Shelley and Keats added a passion for the beautiful, and sang of "A power more strong in beauty, born of us And fated to excel us." The poets of the third phase of Romanticism, of the critical school of Victorian literature, devoted themselves to religious, socialistic, and scientific problems. Tennyson found science antagonistic to his religion, and triumphantly fought against skepticism in "Two Voices" and "In Memoriam.” Matthew Arnold, satisfied neither with theism nor with agnosticism, sobbed out the futility of religion in "Dover Beach" and the unprofitableness of atheistical life in "Rugby Chapel." Robert Browning, undisturbed by any question presented by science to religion, found rest from ceaseless struggle in such poems as "Saul" and "Rabbi Ben Ezra." The social problem erected itself on the materials of "The Rape Of The Lock," "The Deserted Village," and "The Task," in the poetry of Thomas Hood, who tenderly wrote of the London poor. Arnold wrote "East London" and "West London"; Morris, "The Day Is Coming" and "All For The Cause; and Kipling has portrayed the deplorable experiences of Tommy Atkins. Science itself became a part of modern poetry, lending the finest description to Arnold's "The Forsaken Merman"; its astronomy, botany, and geology are found on the pages of Tennyson; and its achievements have been sung by Kipling in "The Deep - Sea Cables" and in "McAndrew's Hymn." Rossetti, uninterested in the religion, socialism, and science, of his age, sadly and morbidly turned to his Lady Beauty, who beckoned to him with the symbol of mediævalism. Now, the fourth phase of Romanticism, or the second phase of Neo-Romanticism, has been reached. The present tendency of poetry is to extol brute force. The classification of present poetry into a school is hazardous, yet what is seen should be averred. Neither theology nor nature strongly appeals to the poets of virility; nor humanitarianism; nor that beauty which Shelley has incarnated in Emilia Viviani of his "Epipsychidion," and which Keats sought to make eternal in his "Ode On A Grecian Urn.' These poets do not greatly care for religious or social questions, and seemingly they only care for science because of its helping Englishmen to extend Britannia's rule by sea and by land. For some years, John Davidson, William Ernest Henley, and Rudyard Kipling, have lauded the achievements of national Imperialism. The strongest of this virile school has been Kipling whose verses have been in apotheosis of the expansion of England by means of science and militarism. But since 1900 Kipling's note of Imperial expansion has not been loudly sounded. The poems which now come from his pen are similar to the "Recessional." Kipling points the finger of fate at a nation which fetters itself to "reeking tube and iron shard." Though true democracy rests on an imperial basis, though the many must be managed by the brainy few of large hearts and iron nerves, he clearly sees that England, "drunk with power," may learn the τų Spáσavтi πabɛīv of the ancients, since brute violence and questionable methods may cause England's spiritual and material ruin. At this time Kipling is the poet "of the sense of Imperial responsibilities." Now, after the study of historical background, there remains the knowledge of epic, ballad, lyric, sonnet, pastoral, idyl, elegy, ode, etc., and of the metres used in such forms of verse. A pupil must be able to scan any line in any poem, evincing an accurate knowledge of various metres in English poetry, and must memorise the finest lyrics. Syle's "From Milton To Tennyson," Pancoast's "Introduction To English Literature," Halleck's "History Of English Literature," Moody and Lovett's "A History Of English Literature," and Painter's "History Of English Literature," which contain study lists and references, should be on the teachers' desks for continual consultation. These books, with Pancoast's "Standard English Poems," are fine directive agencies in studying the literary periods and the lives of the poets. Gayley's "Classic Myths In English Literature " will explain all mythological allusions; and Crawshaw's "Interpretation of Literature" and Gayley and Scott's "Literary Criticism," Vol. I, should be accessible. C. F. Johnson's "Elements of Literary Criticism" is indispensable, and must constantly be used by teacher and class in order that pupils independently may select dexterous, felicitous, and dynamic phrases, which test the poetic power of any poet. Throughout the book, the great phrases, which have been struck off at a white heat by the poets, except those, in the selected poems, are given; and the poems from which these have been chosen are named. These examples of phrasal power, though separated from the context, are to be memorised; for, by so doing, the pupil gains the ability to rank English poets, and to discriminate between the true and false. In the study of Dryden four phrases are given, any of which may be used in classifying the many found in "Alexander's Feast." From the study of the anthology by these three suggested methods: (1) the indebtedness of best poetry to preceding and present poetry; (2) its indebtedness to past and present historical environment; (3) its indebtedness for forms and metres to preceding and present models, the pupils will have become acquainted with the technique of poetics, will have acquired a love for English poetry, and so far as possible a critical ability. In order that pupils may become literary analysts a few stimulating questions eliciting the analysis of the poems have been submitted for the purpose of calling their intellects as well as their emotions into play. They, who have viewed a piece of literature intellectually, emotionally, and ethically, from the points of view of sources of materials for conception, of technical construction, and of æsthetics of effect, have become critics of the highest kind. In conclusion, the questions are not disconnected but serve to link poem to poem. They show, whenever possible, the indebtedness of best poetry to preceding poetry. By this formal unity the pupils are kept alive in their experience of English poetry, and by the variety of the notes are made susceptible to an all-round development. |