nature, the sounds, colors, movements, and impressiveness of which we are helped to appreciate by means of poetry; (2) from human life, — man's deeds, emotions, intellectual powers, courage, and greatness.

Poetry deals with concrete rather than abstract notions; that is, if a poet wishes to hold up for our admiration generosity, for instance, he does this by detailing a particular and beautiful instance of generosity, and not by talking about the abstract virtue generosity itself. He embodies general ideas in particular images, and for this reason he expresses his thought largely in figures, many of which owe their effectiveness to their

concreteness.

Kinds of Poetry.

164. Poetry is of three kinds; epic, dramatic, and lyric poetry. A fourth division is often made for convenience, called didactic poetry. Epic and dramatic poetry are alike in one respect: both embody a story; but they differ in many respects, one of which is this, in the epic the poet narrates the story himself, whereas in the drama the poet himself does not appear; he makes the actors show what the story is by what they do and say.

Epic Poetry.

165. Epic poetry is that kind in which the poet himself narrates a story as if he were present. In this sense, epic poetry and narrative poetry mean the same thing. Epic poetry is subdivided as follows:

1. The Great Epic. In this the poet narrates, in stately, uniform verse, a series of great and heroic

events, in which gods, demigods, and heroes play the most conspicuous parts. The Great Epic (1) has a noble theme based on mythology, legend, or religion, involving, therefore, a supernatural element; (2) it has a complete and unified story-plot, the action of which is concentrated in a short time, and the chief events partly or wholly under superhuman control; (3) it has a hero, of more than human proportions, and other characters human and divine; (4) it is simple in structure, smooth, uniform, and metrical, dignified and grave in tone; (5) it employs dialogue, and may employ episode, which is a story not needed for the main plot, although connected with some part of the action; (6) it enforces no moral; the moral must be discovered from the story, and the interest centers in the action.

The Odyssey and the Iliad are great epics which grew up among the early Greeks; Beowulf is a great epic which grew up among our remote ancestors. Later poets who made great epic poems are Vergil, who made the Eneid, and the English poet Milton, who made Paradise Lost.

The Mock Epic treats of a trivial subject in the heroic style of the great epic. An example is Pope's Rape of the Lock. Butler's Hudibras is satire in mockepic style.

2. In the Metrical Romance, or narrative of adventure (1) the theme is less noble and grand than in the great epic, and the supernatural element, if occasionally admitted, is less prominent; (2) the action is less concentrated, and the chief events are partly or wholly under human control; (3) the element of love, which

is almost absent in the great epic, is conspicuous; (4) the metre is less stately, and the style more easy and familiar. The Romance is a product of the age of chivalry. Spenser's Faery Queene is an example. Modern Romances are Scott's Marmion and The Lady of the Lake.

3. The Tale is a still humbler form of narrative poetry; it tells a complete story, with love or humor predominant. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn furnish some examples. Poe's Raven, Byron's Corsair, Burns's Tam o'Shanter, and Tennyson's Enoch Arden and Dora are tales.

4. The Ballad is generally shorter and is always less discursive than the tale; it tells its story rapidly and simply. Ballads were originally folk-songs; like the oldest epics, they grew up among the people, and their authors are commonly unknown. Chevy Chase, Sir Patrick Spens, the Robin Hood ballads, and the Battle of Maldon are examples. Later poets made ballads: Campbell's Battle of the Baltic is a martial ballad; Whittier's Maud Muller, a love ballad; Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner, a superstitious ballad; Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome are historical ballads.

5. The Pastoral is a slightly narrative poem depicting rural life, with a large element of description, but with little action. Keats's Endymion, Goldsmith's De

serted Village, and Thomson's Seasons are examples.

6. The Idyll. This word means "a little picture." It has been used in two senses: (1) a short narrative poem giving little pictures of simple country life, quiet, homely scenes, and appealing to gentle emotions. In

this sense, it is but another name for the short Pastoral. Examples are Longfellow's Evangeline, Whittier's SnowBound, and Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night. (2) A short narrative poem giving pictures of a more highly spectacular life, involving scenes of action, and appealing to strong emotions. Such are Tennyson's Idylls of the King and some of Browning's poems.

Dramatic Poetry.

166. The drama, like the epic, deals with the past, but the drama represents the past in the present. It exhibits a story by means of characters speaking and acting in a series of situations so contrived as to develop a plot, and show a single controlling purpose. This subordination of all actions to the controlling purpose of a play is known as unity of action. The drama, when enacted on the stage, employs scenery and costume to produce the impression of reality. The drama is "imitated human action," but it does not imitate a series of human actions exactly as they occur in actual life; it selects typical actions and arranges these with a single purpose, as they might occur. The drama is divided into "acts," usually five in number, the earlier acts exhibiting the causes, starting conflicting lines of action, entangling and developing these to a climax or height of interest which is usually reached in the fourth act, the last act exhibiting the consequences of the action, the dénouement. The whole play thus makes a complete story.

1. Tragedy (1) deals with solemn themes showing a mortal will at odds with fate; (2) produces, in the

mind of the spectator, pity and terror and awe, driving out trivial and unworthy thoughts; (3) leads through a complicated plot to a catastrophe, the final overthrow of the mortal who has been either criminal in his motive (Macbeth) or mistaken in his motive (Othello); and (4) this catastrophe is foreshadowed, is felt to be coming, and when it does come is felt to be inevitable, beyond human power to prevent. Tragedy prefers verse; its language is nobler than that of daily life, so that we are not reminded of common concerns even by the words used, but live for the time in a higher and nobler world, the world of the imagination. Julius Caesar, Lear, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, are examples. Such a play as the Merchant of Venice, in which both tragedy and comedy are present in a subdued form, is classified as Reconciling Drama.

2. Comedy (1) deals with lighter themes, with the follies, accidents, or humors of life; (2) produces no terror or pity, but produces amusement or mirth; (3) ends not with a catastrophe, but brings the story to a conclusion naturally desired, all ending as we would have it; (4) does not foreshadow the end, as tragedy does, but frequently surprises us happily. Comedy is nearer to daily life, does not employ verse so often as tragedy does, inclines to prose, and employs less noble language. In Comedy Proper, such as Shakespeare's As You Like It and Twelfth Night, Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, and Sheridan's Rivals, the amusement may arise both from the characters and from the plot or from either alone. Comedy Proper does not result in continued peals of uproarious laughter. In