GIFT OF AUTHOR -y Durfyam OniOefsity Gxten^on bectures. Syllabus Course of Twelve Lectures ON Landmarks of English Poetry, FROM CHAUCER TO TENNYSON. J. WIGHT DUFF, M.A. (ABERD. et Oxox.), l[ Late Scholar of Pembroke College, Oxford ; and Professor in I/tierctiwrt and Classics at the Durham College of Science, Newcastle-upon- Tyne. PRICE SIXPENCE. GIFT cr- AUTHOR INTRODUCTORY NOTE. /TjHE lectures, it is almost needless to say, are intended to be not final, but a stimulus to further study. A course like the present, where several of the greatest English poets are dismissed in a single lecture each, and where much of importance must remain unsaid, ought to be supplemented by careful reading in the poets themselves. In literature, criticism by others should be resolutely tested by one's own reading. The repetition of " second-hand " critical opinions is of no educational value. Representative parts of each poet's work should be read both before and after hearing the lecture upon him. The following are suggested as a useful and cheap list : RE I. Chaucer : II. Spenser : III. Shakespeare IV. Milton : V. Dryden : VI. -Pope: VII. Gray : VIII. Wordsworth IX. Coleridge: The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (Claren- don Press, I/-). The Faerie Queene. Book I. cantos i.-vi. (Chambers, 9d. ). Complete text (Chandos Series, 2/-). The Tempest (Cassell, 3d. or 6d. ; or Clarendon Press, 1/6). Dramatic Works (Globe edn., Macmillan, 3/6). Paradise Lost. Bk. I. (Chambers, 2d. ; or in Penny Poets, Revieiv of Reviews Office). Select Poems (Cassell, 3d. or 6d.). Satires (Macmillan, 1/9). Translation of Virgil (Morley's Universal Library, 1/6). Poetical Works (Chandos Series, Warne, 2/-). Essay on Man (Cassell, 3d. or 6d. ; Chambers, 4d. ; Clarendon Press, 1/6). Elegy and Odes (Chambers, 4d. i. Lyrical Ballads (Canterbury Series, I/-). ,r (Cassell, 6d. Very represen- tative selection). Ancient Mariner (Chambers, 2d.). Selected Poems (Canterbury Series, I/-). LECTURE X. Byron : Ghilde Harold (Cassell, 3d. or 6d. ; or in Two parts in Penny Poets, Review of Reviews Office). XI. Shelley : Prometheus Unbound (Cassell, 3d. or 6d.). ,, XII. Tennyson : Lady of Shalott, (Enone, Palace of Art, Dream of Fair Women, Morte d Arthur (Selec- tions, Macmillan, 3/6 ; Collected Works, Macmillan, 7,6). All these poets, except the first and the last, are represented in The Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics (Macmillan, 2/6). This excellent selection illustrates the lyric power of Shakespeare, Milton, Gray, Wordsworth, Byron, and Shelley. It is most advisable to read also some history of English literature, and so connect the various poets with predecessors and contemporaries who must be either omitted or only very briefly mentioned. Mr. Stopford Brooke's Primer of English Literature will be found serviceable. A useful book of reference in illustra tion of the whole course is Ward's English Poets (4 vols., 7/6 each). Xecture I. CHAUCER [13401400]. A DELINEATOR OF Salient Fads in his Life. His career important as explain- ing his knowledge of men : son of a London vintner : page in Prince Lionel's household : serving in the army : a prisoner in France : ransomed for 16 : subsequent connexion with Court as valet to Edward III. : marriage to a maid of honour : diplomatic missions to Italy in 1372 and later : Controller of Customs, 1381-86 : Knight of the Shire (or M.P.) for Kent : vicissitudes owing to fall of his patron, John of Gaunt : poverty : pension : death. The Periods of his Poetry. Three usually given (1) French; (2) Italian ; (3) English : this division must not be made a hard and fast one : Mr Furnivall adds a fourth betraying signs of fail- ing power : the so-called " English " period contains the best parts of the Canterbury Tales. Reasons for Studying Chaucer. (1) His position in literature : this is his historical value : from one point of view he is " the morning star of song " : from another, he is the English heir of the mediaeval romanticism of France and Italy. (2) His subject matter : this is his social value : he is a valuable " document " of the life of his times : he reflects men and manners : he is a sort of fourteenth century " realist." (3) His position in the history of the language : this is his philological value : his was a transi- tional period when the language was still in course of formation, seen in " fluid " grammatical inflections : he creates a standard English, afterwards recognised as the true literary dialect (East Midland) : his importance seen in the Chaucerian " school " of poets in England and Scotland for more than a century after him. Query : Did he corrupt the English language by an excessive admixture of French 1 ? or is Chaucer the "well of English 1 undefiled " ? (4) His own great merits as a poet : this is his artistic value. Chaucer as a Literary Artist. One cannot, of eourse, fully catalogue or analyse his poetic qualities ; but some of these may be indicated : (a) Learning and allusiveness : he draws from Latiii; French, and ItalSaft sources : his scholarship is the result of his "own hard i'&adihg : but he is no pedant, and is not the skvfc of Ms scholarship/ because (b) he proves his superiority to the' French romance' poetry "in the reality of his matter, and the charm of his style, (c) The melody of his verse not appreciated in the 17th and 18th centuries ; but a modern critic like Matthew Arnold finds in him a " liquid diction " and " fluid movement " inherited by Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and Keats : his metrical power shown in various measures, particularly in four-accent couplets, rhyme-royal, and heroic or five-accent couplets : impossibility of hearing with the ears of fourteenth century : the spice of archaism in the final e. (d) His command of a rich and varied vocabulary : a Teutonic and Romanic blend : power of suiting diction to his theme, now delicate, now forcible. (e) Keen observation of nature both in external objects and in human life. (/) He has the genuine poet's feeling : this is unanalysable, but may be seen in his love for the daisy, in his sympathy with distress, in his kindly understanding of various classes : thus feeling, coupled with the gift of expression, lies at the root of his similes, his pathos, and his humour. (g) His general freshness and animation are felt in the briefest perusal. Chaucer as a Delineator of Mediceval Life in England. This power of his is best seen in the Prologue : there he is most typically English. The Scheme of the Tales. The pilgrims at the Tabard Inn : mine host's suggestion of story-telling as a pastime : the prize for the best story-teller : the Tales in keeping with the characters who tell them : from this point of view the company might be divided into " gentles " and " churls " : according to their vocations, the pilgrims fall into four classes representative of (1) the chivalry of the fourteenth century (knight, squire) ; (2) the Church of the fourteenth century (prioress, monk, friar, parson, summoner, pardoner) ; (3) other professions (serjeant of law, doctor of physio) ; (4) commerce and agriculture, including various grades of burgess and rural life (merchant, franklin, haberdasher, carpenter, weaver, dyer, tapicer or upholsterer, cook, shipman, wife of Bath, miller, manciple, reve, yeoman) : Chaucer's attitude towards these illustrated : his deep respect for the knight : his genial sarcasms at the expense of some of the others : how his satire differs from Langland's : his discernment of character. Xecture II. SPENSER [15521599]. AN EXPONENT OF THE CHIVALRY OF THE RENAISSANCE. Transition from Medievalism. Spenser is separated from Chaucer by two centuries, marked by the decay of the Chaucerian " May Morning " poetry, by the complex movements in thought and religion, summed up as " Renaissance " and " Reformation " respectively > by the invention of printing, the opening of new fields for adventure, and the introduction of Italian forms like the sonnet and blank verse : the modern period of literature has begun : the importance of Spenser's historical position is thus evident. Salient Facts in Spenser's Life. Born in London : of obscure parentage, though he claimed kindred with nobility : educated at Merchant Taylors' School and at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, as a sizar : in Lancashire after graduating : introduced to Sir Philip Sidney by their common friend Harvey : The Shepherd's Calendar, 1580 : in Ireland as Secretary to Lord Grey, the Lord-Deputy: is allotted part of the forfeited Desmond estates : taken to Court in 1589 by Raleigh, who is delighted with opening books of the Faerie Queene : Queen Elizabech and Spenser : first three books of Faerie Queene published 1590 : in Ireland again: lovesuit and Amoretti or Sonnets : marriage and Epithalamion : in London, 1595 : second three books of Faerie Queene, 1596 : in Ireland when Tyrone's Rebellion breaks out : his house at Kilcolman sacked : death at Westminster. Main Features of the Faerie Queene. Circumstances of its com- position : why called the Faerie Queene : its meaning and motive : the allegory : its relation to ethics : its relation to politics : its relation to the contemporary spirit of adventure : " the epic of the English wars in Ireland " : the general scheme : its incom- pleteness : the legends of Holiness, Temperance, and Chastity (Bks. I.-IIL), 1590 : the legends of Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy (Bks. IV.-VL), 1596. General Literary Characteristics. A. union of Renaissance Christianity and Mediaeval Chivalry and Classical Paganism : Puritanism not of a narrow type, but still real : chivalry with its relation to the Arthurian cycle : classicalism in mythology and Platonism : some aspects of Spenser's style : language richly varied and purposely archaic, but sometimes capriciously inven tive : richness of thought and diction constitutes him " the Poet's Poet," and explains his great influence on successors : the metre he invented : the Spenserian stanza as employed by later poets : the secret of Spenser's charm : his threefold spell of imagination, melody, and nobleness : blemishes in the Faerie Queene, such as digressions, changes in -spirit, lack of consistency, affectation, want of restraint, and fulsome flatteries : these are but limitations of a mighty genius : Spenser remains a " gentle spright " in whom "the pure wellhead of poesie did dwell" : how he illustrates one of his virtues : the Legend of Holiness or the Knight of the Red Cross. lecture III. SHAKESPEARE [15641616]. THE CULMINATION OF THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA. Salient Facts in his Life. Born at Stratford-on-Avon : his father, a glover, became chief alderman : at the Grammar School : probably received the ordinary training in Latin : marriage, 1582 : the deer-hunting episode : goes to London and joins the players, 1586: Blackfriars Theatre: jealousy of his growing dramatic ] power shown by Greene, 1592 : acts before the Queen : and Adonis (1593) : his noble friends, Southampton and Pembroke : Shakespeare as sonneteer : his four dramatic periods (1) Appren- ticeship in re-touching old plays and making new experiments ; (2) development of power in treating historical and comic subjects; (3) period of tragedies ; (4) period of romantic plays : tests for chronological order of the plays : external and internal evidence : verse tests : his development of the capabilities of blank verse : Shakespeare as lyric poet (see Palgrave's Golden Treasury of Lyrics) : return to Stratford about 1612 : death. Development of Drama Prior to Shakespeare. Its origin religious : Miracle Plays : Mysteries and Moralities : transition from allegorical to historical characters : before Shakespeare historical plays lacked coherence, tragedies were unreal in their excess of horrors, comedies were marred by farcical extra- vagance : Lyly's plays had shown skill in dialogue : Peele had written the most melodious, and Marlowe the most resounding verses prior to Shakespeare : Shakespeare follows the "university wits " like Marlowe in abandoning Latin and Greek models : as a humble actor playwright he adds a knowledge of real life and of stage requirements : Sidney's dramatic principles of 1580 : why Shakespeare did not obey these : differences between Shakesperian and Greek drama : theatres of the Elizabethan age. The Tempest. Man in relation to the Passions the great theme of Shakespeare's dramas : impossibility of doing justice to his " myriad-mindedness " in a single lecture : some of his dramatic qualities illustrated from the Tempest : a typically romantic play : the skilful handling of enchantment : how apparent reality is secured : the interest of the play as perhaps the last that Shakespeare wrote : the " personal note " in the epilogue : M. Montegut's " hypothesis " : danger of searching for too much allegory in the play : the characters of Prospero, Miranda, and Caliban. 10 Xecture IV. MILTON [16081674]. THE TVPE OF PURITANISM IN LETTERS. Salient Facts in his Life. Born in London : his puritan, classical, and musical training : how this corresponds to qualities of his poetry : St. Paul's School : seven years at Cambridge : " the lady of Christ's " : poems at the University : his painstak- ing preparation of himself for a poetic vocation : five years at Horton : "nature" and classics: his first period - L Allegro, II Penseroso, Comus, Lycidas (see Palgrave's Golden Treasury of Lyrics) : foreign travels : Milton and Galileo : return on the outbreak of civil troubles at home : second period tracts ecclesiastical, educa- tional, and political : Latin Secretary to the Commonwealth for ten years, 1649-59 : the Restoration of 1660 : Milton in danger : Act of Oblivion : his marriages : third period Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes. General Characteristics. In a sense Milton is the last of the Elizabethans : he continues their " grand style " : combination of puritan and classical elements : his choice of subjects largely due to his puritanism, their treatment due to his classical scholarship : Milton is thus a lineal literary descendant of the Reformation and the Renaissance : he lives into the Restoration period, but he does not in spirit belong to it. Some Features of his Three Great Works. Paradise Lout : its pur- pose : the epic of Protestant Christianity as contrasted with Dante's epic of Catholic Christianity : meaning and traditions of " epic " : epic qualities : vigour and grandeur : dignity of concep- tion matched by dignity of diction and versification : character of Satan in Paradise Lost : his character in Paradise Regained: re- lation of Milton's two epics : suitability of the latter theme to epic treatment : Samson Agonistes : a Hebrew theme treated in English on a Greek model : general effect of the drama : how it represents the spirit of Greek tragedy. lecture V. DRYDEN [16311700]. A MIRROR OF THE RESTORATION IN POETRY AND DRAMA. Salient Facts in his Life. Born in Northamptonshire : West- minster School : Trinity College, Cambridge : Heroic Stanzas on the Death of Oliver Cromicell : "conceits" typical of the preceding school of poetry : flattery transferred to Charles II. : Astrcea Re- dux : his first play (1663) : "heroic dramas" : poet-laureate : his political satires (1681): defends Anglicanism in Religio Laid (1683), and Romanism in The Hind and the Panther (1685): loses his laureateship when William of Orange comes to the throne (1688) : returns to drama, and undertakes a series of classical trans- lations, among them Virgil's ^Eneid : buried in Westminster Abbey. Dryden as Dramatist. General contrast between Elizabethan and Restoration drama : dramatic ideals had altered : greater attention paid by Restoration dramatists to the " unities " : the alteration seen in Dryden's "improved" form of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra : in externals also changes had been effected since the days of Elizabeth, better equipment of theatres, intro- duction of actresses, &c. : Dryden as writer of comedies : French and Spanish influences : his heroic plays and tragedies : use of rhymed heroic couplets in drama : his later use of blank verse : his critical prefaces to his dramas : their importance in the history of English prose. Dryden as Poet. His quality of vigour appears best in his Satires : how he contrasts with Pope : his lyric merits sometimes overlooked : his poetical translations : Virgil's ^Sneid : how far he retains the spirit of Virgil : his attempts at re-writing Chaucer : his failure to appreciate Chaucer's simplicity and melody : this want of success largely due to the spirit of Dryden's age : general limitations in the genius of Dryden. [ 12 J lecture VI. POPE [16881744]. A SATIRIST AND SOCIETY-POET OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Salient Fads in his Life. Born in London of Catholic parents : how his religion affected his education : his precocity in verse : his first period embraces Pastorals, Essay on Criticism, Rupe of the Loch (1712) : Pope's literary circle : the Scriblerus Club and his relations with eminent contemporaries like Swift, Bolingbroke, Gay, Parnell, Prior, and Arbuthnot : his quarrels and (probably a kindred subject) his health : " the wasp of Twickenham " : his translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey : his relations with his collaborators : his second period closes with the first form of the Dunciad (1728) : his third period is that of his didactic and moral poems : Essay on Man : Moral Essays : final form of the Dunciad (1742). General Characteristics. Pope's age not favourable to great poetry : verse-writer to an age of " prose and reason " : seen in his choice of subjects for his poems, such as criticism, or a trivial society squabble elevated into mock-epic dignity in the Rape of the Lock : his poetry clever rather than great, and polished rather than spontaneous : absence of the freedom and daring that characterise Elizabethan literature as a whole : Pope is typical of his century in his comparative neglect of external nature : to him " Nature " is virtually narrowed down to man, and, as a rule, man in an artificial state of society, man in litera- ture, man in his philosophical aspects, but not man swayed by the passions : " the proper study of mankind is man," a suitable motto for his works : faults, such as want of passion, excess of elaboration, monotony : yet his merits must not be ignored : virtues, like " correctness " and restraint, necessary to the health of literature : periods of romantic fervour followed by periods of classical sobriety : much of the literature of the eighteenth century explained as reaction against extravagance : Pope's position in the history of literature undeniably important, what- [ 13 ] ever view we adopt as to the merits ot his poetry : the pre- ponderance of his metre and diction in the eighteenth century. Two Studies in Pope's Work. (1) His satiric power in the Dunciad : its scheme : the treatment of the dunces : how his character-drawing differs from Chaucer's : wit as opposed to humour. (2) His didactic qualities in the Essay on Man : defect of philosophical grasp and connected argument : merit of its clear, balanced verses : wherein these works are typical of Pope's genius. lecture VII. COLLINS, GRAY, AND THE BEGINNINGS OF "NATURALISM." Features of Poetry after Popds Death. Pope's influence power- ful but sometimes overstated : continued by poems written by Dr. Johnson and others : to understand modern poetry, it is necessary to note the signs of revolt against Pope's traditional authority : interest in external nature does not suddenly burst out in Wordsworth : it is a gradual growth during half a century before him : glimmerings of the dawn in Thomson's Seasons (1726): other eighteenth century poets who loved nature (Somerville, Dyer, Goldsmith) : growing interest in the humble (Goldsmith, Gray, Shenstone) : renewed interest in Greek classics and imita- tion of their simplicity (Collins and Gray) : revival of interest in earlier English poets, in the simplicity of the ballad, and in Shake- speare : signs of tendency towards the romantic : Macpherson's Ossian (1762), Percy's Rdiques of Ancient English Poetry (1765), Chattel-ton's forgeries of monkish poems : Pope's favourite heroic couplet departed from in notable instances like blank verse of Seasons and Spenserian stanza of Shenstone, Thomson, and Beattie : Scottish poetry shows the same tendency towards the natural : poets like Allan Ramsay and Ferguson pave the way for Burns : the true precursors of Wordsworth are Scottish poets like Burns (first edition of his poems, 1786), and English poets 14 like Crabbe (The Village, 1783), Cowper (The Task, 1785), and Blake (Songs of Innocence, 1789) : they create a new literary "atmosphere." Historical Importance of Collins and Gray. They are repre- sentative of a particular phase of the growing naturalism of the century : they are independent of Pope in their choice of metres and in their taste for a classical simplicity : it is not, however, meant that they are wholly free from the artificiality of their times, but they strike fresh notes, due partly to innate feeling, partly to imaginative scholarship : Collins is marked by n Platonic rapture and ecstasy which cannot be paralleled in Pope : Gray, as his Elegy shows, has an interest in topics that Pope and many poets of his century ignored : their best poems belong to the period 1746-1757. Salient Facts in their Lives. -I. Collins (1720-1756). Born at Chicester : educated at Winchester and Oxford : Persian Eclogues (1742) : acquaintance with Dr. Johnson and others : Odes (1747) (see Palgrave's Treasury of Lyrics) : mental disease. II. Gray (1716-1771). Born in London : educated at Eton and Cambridge: travels in France and Italy with Horace Walpole : spends a hermit life at Cambridge : Odes (see Palgrave's Treasury of Lyrics) : Professor of Modern History, 1768. Illustrations of their Characteristics. Collins' force and com- pression in drawing the passions : his pictures of fear, anger, despair : greater restraint than in Spenser's pictures : consequent gain in compression, but corresponding loss of wealth : the natural scenery of the Ode to Evening : enchanting repose as in Claude's landscapes : some of Gray's characteristics : his " Pin- daric " Odes : Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard : The Bard, as illustrating his interest in ancient British subjects : his Norse poems : influence of the Sagas beginning in Gray has continued to the present time : William Morris' Earthly Paradise. 15 Xecture VIII. WORDSWORTH [17701850]. THE RETURN TO "NATURE." Salient Facts in his Life. Born at Cockermouth : educated in the North and at Cambridge : on the Continent : contact with French revolutionaries, and early sympathy with their aims : Descriptive Sketches (1793): friendship with Coleridge: their joint production of Lyrical Ballads (1798) : in Germany : residence in the Lake District : second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800): importance of its preface: The Excursion (1814): Atti- tude of critics : The White Doe <>f Rylstone (1815): Peter Bell (1819) : Sonnets and later poems : Laureateship (1843) in suc- cession to Southey. Characteristics. Wordsworth as a " Lakist " : in what sense there was a "Lake School": was it a "school" with a single pupil 1 : Wordsworth, rather the culmination of a movement, than an absolute and sudden originator : Wordsworthian feeling typically represented in The Lyrical Ballads : illustrative poems : his theory of poetry as stated in his famous preface of 1800 : tender emotion, not fiery passion his keynote : absence of real dramatic power and of vivid interest in the romantic past explains why his play of The Borderers is a failure : absence of interest in ancient classical literature, if we except Laodamia : interest in humble or miserable lives seen in his early piece Guilt and Sorrow, and continued in The Reverie of Poor Susan, The Thorn, Goody Blake and Harry Gill, The Old Cumberland Beggar, Ruth, &c. : interest in child life, We are Seven, The Idiot Boy, The Two April Moriiimjs, Lucy Grny : interest in animal life, Hartleap Well, &c. : interest in flower life, To the Daisy, &c. : interest in scenery, T intern Abbey, Nutting, &c. : pathetic rural idylls, like The Brothers and Michael, are the forerunners of much in Tennyson : combination of beauty and philosophy in the Ode on Intimations of Immortality : Wordsworth's importance as a reviver of the sonnet : some aspects of his influence seen in Tennyson and Matthew Arnold. 16 lecture IX. COLERIDGE [17721834]. A ROMANTIC REALIST. Salient Facts in his Life. Born in Devonshire : educated at Christ's Hospital, London, and at Cambridge : the dragoon episode : Coleridge as a leveller of society : " Pantisocracy " : friendship with Wordsworth, Southey, and Lamb : his joint scheme of composing Lyrical Ballads with Wordsworth : Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) : lectures on Shakespeare : writes for newspapers : his attempts at journalism : his bondage to the opium habit : under the care of Mr. Gilman for the last 19 years of his life : publication of the fragment Christabel on Byron's advice, 1816 : his philosophic power and table talk. Characteristics. Mysticism in Coleridge's nature : akin to the idealism of his philosophy : yet, in a sense, he, too, is a " realist " a romantic realist : he strives to make the weird appear natural : contrast between his contributions to Lyrical Ballads and Words- worth's : truth in the antithesis that Coleridge is a realistic idealist and Wordsworth an idealising realist : his gift of translation seen in his rendering of Schiller's Wallensteln : his dramatic power greater than Wordsworth's, yet limited : quenching of his revolu- tionary fervour may be traced in the Ode to France : unique qualities in Coleridge : unsurpassed in melodious phantasy : he adapts the ballad form to a new service : The Ancient Mariner : its genesis, qualities, and purpose : Christabel : the weird changes in its music : how its metrical movement affects Scott : Kubla Khan as a study in dreamy melody : Coleridge's influence on Tennyson. lecture X, BYRON [1788-1824]. THE POET OF REVOLUTIONARY FEELING. Salient Facts in his Life. Born in London : succeeds to his title and to Newstead Abbey when eleven : educated at Aberdeen, Harrow, and Cambridge: Hours of Idleness (1807): how the critique in the Edinburgh Review stung him into fresh activity : his retort : three periods of his poetry : travels in Spain and Turkey, 1809-1811: effect on the- first two cantos of Childe Harold (1812) : finds himself famous : a society man : Byron and the House of Lords : his Eastern tales : his marriage : separation from his wife the second great turning-point in his life : abroad again : self-exile in Switzerland and Italy : effect on the third and fourth cantos of Childe Harold : his dramas : Don Juan : the cause of Greek independence : Missolonghi. Characteristics. Reasons why Byron is more appreciated abroad than at home : his services to democracy : Mazzini's opinion of him : Goethe's : Byron's influence on Continental literature : unlike Wordsworth and Coleridge, Byron is consistently revolutionary : he is in revolt against the constitution of society and the conventions of society : from a literary standpoint he strangely combines old and new influences : his admiration for Pope and earlier imitations of the poetry of the English "classical" age are in striking contrast to the bold and fiery romanticism of his own genius : the " egoism " in Byron's works : pessimism : the Byronic attitude towards external nature : how it compares with Tennyson's attitude : Byron as a lyric poet : the deepening of experience between the earlier and later portions of Childe Harold : is the poem a unity 1 : some of its features, lonely melancholy, love of wild nature, love of freedom. lecture XL SHELLEY [17921822]. A POETIC SPOKESMAN OF IDEALISM. Salient Facts in his Life. Born in Sussex : precocious imagination, in which the " child is father to the man " : educa- tion at Eton and Oxford : poems first issued, 1810 : expelled from Oxford for his pamphlet on The Necessity of Atheism : wandering existence at home and abroad : his desertion of his wife due to his theories of the relation between the sexes : friendship with Byron and Leigh Hunt : residence in Italy : Adonais, his elegy on Keats : drowned in the Bay of Spezzia, grasping a volume of Keats' poems. Characteristics. Like Byron, Shelley is consistently revolu- tionary : still his opposition to religion is keenest in his earlier work, and might have waned had he lived longer : Shelley has more imagination than Byron : revolutionary discontent combines in Shelley with an ardent idealism : he is as much influenced by Plato's " ideal " philosophy as by Godwin's Political Justice : his buoyancy leads to belief in progress and in the perfectibility of the race : idealism explains his optimism : Shelley may be called a revolutionary optimist and Byron a revolutionary pessimist : development traceable in his poems : a poetic philosophy permeates all his typical work : Queen Mab faulty but promising, and instinct with hopes of a golden age to come for mankind : Alastor less hopeful and based on his own un- satisfied craving after a perfect ideal : Revolt of Islam, a battle for freedom, culminating, after the death of Laon and Cythna, in their bliss in a supernal world, of which the present is a mere phantasmal shadow : increase of his power during his residence in Italy : Prometheus Unbound contains fullest expression of his aspirations after a regenerated world : general features of the drama : differences from the Greek spirit : how its chief charac- ters represent great conceptions : Prometheus the spirit of benefi- cence in humanity : Asia the spirit of beneficence in nature : their union is symbolic of ideal happiness : this is an imaginative [ picture of much that appears in Wordsworth : the lyric element in the Prometheus : how its idealism compares with the idealism of the Faerie Queenr,: Shelley deals with man, not in relation to polite society like Pope, nor in relation to simple surroundings like Wordsworth, nor in relation to romantic past like Scott, but in relation to man's higher destinies : he thus easily becomes vision- ary and abstract, and harder to understand than a poet of concrete everyday existence : his intangible conceptions consti- tute the difficulty, but at the same time the peculiar merit of his poetry, as in Epipsyehidion : attitude towards nature seen in Adonais. Xecturc XIL TENNYSON [18091892]. A REPRESENTATIVE OF VICTORIAN THOUGHT. Salient Facts in his Life. Born at Somersby : early life and education in Lincolnshire : Cambridge : his prize poem : friend- ship with Arthur Hallam : Poeins chiefly Lyrical (1830): more poems (1832): his "ten years' silence": the two volumes of 1842 : The Princess (1847) : In Memoriam (1850), seventeen years after Hallam's death : Laureateship : Maud, and the spirit of war (1855) : The Idylls of the King, composed at various dates : his dramas from 1875 onwards : peerage : retired life in the Isle of Wight and in Surrey. Characteristics. (A) Style. Tennyson as a literary artist : striking merits, such as descriptive power : fidelity to nature seen in broad as well as in minute effects : tender melancholy : occasional humour: use of the "instruments" of style (1) language ; (2) versification : under the aspect of language we note his grace ; combined simplicity and subtlety ; skilful adaptation to the subject in hand ; " finest verbalism," according to Walt Whitman ; mastery of diction shown in single epithets and in rejection of the ordinary ; allusiveness ; gift of transla- tion : under the aspect of versification we note his rich and varied vowel sounds ; alliteration ; onomatopoeia ; versatility in [ 20 J different measures, such as blank verse, lyrics, Spenserian stanza : on the other hand, there are limitations in his genius lack of constructive talent, lack of dramatic energy, occasional trivialities and weakness of thought, over-elaboration and mannerism. (B) Subject Matter and Thought. His width of range parallel to the complex life of the Victorian age : how he appeals to his era : he represents certain well-marked tendencies of his times : the same is true of contemporary poets like Browning and Matthew Arnold : Tennyson's attitude to politics and social questions : to science : to religious problems, especially traceable in In Memoriam : difficulties in criticising a contemporary : compensat- ing advantages : assistance towards a satisfactory estimate rendered by foreign critics : " comparative method " of indicat- ing resemblances to, and differences from, other poets : poets whose works invite comparison with Tennyson, such as Virgil, or Milton, or Wordsworth, or Byron, or Browning : illustrations throughout the lecture from Tennyson's poems. (Sluestfons suitable for Meefel papers. Chaucer . Spenser . Shakespeare Milton . . Dryden Pope Collins and Gray Two may be attempted each week, 1. Write in modern English a description of Chaucer's Squire. 2. Explain and illustrate from the Prologue Chaucer's attitude towards the ecclesiastics of his day. 3. Write explanatory notes on not-heed, Cristofre, scole of Stratford atte Bowe, pulled hen, ordres foure, scheeldes, atte parvys, croys of latoun, oure aller cost. 1. Paraphrase Spenser's description of Wrath. 2. Point out in the first ten stanzas of the Faerie Queene any words that would probably not be used by a modern poet. 3. What are the main features of canto i. borrowed from chivalry ? 1. What are the main differences between "classical" and " romantic " drama ? '2. Indicate the romantic elements in The Tempest. 3. Write an essay on the character of Caliban. 1. How does Milton's Puritanism affect his works ? 2. What passages in Paradise Lost, bk. i. strike you as most impressive ? Assign reasons. 3. Write a study of the character of Satan. 1. How is Dryden typical of his era ? 2. What were the chief limitations in his genius ? 3. Explain the main differences between Elizabethan and Restoration tragedy. 1. Are the favourite poets of the eighteenth century, such as Dryden and Pope, " classics " ? 2. Write an essay on the First Book of the Essay on Man. 3. Distinguish the merits and the dements of Pope's poetry. 1. Give some account of the revolt against the poetic traditions of the early eighteenth century. 2. Write an appreciation on Collins' Ode on Evening. 3. What is the interest of Gray's Elegy in the history of literature ? Wordsworth- 1. Illustrate Wordsworth's feeling for nature in his poems. 2. State and examine his theory of poetry. 3. How far is the title Lyrical Ballads justified by the contents of the volume ? Coleridge . . 1. Explain and illustrate the contrast between Words- worth's and Coleridge's poetry ? 2. Write a critique on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. 3. Consider Coleridge as a master of poetic melody, Byron ... 1. What revolutionary elements appear in Byron's poetry ? 2. How far does Childe Harold represent Byron him- self ? 3. Explain the structure of the Spenserian stanza ; and compare Byron's use of it with Spenser's. Shelley. 1. What parallels can you draw between the Faerie Queene and Prometheus Unbound ? 2. Distinguish the lyrical from the purely dramatic elements in the Prometheus Unbound. 3. Explain and illustrate Shelley's attitude towards nature. Tennyson I- Write an account of The Palace of Art and its motive. 2. Consider Tennyson as a literary artist, with illustra- tive passages. 3. How is Tennyson affected by the past, and how by the present. Inc. 58 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE^al-% CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED F<^ FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $I.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE.