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"Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

Why thou art desolate, can e'er return."

The appreciation of beauty in literature is cumulative. One impression of beauty leads to another and often the familiar and the commonplace

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Finally, literature offers to the initiated the craftsman's interest, the pleasure which one takes in good work well done. The love of literature is, for many people, the love of self-expression. They would like to express in the web of words, their thoughts and moods. To see how men of genius have expressed themselves, working at their art with care and pains, is to lovers of literature a real delight, for they see in the technique of the artist the power of creation which they would like to have. The perfect phrase, the exact word, the apt image move their admiration, because, having perhaps tried themselves to write, they know how difficult good writing is. For readers with the craftsman's interest the study of such technical elements as the plot of a novel or the style of an essay stimulates the pleasure in perfection which is the mark of the creative mind which works for "the joy of the working," finding in the consciousness of achievement life's greatest reward.

What then are the sources of interest in literature? First, literature is our best means of finding out how, in any given

historical period men looked at facts, how they interpreted the world about them; second, literature best satisfies the love which all men have for good stories well told; third, literature is our most important source for a wide knowledge of the ideas and ideals which have influenced the world; fourth, literature is, for the average man, the most accessible. source of beauty; and fifth, literature is a never-ending delight to those who possess the craftsman's interest.

WHAT IS GOOD LITERATURE?

Every reader is to some degree a judge. He distinguishes between a dull story and an interesting one. He has his favorite authors. Usually, however, his judgment rests upon no very intelligent basis. He seldom thinks of the reason for his likes and dislikes. He knows that there is such a thing as "good literature," that some books are usually regarded as more valuable than others, more worthy of preservation, more profitable to study, but he is content to leave to critics the definition of good literature.

It must be admitted that such a definition is extremely difficult because, after all, there is no impartial authority to tell us what is good literature and what is not. We must be our own court of judgment, trusting to our own taste, supported by the opinion of those whose discrimination we respect.

Yet there have been numerous standards maintained in the centuries of European civilization.

It has been maintained, in the first place, that good literature is that literature which is written by one who "sees life steadily and sees it whole," who tries to interpret the truth about life in as dignified and as beautiful form as possible. Such a standard emphasizes dignity, power, and beauty of subject and form. It assumes that certain master

pieces of literary art are "classic"; that is, that they are standards of the highest achievement of literary art, and that the best method of testing a work of literature is by comparison with the "classics," these universally accepted masterpieces.1

A second standard of good literature, which was highly popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries but is now almost completely out of fashion, is the standard of "correctness." The critics of those centuries maintained that there are certain principles or "rules" such as proportion, probability, dignity of subject matter, fidelity to the accepted beliefs of cultivated people, adherence to which, provided a writer had genius, would infallibly produce great literature. Such critics were likely to disdain any great use of the imagination or any great individuality in the application of the rules, and to approve works which were imitative of generally accepted classics, particularly the works of the ancient Greek and Roman writers. 2

At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was a violent reaction from such standards. Critics began to emphasize the value of the imagination in literature, and to pay small heed to the mechanical virtues of order, proportion, correctness, and fidelity to approved models. They sought for originality, power, beauty, freshness, and an avoidance of the conventional. They relied upon enthusiasm for literature rather than upon judgment, and they felt that literature ought to be enjoyed rather than analyzed. In our own day the usual standard of judgment is slightly different. Like the people of the nineteenth century we are inclined to stress the imagination as the chief quality in good literature and to admire originality, power, beauty,

1 See Arnold, Matthew: The Study of Poetry.
2 See Pope, Alexander: Essay on Criticism.
'See Hazlitt, William: On Poetry in General.

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and freshness. But we pay more attention than they did to novelty and immediate interest and we are likely to regard literature which is surprising, startling, striking, or strange as necessarily better than that which follows beaten paths.

Students who are wise will not spend much time trying to formulate definite standards until they have a solid basis of reading. All argument aside, it is clear that there exists a large body of literature which gives pleasure to thoughtful, intelligent, and cultivated men and women and that this is good literature because the pleasure which it gives is thoughtful pleasure, not mere excitement. Good literature is not necessarily hard to read or to understand, but it does require more thought and study than that literature which has a momentary popularity because it puts the intelligence to sleep.

WHAT THE STUDY OF LITERATURE REQUIRES

The first and most important requirement in the study of literature is the ability to read more than mere words, that is, the ability to secure from the printed page the exact idea which the author wished to convey. To know just what the author meant requires, of course, a knowledge of the exact meaning of his words. Walter Pater in his essay, Style, says:

"Since all progress of mind consists for the most part in differentiation, in the resolution of an obscure and complex object into its component aspects, it is surely the stupidest of losses to confuse things which right reason has put asunder, to lose the sense of achieved distinctions, the distinction between poetry and prose, for instance, or, to speak more exactly, between the laws and characteristic excellencies of verse and prose composition."

It is impossible to understand this passage unless one knows exactly what Pater meant by differentiation, component

aspects, achieved distinctions, composition. More than a dictionary definition is needed. One most understand the usage of these words, their meaning in combination, and their history and derivation.

It is necessary to go further. One must understand the logical relation of this sentence to what follows it; one must have the ability to see the parts of an author's thought, giving due attention to the transitional words and phrases which the author sets up as guides.

Then, too, one must understand allusions and the figurative uses of words. When Wordsworth cries:

.I'd rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."

the reader understands but little of his meaning if he thinks that a lea is a hill, Proteus a fish, and the wreathed horn a trombone with ribbons dangling from it.

Not only is it necessary to understand the meaning of words and phrases and the logical relation of ideas, it is necessary also to know how to read aloud with proper pronunciation, emphasis, and inflection. All good writing depends for its power upon its sound, and the student who can really appreciate what he reads can hear the sound of the language even though he is reading silently. The reader of literature must hear what he reads just as the musician hears the notes on a musical score. It is perhaps not difficult for the average reader to hear such lines of poetry as

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or

"By the long wash of Australasian seas"

"The moan of doves in immemorial elms
And murmuring of innumerable bees;"

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