TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: DOMINANT IDEAS OF MODERN STUDY: UNITY, INDUCTION, EVOLUTION BOOK I: LITERARY MORPHOLOGY: VARIETIES OF LITERATURE PAGE I 9 II 42 III. Literary Form the Key to Literary Interpretation 64 BOOK II: THE FIELD AND SCOPE OF LITERARY STUDY 75 CHAPTER IV. The Unity of the Literary Field and the Concep- V. The Outer and the Inner Study of Literature BOOK III: LITERARY EVOLUTION AS REFLECTED IN THE HIS- CHAPTER VI. The Differentiation of Poetry and Prose VII. Evolution in Epic Poetry 117 BOOK IV: LITERARY CRITICISM: THE TRADITIONAL CONFU- X. Types of Literary Criticism and Their Traditional XI. Speculative Criticism.-The Fundamental Con- XII. Speculative Criticism.-The Evolutionary Theory 219 221 230 CHAPTER XIII. Inductive Criticism: or the Criticism of Inter- XV. Judicial Criticism: or Criticism in Restraint of Production 317 XVI. Subjective Criticism: or Criticism Accepted as 325 XVII. The Place of Criticism in the Study of Literature 329 CHAPTER XVIII. Story as a Mode of Thinking XIX. Literature as the Criticism of Life Nature BOOK VI: LITERATURE as a MODE OF ART CHAPTER 335 356 364 370 375 XXII. The Grammar of Literary Art . 377 XXIII. Plot as Poetic Architecture and Artistic Provi- dence. 380 XXIV. Poetic Ornament: Theory of Imagery and Sym- INTRODUCTION DOMINANT IDEAS OF MODERN STUDY The purpose of this work is to discuss the study of literature: what it must become, if it is to maintain its place in the foremost rank of modern studies. Some measure of review is necessary of what by tradition the study of literature is at present: the spirit of this work, however, is expository, not polemic. Such discussion involves the whole theory or philosophy of literature, which at one time was deemed important, but which has of late years fallen strangely into neglect. As it appears to me, there are three fundamental points in which the study of literature has fallen behind the general spirit of modern thought. The first of these is the failure to recognize the unity of all X literature. The present conception of the study is a tradition dating from the Renaissance. This was a very special epoch, which may almost be looked upon as an accident of history. The rising literatures of Europe, still in an inchoate stage, had been confronted with the mature and splendid literatures of Greece and Rome, suddenly recovered in their fulness. For a generation Greece was the schoolmaster of Europe. No classics of front rank were available except in Latin and Greek; the one literature which might have rivaled these, the Bible, was potent as to its matter and spirit, but could not influence literary form on account of the mediaeval setting in which it appeared. It was a great scheme of education and culture which thus united the linguistic discipline of the dead languages with the vital masterpieces of ancient literature. But in course of time other literatures rose to high rank, and claimed attention, though they were studied only from the classical |