CHAPTER III Imagination in Poetry I. THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY 1. Definition. The imagination in its essential function. is defined to be the faculty of forming mental representations of sensible objects independently of the presence of the latter. We more commonly think of the imagination as representing objects that appeal to the sense of sight, but any sensation at all may be reproduced by the imagination. Thus, seated by a winter fire, I may call up the image of the beauty of summer fields; I may hear the song of birds, catch the fragrance of the breath of spring, and thus realize in myself the exultation of soul that the new life of nature suggests. Such is the re-creative power of this faculty when fully developed. The imagination may be considered from many points of view. Before considering its precise bearing on poetry, it may be helpful to note one or two distinctions that are philosophical rather than poetical. 2. Productive and Reproductive. First: We may distinguish the productive and the reproductive imagination. The latter term is employed to designate the power of forming mental representations of objects which have been perceived before. The productive imagination is the power of putting together details so as to form an image such as has never been actually before the senses, as if I join the head and trunk of a man to the body of a horse and imagine a Centaur. It is generally admitted that the mind has no power to imagine an object absolutely new in every respect; but by assembling a variety of features borrowed from diverse objects we may construct an image that is new as a whole. Thus, one born blind can form no representation of the quality of color; whereas one familiar with objects of sight can make combinations never seen before, such as the golden branch in the grove of Avernus, or the rain of fireflakes in Dante's "Inferno." 3. Active and Passive. Secondly we may distinguish between what has been well called the active and the passive imagination. The latter is the power to summon up an image when it is described or suggested to us; the former is the power to evoke an image on our own initiative. The passive imagination may be found in persons endowed with very little active imagination. The former gives the faculty of reading poetry appreciatively; the latter is the gift of the poet himself. 4. Place in Poetry. The importance of imagination in the art of poetry may be seen from the fact that it stands related to it under a twofold aspect, first, inasmuch as poetry is essentially emotional, and secondly, inasmuch as it is an expression of the beautiful. For it is a well recognized fact that our emotions are not stirred by what is abstract, by mere thought, mere reason. We do not come to admire virtue by learning its definition, but rather by seeing virtue in the concrete, visibly embodied in an object. And therefore, in order to achieve its essential purpose, in order to touch the emotions, poetry must present the sensible object to our minds and so bring into play the imaginative faculty. So, too, beauty is invariably associated with a concrete object, at least so long as man is an embodied spirit. It is a misnomer to speak of a beautiful theorem in geometry or a beautiful thesis in metaphysics or of a beautiful abstraction. And consequently from this point of view also (though it is in the end reducible to the former) poetry, being the expression of the beautiful, must rely on the agency of the imagination to represent the beautiful object. II. THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY IN POETRY We have described above the fundamental process of the imagination, viz., that of representing mental images. As it manifests itself in the province of poetry, it acts in combination with other faculties of the soul. It is guided or stimulated by the emotional faculty, by the intuitive judgment, by the taste or critical faculty, and these operate together in such a variety of ways and with such a variety of results that it becomes difficult to analyze the processes at all. Without any attempt at such analysis, which is the province of psychology rather than poetics, let us merely describe the chief results of this complex action of the imagination and other faculties of the soul so far as they affect the production of poetry. 1. Imagination and Fancy.—In the first place, criticism makes a distinction between two manifestations of the imaginative faculty in poetry, one of which is called Imagination proper, and the other Fancy. These terms are used to designate a higher and a lower use of the power. The difference between them will become more apparent as we advance, but in their general traits they may be described as follows: The Imagination is intense and serious; the Fancy more. light and playful. The Imagination penetrates to the heart. of its subject, its deeper significance; the Fancy hovers on the surface and busies itself with externals. The Imagination acts under the inspiration of emotion and absorbing vision; the Fancy is more cool and calculating, or arbitrary, whimsical, conventional, artificial.1 Thus when Milton writes: "The white pink and the pansy freaked with jet," he is merely external and fanciful; when Wordsworth calls the daisy "Sweet silent creature," he is penetrating and imaginative. So, too, Shakespeare's description of the equipage of Queen Mab, in "Romeo and Juliet,” is playful, and hence is an exercise of fancy:— Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs, The traces, of the smallest spider's web, The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams. Act I, Sc. 4, 11. 59 ff. Compare this with the weird intensity of the description in the "Ancient Mariner," which is purely imaginative, as the image of Death in the gossamer ship:· Her lips were red, her looks were free, Her locks were yellow as gold: Her skin was as white as leprosy, The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she Who thicks man's blood with cold. 2. The Imaging Power and the Creative Power of the Imaginative Faculty. The imaginative faculty in poetry also exercises two acts, not indeed separate, but distinct in idea; viz., the invention of images, and the composition or association of these images into an imaginative whole. We shall consider each of these acts and observe how in both the one and the other we may find fancy and imagination proper. (a) The Imaging Power is that exercise of the imaginative faculty by which it calls up or invents the sensible details 1 On the whole subject of Imagination and Fancy, see Hunt, "Imagination and Fancy"; Wordsworth, Introduction to 1815 Edition of poems; Ruskin, "Modern Painters," Part III, Sect. 2; Westminster Review, Vol. 154, p. 217. of a poem; for instance, the various scenes, actions, or circumstances of a narrative; the images in which the poet conceives his thoughts, reflections, and emotions; and in general all the concrete elements, large or small, that go to make up the body of every poem. This imaging power, as has been said, may appear as imagination proper or as fancy. It is called imagination proper when the invention is exercised under the influence of strong emotion; that is, when the poet is absorbed with the underlying significance of the image, is not interested in its color, shape, or size, or, if in these, only so far as they imply something deeper. Hence it appears not as a mere image, but as endowed with emotional or spiritual significance. The fancy images an object in a lightly emotional mood, is occupied with its superficial, conventional qualities, or examines it curiously and with clever ingenuity, but is not absorbed or inspired by its contemplation. The image seems unnatural, overstrained, insincere, or at least not serious. The following examples will help the student to realize the different effects of the image as it proceeds from imagination and from fancy. The first are fanciful, because they manifest curious and far-fetched conceptions, rather than inspired realizations. Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs, Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. "Richard II," Act III, Sc. 2, 11. 145 ff. Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like seasoned timber, never gives. 66 - HERBERT, Virtue." Compare now the intensely real and serious imagery of the imagination in these examples. Brightness falls from the air; Queens have died young and fair; -NASH, "A Litany." |