This is called sublime, but what does it mean?
We have been taught that Dante was a wonderful poet.
He described with infinite minuteness the pangs and agonies endured by the damned in the torture—dungeons of God.
The vicious twins of superstition—malignity and solemnity—struggle for the mastery in his revengeful lines.
But there was one good thing about Dante: he had the courage, and what might be called the religious democracy, to see a pope in hell.
That is something to be thankful for.
So, the sonnets of Petrarch are as unmeaning as the promises of candidates. They are filled not with genuine passion, but with the feelings that lovers are supposed to have.
Poetry cannot be written by rule; it is nota trade, or a profession. Let the critics lay down the laws, and the true poet will violate them all.
By rule you can make skeletons, but you cannot clothe them with flesh, put blood in their veins, thoughts in their eyes, and passions in their hearts.
This can be done only by following the impulses of the heart, the winged fancies of the brain—by wandering from paths and roads, keeping step with the rhythmic ebb and flow of the throbbing blood.