meaning by closely examining the original editions: Quartos and Folios. What of this Preface, is it an attack on or a defence of Shakespeare's art? On the whole it is a defence of Sh.'s irregularity. I had told you to write a summary of the passage on the Unities which we studied last time. Read yours, A. Es folgt die Schülerarbeit. Well, in order that you may see what the summary was to be like, I'll read mine:

With due reverence to the scholars whom he must oppose, Johnson tries to defend Shakespeare from the censure which his neglect of the unities has brought upon him. He declares that Shakespeare has well preserved the unity of action in his plays, the events of his fables being logically and naturally linked together and the end following by easy consequence. He cannot think it to be lamented that Shakespeare's comprehensive genius has not observed the unities of time and place, as they lessen the variety of the drama. Those who say that they are necessary, because fiction would lose its force, if it departed from the resemblance of reality, don't see that they arise from a false assumption: A play is never mistaken for reality, a dramatic fable is never literally believed in. drama exhibits imitations of real actions, and place and time are introduced by our imagination which can extend or contract time, and fancy any place it likes. We are moved by a play, not because we mistake it for reality, but because it brings reality to mind.

As a critic, moralist, and poet Johnson at last occupied a leading position. After the accession of George III, who aimed at popularity by showing some favour to art and letters, he got a pension of £ 300 a year, which placed him above want. Soon, honour followed. He received the honorary degree of Doctor from the universities of Dublin and Oxford, and he became the president of a Literary Club which consisted of the ablest and most distinguished men in London. They all admired and paid homage to the "Dictator", whose manliness, common sense, Tory principles, morality and tenderness of feeling made him the ideal of the typical Englishman1).

1) Mr. Macdonald teilt mir einige der bekannten Witze Dr. Johnsons mit, die er aus Boswell zitiert:

He bade me go on with collections which I was making upon the antiquities of Scotland "Make a large book a folio"

Summary: Doctor Johnson, the English Gottsched, exercised an undisputed dictatorship in the world of letters as a critic, moralist and poet. The privations in his early life had made him rough in manners and overbearing in argument, but his heart was charitable and benevolent. His wit and eloquence inspired the best biography there is in English literature: Boswell's Life of Johnson. The members of the famous literary Club paid homage to the Dictator, whose manly character combined a robust common sense and sincere Tory principles with a sturdy morality and a deep tenderness of feeling — and thus represented the ideal of the typical Englishman. Johnson wrote every kind of literature. His great didactic novel is a series of dialogues and reflections pointing out that earthly pleasures are a mere empty dream. The British public knows

Boswell: "But of what use will it be, Sir?" Johnson: "Never mind the use; do it." (Very typical of his style!)

(Johnson did not care for Scotland; or rather he used to tease Boswell by pretending to despise this place. This sort of thing was always happening, and "Bozzy" allowed his leg to be pulled everytime :)

I offered to teach Dr. Johnson the Scottish dialect. "No Sir, said he, I won't learn it. You shall retain your superiority by my not knowing it."

He also was outrageous upon his supposition that my countrymen "loved Scotland better than truth", saying, "all of them nay, not all, but droves of them would come up and attest

anything for the honour of Scotland.

He would not allow Scotland to derive any credit from Lord Mansfield, for he was educated in England. "Much, said he, may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young."

(Do you know any of the famous anecdotes about the Dictionary? The following are from Boswell):

"A lady once asked him how he came to define Pastern the knee of a horse (it is near the hoof); instead of making an elaborate defence, as she expected, he at once answered, "Ignorance, Madam pure ignorance".

(Some of the definitions in the Dictionary were merely frivolous :)

Grub-street: the name of a street in London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems. Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.

him chiefly as the great lexicographer. Johnson's Dictionary with the quotations gathered by himself has been called a sort of Saint Paul's Cathedral. His famous Lives of the Poets prove his work as a critic to be cramped by the theories of French pseudo-classicism. He takes Pope for the greatest poet of all countries and of all times. It is natural that the fierce Tory and High-Churchman should have belittled the work of Milton, the great Whig and Puritan. In the Preface to his edition of Shakespeare, which is a jumble of pseudo-classical prejudices and an instinctive feeling for nature, the great scholar endeavours, though unwillingly, to defend the great artist from the censure which his neglect of the unities has brought upon him.

III. The 18th Century Novel.

1. Its Origin.

1. Stunde. Every handbook of English literature will tell you that the greatest literary achievement of the 18th century was the development of the novel. Note, that by a novel an Englishman understands what we Germans call "Roman"; our "Novelle" is termed Short Story. Short Stories are the fashion nowadays in England as well as in Germany. All of you young gentlemen like to read novels, don't you? When boys, you were fond of Gustav Freytag's and Walter Scott's historial romances. How many of you have read "Ivanhoe"? and "Die Ahnen"? I'm sure you all know "Robinson Crusoe" and "Gulliver", they were among the nicely illustrated books bound in red linen cloth, which your parents gave you as presents at Christmas, long ago, when you were children. Can any one tell me what is the difference between Robinson Crusoe or Gulliver and the novels you're taking delight in now that you are almost grown men? Keine Antwort. What plays no part in Robinson or Gulliver? - Mehrere Sch: character-drawing. L: say rather, "individual psychology, the persons are types." And what else lacks? Nur ein Sch: the love. Well, love plays no part in those old stories of adventure, though they were not told by its authors exclusively for the sake of adventure. And then, you may say that they pay no heed to individual character. Like everybody else you are now very much interested in the Realistic or Psychological Novel of our present day, so called, because can any one go on? Sch: it portrays ordinary people's lives. L: No doubt, you're thinking of the article in Cliffe-Sander on the Modern Drama, aren't you? What then is a novel in the modern sense? What does it express like the new drama? - Sch: it expresses the ideas and the passions of the time. L: Yes, and the characters are modelled after life, the portraits of living men and

women are hit off to the life, and the plot is complex i. e. many persons are entangled or involved in difficulties, several actions are interwoven with one another, and generally love between man and woman is all that matters.

Do you remember when the first prose stories or novels were written in England? (in the Elizabethan age). I spoke of two kinds of prose stories, which were they? (the court novel and the popular novel). These court novels or novels for the court were pastoral or didactic romances; Spenser's best friend Sir Philip Sidney wrote a well-known pastoral romance; what's its title? (Arcadia). The words "pastoral" and "Arcadia" will tell you what these romances are like. The mountainous district in the Peloponnese, called Arcadia, was thought to be Fairyland, an ideal world of everlasting love and friendship, where fair ladies and handsome gentlemen could live happily as shepherds and shepherdesses with music, singing and dancing. While the court and society enjoyed these pastoral romances, the people liked to read the rogue stories, which described the exiting adventures of a highwayman or robber.

In the Seventeenth Century another kind of "fiction", I mean to say, narrative or literature consisting of feigned: imagined, invented tales became the fashion. It was the Heroic Romance or the Romance of Chivalry. Most of these pseudo-historical romances were translated or imitated from the French. The best known of the French originals were the voluminous: bulky "romans héroiques" of Mile de Scudéry which took the reader to Assyria, Rome or Turkey. Her "Grand Cyrus" was for a long time in vogue: widely read. These novels contained endless love adventures and love-talk of Princes and Princesses. They were without much truth to human nature, everything was pompous: überladen, formal: steif, artificial: geschraubt, "periwig" in these volumes nicht folios-Folianten1) of several thousand pages 8vo (Tafel) what's that? it means octavo; it's the size of a book which is obtained by folding the printed

1) "a 'folio' is strictly the full sized sheet, folded only once, making a book measuring about 18 inches by 8 inches e. g. the Shakespeare Folio of 1623. Fold the folio twice and you get a 'Quarto' (four leaves to a sheet); fold it three times and you get the octavo (eight leaves

book)."

the size of the ordinary modern