ARS POETICA

Poem Summary
Lines 1-2
The first four stanzas of Ars Poetica say that a poem should communicate with its reader without words, nonverally, a
concept that contradicts reality, since poems are made of nothin! ut words" #nstead of e$pressin! ideas, this section
says that a poem should !ive its reader actual, tan!ile items that can e e$perienced with the senses" %ince words are
themselves mar&s on paper or, if spo&en, patterns of viration and not the actual o'ects and actions they represent,
this description appears to as& poetry to do the impossile" (ontradictin! our normal e$pectations aout the scope of its
su'ect is what Ars Poetica is all aout"
The word palpale in the first line means that a poem should e tan!ile ) somethin! that can e touched ) , ut the
word also refers to somethin! that is ovious or immediately evident" %tudents who have spent hours in *n!lish classes
laorin! to determine what a poem means may e surprised to find it said that a poem should e understood at first
!lance" +acLeish uses mute in the same line to contradict the traditional idea that a poem spea&s to its reader with a
uni,ue, identifiale voice" -riters concentratin! on these aspects are too self-conscious" .e says instead that a poem
should e li&e a piece of fruit, su!!estin! ,ualities that a piece of fruit has/ it is reco!nized across cultures, is alive,
sweet, and !rown to ripeness" The ad'ective !loed emphasizes this idea without ma&in! the reader loo& for a
meanin! that is separate from the ima!ery used/ a !loe, or sphere, is a universal shape that is constant, re!ardless of
what an!le it is viewed from, and it therefore holds no secrets"
Lines 0-1
.avin! made the point in the first stanza that the words of a poem should have direct, not astract, influence on the
reader, +acLeish uses onomatopoeia to support this point" 2nomatopoeia is the use of words that mimic their meanin!
in their sound" #n this case, dum and thum oth have lunt, dull sounds, and they are used to discuss words that
have no secrets elow the surface"
Line 1 uses the phrase to the thum where it could have said to the touch, precisely ecause the point of this piece is
that poetry should e a physical, not an intellectual, e$perience, and one way to accomplish this is to use a solid o'ect
3thum4 in place of a concept 3touch4" +edallions are !enerally !iven to people for their symolic meanin! ) to
reco!nize ravery, achievements, etc" ) and not for the actual monetary value of the metal of which they are made" #n
usin! the ima!e of a thum readin! old medallions, +acLeish implies that the poet cannot count on readers to
understand astract si!nificance ecause meanin!s fade, 'ust li&e an imprint pressed into metal wears down, and
readers are often as insensitive as a thum" This, he says, is how it should e 3line 14"
Lines 5-6
The ima!e !iven in these two lines is of a window frame, or casement, that has over!rown with moss ut has een
uffed, even worn, y the sleeves of someone loo&in! in and leanin! on the led!e" This implies that someone,
presumaly the poet, has een loo&in! in for a lon! time at a situation that has een there for an even lon!er time
3which is, in fact, how poets do involve themselves in life4" +acLeish7s su!!estion that poems e silent is !ood advice to
any outside oserver"
Lines 8-9
The first section of the poem ends with an ima!e from nature in line 9" As mentioned efore, a poem cannot e
wordless ecause it is made of words/ a person mi!ht 'ust as easily try to e cellless" A poem can, however, not
concentrate on its own words, in the same way that a ird can accomplish somethin! as miraculous as fli!ht without
ein! aware of the individual actions that ma&e it possile"
Lines :-1;
The second section of the poem, from line : to line 16, starts and ends with the same couplet, and the two stanzas in
the middle e!in with the same four words" The main ima!e in this section is the moon, which, li&e the !loed fruit of
line 2, is a universal fi!ure familiar to all people at all times in the world7s history" (entral to this section is the idea that a
poem should e leavin! ) not carryin! new ideas to the reader, ut displayin! ideas that the reader already &nows"
Line : says that a poem should e motionless, ut then line 1; e$plains this point y comparin! it to the climin! of the
moon, which actually does move, ut imperceptily so to the na&ed eye" #t is redundant for +acLeish to say motionless
in time, since motion ta&es place in time and could not ta&e place without it, ut puttin! it this way allows him to stress
two ideas/ that a poem does not need to uild up from one stanza to the ne$t 3an idea ased on poems as concepts, not
ima!es4, and that poetry should have the same meanin! to all !enerations of man&ind"
Lines 11-16
The synta$ of these lines is confusin!" <y arran!in! his words in the way he has, the poet is ale to imply that ehind
the winter is the location of the moon, while at the same time retainin! the idea that the moon leaves the winter ehind"
*ither of these readin!s is ri!ht/ the moon is ehind the winter if the winter is emodied y the trees that it shone
throu!h in line 12, and it leaves the winter ehind y climin! up into the s&y" Line 11 is even more prolematic ecause
the poet does not use a ver in this clause" #t is impossile to &now whether it is the memories or the mind that is
leavin!"
<y repeatin! lines : and 1; in lines 15 and 16, +acLeish reiterates his idea of a poem motionless in time in several
ways" +ost ovious is the emphasis !iven to anythin! that is said twice" Also, y havin! these lines return, he shows
defiance a!ainst the passa!e of time, as the poem ends up ac& at the same place a!ain, as if it had never left" .avin!
put the reader throu!h the twisted lo!ic of lines 11 throu!h 11 ma&es the contradiction of motionless with climin!
seem less stran!e when encountered a second time"
Lines 18-19
<eauty is truth, truth eauty" =ohn >eats wrote these words in 2de 2n a ?recian @rn, which, li&e Ars Poetica, is a
meditation on the timelessness and mystery of art" #n that poem, the fi!ures painted on an urn in ancient ?reece are
considered to e models of truth and eauty ecause they will not chan!e, so they can never e untrue" %ince the
second section of Ars Poetica declared that a poem should e motionless, it would e natural for a reader familiar with
the >eats poem to assume that this is +acLeish7s way, li&e >eats, of showin! how a poem can e truer" <ut truth is
e$actly the sort of intan!ile concept that +acLeish says poems should not concern themselves with" .e does not say
that a poem should not e true, 'ust that poems should e e,ual to/ A not true" %ee&ers of astract truth )
philosophers, for e$ample ) too often fail to ma&e their writin! have an effect on their readers"
Lines 1:-2;
?rief is a hu!e su'ect, cominin! two asic concepts that are the core ideas ehind a ma'ority of poems/ love and
death" +acLeish e$pands the su'ect of !rief to include all of history, includin! practically everyody who ever lived"
The way to convey this idea, he su!!ests, is with An empty doorway and a maple leaf" These ima!es cannot e
intellectualized ) this is the point of the poem" -e can say that the empty doorway symolizes emptiness,
opportunities lost, or a !apin! hole, or that the maple leaf is stren!th, coursin! veins, or a reminder of autumnal death
and reirth, ut the ima!es do not clearly fit any of these ideas with a one-to-one correspondence" These are personal
ima!es, and the est that a reader can do is to &now appro$imately how the poet relates them to !rief"
Lines 21-22
These lines offer the same type of evasive ima!es that were offered for !rief in the precedin! couplet" There is
somethin! aout lades of !rass, ein! touched y the wind and owin! to it, that is li&e the e$perience of love, 'ust as
the two parties in love are li&e li!hts, and the sea is li&e the world that reflects their love, ut these relationships etween
the concepts and the o'ects are ine$act" Ars Poetica e$plains to the poet and to the reader that the principle that
poems cannot convey oth e$perience and ideas is not to e re!retted, ut is the nature of thin!s" #f poems can only
cover one of these tas&s, +acLeish says it should e e$perience, and let the ideas, which are the astract functions of
words, remain mute 3line 14"
Lines 20-21
<y cuttin! these two lines short and y offerin! no direct o'ect after mean and e, +acLeish draws the vast
distinction etween the two vers more clearly than even if he had said should not mean anythin! and e anythin!,
ecause the specific o'ect provided y the reader to fill in these lines will e more stri&in! than the !eneral concept of
anythin!" %pecificity is the !oal of this poem"
CHAPTER 3
The Epistle to the Pisos
Ars Poetica
PB2C*%%2B <B#D>E% +2D@+*DTAL wor& on the Ars
Poetica was pulished over a decade and a half a!o"
1
#n his commentary
and earlier Prolegomena 3 1:604 he stressed an aidin! determination to
&eep all windows open now that a complete cleanin! and inventory had
een done of the vast amount of data earin! on the poem" #n the li!ht of
his e$haustive analysis of the ancient sources for the Ars, we now see
much more clearly, for e$ample, where and how .orace has made use of
the poetic theory of the shadowy Deoptolemus of Parium as Fa tradi-
tional system of reference in the intricate diversity of the poem"F
2
<ut
<rin& also sees Fa simpler scheme " " " within it, superimposed on that of
the literary criticsG
0
" " " y avoidin! tediousness and technicality and the
schoolsE lan!ua!e"F .orace thus prevents the flow of the poem from e-
in! distured"
1
-ith the conceptual triad of poema 3style4, poesis 3con-
tent4, poeta 3poet4 artfully lurred, technical divisions which would
otherwise have seriously depressed the level of the poetry sutly serve to
support it" <rin& ri!htly refuses to 'oin the controversy over alle!edly
e$clusive principles of desi!n and unity, insistin! always that the an-
swers we receive from our en,uiries aout this wor& will differ accordin!
to the ,uestions we as&" 3%ince other !reat Au!ustan poems continue to
reveal a Fmultiplicity of patterns,F why not also the ArsH4
5
Iarious un-
derlyin! ipartite, tripartite, and even ,uadripartite schemes may
coe$ist as complementary structures"
The Ars poetica 3Art of Poetry4, the last of .oraceEs wor&s, is in form a letter to the Pisones, proaly the sons of Lucius
(alpurnius Piso, ased on a lost .ellenistic treatise" #t is divided into three parts, discussin!, respectively, poetry in
!eneral, the form of the poem, and the poet" Throu!hout, suitaility)of su'ect, of form and lan!ua!e to the su'ect, of
thou!ht and dialo!ue to the character)is stressed, and the poet is advised to read widely in the est models, to e
meticulous in his composition, and to sumit his wor& to the est criticism which he can otain"
A very lar!e part of the poem is concerned with the drama, and .oraceEs descriptions and precepts, hardened into
unrea&ale laws, had a !reat influence in and after the Benaissance, especially in settin! the ri!id rules which Crench
classical drama imposed on itself" The poem as a whole, in fact, seems to the modern reader to suffer ecause it has
een so often ,uoted and adapted, and its teachin!s so asored into the elements of criticism, that it must perforce
seem hac&neyed" Cew wor&s of literary criticism have ever had an influence approachin! that of the Ars poetica or have
contained such sound advice"
Dante to Cangrande: English ersion
This translation was supplied y =ames +archand of the @niversity of #llinois, who has included some annotation on
passa!es from other others ,uoted y Jante" +archand oserves, KThis is an attempt at what used to e called Fa
natural translationF, perhaps a little too close, ut it is to help you understand the te$tG it is certainly not une belle
infidele"E This was scanned from a typescript, so readers should e wary of misprints and the typical confusions of one
letter form for another"
To the !reat and most victorious lord, Lord (an ?rande della %cala, Iicar ?eneral of the Principate of the .oly Boman
*mperor in the town of Ierona and the municipality of Iicenza, his most devoted Jante Ali!hieri, Clorentine in irth ut
not in manners, wishes him a happy life throu!h lon! years, as well as a continuous increase in his !lorious reputation"
1" The outstandin! praise of your +a!nificence, which watchful fame spreads aroad on flyin! win!, pulls different
people in different directions, so that it rin!s some to hope in their prosperity, casts down others in fear of destruction"
The report of such fame, e$ceedin! y far that of any present day person, as somewhat eyond the truth, # 'ud!ed to e
somewhat e$a!!erated" #n truth, so that this !reat uncertainty mi!ht &eep me in suspense lon!er, as the Lueen of
%hea came to =erusalem, as Pallas came to .elicon, # came to Ierona to e an eye-witness for myself what # had
heard" And there # saw your !reat wor&s, # saw your enefices and touched themG and 'ust as # had earlier suspected
e$cess in part in your praisers, now later # &now the e$cess of the deeds themselves" %o that, 'ust as y hearsay alone #
was favoraly inclined y a sort of sumission of the mind, now # am throu!h si!ht your faithful servant and friend"
2" # am not afraid, in ta&in! on the name of friend, as some perchance may o'ect, that # will incur the !uilt of
presumption, since une,uals are not less ound y the sacred onds of friendship than are e,uals" #ndeed, if one is
willin! to loo& at pleasureale and useful friendships, most fre,uently it will e ovious to him that they 'oin persons of
preeminence to their inferiors" And if the understandin! turns to true, disinterested friendship, will it not show that
fre,uently men of oscure fortune, outstandin! in honesty, were friends of most illustrious princesH -hy notH %ince not
even friendship etween ?od and man is impeded y the disparityM <ut if to anyone that which is asserted seems now
to e improper, let him hear the .oly %pirit offerin! certain men the sharin! of his love" Cor in N-isdomN one reads
concernin! wisdom/ KCor she is an infinite treasure to menG which they that use, ecome the friends of ?odE 3citin! from
Jouay-Bheims, -isdom 8"114" <ut the ine$perience of the common people has 'ud!ment without discriminationG and
'ust as the sun is thou!h to e the size of a foot, thus concernin! customs they are deceived in vain credulity" Cor us,
however, to whom it is !iven to &now the est that is in us, it is not proper to follow the trac&s of the herd, ut rather we
ou!ht to confront their errors" Cor, ein! lac&in! in intellect and reason, thou!h endowed as it were y divine freedom,
they are restricted y no custom" #t is not stran!e, since they are not directed y law, ut rather the law y them" #t is is
clear then, as # said aove, viz" that # am your servant and friend, is in no way presumptuous"
0" Therefore, holdin! your friendship in hi!h esteem, li&e a most precious treasure, # wish to preserve it with dili!ent care
and close solicitude" Thus, as it is tau!ht in moral philosophy that friendship is returned and preserved y similarity, #
have purposed to follow similarity in payin! ac& the enefits more that once conferred upon meG and for that reason #
have often loo&ed at my little !ifts and separated them each from the other and then loo&ed throu!h them, loo&in! for
ones which mi!ht e worthy of and pleasin! to you" Dor did # find anythin! more fittin! for your very Preeminence, than
the e$alted canticle of the (omedy which is entitled ParadisoG and # dedicate it to you y the present letter, as if y a
proper epi!ramG in fine, # dedicate, # offer, # recommend it to you"
1" +y urnin! affection will also not permit me simply to pass over in silence the fact that it would seem that in this
donation honor is conferred more on the !ift than on yourselfG on the contrary, since in its title 3salutation4 already the
prediction of the amplification of your fame will have een seen to e e$pressed y any attentive reader, as # intended"
<ut, desire for your favor, for which # thirst, little estimatin! my life 3own person4, ur!es me forward to the !oal set from
the e!innin!" Thus, the form of the letter havin! een fulfilled, # shall move to the introduction of the wor& offered,
rather compendiously, under the !uise of reader"
5" As the Philosopher says in the second oo& of +etaphysics/ KAs each thin! is in respect of ein!, so it is with respect
to truthE 3citin! from the ?reat <oo&s of the -estern -orld, vol 9, 5124G the reason for this is that the truth aout a thin!,
which consists in truth as in the su'ect, is the perfect ima!e of the thin! as it is" 2f those thin!s which are, there are
some which are asolute within themselvesG there are some which are dependent on somethin! else throu!h some
relationship, such as to e at the same time and to e$ist with somethin! else, as the relatives, li&e father and son, lord
and servant, doule and half, whole and part, and many other li&e thin!s" -herefore, since such a ein! depends on
another, it follows that the truth of them depends on somethin! else/ if the concept of half is not &nown, never will
doule e &nown, and the same with the others"
6" Those who wish to !ive some &ind of introduction to a part of any &ind of wor& ou!ht to offer some information aout
the whole of which it is a part" -hence also #, wishin! to offer somethin! concernin! the aove named part of the whole
(omedy y way of introduction, thou!ht that # ou!ht to first set down somethin! aout the whole wor&, that it mi!ht e a
easier and etter entry to the part" There are si$ thin!s to e loo&ed at at the e!innin! of any doctrinal wor&, viz"
su'ect, actor, form, purpose, title, and the type of philosophy" 2f these there are three in which this part, which # meant
to dedicate to you, is different from the whole, that is, the su'ect, the form, and the titleG in the others it does not differ,
as is ovious to anyone who loo&sG and therefore, in the consideration of the whole, these three ou!ht to e loo&ed at
separately/ this havin! een accomplished, the way will e open for the introduction of the part" Then we will loo& at the
other three, not only with respect to the whole, ut also with respect to the part offered"
8" Cor me e ale to present what # am !oin! to say, you must &now that the sense of this wor& is not simple, rather it
may e called polysemantic, that is, of many sensesG the first sense is that which comes from the letter, the second is
that of that which is si!nified y the letter" And the first is called the literal, the second alle!orical or moral or ana!o!ical"
-hich method of treatment, that it may e clearer, can e considered throu!h these words/ K-hen #srael went out of
*!ypt, the house of =aco from a ararous people, =udea was made his sanctuary, #srael his dominionE 3Jouay-
Bheims, Ps" 110"1-24" #f we loo& at it from the letter alone it means to us the e$it of the (hildren of #srael from *!ypt at
the time of +osesG if from alle!ory, it means for us our redemption done y (hristG if from the moral sense, it means to
us the conversion of the soul from the stru!!le and misery of sin to the status of !raceG if from the ana!o!ical, it means
the leave ta&in! of the lessed soul from the slavery of this corruption to the freedom of eternal !lory" And thou!h these
mystical senses are called y various names, in !eneral all can e called alle!orical, ecause they are different from the
literal or the historical" Dow, alle!ory comes from ?ree& alleon, which is Latin means KotherE or KdifferentE"
9" Dow that we have seen this, it is ovious that the su'ect around which the two senses turn must e twofold" And
therefore it is to e determined aout the su'ect of this wor& when it is ta&en literally, then oout the su'ect when it is
understood alle!orically" The su'ect of the whole wor&, ta&en only from a literal standpoint, is simply the status of the
soul after death, ta&en simply" The movement of the whole wor& turns from it and around it" #f the wor& is ta&en
alle!orically, however, the su'ect is man, either !ainin! or losin! merit throu!h his freedom of will, su'ect to the 'ustice
of ein! rewarded or punished"
:" #ts form is twofold, the form of the treatise and the form of the treatment" The form of the treatise is three-fold,
accordin! to the three- fold division" The first division is that y which the entire wor& is divided into three canticles" The
second that y which each canticle is divided into cantos" The third that y which each canto is divided into rhymin!
units" The form or the mode of treatment is poetic, fictive, descriptive, di!ressive, transumptiveG and alon! with this
definitive, divisive, proative, improative, and settin! e$amples" 1;" The title of the oo& is/ K<e!ins the (omedy of
Jante Ali!hieri, Clorentine in irth, not in custom"E #n order to understand you need to &now that NcomedyN comes from
N&omosN Kvilla!eE and NodaN, which means Kson!E, whence NcomedyN sort of means Kcountry son!E" And comedy is sort of
a &ind of poetic narration, different from all others" #t differs, therefore, from the tra!edy, in matter y the fact that
tra!edy in the e!innin! is admirale and ,uiet, in the end or final e$it it is smelly and horrileG and it !ets its name
ecause of this from Ntra!osN, which means K!oatE, and NodaN, sort of li&e K!oat-son!E, that is, smelly li&e a !oat, as can
e seen in %enecaEs tra!edies" <ut comedy e!ins with harshness in some thin!, whereas its matter ends in a !ood
way, as can e seen y Terence in his comedies" And thus letter writers are accustomed to say in their salutations in
the place of an address Ka tra!ic e!innin!, a comical endE" They differ also in the way of spea&in!/ the tra!edy is
elevated and sulime, the comedy loose and humle, as .orace tells us in his NPoetriaN, where he permits now and
a!ain comic writers to spea& li&e tra!edists and also vice versa 3citin! NThe (omplete -or&s of .oraceN, transl" >aspar
=" >raemer, =r" +odern Lirary 111 3Dew Oor&/ +odern Lirary, 1:604, 1;;/
At times, however, even comedy e$alts her voice, and an an!ry (hremes rants and ravesG often, too, in a tra!edy
Telephus or Peleus utters his sorrow in the lan!ua!e of prose """
And from this it is ovious that the present wor& is called comedy" And if we loo& at the matter, in the e!innin! it is
horrile and smelly, ecause N#nfernoNG in the end it is !ood, desirale and !raceful, for it is NParadisoNG as to the manner
of spea&in!, it is easy and humle, ecause it is in the vul!ar ton!ue, in which also women communicate" And thus is is
ovious why it is called (omedy" There are also other !enres of poetic narration, such as ucolic son!, ele!y, satire and
the votive sentence, as also may e seen throu!h .orace in his NPoetriaN, ut at present there is nothin! to e said
aout these"
11" Dow it can e e$plained how the part offered 3NParadisoN4 may e assi!ned a su'ect" -ell, if the su'ect of the
whole wor&, ta&en literally, is this su'ect/ The status of souls after death, ta&en simply and not limited, it is ovious that
in this part such a status is the su'ect, ut restricted, that is, the status of the lessed souls after death" And if the
su'ect of thw whole wor&, ta&en alle!orically, is man, as he !ains or loses merit y the e$ercise of his freedom of will,
ein! su'ect to the 'ustice of punishment or reward, it is ovious that in this part the su'ect is restricted, namely, man,
to the e$tent that he is su'ect y merits to the 'ustice of punishment"
12" And this is ovious concernin! the form of the part throu!h the form !iven to the whole" Cor, if the form of the
treatise as a whole is threefold, in this part it is twofold only, i"e" the division of the canticle and the cantos" The first
formal division is not proper here, since this part is of the first division"
10" Also the title of the oo& is ovious" Cor if the title of the whole oo& is K.ere e!ins the (omedy,E etc, as aove,
then the title of this part is K.ere e!ins the third canticle of the (omedy of Jante, which is called NParadisoN"E
11" After we have e$amined this three y which the part varies from the whole, we must loo& at the other three, in which
there is no variation from the whole" The a!ent 3prota!onist4, then, of the whole as well as the part is he who has een
mentioned, and throu!hout he will e seen to e"
15" The purpose of the whole and the part could e multiple, that is oth remote and pro$imate" <ut leavin! off sutle
investi!ation, we can say say riefly that the purpose of the whole as well as the part is to remove those livin! in this life
frome the state of misery and to lead them to the state of liss"
16" The !enus of philosophy under which we proceed here in the whole and in the part is the usiness of morals or
ethics, since oth the part and the whole are composed for practice rather than theory" <ut if in some place or passa!e
thin!s are len!thened out in the manner of theory, this is not for the purpose of theory, ut of practiceG for, as the
Philosopher says in the second oo& of +etaphysics/ Kpractical men theorize now and a!ainE 3loose ,uotation4"
18" These ein! settled, we move to the e$position of letter as a sort of prolepsis, and it should e mentioned ahead of
time, that the e$position of the letter is nothin! ut the revelaiton of the form of the wor&" This part, therefore, is divided
3that is the third canticle, which is called NParadisoN4, mainly into two parts, that is the prolo!ue and the real part" The
second part e!ins thus/ KThe lamp of the world rises on mortals y different entrancesE 3citin! %inclair, NParadisoN
1"084"
19" (oncernin! the first part you must &now, thou!h y common practice it may e called the e$ordium, properly
spea&in! however it should e called nothin! ut prolo!ue, as the Philosopher indicates when he says that Kthe
proemium is in rhetorical oration as the prolo!ue in poetic, and the prelude in the performance on the pipeE 3cf"
NAristotleEs Treatise on BhetoricN, ed" Theodore <uc&ley, <ohnEs (lassical Lirary PLondon/ <ohn, 1968Q, p" 251 PR
Bhetoric, 0"11Q4" And it must also e noted first that this e$cursus, which may e called the e$ordium y common
consent, is done one way y poets, another y rhetors, for rhetors often tell ahead of time what they are !oin! to say, so
that they may ma&e the mind of the listener receptive" <ut poets not only do this, ut also ma&e some &ind of invocation
after this" And this is ri!ht for them, for they need many invocations, whenever a man contrary to common use must as&
for somethin! from superior ein!s, such as certain divine !ifts" Thus the present prolo!ue is divided into two parts/ in
the first is indicated what is to e said, in the second Apollo is called uponG and the second part e!ins/ K2 !ood Apollo,
for the last laorE 3%inclair, NParadisoN, 1"104"
1:" Cor the first part it is to e noted that three thin!s are re,uired for the ma&in! of a !ood e$ordium, as (icero says in
the Ad .erennium, namely that it render the listener well-intentioned, attentive and malleale, and this most stron!ly in
the matter of somethin! marvelous, as (icero himself says" %ince then the matter aout which the present wor&
revolves is marvelous, therefore at the e!innin! of the prolo!ue or e$ordium these three intend to turn 3the mind of the
listener4 to the marvelous, for it says that it is !oin! to tell those thin!s which someone who saw them in the first heaven
was ale to hold in mind" #n which para!raph all those three are found/ for the story in its usefulness captures
enevolence, in its marvelous ,ualities attention, in its possiility receptivity" .e su!!ests utility when he says he is
!oin! to tell aout those thin!s which are most attractive to the desires of man, namely the 'oys of ParadiseG he touches
on the marvelous when he promises to tell aout such difficult, such sulime thin!s, i"e" shows the possiility of the
descriptions of the heavenly &in!dom, when he says that he will tell those thin!s which he was ale to &eep in mind, as
he and others have een ale" These all are touched upon in those words where he says he was in the first heaven,
and that he wishes to tell concernin! the heavenly &in!dom whatever he was ale to &eep in mind, sort of as a treasure
chest" The !oodness and perfection of the first part of the Prolo!ue havin! een seen, we move to the letter"
2;" .e says that Kthe !lory of .im who moves all thin!s,E who is ?od, Kshines in all parts of the universe,E ut so that Kin
one part more, in another less"E The fact that he shines everywhere oth reason and authority reveal" Beason thus/
*verythin! which is either has ein! of itself or throu!h somethin! else" <ut it is &nown that to have ein! of itself is
proper to only one ein!, that is the first one or the e!innin!, who is ?od, since to have ein! does not ar!ue for the
necessity of ein! of itself, and only one thin! has the necessity of ein! of itself, namely the first or the e!innin!,
which is the cause of allG er!o all thin!s which are, e$cept for one alone, have ein! from somethin! else" #f therefore
one ta&es the last thin! in the universe, not 'ust anythin!, it is ovious that it has ein! from somethin! else, and that
from which NitN has ein!, of itself or from somethin! else" #f of itself, it is the firstG if from somethin! else, and it li&ewise
either of itself, or from somethin! else" And thus one may proceed in infinite re!ress in a!ent causes, as is shown in the
second oo& of N+etaphysicsN" And thus we will arrive at the first, which is ?od" And thus, directly or indirectly,
everythin! which has ein! has ein! from .imG ecause from that which the second cause receives from the first, it
e$tends over the caused, li&e a thin! receivin! and reflectin! a ray, whence the first cause is the !reater cause" And this
is said in the oo& N2f (ausesN, that Kevery primary cause has more influence on its effect than any secondary cause"E
<ut this suffices as far as ein! is concerned" 21" As to essence, # demonstrate thusly/ All essence, e$cept for the first,
is caused, otherwise there would e many thin!s which would e$ist y necessity of ein! of themselves, which is
impossile, for the caused is either y nature or y intellect, and that which is y nature is conse,uently caused y the
intellect, since nature is the wor& of intelli!ence" All, then, which is caused is caused y some intellect indirectly or
directly" %ince therefore a virtue follows the essence of which it is a virtue, if it is an intellective essence, it is all and only
that which causes" And thus, 'ust as efore we had to arrive at the first cause of that same ein!, now oth of essence
and of virtue" Cor which reason it is ovious that all essence and virtue comes from the first, and the inferior
intelli!ences receive as if from somethin! emittin! rays, and they pass on the rays of the superior to their inferiors, li&e
mirrors" -hich Jionysius is seen to touch upon when spea&in! of the celestial hierarchy" And for this reason it is said in
the oo& N2f (ausesN that Kevery intelli!ence is full of forms"E #t is ovious therefore in what way reason shows the
divine li!ht, that is the divine !oodness, wisdom and virtue, to shine everywhere"
22" Li&ewise also authority ma&es the thin! more &nown" Cor the .oly %pirit says throu!h =eremiah/ KJo # not fill heaven
and earthHE 3=er" 20"214, and in the Psalm/ K-hither shall # !o from thy spiritH 2r whither shall # flee from thy faceH #f #
ascend into heaven, thou art thereG if # descend into hell, thou art present" #f # ta&e my win!s,E etc" 3Ps 109"8-:4" And
-isdom says that Kthe spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole worldE 3-isdom 1"84" And *cclesiasticus in the forty-second
chapter/ Kfull of the !lory of the Lord is his wor&E 3*cclu" 12"164" -hich also is stated y the writin!s of the pa!ans, as in
the ninth oo& of Lucan/ K=upiter is whatever you see, wherever you moveE 3citin! from .aller, p" 1;6G cf" NPharsaliaN
:"59;, NLucanN, ed" A" *" .ousman P2$ford/ <lac&well, 1:59G reprintQ, p" 28:4"
20" -ell then is it said, when he spea&s of the divine ray or the divine !lory Kit penetrates the universe and shinesEG it
penetrates as to essenceG it shines as to ein!" -hen he adds Kmore and lessE, this is manifestly true, for we see one
essence in somethin! on a hi!her level, another in one on a lower, as is seen in heaven and the elements, of which the
former is incorruptile, whereas the latter are corruptile"
21" And after he has set down first this truth, he continues from it, usin! circumlocution for Paradise Sfi!urando il
ParadisoTG and he says that he was in that heaven Kwhich most receives the !lory of ?od, or his li!ht"E Cor which reason
you must &now that that heaven is the hi!hest heaven, containin! all odies, and contained y none, within which all
odies move 3while it remains in eternal ,uiet4, and receivin! power from no corporeal sustance" And it is called
NempyreumN, which is the same as fiery heaven or flamin! with heatG not that in it is fire or material heat, ut spiritual,
which is holy love or charity"
25" That it receives more of divine li!ht can e shown y two thin!s/ Cirst, y the fact that it contains all and is contained
y nothin!G sedond, y its eternal ,uiet or peace" As to the first it is shown thusly/ The container is connected with the
contained in natural condition as the formative to the formale, as is maintained in the fourth oo& of NPhysicsN 31"5,
?reat <oo&s 9"2:1 f"4" <ut in the condition of nature of the whole universe the first heaven contains allG thus it is related
to all as the formative to the formale, which means to e related y way of cause" And since all causative power is a
&ind of ray flowin! from the first cause, which is ?od, it is ovious that that heaven which has the !reatest de!ree of
cause receives more of the divine li!ht"
26" As far as the second is concerned, it is shown thusly/ *verythin! which moves is moved y somethin! which it does
not have, which is the !oal of its movementG the lunar sphere is moved ecause of some part which it does not have
towards that towards which it movesG and since no part of it is fitted for anythin! towards which it moves 3which is
impossile4, thence it is that it is always movin! and never rests, and that is its ur!e" And that which # say concernin!
the lunar sphere is to e understood of all e$cept the first" Thus everythin! which moves is defective in somethin! and
does not have all its ein! to!ether" Therefore, that heaven which is moved y nothin! must have in itself and each of
its parts somethin! which is perfect, ecause it does not need movement towards its perfection" And since all perfection
is the ray of the Prime, which is in the hi!hest de!ree of perfection, it is manifest that the first heaven receives more of
the li!ht of the Prime, which is ?od" This reasonin! oviously ar!ues towards the destruction of the precedin!, ecause
simply and as to the form of the ar!ument it has no proative force" <ut if we loo& at its material lo!ic, it is surely
proative, ecause it deals with somethin! eternal, in which it mi!ht e defective throu!ht eternityG that is, if ?od did not
!ive it motion, it would seem that .e did not !ive it matter in any way deficient" And throu!h this supposition the
ar!ument holds y reason of material lo!icG and a similar way of ar!uin! is as if we said/ #f he is a man, he lau!hsG for in
all convertiles a li&e reason holds y reason of the material lo!ic" Thus it is ovious that when he says Kin that heaven
which receives most from the li!ht of ?odE he intends a circumlocution for Paradise or the empyrean sphere"
28" All of these reasonin!s havin! een !one throu!h, the Philosopher says in the first chapter of N2n the .eavensN
Kthe superior !lory of its nature is proportionate to its distance from this world of oursE 3?reat <oo&s, 9"06;G 2n the
.eavens, 1"24" Cor this purpose mi!ht also e adduced what the Apostle says in *phesians concernin! (hrist/ Kthat
ascended aove all heavens, that he mi!ht fill all thin!sE 3*ph" 1"1;4" This is the heaven of deli!hts of the Lord,
concernin! which deli!hts it is said a!ainst Lucifer throu!h *zechiel/ KThou wast the seal of resemlance, full of wisdom
and perfect in eauty" Thou wast in the pleasures of the paradise of ?odE 3*zech" 29"12-104"
29" And after he said that he was in this place of Paradise throu!h his circumlocution, he continues, sayin! that he saw
some thin!s that he who descends from there cannot tell" And he cites the reason, sayin! Kthat our memory sin&s so
deepE into its desire, which is ?od, Kthat memory cannot follow itE" To understand this you msut &now that the human
intellect at the end of life, ecause of the inorn nature and affinity which it has for the separate intellectual sustance,
when it is raised, is raised to such an e$tent that memory is lac&in! after its return, since it transcended human &ind"
And this is shown to us y the Apostle, spea&in! to the (orinthians, where he says/ K# &now a man """ 3whether in the
ody, or out of the ody, # &now notG ?od &noweth4, cau!ht up to the third heaven """, and Phe saw secret thin!s of ?odQ,
which it is not !ranted to man to utterE" Thus, after the intellect surpasses human reason in its ascension, it does not
rememer those thin!s which too& place outside of it" This is shown to us in +atthew, where the three disciples fell
upon their faces, tellin! nothin! later, as if for!otten" And it is written in *zechiel/ KAnd # saw, and # fell upon my faceE
3*zech" 2"14" <ut if these are not sufficient for scoffers, let them read Bichard of %t" Iictor in the oo& N2n
(ontemplationN, let them read <ernard in the oo& N2n (onsiderationN, let them read Au!ustine in the oo& N2n the
(apacity of the %oulN, and they will not scoff" <ut if they should o'ect to the possiility of elevation ecause of the sinful
nature of the person spea&in!, let them read Janiel, where they will find that even Deuchadnezar saw a vision a!ainst
sinners, and that ?od commended it to olivion" Cor Kwho ma&eth his sun to rise upon the !ood and ad and raineth
upon the 'ust and the un'ustE 3+atth" 5"154, now merciful for conversion, now severe for punishment, mor or less, as he
wishes, ma&es manifest his !lory even throu!h those who live an evil life"
2:" .e saw, therefore, as he says, some thin!s Kwhich he who returns has not the &nowled!e or power to tell a!ainE" #t
should e noted carefully that he says Kneither &new nor couldE" Jid not &now, ecause he had for!ottenG he was unale
ecause, even if he rememered and &ept the &nowled!e, speech would e lac&in!" Cor we see many thin!s with our
mind for which vocal si!ns are lac&in!, as Plato tells us well in his oo&s y ta&in! on metaphors, for he saw many
thin!s with the li!ht of his mind which he was not ale to e$press in his own words"
0;" Then he says he is !oin! to tell those thin!s of the heavenly &in!dom which he NwasN ale to retainG and he says
this is to e the matter of his wor&G what they are and how many will e revealed in the narrative part"
01" Then, when he says K2 !ood ApolloE, etc" he ma&es his invocation" And this part is divided into two parts/ in the first
he ma&es a petitionG in the second part he persuades Apollo concernin! the petition which has een made, promisin! a
&ind of remunerationG and the second part e!ins here/ K2 power divineE" The first part is divided into two parts/ in the
first he as&s for divine aid, in the second he touches upon the necessity for his petition, which is to 'ustify it/ KThus far
the one pea& of ParnassusE, etc"
02" This is the sense of the second part of the prolo!ue in !eneral" # shall not e$pound the specifics at present, for
an$iety as to family matters presses upon me, so that # must leave off these and other thin!s useful for the pulic weal"
<ut # hope for your +a!nificence that there will e other times to !o on to a useful e$position"
00" (oncernin the e$ecutive 3narrative4 part, which was separated from the entire prolo!ue, nothin! is said aout
dividin! or summin! up at present, e$cept that everywhere it procedes arisin! from sphere to sphere, and one is told
aout the souls of the lessed found in each circle, and that that true eatitude consists in perceivin! the principle of
truth, as is revealed y =ohn/ KThis is eternal life, that they may &now thee, the only true ?odE, etc" 3=n 18"04, and y
<oethius in the third oo& of NThe (onsolation of PhilosophyN/ KThe si!ht of thee is the !oalE 3citin! <oethius, NThe
(onsolation of PhilosophyN, transl" Bichard ?reen" The Lirary of Lieral Arts, 96 3#ndianapolis/ <os-+errill, 1:524, p"
51 3Poem :, last line4" -hence it is that to show the !lory of lessedness in those souls, as witnesses to all truth, much
is re,uired of them which has usefulness and entertainment" And since, the principle or the Prime ein! found, i"e" ?od,
there is nothin! more to e sou!ht, since he is the Alpha and 2me!a, that is, the e!innin! and the end, as the vision of
=ohn calls him, this treatise is ended with ?od himself, who is lessed throu!hout the a!es"
!E"ORE CHRIST
0U;; %umerians develop (uneiform, the earliest &nown form of writin!
*!yptians develop hiero!lyphics
28;; *pic of ?il!amesh 3<aylonianG often compared y scholars to the stories in ?enesis4
25;; Pharaoh (heops uilds the ?reat Pyramid at ?iza
2UUU Tower of <ael uilt
2;;; A!e of the Patriarchs
1829 .ammuraiEs (ode 3law code often compared y scholars to the +osaic law4
16;; #sraelites mi!rate into *!ypt
159; The <oo& of the Jead 3*!yptian4
15;; (anaanites create the first alphaet
1066 Pharaoh Amenhotep #I practices a form of monotheism
1UUU The *$odus of the =ews from *!ypt
12;; (hinese writin! system developed
11:; *!ypt is invaded y %ea Peoples
1191 Tro#an $ar ends with the sie!e of Troy
1UUU %aul anointed first >in! of #srael
1UUU Javid is >in! of #srael 3author of many Psalms4
:52 %olomon uilds the Temple in =erusalem 3author of many Provers4
:22 #srael divided into %outhern 3=udah4 and Dorthern 3#srael4 &in!doms
9;; .omer, The Iliad and The 2dyssey
822 #srael falls to Assyria
816 *thiopia e!ins rule of *!ypt 35; years4
612 Call of Dineveh
621 Jeuteronomic (ode rediscovered in the =ewish temple
6;; @panishads written in #ndia
UUU <aylonian empire !orws under Deuchadnezzar 36;5-5624
596 <aylonian >in! Deuchadnezzar destroys the Temple
55; (yrus captures <aylon and founds the Persian *mpire
509 *dict of (yrus allows =ews to return to reuild the temple
1;; The Pentateuch, or Torah, is firmly estalished y this date
11; %ophocles, A#a% 3author of Antigone, 2edipus, etc"4
109 *uripides, Alcestis 3author of Andromache, etc"4
05; The Tao Te Ching composed y this date 3oral tradition dates to 65; <"("4
020 Ale$ander the ?reat of +acedonia con,uests Persia, *!ypt, +esopotamia, #srael, etc"
.ellenist Period e!ins
Ptolemy rule
2UU The Septuagint
2;; <y this date, &Prophets& are widely accepted as part of the .erew <ile
Pseudepigraphal writin!s e!in 3throu!h 2;; A"J"4
168 +accaean revolt
60 Bomans capture =erusalemG .asmonaean rule
18 =ulius (aesar attac&s Ale$andria, and its lirary is partly destroyed
08 .erod >in! of =udea
2: Iir!il, The Aeneid
6 =esus the (hrist is orn
1: Iir!il dies
A'D'
0U =esus crucified and resurrected
08 (osephus is orn
5: +ost of the apostle PaulEs letters are in circulation y this date
65 ?ospel of +ar& is proaly in circulation y this date
8; Temple destroyed y Titus
80 +asada falls
9; ?ospel of +atthew is proaly in circulation y this date
:; ?ospel of =ohn is proaly in circulation y this date
He)re* Scriptural Canon estalished y this date
1;5 Paper is invented in (hina
102 <ar >o&ha Bevolt 3%econd =ewish Bevolt4
15; The ApostleEs (reed is drawn up in Bome
185 +arcus Aurelius, +editations
195 #renaeus writes A!ainst the .eresies in reaction to ?nosticism
2;; Bai =udah compiles and edits The +ishnah
The .indu epic +aha)harata is completed
010 (onstantine declares freedom of worship with the *dict of +ilan
0:8 ,e* Testament Cannon is estalished at the (ouncil of (artha!e
656 The -oran is estalished y this date
956-85 Ii&in! raids are at their pea&
12;8 Rumi, mystical #slamic poet and teacher, is orn
129; +oses de Leon e!ins composition of The Vohar
3=ewish mystical .a))alistic writin!s4
101; Jante, Jivine (omedy
1028 1;; Oears -ar <e!ins 3*dward ###Es claim to crown of Crance4
1050 <occacio finishes the Jecameron
1081 Petrarch dies
1115 <attle of A!incourt 3.enry I defeats the Crench4
1518 Beformation <e!ins
1516 (ouncil of Trent e$plicitly announces the cannon of the (atholic <ile,
includin! the Apocrypha
1619 0; Oears -ar e!ins in *urope
1619 0; Oears -ar *nds
1810 Treaty of @trecht ends the war with *n!land and Louis W#I
1856 The %even OearsE -ar 3Crench and #ndian -ars4 e!ins
185: IoltaireEs (andide
1860 Treaty of Paris ends the %even Oears -ar
189: The Crench Bevolution e!ins
18:0 <astille stormed" Louis WI# e$ecuted" Bei!n of Terror under Boespierre"
*n!land wars with CranceG the Dapoleonic -ars e!in
1915 Dapoleon defeated at -aterloo
1919 +ar$ and *n!les pulish (ommunist +anifesto
198;-1 Cranco Prussian -ar
1985 Tolstoy, Anna >arenina
199; Jostoevs&i, The <rotherEs >aramazov
1:11 -orld -ar #
1:29 *rich +aria Bemau,ue, All Luiet 2n the -estern Cront
1:0; The ?reat Jepression
1:06 %panish (ivil -ar <e!ins
1:0: -orld -ar ##
1:18 Dead Sea Scrolls discovered
1:55 Iladmir Dao&ov, Lolita
Sir Philip Sidney/s Apology for Poetry
Althou!h it stands at or near the e!innin! of a tradition in *n!lish literature that we hear echoes of in later manifestos,
such as %helleyEs Defense of Poetry, %idneyEs Apology for Poetry is not much read these days, nor often ,uoted, e$cept
perhaps the fairly well-&nown e$clamation that the poet Fnothin! affirms, and therefore never lies"F %uch ne!lect,
althou!h understandale, is unfortunate" %idney was writin! at the e!innin! of a tradition oth literary and educational,
a tradition whose end we are now witnessin!, that represents a more or less coherent understandin! of the place of
poetry we would say literature and the lieral arts in western culture"
-ith our ac&s a!ainst the wall, so to spea&, defenders of literature and the other arts in education often fall ac& on
utilitarian ar!uments" Literature can e a means to improvin! lan!ua!e s&ills, theater can improve students
understandin! of society and hone asic social s&ills as well" *ven so few modern defenders of lieral education would
attempt to mount the &ind of defense %idney offers in his Apology" .is !oals are much more amitious" %idney did not
thin& poetry was the only thin!G in most important respects he thou!ht it was everythin!" And that conception of poetry,
elaorately presented in the Apology, turned out to e foundational in a numer of si!nificant ways" That was not 'ust
ecause it was such a well ar!ued case for the importance of what we would now call literature, althou!h it is a pretty
convincin! if 3to our taste anyway4 somewhat overly e$pansive ar!ument" Dor was it ecause %ir Philip was nearly
everyoneEs ideal of the perfect *n!lish Benaissance &ni!ht -- soldier, courtier, scholar, and poet -- althou!h he was y
nearly every measure a splendid man" Li&e many other such foundational documents, %idneyEs well crafted defense of
poetry came alon! at 'ust the ri!ht moment, and had the enthusiastic ac&in! of all the ri!ht people" .is elo,uent
ar!uments in favor of poetry, which had een circulatin! amon! a rather sizale circle of influential friends, were ,uic&ly
pulished in competin! editions soon after his untimely death 3see note at end of essay4"
<ut %idney was no revolutionary in any modern sense of the word" .e was orn to the aristocracy, and he enefited
from his privile!ed position and the education that came to him alon! with that irthri!ht" .e went to the est schools
with other ri!ht youn! men from well placed families" At %hrewsury %chool he was tau!ht y one of the leadin!
educators of his day, Thomas Ashton" As a oy of 11, he went off to study at 2$ford @niversity, alon! with many other
ri!ht youths" As a youn! man he studied aroad with .uert Lan!uet, a follower of Philip +elanchthon, the Protestant
reformer and successor to +artin Luther" +eanwhile, %idneyEs *n!land in the mid si$teenth century was e$periencin! a
cultural revolution that was sweepin! across *urope" #t was related on the one hand to the Benaissance that had
transformed the arts and learnin! in #taly and other *uropean countries" <ut it was also in part a result of the Protestant
Beformation" Ooun! Philip %idney came of a!e at a time when there was a new e$citement aout oo&s and readin!, as
well as a !rowin! optimism and wariness aout the power of words, made all the more prolematic y the rapid spread
of printin!" Alon! with many of his friends and contemporaries, %idney was cau!ht up in the humanist revolution, and
his defense of poetry was an e$pression of his enthusiasm for humanist learnin! as well as the efficacy of literature"
And his enthusiasm was widely shared" %urely it is si!nificant that Ashton, %idneyEs master at %hrewsury, was en'oined
durin! the rei!n of *lizaeth to prefer amon! his students not the offsprin! of the aristocracy ut Fthe !odliest, poorest,
and est learned"F
The !reatest *n!lish humanist, Thomas +ore, died a !eneration efore %idneyEs irth, and y the time Philip went to
%hrewsury %chool to study with Ashton, *n!lish humanism was nearly in full loom" %idney and his life-lon! friend and
school companion, Cul&e ?reville, imied the humanist spirit and ecame !reat e$ponents of the new learnin!" 2f
course, that ori!inal humanism was nothin! li&e our own amorphous conception of the humanities" And perhaps there is
no etter emodiment of *n!lish Benaissance humanism than %ir Philip %idney, &nown to his contemporaries as the
perfect soldier and scholar, e,ually learned in the arts of war and of poetry" .e read widely in Latin, less so in ?ree&,
ut also &new the vernacular lan!ua!es, Crench, #talian, %panish, and ?erman" .e consulted the wor&s of !reat
humanist authors 3*rasmus, +ore, %cali!er, Ascham, Bamus, <emo4 and read the humanist poets 3<occaccio, Tasso,
Petrarch, <uchanan4" <ut he was also familiar with the classics 3Plutarch, Wenophon, Iir!il, %eneca4 and the <ile" The
humanism that %idney espoused aimed at an always unattainale earthly perfection of virtue, learnin!, and action" .e
studied mathematics and astronomy, otany and medicine, philosophy and theolo!y" <ut in all of this he strove to mas&
his dili!ence with an air of nonchalant !entlemanly ele!ance and !race, the sprezzatura of (asti!lioneEs ideal courtier"
.is intellectual reach was as !reat as Crancis <aconEs, althou!h perhaps not so determined and earnest in its
application" %idney cast himself as a man of affairs, a courtier and soldier, ut only an amateur scholar"
All of this would appear to distance %idney from our own world where soldiers are rarely scholars, and scholars rarely
men or women of action" <ut more to the point, how does his Apology for Poetry spea& to teachers and students in
American classroomsH Li&e many other writers of manifestos, %idney could not have &nown what future a!es would
ma&e of his ar!uments" Loo&in! ac& on si$teenth-century *n!land from our present perspective, 'ust on the circle of
men that %idney &new and that &new him 3-alter Balei!h, =ohn Lyly, *dmund %penser4 or e$pandin! it a it to include
others alive in his time 3-illiam %ha&espeare, <en =onson, =ohn Jonne4 or recently dead 3=ohn %&elton, Thomas
-yatt4, we may find it hard to understand why %idney thou!ht it necessary to defend poetry and to claim, as he does in
his openin! para!raphs, that it has fallen from the hi!hest of places to ecome the Flau!hin! stoc& of children"F #f it was
a lau!hin! stoc& in %idneyEs day, what now amon! our school childrenH *ven those of us who no lon!er read poetry
must loo& with envy on an a!e that could produce such a pantheon of lau!hin! stoc&s"
<ut these facts were seen ,uite differently in %idneyEs time" Poetry was indeed well &nown, ut not always so well
respected" Philosophy was ,ueen of the lieral arts, and serious writers turned their hands to history" %idney, however,
had a very amitious vision of what poetry had een and should e" .e e!ins y assertin! that poetry was the
e!innin! of &nowled!e and wisdom in every previous human culture, from the <ile 3he mentions not only JavidEs
Psalms, ut also the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes and Proverbs and the Book of Job4 as well as the ?ree&s and
Bomans 3whose poets were also prophets and priests4" +oreover, %idney remar&s that nearly all of ancient learnin!
from the dramatic dialo!ues of Plato and the histories of .erodotus down to the e$ploits of pious Aeneas has come
down to us in poetic form" -e have to reco!nize, of course, that %idney is wor&in! within a well estalished rhetorical
tradition, and has or!anized his defense not so much alon! the lines of a lawyer ma&in! his case, althou!h that is
certainly part of the tradition, ut as an oratorical set piece desi!ned to show off his aility to discover 3or invent4 all the
availale ar!uments on ehalf of poetryEs superiority, and then to refute every possile attempt to dispute that
superiority" This is where many modern readers !et lost in the details, and !ive up oth on %idney and his ar!uments"
<ut imedded in An Apology for Poetry is a fairly revolutionary ideal of education and learnin!" %idney ar!ues that y far
the est means of learnin! wisdom is y e$ample, y imitation" And, in fact, imitation is the asis of his entire aesthetic"
Poets imitate nature, and ase their fictions, their plots, characters, and settin!s, on natural reality" <ut, unli&e the
philosophers and historians, poets can outdo nature y means of their ima!inations" Therefore, they !ive us access to
ideals that surpass even what nature can produce" Ta&en out of conte$t, %idneyEs ar!uments can e misleadin! and
even confusin!" -hat was the re!ular means of education in %idneyEs dayH .e and his fellow students were !iven
heavy doses of poetry, in !rammar school if not also at university" They learned their Latin y learnin! to read vast
amounts of .orace and Iir!il and 2vid" P*ven a !rammar school oy such as youn! -ill %ha&espeare, hardly a son of
the noility, learned to read his Latin etter than some latter day classics ma'ors"Q Latin was still the &ey to learnin! in
those days, and @niversity was the place to hone oneEs s&ills at Latin oratory" The lieral arts, the trivium and
,uadrivium, were familiar to students from late classical anti,uity until the ei!hteenth century" #t was a curriculum
intended to produce an educated elite who would provide the nation with leaders"
The revolution that e!an with the Benaissance humanists, however, transformed that education into a system for
educatin! a much more diverse !roup of scholars" The spread of humanist values, while !rounded in the Latin classics,
was the wor& of an emer!in! corps of vernacular authors, men li&e %idney and +ontai!ne 3and even someone li&e
+achiavelli and later +ilton4 who were interested in employin! learnin! to some !reater purpose/ freein! menEs minds
and showin! the the way to wisdom, truth, and virtue" The spread of readin! and of printed oo&s meant that educated
*uropeans were e!innin! to share their views with a wider readin! pulic" %tran!ely, these views e!an to transform
education from rote memorization to active en!a!ement with authors and ideas" -hat %idney claims for poetry, for all
literary wor&s, in effect, is this inherent power to educate, in .oraceEs terms, Fto teach and deli!ht"F
%idney thou!ht that poetry would ma&e us more human" #t was a revolutionary idea in the si$teenth century" #t swept the
world and laid the foundations for an educational pro!ram that spread what we now 3sometimes apolo!etically4 refer to
as western culture throu!hout the world" #t was an amitious pro!ram with a fairly amazin! aility to asor and
incorporate new ideas, from %idneyEs Apology to T"%" *liotEs FTradition and the #ndividual Talent"F <ut it has now een
nearly aandoned even y those who mi!ht have een its defenders" #n that case perhaps it is as&in! too much that
teachers and students have %idneyEs enthusiasm for learnin!, and his faith in the poetEs aility to fashion nature and
instruct us in wisdom and virtue" %urrounded as we are y a popular culture that astounds us nearly every day with its
aility to plum the depths of popular tastes and appetites, perhaps the notion that literature and the arts can instruct us
in wisdom and virtue sounds foolishly naXve"
Dote/ %idney died in 1596" #n 15:5 An Apologie for Poetrie was pulished y .enry 2lney of %t" PaulEs (hurchyard, and
a sli!htly different version, The Defence of Poesie, was printed the same year for -illiam Ponsony" There were also,
no dout, many manuscript versions in circulation amon! %idneyEs friends" # have relied on a version edited y ?eoffrey
%hepherd first pulished in 1:65 y Thomas Delson Y %ons, Ltd", and later reprinted in 1:80 y +anchester @niversity
Press"
Percy !ysshe Shelley
A De0ence o0 Poetry1
A((2BJ#D? to one mode of re!ardin! those two classes of mental action which are called Beason and #ma!ination,
the former may e considered as mind contemplatin! the relations orne y one thou!ht to another, however producedG
and the latter as mind, actin! upon those thou!hts so as to colour them with its own li!ht, and composin! from them as
from elements, other thou!hts, each containin! within itself the principle of its own inte!rity" The one is the to poiein, or
the principle of synthesis and has for its o'ects those forms which are common to universal nature and e$istence itselfG
the other is the to logizein or principle of analysis and its action re!ards the relations of thin!s, simply as relationsG
considerin! thou!hts, not in their inte!ral unity ut as the al!eraical representations which conduct to certain !eneral
results" Beason is the enumeration of ,uantities already &nownG #ma!ination is the perception of the value of those
,uantities, oth seperately and as a whole" Beason respects the differences, and #ma!ination the similitudes of thin!s"
Beason is to #ma!ination as the instrument to the a!ent, as the ody to the spirit, as the shadow to the sustance"
Poetry, in a !eneral sense, may e defined to e Fthe e$pression of the #ma!ination/F and Poetry is connate with the
ori!in of man" +an is an instrument over which a series of e$ternal and internal impressions are driven, li&e the
alternations of an ever-chan!in! wind over an Zolian lyreG which move it, y their motion, to ever-chan!in! melody" <ut
there is a principle within the human ein! and perhaps within all sentient ein!s, which acts otherwise than in the lyre,
and produces not melody alone, ut harmony, y an internal ad'ustment of the sounds or motions thus e$cited to the
impressions which e$cite them" #t is as if the lyre could accomodate its chords to the motions of that which stri&es them,
in a determined proportion of soundG even as the musician can accomodate his voice to the sound of the lyre"1 A child
at play y itself will e$press its deli!ht y its voice and motionsG and every infle$ion of tone and every !esture will ear
e$act relation to a correspondin! antitype in the pleasurale impressions which awa&ened itG it will e the reflected
ima!e of that impressionG and as the lyre tremles and sounds after the wind has died away, so the child see&s y
prolon!in! in its voice and motions the duration of the effect, to prolon! also a consciousness of the cause" #n relation
to the o'ects which deli!ht a child, these e$pressions are, what Poetry is to hi!her o'ects" The sava!e 3for the sava!e
is to a!es what the child is to years4 e$presses the emotions produced in him y surroundin! o'ects in a similar
mannerG and lan!ua!e and !esture, to!ether with plastic or pictorial imitation, ecome the ima!e of the comined effect
of those o'ects and of his apprehension of them" +an in society, with all his passions and his pleasures, ne$t ecomes
the o'ect of the passions and pleasures of manG an additional class of emotions produces an au!mented treasure of
e$pressions, and lan!ua!e, !esture and the imitative arts ecome at once the representation and the medium, the
pencil and the picture, the chisel and the statue, the chord and the harmony" The social sympathies, or those laws from
which as from its elements society results, e!in to develope themselves from the moment that two human ein!s co-
e$istG the future is contained within the present as the plant within the seedG and e,uality, diversity, unity, contrast,
mutual dependance ecome the principles alone capale of affordin! the motives accordin! to which the will of a social
ein! is determined to action, inasmuch as he is socialG and constitute pleasure in sensation, virtue in sentiment, eauty
in art, truth in reasonin!, and love in the intercourse of &ind" .ence men, even in the infancy of society, oserve a
certain order in their words and actions, distinct from that of the o'ects and the impressions represented y them, all
e$pression ein! su'ect to the laws of that from which it proceeds" <ut let us dismiss those more !eneral
considerations which mi!ht involve an en,uiry into the principles of society itself, and restrict our view to the manner in
which the ima!ination is e$pressed upon its forms"
#n the youth of the world men dance and sin! and imitate natural o'ects, oservin! in these actions, as in all others, a
certain rhythm or order" And, althou!h all men oserve a similar, they oserve not the same order in the motions of the
dance, in the melody of the son!, in the cominations of lan!ua!e, in the series of their imitations of natural o'ects" Cor
there is a certain order or rhythm elon!in! to each of these classes of mimetic representation, from which the hearer
and the spectator receive an intenser and a purer pleasure than from any other/ the sense of an appro$imation to this
order has een called taste, y modern writers" *very man, in the infancy of art, oserves an order which appro$imates
more or less closely to that from which this hi!hest deli!ht results/ ut the diversity is not sufficiently mar&ed, as that its
!radations should e sensile, e$cept in those instances where the predominance of this faculty of appro$imation to the
eautiful 3for so we may e permitted to name the relation etween this hi!hest pleasure and its cause4 is very !reat"
Those in whom it e$ists in e$cess are poets, in the most universal sense of the wordG and the pleasure resultin! from
the manner in which they e$press the influence of society or nature upon their own minds, communicates itself to
others, and !athers a sort of reduplication from that community" Their lan!ua!e is vitally metaphoricalG that is it mar&s
the efore unapprehended relations of thin!s, and perpetuates their apprehension, until the words which re present
them ecome throu!h time si!ns for portions and classes of thou!hts, instead of pictures of inte!ral thou!htsG and then,
if no new poets should arise to create afresh the associations which have een thus disor!anized, lan!ua!e will e
dead to all the noler purposes of human intercourse" These similitudes or relations are finely said y Lord <acon to e
Fthe same footsteps of nature impressed upon the various su'ects of the worldF2and he considers the faculty which
receives them as the storehouse of a$ioms common to all &nowled!e" #n the infancy of society every author is
necessarily a poet, ecause lan!ua!e itself is poetryG and to e a poet is to apprehend the true and the eautiful, in a
word the !ood which e$ists in the relation, susistin!, first etween e$istence and perception, and secondly etween
perception and e$pression" *very ori!inal lan!ua!e near to its source is in itself the chaos of a cyclic poem/ the
copiousness of le$ico!raphy and the distinctions of !rammar are the wor&s of a later a!e, and are merely the catalo!ue
and the form of the creations of Poetry"
<ut Poets, or those who ima!ine and e$press this indestructile order, are not only the authors of lan!ua!e and of
music, of the dance and architecture and statuary and paintin!G they are the institutors of laws [Y[ the founders of civil
society and the inventors of the arts of life and the teachers, who draw into a certain propin,uity with the eautiful and
the true that partial apprehension of the a!encies of the invisile world which is called reli!ion" .ence all ori!inal
reli!ions are alle!orical or susceptile of alle!ory, and li&e =anus have a doule face of false and true" Poets, accordin!
to the circumstances of the a!e and nation in which they appeared were called in the earlier epochs of the world
le!islators or prophets/ a poet essentially comprises and unites oth these characters" Cor he not only eholds
intensely the present as it is, and discovers those laws accordin! to which present thin!s ou!ht to e ordered, ut he
eholds the future in the present, and his thou!hts are the forms of the flower and the fruit of latest time" Dot that #
assert poets to e prophets in the !ross sense of the word, or that they can fortell the form as surely as they fore&now
the spirit of events/ such is the pretence of superstition which would ma&e poetry an attriute of prophecy, rather than
prophecy an attriute of poetry" A Poet participates in the eternal, the infinite and the oneG as far as relates to his
conceptions time and place and numer are not" The !rammatical forms which e$press the moods of time, and the
difference of persons and the distinction of place are convertile with respect to the hi!hest poetry without in'urin! it as
poetry, and the choruses of Zschylus, and the oo& of =o, and JanteEs Paradiso would afford more than any other
writin!s e$amples of this fact, if the limits of this paper did not forid citation" The creations of sculpture, paintin! and
music are illustrations still more decisive"
Lan!ua!e, colour, form, and reli!ious and civil haits of action are all the instruments and materials of poetryG they
may e called poetry y that fi!ure of speech which considers the effects as a synonime of the cause" <ut poetry in a
more restricted sense e$presses those arran!ements of lan!ua!e, and especially metrical lan!ua!e which are created
y that imperial faculty whose throne is curtained within the invisile nature of man" And this sprin!s from the nature
itself of lan!ua!e which is a more direct representation of the actions and the passions of our internal ein!, and is
susceptile of more various and delicate cominations than colour, form or motion, and is more plastic and oedient to
the controul of that faculty of which it is the creation" Cor lan!ua!e is aritrarily produced y the #ma!ination and has
relation to thou!hts aloneG ut all other materials, instruments and conditions of art have relations amon! each other,
which limit and interpose etween conception and e$pression" The former is as a mirror which reflects, the latter as a
cloud which enfeeles, the li!ht of which oth are mediums of communication" .ence the fame of sculptors, painters
and musicians, althou!h the intrinsic powers of the !reat masters of these arts, may yield in no de!ree to that of those
who have employed lan!ua!e as the hiero!lyphic of their thou!hts, has never e,ualled that of poets in the restricted
sense of the termG as two performers of e,ual s&ill will produce une,ual effects from a !uitar and a harp" The fame of
le!islators and founders of reli!ions, so lon! as their institutions last, alone seems to e$ceed that of poets in the
restricted sense/ ut it can scarcely e a ,uestion whether if we deduct the celerity which their flattery of the !ross
opinions of the vul!ar usually conciliates, to!ether with that which elon!ed to them in their hi!her character of poets
any e$cess will remain"
-e have thus circumscried the word Poetry within the limits of that art which is the most familiar and the most perfect
e$pression of the faculty itself" #t is necessary however to ma&e the circle still narrower, and to determine the distinction
etween measured and unmeasured lan!ua!eG for the popular division into prose and verse, is inadmissile in accurate
philosophy"
%ounds as well as thou!hts have relation oth etween each other and towards that which they represent, and a
perception of the order of those relations, has always een found connected with a perception of the order of the
relations of thou!hts" .ence the lan!ua!e of poets has ever affected a certain uniform and harmonious recurrence of
sound without which it were not poetry, and which is scarcely less indispensile to the communication of its influence,
than the words themselves without reference to that peculiar order" .ence the vanity of translationG it were as wise to
cast a violet into a crucile that you mi!ht discover the formal principle of its colour and odour, as see& to transfuse
from one lan!ua!e into another the creations of a poet" The plant must sprin! a!ain from its seed or it will ear no
flower---and this is the urthen of the curse of <ael"
An oservation of the re!ular mode of the occurrence of this harmony, in the lan!ua!e of poetical minds, to!ether with
its relation to music, produced metre, or a certain system of traditional forms of harmony and lan!ua!e" Oet it is y no
means essential that a poet should accomodate his lan!ua!e to this traditional form, so that the harmony which is its
spirit, e oserved" The practise is indeed convenient and popular and to e preferred, especially in such composition
as includes much action/ ut every !reat poet must inevitaly innovate upon the e$ample of his predecessors in the
e$act structure of his peculiar versification" The distinction etween poets and prose-writers is a vul!ar error" The
distinction etween philosophers and poets has een anticipated" Plato was essentially a poet---the truth and splendour
of his ima!ery and the melody of his lan!ua!e is the most intense that it is possile to conceive" .e re'ected the
measure of the epic, dramatic and lyrical forms, ecause he sou!ht to &indle a harmony in thou!hts divested of shape
and action, and he foreore to invent any re!ular plan of rhythm which would include under determinate forms, the
varied pauses of his style" (icero sou!ht to imitate the cadence of his periods ut with little success" Lord <acon was a
poet"0 .is lan!ua!e has a sweet and ma'estic rhythm which satisfies the sense no less than the almost superhuman
wisdom of his philosophy satisfies the intellectG it is a strain which distends, and then ursts the circumference of the
readersE mind and pours itself forth to!ether with it into the universal element with which it has perpetual sympathy" All
the Authors of revolutions in opinion are not only necessarily poets as they are inventors, nor even as their words unveil
the permanent analo!y of thin!s y ima!es which participate in the life of truthG ut as their periods are harmonious and
rhythmical and contain in themselves the elements of verseG ein! the echo of the eternal music" Dor are those
supreme poets, who have employed traditional forms of rhythm on account of the form and action of their su'ects, less
incapale of perceivin! and teachin! the truth of thin!s, than those who have omitted that form" %ha&espeare, Jante
and +ilton 3to confine ourselves to modern writers"4 are philosophers of the very loftiest powers"
A Poem is the very ima!e of life e$pressed in its eternal truth" There is this difference etween a story and a poem,
that a story is a catalo!ue of detached facts, which have no other ond of conne$ion than time, place, circumstance,
cause and effectG the other is the creation of actions accordin! to the unchan!eale forms of human nature, as e$istin!
in the mind of the creator, which is itself the ima!e of all other minds" The one is partial, and applies only to a definite
period of time, and a certain comination of events which can never a!ain recurG the other is universal and contains
within itself the !erm of a relation to whatever motives or actions have place in the possile varieties of human nature"
Time, which destroys the eauty and the use of the story of particular facts, stript of the poetry which should invest
them, au!ments that of Poetry and forever developes new and wonderful applications of the eternal truth which it
contains" .ence epitomes have een called the moths of 'ust historyG they eat out the poetry of it"1 A story of particular
facts is as a mirror which oscures and distorts that which should e eautiful/ Poetry is a mirror which ma&es eautiful
that which is distorted"
The parts of a composition may e poetical, without the composition as a whole ein! a poem" A sin!le sentence may
e considered as a whole thou!h it may e found in the midst of a series of unassimilated portionsG a sin!le word even
may e a spar& of ine$tin!uishale thou!ht" And thus all the !reat historians, .erodotus, Plutarch, Livy, were poetsG
and althou!h the plan of these writers, especially that of Livy, constrained them from developin! this faculty in its
hi!hest de!ree they ma&e copious and ample amends for their su'ection, y fillin! all the interstices of their su'ects
with livin! ima!es"
.avin! determined what is poetry, and who are poets, let us proceed to estimate its effects upon society"
Poetry is ever accompanied with pleasure/ all spirits on which it falls, open themselves to receive the wisdom which is
min!led with its deli!ht" #n the infancy of the world, neither poets themselves nor their auditors are fully aware of the
e$cellency of poetry/ for it acts in a divine and unapprehended manner, eyond and aove consciousness/ and it is
reserved for future !enerations to contemplate and measure the mi!hty cause and effect in all the stren!th and
splendour of their union" *ven in modern times, no livin! poet ever arrived at the fulness of his fameG the 'ury which sits
in 'ud!ement upon a poet, elon!in! as he does to all time, must e composed of his peers/ it must e empannelled y
Time from the selectest of the wise of many !enerations" A Poet is a ni!htin!ale who sits in dar&ness, and sin!s to
cheer its own solitude with sweet soundsG his auditors are as men entranced y the melody of an unseen musician, who
feel that they are moved and softened, yet &now not whence or why" The poems of .omer and his contemporaries
were the deli!ht of infant ?reeceG they were the elements of that social system which is the column upon which all
succeedin! civilization has reposed" .omer emodied the ideal perfection of his a!e in human characterG nor can we
dout that those who read his verses were awa&ened to an amition of ecomin! li&e to Achilles, .ector and @lysses/
the truth and eauty of friendship, patriotism and perseverin! devotion to an o'ect, were unveiled to the depths in
these immortal creations/ the sentiments of the auditors must have een refined and enlar!ed y a sympathy with such
!reat and lovely impersonations until from admirin! they imitated, and from imitation they identified themselves with the
o'ects of their admiration" Dor let it e o'ected, that these characters are remote from moral perfection, and that they
can y no means e considered as edyfyin! paterns for !eneral imitation" *very epoch under names more or less
specious has deified its peculiar errorsG Beven!e is the na&ed #dol of the worship of a semi ararous a!eG and self-
deceit is the veiled #ma!e of un&nown evil efore which lu$ury and satiety lie prostrate" <ut a poet considers the vices
of his contemporaries as the temporary dress in which his creations must e arrayed, and which cover without
concealin! the eternal proportions of their eauty" An epic or dramatic persona!e is understood to wear them around
his soul, as he may the antient armour or the modern uniform around his odyG whilst it is easy to conceive a dress
more !raceful than either" The eauty of the internal nature cannot e so far concealed y its accidental vesture, ut
that the spirit of its form shall communicate itself to the very dis!uiseG and indicate the shape it hides from the manner in
which it is worn" A ma'estic form, and !raceful motions will e$press themselves throu!h the most ararous and
tasteless costume" Cew poets of the hi!hest class have chosen to e$hiit the eauty of their c onceptions in its na&ed
truth and splendourG and it is doutful whether the alloy of costume, hait etc" e not necessary to temper this planetary
music for mortal ears"
The whole o'ection however of the immorality of poetry rests upon a misconception of the manner in which poetry
acts to produce the moral improvement of man" *thical science arran!es the elements which poetry has created, and
propounds schemes and proposes e$amples of civil and domestic life/ nor is it for want of admirale doctrines that men
hate, and despise, and censure, and deceive, and su'u!ate one another" <ut poetry acts in another and a diviner
manner" #t awa&ens and enlar!es the mind itself y renderin! it the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended
cominations of thou!ht" Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden eauty of the worldG and ma&es familiar o'ects e as if
they were not familiarG it re-produces all that it represents, and the impersonations clothed in its *lysian li!ht stand
thenceforward in the minds of those who have once contemplated them, as memorials of that !entle and e$alted
content which e$tends itself over all thou!hts and actions with which it co-e$ists" The !reat secret of morals is LoveG or
a !oin! out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the eautiful which e$ists in thou!ht, action or
person, not our own" A man to e !reatly !ood, must ima!ine in tensely and comprehensivelyG he must put himself in
the place of another and of many othersG the pains and pleasures of his species must ecome his own" The !reat
instrument of moral !ood is the ima!ination/ and poetry administers to the effect y actin! upon the cause" Poetry
enlar!es the circumference of the ima!ination y replenishin! it with thou!hts of ever new deli!ht, which have the
power of attractin! and assimilatin! to their own nature all other thou!hts, and which form new intervals and interstices
whose void forever craves fresh food" Poetry stren!thens the faculty which is the or!an of the moral nature of man in
the same manner as e$ercise stren!thens a lim" A Poet therefore would do ill to emody his own conceptions of ri!ht
and wron! which are usually those of his place and time in his poetical creations, which participate in neither" <y this
assumption of the inferior office of interpretin! the effect, in which perhaps after all he mi!ht ac,uit himself ut
imperfectly, he would resi!n a !lory in a participation in the cause" There was little dan!er that .omer or any of the
eternal poets, should have so far misunderstood themselves as to have adicated this throne of their widest dominion"
Those in whom the poetical faculty, thou!h !reat, is less intense as *uripedes, Lucan, Tasso, %pencer have fre,uently
affected a moral aim and the effect of their poetry is diminished in e$act proportion to the de!ree in which they compel
us to advert to this purpose"
.omer and the cyclic poets were followed at a certain interval y the dramatic and lyrical Poets of AthensG who
flourished contemporaneously with all that is most perfect in the &indred e$pressions of the poetical facultyG
architecture, paintin!, music, the dance, sculpture, philosophy, and we may add the forms of civil life" Cor althou!h the
scheme of Athenian society was deformed y many imperfections which the poetry e$istin! in (hivalry and (hristianity
have erased from the haits and institutions of modern *uropeG yet never at any other period has so much ener!y,
eauty and virtue een developedG never was lind stren!th and stuorn form so disciplined and rendered su'ect to
the will of man, or that will less repu!nant to the dictates of the eautiful and the true, as durin! the century which
preceeded the death of %ocrates" 2f no other epoch in the history of our species have we records and fra!ments
stamped so visily with the ima!e of the divinity in man" <ut it is Poetry alone, in form, in action or in lan!ua!e which
has rendered this epoch memorale aove all others, and the storehouse of e$amples to everlastin! time" Cor written
poetry e$isted at that epoch simultaneously with the other arts, and it is an idle en,uiry to demand which !ave and
which received the li!ht, which all as from a common focus have scattered over the dar&est periods of succeedin! time"
-e &now no more of cause and effect than a constant con'unction of events/ Poetry is ever found to coe$ist with
whatsoever other arts contriute to the happiness and perfection of man" # appeal to what has already een estalished
to distin!uish etween the cause and the effect"
#t was at the period here adverted to, that the Jrama had its irthG and however a succeedin! writer may have
e,ualled or surpassed those few !reat specimens of the Athenian drama which have een preserved to us, it is
indisputale that the art itself never was under stood or practised accordin! to the true philosophy of it, as at Athens"
Cor the Athenians employed lan!ua!e, action, music, paintin!, the dance, and reli!ious institutions, to produce a
common effect in the representation of the hi!hest idealisms of passion and of powerG each division in the art was made
perfect in its &ind y artists of the most consummate s&ill, and was disciplined into a eautiful pro portion and unity one
towards the other" 2n the modern sta!e a few only of the elements capale of e$pressin! the ima!e of the poets
conception are employed at once" -e have tra!edy without music and dancin!G and music and dancin! without the
hi!hest impersonation of which they are the fit accompaniment, and oth without reli!ion and solemnity" Beli!ious
institution has indeed een usually anished from the sta!e" 2ur system of divestin! the actorEs face of a mas&, on
which the many e$pressions appropriated to his dramatic character mi!ht e moulded into one permanent and
unchan!in! e$pression, is favourale only to a partial and inharmonious effectG it is fit for nothin!---ut a monolo!ue
where all the attention may e directed to some !reat master of ideal mimicry" The modern practise of lendin! comedy
with tra!edy, thou!h liale to !reat ause in point of practise, is undoutedly an e$tension of the dramatic circleG ut the
comedy should e as in >in! Lear, universal, ideal and sulime" #t is perhaps the intervention of this principle which
determines the alance in favour of ing !ear a!ainst the "dipus Tyrannus or the Agamemnon, or, if you will, the
trilo!ies with which they are connectedG unless the intense power of the choral poetry, especially that of the latter,
should e considered as restorin! the e,uilirium" ing !ear, if it can sustain the comparison, may e 'ud!ed to e the
most perfect specimen of the dramatic art e$istin! in the worldG in spite of the narrow conditions to which the poet was
su'ected y the i!norance of the philosophy of the Jrama which has prevailed in +odern *urope" (alderon in his
reli!ious Autos has attempted to fulfil some of the hi!h conditions of dramatic representation ne!lected y %ha&espearG
such as the estalishin! a relation etween the drama and reli!ion, and the accomodatin! them to music and dancin!,
ut he omits the oservation of conditions still more important, and more is lost than !ained y a sustitution of the
ri!idly defined and ever repeated idealisms of a distorted superstition for the livin! impersonations of the truth of human
passion"
<ut we di!ress" The author of The #our Ages of Poetry has prudently omitted to dispute on the effect of the drama
upon life and matters" Cor, if # &now the &ni!ht y the device of his shield, # have only to inscrie Philoctetes or
A!amemnon or 2thello on mine to put to fli!ht the !iant sophisms which have enchanted him, as the mirror of
intolerale li!ht, thou!h on the arm of one of the wea&est of the Paladins, could lind and scatter whole armies of
necroancers and pa!ans" The conne$ion of scenic e$hiitions with the improvement or corruption of the manners of
men, has een universally reco!nized/ in other words the presence or asence of poetry in its most perfect and
universal form has een found to e connected with !ood and evil in conduct or hait" The corruption which has een
imputed to the drama as an effect e!ins, when the poetry employ in its constitution, ends/ # appeal to the history of
manners whether the periods of the !rowth of the one and the decline of the other have not corresponded with an
e$actness e,ual to any other e$ample of moral cause and effect"
The drama at Athens or wheresoever else it may have approached to its perfection, ever co-e$isted with the moral
and intellectual !reatness of the a!e" The tra!edies of the Athenian poets are as mirrors in which the spectator eholds
himself, under a thin dis!uise of circumstance, stript of all, ut that ideal perfection and ener!y which every one feels to
e the internal type of all that he loves, admires and would ecome" The ima!ination is enlar!ed y a sympathy with
pains and passions so mi!hty that they distend in their conception the capacity of that y which they are conceived G the
!ood affections are stren!thened y pity, indi!nation, terror and sorrowG and an e$alted calm is prolon!ed from the
satiety of this hi!h e$ercise of them into the tumult of familiar lifeG even crime is disarmed of half its horror and all its
conta!ion y ein! represented as the fatal conse,uence of the unfathomale a!encies of natureG error is thus divested
of its wilfulnessG men can no lon!er cherish it as the creation of their choice" #n a drama of the hi!hest order there is
little food for censure or hatred/ it teaches rather self &nowled!e and self-respect" Deither the eye or the mind can see
itself unless reflected upon that which it resemles" The drama so lon! as it continues to e$press poetry, is as a
prismatic and many sided mirror, which collects the ri!htest rays of human nature and divides and reproduces them
from the simplicity of these elementary formsG and touches them with ma'esty and eauty, and multiplies all that it
reflects, and endows it with the power of propa!atin! its li&e wherever it may fall"
<ut in periods of the decay of social life, the drama sympathizes with that decay" Tra!edy ecomes a cold imitation of
the form of the !reat master-pieces of anti,uity, divested of all harmonious accompaniment of the &indred artsG and
often the very form misunderstood/ or a wea& attempt to teach certain doctrines, which the writer considers as moral
truthsG and which are usually no more than specious flatteries of some !ross vice or wea&ness with which the author in
common with his auditors are infected" .ence what has een called the classical and the domestic drama" AddisonEs
(ato is a specimen of the one, and would it were not superfluous to cite e$amples of the otherM To such purposes
Poetry cannot e made suservient" Poetry is a sword of li!htnin! ever unsheathed, which consumes the scaard that
would contain it" And thus we oserve that all dramatic writin!s of this nature are unima!inative in a sin!ular de!reeG
they affect sentiment and passion/ which divested of ima!ination are other names for caprice and appetite" The period
in our own history of the !reatest de!radation of the drama is the rei!n of (harles ## when all forms in which poetry had
een accustomed to e e$pressed ecome hymns to the triumph of &in!ly power over lierty and virtue" +ilton stood
alone illuminatin! an a!e unworthy of him" At such periods the calculatin! principle pervades all the forms of dramatic
e$hiition, and poetry ceases to e e$pressed upon them" (omedy loses its ideal universality/ wit succeeds to humourG
we lau!h from self complacency and triumph instead of pleasureG mali!nity, sarcasm [Y[ contempt succeeds to
sympathetic merrimentG we hardly lau!h, ut we smile" 2scenity, which is ever lasphemy a!ainst the divine eauty in
life, ecomes, from the very veil which it assumes, more active if less dis!ustin!/ it is a monster for which the corruption
of society for ever rin!s forth new foodG which it devours in secret"
The Jrama ein! that form under which a !reater numer of modes of e$pression of poetry are susceptile of ein!
comined than any otherG the conne$ion of eauty and social !ood, is more oservale in the drama than in what ever
other form/ and it is indisputale that the hi!hest perfection of human society has ever corresponded with the hi!hest
dramatic e$cellence/ and that the corruption or the e$tinction of the drama in a nation where it has once flourished is a
mar& of a corruption of manners, and an e$tinction of the ener!ies which sustain the soul of social life" <ut, as
+achiavelli says of political institutions, that life may e preserved and renewed, if men should arise capale of rin!in!
ac& the drama to its principles" And this is true with respect to poetry in its most e$tended sense/ all lan!ua!e,
institution and form re,uire not only to e produced ut to e sustained/ the office and character of a poet participates in
the divine nature as re!ards providence no less than as re!ards creation"
(ivil war, the spoils of Asia, and the fatal predominance first of the +acedonian, and then of the Boman arms were so
many symols of the e$tinction or suspension of the creative faculty in ?reece" The ucolic writers who found
patrona!e under the lettered tyrants of %icily and Z!ypt were the latest representatives of its most !lorious rei!n" Their
poetry is intensely melodiousG li&e the odour of the tuerose it overcomes and sic&ens the spirit with e$cess of
sweetnessG whilst the poetry of the precedin! a!e was as a meadow-!ale of =une which min!les the fra!rance of all the
flowers of the field and adds a ,uic&enin! and harmonizin! spirit of its own which endows the sense with a power of
sustainin! its e$treme deli!ht" The ucolic and erotic delicacy in written poetry is correlative with that softness in
statuary, music, and the &indred arts, and even in manners and institutions which distin!uished the epoch to which we
now refer" Dor is it the poetical faculty itself or any misapplication of it to which this want of harmony is to e imputed"
An e,ual sensiility to the influence of the senses and the affections is to e found in the writin!s of .omer and
%ophocles" the former especially has clothed sensual and pathetic ima!es with irresistile attractions" Their superiority
over these succeedin! writers consists in the presence of those thou!hts which elon! to the inner faculties of our
nature, not in the asence of those which are connected with the e$ternal/ their incomparale perfection consists in a
harmony of the union of all" lt is not what the erotic poets have, ut what they have not, in which their imperfection
consists" #t is not inasmuch as they were Poets, ut inasmuch as they were not Poets, that they can e considered with
any plausiility as connected with the corruption of their a!e" .ad that corruption availed so as to e$tin!uish in them the
sensiility to pleasure, passion and natural scenery, which is imputed to them as an imperfection, the last triumph of evil
would have een atchieved" Cor the end of social corruption is to destroy all sensiility to pleasureG and therefore it is
corruption" #t e!ins at the ima!ination and the intellect as at the core, and distriutes itself thence as a paralyzin!
venom, throu!h the affections into the very appetites, until all ecome a torpid mass in which hardly sense survives" At
the approach of such a period, Poetry ever addresses itself to those faculties which are the last to e destroyed, and its
voice is heard, li&e the foot steps of Astr\a, departin! from the world" Poetry ever communicates all the pleasure which
men are capale of receivin!/ it is ever still the li!ht of lifeG the source of whatever eautiful, or !enerous, or true can
have place in an evil time" #t will readily e confessed that those amon! the lu$urious citizens of %yracuse and
Ale$andria who were deli!hted with the poems of Theocritus were less cold, cruel and sensual than the remnant of their
trie" <ut corruption must utterly have destroyed the faric of human society efore Poetry can ever cease" The sacred
lin&s of that chain have never een entirely dis'oined, which descendin! throu!h the minds of many men is attached to
those !reat minds whence as from a ma!net the invisile effluence is sent forth which at once connects, animates and
sustains the life of all" #t is the faculty which contains within itself the seeds at once of its own and of social renovation"
And let us not circumscrie the effects of the ucolic and erotic poetry within the limits of the sensiility of those to
whom it was addressed" They may have perceived the eauty of these immortal compositions, simply as fra!ments and
isolated portions/ those who are more finely or!anized, or orn in a happier a!e, may reco!nize them as episodes to
that !reat poem, which all poets li&e the co-operatin! thou!hts of one !reat mind have uilt up since the e!innin! of
the world"
The same revolutions within a narrower sphere had place in Antient Bome/ ut the actions and forms of its social life
never seem to have een perfectly saturated with the poetical element" The Bomans appear to have considered the
?ree&s as the selectest treasuries of the selectest forms of manners and of nature and to have astained from creatin!
in measured lan!ua!e, sculpture, music or architecture any thin! which mi!ht ear a particular relation to their own
condition whilst it should ear a !eneral one to the universal constitution of the world" <ut we 'ud!e from partial
evidence, and we 'ud!e perhaps partially" *nnius, Iarro, Pacuvius and Accius, all !reat poets, have een lost"
Lucretius is in the hi!hest, and Iir!il in a very hi!h sense, a creator" The chosen delicacy of the e$pressions of the
latter are as a mist of li!ht which conceal from us the intense and e$ceedin! truth of his conceptions of nature" Livy is
instinct with poetry" Oet .orace, (atullus, 2vid, and !enerally the other !reat writers of the Iir!ilian a!e, saw man and
nature in the mirror of ?reece" The institutions also and the reli!ion of Bome were less poetical than those of ?reece,
as the shadow is less vivid than the sustance" .ence Poetry in Bome seemed to follow rather than accompany the
perfection of political and domestic society" The true Poetry of Bome lived in its institutionsG for whatever of eautiful,
true and ma'estic they contained could have sprun! only from the faculty which creates the order in which they consist"
The life of (amillusG the death of Be!ulusG the e$pectation of the senators in their !odli&e state of the victorious ?aulsG
the refusal of the repulic to ma&e peace with .annial after the attle of (ann\, were not the conse,uences of a
refined calculation of the proale personal advanta!e to result from such a rhythm and order in the shews of life, to
those who were at once the poets and the actors of these immortal dramas" The ima!ination eholdin! the eauty of
this order, created it out of itself accordin! to its own idea/ the conse,uence was empire, and the reward everlivin!
fame" These thin!s are not the less poetry $uia carent vate sacro%5" They are the episodes of that cyclic poem written
y Time upon the memories of men" The Past, li&e an inspired rhapsodist, fills the theatre of everlastin! !enerations
with their harmony"
At len!th the antient system of reli!ion and manners had fulfilled the circle of its revolutions" And the world would have
fallen into utter anarchy and dar&ness, ut that there were found poets amon! the authors of the (hristian and (hivalric
systems of manners and reli!ion, who created forms of opinion and action never efore conceivedG which copied into
the ima!inations of men ecame as !enerals to the ewildered armies of their thou!hts" #t is forei!n to the present
purpose to touch upon the evil produced y these systems/ e$cept that we protest, on the !round of the principles
already estalished, that no portion of it can e attriuted to the poetry they contain"
#t is proale that the poetry of +oses, =o, Javid, %olomon and #saiah had produced a !reat effect upon the mind of
=esus and his disciples" The scattered fra!ments preserved to us y the io!raphers of this e$traordinary person, are
all instinct with the most vivid poetry" <ut his doctrines seem to have een ,uic&ly distorted" At a certain period after the
prevalence of a system of opinions founded upon those promul!ated y him, the three forms into which Plato had
distriuted the faculties of mind underwent a sort of apotheosis, and ecame the o'ect of the worship of the civilised
world" .ere it is to e confessed that FLi!ht seems to thic&en,F and
The crow
+a&es win! to the roo&y wood,
?ood thin!s of day e!in to droop and drowse
-hile ni!htEs lac& a!ents to their preys do rouse"6
<ut mar& how eautiful an order has sprun! from the dust and lood of this fierce chaosM how the -orld, as from a
resurrection, alancin! itself on the !olden win!s of &nowled!e and of hope, has reassumed its yet unwearied fli!ht into
the .eaven of timeM Listen to the music, unheard y outward ears, which is as a ceaseless and invisile wind nourishin!
its everlastin! course with stren!th and swiftness"
The poetry in the doctrines of =esus (hrist, and the mytholo!y and institutions of the (eltic con,uerors of the Boman
*mpire, out lived the dar&ness and the convulsions connected with their !rowth and victory, and lended themselves
into a new faric of manners and opinions" #t is an error to impute the i!norance of the dar& a!es to the (hristian
doctrines or to the predominance of the (eltic nations" -hatever of evil their a!encies may have contained sprun! from
the e$tinction of the poetical principle, connected with the pro!ress of despotism and superstition" +en, from causes too
intricate to e here discussed, had ecome insensile and selfish/ their own will had ecome feele and yet they were
its slaves, and thence the slaves of the will of others/ lust, fear, avarice, cruelty and fraud characterised a race amon!st
whom no one was to e found capale of creating in form, lan!ua!e or institution" The moral anomalies of such a state
of society are not 'ustly to e char!ed upon any class of events immediately connected with them, and those events are
most entitled to our approation which could dissolve it most e$peditiously" #t is unfortunate for those who cannot
distin!uish words from thou!hts that many of these anomalies have een incorporated into our popular reli!ion"
#t was not until the eleventh century that the effects of the poetry of the (hristian and the (hivalric systems e!an to
manifest them selves" The principle of e,uality had een discovered and applied y Plato in his &epublic, as the
theoretical rule of the mode in which the materials of pleasure and of power produced y the common s&ill and laour of
human ein!s ou!ht to e distriuted amon! them" The limitations of this rule were asserted y him to e determined
only y the sensiility of each, or the utility to result to all" Plato, followin! the doctrines of Tim\us and Pytha!oras,
tau!ht also a moral and intellectual system of doctrine comprehendin! at once the past, the present and the future
condition of man" =esus (hrist divul!ed the sacred and eternal truths contained in these views to man&ind, and
(hristianity, in its astract purity, ecame the e$oteric e$pression of the esoteric doctrines of the poetry and wisdom of
anti,uity" The incorporation of the (eltic nations with the e$hausted population of the %outh, impressed upon it the
fi!ure of the poetry e$istin! in their mytholo!y and institutions" The result was a sum of the action and reaction of all the
causes included in itG for it may e assumed as a ma$im that no nation or reli!ion can supersede any other without
incorporatin! into itself a portion of that which it supersedes" The aolition of personal and domestic slavery, and the
emancipation of women from a !reat part of the de!radin! restraints of anti,uity were amon! the conse,uences of
these events"
The aolition of personal slavery is the asis of the hi!hest political hope that it can enter into the mind of man to
conceive" The freedom of women produced the poetry of se$ual love" Love ecame a reli!ion, the idols of whose
worship were ever present" #t was as if the statues of Apollo, and the muses had een endowed with life and motion
and had wal&ed forth amon! their worshippersG so t hat earth ecame peopled y the inhaitants of a diviner world" The
familiar appearance and proceedin!s of life ecame wonderful and heavenlyG and a paradise was created as out of the
wrec&s of *den" And as this creation itself is poetry, so its creations were poetsG and lan!ua!e was the instrument of
their art/ F?aleotto f] il liro, e chi lo scrisseF"8 The Proven^al Trouveurs, or inventors preceeded Petrarch, whose
verses are as spells which unseal the inmost enchanted fountains of the deli!ht which is in the !rief of Love" #t is
impossile to feel them without ecomin! a portion of that eauty which we contemplate/ it were superfluous to e$plain
how the !entleness and the elevation of mind connected with these sacred emotions can render men more amiale,
more !enerous, and wise, and lift them out of the dull vapours of the little world of self" Jante understood the secret
thin!s of love even more than Petrarch" .is 'ita (uova is an ine$haustile fountain of purity of sentiment and lan!ua!e/
it is the idealized history of that period, and those intervals of his life which were dedicated to love" .is apotheosis of
<eatrice in Paradise and the !radations of his own love and her loveliness y which as y steps he fei!ns himself to
have ascended to the throne of the %upreme (ause, is the most !lorious ima!ination of modern poetry" The acutest
critics have 'ustly reversed the 'ud!ement of the vul!ar and the order of the !reat acts of the Divina )ommedia in the
measure of the admiration which they accord to the .ell, Pur!atory and Paradise" The latter is a perpetual hymn of
everlastin! love" Love which found a worthy poet in Plato alone of all the antients has een celerated y a chorus of
the !reatest writers of the renovated worldG and the music has penetrated the caverns of society, and its echoes still
drown the dissonance of arms, and superstition" At successive intervals Ariosto, Tasso, %ha&espear, %penser,
(alderon, Bousseau and the !reat writers of our own a!e have celerated the dominion of loveG plantin! as it were
trophies in the human mind of that sulimest victory over sensuality and force" The true relation orne to each other y
the senses into which human &ind is distriuted has ecome less misunderstoodG and if the error which confounded
diversity with in e,uality of the powers of the two se$es has een partially reco!nized in the opinions and institutions of
modern *urope, we owe this !reat enefit to the worship of which (hivalry was the law, and poets the prophets"
The poetry of Jante may e considered as the rid!e thrown over the stream of time which unites the modern and the
antient world" The distorted notions of invisile thin!s which Jante and his rival +ilton have idealised, are merely the
mas& and the mantle in which these !reat poets wal& throu!h eternity enveloped and dis!uised" #t is a difficult ,uestion
to determine how far they were conscious of the distinction which must have susisted in their minds etween their own
creeds and that of the people" Jante at least appears to wish to mar& the full e$tent of it y placin! Biph\us whom
Iir!il calls *ustissimus unus9 in Paradise, and oservin! a most heretical caprice in his distriution of rewards and
punishments" And +iltonEs poem contains within itself a philosophical refutation of that system of which, y a stran!e
and natural antithesis, it has een a chief popular support" Dothin! can e$ceed the ener!y and ma!nificence of the
character as e$pressed in Paradise !ost% #t is a mista&e to suppose that he could ever have een intended for the
popular personification of evil" #mplacale hate, patient cunnin!, and a sleepless refinement of device to inflict the
e$tremest an!uish on an enemy---these thin!s are evilG and, althou!h venial in a slave, are not to e for!iven in a
tyrantG althou!h redeemed y much that ennoles his defeat in one sudued, are mar&ed y all that dishonours his
con,uest in the victor" +iltonEs Jevil as a moral ein! is as far superior to his ?od as one who perseveres in some
purpose which he has conceived to e e$cellent in spite of adversity and torture, is to one who in the cold security of
undouted triumph inflicts the most horrile reven!e upon his enemy, not from any mista&en notion of inducin! him to
repent of a perseverance in enmity, ut with the alled!ed desi!n of e$asperatin! him to deserve new torments" +ilton
has so far violated the popular creed 3if this shall e 'ud!ed to e a violation4 as to have alled!ed no superiority of moral
virtue to his ?od over his Jevil" And this old ne!lect of a direct moral purpose is the most decisive proof of the
supremacy of +iltonEs !enius" .e min!led as it were the elements of human nature, as colours upon a sin!le pallet, and
arran!ed them into the composition of his !reat picture accordin! to the laws of epic truthG that is, accordin! to the laws
of that principle y which a series of actions of the e$ternal universe, and of intelli!ent and ethical ein!s is calculated
to e$cite the sympathy of succeedin! !enerations of man&ind" The Divina )ommedia, and Paradise !ost have
conferred upon modern mytholo!y a systematic formG and when chan!e and time shall have added one more
superstition to the mass of those which have arisen and decayed upon the earth, commentators will e learnedly
employed in elucidatin! the reli!ion of ancestral *urope, only not utterly for!otten ecause it will have een stamped
with the eternity of !enius"
.omer was the first, and Jante the second epic poet/ that is, the second poet the series of whose creations ore a
defined and intelli!ile relation to the &nowled!e, and sentiment, and reli!ion, and political condition of the a!e in which
he lived, and of the a!es which followed it/ developin! itself in correspondence with their developement" Cor Lucretius
had limed the win!s of his swift spirit in the dre!s of the sensile world/ and Iir!il with a modesty that ill ecame his
!enius, had affected the fame of an imitator even whilst he created anew all that he copiedG and none amon! the floc&
of moc& irds, thou!h their notes were sweet, Apollonius Bhodius, Luintus (alaer, %myrn\us, Donnus, Lucan,
%tatius or (laudian have sou!ht even to fulfil a sin!le condition of epic truth" +ilton was the third *pic Poet/ for if the
title of epic in its hi!hest sense e refused to the +neid still less can it e conceded to the ,rlando #urioso, the
-erusalemme !iberata, the !usiad or the #airy .ueen%
Jante and +ilton were oth deeply penetrated with the ancient reli!ion of the civilized worldG and its spirit e$ists in
their poetry, proaly in the same proportion as its forms survived in the unreformed worship of modern *urope" The
one preceeded and the other followed, the Beformation at almost e,ual intervals" Jante was the first reli!ious reformer,
and Luther surpassed him rather in the rudeness and acrimony, than in the oldness of his censures of papal
usurpation" Jante was the first awa&ener of entranced *uropeG he created a lan!ua!e in itself music and persuasion
out of a chaos of inharmonious ararisms" .e was the con!re!ator of those !reat spirits who presided over the
restoration of learnin!G the Lucifer of that starry floc& which in the thirteenth century shone forth from repulican #taly, as
from a heaven, into the dar&ness of the eni!hted world" .is very words are instinct with spiritG each is as a spar&, a
urnin! atom of ine$tin!uishale thou!htG and many yet lie covered in the ashes of their irth, and pre!nant with a
li!htnin! which has yet found no conductor" All hi!h poetry is infiniteG it is as the first acorn which contained all oa&s
potentially" Ieil after veil may e undrawn and the inmost na&ed eauty of the meanin! never e$posed" A !reat Poem
is a fountain for ever overflowin! with the waters of wisdom and deli!htG and after one person and one a!e has
e$hausted all its divine effluence which their peculiar relations enale them to shareG another and yet another succeeds,
and new relations are ever developed, the source of an unforseen and an unconceived deli!ht"
The a!e immediately succeedin! to that of Jante, Petrarch and <occaccio was characterised y a revival of paintin!,
sculpture, music and architecture" (haucer cau!ht the sacred inspiration, and the superstructure of *n!lish literature is
ased upon the materials of #talian invention"
<ut let us not e etrayed from a defence into a critical history of poetry and its influence on society" <e it enou!h to
have pointed out the effects of poets in the lar!e and true sense of the word upon their own and all succeedin! times,
and to revert to the partial instances cited as illustrations of an opinion the reverse of that attempted to e estalished
y the author of The #our Ages of Poetry%
<ut poets have een challen!ed to resi!n the civic crown to reasoners and mechanists on another plea" #t is admitted
that the e$ercise of the ima!ination is most deli!htful, ut it is alled!ed that that of reason is more useful" Let us
e$amine as the !round of this distinction what is here meant y utility" Pleasure or !ood in a !eneral sense, is that
which the consciousness of a sensitive and intelli!ent ein! see&s, and in which when found it ac,uiesces" There are
two &inds of pleasure, one durale, universal and permanentG the other transitory and particular" @tility may either
e$press the means of producin! the former, or the latter" #n the former sense whatever stren!thens and purifies the
affections, enlar!es the ima!ination, and adds spirit to sense, is useful" <ut the meanin! in which the author of The
#our Ages of Poetry seems to have employed the word utility is the narrower one of anishin! the importunity of the
wants of our animal nature, the surroundin! men with security of life, t he dispersin! the !rosser delusions of
superstition, and the conciliatin! such a de!ree of mutual forearance amon! men as may consist with the motives of
personal advanta!e"
@ndoutedly the promoters of utility in this limited sense, have their appointed office in society" They follow the
footsteps of poets, and copy the s&etches of their creations into the oo& of common life" They ma&e space and !ive
time" Their e$ertions are of the hi!hest value so lon! as they confine their administration of the concerns of the inferior
powers of our own nature within the limits of it is due to the superior ones" <ut whilst the sceptic destroys !ross
superstitions, let him spare to deface, as some of the Crench writers have defaced, the eternal truths charactered upon
the ima!inations of men" -hilst the mechanist arid!es, and the political _conomist comines, laour, let them eware
that their speculations, for want of correspondance with those first principles which elon! to the ima!ination, do not
tend, as they have in modern *n!land, to e$asperate at once the e$tremes of lu$ury and want" They have e$emplified
the sayin!, FTo him that hath, more shall e !ivenG and from him that hath not, the little that he hath shall e ta&en
away"F : The rich have ecome richer, and the poor have ecome poorerG and the vessel of the state is driven etween
the %cylla and (harydis of anarchy and despotism" %uch are the effects which must ever flow from an unmiti!ated
e$ercise of the calculatin! faculty"
#t is difficult to define pleasure in its hi!hest sense---the definition involvin! a numer of apparent parado$es" Cor, from
an ine$plicale defect of harmony in the constitution of human nature, the pain of the inferior is fre,uently connected
with the pleasures of the superior portions of our ein!" %orrow, terror, an!uish, despair itself are often the chosen
e$pressions of an appro$imation to the hi!hest !ood" 2ur sympathy in tra!ic fiction, depends on this principle/ tra!edy
deli!hts y affordin! a shadow of the pleasure which e$ists in pain" This is the source also of the melancholy which is
inseperale from the sweetest melody" The pleasure that is in sorrow, is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself"
And hence the sayin!, F#t is etter to !o to the house of mournin!, than to the house of mirth"F1;---not that this hi!hest
species of pleasure is necessarily lin&ed with pain" The deli!ht of love and friendship, the e$tacy of the admiration of
nature, the 'oy of the perception, and still more of the creation of poetry is often wholly unalloyed"
The production and assurance of pleasure in this hi!hest sense is true utility" Those who produce and preserve this
pleasure are poets or poetical philosophers"
The e$ertions of Loc&e, .ume, ?ion, Ioltaire, Bousseau,11 and their disciples in favour of oppressed and deluded
humanity are entitled to the !ratitude of man&indH Oet it is easy to calculate the de!ree of moral and intellectual
improvement which the world would have e$hiited, had they never lived" A little more nonsense would have een
tal&ed for a century or twoG and perhaps a few more men, women and children urnt as heretics" -e mi!ht not at this
moment have een con!ratulatin! each other on the aolition of the #n,uisition in %pain"12 <ut it e$ceeds all
ima!ination to conceive what would have een the moral condition of the world if neither Jante, Petrarch, <occaccio,
(haucer, %ha&espeare, (alderon, Lord <acon, nor +ilton had ever e$istedG if Baphael and +ichael An!elo had never
een ornG if the .erew poetry had never een translatedG if a revival of the study of ?ree& Literature had never ta&en
placeG if no monuments of antient sculpture had een handed down to usG and if the poetry of the reli!ion of the antient
world had een e$tin!uished to!ether with its elief" The human mind could never, e$cept y the intervention of these
e$citements, have een awa&ened to the invention of those !rosser sciences, and that application of analytical
reasonin! to the aerrations of society, which it is now attempted to e$alt over the direct e$pression of the inventive and
creative faculty itself"
-e have more moral, political and historical wisdom than we &now how to reduce into practice/ we have more
scientific and _conomical &nowled!e than can e accommodated to the 'ust distriution of the produce which it
multiplies" The poetry, in these systems of thou!ht, is concealed y the accumulation of facts and calculatin!
processes" There is no want of &nowled!e respectin! what is wisest and est in morals, !overnment and political
_conomy, or at least what is wiser and etter than what men now practise and endure" <ut we Flet / dare not wait upon
/ 0ould, li&e the poor cat iE the ada!e"F10 -e want the creative faculty to ima!ine that which we &nowG we want the
!enerous impulse to act that which we ima!ineG we want the poetry of life/ our calculations have outrun conceptionG we
have eaten more than we can di!est" The cultivation of those sciences which have enlar!ed the limits of the empire of
man over the e$ternal world has, for want of the poetical faculty, proportionally circumscried those of the internal
world, and man, havin! enslaved the elements, remains himself a slave" To what ut a cultivation of the mechanical
arts in a de!ree disproportioned to the presence of the creative faculty which is the asis of all &nowled!e is to e
attriuted the ause of all invention for arid!in! and cominin! laour, to the e$asperation of the ine,uality of
man&indH Crom what other cause has it arisen that the discoveries which should have li!htened, have added a wei!ht
to the curse imposed on AdamH Poetry, and the principle of %elf, of which money is the visile incarnation, are the ?od
and the +ammon of the world"
The functions of the poetical faculty are two fold/ y one it creates new materials of &nowled!e, and power, and
pleasureG y the other it en!enders in the mind a desire to reproduce and arran!e them accordin! to a certain rhythm
and order, which may e called the eautiful and the !ood" The cultivation of poetry is never more to e desired than at
periods when from an e$cess of the selfish and calculatin! principle, the accumulation of the materials of e$ternal life
e$ceed the ,uantity of the power of assimilatin! them to the internal laws of human nature" The ody has then ecome
too unwieldy for that which animates it"
Poetry is indeed somethin! divine" #t is at once the centre and circumference of &nowled!eG it is that which
comprehends all science, and that to which all science must e referred" #t is at the same time the root and the lossom
of all other systems of thou!ht/ it is that from which all sprin!, and that which adorns allG and that which if li!hted
denies the fruit and the seed, and withholds from the arren world the nourishment and the succession of the scions of
the tree of life" #t is the perfect and consummate surface and loom of thin!sG it is as the odour and the colour of the
rose to the te$ture of the elements which compose itG as the form and splendour of unfaded eauty, to the secrets of
anatomy and corruption" -hat were Iirtue, Love, Patriotism, Criendship----hat were the scenery of this eautiful
universe which we inhait - - what were our consolations on this side the !rave---and what were our aspirations eyond
it---if Poetry did not ascend to rin! li!ht and fire from those eternal re!ions where the owl-win!ed faculty of calculation,
dare not ever soarH Poetry is not li&e reasonin!, a power to e e$erted accordin! to the determination of the will" A man
cannot say, F# will compose poetry"F The !reatest poet even cannot say it/ for the mind in creation is as a fadin! coal
which some invisile influence, li&e an inconstant wind, awa&ens to transitory ri!htnessG this power arises from within,
li&e the colour of a flower which fades and chan!es as it is developed, and the conscious portions of our natures are
unprophetic either of its approach or its departure" (ould this influence e durale in its ori!inal purity and !race, it is
impossile to predict the !reatness of the resultsG ut when composition e!ins inspiration is already on the decline,
and the most !lorious poetry that has ever een communicated to the world is proaly a feele shadow of the ori!inal
conceptions of the poet" # appeal to the !reatest Poets of the present day, whether it e not an error to assert that the
!reatest passa!es of poetry are produced y laour and study" The toil and the delay recommended y critics can e
'ustly interpreted to mean no more than a careful oservation of the inspired moments and an artificial connection of the
spaces etween their su!!estions y the interte$ture of conventional e$pressionsG a necessity only imposed y a
limitedness of the poetical faculty itself" Cor +ilton conceived the Paradise !ost as a whole efore he e$ecuted it in
portions" -e have his own authority also for the +use havin! FdictatedF to him Fthe unpremeditated son!"F11 And let
this e an answer to those who would alle!e the fifty si$ various readin!s of the first line of the ,rlando #urioso%
(ompositions so produced are to poetry what mosaic is to paintin!" This instinct and intuition of the poetical faculty is
still more oservale in the plastic and pictorial arts/ a !reat statue or picture !rows under the power of the artist as a
child in the motherEs wom, and the very mind which directs the hands in formation is incapale of accountin! to itself
for the ori!in, the !radations, or the media of the process"
Poetry is the record of the happiest and est moments of the happiest and est minds" -e are aware of evanescent
visitations of thou!ht and feelin! sometimes associated with place or person, sometimes re!ardin! our own mind alone,
and always arisin! unforseen and departin! uniddenG ut elevatin! and deli!htful eyond all e$pression/ so that even
in the desire and the re!ret they leave there cannot ut e pleasure, participatin! as it does in the nature of its o'ect" #t
is as it were the interpenetration of a diviner nature throu!h our own, ut its footsteps are li&e those of a wind over the
sea, which the comin! calm erases, and whose traces remain only as on the wrin&led sand which paves it" These and
correspondin! conditions of ein! are e$perienced principally y those of the most delicate sensiility and the most
enlar!ed ima!ination" And the state of mind produced y them is at war with every ase desire" The enthusiasm of
virtue, love, patriotism, and friendship is essentially lin&ed with such emotionsG and whilst they last self appears as what
it is, an atom to an @niverse" Poets are not only su'ect to these e$periences as spirits of the most refined or!anization,
ut they can colour all that they comine with the evanescent hues of this etherial worldG a word, a trait in the
representation of a scene or a passion will touch the enchanted chord, and reanimate in those who have ever
e$perienced these emotions the sleepin!, the cold, the uried ima!e of the past" Poetry thus ma&es immortal all that is
est and most eautiful in the worldG it arrests the vanishin! apparitions which haunt the interlunations of lifeG and
veilin! them or in lan!ua!e or in form sends them forth amon! man&ind earin! sweet news of &indred 'oy to those with
whom their sisters aide---aide ecause there is no portal of e$pression from the caverns of the spirit which they
inhait into the universe of thin!s" Poetry redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity in man"
Poetry turns all thin!s to loveliness/ it e$alts the eauty of that which is most eautiful, and it adds eauty to that which
is most deformed/ it marries e$ultation and horrorG !rief and pleasure, eternity and chan!eG it sudues to union under its
li!ht yo&e all irreconcilale thin!s" #t transmutes all that it touches, and every form movin! within the radiance of its
presence is chan!ed y wondrous sympathy to an incarnation of the spirit which it reathes/ its secret alchemy turns to
potale !old the poisonous waters which flow from death throu!h lifeG it strips the veil of familiarity from the world, and
lays are the na&ed and sleepin! eauty which is the spirit of its forms"
All thin!s e$ist as they are perceivedG at least in relation to the percipient" FThe mind is its own place, and of itself (an
ma&e a .eaven of .ell, a .ell of .eaven"F15 <ut Poetry defeats the curse which inds us to e su'ected to the
accident of surroundin! impressions" And whether it spreads its own fi!ured curtain or withdraws lifeEs dar& veil from
efore the scene of thin!s, it e,ually creates for us a ein! within our ein!" #t ma&es us the inhaitants of a world to
which the familiar world is a chaos" #t reproduces the common @niverse of which we are portions and percipients, and it
ur!es from our inward si!ht the film of familiarity which oscures from us the wonder of our ein!" #t compels us to feel
that which we perceive, and to ima!ine that which we &now" #t creates anew the universe after it has een annihilated in
our minds y the recurrence of impressions lunted y re-iteration" #t 'ustifies that old and true word of Tasso/ (on
merita nome di creatore1 se non /ddio ed il Poeta%16
A Poet, as he is the author to others of the hi!hest wisdom, pleasure, virtue and !lory so he ou!ht personally to e the
happiest` the est, the wisest and the most illustrious of men" As to his !lory let Time e challen!ed to declare
whether the fame of any other institutor of human life e comparale to that of a poet" That he is the wisest, the
happiest and the est, in as much as he is a poet, is e,ually incontrovertile/ the !reatest Poets have een men of the
most spotless virtue, of the most consummate prudence, and, if we would loo& into the interior of their lives, the most
fortunate of men/ and the e$ceptions as they re!ard those who possessed the poetic faculty in a hi!h yet inferior
de!ree will e found on consideration to confine rather than destroy the rule" Let us for a moment stoop to the
aritration of popular reath, and usurpin! and unitin! in our own persons the incompatile characters of accuser,
witness, 'ud!e and e$ecutioner, let us decide without trial, testimony or form that certain motives of those who are
Fthere sittin! where we dare not soarF18 are reprehensile" Let us assume that .omer was a drun&ard, that Iir!il was a
flatterer, that Lord <acon was a peculator, that Baphael was a liertine, that %pencer was a poet laureate" #t is
inconsistent with this division of our su'ect to cite livin! poets, ut Posterity has done ample 'ustice to the !reat names
now referred to" Their errors have een wei!hed and found to have een dust in the alanceG if their sins were as
scarlet they are now white as snow/ they have een washed in the lood of the mediator and redeemer Time" 2serve
in what a ludicrous chaos the imputations of real and of fictitious crime have een confused in the contemporary
calumnies a!ainst poetry and poetsG consider how little is as it appears---or appears as it isG loo& to your own motives,
and 'ud!e not, lest ye e 'ud!ed" 19
Poetry, as has een said, differs in this respect from lo!ic that it is not su'ect to the controul of the active powers of
the mind, and that its irth and recurrence has no necessary conne$ion with consciousness or will" #t is presumptuous
to determine that these are the necessary conditions of all mental causation when mental effects are e$perienced
insusceptile of ein! referred to them" The fre,uent recurrence of the poetical power, it is ovious to suppose may
produce in the mind an hait of order and harmony correlative with its own nature and with its effects upon other minds"
<ut in the intervals of inspiration, and they may e fre,uent without ein! durale, a Poet ecomes a man and is
aandoned to the sudden reflu$ of the influences under which others haitually live" <ut as he is more delicately
or!anized than other men and sensile to pain and pleasure oth his own and that of others in a de!ree un&nown to
them/ he will avoid the one and pursue the other with an ardour proportioned to this difference" And he renders himself
ono$ious to calumny, when he ne!lects to oserve the circumstances under which these o'ects of universal pursuit
and fli!ht have dis!uised themselves in one anotherEs !arments"
<ut there is nothin! necessarily evil in this error and thus cruelty, envy, reven!e, avarice, and the passions purely evil,
have never formed any portion of the popular imputations on the lives of poets"
# have thou!ht it most favourale to the cause of truth to set down these remar&s accordin! to the order in which they
were su!!ested to my mind, y a consideration of the su'ect itself, instead of followin! that of the treatise that e$cited
me to ma&e them pulic" Thus althou!h devoid of the formality of a polemical reply, if the view which they contain e
'ust, they will e found to involve a refutation of the doctrines of The #our Ages of Poetry, so far at least as re!ards the
first division of the su'ect" # can readily con'ecture what should have moved the !all of the learned and intelli!ent
author of that paper" # confess myself li&e them unwillin! to e stunned y the Theseids of the hoarse (odri of the day"
<avius and +\vius undoutedly are, as they ever were, insufferale persons" 1: <ut it elon!s to a philosophical critic
to distin!uish rather than confound"
The first part of these remar&s has related to poetry in its elements and principlesG and it has een shewn, as well as
the narrow limits assi!ned them would permit, that what is called poetry in a restricted sense has a common source
with all other forms of order and of eauty accordin! to which the materials of human life are susceptile of ein!
arran!edG and which is Poetry in an universal sense"
The second part 2; will have for its o'ect an application of these principles to the present state of the cultivation of
Poetry, and a defence of the attempt to idealize the modern forms of manners and opinion, and compel them into a
suordination to the ima!inative and creative faculty" Cor the literature of *n!land, an ener!etic developement of which
has ever preceded or accompanied a !reat and free developement of the national will, has arisen as it were from a new
irth" #n spite of the lowthou!hted envy which would undervalue contemporary merit, our own will e a memorale a!e
in intellectual atchievements, and we live amon! such philosophers and poets as surpass eyond comparison any who
have appeared since the last national stru!!le for civil and reli!ious lierty" The most unfailin! herald, companion and
follower of the awa&enin! of a !reat people to wor& a eneficial chan!e in opinion or institution, is Poetry" At such
periods there is an accumulation of the power of communicatin! and receivin! intense and impassioned conceptions
respectin! man and nature" The persons in whom this power resides, may often as far as re!ards many portions of
their nature have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of !ood of which they are the ministers" <ut even whilst
they deny and a'ure, they are yet compelled to serve, the Power which is seated on the throne of their own soul" #t is
impossile to read the compositions of the most celerated writers of the present day without ein! startled with the
electric life which urns within their words" They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature
with a comprehensive and all penetratin! spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its
manifestations, for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the a!e" Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended
inspiration, the mirrors of the !i!antic shadows which futurity casts upon the present, the words which e$press what
they understand not, the trumpets which sin! to attle and feel not what they inspire/ the influence which is moved not,
ut moves" Poets are the unac&nowled!ed le!islators of the -orld"
Samuel Johnson in his Preface to Shakespeare highlights several qualities and defects in Shakespeares plays
whether they are comedies or tragedies. Samuel Johnsons preface got enough fame due to the points that he raised in
his writing. However while highlighting the defects and qualities of Shakespeares work Johnson sometimes
contradicts his own views.
Samuel Johnson a well!known figure of late "ugustan age is considered super# for his critical preface Preface
to Shakespeare #y most critics. Harold $loom defines Johnsons vitality as a critic as always sufficiently inside
Shakespeares plays to %udge them as he %udges human life without ever forgetting that Shakespeares function is to
#ring life to mind. &n his preface Johnson identifies several strengths and imperfections in Shakespeares capa#ilities
of writing.
Shakespeare develops his argument in considering Shakespeare and his works as antique. He used the word antique
as referential. He argues that something written a long time ago must have #een discussed a lot and if it is still admired
it contains some esta#lished qualities #ecause it has gone through a phase of testing checking and comparing.
Strengths of Shakespeares Plays According to Johnson
Shakespeare was an esta#lished authority #y the time of Johnson. "ccording to Johnson 'othing can please many
and please long #ut %ust representations of general nature. $y nature Johnson means the o#servation of reality.
Johnson says that Shakespeare had the a#ility to provide a (%ust representation of general nature. Here Johnson
presents the idea of universality. )avid )aiches reports that )r. Johnson appreciates Shakespeare #ecause he
according to )rydens requirement of a %ust and lively image of human nature fulfils it. He further e*plains that
Shakespeare as a dramatist is praised #ecause he does what is e*pected from a dramatist. Shakespeares writings
have a main theme of good and evil these are universal pro#lems and everyone agrees to these pro#lems. "ll
humanity faces good as well as evil so the author who uses these pro#lems will #e related to peoples lives.
"ccording to Johnson art should #e e*act representation +imitation, of general nature as Plato says that art is the
imitation of nature. "lso dealing with the theme of universality Johnson seems to #elieve in modern thoughts that truth
has to #e universal accepted #y all and common for all. 'ature is represented #y classicists so copying them also
means copying nature. Hamlet says Hold up a mirror to nature which means imitation of nature according to Platonic
theory. Shakespeare is also categori-ed #y Johnson as poet of nature.
Johnson further descri#es a#out Shakespeares characters His persons act and speak #y the influence of those
general passions and principles #y which all minds are agitated... Shakespeares characters are individuals #ut
represent universality. Johnson ela#orates a#out Shakespeares characters Shakespeare has no heroes. his scenes
are occupied #y men. &t means that Shakespeares characters are of general kind and are not restricted #y customs
and conventions of any one society. )avid )aiches descri#es that #y having no heroes does not mean that his
characters are not heroic or impressive #ut that they are not supernatural #eings #ut men whom we recogni-e as
fellow human #eings acting according to the general laws of nature. "lso if Shakespeare uses ghosts he gives them
humanly characteristics as they speak like human #eings such as Hamlets fathers ghost.
Preface
In his 'Preface' to the 1798 edition of the Lyrical Ballads Wordsworth presented his poetic manifesto,
indicating the extent to which he saw his poetry, and that of oleridge, as !rea"ing away from the
'artificiality', 'tri#iality' or o#er$ela!orate and contri#ed %&ality of eighteenth cent&ry poetry' (he 'Preface' is
itself a masterpiece of )nglish prose, exemplary in its l&cid yet passionate defence of a literary style that co&ld
!e pop&lar witho&t compromising artistic and poetic standards' *et it is also #ital for helping &s to &nderstand
what Wordsworth and oleridge were attempting in their collection of #erse, and also pro#ides &s with a
means of assessing how s&ccessf&lly the poems themsel#es li#e &p to the standards o&tlined in the 'Preface''
(he 'Preface' co#ers a n&m!er of iss&es and is wide$ranging in its s&r#ey of the place of the Lyrical Ballads on
the contemporary literary scene' (he topics co#ered incl&de the following+
1' (he Principal o!,ect of the poems' Wordsworth, in this extract, places the emphasis on the attempt to
deal with -nat&ral- .rather than cosmopolitan/ man, arg&ing that s&ch men li#e m&ch closer to nat&re
and, therefore, are closer to the well$springs of h&man nat&re' Behind this we can see how m&ch
Wordsworth owes to that eighteenth cent&ry preocc&pation with -nat&ral 0an-, associated partic&larly
with the writings of 1o&ssea&' 2e sees his poetry, in its concerns with the li#es of men s&ch as
0ichael, as an antidote to the artificial portraits of 0an presented in eighteenth cent&ry poetry' (he
arg&ment is de#eloped when he o&tlines his reasons for dealing with -h&m!le and r&stic life-'
3' 4or Wordsworth .and oleridge/ this choice of s&!,ect matter necessarily in#ol#es a rethin"ing of the
Lang&age of poetry' 5ote, howe#er, that Wordsworth admits to some licence in -tidying &p- the
lang&age of -ordinary men-' 6oes this affect the pers&asi#eness of his theories a!o&t -nat&ral men-7
8' (his leads Wordsworth to an attempt to define poetry and its effects on the reader' Wordsworth's
pro,ect is an idealistic one, and clearly Poetry, for him, has a #ital role in ed&cating the mind and
sensi!ility of his readers, a moral p&rpose' (his %&otation ill&strates how important this !ene#olent
effect is for the reader'
9' Ine#ita!ly, perhaps, the a!o#e leads Wordsworth towards as"ing What is a Poet7 ' 2is answer
ill&strates the &nderlying ass&mptions a!o&t the poet as geni&s, as special person, capa!le of re$
artic&lating tho&ght and feeling so as to ed&cate the reader'
Glossary
object
(he principle o!,ect, then proposed in these poems was to choose incidents and sit&ations from common life,
and to relate and descri!e them, thro&gho&t, as far as possi!le in a selection of lang&age really &sed !y men,
and , at the same time, to throw o#er them a certain colo&ring of imagination, where!y ordinary things sho&ld
!e presented to the mind in an &ys&al aspect: and, f&rther,, and a!o#e all, to ma"e these sit&ations and
incidents interesting !y tracing in them, tr&ly tho&gh not ostentatio&sly, the primary laws of o&r nat&re+
chiefly as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement'
Humble and rustic life
2&m!le and r&stic life was generally chosen, !eca&se in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find
a !etter soil in which they can attain their mat&rity, are less &nder restraint, and spea" a plainer and more
emphatic lang&age: !eca&se in that condition of life, o&r elementary feelings co$exist in a state of greater
simplicity, and conse%&ently, may !e more acc&rately contemplated, and more forci!ly comm&nicated:
!eca&se the manners of r&ral life germinate from these elementary feelings, and, from the necessary character
of r&ral occ&pations, are more easily comprehended, and are more d&ra!le: and lastly, !eca&se in that
condition the passions of men are incorporated with the !ea&tif&l and permanent forms of nat&re'
Language
(he lang&age, too, of these men has !een adopted .p&rified indeed from what appear to !e its real defects,
from all lasting and rational ca&ses of disli"e and disg&st/ !eca&se s&ch men ho&rly comm&nicate with the
!est o!,ects from which with the !est part of lang&age is originally deri#ed: and !eca&se, from their ran" in
society and the sameness and narrow circle of their intrerco&rse, !eing less &nder the infl&ence of social
#ariety, they con#ey their feelings and notions in simple and &nela!orated expressions' ;ccordingly, s&ch a
lang&age, arising o&t of the repeated experience and reg&lar feelings is a more permanent, and a far more
philosophical lang&age, than that which is fre%&ently s&!stit&ted for it !y Poets, who thin" that they are
conferring hono&r &pon themsel#es and their art, in proportion as they separate themsel#es from the
sympathies of men, and ind&lge in ar!itrary and capricio&s ha!its of expression, in order to f&rnish food for
fic"le appetites, of their own creation'
Definition of poetry
4or all good poetry is the spontaneo&s o#erflow of powerf&l feeling+ and tho&gh this !e tr&e, Poems to which
any #al&e can !e attached were ne#er prod&ced on any #ariety of s&!,ects !&t !y a man who, !eing posessed
of more than &s&sal organic sensi!ility, had also tho&ght long and deeply' 4or o&r contin&ed infl&xes of
feeling are modified and directed !y o&r tho&ghts, which are indeed the representati#e of all o&r past feelings:
and, as !y contemplating the relation of these general representati#es to each other, we disco#er what is really
important to men, so !y the repetition and contin&ance of this act, o&r feelings will !e connected with
important s&!,ects, till at length, if we !e originally possessed of s&ch sensi!ility, s&ch ha!its of mind will !e
prod&ced, that !y o!eying !lindly and mechanically the imp&lses of these ha!its, we shall descri!e o!,ects,
and &tter sentiments of s&cha a nat&re, and in s&ch connection with each other, that the &nderstanding of the
1eader m&st necessarily !e in some degree enlightened, and his affections strengthened and p&rified'
hat is a Poet!
2e is a man spea"ing to men+ a man, it is tr&e, endowed with more li#ely sensi!ility, more enth&siasm and
tenderness, who has a greater "nowledge of h&man nat&re, and a more comprehensi#e so&l, than one s&pposed
to !e common among man"ind: a man pleased with his own passions and #olitions, and who re,oices more
than other men in the spirit of life that is in him: delighting to contemplate similar #olitions and passions as
manifested in the goings$on of the <ni#erse, and ha!it&ally compelled to create them where he does not find
them' (o these %&alities he has added a disposition to !e affected more than other men !y a!sent things as if
they were present: an a!ility of con,&ring &p in himself passions, which are indeed far from !eing those
prod&ced !y real e#ents yet .especially in those parts of the general sympathy which are pleasing and
delightf&l/ do more nearly remem!er the passions prod&ced !y real e#ents, than anything which, from the
motions of their own minds merely, other men are acc&stomed to feel in themsel#es+$ whence, and from
practice, he has ac%&ired a greater readiness and power in expressing what he thin"s and feels, and especially
those tho&ghts and feelings which, !y his own choice, or from the str&ct&re of his own mind, arise in him
witho&t immediate external excitement'
Friday, September 5, 2008
Notes On The Art of Fiction (1884) by Henry James (Part 1)
Like Horace, Henry James is more interested in the practical problems of his craft than in theoretical
speculation. His essay The Art of Fiction, which is the last section of his book Partial Portraits (1888),
is in part a response to an article by Walter Besant, who argues that there are certain rules to writing
good fiction. James vehemently denies this claim, insisting that the only rule is that the writer must
make his work interesting. Challenging the old evangelical hostility to the novel which he blames for
novels low status James calls for a new novel that builds upon the groundwork laid by proto-
modernist writers like George Eliot (1819-1880), Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), Robert Louis Stevenson
(1850-1894), and Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897).
The novel, in order to enter the realm of high art, must begin to take itself seriously" (661). (It might
be interesting to compare Jamess tract with Tsubouchi Sh y s The Essence of the Novel (1885-6),
which advocates a similar kind of naturalistic realism.) Specifically, James insists that novelists must stop
apologizing for being novelists, that they must accept the fact that they describe truths equal to those of
the historian, the painter, and the philosopher, and that they are, at the very least, on equal footing with
the philosopher, painter and historian, since their inspiration is the same, their process (allowing for the
different quality of the vehicle) is the same, [and] their success is the same (662). In fact, the novelist
may even be superior to his competitors, since he is by default all of them at once. It seems to give [the
novelist] a great character, the fact that he has at once so much in common with the philosopher and the
painter; this double analogy is a magnificent heritage (662).
The novelist, James continues, must assume the semi-omniscient perspective and confident manner of the
historian. To represent and illustrate the past, [and] the actions of men is the task of either writer, and
therefore the novelist must speak with the assurance, with the tone of the historian (662). His story
regardless of whether or not it is true must be delivered as if it were history. (One is reminded here of
Mori gais 1912 short story Ka no y ni (As If), in which gai, borrowing from Hans Vaihingers
(1855-1932) notion of als ob, argues that man, in order to avoid the endless cycle of skepticism and
moral relativism, must behave as if there were certain objective universal truths, and as if subjective
noumenal experience actually corresponded to external phenomenal reality.) To admit to your readers
that the story you are about to tell is false as Anthony Trollope and other 19th century writers had done
is a betrayal of a sacred office . . . a terrible crime (662). To James, giving the air of reality and
the illusion of life are the supreme virtues of the novel (665).