EDITORIAL NOTE "THE ANCIENT MARINER" and "THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL" have for some time been among the books recommended for reading in the secondary schools. The two poems may well be studied together. They have things about them that are alike, and things that are different, and therefore may readily be compared so as to cultivate the literary taste by a definite, systematic method. This is, of course, not the only way of cultivating the taste; in fact it is not the best way from a purely general standpoint. The best way to cultivate one's literary taste is, probably, to be much with people who love literature and to read, much of the best literature one's self. But where one cannot do that, as in the class-room, the other plan, the plan of carefully cultivating the taste by some definite method, seems to promise most. One well-understood method is that of comparison. By a careful comparison of two or more masterpieces, we may succeed in determining their essential characteristics, and having determined them, we shall be able to recognize them again when we meet them, and perhaps to feel their essential quality. If we put these poems together and ask, How are they alike and how do they differ? we shall observe several things. In respect to substance each of the two poems has a story and an idea; and in each the story is a romantic one, something that stirs our sense of wonder and beauty, and the idea one of deep moral significance, one that aims to get beneath the thoughts of everyday intercourse into the springs and secrets of life itself. Look a little into each. The story of the young knight who went out in golden armor to seek for the Holy Grail, and returned broken with years and troubles to find at his own castle gate what he had sought so long, is such a tale as one might find in the mediæval romances of King Arthur. The story of the sailor who brought a curse upon himself and his shipmates by killing a bird that had sought refuge on their ship, and who expiates that wrong by a strange and bitter experience, is an imaginative creation very different. Yet different as the stories are, they seem alike when we compare them with the story of Sir Roger de Coverley or the Vicar of Wakefield. These last are figures of the real world, though not of the world we know; the others are figures of romance.1 The two ideas are also of the same character. The conception of heartfelt love as the true spirit of the Saviour of the world, and the conception of an all-embracing love as the true prayer, the true approach to God, are both ideas for the guidance of the practical life, and both are ideas that dip beneath the surface of life and get something that does not appear to every-day view. The precise connection of story and idea is one of the most difficult subjects for literary study. If one thinks of the story only as a means of conveying thought, one must lose much. So also if one thinks of the story only, without any idea at all. In each case, probably, the idea was one often in the poet's mind. With Lowell this was certainly the case; with Coleridge we cannot be so sure, although the idea has much in common with the poet's early thinking and with many thoughts of the time. It seems probable that in "Sir Launfal” the idea was really the moulding force, while with "The Ancient Mariner "it was less influential. Still in neither case is it the bare idea that has made the poem. In each the poetic imagination has given the idea a form which for the time 1 For further comment on the romantic movement, see p. xxii. 2 Compare "A Parable" noted on p. xxxviii and "The Search " printed on p. 49. seems all-important. After the time of reading, when the original interest is less strongly in mind, one thinks of the idea which then perhaps takes something of a place by itself in our thoughts. As to the literary form of the poems there is more difference. Both are written under the influence of the so-called ballad movement. In "The Ancient Mariner" the ballad spirit is everywhere prominent, as is pointed out on p. xxviii. Its directness of narrative, its repetitions, its language, its metrical form, all are fully in the spirit of the ballads that Coleridge found in Percy's Reliques. Lowell was farther away in time from the original inspiration, and his poem, therefore, has less of the ballad spirit. The subject of a knightly quest is full of the spirit of old popular poetry, and there are a few archaic words and phrases, but otherwise it has but little of the ballad about it. "Sir Launfal," however, though lacking the ballad element, has much else: it has a rather elaborate structure, it has the more figured form of literary poetry, the rich description of nature which one never finds in ballads. It is full of imagination which expresses itself richly and freely, as in the passages on nature, rather than in the suggestive manner of the ballad. If we read these two poems together we shall see how they are alike and yet different. That will call our attention to certain things: the farther we go in such comparisons, the more correctly shall we make them, the more sure will be our appreciation of the true things of interest in the poem. For one of the great things in poetic appreciation is to feel keenly each thing for itself, as different from others. We do not want to confuse these two poems, to think that they are much the same sort of thing without separate individuality or character, any more than we should want to confuse our friends and think it was all the same which of them was with us. We want to know each for itself. Yet all poetry has some |