Studies in English Literature

In spite of many an uninflected infinitives in various uses in Beowulf, there appear in this work only 19 examples of inflected infinitives. Taking into consideration the stage of the OE. period at which this work was written in poetry, it seems that all these inflected infinitives should, as suggested by Onions and Jespersen, be taken as of adverbial and adjectival uses rather than of noun use, that is, 14 adverbial infinitives, of which 3 expressing 'direction towards', 3 expressing purpose', 8 expressing 'relation', and 5 adjectival infinitives which specify the foregoing noun. The classification of infinitives according to their uses is, of course, of a delicate nature, in which indeed not infrequently 'doctors disagree', but a certain degree of the authenticity of classification can be expected if one deals with it in a correct historical point of view of the English language, not being given to the linguistic sense which, if suitable to the understanding of ModE., should not be applied to the study of OE. Thus the writer endeavours to make clear the grounds on which the classification of each inflected infinitive should be made, quoting the concerned passages in Beowulf one by one, and sometimes exemplifying passages in other works than Beawulf in order to study the corresponding expressions in Latin with a view to clarifying the correct meaning of OE. wordings; furthermore, in some instances, relevant problems are referred to in order to understand the questions more fully, such as the freedom and independence of each element in OE. sentences, which is, so to speak, the afterglow of the older Indo-Germanic syntax, some dubious points in Mr. Clark Hall's translation, the process of gradual change of ' beon+inflected inf.' from the retroactive to non-retro-active construction, 'habban+inflected inf.' expressing necessity and even simple futurity like 'have yet to do' in ModE.

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When we examine the political theory in Gulliver's Travels, we come upon an embarrassing contradiction. We feel that, without the more detailed study of the author's violent and inimitable pessimism, which, no doubt, forms the arm basis of the book itself, we can hardly blame his political view for its fault, its reactionism, but at the same time, we cannot forgive his political theory, which is found to be conspicuous for its reactionism, on any account. We do not think that the fault of political view will be toleated for some unpolitical reason. How the author failed to have a correct understanding of the actual situation of his time is to be disclosed in the following considerations: 1. It is wrong to interpret Gulliver's Travels exclusively as a Tory satire on the Whigs. To adopt this point of view is to miss the author's attack on the political party itself, which is the main point of the satire in the book. The fact is that Swift wrote in the traition of the theory of partyless state. 2. For old advocates of the idea of partyless state, such as Machiavelli and Harrington, the ideal form of government had been the mixed state, which was cherished also as an ideal by our author. 3. In Gulliver's Travels, we find many passages, especially in second and third voyages, which indicate political measures adopted by the author for the attainment of his political ideal, the mixed state. 4. The quality of those measures, however, proves that the author remained negatively oriented to the social forces of his time. Notice, for instance, the biased view that he holds concerning legislature. Now we can hardly say that the author did intend from the first to develop his political theory in order to meet the requirements of the times. On the contrary, our inquiry into the nature of his prejudice reveals that the essence of his political view was indissolubly associated with his secret but firm conviction, which was scarcely swayed by the circumstance. So we are embarrassed with the contradiction noticed above. It must be remarked that his personal conviction, which finally produced his deep pessimism in his isolation, was powerful enough to make him endure the high tension brought about by the contradictory character of his political theory.

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New England Transcendentalism of the nineteenth century, which was advanced by Emerson and his group, had equally the fundamental tendency to make much of intuition, not sensual intuition, but 'transcendental' intuition to see the invisible behind the visible, reality beyond phenomena. In other words, it was based upon holy intuition 'to see the world in God'. Whitman as well as Emerson, or Thoreau, as a representative successor of Emerson, was naturally gifted with this intuition. Though it is really common to them all, we can not thereby regard the world of Whitman in quite the same light with that of Emerson or Thoreau, because Emersonianism was grounded on the belief of 'the eternal One' that was realized at the bottom of the heart through his severe ethical practice, while the world of Whitman as a transcendental poet was nothing but that of artistic contemplation. The province essential to Whitman was that of 'a passive spectator'. He was, as it were, a tunnel through which all the thoughts of the nineteenth century passed freely. Accordingly, Whitman could not keep incessantly the balance of the heart which he enjoyed in his artistic contemplation. Once its equilibrium was lost, he was sometimes uncontrollably conscious of loneliness and sensual temptation within himself, which did not so much disturb the heart of Emerson who had naturally a serene temperament fit for artistic contemplation, and, moreover, he himself positively overcame by returning to the root of life through the practical purification of the inner world, and being always united with the eternal One. In short, the world of Emerson was based on religion, but that of Whitman was merely artistic. Here is the reason that Thoreau, who embodied the idealism of Emerson practically, has been called 'the heir of Emerson', but Whitman 'a bastard of Emerson'.

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Literature is an artistic creation through the medium of language. Therefore, in order to study the fundamental character of literature we must know the structure and function of language. Language is not only a means of communication, but also an expression of human consciousness itself. The structure of language is temporal, and its temporal structure is twofold,-ideal and musical. This is the special character of language which defines the fundamental quality of literature. The function of language varies according to the purposes for which it is employed. For instance, in science words are used as mere abstract signs or instruments and are combined by impersonal logic, while in literature words are used as evocative symbols and are combined by imagination. Literature has two sides,-ideological and artistic. These two sides may be complementary to each other, but the property of literature that distinguishes it from philosophy or ideological writings is its artistic side. Therefore literary criticism must be based upon the esthetics of language, the nucleus of which is stylistics. Style is a concrete and objective form or image of thought or feeling. In literature there exists no thought or feeling that has not any style. Stylistics intends to grasp original types or configurations in literary expressions, and to analyse their internal structures. In other words, stylistics is the study of images of language formed by imagination.

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