Test of Literature

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.