1705039468 And over is their antique joy—

1705039469

1705039470 and I say that those lines are beautiful because they give me pleasure. But why? No answer! I only know that the passionate few will broadly agree with me in deriving this mysterious pleasure from these lines. I am only convinced that the liveliness of our pleasure in those and many other lines by the same author will ultimately cause the majority to believe, by faith, that W. B. Yeats is a genius. The one reassuring aspect of the literary affair is that the passionate few are passionate about the same things. A continuance of interest does, in actual practice, lead ultimately to the same judgments. There is only the difference in width of interest. Some of the passionate few lack catholicity, or, rather, the whole of their interest is confined to one narrow channel; they have none left over. These men help specially to vitalize the reputations of the narrower geniuses, such as Crashaw. But their active predilections never contradict the general verdict of the passionate few; rather they reënforce it.

1705039471

1705039472 A classic is a work which gives pleasure to the minority which is intensely and permanently interested in literature. It lives on because the minority, eager to renew the sensation of pleasure, is eternally curious and is therefore engaged in an eternal process of rediscovery. A classic does not survive for any ethical reason. It does not survive because it conforms to certain canons, or because neglect would not kill it. It survives because it is a source of pleasure, and because the passionate few can no more neglect it than a bee can neglect a flower. The passionate few do not read “the right things” because they are right. That is to put the cart before the horse.“The right things” are the right things solely because the passionate few like reading them. Hence—and I now arrive at my point—the one primary essential to literary taste is a hot interest in literature. If you have that, all the rest will come. It matters nothing that at present you fail to find pleasure in certain classics. The driving impulse of your interest will force you to acquire experience, and experience will teach you the use of the means of pleasure. You do not know the secret ways of yourself: that is all. A continuance of interest must inevitably bring you to the keenest joys. But, of course, experience may be acquired judiciously or injudiciously, just as Putney may be reached via Walham Green or via St.Petersburg.

1705039473

1705039474 Notes

1705039475

1705039476 perfunctory, done merely as a duty; performed mechanically and as a thing of rote or carelessly and superficially; marked by indifference.

1705039477

1705039478 spasmodic, acting or proceeding fitfully or intermittently; lacking continuity of effort, production.

1705039479

1705039480 Bishop Stubbs’s “Select Charters.” William Stubbs （1825-1901）, English bishop and historian, professor of modern history at Oxford, 1866-1884. His most famous work is his Constitutional History of England （1874-1878）.

1705039481

1705039482 whit, bit, iota.

1705039483

1705039484 classical authors, writers of the first rank, especially in literature and art, classical because their works have become classics.

1705039485

1705039486 Shakespeare, William （1564-1616）, the greatest of the English poets and dramatists.

1705039487

1705039488 sequel, that which follows, continuation; hence, consequence, effect, result.

1705039489

1705039490 savoring, tasting, relishing.

1705039491

1705039492 placidly, calmly, quietly.

1705039493

1705039494 memory-jogging, calling to mind; reminding.

1705039495

1705039496 stage effects, stage sceneries and tricks intended to produce certain impressions.

1705039497

1705039498 “King Lear” or “Hamlet,” both plays by Shakespeare, both tragedies.

1705039499

1705039500 cynicism, sneering at goodness and given to tearing off the veil from human weakness; mental state, opinion, or conduct of a person who believes that human conduct is directed, either consciously or unconsciously, wholly by self-interest or serf-indulgence.

1705039501

1705039502 tedious, tiresomely long and slow and dull.

1705039503

1705039504 popular clatter, noisy talk of the multitude.

1705039505

1705039506 Keats, John （1795-1821）, English romantic poet.

1705039507

1705039508 airy manner, loose irresponsible way; reasoning in a superficial way.

1705039509

1705039510 beauty is truth, truth beauty, from Keats’s “Ode to the Grecian Urn” （1820） 11, 49-50.

1705039511

1705039512 Hazlitt, William （1778-1830）, English critic and miscellaneous writer.

1705039513

1705039514 Sainte Beuve, Charles Augustin （1804-1869）, French literary critic.

1705039515

1705039516 The woods of Arcady are dead, And over is their antique joy —These are the opening lines of “The Song of the Happy Shepherd” by William Butler Yeats （1865-1939）, Irish poet and author.

1705039517

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