II. Translation: 1. translation of the text by a pupil; 2. his fellow-pupils and the teacher correct his translation: 3. logical and linguistic explanation of all that is deemed essential to the understanding of the text; 4. a correct and fluent translation is given by the teacher and the pupils, or by the pupils alone.

III. Handling of the text: 1. explanation of the content; 2. stressing of the moral elements; 3. technique of rhetoric, poetry, and style; 4. Latinity, i. e., vocabulary, phrases, grammatical rules.

All the explanations of individual passages must have as a net result the understanding of the whole work (supra, p. 347). But the whole work as such may also be made the subject of a special explanation, and in contradistinction to the explanations we have been dealing with, it may be called the higher explanation. The teacher should attempt this kind of explanation with his pupils, if he can expect them to obtain a view of the whole and an understanding of all its parts and relationships. A twofold aim should govern the work of the higher explanation: the pupils should, first, be led to understand the whole work in the light of its motif, its basic principle, and see, if possible, how it developed from its germinal idea; and, secondly, they should learn to know the organic relations between this one work and other classics. These organic relations are of three kinds. The work is, in the first place, a creation of the author's mind, and this involves certain relations between it and the other writings that are born of the same mind, and to trace these relations will materially assist in understanding any of the author's productions. Secondly, the work is cast in a certain artistic form, and hence has some relations with all writings of the same class. Thirdly, it is written during a certain period of a nation's literary life, and consequently reflects more or less of the spirit of the respective age and nation. These factors, then, suggest four viewpoints for the higher explanation: the genetic, which traces the development of a classic from its germinal idea; the biographico-genetic; the æsthetical; and lastly the viewpoint of literary history. The teacher can, as a rule, apply this method only in explaining works written in the mother-tongue. He will find it necessary to give a closer attention to details than is called for in general reading. He will have to make many analyses, institute comparisons of all sorts, and diagram passages and entire works.

The time to be given to this method of studying the work as a whole should be determined by the consideration whether

it really deepens the understanding of the text. It is a mistake to regard the higher explanation as valuable for its own sake, as a formal discipline; and to consider it as such leads to overburdening the pupils and giving them a distaste for literature. What Washington Irving says of the endless analyses and commentaries on Shakespeare, is true of some other classics as well: "His whole form is overrun by a profusion of commentators, who, like clambering vines and creepers, almost bury the noble plant that upholds them."" Tollatur abusus, maneat usus. The classics can not be read with the rapidity of a newspaper; the pupils can not be expected to grasp of themselves the treasures of thought contained in the world's greatest books. Especially in the lower classes will the poetical turns of expression be above the pupils' comprehension. The rhythm distracts them; and being taken up with individual expressions, they know nothing of the work as a whole. The logical method of studying the classics has not yet been proved useless, and it rests with the teacher to avoid its pedantic abuse.

CHAPTER LIV.

Examples of Explanatory Instruction.

1. For illustrating the method to be followed in reading and explaining the classics of one's mother-tongue, we have selected one of the most popular and instructive poems of modern German literature, Schiller's Lay of the Bell. Though this subject has been treated quite frequently, it has, nevertheless, not been exhausted. The genetic element is represented in so far as we can, to some extent, trace the genesis of the poem. Schiller conceived the idea of writing a Lay of the Bell Founder in 1788, in Rudolstadt, where he frequently visited a bell foundry located near the town. But several years passed before the plan was again taken up, in 1797. In a letter to Goethe, dated July 7, 1797, Schiller writes: "I have now taken up my Lay of the Bell Founder, and am since yesterday studying with much profit Krünitz's encyclopedia. This poem is dear to my heart, but weeks will pass before it is finished, as I need so many different

The Mutability of Literature, in The Sketch Book.

2 A bronze tablet placed on the foundry, which is still standing, commemorates the fact that Schiller here conceived the idea of his Lay of the Bell.

moods for it and must plough through a great mass of material." But at the end of August he writes to Goethe, that his indifferent health had robbed him of the proper moods as well as of the leisure for his Bell, which, as he says, "is far from being cast." In a letter of Sept. 22nd he consoles himself over the unavoidable interruption: "By carrying the subject about with me for another year and by keeping it warm, the poem, which is indeed no small task, will be properly matured." Goethe replied that the Bell would surely sound the sweeter the longer the bronze continued to purge off the dross. The next year, however, was taken up with Wallenstein, and it was only in the autumn of 1799, when the Musenalmanach was clamoring for copy that Schiller finished the poem. Sept. 4th he went to Rudolstadt, where he probably revisited the bell foundry; on the 15th he returned to Jena, where Goethe joined him. Schiller finished the work during Goethe's stay, and on Sept. 30th he sent it to the printer at Weimar.

The teacher may use these data in his introduction to the Lay of the Bell, and he should connect them, as far as is necessary, with other related facts of the poet's life. When reading the poem, the teacher must explain some expressions and also some technical matters (verbal and content-explanation). The poet took pains with the terms relating to the casting of the bell, and the teacher should make sure that the pupils understand their meaning. Götzinger's Deutsche Dichter, Vol. II, contains good material for these explanations. It is obvious that the allusions to contemporary events, for instance, to the French Revolution, should be explained. The pregnant and striking use of words should also be noted. Special attention should finally be given to the rhythm, the change of metre, and the frequent instances of onomatopoeia.

The motif of the Lay of the Bell can not be grasped and the composition of the poem can not be understood unless the classic is divided into different parts. But to make the proper divisions is not difficult, as the poem itself shows several distinct parts. The stanzas that contain the master's directions and remarks are written in the trochaic measure and have the following rime scheme: ab ab cc dd. The other stanzas with varying structure depict such scenes as are ushered in, or are connected in some way, with the ringing of bells: baptism, wedding, burning of the home, funeral, curfew, revolution. There are transitions, which have no direct relation to the bell, and which

connect the various scenes with one another. The transition from the baptism to the wedding deals with youth and youthful love; and in the transition from the wedding to the burning of the home, the happiness of the home circle is described. The next transition, from the burning of the home to the funeral, describes how the father consoles himself with the fact that none of his family perished in the fire. The description of social order forms a happy transition from the picture of the evening scene to the horrors of the revolution. Hence the composition may be represented by the following scheme:

Schiller shows great care and is at places even a little artificial in connecting the master's discourses with the scenes from life. The bell metal should be pure, so that the bell's voice may be perfect, and pure, and deep," when welcoming the child to the baptismal font. The fusion must be tested to see whether the "hard and the ductile united combine," just as the hearts must be tried before "the stern in sweet marriage is blent with the weak." The bell metal is placed, like the remains of the departed, in "the dark womb of sacred earth." More natural are the transitions from the casting of the bell to the burning of the home, from the curfew to the scenes of peace, and from the breaking of the mold to the picture of revolution. The movement in the master's discourses is parallel to the progress made in casting the bell. The movement in the meditative sections is governed, in part, by the different stages in the casting of the bell, with which they are associated. But there is an internal connection besides: in its pictures of baptism, wedding,

We quote throughout from Bulwer-Lytton's translation of the Lay of

the Bell.

poverty, and death, the Lay of the Bell embraces the chief events of private life; and in its pictures of peace and revolt it depicts the conditions of public life. Thus we see the motif of the poem: to present human life in such scenes as are associated with the ringing of bells, and as can be associated also with the different stages in the casting of a bell.

2. The pupils will easily recognize the poet's individuality in the Lay of the Bell even if they have only a limited acquaintance with Schiller's popular works. The poem reveals Schiller as the representative of a reflective poetry that delights in treating momentous questions and problems. But it shows him, too, as a dramatist, who converts the material that at first blush seems to admit only of reflection and description, into a short drama. The poet proceeds from and through the sensuous to the sublime, but all his sensuous materials are actual and real. His poem abounds in action, movement, and development; and we must look before reflecting. In this respect, the Lay of the Bell is similar to Schiller's Walk, and as this poem treats, besides, a somewhat analogous subject, the two poems should be compared.

While the Lay of the Bell is of a didactic character, it contains epic, lyric, and dramatic elements. In respect to its external form, it is a cantata. The reflective sections are elegiac in tone, but at places we meet passages that strike the note of the ode. The narrative sections are written in ballad style. That the poem is correlated with all arts, is evidenced by the fact that it has been edited for stage use, has been set to music by Romberg, and has been illustrated by Retzsch, Kaulbach, and others.

99.66

It is instructive to consider the school of poetry to which the Lay of the Bell belongs. It is a product of the classical school, and belongs, therefore, to Renaissance poetry, the influence of ancient poetry being seen in the whole as well as in single expressions. The following expressions are either borrowed from, or modeled after, mythology: "free nature's freeborn child," "heaven-descended glow," "holy order, daughter of the skies," "dark womb of sacred earth," "dark prince of shadows, ""the wreathed year. The following are reminiscent of Homer's style: "the hum of the spindle," "in the blank voids that cheerful casements were, comes to and fro, the melancholy air, and sits despair," "the lusty-fronted steer"; and to collate these expressions with Homeric phrases would be an interesting task. That the poet's fancy caught the spirit of ancient poetry,