The Normality of the Artist
Prose is an uninterrupted, polite warfare with poetry . . .
every abstraction wants to have a jibe at poetry and wishes
to be uttered with a mocking voice.—_The Joyful Wisdom_.
If the availability of his past experience is the first characteristic
of the poet, the second is what we may provisionally call his
normality. So far as his experience does not tally with that
of those with whom he communicates, there will be failure. But
both the sense in which it must tally and the sense in which
the artist is normal need to be carefully considered.
Within racial[61] boundaries, and perhaps within the limits of
certain very general types,[62] many impulses are common to all
men. Their stimuli and the courses which they take seem to be
uniform. At the same time there are many other impulses which
are not uniform. It is difficult to give instances, since there
are so few names for impulses, but sounds are fairly uniform
while words used in isolation are fairly ambiguous stimuli. Impulses
could, if we knew enough, be arranged in an order of general
uniformity or stability. Some impulses remain the same, taking
the same course on the same occasions, from age to age, from
prehistoric times until to-day. Some change as fashions change.
Between the two extremes are the vast majority; neither, when
the nervous system is vigilant, very fixed nor very erratic;
set off by a given stimulus and taking the course they do because
other impulses are also active or have just been active.
For successful communication a number of impulses with their
effective stimuli must be common to the communicators, and further
the general ways in which impulses modify one another must be
shared. We evidently cannot expect that many total situations
and responses will have been common, and it is not necessary
that they should be. Within limits the disparities can be overcome
by what is called imagination.
There is nothing peculiarly mysterious about imagination. It
is no more marvellous than any other of the ways of the
mind. Yet it has so often been treated as an arcanum that we
naturally approach it with caution. It is desirable at least
to avoid part of the fate which befell Coleridge,[63] and our
account will be devoid of theological implications.
Given some impulses active others are thereby aroused in the
absence of what would otherwise be their necessary stimuli. Such
impulses I call imaginative, whether images occur or not, for
image-production is not at all essentially involved in what the
critic is interested in as imagination. Which other impulses
are brought in is in part determined by which were co-operative
together originally when all the impulses had their own stimuli,
that is to say, in the non-imaginary experiences from which the
imaginary experience derives. In so far as this factor comes
in the imagination may be said to be _repetitive_. The imagination
we are concerned with may be called _formative_[64] by way
of distinction. For present circumstances are at least as important.
Remember in a changed mood a scene which took place under a strong
emotion. How altered is its every aspect! The selection of the
impulses which take effect is changed; the impulses are distorted,
they run in different courses. The imaginative construction is
always at least as much determined by what is going on in the
present as by what went on in the past, _pasts_ rather,
whence it springs.
Many of the most curious features of the arts, the limitation
of their number, their formal characteristics and the conditions
of impersonality, detachment and so forth, which have given rise
to much confused discussion of the ‘æsthetic’ state for example,
are explained by this fact. In difficult communication the artist
must find some means of so controlling a part of the recipient’s
experience that the imaginative development will be governed
by this part and not left to the accidents of repetition which
will differ naturally from individual to individual. As a basis
for every art, therefore, will be found a type of impulse which
is extraordinarily uniform, which fixes the framework, as it
were, within which the rest of the response develops. These are
among the most uniform impulses, among those which come nearest
to having a one-one correlation with their stimuli, of all those
which we experience.
In poetry, rhythm metre and tune or cadence; in music, rhythm
pitch timbre and tune; in painting, form and colour; in sculpture,
volume and stress; in all the arts, what are usually called the
formal elements are the stimuli, simple or complex, which can
be most depended upon to produce uniform responses. It is true
that these responses are not so uniform as the reflexes, as sneezing
or blinking for example. But even these are to a considerable
extent subject to interference and modification by impulses of
higher levels. What communication requires is responses which
are uniform, sufficiently varied, and capable of being set off
by stimuli which are physically manageable. These three requisites
explain why the number of the arts is limited and why formal
elements have such importance.
They are the skeleton or scaffolding upon or within which the
further impulses involved in the communication are supported.
They supply the present dependable part of the experience by
which the rest, the more erratic, ambiguous part of the imaginative
development, is controlled. By themselves (although there has
been a natural tendency in criticism to maintain the contrary
opinion) they are often quite inadequate. As we have seen, differences
of all degrees, both between and within the arts, exist.
The fashion in which the poet’s impulses must tally with those
of his readers, will now be moderately clear. The poet is in
the least favourable position, perhaps, among the artists, but
as a compensation the range and fullness of the communications
open to him is, if he can overcome the difficulties, very great.
But evidently the least eccentricity on his part, either in the
responses which he makes to rhythms and verbal tunes, or in the
ways in which these govern and modify his further responses or
are modified by them, will be disastrous. It is the same for
all the arts. A defective or eccentric colour sensibility, a
common defect as is well known, may play havoc with an artist’s
work, _qua_ communication, without necessarily involving
any deficiency of value in his own experience. It is theoretically
possible for an individual to develop in himself states of mind
of very high value and yet to be so unusual in his own sensibility
as to seem ridiculous or be incomprehensible to others. The question
then arises as to which is in the right, the artist or his uncomprehending
critics. This frequent dilemma raised alike by great innovating
artists and by nincompoops brings us back to the problem of normality.
To be normal is to be a standard, but not, as things are and
are likely to remain, an average; and to inquire into the characters
of the norm or to ask who are normal is to raise a question as
to value. The artist departs from the average, but so do other
people. His departure, however, is one of the reasons why we
attend to his work; other people’s departures may be reasons
why we should not. What are the main differences which decide
whether a departure is a merit or a defect?
The theory of value outlined above indicates some of these differences.
If the artist’s organisation is such as to allow him a fuller
life than the average, with less unnecessary interference between
its component impulses, then plainly we should do well to be
more like him, _if we can_ and as far as we can. But the
qualification, _if we can_, has far-reaching consequences.
Politically it _might_ be better for the community to be
organised on the model of ant and bee communities, but, since
it cannot, the question whether we should try to make it so does
not arise. Similarly, if the artist’s organisation[65] is so eccentric
as to make general approximation to it impossible, or if a general
approximation would involve (people being what they are) greater
losses than gains, then however admirable it may be in itself,
we shall be justified in neglecting it. The case, if it indeed
occurs, is exceptional but instructive theoretically. What is
excellent and what is to be imitated are not necessarily the
same. But it is interesting to note that mentalities to which
the usual and ordinary man is not capable of approximating without
loss can almost always be shown to be defective, and that the
defects themselves are the barrier to approximation. Certain
mystical poets are perhaps as good an example of this as any.
However admirable the experience of a Boehme or a Blake, of a
Nietzsche or of the Apocalypst, the features which prevent general
participation in it, the barriers to communication, are not the
features upon which its value chiefly depends. It is the inchoate
part of Blake’s personality which makes him incomprehensible,
not the parts which were better organised than those of every
one else.
The explanation of the rarity of admirable though utterly eccentric
experience is not difficult. The metaphorical remark that we
are all branches of the same tree is its most compendious form.
So much must be alike in the nature of all men, their situation
in the world so much the same, and organisation building upon
this basis must depend upon such similar processes, that variation
both wide and successful is most unlikely. That we are apt to
exaggerate the differences between men is well known. If we consider
what is usually called mind, alone, we may well suppose that
minds may differ _toto cœlo_, but if we look more carefully,
taking account of the whole man, including his spinal reflexes
for example, seeing his mind as but the most delicate and most
advanced part of his total organisation, we shall not be tempted
to think him so diverse. People of course do seem extraordinarily
different in the ways in which they think and feel. But we are
specialised to detect these differences. Further, we tend constantly
to overlook differences in situation which would explain differences
in behaviour. We assume to a ridiculous extent that what is stimulating
us will stimulate others in the same way, forgetting that what
will happen depends upon what has happened before and upon what
is already happening within, about which we can usually know
little.
The ways then in which the artist will differ from the average
will as a rule presuppose an immense degree of similarity. They
will be further developments of organisations already well advanced
in the majority. His variations will be confined to the newest,
the most plastic, the least fixed part of the mind, the parts
for which reorganisation is most easy. Thus his differences are
far less serious obstacles to communication than, shall we say,
such differences as divide the hypochondriac from the healthy.
And, further, so far as they require reorganisation there will
commonly be good reasons why this should be carried out. We should
not forget that finer organisation is the most successful way
of relieving strain, a fact of relevance in the theory of evolution.
The new response will be more advantageous than the old, more
successful in satisfying varied appetencies.
But the advantages may be localised or general, minor as well
as major. The artist stands at the parting of a multitude of
ways. His advance may be and often is in a direction which if
followed up would be generally disadvantageous although for the
moment it leads to an increase of value. The metaphor is of course
insufficient. We can improve it by substituting a manifold of
many dimensions for the cross-roads. Which way is the mind to
grow and which ways are compatible with which is the question.
There are specialist and universal poets, and the specialist
may be developing in a manner either consistent or inconsistent[66]
with general development, a consideration of extreme importance
in judging the value of his work. Its bearing upon the permanence
of his work will be discussed later.
At any moment, in any situation, a variety of attitudes is possible.
Which is the best is decided not only by the impulses which gain
organised satisfaction in the attitude but also by the effect
of the attitude upon the rest of the organisation of the individual.
We should have to consider the whole system and all the possibilities
of all probable situations which might arise if we were to be
sure that any one attitude is the best. Since we cannot do this,
but can only note the most obvious objections to some, we have
to be content if we can avoid those attitudes which are most
evidently wasteful.
For the normality of the poet is to be estimated in terms of
waste. Most human attitudes are wasteful, some to a shocking
degree. The mind which is, so far as can be seen, least wasteful,
we take as a norm or standard, and, if possible, we develop in
our degree similar experiences. The taking of the norm is for
the most part done unconsciously by mere preference, by the shock
of delight which follows the release of stifled impulse into
organised freedom. Often the choice is mistaken, the advantage
which leads to preference is too localised, involves losses in
the end, losses round the next corner as it were.
Little by little experience corrects such illusory preference,
not through reflection—almost all critical choices are irreflective,
spontaneous, as some say—but through unconscious reorganisation
of impulses. We rarely change our tastes, we rather find them
changed. We return to the poems which made us weep tears of delight
when we were young and find them dusty rhetoric. With a tender
hurt inside we wonder what has happened.
Sometimes, of course, experience corrects nothing. There may
be nothing which needs correcting, or too much. The localised
advantage, the sweet aching thrill of the Boosey Ballad—
I have a rose, a white, white rose,
’Twas given me long ago,
When the winds had fallen to silence,
And the stars were dim and low.
It lies in an old book faded,
Between the pages white,
But the ages cannot dim the dream
It brings to me to-night!
The localised advantage may be irresistible in its appeal; the
personality will not surrender it, no matter what, of greater
worth is forgone for its sake, or what possibilities passing
by are lost, unglimpsed in the enthralment.
[61] The degree of racial difference is peculiarly difficult to
estimate. In view of the extent of mixture which has taken place
it may be of great importance in considering even the art of
one culture or tradition alone. Cf. F. G. Crookshank, _The
Mongol in our Midst_.
[62] These types if they must be admitted, have not yet been described
satisfactorily. The defects of such attempts as those of Jung,
for example, are shown by the fact that individuals change so
readily and so freely from ‘type’ to ‘type’, being extrovert
one hour and introvert the next, rationalist and intuitive from
moment to moment. This is of course denied by the Zurich School
but not by the majority of observers. To point it out is not
to overlook much that is valuable in these distinctions. A satisfactory
classification would doubtless be very complex, and perhaps of
the form: An individual of Type A is extrovert under these conditions,
introvert under those, etc.
[63] _Biographia Literaria_, Ch. XIII. “The primary IMAGINATION
I hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all human perception,
and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of
creation in the infinite I AM.” The luminous hints dropped by
Coleridge in the neighbourhood of this sentence would seem to
have dazzled succeeding speculators. How otherwise explain why
they have been overlooked.
[64] Coleridge’s distinction between IMAGINATION and Fancy was
in part the same as this. But he introduced value considerations
also, Imagination being such combination or fusion of mental
elements as resulted in certain valuable states of mind, and
Fancy being a mere trivial playing with these elements. The discussion
of this distinction will be postponed to Chapter XXXII, where
the different uses of the term ‘imagination’ are separated.
[65] It is useful in this discussion to distinguish between the
artist’s personality as involved in his work and such other parts
of it as are not involved. With these last we are not here concerned.
[66] A weakness of the modern Irish school (even at its best,
in Mr Yeats) or of the exquisite poetry of Mr De la Mare, may
be that its sensibility is a development out of the main track.
It is this which seems to make it minor poetry in a sense in
which Mr Hardy’s best work or Mr Eliot’s _The Waste Land_
is major poetry.