صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

for the type of character. The playwriter and novelist know what interests people in this respect, and they strive to give types of character. Inferior writers often fail by overdrawing characters, because they try to make the type too pronounced. Thackeray's Becky Sharp is more a personification of unbridled feminine intrigue than a character. Dickens's Pecksniff is scarcely more than hypocrisy stalking around as a biped. And even George Eliot's Tito, in developing from a sufficient cause, runs quite near the line of extreme improbability. But these overdrawn characters give us pleasure as long as they keep within certain bounds. We may be realists and want the type to come quite close to characters as we find it in life. We may be idealists and desire that the type shall be point nearer perfection than we find it. full of types. For this reason we use such figures of speech as personification, metaphor, and allegory. The mountain rock in which the Jew was wont to hide became a type of the higher protective power of Jehovah; and the Psalmist exclaimed, "Thou art my rock and my salvation." But notice the origin of this. He is first impressed with God's protecting him against great dangers. With that feeling in his heart he notices this protective rock, and obtains the highest pleasure in finding an outward type for his spiritual ideal.

set forth at a Our souls are

Plants and animals have always been used as types. Job, David, and Isaiah among the Jews, the North American Indians with their rattlesnake skin filled with arrows, and the prehistoric races with their picture writing all used just such types as we find to-day in the souls of men and in their literature.

Therefore, in the study of literature let the teacher keep constantly in mind that the pupil must learn

to interpret spiritual types. It is not enough to say of a figure of rhetoric that it is a metaphor or a simile. The figure has something more than form. It carries a spiritual essence in the form of a type. This is its service full and complete, and this content must not be overlooked, upon peril of losing all there is in the figure worth having. There are great fundamental truths which, when brought before us, fill the soul with satis action. They are set before us in literature by means of types. There are great fundamental principles of beauty which fill the soul with awe or delight. These are set forth in literature by means of types. To learn to read these types of ultimate Truth and of ultimate Beauty should be the inspiring purpose of the study of literature.

I.

VI. GENERAL SUGGESTIONS.

Do not underrate the value of oral composition. 2. The first work in a new topic should be written work. When the pupils understand the topic clearly and have acquired accuracy, the written work should be decreased.

3. Remember that the experiences suggested by emotional words will vary in different pupils.

4. Give additional work where your judgment decides that the pupils need more.

5. Encourage pupils to bring to class selections that will further illustrate the principles they are studying. 6. Assign parallel readings to be done outside of class. Require pupils to hand in a literary analysis of each book or poem thus assigned. Send to Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, for catalogue and price list of "The Riverside Literature Series." It includes the very best.

7. Do not forget that the short story or the short poem is usually more artistic than the long one. It is better sustained. The Colossus of Rhodes is inferior to the Apollo Belvidere. The best literature that is being written to-day is in the form of the short story, as far as art is concerned.

8. Do not follow simply the "studies" as given here. Let the pupil work by these and do more if he can. When you question, choose your own order and your own point of view. Remember that no text can take . the place of a teacher.

9. Above all, remember that each individual pupil must think and feel for himself.

STUDIES IN LITERATURE.

CHAPTER I.

GRAMMATICAL EMPHASIS.

In ordinary conversation when we are not contrasting ideas or thoughts, and are not moved by more than ordinary feeling, we find that there are certain parts of speech in the sentence which do receive the stress of the voice, and certain others which do not. The subject is always emphatic. So is the noun as object of a verb or a preposition, and the adverb modifying either the adjective, the adverb, or the verb. This emphasis of ordinary conversation, since it coincides so fully with the parts of speech used, is called grammatical emphasis, to distinguish it from the emphasis of contrasted ideas and thoughts, and from the still stronger emphasis that comes from feeling. To see more fully the truth of this, study the following exercises.

I.-The Noun and Adjective.

In ordinary conversation what word receives emphasis in the following expressions? an open book, a cool breeze, a large tree, the rising tide, a falling body, a happy child.

I. Draw a line under the word which takes the emphasis.

What parts of speech compose these expressions? 3. What rule holds when we have these two parts

2

STUDIES IN LITERATURE.

of speech in ordinary conversation? Cal under grammatical emphasis.

4. Find similar phrases in the followin Does the rule hold good there?

"Never, never more, shall we behold that gener rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignifi that subordination of the heart which kept alive, tude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The u of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of ment and heroic enterprise, is gone!"

Bring in five sentences that will conform II.-The Verb and Adverb or the Adjective

1. To run swiftly, turning quickly, smil to look carefully, walking slowly, he s Mark the words which take emphasis. under each.

2. What parts of speech compose these 3. Make your rule, and call it rule 2. 4. Make five sentences which will illu Find similar expressions in the follow emphasis the same as the above?

"Still, however, bending his head meekly, and P ing out his hands to bless those who reviled him, 1 way. But the tears came into his eyes to think h people rejected the means of safety that were offe

Bring in five sentences that will conf rule.

III.-The Preposition and the Following N Mark the emphasis in the following: I ton of coal, on the top of the house, at the box, under the tree.

1. What parts of speech compose t sions?

[blocks in formation]
« السابقةمتابعة »