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  TALKS
  ON
  THE STUDY OF LITERATURE

  BY

  ARLO BATES

  [Illustration]

  BOSTON AND NEW YORK
  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
  The Riverside Press Cambridge




  COPYRIGHT, 1897
  BY ARLO BATES
  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED




This volume is made up from a course of lectures delivered under the
auspices of the Lowell Institute in the autumn of 1895. These have been
revised and to some extent rewritten, and the division into chapters
made; but there has been no essential change.




CONTENTS


                                    PAGE

      I. What Literature Is            1

     II. Literary Expression          23

    III. The Study of Literature      33

     IV. Why we Study Literature      45

      V. False Methods                60

     VI. Methods of Study             69

    VII. The Language of Literature   88

   VIII. The Intangible Language     111

     IX. The Classics                123

      X. The Value of the Classics   135

     XI. The Greater Classics        142

    XII. Contemporary Literature     154

   XIII. New Books and Old           167

    XIV. Fiction                     184

     XV. Fiction and Life            199

    XVI. Poetry                      219

   XVII. The Texture of Poetry       227

  XVIII. Poetry and Life             241




TALKS ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE




I

WHAT LITERATURE IS


As all life proceeds from the egg, so all discussion must proceed from a
definition. Indeed, it is generally necessary to follow definition by
definition, fixing the meaning of the terms used in the original
explanation, and again explaining the words employed in this exposition.

I once heard a learned but somewhat pedantic man begin to answer the
question of a child by saying that a lynx is a wild quadruped. He was
allowed to get no further, but was at once asked what a quadruped is. He
responded that it is a mammal with four feet. This of course provoked
the inquiry what a mammal is; and so on from one question to another,
until the original subject was entirely lost sight of, and the lynx
disappeared in a maze of verbal distinctions as completely as it might
have vanished in the tangles of the forest primeval. I feel that I am
not wholly safe from danger of repeating the experience of this
well-meaning pedant if I attempt to give a definition of literature.
The temptation is strong to content myself with saying: "Of course we
all know what literature is." The difficulty which I have had in the
endeavor to frame a satisfactory explanation of the term has convinced
me, however, that it is necessary to assume that few of us do know, and
has impressed upon me the need of trying to make clear what the word
means to me. If my statement seem insufficient for general application,
it will at least show the sense which I shall give to "literature" in
these talks.

In its most extended signification literature of course might be taken
to include whatever is written or printed; but our concern is with that
portion only which is indicated by the name "polite literature," or by
the imported term "belles-lettres,"--both antiquated though respectable
phrases. In other words, I wish to confine my examination to those
written works which can properly be brought within the scope of
literature as one of the fine arts.

Undoubtedly we all have a general idea of the limitations which are
implied by these various terms, and we are not without a more or less
vague notion of what is indicated by the word literature in its most
restricted and highest sense. The important point is whether our idea is
clear and well realized. We have no difficulty in saying that one book
belongs to art and that another does not; but we often find ourselves
perplexed when it comes to telling why. We should all agree that "The
Scarlet Letter" is literature and that the latest sensational novel is
not,--but are we sure what makes the difference? We know that
Shakespeare wrote poetry and Tupper doggerel, but it by no means follows
that we can always distinguish doggerel from poetry; and while it is not
perhaps of consequence whether we are able to inform others why we
respect the work of one or another, it is of much importance that we be
in a position to justify our tastes to ourselves. It is not hard to
discover whether we enjoy a book, and it is generally possible to tell
why we like it; but this is not the whole of the matter. It is necessary
that we be able to estimate the justice of our preferences. We must
remember that our liking or disliking is not only a test of the
book,--but is a test of us as well. There is no more accurate gauge of
the moral character of a man than the nature of the books which he
really cares for. He who would progress by the aid of literature must
have reliable standards by which to judge his literary feelings and
opinions; he must be able to say: "My antipathy to such a work is
justified by this or by that principle; my pleasure in that other is
fine because for these reasons the book itself is noble."

It is hardly possible to arrive at any clear understanding of what is
meant by literature as an art, without some conception of what
constitutes art in general. Broadly speaking, art exists in consequence
of the universal human desire for sympathy. Man is forever endeavoring
to break down the wall which separates him from his fellows. Whether we
call it egotism or simply humanity, we all know the wish to make others
appreciate our feelings; to show them how we suffer, how we enjoy. We
batter our fellow-men with our opinions sufficiently often, but this is
as nothing to the insistence with which we pour out to them our
feelings. A friend is the most valued of earthly possessions largely
because he is willing to receive without appearance of impatience the
unending story of our mental sensations. We are all of us more or less
conscious of the constant impulse which urges us on to expression; of
the inner necessity which moves us to continual endeavors to make others
share our thoughts, our experiences, but most of all our emotions. It
seems to me that if we trace this instinctive desire back far enough, we
reach the beginnings of art.

It may seem that the splendidly immeasurable achievements of poetry and
painting, of architecture, of music and sculpture, are far enough from
this primal impulse; but I believe that in it is to be found their germ.
Art began with the first embodiment of human feelings by permanent
means. Let us suppose, by way of illustration, some prehistoric man,
thrilled with awe and terror at sight of a mastodon, and scratching upon
a bone rude lines in the shape of the animal,--not only to give
information, not only to show what the beast was like, but also to
convey to his fellows his feelings when confronted with the monster. It
is as if he said: "See! I cannot put into words what I felt; but look!
the creature was like this. Think how you would feel if you came face to
face with it. Then you will know how I felt." Something of this sort may
the beginnings of art be conceived to have been.

I do not mean, of course, that the prehistoric man who made such a
picture--and such a picture exists--analyzed his motives. He felt a
thing which he could not say in words; he instinctively turned to
pictorial representation,--and graphic art was born.

The birth of poetry was probably not entirely dissimilar. Barbaric men,
exulting in the wild delight of victory, may seem unlikely sponsors for
the infant muse, and yet it is with them that song began. The savage joy
of the conquerors, too great for word, found vent at first in excited,
bounding leaps and uncouthly ferocious gestures, by repetition growing
into rhythm; then broke into inarticulate sounds which timed the
movements, until these in turn gave place to words, gradually moulded
into rude verse by the measures of the dance. The need of expressing the
feelings which swell inwardly, the desire of sharing with others, of
putting into tangible form, the emotions that thrill the soul is common
to all human beings; and it is from this that arises the thing which we
call art.

The essence of art, then, is the expression of emotion; and it follows
that any book to be a work of art must embody sincere emotion. Not all
works which spring from genuine feeling succeed in embodying or
conveying it. The writer must be sufficiently master of technique to be
able to make words impart what he would express. The emotion phrased
must moreover be general and in some degree typical. Man is interested
and concerned in the emotions of men only in so far as these throw light
on the nature and possibilities of life. Art must therefore deal with
what is typical in the sense that it touches the possibilities of all
human nature. If it concerns itself with much that only the few can or
may experience objectively, it has to do with that only which all human
beings may be conceived of as sharing subjectively. Literature may be
broadly defined as the adequate expression of genuine and typical
emotion. The definition may seem clumsy, and hardly exact enough to be
allowed in theoretical aesthetics; but it seems to me sufficiently
accurate to serve our present purpose. Certainly the essentials of
literature are the adequate embodiment of sincere and general feeling.

By sincerity here we mean that which is not conventional, which is not
theoretical, not artificial; that which springs from a desire honestly
to impart to others exactly the emotion that has been actually felt. By
the term "emotion" or "feeling" we mean those inner sensations of
pleasure, excitement, pain, or passion, which are distinguished from the
merely intellectual processes of the mind,--from thought, perception,
and reason. It is not necessary to trespass just now on the domain of
the psychologist by an endeavor to establish scientific distinctions.
We are all able to appreciate the difference between what we think and
what we feel, between those things which touch the intellect and those
which affect the emotional nature. We see a sentence written on paper,
and are intellectually aware of it; but unless it has for us some
especial message, unless it concerns us personally, we are not moved by
it. Most impressions which we receive touch our understanding without
arousing our feelings. This is all so evident that there is not likely
to arise in your minds any confusion in regard to the meaning of the
phrase "genuine emotion."

Whatever be the origin of this emotion it must be essentially
impersonal, and it is generally so in form. There are comparatively few
works of art which are confessedly the record of simple, direct,
personal experience; and perhaps none of these stand in the front rank
of literature. Of course I am not speaking of literature which takes a
personal form, like any book written in the first person; but of those
that are avowedly a record of actual life. We must certainly include in
literature works like the "Reflections" of Marcus Aurelius, the
"Confessions" of Augustine, and--though the cry is far--Rousseau, and
the "Journal Intime" of Amiel, but there is no one of these which is to
be ranked high in the scale of the world's greatest books. Even in
poetry the same thing is true. However we may admire "In Memoriam" and
that much greater poem, Mrs. Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese,"
we are little likely to regard them as standing supremely high among
the masterpieces. The "Sonnets" of Shakespeare which we suppose to be
personal are yet with supreme art made so impersonal that as far as the
reader is concerned the experiences which they record might be entirely
imaginary. It is in proportion as a poet is able to give this quality
which might be called generalization to his work that it becomes art.

The reason of this is not far to seek. If the emotion is professedly
personal it appeals less strongly to mankind, and it is moreover likely
to interfere with its own effective embodiment. All emotion in
literature must be purely imaginative as far as its expression in words
is concerned. Of course poetical form may be so thoroughly mastered as
to become almost instinctive, but nevertheless acute personal feeling
must trammel utterance. It is not that the author does not live through
what he sets forth. It is that the artistic moment is not the moment of
experience, but that of imaginative remembrance. The "Sonnets from the
Portuguese" afford admirable examples of what I mean. It is well known
that these relate a most completely personal and individual story. Not
only the sentiments but the circumstances set forth were those of the
poet's intimate actual life. It was the passion of love and of
self-renunciation in her own heart which broke forth in the fine
sonnet:--

    Go from me, yet I feel that I shall stand
      Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
      Alone upon the threshold of the door
    Of individual life shall I command
    The uses of my soul; or lift my hand
      Serenely in the sunshine as before
      Without the sense of that which I forebore,--
    Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
    Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
      With pulses that beat double. What I do
    And what I dream include thee, as the wine
      Must taste of its own grapes: and when I sue
    God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
      And sees within my eyes the tears of two.

There came to Mrs. Browning a poignant moment when she realized with a
thrill of anguish what it would mean to her to live out her life alone,
separated forever from the lover who had won her back from the very
grasp of death. It was not in the pang of that throe that she made of it
a sonnet; but afterward, while it was still felt, it is true, but felt
rather as a memory vividly reproduced by the imagination. In so far both
he who writes impersonally and he who writes personally are dealing with
that which at the instant exists in the imagination. In the latter,
however, there is still the remembrance of the actuality, the vibration
of the joy or sorrow of which that imagining is born. Human
self-consciousness intrudes itself whenever one is avowedly writing of
self; sometimes even vanity plays an important part. From these and
other causes it results that, whatever may be the exceptions, the
highest work is that which phrases the general and the impersonal with
no direct reference to self. Personal feeling lies behind all art, and
no work can be great which does not rest on a basis of experience, more
or less remotely; yet the greatest artist is he who embodies emotion,
not in terms of his own life, but in those which make it equally the
property of all mankind