Halleck's New English Literature Part 75

The twentieth century shows two main lines of development,--the realistic and the romantic. The two leading essayists of the period, A.C. Benson and G.K. Chesterton, are both idealists and champions of religious faith.

Among the novelists, Conrad tells impressive stories of distant seas and sh.o.r.es; Bennett's strongest fiction gives realistic pictures of life in English industrial towns; Galsworthy's novels present the problems that affect the upper cla.s.s of Englishmen; Wells writes scientific romances and sociological novels.

Some of the best poetry, full of the fascination of a dreamy far-off world, has been written by the Celtic poets, Yeats, Russell, and Fiona Macleod. Masefield and Gibson have produced much realistic verse about the life of the common toiler. Noyes has written _Drake_, a romantic epic, and a large amount of graceful lyrical verse, in some of which there is much poetic beauty.

The most distinctive work of recent times has been in the field of the drama. Pinero has improved its technique; Shaw has given it remarkable conversational brilliancy; Barrie has brought to it fancy and humor and sweetness; Galsworthy has used it to present social problems; Phillips has tried to restore to it the Elizabethan poetic spirit. The Celtic dramatists form a separate school. Lady Gregory, Yeats, and Synge have all written plays based on Irish life, folklore, or mythology. The plays of Synge, the greatest member of the group, reveal the universal primitive emotions of human beings.

CONCLUSION

Three distinctive moral influences in English literature specially impress us,--the call to strenuous manhood:--

"...this thing is G.o.d, To be man with thy might,"

the increasing sympathy with all earth's children:--

"Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call, Ye to each other make,"

and the persistent expression of Anglo-Saxon faith. As we pause in our study, we may hear in the twentieth-century song of Alfred Noyes, the echo of the music from the loom of the Infinite Weaver:--

"Under the breath of laughter, deep in the tide of tears, I hear the loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years."[18]

REFERENCE FOR FURTHER STUDY

Kennedy's _English Literature_, 1880-1895 (Shaw, Wells, Fiona Macleod, Yeats).

Kelman's _Mr. Chesterton's Point of View_ (in _Among Famous Books_).

Cooper's _Some English Story Tellers_.

Conrad's _A Personal Record_.

Phelps's _Essays on Modern Novelists_ (De Morgan).

Yeats's _Celtic Twilight_.

Figgis's _Studies and Appreciations_ (_Mr. W.B. Yeats's Poetry_. _The Art of J.M. Synge_.)

More's _Drift of Romanticism_ (Fiona Macleod).

Borsa's _The English Stage of To-day_.

Jones's (Henry Arthur) _The Foundation of a National Drama: A Collection of Essays, Lectures, and Speeches, Delivered and Written in the Years 1896-1912_.

Hamilton's _The Theory of the Theater_.

Hunt's _The Play of To-day_.

Hale's _Dramatists of To-day_.

Henderson's _George Bernard Shaw: His Life and Works_, 2 vols.

Chesterton's _George Bernard Shaw_.

Weygandt's _Irish Plays and Playwrights_ (excellent).

Krans's _William Butler Yeats and the Irish Literary Revival_.

Howe's _J.M. Synge: A Critical Study_.

Yeats's _J.M. Synge and the Ireland of His Time_ (in _The Cutting of an Agate_, 1912).

Bickley's _J.M. Synge and the Irish Dramatic Movement_.

Elton's _Living Irish Literature_ (in _Modern Studies_).

SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

Essays.--From A.C. Benson, read one of these collections of essays: _The Altar Fire, Beside Still Waters, Thy Rod and Thy Staff_, and one or more of these biographies: _Tennyson, John Ruskin, Rossetti_ (E.M.L.), _Walter Pater_ (E.M.L.); from Chesterton, one of these collections of essays: _Varied Types, Heretics, Orthodoxy_, and one or more of these biographies: _George Bernard Shaw, Charles d.i.c.kens, Robert Browning_ (E.M.L.). For other twentieth-century essays, see the preceding bibliography and the paragraph following this.

The Novel.--From Conrad, read _Youth, Typhoon, Lord Jim_; from Bennett, _The Old Wives' Tale, Clayhanger_; from Galsworthy, _The Man of Property, The Patrician_; from Wells, _The Time Machine, Kipps, The Future in America_ (essay); from Phillpotts, _Children of the Mist, Demeter's Daughter_; from Hewlett, _Life and Death of Richard Yea and Nay, The Stooping Lady_; from Quiller-Couch, _The Splendid Spur, The Delectable Duchy_; from De Morgan, _Joseph Vance, Somehow Good_; from Locke, _The Beloved Vagabond, The Adventures of Aristide Pujol_; from Zangwill, _The Children of the Ghetto, The Melting Pot_ (play).

Poetry.--From _The Poetical Works of William B. Yeats_ (Macmillan), read _The Wanderings of Oisin, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, The Hosting of the Sidhe, The Voice of the Waters_; from Fiona Macleod's _Poems and Dramas_ (Duffield), _The Vision, The Lonely Hunter, The Rose of Flame_; from Masefield, the part of _Dauber_ describing the rounding of Cape Horn, beginning p. 119, in _The Story of a Round-House_ (Macmillan); from Gibson's _Fires_ (Macmillan), _The Crane, The Machine_; from Noyes's _Poems_ (Macmillan, 1906), _The Song of Re-Birth, The Barrel Organ, Forty Singing Seamen, The Highwayman_; Book II from his _Drake: An English Epic_ (Stokes).

The Drama.--From Jones, read _The Manoeuvers of Jane, Mrs. Dane's Defence_ (Samuel French); from Pinero, _The Amazons, The School Mistress_, or _Sweet Lavender_ (W.H. Baker); from Shaw's _Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant_ (Brentano), _Candida, You Never Can Tell, Arms and the Man_ from Barrie, _Peter Pan, What Every Woman Knows_; from Galsworthy, _Strife, Joy, The Little Dream_; from Phillips, _Marpessa_ (poem), _Ulysses_ (Macmillan), _Herod_; from Lady Gregory's, _Seven Short Plays_ (Putnam), _The Gaol Gate, Spreading the News_; from her _New Comedies_ (Putnam, 1913), _McDonough's Wife, The Bogie Men_; from Yeats's _Poetical Works_, Vol. II. (Macmillan), _The Land of Heart's Desire, Countess Cathleen_; from Synge, _Riders to the Sea, The Playboy of the Western World, Deirdre of the Sorrows_ (John W. Luce).

Questions and Suggestions.--Stevenson's _The Home Book of Verse_ and _The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse_ contain selections from a number of the poets. McCarthy's _Irish Literature_, 10 vols., gives selections from work written prior to 1904. The majority of the indicated readings can be found only in the original works of the authors.

Give an outline of the most important thoughts from one essay and one biography, by both Benson and Chesterton.

What distinctive subject matter do you find in each of the novelists?

How do same reflect the spirit of the age?

What are the chief characteristics of each of the poets? What does the phrase "Celtic Renaissance" signify?

In brief, what had the drama accomplished from the time of the closing of the theaters in 1642 to 1890? What distinctive contributions to the modern drama have Pinero, Shaw, and Barrie made? Describe the work of Lady Gregory, Yeats, and Synge. In what does Synge's special power consist?

FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER X:

[Footnotes 1-11: Printed by permission of The Macmillan Company.]

[Footnotes 12-13: Printed by permission of Frederick A. Stokes Company.]

[Footnotes 14-15: Printed by permission of the Macmillan Company.]

[Footnote 16: Krans's _William Butler Yeats and the Irish Literary Revival_.]

[Footnotes 17-18: Printed by permission of The Macmillan Company.]