College Teaching Part 42

PART FOUR

THE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES

CHAPTER

XVIII THE TEACHING OF English LITERATURE _Caleb T. Winchester_

XIX THE TEACHING OF English COMPOSITION _Henry Seidel Canby_

XX THE TEACHING OF THE CLa.s.sICS _William K. Prentice_

XXI THE TEACHING OF THE ROMANCE LANGUAGES _William A. Nitze_

XXII THE TEACHING OF GERMAN _E. Prokosch_

XVIII

THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

=Scope of study of English literature in college=

It should be understood at the outset that this paper is concerned with the study of literature, not in the university or graduate school, but in the college, by the undergraduate candidate for the bachelor's degree; and, furthermore, that the object of study is not the history, biography, bibliography, or criticism of literature, but the literature itself. Perhaps also the term "literature" may need definition. As commonly--and correctly--used, the word "literature"

denotes all writing which has sufficient emotional interest, whether primary or incidental, to give it permanence. As thus defined, literature would include, for example, history and much philosophical writing, and would exclude only writing of purely scientific or technical character. But in the following pages the word will be used in a narrower sense, as indicating those books that are read for their own sake, not solely or primarily for their intellectual content. This definition is elastic enough to comprise not only poetry, drama, and fiction, but the essay, oratory, and much political and satirical prose. It should be further understood that for the purpose of this paper, English literature may be considered to begin about the middle of the fourteenth century. Earlier and Anglo-Saxon writings are by no means without great literary value, and it may at once be granted that no college teacher of English literature is thoroughly equipped for his work who is ignorant of them; but they can be read appreciatively only after considerable study of the language, the method and motives of which are linguistic rather than literary.

=Aims governing the teaching of English literature=

Perhaps it may be asked just here whether English literature, as thus defined, need be studied in college at all. Until quite recently that question seems generally to have been answered in the negative. Fifty years ago, few if any of our American colleges gave any study to texts of English cla.s.sics. There were, indeed, in most colleges professors of rhetoric and _belles-lettres_, whose lectures upon the history and criticism of our literature were often of great value as an inspiration to literary study; but it was only in the decade from 1865 to 1875 that in most of our colleges the literature itself, with hesitating caution, began to be read and studied in the cla.s.sroom.

=Can literary appreciation be developed?=

Nor was this hesitation without some reasons, at least plausible. The chief object of college training, it was said, is to discipline and strengthen the intellect, to give the student that grasp and power of thought which he may apply to all the work of later life. The college should not be expected to pay much attention to the cultivation of the imagination and the emotions. These faculties, to which literature makes appeal, are not, it was said, under the control of the will, and you cannot cultivate or strengthen them by sheer resolve or strenuous exertion. The first condition of any real appreciation of literature, so ran the argument, is spontaneous enjoyment of it; and you cannot command a right feeling for literature or for anything else. But a normal development of the imagination and the emotions does usually accompany the vigorous development of the intellect, so that the advancing student will be found to turn spontaneously to art and literature. And his appreciation of all the highest and deepest meanings in literature will be quickened because he brings to his reading a mind trained to accurate and vigorous thinking. Moreover, all substantial advantages from the study of modern vernacular literature can be better obtained from the Greek and Latin cla.s.sics.

They afford the same richness of thought and charm of form as our modern writing; but they demand for their appreciation that careful attention and study which modern literature too often discourages. The survivors of a former generation sometimes ask us today, with a touch of sarcasm, "Do you think the average New England college student of fifty to seventy-five years ago, when the Emersons and Longfellows and Lowells were young men, the days of the old _North American Review_ and the new _Atlantic Monthly_, had any less appreciation and enjoyment of whatever is good in literature, or any less power to produce it, than the young fellows who are coming out of college today after more than a quarter century of literary instruction?" And they occasionally suggest that, at all events, it is difficult to find any evidences of the result of such instruction in the quality of the literature produced or demanded today.

=Conflict of utilitarian and cultural standards=

On the other hand, the study of English literature often fares little better with the advocates of the modern practical tendency in education. They have but scanty allowance for a study a.s.sumed to be of so little use in the actual work of life. An acquaintance with well-known English books, especially if they be modern books, is, they admit, a desirable accomplishment if it can be gained without too much cost, but not to be allowed the place of more valuable knowledge. A typical modern father, writing not long ago to a modern educator, after giving with equal positiveness the subjects that his boy must have and must not have included in his course of study, added by way of concession, "The boy might, if he has time, take English literature."

=Cultural and utilitarian standards harmonized=

Now in answer to this second cla.s.s of objectors, it may be frankly admitted that the study of English literature is primarily, if not entirely, cultural. A boy may not make a better engineer or practical chemist for having studied in college the plays of Shakespeare or the prose of Ruskin. And to the older objectors, who urge that literary study can ever give that severe intellectual discipline afforded by the older, narrower college course, we reply that it is not merely the intellectual powers that need culture and discipline. The ideal college training will surely not neglect the imagination and emotions, the faculties which so largely determine the conduct of life. And at no period in the educational process is the need of wide moral training so urgent as in those years when the young man is forming independent judgments and his tastes are taking their final set. The study of English literature finds its warrant for a place in the college curriculum princ.i.p.ally because, better than any other subject, it is fitted to cultivate both the emotional and the intellectual sides of our nature. For in all genuine literature those two elements, the intellectual and the emotional, are united; you cannot get either one fully without getting the other. In some forms of literature, as in poetry, the emotional appeal is the main purpose of the writing; but even here no really profound or sublime emotion is possible without a solid basis of thought.

=Appreciation the ultimate aim in the teaching of literature=

This, then, let us understand, is the primary object of all college teaching in this department. It affords the student opportunity and incitement to read, during his four years, a considerable number of our best cla.s.sics, representative of different periods and different forms of literature, and to read them with such intelligence and appreciation as to receive from them that discipline of thought and feeling which literature better than anything else is fitted to impart. If the student would or could do this reading by himself, without formal requirement or a.s.sistance, there might be little need of undergraduate teaching of literature; but every one who knows much of American college conditions knows that the average undergraduate has neither time, inclination, nor ability for such voluntary reading.

=Appreciative study of literary masterpieces involves vigorous mental exercise=

Just here lies a difficulty peculiar to the college teacher in this department. All studies that appeal primarily to the intellect and call only for careful attention and vigorous thinking can be prescribed, and mastery of them rigidly enforced. Indeed, the ambitious student is often stimulated to more vigorous effort by the very difficulty of his subject. But the appreciative reading of any work of literature cannot thus be prescribed. Of course the instructor may do much to help the student to such appreciation--that, indeed, is his chief duty; but he will not try to expound or enjoin emotional effects. Recognizing these limitations upon his work, he often finds it difficult to avoid one or the other of two dangers that beset all efforts to teach a vernacular literature; the student must not think his reading an idle pastime, nor, on the other hand, must he think it a repellent task. In the first case, he is likely never to read anything well; in the second case, the things best worth reading he will probably never read at all. Of the two dangers, the first is the more serious. The student ought early to learn that no really good reading is "light reading." And it may be remarked that this lesson was never more needed than today. There was never a time when people of all cla.s.ses read more and thought less. We have what might almost be called a plague of reading, and an astonis.h.i.+ng amount of what is called "reading matter" rolling out of our presses every year; while, significantly, we are producing very few books of permanent literary value. If the college study of literature is to encourage this indolent receptive temper, and relax the intellectual fiber of the student, then we might better drop it from the curriculum. The student must somehow learn that the book that is worth while will tax his thought, his imagination, his sympathies. He cannot be content merely to leave the door of his mind lazily open to it. Every teacher knows the difficulty in any attempt to inspire or direct such a pupil. And the simpler the subject a.s.signed him, the greater the difficulty. Give him, for example, a group of the best lyrics in the language, in which the thought is simple and the sentiment homely or familiar. He will glance over them in half an hour, and then wonder what more you want of him. And you may not find it so easy to tell him. For he does not perceive nice shades of feeling, he has little sense of poetic form, he has not read the poems aloud to get the charm of their melody, and he will not let them linger in his mind long enough to feel that the simplest sentiments are often the most profound and moving. He simply tries to conjecture what sort of questions he is likely to meet on examination. Doubtless from this type of pupil better results can be obtained by the reading of prose not too familiar, that suggests more questions for reflection and discussion.

=Suggestions for teaching of English literature--Emotional appreciation to have an intellectual basis=

It is perhaps impossible to lay down a detailed method for the teaching of English literature. Much depends upon the nature of the literature read, the temperament of the teacher, the apt.i.tude of the pupil. Every teacher will, in great measure, discover his own methods.

At all events, no attempts will be made here to give more than a few suggestions. In the first place, the teacher will remember that every work of literature--except purely "imagist" poetry, which it is hardly worth while to teach--is based upon some thought or truth; in most varieties of prose literature this forms the main purpose of the writing. The first object of the student's reading, therefore, must be to understand thoroughly the intellectual element in what he reads; and here the instructor can often be of direct a.s.sistance. And after such careful reading, the higher emotional values of what he has read will often disclose themselves spontaneously, so that the reader will need little further help.

=Abundant oral reading by teacher an aid to appreciation=

Just here it is worth while to note the great value of reading aloud, both by the teacher as a means of instruction, and by the pupil as a test of appreciation. All good writing gains vastly when read thus.

Mentally, at all events, we must image its sound if we are to get its full value. As to poetry, that goes without saying; for the essential, defining element in poetry is music. You may have truth, beauty, imagination, emotion, but without music you have not yet got poetry.

But it is hardly less true that prose should be read aloud. "The best test of good writing," said Hazlitt--and no man in his generation wrote better prose than he--"is, does it read well aloud." The sympathetic oral reading of a pa.s.sage from any prose master, a reading that naturally indicates points of emphasis, shades of thought, nuances of feeling, is often better than any formal explanation, for it reproduces the living voice of the writer. The wise teacher will avoid the mannerisms of the professed elocutionist or dramatic reader, but he will not neglect the value of truthful oral interpretation for many pa.s.sages of beautiful, or subtle, or powerful writing. And the student will often give a better proof of intelligent appreciation by reading aloud, "with good accent and discretion," than by any more elaborate form of examination.

=Knowledge of author's life and art and of ideals of the times necessary for comprehension and appreciation=

Some varieties of literature can best be approached indirectly, through a study of the life of the author, or of the age in which he lived. As any great work of pure literature must come out of the author's deepest life, it is evident that any knowledge of that life gained from other sources may be an important aid in the appreciation of his work. It is true that in the case of a writer of supreme and almost impartial dramatic genius, such knowledge may be of comparatively little value; though few of us will admit that it is merely an idle curiosity that would be gratified by a fuller knowledge even of the man William Shakespeare. But all the more subjective forms of literature, such as the lyric and the essay, can hardly be studied intelligently without some biographical introduction. Still more obvious is the need in many instances of some accurate knowledge of the period in which a given work is produced. For all such writing as grows directly out of political or social conditions, as oratory, or political satire, or various forms of the essay, this is clearly necessary. It would be folly to attempt to read the speeches of Edmund Burke or the political writings of Swift without historical introduction and comment. But the historical setting is hardly less important in many other forms of literature. For the whole cast of an author's mind, the habitual tone of his feeling on most important matters, is often largely decided by his environment. It is only a very inadequate appreciation, for example, of the work not only of Carlyle and Ruskin but of Tennyson, Browning, and Matthew Arnold, that is possible without some correct knowledge of the varying att.i.tude of these men toward important movements in English thought, social, economic, religious, between 1830 and 1880. It must always be an important part of the duty of the college teacher of literature to provide such biographical and historical information.

=Knowledge of an author's style to be result of appreciative study of his works and not gathered from texts on literary criticism=

All careful study of literature must involve some attention to manner or style--not so much, however, for its own sake, as a means for the fuller appreciation of what is read. In strictness, style has only one virtue, clearness; only one vice, obscurity. A perfect style is a transparent medium through which we plainly see the thought and feeling of the writer. Such a style may, indeed, often have striking peculiarities, but these are really the marks of the writer's personality, which his style reveals without exaggerating. All rhetorical study ought, therefore, to accompany or follow, not to precede, the careful reading for appreciation. No good book ought ever to be considered a mere _corpus vile_ for rhetorical praxis.

=Careful attention to critical a.n.a.lysis=

Of much greater value is that distinctively critical a.n.a.lysis which endeavors to discover the different elements, intellectual, imaginative, emotional, that enter into any work of literature, and to determine their relative amount and importance. Such a.n.a.lysis may well form the subject of cla.s.sroom discussion, and advanced students should often be required to put the conclusions they have drawn from such discussion into the form of a finished critical essay. All exercises of this kind presuppose, of course, that the work criticized has been read with interest and intelligence; but no form of literary study is more stimulating or tends more directly to the formation of original and accurate critical judgments. It affords the best test of real literary appreciation.

=Content of college course in literature=

Obviously it is impossible with this method of study to cover the entire field of English literature in the four college years. It is wiser to read a few great books well than to read many smaller ones hurriedly. It becomes, therefore, an important question on what principle these books should be selected and grouped in courses. In the opinion of the present writer, it is well to begin with a brief outline sketch of the history of the literature given either in a textbook or by lectures, and ill.u.s.trated by a few representative works, read carefully but without much detailed or intensive study.

Such an introductory course may have little cultural value; but it furnishes that knowledge of the chronological succession of English writers, and the varieties of literature dominant in each period, that is necessary for further intelligent study. This knowledge should, indeed, be given in the preparatory schools, but unfortunately it usually is not. When given in college, the course should, if possible, be a.s.signed to the freshman year. In the later years, the works selected for study will best be grouped either by period or by subject. Both plans have their advantages, but in most instances the first will be found the better. The study of a group of contemporary writers always gains in interest as we see how they all, with striking individual differences in temper and subject, yet reflect the social and moral life of their age. Sometimes the two plans may be united; a particular form of literature may be studied as the best representative of a period, as the political pamphlet for the age of Queen Anne or the extended essay for the first quarter of the nineteenth century. And in some rare instances a single writer is at once the highest representative of the age in which he lived and the supreme master of the form in which he wrote--as Shakespeare for the drama and Milton for the epic.

=Gradation of courses and adaptation of methods to growing capacities of students=

These courses should all--in the judgment of the present writer--be elective, but should be arranged in some natural sequence, those a.s.signed to a lower year being preparatory to those of a higher. This sequence need not always be historical; the simpler course may well precede those which for any reason are more difficult. Methods of instruction will also naturally change, becoming less narrowly didactic with the advancement of the student. In the senior year the teacher will usually prefer to meet his cla.s.ses in small sections, on the seminar plan, for informal discussion and the criticism of papers written by his pupils on questions suggested by their reading. Of such questions, students who for four years have been reading the masterpieces of English literature will surely find no lack.

The number of courses that can be offered in the department will depend in some cases upon the relative size of the faculty and the student body. For in no other subject is it more important, especially in the later years, that the cla.s.ses or sections should be small enough to allow some intimate personal touch between professor and student. It may be safely said that no college department of English literature is well officered or equipped that does not furnish at least four or five year-long courses of instruction. And certainly no student can maintain for four years such an acquaintance with the best specimens of a great literature without gaining something of that broad intelligence, heightened imagination, and just appreciation of whatever is best in nature and in human life, which combine in what we call culture.

=Undergraduate vs. graduate teaching of English literature=

Throughout this paper it has been a.s.sumed that what has been termed appreciation--that is, the ability to understand and enjoy the best things in literature--is the one central purpose to which all efforts must be subservient, in the teaching of English literature. But it should be remembered, as stated at the outset, that this paper has to do with the college undergraduate only, the candidate for the bachelor's degree. In the university, and to some extent in the graduate courses of the college leading to the master's degree, the subjects and methods of teaching may well be very different. Studies in comparative literature, studies of literary origins, the investigation of perplexed or controverted questions in the life or work of an author, the study and elucidation of the work of an unknown or little-known writer--all these and many other similar matters may very properly be the subjects of specialized graduate study. But they will rarely be found of most profit to undergraduate cla.s.ses.

CALEB T. WINCHESTER _Wesleyan University_