As a boy I used to have to prepare, on occasions, a play of
Shakespeare for a holiday task. I have regarded certain plays with
a kind of horror ever since, because one ended by learning up the
introduction, which concerned itself with the origin of the play,
and the notes which illustrated the meaning of such words as "kerns
and gallowglasses," and left the action and the poetry and the
emotion of the play to take care of themselves. This was due partly
to the blighting influence of examination-papers set by men of
sterile, conscientious brains, but partly to the terrible value set
by British minds upon correct information. The truth really is that
if one begins by caring for a work of art, one also cares to
understand the medium through which it is conveyed; but if one
begins by studying the medium first, one is apt to end by loathing
the masterpiece, because of the dusty apparatus that it seems
liable to collect about itself.
The result of the influence of the specialist upon literature is
that the amateur, hustled from any region where the historical and
scientific method can be applied, turns his attention to the field
of pure imagination, where he cannot be interfered with.
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