Tests
of Literature:
There are two tests in literature;
·
Universality
·
Style
Universality:
The first
of these is universality, that is, the appeal to the widest human interests and
the simplest human emotions. Though we speak of national and race literatures,
like the Greek or Teutonic, and though each has 'certain superficial marks
arising out of the peculiar universalities of its own people, it is
nevertheless true that good literature knows no nationality, nor any bounds
save those of humanity. It is occupied chiefly with elementary passions and
emotions, love and hate, joy and sorrow, fear and faith, which are an essential
part of our human nature; and the more it reflects these emotions the more
surely does it awaken a response in men of every race.
Style:
The second
test is a purely personal one, and may be expressed in the indefinite word
"style." It is only in a mechanical sense that style is “the adequate
expression of thought," or "the peculiar manner of expressing
thought," or any other of the definitions that are found in the rhetoric’s.
In a deeper sense, style is the man, that is, the unconscious expression of the
writer's own personality. It is the very soul of one man reflecting, as in a
glass, the thoughts and feelings of humanity. As no glass is colorless, but
tinges more or less deeply the reflections from its surface, so no author can
interpret human life without unconsciously giving to it the native hue of his
own soul. It is this intensely personal element that constitutes style. Every
permanent book has more or less of these two elements, the objective and the
subjective, the universal and the personal, the deep thought and feeling of the
race reflected and colored by the writer's own life and experience.
