IDYL.

It remains for me to say a few words about this third kind of

sentimental poetry—some few words and no more, for I propose to speak of

it at another time with the developments particularly demanded by the

theme.

This kind of poetry generally presents the idea and description of an

innocent and happy humanity. This innocence and bliss seeming remote

from the artificial refinements of fashionable society, poets have

removed the scene of the idyl from crowds of worldly life to the simple

shepherd’s cot, and have given it a place in the infancy of humanity

before the beginning of culture. These limitations are evidently

accidental; they do not form the object of the idyl, but are only to be

regarded as the most natural means to attain this end. The end is

everywhere to portray man in a state of innocence: which means a state

of harmony and peace with himself and the external world.

But a state such as this is not merely met with before the dawn of

civilization; it is also the state to which civilization aspires, as to

its last end, if only it obeys a determined tendency in its progress.

The idea of a similar state, and the belief of the possible reality of

this state, is the only thing that can reconcile man with all the evils

to which he is exposed in the path of civilization; and if this idea

were only a chimera, the complaints of those who accuse civil life and

the culture of the intelligence as an evil for which there is no

compensation, and who represent this primitive state of nature that we

have renounced as the real end of humanity—their complaints, I say,

would have a perfectly just foundation. It is, therefore, of infinite

importance for the man engaged in the path of civilization to see

confirmed in a sensuous manner the belief that this idea can be

accomplished in the world of sense, that this state of innocence can be

realized in it; and as real experience, far from keeping up this belief,

is rather made incessantly to contradict it, poetry comes here, as in

many other cases, in aid of reason, to cause this idea to pass into the

condition of an intuitive idea, and to realize it in a particular fact.

No doubt this innocence of pastoral life is also a poetic idea, and the

imagination must already have shown its creative power in that. But the

problem, with this datum, becomes infinitely simpler and easier to

solve; and we must not forget that the elements of these pictures

already existed in real life, and that it was only requisite to gather

up the separate traits to form a whole. Under a fine sky, in a primitive

society, when all the relations are still simple, when science is

limited to so little, nature is easily satisfied, and man only turns to

savagery when he is tortured by want. All nations that have a history

have a paradise, an age of innocence, a golden age. Nay, more than this,

every man has his paradise, his golden age, which he remembers with more

or less enthusiasm, according as he is more or less poetical. Thus

experience itself furnishes sufficient traits to this picture which the

pastoral idyl executes. But this does not prevent the pastoral idyl from

remaining always a beautiful and an encouraging fiction; and poetic

genius, in retracing these pictures, has really worked in favor of the

ideal. For, to the man who has once departed from simple nature, and who

has been abandoned to the dangerous guidance of his reason, it is of the

greatest importance to find the laws of nature expressed in a faithful

copy, to see their image in a clear mirror, and to reject all the stains

of artificial life. There is, however, a circumstance which remarkably

lessens the æsthetic value of these sorts of poetry. By the very fact

that the idyl is transported to the time that precedes civilization, it

also loses the advantages thereof; and by its nature finds itself in

opposition to itself. Thus, in a _theoretical_ sense, it takes us back

at the same time that in a _practical_ sense it leads us on and ennobles

us. Unhappily it places _behind us_ the end _towards which it ought to

lead_ us, and consequently it can only inspire us with the sad feeling

of a loss, and not the joyous feeling of a hope. As these poems can only

attain their end by dispensing with all art, and by simplifying human

nature, they have the highest value for the _heart_, but they are also

far too poor for what concerns the _mind_, and their uniform circle is

too quickly traversed. Accordingly we can only seek them and love them

in moments in which we need calm, and not when our faculties aspire

after movement and exercise. A morbid mind will find its _cure_ in them,

a sound soul will not find its _food_ in them. They cannot vivify, they

can only soften. This defect, grounded in the essence of the pastoral

idyll, has not been remedied by the whole art of poets. I know that this

kind of poem is not without admirers, and that there are readers enough

who prefer an Amyntus and a Daphnis to the most splendid masterpieces of

the epic or the dramatic muse; but in them it is less the æsthetical

taste than the feeling of an individual want that pronounces on works of

art; and their judgment, by that very fact, could not be taken into

consideration here. The reader who judges with his mind, and whose heart

is sensuous without being blind to the merit of these poems, will

confess that he is rarely affected by them, and that they tire him most

quickly. But they act with so much the more effect in the exact moment

of need. But must the truly beautiful be reduced to await our hours of

need? and is it not rather its office to awaken in our soul the want

that it is going to satisfy?

The reproaches I here level against the bucolic idyl cannot be

understood of the sentimental. The simple pastoral, in fact, cannot be

deprived of æsthetic value, since this value is already found in _the

mere form_. To explain myself: every kind of poetry is bound to possess

an infinite ideal value, which alone constitutes it a true poetry; but

it can satisfy this condition in two different ways. It can give us the

feeling of the infinite as to form, by representing the object

_altogether limited_ and individualizing it; it can awaken in us the

feeling of the infinite as to matter, in _freeing its object from all

limits_ in which it is enclosed, by idealizing this object; therefore it

can have an ideal value either by an absolute representation or by the

representation of an absolute. Simple poetry takes the former road, the

other is that of sentimental poetry. Accordingly the simple poet is not

exposed to failure in value so long as he keeps faithfully to nature,

which is always completely circumscribed, that is, is infinite as

regards form. The sentimental poet, on the contrary, by that very fact,

that nature only offers him completely circumscribed objects, finds in

it an obstruction when he wishes to give an absolute value to a

particular object. Thus the sentimental poet understands his interests

badly when he goes along the trail of the simple poet, and _borrows his

objects_ from him—objects which by themselves are perfectly indifferent,

and which only become poetical by the way in which they are treated. By

this he imposes on himself without any necessity the same limits that

confine the field of the simple poet, without, however, being able to

carry out the limitation properly, or to vie with his rival in absolute

definiteness of representation. He ought rather, therefore, to depart

from the simple poet, just in the choice of object; because, the latter

having the advantage of him on the score of form, it is only by the

nature of the objects that he can resume the upper hand.

Applying this to the pastoral idylls of the sentimental poet, we see why

these poems, whatever amount of art and genius be displayed in them, do

not fully satisfy the heart or the mind. An ideal is proposed in it,

and, at the same time, the writer keeps to this narrow and poor medium

of pastoral life. Would it not have been better, on the contrary, to

choose for the ideal another frame, or for the pastoral world another

kind of picture? These pictures are just ideal enough for painting to

lose its individual truth in them, and, again, just individual enough

for the ideal in them to suffer therefrom. For example, a shepherd of

Gessner can neither charm by the illusion of nature nor by the beauty of

imitation; he is too ideal a being for that, but he does not satisfy us

any more as an ideal by the infinity of the thought; he is a far too

limited creature to give us this satisfaction. He will, therefore,

please up to a _certain point_ all classes of readers, without

exception, because he seeks to unite the simple with the sentimental,

and he thus gives a commencement of satisfaction to the two opposite

exigencies that may be brought to bear on any particular part of a poem;

but the author, in trying to unite the two points, does not _fully

satisfy_ either one or the other exigency, as you do not find in him

either pure nature or the pure ideal; he cannot rank himself as entirely

up to the mark of a stringent critical taste, for taste does not accept

anything equivocal or incomplete in æsthetical matters. It is a strange

thing that, in the poet whom I have named, this equivocal character

extends to the language, which floats undecided between poetry and

prose, as if he feared either to depart too far from nature, by speaking

rhythmical language, or if he completely freed himself from rhythm, to

lose all poetic flight. Milton gives a higher satisfaction to the mind,

in the magnificent picture of the first human pair, and of the state of

innocence in paradise;—the most beautiful idyl I know of the sentimental

kind. Here nature is noble, inspired, simple, full of breadth, and, at

the same time, of depth; it is humanity in its highest moral value,

clothed in the most graceful form.

Thus, even in respect to the idyl, as well as to all kinds of poetry, we

must once for all declare either for individuality or ideality; for to

aspire to give satisfaction to both exigencies is the surest means,

unless you have reached the terminus of perfection, to miss both ends.

If the modern poet thinks he feels enough of the Greeks’ mind to vie

with them, notwithstanding all the indocility of his matter, on their

own ground, namely that of simple poetry, let him do it exclusively, and

place himself apart from all the requirements of the sentimental taste

of his age. No doubt it is very doubtful if he come up to his models;

between the original and the happiest imitation there will always remain

a notable distance; but, by taking this road, he is at all events secure

of producing a really poetic work. If, on the other hand, he feels

himself carried to the ideal by the instinct of sentimental poetry, let

him decide to pursue this end fully; let him seek the ideal in its

purity, and let him not pause till he has reached the highest regions

without looking behind him to know if the real follows him, and does not

leave him by the way. Let him not lower himself to this wretched

expedient of spoiling the ideal to accommodate himself to the wants of

human weakness, and to turn out _mind_ in order to play more easily with

the _heart_. Let him not take us back to our infancy, to make us buy, at

the cost of the most precious acquisitions of the understanding, a

repose that can only last as long as the slumber of our spiritual

faculties; but let him lead us on to emancipation, and give us this

feeling of higher harmony which compensates for all his troubles and

secures the happiness of the victor! Let him prepare as his task an idyl

that realizes the pastoral innocence, even in the children of

civilization, and in all the conditions of the most militant and excited

life; of thought enlarged by culture; of the most refined art; of the

most delicate social conventionalities—an idyl, in short, that is made,

not to bring back man to _Arcadia_, but to lead him to _Elysium_.

This idyl, as I conceive it, is the idea of humanity definitely

reconciled with itself, in the individual as well as in the whole of

society; it is union freely re-established between inclination and duty;

it is nature purified, raised to its highest moral dignity; in short, it

is no less than the ideal of beauty applied to real life. Thus, the

character of this idyl is to reconcile perfectly all the _contradictions

between the real and the ideal_, which formed the matter of satirical

and elegiac poetry, and, setting aside their contradictions, to put an

end to all conflict between the feelings of the soul. Thus, the dominant

expression of this kind of poetry would be _calm_; but the calm that

follows the accomplishment, and not that of indolence—the calm that

comes from the equilibrium re-established between the faculties, and not

from the suspending of their exercise; from the fulness of our strength,

and not from our infirmity; the calm, in short, which is accompanied in

the soul by the feeling of an infinite power. But precisely because idyl

thus conceived removes all idea of struggle, it will be infinitely more

difficult than it was in two previously-named kinds of poetry to express

_movement_; yet this is an indispensable condition, without which poetry

can never act on men’s souls. The most perfect unity is required, but

unity ought not to wrong variety; the heart must be satisfied, but

without the inspiration ceasing on that account. The solution of this

problem is properly what ought to be given us by the theory of the idyl.

Now, what are the relations of the two poetries to one another, and

their relations to the poetic ideal? Here are the principles we have

established.

Nature has granted this favor to the simple poet, to act always as an

indivisible unity, to be at all times identical and perfect, and to

represent, in the real world, humanity at its highest value. In

opposition, it has given a powerful faculty to the sentimental poet, or,

rather, it has imprinted an ardent feeling on him; this is to replace

out of himself this first unity that abstraction has destroyed in him,

to complete humanity in his person, and to pass from a limited state to

an infinite state. They both propose to represent human nature fully, or

they would not be poets; but the simple poet has always the advantage of

sensuous reality over the sentimental poet, by setting forth as a real

fact what the other aspires only to reach. Every one experiences this in

the pleasure he takes in simple poetry. We there feel that the human

faculties are brought into play; no vacuum is felt; we have the feeling

of unity, without distinguishing anything of what we experience; we

enjoy both our spiritual activity and also the fulness of physical life.

Very different is the disposition of mind elicited by the sentimental

poet. Here we feel only a vivid _aspiration_ to produce in us this

harmony of which we had in the other case the consciousness and reality;

to make of ourselves a single and same totality; to realize in ourselves

the idea of humanity as a complete expression. Hence it comes that the

mind is here all in movement, stretched, hesitating between contrary

feelings; whereas it was before calm and at rest, in harmony with

itself, and fully satisfied.

But if the simple poet has the advantage over the sentimental poet on

the score of reality; if he causes really to live that of which the

other can only elicit a vivid instinct, the sentimental poet, in

compensation, has this great advantage over the simple poet: to be in a

position to offer to this instinct a _greater object_ than that given by

his rival, and the only one he could give. All reality, we know, is

below the ideal; all that exists has limits, but thought is infinite.

This limitation, to which everything is subject in sensuous reality, is,

therefore, a disadvantage for the simple poet, while the absolute,

unconditional freedom of the ideal profits the sentimental poet. No

doubt the former accomplishes his object, but this object is limited;

the second, I admit, does not entirely accomplish his, but his object is

infinite. Here I appeal to experience. We pass pleasantly to real life

and things from the frame of mind in which the simple poet has placed

us. On the other hand, the sentimental poet will always disgust us, for

a time, with real life. This is because the infinite character has, in a

manner, enlarged our mind beyond its natural measure, so that nothing it

finds in the world of sense can fill its capacity. We prefer to fall

back in contemplation on ourselves, where we find food for this awakened

impulse towards the ideal world; while, in the simple poet, we only

strive to issue out of ourselves, in search of sensuous objects.

Sentimental poetry is the offspring of retirement and science, and

invites to it; simple poetry is inspired by the spectacle of life, and

brings back life.

I have styled simple poetry a _gift of nature_ to show that thought has

no share in it. It is a first jet, a happy inspiration, that needs no

correction, when it turns out well, and which cannot be rectified if ill

turned out. The entire work of the simple genius is accomplished by

feeling; in that is its strength, and in it are its limits. If, then, he

has not _felt_ at once in a poetic manner—that is, in a perfectly human

manner—no art in the world can remedy this defect. Criticism may help

him to see the defect, but can place no beauty in its stead. Simple

genius must draw all from nature; it can do nothing, or almost nothing,

by its will; and it will fulfil the idea of this kind of poetry provided

nature acts in it by an inner necessity. Now, it is true that all which

happens by nature is necessary, and all the productions, happy or not,

of the simple genius, which is disassociated from nothing so much as

from arbitrary will, are also imprinted with this character of

necessity; momentary constraint is one thing, and the internal necessity

dependent on the totality of things another. Considered as a whole,

nature is independent and infinite; in isolated operations it is poor

and limited. The same distinction holds good in respect to the nature of

the poet. The very moment when he is most happily inspired depends on a

preceding instant, and consequently only a conditional necessity can be

attributed to him. But now the problem that the poet ought to solve is

to make an individual state similar to the human whole, and consequently

to base it in an absolute and necessary manner on itself. It is

therefore necessary that at the moment of inspiration every trace of a

temporal need should be banished, and that the object itself, however

limited, should not limit the flight of the poet. But it may be

conceived that this is only possible in so far as the poet brings to the

object an absolute freedom, an absolute fulness of faculties, and in so

far as he is prepared by an anterior exercise to embrace all things with

all his humanity. Now he cannot acquire this exercise except by the

world in which he lives, and of which he receives the impressions

immediately. Thus simple genius is in a state of dependence with regard

to experience, while the sentimental genius is forced from it. We know

that the sentimental genius begins its operation at the place where the

other finishes its own: its virtue is to complete by _the elements which

it derives from itself_ a defective object, and to transport itself by

its own strength from a limited state to one of absolute freedom. Thus

the simple poet needs a help from without, while the sentimental poet

feeds his genius from his own fund, and purifies himself by himself. The

former requires a picturesque nature, a poetical world, a simple

humanity which casts its eyes around; for he ought to do his work

without issuing from the sensuous sphere. If external aid fails him, if

he be surrounded by matter not speaking to mind, one of two things will

happen: either, if the general character of the poet-race is what

prevails in him, he issues from the particular class to which he belongs

as a poet, and becomes sentimental to be at any rate poetic; or, if his

particular character as simple poet has the upper hand, he leaves his

species and becomes a common nature, in order to remain at any rate

natural. The former of these two alternatives might represent the case

of the principal poets of the sentimental kind in Roman antiquity and in

modern times. Born at another period of the world, transplanted under

another sky, these poets who stir us now by ideas, would have charmed us

by individual truth and simple beauty. The other alternative is the

almost unavoidable quicksand for a poet who, thrown into a vulgar world,

cannot resolve to lose sight of nature.

I mean, to lose sight of actual nature; but the greatest care must be

given to distinguish actual nature from true nature, which is the

subject of simple poetry. Actual nature exists everywhere; but true

nature is so much the more rare because it requires an internal

necessity that determines its existence. Every eruption of passion,

however vulgar, is _real_—it may be even _true_ nature; but it is not

true _human_ nature, for true human nature requires that the

self-directing faculty in us should have a share in the manifestation,

and the expression of this faculty is always dignified. All moral

baseness is an actual human phenomenon, but I hope not real human

nature, which is always noble. All the faults of taste cannot be

surveyed that have been occasioned in criticism or the practice of art

by this confusion between actual human nature and true human nature. The

greatest trivialities are tolerated and applauded under the pretext that

they are real nature. Caricatures not to be tolerated in the real world

are carefully preserved in the poetic world and reproduced according to

nature! The poet can certainly imitate a lower nature, and it enters

into the very definition of a satirical poet: but then a beauty by its

own nature must sustain and raise the object, and the vulgarity of the

subject must not lower the imitator too much. If at the moment he paints

he is true human nature himself, the object of his paintings is

indifferent; but it is only on this condition we can tolerate a faithful

reproduction of reality. Unhappy for us readers when the rod of satire

falls into hands that nature meant to handle another instrument, and

when, devoid of all poetic talent, with nothing but the ape’s mimicry,

they exercise it brutally at the expense of our taste!

But vulgar nature has even its dangers for the simple poet; for the

simple poet is formed by this fine harmony of the feeling and thinking

faculty, which yet is only an idea, never actually realized. Even in the

happiest geniuses of this class, receptivity will always more or less

carry the day over spontaneous activity. But receptivity is always more

or less subordinate to external impressions, and nothing but a perpetual

activity of the creative faculty could prevent matter from exercising a

blind violence over this quality. Now, every time this happens the

feeling becomes vulgar instead of poetical.

No genius of the simple class, from Homer down to Bodmer, has entirely

steered clear of this quicksand. It is evident that it is most perilous

to those who have to struggle against external vulgarity, or who have

parted with their refinement owing to a want of proper restraint. The

first-named difficulty is the reason why even authors of high

cultivation are not always emancipated from platitudes—a fact which has

prevented many splendid talents from occupying the place to which they

were summoned by nature. For this reason, a comic poet whose genius has

chiefly to deal with scenes of real life, is more liable to the danger

of acquiring vulgar habits of style and expression—a fact evidenced in

the case of Aristophanes, Plautus, and all the poets who have followed

in their track. Even Shakspeare, with all his sublimity, suffers us to

fall very low now and then. Again, Lope De Vega, Molière, Regnard,

Goldoni worry us with frequent trifling. Holberg drags us down into the

mire. Schlegel, a German poet, among the most remarkable for

intellectual talent, with genius to raise him to a place among poets of

the first order; Gellert, a truly simple poet, Rabener, and Lessing

himself, if I am warranted to introduce his name in this category—this

highly-cultivated scholar of criticism and vigilant examiner of his own

genius—all these suffer in different degrees from the platitudes and

uninspired movements of the natures they chose as the theme of their

satire. With regard to more recent authors of this class, I avoid naming

any of them, as I can make no exceptions in their case.

But not only is simple genius exposed to the danger of coming too near

to vulgar reality; the ease of expression, even this too close

approximation to reality, encourages vulgar imitators to try their hand

in poetry. Sentimental poetry, though offering danger enough, has this

advantage, to keep this crowd at a distance, for it is not for the first

comer to rise to the ideal; but simple poetry makes them believe that,

with feeling and humor, you need only imitate real nature to claim the

title of poet. Now nothing is more revolting than platitude when it

tries to be simple and amiable, instead of hiding its repulsive nature

under the veil of art. This occasions the incredible trivialities loved

by the Germans under the name of simple and facetious songs, and which

give them endless amusement round a well-garnished table. Under the

pretext of good humor and of sentiment people tolerate these poverties:

but this good humor and this sentiment ought to be carefully proscribed.

The Muses of the Pleisse, in particular, are singularly pitiful; and

other Muses respond to them, from the banks of the Seine, and the Elbe.

If these pleasantries are flat, the passion heard on our tragic stage is

equally pitiful, for, instead of imitating true nature, it is only an

insipid and ignoble expression of _the actual_. Thus, after shedding

torrents of tears, you feel as you would after visiting a hospital or

reading the “Human Misery” of Saltzmann. But the evil is worse in

satirical poetry and comic romance, kinds which touch closely on

everyday life, and which consequently, as all frontier posts, ought to

be in safer hands. In truth, he less than any other is called on to

become the _painter_ of his century, who is himself the child and

_caricature_ of his century. But as, after all, nothing is easier than

to take in hand, among our acquaintances, a comic character—a big, fat

man—and draw a coarse likeness of him on paper, the sworn enemies of

poetic inspiration are often led to blot some paper in this way to amuse

a circle of friends. It is true that a pure heart, a well-made mind,

will never confound these vulgar productions with the inspirations of

simple genius. But purity of feeling is the very thing that is wanting,

and in most cases nothing is thought of but satisfying a want of sense,

without spiritual nature having any share. A fundamentally just idea,

ill understood, that works of _bel esprit_ serve to _recreate_ the mind,

contributes to keep up this indulgence, if indulgence it may be called

when nothing higher occupies the mind, and reader as well as writer find

their chief interest therein. This is because vulgar natures, if

overstrained, can only be refreshed by vacuity; and even a higher

intelligence, when not sustained by a proportional culture, can only

rest from its work amidst sensuous enjoyments, from which spiritual

nature is absent.

Poetic genius ought to have strength enough to rise with a free and

innate activity above all the _accidental_ hinderances which are

inseparable from every confined condition, to arrive at a representation

of humanity in the absolute plenitude of its powers; it is not, however,

permitted, on the other hand, to emancipate itself from the necessary

_limits_ implied by the very idea of human nature: for the absolute only

in the circle of humanity is its true problem. Simple genius is not

exposed to overstep this sphere, but rather _not to fill it entirely_,

giving too much scope to external necessity, to accidental wants, at the

expense of the inner necessity. The danger for the sentimental genius

is, on the other hand, by trying to remove all limits, of nullifying

human nature absolutely, and not only rising, as is its right and duty,

beyond finite and determinate reality, as far as absolute possibility,

or in other terms to idealize; but of passing even beyond possibility,

or, in other words, _dreaming_. This fault—overstraining—is precisely

dependent on the specific property of the sentimental process, as the

opposite defect, _inertia_, depends on the peculiar operation of the

simple genius. The simple genius lets nature dominate, without

restricting it; and as nature in her particular phenomena is always

subject to some want, it follows that the simple sentiment will not be

always _exalted_ enough to resist the accidental limitations of the

present hour. The sentimental genius, on the contrary, leaves aside the

real world, to rise to the ideal and to command its matter with free

spontaneity. But while reason, according to law, aspires always to the

unconditional, so the sentimental genius will not always remain _calm_

enough to restrain itself uniformly and without interruption within the

conditions implied by the idea of human nature, and to which reason must

always, even in its freest acts, remain attached. He could only confine

himself in these conditions by help of a receptivity proportioned to his

free activity; but most commonly the activity predominates over

receptivity in the sentimental poet, as much as receptivity over

activity in the simple poet. Hence, in the productions of simple genius,

if sometimes inspiration is wanting, so also in works of sentimental

poetry the _object_ is often missed. Thus, though they proceed in

opposite ways, they will both fall into a _vacuum_, for before the

æsthetic judgment an object without inspiration, and inspiration without

an object, are both negations.

The poets who borrow their matter too much from thought, and rather

conceive poetic pictures by the internal abundance of ideas than by the

suggestions of feeling, are more or less likely to be addicted to go

thus astray. In their creations reason makes too little of the limits of

the sensuous world, and thought is always carried too far for experience

to follow it. Now, when the idea is carried so far that not only no

experience corresponds to it—as is the case in the _beau ideal_—but also

that it is repugnant to the conditions of all possible experience, so

that, in order to realize it, one must leave human nature altogether, it

is no longer a poetic but an exaggerated thought; that is, supposing it

claims to be representable and poetical, for otherwise it is enough if

it is not self-contradictory. If thought is contradictory it is not

exaggeration, but nonsense; for what does not exist cannot exceed. But

when the thought is not an object proposed to the fancy, we are just as

little justified in calling it exaggerated. For simple thought is

infinite, and what is limitless also cannot exceed. Exaggeration,

therefore, is only that which wounds, not logical truth, but sensuous

truth, and what pretends to be sensuous truth. Consequently, if a poet

has the unhappy chance to choose for his picture certain natures that

are merely _superhuman_ and _cannot possibly_ be represented, he can

only avoid exaggeration by ceasing to be a poet, and not trusting the

theme to his imagination. Otherwise one of two things would happen:

either imagination, applying its limits to the object, would make a

limited and merely _human_ object of an absolute object—which happened

with the gods of Greece—or the object would take away limits from fancy,

that is, would render it null and void, and this is precisely

exaggeration.

Extravagance of feeling should be distinguished from extravagance of

portraiture; we are speaking of the former. The object of the feeling

may be unnatural, but the feeling itself is natural, and ought

accordingly to be shadowed forth in the language of nature. While

extravagant feelings may issue from a warm heart and a really poetic

nature, extravagance of portraiture always displays a cold heart, and

very often a want of poetic capacity. Therefore this is not a danger for

the sentimental poet, but only for the imitator, who has no vocation; it

is therefore often found with platitude, insipidity, and even baseness.

Exaggeration of sentiment is not without truth, and must have a real

object; as nature inspires it, it admits of simplicity of expression and

coming from the heart it goes to the heart. As its object, however, is

not in nature, but artificially produced by the understanding, it has

only a logical reality, and the feeling is not purely human. It was not

an illusion that Heloise had for Abelard, Petrarch for Laura, Saint

Preux for his Julia, Werther for his Charlotte; Agathon, Phanias, and

Peregrinus—in Wieland—for the object of their dreams: the feeling is

true, only the object is factitious and outside nature. If their thought

had kept to simple sensuous truth, it could not have taken this flight;

but on the other hand a mere play of fancy, without inner value, could

not have stirred the heart: this is only stirred by reason. Thus this

sort of exaggeration must be called to order, but it is not

contemptible: and those who ridicule it would do well to find out if the

wisdom on which they pride themselves is not want of heart, and if it is

not through want of reason that they are so acute. The exaggerated

delicacy in gallantry and honor which characterizes the chivalrous

romances, especially of Spain, is of this kind; also the refined and

even ridiculous tenderness of French and English sentimental romances of

the best kind. These sentiments are not only subjectively true, but also

objectively they are not without value; they are sound sentiments

issuing from a moral source, only reprehensible as overstepping the

limits of human truth. Without this moral reality how could they stir

and touch so powerfully? The same remark applies to moral and religious

fanaticism, patriotism, and the love of freedom when carried up to

exaltation. As the object of these sentiments is always a pure idea, and

not an external experience, imagination with its proper activity has

here a dangerous liberty, and cannot, as elsewhere, be called back to

bounds by the presence of a visible object. But neither the man nor the

poet can withdraw from the law of nature, except to submit to that of

reason. He can only abandon reality for the ideal; for liberty must hold

to one or the other of these anchors. But it is far from the real to the

ideal; and between the two is found fancy, with its arbitrary conceits

and its unbridled freedom. It must needs be, therefore, that man in

general, and the poet in particular, when he withdraws by liberty of his

understanding from the dominion of feeling, without being moved to it by

the laws of reason—that is, when he abandons nature through pure

liberty—he finds himself _freed from all law_, and therefore a prey to

the illusions of phantasy.

It is testified by experience that entire nations, as well as individual

men, who have parted with the safe direction of nature, are actually in

this condition; and poets have gone astray in the same manner. The true

genius of sentimental poetry, if its aim is to raise itself to the rank

of the ideal, must overstep the limits of the existing nature; but false

genius oversteps all boundaries without any discrimination, flattering

itself with the belief that the wild sport of the imagination is poetic

inspiration. A true poetical genius can never fall into this error,

because it only abandons the real for the sake of the ideal, or, at all

events, it can only do so at certain moments when the poet forgets

himself; but his main tendencies may dispose him to extravagance within

the sphere of the senses. His example may also drive others into a chase

of wild conceptions, because readers of lively fancy and weak

understanding only remark the freedom which he takes with existing

nature, and are unable to follow him in copying the elevated necessities

of his inner being. The same difficulties beset the path of the

sentimental genius in this respect, as those which afflict the career of

a genius of the simple order. If a genius of this class carries out

every work, obedient to the free and spontaneous impulses of his nature,

the man devoid of genius who seeks to imitate him is not willing to

consider his own nature a worse guide than that of the great poet. This

accounts for the fact that masterpieces of simple poetry are commonly

followed by a host of stale and unprofitable works in print, and

masterpieces of the sentimental class by wild and fanciful effusions,—a

fact that may be easily verified on questioning the history of

literature.

Two maxims are prevalent in relation to poetry, both of them quite

correct in themselves, but mutually destructive in the way in which they

are generally conceived. The first is, that “poetry serves as a means of

amusement and recreation,” and we have previously observed that this

maxim is highly favorable to aridity and platitudes in poetical

fictions. The other maxim, that “poetry is conducive to the moral

progress of humanity,” takes under its shelter theories and views of the

most wild and extravagant character. It may be profitable to examine

more attentively these two maxims, of which so much is heard, and which

are so often imperfectly understood and falsely applied.

We say that a thing amuses us when it makes us pass from a forced state

to the state that is natural to us. The whole question here is to know

in what our natural state ought to consist, and what a forced state

means. If our natural state is made to consist merely in the free

development of all our physical powers, in emancipation from all

constraint, it follows that every act of reason by resisting what is

sensuous, is a violence we undergo, and rest of mind combined with

physical movement will be a recreation _par excellence_. But if we make

our natural state consist in a limitless power of human expression and

of freely disposing of all our strength, all that divides these forces

will be a forced state, and recreation will be what brings all our

nature to harmony. Thus, the first of these ideal recreations is simply

determined by the wants of our _sensuous nature_; the second, by the

autonomous activity of _human nature_. Which of these two kinds of

recreation can be demanded of the poet? Theoretically, the question is

inadmissible, as no one would put the _human_ ideal beneath the brutal.

But in practice the requirements of a poet have been especially directed

to the sensuous ideal, and for the most part _favor_, though not the

_esteem_, for these sorts of works is regulated thereby. Men’s minds are

mostly engaged in a labor that exhausts them, or an enjoyment that sets

them asleep. Now labor makes rest a sensible want, much more imperious

than that of the moral nature; for physical nature must be satisfied

before the mind can show its requirements. On the other hand, enjoyment

paralyzes the moral instinct. Hence these two dispositions common in men

are very injurious to the feeling for true beauty, and thus very few

even of the best judge soundly in æsthetics. Beauty results from the

harmony between spirit and sense; it addresses all the faculties of man,

and can only be appreciated if a man employs fully all his strength. He

must bring to it an open sense, a broad heart, a spirit full of

freshness. All a man’s nature must be on the alert, and this is not the

case with those divided by abstraction, narrowed by formulas, enervated

by application. They demand, no doubt, a material for the senses; but

not to quicken, only to suspend, thought. They ask to be freed from

what? From a load that oppressed their indolence, and not a rein that

curbed their activity.

After this can one wonder at the success of mediocre talents in

æsthetics? or at the bitter anger of small minds against true energetic

beauty? They reckon on finding therein a congenial recreation, and

regret to discover that a display of strength is required to which they

are unequal. With mediocrity they are always welcome; however little

mind they bring, they want still less to exhaust the author’s

inspiration. They are relieved of the load of thought; and their nature

can lull itself in beatific nothings on the soft pillow of _platitude_.

In the temple of Thalia and Melpomene—at least, so it is with us—the

stupid _savant_ and the exhausted man of business are received on the

broad bosom of the goddess, where their intelligence is wrapped in a

magnetic sleep, while their sluggish senses are warmed, and their

imagination with gentle motions rocked.

Vulgar people may be excused what happens to the best capacities. Those

moments of repose demanded by nature after lengthy labor are not

favorable to æsthetic judgment, and hence in the busy classes few can

pronounce safely on matters of taste. Nothing is more common than for

scholars to make a ridiculous figure, in regard to a question of beauty,

besides cultured men of the world; and technical critics are especially

the laughing-stock of connoisseurs. Their opinion, from exaggeration,

crudeness, or carelessness guides them generally quite awry, and they

can only devise a _technical_ judgment, and not an _æsthetical_ one,

embracing the whole work, in which feeling should decide. If they would

kindly keep to technicalities they might still be useful, for the poet

in moments of inspiration and readers under his spell are little

inclined to consider details. But the spectacle which they afford us is

only the more ridiculous inasmuch as we see these crude natures—with

whom all labor and trouble only develop at the most a particular

aptitude,—when we see them set up their paltry individualities as the

representation of universal and complete feeling, and in the sweat of

their brow pronounce judgment on beauty.

We have just seen that the kind of recreation poetry ought to afford is

generally conceived in too restricted a manner, and only referred to a

simple sensuous want. Too much scope, however, is also given to the

other idea, the moral ennobling the poet should have in view, inasmuch

as too purely an ideal aim is assigned.

In fact, according to the pure ideal, the ennobling goes on to infinity,

because reason is not restricted to any sensuous limits, and only finds

rest in absolute perfection. Nothing can satisfy whilst a superior thing

can be conceived; it judges strictly and admits no excuses of infirmity

and finite nature. It only admits for limits those of thought, which

transcends time and space. Hence the poet could no more propose to

himself such an ideal of ennobling (traced for him by pure (didactic)

reason) any more than the coarse ideal of recreation of sensuous nature.

The aim is to free human nature from accidental hinderances, without

destroying the essential ideal of our humanity, or displacing its

limits. All beyond this is exaggeration, and a quicksand in which the

poet too easily suffers shipwreck if he mistakes the idea of nobleness.

But, unfortunately, he cannot rise to the true ideal of ennobled human

nature without going some steps beyond it. To rise so high he must

abandon the world of reality, for, like every ideal, it is only to be

drawn from its inner moral source. He does not find it in the turmoil of

worldly life, but only in his heart, and that only in calm meditation.

But in this separation from real life he is likely to lose sight of all

the limits of human nature, and seeking pure form he may easily lose

himself in arbitrary and baseless conceptions. Reason will abstract

itself too much from experience, and the practical man will not be able

to carry out, in the crush of real life, what the contemplative mind has

discovered on the peaceful path of thought. Thus, what makes a dreamy

man is the very thing that alone could have made him a sage; and the

advantage for the latter is not that he has never been a dreamer, but

rather that he has not remained one.

We must not, then, allow the workers to determine recreation according

to their wants, nor thinkers that of nobleness according to their

speculations, for fear of either a too low physical poetry, or a poetry

too given to hyperphysical exaggeration. And as these two ideas direct

most men’s judgments on poetry, we must seek a class of mind at once

active, but not slavishly so, and idealizing, but not dreamy; uniting

the reality of life within as few limits as possible, obeying the

current of human affairs, but not enslaved by them. Such a class of men

can alone preserve the beautiful unity of human nature, that harmony

which all work for a moment disturbs, and a life of work destroys; such

alone can, in all that is purely human, give by its feelings universal

rules of judgment. Whether such a class exists, or whether the class now

existing in like conditions answers to this ideal conception, I am not

concerned to inquire. If it does not respond to the ideal it has only

itself to blame. In such a class—here regarded as a mere ideal—the

simple and sentimental would keep each other from extremes of

extravagance and relaxation. For the idea of a beautiful humanity is not

exhausted by either, but can only be presented in the union of both.