The Poet's Poet : essays on the character and mission of the poet as interpreted in English verse of the last one hundred and fifty years

by Elizabeth Atkins

PREFACE

I. THE EGO-CENTRIC CIRCLE

Apparent futility of verse dealing with the poet.—Its justification.—The poet's personality the hidden theme of all verse,—The poet's egotism.—Belief that his inspirations are divine.—Belief in the immortality of his poems.—The romantic view that the creator is greater than his creations.—The poet's contempt for uninspired men.—Reaction of the public to the poet's contempt.—Its retaliation in jeers.—The poet's wounded vanity.—His morbid self-consciousness.—His self-imposed solitude.—Enhancement of his egotism by solitude.

II. THE MORTAL COIL

View that genius results from a happy combination of physical conditions.—The poet's reluctance to embrace such a theory.—His heredity.—Rank.—Patricians vs. children of the soil.—His body.—Poetic beauty.—Features expressing alert and delicate senses.—Contrary conception of poet rapt away from sense.— Blindness.—Physique.—Health.—Hypersensibility of invalids.— Escape from fleshly bondage afforded by perfect health.—The poet's sex.—Limitations of the woman poet.—Her claims.—The poet's habitat.—Vogue of romantic solitude.—Savage environment.—Its advantages.—Growing popularity of the city poet.—The wanderer.— The financial status of the poet.—Poverty as sharpener of sensibility.—The poet's age.—Vogue of the young poet.—Purity of youthful emotions.—Early death.—Claims of the aged poet.— Contemplation after active life.

III. THE POET AS LOVER

The classic conception.—Love as a disturbing factor in composition.—The romantic conception.—Love the source of inspiration.—Fusion of intense passion with repose essential to poetry.—Poetic love and Platonic love synonymous.—Sensual love not suggestive.—The poet's ascent to ideal love.—Analogy with ascent described in Plato's Symposium.—Discontent with ephemeralness of passion.—Poetry a means of rendering passion eternal.—Insatiability of the poet's affections.—Idealization of his mistress.—Ideal beauty the real object of his love.—Fickleness.—Its justification.—Advantage in seeing varied aspects of ideal beauty.—Remoteness as an essential factor in ideal love.—Sluggishness resulting from complete content.—Aspiration the poetic attitude.—Abstract love-poetry, consciously addressed to ideal beauty.—Its merits and defects.—The sensuous as well as the ideal indispensable to poetry.

IV. THE SPARK FROM HEAVEN

Reticence of great geniuses regarding inspiration.—Mystery of inspiration.—The poet's curiosity as to his inspired moments.—Wild desire preceding inspiration.—Sudden arrest rather than satisfaction of desire.—Ecstasy.—Analogy with intoxication.—Attitude of reverence during inspired moments.—Feeling that an outside power is responsible.—Attempts to give a rational account of inspiration.—The theory of the sub-conscious.—Prenatal memory.—Reincarnation of dead geniuses.—Varied conceptions of the spirit inspiring song as the Muse, nature, the spirit of the universe.—The poet's absolute surrender to this power.—Madness.—Contempt for the limitations of the human reason.—Belief in infallibility of inspirations.—Limitations of inspiration.—Transience.—Expression not given from without.—The work of the poet's conscious intelligence.—Need for making the vision intelligible.—Quarrel over the value of hard work.

V. THE POET'S MORALITY

The poet's reliance upon feeling as sole moral guide.—Attack upon his morals made by philosophers, puritans, philistines.—Professedly wicked poets.—Their rarity.—Revolt against mass-feeling.—The aesthetic appeal of sin.—The morally frail poet, handicapped by susceptibility to passion.—The typical poet's repudiation of immorality.—Feeling that virtue and poetry are inseparable.—Minor explanations for this conviction.—The "poet a poem" theory.—Identity of the good and the beautiful.—The poet's quarrel with the philistine.—The poet's horror of restraint.—The philistine's unfairness to the poet's innocence.—The poet's quarrel with the puritan.—The poet's horror of asceticism.—The poet's quarrel with the philosopher.—Feeling upon which the poet relies allied to Platonic intuition.

VI. THE POET'S RELIGION

Threefold attack upon the poet's religion.—His lack of theological temper.—His lack of reverence.—His lack of conformance.—The poet's defense.—Materialistic belief deadening to poetry.—His idealistic temper.—His pantheistic leanings.—His reverence for beauty.—His repudiation of a religion that humbles him.—Compatibility of pride and pantheism.—The poet's nonconformance.—His occasional perverseness.— Inspiring nature of doubt.—The poet's thirst for God.—The occasional orthodox poet.

VII. THE PRAGMATIC ISSUE

The poet's alleged uselessness,—His effeminacy.—His virility.—The poet warrior.—Incompatibility of poets and materialists.—Plato'scharge that poetry is inferior to actual life.—The concurrence of certain soldier poets in Plato's charge.—Poetry as an amusement only.—The value of faithful imitation.—The realists.—Poetry as a solace.—Poetry a reflection of the ideal essence of things.—Love of beauty the poet's guide in disentangling ideality from the accidents of things.—Beauty as truth.—The poet as seer.—The quarrel with the philosopher.—The truth of beauty vs. cold facts.—Proof of validity of the poet's truth.—His skill as prophet.—The poet's mission as reformer.—His impatience with practical reforms.—Belief in essential goodness of men, since beauty is the essence of things.—Reform a matter of allowing all things to express their essence.—Enthusiasm for liberty.—Denial of the war-poet's charge.—Poets the authors of liberty.—Poets the real rulers of mankind.—The world's appreciation of their importance.—Their immortality.

VIII. A SOBER AFTERTHOUGHT

Denial that the views of poets on the poet are heterogeneous.—Poets' identity of purpose in discussing poets.—Apparent contradictions in views.-Apparent inconsistency in the thought of each poet.—The two-fold interests of poets.—The poet as harmonizer of sensual and spiritual.— Balance of sense and spirit in the poetic temperament.—Injustice to one element or the other in most literary criticism.—Limitations of the poet's prose criticism.—Superiority of his critical expressions in verse.—The poet's importance.—Poetry as a proof of the idealistic philosophy.