Inasmuch as the poetic imagination is distinct in its operation from
that of all other artists in virtue of the fact that it necessarily
clothes its images in words, and communicates the same through human
_speech_, it becomes imperative that throughout this process it should
endeavour to co-ordinate all its ideas, in the form which with most
completeness will disclose them, through the means articulate speech
thus places at its disposal. And, in short, we may affirm that the
poetic content only assumes the form of poetry in its restricted sense
after it has been actually embodied and rounded off in the vehicle of
words.
This literary aspect of the art of poetry would readily supply us with
a boundless field of discursive observation and logical argument, which
I must, however, pass over in order that I may reserve space for more
weighty problems which lie before us. I merely propose, therefore, to
touch very briefly on a few fundamental points.
(_a_) Human art should in all its associations place us on a ground
quite other than that we confront in ordinary life, or indeed in
our religious consciousness, active life, or the speculations of
philosophy. This is possible on the side of literary or verbal
expression only in so far as another mode of speech is adopted than
that obtaining in those other spheres. Art has therefore not only,
from one point of view, to avoid that in its instrument of expression
which will fail to rise above the trivialities of ordinary speech
and ordinary prose, but it must, furthermore, avoid falling into the
tone and manner of religious edification and philosophical research.
Above all it must keep aloof from the precise analyses and _methods_
of the scientific faculty, the categories of pure thinking as we find
these illustrated in the logical forms of judgment and deduction.
These at once remove art from the imaginative realm to another region
altogether. But in all these respects it still remains a difficult
matter to determine the lines of boundary on which we may actually
affirm that poetry ends and prose begins. And in fact we may admit
absolute precision and confidence of statement to be impossible from
the nature of the case.
(_b_) If we pass now to a discussion of the particular _means_ which
poetic-speech can appropriate as instrumental to its task the following
points appear to me pregnant and suggestive.
(_α_) _First_, we find particular _words_ and exclamations[5] that are
obviously peculiar to poetry, whether they be used to ennoble it, or to
introduce the vulgarity and excess of comedy. We find a similar novelty
in the specific collocation of various words or turns of expression. In
such a field poetry is no doubt entitled on the one hand to borrow from
an obsolete nomenclature, obsolete at least in everyday speech, and on
the other to declare itself as pre-eminently an innovator, moulding
novel modes of speech. Such a field, provided only the vital genius of
the language is preserved, supplies material for astonishing boldness
of invention.
(_β_) _Secondly_, we have the problem of verbal order. It is here that
we meet with those so-called figures of speech, in so far as, we should
add, the same have reference to verbal embodiment as such. The use of
these, however, easily degenerates into rhetoric and declamation in
the bad sense of these terms; the vitality of individual character
is destroyed where we find that such forms substitute a fixed and
artificial mode of expression for the genuine impulse of feeling or
passion, and thereby offer the very opposite to the personal, laconic
and broken utterance required, the utterance whose emotional depth
is incapable of saying much, and for this reason, in romantic poetry
especially, is of great effect as a presentment of suppressed[6] states
of soul. But generally speaking we may admit that the relative order
of words is an instrument of the external form of poetry of quite
extraordinary resource.
(_γ_) _Thirdly_, we have still to draw attention to the construction
of _periods,_[7] which essentially embrace all the other aspects
of composition and which, by means of either their simple or more
involved course, their restless dislocations and distortions, or their
quick onward motion, their acceleration and their flood contribute so
materially to the reflection of such soul experience. And, in short, it
is essential that the external presentment in speech should mirror and
assume a character similar to the ideality of such experience in all
its variety.
(_c_) In the _application_ of the means of speech above considered it
will be useful to distinguish once more the several stages of poetic
thought to which they correspond and to which we drew attention when we
considered the nature of poetic conception or composition.
(_α_) Poetic diction can, in the first instance, appear with real
vitality among a people and at an epoch when the general speech is not
as yet perfected, but in fact only by virtue of its poetry receives
its real development. At such a time the utterance of the poet, as
generally expressive of soul-life, is from the first a real novelty,
which stirs admiration on its own account by revealing in its speech
what remained previously unveiled. This new creation appears as the
marvel of a gift and personal power. The weight of custom has not as
yet fallen upon it. It enables that which is buried in the depths of
the human heart for the first time to freely unfold itself before the
amazement of men. Under such conditions it is the native force of
the expression, the creation of the fact of speech, not so much the
varied and craftful elaboration of the same, which is the main point.
Diction here remains exceedingly simple. In such early times it is
indeed impossible that we should have either much fluency of idea or
any varied versatility of expression. The subject-matter of such poetry
is depicted with an artless directness, which has not yet attained the
delicate nuances, transitions, mediatory matter and other advantages of
a later artistic culture. In such an age the poet is in fact the first
person to give an utterance to the national voice, to express ideas in
speech, and thereby to encourage the imagination itself. Speech is,
if we may so express it, not yet inseparable from ordinary life, and
poetry can still freely, with an effect of freshness, avail itself
of all that in later times, as the speech of common life, gradually
is severed from art. In this respect, for example, Homer's type of
expression is to the modern man barely distinguishable from ordinary
speech. For every idea we have the direct word[8]; metaphorical
expressions are comparatively rare; and although the poem is composed
with a close attention to detail, the speech itself remains very simple
indeed. In a similar way Dante was able to create for his own nation
a vital form of poetic expression, and asserted in this, as in other
respects, the dauntless energy of his creative genius.
(_β_) When, however--this is a _further_ point--the circle of ideas
enlarges with the appearance of methodical modes of thought the ways
in which idea is associated with idea increase, and in this very
process the ability to use it increases also, and the expression of
speech is elaborated in all the fluency of which it is capable. When
this is so the position of poetry on the side of verbal expression is
wholly changed. In other words, we have now a nation possessing the
fully developed prose speech of everyday life, and poetic expression
must now, in order to retain its interest, swerve aside from ordinary
parlance, and receive a resurrection under the re-moulding energy of
genius.[9] In our daily life the contingency of the moment is the
motive of speech. In the creation of a work of art, however, we must
have deliberate circumspection[10] in the place of instantaneous
feeling; even the spirit of enthusiasm must be judiciously restrained.
The creation of genius should be permitted to unfold itself from the
artistic repose,[11] and become informed under the prevailing temper
of an intelligence[12] that surveys the whole with clarity. In former
times this spirit of concentration and tranquillity is to be inferred
from the fact and utterance of poetry itself. In a more recent age, on
the contrary, the nature of the composition and execution has itself to
enforce the distinction which obtains between the expression of poetry
and prose. In this respect poems which belong to epochs in which we
find already an elaborated prose diction differ essentially from those
of times and peoples in which the art originates.
The executive talent of a poet can be carried so far in this direction
that the elaboration of formal expression becomes the main thing, and
the aim is less directed to ideal truth than to formal construction, a
polished elegance and mere effect of the composition under its literary
aspect. We have then a situation, in which, as already observed,
rhetoric and declamation are elaborated in a manner destructive to the
ideal vitality of the poetic spirit. The formative intelligence asserts
itself under the principle of _purposiveness_, and a selfconsciously
regulated art disturbs that more genuine effect, which ought to present
the appearance of ingenuous openness and simplicity. Entire nations
have, with the rarest exceptions, failed to produce any type of poetic
creation other than this rhetorical one. The Latin language, even in
Cicero, still preserves a genuine ring of naïveté and naturalness.
With the Latin poets, however, such as Virgil, Horace and the rest,
we already feel that Art is to a real extent nothing but artifice,
elaboration of effect on its own account. We recognize a prosaic
content, which is merely set off with an external embellishment. We
find a poet who, in the absence of original genius, endeavours to
discover, in the sphere of literary versatility and rhetoric effects,
some compensation for that which in genuine power and effect of
creation and composition he fails to possess. France too, in the
so-called classical period of its literature, has produced poetry
very similar, a poetical style to which didactic poems and satires
are singularly appropriate. Rhetorical figures of speech in all their
variety are here in their rightful place. The exposition remains for
all that, as a whole, prosaic; and the literary expression is at its
best rich in image and embellishment, much in the style of Herder's
or Schiller's diction. These last-mentioned writers, however, availed
themselves of this style of literary expression mainly in the interests
of prose composition; and by the weightiness of their reflections and
the happy use of such a style knew how to win both a critical assent
and a hearty approval. The Spanish poets also are not wholly free from
the ostentation inseparable from the too self-conscious diction of
art. And, as a general rule, Southern nations, such as the Spaniards
and the Italians, and previously to them the Mohammedan Arabs and
Persians, are conspicuous for a wealth and tedious prolixity of image
and simile. With the ancients, more especially in the case of Homer,
the flow of expression is characterized by smoothness and tranquillity.
With the nations above mentioned, on the contrary, we have a vision
of life gushing forth[13] in a flood which, even where the emotions
are in other respects at rest, is ever intent upon expatiation, and
owing to this expressly volitional effort of the will is dominated by
an intelligence which at one time is visible in abrupt parentheses, at
another in subtle generalization, at another in the playful conjunction
of its sallies of wit and humour.
(_γ_) Genuine poetic expression in short is as far removed from all
rhetorical declamation as above described as it is from all ostentation
and witty conceits of diction, in so far at least as such defects do
injury to the ideal truth of Nature, and the claims of the content are
forgotten in the verbal form and expression of the composition. It is,
however, possible, despite of this, that the author's free enjoyment
in his work declare itself with real beauty. In a word that aspect of
the composition we define as formal diction ought not to be treated on
its own and independent account alone, or as an aspect of first and
even exclusive importance. And, generally speaking, in this analysis of
the composition of poetry under its formative aspect, we repeat that
what is the product of careful thought must not lose the appearance of
genuine spontaneity: everything should impress us as though it had of
itself blossomed from the ideal germ or heart of the subject-matter.