Platform Monologues

Platform Monologues, by T. G.
Tucker

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Title: Platform Monologues
Author: T. G. Tucker
Release Date: August 2, 2006 [EBook #18969]
Language: English
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PLATFORM MONOLOGUES
By

T. G. TUCKER
LITT.D. (CAMB.); HON. LITT.D. (DUBLIN) Professor of Classical
Philology in the University of Melbourne
MELBOURNE THOMAS C. LOTHIAN 1914 PRINTED IN
ENGLAND
Copyright. First Edition May, 1914.

PREFACE
The following monologues were given as public addresses, mostly to
semi-academical audiences, and no alteration has been made in their
form. Their common object has been to plead the cause of literary study
at a time when that study is being depreciated and discouraged. But
along with the general plea must go some indication that literature can
be studied as well as read. Hence some of the articles attempt--what
must always be a difficult task--the crystallizing of the salient
principles of literary judgment.
The present collection has been made because the publisher believes
that a sufficiently large number of intelligent persons will be interested
in reading it. On the whole that appears to be at least as good a reason
as any other for printing a book.
The addresses on "The Supreme Literary Gift," "The Making of a
Shakespeare," and "Literature and Life," have appeared previously as
separate brochures. Those on "Two Successors of Tennyson" and
"Hebraism and Hellenism" were printed in the Melbourne Argus at the
time of their delivery, and are here reproduced by kind permission of
that paper. The talk upon "The Future of Poetry" has not hitherto
appeared in print.
Though circumstances have prevented any development of the powers
and work of the two "Successors of Tennyson," there is nothing either
in the criticism of those writers or in the principles applied thereto

which seems to call for any modification at this date. For the rest, it is
hoped that the lecture will be read in the light of the facts as they were
at the time of its delivery.

CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 5
THE SUPREME LITERARY GIFT 9
HEBRAISM AND HELLENISM 53
THE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM, APPLIED TO TWO
SUCCESSORS OF TENNYSON 95
THE MAKING OF A SHAKESPEARE 147
LITERATURE AND LIFE 191
THE FUTURE OF POETRY 219

The Supreme Literary Gift
When we have been reading some transcendent passage in one of the
world's masterpieces we experience that mental sensation which
Longinus declares to be the test of true sublimity, to wit, our mind
"undergoes a kind of proud elation and delight, as if it had itself
begotten the thing we read." We are disposed by such literature very
much as we are disposed by the Sistine Madonna or before the
Aphrodite of Melos. Things like these exert a sort of overmastering
power upon us. Our craving for perfection, for ideal beauty, is for once
wholly gratified. Our spirit glows with an intense and complete
satisfaction. It would build itself a tabernacle on the spot, for it
recognizes that it is good to be there. We do not analyse, we do not

criticize, we simply deliver over our souls to a proud elation and
delight. Nay, at the moment when we are in the midst of such
spontaneous and exquisite enjoyment, we should, in all likelihood,
resent any attempt to make us realize exactly why this particular
creation of art so fills up our souls down to the last cranny of
satisfaction while another stops short of that supreme effect.
And yet, afterwards, when we are meditating upon this strange potency
of a poem or a building or a statue, or when we are trying to
communicate to others the feeling of its charm, do we not find
ourselves importunately asking wherein lies the secret of great art? And,
in the case of literature, we think it at such times no desecration of our
delight to put a passage of Shakespeare or of Milton beside a passage of
Homer, of Æschylus, or of Dante, an essay of Lamb beside a chapter of
Heine, a lyric of Burns by one of Shelley, and to seek for some
common measure of their excellence.
Suppose that, in these more reflective moments, we can come near to
some explanation; suppose we can realize what it is that these supreme
writers alone achieve; then, when we read again, the very perfection of
their achievement springs forward and