QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
POETRY.—Compare Emerson's Woodnotes with Bryant's Thanatopsis and A Forest Hymn. Make a comparison of these three poems of motion: The Evening Wind (Bryant), The Humble-Bee (Emerson), and Daybreak (Longfellow), and give reasons for your preference. Compare in like manner The Snow-Storm (Emerson), the first sixty-five lines of Snow-Bound (Whittier), and The First Snow-Fall (Lowell). To which of these three simple lyrics of nature would you award the palm: To the Fringed Gentian (Bryant), The Rhodora (Emerson), To the Dandelion (Lowell)? After making your choice of these three poems, compare it with these two English lyrics of the same class: To a Mountain Daisy (Burns), Daffodils (Wordsworth, the poem beginning "I wandered lonely as a cloud"), and again decide which poem pleases you most.
Compare the humor of these two short poems describing a wooing: The
Courtin' (Lowell), The Ballad of the Oysterman (Holmes). Discuss the
ideals of these four poems: A Psalm of Life (Longfellow), For an
Autograph (Lowell), An Autograph (Whittier), The Chambered Nautilus
(Holmes).
What difference in the mental characteristics of the authors do these two retrospective poems show: My Lost Youth (Longfellow), Memories (Whittier)? For a more complete answer to this question, compare the girls in these two poems: Maidenhood (Longfellow):—
"Maiden, with the meek, brown eyes,
In whose orbs a shadow lies,"
and In School Days (Whittier), beginning with the lines where he says of the winter sun long ago:—
"It touched the tangled golden curls,
And brown eyes full of grieving."
Matthew Arnold, that severe English critic, called one of these poems perfect of its kind, and Oliver Wendell Holmes cried over one of them. The student who reads these carefully is entitled to rely on his own judgment, without verifying which poem Arnold and Holmes had in mind.
Compare Longfellow's ballads: The Skeleton in Armor, The Birds of
Killingworth, and The Wreck of the Hesperus, with Whittier's Skipper
Ireson's Ride, Cassandra Southwick, and Maud Muller.
Compare Whittier's Snow-Bound with Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night. In Whittier's poem, what group of lines descriptive of (a) nature, and (b) of inmates of the household pleases you most?
What parts of Hiawatha do you consider the best? What might be omitted without great damage to the poem?
In The Courtship of Miles Standish, which incidents or pictures of the life of the Pilgrims appeal most strongly to you?
What was the underlying purpose in writing The Biglow Papers and One-Hoss Shay? Do we to-day read them chiefly for this purpose or for other reasons? In what does the humor of each consist?
PROSE.—Why is it said that Mrs. Stowe showed a knowledge of psychological values? What were the chief causes of the influence of Uncle Tom's Cabin?
What are Webster's chief characteristics? Why does he retain his preeminence among American orators?
What transcendental qualities does Emerson's prose show? From any of his Essays select thoughts which justify Tyndall's (p. 192) statement about Emerson's stimulating power. What passages show him to be a great moral teacher?
What was Thoreau's object in going to Walden? Of what is he the interpreter? What was his mission? What passages in Walden please you most? What is the reason for such a steady increase in Thoreau's popularity?
Point out the allegory or symbolism in any of Hawthorne's tales. Which of his short stories do you like best? What is Hawthorne's special aim in The Snow Image and The Gentle Boy? What qualities give special charm to sketches like The Old Manse and the Introduction to The Scarlet Letter? What is the underlying motive to be worked out in The House of the Seven Gables? Why is it said that the Ten Commandments reign supreme in Hawthorne's world of fiction? Was he a classicist or a romanticist (p. 219)? What qualities do you notice in his style?
In Lowell's critical essays, what unusual turns of thought do you find to challenge your attention? Does he employ humor in his serious criticism?
What most impresses you in reading selections from The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, the humor, sprightliness, and variety of the thought, or the style? What especially satisfactory pages have you found?
Make a comparison (a) of the picturesqueness and color, (b) of the energy of presentation, (c) of the power to develop interest, and (d) of the style, shown in the selections which you have chosen from Prescott, Motley, and Parkman. Compare their style with that of Macaulay in his History of England.