Hamlet, for example, may be treated as a work of art, as the history of a man doomed to destruction through an inherent and fatal flaw, a human soul caught in the web of circumstance and tortured to death; or it may be treated as a study in the language of the Elizabethans; or as an example of the stagecraft of Shakespeare; or even as material for constructing ingenious cipher messages revealing the fact that, as Shakespeare was utterly unable to write plays for himself, Bacon kindly wrote them for him.
The first question which the teacher of literature must ask is, what is the relative importance of all these objects for which literature may be studied. Which should be the main end of our teaching, and which should be subordinate? On the answer he gives to that question will depend the method of his teaching.
Personally, I have no doubt whatever as to which of these things is the most important, although I may have some doubts as to the relative importance of the others. To me a piece of literature is first and foremost a work of art, a record of life in forms of truth and beauty, a spiritual revelation; it speaks to my intellect, but only that, through my intellect, it may reach my heart. If it reaches my intellect only, if it penetrates no farther, if it does not become part of my being, if the experience it records does not become my experience, then it is of little value to me, it is not my piece of literature, and I want no literature that I cannot make my own.
I wish sincerely that we could root out for ever and utterly abolish the false notion that most students and many teachers have, that Literature is not an important subject, that it is only a side-line, very nice to know something about, but not in the same class with "useful" and practical subjects like history and science. This is a tremendous and a fatal misconception. It is by Art and Art alone that Humanity progresses; progress in Science or in mere knowledge does not necessarily mean progress in any of those things in which Man stands supreme above the rest of creation, those spiritual qualities which raise him to the level of the Divine. We know that a man may take a course in Science, or any purely intellectual subject, and come out at the end of it still uncultured and coarse-minded, with low ideals, with the higher instincts undeveloped; he may go through a course of Literature, too, it is true, and emerge in a similar condition, but not if the Literature has been properly presented to him, and if he has really assimilated the best thoughts of the highest minds.
Art is the source of our highest pleasure, the capacity for which raises us above the beast. Without that capacity, men are no better than sheep or goats "who nourish a blind life within the brain."
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep,
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Not only is Literature the source of our highest pleasure, but it is the source of our highest development. It is the most potent factor in the slow process of raising Humanity to a higher spiritual level; it is the true motive power of the world.
Well might the poet say of himself and his fellow poets:
We are the music-makers,
We are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
We are the movers and the shakers
Of the world for ever it seems.