The field of vision which first will occupy our attention, but the
boundless expanse of which we can only traverse with a few general
observations, is that which concerns the poetic generally, the content
no less than the mode of conception and organic association adapted
to the poetic work of art. This background will help to emphasize the
_second_ aspect of our subject, which is _poetic expression_ more
strictly, the idea in the ideal objectivity of the word appropriated by
it as symbol of the image, and the melodious vehicle of its speech.
We may infer the nature of the relation between poetic expression
generally and the mode of presentment proper to the other arts from our
previous examination of the characteristics of the poetic art. Language
and the sounds of words are neither a symbol of spiritual conceptions,
nor an adequate mode of projecting ideality under the condition of
spatial objectivity in the sense applicable to the corporeal forms of
sculpture and painting, nor yet an intonation in musical sound of the
entire soul. They are an abstract _sign_ simply. As the vehicle of the
poetic image or conception, however, it is necessary that this side
also, in theory no less than deliberate elaboration, appear as distinct
from the kind of expression appropriate to prose.
We may for this purpose emphasize with more detail three main points of
distinction.
Our _first_ point is this, that although poetic expression is
throughout exclusively embodied in articulate words, and apparently
as such is simply related to human speech, yet in so far as the words
themselves are merely abstract signs representative of _ideas,_ the
true source of poetic speech is not to be discovered in the selection
of particular words, and in the manner they are associated in sentences
and elaborated phrases, nor in harmonious rhythm, rhyme and so forth,
but in the type of _conception_ employed. We have, in short, to look
for our point of departure for the constructive use of expression in
the choice of the idea or image, find our first and foremost question
will be what kind of conception will give us an expression suitable to
poetry. _Secondly_, however, it remains the fact that the imaginative
idea essentially pertinent to poetry is exclusively made objective
in _language._ We have consequently to investigate the expression of
speech according to its purely verbal aspect, in the light of which
poetic words are distinguishable from those of prose, poetic phrases
from those of our ordinary life and prosaic thought, abstracting in the
first instance the mere sound of them to our sense of hearing.
_Finally_, we have to recognize the fact that poetry is a mode of
articulate speech, the sounding word, which in its temporal duration no
less than its actual sound, must receive a definite configuration, one
that implies the presence of time-measure, rhythm, melodious sound and
rhyme.