- Yeats,

Maeterlinck and by a group of Irish writers, Lady Gregory, Synge, and Lord Dunsany. This tries to arouse, by language and action very simple and poetic, a sense of mysterious excitement. It aims to make the spectator imagine more than he

sees or hears. It marks an attempt to revive in drama, in prose form, the spirit of poetry. There are of course plays of other types. There is the romantic or sentimental melodrama, the sugary picture of life as it might be. And there is the farce, which does for drama what the "comic" does for drawing, exaggerating its theme into laughable extravagance.

WILLIAM B. YEATS

In drama, then, as in poetry and in fiction, the present age has been moving to new standards. It is founding a new technique New and new ideals. A new period of inspiration Elements is at any moment possible. The train of powder is laid, but not lighted. It may be that no fire will descend from heaven. It may be that present conditions of the drama. discourage genius. Or it may be that the inspired man is yet to come, to waken the statue to warm life. The new interest in the "movies," the revival of small vaudeville houses with one act sketches, the sudden development of "Little Theater" and "neighborhood" companies of semiamateur players, the discontent with former methods and the search for new, - all these are signs whose significance will be clear to the critic of a century hence.

An important development in prose has been in the "leading article," or what in America is called the "ediUnder this name essays-of very different merit-are read daily in almost

Essay and
Editorial

every home.

torial."

The English "review" has remained an important type of essay. Nothing in America exactly corresponds to it. In America a man may write an article upon

English
Reviews

a topic, or he may review a book upon it. In England a man combines the two. He takes the new book as an excuse, as a text, for the review, just as Carlyle took Lockhart's Life of Burns as an excuse for his own Essay on Burns. Most prominent writers in England write such reviews or write independent essays upon political or literary questions.

Among the literary men conspicuous in such writing are Gilbert B. Chesterton and Bernard Shaw. (See page 532.) Chesterton is novel in style, with a fondness for clever paradox. He turns commonly accepted ideas upside down to see what is under them! Many writers prominent as novelists and dramatists, including Wells and Galsworthy, have done work of this kind. The style in this kind of writing is growing on the whole nearer ordinary speech.

Future

Some say that writing is "leveling down" as the world becomes more democratic, that the standards of the cultured are being lowered to meet those of Prospects the masses, the new rulers. This may be true. But such leveling down can be only temporary. The masses, enlightened by education, will not remain contented with low standards. If the standards have been lowered, they have been lowered as they were at the

fall of the old Roman civilization. What happened then was, as we have seen, like heaping new coal on a dying fire, to make a bigger one. The cultured must wait for the masses to come up to the old level. But when the masses have reached this level and the whole march of man moves side by side in even progress, the work done will be richer and higher and grander than ever before.

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

I. Trace rapidly the history of the English drama after Shakspere,
through the Restoration, the eighteenth century, the Romantic
Revival. What kind of plays prevailed in each period?
What has become of poetic drama?

What foreign influence has affected modern drama? What kinds
of subjects are presented in the more serious modern drama?
Who are some of the more important writers of recent drama?
Of what type are their plays?

What is the personality of Shaw? What makes him important? Who are the Irish writers? What are they aiming to accomplish? Who are Maeterlinck and Dunsany?

Read if possible one play by each of the above. Observe the peculiarities of each.

II. How does the modern essay differ from Bacon's Essays or from the type written in the Spectator? Study a few essays in the Atlantic Monthly, in some leading English review. Compare a modern newspaper editorial with the early essays named above. What differences have developed since the days of Bacon and Addison?

Explain the peculiar nature of an essay in an English Review, its combination of the duties of book-review and essay. For what is Chesterton noted? Read one of his essays and note instances of "paradox," of parallel construction of clauses.

CHAPTER XVI

FOREIGN INFLUENCES THAT HAVE AFFECTED
ENGLISH LITERATURE

Latin. The influence of Latin upon English has been constant. It has affected both the language itself and literary standards. This influence reached English

through several different lines.

The language of the medieval church, to which every Englishman belonged from birth, was Latin. The services, the scriptures, the hymns, the doctrinal writings, were all in this tongue. In monastic institutions life was practically carried on in Latin.

With Protestantism many learned men broke away from the Church, but not from Latin, for they found in it models and inspiration. Critics formed their taste upon the masterpieces of Rome. The English sentences of men who had labored for Ciceronian polish in Latin took on orderly structure and periodic dignity. Poetry and drama developed under the influence of Latin standards.

Even to-day Latin is influencing English literature. Those who have studied Latin are affected by Latin style. Those who have not are indirectly influenced by those who have studied it.

For the influence of Latin upon vocabulary, see page 49. Remember that Latin words entered English, some directly (being brought into the language by scholars), others indirectly through the French, either immediately after the Norman conquest, or gradually through the interval since.

Greek. Greek had at first little effect. The early

Church knew little about it. Later, however, through the revival of learning, Greek literature began to be studied and appreciated. Men began to realize its superiority to Latin.

Compared to Latin, Greek has given us few words. English words from Greek are as a rule scientific or critical compounds, like gramophone, or prolepsis. (See page 50.) The influence of Greek is shown more in ideals and taste and literary form. Even before it was known in itself it influenced through its reflection in Latin. Homer reached us through Virgil, Euripides through Seneca, Demosthenes through Cicero. But from the beginning of the Elizabethan age, men have turned increasingly to the Greeks either at first hand or in English translation.

Each age has drawn from Greek literature what most appealed to it. The age of Shakspere found enthusiasm, an exciting imagery, a wonderful texture of verse, a tragic picture of merciless destiny. The eighteenth century found lessons in rule and regularity and artistic law. The nineteenth opened its eyes again to the more human side. They, and we after them, have felt and have been inspired by Greek grace and delight in beauty, by the mingling of warm humanity and restrained art.

Hardly a writer, as was said above, can avoid the influence of Latin. The influence of Greek is no less pervading. No one who reads the best can escape the active principle of beauty that gives Greek art its greatness. Just as hardly a building is without some architectural feature derived from ancient Greece, even so, hardly a great work in prose or verse but owes some grace, some charm, some inspiration to the city of Athens.

French. The influence of French has already been