Fairy tales must have certain qualities which belong to all literature
as a fine art, whether it is the literature of knowledge or the
literature of power. Literature is not the book nor is it life; but
literature is the sense of life, whose artist is the author, and the
medium he uses is words, language. It is good art when his sense of
life is truth, and fine art when there is beauty in that truth. The
one essential beauty of literature is in its essence and does not
depend upon any decoration. As words are the medium, literature will
distinguish carefully among them and use them as the painter, for
particular lights and shades. According to Pater literature must have
two qualities, mind and soul. Literature will have mind when it has
that architectural sense of structure which foresees the end in the
beginning and keeps all the parts related in a harmonious unity. It
will have soul when it has that "vagrant sympathy" which makes it come
home to us and which makes it suggest what it does not say. Test the
_Tale of Cinderella_ by this standard. As to mind, it makes one think
of a bridge in which the very keystone of the structure is the
condition that Cinderella return from the ball by the stroke of
twelve. And its "vagrant sympathy" is quite definite enough to reach a
maid of five, who remarked: "If I'd have been Cinderella, I wouldn't
have helped those ugly sisters, would you?"
If the fairy tale stands the test of literature it must have proved
itself, not only a genuine classic according to Sainte-Beuve's
standard, and a tale possessing qualities of mind and soul according
to Pater's _Style_, but it must have shown itself also a work owning
certain features distinguishing it as literature. These particular
literary marks which differentiate the literary tale from the ordinary
prose tale have been pointed out by Professor Winchester in his
_Principles of Literary Criticism_. They apply to the old tale of
primitive peoples just as well as to the modern tale of to-day. As
literature the tale must have:
(1) a power to appeal to the emotions;
(2) a power to appeal to the imagination;
(3) a basis of truth; and
(4) a form more or less perfect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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