very mild in its mournfulness, is Swinburne's In Memory of Walter Savage Landor. Its first two stanzas are: Back to the flower-town, side by side, The bright months bring, Newborn, the bridegroom and the bride, The sweet land laughs from sea to sea, Filled full of sun; All things come back to her, being free; The student who becomes much interested in elegies would desire to study what is technically known as " elegiac verse." He would need to consult such a dictionary as the Century, and such a text as Alden's English Verse. The threnody is a form of ode, as its name would indicate. Another name for the threnody is the dirge. It is a song of lamentation, and therefore more limited in subject matter than the Ode proper. It is for a specific person, too, always, though the name used in the address is sometimes not the actual name of the person mourned for. The greatest threnodies in English are Milton's Lycidas, Shelley's Adonais, Tennyson's In Memoriam, Arnold's Thyrsis, and Emerson's Threnody. When one considers the sonnet, it is necessary to study some technical treatment of this form of poetry so popular in all languages of Europe. The sonnet originated in Italy, and was composed of fourteen lines only. The sonnet as written by Petrarch, the Italian poet of the fourteenth century, was written about one idea or emotion. It was divided into two parts, the first part consisting of eight lines, the second of six lines. The first part was subdivided into parts of four lines each, and the second part into two, of three lines each. The divisions were That order may be indiMilton's sonnet on The Late clearly marked by the rhyme order. cated thus: abba abba cdc dcd. Massacre in Piedmont is written according to the method employed by Petrarch. The rhyme order can easily be followed in it. Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold Who were thy sheep and in their ancient fold The vales redoubled to the hills and they To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow The triple tyrant; that from these may grow Early may fly the Babylonian woe. All sonnets are either of this type or variations of it. Even this sonnet of Milton does not permit the rhyme-scheme to divide the thought exactly. The Shakespearean sonnet consists of three divisions of four lines each, and then a couplet ending the sonnet. English literature abounds in beautiful sonnets. Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Mrs. Browning, D. G. Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, Swinburne, all these are masterly in the art of compressing much that is highly beautiful into this small space of fourteen lines. An epigram and an epitaph were originally the same thing, a poetical inscription upon some public monument, such as a tomb. An epitaph is still written on a tombstone, or is supposed to be, but an epigram is generally too witty for such a purpose nowadays. The qualities of an epigram are best suggested in the following lines: The qualities rare in a bee that we meet The body should always be little and sweet, And a sting should be left in its tail. The author of these lines is unknown. The lines upon Lady Pembroke, said by some to have been written by Ben Jonson, but now supposed to have been by William Browne, are among the loveliest of illustrations of the epitaph, How do you determine whether the poem is a lyric? Who is its author? Do you know anything about him? What do you know from other sources than this poem, and what from it? Do you need to know anything about him not revealed in the poem? What is its theme? Is it an old theme? If so, where else is it found? Do present-day lyrists use this theme? Who are they? What are their most common themes? Are you interested in these themes? What interests you more in the poem, saying it? Point out the poem's chief merits. Name the lyrics you know by title. Why or why not? - what is said or the manner of Classify them as sonnets, odes, elegies, threnodies, etc. Is time well spent in memorizing good lyrics? Why? Have you in mind any poem that you have made your own? satisfactory expression to your own feeling? Recite it. Do you pass by the lyrics in the current magazines? Why? Does it give Did you ever have the satisfaction of discovering for yourself a good lyric somewhere? Name it. What are its good qualities? Its rhyme plan, if it has one? What makes the verses you last read, poetry? Are there any unusual combinations of images within it? Is there any internal rhyme? What is the purpose of rhyme? Find a good definition of rhythm. Does this poem help you to "find yourself," or does it divert your attention from yourself? BOOKS THAT WILL AID IN THE STUDY OF THE LYRIC The English Lyric, Felix Schelling. (Houghton Mifflin Company.) English Lyric Poetry, 1500-1700, Francis I. Carpenter. (Blackie & Son.) The Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics, Francis T. Palgrave. (The Macmillan Company.) English Sonnets, A. T. Quiller-Couch. (Chapman & Hall.) American Sonnets, T. W. Higginson and E. H. Bigelow. (Houghton Mifflin Company.) A Victorian Anthology, E. C. Stedman. (Houghton Mifflin Company.) (Houghton Mifflin Company.) Preface to the Second Edition of the Lyrical Ballads, William Wordsworth. (Oxford Press.) The Book of the Sonnet, 2 vols., Leigh Hunt and S. Adams Lee. (Sampson, Low, Son & Marston.) Lectures on Poetry, J. W. Mackail. (Longmans, Green & Co.) A Defense of Poetry, in "Essays and Letters," Percy Bysshe Shelley. (Walter Scott.) The Poet, in "Essays, Second Series," R. W. Emerson. (E. P. Dutton & Co.) The Sonnet, Its Origin, etc., Charles Tomlinson: (John Murray.) VI. THE STUDY OF THE SHORT-STORY The short-story is the latest of literary forms to be consciously studied. Only recently has its structure and technique been fully understood. It has often been confused with other forms of brief story-telling. Many definitions for it have been proposed. One among the most satisfactory is the following: it is "a brief, imaginative narrative, unfolding a single predominating incident and a single chief character; it contains a plot, the details of which are so compressed, and the whole treatment of which is so organized, as to produce a single impression." The importance of singleness of impression in the shortstory is not likely to be over-emphasized. There should be one single purpose. This, more than anything else, differentiates the short-story from most novels. The novel undertakes to present a view of life as a whole, and its purposes are often manifold and comprehensive. The short-story seizes upon one incident of life, excluding all else usually, and presents that important incident in such way as to leave the reader with a |