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Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They LivedLong, William J. (William Joseph)

History

Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived

Name: Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived
Author: Long, William J. (William Joseph)

Long, William J. (William Joseph)

American literature -- History and criticism; English literature -- History and criticism

A thousand phantasies
  Begin to throng into my memory,
  Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,
  And airy tongues that syllable men's names
  On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
  These thoughts may startle well but not astound
  The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
  By a strong-siding champion, Conscience.

Again, in _The Tempest_ we meet "the frisky spirit" Ariel, who sings
of his coming freedom from Prospero's service:

  Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
  In a cowslip's bell I lie;
  There I couch when owls do cry.
  On a bat's back I do fly
  After summer merrily:
  Merrily, merrily shall I live now
  Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

[Illustration: LUDLOW CASTLE]

The Attendant Spirit in _Comus_ has something of Ariel's gayety, but
his joy is deeper-seated; he serves not the magician Prospero but the
Almighty, and comes gladly to earth in fulfilment of the divine promise,
"He shall give His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways."
When his work is done he vanishes, like Ariel, but with a song which shows
the difference between the Elizabethan, or Renaissance, conception of
sensuous beauty (that is, beauty which appeals to the physical senses) and
the Puritan's idea of moral beauty, which appeals to the soul:

  Now my task is smoothly done,
  I can fly or I can run
  Quickly to the green earth's end,
  Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend,
  And from thence can soar as soon
  To the corners of the moon.
  Mortals, that would follow me,
  Love Virtue; she alone is free:
  She can teach ye how to climb
  Higher than the sphery chime;
  Or if Virtue feeble were,
  Heaven itself would stoop to her.

[Sidenote: LYCIDAS]

_Lycidas_ (1637), last of the Horton poems, is an elegy occasioned by
the death of one who had been Milton's fellow student at Cambridge. It was
an old college custom to celebrate important events by publishing a
collection of Latin or English poems, and _Lycidas_ may be regarded as
Milton's wreath, which he offered to the memory of his classmate and to his
university. The poem is beautifully fashioned, and is greatly admired for
its classic form; but it is cold as any monument, without a touch of human
grief or sympathy. Probably few modern readers will care for it as they
care for Tennyson's _In Memoriam_, a less perfect elegy, but one into
which love enters as well as art. Other notable English elegies are the
_Thyrsis_ of Matthew Arnold and the _Adonais_ of Shelley.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

History

Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived

Long, William J. (William Joseph)

American literature -- History and criticism; English literature -- History and criticism

A thousand phantasies
  Begin to throng into my memory,
  Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,
  And airy tongues that syllable men's names
  On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
  These thoughts may startle well but not astound
  The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
  By a strong-siding champion, Conscience.

Again, in _The Tempest_ we meet "the frisky spirit" Ariel, who sings
of his coming freedom from Prospero's service:

  Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
  In a cowslip's bell I lie;
  There I couch when owls do cry.
  On a bat's back I do fly
  After summer merrily:
  Merrily, merrily shall I live now
  Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

[Illustration: LUDLOW CASTLE]

The Attendant Spirit in _Comus_ has something of Ariel's gayety, but
his joy is deeper-seated; he serves not the magician Prospero but the
Almighty, and comes gladly to earth in fulfilment of the divine promise,
"He shall give His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways."
When his work is done he vanishes, like Ariel, but with a song which shows
the difference between the Elizabethan, or Renaissance, conception of
sensuous beauty (that is, beauty which appeals to the physical senses) and
the Puritan's idea of moral beauty, which appeals to the soul:

  Now my task is smoothly done,
  I can fly or I can run
  Quickly to the green earth's end,
  Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend,
  And from thence can soar as soon
  To the corners of the moon.
  Mortals, that would follow me,
  Love Virtue; she alone is free:
  She can teach ye how to climb
  Higher than the sphery chime;
  Or if Virtue feeble were,
  Heaven itself would stoop to her.

[Sidenote: LYCIDAS]

_Lycidas_ (1637), last of the Horton poems, is an elegy occasioned by
the death of one who had been Milton's fellow student at Cambridge. It was
an old college custom to celebrate important events by publishing a
collection of Latin or English poems, and _Lycidas_ may be regarded as
Milton's wreath, which he offered to the memory of his classmate and to his
university. The poem is beautifully fashioned, and is greatly admired for
its classic form; but it is cold as any monument, without a touch of human
grief or sympathy. Probably few modern readers will care for it as they
care for Tennyson's _In Memoriam_, a less perfect elegy, but one into
which love enters as well as art. Other notable English elegies are the
_Thyrsis_ of Matthew Arnold and the _Adonais_ of Shelley.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived

Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived

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