I have previously remarked that the poet is nature, or he _seeks_
nature. In the former case, he is a simple poet, in the second case, a
sentimental poet.
The poetic spirit is immortal, nor can it disappear from humanity; it
can only disappear with humanity itself, or with the aptitude to be a
man, a human being. And actually, though man by the freedom of his
imagination and of his understanding departs from simplicity, from
truth, from the necessity of nature, not only a road always remains open
to him to return to it, but, moreover, a powerful and indestructible
instinct, the moral instinct, brings him incessantly back to nature; and
it is precisely the poetical faculty that is united to this instinct by
the ties of the closest relationship. Thus man does not lose the poetic
faculty directly he parts with the simplicity of nature; only this
faculty acts out of him in another direction.
Even at present nature is the only flame that kindles and warms the
poetic soul. From nature alone it obtains all its force; to nature alone
it speaks in the artificial culture-seeking man. Any other form of
displaying its activity is remote from the poetic spirit. Accordingly it
may be remarked that it is incorrect to apply the expression poetic to
any of the so-styled productions of wit, though the high credit given to
French literature has led people for a long period to class them in that
category. I repeat that at present, even in the existing phase of
culture, it is still nature that powerfully stirs up the poetic spirit,
only its present relation to nature is of a different order from
formerly.
As long as man dwells in a state of pure nature (I mean pure and not
coarse nature), all his being acts at once like a simple sensuous unity,
like a harmonious whole. The senses and reason, the receptive faculty
and the spontaneously active faculty, have not been as yet separated in
their respective functions: _à fortiori_ they are not yet in
contradiction with each other. Then the feelings of man are not the
formless play of chance; nor are his thoughts an empty play of the
imagination, without any value. His feelings proceed from the law of
necessity; his _thoughts_ from _reality_. But when man enters the state
of civilization, and art has fashioned him, this _sensuous_ harmony
which was in him disappears, and henceforth he can only manifest himself
as a _moral unity_, that is, as aspiring to unity. The harmony that
existed as a _fact_ in the former state, the harmony of feeling and
thought, only exists now in an _ideal_ state. It is no longer in him,
but out of him; it is a conception of thought which he must begin by
realizing in himself; it is no longer a fact, a reality of his life.
Well, now let us take the idea of poetry, which is nothing else than
_expressing humanity as completely as possible_, and let us apply this
idea to these two states. We shall be brought to infer that, on the one
hand, in the state of natural simplicity, when all the faculties of man
are exerted together, his being still manifests itself in a harmonious
unity, where, consequently, the _totality_ of his nature expresses
itself in reality itself, the part of the _poet_ is necessarily to
imitate the real as completely as is possible. In the state of
civilization, on the contrary, when this harmonious competition of the
whole of human nature is no longer anything but an idea, the part of the
poet is necessarily to raise reality to the ideal, or, what amounts to
the same thing, _to represent the ideal_. And, actually, these are the
only two ways in which, in general, the poetic genius can manifest
itself. Their great difference is quite evident, but though there be
great opposition between them, a higher idea exists that embraces both,
and there is no cause to be astonished if this idea coincides with the
very idea of humanity.
This is not the place to pursue this thought any further, as it would
require a separate discussion to place it in its full light. But if we
only compare the modern and ancient poets together, not according to the
accidental forms which they may have employed, but according to their
spirit, we shall be easily convinced of the truth of this thought. The
thing that touches us in the ancient poets is nature; it is the truth of
sense, it is a present and a living reality: modern poets touch us
through the medium of ideas.
The path followed by modern poets is moreover that necessarily followed
by man generally, individuals as well as the species. Nature reconciles
man with himself; art divides and disunites him; the ideal brings him
back to unity. Now, the ideal being an infinite that he never succeeds
in reaching, it follows that civilized man can never become perfect in
his kind, while the man of nature can become so in his. Accordingly in
relation to perfection one would be infinitely below the other, if we
only considered the relation in which they are both to their own kind
and to their maximum. If, on the other hand, it is the kinds that are
compared together, it is ascertained that the end to which man tends by
civilization is infinitely superior to that which he reaches through
nature. Thus one has his reward, because having for object a finite
magnitude, he completely reaches this object; the merit of the other is
to approach an object that is of infinite magnitude. Now, as there are
only degrees, and as there is only progress in the second of these
evolutions, it follows that the relative merit of the man engaged in the
ways of civilization is never determinable in general, though this man,
taking the individuals separately, is necessarily at a disadvantage,
compared with the man in whom nature acts in all its perfection. But we
know also that humanity cannot reach its final end except by _progress_,
and that the man of nature cannot make progress save through culture,
and consequently by passing himself through the way of civilization.
Accordingly there is no occasion to ask with which of the two the
advantage must remain, considering this last end.
All that we say here of the different forms of humanity may be applied
equally to the two orders of poets who correspond to them.
Accordingly it would have been desirable not to compare at all the
ancient and the modern poets, the simple and the sentimental poets, or
only to compare them by referring them to a higher idea (since there is
really only one) which embraces both. For, sooth to say, if we begin by
forming a specific idea of poetry, merely from the ancient poets,
nothing is easier, but also nothing is more vulgar, than to depreciate
the moderns by this comparison. If persons wish to confine the name of
poetry to that which has in all times produced the same impression in
simple nature, this places them in the necessity of contesting the title
of poet in the moderns precisely in that which constitutes their highest
beauties, their greatest originality and sublimity; for precisely in the
points where they excel the most, it is the child of civilization whom
they address, and they have nothing to say to the simple child of
nature.
To the man who is not disposed beforehand to issue from reality in order
to enter the field of the ideal, the richest and most substantial poetry
is an empty appearance, and the sublimest flights of poetic inspiration
are an exaggeration. Never will a reasonable man think of placing
alongside Homer, in his grandest episodes, any of our modern poets; and
it has a discordant and ridiculous effect to hear Milton or Klopstock
honored with the name of a “new Homer.” But take in modern poets what
characterizes them, what makes their special merit, and try to compare
any ancient poet with them in this point, they will not be able to
support the comparison any better, and Homer less than any other. I
should express it thus: the power of the ancients consists in
compressing objects into the finite, and the moderns excel in the art of
the infinite.
What we have said here may be extended to the fine arts in general,
except certain restrictions that are self-evident. If, then, the
strength of the artists of antiquity consists in determining and
limiting objects, we must no longer wonder that in the field of the
plastic arts the ancients remain so far superior to the moderns, nor
especially that poetry and the plastic arts with the moderns, compared
respectively with what they were among the ancients, do not offer the
same relative value. This is because an object that addresses itself to
the eyes is only perfect in proportion as the object is clearly limited
in it; whilst a work that is addressed to the imagination can also reach
the perfection which is proper to it by means of the ideal and the
infinite. This is why the superiority of the moderns in what relates to
ideas is not of great aid to them in the plastic arts, where it is
necessary for them to _determine_ in _space_, with the greatest
precision, the image which their imagination has conceived, and where
they must therefore measure themselves with the ancient artist just on a
point where his superiority cannot be contested. In the matter of poetry
it is another affair, and if the advantage is still with the ancients on
that ground, as respects the simplicity of forms—all that can be
represented by sensuous features, all that is something _bodily_—yet, on
the other hand, the moderns have the advantage over the ancients as
regards fundamental wealth, and all that can neither be represented nor
translated by sensuous signs, in short, for all that is called mind and
idea in the works of art.
From the moment that the simple poet is content to follow simple nature
and feeling, that he is contented with the imitation of the real world,
he can only be placed, with regard to his subject, in a single relation.
And in this respect he has no choice as to the manner of treating it. If
simple poetry produces different impressions—I do not, of course, speak
of the impressions that are connected with the nature of the subject,
but only of those that are dependent on poetic execution—the whole
difference is in the _degree_; there is only one way of feeling, which
varies from more to less; even the diversity of external forms changes
nothing in the quality of æsthetic impressions. Whether the form be
lyric or epic, dramatic or descriptive, we can receive an impression
either stronger or weaker, but if we remove what is connected with the
nature of the subject, we shall always be affected in the same way. The
feeling we experience is absolutely identical; it proceeds entirety from
one single and the same element to such a degree that we are unable to
make any distinction. The very difference of tongues and that of times
does not here occasion any diversity, for their strict unity of origin
and of effect is precisely a characteristic of simple poetry.
It is quite different with sentimental poetry. The sentimental poet
_reflects_ on the impression produced on him by objects; and it is only
on this reflection that his poetic force is based. It follows that the
sentimental poet is always concerned with two opposite forces, has two
modes of representing objects to himself, and of feeling them; these
are, the real or limited, and the ideal or infinite; and the mixed
feeling that he will awaken will always testify to this duality of
origin. Sentimental poetry thus admitting more than one principle, it
remains to know which of the two will be _predominant_ in the poet, both
in his fashion of feeling and in that of representing the object; and
consequently a difference in the mode of treating it is possible. Here,
then, a new subject is presented: shall the poet attach himself to the
real or the ideal? to the real as an object of aversion and of disgust,
or to the ideal as an object of inclination? The poet will therefore be
able to treat the same subject either in its _satirical aspect_ or in
its _elegiac_ aspect,—taking these words in a larger sense, which will
be explained in the sequel: every sentimental poet will of necessity
become attached to one or the other of these two modes of feeling.