I V LAFCADIO HEARN I T seems a curiously roundabout way of arousing interest in our literature in the young people of our own country, but I have proved by experience that the best books of criticism on English literature for beginners are Lafcadio Hearn's Interpretations of Literature, and Appreciations of Poetry, lectures intended solely for Japanese students, put, for that purpose, into the simplest possible language. Extremely modest about his own attainments, "I know very little about English literature, and never could learn very much "—he taught it as the expression of emotion and sentiment as the representation of life. He based it altogether upon appeals to the imagination. He held the chair of English in the University of Tokyo from 1896 to 1902. For six years he was the interpreter of the Western world to Japan, and it is singularly fortunate that the Western world had so dignified, so broad-minded, so idealistic an interpreter. He used no notes in his lectures, but dictated slowly out of his head: knowing himself to be no scholar, and having no belief in his critical powers, he did not think his lectures worth printing: he spent no time in analysing technique, but went straight to the heart of his subject and treated it as an emotional experience, as a total expression of racial endeavour, in which ideas, however abstract, often control conduct, and in which conduct often explains ideas: he was a devoted Spencerian, and had a weird power of assimilating books which he passionately loved. That is all that we are told of him in the preface to these volumes: it remains to be seen how far his lectures throw light on his character. 66 : : He begins by explaining what he calls "the insuperable difficulty," the understanding on the part of the Japanese of the position of women in Western civilisation. The highest duty of the man is not to his father, but to his wife every man is bound by conviction and by opinion to put all women before himself, simply because they are women . . . in time of danger the woman must be saved first in time of pleasure the woman must be given the best place; this first place is given almost religiously so you understand that woman is a cult, a religion, a god: men bow down before women, make all kinds of sacrifices to please them, beg for their good will and assistance. The man who hopes to succeed in life must be able to please the women-yet it is quite possible to worship an image sincerely, and to seek vengeance upon it in a moment of anger (hence wifebeating) this feeling of worship did not belong to the Greek and Roman civilisation, but it belonged to the life of the old northern races-in the oldest Scandinavian literature you will find that women were thought of and treated by men of the north very much as they are thought of and treated by Englishmen of to-day. Consider how the great mass of Western poetry is love poetry, and the greater part of Western fiction love stories. This feeling of worship has not originated in any sensuous idea, but in some very ancient superstitious idea." Having so far cleared the way for a perception of our ideas, he proceeds to lecture on "The Question of the Highest Art." Art he defines as the emotional expression of life: "The highest form of art is that which makes you feel generous, willing to sacrifice yourself, makes you eager to attempt some noble undertaking. Moral beauty, as Spencer says, is far superior to intellectual beauty, as intellectual beauty transcends physical beauty: human love is a useful example: as the sudden impulse to unselfishness, to endure anything, to attempt anything difficult or dangerous for the person beloved, is one of the first signs of true love, so it is with art." "I should say that the highest form of art must necessarily be such art as produces upon the beholder the same moral effect that the passion of love produces in a generous lover. . . Such an art ought to fill men even with a passionate desire to give up life, pleasure, everything, for the sake of some grand and noble purpose. Drama, poetry, great romance or fiction, in other words, great literature, may attempt the supreme, and very probably will do so at some future time." On the vexed subject of the interpretation of "Classical" and "Romantic " he has much that is useful to say. "Classic work means work constructed according to old rules which have been learnt from the Greek and Latin masters of literature, . . . in other words the classicists say that you have no right whatever to choose your own forms of literary expression, while the romanticists urge that it is right and artistic to choose whatever form of literary expression an author may prefer, provided only that the form be beautiful and correct; the great mistake which the champions of classical feeling made in England was that of considering language as something fixed and perfected, completely evolved; so that the romanticist retorts that the classical people wish to stop all progress. It is only, however, out of the quarrelling of the two schools that any literary progress can grow." 66 He advises his audience to disregard the proverb medio tutissimus ibis, and plunge into extremes, to take sides vigorously in the conflict: reforms are made by the vigour and the courage and the selfsacrifice and the emotional conviction of young men who do not know enough to be afraid, and who feel much more deeply than they think: feelings are more important than cold reasoning. It is a good sign in the young to be a little imprudent, a little extravagant, a little violent: too much of the middle course is a bad sign. It does not matter at all which side you choose: conservatism has done much, and liberalism has done still more: every alternation of the literary battle results in making the romantic spirit more classic, and the classic spirit more romantic: each learns from the other by opposing it." It is obvious that Hearn's own sympathies lie entirely with the romantic school, and he urges his hearers to attempt to write great books in the language of the common people. Reverting to Europe he shows them how the vested interests, the Universities, the Church, and Society, have always ranged themselves on the side of conservatism, and points out that the opposition to change was so great that only the most extraordinary man dared to break through: "Literary style means personal character: romanticism aims at developing a personality, while classicism represses it; so the question resolves itself into that of Personality in literature: Personality in its highest form signifies genius, and so you will find that the vast majority of great writers are Romanticists: but there are dangers : the great genius can afford to dispense with any discipline which impedes its activity: thousands of young men want to be romantic mainly because romanticism represents for them the line of least resistance. Even to do anything according to classical rules requires considerable literary training and literary patience .. so you will find that the same man might very consistently be at one period of his life in favour of classicism and at another in favour of romanticism.” Having delivered judgment on these general themes he turns his attention to individual writers, beginning with Crabbe, of whom he writes more interestingly than any other critic I have ever read. Hearn's most potent faculty is that of driving us straight back to read the writers of whom he speaks so engagingly. He points out the realism of Crabbe, and shows us that one of the first signs of realism is the absence of variety in style: "What we like in him is his-great force and truth and pithiness of expression: he depicts, in all its naked misery, the cottage of the poor farm-labourer, the dirt, the misery, the diseasethe country girl, once pretty, then seduced, and abandoned; the strain of labour exacted in the fields, the exhausted state of the men and women at nights; the rapid decay of strength among them, their inability to save money, the hopelessness of their old age" he quotes those well-known lines on a country parson by a country parson which I cannot forbear from repeating: A jovial youth, who thinks his Sunday's task |