For several years the editors of this work have been associated in teaching English literature to college students. The course which to them presented the greatest difficulty was the Introduction to Literature required of students who did not intend to make a special study of English, and who took, therefore, only the required general course. For such students the historical survey method, with its emphasis upon sources, developments, and periods, seemed ill-adapted. The average student who does not specialize in literature is less interested in its history than he is in its meaning, content, and forms. The editors believe he will profit most by a course which does not elevate to the first place historical details, reserving for that preeminence stress on the meaning and value of what he reads. His permanent gain from the course should be an understanding of literature, a love for it, and an abiding desire to continue to read the best after his instructor has ceased to prod him.

For such a course the most satisfactory textbook is naturally a whole library. Students in very small classes may be depended upon to use the college reading-room in preparing their assignments, or may be urged to buy books freely. Ordinarily, however, the classes in required introductory courses are large, and the students' purchasing power is sharply limited; under such conditions the use of a textbook containing an adequate body of material is imperative. The present work is the result of the editors' desire to provide a satisfactory textbook for such classes as have been described. A brief explanation of the theory and plan of the anthology will make their objective clearer.

The title of the work, Ideas and Forms in English and American Literature, sums up the principles which have guided the editors in the selection of their material; their emphasis is upon

content and type and not upon historical development. Selection and arrangement in an anthology which is designed for use in a course in the historical development of literature naturally follow a chronological plan throughout, and such a work possesses, in the mere arrangement by dates, a clear articulation. On the other hand, the editors of a text which is designed primarily to present the substance of literature and to illustrate its dominant forms must seek some other scheme, some logical plan in addition to the chronological order; otherwise the result will be a collection rather than a selection of specimens and will provide only a literary garret, among the odds and ends of which the student will wander confused and discouraged. In the present work the editors have had in mind, throughout, the dominant ideas and the prevailing moods in literature as these have manifested themselves in various predominating types or forms.

Whether, with Arnold Bennett, literature is defined as life, or, with Matthew Arnold, as criticism of life, makes no great difference; literature is the artistic interpretation of life, in all its manifestations, through the instrumentality of language. Sometimes the literary artist represents life as it is, or as he thinks it is; sometimes he represents it ideally, as he thinks it should be. But through the current of literature run all the elements of life, all the ideas, moods, and motives of man; and every reader tries more or less consciously to relate his reading to his own knowledge, feeling, and experience. In making their selections, accordingly, the editors have been guided in part by those dominant ideas and moods which seem to belong to every period and to manifest themselves in every literary type. The text has been designed to show how, for example, the universal subjects of youth and age, life and

death, beauty and decay, and the various other conceptions, interests, and emotions of mankind run current through all literature, subject to whatever modifications the time-spirit may decree. These universal subjects appear in epic and ballad, lyric, short story, drama, and other forms which serve to contain and preserve the writers' interpretations of life. The extent to which the editors have been guided by a consideration of theme and mood will appear from an examination of the headnotes and footnotes, the index, and the topics for study, discussion, and report.

The considerations of content and mood which have helped to guide the editors in making their selections have resulted further in the inclusion of modern as well as older literature. Literature should be thought of as a stream which flows out of the past down to our very feet. The conception of some students, therefore, that great literature is only of the present and that of some teachers that it is entirely of the past are equally fallacious. Both old and new appear together in this work, and every dominant type of literature that is still employed as a literary form is illustrated by selections that have stood the test of time and by new ones that promise to be of permanent value. The relative proportions of old and new vary, of course, in the different divisions; the editors' inclination has been, however, to include modern and current literature freely, and every chapter, except the epic and the medieval romance, contains abundant examples of life as living writers are interpreting it.

In one particular the editors have made a deliberate restriction; they have included only English and American literature. The following considerations led to this decision. Some types of literature, as for example, lyric and narrative poetry, cannot be adequately exhibited in translations; even prose forms such as the essay and short story lose much of their spirit and flavor when transferred to another tongue. Moreover, there is no subject or mood and no dominant type which cannot be

illustrated satisfactorily in English and American examples. Little of importance is to be lost, therefore, by the restriction, and much is to be gained, on the other hand, by the focus of attention upon the literature of one race. The only point at which the restriction created some misgivings in the minds of the editors was in the early narrative forms; the exclusion of the Homeric epics and of the European continental romances seemed unusual. In the epic chapter the difficulty was met by including one of the great Celtic sagas. The deliberate introduction here and elsewhere in the work, of Celtic side by side with English and American literature is, the editors believe, unique in books of this type but entirely justifiable. There is really no reason why the Celtic spirit, which has contributed so much to literature in the English tongue, should have been so long unrecognized in college classes in literature.

Classification and arrangement have been by literary types rather than by ideas and moods, since such classification is simpler and results in a better integration of the material. It is believed that, with the exception of the novel, all dominant forms are represented. The novel was omitted because of the impossibility of illustrating the type except by totally inadequate excerpts. Certain other forms, such as the oration and the letter, were omitted partly because the editors do not regard them as dominant types and partly that space might be saved for the fuller development of more important sections. Satire, since it appears in all types, is not itself a form of literature. The drama could not here be fully illustrated; the three one-act plays given are complete, however, and serve to show one direction which current playwrighting has taken. With few exceptions, the selections included are complete; where any cuts have been made, the omissions have been carefully indicated. Among the types there is, of course, some overlapping. For example, it is difficult to decide whether to put a narrative poem with a strongly lyric tone

or a lyric poem with a narrative basis among the narrative poems or among the lyric poems. Similarly a biographical essay is both biography and essay. Literary craftsmen are seldom particular to follow the strict definition of the type, and in modern literature, particularly, type distinctions have tended to break down or run together. On the whole, however, it is believed that the classifications have been clearly made and will be found useful.

A separate chapter has been devoted to each major type, and these divisions have been arranged in an order determined partly by historical development and partly by logical relationships. Thus Chapters I-V are devoted to poetry while Chapters VI-X are devoted to prose. Epic poetry, as the oldest type, appears in the first chapter, and the chapters which treat other forms of narrative poetry follow immediately. Similarly, in the second part of the text the short story comes at the end because it is the newest of literary types. Within each chapter the arrangement of selections is chronological; this seemed the natural and logical arrangement, inasmuch as literature is largely evolutionary in development, and a consideration of the content and forms of one period oftens throws much light upon those of a later day. For this reason many of the chapters, such, for example, as those devoted to the ballad, the lyric, and the essay, are fairly adequate surveys of the evolution of these types in England and America. The space devoted to the lyric may seem excessive, but in no other type can the development of the ideas of the English people be so intimately and clearly traced, together with a corresponding development of literary form.

A word must be said about the apparatus which accompanies the selections. Each group of selections which illustrates a major type is preceded by an introductory essay that is intended to define the type, indicate its place in literature, and sketch its history briefly. This essay is meant to be suggestive rather than exhaustive, to stimulate

rather than to satisfy curiosity. For a fuller study of the nature of the type the student may turn to the books listed in the bibliographies at the ends of the various chapters; these bibliographies list some of the most important volumes which define or illustrate the literary forms, but they are not meant to be complete. In the headnotes and in the footnotes to the different selections the editors have tried to be helpful to the student without at the same time making it unnecessary for him to refer to dictionaries and other helps with which he should become acquainted. In writing the notes, moreover, the editors have not forgotten that it is the instructor's privilege and duty to explain and interpret the material read, and they have been careful not to encroach upon the teacher's territory. Finally, topics for discussion and reports were included, because the editors believe that a thorough study of literature can be accomplished only when the students are forced to think independently and to make discoveries and draw conclusions for themselves. An effort has been made to present in these lists topics which are fresh in idea and which can be dealt with satisfactorily only by independent reading and study; those which tempt the student to seek for his material in critical sources and to express the opinions of others have usually been omitted. The lists of topics are necessarily brief; instructors will add others which may seem to them more fitting.

As has been said, it is not the wish of the editors to encroach upon the instructor's privileges of using this body of literary material in whatever manner he may see fit. However, for the guidance of those teachers who may wish to make a definite study-plan the following suggestions are offered.

In general, the Table of Contents may be used as an outline guide for the course. The material is divided into three parts of approximately equal length-(1) Narrative Poetry; (2) Lyric Poetry; (3) Prose. In a college year consisting of three terms, one term may be