What in the plastic arts the sensuous visible _form_ expressed by
means of stone and colour is, or what in the realm of music animating
strains of harmony and melody are, this--we must repeatedly insist on
the fact--can only be, in respect to poetic expression--the idea or
image itself. The force of the poet's creation centres consequently,
in the fact that the art moulds a content in an ideal medium, and
without bringing before us the actual forms of external Nature and the
progressions of musical sound; by doing so, therefore, it translates
the objective presence accepted by the other arts into an ideal form,
which Spirit or intelligence expresses for the imagination under the
mode which is and must remain that of our conscious life.
A distinction of this very character was already insisted on when we
had occasion previously to establish a distinction between the earliest
type, of poetry and its later modes of reconstruction from the data of
prose.
(_a_) Imaginative poetry in its _origin_ is not as yet a consciously
distinct form from those extremes of ordinary conscious life, one of
which brings everything to vision under the mode of immediate and
therewith contingent singularity, without grasping the ideal essence
implied therein, and the manifestation of the same; while the other,
in one direction, differentiates concrete existence into its various
characteristics, making use of abstract generalization, and in another
avails itself of the scientific faculty as the correlating and
connecting focus of such abstractions. The idea is only poetical in so
far as it holds these extremes in unviolable mediation, and thereby is
able to maintain a position of genuine stability midway between the
vision of ordinary consciousness and that of abstract thought.
In general terms we may define the poetic imagination as _plastic_[1]
in so far as it brings before our vision concrete reality rather
than the abstract generalization, and in the place of contingent
existence an appearance of such a kind that we recognize what is
substantive immediately in it by virtue of its embodiment itself and
its individuality, and as inseparable from it, and by virtue of this
are able to grasp the concrete conception-of the fact in question no
less than its determinate existence as one and the same vital whole
reposing in the ideal medium of the imagination. In this respect we
find a fundamental distinction between that whereof the plastic or
constructive idea is the source and all that is otherwise made vivid
to us through other means of expression. The same truth will appear
to us, if we analyse what we mean, by mere reading. We understand what
the letters mean, which are indicative points for articulate utterance,
by the mere act of sight, and without being further obliged to listen
to their sound. Only the illiterate reader will find it necessary to
speak aloud the separate words that he may understand their sense.
But in the case of poetry just what seems to be here the mark of
stupidity is an indication of beauty and excellence. Poetry is not
satisfied with an abstract effort of apprehension, nor does it bring
objects before us as we find them in the form of reflection and in the
unimaginative generalization of our memory. It helps us to approach
the essential notion in its positive existence, the generic as clothed
in its specific individuality. In the view of ordinary common sense I
understand by language, both in its impression on my hearing or sight,
the meaning in its immediacy, in other words, without receiving its
image before the mind. The phrases, for instance, "the sun," or "in the
morning," possess each of them no doubt a distinct sense; but neither
the Dawn or the Sun are themselves made present to our vision. When,
however, the poet says: "When now the dawning Eos soared heavenwards
with rosy fingers," here without question we have the concrete fact
brought home to us. The poetical expression adds, however, yet more,
for it associates with the object recognized a vision of the same,
or we should rather say the purely abstract relation of knowledge
vanishes, and the real definition takes its place. In the same way
take the phrase, "Alexander conquered the Persian empire." Here, no
doubt, so far as content is concerned, we have a concrete conception;
the many-sided definition of it, however, expressed here in the word
"victory," is concentrated in a featureless and pure abstraction, which
fails to image before us anything of the appearance and reality of the
exploit accomplished by Alexander. This truth applies to every kind of
similar expression. We recognize the bare fact; but it remains pale and
dun, and from the point of view of individual existence undetermined
and abstract. The poetic conception consequently embraces the fulness
of the objective phenomenon as it essentially exists, and is able to
elaborate the same united with the essential ideality of the fact in a
creative totality.
What follows as a primary result of this is that it is of interest to
the imagination to _linger_ near the external characteristics of the
fact, to the extent at least that it seeks to express the same in its
positive reality, deems this as essentially worthy of contemplation and
insists on this very attitude.
Poetry is consequently in its manner of expression _descriptive_
Description is, however, not the right word for it. We are, in fact,
accustomed to accept as descriptive, and in contrast to the abstract
definition, in which a content is otherwise brought home to our
intelligence, much that the poet passes by, so that from the point
of view of ordinary speech poetic composition can only appear as a
roundabout way and a useless superfluity. The poet must, however,
manage to bring his imagination to bear upon the explication of the
actual phenomenon he is attempting to depict with a vital interest.[2]
In this way, for instance, Homer adds a descriptive epithet to every
hero. So Achilles is the swift-footed, the Achaeans bright-greaved,
Hector as of the glancing helm, Agamemnon the lord of peoples, and so
forth. The name is no doubt descriptive of a personality, but the name
alone brings nothing further to our vision. To have some distinct idea
of this we require further attributes. We have in fact similar epithets
attached by Homer to other objects, which are essential to our vision
of the epic, such as sea, ships, sword and others, epithets which seize
and place before us an essential quality of the particular object,
depicting it more precisely, and which enable us to apprehend the fact
in its concrete appearance.
_Secondly_, we must distinguish such reconstruction of actual facts
from definition _wholly imagined_. This offers a further point of view
for discussion. The real image merely places before us the fact in the
reality it possesses. The expression of the poet's imagination, on
the contrary, does not restrict itself to the object in its immediate
appearance; it proceeds to depict something over and above this, by
means of which the significance of the former picture is made clear
to our mind. Metaphors, illustrations, similes become in this way
an essential feature of poetic creation. We have thereby a kind of
veil attached to the content, which concerns us, and which, by its
difference from it, serves in part as an embellishment, and in part as
a further unfolding of it, though it necessarily fails to be complete,
for the reason that it only applies to a specific aspect of this
content. The passage in which Homer compares Ajax, on his refusing to
fly, to an obstinate ass is an illustration. To a pre-eminent degree
oriental poetry possesses this splendour and wealth in pictorial
comparisons. There are two main reasons of this. First, its symbolic
point of view makes such a search for aspects of affinity inevitable,
and in the universality of its centres of significance it offers a
large field of concrete phenomena capable of comparison; secondly, on
account of the sublimity of its predominant outlook there is a tendency
to apply the entire variety of all that is most brilliant and glorious
in its motley show to the embellishment of the One Supreme, which is
held before the mind as the sole One to be exalted. This object of the
imagination, moreover, is not to be apprehended as merely the work
of fanciful caprice or comparison, possessing as such nothing in it
essentially actual and present. On the contrary the transmutation of
all particular existence into further existence in this central idea
grasped and clothed by the imagination is rather to be understood as
equivalent to the assertion that there is nothing else essentially
present, nothing that otherwise can put forward a claim to substantive
reality. The belief in the world as we apprehend it with the vision of
ordinary common sense is converted into a belief in the imagination,
for which the only world that verily exists is that which the poetic
consciousness has created. Conversely we have the romantic imagination,
which is ready enough to express itself in metaphor, because in its
vision what is external is for the essentially secluded life of the
soul only accepted as something incidental, something that is unable
adequately to express its own reality. To reclothe this consequently
unreal externality with profound emotion, with all the fulness of
detail envisioned, or with the play of humour upon the conjunction of
such opposites is an impulse, which constrains and charms romantic
poetry to ever novel discoveries. The object of importance here is
not so much to make the fact clear and distinct to the vision; on the
contrary the metaphorical employment of these outlying phenomena is
itself the aim proposed. The emotion of the poet concentrates itself as
the centre, which the environment enriches with its wealth; it absorbs
this as part of itself, adapts it with genius and wit to its adornment,
steeps it in its own life, and finds in this movement to and fro, this
elaboration and self-reflection of its creation its own source of
delight.
(_b_) _Secondly_, we have the contrast present between the poetic mode
of conception and that of _prose._ The thing of importance in the
latter case is not that which is imaged, but the significance as such
which constitutes the content. It is on account of the latter that
the idea or image becomes a mere means to bring the content before
the mind. The composition of prose is therefore neither compelled to
place the more detailed reality of its objects before our vision, nor
to summon before us, as is the case with the metaphorical mode of
expression previously described, another idea which carries us beyond
the immediate object to be expressed. No doubt it is also necessary in
prose to indicate in firm and distinct outlines the positive appearance
of objects; but this is so not on account of their figurative
character,[3] but to meet a specific and practical purpose. Generally
speaking we may therefore affirm _accuracy_ to be from one point of
view the ruling principle of prose composition, and from another a
_clear definition_ and intelligibility of statement. In contrast to
this the language of metaphor and imagery is in general and relatively
less clear and more inaccurate. For in that mode of direct expression,
such as we have presented by our first form of the poetic conception,
the fact in its simplicity is carried away from our immediate
apprehension of it as a mere object into the actual world of concrete
fact, and we have to recognize it as a part of this, while in that
second and more oblique form some phenomenon of affinity merely and
one even aloof from the essential significance of our subject is made
present to us. We do not, therefore, wonder that prosaic commentators
of our poets have no easy task when they seek to separate, by means of
their scientific analyses, the image from the significance, to extract
their abstract content from the vital form, and thereby expound poetic
modes of composition to the prosaic mind.
In poetry this accuracy, this rigour in unfolding the content as we
find it in its simplicity, is not alone the essential principle. On the
contrary, though prose is forced to confine its ideas on parallel lines
of almost mathematical precision with the nature of its content, poetry
introduces us to a different sphere altogether, that is, the _visible
appearance_ of the content itself, or other natural phenomena related
to it. For it is just this objective reality which in poetry ought to
appear, and while unquestionably from one point of view revealing that
content, yet at the same time from another it has to liberate itself
from the purely abstract content, it being essentially an object of the
art to direct attention to its actual existence in the visible world,
and to arouse the interest of mind in the forms of life itself.
(_c_) If these three essential requirements of poetry are conditioned
by an age, in which the accuracy of the prosaic mind is become the
ordinary type of conscious life, the art, so far as its figurative
characteristics are concerned, is placed in a more difficult position.
That is to say, in such an epoch the type of penetration exercised by
conscious life is generally a separation of emotion and the ordinary
outlook from scientific thought, which either converts the ideal
and external material of feeling and perception into a stimulus of
knowledge and volition simply, or into a plastic medium subservient
to observation and action. In such a sphere poetry calls for energies
of more definite purpose in order that it may free itself from the
abstraction of the prevailing mental attitude and enter into the
world of concrete life. Where, however, such a goal is realized, not
only do we find that this breach between thinking, which makes for
generalization, and perception and feeling, which grasp the particular,
vanishes, but these last-mentioned modes of conscious life are,
together with their subject-matter and content, at the same time freed
from their exclusive relation of service; and the process culminates
in a victorious reconciliation of such modes with what is essential
universality. Inasmuch, however, as both the modes of poetic and
prosaic thought and general outlook are united in one and the same
conscious life, we find in it indications of trouble and derangement,
even possibly an actual conflict between the two, one which, as the
poetry of our times testifies, only genius of the highest order is able
successfully to deal with. Added to this there are other collateral
hindrances, which I only propose to define now, and that briefly, in
their relation to the figurative aspect already discussed. In other
words, if the prosaic intelligence takes the place of that creative
imagination which previously obtained, then and in that case the
rejuvenescence of the poetic faculty, both in all that is associated
with the positive expression of facts and what is metaphorical, readily
offers the semblance of artificiality, which even where it falls short
of actual purpose, is only with great difficulty reconciled with that
directness of immediate truth which is demanded. Much in fact which was
still fresh in former times, through repeated usage, and the habits
thus originated, has itself become gradually a custom and a part of
prosaic life. Moreover, where poetry strives after novelties in its
composition, we often find that, despite of itself, in its figurative
expressions and descriptions, even where it escapes the charge of
exaggeration and an excess of such material, it none the less leaves
an impression of artificiality, over nicety, a straining after what
is piquant and select, work incompatible with a simple and healthy
outlook and state of feeling. Such work tends to regard objects in an
artificial light and reckons on mere effect. Consequently it will not
permit their natural lighting and colour. Defects of this nature are
still more obvious in cases where, as a rule, the metaphorical type of
imaginative composition is exchanged[4] for the more direct, and our
poet is driven to outbid the forces of prose; and, in order to assert
an originality, plunges into the subtleties of or the fishing for
effects which have still some appearance of freshness.