A Study of English and American Poets A Laboratory Method Classic Reprint

Excerpt from A Study of English and American Poets: A Laboratory Method

The kindly reception accorded to the author's Study of English Prose Writers, published in 1898, seems to warrant the appearance of this complementary volume, which was foreshadowed in the preface to the Prose Writers. As the method involved is somewhat distinctive, it seems wise to make some repetitions from that preface. A certain amount of repetition will be found, also, in the chapters on Milton, Lowell, and Holmes.

It is generally admitted by teachers of English that, after one has learned to avoid the conimon violations of clearness, force, precision, and the other requisites of good style, he may best improve his own use of the mother-tongue by studying the English Classics. But how is one to study the English classics so as to obtain positive and appreciable results? This volume represents an attempt to answer that question so far as it applies to the poets concerned. Certainly, the question has not been answered satisfactorily by the numerous text-books on English literature nor by the countless editions of English classics with notes. To memorize biographical data or the generalities and negations of criticism, or to trace out Obscure allusions or doubtful meanings, is certainly not to study a writer in any broad or fruitful way. While the method here offered may not be ideal, it is not merely theoretical. It has been rigidly and continuously tested in the author's class-room during the last twelve years by means of a partially developed manuscript, printed privately for the use of his own pupils, and again in his published volume on the Prose Writers.

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