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Talks on the study of literature.

Chapter 20: INDEX
By Arlo Bates
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About This Book

The lectures begin by defining literature and clarifying literary expression, then address practical methods of study, common misunderstandings, and the nature of literary language, including its intangible qualities. The author argues that literature furnishes knowledge of life by mapping human emotions, providing sympathy, and revealing possibilities of feeling, and examines the roles of classics and contemporary writing in that inventory. Separate chapters consider fiction and poetry, their relations to life, and the texture and techniques that make poetic language effective. Throughout, guidance is offered for reading critically and sympathetically to deepen understanding and moral and aesthetic perception.

'Tis the deep music of the rolling world
 Kindling within the strings of the waved air
 Æolian modulations.

It is vain to endeavor to put into word the worth and office of poetry. At the last we are brought face to face with the fact that anything short of itself is inadequate to do it justice. To read a single page of a great singer is more potent than to pore over volumes in his praise. A single lyric puts to shame the most elaborate analysis or the most glowing eulogy; in the end there is no resource but to appeal to the inner self which is the true man; since in virtue of what is most deep and noble in the soul, each may perceive for himself that poetry is its own supreme justification; that there is no need to discuss the relation of poetry to life, since poetry is the expression of life in its best and highest possibilities.

INDEX

  • Abbot, J. S. C., "Rollo," 201.
  • Addison, 66.
  • Advertising, 168-170.
  • Æschylus, 149.
  • Aldrich, T. B., "Story of a Bad Boy," 11, 15.
  • Allusions, Biblical, 98-101;
  • Amiel, "Journal Intime," 7.
  • Amiot, 90.
  • Andersen, Hans Christian, 196.
  • Apprehension, 74.
  • Ariosto, 143.
  • Art, conventions in, 89;
    • deals with the typical, 6;
    • end of, 87;
    • good, 22;
    • origin of, 3-5;
    • sanity of, 174;
    • truth in, 206;
    • truth of, 209;
    • vs. science, 32.
  • Artist, office of, 207.
  • Asbjörnsen, 196.
  • Augustine, St., "Confessions," 7.
  • Austen, Jane, 189.
  • Ballads, 222.
  • Balzac, 189.
  • Barrie, J. M., 211.
  • Bible, 101, 140, 142, 145, 197;
    • allusions to, 98-101;
    • as a classic, 143-147;
    • books of, characterized, 146;
    • quoted, 100, 228;
    • Revised Version vs. King James, 146.
  • Black, William, 13, 211.
  • Blackmore, R. D., 211.
  • Blake, William, 54, 66;
  • Boccaccio, 143.
  • Breeding, good, 204.
  • Brontë, Charlotte, 189.
  • Broughton, Rhoda, 185.
  • Browning, Mrs. E. B., quoted, 8, 132, 225, 241;
    • "Sonnets from the Portuguese," 7-9.
  • Browning Robert, 92, 155, 179, 180;
    • "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," 48;
    • lack of melody, 236;
    • obscure in allusions, 106;
    • "Prospice," 13;
    • quoted, 244;
    • "The Ring and the Book," 180.
  • Bunyan, John, "Pilgrim's Progress," 129.
  • Burke, Edmund, quoted, 229.
  • Burns, quoted, 234.
  • Byron, Lord, 11, 12;
  • Cable, G. W., 211.
  • Carleton, Will, "Farm Ballads," 223.
  • Carlyle, Thomas, 42;
  • Carroll, Lewis, quoted, 236.
  • Cervantes, 133, 140, 143;
  • Character, 56.
  • Chaucer, Geoffrey, 78, 116, 123, 124, 140, 142, 146;
  • Children, education of, 193-196, 223;
  • Civilization, 204.
  • Classic, defined, 127.
  • Classics, 176, 177;
    • cause of the neglect of, 132-134;
    • test of, 130.
  • "Clerk Saunders," 222.
  • Coleridge, S. T., 54, 66;
    • "Hymn Before Sunrise," etc., 75;
    • quoted, 145, 237, 247.
  • Collins, William, 66.
  • Comprehension, 74.
  • Conventions, 88-92.
  • Cowper, William, quoted, 79.
  • Crawford, F. M., 211.
  • Critics, use of, 70.
  • Dante, 58, 78, 140, 142, 146;
  • Darwin, Charles, 55.
  • D'Aulnoy, Countess, 196.
  • D'Aurevilly, Barbey, 169.
  • Defoe, 66;
    • "Robinson Crusoe," 197.
  • De Gasparin, Madame, "The Near and the Heavenly Horizons," 48.
  • De Maupassant, Guy, 182.
  • Dekker, Thomas, quoted, 115.
  • Dickens, Charles, 179, 180, 189;
    • his metrical prose, 233.
  • Doyle, A. Conan, 211;
  • Dryden, John, 66, 146;
  • "Duchess," The, 13, 185.
  • Dumas, A., père, 182, 189;
    • "D'Artagnan Romances," 27, 92.
  • Edgeworth, Maria, 201.
  • Education, use of poetry in, 223.
  • Eliot, George, 180, 187, 189.
  • Emerson, R. W., 179, 180;
  • Emotion, 241-245;
    • fashion in, 15;
    • genuine, 68;
    • tests of genuineness of, 10-20.
  • Etiquette, 204.
  • Euripides, 149.
  • Experience the test of art, 10.
  • Fairy stories, 196-197.
  • Fiction, truth in, 188.
  • Fielding, Henry, 66.
  • Folk-lore, 223.
  • Folk-songs, 137-139, 221-222.
  • French authors, 170.
  • Fuller, Margaret, 86.
  • Genius, 20, 250.
  • Gibbon, Edward, quoted, 74.
  • Gladstone, W. E., 168.
  • Goethe, quoted, 36, 178.
  • Goldsmith, Oliver, 66.
  • Gower, John, 116.
  • Gray, Thomas, quoted, 103.
  • Greek literature, 149, 150.
  • Greek sculpture, 150.
  • Greek tragedians, 143, 148.
  • Greeks, sanity of the, 148.
  • Grimm, The Brothers, 194, 196.
  • Haggard, Rider, "She," 26.
  • Hannay, James, quoted, 57.
  • Hardy, Thomas, "Far from the Madding Crowd," 181;
    • "The Return of the Native," 181, 208;
    • "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," 181;
    • "Under the Greenwood Tree," 181.
  • Harris, J. C., "Uncle Remus," 197.
  • Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 179, 180, 189;
    • Arthur Dimmesdale, 201;
    • "The Marble Faun," 92;
    • quoted, 83;
    • "The Scarlet Letter," 2, 13, 201, 208, 214;
    • "Tanglewood Tales," 197;
    • "The Wonder-Book," 197.
  • Hazlitt, William, quoted, 113.
  • "Helen of Kirconnell," 13, 138.
  • Homer, 58, 78, 123, 131, 140, 142, 146, 151;
  • Hope, Anthony, 211.
  • Hugo, Victor, 189;
    • "Les Misérables," 92, 208.
  • Hunt, Leigh, quoted, 84.
  • Hunt, W. M., quoted, 62.
  • Ibsen, 172, 173, 177;
    • "The Doll's House," 18;
    • "Ghosts," 173.
  • Imagination, 93, 246-248, 253;
    • and thought, 251;
    • creative, 111;
    • the realizing faculty, 19;
    • reality of, 54.
  • Imaginative language, defined, 230-231.
  • Imaginative quality, test of, 93.
  • Impressionism, 69.
  • Interest, temporary and permanent, 127-129.
  • Irreverence, 87.
  • Isaiah, 146, 150.
  • James, Henry, quoted, 203.
  • Jewett, Sarah O., Miss, 211.
  • Job, 146, 230.
  • Johnson, Samuel, quoted, 84.
  • Jonson, Ben, quoted, 83.
  • Judd, Sylvester, "Margaret," 30.
  • Keats, John, 54, 92, 112;
    • letters to Miss Brawne, 62;
    • "Ode on a Grecian Urn," 17;
    • quoted, 94, 102, 249.
  • Kingsley, Charles, 189.
  • Kipling, Rudyard, 182;
  • Laboulaye, Édouard, 196.
  • Lamb, Charles, 133;
  • Language, imaginative, defined, 230-231.
  • Lear, Edward, 235.
  • Lessing, "Nathan the Wise," 48.
  • Lincoln, Abraham, "Gettysburg Address," 112.
  • Literature, books about, 65-68;
    • convincing, 14;
    • defined, 1-32;
    • didactic, 201;
    • early, 136;
    • eighteenth century, 65, 66;
    • gossip about, 62-65;
    • history of, 65;
    • juvenile, 193-195;
    • morbid, 20, 177, 178;
    • office of, 46-59;
    • relative rank, 31;
    • study of, defined, 33-44, 60-68;
    • study of, difficult, 72;
    • talk about, 40-43;
    • a unit, 154;
    • vs. science, 55.
  • "Littell's Living Age," 39.
  • Longfellow, H. W., 181.
  • Lowell, J. R., 67;
  • Macaulay, T. B., 220;
  • Maclaren, Ian, 211, 213.
  • Maeterlinck, 172.
  • Magazines, 163-166.
  • Malory, Thomas, "Morte d'Arthur," 196.
  • Marcus Aurelius, "Reflections," 7.
  • Marlowe, Christopher, "The Jew of Malta," 76.
  • Melody, 235-240.
  • Meredith, George, "The Ordeal of Richard Feverel," 92, 181, 208.
  • Metre, 227-230.
  • Milton, John, 108, 140, 143;
    • "L'Allegro," 106;
    • "Il Penseroso," 107;
    • "Lycidas," 77;
    • "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," 100;
    • quoted, 63, 113, 163.
  • Modernity, 169.
  • Molière, 140, 143.
  • Montaigne, 133, 140, 143.
  • Morbidity, 140.
  • Morley, John, 67.
  • "Mother Goose," 96, 221.
  • Mulock, D. M., 189.
  • Music, barbaric, 90;
    • Chinese, 90.
  • Musset, A. de, "Mlle. de Maupin," 177.
  • Newspapers, 162, 163.
  • Nordau, Max, "Degeneration," 170;
  • Notes, use of, 84, 109.
  • Notoriety, 128, 172.
  • Novels, realistic, 209;
    • vs. poetry, 245;
    • with a theory, 167.
  • Novelty, 134.
  • "Old Oaken Bucket," The, 17.
  • Originality, 170.
  • Ouida, 17, 41.
  • Page, T. N., 211.
  • Pater, Walter, "Marius the Epicurean," 25.
  • Periodicals, 162-166.
  • Petrarch, 143.
  • Philology not the study of literature, 79.
  • Plato, quoted, 234.
  • Plutarch, letter to his wife, 50.
  • Poe, E. A., "Lygeia," 22;
  • Poetry, defined, 227;
    • form is essential, 236, 239;
    • how different from prose, 231, 232;
    • office in education, 223;
    • office of, 245-252;
    • optimism of, 248-250;
    • origin, 5;
    • reading of, 244;
    • vs. novels, 245.
  • Pope, Alexander, 66.
  • Prose, how different from poetry, 231-232;
    • language of, 231.
  • Public guided by the few, 10.
  • Quincy, Josiah, 50.
  • Rabelais, 133, 140.
  • Reade, Charles, 189.
  • Reading, first, 85;
    • for amusement, 210;
    • measure of character, 159;
    • serious matter, 87;
    • should be a pleasure, 71-73;
    • test of, 86;
    • works as units, 81.
  • Realism, 69, 209.
  • Reverence, 87.
  • Rhythm, 220, 221, 227-229.
  • Richardson, Samuel, 66.
  • Rossetti, D. G., 181;
  • Rousseau, "Confessions," 7.
  • Ruskin, John, quoted, 95.
  • Russell, W. Clark, 13, 211.
  • Sanity, 140, 174.
  • Schopenhauer, quoted, 63, 227.
  • Science vs. art, 32.
  • Science vs. literature, case of Darwin, 55.
  • Scott, Sir Walter, 189.
  • Sculpture, Aztec, 89;
    • Greek, 89.
  • Sensationalism, 26.
  • Sentiment, 16, 157;
    • defined, 15.
  • Sentimentality, 16, 139, 157;
    • defined, 15.
  • Shakespeare, William, 3, 35, 41, 53, 58, 65, 77, 86, 92, 93, 107, 118, 124, 133, 140, 143, 145, 147, 173, 214, 216;
  • Shelley, P. B., 92, 131;
    • quoted, 254;
    • "Stanzas Written in Dejection," etc., 17.
  • Shorthouse, J. H., "John Inglesant," 29.
  • Sienkiewicz, 182;
    • "The Deluge," 92.
  • Sincerity, 12-15.
  • Smile, sardonic, 95.
  • Sophocles, 149.
  • Spenser, Edmund, 123, 124, 143, 197.
  • Standards, 141;
    • of criticism, 161.
  • Steele, Sir Richard, 66.
  • Stephen, Leslie, 67.
  • Stevenson, R. L., 181;
    • "Kidnapped," 197;
    • quoted, 57;
    • "Treasure Island," 27, 197.
  • Stockton, Frank, "The Adventures of Captain Horn," 27.
  • Story, happy ending of a, 215;
  • Stowe, Mrs. H. B., on Byron, 62.
  • Suckling, Sir John, quoted, 106.
  • Suggestion, 111-114, 118-120, 230, 235.
  • Suttner, Baroness von, 161.
  • Swift, Jonathan, 66;
    • "Gulliver's Travels," 197.
  • Swinburne, A. C., 181;
    • "Atalanta in Calydon," 228;
    • excess of melody, 236.
  • Symbolism, 69.
  • Sympathy between reader and author, 82.
  • Talleyrand, quoted, 38.
  • Tasso, 143.
  • Taste a measure of character, 3.
  • Technical excellence, 25.
  • Tennyson, Alfred, 92, 155, 179, 180, 232;
    • "Idylls of the King," 180;
    • "In Memoriam," 7, 50;
    • quoted, 101, 249.
  • Thackeray, W. M., 42, 179, 180, 189;
    • Beatrix Esmond, 92;
    • Colonel Newcome, 13;
    • "Henry Esmond," 208;
    • Major Pendennis, 201;
    • "Pendennis," 200.
  • Titian, 42-43.
  • Tolstoi, 172, 177;
    • "The Kreutzer Sonata," 20, 214;
    • "War and Peace," 29.
  • Traill, H. D., quoted, 190.
  • Translations, use of, 147, 148.
  • Trollope, Anthony, 180, 189.
  • Tupper, M. F., 3.
  • Turgenieff, 182.
  • "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 160.
  • Vedas, The, 145.
  • Verlaine, 22.
  • "Waly, waly," 138.
  • Wendell, Barrett, quoted, 42.
  • Weyman, S. J., 211.
  • Whittier, J. G., 181.
  • Wilkins, Miss M. E., 211, 213.
  • Wordsworth, William, 54, 66;