This paragraph has not, to my knowledge, been adversely criticised, but
it now appears to me seriously misleading. It refers to certain kinds of
poetry, and again to certain passages in poems, which we feel to be less
poetical than some other kinds or passages. But this difference of
degree in poeticalness (if I may use the word) is put as a difference
between 'mixed' and 'pure' poetry; and that distinction is, I think,
unreal and mischievous. Further, it is implied that in less poetical
poetry there necessarily is only a partial unity of content and form.
This (unless I am now mistaken) is a mistake, and a mistake due to
failure to hold fast the main idea of the lecture. Naturally it would be
most agreeable to me to re-write the paragraph, but if I reprint it and
expose my errors the reader will perhaps be helped to a firmer grasp of
that idea.
It is true that where poetry is most poetic we feel most decidedly how
impossible it is to separate content and form. But where poetry is less
poetic and does not make us feel this unity so decidedly, it does not
follow that the unity is imperfect. Failure or partial failure in this
unity is always (as in the case of Shakespeare referred to) a failure on
the part of the _poet_ (though it is not always due to the same causes).
It does not lie of necessity in the nature of a particular kind of
poetry (_e.g._ satire) or in the nature of a particular passage. All
poetry cannot be equally poetic, but _all_ poetry ought to maintain the
unity of content and form, and, in that sense, to be 'pure.' Only in
certain kinds, and in certain passages, it is more difficult for the
poet to maintain it than in others.
Let us take first the 'passages' and suppose them to occur in one of the
more poetic kinds of poetry. In certain parts of any epic or tragedy
matter has to be treated which, though necessary to the whole, is not in
itself favourable to poetry, or would not in itself be a good 'subject.'
But it is the business of the poet to do his best to make this matter
poetry, and pure poetry. And, if he succeeds, the passage, though it
will probably be less poetic than the bulk of the poem, will exhibit the
complete unity of content and form. It will not strike us as a mere
bridge between other passages; it will be enjoyable for itself; and it
will not occur to us to think that the poet was dealing with an
un-poetic 'matter' and found his task difficult or irksome. Shakespeare
frequently does not trouble himself to face this problem and leaves an
imperfect unity. The conscientious artists, like Virgil, Milton,
Tennyson, habitually face, it and frequently solve it.[13] And when they
wholly or partially fail, the fault is still _theirs_. It is, in one
sense, due to the 'matter,' which set a hard problem; but they would be
the first to declare that _nothing_ in the poem ought to be only mixedly
poetic.
In the same way, satire is not in its nature a highly poetic kind of
poetry, but it ought, in its own kind, to be poetry throughout, and
therefore ought not to show a merely partial unity of content and form.
If the satirist makes us exclaim 'This is sheer prose wonderfully well
disguised,' that is a fault, and _his_ fault (unless it happens to be
ours). The idea that a tragedy or lyric could really be reproduced in a
form not its own strikes us as ridiculous; the idea that a satire could
so be reproduced seems much less ridiculous; but if it were true the
satire would not be poetry at all.
The reader will now see where, in my judgment, the paragraph is wrong.
Elsewhere it is, I think, right, though it deals with a subject far too
large for a paragraph. This is also true of the next paragraph, which
uses the false distinction of 'pure' and 'mixed,' and which will hold in
various degrees of poetry in various degrees poetical.
It is of course possible to use a distinction of 'pure' and 'mixed' in
another sense. Poetry, whatever its kind, would be pure as far as it
preserved the unity of content and form; mixed, so far as it failed to
do so--in other words, failed to be poetry and was partly prosaic.