE BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

=The Use of the Index.= The thoughtful and habitual use of the Index

will prove of more lasting benefit than any other practice associated

with reading. Not only is attention called to authors, to the titles

of selections, and to the opening lines of familiar and unfamiliar

poems, but hundreds upon hundreds of topics are there listed, dealing

with subjects of endless variety as viewed by the ablest minds of

the past and the present. Agriculture, for example, is dealt with by

ancients and moderns--among others, by Cicero and by Charles Dudley

Warner. America's development, we find, has been presented from such

diverse viewpoints as those of Ferrero, the modern Italian historian;

of Goethe, the master-poet of old Germany, as bitter a foe of Prussia

as any who live to-day; of Hamilton, the statesman-economist; of

McMaster, the historian; of Henry, the patriot orator; of Leslie

Stephen, the English critic, and other leaders of the world's

thought. The value of books, the use of chariots of war, the case

for and against Charles I of England, the nature of conversation,

the progress of the drama in ancient and in more recent times--these

topics suggest the amazing diversity of outlook.

Whether for the sake of study or merely as a pastime, every moment

employed upon the Index will prove stimulating, will open trains of

thought and furnish additional means of enjoyment that otherwise will

lie undiscovered.

These fifty pages provide an encyclopedia of intellectual

entertainment and cultivation. Through them the reader can pursue

a subject or a line of thought as nowhere else. Not the opinion of

one man, or of one nation, or of one era alone, but the best and

most valued reflections of the great men of all the ages are here

collected under every important heading on which they best expressed

themselves.

Throughout this whole work, Opportunity lies in wait, needing only

to be recognized; then, she at once enriches your life and your

usefulness. Not a page but contains thoughts, suggestions, grave

and gay, old and new, matter-of-fact or sublime,--yet all of them

leading to a more sincere and purposeful understanding of the deeds

and thoughts that make up a sound and full career. But of all these

thousands of pages and selections not any contain more hints for the

reader than the pages of the Index.

=The Use of the Biographical Sketches.= The reader who has once

grasped the inestimable value of reflecting on the books that

he meets, will naturally perceive the worth of the Biographical

Sketches that immediately precede the selections in the LIBRARY. For

although these are purposely terse, yet they have been painstakingly

constructed to supply two essential needs; first, an introduction to

the author, as well as to his best work; second, a guide to his other

works.

As has elsewhere been pointed out (pages 19, 28, 55, etc., of this

Handbook), the true appreciation and enjoyment of a writer are

unquestionably increased by understanding his personality and his

outlook on the world.

In the second place, the selections present the best and only the

best achievements of each writer. They obviously cannot include

thirty volumes of Scott's novels, for example; nor is it desirable

that the quotations from any author should extend beyond complete

passages of assured distinction. On the other hand, persons attracted

by an author's style or subject matter will naturally desire to

read more of his work and even to acquire several of his most

characteristic books. The Biographical Sketch lists his principal

writings so that you can send for them to bookseller or public

library.

THE LIBRARY OF ENTERTAINMENT will thus form the nucleus of a

collection that can become unique, in that it will not contain an

author that you have not tested before purchase. To own books that

you value and esteem unfailingly leads to reading with increased

pleasure day by day; such reading forms the purpose that lies behind

these volumes.

LITERARY CRITICISM

Criticism is a term that is commonly misused and misunderstood.

It does not mean condemnation and disapproval. It does mean sound

judgment, a careful valuation of the work under discussion, weighing

its merits and its faults; therefore it follows that sincere

criticism may be wholly free from fault-finding, provided the subject

proves to be without blemish. The criticism of Milton's minor poems,

"L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," and "Lycidas," must be an appreciation

of their beauty and power, since they are practically faultless.

To form a trustworthy opinion regarding a piece of literature is

not difficult; all that is necessary is to make a definite, orderly

inquiry into certain essential facts.

I. The first of these concern the author himself, his surroundings,

and the influences which shaped his thoughts.

1. =The period when he lived.= Each of the great ages of literature

has its special characteristics and tendencies, without a knowledge

of which it is impossible to judge a writer's work. (These periods

are defined on p. 19 ff.) For example, if Dickens had lived in

Shakespeare's time his writings would have been very different in

form and in style; he would have probably written comedies for the

stage instead of novels.

2. =His nation.= Nationality also has strong traits that must be

taken into account. (These are stated on p. 28 ff.) If Dickens had

been a Frenchman, he would have paid more attention to the grace and

clearness of his style; if he had been a German, he would have tended

to be more philosophical in his thought, his plots would have been

deeper, and his characters less vivid.

3. =His life and immediate surroundings.= Equally significant are

the social conditions in which a man is reared, whether noble,

like Byron, or poor, like Burns; well-educated, like Macaulay, or

self-taught, like Bunyan; unfortunate and dissipated, like Poe, or

fortunate and happy, like Holmes. These facts all have a direct

bearing on the view we must take of the man's productions. Joel

Chandler Harris could never have written his amusing "Uncle Remus"

stories, if he had not spent his boyhood on a Southern plantation.

De Quincey would never have written "Our Ladies of Sorrow" if he had

not been the slave of opium. Stevenson's "Travels With a Donkey," one

of his most charming books, is due to the fact that his consumptive

tendencies compelled him to go on a walking trip in the pure and

bracing air of the mountains of southern France.

II. A second group of facts deals with the work itself.

1. =The form=; poetry, fiction, history, essay, drama, etc. (These

are discussed on p. 36 ff.)

2. =The style.= The worth of the author's work as a piece of

composition is best decided by observing the following elements,

which taken all together make up the style and quality of his writing.

What =words= does he use? Are they commonplace or do they express his

exact meaning? Are they simple, or unusual and even unintelligible?

Are they forceful or weak? etc.

How are his =sentences= constructed? Are they straightforward or

confused? Do they express a simple, direct thought or do they contain

several ideas? If complex and lengthy, are they still powerful? etc.

Are his =paragraphs= unified; that is, do they contain one leading

idea? Do they follow in systematic order, leading from one to the

other? Is the development of the author's subject easily followed?

etc.

Are the =scenes= and =characters=, the =plots= and =purposes= clearly

shown? Does it require more than one reading to find out what the

writer is trying to say? Is his work convincing? Do the characters

change, and if so, is the change natural or does it seem unreal and

artificial? Are the incidents natural or do some of the events seem

forced? If the latter, do you think the author is justified? What

is the author's aim? Has he any further purpose than that which is

immediately evident? etc.

What is the =tone= of his work? Realism? Imagination? Mystery? Charm?

Beauty? Accuracy? Delicacy? Pathos? Humor? Joy? Sarcasm? etc.

3. =The effect.= What are =your feelings= regarding the work? Do you

like it or dislike it? Why?

What is your cold =judgment= regarding it? Note that this is by no

means necessarily the same thing as what you may feel. Many people

do not care especially for Dickens or Kipling, yet they all grant

that both these authors have deserved their fame. They may not like

them, but their reason and their judgment compel admission of their

ability. It is accordingly important to ask what impression a book

makes on your feelings and on your judgment as well, and to ask why

that impression has grown upon you.

The value of this systematic consideration of a passage of literature

is manifest. The reader's knowledge is increased, and, better still,

his ability to arrive at a wise judgment of other literature is

greater than before. Efficiency in habits of thought is encouraged,

his outlook on life is broader, he becomes more fit to take a

prominent part in social and in business life, wherever judgment and

thought are needed.