(ββ) The art of poetry, however, from the converse point of view, should strive to assert no absolute and isolated position; it ought, as a part of life itself, to enter freely into life. Already in the first part of this inquiry we found how many points of contact there were between art and ordinary existence, whose content and phenomenal appearance are repeated in its content and form. In poetry this vital relation to actual existence and its specific circumstances, private or public events, appears with most obvious variety in the so-called poems d'occasion. With a broader interpretation of the expression we may define as such most poetic compositions; in the more narrow and correct meaning of the term, however, we should restrict it to those productions whose origin is traceable to a single event of present time, which it is the express aim of the poet to emphasize, adorn, and celebrate. In this weaving together of the actual threads of life, however, poetry tends once more to decline to a position of dependence; it is therefore by no means unusual for writers on aesthetic to attach a purely subordinate value to poetry of this class in general, although as to a part of it, notably in the case of the lyric, we find here the most famous compositions.
(γγ) The question consequently arises by virtue of what poetry may be enabled to still maintain its independence even in the conflict above described. The answer is simple. It must regard and assert the occasional facts it borrows from life not as its essential aim, while it is itself merely accepted as a means. Rather the reverse process is the right one, which absorbs the material of such reality within its own substance, and informs and elaborates the same conformably to the claims of an unfettered imagination. In other words poetry has nothing to do with the accidental or incidental fact as such. This material supplies the external opportunity, that is the stimulus which prompts the poet to draw upon his own profounder penetration and more transparent mode of presentment: by this means he creates from his own resources, as something newborn, that which, without such mediation, would have, in the plain and blunt particular case, wholly failed to impress us with the free spirit he communicates.
(γ) In conclusion then we may affirm that every genuine work of poetry is an essentially infinite organism.[16] In content rich, it unfolds this content under a mode of appearance which is adapted to it. It is permeated with a principle of unity, but not one referable to the form of utility, which subordinates the particular to itself in an abstract relation, but rather one that absorbs the same in the singularity relevant to one identical and entirely vital self-consistency, in which the whole, without any visible intention, is sphered within one rounded and essentially self-enclosed completeness. It is indeed replete with the materia of the visible world, but is not on that account placed, either in relation to its content or determinate existence, under a condition of dependence to any one circle of life. Rather it freely creates out of its own plenitude, striving to clothe the ideal notion of its material in its genuine manifestation as truth, and to bring the world of external fact into reconciled accord with its own most ideal substance.
3. THE CREATIVE IMPULSE OF THE POET[17]
I have already discussed at considerable length, in the first part of this work, the talent and genius, the enthusiasm and originality of the artist. I will consequently merely touch upon one or two points in the present reference to the art of poetry which appear of importance, if we contrast this activity as effective here with that operative in the plastic arts and music.
(a) The architect, sculptor, painter and musician have to deal with an entirely concrete and sensuous material, in and through which each has to elaborate his creations. The limitations of this material condition the specific form that the type of the conception no less than the mode of artistic execution assume. The more fixed and predetermined the general lines of his definition are upon which the artist has to concentrate himself, the more specialized becomes the talent required for the assertion of the same in any one and no other mode of presentment; and we may add in the powers of technical execution which accompany it. The talents adapted to the poetic art, regarding the same from the point of view of an ideal envisagement in a specific materia, is subordinated in a less degree to such conditions; it is consequently more open to universal practice, and in this respect more independent. The need here at least is merely that of a gift for imaginative creation. Its limitation is confined merely to this, namely, that for the reason that this art is expressed in language, it has to guard itself on the one hand from deliberate rivalry with external objects in their sensuous completeness, in the form, that is, where we find the plastic artist apprehends his subject-matter in its external configuration: and, from a further point of view, it is unable to rest in the unspoken ideality, the emotional tones of which constitute the realm of music. In these respects the problem proposed to the poet, if we contrast him with artists in other arts, is at once more facile and more difficult It is more easy, because, although the poet, in the poetical elaboration of speech, must possess a trained talent, he is spared the relatively more manifold task of triumph over technical difficulties necessary in the other arts. It is more difficult because, just in proportion as poetry is less able to complete the objective envisagement, it is compelled to seek some compensation for this loss on the side of sense in the genuine core of Art's own ideality, in the depth of imagination and a really artistic mode of conception.
(b) For this reason the poet is, in the second place, constrained to penetrate into all the wealth of the spiritual content, and to lay bare to the vision of mind what is concealed in its depths. For however much in the other arts, too, the ideal must shine forth through its corporeal manifestation, and does so in life itself shine forth, yet the medium of speech remains that most open to intelligence, and the means most adequate to its revelation. It is the one medium able to grasp and declare everything whatever that flows through or is present in consciousness, whether regarded in its ascent or profundity. In consequence of this the poet finds himself confronted with difficulties which the other arts are not called upon to overcome or satisfy to the like degree. In other words, for the very reason that poetry is actually operative in the world of idea or imagination itself, and is not concerned with fashioning for its images an objective existence independent of such ideality, it is placed in an element or sphere in which the religious, scientific and everyday consciousness are active; it must therefore take care to make no excursion into the domain or mode of conception proper to any of these, or to get mixed up with them. No doubt in the case of every art we find points of contact with other arts. Artistic creation of every kind proceeds from one mind or spirit, which comprehends in itself all spheres of self-conscious life. But with the other arts the distinction of conception in each case is in its mode complete, for the reason that this, in its ideal creation, persists throughout in permanent relation to the execution of its images in a definite sensuous material, and consequently is absolutely distinct, no less from the forms of the religious consciousness, than it is from the thinking of science and the intelligence of ordinary life. Poetry, on the contrary, avails itself, in its manner of objective communication, of the very means adopted in these spheres of mental activity, that is to say, human speech; it finds itself, consequently, otherwise placed than are the plastic arts and music, which occupy a different field of conception and expression.
(c) Thirdly, we have the final demand made upon the poet for the most profound and manifold transfusion of the subject-matter of his creations with the animating soul of life, because it is his art which is capable of absorbing most profoundly the entire fulness of the spiritual content. The plastic artist, in a similar way, must apply himself to a transfusion of ideal expression in the external form of architectonic, plastic and the forms peculiar to painting. The musician must likewise rivet his attention on the inner soul concentrated in emotion and passion and their outpouring in melodic expression. In both cases the artist must be steeped in the most ideal intention and substance of his content. But the sphere of the poet's creative activity extends yet further, for the reason that he has not merely to elaborate an ideal world of soul-life and the self-conscious mind. He has, in addition, to discover for this ideal realm an external mode of envisagement fitted thereto, a mode by virtue of which that ideal totality shines through in more irresistible perfection than is possible in the case of other arts. It is incumbent upon him to know human existence, both as soul-life and objective life, to receive into his inmost being the full breadth of the world and its shows, and to have felt through it there, penetrated, enlarged, deepened and revealed to himself all it implies. Only after that, and in order that he may find it in his power to create, as from his own spiritual experience outwards, a free whole,—ay, even in the case where he restricts his effort to a comparatively narrow and particular range,—he must have liberated himself from all embarrassment with his subject-matter, whether of a technical[18] character or otherwise, able in short to survey the ideal and external aspects thereof with the same free glance. From the point of view of instinctive creative vigour[19] we may in this respect pre-eminently praise the Mahomedan poets of the East. The starting-point in such compositions is a freedom which, even in the moment of passion, remains aloof from such passion, and in all the variety of its interests retains exclusively throughout the one substance as its veritable core, in contrast to which everything else appears small and transitory, and nothing of finality is left either to passion or lust. This is a philosophical outlook, a relation of spirit to the facts of the world, which comes more readily to age than youth. For in old age no doubt the interests of life are still present; but they are not there with the urgency of youthful passion, but rather in the guise of shadows, and to this extent are more readily conformable to ideal relations such as Art demands. In opposition to the ordinary view that youth with its warmth and vigour is the fairest season for poetic creation, we may rather, at least from this point of view, maintain just the opposite, that the ripest season belongs to the autumn of old age, provided that it is able to preserve its energies of outlook and emotion. It is only to a blind old man, Homer, that we ascribe those miraculous poems which have come down to us under that name. And we may also affirm of our Goethe that only in old age, after he had fully succeeded in liberating his genius from all restricting limitations of sense, that he gave us his most exalted creations.[20]
[1] That is, the essential notion (Begriff) of Art generally.