[1 page 92] 2. Poetry's true subject is Mind, nature, with thought and feeling. 3. Poetry is analytical; it perceives, discriminates. 90 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POETICAL FACULTY. the true subject of poetry is 1 Mind. Its most strictly original purpose is that of imaging mind directly, by the representation of and not external humanity as acting, thinking, or suffering; it presents images of external nature only because the weakness of the mind compels it; and it is careful to represent sensible images solely as they are acted on by mind. When it makes the description of external nature its professed end, it in truth does not represent the sensible objects except as tinged themselves, but only exhibits certain modes of thought and feeling, and characterises the sensible forms no farther than as the causes which produce them. Thirdly, The most characteristic function of the poetical faculty is analytical; it is essentially a perception, a power of discovery, analysis, and discrimination. An object having been presented to it by the imagination, it discovers, and separates from the mass of its qualities, those of them which are calculated to affect the mind with that emotion which is the instrumental end of poetry. Coincidently with the perception and discovery of the qualities, it perceives and experiences the peculiar effect which each parIts combinations ticular quality produces; and, lastly, it sets forth and represents those resulting moods of mind, indicating at the same time what those qualities of the object are through which they are excited. Its task of combination is no more than consequent on this process, and supposes each step of it to have been previously gone through. Fourthly, It follows, (and this is the result which makes the inquiry important,) that the poetical faculty is measured by the strength and accuracy with which it perceives the poetical qualities of those objects which the imagination suggests as its materials, and not by the number of the ideas so presented. A forgetfulness of this truth has occasioned more misapprehension and 2 false criticism than any other error whatever; and we are continually in danger of the mistake, from the extension of meaning which use has attached to the word Of Imagination imagination, that term being commonly employed to designate the poetical faculty. This extended application is perhaps unavoidable; but it is on that account the more necessary to guard against the misconception always likely to arise from the original signification of the word, which we can never discard entirely from the mind in using it in a secondary sense.-You do not need to be reminded how depend on its first analysis. 4. Poetry depends on the power and accuracy of its perception of the poetical qualities in its materials. ['page 93] or Imagery. INTENSITY, NOT WEALTH OF IMAGERY, MAKES THE POET. 91 cases. Describing forms by their outsides, is not Poetry. They must be shown as exciting changes of Mind. Wordsworth declares that all outward objects can do this, and become ences. sentient exist completely the history of the poetical art evinces, that these positions, whether expressly acquiesced in or not, have been invariably acted on in the judgments which the world has pronounced in particular The inadequacy of a representation of forms by their external attributes to constitute poetical pictures, could be instanced from every bad poem which has ever been written; and the great truth, that the external world is exhibited poetically only by being represented as the exciting cause of mental changes, has been illustrated in no age so singularly as in our own. The writings of Wordsworth in particular have stretched the principle to the utmost extent which it can possibly sustain; demanding a belief that all external objects are poetical, because all can interest the human mind; establishing the reasonableness of the assumption by the boldest confidence in the strength and delicacy with which the poetical perception can trace the qualities which awaken that interest, and the progress of the feeling itself; and applying the poetical faculty to the transforming of every object of sense into an energetic, and as it were sentient, existence. And attention is especially due to the decision which has always recognized, as the rule of poetical excellence, the operation of some power independent of mere wealth of imagination, ranking this latter quality as one of the lowest merits of poetry. We are apt to forget that those minds whose conceptions have been the most strongly and truly poetical, are by no means those whose poetical ideas have been the most abundant; that an overflow of poetical images has been coincident with an intense perception of their most efficient poetical relations only in a few rare instances; and that it is precisely where the highest elements of the The greatest poetical are most active that the imagination is usually found to fewest images, offer the fewest images as the materials on which the poetical fac- ['page 94. ulty should work. It is enough to name Dante, or, a still more sin- witness Dante, gular instance, Alfieri. In both cases the poetical influence rests Alfieri. on the intensity of the one simple aspect of grandeur or passion in which a character is presented, and in both that simplicity is unrelieved and undecorated by any fulness of imagery.2 2 Alfieri appears to have himself perceived accurately wherein it is that his power lies, when he says, with his usual self-reliance: "Se la parola 'invenzione' Mere wealth of imagery is of little worth." poets use the Their intensity is their secret. 92 THE DRAMA IS THE PUREST FORM OF POETRY. These fundamental principles of the poetical art possess a closer application to Dramatic Poetry than to any other species. All poetry being directly or indirectly a representation of human character; and human character admitting of appreciation only by an exhibition of its results in action; and action being prompted by the passionate impulses of the mind, which its reflective faculties only modify or stay; it follows that the Passions are the leading subjects of Poetry, which consequently must be examined in the first instance with a view to its strength and accuracy as a representation of the working and results of that department of the mind. The nature of the dramatic art allows this rule to be applied to it with the greatest strictness. The drama is the species which presents the essential qualities of poetry less mingled with foreign adjuncts than they are in any other species; and there seems to be a cause, (independent of its mechanical necessities,) enabling it to dispense with those decorations which abound in other kinds of poetry. The acted drama presents its picture of life directly to the senses, and permits the imagination, without any previous exertion, to proceed at once to its proper task of forming its own combinations from the sensible forms thus offered to it; and even when the drama is read, the office of the imagination in representing to itself the action and the characters of the piece, is an easy one, and performed without the necessity of great activity of mind. On the other hand, in the epic, or any other species of poetry which represents action by 'words, and not by an imitation of the action itself, the imagination has at first to form, from the successively presented features of the poetical description, a picture which shall be the exciting cause of the poetical impression: this supposes considerable energy of thought, and the necessity of relief from that exertion seems to have suggested the introduction of images of external nature and the like, on which the fancy may rest and disport itself. Those classes of poetry which are either partially or wholly didactic, cannot receive a strict appli in tragedia si restringe al trattare soltanto soggetti non prima trattati, nessuno autore ha inventato meno di me." "Se poi la parola 'invenzione' si estende fino al far cosa nuova di cosa già fatta, io son costretto a credere che nessuno autore abba inventato piu di me." SHAKSPERE ON THE THRONE OF POETRY. WHY? 93 cation of the principles of the pure art; because they are not properly poetry, but attempts to make poetical forms serve purposes which are not poetical. He takes to it's the noblest of Poetry, the of man. Drama, because and truest form likest the mind And there he sits enthrond. Our journey has at length conducted us to Shakspeare, of many Shakspere again. of whose peculiar qualities we have been gaining scattered glimpses in our progress. We remark him adopting that species of poetry which, necessarily confined by its forms, is yet the noblest offspring of the poetical faculty, and the truest to the purposes of the poet ical art, because it is the most faithful and impressive image of the mind and state of man. We find him seated like an eastern sovereign amidst those who have adopted this highest form of poetry; and we cannot be contented that, in reverentially acknowledging his worthiness to fill the throne, we should render him only a hasty and undiscerning homage. A discrimination of the particular qualities by which his sway is mainly supported, is rendered the more neces- But why? sary by that extraordinary union of qualities, which has made him. what he is, the unapproached and the unapproachable. We are accustomed to lavish commendations on his vast Imagination. Before we can perceive what rank this quality of his deserves to hold in an estimate of his character, we must understand precisely what the quality is which we mean to praise. If the term used denotes merely the abundance of his illustrative conceptions, it expresses what is a his wealth of imagery? singular quality, especially as co-existent with so many other endowments, but useful only as furnishing materials for the use of the poetical power. If the word is meant to call attention to the strength and delicacy with which his mind grasps and embodies the poetical of fancy, of relations of those overflowing conceptions, (still considered simply What does his Imagination mean? conception? as illustrative or decorative,) the quality indicated is a rare and ['page 96] Does Shakspere's imagination mean the grandeur or given some of loveliness he has his characters ? No. Miranda, Ariel, Juliet, Romeo, 94 WHEREIN LIES SHAKSPERE'S TRUEST GREATNESS? has thrown, like the golden curtains of the morning, over the youth and love of woman,—we point out a quality which is admirable in itself, and almost divine in its union with others so opposite, a quality to which we are glad to turn for repose from the more severe portions of his works,—but still an excellence which is not the most marked feature of his character, and which he could want without losing the essential portion of his identity. We could conceive, (alWe could give up though the idea is sacrilege to the genius and the altar of poetry,) we could conceive that The Tempest' had remained unwritten, that Miranda had not made inexperience beautiful by the spell of innocence and youth, that the hideous slave Caliban had never scowled and cursed, nor Ariel alighted on the world like a shooting-star,—we could dismiss alike from our memories the moon-light forest in which the Fairy Court revel, and the lurid and spectre-peopled ghastliness of the cave of Hecate,—we could in fancy remove from the gallery of the poet's art the picture which exhibits the two self-destroyed lovers lying side by side in the tomb of the Capulets,-and we could discard from our minds, and hold as never having been invented by the poet, all which we find in his works possessing a character similar to these scenes and figures ;—and yet we should leave beand yet leave the hind that which would support Shakspeare as having pursued the true, the highest Shakspere highest ends of his art, and as having attained those ends more fully behind, in Richard, than any other who ever followed them: Richard would still be his; Macbeth would think and tremble, and Lear weep and be mad; and Hamlet would still pore over the riddle of life, and find in death the solution of its mystery. If it is to such characters as these last that we refer when we speak of the poet's power of imagination, force with which and if we wish to designate by the word the force with which he throws himself into the conception of those characters, then we apprehend truly what the sphere is in which his greatness lies, although we either describe the whole of a most complicated mental process by naming a single step of it, or load the name of that one mental act with a weight of meaning which it is unfit to bear. Macbeth, Lear, These show his Imagination, the he throws himself into their characters. ['page 971 Shakspere's supremacy lies in It is here, in his mode of dealing with human character, that his characteriza Shakspeare's supremacy confessedly lies; and the conclusions which tion. |