Talks on the study of literature.

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Bates Arlo. Talks on the study of literature.

I. WHAT LITERATURE IS

II. LITERARY EXPRESSION

III. THE STUDY OF LITERATURE

IV. WHY WE STUDY LITERATURE

V. FALSE METHODS

VI. METHODS OF STUDY

VII. THE LANGUAGE OF LITERATURE

VIII. THE INTANGIBLE LANGUAGE

IX. THE CLASSICS

X. THE VALUE OF THE CLASSICS

XI. THE GREATER CLASSICS

XII. CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

XIII. NEW BOOKS AND OLD

XIV. FICTION

XV. FICTION AND LIFE

XVI. POETRY

XVII. THE TEXTURE OF POETRY

XVIII. POETRY AND LIFE

Отрывок из книги

So much, then, for what literature must express; it is well now to examine for a little the manner of expression. To feel genuine emotion is not all that is required of a writer. Among artists cannot be reckoned

He must be able to sing the song; to make the reader share the throbbing of his heart. All men feel; the artist is he who can by the use of conventions impart his feelings to the world. The musician uses conventions of sound, the painter conventions of color, the sculptor conventions of form, and the writer must employ the means most artificial of all, the conventions of language.

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The difference of effect between books which are not literature and those which are is that while these amuse, entertain, glance over the surface of the mind, those touch the deepest springs of being. They touch us æsthetically, it is true. The emotion aroused is impersonal, and thus removed from the keen thrill which is born of actual experiences; but it depends upon the same passions, the same characteristics, the same humanity, that underlie the joys and sorrows of real life. It is because we are capable of passion and of disappointment that we are moved by the love and anguish of Romeo and Juliet, of Francesca and Paolo. Our emotion is not identical with that with which the heart throbs in personal love and grief; yet art which is genuine awakes emotion thoroughly genuine. Books of sensationalism and sentimentality may excite curiosity, or wonder, or amusement, or sham feeling; but they must have at least some spark of sacred fire before they can arouse in the intelligent reader this inner throb of real feeling.

The personal equation must be considered here. The same book must affect different readers differently. From the sentimental maid who weeps in the kitchen over "The Seventy Sorrows of Madelaine the Broken-hearted," to her master in his library, touched by the grief of King Lear, is indeed a far cry; and yet both may be deeply moved. It may be asked whether we have arrived at a standard which will enable us to judge between them.

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