THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL AND OTHER POEMS BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY CHARLES NEW YORK E. MERRILL CO. 44-60 EAST TWENTY-THIRD STREET Merrill's English Texts Addison, Steele, and Budgell. The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers in The Spectator. Edited by Edna H. L. Turpin. 269 pages, 12mo, cloth. Price 30 cents. Coleridge. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and other Poems. Edited by Julian W. Abernethy, Ph.D. 156 pages, 12mo, cloth. Price 25 cents. Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities. Edited by Julian W. Abernethy, Ph.D. 634 pages, 12mo, cloth. Price 50 cents. Emerson. Essays. (Selected.) Edited by Edna H. L. Turpin. 336 pages, 12mo, cloth. Price 40 cents. George Eliot. Silas Marner. Edited by Cornelia Beare. 336 pages, 12mo, cloth. Price 40 cents. Goldsmith. The Deserted Village, and other Poems. Ed Lowell. The Vision of Sir Launfal, and other Poems. Edited by Julian W. Abernethy, Ph.D. 172 pages, 12mo, cloth. Price 25 cents. Milton. Lycidas, Comus, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, and other Poems. Edited by Julian W. Abernethy, Ph.D. 198 COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. Gift Library of Isaac M. Dannow 10-25-27 add. cop. PREFACE THE aim of this edition of the Vision of Sir Launfal is to furnish the material that must be used in any adequate treatment of the poem in the class room, and to suggest other material that may be used in the more leisurely and fruitful method of study that is sometimes possible in spite of the restrictions of arbitrary courses of study. In interpreting the poem with young students, special emphasis should be given to the ethical significance, the broad appeal to human sympathy and the sense of a common brotherhood of men, an appeal that is in accord with the altruistic tendencies of the present time; to the intimate appreciation and love of nature expressed in the poem, feelings also in accord with the present movement of cultured minds toward the natural world; to the lofty and inspiring idealism of Lowell, as revealed in the poems included in this volume and in his biography, and also as contrasted with current materialism; and, finally, to the romantic sources of the story in the legends of King Arthur and his table round, a region of literary delight too generally unknown to presentday students. |