Adventures in Criticism

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Adventures in Criticism, by Sir Arthur Thomas

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Title: Adventures in Criticism
Author: Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Release Date: January 3, 2006 [eBook #17452]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
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Transcriber's Note: Brief Greek phrases appear in the original text in three places. They have been transliterated and placed between +marks+.

ADVENTURES IN CRITICISM
by
A. T. QUILLER-COUCH

New York Charles Scribner's Sons Copyright, 1896 Trow Directory Printing and Bookbinding Company New York

To
A.B. WALKLEY
MY DEAR A.B.W.
The short papers which follow have been reprinted, with a few alterations, from The Speaker. Possibly you knew this without my telling you. Possibly, too, you have sat in a theatre before now and seen the curtain rise on two characters exchanging information which must have been their common property for years. So this dedication is partly designed to save me the trouble of writing a formal preface.
As I remember then, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed us by destiny to write side by side in The Speaker every week, you about Plays and I about Books. Three years ago you found time to arrange a few of your writings in a notable volume of Playhouse Impressions. Some months ago I searched the files of the paper with a similar design, and read my way through an astonishing amount of my own composition. Noble edifice of toil! It stretched away in imposing proportions and vanishing perspective--week upon week--two columns to the week! The mischief was, it did not appear to lead to anything: and for the first mile or two even the casual graces of the colonnade were hopelessly marred through that besetting fault of the young journalist, who finds no satisfaction in his business of making bricks without straw unless he can go straightway and heave them at somebody.
Still (to drop metaphor), I have chosen some papers which I hope may be worth a second reading. They are fragmentary, by force of the conditions under which they were produced: but perhaps the fragments may here and there suggest the outline of a first principle. And I dedicate the book to you because it would be strange if the time during which we have appeared in print side by side had brought no sense of comradeship. Though, in fact, we live far apart and seldom get speech together, more than one of these papers--ostensibly addressed to anybody whom they might concern--has been privately, if but sub-consciously, intended for you.
A.T.Q.C.

CONTENTS
CHAUCER 1
"THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM" 29
SHAKESPEARE'S LYRICS 39
SAMUEL DANIEL 48
WILLIAM BROWNE 59
THOMAS CAREW 67
"ROBINSON CRUSOE" 75
LAWRENCE STERNE 90
SCOTT AND BURNS 103
CHARLES READE 124
HENRY KINGSLEY 131
ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE 141
C.S.C. AND J.K.S 147
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 156
M. ZOLA 192
SELECTION 198
EXTERNALS 204
CLUB TALK 222
EXCURSIONISTS IN POETRY 229
THE POPULAR CONCEPTION OF A POET 235
POETS ON THEIR OWN ART 245
THE ATTITUDE OF THE
PUBLIC TOWARDS LETTERS 254
A CASE OF BOOKSTALL CENSORSHIP 267
THE POOR LITTLE PENNY DREADFUL 276
IBSEN'S "PEER GYNT" 283
MR. SWINBURNE'S LATER MANNER 297
A MORNING WITH A BOOK 306
MR. JOHN DAVIDSON 314
BJOERNSTERNE BJOERNSON 332
MR. GEORGE MOORE 341
MRS. MARGARET L. WOODS 349
MR. HALL CAINE 368
MR. ANTHONY HOPE 377
"TRILBY" 384
MR. STOCKTON 391
BOW-WOW 399
OF SEASONABLE NUMBERS 404

ADVENTURES IN CRITICISM

CHAUCER
March 17, 1894. Professor Skeat's Chaucer.
After twenty-five years of close toil, Professor Skeat has completed his great edition of Chaucer.[A] It is obviously easier to be dithyrambic than critical in chronicling this event; to which indeed dithyrambs are more appropriate than criticism. For when a man writes Opus vitae meae at the conclusion of such a task as this, and so lays down his pen, he must be a churl (even if he be also a competent critic) who will allow no pause for admiration. And where, churl or no churl, is the competent critic to be found? The Professor has here compiled an entirely new text of Chaucer, founded solely on the manuscripts and the earliest printed editions that are accessible. Where Chaucer has translated, the originals have been carefully studied: "the requirements of metre and grammar have been carefully considered throughout": and "the phonology and spelling of every word have received particular attention." We may add that all the materials for a Life of Chaucer have been sought out, examined, and pieced together with exemplary care.
All this has taken Professor Skeat twenty-five years, and in order to pass competent judgment on his conclusions the critic must follow him step by step through his researches--which will take the critic (even if we are charitable enough to suppose his mental equipment equal to Professor