QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR STUDY 1. In commenting on Lockhart's Life, Carlyle indicates what the method of a good biography should be; what is this method?-See page 3, lines 29-33. 2. What are the defects mentioned in Dr. Currie's and Mr. Walker's biography of Burns? 3. Illustrate, by taking some well-known person, such as Washington or Lincoln, the difference between a detached catalogue of a man's attributes, virtues and vices, and the presentation of his character as a living unity. 4. Compare "An Old Scotch Gardener," John Todd in "Pastoral," and "Thomas Stevenson" (in R. L. Stevenson's Memories and Portraits), and J. M. Barrie's Margaret Ogilvie. Do these give separate generalities or are they fused into a vital unity? 5. What do you understand to be the difference between a closely organized piece of writing and a loosely organized one? 6. Are brief biographical notices in dictionaries likely to be a collection of facts and attributes or a living unity? Why? 7. What are the special merits and defects of Lockhart's biography? 8. What is the function of model biography, as defined by Carlyle? 9. If you were to write the biography of an author you have studied, what general points would you always try to consider? Would you add to or subtract from Carlyle's statement? 10. Under what disadvantages did Burns begin his work? II. Contrast these with the advantages an educated man has at the outset. 12. The next paragraph (pages 6-7) contains a general summary of Burns's life in order to place the reader at the right point of view; to what is the heightened quality of style in this paragraph due? 13. To what aspect of Burns does Carlyle limit himself in his statement of the working theme of this essay? (see page 7, lines 25-26). 14. What are the characteristics of a true poet? 15. What justifies us in reading biographies; what is the profit to us? 16. What qualities in Burns, the man, reflect themselves in his poetry? 17. What qualities in the poems have made them endure? 18. What qualities does Carlyle include under Sincerity? 19. In what way is Burns compared with Byron, and how contrasted? 20. Whence does the poet, or the writer in general, 104 Questions and Topics for Study derive his material or subject-matter? Carlyle's discussion on this point is of great practical importance to every student who is writing compositions, as indicating the source of his best material. 21. What points in rebuttal of the argument that Burns was born too late, that poetry had fled his age, does Carlyle make? 22. What qualities of sterling worth in Burns's writings are sources of his moving power over others? Enumerate seven. Notice the poetical quality of Carlyle's own style in this paragraph (page 19, lines 4-34). 23. Make an outline of the characteristics of Burns as given in the next paragraphs (page 32, lines 24-34, page 33, lines 1-20). 24. What are the main points in the division on Burns's songs? 25. What is a song? Notice the qualities Carlyle emphasizes: 1. They have clear, manly, heartfelt sentiment. 2. They are in themselves music, fashioned in the medium of Harmony. 3. They have force and truth of inward meaning. 4. They have immense variety of subject. a. Fond flowing revel, as in Willie brew'd a Peck o' Maut. b. Quiet sadness, as in To Mary in Heaven. c. Glad, kind greeting, as in Auld Lang Syne. d. Comic archness, as in Duncan Gray. e. Fire-eyed fury, as in Scots wha hae. 26. How does Carlyle make the transition from Burns's literary work to his life? 27. In the division of Burns's life into one era only, what point does Carlyle make as to the mistake of youth in seeking the true source of contentment? 28. What is the significance of the shortness of Burns's life and the lack of adjustment between "the clay soil of Mossgiel and the empyrean soul" of Burns? 29. What is Carlyle's view of the "Wild Oats" theory as a natural preparative for entering upon active life? 30. What was the influence of Burns's visit to Edinburgh? 31. What elements in Burns's life, after his return from Edinburgh, led to his undoing? "I leave Edinburgh," he writes, "in the course of ten days or a fortnight. I shall return to my rural shades in all likelihood never to quit them. I have formed many intimacies and friendships here, but I am afraid they are all of too tender a construction to bear carriage a hundred and fifty miles." 32. How does Carlyle regard patronage? What effect had patronage on Burns? (It would be interesting to compare this with patronage as it existed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the case of Dryden, Swift, Addison, and Steele.) 33. Does the blame of Burns's failure lie with the world? If not, where does it lie? 34. How do Byron and Burns compare in this respect? 35. For what reasons Questions and Topics for Study 105 are the judgments of the world on men of genius so often unjust? Note Carlyle's plea for the errors of genius. "Then gently scan your brother man, Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang; One point must still be greatly dark, |