(i) Delight is another quality of poetry which applies as well to him who sings because he loves to sing, as to him who is happy in his listening. Coleridge tells us that poetry proposes "for its immediate object pleasure and not truth." Horace, however, says that poetry is "that which is intended for profit and delight." Wordsworth believed that it was the business of the poet to give pleasure. "Nor," says he, "let this necessity of producing immediate pleasure be considered a degradation of the poet's art. It is far otherwise. It is an acknowledgment of the beauty of the universe. "3 And Landor writes that "all the imitative arts have delight for their principal object; the first of these is poetry." (j) Profit is, finally, the unquestioned result, though rarely the purpose, of all true poetry. In this quaint phrase Sir Philip Sidney expressed his extreme view: "It is the fayning notable images of vertues, vices, or what els, with that delightfull teaching which must be the right describing note to know a poet by." Horace said that "a poet should instruct, or please, or both." Even those who perfectly agree with these classic authorities would scarcely say that all poetry is didactic, for the teaching we receive must be the by-product of truth, beauty, power, and emotion. Yet nothing humorous or serious of true poetic quality can come to perfect utterance but it leaves its profitable impress upon the hearer, for "a merry heart doeth good like a medicine" as truly as 1 44 'Biographia Literaria.” 2 "Ars Poetica." the thrusts of satire or the pangs of tragedy may teach us needed lessons. None the less, poetry is not chiefly "for profit." The ten elements of poetry, then, would seem to be: Thought, Emotion, Interpretation, Imagination, Utterance, Rhythm, Beauty, Loftiness, Delight and Profit. 3. Poetry and Verse In all the foregoing we have assumed a real distinction between true poetry and mere verse. Poetry is a spirit, verse is its outward form. Poetry is born, verse is made. Poetry is emotion, verse is gesture. Each has its standards, its limitations, its appreciators, and its uses; and—who shall tell?—those who today become skilled in the tricks of verse-making may use that skill tomorrow to utter some pure note of poetry. The whole range of creation spreads before the bard wherefrom to choose his materials. No theme is taboo. Touched by his magician's wand the commonplace is glorified, labor becomes kingly, tragedy emerges from the market-place, beauty breathes amidst the soot of the forge. Life is the poet's theme, and the poet's crown. EXERCISES FOR CLASS USE AND SELF-INSTRUCTION 1. Pick out the elements of poetry according to each of the definitions by Alden, Hunt, Stedman, Courthope, and Mackail. 2. Do any of these definitions seem to you to lack any essential elements? If so, name the elements and give your reasons for thinking they should be included in a full definition. 3. Criticise the present authors' definition. 4. Define emotion. 5. Name as many different functions of the imagination as you can. Illustrate. 6. Distinguish between imagination and fancy. 7. Select any long poem of distinction and point out evidences of each of the ten elements of poetry. 8. Make a list of the general subjects or themes treated in six poems of distinction. 9. Make a list of original themes which occur to you as being suitable for short poems. Remember that a theme for a poem may consist of a single idea. 10. Make a list of original themes suitable for long poems. 11. Select a so-called poem which you consider to be merely verse. 12. Give your reasons, and say if you think there is room in the world for mere verse. 13. Write a paragraph on the proper subject matter of poetry. 14. Make a short list of themes which you consider to be unsuitable for poetic treatment. Give reasons in each case. CHAPTER II THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF POETRY Let learned Greece in any of her manifold sciences be able to show me one book before Musæus, Homer, and Hesiod, all three nothing else but poets. Nay, let any history be brought that can say any writers were there before them, if they were not men of the same skill, as Orpheus, Linus, and some others are named, who, having been the first of that country that made pens deliverers of their knowledge to their posterity, may justly challenge to be called their fathers in learning. For not only in time they had this priority-although in itself antiquity be venerable -but went before them as causes, to draw with their charming sweetness the wild untamed wits to an admiration of knowledge. So as Amphion was said to move stones with his poetry to build Thebes, and Orpheus to be listened to by beasts,—indeed stony and beastly people. So among the Romans were Livius Andronicus and Ennius; so in the Italian language the first that made it aspire to be a treasure-house of science were the poets Dante, Boccace, and Petrarch; so in our English were Gower and Chaucer, after whom, encouraged and delighted with their excellent foregoing, others have followed to beautify our mothertongue, as well in the same kind as in other arts. -SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, An Apologie for Poetrie. The history of poetry is the history of civilization. For this reason, an inquiry into the causes which, through successive ages, have directed the imaginations of poets into channels of metrical composition, would lead us very close to the springs of all art and all learning. But, more specifically for the foregoing is too general a statement to be illuminating historically-when we, more and more, press in toward the heart of poetic origins, we shall find that as poetry arose and took form in each land and moved from Orient to Occident, it was shaped and colored by the national genius of each successive country that at once contributed to its rise and progress and received the benignant heritage which genuine poetry confers upon any people that fosters its indwelling. This, then, indicates the thesis of this necessarily brief and summarial account. Though the precise origins of poetry are shrouded in prehistoric mist, we may be tolerably certain that just as soon as human utterance began to be amplified and made more effective by the addition of images, poetry was born. Its use among primitive peoples today is a fair indication of its first functions-that of communal or group expression. Afterward came the development of the individual poet with his increasingly personal expression, culminating in the lyrical form. 1. The Origin of Poetry It is easy to picture a wild tribe dancing about its fetich and chanting some crude rhythmical sentences in honor of the god, in triumph over an enemy, in prayer for help, in mourning for some poignant loss. As these metrical and musical words were often repeated, they took on fixed forms, and so the rude tribal ritual was composed, and crystallized into a folk form. Naturally enough, tradition ascribed the gift of these poems to the gods themselves. Such was the origin of the primeval ballad, and the epic poem whose finished verses, ages later, were recited in |