THE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM INTRODUCTORY I. ASPECTS OF LITERATURE I SUPPOSE that it will not be denied that comparison lies at the root of all our judgments in art and literature, and that our judgments are valid in proportion as the range of experience on which they are based is of greater or less extent. It is the principle in which Burke finds a foundation for the belief in the existence of a general standard of taste. A man who has never seen a piece of sculpture admires the representations of the human head afforded by a barber's shop; but his admiration for the waxen effigies of the barber is killed by a visit to a studio. The ordinary processes which minister to mental growth and to the training of eye and ear-education, experience, travel, and opportunities of social converse-together provide material which, unconsciously applied, is sufficient to enable us to form approximately correct judgments on every-day questions. In this way we become sensible to the charm of painting and music, learn to distinguish between a harmonious and an inharmonious arrangement of form and colour, and are quickly affected by any sense of incongruity in our social or material surroundings. For all the purposes of every-day life taste will serve. But if we go round a picture gallery with an artist we soon find that while 'taste' makes the sight of these pictures a genuine enjoyment, it will go only a little way towards helping us to discriminate between the relative merits of the several works. Broadly speaking, we do not see much. difference in them. But the artist, or the critic, sees both the excellencies and defects to which our eyes are blind. As with art, so with literature. We read this or that book because, as we say, it 'interests' us, or it 6 amuses' us. Our taste leads us to prefer one book to another, or one branch of literature, or style of writing, to another; but it does not enable us to explain the grounds on which in each case our preferences are based. Some readers do not care to analyze their feelings. For them this book will have little or no interest. But there are othersand they form an increasingly large proportion of the entire mass of readers of books-who have passed beyond the stage of unconscious pleasure, and who wish not merely to read but to study books. For them this book may have an interest, because the study of any form of literature cannot be usefully undertaken without a certain basis of inde pendent knowledge. Inasmuch as literature in its higher forms is an art, the student of literature must be also a critic of literature. As he proceeds in his reading and acquires experience, he will, consciously or unconsciously, assume this attitude. He will not be satisfied with saying, 'This pleases me'; but he will also ask, 'Why does it please me?' and 'Ought it to please me? If these questions are to be answered, the reader must be able to take up a point of view outside the particular work upon which he is engaged. The main purpose of this book is to supply such an independent point of view: a point of view from which not merely a single period, or a single author, can be approached, but one from which all literature, as literature, can be looked upon. In it I have endeavoured to lay before the reader materials which will enable him to see how some great critics, ancient and modern, have approached the consideration of literature. And here I desire to say a word upon the choice of the authors selected. I do not suggest for a moment that the selection which I have made is the best possible, still less that it is complete; but I think that the principle which has guided me in making it is one which will be recognised as intelligible. I have endeavoured to select such critics, or such parts of the works of critical writers, as deal with literature as a whole. That is to say, the inquiries which are here brought together are inquiries which deal primarily with principles of criticism, and, only in a secondary degree, with the application of those principles to the examination of particular works. At the same time, in the analyses and extracts which I have placed before the reader, I have endeavoured to indicate the relationship of one method to another, and to some extent to harmonize the different points of view from which master minds have regarded literature. Indeed, one conspicuous result of the comparison afforded by these pages will, I trust, be to establish the fact that validity of judgment is not to be assigned to any single test; but that a work of literature must often be approached from more than one side, and that a true account of its merits or deficiencies can only be given by applying several tests, and these tests in degrees which vary with the character of the given work. In the case of one book it may be best to apply the test of truth, and ask with Plato, 'Is the body of information which this book conveys consistent with the facts of life?' In the case of another it may be best to apply the test of symmetry, and ask with Aristotle, 'Is this work constructed in the best possible manner, having regard both to the form of literature to which it belongs, and the common purpose of art, which is to give pleasure?' And, moreover, if we adopt the former of these two central principles, we shall find that we must go further than Plato takes us; for we must distinguish between the truth of art and the truth of logic. In } the case of a work of poetry and of prose-fiction we Similarly, in adopting the artistic standpoint and in applying the test of symmetry, we have to notice that the symmetry required of each art, and of each form of the several arts, is different. Symmetry,' from this closer standpoint, becomes 'composition '; for constructive excellence is resolved into an adaptation of the special means of the special art to the particular purpose which it seeks to fulfil. And in order to judge of this excellence-excellence of technique-we must have a knowledge of these |