Literary Taste: How to Form It: With Detailed Instructions for Collecting a Complete Library of English LiteratureBennett, Arnold
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Literary Taste: How to Form It: With Detailed Instructions for Collecting a Complete Library of English Literature
Bennett, Arnold
Best books -- Great Britain; Book collecting -- Great Britain; Books and reading -- Great Britain; English literature -- Bibliography
Fourth: Open the Bible and read the fortieth chapter of Isaiah.
It is the chapter which begins, "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people,"
and ends, "They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk
and not faint." This chapter will doubtless be more or less
familiar to you. It cannot fail (whatever your particular *ism*)
to impress you, to generate in your mind sensations which you recognise
to be of a lofty and unusual order, and which you will admit
to be pleasurable. You will probably agree that the result
of reading this chapter (even if your particular *ism*
is opposed to its authority) is finer than the result of reading
a short story in a magazine or even an essay by Charles Lamb.
Now the pleasurable sensations induced by the fortieth chapter
of Isaiah are among the sensations usually induced by high-class poetry.
The writer of it was a very great poet, and what he wrote
is a very great poem. Fifth: After having read it, go back to Hazlitt,
and see if you can find anything in Hazlitt's lecture which throws light
on the psychology of your own emotions upon reading Isaiah.
Sixth: The next step is into unmistakable verse. It is to read
one of Wordsworth's short narrative poems, *The Brothers*.
There are editions of Wordsworth at a shilling, but I should advise
the "Golden Treasury" Wordsworth (2s. 6d. net), because it contains
the famous essay by Matthew Arnold, who made the selection.
I want you to read this poem aloud. You will probably have to hide
yourself somewhere in order to do so, for, of course, you would not,
as yet, care to be overheard spouting poetry. Be good enough
to forget that *The Brothers* is poetry. *The Brothers* is a short story,
with a plain, clear plot. Read it as such. Read it simply for the story.
It is very important at this critical stage that you should not
embarrass your mind with preoccupations as to the *form* in which
Wordsworth has told his story. Wordsworth's object was to tell
a story as well as he could: just that. In reading aloud do not pay
any more attention to the metre than you feel naturally inclined to pay.
After a few lines the metre will present itself to you. Do not worry
as to what kind of metre it is. When you have finished the perusal,
examine your sensations....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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