application which introduced a new principle into criticism.

'It is this Talent of affecting the Imagination that gives. an Embellishment to Good Sense, and makes one Man's Compositions more agreeable than another's. It sets off all Writings in general, but is the very Life and highest Perfection of Poetry: Where it shines in an eminent degree, it has preserved several Poems for many Ages, that have nothing else to recommend them; and where all the other Beauties are present, the Work appears dry and insipid, if this single one be wanting. It has something in it like Creation; it bestows a kind of Existence, and draws up to the Reader's View several Objects which are not to be found in Being. It makes Additions to Nature, and gives a greater Variety to God's works. In a word, it is able to beautifie and adorn the most illustrious Scenes in the Universe, or to fill the Mind with more glorious Shows and Apparitions than can be found in any Part of it.'1

1 Ib. 421.

CHAPTER VI

DEVELOPMENT OF ARTISTIC (OR ARISTOTELIAN)

CRITICISM BY LESSING

By the work of Addison criticism was brought into line with modern thought; and the critic was provided with a test which he could apply with equal success to every fresh form which literature had developed. Henceforth it was recognized that the primary appeal of poetry was addressed not to the understanding, nor to the senses, but to the imagina- ✓ tion. It was soon admitted that the same thing was true, though in lesser degrees, of the Fine Arts. All that was required for the extension of the principle was to add definiteness to Addison's conception: to note the distinctions which marked the various methods severally employed by the arts, and the consequent limits within which the principle could in each case be applied; and to define and explain the character of the service performed by the imagination in the mind of the artist.

In

In order to do this a return was necessarily made to the methods of artistic (or formal) criticism. Germany, Lessing wrote his Laocoon, which was published in 1766, and showed how the method of

Painting, as typical of the plastic and graphic arts, differed from the method of Poetry, as representative of music and creative literature, in which the method of imitation is progressive.' And in thus distinguishing between the method of Painting and that of Poetry, he recognizes the appeal to the imagination as that by which the respective limits of the two typical arts are determined. For in order to know what this distinction is, it is necessary first to ascertain to what extent, and in what degree, each can rely upon the senses and the imagination respectively for its effects. It is necessary to make this point clear at the outset of our consideration of Lessing's work, because, although it is nowhere definitely stated, as far as I know, in the Laocoon, it is nevertheless evident that his criticism is coloured throughout by the new principle of poetic appeal which was established by Addison. The sequel will, I think, make this plain: but in the meanwhile I draw the attention of the reader to two passages which directly illustrate the contention advanced.

The first of these passages occurs in the course of Lessing's comparison of Virgil's description of the death of Laocoon, with the sculptured representation of the same subject which gives the title to his treatise. He writes:

'Admitted that every detail which the word-painting poet uses cannot have an equally good effect on the plain surface of the painter's canvas, or in the sculptor's marble, is it not possible, on the other hand, that each detail of which the

artist avails himself may be used with equal effect in the work of the poet? Undoubtedly; for the beauty of a work of art is revealed to us not by our eye, but by our imagination through the eye. A given image may be aroused in our imagination, either by the symbols we ourselves choose to use for that purpose or by natural symbols, and in each case it must be accompanied by an identical feeling of pleasure, although the intensity of this pleasure may vary.'1

Here he states the principle that the ultimate appeal of all art is to the imagination through the senses. And in the following passage he tells us why the poet is restricted in the use of these symbols 'which we ourselves choose,' and in so doing he indicates to how much greater an extent the appeal of poetry is directed to the imagination than is the appeal of painting.

'The case is as follows. Since the symbols of speech are symbols adopted by ourselves, it is perfectly possible for us by means of them to indicate the consecutive appearance of the parts of a body as completely as we can perceive those same parts of a body in juxtaposition in nature. But this is an attribute of speech and of its symbols in general, an attribute, too, which does not minister specially to the wse purposes of poetry. The poet's object is not merely to be intelligible; his representations must be something more than clear and distinct (this is sufficient for the prose writer). He desires to make the ideas which he arouses in us so vivid that, as they flash through our mind, we believe that we are experiencing the true, objective. impressions produced by the physical originals of those ideas, and in this

1 Laocoon, vi. Blümner's text (Berlin, 1876).

moment of our illusion we cease to be conscious of the medium which he employs for this purpose, that is, his words. It is this principle which forms the basis of the explanation of the poetical picture.'1

It is this principle, then, of the appeal to the imagination which forms the distinction between the re✓spective methods of Painting and Poetry; but Lessing establishes the distinction not by reference to this principle, but by defining the limits within which the painter and the poet can respectively produce successful representations of the real. And in adopting this point of view-that is to say, by considering primarily the limits of these typical arts as illustrated in the works of painter and poet, and not the psychological principle to which these limits are due—he returns, as I have already said, to the methods of formal criticism.

The Laocoon commences with a discussion of the interesting question of the period at which the famous sculptured group, so named, was produced. Although he neglects no available evidence afforded by antiquarian research, or by the direct testimony of classical authors, he suggests that the question may be decided on artistic grounds. For this purpose he compares Virgil's description with the work of the artist.'

1 xvii.

2 I use the singular for the sake of clearness. Lessing (as, of course, is the fact) attributes the Laocoon to Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus; but his inference that they flourished in the period of the early Cæsars, executing the work in question for some imperial patron, perhaps at the suggestion of Pollio, is not estab