On examination of the literary products of the world, we find that this philosophy is sustained. For the intellect, we have treatises (as on the sciences, mathematics, etc.), histories, biographies, novels, romances, essays, etc., etc. The primary object of these is to furnish knowledge; to satisfy the intellect. They are in the highest sense didactic, although, of course, just as the literature for each faculty does, they incidentally furnish some food for the other powers.
This intellective literature is the kind that is most largely cultivated at the present. In fact, it is cultivated almost to the exclusion of the other two.
For the will, we have sermons, lectures, orations, speeches, addresses, harangues, etc.; a class of literature that is small when compared with the preceding. These two departments of the mind monopolize the whole domain of prose.
That other department of literature, in which feeling is the dominating and pervading principle, must, by its very nature, act upon that same power of the mind that produced it; namely, the sensibilities.
Poetry is the literature of feeling, and consequently finds its province here. It is the mission of poetry, therefore, as suggested by the latter part of the definition, to minister to the feelings, to interpret the Divine in the human heart. It is this that all writers on the subject and that all poets mean when they say it is the mission of poetry to give pleasure.
But what shall be the limit of that word “pleasure”? Herein lies the chief cause of great differences of opinion, especially with those who hold that there is such a thing as didactic poetry. Or rather, what is the true meaning of “pleasure” as thus used? The very essence of pleasure, as opposed to pain, is that it gratify some emotion and set it at perfect rest.
What emotions when gratified are at perfect rest? The answer at once forces itself upon us, only the better emotions. That poetry does minister to and satisfy the higher and nobler feelings, and that what does not do this is not poetry, even the meanest heart that it touches fully knows.
The attempted gratification of hate, or of any desire whatsoever to give pain to any one, as illustrated in Pope’s Dunciad, Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, Butler’s Hudibras, Byron’s English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, and all such, never sets the mind of the writer at rest, nor gives enjoyment to the reader. Indeed, who now ever reads these, the world’s greatest illustrations of witty bitterness and venom, couched in verse and unjustifiably designated as poetry?
These are accounted “great works.” But who, let me ask, ever reads any of these “great works,” or ever heard of them, except in some text on Literature? Or, having read them, who loves them, or their authors for having written them? None. No, not one.
On the other hand, who has not read some of the noblest works of Shakespeare, Burns, Milton, Tennyson, Longfellow, Bryant, Lowell, Whittier, Holmes? And who does not feel nobler for having read, and who does not hold these authors shrined in his heart of hearts for having written? Is not this proof enough that it is the mission of poetry to minister only to the higher emotions?