New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1907-06-15
LITERARY EPOCHS.
Il Rap on the Knuchtles for the
Modern Professor.

Adam Lorimer. in The London Academy.
This is the age of epochs-literary and other,
but chiefly literary. AS the phrase age o,
cpochS' IS not very elegant let say. rather.
that this is the day OF epOChS. \ day is u
shorter space of time than an age, and II is com
forting to think that night will speedily close in
upon these same literary epochs and swallow
them UP for ever and ever-amen. To which
learned professor did 1t first occur to cut liter
ature up into epoChs? And what did he do IT
for? II II was FOR convenience in lecturlng
number II youths and matdens no great harm
was done. for the youths and matdens have
probably since forgotten all about literature
They may retain vague impression that lit
crature is thing that is cut up into epochs
with a writer's usually a poets name each.
And the professor may have observed, for some
professors are observant, that the youths and
maidens remember the epoch when they forget
the poet. That is something gained. but NOT
much. For II youths and nadens VIII not read
Milton because he Is poet we are willing 10
be hanged If they will read him because he is
an epoch
No doubt for examination purposes the epoch
is excellent device. The successful epoch
book treats all that preceded its subject as a
negligible chaos. and what succeeded IL king
dom come. Say, for example. the particular
epoch is the Wordsworthian one There sit the
youths and maidens with their notebooks. Yon-
der stands the professor with his. Throned
above reclines Wordsworth. b. 1870; d. 1850.
These dates at once show the class of youths
and maidens that Wordsworth has been selected
10 name an epoch because he lived long time.
Ii is curious reason, which would scarcely
occur to anybody but a professor For II any
OF these patient youths and maidens ever READ
any more poetry after being conducted profess
soriaUy through the Preude-a most doubtful
superintendent hit upon Keats. who passed
his twenty five years within the Wordsworthian
epoch, mayhap odd one of them. struck with
the ageess glory Of the verse. may say: Why IS
not Keats epoch? Pursuing his way in thes,,
realms Of gold this odd student. this one in
ten thousand may be struck by many most I'M
Wordsworthian things. by the poets dwelling
for Example:
And in the midst of this wide quetness
a rosy sanctuary will | dress
ed az a hrutp
With buds. and bells. and stars without a name
and a thousand other famous and imperishable
things. and he may ask again What has this TO
do with Wordsworth and an epoch? Perhaps
some remnant of professional influence may
cause him 10 look up dates: John Keats D.
1896, d. 1921 whereby he will see that Keats did
not live long enough To make epoch Al
this he may be glad: indeed, he keeps on
reading Keats he may one day clasp his hands
and. lifting his eyes 10 Apollo. thank him that
the lecture men never can make an epoch" Of
Keats
But worse remains behind. 1t might be pos
sible by some theory Of movements" ''devel-
Opments' to show that Wordsworth and Keats
We're born under the same star chat being
unscientiflc phrase) took their origin in the
same ethical tendency OF the times; we should be
sorry to hear il, but theory we grant its
possibility But what the deuce Byron is doing
in any epoch called by the name of Words
worth is beyond our poor wit to conceive. 1t
may be granted that more appropriate poet
than Wordsworth for presiding over epoch
is not easily imagined. The PROFESSIONAL Words
worth is even more appropriate than the real
ono erect or contemplating the often pCt-
ured Seer-not the collector of taxes-roaming
amid the hills listening TO Nature preaching.
that il has taken us wears to attain to climb
ing hill without feeling that we are going TO
church To people his epoch gladly give
Wordsworth his friend Coleridge: we give him
Southey-and welcome: and we even yield him
reluctantly Charles Lamb. But when in magma
ton we offer him Lord Byron with Don Juan
i'm his hand, saying "Will this do for your
epocn?' feel inclined 10 run away like a
guilty schoolboy without waiting for the answer.
Think of Byron going into another mans epoch,
And when you have thought of that. conceive OF
putting in Shelley! Shelley of the "Laon and
C'uthna", Fie fe, Wordsworth. Keats Shelley,
Byron are all immortals They have all gone }
Paradise but not to the same Paradise. The
thing is inconcelvabe If they are in the same
Paradise they are kept apart For If Byron is
not our Byron in Paradise then he is longer
BYRON and he had much better be himself else
where. Undoubtedly they keep them apart in
those eternal fields, and each has his own plot
OF asphodel. That is why Dante. conceived of
circles anticipating London society. And yet
,-0;Ir professor and your extension lecturer
calmly cram them all into one epoch
The absurdty is just as great in Milton
epoch or a Dryden epoch. But these poets lived
to a good age, and accordingly in the lecture
hooks of the professors their years embrace the
lifetime of number of very various and very
different writer's. and they each mark an
no Niltonic school; and to make an epoch
of him as If he were some mere king politi-
cian ia surely a very false way or dealing with
his achievement. Whose epoch, 1t may be asked,
is the present? Does il not If we were
still in the Shakespeare epoch, and the Milton
epoch and the Shelley epoch? Is this not the
enoch of any poet whose influence still survives?
If could scarcely be called the Tennyson epoch, !
for Browning has equal qualifications of age
and eminent respectability Why should ii not
be the Upper epoch? Upper wrote much. was
widely and highly respected and lived long. He
also left behind him works" To all of which
the PROFESSIONAL person will answer that IL is
convenient and appropriate to call period of
time bv the name of the dominant writer. And
if the matter were one OF mere nomenclature II