English Literature: Its History and Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World - William J. Long (book club books .TXT) 📗

never think of Newman himself, but only of the subject he is discussing. He is like the best French prose writers in expressing his thought with such naturalness and apparent ease that, without thinking of style, we receive exactly the impression which he means to convey. In his sermons and essays he is wonderfully simple and direct; in his controversial writings, gently ironical and satiric, and the satire is pervaded by a delicate humor; but when his feelings are aroused he speaks with poetic images and symbols, and his eloquence is like that of the Old Testament prophets. Like Ruskin's, his style is modeled largely on that of the Bible, but not even Ruskin equals him in the poetic beauty and melody of his sentences. On the whole he comes nearer than any other of his age to our ideal of a perfect prose writer.

Critical WritersOther Essayists of the Victorian Age. We have selected the above five essayists, Macaulay, Carlyle, Arnold, Newman, and Ruskin, as representative writers of the Victorian Age; but there are many others who well repay our study. Notable among these are John Addington Symonds, author of The Renaissance in Italy, undoubtedly his greatest work, and of many critical essays; Walter Pater, whose Appreciations and numerous other works mark him as one of our best literary critics; and Leslie Stephen, famous for his work on the monumental Dictionary of National Biography, and for his Hours in a Library, a series of impartial and excellent criticisms, brightened by the play of an original and delightful humor.

The ScientistsAmong the most famous writers of the age are the scientists, Lyell, Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall, and Wallace,--a wonderful group of men whose works, though they hardly belong to our present study, have exercised an incalculable influence on our life and literature. Darwin's Origin of Species (1859), which apparently established the theory of evolution, was an epoch-making book. It revolutionized not only our conceptions of natural history, but also our methods of thinking on all the problems of human society. Those who would read a summary of the greatest scientific discovery of the age will find it in Wallace's Darwinism,--a most interesting book, written by the man who claims, with Darwin, the honor of first announcing the principle of evolution. And, from a multitude of scientific works, we recommend also to the general reader Huxley's Autobiography and his Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews, partly because they are excellent expressions of the spirit and methods of science, and partly because Huxley as a writer is perhaps the clearest and the most readable of the scientists.

The Spirit of Modern Literature. As we reflect on the varied work of the Victorian writers, three marked characteristics invite our attention. First, our great literary men, no less than our great scientists, have made truth the supreme object of human endeavor. All these eager poets, novelists, and essayists, questing over so many different ways, are equally intent on discovering the truth of life. Men as far apart as Darwin and Newman are strangely alike in spirit, one seeking truth in the natural, the other in the spiritual history of the race. Second, literature has become the mirror of truth; and the first requirement of every serious novel or essay is to be true to the life or the facts which it represents. Third, literature has become animated by a definite moral purpose. It is not enough for the Victorian writers to create or attempt an artistic work for its own sake; the work must have a definite lesson for humanity. The poets are not only singers, but leaders; they hold up an ideal, and they compel men to recognize and follow it. The novelists tell a story which pictures human life, and at the same time call us to the work Of social reform, or drive home a moral lesson. The essayists are nearly all prophets or teachers, and use literature as the chief instrument of progress and education. Among them all we find comparatively little of the exuberant fancy, the romantic ardor, and the boyish gladness of the Elizabethans. They write books not primarily to delight the artistic sense, but to give bread to the hungry and water to the thirsty in soul. Milton's famous sentence, "A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit," might be written across the whole Victorian era. We are still too near these writers to judge how far their work suffers artistically from their practical purpose; but this much is certain,--that whether or not they created immortal works, their books have made the present world a better and a happier place to live in. And that is perhaps the best that can be said of the work of any artist or artisan.

Summary of the Victorian Age. The year 1830 is generally placed at the beginning of this period, but its limits are very indefinite. In general we may think of it as covering the reign of Victoria (1837-1901). Historically the age is remarkable for the growth of democracy following the Reform Bill of 1832; for the spread of education among all classes; for the rapid development of the arts and sciences; for important mechanical inventions; and for the enormous extension of the bounds of human knowledge by the discoveries of science.

At the accession of Victoria the romantic movement had spent its force; Wordsworth had written his best work; the other romantic poets, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, and Byron, had passed away; and for a time no new development was apparent in English poetry. Though the Victorian Age produced two great poets, Tennyson and Browning, the age, as a whole, is remarkable for the variety and excellence of its prose. A study of all the great writers of the period reveals four general characteristics: (1) Literature in this Age has come very close to daily life, reflecting its practical problems and interests, and is a powerful instrument of human progress. (2) The tendency of literature is strongly ethical; all the great poets, novelists, and essayists of the age are moral teachers. (3) Science in this age exercises an incalculable influence. On the one hand it emphasizes truth as the sole object of human endeavor; it has established the principle of law throughout the universe; and it has given us an entirely new view of life, as summed up in the word "evolution," that is, the principle of growth or development from simple to complex forms. On the other hand, its first effect seems to be to discourage works of the imagination. Though the age produced an incredible number of books, very few of them belong among the great creative works of literature. (4) Though the age is generally characterized as practical and materialistic, it is significant that nearly all the writers whom the nation delights to honor vigorously attack materialism, and exalt a purely ideal conception of life. On the whole, we are inclined to call this an idealistic age fundamentally, since love, truth, justice, brotherhood--all great ideals--are emphasized as the chief ends of life, not only by its poets but also by its novelists and essayists.

In our study we have considered: (1) The Poets; the life and works of Tennyson and Browning; and the chief characteristics of the minor poets, Elizabeth Barrett (Mrs. Browning), Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne. (2) The Novelists; the life and works of Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot; and the chief works of Charles Reade, Anthony Trollope, Charlotte Brontë, Bulwer-Lytton, Kingsley, Mrs. Gaskell, Blackmore, George Meredith, Hardy, and Stevenson. (3) The Essayists; the life and works of Macaulay, Matthew Arnold, Carlyle, Newman, and Ruskin. These were selected, from among many essayists and miscellaneous writers, as most typical of the Victorian Age. The great scientists, like Lyell, Darwin, Huxley, Wallace, Tyndall, and Spencer, hardly belong to our study of literature, though their works are of vast importance; and we omit the works of living writers who belong to the present rather than to the past century.

Selections for Reading. Manly's English Poetry and Manly's English Prose (Ginn and Company) contain excellent selections from all authors of this period. Many other collections, like Ward's English Poets, Garnett's English Prose from Elizabeth to Victoria, Page's British Poets of the Nineteenth Century, and Stedman's A Victorian Anthology, may be used to advantage. All important works may be found in the convenient and inexpensive school editions given below. (For full titles and publishers see the General Bibliography.)

Tennyson. Short poems, and selections from Idylls of the King, In Memoriam, Enoch Arden, and The Princess. These are found in various school editions, Standard English Classics, Pocket Classics, Riverside Literature Series, etc. Poems by Tennyson, selected and edited with notes by Henry Van Dyke (Athenaeum Press Series), is an excellent little volume for beginners.

Browning. Selections, edited by R.M. Lovett, in Standard English Classics. Other school editions in Everyman's Library, Belles Lettres Series, etc.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Selections, edited by Elizabeth Lee, in Standard English Classics. Selections also in Pocket Classics, etc.

Matthew Arnold. Sohrab and Rustum, edited by Trent and Brewster, in Standard English Classics. The same poem in Riverside Literature Series, etc. Selections in Golden Treasury Series, etc. Poems, students' edition (Crowell). Essays in Everyman's Library, etc. Prose selections (Holt, Allyn & Bacon, etc.).

Dickens. Tale of Two Cities, edited by J.W. Linn, in Standard English Classics. A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, and Pickwick Papers. Various good school editions of these novels in Everyman's Library, etc.

Thackeray. Henry Esmond, edited by H.B. Moore, in Standard English Classics. The same novel, in Everyman's Library, Pocket Classics, etc.

George Eliot. Silas Marner, edited by R. Adelaide Witham, in Standard English Classics. The same novel, in Pocket Classics, etc.

Carlyle. Essay on Burns, edited by C.L. Hanson, in Standard English Classics, and Heroes and Hero Worship, edited by A. MacMechan, in Athenaeum Press Series. Selections, edited by H.W. Boynton (Allyn & Bacon). Various other inexpensive editions, in Pocket Classics, Eclectic English Classics, etc.

Ruskin. Sesame and Lilies, edited by Lois G. Hufford, in Standard English Classics. Other editions in Riverside Literature, Everyman's Library, etc. Selected Essays and Letters, edited by Hufford, in Standard English Classics. Selections, edited by Vida D. Scudder (Sibley); edited by C.B. Tinker, in Riverside Literature.

Macaulay. Essays on Addison and Milton, edited by H.A. Smith, in Standard English Classics. Same essays, in Cassell's National Library, Riverside Literature, etc. Lays of Ancient Rome, in Standard English Classics, Pocket Classics, etc.

Newman. Selections, with introduction by L.E. Gates (Holt); Selections from prose and poetry, in Riverside Literature. The Idea of a University, in Manly's English Prose.

Bibliography. (note. For full titles and publishers of general reference books, see General Bibliography.) History. Text-book, Montgomery, pp. 357-383; Cheyney, pp. 632-643. General Works. Gardiner, and Traill. Special Works. McCarthy's History of Our Own Times; Bright's History of England, vols. 4-5; Lee's Queen Victoria; Bryce's Studies in Contemporary Biography.

Literature. General Works. Garnett and Gosse, Taine. Special Works. Harrison's Early Victorian Literature; Saintsbury's A History of Nineteenth Century Literature; Walker's The Age of Tennyson; same author's The Greater Victorian Poets; Morley's Literature of the Age of Victoria; Stedman's Victorian Poets; Mrs. Oliphant's Literary History of England in the Nineteenth Century; Beers's English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century; Dowden's Victorian Literature, in Transcripts and Studies; Brownell's Victorian Prose Masters.

Tennyson. Texts: Cabinet edition (London, 1897) is the standard. Various good editions, Globe, Cambridge Poets, etc. Selections in Athenaeum Press (Ginn and Company).

Life: Alfred Lord Tennyson, a Memoir by his son, is the standard; by Lyall (in English Men of Letters); by Horton; by Waugh. See also Anne T. Ritchie's Tennyson and His Friends; Napier's The Homes and Haunts of Tennyson; Rawnsley's Memories of the Tennysons.

Criticism: Brooke's Tennyson, his Art and his Relation to Modern Life; A. Lang's Alfred Tennyson; Van Dyke's The Poetry of Tennyson; Sneath's The Mind of Tennyson; Gwynn's A Critical Study of Tennyson's Works; Luce's Handbook to Tennyson's Works; Dixon's A Tennyson Primer; Masterman's Tennyson as a Religious Teacher; Collins's The Early Poems of Tennyson; Macallum's Tennyson's Idylls of the King and the Arthurian Story;