Page images
PDF
EPUB

But among the prose stories in the two Jungle Books there are some that show an art of far higher quality, as delicate as it is strange. As different as possible from his showy short stories of the English in India, these sketches interpreting the lives of natives and the country of which they are a part are as remarkable for their understanding as for the beauty of the prose in which it is expressed.

Whether writing for children or for grown-ups, for lovers of vivid stories of action rich with exotic charm or for more reflective spirits who feel the wonder and the pity of human life, Kipling is easily secure in his seat as one of the great writers of English - perhaps the greatest master of the short-story.

His books are too numerous and too well known to need listing here.

W. B. YEATS

P. 712. In the beginning of the Celtic Renaissance set afoot, as George Moore declares, by himself and Yeats and Edward Martin, Mr. Yeats's poems attracted attention as much by their strangeness as by their grace and melody and delicate imagery. The Irish background, rich in its suggestions of a beautiful lost ancient world, made a strong appeal. But in time this ancient Irish world became familiar in the work of other poets of the Celtic Renaissance, and Mr. Yeats used it less; and in getting away from it, his work, never remarkable for depth of thought or intensity of feeling, became merely shadowy and colorless. His fame will undoubtedly rest upon early work of the type included here, which, without being too local, has a charm distinctly un-English.

Mr. Yeats's best prose sketches and essays are found in The Celtic Twilight (1893) and Ideas of Good and Evil (1903). Poems are given in The Wind Among the Reeds (1899). His most famous plays are The Land of Heart's Desire (1904) and Cathleen ni Hoolihan (1902). His Collected Works appeared in 1908.

ERNEST DOWSON

P. 712 f. In his lifetime Dowson exercised a great personal influence upon the group of able young writers with whom he associated, and they rated him far higher than his actual work would seem to justify. The range of his material was small, his ideas were few and unfruitful. The world of his poems was an emotional hothouse of morbid experiences. If he is remembered at all, it

will be perhaps solely for the formal beauty of the poem here given.

His work is included in one volume, Poems of Ernest Dowson (latest edition, 1917).

"A. E."

P. 713. "A. E." is the pen name of George William Russell, artist, editor, humanitarian, poet. With W. B. Yeats and George Moore, Russell was prominent in organizing the Irish literary and dramatic movement in the last decade of the nineteenth century. As a poet, his work is narrow in range and pale in color, like his paintings, but the best of it has an individual and delicate beauty. Representative books are Collected Poems (1913) and the volume of criticism entitled Imaginations and Reveries (1915).

JOSEPH CONRAD

Pp. 713 ff. It is strange to think that the finest English written during the past thirty years was written by a man born in Poland, who habitually thought in French, who never spoke English well, and who was by profession a sailor. But all these circumstances were united in the work of Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski. The greatness of his work is due mainly, perhaps, to the fact that he not only realized but deeply felt certain strange and appealing aspects of human existence, and that he labored unceasingly to make of words a medium for the transfer to others of this depth of realization and of feeling. The keynote to his work is its intense sincerity. This can be verified by reading his own account of the early experiences which drew upon him the strange fate of becoming an Englishman and a sailor (in A Personal Record, 1912), and his memories of his seafaring, put together in the book which he is said to have loved best of all his work, The Mirror of the Sea (1906).

The group of short stories called Youth (1902) and the novel Lord Jim (1900) have a strong claim to be regarded as the greatest work done in English literature during the last quarter of a century.

L. P. JACKS

Pp. 717 ff. By profession a philosopher, Mr. Jacks seems to have made for himself a secure place in literature by his stories and studies of unusual types of human nature. His most notable book, Mad Shepherds (1910), a group of related studies in country mysticism and philosophy, needs to be read as a whole. The selection here chosen

from Among the Idolmakers (1911) is interesting for its absolute freshness of material and for the whimsicality of the handling.

HERBERT GEORGE WELLS

Pp. 719 ff. In reading Wells it should be remembered that whatever results he achieves in literature are by the way that his art is not an end in itself but a vehicle for his social propaganda toward the amelioration of human life. He is, first and last, an educator, using journalism as his medium for teaching. He happens also to have a lively imagination, a gift of fluency in words, an observing eye trained by scientific habits, unusual energy and zeal, and a knack of knowing the time when the public is ready for what he has to say. On these foundations he has done an enormous amount of work - almost a book a year for each year of his life and has built up a great reputation. His place in literature, however, will depend, not upon his style, nor upon any supreme merit in any of his books, but upon his success in launching as in the use of science as new types of work material for short stories, for example - and upon his vigorous presentation of advanced ideas concerning the reorganization of society.

-

Mr. Wells's earliest published work consisted of stories in which the ideas of modern science were exploited and its achievements sometimes anticipated. Good examples of this work are The Time Machine (1895) and The Stolen Bacillus (1895). His attention was soon turned to social criticism, and he produced such books as Mankind in the Making (1903), First and Last Things (1908), and The Salvaging of Civilization (1921). Perhaps his most enjoyable novels are Love and Mr. Lewisham (1900), Tono-Bungay (1909), and The History of Mr. Polly (1910). Mr. Britling Sees It Through (1916) expressed his attitude toward the World War. Though open to criticism at many points, his Outline of History (1919) is a remarkable achievement and has exercised a great influence upon contemporary thought.

ARNOLD BENNETT

Pp. 722 ff. Few writers have attacked the problem of learning to write well with greater industry and intelligence than Arnold Bennett. And few have succeeded more admirably. With language and ideas he can do whatever he wishes; his mastery of the technique of writing is complete. He has written a multitude of books, of all kinds, and always competently. Only a few times, how

ever, has his material been of such a character as to produce a work of real greatness. In the life of the pottery district of north England — the "Five Towns" of his best novels - where he grew up as a boy, he discerned a rich vein of unworked literary material which his imagination and clear practical sense shaped into a series of novels - one of them, The Old Wives' Tale (1908) ranking clearly as one of the greatest achievements of modern fiction.

In an entirely different vein, but unforgettable for its delightful unforced humor, is Buried Alive (1908).

The student who is trying to learn to write will probably be equally interested in such volumes as Literary Taste: How to Form It (1909), Mental Efficiency (1912), and The Truth about an Author (1903).

JOHN GALSWORTHY

Pp. 725 ff. Galsworthy the novelist and Galsworthy the dramatist have tended to obscure Galsworthy the essayist; yet in the essays, especially in the volume called The Inn of Tranquillity, there are the same quietly harvesting eye, the same humanity, the same easy grace of style, that have won him a high place in contemporary letters.

In fiction Galsworthy's greatest achievement is the criticism of contemporary life embodied in the series of novels united to form The Forsyte Saga (1922) and its delightful pendant The White Monkey (1924). Of hardly less significance are such plays as The Silver Box (1909), Strife (1910), Justice (1910), and The Pigeon (1912).

W. H. DAVIES

Pp. 728 f. For an understanding of Mr. Davies's poems, it is necessary to read The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp. After living nearly forty years as peddler, beggar, casual worker, and tramp, and writing verses without other guidance than his own instinct and such reading as he was able to do, he managed to save enough money to pay for the publication of a small volume of verse. As it had no success, he hit upon the idea of sending a copy to Bernard Shaw, with the result that he at once received aid and publicity until he was established. He has since published many other small volumes of verse.

Exactly why his work appeals, it is hard to say. The poems are far from perfect in form, they fre quently echo (unconsciously, no doubt) earlier

work on similar themes, they have no particular originality; but they are concerned chiefly with nature subjects, and they show at times a pleasing freshness of impression combined with an occasional happy phrase, to which their popularity may be due. A few of his poems reflect his own hard experiences and his sympathy for those in similar circumstances.

Typical work will be found in Collected Poems (1916) and The Song of Life (1920).

HILAIRE BELLOC

Pp. 729 f. Mr. Belloc is one of the most versatile persons of our time. Half French, with Rabelais as his literary godfather, with an English-university education and French military training, with insatiable curiosity about every phase of life and an unbridled pen, politician, foot-traveler on many roads, amateur artist, writer of verses for children, and of history, fiction, and poetry for adults, he is, beyond all this, first and last an essayist. Of his voluminous writings a selection has been made by E. V. Lucas, under the title A Picked Company (1915). His best-known books are, perhaps, The Path to Rome (1902), which relates an actual journey on foot across France, over the Alps, to Rome, and The Old Road (1904), which tells of a tramp in which he traced the course of the old road of the pilgrims from Winchester to Canterbury. He has recently (1925) published the first volume of a History of England, which has aroused much discussion. Among his poems the one here quoted (Verses, 1910) is that which made his name.

JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE

Pp. 730 ff. Of the dozen or more of promising young writers who came into some degree of reputation at the time of the Irish Renaissance, a quarter of a century ago, it now seems likely that Synge will be the one longest remembered. Irishborn, he learned his métier in Paris; and being less national than some of his contemporaries, he became the more open-minded, and was able to use Irish framework and atmosphere for stories of universal import. His "Riders to the Sea," thoroughly Irish in conception and tone and rhythm, is much more than Irish in significance and will appeal the longer for that reason.

The passages here chosen from The Aran Islands (1907) have a double interest. The description of the background shows Synge's sympathy with the material in which he was working; and the story

related is a piece of the actual material itself, being the source of The Shadow of the Glen. This play should, of course, be read with it.

His best plays are The Playboy of the Western World, The Shadow of the Glen, and The Tinker's Wedding; but in The Well of the Saints, in Riders to the Sea, and in the unfinished three-act play Deirdre of the Sorrows his genius uttered a special note of elemental magic. His plays are published separately, but may be found in The Works of John M. Synge, 4 vols. (1910).

RALPH HODGSON

Pp. 733 f. Hodgson is the least prolific among poets of the first rank today; but his work is as rare in quality as it is slight in bulk. Whether his theme is old or new, the treatment is unexpected and highly individual; fantastic, perhaps, but usually enriched by unaffected and delightful feeling. His two volumes are The Last Blackbird (1907) and Poems (1917).

JOHN MASEFIELD

Pp. 734 f. Masefield's poetry falls into two distinct sections: a good part of it reflects his adventurous life and his experiments in philosophical thinking; but another part is almost purely literary in its origins. His themes are, in proportion to the bulk of his work, few; but they are developed with an original and lively imagination. His philosophy is not fully worked out, but it is colored by a passionate feeling for the tragedies of human experience which powerfully affects his readers. His revivals of the couplet and the sevenline stanza of Chaucer and of the sonnet-form of Shakespeare are notable achievements. Altogether, even though it does not seem now, as it did in 1912, that he is to be one of our greatest poets, he has produced much work of very fine quality. He has humor, passion, broad sympathy, keen powers of observation, and entire mastery of language and rhythm.

His brief volume William Shakespeare (1911) shows him at his best as a thinker and writer of prose, and will be found very stimulating and suggestive. His Collected Poems appeared in 1923.

WALTER DE LA MARE

Pp. 735 f. Of de la Mare's life there is nothing notable to record; and of his work the principal thing to be said is that, slight as it is in substance, it appeals because it is the embodiment of a lively

and delicate fancy in forms of sound and rhythm and imagery exquisitely adapted to it. In this he is an artist of rare quality. More than most poets, de la Mare needs to be read aloud. The earlier volumes of poetry are collected in Poems (1920).

G. K. CHESTERTON

Pp. 737 f. That Chesterton is — at times — an inspired journalist few would deny. His ability to stimulate thinking and to direct attention to his own ideas by the continual use of exaggeration and paradox has brought him to a prominent position among the manipulators of language today; and his versatility he has attempted fiction, poetry, drama, biography, and criticism, as well as the essay tends to keep him in the public eye. He has done everything well, but nothing supremely well. From his style and manner one would take him to be blatantly radical, but his revolt is not against the past but the present. As one analyzes his ideas one observes that he is not merely conservative but reactionary. And brilliant as his work often seems at the moment, the sparkle dies away soon and hardly revives again. The two volumes which best stand the test of time are Orthodoxy (1908) and George Bernard Shaw (1909); perhaps one should add Charles Dickens, a Critical Study (1906).

G. LOWES DICKINSON

Pp. 738 ff. As Mr. Dickinson prefers to conceal the date of his birth, he can be placed with only approximate chronological accuracy. His writings have been devoted chiefly to criticism of contemporary civilization and its ideals. His most important volumes are: Letters from John Chinaman (1901; Am. ed., Letters from a Chinese Official), A Modern Symposium (1908), An Essay on the Civilization of India, China and Japan, (1914), and Appearances: Notes of Travel, East and West (1914).

In his first book he adopted the device of using an Oriental as the critic of the civilization of Europe. This device had been used with brilliant success in the eighteenth century by Montesquieu, in his Lettres Persanes, and by Goldsmith in his Citizen of the World (see page 322 of this volume).

ALFRED NOYES

Pp. 740 ff. The work of Alfred Noyes is too well known to need special comment. He has produced a great volume of poetry notable for the variety

and fluency of its rhythms, and he has succeeded in interesting in poetry thousands of readers for whom before it had no attractions.

JAMES ELROY FLECKER

P. 742. Short as Flecker's career was, it showed him as a poet of high imagination and passionate ideals of perfection in form. His most interesting work deals with the Orient, which he knew at Constantinople, Smyrna, and Beirut. See his Collected Poems (1916) or Selected Poems (1918).

RUPERT BROOKE

Pp. 742 ff. Rupert Brooke's early death undoubtedly led to a temporary overvaluation of his poetry; but even when viewed apart from his romantic career, his poetry shows a zest for life and an original turn of mind which warrant its study. The most complete collection of his poems is Collected Poems (1918). Interesting for their reflection of his character and taste are his Letters from America (1916; with a preface by Henry James).

LYTTON STRACHEY

Pp. 746 ff. Mr. Strachey's reputation was securely established by his Life of Queen Victoria (1921). The peculiar nature of his subject gave special opportunity for clear organization, rapid narration, and vivid description, and for his unusual skill in quiet sarcasm. He wrote, moreover, at a time when the world was ripe for an unsentimental view of the great queen who for so many years had been a figure of almost mythical qualities and powers.

TRANSLATIONS OF CLASSICAL AUTHORS

Every student of English poetry should have access to the chief Greek and Latin classics.

Good editions in translation are: Iliad, translated by Pope (Astor ed.,); tr. Lang, Leaf, and Myers (prose). Odyssey, tr. Palmer (prose); tr. Butcher and Lang (prose). Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus, tr. Lang (prose). Vergil, tr. Conington (Astor ed.); tr. Lonsdale and Lee (prose). Ovid (of which Vol. II is the most valuable), Bohn's Library; 3 vols.

Everyman's Library includes Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides (2 vols.), Plato, Horace, etc. Editions of all the classical texts with translations are planned for the Loeb Classical Library (G. P. Putnam's Sons); many of them have already been published.

[blocks in formation]

Bunyan, John, 239

Burke, Edmund, 331
Burns, Robert, 362

Butler, Samuel (1612-1680), 237
Butler, Samuel (1835-1902), 676
Byron, Lord, 443

Campbell, Joseph, 749
Campbell, Thomas, 431
Campion, Thomas, 162
Carew, Thomas, 181
Carpenter, Edward, 694
Carlyle, Thomas, 497
Caxton, William, 86
Chapman, George, 145
Chatterton, Thomas, 353
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 56
Chesterton, Gilbert Keith, 737
Clough, Arthur Hugh, 578
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 396
Collins, William, 319
Colum, Padraic, 750
Conrad, Joseph, 713
Cowley, Abraham, 219
Cowper, William, 336
Crabbe, George, 358
Crashaw, Richard, 214

Daniel, Samuel, 146
Davies, William Henry, 728
Defoe, Daniel, 245
Dekker, Thomas, 166
de la Mare, Walter, 735
Denham, Sir John, 218
De Quincey, Thomas, 434
Dickinson, G. Lowes, 738
Dobell, Sidney, 591
Donne, John, 171

Doughty, Charles Montagu, 689

Dowson, Ernest, 712

Drayton, Michael, 148

Drinkwater, John, 752

Drummond, William, 174

Dryden, John, 222

Dyer, Sir Edward, 160

Dyer, John, 300

Elliot, Jane, 362

Fergusson, Robert, 362
Fitzgerald, Edward, 621
Flecker, James Elroy, 742
Fletcher, John, 173
Ford, John, 175
Foxe, John, 103
Fuller, Thomas, 185

[blocks in formation]

Jacks, Lawrence Pearsall, 717
Jefferies, Richard, 661
Jeffrey, Francis, 416
Johnson, Samuel, 302
Jonson, Ben, 169
Junius, 351

Keats, John, 474
Kipling, Rudyard, 709

Lamb, Charles, 422

Landor, Walter Savage, 487
Langland, William, 24

Lawrence, David Herbert, 742
Layamon, 5

Locke, John, 238

Locker-Lampson,

Frederick, 590

Lodge, Thomas, 129

Lovelace, Richard, 218

Lydgate, John, 73

Lyly, John, 127

Macaulay, Thomas Babington,

510

Macpherson, James, 340
Mallet, David, 301
Malory, Sir Thomas, 84
Mandeville, Sir John, 30
Marlowe, Christopher, 135
Marvell, Andrew, 219
Masefield, John, 734
Meredith, George, 644
Meynell, Alice, 697

Mickle, William Julius, 361

Milton, John, 189
Monro, Harold, 745

Moore, George, 698
Moore, Thomas, 433
More, Sir Thomas, 95

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »