The Worlds Best Poetry, Volume 8 | Page 5

a scientific laboratory. But all this should be the student's home work.
In the class the large divisions of the poem should be sympathetically
shown, so that each student will comprehend the poem as a whole as
the poet must have conceived it. Then as some one reads aloud the lines
the music of the rhythms will come by assimilation rather than by
analysis. Poetry parallels the real with the ideal to make a harmony
before undreamed of. So in the lines sound re-echoes sound, and a
subtle music but half perceived sings itself out of the moving notes.
What burden this music bears is the second question. Poetry differs
from prose in that it lifts the thought so that its highest relations and
suggestions are made known. We have a right therefore to parallel the
prose sight with the poetic visions and to find in what the one
transcends the other. If we are studying the "Idylls of the King," for
instance, we may fitly ask what was the story as the poet took it, and
into what has he transformed it for us. This study of the thought of the
poem is an excellent subject for class work. The questions should be
made definite and so grouped that sections of the class can choose one
or another phase of the problem; the conferences should be so directed
that a few clearly worked-out and thoroughly unified poetic thoughts
will be left in the mind of each student.
In all things practice may fitly supplement precept. In a reading circle
of which one of the editors of this series was a member the poems of
Tennyson were studied by a method closely resembling that advocated
in this article. As a suggestion the topics and questions for one of the
poems are here given. One of the members acted as leader. A brief
essay reciting the history of the poem was read. The entire poem was
read aloud by one of the members of the class. Then the topics given
below were discussed as presented in turn by groups of students who
had given especial attention to one of the topics. In the discussions the
entire class joined, and at the close a very brief summing up by the
leader gathered up the threads of thought.
Topic: "Locksley Hall" and "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After."
Required Readings: "Locksley Hall"; "Locksley Hall Sixty Years
After"; "Lady Clara Vere de Vere"; "Sir Galahad."
Suggested Readings: In connection with the earlier poem, "Ulysses"

and "The Two Voices"; in connection with the later poem, "Maud,"
"Memoir of Tennyson," by Lord Hallam Tennyson.
Suggestions for Study: (A) The physical basis of the poem.
Study the metre. Why called Trochaic Octameter? In what way does
this metre resemble and in what way differ from Lowell's "Present
Crisis," Swinburne's "Triumph of Time," Browning's "There 's a
woman like a dewdrop" (from "The Blot i' the Scutcheon"), and Mrs.
Browning's "Rhyme of the Duchess May"? Why is this metre
peculiarly adapted to the sentiment of "Locksley Hall"? How does the
metre differ in effect from that of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's "Battle
Hymn of the Republic" and Bryant's "The Death of the Flowers" and
Tennyson's "May Queen"? Is the effect of the rhythm optimistic as
opposed to the pessimism of the "Triumph of Time," and why? Why
are the lines of this poem so easily carried in the memory? What is
there in the use of the words which gives such sweetness to the verses
as one reads them aloud. Has the poem for you a music of its own
which haunts you like a remembered vision? Find out, if you can,
something of the secret of this music.
(B) The intellectual interest of the poem.
(1) Consider the meaning of difficult passages, such as "Fairy tales of
science." Explain the meaning of stanzas containing the following
quotations: "Smote the chord of self"; "Cursed be social wants"; "That
a sorrow's crown of sorrow"; "But the jingling of the guinea"; "Slowly
comes a hungry people"; "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers."
(2) How long an interval elapsed between the writing of the above two
poems? Does any change in style or trend of thought indicate the lapse
of time? The earlier poem was and is immensely popular. Why? Why is
the later one less popular?
(3) What is the story in the poem, and in what manner is it told? How is
the story continued in "Sixty Years After"? Was Locksley Hall an
inland or a seashore residence, and why? Describe the surroundings
from suggestions in the poems. Sum up what the hero tells of himself
and his love-story. What suggestions are there regarding the characters
of Amy and Edith? Is the emotional side of the hero as finely balanced
as the