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THE

VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL

AND OTHER POEMS

BY

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

EDITED WITH NOTES AND INTRODUCTION

BY

HERBERT BATES

TEACHER OF ENGLISH, MANUAL TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL
BROOKLYN, N.Y.

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.

1911

All rights reserved

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1900; July, 1901 April, October, 1902; July, 1903; March,
1904; February, July, 1905; January, October, 1906; February,
1907; February, 1908; January, 1909; January, 1910; March,

1911.

PREFATORY NOTE

THE object that I have set before myself in editing this poem is that which directs my teaching it in the classroom. This object is compounded of several elements. First of all, the pupil should understand the poem, should get from it the meaning that the poet put into it. He should, secondly, draw from it something of the imaginative elevation that inspired the poet to its composition. Thirdly, mingled with these, he should get some perception of the character, the personal magnetism, of the author, should feel him speaking through his poem.

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Incidental to this there should be explanation of words, comment on verse-forms, all that minor detail that it is folly to despise, and still greater folly to overestimate. Over all should stand the main pur

pose, to explain and enforce the dual message of

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the poet:

"Not only around our infancy,

Doth heaven with all its splendors lie,"

and,

"Not that which we give, but what we share,
For the gift without the giver is bare."

To make the pupils understand this and feel it, feel it in the spirit of the man that gave it utterance, this should be the ideal alike of editor and teacher.

In teaching the poem in class, it will be found helpful to devote one lesson to the poem as a whole before taking it up in detail. This will make clearer its main purpose and emphasize its message. But most important and hardest, one must avoid a shrinking tendency to keep the poem's highest meaning and inspiration for the tabernacle of one's own heart, leaving the class to seek this for themselves, and putting before them only the dry husks of verbal elucidation. It is the height of egotism to regard the higher enjoyment of poetry as the perquisite of the

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