A Study of Poetry

by Bliss Perry

Is it possible to formulate the laws of lyric expression? "I do not mean by expression," said Gray, "the mere choice of words, but the whole dress, fashion, and arrangement of a thought." [Footnote: Gray's Letters, vol. 2, p. 333. (Gosse ed.)] Taking expression, in this larger sense, as the final element in that threefold process by which poetry comes into being, and which has been discussed in an earlier chapter, we may assert that there are certain general laws of lyric form. One of them is the law of brevity. It is impossible to keep the lyric pitch for very long. The rapture turns to pain. "I need scarcely observe," writes Poe in his essay on "The Poetic Principle," "that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a psychical necessity, transient. That degree of excitement which would entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a composition of any great length. After the lapse of half an hour, at the very utmost, it flags—fails—a revulsion ensues—and then the poem is, in effect, and in fact, no longer such."

In another passage, from the essay on "Hawthorne's 'Twice-Told Tales,'" Poe emphasizes this law of brevity in connection with the law of unity of impression. It is one of the classic passages of American literary criticism:

"Were we bidden to say how the highest genius could be most advantageously employed for the best display of its own powers, we should answer, without hesitation—in the composition of a rhymed poem, not to exceed in length what might be perused in an hour. Within this limit alone can the highest order of true poetry exist. We need only here say, upon this topic, that, in almost all classes of composition, the unity of effect or impression is a point of the greatest importance. It is clear, moreover, that this unity cannot be thoroughly preserved in productions whose perusal cannot be completed at one sitting. We may continue the reading of a prose composition, from the very nature of prose itself, much longer than we can preserve, to any good purpose, in the perusal of a poem. This latter, if truly fulfilling the demands of the poetic sentiment, induces an exaltation of the soul which cannot be long sustained. All high excitements are necessarily transient. Thus a long poem is a paradox. And, without unity of impression, the deepest effects cannot be brought about. Epics were the offspring of an imperfect sense of Art, and their reign is no more. A poem too brief may produce a vivid, but never an intense or enduring impression. Without a certain continuity of effort—without a certain duration or repetition of purpose—the soul is never deeply moved."

Gray's analysis of the law of lyric brevity is picturesque, and too little known:

"The true lyric style, with all its flights of fancy, ornaments, and
heightening of expression, and harmony of sound, is in its nature
superior to every other style; which is just the cause why it could not
be borne in a work of great length, no more than the eye could bear to
see all this scene that we constantly gaze upon,—the verdure of the
fields and woods, the azure of the sea-skies, turned into one dazzling
expanse of gems. The epic, therefore, assumed a style of graver colors,
and only stuck on a diamond (borrowed from her sister) here and there,
where it best became her…. To pass on a sudden from the lyric glare to
the epic solemnity (if I may be allowed to talk nonsense)…."
[Footnote: Gray's Letters, vol. 2, p. 304. (Gosse ed.)]

It is evident that the laws of brevity and unity cannot be disassociated. The unity of emotion which characterizes the successful lyric corresponds to the unity of action in the drama, and to the unity of effect in the short story. It is this fact which Palgrave stressed in his emphasis upon "some single thought, feeling, or situation." The sonnets, for instance, that most nearly approach perfection are those dominated by one thought. This thought may be turned over, indeed, as the octave passes into the sextet, and may be viewed from another angle, or applied in an unexpected way. And yet the content of a sonnet, considered as a whole, must be as integral as the sonnet's form. So must it be with any song. The various devices of rhyme, stanza and refrain help to bind into oneness of form a single emotional reflection of some situation or desire.

Watts-Dunton points out that there is also a law of simplicity of grammatical structure which the lyric disregards at its peril. Browning and Shelley, to mention no lesser names, often marred the effectiveness of their lyrics by a lack of perspicuity. If the lyric cry is not easily intelligible, the sympathy of the listener is not won. Riddle-poems have been loved by the English ever since Anglo-Saxon times, but the intellectual satisfaction of solving a puzzle may be purchased at the cost of true poetic pleasure. Let us quote Gray once more, for he had an unerring sense of the difficulty of moulding ideas into "pure, perspicuous and musical form."

"Extreme conciseness of expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical,
is one of the grand beauties of lyric poetry. This I have always aimed
at, and never could attain; the necessity of rhyming is one great
obstacle to it: another and perhaps a stronger is, that way you have
chosen of casting down your first ideas carelessly and at large, and
then clipping them here and there, and forming them at leisure; this
method, after all possible pains, will leave behind it in some places a
laxity, a diffuseness; the frame of a thought (otherwise well invented,
well turned, and well placed) is often weakened by it. Do I talk
nonsense, or do you understand me?"
[Footnote: Gray's Letters, vol. 2, p. 352. (Gosse ed.)]

Poe, whose theory of poetry comprehends only the lyric, and indeed chiefly that restricted type of lyric verse in which he himself was a master, insisted that there was a further lyric law,—the law of vagueness or indefiniteness. "I know," he writes in his "Marginalia," "that indefiniteness is an element of the true music—I mean of the true musical expression. Give to it any undue decision—imbue it with any very determinate tone—and you deprive it, at once, of its ethereal, its ideal, its intrinsic and essential character. You dispel its luxury of dream. You dissolve the atmosphere of the mystic upon which it floats. You exhaust it of its breath of faëry. It now becomes a tangible and easily appreciable idea—a thing of the earth, earthy."

This reads like a defence of Poe's own private practice, and yet many poets and critics are inclined to side with him. Edmond Holmes, for instance, goes quite as far as Poe. "The truth is that poetry, which is the expression of large, obscure and indefinable feelings, finds its appropriate material in vague words—words of large import and with many meanings and shades of meaning. Here we have an almost unfailing test for determining the poetic fitness of words, a test which every true poet unconsciously, but withal unerringly, applies. Precision, whether in the direction of what is commonplace or of what is technical, is always unpoetical." [Footnote: What is Poetry, p. 77. London and New York, 1900.] This doctrine, it will be observed, is in direct opposition to the Imagist theory of "hardness and economy of speech; the exact word," and it also would rule out the highly technical vocabulary of camp and trail, steamship and jungle, with which Mr. Kipling has greatly delighted our generation. No one who admires the splendid vitality of "McAndrew's Hymn" is really troubled by the slang and lingo of the engine-room.