Just as a poet, besides imagination, must have intellect or judgment as a basis, so the higher imaginative faculty comes to the aid of intellect in other departments of life. As Maudsley says, “it performs the initial and essential functions in every branch of human development” (Body and Will). Ehrlich, seeking a substance that would destroy germs without injuring the human tissues, plods through endless tedious processes, and on his 606th experiment, discovers salvarsan, a cure for syphilis. Here the higher faculty has had little to do—but when, on the fall of an apple, Newton’s mind saw in a flash how the world was balanced, intellect soared aloft on the wings of imagination.
As well Poets as Poesie are despised, and the name become, of honourable infamous, subject to scorne and derision, and rather a reproach than a prayse to any that useth it: for commonly whoso is studious in the Arte or shewes himselfe excellent in it, they call him in disdayne a phantasticall: and a light-headed or phantasticall man (by conversion) they call a Poet.... Of such among the Nobilitie or gentrie as be very well seene in many laudable sciences, and especially in Poesie, it is so come to passe that they have no courage to write and if they have, yet are they loath to be a-known of their skill. So as I know very many notable Gentlemen in the Court that have written commendably and suppressed it agayne, or else suffred it to be publisht without their owne names to it: as if it were a discredit for a gentleman to seeme learned, and to shew himselfe amorous of any good Arte.
George Puttenham (The Arte of English Poesie, 1589).
We do not always remember in what disheartening conditions the great Elizabethan literature was produced—the inferior position of the writer, his wretched remuneration and his dependence on patrons. It is strange to think that it was considered beneath the dignity of a gentleman to write poetry or to acknowledge its authorship—or apparently to show proficiency in other arts or sciences. Such men as Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Walter Raleigh were exceptions. The curious fact is that Puttenham himself (assuming, as is probable, that he was the author) issued this important book anonymously. He had, however, acknowledged his Partheniades ten years before.
As Arber points out, the above passage, and another reference by Puttenham to the same subject, indicate that, at least in the earlier Elizabethan period, much talent must have been lost and much literature never reached the printing press. The same feeling that then existed is seen again in Locke’s time ([see p. 180]), and, if we consider a moment, we shall find that it has persisted to some extent to the present day. Think how miserably inadequate is the attention paid to poetry in our educational system, the methods employed being, indeed, calculated to make the student loathe the subject. (When I was young (“Ah, woful When”[49]) we had as a school text-book Palgrave’s Golden Treasury—a divine gift to us in those days. As we had a sympathetic teacher, we read it as poetry, and the consequence was that I and other boys knew the book practically by heart from cover to cover.)
It is surprising that Englishmen neglect the one great talent which they possess. What distinguishes them above all other nations is their superiority in the higher imaginative faculties.[50] This is shown in such a national characteristic as the love of travel and adventure, which has created the British Empire, and is proved concretely by the fact that England has produced the greatest wealth of poetry which the world has ever seen. This great treasure, which should be employed for encouraging the highest of all faculties, is allowed to lie idle. The fact seems to be overlooked that the study of poetry is not only of enormous intrinsic value in knowledge, and culture, but that it is the finest of all mental training. By analysis and paraphrase it gives knowledge of language, appreciation of style, practice in literary expression, and, above all things, precision of thought. In my opinion, poetry should form an essential part of education, beginning in childhood and continuing throughout the Arts course. It may be found that there are intelligent persons who are incapable of appreciating poetry, and the subject may, therefore, not be made a compulsory one. But my conviction is that, where men imagine themselves to be thus deficient, it is the result of a bad system of education. There is great truth in Stevenson’s fine essay, “The Lantern-Bearers.”
Go, wing thy flight from star to star,