VII. LITERATURE AND LIBERAL CULTURE
“It is precisely minds of the first order that will never be specialists. For their very nature is to make the whole of existence their problem; and this is a subject upon which they will every one of them in some form provide mankind with a new revelation.”
—Schopenhauer, The Art of Literature, p. 55.
Significance of poetry for education.—Each art supreme in its own field and function. Thus impossibility of classing one as highest. Of them all, poetry the most universal in function, combining in one something of each of the great types of art, and broadest in power to express and interpret human life. Permanence of poetry. Accessibility of poetry as contrasted with the other arts. Thus whatever art appeals most powerfully to the individual, poetry having a place in the education of all. Hence reason for choosing this art for separate discussion.
What is literature?—Relation of poetry to other forms of literature. Two-fold distinction of artistic literature from other writing: Requirement that it should be human in appeal, written for the man and not the specialist, and that it should be adequate and harmonious in expression. The vast field comprised within these limits.
The study of literature.—Literature many things to many men. Thus studied for a multitude of special purposes. Compare the use of literature as a mere text-book for philology, or as an opportunity for expounding a particular philosophy. Frequent misuse of literature in education.
The great value of literature, not in contributing to some phase of special training, but in developing liberal culture. What such culture means in the development of intellect, emotions and imagination.
The reasons for the vast development of specialization in our education recently. Need that special training should rest always on a basis of liberal culture. Thus the significance of the study of literature as the art most broadly expressing human life, and thus contributing to the liberal cultivation of the man as compared with the training of the specialist.
The four avenues of approach.—Literature possessing a soul of thought, feeling and imagination and a body of artistic expression. Compare how all true art must be both significant and beautiful. Thus two great aspects of literature: possible to focus attention on either one. Which appeals more powerfully to the student as somewhat a matter of temperament.
Content and form studied directly with the aim of understanding significance and appreciating beauty; both aspects of literature studied as embodying historical forces. Thus the four aspects of the study of literature, with the aim of liberal culture.
The direct study of the content of literature.—The range of thought given in literature. The problems constantly treated. Thought never expressed alone in literature, but always transfused with feeling and transfigured with imagination. Thus the appeal to the whole man. Resulting education and its value. Compare in developing appreciation of the beauty and sublimity of Nature, of the dignity, comedy and tragedy of human life. Illustrations in the poetry of the sunset hour; in the poetry of human experience.
The second avenue of approach.—The soul of literature given a further meaning when studied in relation to the forces behind it. Expression of the character of the artist in his work: Compare Milton in Paradise Lost; Carlyle in Sartor Resartus. Embodiment of the spirit of the epoch and race in literature. Deeper expression of what is common to humanity in all time: Compare the Antigone of Sophocles.
The study of literary art.—The analytical study of form in literature as only a means to an end—the end of synthetic appreciation. The need always to find the relation of the body of art to the soul of thought, feeling and imagination expressed through it.
No accidents in art. The melody of a line or word always determined by law, whether or not the poet was conscious of the law. Possible thus for the student to discover the laws the art follows. Illustration of these in the succession of poetic forms from common speech to the most highly differentiated stanzas. The aim of art never merely to create the sensuously pleasing, but to give adequate and harmonious expression.
The fourth avenue of approach.—The body of literature as much as the soul an expression of historical forces. Evidence in the contrasting imagery of Shelley and Wordsworth. The Elizabethan age naturally creating the drama, modern life the lyric. Expression of racial characteristics in the music of words and the stanzas of poetry. Contrast Beowulf and the Iliad.
The culture given by literature.—Type of education resulting from all four lines of the study of literature. The widened relation to man and Nature. The true cosmopolitanism of the spirit. Thus the service of literature in making possible the discovery of the divine in the commonplace and of the ideal in the real.
ILLUSTRATIONS
“To use many words to communicate few thoughts is everywhere the unmistakable sign of mediocrity. To gather much thought into few words stamps the man of genius.”
—Schopenhauer, The Art of Literature, p. 30.
“We know that the sensibility of the mind depends, as to degree, on the liveliness, and for extent on the richness, of the imagination. Now the predominance of the faculty of analysis must necessarily deprive the imagination of its warmth and energy, and a restricted sphere of objects must diminish its wealth. It is for this reason that the abstract thinker has very often a cold heart, because he analyses impressions, which only move the mind by their combination or totality; on the other hand, the man of business, the statesman, has very often a narrow heart, because shut up in the narrow circle of his employment his imagination can neither expand nor adapt itself to another manner of viewing things.”
—Schiller, Essays Æsthetical and Philosophical, pp. 41, 42.
“One should not study contemporaries and competitors, but the great men of antiquity, whose works have, for centuries, received equal homage and consideration. Indeed, a man of really superior endowments will feel the necessity of this, and it is just this need for an intercourse with great predecessors, which is the sign of a higher talent. Let us study Molière, let us study Shakespeare, but above all things, the old Greeks, and always the Greeks.”
—Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann and Soret, p. 236.
“There is a fine art of passion, but an impassioned fine art is a contradiction in terms, for the infallible effect of the beautiful is emancipation from the passions. The idea of an instructive fine art (didactic art) or improving (moral) art is no less contradictory, for nothing agrees less with the idea of the beautiful than to give a determinate tendency to the mind.”
—Schiller, Essays Æsthetical and Philosophical, p. 92.
“To read a philosopher’s biography, instead of studying his thoughts, is like neglecting a picture and attending only to the style of its frame, debating whether it is carved well or ill, and how much it cost to gild it.”
—Schopenhauer, The Art of Literature, p. 146.
“Any one who is sufficiently young, and who is not quite spoiled, could not easily find any place that would suit him so well as a theatre. No one asks you any questions: you need not open your mouth unless you choose; on the contrary, you sit quite at your ease like a king, and let everything pass before you, and recreate your mind and senses to your heart’s content. There is poetry, there is painting, there are singing and music, there is acting, and what not besides. When all these arts, and the charm of youth and beauty heightened to an important degree, work in concert on the same evening, it is a bouquet to which no other can compare.”
—Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann and Soret, p. 120.
“It is therefore not going far enough to say that the light of the understanding only deserves respect when it reacts on the character; to a certain extent it is from the character that this light proceeds; for the road that terminates in the head must pass through the heart. Accordingly, the most pressing need of the present time is to educate the sensibility, because it is the means, not only to render efficacious in practice the improvement of ideas, but to call this improvement into existence.”
—Schiller, Essays Æsthetical and Philosophical, p. 48.
“A pupil from whom nothing is ever demanded which he cannot do, never does all he can.”
—John Stuart Mill, Autobiography (Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1887), p. 32.
TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION
1. Define artistic literature as distinguished from other writings.
2. What characteristics give literature an exceptional place and value as a means of liberal culture?
3. What education results from the study of thought, feeling and imagination in literature?
4. Why is the poetry of sorrow filled with the imagery of the sea?
5. Is there a “pathetic fallacy” involved in using Nature as a language for the expression of human emotions?
6. What place has the education of the emotions and the imagination in relation to the whole of culture?
7. Study the imagery of Shelley and Wordsworth as expressing the character of the two poets.
8. What is the cultural value of the analytical study of literary style?
9. Why was Elizabethan poetry characteristically dramatic, where modern English poetry is predominantly lyrical?
10. What aspects of the study of literature are most important for liberal culture, and why?
REFERENCES
Arnold, The Study of Poetry. Baldwin, The Book-Lover. Bates, Talks on the Study of Literature. Beeching, The Study of Poetry. Collins, The True Functions of Poetry. Corson, Aims of Literary Study. Crawshaw, The Interpretation of Literature; Literary Interpretation of Life. Dabney, Musical Basis of Verse. Hamerton, The Intellectual Life. Hugo, William Shakespeare. Lewes, Principles of Success in Literature. Mabie, Books and Culture. Mathews, Music: Its Ideals and Methods. Morison, The Great Poets as Religious Teachers. Newman, Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle’s Poetics. Palgrave, Golden Treasury. Pryde, Highways of Literature. Santayana, Elements and Function of Poetry. Schiller, Essays. Shairp, Poetic Interpretation of Nature. Sidney, Defense of Poesy. Stedman, Nature and Elements of Poetry. Warner, The Relation of Literature to Life. Winchester, Some Principles of Literary Criticism.