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 aesthetic 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 aesthetical 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

aesthetic 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 idyls 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 aesthetical 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, Moliere, 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 every-day 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 aesthetic 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 actions.

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 aesthetics. 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

aesthetics? 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 aesthetic 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 aesthetical 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.