CHAPTER VI. ON THE PRIMARY AND ULTIMATE END OF POETRY. THIS HIS would be the proper place to inquire into what constitutes poetic taste: but I must not here attempt to embrace so wide a field of inquiry. Whether taste be a feeling or a faculty;-how far it proceeds from any thing fixed in nature, and depends on association, and the constitution of the human mind ; or is variable, and connected with custom or fashion ;what are its peculiar laws, and effects, and habitudes;— and whether, like morals, it is in any measure estimated, or regulated, on principles of utility;-to what extent taste in poetry is analogous to taste in the other arts, and may be illustrated by them, or resolved into any thing like philosophical principles, these and other considerations might be made so many distinct questions, and assigned a distinct place. After all, on considering both sides of each question, there might be enough of clearness, with enough of obscurity, to excite much discussion,-to require much discrimination,-and to admit, perhaps, of a degree of scepticism; and all this would lead to more amplification than could properly be comprehended in a single essay. Indeed, some observations connected with the princi ples of taste have been already made, and others will be introduced in the course of the argument. Besides, the topic on which I am now entering properly forms one part of that great subject, and an important one; and has this further advantage, that whatever theory of taste should be adopted, this would belong to it; none that did not provide for it would be complete or satisfactory. To please and elevate, then, is the immediate design of poetry. This is its master wheel, and it becomes genius so to ply it, as to produce the enchanting effect. The contemplation of ideal beauty,-the perception of material forms, the secret passions of the human heart,-the manners and characters of men,-the striking and great facts in history,-all the associations from the productions of nature and art,- these are but so many powers to raise the machine to its proper height, and to set all the wheels in motion. Hence its selections, too, amidst a world of materials; the boldness of its conceptions, the spirit of its metaphors, the splendour of its figures, and the variety of its melodies. Nor is this all. Man is a being of the most complex powers, the most uncontrollable curiosity, the most eager and transcendent expectations: his hopes are ever new, and his desires are never to be satisfied. Poetry works on this grand passion; she calls in fiction to her assistance, and, surrounding herself as with a magic circle, becomes the prisoner of her own enchantments. Hence the invention of fable, and the fondness of superstition, and all the wildnesses and visions of romance. On the same principle it is, that poetry so willingly associates with religion, and that religion is so apt to be allured with the charm of poetry. Religion, possessing some of the most pleasing, consolatory, and elevating principles that can influence the human heart, has necessarily those qualities that have an admirable effect in poetry: and, on the other hand, poetry is very readily taken into the service of religion, as being that key which more easily unlocks the breast, and facilitates the entrance of the most rapturous, sublime, and mysterious doctrines. Thine, too, these golden keys, immortal boy! This can unlock the gates of joy, Of horror that, and thrilling fears, Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears. Gray. If poetry with its pleasing properties aims also to be useful, then it reaches the summit of its art: Omne tulit punctum, qui m'scuit utile dulci, Lectorem delectando, pariterque monendo. But why is it that people thus aim to be useful through the medium of poetry? Because it is universally interesting; in its nature bent, by its profession bound, to please. Even when persons of the most serious dispositions deck and embellish their thoughts in poetry, they do it for the same purpose as the more sportive and gay. In putting their thoughts into an agreeable dress, they aim to allure, and so to become more generally and more permanently useful. In this respect poetry is like the sun, which, while it can cheer and warm, penetrates and impregnates with life all the regions of nature; or, more still, it is like the atmosphere through which the sun's beams are refracted, and through which they are conveyed shorn of their severity, and fall with their softest influence full of light and life upon the earth. That the immediate design of poetry is to give pleasure, is quite accordant to the doctrines of the ancient critics; of those, I mean, who have laid down principles of philosophical criticism*, which is so called to distinguish it from the historical or explanatory, no less than from the corrective plans; of these the two latter become of great importance, wherever the language or literature of a country is imperfectly known, or where a long night of ignorance has been succeeded by the dawn of knowledge and truth. Such was the case of the dark ages, and the general state of Europe, as followed by the revival of literature in the fifteenth century. Here acute parts, a correct and polished taste, much knowledge, and an acquaintance wih ancient records and manuscripts, become necessary, in order to remove the ruins or the corruptions of more barbarous times. To philosophical criticism we look for the general rules and principles of good writing, and the explanation of those rules and principles in reference to the more established laws of nature. Critics of the latter sort give the true criteria of taste, and explain the nature and end of poetry, in reference to laws by which a being constituted like man is universally susceptible of delight. In this division of criticism into philosophical, historical, and corrective, I follow Mr. Harris. See his Philological Inquiries, part i. ch, i. ii. iii, iv. Hence Aristotle, after having laid down that all the different species of poetry are imitations, and after defining man to be an animal very fond of imitation, deriving from it his earliest instructions and most common enjoyments, founds on those principles his whole Theory of Poetry. The celebrated work of his disciple Theophrastus* is lost, but fragments of it remain, and from them it appears that Theophrastus maintained the same principles as Aristotle. Similar to these is the doctrine of Dionysius of Halicarnassus +. For though his principles of com * The work alluded to is IIg Egunvuas, on which Ammonius has written a Commentary. He makes the following extract from it, p. 53., and it is here quoted for the same reasons as it is quoted by Mr. Harris in his Hermes, " as well for the excellence of the matter, as because it is not, I believe, elsewhere extant.” Hermes, or a Philosophical Inquiry concerning Language and Universal Grammar, book i. p. 4. Διττης γαρ έσης το λογ8 σχέσεως (καθα διώρισεν ο φιλόσοφος Θεο φρασος,) της τε προς τις ακροωμένες οις και σημαινει τις και της προς τα πράγματα, υπερ ων ο λέγων πεισαι προτίθηται τες ακροωμένος. Περι μεν εν την σχέσιν την αυτό προς τες ακροατές καταγινονται ποιητικη και ρητορικής διοτι εργον αυταίς εκλεγεσθαι τα σεμνότερα των ονομάτων, αλλά μη τα κοινα και δεδημευμένα, και ταυτα εναρμονίως συμπλέκειν αλληλοις, ως δια τότων και των τέτοις επομένων, οιον σαφηνείας, γλυκύτητος, και των άλλων ιδεων, ετι τε μακρολογίας, και βραχυλογίας κατα καιρον παρα πως παραλαμβανομένων, οίσαι σε τον ακροατην, και εκπλήξαι, και προς την πειθω χειρωθεντα έχειν της δε προς τα πραγματα το λογέ σχέσεως ο φιλόσοφος προηγεμένως επιμελήσεται το τε ψεύδος διαλεγχων, και το αλευθες αποδεικνος. Theophrastus was the author of several works, of which a list may be seen in Diogenes Laertius. † Dionysius Περι Συνθέσεως. |