The Meaning of LiteratureC. Scribner's sons, 1925 - 346 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
action actual appreciation artistic attitude beauty become bring characters comes common complete concerned constructed critic definitely drama effect effort elements emotion English epic especially essay experience expression familiar feeling figurative final follow forces give given hand human ideal ideas imagery images imagination incidents individual intensity interest interpretation kind knowledge language less light literary literature lives lyric manner matter meaning mind mood moved nature never notion novel objective passion pattern perhaps play pleasure plot poem poet poetry possible present prose reader reason represent rhythm sense sentence setting short story significant single soul speak stage student style suggestion sure tell things thought tion tragedy true truth understanding usually whole writing
Popular passages
Page 90 - mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean.
Page 63 - WE cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides ; The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides.
Page 136 - She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A Maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love : A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye! Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky.
Page 23 - We are aware of evanescent visitations of thought and feeling, sometimes associated with place or person, sometimes regarding our own mind alone, and always arising unforeseen and departing unbidden, but elevating and delightful beyond all expression : so that even in the desire and the regret they leave, there cannot but be pleasure, participating as it does in the nature of its object.
Page 9 - On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more.
Page 327 - In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.
Page 234 - Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.
Page 306 - Reaper Behold her, single in the field, Yon solitary Highland Lass! Reaping and singing by herself; Stop here, or gently pass! Alone she cuts and binds the grain, And sings a melancholy strain; 0 listen! for the Vale profound Is overflowing with the sound.
Page 207 - Thus the field of this species of composition, if not in so elevated a region on the mountain of Mind, is a table-land of far vaster extent than the domain of the mere poem. Its products are never so rich, but infinitely more numerous, and more appreciable by the mass of mankind.
Page 205 - In the whole composition there should be no word written of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one preestablished design.