The Book-lover: A Guide to the Best Reading

CHAPTER XI.

On the Practical Study of English Literature.

The ocean of literature is without limit. How then shall we be able to perform a voyage, even to a moderate distance, if we waste our time in dalliance on the shore? Our only hope is in exertion. Let our only reward be that of industry.—Ringelbergius.

THE student of English literature has indeed embarked upon a limitless ocean. A lifetime of study will serve only to make him acquainted with parts of that great expanse which lies open before him. He should pursue his explorations earnestly, and with the inquiring spirit of a true discoverer. His thirst for knowledge should be unquenchable; he should long always for that mind food which brings the right kind of mind growth. He should not rest satisfied with merely superficial attainments, but should strive for that thoroughness of knowledge without which there can be neither excellence nor enjoyment.

English literature is not to be learned from manuals. They are only helps,—charts, buoys, light-houses, if you will call them so; or they serve to you the purposes of guide-books. What do you think of the would-be tourist who stays at home and studies his Baedeker with the foolish thought that he is actually seeing the countries which the book describes? And yet I have known students, and not a few teachers, do a thing equally as foolish. With a Morley, or a Shaw, or even a Brooke in their hands, and a few names and dates at their tongues’ ends, they imagine themselves viewing the great ocean of literature, ploughing its surface and exploring its depths, when in reality they are only wasting their time “in dalliance on the shore.”

English literature does not consist in a mere array of names and dates and short biographical sketches of men who have written books. Biography is biography; literature “is a record of the best thoughts.” But the former is frequently studied in place of the latter. “For once that we take down our Milton, and read a book of that ‘voice,’ as Wordsworth says, ‘whose sound is like the sea,’ we take up fifty times a magazine with something about Milton, or about Milton’s grandmother, or a book stuffed with curious facts about the houses in which he lived, and the juvenile ailments of his first wife.”23 Instead of becoming acquainted at first hand with books in which are stored the energies of the past, we content ourselves with knowing only something about the men who wrote them. Instead of admiring with our own eyes the architectural beauties of St. Paul’s Cathedral, we read a biography of Sir Christopher Wren.

Again, it must be borne in mind that literature is one thing, and the history of literature is another. The study of the latter, however important, cannot be substituted for that of the former; yet it is not desirable to separate the two. To acquire any serviceable knowledge of a book, you will be greatly aided by knowing under what peculiar conditions it was conceived and produced,—the history of the country, the manners of the people, the status of morals and politics at the time it was written. Between history and literature there is a mutual relationship which should not be overlooked. “A book is the offspring of the aggregate intellect of humanity,” and it gives back to humanity, in the shape of new ideas and new combinations of old ideas, not only all that which it has derived from it, but more,—increased intellectual vitality, and springs of action hitherto unknown.

In the study of literature, one should begin with an author and with a subject not too difficult to understand. A beginner will be likely to find but little comfort in Chaucer or Spenser, or even in Emerson; but after he has worked up to them he may study them with unbounded delight. For a ready understanding and correct appreciation of the great masterpieces of English literature, a knowledge of Greek and Roman mythology and history is almost indispensable. The student will find the courses of historical reading given in a former chapter of this book of much value in supplementing his literary studies.

The great works of the world’s masterminds should be studied together, with reference to the similarity of their subject-matter. For example, the reading of Shakspeare will give occasion to the study of dramatic literature in all its forms; the reading of Milton’s “Paradise Lost” will introduce us to the great epics, and to heroic poetry in general; Sir Walter Scott’s “Lay of the Last Minstrel” will lead naturally to the romance literature of modern and mediÆval times; Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” fitly illustrate the story-telling phase of poetry; the study of lyric poetry may centre around the old ballads, the poems of Robert Burns, and the religious hymns of our language; Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” introduces us to allegory, and Milton’s “Lycidas” to elegiac and pastoral poetry; and to know the best specimens of argumentative prose, we begin with the speeches of Daniel Webster and end with the orations of Demosthenes.

The following schemes for the study of different departments of English literature have been tested both with private students and with classes at school. Of course, many of the books mentioned are to be used chiefly as works of reference; some of them may be conveniently omitted in case it is desirable to abridge the course, and others may be exchanged for similar works upon the same subject.

SCHEME I.

For the Study of Dramatic Literature.

LITERATURE.

PARALLEL STUDIES.

For manuals use any or all of the following works—

Shaw’s Manual of English Literature.

Morley’s First Sketch of English Literature.

Baldwin’s English Literature and Literary Criticism.

Brooke’s Primer of English Literature.

Welch’s Development of English Literature.

Richardson’s Familiar Talks on English Literature.

English histories for study and reference—

Green’s History of the English People.

Knight’s History of England.

Yonge’s Young Folks’ England.

To be read—

“Rise and Progress of the English Drama,” in White’s Shakspeare, vol. i.

“Origin and Growth of the Drama in England,” in Hudson’s Life, Art, and Characters of Shakspeare, vol. i.

“Life of Shakspeare” in either of the works just named.

To be referred to—

Dowden’s Shakspere Primer.

Abbott’s Shakspearian Grammar.

Taine’s English Literature, the chapter on “Shakspeare.”

Study the history of England from 1066 to 1580.

Write an essay on one of the following subjects—

1. Miracles and Mysteries.

2. Popular Amusements of the Middle Ages.

3. The Church and the Early Drama.

4. The Social Condition of England in the Time of Queen Elizabeth.

5. The Early Theatres.

To be studied—

I. The Merchant Of Venice.

I. Study the history and topography of Venice.

Write essays on various subjects suggested by the play

II. Coriolanus or Julius CÆsar.

II. Read Plutarch’s Life of Coriolanus or of Julius CÆsar.

Study the peculiarities of Roman life and manners.

Refer to Mommsen’s Rome.

III. Richard III.

III. Study the history of Richard III. as related by trustworthy historians. Write an essay in his defence.

IV. A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

IV. Study the sources from which this play has been derived. Write essays on subjects suggested by it.

V. King Lear or Macbeth.

V. Read Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account of King Lear. Learn what you can of the historical legends of early Britain and Scotland.

Write essays on subjects suggested by these plays.

VI. Hamlet.

Books for study and reference while studying Shakspeare—

Hazlitt’s Characters of Shakspeare’s Plays.

Coleridge’s Literary Remains.

Leigh Hunt’s Imagination and Fancy.

Lamb’s Essay on Shakspeare’s Tragedies.

Dowden’s Mind and Art of Shakspeare.

Weiss’s Wit, Humor, and Shakspeare.

Morgan’s The Shakspearian Myth.

Also, the various works of the Shakspeare Society and of the New Shakspere Society.

VI. Hamlet. Study the sources of the play. Write essays. Discuss the question of Hamlet’s madness.

Write an essay on Shakspeare’s works, his life, his art.

Discuss the Baconian theory of the authorship of Shakspeare’s plays.

General Study of the Drama.

1. The Greek Drama.—Refer to, or read,—

Mahaffy’s Greek Literature.

Schlegel’s Dramatic Literature.

Copleston’s Æschylus.

Church’s Stories from the Greek Tragedians.

Mrs. Browning’s translation of Prometheus Bound.

Donne’s Euripides.

Froude’s essay,—Sea Studies.

Donaldson’s Theatre of the Greeks.

1. The Greek Drama.—Study the history of Greece from some brief text-book like Smith’s Smaller History. Study the life and manners of the Greeks by referring to Becker’s Charicles, or Mahaffy’s Old Greek Life.

Refer to Grote and Curtius.

Read the old Greek Myths.

Write essays on the Greek Stage, the Greek Tragedy, and kindred subjects.

Discuss the subjects suggested by reading “Prometheus Bound.”

2. The Roman Drama.—See the following works—

Schlegel’s Dramatic Literature.

Simcox’s History of Latin Literature.

Quackenbos’s Classical Literature.

2. Refer to Mommsen’s Rome, especially the chapters relating to literature and art.

3. Mysteries and Miracle-Plays.—Refer to—

“An Essay on the Origin of the English Stage,” in Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.

Warton’s History of English Poetry.

Morley’s English Writers; and the essays of White and Hudson, already named.

3. Review the history of England from 1066 to 1580, with special reference to the social, religious, and political progress of the people.

4. The Elizabethan Drama.—See the works on Shakspeare, mentioned above; also,—

Whipple’s Literature of the Age of Elizabeth.

Hazlitt’s Age of Elizabeth.

Lamb’s Notes on the Elizabethan Dramatists.

Ward’s English Dramatic Literature.

Study selections from—

Jonson’s Every Man in his Humor.

Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, or Tamburlaine.

Also, selections from Webster, Beaumont and Fletcher, and others.

4. Subjects for special study—

The history of the reigns of Elizabeth and James I.

The causes and character of the Renaissance in England.

Character of the Elizabethan dramatists.

Causes of the decline of dramatic literature.

The character of James I.

The Puritans and their influence upon the manners of the English people.

The Puritans and the drama.

Prynne’s Histrio-Mastix.

The reign of Charles I.

5. Study Milton’s Comus.

Read Milton’s Samson Agonistes.

5. Study the history of Oliver Cromwell and Puritan England. Suppression of the drama.

Read Macaulay’s Essay on Milton.

Write essays on subjects suggested by these studies.

Discuss the character of the Puritans.

6. The Drama of the Restoration.—Read—

Hazlitt’s English Comic Writers.

Johnson’s Life of Dryden.

Thackeray’s English Humorists.

Macaulay’s Essay on the Comic Dramatists of the Restoration.

Ward’s History of the Drama.

6. Study the state of society at the time of the Restoration.

The history of England from 1660 to 1760.

Write essays on subjects relating to the drama or the public manners of this period.

Jeremy Collier’s work.

7. The Later Drama.—See the following—

Fitzgerald’s Life of David Garrick.

The Life and Dramatic Works of R. B. Sheridan.

Lives of the Kembles.

Macready’s Reminiscences.

Lewes’s Actors and the Art of Acting.

Hutton’s Plays and Players.

Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer.

Sheridan’s School for Scandal.

Bulwer’s Richelieu.

Tennyson’s Drama of Queen Mary.

Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound.

Swinburne’s Atalanta in Calydon.

Robert Browning’s Dramas.

7. Study the history of England to the close of the eighteenth century.

Write an essay on the “Influence of the Drama.”

Discuss the means by which the stage may be made beneficial as a means of popular education.

Study the character of the drama of our own times, and how it may be improved.

SCHEME II.
For the Study of Epic Poetry.
LITERATURE.	PARALLEL STUDIES.
For manuals, etc., see Scheme I. To be studied— Milton’s Paradise Lost. Read— Macaulay’s Essay on Milton. Dr. Johnson’s Life of Milton. Stopford Brooke’s Milton. Mark Pattison’s Milton. Hazlitt’s Essay on “Shakspeare and Milton,” in English Poets. Hazlitt’s Essay on Milton’s Eve. De Quincey’s Essay on Milton vs. Southey and Landor. Himes’s A Study of Paradise Lost. The Spectator; the numbers issued on Saturdays from Jan. 5 to May 3, 1712. Masson’s Introduction to Milton’s Poetical Works. Gosse’s Essay on Milton and Vondel, in “Studies in Northern Literature.” Refer to— Masson’s Life of Milton. Boyd’s Milton’s Paradise Lost (with copious notes).	For English histories, see Scheme I. Read the account of the Creation as related in the book of Genesis. Study the character of the Puritans in England. Write essays on subjects suggested by the study of “Paradise Lost.” Study the mythological allusions found in the poem. The following works of reference are recommended for this purpose— Smith’s Classical Dictionary. Murray’s Manual of Mythology. Keightley’s Classical Mythology. Write an essay on the general plan of the poem. Discuss Milton’s theory of the universe as understood from the reading of “Paradise Lost.”
A notice of the other great Epics— 1. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Selections read and studied. (See list of books suggested for the study of Greek history, etc.) 2. Virgil’s Æneid (Morris’s translation). General plan of the work observed.	See list of books elsewhere given, relating to Greek Mythology, the Trojan War, etc.
3. Dante’s Divina Commedia (Longfellow’s or Carey’s translation). General plan of the work observed.	See— Lowell’s Essay on Dante, in Among My Books. Symond’s Introduction to the Study of Dante. Botta’s Dante as a Philosopher, Patriot, and Poet. Carlyle’s Heroes and Hero-Worship.
Attempted Epics— Cowley’s Davideis. Glover’s Leonidas. Southey’s Joan of Arc, Madoc, Thalaba, and The Curse of Kehama. Landor’s Gebir. Why these poems fail to be epics.	Historical studies suggested by these attempted poems. Write an essay on the qualities requisite to a great epic poem. Discuss the possibility of another great epic being written.
Heroic Poems— Barbour’s Bruce. Davenant’s Gondibert.	Study the legends and historical events upon which these poems are founded.
The Mock-Heroic— Pope’s Rape of the Lock. The general plan. Selections studied.	Write an essay on some subject suggested by these studies.

SCHEME III.
For the Study of Poetical Romance.
LITERATURE.	PARALLEL STUDIES.
For manuals, see Scheme I. To be studied— Sir Walter Scott’s great poems,— The Lay of the Last Minstrel. Marmion. The Lady of the Lake. To be read— Carlyle’s Essay on Sir Walter Scott. Hazlitt on Scott, in The Spirit of the Age. The chapter on Scott in Shaw’s Manual of English Literature.	For histories, see Scheme I. Read the history of Scotland from the earliest period to the reign of James V. Miss Porter’s Scottish Chiefs. Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Aytoun’s Ballads of Scotland. Scott’s Fair Maid of Perth. Write essays on subjects suggested by these studies. Discuss the character of the Scotch people in feudal times.
R. H. Hutton’s Sir Walter Scott, in “English Men of Letters.” How the Romance poetry differed from Classic poetry. See Macaulay’s Essay on Southey’s Life of Byron.	Compare selections from Scott with selections from Pope. Find other illustrations of the difference between the two schools of poetry.
The Origin of Romance Literature.—Refer to— Warton’s History of Poetry. The Introduction to Ellis’s Early English Metrical Romances. Ritson’s Ancient English Metrical Romances. Percy’s Reliques, introductory essay to book iii.	Read the chapter on the Troubadours, in Sismondi’s Literature of Southern Europe; also in Van Laun’s History of French Literature. Refer to Miss Prescott’s Troubadours and TrouvÈres.
To be studied— Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. Refer to Taine’s criticism of Tennyson’s Poetry, in his English Literature, vol. iv.	Read the account of the romances of King Arthur as related in the books already mentioned. Also,— Lanier’s Boy’s King Arthur. Bulfinch’s Age of Chivalry. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s British History, books viii. and ix. Write an essay on the King Arthur legends.
Read selected portions of Byron’s poetical romances— The Giaour. The Corsair. The Bride of Abydos. The Siege of Corinth. Read Byron, by John Nichol, in “English Men of Letters.” Read Matthew Arnold’s Introduction to the Selected Poems of Lord Byron.	Compare Byron’s poetry with that of Sir Walter Scott, 1st. As to matter. 2d. As to style. Write essays on subjects suggested by these studies. Discuss reasons why Lord Byron’s poetry is much less popular than formerly.
Study selections from Moore’s Lalla Rookh. Read Hazlitt’s criticisms on Moore, in his “English Poets.” Also, W. M. Rossetti’s Introduction to the Poems of Thomas Moore.	Study, from whatever sources are available, Oriental life and manners as portrayed in Lalla Rookh. Write essays on the same.
Study selections from Morris’s Sigurd the Volsung; also from The Earthly Paradise by the same author.	Study the myths of the north, referring to Mallet’s Northern Antiquities and Anderson’s Norse Mythology.

SCHEME IV.
For the Study of Story-Telling Poetry.
LITERATURE.	PARALLEL STUDIES.
Use manuals for reference as indicated in Scheme I. To these may be added Underwood’s American Literature, and White’s Story of English Literature.	Use for reference, Green’s History of the English People, or Knight’s History of England; also, some standard history of America.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Study the Prologue and either the Knightes Tale or the Clerkes Tale. Refer to, or read,— The Riches of Chaucer, by Charles Cowden Clarke. Lowell’s Essay on Chaucer, in “My Study Windows.” Carpenter’s English of the Fourteenth Century. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales Explained, by Saunders. Canterbury Chimes, by Storr and Turner. Stories from Old English Poetry, by Mrs. Richardson.	Study the history of England in the fourteenth century, and especially the social condition of the people during that period. Make some acquaintance with the great Italian writers who flourished about this time, and exerted a marked influence upon Chaucer’s work. Refer to— Sismondi’s Literature of Southern Europe; Campbell’s Life of Petrarch; Botta’s Dante as Philosopher, Patriot, and Poet; etc.
Read some of Scott’s shorter narrative poems,— Rokeby. The Bridal of Triermain. Harold the Dauntless. For criticisms and essays on Scott, see Scheme III.	Study the historical subjects, suggested by these poems. See Parallel Studies in connection with Scott’s longer poems, Scheme III.
Study The Prisoner of Chillon, by Lord Byron. Read Wordsworth’s story-poems,— The White Doe of Rylstone; Peter Bell; We are Seven; etc. Study Coleridge’s The Ancient Mariner, and Keats’s The Eve of St. Agnes.	See criticisms on Byron, in Taine’s English Literature. Read Hazlitt’s estimate of Wordsworth, in The Spirit of the Age. De Quincey on Wordsworth’s poetry, in Literary Criticism. Write essays on subjects suggested by these studies.
For criticisms on the poets last read, refer to— Hazlitt’s English Poets. Swinburne’s Studies and Essays. Shairp’s Studies in Poetry. Lord Houghton’s Life of Keats. Matthew Arnold’s Essay on Keats, in Ward’s English Poets. Carlyle’s Reminiscences.	Study the history of the English people from 1760 to 1820, with special reference to their social condition, and the progress of literature. Write essays on suggested subjects.
Read Campbell’s Gertrude of Wyoming. Read selections from Mrs. Hemans. Read Mrs. Browning’s Lady Geraldine’s Courtship; also some of her shorter poems. Study Tennyson’s poems,— The Princess. Maud. Enoch Arden. Also his shorter poems.	Read the historical account of the Massacre of Wyoming. Read biographies of Mrs. Hemans and Mrs. Browning. Discuss reasons why Mrs. Hemans’ poetry is no longer popular. Consult— Stedman’s Victorian Poets. Hadley’s Essays. Kingsley’s Miscellanies.
Study at least two poems in Morris’s Earthly Paradise.	Study the classical and Norse legends upon which these stories are based.
Study Longfellow’s poems,— Evangeline. Miles Standish. Hiawatha. Tales of a Wayside Inn. The Skeleton in Armor. Read Underwood’s Life of Longfellow.	See— Bancroft’s History of the United States, vol. iv. Abbott’s Life of Miles Standish. Study other historical references, etc., suggested by these poems.
Study the story-poems of John G. Whittier: Maud Muller; Flud Ireson; etc.	Write essays on subjects suggested by these studies.

SCHEME V.
For the Study of Allegory.
LITERATURE.	PARALLEL STUDIES.
Æsop’s Fables. Oriental parables and fables. Study Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, as being the most popular allegory in the English language. Read— Macaulay’s Essay on John Bunyan. Cheever’s Lectures on Bunyan.	Rhetorical definition of allegory. The distinction between fables and parables. Study the history of the rise and progress of Puritanism in England. Refer to Green’s History of the English People, and to Taine’s English Literature.
Anglo-Saxon parables and allegories. The growth of the allegory. The Vision of Piers Plowman. The great French allegory, the Roman de la Rose. Chaucer’s Romaunt of the Rose. Other allegorical poems usually ascribed to Chaucer,— The Court of Love. The Cuckow and the Nightingale. The Parlament of Foules. The Flower and the Leaf. Refer to Taine’s English Literature. Notice, next, Dunbar’s The Thistle and the Rose; also, The Golden Terge, and the Dance of the Seven Sins. Stephen Hawes’s Grand Amour and la Bell Pucell. Study selected passages from Spenser’s Faerie Queene; also the general plan of the poem. See— Lowell’s Among My Books. Craik’s Spenser and his Poetry.	Consult— Morley’s English Writers. Warton’s History of English Poetry. George P. Marsh’s Lectures on the Origin and History of the English Language. Skeats’s Specimens of English Literature. Study the social condition of England in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. Refer to the histories already mentioned; also to— Pearson’s History of England in the Fourteenth Century. Lanier’s Boy’s Froissart, or the abridged edition of Froissart’s Chronicles. Towle’s History of Henry V. Study the social and literary history of England during the sixteenth century. Refer to Froude’s History of England. Write essays on subjects suggested by these studies.
Read— Phineas Fletcher’s Purple Island. Thomson’s Castle of Indolence. Lowell’s Vision of Sir Launfal. Gay’s Fables. Burns’s The Twa Dogs, and The Brigs of Ayr. Abou Ben Adhem.	Discuss the value of allegory as an aid in education. Why has the taste for allegory steadily declined? Write in plain prose the lesson learned in each of the fables studied. What relationship exists between fables and myths?

SCHEME VI.
For the Study of Didactic Poetry.
LITERATURE.	REFERENCES.
Dryden’s Religio Laici; and The Hind and the Panther. Study selected passages from Pope’s Essay on Criticism, and Essay on Man. Young’s Night Thoughts. Johnson’s Vanity of Human Wishes. Akenside’s Pleasures of the Imagination. Warton’s Pleasures of Melancholy. Rogers’ Pleasures of Memory. Campbell’s Pleasures of Hope. Grahame’s The Sabbath. Study selected passages from Wordsworth’s Excursion. Select and study some of the best-known shorter didactic poems in the language.	Refer to— Hazlitt’s English Poets; Lowell’s Among My Books (essay on Dryden); Macaulay’s Essay on Dryden; and Taine’s English Literature. Johnson’s Lives of the Poets; Stephen’s Hours in a Library; De Quincey’s Literature of the Eighteenth Century. Macaulay’s Essay on Samuel Johnson; Boswell’s Life of Dr. Johnson; Carlyle’s Essay on Boswell’s Life of Johnson; Stephen’s Johnson, in “English Men of Letters.” Whipple’s Essay on Wordsworth, in “Literature and Life.” Shairp’s Studies in Poetry and Philosophy; Hazlitt’s Spirit of the Age; Charles Lamb’s Essay on Wordsworth’s Excursion.

SCHEME VII.
For the Study of Lyric Poetry.
LITERATURE.	PARALLEL STUDIES.
I.
The Early Ballads.
Ballads of Robin Hood. Ballads of the Scottish Border. Modern Ballads.	Read histories and stories of the mediÆval times. Refer to Percy’s Reliques; Aytoun’s Scottish Ballads; Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.
II.
Songs of Patriotism.
Read and study the best-known patriotic poems in the language.	Study the historical events, or other circumstances which led to the production of these poems.
III.
Battle Songs.
The battle scenes in Scott’s poems. Burns: “Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled.” Macaulay’s Battle of Ivry, Naseby, Horatius at the Bridge. Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade. Drayton’s Battle of Agincourt.	Study the historical events which gave rise to these poems. Write essays on subjects suggested by these studies.
IV.
Religions Songs and Hymns.
George Herbert’s Temple. Read selections from Crashaw and Vaughan. Study Milton’s Hymn on the Nativity, and selections from Keble’s Christian Year. Read Pope’s Universal Prayer, and The Dying Christian; also selections from Moore’s Sacred Songs, Byron’s Hebrew Melodies, and Milman’s Hymns for Church Service.	For specimens and extracts of lyric poetry of every class, consult Ward’s English Poets; Appleton’s Library of British Poets; The Family Library of British Poets; Emerson’s Parnassus; Chambers’ CyclopÆdia of English Literature; Bryant’s Library of Poetry and Song; and Piatt’s American Poetry and Art.
V.
Love Lyrics.
The Songs of the Troubadours. Wyatt’s Poems. Marlowe’s Passionate Shepherd. Raleigh’s The Nymph’s Reply. Robert Herrick’s Poems. Selections from the poems of Sir John Suckling. The love poems of Robert Burns. Coleridge’s Genevieve. Selections from other poets.	Consult Miss Prescott’s Troubadours and TrouvÈres; Warton’s History of English Poetry. Study the biographies of Marlowe, Raleigh, Herrick, and Suckling. Read Carlyle’s Essay on Robert Burns; and Principal Shairp’s Burns, in “English Men of Letters.”
VI.
Sonnets.
The origin of the sonnet. Selections from the sonnets of Wyatt, Spenser, Sidney, Shakspeare, Drayton, Drummond, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, and others. Mrs. Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese.	See Leigh Hunt’s Book of the Sonnet; Dennis’s English Sonnets; French’s Dublin Afternoon Lectures; Massey’s Shakspeare’s Sonnets; Henry Brown’s Sonnets of Shakspeare Solved; Tomlinson’s The Sonnet: its Origin, Structure, and Place in Poetry.
VII.
Odes.
Dryden’s Alexander’s Feast. Pope’s Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day. Collins’s Ode on the Passions, and other odes. Gray’s Ode on the Progress of Poesy, and The Bard. Keats’s Sleep and Poetry. Shelley’s Ode to Liberty, and To the West Wind. Coleridge’s Ode on France, and To the Departing Year. Wordsworth’s Ode on the Intimations of Immortality.	See Husk’s Account of the Musical Celebrations on St. Cecilia’s Day, in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries. Study the construction of the ode. Compare the English ode with the Greek and Latin ode. Learn something of the odes of Horace. Write essays on subjects suggested by these studies.
VIII.
Elegies.
Study Milton’s Lycidas. Read selections from Spenser’s Astrophel; Shelley’s Adonais; Tennyson’s In Memoriam; Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington; Pope’s Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady. Study Gray’s Elegy in a Country Churchyard; The Dirge in Cymbeline; and Collins’s Dirge in Cymbeline. Read Shenstone’s Elegies; Cowper’s The Castaway; and Bryant’s Thanatopsis.	For references to Milton and Spenser, see other schemes. For Shelley’s Adonais, see Hutton’s Essays. See F. W. Robertson’s Analysis of In Memoriam. See also, for subjects connected with these studies, Roscoe’s Essays; Hazlitt’s English Poets; Dr. Johnson’s Life of Gray; E. W. Gosse’s Gray, in “English Men of Letters;” Parke Godwin’s Life of William Cullen Bryant.
IX.
Miscellaneous Lyrics.
Study selections from the poems of Burns, Ramsay, and Fergusson; Whittier, Bryant, and Longfellow; William Blake; Mrs. Browning, Tennyson, and Swinburne; and others, both British and American.	Refer to the manuals elsewhere mentioned. Write essays on subjects suggested by these studies. Discuss the distinctive qualities of Lyric Poetry, and the place which it occupies in English Literature.

SCHEME VIII.
For the Study of Descriptive Poetry, Etc.
LITERATURE.	PARALLEL STUDIES.
Study selections from the poems of William Cullen Bryant. Study Whittier’s Snow-Bound, and other descriptive poems. Study Milton’s L’Allegro and Il Penseroso. Study selections from Thomson’s Seasons, and Cowper’s Task. Study Goldsmith’s Traveller, and The Deserted Village; also, Shenstone’s Schoolmistress. Find and read characteristic descriptive passages in the poems of Scott, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Keats, Browning, and others. Compare Scott’s descriptions with the descriptions in Pope’s Windsor Forest and in Denham’s Cooper’s Hill. Select and study descriptive passages from Chaucer’s Poems, and from Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Read selections from Gay’s Rural Sports, and from Bloomfield’s Farmer’s Boy.	See Godwin’s Life of William Cullen Bryant; and Underwood’s biography of John G. Whittier. See Stopford Brooke’s Milton; and Mark Pattison’s Milton, in “English Men of Letters;” Irving’s Life of Goldsmith; Thackeray’s English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century; William Black’s Goldsmith, in “English Men of Letters;” Hazlitt’s English Poets; and De Quincey’s Literature of the Eighteenth Century. Read Macaulay’s Essay on Moore’s Life of Byron. Refer to Goldwin Smith’s Cowper, in “English Men of Letters;” also to Charles Cowden Clarke’s Life of Cowper. See references to Chaucer and Spenser elsewhere given.
Pastoral Poetry.
Study Milton’s Arcades, and selections from Pope’s Pastorals; also from Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar. See Drayton’s Shepherd’s Garland; Browne’s Britannia’s Pastorals; Jonson’s Sad Shepherd; Fletcher’s Faithful Shepherdess; Gay’s Shepherd’s Week; Ramsay’s Gentle Shepherd; and Shenstone’s Pastoral Ballads.	Read Pope’s Essay on Pastoral Poetry. Learn something about Theocritus and his Idyls, and about the Eclogues of Virgil. A translation of the former may be found in Bohn’s Classical Library. The latest translation of the Eclogues is that by Wilstach.

SCHEME IX.
For the Study of Satire, Wit, and Humor.
LITERATURE.	PARALLEL STUDIES.
Dean Swift, the great English satirist. Study his life and character. See Forster’s Life of Swift; or Leslie Stephen’s Swift, in “English Men of Letters.” Read selections from Gulliver’s Travels, and the Tale of a Tub. Read, also, his Modest Proposal. Daniel Defoe’s Satirical Essays: The Shortest Way with Dissenters, etc. See Minto’s Defoe, in “English Men of Letters.”	Rabelais, the great satirist of France. Read Besant’s French Humorists; and Rabelais, by the same author. Refer also to Van Laun’s History of French Literature. Voltaire, the third of the great modern satirists. Read Parton’s Life of Voltaire; or Voltaire, by John Morley; or Colonel Hamley’s Voltaire, in “Foreign Classics for English Readers.”
The origin and growth of satirical literature in England.	Satirical literature in Rome.
John Skelton’s Satires. See Warton’s History of English Poetry, and Taine’s English Literature. Barclay’s Shyp of Fooles. See Warton’s History. The Satires of Surrey and Wyatt. See Hallam’s Literary History, and Chalmers’ Collection of the Poets. Gascoigne’s The Steele Glass. Donne’s Satires. See Pope’s The Satires of Dr. Donne Versified. Hall’s Virgidemiarum. See Warton’s History, and Campbell’s Specimens of the English Poets. Study selected passages from Butler’s Hudibras. Refer to Hazlitt’s Comic Writers, and Leigh Hunt’s Wit and Wisdom. Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, and the publications which followed it.	The great poetical satirists of ancient times,—Horace and Juvenal. See Lord Lytton’s translation of the Epodes and Satires of Horace; and Dryden’s Imitations of Juvenal. Dr. Johnson’s London and The Vanity of Human Wishes are also imitations of Juvenal. See Dryden’s Essay on Satire. To understand the satires of Hall, Butler, Dryden, and Pope, it is absolutely necessary to be well acquainted with the history and social condition of England during the seventeenth century. Study Green’s History of the English People. Study the political agitations in England just preceding the Revolution of 1688.
Dryden’s MacFlecknoe. Pope’s Dunciad. Byron’s English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Lowell’s Fable for Critics.	Compare these four personal satires, and write essays on the subjects suggested by their study.
Pope’s Moral Essays. Swift’s Satirical Poems. The humor of Fielding, Smollett, and Goldsmith, as exhibited in their writings. Chatterton’s Prophecy. Read Burns’ Holy Willie’s Prayer, and the Holy Fair.	Read Thackeray’s Humorists of the Eighteenth Century, and Hazlitt’s Comic Writers. Study the social condition of England in the eighteenth century.
Sydney Smith. See the Wit and Wisdom of Sydney Smith (1861). The Fudge Family in Paris, by Thomas Moore. The Humorous Essays of Charles Lamb. Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus, and Latter-Day Pamphlets. Study selections.	Study the political agitations in England during the first half of the present century. Refer to Knight’s History of England, and to Justin McCarthy’s History of Our Own Times. Miss Martineau’s History of the Thirty Years’ Peace may be read with profit. Write essays on subjects suggested by these studies.
Thackeray as a humorist. Read his Irish Sketch-Book, and selections from the Book of Snobs, but especially observe his power in Vanity Fair. Read and study Dr. Holmes’ Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.	Study the true distinctions between Wit, Humor, and Satire; and select from what you have read a number of illustrative examples. Discuss questions which may arise from these studies; and write essays on the same.
Read Lowell’s Biglow Papers. Read selections from Mark Twain and other living American humorists. Compare the humor of the present day with that of the last generation. Read selections from Irving’s Sketch Book, and Knickerbocker’s New York. Read Burns’ Tam O’Shanter; and selections from Hood, John G. Saxe, and others.	Study the biographies of Irving, Lowell, Holmes, Mark Twain, Saxe, and other American authors whose works have been noticed in this scheme.

SCHEME X.
For the Study of English Prose Fiction.
General Works of Reference.
LITERATURE.	PARALLEL STUDIES.
Dunlop’s History of Fiction. Jeaffreson’s Novels and Novelists. Masson’s British Novelists and their Styles. Tuckerman’s History of English Prose Fiction.	The historical works and also the literary manuals mentioned in Scheme IV. should be at hand for constant reference.
I.
The First Romances.
Sidney’s Arcadia. Lyly’s Euphues. Greene’s Pandosto, or the Triumph of Time. The Novels of Thomas Nash.	Study the conditions of life and thought in England under which these first attempts at the writing of prose romance were made.
II.
Fabulous Voyages and Travels.
Godwin’s Man in the Moon. Hall’s Mundus Alter et Idem. Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels;—read selections. Study Robinson Crusoe. The Adventures of Peter Wilkins. Edgar A. Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.	See Collins’ Lucian, in “Ancient Classics for English Readers,” for an account of Lucian’s Veracious History. Read the voyage of Gargantua by Rabelais; or, better, consult Besant’s Rabelais. Read Minto’s Defoe, in “English Men of Letters.” See Forster’s Life of Dean Swift; Scott’s Memoir of Dean Swift; and Minto’s Manual of English Prose.
III.
Romances of the Supernatural.
Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto. Mrs. Radcliffe’s Romances. Godwin’s St. Leon. Bulwer’s Zanoni. Mrs. Shelley’s Frankenstein. Lewis’s The Monk.	See Tuckerman’s Literature of Fiction (an essay); C. Kegan Paul’s Life of William Godwin; Macaulay’s Essay on Horace Walpole; Miss Kavanagh’s English Women of Letters.
IV.
Oriental Romances
Beckford’s Vathek. Hope’s Anastasius. The Adventures of Hajji Baba.
V.
Historical Romances.
Miss Porter’s Scottish Chiefs. Scott’s Waverley Novels. The Novels of G. P. R. James. Bulwer’s Last Days of Pompeii; Rienzi; Harold; The Last of the Barons. Lockhart’s Valerius. Kingsley’s Hypatia. George Eliot’s Romola.	See Lockhart’s Life of Scott; Stephen’s Hours in a Library; Carlyle’s Essay on Sir Walter Scott; Shaw’s Manual of English Literature; Hutton’s Scott, in “English Men of Letters;” Nassau Senior’s Essays on Fiction; The Life of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, by his son, the present Lord Lytton.
VI.
Novels of Social Life, etc.
Richardson’s Novels. Fielding’s Tom Jones. Smollett’s Novels. Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield. Miss Burney’s Novels. Godwin’s Caleb Williams. Miss Edgeworth’s Novels. Scott’s Guy Mannering; The Heart of Mid-Lothian; The Bride of Lammermoor; The Antiquary; etc. Miss Austen’s Works. Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. Dickens’s Pickwick Papers. Other Novels of Dickens and Thackeray. Charlotte BrontË’s Jane Eyre. Bulwer’s Novels. Disraeli’s Vivian; and Lothair. Charles Kingsley’s Novels. George Eliot’s Works.	See Stephen’s Hours in a Library; Hazlitt’s English Novelists; Thackeray’s English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century; Irving’s Life of Goldsmith; Macaulay’s Essay on Madame d’Arblay; Miss Kavanagh’s English Women of Letters; James T. Fields’ Yesterdays with Authors; Horne’s New Spirit of the Age; John Forster’s Life of Charles Dickens; Hannay’s Studies on Thackeray; Hannay’s Characters and Sketches; Anthony Trollope’s Thackeray, in “English Men of Letters;” Taine’s English Literature, vol. iv.; Mrs. Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte BrontË; Miss Martineau’s Biographical Sketches; Thackeray’s Roundabout Papers; Life of Charles Brockden Brown, in Sparks’ “American Biography;” Griswold’s Prose
American Fiction— Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland, and other Novels. Cooper’s Novels. James Kirke Paulding. John P. Kennedy. William Gilmore Simms. Hawthorne’s Works. The later and living novelists.	Writers of America; Prescott’s Miscellaneous Essays; J. T. Fields’ Hawthorne; H. A. Page’s Life of Hawthorne; Lathrop’s Study of Hawthorne; Roscoe’s Essays; Hawthorne, by Henry James, in “English Men of Letters;” Cooke’s George Eliot: a Critical Study of her Life, Writings, and Philosophy; (Round-Table Series) George Eliot, Moralist and Thinker.
VII.
Didactic Fiction.
More’s Utopia. Harrington’s Oceana. Disraeli’s Coningsby. Bulwer-Lytton’s The Coming Race. Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Hannah More’s Novels. Johnson’s Rasselas. The modern didactic novel.	See Hallam’s Literary History; and references given in the preceding schemes.

ORNAMENT

Clyx.com