[*] This topic is discussed from a slightly different angle in The Foundations of Æsthetics (Allen and Unwin, 1922).
[*] I will quote the familiar passage for the reader’s convenience:
I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts: a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought
And rolls through all things.
Not itself an instance of imaginative utterance, although some instances can be found in the poem.
[†] Shooting Niagara.
[†] Sartor Resartus.
[†] Essay on Style.
[*] A discussion of Croce’s doctrines might seem advisable at some point. But all that is strictly necessary has already been said in The Foundations of Æsthetics. It may be repeated here in the vigorous terms of Giovanni Papini (Four and Twenty Minds): “If you disregard critical trivialities and didactic accessories, the entire æsthetic system of Croce amounts merely to a hunt for pseudonyms of the word ‘art’, and may indeed be stated briefly and accurately in this formula: art = intuition = expression = feeling = imagination = fancy = lyricism = beauty. And you must be careful not to take these words with the shadings and distinctions which they have in ordinary or scientific language. Not a bit of it. Every word is merely a different series of syllables signifying absolutely and completely the same thing.” When you are not careful the amalgam of confusions and contradictions which ensues is very remarkable. It is interesting to notice that Croce’s appeal has been exclusively to those unfamiliar with the subject, to the man of letters and the dilettante. He has been ignored by serious students of the mind. How many of those for example who have been impressed by his dicta as to expression and language have been aware of how the problem has been discussed before, or have ever heard of the ‘imageless thought’ controversy? Upon the ways in which Croce’s strategy has inveigled the guileless into supposing him to be saying something, Papini is excellent. ‘The Barabbas of art, the Thug of philosophy, the Apache of culture’—Papini so describes himself—has here rendered a notable service to those who have been depressed by the vogue of ‘Expressionism’.
[*] ὅμοιον. This word is variously translated ‘resemblance’ (Twining), and ‘truth to life’? (Butcher). Its usual meaning in the Poetics is ‘the quality of being like ourselves’, ‘average humanity’.
[*] Cf. Eastlake, Literature of the Fine Arts.
“The elephant with his objectionable legs and inexpressive hide may still be supposed to be a very normal specimen and may accordingly be a fit object for artistic imitation.”