Literati

“ In subordination to one essential beauty in all good literary style, in all literature as a fine art, as there are many beauties of poetry so the beauties of prose are many, and it is the business of criticism to estimate them as such; as it is good in the criticism of verse to look for those hard, logical, and quasi-prosaic excellences which that too has, or needs. To find in the poem, amid the flowers, the allusions, the mixed perspectives, of Lycidas for instance, the thought, the logical structure:—how wholesome! ”

“ You see as plain as can be, that I write as a man of erudition;—that even my similies, my allusions, my illustrations, my metaphors, are erudite,—and that I must sustain my character properly, and contrast it properly too,—else what would become of me? ”

“ And while no two people would agree in drawing the line of aesthetic value which should determine whether any given verbal expression of thought or emotion was literature or not—a fact which is not without importance in the choice of books for forming the taste of our pupils—yet, for the purpose of discussing the place and function of literature in education, we all know well enough what we mean by the word in the general sense which I have attempted to describe. ”

“ And the Art of Letters is the method by which a speaker or writer brings out in words, worthy of his subject, and sufficient for his audience or readers, the thoughts which impress him. Literature, then, is of a personal character; it consists in the enunciations and teachings of those who have a right to speak as representatives of their kind, and in whose words their brethren find an interpretation of their own sentiments, a record of their own experience, and a suggestion for their own judgments. ”

“ A book exhibits not only the attainments, culture, and literary art of the writer but also his intellectual force, emotional nature, and moral character. Wide attainments are revealed in breadth of view and in mastery of large resources. Culture is exhibited in a general delicacy of thought, feeling, and expression. Literary art is shown in the choice of words and in their arrangement in sentences and paragraphs. The artistic sense, without which a finished excellence is not attainable, reveals itself in the proportion, symmetry, and completeness of a work. ”

“ In no department of philosophy or literature have I met an economy of illustration so beautifully precise. At this, I however, I should express no wonder: In all your essays in the cognate and collateral fields of literary criticism, &c., those who know the general movement of your mind can easily detect a certain philosophic largeness and scientific basis, which betray you; and it is almost necessary that a literature mastered by such a habit of mind should be the prompt and precise servant of the habit in its more peculiar exercises. ”

“ It is thus evident that the interest and worth of literature depend largely on the manner in which the thought and emotion are expressed. In general the matter of discourse, which aims at the communication of ideas, is of more importance than the form. Words without thought, no matter how skillfully and musically they may be arranged, are nonsense. But in the lighter sorts of prose, which aim at entertainment, and in poetry, which is dependent on meter and harmony, form is of preëminent importance. ”

“ In its last analysis, such a conception of literature amounts to the unimpeded intercourse of mind with mind. Literature would be a language which dispenses with gesture, facial expression, tone of voice; which is, in its halts, accelerations and retardations, emphases and concessions, the apotheosis of conversation. But this clearness,--in the sublime sense, including the ornate and the subtle,--this luminous lucidity,-- is it not quite indeterminate? Clearness is said of a medium. WHAT is it that shines through? ”

“ By the perusal of history you will learn to distinguish truth from fable, and to know what part is founded on fact, and what on the imagination of the poet. These authors will store your mind with images the most sublime and beautiful, assist your judgment, and form your taste; since their works have been esteemed the model for composition in all succeeding times. Without a constant attention, therefore, to improve in reading and understanding them, you will be ignorant of those subjects which every author refers to ”

“ Through writing, most things in life, and those the most useful, are accomplished--as ballots, epistles, laws, covenants. Who can sufficiently praise the learning of letters? ... Writing alone preserves the most brilliant utterances of wise men and the oracles of gods, nay philosophy and all culture. All these things it alone hands down to all future generations. Wherefore nature should be viewed as the source of life, but the source of living well we should consider the culture derived from writing. ”

“ These principles pertain to diction, structure, matter, and spirit or purpose. No one will deny [4] that the diction should be well chosen; that the structure of the sentences should be correct and clear; and that, in the case of poetry, the laws of versification should be observed. These elements contribute to excellence of form. In addition to these external elements there should be unity of thought, symmetry of presentation, truth of statement, and sincerity and self-restraint in sentiment. These elements give substantial worth to the matter or content of literature. ”

“ But no subject of any importance in literature is ever exhausted, because the products of literature grow or decay, burgeon or wither, as the generations of men apply their ever-varying organs of perception to them. I intend, with your permission, to present to you a familiar phase of the literary life of the eighteenth century from a fresh point of view, and in relation to two men whose surname warrants a peculiar emphasis of respect in the mouth of a Warton Lecturer. ”

“ His mastery of language, his knowledge of human impulses, his interpretation of the forces of nature and of the power of inanimate objects over human beings, all pronounce him a writer of no mean rank.... He can express philosophy in terms of narrative without prostituting his art; he can suggest an answer without drawing a moral; with a clearer vision he could stand among the masters in literary achievement. ”

“ Experience proves to me that the study of a certain number of masterpieces, around which selections of less worth may be grouped, is the most thorough way to proceed.
Intimately connected with the study of literature is the science of rhetoric. By means of it we learn to appreciate good style, we are better fitted to criticise the works we read, and are certainly made better able to correct our own faults in writing. It is indispensable to the study of English literature. ”

“ By noting the separate ideas as expressed in words, phrases, and clauses, and by determining their relation in the sentence as the expression of the whole thought, the pupil is taught the principles of sentence unity and coherence. If 22his attention is properly drawn to these principles as they are exemplified in the literature before him, the importance and application of them may be clearly demonstrated without spoiling the masterpiece of literature. In fact the appreciation of the skill of the literary artist is thereby increased, provided the teaching is done in a proper manner. ”

“ When they write their books, they write the history of their inner life. You open a book and you read twenty lines, and in the tone and character of those twenty lines you seem to feel the beating of the writer’s pulse. ”

“ We must then take the vague but quite adequate concept of literature as the beautiful expression of particular sensation and perception, general emotion and impersonal ideas, merely as the centre from which we move; and form a literary review, not merely on literature, but on what we may suppose to be the interests of any intelligent person with literary taste. ”

“ PREFACE. In so brief a history of so rich a literature, the problem is how to get room enough to give, not an adequate impression—that is impossible—but any impression at all of the subject. To do this I have crowded out everything but belles-lettres. Books in philosophy, history, science, etc., however important in the history of English thought, receive the merest incidental mention, or even no mention at all. ”

“ In three chapters it briefly discusses the diction, the various kinds of sentences, the use of figures of speech, and the different species of style as determined partly by the nature of the discourse [iv] and partly by the mental endowments of the writer. It is intended to embrace the rhetorical elements of form.
In Part Third the leading kinds of literature are discussed, and the general principles governing each are presented. Special effort has been made to throw light upon the nature and structure of poetry, fiction, and the drama ”

“ The librarian has wisely mapped out for her story hour such a course, gleaned from the parables, and from the vast treasure houses of narrative abounding in both Testaments and in fables.
Turn to your colleges and your schools, and you will find that, generally speaking, there is dug a deep channel between literature and life, which has no right to be. We should study our ethics as one of the inherent elements in poetry and in prose. ”

“ If it is literature to present a singularly vivid picture of a past stage of society, to render it real and lifelike by a careful selection and skilful grouping of illustrative details, and to explain its meaning with clearness, sound judgment, and not infrequent touches of quiet humour, then assuredly is this volume literary as well as learned.... ”

“ Under their authority we see introduced into literary work an habitual grace and perfection, a clearness and directness, a light and pliable strength, and a fine shading of expression, such as no other tongue can even define. We see the same high standard in their criticism, in their works of research, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and in short throughout literature. ”

“ In contrast with the orderly phenomena of speech and writing, which are amenable to scientific processes of examination and classification, and which take rank with the orderly successions of change in nature, we have what, for want of a more exact term, we call “mere literature,”—the literature6 which is not an expression of form, but an expression of spirit. ”

“ This is true not only of poetry and essentially imaginative writing, but also of the writing which seeks nothing more than to penetrate the meaning of actual affairs,—the writing of the greatest historians and philosophers, the utterances of orators and of the great masters of political exposition. Their narratives, their analyses, their appeals, their conceptions of principle, are all dipped deep in the colors of the life they expound. Their minds respond only to realities, their eyes see only actual circumstance. ”

“ The superior character of truth and seriousness, in the matter and substance of the best poetry, is inseparable from the superiority of diction and movement marking its style and manner. The two superiorities are closely related, and are in steadfast proportion one to the other. So far as high poetic truth and seriousness are wanting to a poet’s matter and substance, so far also, we may be sure, will a high poetic stamp of diction and movement be wanting to his style and manner. ”

“ He is now prepared to devote more and more attention to literary criticism—that is, to the study of the peculiarities of style which distinguish any selection, the passages which are remarkable for their beauty, their truth, or their adaptation to the particular purpose for which they were written. The habit should be cultivated of looking for and enjoying the admirable qualities of any literary production, and particularly of such productions as are generally recognized as the classics of our language. ”

“ The discussions which have really caught the ear of the public have been the casual utterances of brilliant men in the act of attacking or defending a literary creed, of writing a preface to a book or a play, or of hazarding, in some dialogue, pamphlet, or essay, a new opinion about beauty, a new theory of poetry or of prose. ”

“ The dignity and objects of literature are distinctly brought to view, whether in the form of prose to persuade and instruct—in that of poetry, to please the fancy—or in that of the drama, to move the passions. ”

“ The teacher's preparation is not only in the intellectual grasp of the thought, but in the sympathy, feeling, and pleasure germane to a classic. The æsthetic and emotional elements, the charm of poetry, and the sparkle of wit and glint of literary elegance and aptness are what give relish and delight to true literary products. Literature appeals to the whole [Pg 104] nature and not to the intellect alone. ”

“ History must supply the writer with the rudiments of narration, which he must improve and exalt by a nobler art, must animate by dramatic energy, and diversify by retrospection and anticipation; morality must teach him the exact bounds, and different shades, of vice and virtue; from policy, and the practice of life, he has to learn the discriminations of character, and the tendency of the passions, either single or combined; and physiology must supply him with illustrations and images. ”

“ But those original works of genius, of which language is the expression, scarcely admit of fellowship, either in conception or execution. One book must be the product of one brain, in which, to constitute excellence, there ought to be as strict unity of thought and diction as the ancient critic required of time and place in dramatic action. ”