demonstrated by another school of criticism, powerful, outspoken,
well-informed,--a school of the century which is beginning to put
forth vigorous shoots under the dead and withered branches of the old
school. This youthful criticism, as serious as the other is frivolous,
as learned as the other is ignorant, has already established organs
that are listened to, and one is sometimes surprised to find, even
in the least important sheets, excellent articles emanating from it.
Joining hands with all that is fearless and superior in letters, it
will deliver us from two scourges: tottering _classicism_, and false
_romanticism_, which has the presumption to show itself at the feet
of the true. For modern genius already has its shadow, its copy, its
parasite, its _classic_, which forms itself upon it, smears itself
with its colours, assumes its livery, picks up its crumbs, and, like
_the sorcerer's pupil_, puts in play, with words retained by the
memory, elements of theatrical action of which it has not the secret.
Thus it does idiotic things which its master many a time has much
difficulty in making good. But the thing that must be destroyed first
of all is the old false taste. Present-day literature must be cleansed
of its rust. In vain does the rust eat into it and tarnish it. It
is addressing a young, stern, vigorous generation, which does not
understand it. The train of the eighteenth century is still dragging
in the nineteenth; but we, we young men who have seen Bonaparte, are
not the ones who will carry it.
We are approaching, then, the moment when we shall see the new
criticism prevail, firmly established upon a broad and deep
foundation. People generally will soon understand that writers should
be judged, not according to rules and species, which are contrary to
nature and art, but according to the immutable principles of the art
of composition, and the special laws of their individual temperaments.
The sound judgment of all men will be ashamed of the criticism which
broke Pierre Corneille on the wheel, gagged Jean Racine, and which
ridiculously rehabilitated John Milton only by virtue of the epic
code of Père le Bossu. People will consent to place themselves at the
author's standpoint, to view the subject with his eyes, in order
to judge a work intelligently. They will lay aside--and it is M. de
Chateaubriand who speaks--"the paltry criticism of defects for the
noble and fruitful criticism of beauties." It is time that all acute
minds should grasp the thread that frequently connects what we,
following our special whim, call "defects" with what we call "beauty."
Defects--at all events those which we call by that name--are often the
inborn, necessary, inevitable conditions of good qualities.
Scit genius, natale comes qul temperat astrum.
Who ever saw a medal without its reverse? a talent that had not some
shadow with its brilliancy, some smoke with its flame? Such a blemish
can be only the inseparable consequence of such beauty. This rough
stroke of the brush, which offends my eye at close range, completes
the effect and gives relief to the whole picture. Efface one and you
efface the other. Originality is made up of such things. Genius is
necessarily uneven. There are no high mountains without deep ravines.
Fill up the valley with the mountain and you will have nothing but
a steppe, a plateau, the plain of Les Sablons instead of the Alps,
swallows and not eagles.
We must also take into account the weather, the climate, the local
influences. The Bible, Homer, hurt us sometimes by their very
sublimities. Who would want to part with a word of either of them? Our
infirmity often takes fright at the inspired bold flights of
genius, for lack of power to swoop down upon objects with such vast
intelligence. And then, once again, there are _defects_ which take
root only in masterpieces; it is given only to certain geniuses
to have certain defects. Shakespeare is blamed for his abuse of
metaphysics, of wit, of redundant scenes, of obscenities, for his
employment of the mythological nonsense in vogue in his time, for
exaggeration, obscurity, bad taste, bombast, asperities of style. The
oak, that giant tree which we were comparing to Shakespeare just now,
and which has more than one point of resemblance to him, the oak has
an unusual shape, gnarled branches, dark leaves, and hard, rough bark;
but it is the oak.
And it is because of these qualities that it is the oak. If you would
have a smooth trunk, straight branches, satiny leaves, apply to the
pale birch, the hollow elder, the weeping willow; but leave the mighty
oak in peace. Do not stone that which gives you shade.
The author of this book knows as well as any one the numerous and
gross faults of his works. If it happens too seldom that he corrects
them, it is because it is repugnant to him to return to a work that
has grown cold. Moreover, what has he ever done that is worth
that trouble? The labor that he would throw away in correcting the
imperfections of his books, he prefers to use in purging his intellect
of its defects. It is his method to correct one work only in another
work.
However, no matter what treatment may be accorded his book, he
binds himself not to defend it, in whole or in part. If his drama is
worthless, what is the use of upholding it? If it is good, why defend
it? Time will do the book justice or will wreak justice upon it. Its
success for the moment is the affair of the publisher alone. If then
the wrath of the critics is aroused by the publication of this essay,
he will let them do their worst. What reply should he make to them?
He is not one of those who speak, as the Castilian poet says, "through
the mouths of their wounds."
Por la boca de su herida.
One last word. It may have been noticed that in this somewhat long
journey through so many different subjects, the author has generally
refrained from resting his personal views upon texts or citations of
authorities. It is not, however, because he did not have them at his
hand.
"If the poet establishes things that are impossible according to the
rules of his art, he makes a mistake unquestionably; but it ceases to
be a mistake when by this means he has reached the end that he
aimed at; for he has found what he sought,"--"They take for nonsense
whatever the weakness of their intellects does not allow them to
understand. They are especially prone to call absurd those wonderful
passages in which the poet, in order the better to enforce his
argument, departs, if we may so express it, from his argument. In
fact, the precept which makes it a rule sometimes to disregard rules,
is a mystery of the art which it is not easy to make men understand
who are absolutely without taste and whom a sort of abnormality of
mind renders insensible to those things which ordinarily impress men."
Who said the first? Aristotle. Who said the last? Boileau. By these
two specimens you will see that the author of this drama might, as
well as another, have shielded himself with proper names and taken
refuge behind others' reputations. But he preferred to leave that
style of argument to those who deem it unanswerable, universal and
all-powerful. As for himself, he prefers reasons to authorities; he
has always cared more for arms than for coats-of-arms.
_October_, 1827.
[Footnote A: Victor Hugo (1802-1883) the chief of the romantic school
in France, issued in the Preface to "Cromwell" the manifesto of the
movement. Poet, dramatist, and novelist, Hugo remained through a
long life the most conspicuous man of letters in France; and in the
document here printed he laid down the principles which revolutionized
the literary world of his time.]
PREFACE TO LEAVES OF GRASS
BY WALT WHITMAN. (1855)[A]
America does not repel the past or what it has produced under
its forms or amid other politics or the idea of castes or the old
religions ... accepts the lesson with calmness ... is not so impatient
as has been supposed that the slough still sticks to opinions and
manners and literature while the life which served its requirements
has passed into the new life of the new forms ... perceives that the
corpse is slowly borne from the eating and sleeping rooms of the house
... perceives that it waits a little while in the door ... that it was
fittest for its days ... that its action has descended to the stalwart
and well shaped heir who approaches ... and that he shall be fittest
for his days.
The Americans of all nations at any time upon the earth, have
probably the fullest poetical nature. The United States themselves are
essentially the greatest poem. In the history of the earth hitherto
the largest and most stirring appear tame and orderly to their ampler
largeness and stir. Here at last is something in the doings of man
that corresponds with the broadcast doings of the day and night. Here
is not merely a nation but a teeming nation of nations. Here is action
untied from strings necessarily blind to particulars and details
magnificently moving in vast masses. Here is the hospitality which
forever indicates heroes.... Here are the roughs and beards and
space and ruggedness and nonchalance that the soul loves. Here the
performance disdaining the trivial unapproached in the tremendous
audacity of its crowds and groupings and the push of its perspective
spreads with crampless and flowing breadth and showers its prolific
and splendid extravagance. One sees it must indeed own the riches of
the summer and winter, and need never be bankrupt while corn grows
from the ground or the orchards drop apples or the bays contain fish
or men beget children upon women.
Other states indicate themselves in their deputies ... but the genius of
the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures,
nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches or parlors,
nor even in its newspapers or inventors ... but always most in the
common people. Their manners speech dress friendship--the freshness and
candor of their physiognomy--the picturesque looseness of their carriage
... their deathless attachment to freedom--their aversion to anything
indecorous or soft or mean--the practical acknowledgment of the citizens
of one state by the citizens of all other states--the fierceness of
their roused resentment--- their curiosity and welcome of novelty--their
self-esteem and wonderful sympathy--their susceptibility to a
slight--the air they have of persons who never knew how it felt to stand
in the presence of superiors--the fluency of their speech--their delight
in music, the sure symptom of manly tenderness and native elegance of
soul ... their good temper and open handedness--the terrible
significance of their elections--the President's taking off his hat to
them, not they to him--these too are unrhymed poetry. It awaits the
gigantic and generous treatment worthy of it.
The largeness of nature or the nation were monstrous without a
corresponding largeness and generosity of the spirit of the citizen.
Not nature nor swarming states nor streets and steamships nor
prosperous business nor farms nor capital nor learning may suffice
for the ideal of man ... nor suffice the poet. No reminiscences may
suffice either. A live nation can always cut a deep mark and can have
the best authority the cheapest ... namely from its own soul. This is
the sum of the profitable uses of individuals or states and of present
action and grandeur and of the subjects of poets.--As if it were
necessary to trot back generation after generation to the eastern
records! As if the beauty and sacredness of the demonstrable must fall
behind that of the mythical! As if men do not make their mark out of
any times! As if the opening of the western continent by discovery and
what has transpired since in North and South America were less than
the small theatre of the antique or the aimless sleepwalking of the
middle ages! The pride of the United States leaves the wealth and
finesse of the cities and all returns of commerce and agriculture and
all the magnitude of geography or shows of exterior victory to enjoy
the breed of full sized men or one full sized man unconquerable and
simple.
The American poets are to enclose old and new for America is the race
of races. Of them a bard is to be commensurate with a people. To
him the other continents arrive as contributions ... he gives them
reception for their sake and his own sake. His spirit responds to his
country's spirit ... he incarnates its geography and natural life
and rivers and lakes. Mississippi with annual freshets and changing
chutes, Missouri and Columbia and Ohio and St. Lawrence with the Falls
and beautiful masculine Hudson, do not embouchure where they spend
themselves more than they embouchure into him. The blue breadth over
the inland sea of Virginia and Maryland and the sea off Massachusetts
and Maine and over Manhattan bay and over Champlain and Erie and over
Ontario and Huron and Michigan and Superior, and over the Texan and
Mexican and Floridian and Cuban seas, and over the seas off California
and Oregon, is not tallied by the blue breadth of the waters below
more than the breadth of above and below is tallied by him. When the
long Atlantic coast stretches longer and the Pacific coast stretches
longer he easily stretches with them north or south. He spans between
them also from east to west and reflects what is between them. On
him rise solid growths that offset the growths of pine and cedar and
hemlock and live oak and locust and chestnut and cypress and hickory
and limetree and cottonwood and tuliptree and cactus and wildvine and
tamarind and persimmon ... and tangles as tangled as any canebrake or
swamp ... and forests coated with transparent ice, and icicles hanging
from boughs and crackling in the wind ... and sides and peaks of
mountains ... and pasturage sweet and free as savannah or upland or
prairie ... with flights and songs and screams that answer those
of the wild pigeon and high-hold and orchard-oriole and coot and
surf-duck and red-shouldered-hawk and fish-hawk and white ibis
and Indian-hen and cat-owl and water-pheasant and qua-bird and
pied-sheldrake and blackbird and mockingbird and buzzard and condor
and night-heron and eagle. To him the hereditary countenance descends
both mother's and father's. To him enter the essences of the real
things and past and present events--of the enormous diversity
of temperature and agriculture and mines--the tribes of red
aborigines--the weather-beaten vessels entering new ports or making
landings on rocky coasts--the first settlements north or south--the
rapid stature and muscle--the haughty defiance of '76, and the war
and peace and formation of the constitution ... the Union always
surrounded by blatherers and always calm and impregnable--the
perpetual coming of immigrants--the wharf-hem'd cities and superior
marine--the unsurveyed interior--the loghouses and clearings and wild
animals and hunters and trappers ... the free commerce--the fisheries
and whaling and gold-digging--the endless gestation of new states--the
convening of Congress every December, the members duly coming up from
all climates and the uttermost parts ... the noble character of the
young mechanics and of all free American workmen and workwomen ... the
general ardor and friendliness and enterprise--the perfect equality of
the female with the male ... the large amativeness--the fluid movement
of the population--the factories and mercantile life and laborsaving
machinery--the Yankee swap--the New York firemen and the target
excursion--the Southern plantation life--the character of the
northeast and of the northwest and southwest--slavery and the
tremulous spreading of hands to protect it, and the stern opposition
to it which shall never cease till it ceases or the speaking of
tongues and the moving of lips cease. For such the expression of the
American poet is to be transcendent and new. It is to be indirect and
not direct or descriptive or epic. Its quality goes through these to
much more. Let the age and wars of other nations be chanted and their
eras and characters be illustrated and that finish the verse. Not so
the great psalm of the republic. Here the theme is creative and has
vista. Here comes one among the well beloved stonecutters and plans
with decision and science and sees the solid and beautiful forms of
the future where there are now no solid forms.
Of all nations the United States with veins full of poetical stuff
most need poets and will doubtless have the greatest and use them the
greatest. Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much
as their poets shall. Of all mankind the great poet is the equable
man. Not in him but off from him things are grotesque or eccentric or
fail of their sanity. Nothing out of its place is good and nothing
in its place is bad. He bestows on every object or quality its fit
proportions neither more nor less. He is the arbiter of the diverse
and he is the key. He is the equalizer of his age and land ... he
supplies what wants supplying and checks what wants checking. If peace
is the routine out of him speaks the spirit of peace, large, rich,
thrifty, building vast and populous cities, encouraging agriculture
and the arts and commerce--lighting the study of man, the soul,
immortality--federal, state or municipal government, marriage, health,
freetrade, intertravel by land and sea ... nothing too close, nothing
too far off ... the stars not too far off. In war he is the most
deadly force of the war. Who recruits him recruits horse and foot ...
he fetches parks of artillery the best that engineer ever knew. If the
time becomes slothful and heavy he knows how to arouse it ... he can
make every word he speaks draw blood. Whatever stagnates in the flat
of custom or obedience or legislation he never stagnates. Obedience
does not master him, he masters it. High up out of reach he stands
turning a concentrated light ... he turns the pivot with his finger
... he baffles the swiftest runners as he stands and easily overtakes
and envelopes them. The time straying towards infidelity and
confections and persiflage he withholds by his steady faith ... he
spreads out his dishes ... he offers the sweet firmfibred meat that
grows men and women. His brain is the ultimate brain. He is no arguer
... he is judgment. He judges not as the judge judges but as the sun
falling around a helpless thing. As he sees the farthest he has the
most faith. His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things. In
the talk on the soul and eternity and God off of his equal plane he
is silent. He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and
dénouement ... he sees eternity in men and women ... he does not see
men or women as dreams or dots. Faith is the antiseptic of the soul
... it pervades the common people and preserves them ... they
never give up believing and expecting and trusting. There is that
indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person
that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius. The
poet sees for a certainty how one not a great artist may be just as
sacred and perfect as the greatest artist.... The power to destroy or
remould is freely used by him, but never the power of attack. What is
past is past. If he does not expose superior models and prove himself
by every step he takes he is not what is wanted. The presence of the
greatest poet conquers ... not parleying or struggling or any prepared
attempts. Now he has passed that way see after him! There is not left
any vestige of despair or misanthropy or cunning or exclusiveness
or the ignominy of a nativity or color or delusion of hell or the
necessity of hell ... and no man thenceforward shall be degraded for
ignorance or weakness or sin.
The greatest poet hardly knows pettiness or triviality. If he breathes
into anything that was before thought small it dilates with the
grandeur and life of the universe. He is a seer ... he is individual
... he is complete in himself ... the others are as good as he, only
he sees it and they do not. He is not one of the chorus ... he does
not stop for any regulation ... he is the president of regulation.
What the eyesight does to the rest he does to the rest. Who knows
the curious mystery of the eyesight? The other senses corroborate
themselves, but this is removed from any proof but its own and
foreruns the identities of the spiritual world. A single glance of it
mocks all the investigations of man and all the instruments and books
of the earth and all reasoning. What is marvellous? what is unlikely?
what is impossible or baseless or vague? after you have once just
opened the space of a peachpit and given audience to far and near and
to the sunset and had all things enter with electric swiftness softly
and duly without contusion or jostling or jam.
The land and sea, the animals fishes and birds, the sky of heavens and
the orbs, the forests mountains and rivers, are not small themes ...
but folks expect of the poet to indicate more than the beauty and
dignity which always attach to dumb real objects,... they expect him
to indicate the path between reality and their souls. Men and women
perceive the beauty well enough ... probably as well as he. The
passionate tenacity of hunters, woodmen, early risers, cultivators
of gardens and orchards and fields, the love of healthy women for
the manly form, seafaring persons, drivers of horses, the passion for
light and the open air, all is an old varied sign of the unfailing
perception of beauty and of a residence of the poetic in outdoor
people. They can never be assisted by poets to perceive ... some may
but they never can. The poetic quality is not marshalled in rhyme
or uniformity or abstract addresses to things nor in melancholy
complaints or good precepts, but is the life of these and much else
and is in the soul. The profit of rhyme is that it drops seeds of a
sweeter and more luxuriant rhyme, and of uniformity that it conveys
itself into its own roots in the ground out of sight. The rhyme and
uniformity of perfect poems show the free growth of metrical laws and
bud from them as unerringly and loosely as lilacs and roses on a bush,
and take shapes as compact as the shapes of chestnuts and oranges and
melons and pears, and shed the perfume impalpable to form. The fluency
and ornaments of the finest poems or music or orations or recitations
are not independent but dependent. All beauty comes from beautiful
blood and a beautiful brain. If the greatnesses are in conjunction
in a man or woman it is enough ... the fact will prevail through the
universe ... but the gaggery and gilt of a million years will not
prevail. Who troubles himself about his ornaments or fluency is lost.
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals,
despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for
the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate
tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward
the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any
man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and
with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in
the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine
all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss
whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great
poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the
silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes
and in every motion and joint of your body.... The poet shall not
spend his time in unneeded work. He shall know that the ground is
always ready ploughed and manured ... others may not know it but he
shall. He shall go directly to the creation. His trust shall
master the trust of everything he touches ... and shall master all
attachment.
The known universe has one complete lover and that is the greatest
poet. He consumes an eternal passion and is indifferent which chance
happens and which possible contingency of fortune or misfortune and
persuades daily and hourly his delicious pay. What baulks or breaks
others is fuel for his burning progress to contact and amorous joy.
Other proportions of the reception of pleasure dwindle to nothing to
his proportions. All expected from heaven or from the highest he is
rapport with in the sight of the daybreak or a scene of the winter
woods or the presence of children playing or with his arm round
the neck of a man or woman. His love above all love has leisure and
expanse ... he leaves room ahead of himself. He is no irresolute
or suspicious lover ... he is sure ... he scorns intervals. His
experience and the showers and thrills are not for nothing. Nothing
can jar him ... suffering and darkness cannot--death and fear cannot.
To him complaint and jealousy and envy are corpses buried and rotten
in the earth ... he saw them buried. The sea is not surer of the shore
or the shore of the sea than he is of the fruition of his love and of
all perfection and beauty.