Methods and aims in the study of literature; a series of extracts and illustrations

Preface

For this volume I have adopted the title of a privately issued pamphlet, Methods and Aims in the Study of Literature, which I have found useful to various classes in English, but in particular to one in the theory of poetry. The pamphlet consisted of a few selections, beginning with what is now fourth in the second section, and primarily drawn from Coleridge and Wordsworth, with additional illustrations from Milton, Dante, and Plato ; virtually all these extracts are here included in the second, third, and sixth sections. The smaller collection was designed to free the student of poetry, at the outset, from common errors as to the nature of genius — errors that interfere with his understanding of the poets themselves, and with his appreciation of whatever formal treatise (the Poetics of Aristotle, say, or the Ars Poetic a of Horace) he happens first to take up. I hope that the larger collection will render a more positive service, if only by way of suggesting that the Platonic conception of the artistic regulation of impulse still retains its validity.

With systematic works on method my volume obviously enters into no competition.

If evidence in the poets themselves respecting their habits of study and production ought in some measure to guide us in studying and reproducing their thoughts and emotions, it must be said that such evidence, though there iv METHODS AND AIMS

is really no lack of it, is neither easy to find nor easily arranged. I have included several extracts from a mere wish to have them together for ease of reference and comparison. Yet the thought that gives unity to the whole is not, I hope, too much overlaid, being more than once clearly expressed by authors who are quoted — for example, by Browning (p. 187), where he speaks of the marriage of law and impulse in the work of the great Creative Artist. And the gradual progress of the selections, from those that insist upon the necessity of law and order in poetic art to those that insist upon the necessity of emotion, must be evident ; though I am aware that the extract from Reynolds (pp. 16-17), an d those from Boeckh (pp. 45-46, 49-52), being essentially- Platonic, would not lose if they were brought closer to one from the Symposium (pp. 220-222). At all events, I trust the reader will find correspondences between one part and another, and, in spite of occasional interruption and discrepancy, a general corroboration of opinion and experience throughout. The main course of the selections is as follows : First, under a single heading, come those on method in general ; those on the relation of scientific to artistic method ; those on method in arts other than literature ; one on the method of observation and comparison in natural science, where the procedure is fundamentally the same as that employed in the study of literature ; and one on the life of a scholar who fully understood this basic truth. Then, under a second heading, come those on observation and comparison in literature, and, under a third, supplementary to these, the extracts from Wordsworth's letters. The fourth section, illustrating the practice

PREFACE v

of poets and others in composing, naturally follows these letters, and leads up to the fifth, on the studies of poets. As a final illustration of the bond between rigorous method and the artistic utterance of passion, I could hardly avoid choosing for the sixth section the treatment of the supreme passion of love by (in the main) supreme poets. And I have ventured in all humility to close with a passage from Scripture that seems to gain added significance in the new setting, while it puts the final emphasis where the final emphasis in the study of literature and of life belongs.

It only remains for me to record my thanks and acknowledgments to several authors and publishers who have kindly allowed me to make use of various selections : to Houghton Mifflin Company for the extracts from Palmer's Herbert and Allen's review of it, and for those from Shaler's Autobiography and Norton's translation of the Vita Nuova ; 1 to Mr. Kenyon Cox and Charles Scribner's Sons for several paragraphs from The Classic Point of View ; to Longmans, Green, & Co. for an extract from Professor Albert S. Cook's edition of Burke's Speech on Conciliation ; to the editors of Modern Language Notes for permission to reprint my article entitled A Glance at Wordsworth's Reading, and to them and to Professor Laura E. Lockwood for her article on Milton s Corrections ; to Harper and Brothers and William Blackwood and Sons for Minto's essay, The Historical

1 The selections from The Autobiography of Nathaniel S. Shaler and C. E. Norton's The New Life of Dante are used by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of their works.

vi METHODS AND AIMS

Relationships of Burns ; to Dr. Ida Langdon for the passage from Materials for the Study of Spenser s Theory of Fine Aft; and to Professor Justin H. Smith for extracts from The Troubadours at Home. The selections from Jowett's translation of Plato are reprinted with the consent of the holders of the copyright. Two definitions of 'art ' on page 2 are borrowed from The Artistic Ordering of Life by Professor Cook ; I am also indebted to him for the passage from Shedd on The Meaning of Methodology, and for the extract entitled Byron's Early Reading. Aside from these instances, I hope I have in the foot-notes given proper credit in all cases where credit is due. A few trifling errors, infelicities in punctuation, and the like, I have silently corrected or emended ; but it has seemed undesirable, if not impossible, to normalize all the selections in all respects.

LANE COOPER

Cornell University Ithaca. New York

Contents

PAGE

I. On Method in General i

I. Milton on Discipline I

II On Method In The Study Of Literature

I. LEIGH HUNT ON RECONSTRUCTING THE SPIRIT OF THE PAST

We have the greatest contempt for learning, merely so called ; together with the greatest respect for it when it sees through the dead letter of time and words into the spirit that concerns all ages and all descriptions of men. Every clever unlearned man in England, rich and poor, if we had the magic to do it, should be gifted to-morrow with all the learning that would adorn and endear his commerce to him, his agriculture, and the poorest flowerpot at his window. . . . Spirit is everything, and letter is nothing, except inasmuch as it is a vehicle for spirit. 1

A little hearty love is better in this, as in all other cases, than a heap of indifferent knowledge. We are ashamed to say that we know less of Greek, in one sense of the word, than we did when young, and are obliged to look out more words in the dictionary ; for to a dictionary we are still forced to resort, though we love the language next to Italian, and hold it in higher admiration. But then we know our ignorance better than we did at that time ; are more aware of beauties to be enjoyed, and

1 A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla (London, 1897), pp. 15, 16. 44 nice meanings to be discovered ; and the consequence is that, whenever we undertake to translate a passage from Greek, we take our love on one side of us, and our dictionary on the other, and, before we set about it, make a point of sifting every possible meaning and root of meaning, not excepting those in words the most familiar to us, in order that not an atom of the writer's intention may be missed. We do not say, of course, that we always succeed in detecting it ; but it is not for want of painstaking.

The labor we delight in physics pain.

Now by a like respect for the good old maxim of ' slow and sure,' and by dint of doing a little, or even a very little, every day, there is no lover of poetry and beauty who in the course of a few months might not be as deep as a bee in some of the sweetest flowers of other languages. 1

II. AUGUST BOECKH ON INTERPRETATION AND

CRITICISM AS THE TWO DISTINCT FUNCTIONS

IN THE STUDY OF THE PAST

The process of understanding is ... on the one hand, absolute, on the other, relative. That is, every object must be understood, on the one hand, in and for itself; on the other, it must be understood in relation to other objects. This latter is accomplished by means of an act of judging, through the establishment of a relation between a part and the whole, or between one part and another, or through reference to an ideal. Absolute understanding is the function of Interpretation ; relative

1 A far of Honey from Mount Hybla (London, 1897), pp. 7, 8.

understanding, the function of Criticism. Under Interpretation is necessarily included every kind of explanation

— grammatical, logical, historical, aesthetic ; and under Criticism, every kind — higher and lower criticism, and so on ; . . . for from the nature of the general conception it is simply inevitable that 'the entire formal side of philology [the study of language and literature] should be comprised in these two functions. 1

III. PROFESSOR COOK'S ADAPTATION OF BOECKH TO THE STUDY OF A PARTICULAR MASTERPIECE

The study of a piece of literature, as distinguished from cursory reading of it, may be directed to either one of two principal ends — interpretation, or criticism. The object of interpretation is the understanding of the work

— as a whole, in its organism, and in its details. The object of criticism is the judgment of the work, with reference both to its merits and defects. The object of both interpretation and criticism is intelligent admiration

— admiration of that, and that alone, which is truly and eternally admirable.

Whatever study concerns itself with either of these two ends, interpretation or criticism, is literary study. That which is directed to other ends, or to no particular ends, may be useful in its way, and with reference to its own purposes, but has no right to be considered literary study.

The problem of literary teaching consists in the apportionment and adjustment to one another of the various

1 Boeckh, Encyclopadie und Methodologie der Philologischen Wissenschqften, p. 55.

forms of interpretation and criticism. For its solution no precise rules can be given ; yet one statement can be made with confidence — that the ambitious, but untrained and inexperienced, teacher is likely to fall into one of two cardinal and opposite errors : either he will aim at an analysis too particularistic, and lose sight of the whole in a consideration of details or constituent parts ; or he will indulge in a synthesis too large, too vague, possibly too sentimental, and in any case not sufficiently built up and elaborated by and with his pupils.

To return to the two main divisions of interpretation and criticism. Interpretation is basic, and in its nature precedes criticism. Criticism is supplementary, but indispensable to any literary culture which aspires to thoroughness. Interpretation involves the making clear to oneself of the meaning and function of the various constituent elements of a given piece of literature, and of the piece of literature as a whole. These constituent elements are such as words, sentences, and paragraphs ; the organic divisions of a work of literary art, such as the Exordium, Statement of Facts, Proof, etc., of an oration ; quotations or allusions ; and figures of speech. On each of these attention should be bestowed. . . .

Criticism, from its very nature, implies comparison — comparison with principles assumed or deduced ; comparison with other productions of the same class ; or, with respect to the opinions enounced by the author, comparison with the statements or opinions of other persons worthy of credence or respect. Thus the structure of Burke's speech might be studied with reference to its conformity or non-conformity to principles deduced from the practice of the ancients, or the speech might be systematically compared with other eminent examples of its class, ancient or modern, and its superiority or inferiority demonstrated. The style might be examined with respect to various qualities, and its specific merits determined. All information directly tending to confirm or disprove the statements, assumptions, or conclusions propounded by Burke would also be valuable in its bearing upon criticism, since it would increase the ability of the student to determine the trustworthiness of Burke as a guide. Finally, the estimates thus formed by the student might be carefully compared with those expressed by critics of established reputation, both among Burke's contemporaries and those of subsequent date. . . .

Both interpretation and criticism, at least in the case of a master-work like Burke's Speech on Conciliation, demand strenuous exercise of the intellectual faculties, as well as continual appeals to the moral nature. The combination of these two kinds of study ought to strengthen the reasoning powers, develop the imagination, cultivate the nobler sensibilities, and fortify the character. 1

1 Burke, Speech on Conciliation (ed. Albert S. Cook), pp. Ixi-lxiii. New York, 1896. By permission of Longmans, Green, & Co.

IV. BOECKH ON THE RELATION OF ENCYCLO- PAEDIA TO METHODOLOGY

[For Boeckh, philology means the reconstruction of the past, the re-experiencing what has been known and felt by the human spirit ; and science means the whole field of human knowledge.]

It would be a great error to regard an Encyclopaedia [or circle of learning] as such as a Methodology [or form of procedure], too. Whereas the encyclopaedia has a purely theoretical, scientific aim, the methodology has another ; namely, to indicate how one is to acquire the theory. The encyclopaedia furnishes the general structure of the science ; it blocks out the whole with great lines and strokes. But the person who wishes to study a science cannot possibly advance straightway upon the whole. Nor can the encyclopaedia, as it were, supplant a methodology by permitting one to study the separate disciplines in the encyclopaedic order. And, were it possible, still it would not be to the purpose. The encyclopaedia starts out with the most general conceptions ; the student cannot start out with these — he must take the very opposite course. Whereas the encyclopaedia derives and explains the particular from the general, the student must first of all corne to know the particular as the basis and substance of ideas, and from the particular alone can he ascend to the general, if he is really to build up the science within himself, and not merely to take it at second hand. This follows from the conception of philology ; for in historical investigation the general is the final result ; but the encyclopaedia assumes and presents this result.

A person who wished first to acquire a general survey of the science, that is, to acquire the encyclopaedia, and then gradually to descend to details, would never attain to sound and exact knowledge, but would endlessly disperse his activities, and, knowing many things, would yet know little. Schelling, in his Methodology of Academical Study, remarks with great justice that, in history, to start out with a universal survey of the past is in the highest degree useless and injurious, since it gives one nothing but compartments for knowledge, without anything to fill them. In history, his advice is, first to studyone period in detail, and from this gradually to broaden out in all directions. For philology, which coincides with history in its most general sense, a similar procedure is, in the light of methodology, the only right one. Everything in science is related ; although science itself is endless, yet the whole system is pervaded with sympathies and correspondences. Let the student place himself where he will, — so long as he selects something significant and worth while, — and he will be compelled to broaden out from this point of departure in every direction in order to reach a complete understanding of his subject. From each and every detail one is driven to consider the whole ; the only thing that matters is that one go to work in the right way, with strength, intelligence, and avidity. Let one choose several different points of departure, working through from each of them to the whole, and one will grasp the whole all the more surely, and comprehend the wealth of detail all the more fully. Accordingly, by sinking deep into the particular, one most easily avoids the danger of becoming narrow, for, in consequence of the interrelation of disciplines, investigation in any particular field forces the student into many others. On the other hand, if one from the outset strives only for encyclopaedic many-sidedness, gathering what is most general in all departments, the habit is formed of rapidly passing from one thing to another, and learning nothing from the bottom up.

The great philologists of Holland prescribe a chronological study of all antiquity, in such fashion as to jour^ ney through it as if on a country road, making so many miles a day — a fashion of traveling that is not very instructive. This linear procedure does not take one to the heart of things ; and in point of fact the Dutch have been superficial in collecting their materials. The only correct method is the cyclic, where one refers every-' thing back to a central point, and from this crosses in all directions to the periphery. In this way the faculty is developed of seizing whatever one does seize upon, with vigor and in earnest ; the judgment is exercised to better advantage, because one pauses longer on the individual obj ect ; and more talent is developed than by that other, general studv, through which, on the contrary, there are engendered the mere opinion of knowledge and a fatal facility.

But though encvclopaedia and methodology are absolutely distinct, it is nevertheless very desirable to unite them ; for if we have praised the method of intensive study, it is by no means in the sense that one could merely choose the better alternative, and not concern oneself with the other. The result of that would indeed be a detestable one-sidedness, a quality which must be driven out in the early stages ; for the habit is too easily formed, and out of it comes a self-exaltation that leads every one to consider his own subject of the utmost importance, and everything else of no value. Accordingly, one must make use of the general survey derived from the encyclopaedia as a corrective for intense specialization, acquiring the broad outlook in connection with special study, and beside it. To this end the encyclopaedia must itself furnish a methodical procedure. 1

V. METHODS AND AIMS IN THE STUDY OF LITERATURE: OPINIONS FROM TWO POETS

In the study of literature, as in all other study, the fundamental processes are two — observation and comparison. The need of observation in the study of poetry may be inferred from the utterances of Wordsworth on his habit of production :

' I have at all times endeavored to look steadily at my subject ; consequently, there is, I hope, in these poems little falsehood of description, and my ideas are expressed in language fitted to their respective importance. Something must have been gained by this practice, as it is friendly to one property of all good poetry, namely, good sense.' 2

Again, in censuring certain literature of an inferior sort, Wordsworth declares :

'The poetry of the period intervening between the publication of the Paradise Lost and the Seasons . . .

1 Boeckh, Encyclopadie, pp. 46-48.

2 Nowell Smith, Wordsworth's Literary Criticism, p. 18.

scarcely presents a familiar [image] from which it can be inferred that the eye of the poet had been steadily fixed upon his subject. ... A blind man, in the habit of attending accurately to descriptions casually dropped from the lips of those around him, might easily depict these appearances with more truth.' x

If the eye of the poet must be steadily fixed upon his subject, the eye of the student must be steadily fixed upon the form of the poem as a whole, then upon each detail of it, and again upon the synthesis of all the parts. His first duty is to see the details and the whole precisely as they are ; in other words, his first duty is exact observation.

Next, he must compare :

'At school [Christ's Hospital],' says Coleridge, 'I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a very sensible, though at the same time a very severe, master [the Reverend James Bowyer]. He early molded my taste to the preference of Demosthenes to Cicero, of Homer and Theocritus to Virgil, and again of Virgil to Ovid. He habituated me to compare Lucretius, (in such extracts as I then read) Terence, and, above all, the chaster poems of Catullus, not only with the Roman poets of the so-called silver and brazen ages, but with even those of the Augustan era ; and on grounds of plain sense and universal logic to see and assert the superiority of the former in the truth and nativeness both of their thoughts and diction. At the same time that we were studying the Greek Tragic Poets, he made us read Shakespeare and Milton as lessons ; and they were the

1 Nowell Smith, Wordsworth's Literary Criticism, p. 185.

lessons, too, which required most time and trouble to bring tip, so as to escape his censure. I learned from him that poetry, even that of the loftiest, and, seemingly, that of the wildest odes, had a logic of its own, as severe as that of science ; and more difficult, because more subtle, more complex, and dependent on more, and more fugitive, causes. In the truly great poets, he would say, there is a reason assignable, not only for every word, but for the position of every word.' 1

In addition to perfect observation, and strict comparison, the student must cultivate the habit of illustrating every general statement he makes, by one or more specific examples. In the discussion of literature, this involves some familiarity with a number of the best models. Observation, comparison, and specific illustration are the means through which one may ultimately arrive at certitude of literary judgment. Such certitude, however, is ordinarily a matter of slow attainment. On this head, listen to Wordsworth :

'An accurate taste in poetry, and in all the other arts, ... is an acquired talent, which can only be produced by

1 Biographia Literaria (ed. Shawcross) I. 4. Compare Professor Gildersleeve on Pindar (Warner's Library of the World's Best Literature 20.11490): 'Pindar's noble compounds and his bold metaphors give splendor and vitality to his style ; his narrative has a swift and strong movement; and his moral lessons are couched in words of oracular impressiveness. All this needs no demonstration ; and so far as details go, Pindar appeals to every lover of poetry.

' And yet, as he himself has said, his song needs interpreters. His transitions are bold, and it is hard to follow his flight. Hence he has been set down as lawless ; and modern " Pindarists " have considered themselves free from the laws of consecutive thought and the shackles of metrical symmetry. But whatever the freedom of Pindar's thought, his odes are built on the strictest principles of metrical form ; strophe

METHOD IN THE STUDY OE LITERATURE 5 5

severe thought, and a long continued intercourse with the best models of composition. This is mentioned, not with so ridiculous a purpose as to prevent the most inexperienced reader from judging for himself, but merely to temper the rashness of decision, and to suggest that if poetry be a subject on which much time has not been bestowed, the judgment may be erroneous, and that in many cases it necessarily will be so.' 1

So much for method. What, now, is the aim of literary studv ? Since literature is a liberal art, its function must be in some way connected with liberty ; and since the study of literature belongs among the humanities, it must, if properly pursued, tend to make the student more humane ; that is, more thoughtful, more reverent, and more fearless — more wise, sympathetic, and just. As a liberal art, poetry helps to free us from the slavery of fear ; as a humane art, it disentangles us from the bestial part of our natures, and renders us more like the best and happiest, the most typical, men. The destiny of his poems, declares Wordsworth, is ' to console the afflicted ; to add sunshine to daylight, by making the happy happier; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to think and feel, and, therefore, to become more actively and securely virtuous.' 2 Or, what amounts to the same thing, the end of his poetry, as of all good poetry, is to arouse, and make lasting, a pleasure that is not

is answered by antistrophe. epode responds to epode. bar to bar. The more one studies the metres, the more one marvels at the delicate and precise workmanship. But when one turns to the thought, the story, then the symmetry becomes less evident — and yet it is there.'

1 Wordsworth 's Literary Criticism, pp. 2, 39.

servile, that only a free and humane, or civilized, man can enjoy. Thus he writes to a friend : * It is plain from your letter that the pleasure which I have given you has not been blind or .unthinking ; you have studied the poems, and prove that you have entered into the spirit of them. They have not given you a cheap or vulgar pleasure. . . . You have given me praise for having reflected faithfully in my poems the feelings of human nature. I would fain hope that I have done so. But a great poet ought to do more than this ; he ought, to a certain degree, to rectify men's feelings, to give them new compositions of feeling, to render their feelings more sane, pure, and permanent, in short, more consonant to nature — that is, to eternal nature, and the great moving spirit of things.' x

1 Wordsworth 's Literary Criticism, pp. 3, 7. Extract No. V, by Lane Cooper, is taken from the pamphlet mentioned above in the Preface.

Ill

EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS OF

WORDSWORTH ON THE STUDY

AND PRACTICE OF POETRY

I. WORDSWORTH TO R. P. GILLIES

If you write more blank verse, pray pay particular attention to your versification, especially as to the pauses on the first, second, third, eighth, and ninth syllables. These pauses should never be introduced for convenience, and not often for the sake of variety merely, but for some especial effect of harmony or emphasis. 1

II. WORDSWORTH TO WILLIAM ROWAN HAMILTON

You will have no pain to suffer from my sincerity. With a safe conscience I can assure you that, in my judgment, your verses are animated with true poetic spirit, as they are evidently the product of strong feeling. The sixth and seventh stanzas affected me much, even to the dimming of my eye, and faltering of my voice while I was reading them aloud. . . . You will not, I am sure,

1 Letters of the Wordsworth Family (ed. Knight) 2. 94.

be hurt when I tell you that the workmanship is not what it ought to be :

Some touch of human sympathy find way,

And whisper that while Truth's and Science' ray

With such serene effulgence o'er thee shone.

Sympathy might whisper, but a touch of sympathy could not. 'Truth's and Science' ray,' for the ray of Truth and Science, is not only extremely harsh, but a ' ray shone ' is, if not absolutely a pleonasm, a great awkwardness ; a ray may be said to ' fall ' or ' shoot ' ; and a sun, or a moon, or a candle to ' shine,' but not a ray. . . . If I have the pleasure of seeing you again, I will beg permission to dissect these verses, or any other you may be inclined to show me ; but I am certain that . . . your own high powers of mind will lead you to the main conclusions ; you will be brought to acknowledge that the logical faculty has infinitely more to do with poetry than the young and the inexperienced, whether writer or critic, ever dreams of. Indeed, as the materials upon which that faculty is exercised in poetry are so subtle, so plastic, so complex, the application of it requires an adroitness which can proceed from nothing but practice ; a discernment which emotion is so far from bestowing that at first it is ever in the way of it. . . .

But shall despondence therefore blench my brow, Or pining sorrow sickly ardor o'er.

These are two of the worst lines in mere expression. 'Blench' is perhaps miswritten for 'blanch'; if not, I don't understand the word. Blench signifies to flinch. If ' blanch ' be the word, the next ought to be ' hair'

LETTERS OF WORDSWORTH 59

You can't here use brow for the hair upon it, because a white brow or forehead is a beautiful characteristic of youth. ' Sickly ardor o'er ' was at first reading to me unintelligible. I took ' sickly ' to be an adjective joined with ; ardor,' whereas you mean it as a portion of a verb, from Shakespeare — 'Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.' But the separation of the parts, or decomposition of the word, as here done, is not to be endured. 1