Tests of Literature - HELL - Unit I

 

[alert-success] HEL - William J. Long [/alert-success]

[alert-warn] UNIT I : INTRODUCTION - THE MEANING OF LITERATURE[/alert-warn]

[alert-primary] Tests of Literature[/alert-primary]

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         Literature at first, has universality. It appeal to broad human interests and simple emotions. Though we speak of national and race,  literature knows no nationality nor any bounds. It focuses on basic human passions and emotions, such as love, hate, joy, sorrow, fear, and faith. The more it reflects these emotions, the more it affects people of all races.         

        Every father must respond to the prodigal son parable; wherever men are heroic, they will acknowledge Homer's mastery; wherever a man thinks on the strange phenomenon of evil in the world, he will find his own thoughts in the Book of Job; wherever men love their children, they must be moved by Oedipus and King Lear. All these are examples of the law that a book or song only becomes permanent if it appeals to universal human interest.  

        The second test is expressed as "style." Style is only "the adequate expression of thought" or "the peculiar manner of expressing thought" mechanically. Style is the writer's personality expressed unconsciously. It's one man's soul reflecting, like a mirror, humanity's thoughts and feelings.  

        As no glass is colourless, but tints its reflections, so no author can interpret human life without unconsciously giving it his soul's color. Style is highly personal. Every permanent book has objective and subjective elements, universal and personal, deep thought and feeling of the race coloured by the writer's life and experience.

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