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he himself joyfully recognizes this accent in the very poets whom Plato so grievously misunderstood. For of the Greek poets he writes:

'No other poets have lived so much by the imaginative reason; no other poets have made their work so well balanced; no other poets, who have so well satisfied the thinking-power, have so well satisfied the religious sense.''

seen.

It is in this increased power of appreciation that the development of criticism is most conspicuously We may set on one side Plato's examination of Greek poetry, as nullified by the severity of the ideal tests which he adopted; but how cold and restrained does Aristotle's approval of Sophocles and Homer appear by the side of Addison's enthusiastic recognition of the beauties of Milton. And the difference between the Greek and the modern estimate of poetry becomes still more apparent, when we compare the language of Plato and Aristotle with the familiar, almost caressing, accents which contemporary English authors have taught us to associate with any criticism of poetry. There is Ruskin's assertion of the essential morality which underlies the artist nature, 'All right human song is the finished expression by art, of the joy or grief of noble persons, for right causes'; Arnold's sad promise of the future, 'In poetry our race will find an ever surer and surer stay'; Emerson's quick X recognition of its perpetual vitality, 'When the poet

1 Ib. p. 222.

sings, the world listens with the assurance that now a secret of God is to be spoken.'

And why this change from formal analysis to reverent appreciation? Is it not because the common thought of man has drawn nearer to that finer and more spiritual perception of things which has characterized poetry from the very first?

CHAPTER IX

THE INTERPRETATIVE POWER OF POETRY-IT INTERPRETS HUMAN ACTION, NATURE, STATES OF MIND, INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE

IMITATION, Representation, Interpretation: in these three words we have the history of our conception of poetry. The aims which these words embody are found in all forms of poetry, but they are manifested in varying degrees; and the relative degrees of prominence which they severally attain define broadly certain stages in the growth of poetry, or creative literature, as a whole. To-day the last aim is dominant, and the 'grand power of poetry' is felt to be its 'interpretative power.'

After all it is doubtful whether we can obtain a better or clearer perception of the real nature of this interpretative power than we do from Addison.

Addison makes the power of poetry and the Fine Arts consist in the appeal to the imagination; makes poetry avail itself of this appeal more than any other art and he points out the twofold use of the faculty of the imagination which is involved in the process. There is not only the working of the imaginative reason in the poet's mind, but there is

the working of the imaginative reason in the mind of the hearer or reader. In this latter operation our own mind co-operates with the mind of the poet, and it is this co-operation which makes poetry give us the intimate sense of the reality of things of which Matthew Arnold speaks.

Accepting this power of interpretation as the dominant characteristic of modern poetry, I shall endeavour to indicate the methods in which it is respectively manifested when the poet interprets action, when he interprets nature, and when he interprets states of mind, individual or collective.

The forms of poetry-poetry including all creative literature whether in prose or verse-in which the interpretation of action is most successfully achieved are beyond question the drama-or more correctly dramatic compositions-and prose-fiction. Both of these have become separate branches of the art of poetry, in the sense that they can be properly styled arts and are so styled by competent authorities— the Drama and Fiction. The reason for this separation is not far to seek. When once thought has become dominant in poetry the representation of human action has tended to become of less importance in poetry strictly so-called. As an element of poetry it has ceased to hold the pre-eminent position which it holds, for example, in Aristotle's account, and in Lessing's, and in Arnold's original account based upon his study of the Greek models.

On the other hand, the materials suitable for

reproduction in the poetic presentation of action have largely increased in volume. Consequently the drama, separated from poetry, has become a composite art, a special art with special powers in which the new appliances, placed by science at the disposal of the modern stage-manager, can be suitably and fully employed. And so the old identity which existed in the Hellenic era, and which the French classical poets of the seventeenth century sought to recover, has been finally lost.

Similarly, Fiction as a separate art has many advantages, in respect of the delineation of human action, which poetry does not possess. In the use of the common medium, language, the novelist is unfettered by the restraints of metre; and in respect of structure, he is almost absolutely free. Consequently certain aspects of human action, and of human thought, which are unsuitable for poetry, can be treated without artistic impropriety in fiction; while there are others which can be treated more fully and more effectively.

As each of these specialized forms of poetry will be considered in a separate chapter, I shall confine myself for the present to an account of that method which is common to all forms of poetry in which the interpretation of action is a prominent element. Among them, of course, is included Epic and the lesser narrative poetry. Such poetry is not intended for stage representation, and it admits, therefore, of description and reflection; it possesses the artistic

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