Therefore, great Poetry, that will most potentially represent Man’s innermost spirit, sets out, often, from his uttermost circumstances.
In the Philoctetes, and Œdipus at Colonus, what pains to delineate place!
What pains to make you present in the forest of Arden,—and in the Island!
NORTH.
This outward Picturesque, embosoming the Human Pathetic and Sympathetic, is known to the great Father of Poetry.
Homer paints for eye and ear; but usually with brief touches.
TALBOYS.
The predominance given in Verse to the Music over the Sense—the conspicuous power of the Music, perhaps calls the Soul into the Senses.
NORTH.
But there is a more comprehensive view. The Mind in the treatment of its Knowledge ranges between two Extremes. It receives the original givings of Experience, at the utmost particularised and individualised, determined under conditions of time, Place, Individuals. It reduces individuals into Kinds, actions into Laws, finds Principles, unveils Essences. These are the ultimate findings of Reason. The Philosophical Mind tends to these—dwells in these—is at home in these—is impatient of its knowledge whilst unreduced. This is the completed victory of Intelligence over its data. It is by Comprehension and Resolution the Reduction of Multitude into Unity. At the same time, the Mind leaves the turbulent element of Sense, and passes into a serene air, a steadfast and bright and cold sky. Now, then, Poetry dwells or makes a show of dwelling at the other extreme—in the forms as they were given. What semblance, what deception, may be in this, is another question. But this is her ostentation. She imitates to a deception, if she does not copy these original givings. She represents Experience, and this she does for the sake of the Power of Affection which attends the forms of Experience. For the most part these original givings are involved in sensible perceptions, Eye, Ear, Hand, and beating heart. How will you escape from them? Eye, above all, the reigning faculty of communing with Earth and Sky. So as that he who is shut out from the world of sight, seems to us to be shut out from the world; but he who is shut out from the world of Sound: not equally so. Nevertheless, that which Poetry requires is not——