Art principles in literatureDonnelly, Francis P. (Francis Patrick)
Philosophy
Art principles in literature
Donnelly, Francis P. (Francis Patrick)
Aesthetics; Literature
I remember the first time in class that Homer ceased to be for me an
example factory for grammar or a shop for Grecian antiquities. We had
been translating Homer and parsing Homer; we now began to read him. The
change was as easy as it was pleasant. The teacher simply went back
behind the dictionary and the grammar, behind the cases and the tenses,
to the author’s meaning. He made us see the old priest of Apollo walking
along the seashore. He made us realize the fact that he was coming to
speak for his daughter. Our attention was called to the completeness and
appropriateness of his little speech. In a word, we began to move in
the poet’s world. We had used the grammar and dictionary to get there,
but when we reached our destination, we alighted from the train. We
were bound for the land of Homer, not for that of Goodwin or Liddell &
Scott, and the sooner we left our dusty, noisy cars, the better for us.
Our professor knew the translation and knew the grammar, but he had
left them behind him. He was on higher levels, and he threw away his
mountain staff and his guide rope. We were with him there, and we entered
into his enthusiasm for the broad view before us. Homer had been for us
a venerable mausoleum of well-preserved and dignified, but very dead
mummies. His enthusiasm let the life and light into that ancient tomb,
and the mummies took off their wraps and lived and moved. From that day
of resurrection until the present, Homer has lived for me; from that time
I have heard the Homeric heart beat and felt the Homeric pulse throb.
Nor need the teacher who follows these methods have fear that he is going
wrong, or that he is neglecting the proper education of his pupils. He
is achieving, too, concrete results, an achievement that must not be
considered the monopoly of science. Science may not supplant literature
in the school-room. It would be a sad day for both if ever it did. As
regards observation and induction, it has not been our wish to protest
against the use of these methods, but rather against the limiting of
their scope. To observe grammar only or archeology or philology and
neglect the author’s meaning is as ridiculous as to observe the paint and
not the picture, to put a microscope to the marble and not notice the
statue. We do not want less development, rather we want more. Develop the
powers of observation, but do not think that the only powers are the
senses. The world of imagination and the world of thought offer wider
fields for observation than the world of external sense. The horizon of
the mind is not restricted to the sky line that narrows the vision of the
eye.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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