LITERATURE 



303 



belong practically to this group. There was to 

 be noted a change of ideals. The reign of the 

 epic and the drama was past. Classic models 

 gave place to freer expression, more individuality, 

 a deeper appreciation of the beauties of nature, 

 and more value set upon the commonplace. 

 Imagination and a larger sympathy found 

 beauty in that which had been counted low and 

 mean. This was illustrated in the poems of 

 Burns and Cowper. Sir Walter Scott showed 

 this tendency in his romances. His romance 

 poems combine the refinements of modern poetry 

 with the spirit and material of the neglected 

 border minstrelsy. Wordsworth aimed to re- 

 new nature by bringing back poetry to truth 

 and nature. His verse is often weak, but his 

 best poems, as "Ode on Immortality" and 

 many of his shorter poems, are exquisite in 

 their simplicity of feeling and truthfulness of 

 delineation. Coleridge's finest poems are "Cris- 

 tabel" and "Ancient Mariner. They are un- 

 sur passed in their strong, wild music and their 

 splendid imagination. Southey contributed both 

 to prose and verse and displayed extensive 

 learning. Byron was remarkable for strength 

 and passion. Keats and Shelley were instinct 

 with love and intellectual sense of ideal beauty. 

 "The Skylark" and "The Cloud," by Shelley, are 

 perfect in their music and their imagery. Thomas 

 Moore, sometimes called the "Irish melodist," 

 besides his shorter poems, wrote "Lalla Rookh," 

 a volume containing four Oriental stories told 

 with rich imagery and diction. Thomas Camp- 

 hell wrote "Pleasures of Hope." Humor and 

 pathos are combined in the poems of Thomas 

 Hood: "Song of the Shirt," "Bridge of Sighs," 

 "The Last Man." 



The prose of this first half of the century also 

 take- high rank. Scott will always be remem- 

 bered as the creator of the historical novel, 

 Charles Lamb for his delicate humor and rare 

 use of language. His "Essays of Elia" have 

 been called the finest of their kind in literature. 

 Macaulay's essays give us fine examples of Eng- 

 lish prose. De Quincey's opium dreams and 

 l.nglish Mail Coach" are also brilliant 

 specimens of English. Mill, Bent ham, Malthus, 

 are the chief contributors to philosophical prose. 



In ls:;7. Queen Victoria ascendea the throne. 

 From this date until the present time may be 

 called the Victorian age. This age is not re- 

 markable for the development of any new type 

 of literature but for the quantity and general 

 excellence of literature in every department. 

 Representative names of the Victorian age are 

 Browning, Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, the 

 Rossettis, in poetry; Thackeray, Dickens. 

 George Kliot. Bulwer. in pros,, fiction; Carlyle, 



in M : :.... \i aold Swinburne, 

 Leslie Stephen, in essay writing: SIXMICIM 

 in. in. Hamilton. I >ar\\ in. T\ ndall. lluxle. 

 day, Mill, in philosophy and wience; Milman. 

 Grote, Fronde, Freeman, Buckle, Green, and 



tory. 



tn- of life occupy the minds of the Vic- 



liought 



practical refor 



the masses upward, a striving for letter govern- 

 ment, for higher moral Meal-. i 

 alike are iml>ue<l with an ethical purpose. 



Dickens desired to bring out what he called 

 "the romantic aspect of familiar things," and 

 he began with the study of 4i vicious poverty. 

 Most of Dickens' novels were inspired by a 

 firm purpose to accomplish some reform. His 

 social creed has been formulated in these words: 

 " Banish from earth some few monsters of selfish- 

 ness, malignity, and hypocrisy, set to rights a 

 few obvious imperfections in 'the machinery of 

 society, inspire all men with a cheery benevo- 

 lence, and everything will go well with this 

 excellent world of ours." While Dickens with 

 inimitable humor and rare optimism was pre- 

 senting the cause of the submerged poor, Thack- 

 eray wrote of the follies of the upper classes of 

 society, and George Eliot pictured the English 

 middle class. These great novelists with their 

 deep human sympathies pictured the inter- 

 dependence of human beings, the relation that 

 every man bears to his surroundings. Thus 

 fiction has kept in close touch with the social 

 ideas of the time, reflecting not only its mood, 

 but also its important changes, showing thereby 

 that it has life and does not exist as a mere 

 literary form. 



The vigor and idealism of the age has been 

 splendidly expressed by Browning and Tenny- 

 son. Carlyle was the mouthpiece 01 the strongly- 

 felt need of heroism. He was by far the g; 

 of the Englishmen of his time who taught the 

 value of sincerity. Another author who had a 



freat influence upon his contemporaries was 

 ohn Ruskin. Each generation has its message 

 to deliver. Carlyle and Ruskin in their criti- 

 cisms, one on life, and one on art, caught the 

 message of their time. They would have men 

 be true and live up to the best that is in them. 

 They spoke as the poets Tennyson and Brown- 

 ing spoke of the larger and truer meaning in life. 

 They believed in growth through evolution and 

 in the possibilites of the individual. 



It is impossible in so short an article to select 

 and discuss the individual writers of tl 

 torian age. They must be characterized, if at 

 all, in groups. Such a book as this affords little 

 space for library lists an. I select el works of the 

 best authors both in Knglish and Am 

 literature and the best known works in foreign 

 literatures, so that the student who wi-hes to 

 continue his studies or the general reader who 

 wi-hes the delight of well selected reading should 

 consult Brooke's English literature. Such 

 names as the following, which belong to 

 every appreciative study of Knglish literature, 

 hit which have necessarily been omitted here, 

 will be found well treated by this gifted critic 

 and careful student of hi-country'- literature: in 

 poetry Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Edward 

 :erald. Arthur Hugh ('lough, .lean Ingrlow. 

 William \lgernon Charles > \\mliurnv, 



William Watson. Kud\ard Kipling: fiction 

 (In I >eth(;a*kcU, Charles Route, 



\nthony Trollope. Charlotte Bront*. Charles 

 -sh.y. Wilkie Collins. Kichard I). Black more, 

 Din nuke, George Meredith. Thomas 



i \ William Black. HnU-rt !. >*>n, 



Humph] Hall Came. Rudyard 



Kipling. George Macdonald: essay and cnti 

 cisin Mepheti-. Algernon Charles S\vm 



Imrne. Walter I'at.-r. John Addington Symonds. 



