I
Mr. Lowell began by expressing his sense of the responsibility he had assumed in undertaking a course of lectures on English Poets. Few men, he said, had in them twelve hours of talk that would be worth hearing on any subject; but on a subject like poetry no person could hope to combine in himself the qualities that would enable him to do justice to his theme. A lecturer on science has only to show how much he knows—the lecturer on Poetry can only be sure how much he feels.
Almost everybody has a fixed opinion about the merits of certain poets which he does not like to have disturbed. There are no fanaticisms so ardent as those of Taste, especially in this country, where we are so accustomed to settle everything by vote that if a majority should decide to put a stop to the precession of the Equinoxes we should expect to hear no more of that interesting ceremony.
A distinguished woman [Mrs. Stowe] who has lately published a volume of travels, affirms that it is as easy to judge of painting as of poetry by instinct. It is as easy. But without reverent study of their works no instinct is competent to judge of the masters of either art.
Yet every one has a right to his private opinion, and the critic should deal tenderly with illusions which give men innocent pleasure. You may sometime see japonicas carved out of turnips, and if a near-sighted friend should exclaim, “What a pretty japonica!” do not growl “Turnip!” unless, on discovering his mistake, he endeavors to prove that the imitation is as good as the real flower.
In whatever I shall say, continued Mr. Lowell, I shall, at least, have done my best to think before I speak, making no attempt to say anything new, for it is only strange things and not new ones that come by effort. In looking up among the starry poets I have no hope of discovering a new Kepler’s law—one must leave such things to great mathematicians like Peirce. I shall be content with resolving a nebula or so, and bringing to notice some rarer shade of color in a double star. In our day a lecturer can hardly hope to instruct. The press has so diffused intelligence that everybody has just misinformation enough on every subject to make him thoroughly uncomfortable at the misinformation of everybody else.
Mr. Lowell then gave a brief outline of his course, stating that this first lecture would indicate his point of view, and treat in part of the imaginative faculty.
After some remarks upon Dr. Johnson’s “Lives of the Poets,” the lecturer proceeded: Any true criticism of poetry must start from the axiom that what distinguishes that which we call the poetical in anything, and makes it so, is that it transcends the understanding, by however little or much, and is interpreted by the intuitive operation of some quite other faculty of the mind. It is precisely the something-more of feeling, of insight, of thought, of expression which for the moment lulls that hunger for the superfluous which is the strongest appetite we have, and which always gives the lie to the proverb that enough is as good as a feast. The boys in the street express it justly when they define the indefinable merit of something which pleases them, by saying it is a touch beyond—or it is first-rate and a half. The poetry of a thing is this touch beyond, this third half on the farther side of first-rate.
Dr. Johnson said that that only was good poetry out of which good prose could be made. But poetry cannot be translated into prose at all. Its condensed meaning may be paraphrased, and you get the sense of it, but lose the condensation which is a part of its essence. If on Christmas day you should give your son a half-eagle, and should presently take it back, and give him the excellent prose version of five hundred copper cents, the boy would doubtless feel that the translation had precisely the same meaning in tops, balls, and gibraltars; but the feeling of infinite riches in a little room, of being able to carry in his waistcoat pocket what Dr. Johnson would have called the potentiality of tops and balls and gibraltars beyond the dreams of avarice—this would have evaporated. By good prose the Doctor meant prose that was sensible and had a meaning. But he forgot his own theory sometimes when he thought he was writing poetry. How would he contrive to make any kind of sense of what he says of Shakspeare? that
Panting Time toiled after him in vain.