An introduction to the study of literature

Preface

THE aim of this book is to set forth, in the simplest possible way, some of the questions to be considered and the principles to be kept in view in the systematic study of literature. Despite the large and ever increasing number of works which deal with special aspects of literature on the historical and critical sides, I believe that there is still a place for a compact and fairly comprehensive volume of this kind. This faith may indeed be taken for granted, as otherwise the book would not have been written. I should, however, add that the utility of the plan adopted in it has been established by practical experience, since much of its substance has already been used and tested in a course of lectures delivered before University Extension audiences at the Municipal Technical Institute, West Ham, and the Polytechnic, Woolwich. The fact that these lectures were followed with sustained interest, in the one case by upward of 500, in the other by over 100, listeners, of whom, while many were engaged in teaching, the majority were concerned with literature only as general readers, encourages me to think that the same matter, put into the form of a book, may projfe equally helpful to a wider circle of students.

In the course itself, ample illustrations were provided of every point considered. In reducing the contents

267709 of twenty-five lectures to meet the requirements of a not too bulky volume, while adding a good deal that could not well be included in them, I have been compelled to omit quotations from and detailed analyses of particular works. I must therefore ask the reader to remember that this book is planned as a guide and companion to his own study, and that, while I hope it may be interesting and suggestive in itself, the value of the things said in it must ultimately be sought in their application.

It will be found that little place is given to questions of abstract aesthetics. These, as well as all details of a purely scholastic character, have been purposely avoided, as my desire throughout has been to make my volume of practical service to those students for whom literature is primarily a means of enjoyment and a help to life.

William Henry Hudson

NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION

In the two and a half years since this book was published much evidence has reached me from many quarters of its practical usefulness both to students of literature and to general readers. I am thus able to feel with satisfaction that the objects for which it was written, as explained in the original preface, have to some extent at least been attained. I have seen no occasion to make any changes in the text for this new edition ; but I have added an appendix, in which I have said something more about the question of personality in literature, have dealt more fully with the treatment of nature in poetry, and have offered some suggestions for the study of the essay and the short story as forms of literary art. I hope that the value of the book may be increased by these additions.

Chapter I Some Ways Of Studying Literature

I. The Nature and Elements of Literature, 9-16. II. Literature as an Expression of Personality, 16-22. III. The Study of an Author— The Chronological and Comparative Methods of Study, 22-27.

IV. Biography, its Abuse and Use in the Study of Literature, 27-33.

V. The Study of Style as an Index of Personality, 33-38.^-

CHAPTER II SOME WAYS OF STUDYING LITERATURE (^concluded)

\. The Historical Study of Literature, 39-41. II. Literature as a Social Product, 42-49. III. Taine's Formula of Literary Evolution — The Sociological Aspect of Literature, 49-55. IV. The Comparative Method in the Historical Study of Literature — The Inter-relations of Literatures, 55-66. V. The Historical Study of Style, 66-72.

VI. The Study of Literary Technique, 72-81.

Chapter III

I. The Nature and Elements of Poetry, 82-97. II. Poetry as an Interpretation of Life — Poetry and Science — Poetic Truth, 97-117. III. Poetry as Revelation — Greatness in Poetry — Poetry and Philosophy, 1 1 8- 1 25. IV. The Classification of Poetry, 125-150. V. The Study of Poetic Form — Versification — Other Aspects of Poetic Technique, 150-163. VI. The Study of Poetry and the Appreciation of Poetry, 164- 167.

Chapter IV

I. The Novel and the Drama — Elements of Fiction, 168-172. II. Plot in the Novel, 172-189. III. Characterisation, 189-198. IV. The Relations of Plot and Character, 199-202. V. Dialogue, 202-205. VI. Humour, Pathos, and Tragedy — The Painful Emotions in Fiction, 206-209. VII. Social and Material Setting in Fiction — The Historical Novel— The Use of Nature, 209-215. VIII. The Novelist's Criticism of Life — Truth and Morality in Fiction— Romance and Realism — The Moral Responsibilities of Fiction, 215-226.

Chapter V

I. Dependence of the Drama upon conditions of Stage-Representation, 227-241. II. Plot in the Drama, 241-245. III. Characterisation, 246-263. IV. The Natural Divisions of a Dramatic Plot, 263-288. V. Some Features of Dramatic Design — Parallelism — Contrast — Dramatic Irony — Concealment and Surprise, 288-306. VI. The Different Types of Drama, 306-335. VII. The Drama as Criticism of Life, 336-345-

Chapter VI The Study Of Criticism And The Valuation Of Literature

I. The General Nature of Criticism — Its Abuse and Use, 346-355. II. The Functions of Criticism — Inductive and Judicial Criticism, 355.374. III. The Study of Criticism as Literature — Personal Aspects, 374-384. IV. Historic Aspects, 384-397. V. The Problem of the Valuation of Literature, 398-421.

APPENDIX L ON PERSONALITY IN LITERATURE IL ON THE TREATMENT OF NATURE IN POETRY III. THE STUDY OF THE ESSAY

iv. the study of the short story Index ....

461-471

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF LITERATURE

Chapter I Some Ways Of Studying Literature

I

HOWEVER loosely employed, the word literature commonly carries with it, alike in the language of criticism and in that of everyday intercourse, a clear suggestion of delimitation ; in the one case as in the other a distinction is ^j^^tia implied between books which in the literary Literasense are books, and those which in the same *^® ' sense are not. But where is the boundary-line to be drawn ? The moment that question is raised our difficulties begin. In many instances there is, of course, no room for discussion. We should all agree about the place to which, for example, a railway guide or a manual of cookery, Paradise Lost or Sartor Resartus should respectively be assigned. But as we approach the border-country from either side we pass into the region of uncertainty ; and with this uncertainty the controversy as to the exact definition of literature commences. Shall we follow Charles Lamb who (half humorously, it is true) narrowed the conception of literature to such an extent that he excluded

TO THE STUDY OF LITERATUEE

the works of Hume, Gibbon, and Flavius Josephus, together with directories, almanacks, and " draughtboards bound and lettered on the back " ? Shall we adopt the view of Hallam, who, under the general head of literature, comprised jurisprudence, theology, and medicine ? Or, if Lamb seems to err on the one side and Hallam on the other, where between these two extremes is any just mean to be found ? These are questions to which no final answer has yet been given, and it is fortunate therefore that they need not detain us here. We shall get what for our purposes should be an idea of literature at once sufficiently broad and sufficiently accurate if we lay stress upon two considerations. Literature is composed of those books, and of those books only, which, in the first place, by reason of their subject-matter and their mode of treating it, are of general human interest ; and in which, in the second place, the element of form and the pleasure which form gives are to be regarded as essential. A piece of literature differs from a specialised treatise on astronomy, political economy, philosophy, or even history, in part because it appeals, not to a particular class of readers only, but to men and women as men and women ; and in part because, while the object of the treatise is simply to impart knowledge, one ideal end of the piece of literature, whether it also imparts knowledge or not, is to yield aesthetic satisfaction by the manner in which it handles its theme. The study of literature, as thus conceived, is as far Literature ^^ possible removed both from the academic and Life, formalism and from the dilettante trifling, with one or other of which it has, in popular thought, been too often associated. Why do we care for literature ?

WAYS OF STUDYING LITEEATUEE ii -^

We care for literature primarily on account of its deep ;

and lasting human significance. A great book grows"

directly out of life ; in reading it, we are brought into large, close, and fresh relations with life ; and in that fact lies the final explanation of its power. Literature > is a vital record of what men have seen in life, what^ they have experienced of it, what they have thought and felt about those aspects of it which have the most J immediate and enduring interest for all of us. It is p-^ thus fundamentally an expression of life through the medium of language. Such expression is fashioned into the various forms of literary art, and these in themselves will, in their proper place and time, enlist the attention of the student. But it is important to understand, to begin with, that literature lives by virtue of the life which it embodies. By remembering this, we shall be saved from the besetting danger of confounding the study of literature with the study of i philology, rhetoric, and even literary technique. -^

To say that literature grows directly out of life is of

course to say that it is in life itself that we have

The Tmto seek the sources of literature, or, in other pulses

words, the impulses which have ^iven birth to j!®^^?

r ri . -T-1 literature,

the various forms of literary expression The

classification of literature, therefore, is not conventional nor arbitrary. What we call the formal divisions of literature must be translated into terms of life, if we would understand how they originated, and what meaning they still have for us.

The great impulses behind literature may, I think, ^ be grouped with accuracy enough for practical purposes under four heads: (i) our desire for self-expression ; (2) our interest in people and their doings ; (3) our interest in the world of reality in which we live, and in the world of imagination which we conjure into existence ; and (4) our love of form as form. We are strongly impelled to confide to others what we think and feel ; hence the literature which directly expresses the thoughts and feelings of the writer. We are intensely interested in men and women, their lives, motives, passions, relationships ; hence the literature which deals with the great drama of human life and action. We are fond of telling others about the things we have seen or imagined ; hence the literature of description. And, where the aesthetic impulse is present at all, we take a special satisfaction in the mere shaping of expression into forms of beauty ; hence the very existence of literature as art. Man, as we are often reminded, is a social animal ; and as he is thus by the actual constitution of his nature unable to keep his experiences, observations, ideas, emotions, fancies, to himself, but is on the contrary under stress of a constant desire to impart them to those about him, the various forms of literature are to be regarded as only so many channels which he has opened up for himself for the discharge of his sociality through media which in themselves testify to his paramount desire to blend expression with artistic creation. Moreover, these impulses behind literature explain not. only the evolution of the various forms of literature, but also our interest (for this is merely the reverse side of the same matter) in such forms. If we are constrained to make others the confidants of our thoughts and feelings, experiences, observations, imaginings, we are glad to listen while others tell us of theirs, especially when we are aware that the range of their commerce with life, the depth of their insight or passion, their power of expression, or all these things combined, will render their utterances of unusual interest and value ; while our own delight in artistic beauty will make us readily responsive to the beauty in which a master-artist embodies what he has to say.

Of these four impulses, the last named, being a factor common to all kinds of literature, may for the moment be disregarded ; for purposes of classification the other three alone count. Now, it is evident that these three impulses continually merge together in life. In describing what we have seen or imagined, N, for example, we are almost certain to express a great deal of our own^jthpught and feeling. ; and again, any kind of narrative will be found almost necessarily to involve more or less description. As these impulses merge together in life, sd they will merge together in literature, with the result that the different divisions of literature which spring from them will inevitably overlap. We simply distinguish them one from another, therefojre — the lyric poem from the epic, the drama from the descriptive essay, and so on — as one or another of the generative impulses seems to predominate. It is in this way that we obtain a basis for classification.

It is, however, a basis only. To make our survey even approximately complete, we must go ^^^ farther, and consider not only the impulses Themes of which produce literature, but also the subjects ^^ ®^^ ^®' with which it deals. These, being almost as varied as life itself (for there is little in life which may not be made a theme for literature), may at first sight appear to defy any attempt to reduce them to systematic statement. But — still having regard only to practical purposes — we may perhaps venture to / arrange them into five large groups : ( i ) the personal experiences of the individual as individual — the things which make up the sum-total of his private life, outer and inner ; (2) the experiences of man as man — those great common questions of life and death, sin and destiny, God, man's relation with God, the hope of the race here and hereafter, and the like — which transcend the limits of the personal lot, and belong to the race as a whole ; (3) the relations of the individual with his fellows, or the entire social world, with all its activities and problems ; (4) the external world of nature, and our relations with this ; and (5) man's own efforts to create \ and express under the various forms of literature and art. Looking at literature in the light of this analysis, and considering only the character of its subjects, we may thus distinguish five classes of production : the literature of purely personal experience ; of the common life of man as man ; of the social world under all its different aspects ; the literature which treats of nature ; and the literature which treats of literature and art.

By combining the results of these two lines of analysis, we get a fairly comprehensive scheme c^Mifica- °^ classification, and one which, as will be tionof seen, has the advantage of resting upon tui?* natural foundations. We have, first, the literature of self-expression, which includes the different kinds of lyric poetry, the poetry of meditation and argument, and the elegy ; the essay and treatise where these are written from the personal point of view ; and the literature of artistic and literary criticism. We have, secondly, the literature in which the writer, instead of going dpwn into himself, goes

WAYS OF STUDYING ITTEEATUEE 15

out of himself into the world of external human life and activity ; and this includes history and biography, the ballad and the epic, the romance in verse and prose, the story in verse and prose, the novel and the drama. And, thirdly, we have the literature of description, not in itself a large or important division, since description in literature is ordinarily associated with, and for the most part subordinated to, the interests of self-expression or narrative, but comprising in the book of travel, and the descriptive essay and poem, some fairly distinct minor forms of literary art. •

Thus the various forms of literary expression fall into their places as natural results of common human impulses working themselves out under the conditions of art ; and when we remember the great principle that a piece of literature appeals to us only when it ' calls into activity in us the same powers of sympathy and imagination as went to its making, the interest which such forms have for us is also explained.

It should further be noted, among the preliminaries of our study, that in all these divisions certain elements of composition are always present. Elements There is in the first place, of course, the ?^ Litera- ^ elements furnished by life itself, which constitute the raw material of any piece of literature — poem, essay, drama, novel. Then there are the elements contributed by the author in his fashioning of such raw material into this or that form of literary art. These may be roughly tabulated under four heads. First, there is the intellectual element — the thought which the writer brings to bear upon his subject, and which he expresses in his work. Secondly, there is the emotional element — the feel-

J i6 THE STUDY OF LITERATUKE

ing (of whatever kind) which his subject arouses in him, and which in turn he desires to stimulate in us. Thirdly, there is the element of imagination (including its lighter form which we call fancy), which is really the faculty of strong and intense vision, and by the exercise of which he quickens a similar power of vision in ourselves. These elements combine to furnish the substance and the life of literature. But however rich may be the materials yielded by experience, however fresh and strong may be the writer's thought, feeling, and imagination, in dealing with them, another factor is wanting before his work can be completed. The given matter has to be moulded and fashioned in accordance with the principles of order, symmetry, beauty, effectiveness ; and thus we have a fourth element in literature — the technical element, or the element of composition and style.

II

It has been necessary to touch upon these somewhat abstract considerations in order to clear the way for what is to follow. We may now pass directly to matters of more immediate importance to the student, whose business is not with the theory of literature, but with literature itself

If literature be at bottom an expression of life, and if it be by virtue of the life which it expresses ^*®^**^® that it makes its special appeal, then the pressicn of ultimate secret of its interest must be sought Person- j^ j^^ essentially personal character. Literature, according to Matthew Arnold's muchdiscussed definition, is a criticism of life ; but this can

WAYS OF STUDYING LITERATUKE 17

mean only that it is an interpretation of life as life shapes itself in the mind of the interpreter. It is with the critic or interpreter, therefore, that we have first to do. The French epigram hits the mark — " Art is life seen through a temperament," for the mirror which the artist holds up to the world about him is of necessity the mirror of his own personality. The practical bearings of this fundamental truth must be carefully noted.

A great book is born of the brain and heart of its author ; he has put himself into its pages ; they partake of his life, and are instinct with his individuality. It is to the man in the book, therefore, that to begin with we have to find our way. We have to get to know him as an individual. To establish personal intercourse with our books in a simple, direct, human way, should thus be our primary and constant purpose. We want first of all to become, not scholars, but good readers ; and we can become good readers only when we make our reading a matter of close and sympathetic companionship. " Personal experience," it has been rightly said, " is the basis of all real literature " ; and to enter into such personal experience, and to share it, is similarly the basis of all real literary culture. A great book owes its greatness in the first instance to the greatness of the personality which gave it life ; for what we call genius is only another name for freshness and originality of nature, with its resulting freshness and originality of outlook upon the world, of insight, and of thought. The mark of a really great book is that it has something fresh and original to say, and that it says this in a fresh and independent way. It ^ is the utterance of one who has himself been close to

B those aspects of life of which he speaks, who has looked at them with his own eyes, who by the keenness of his vision has seen more deeply into things, and by the strength of his genius has apprehended their meaning more powerfully than the common race of men ; and who in addition has the artist's wonderful faculty of making us see and feel with him. " A good book," as Milton finely says in words which, however hackneyed, can hardly be too often repeated, " is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life." To throw open our whole nature to the quickening influence of such a master-spirit, to let his life-blood flow freely into our veins, is the preliminary step in literary culture — the final secret of all profitable reading.

It is important, then, that in all our dealings with books we should distinguish between what Carlyle calls the " genuine voices " and the mere " echoes " — between the men who speak for themselves and those who speak only on the report of others. " I have read," wrote Charlotte Bronte of Lewes's Ranthorpe^ " a new book ; not a reprint, not a reflection of any other book, but a new book." Charlotte Bronte clearly recognised the distinction upon which we are now insisting. We are not in the least obliged to despise the echoes and the reprints, or to say hard and contemptuous things of them, as is sometimes done ; for provided they be good of their kind, they have their place and usefulness. But to safeguard ourselves against erroneous estimates, it is necessary to keep well in mind the essential difference between the literature which draws its life directly from

WAYS OF STUDYING LITEEATURE 19

personality and experience, and that which draws its life mainly at second hand from contact with the personality and experience of others. The literature which, in Turgenev's phrase, " smells of literature," is always to be classed below that which carries with it the native savour of life itself; and it is not with the bookish books of the world, no matter how great their technical excellence, but with those which are fullest of original vitality, that we are chiefly concerned.

Involved in this, yet calling for separate emphasis, is the great principle, first enunciated by ThePrin- Plato, that the foundation of all good and cipieof lasting work in literature is entire sincerity ^^^^ ^' to oneself, to one's own experience of life, and to the truth of things as one is privileged to see it — that very quality of sincerity which was, it will be remembered, for Carlyle the essence of all heroic greatness. "Cest mot qui ai vecu" wrote Alfred de Musset. The words may seem commonplace enough, but how many of us could honestly say as much? " The value of the tidings brought by literature," as George Henry Lewes rightly insists, "is determined by their authenticity. . . . We cannot demand from every man that he have unusual depth of insight or exceptional experience ; but we demand of him that he give us of his best, and his best cannot bej another's." We can thus see why men who speak frankly for themselves in literature have always a chance of being listened to, while others of perhaps greater natural power, wider culture, and far more accomplished art, but of less candour and directness of utterance, are passed over or quickly forgotten. It is always a sure sign of literary decadence in individual or age when this preference is not shown. Without sincerity, no vital work in literature is possible ; and " that virtue of originality that men so strive after," as Ruskin says, " is not newness ... it is only genuineness." Readers of Kingsley will remember how Alton Locke's first attempt at poetry took the shape of a South Sea Romance compounded of Childe Harold and the old missionary records, and how Sandye Mackaye, with a contemptuous — " What do ye ken about Pacifies? Are ye a cockney or a Cannibal Islander ? " — took the would-be poet on a tour of inspection through Clare Market and St Giles's, on a foul, chilly Saturday night, showed him something of the actual tragedy of London's misery and sin, and at each new revelation of its horrors advised him curtly to " write anent that." The principle that, whether his range of experience and personal power be great or small, a man should write of that which lies at his own doors, should make it his chief business to report faithfully of what he has lived, seen, thought, felt, known, for himself, is one which the student of literature can never afford to lose sight of The cleverness and brilliancy of many books which have not this essential quality of genuineness will often tempt him to neglect it. But the truth remains that the value of literature is in the measure of its authenticity.

Our study of literature thus begins in a very simple

The man ^^^ humble way. We take a great book,

In the and we try to penetrate as deeply as we can

into its personal life. We make our reading

of it, to the fullest extent possible to us, a matter of actual intercourse between its author and ourselves. We listen attentively to what he has to tell us, and we do our best to enter sympathetically into his thought and feeling. We note carefully how he looked at life, what he found in it, what he brought away from it. We observe how the world of experience impressed him, and how it is interpreted through his personality.

We become familiar with his character and outlook, his strength and weakness, his very accent, as we become familiar with the character, outlook, strength, weakness, accent, of those with whom we talk in the flesh. We get to know the man as the man reveals himself in what he has written. The book lives for us in all the potency of his individuality.

This, then, is our starting-point — the first step, as I have said, in the cultivation of the habit of good and profitable reading. And if it is objected that this is, indeed, an obvious view of literary culture, and one so generally recognised that there is no need to labour it, my reply is, that this is precisely one of those commonplaces of theory which we are only too apt to leave unutilised in practice. The moment we begin to talk about the systematic study of literature the tendency sets in to think of something formal and pedantic, and to substitute for the true ideal of intimate and sympathetic intercourse the academic ideal of mere scholarship ; it comes to be regarded as our main business, not: to know our books in the sense in which we here speak of knowing them, but rather to know, down to the minutest particulars, everything that patient erudition and elaborate criticism have accumulated or found to say about them — a very different thing. Hence the necessity of dwelling even at some length upon this primary conception of good reading as fundamentally a direct contact between mind and mind, and of insisting that all other aspects of literary study are supplemental to, and not substitutes for, it.

With this conception before us, we can realise from yet another point of view, the vital relations of literature and life. What George Eliot said of art in general is specially true of the art of literature : it " is the nearest thing to life ; it is a mode of amplifying experience and extending our contact with our fellowmen beyond the bounds of our personal lot." Thus literature makes us partakers in a life larger, richer, and more varied than we ourselves can ever know of our own individual knowledge ; and it does this, not only because it opens up new fields of experience and new lines of thought and speculation, but also, and even more notably, because it carries us beyond the pinched and meagre humanity of our everyday round of existence into contact with those fresh, strong, and magnetic personalities who have embodied themselves in the world's great books.

Ill

Taking this as our point of departure, we must next Reading ^^^^ ^° make our reading at once broader and study, and more systematic. Between the mere reader of books and the student of literature the essential difference is not to be sought, as I am afraid it is very often sought, in the supposed fact that the one enjoys his reading and the other does not. The true difference is this, that the one reads in a haphazard