Thumb. Mr. Edward F. Oaten, in a volume upon AngloIndian Literature, names not less than one hundred and fortyone writers of Anglo-India, but he has difficulty in persuading the reader that many of them are of importance. Perhaps a native Bengalese should be mentioned, Rabindranath Tagore, for he has translated into excellent English many of his own poems. His dramatic works appear much superior to his lyrics. The King of the Dark Chamber is a drama notable for beautiful picturesqueness, subtle symbolism, and high ethical worth.

Canada. In Canada two writers of poetry have displayed the singing quality in thoughtful verse, Charles G. D. Roberts and Bliss Carman. The latter's Low Tide in Grand Pré, 1893, and other volumes have given their author well-deserved fame as one whose feeling for the life of the lovely world which is man's home is a feeling akin to that of nature's own moods. Australia. Since we are upon the field of colonial literature, Australia may here be mentioned. (We have already spoken of a South African writer (see page 341).) Australia has not been fertile in literature of much value. If being an author's land of birth could count as a claim upon the author, Australia could claim Mrs. Humphry Ward, but her writings have not dealt with the life of Australia; they have been confined to England's life. Henry Kingsley wrote delightfully of Australian life, but was neither native born nor long in residence there. That colony has good claim to but three prominent men of letters: Adam Lindsay Gordon, Henry Clarence Kendall, and Marcus Clarke. The first two were local poets of excellence, the third a novelist of considerable note. All three, however, did their work during the Victorian era. X

The United States. - Contemporary poetry in the United States has reflected the eagerness of its writers to experience life in full measure and to understand it with sympathy. The

life they have desired to feel and know so well has been both that of humankind and of the physical nature which has been background and inspiration for the life of man. The moods and thoughts of men and women, the sorrows and delights of childhood, and the beauty and vitality of landscape have found expression in the lyrical verse of Richard Watson Gilder, George Edward Woodberry, Edwin Markham, James Whitcomb Riley, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Eugene Field, and Cale Young Rice. All of these and many others have endeavored to express the thought, feeling, and emotion which life has aroused within them, and have added something of worth to the pages of that which gives so much abiding consolation and inspiration to the human mind, — literature.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What can you say of the number of books being published to-day? What of their quality?

2. What are to-day the three most popular types of literature? Which one appeals to you most, and why?

3. Novelists of to-day may be divided into what classes? Upon what principle is the classification based?

4. What seems to you to be the main differences between the novels of our own time and those of three quarters of a century ago?

5. Why is the short-story so very popular now? Give three reasons. 6. Name a dozen magazines which include fiction in their pages, and divide them into groups according to the quality of their short-stories. 7. Who are the most prominent present-day playwrights? Give the title of a play by each.

8. Give the title and author of each of the one-act plays which you have read.

9. Compare the short-story, the one-act play, and the brief story-telling poem, as effective media for narrative.

10. Of living poets, who is your favorite? Why? What of his poetry can you repeat from memory?

II. In so far as you are familiar with the present-day literature of England and America, that produced in which of the two countries appeals to you the more deeply? Why?

READING LIST FOR THE PERIOD OF THE PRESENT DAY

(This list includes some titles from American as well as English writers.)

HELPFUL BOOKS ON THE PERIOD

English Literature, 1880-1905, J. M. Kennedy. (Stephen Swift & Co.) Treasury of Canadian Verse, Theodore H. Rand. (William Briggs.) Anglo-Indian Literature, Edward F. Oaten. (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co., Ltd.)

The Drama To-Day, Charlton Andrews. (J. B. Lippincott Company.) The Development of Australian Literature, Turner & Sutherland. (Longmans, Green, & Co.)

Irish Plays and Playwrights, C. Weygandt. (Houghton Mifflin Company.) The Great English Short-story Writers, W. J. & C. W. Dawson. (Harper and Brothers.)

American Writers of To-day, Henry C. Vedder. (Silver, Burdett, & Co.) Some American Story-Tellers, F. T. Cooper. (Henry Holt & Co.)

Some English Story-Tellers, F. T. Cooper. (Henry Holt & Co.)

See also Bibliography on The Short-story, in Chapter IX, pages 392 and

393.

CHAPTER IX

THE CHIEF TYPES OF LITERATURE

Their names. The chief types of literature are the Epic, the Drama, the Essay, the Novel, the Lyric, and the Shortstory. History, biography, philosophy, science, oratory are also immensely important. They are so important that literature would be worthless if they did not exist, for literature is based upon them, and yet very few histories, biographies, systems of philosophy, scientific treatises, or orations do not "have their day and cease to be," while permanency is an essential quality of what we call literature.

Their historical order. - Each of these types of literature was a dominant type at some one time in the history of English literature, though at the present time Drama, Novel, and Shortstory rival each other in popularity, with the Short-story, perhaps, in the lead. The following table will be convenient in helping one to remember the periods during which the types became very important. It should be remembered, however, that in the case of the Epic the period in which it came to be very important did not give the greatest English epic. The greatest English epic is Milton's Paradise Lost, and that was written during the seventeenth century. Also it should be remembered that the Essay was not most important at the time when it became "very important." The essay was most important during the nineteenth century in the hands of Macaulay, Carlyle, Ruskin, and others, but it first came to be very important in the eighteenth century. So that the following table