critic’s business but also that of the historian. It enables him to
link together in a single scheme the prose of Goldsmith with that of
Pater and the poetry of the eighteenth century with poetry, like that
of the Symbolists of the nineteenth, so different as to seem completely
unrelated. It enables him to explain a phenomenon that he has usually
alluded to as a mere curious accident, the fact that there have been
ages when poetry has been popular and others in which it has been the
possession of a few. It will, I think, be found that this periodicity
coincides with a general variation between kinetic and potential
speech. In the eighteenth century, when poetry was often rhymed prose,
when the common standard of poetry was good sense, when she gave advice
and said things, and did not seem to realise that there were things
she could not say, when, in short, the kinetic almost overwhelmed the
potential, then poetry was a popular form of literature. In other
ages, when poetry has approached the condition of potential speech
and so has needed for its appreciation such knowledge as that lately
discussed, it has not swelled the publisher’s purse so swiftly as forms
of literature that happened to be more nearly kinetic and so more
easily enjoyed.
The eighteenth century poets and the Symbolists alike come under our
definition and can be classed by the formula that depends upon it.
I have suggested that the eighteenth century poets cared mostly for
kinetic speech, and, indeed, carried their appreciation of it so high
as sometimes to forget that poetry could do anything but speak wisely
and well. Few schools have suffered a greater variety of imperfect
and bungling definitions than that of Symbolism. The Symbolist aims
have been described as “an escape from the thought of death,” and
“intimacy with spiritual things.” Nowhere has there been a definition
that has shown their relation to the aims of poetry in general. But,
when Mallarmé says: “Nommer un objet, c’est supprimer les trois quarts
de la jouissance du poème qui est faite du bonheur de deviner peu à
peu; le suggérer, voilà le rêve,” he is saying, in other words, that
poetry depends on potential speech. The Symbolists sought to write
poetry that should be purely potential, and in the revision of certain
of his poems Mallarmé tried to eliminate bit by bit the whole structure
of kinetic speech that had been in them. The eighteenth century aims
carried to their extreme would have meant bad prose; the Symbolist
aims carried to their extreme would have meant (as they sometimes did)
unintelligibility. Poetry is made by a combination of kinetic with
potential speech. Eliminate either and the result is no longer poetry.
I do not propose the words kinetic and potential as terms of abuse or
praise, though in different ages there have been artists who would have
used them so. The eighteenth century poets would have used kinetic
as a term of praise; the Symbolists would have used it as a term
of abuse. The fact that different schools would have set different
values on the words is itself a proof that they may be serviceable
to historians and critics. Literature does indeed vary between these
extremes, its kinetic quality preserving it from nonsense, its
potential quality separating it from bad prose. Some sort of relevancy
would be discoverable in any history that set itself to trace these
variations. Some sort of relevancy is obvious in all criticism that
attempts (as all good criticism does) the enhancement of the potential
and the clarification of the kinetic element in such literature as
happens to be its subject. In any case, an adoption of the definition
of literature that this essay upholds would make ridiculous the
classification of books by their subjects and of writers by their
opinions, on which so many intellects have wasted time and vitality
worthy of a more profitable employment.
1911.
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
Edinburgh & London
FOOTNOTES
[1] After passing this note for press, I learn that this essay has been
reprinted at Tokyo in a new edition of Mr. Noguchi’s _The Pilgrimage_.
[2] For the reputation of Breughel d’Enfer is based on his imitations
of his father, Breughel le Vieux, to whom is attributed the _Temptation
of St. Anthony_ at Genoa.
[3] A piece of money coined by Charles VIII.
[4] Figures that strike the hour on the clock-tower at Dijon.
[5] The quotations in this essay are taken from Dr. Oscar Levy’s
admirable English edition of Nietzsche, translated by Drs. W. A.
Haussmann and M. A. Mügge, Messrs. Paul V. Cohn, Thomas Common, J.
M. Kennedy, A. M. Ludovici and H. B. Samuel, and Miss Helen Zimmern:
eighteen volumes published by Mr. T. N. Foulis.
[6] Clarendon Press. 1910.
[7] Oscar Wilde.
[8] These references are to the page-numbers in Messrs. Macmillan’s
library edition.
[9] His inability to tell a story was perhaps the reason of, or,
at least supplies a commentary upon, his readiness to admire the
narratives of M. Filon, Octave Feuillet, Mrs. Humphry Ward, and to
admire them, quite ingenuously, for the story’s sake, like the ordinary
reader of novels.
[10] _The Symbolist Movement in Literature_, 1899.
[11] An English translation was published in 1912 by Messrs. Stephen
Swift.
[12] When I wrote this article I was still hypnotised, like the
symbolists themselves, with the idea that symbolism was a method. My
later article on kinetic and potential speech contains what I believe
to be a more accurate account of the significance of what is called
the “symbolist movement.” It did not turn a practice into a theory,
but merely emphasized one of the two inseparable functions of words
when combined in poetic speech, and emphasized it at the expense of the
other.
Japanese poets have always insisted on the potential element in poetic
speech. Its intensity has always been for them the test of a poem.
Noguchi, except in that he is a Japanese poet who happens to write in
English, is not an innovator but the heir to a long Japanese tradition.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Inconsistent use of accent marks has not been remedied.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
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