160 SOME ATTEMPTS TO DEFINE POETRY. SOME ATTEMPTS TO DEFINE POETRY. I. Poetry in general seems to have originated from two causes, both natural ones; it is innate in men from childhood (1) to imitate and herein we differ from other animals, in that we are the most imitative and acquire our first knowledge through imitation — and (2) to delight in imitations. Poetry is the province either of a man that is clever or of one who is in an enthusiasm akin to madness. Aristotle; Poetics: iv. 2 and xvii. 3. II. To which [Logic and Rhetoric] poetry would be made subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, as being less subtile and fine, but more simple, sensuous and passionate. I mean not here the prosody of a verse, which they could not but have hit on before among the rudiments of grammar; but that sublime art which in Aristotle's Poetics, in Horace and others, teaches us what the laws are of a true epic poem, what of a dramatic, what of a lyric, what decorum is, which is the grand masterpiece to observe. Milton; On Education. III. A Poem is that species of composition, which is opposed to works of science, by proposing for its immediate object pleasure, not truth; and from all other species - (having this object in common with it) — it is discriminated by proposing to itself such delight from the whole as is compatible with a distinct gratification from each component part. Coleridge; Biographia Literaria, Cap. xiv. IV. All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow o. powerful feeling. Wordsworth; Preface to the Lyrical Ballads. V. Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds. Shelley; Defense of Poetry. - VI. Poetry is the suggestion, by the imagination, of noble grounds for the noble emotions. Ruskin; Modern Painters: Part iv. Cap. i, § 13. VII. It is important, therefore, to hold fast to this: that poetry is at bottom a criticism of life; that the greatness of a poet lies in his powerful and beautiful application of ideas to life, — to the question: How to live. - Matthew Arnold; Essay on Wordsworth. VIII. Poetry is simply the most delightful and perfect form of utterance that human words can reach. Its rhythm and measure, elevated to a regularity, certainty, and force very different from that of the rhythm and measure which can pervade prose, are a part of its perfection. Matthew Arnold; The French Play in London. IX. Poetry, which is a glorified representation of all that is seen, felt, thought, or done, by man, perforce includes Religion and But Philosophy among the materials reflected in its magic mirror. it has no mission to replace them; its function being not to supersede, but to transfigure. — Alfred Austin; On the Position and Prospects of Poetry (Preface to the Human Tragedy). X. By poetry I mean the art of producing pleasure by the just expression of imaginative thought, and feeling in metrical language. Courthope; The Liberal Movement in English Literature, Essay i. |