Contrast of the Arts of Poetry and Design, in Lessing's Laocoon.
We can in no way discover the real character and objects of the Poetical Art so easily as by contrasting it with the Arts of Design; and the materials for such a comparison are afforded by the Laocoon of Lessing. The Greeks subordinated Expression to Beauty. The principles established in that admirable essay will scarcely be now disputed, and may be fairly enough summed up in the following manner.[83:1]—A study of the Grecian works of art convinces us, that "among the ancients Beauty was the presiding law of those arts which are occupied with Form;" that, to that supreme object, the Greek artists sacrificed every collateral end which might be inconsistent with it; and that, in particular, they expressed the external signs of mental commotion and bodily suffering, to no farther extent than that which allowed Beauty to be completely preserved. And all Design must do the same, because Now, that this subordination of Expression to Beauty is a fundamental principle of art, and not a mere accidental quality of Grecian art individually, is proved by considering the peculiar constitution and mechanical necessities of art. Its representations are confined to a single instant of time; and that one circumstance imposes on it two limitations, which necessarily produce the characteristic quality of the Grecian works. 1. the expression must be caught before the highest passion is attaind; First, "the expression must never be selected from what may be called the acme or transcendent point of the action;" and that because, the power of the arts of design being confined to the arresting of a single point in the developement of an action, it is indispensable that they should select a point which is in the highest degree significant, and most fully excites the imagination; a condition [83:2]which is fulfilled only by those points in an action in which the action moves onward, and the passion which prompts it increases; and which is not fulfilled in any degree by the highest
stage of the passion and the completion of the action. 2. because the expression must not be that of a momentary feeling. But Poetry is not bound by the limits of the Fine Arts. It can seize passion at its height. Secondly, a limitation is imposed as to the choice of the proper point in the onward progress of the action: for art invests with a motionless and unchanging permanence the point of action which it selects; and consequently any appearance which essentially possesses the character of suddenness and evanescence is unfit to be its subject, since the mind cannot readily conceive such transitory appearances as stiffened into that monumental stability.—Since it is by the limitation of the Fine Arts to the representation of a single instant of time that the two limitations in point of expression are imposed, and since Poetry is not subject to that mechanical limitation, but can describe successively every stage of an action, and every phasis of a passion, it follows that this latter art is not fettered by the limitation in expression, which is consequent on the physical limitation of the other; and hence the exhibition of passion in its height is as allowable in poetry as it is inadmissible in the arts of design. Beauty is but one of its many resources. And since the whole range and the whole strength of human thought, action, and passion, are thus left open to the poet as subjects of his representation, it follows likewise, that Beauty "can never be more than one amongst many resources, (and those the slightest,) by which he has it in his power to engage our interest for his characters."
It will be remarked, that the purport of Lessing's reasoning, so far as he has in express terms carried it, is no more than to demonstrate the important truth, that the Fine Arts are confined by certain limits to which Poetry is not subject. His elucidation of the principles of poetry is purely incidental and negative. His reasoning seems however necessarily to infer certain further consequences, the examination of which has a tendency to cast additional light on the true end and character of the poetical art: and it is for this reason rather than from any difficulty lying in the way of those implied results, that I wish now to direct your notice to their nature, and the grounds on which [84:1]their soundness rests. Design must represent Form of permanent feelings. Lessing's second canon does not assume the arts of design as pursuing any further end than their original and obvious one, the Representation of Form: it simply directs that only those appearances of form shall be represented which admit of being conceived as permanent. The object of Art, a true representation of the Beautiful. And as the feelings
which art desires to awaken are pleasurable, and as forms, considered merely as forms, give pleasure only when they are beautiful, art would thus be regarded as proposing for its object nothing beyond a Representation of the Beautiful, and Verisimilitude in that representation. The first rule of limitation however implies a great deal more: it looks to forms, not as such, but as tokens significant of certain qualities not inherent in their own nature: for the quality which it requires to be possessed by works of art, is a capability of exciting the imagination to frame for itself representations of human action and passion; and in this view, those feelings which the qualities of form considered as such are calculated to arouse, are no more than an accidental part of the impression which the representation makes. It appears, therefore, that art may pursue two different ends,—the excitement of the feeling which Beauty inspires, and the excitement of the feeling which has its root in human Sympathy; and the question at once occurs,—Is each of these purposes of art equally a part of its original and proper province? May it also try to excite feelings inconsistent with the Beautiful, as Poetry does? Or, since it is sufficiently clear that the effects which the last-mentioned canon contemplates as produced by the fine arts, are effects which are also produced by poetry, (whether its sole effects or not, it is immaterial to this question to settle,) the question may be put in another form:—Is it to be believed, that the arts of design, which have admittedly for one purpose the reproduction of the Beautiful in form, have also as an equally proper and original purpose the framing of representations of form calculated to affect the mind with feelings different from the feeling of the Beautiful,—these feelings being identically the same with those which are at least the most obvious effects of poetry? No. Reasons crowd in upon the mind, evincing that the question must be answered by an unqualified negative. The production of poetical effects cannot have been an original purpose of the fine arts, which certainly were brought into existence [85:1]by the love of Beauty; and the production of those effects is plainly also an exertion in which the fine arts overstep their limits, and wander into the region which belongs of right to the poetical art, and to it alone. Expression in Painting and Sculpture is a borrowd quality. That Expression in painting and sculpture is an extraneous and borrowed quality, is made almost undeniably evident by this
one consideration, that it requires, as we have seen, to be always kept subdued, and allowed to enter only partially into the composition of the work. That Fine Art is admired most when it has most expression, only shows that And, again, it is no argument against that position, to say that the strongest and most general interest and admiration are excited by those works of art in which expression is permitted to go the utmost length which the physical limits of the art permit. Poetry stirs men more than pure Art does. For the universality of this preference only proves, that the feelings of our common humanity influence more minds than does the pure love of the beautiful; and the greater strength of the feeling produced by expression, only evinces that poetry, which works its effect by means of that quality, is a more powerful engine than the sister-art for stirring up the depths of our nature. And it may be quite true that those works of art which confine themselves to the attempt to move the calmer feeling due to Beauty, are the truest to their own nature and proper aim, although an endeavour to unite with that the attainment of higher purposes may be admissible, and in some instances highly successful. I apprehend that although an art should propose as its main end the production of one particular effect, it does not follow that its effects should be confined to the production of that alone, if its physical conditions permit the partial pursuit of others. Fine Art may borrow from its loftier sister, Poetry,More especially, if an art should admit of uniting, to a certain extent, with its own peculiar and legitimate end, the prosecution of another loftier than the first, surely we might expect to find such an art occasionally taking advantage of the license; and yet its doing so would not compel us to say, that both these are its proper and original purposes. but Classic Art very rarely does, and rightly.And the fact is, that the attempt is seldom made; for very few works of classical art exist in which the union of the two principles is tried, the end sought being usually the representation of beauty, and that alone. In no way, however, can the radical difference and opposition between the two qualities be evinced so satisfactorily as by a comparison [86:1]of the effects which they severally produce on the mind. Expression belongs to Poetry. It excites. Poetry stirs men. Expression, the poetical element, gives rise to a peculiar activity of the soul, a certain species of reflective emotion, which, it is true, is easily distinguishable from underived passion, and does not necessarily produce like it a tendency to action, but which yet essentially partakes of the character
of mental commotion, and is opposed to the idea of mental inactivity. Beauty soothes them. The feeling which Beauty awakens is of a character entirely opposite. The contemplation of the Beautiful begets an inclination to repose, a stillness and luxurious absorption of every mental faculty: thought is dormant, and even sensation is scarcely followed by the perception which is its usual consequence. Look at the Venus de Medici. It is with this softness and relaxation of mind that we are inspired when we look on such works as the Venus de Medici, in which beauty is sole and supreme, and expression is permitted to be no farther present than as it is necessary as an indication of the internal influence of soul, that so those sympathies may be awakened, without whose partial action even beauty itself possesses no power. When ancient art stirs you, as in the If we turn to those few works of ancient art, in which the opposite element is admitted, we are conscious that the soul is differently acted upon, and we may be able by reflection to disentangle the ravelled threads of feeling, and distinguish the mental changes which flow upon and through each other like the successive waves on the sea-beach. Apollo and In contemplating the Apollo, for instance, a feeling akin to the poetical, or rather identical with it, is awakened by the divine majesty of the statue; and upon the quiet and self-brooding luxury with which the heart is filled by the perfect beauty of the youthful outlines, there steals a more fervent emotion which makes us proud to look on the proud figure, which makes us stand more erect while we gaze, and imitate involuntarily that godlike attitude and expression of calm and beautiful disdain. Laocoon, it is by their having left their own ground, and taken that of Poetry, Expression. Or look to the wonderful Laocoon, in which the abstract feeling of beauty is even more deeply merged in the human feeling of the pathetic,—that extraordinary groupe, in which continued meditation arouses more and more actively the emotion of sympathy, while we view the dark and swimming shadows of the eyes, the absorbed and motionless agony of the mouth, and the tense torture of the iron muscles of [87:1]the body. It is impossible to conceive that an art can propose to itself, as originally and properly its own, two ends so difficult of reconcilement and so different in the qualities by which they are brought about. Lastly, Fine Art appeals to sight. Poetry never does. Finally, the Plastic Arts offer form directly to the sense of sight, whereas it is very doubtful whether poetry can convey, even indirectly, any visual image. If Fine Art rightly includes Expression, then it has Beauty too; while Poetry, which can't express Beauty directly, has to give up part of its province, Expression, to Art, which can't use it fully.
Consequently, the result of admitting Expression as a primary and legitimate end of the arts of form, would be to ascribe to them an innate and underived capability of presenting directly to the senses both beauty and the wide circle of human action and feeling; while the genius of Poetry, by her nature shut out from direct representation of the beautiful, whose shadows she can evoke only through the agency of associated ideas, would have even her own kingdom of thought and passion, her power as the great interpreter of mind, shared with her by a rival, whom the decision would acknowledge indeed as possessing a right to the divided empire, but who is disqualified by the nature of her instruments from exercising that sovereignty to the full. Poetry rather lends its help to its narrower ally, Art.And, on the other hand, by the acknowledgment that the arts of form are not properly a representation of human action or human passion, and that when they aim at becoming so, they attempt a task which is above and beyond their sphere, and in which their success can never be more than partial, Poetry is exhibited in an august and noble aspect, as stooping to lend a share in her broad and lofty dominion to another art of narrower scope, which is so enabled to gain over the mind an influence of transcending its own unassisted capacities.
The aims of Poetry:
If you shall be able to think this excursive disquisition justifiable, it will be because it insensibly leads us to perceive what truly is the legitimate and sole end of the Poetical Art, and because it thus clears the way for one or two elementary propositions regarding the functions of the Poetical Faculty. 1. not to represent Beauty to the eye, but only to the mind. First, we perceive that poetry does not aim at the representation of visual beauty. I do not say that beauty may not form the subject of poetry: my meaning is, that the poet can depict it poetically in no way except by indicating its effects on the mind. When poetry mistakingly attempts to represent beauty by its external form, its failure to affect the mind is signal and complete, and must be [88:1]so, even supposing it to be possible that the picture should be so full and accurate that the painter might sketch from it. The reason of this is perhaps discoverable. Contrast of the effects of Beauty and Expression, of Fine Art and Poetry, on the mind. Such a description cannot affect the mind with the poetical sentiment, because it does not represent to the imagination those qualities by which it is that the poetical effect is