Poetry

The idea of poetry gathers more than verse. It covers the whole family of imaginative making: the bard’s lay at the feast, the hymn and the psalm, epic and tragedy, the comic stage, the romance and the novel, and also the long quarrel about what all this is worth. It is a great idea for these books because nearly every one of them stands somewhere in relation to it. Some are poems. Some are criticism of poems. Some, like the confessions of Augustine or the autobiography of Mill, record what poetry did to a soul. And the question first put to the poets in antiquity has never been settled. Does the poet tell the truth, make men better, or deserve the honour he claims?

The first question is what poetry is. The oldest answer in these pages is that the poet is a maker. Socrates, versifying Aesop in prison, remarks that a poet must make stories and not merely words¹. Sidney builds his whole defence on the etymology. Other arts are bound to nature, but the poet doth grow in effect another nature, delivering a golden world where nature’s is brazen². Poesy is therefore an art of imitation, “a speaking picture,” whose ends are to teach and delight³. Hamlet’s “mirror up to nature” states the same doctrine for the stage⁴.

The moderns qualify the theory of imitation without abandoning it. Burke denies that poetry is strictly imitative at all. Only dramatic poetry imitates the passions, he says; descriptive poetry works by substituting words for things⁵. Wordsworth shifts the centre from the object to the poet’s mind. Good poetry is “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” taking its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity⁶. Yet he insists that it is the most philosophic of writings, aiming at general truth carried alive into the heart by passion⁷. Shelley goes further. Poetry is “the expression of the imagination,” connate with man’s origin⁸, and “the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds”⁹.

Against both imitation and expression, Poe defines the poetry of words as the Rhythmical Creation of Beauty, with Taste as sole arbiter. Passion, duty and truth may enter a poem only in subordination to beauty^10,11. Pascal had already doubted the whole enterprise. Since we do not know what the natural model of poetry is, he says, we coin a fantastic jargon called “poetical beauty”¹².

Is verse essential? Here ancients and moderns agree more than one might expect. Sidney holds verse to be “but an ornament.” What makes a poet is feigning notable images of virtue and vice¹³. Montaigne likewise says good invention makes a poet, not rhyme¹⁴. Wordsworth denies any essential difference between the language of prose and that of metrical composition¹⁵. Shelley calls metre traditional rather than necessary and counts Herodotus and Plutarch among the poets^16,17. Emerson’s formula is that “it is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem”¹⁸, and Whitman places poetic quality in the soul rather than in rhyme¹⁹. The defenders of form answer with practical reasons. Pope chose verse because precepts so written strike harder and are better remembered²⁰. Hugo calls verse the “optical form of thought,” a bronze mould that keeps mediocrity out²¹.

Poetry is also very old and found everywhere. Sidney notes that it exists among all peoples, from Irish bards to Indians, that it comes before learning, and that the Romans called their poets *vates*, prophets²². Homer, Hesiod, Dante and Chaucer were the first light-givers to their nations²³. The texts bear him out. Tacitus records the Germans’ battle songs, by whose sound they divined the outcome²⁴. Beowulf shows a thane stored with old sagas shaping a new lay in well-knit rime²⁵. Herodotus credits Homer and Hesiod with making the Greek theogony itself²⁶.

Hugo turns this antiquity into a philosophy of history. Lyric precedes epic, and epic precedes drama, in every literature²⁷. Drama is the complete poetry of the modern age, containing the other two²⁸. The nineteenth century adds the claim of nations. Renan argues that Europe owes half its poetic subjects to the Celtic imagination²⁹. Burns calls for a native Scottish dramatist³⁰. Emerson seeks the poet who will sing America’s own materials³¹, and Whitman declares the United States “essentially the greatest poem”³².

Where does the poet’s power come from? Homer’s answer is the Muse, who teaches singers the paths of song³³. Even Phemius, who calls himself self-taught, says the god put songs in his heart³⁴. Plato turns this tradition against the poets. They write not by wisdom but by inspiration, like diviners who cannot explain their own fine sayings³⁵. Dante’s repeated invocations confess that his own art depends on more than art³⁶. Shelley restores the Homeric view in modern dress: poetry arises from inspiration, not will, and composition begins only as inspiration fades³⁷. Emerson asks that the poet speak with “the intellect inebriated” by the divine aura in things³⁸. Carlyle laments that modern literature has grown self-conscious and that its singers know they sing melodiously³⁹.

The question of the born and the made runs alongside. Sidney concedes *poeta nascitur*, but insists that the gift needs art, imitation and exercise⁴⁰. Jonson answers that “a good poet’s made as well as born”⁴¹. Descartes treats poesy as a gift of nature rather than study⁴². Swift mocks the notion that learning is unnecessary⁴³. Burns credits “nature’s fire,” not schooling⁴⁴, while Carlyle insists that Shakespeare, Dante and Milton achieved their work only through hard labour of the soul⁴⁵.

From inspiration follows the grandest claim, that the poet is seer and lawgiver. Shelley makes poets the authors of language, laws and religion⁴⁶ and “the unacknowledged legislators of the world”⁴⁷. Emerson’s poet is the Sayer and Namer, to whom heroes and sages serve as models⁴⁸. Wordsworth calls the poet “the rock of defence for human nature”⁴⁹. Whitman’s greatest poet is a seer who finds the sacred in common people⁵⁰. The poet’s actual fortunes tell another story. Franklin’s father warned him that verse-makers are generally beggars⁵¹, and Locke advises that no father should want a poet son⁵². Burns pictures the poet savaged by critics and booksellers and sinking into neglected age⁵³. Wordsworth remembers that poets “begin in gladness” but end in “despondency and madness,” as Chatterton did⁵⁴.

The great quarrel is over poetry’s truth and morals. Augustine reproaches himself for weeping over Dido while dry-eyed over his own spiritual death⁵⁵. He charges Homer with giving vice to the gods so that crimes seem imitable⁵⁶. The Koran says that poets are followed by those who go astray, and that they say what they do not do⁵⁷. Bacon reports a father who called poesy “devils’ wine,” because it fills the imagination with the shadow of a lie⁵⁸. Milton notes that Plato would license every poem before a private man could hear it⁵⁹.

Sidney’s replies became classic. The poet “nothing affirmeth, and therefore never lieth”⁶⁰. The abuse lies in man’s wit, not in poetry⁶¹. Plato banished the abuse of poetry, not poetry itself⁶². Dryden concedes more cheerfully that a poet may lie for his country’s honour, like an ambassador⁶³. Shelley answers the moral charge by changing its terms. Poetry improves men by enlarging the imagination, not by teaching doctrines⁶⁴.

The charge of uselessness has its own history. Marcus Aurelius was thankful to have abstained from poetry⁶⁵, and Pascal thinks calling a man a poet is false praise⁶⁶. Mill recalls that the Benthamites were thought enemies of poetry. His own crisis was relieved by Wordsworth, whose poems became a “culture of the feelings” for him^67,68. Shelley claims that poets produce true utility⁶⁹. Arnold prophesies that poetry’s future is immense, that it will interpret life, console and sustain⁷⁰.

On moral instruction, the oldest voices are the most confident. Confucius holds that poetry teaches insight, fellow-feeling and duty to father and king⁷¹. In Aristophanes, Aeschylus argues that poets are teachers of men and must speak honest things^72,73. Sidney’s poet surpasses both rivals. He joins the philosopher’s precept to the historian’s example⁷⁴, rewards virtue as history does not⁷⁵, and above all moves men to virtue⁷⁶. Spenser frames the Faerie Queene on this doctrine⁷⁷. The reaction comes in the nineteenth century. Poe denounces “the heresy of the Didactic”⁷⁸. Shelley warns that poets who affect a moral aim lose power⁷⁹, and Bagehot holds a positive moral edict unfit for art⁸⁰. On religion the texts mostly agree on kinship. Milton ranks the Hebrew psalms above Greek poetry⁸¹. Herbert resolves to consecrate his verse to God rather than Venus⁸². Wordsworth finds that poetry and religion alike need sensuous incarnation⁸³.

How poetry moves the mind is chiefly a modern inquiry. Augustine already marvels that feigned misery pleased him as theatre⁸⁴. Johnson explains the delight of tragedy by our consciousness of fiction⁸⁵. Burke holds that real sympathy outweighs every imitative art; a theatre empties for an execution⁸⁶. Yet Burke also argues, against painting, that poetry’s very obscurity gives it power, as Milton’s Death shows^87,88. Music, its old companion, is praised for raising and quelling the passions⁸⁹.

Style followed the same lines of dispute. Dryden demands ornament and magnificent diction⁹⁰. Wordsworth chooses incidents from common life in the real language of men⁹¹. He traces poetic diction to later poets who imitated the figures of the first poets without their feeling⁹². Milton calls rhyme the invention of a barbarous age and defends blank verse⁹³. Dryden concedes that rhyme adds sweetness but takes away sense⁹⁴. Hobbes ranks fancy above judgment in poems, since they please by extravagance⁹⁵. Wordsworth sets imagination over fancy⁹⁶.

The kinds bring their own debates. Dryden holds the heroic poem the greatest work of human nature⁹⁷. He defends Virgil’s invention by recalling that the poet is a maker who shapes common materials⁹⁸. Milton claims a higher heroic argument, in patience and martyrdom, than wars and tournaments⁹⁹. Bagehot finds that Milton’s artistic instinct made Satan the hero despite his intent¹⁰⁰. Poe denies that a long poem can exist at all¹⁰¹.

In drama the unities divide the ages. Sidney mocks English plays that leap absurdly across time and place¹⁰². Johnson replies that spectators always know the stage is a stage¹⁰³. Hugo dismisses the unities of time and place as pedantic rules that clip the wings of great poets¹⁰⁴. Sidney scorns “mongrel tragi-comedy”¹⁰⁵, and Milton warns against mixing comic matter with tragic gravity¹⁰⁶. Johnson defends the mingled drama as true to nature¹⁰⁷, and Hugo makes the grotesque a supreme beauty of the stage¹⁰⁸. Shakespeare stands at the centre. For Johnson he is the poet of nature¹⁰⁹; for Voltaire he is a genius without taste¹¹⁰. For Lamb he is too great for acting, so that Lear cannot be played¹¹¹. Pascal condemns the theatre altogether for exciting the passions it represents¹¹².

Prose fiction inherits the poets’ quarrel. Don Quixote’s household blames romances for turning his wits¹¹³. Cervantes’s canon demands that fables imitate truth and be well proportioned¹¹⁴. He grants, though, that the romance’s freedom lets an author be epic, lyric and tragic poet at once, and that epics may be written in prose¹¹⁵. Fielding names the novel “a comic epic poem in prose”¹¹⁶.

The standard of judgment is the last open question. Hume and Johnson trust the test of time^117,118. Wordsworth answers that every original poet must create the taste by which he is enjoyed¹¹⁹. Arnold offers touchstone lines from Homer and Dante¹²⁰, and denies Chaucer classic rank for want of “high seriousness”¹²¹. Sainte-Beuve ranks the classics but urges latecomers to write in their own voice¹²².

Throughout, the poets speak for themselves. Shakespeare promises lines that will outlive marble¹²³. Burns says he rhymes for fun, not for fame¹²⁴. Shelley mourns Keats and curses the critic who wounded him¹²⁵. Morris calls himself “the idle singer of an empty day”¹²⁶. Between legislator and idle singer the question of what poetry is for remains as open as when Plato first asked it.