"Deep caves," and, most noticeable of all, perhaps, the desolate impression created by the slow, pausing metre. 10. Realism. Against such idealization the professed realist takes his stand. He does so on two grounds. First: Nature, he argues, is the all-sufficient theme of the artist, however low the type of nature which he represents. The pleasure derived from the literally faithful portrayal of life. is the essence of æsthetic enjoyment, and to heighten, to transform, to ennoble a subject is not to help but to injure the artistic effect.1 Now such a principle stands in opposition to the whole theory of poetry as we have considered it. We may realize fully the imaginative pleasure alluded to, and concede that such pleasure is derivable from the skilful representation of human character under any aspect. But this pleasure does not seem to be the pleasure proper to poetry. It seems ultimately reducible to what we should call "interest," "entertainment"; and merely to interest and entertain seems to be the proper function of prose. As we understand poetry, its object is to elevate the soul, not to amuse it. The pleasure afforded by the literal transcript of an unnoble character cannot rise higher than entertainment or interest, however low it may fall. But realism has another quarrel with the position of the idealist: it is untrue. To exhibit high nobility in human character is, we are told, simple exaggeration. Men in actual life are not noble, their motives are not lofty, the passions as we really find them are not elevating forces, but the contrary. The noble character as conceived by the 1 As a matter of fact, the exaggerated realist often descends even lower than his theory. Though he professes to be true to nature and to abjure the heightening effect of ennobling themes, he ends by portraying not nature in its entirety, but merely what is disagreeable and degraded, and even what is literally foul, in nature. idealist is so rare, so exceptional in actual experience as to be abnormal and therefore unnatural.1 The idealist transports us out of this world into another, and his appeal to our imagination is flat and unconvincing. The answer to this contention of the realist will serve to define more accurately the limits of idealization in its bearing on poetic truth. But first let us remark that according to any theory of art there must be a certain exaggeration in the artist's portrayal, that is, a certain selection of details to the neglect of others. There never was in life a conversation so compressed and direct as even the realistic dramatist must needs employ. No character ever reveals himself so distinctly in a short space as the character in a play. Every living person has minor attributes that the artist neglects. Such portrayal neither realism nor idealism would regard as a departure from the truth of naturalness. Both the realist and the idealist do in fact lay stress on one or other aspect of a personality, in order to arrest the attention and impress the imagination of the reader. Only, the idealist selects and intensifies the higher or noble aspect. Now to say that noble traits are so unusual in the course of human experience as to be abnormal and to belong to the category of freaks of nature is a statement which, though it can hardly be controverted on a priori grounds, does seem to be mere cynicism. Would the normal man of all ages of the world concede that an ignoble view of humanity was the only true view? Is there no such thing in the world as heroism or devotion or ennobling love? Is even the lofty love that is the theme of Francis Thompson's "Love in Dian's Lap," so unreal as to be unconvincing to the imagination of man? The answer must eventually rest with each individual. 11. The Limitations of Idealism. — Idealism in art, quite as well as realism, holds to the canon that the truth of natural1 See what was said above about truth to nature. ness must be sedulously safeguarded, that the delineation of life must not be so exalted as to leave the impression of unreality, that idealization must not be carried to such an extreme that the imagination of the reader refuses to follow. And so the canon of truth sets a limit to the canon of idealization. In actual life, which is the standard of naturalness, while we refuse to admit that no man is noble or has his noble aspect, we must needs grant that every man, if regarded with any degree of completeness, is imperfect, that no man is free from fault or exempt from human weakness. It follows that, when a human character is represented in detail, as happens in the drama, truth requires it to be invested with faults as well as virtues. The imagination is less impressed by flawless perfection than by a nobility tinctured with defects that humanize it. Aristotle himself requires that his hero be less than a perfect being. Therefore a balance must be struck between naturalness and the selecting and heightening process of idealism. To what precise degree imperfections may be emphasized and exploited must be left to the judgment of the poet. The point to bear in mind is this, that they are introduced not for their own sake, but as a check upon exaggeration, as a necessary means of convincing the imagination, lest the portrait of nobility without imperfection fail to produce the impression of reality. EXERCISES 1. Show the absence of clear, definite thinking in Golden Treasury, CCXXXII, CCXXXIX, CCCVII, and compare with the following in the same respect: CCLXXXVI, CCCI, CCCIV. 2. Show how the thought is ill-adapted to the elevation of the imagery in CCXLII. 3. Show how Shakespeare succeeds in producing the impression of insincerity in the protestations of affection expressed by Goneril and Regan. See "King Lear," Act I, Sc. 1, 11. 50–75. 4. A false ideal in Golden Treasury, CCCXXVI. 5. Observe from what point of view nature is idealized in CCCIII and CLXXXVI; and character idealized in CCXVII and CCXX. 6. For the expression of curious rather than emotional views, the student may examine Robert Browning's "Two Poets of Croisic"; and, for excessive realism in description, the same writer's "A Likeness." 7. Point out a curious want of consistency in Horace's description of Cleopatra in "Odes,” Book I, No. 37. 8. Why would you call Golden Treasury, CCXXXVII an impressionist poem? Describe as accurately as possible the impression it creates. CHAPTER V Expression 1. The Medium of Expression. - The principles laid down in the preceding sections concerning the emotional, imaginative, and intellectual elements in poetry will be found, mutatis mutandis, to be common to all the fine arts. For each one of the arts, in its own degree and after its own fashion, aims to exhibit emotion, and makes its appeal to the emotions through the mind and imagination; and so the laws that govern the artistic handling of these three faculties are fundamentally the same whether poetry be concerned, or painting, sculpture, music. But we now turn our attention to that which differentiates these arts from one another, viz., to the medium by which the emotion, the emotional idea, and the imaginative perception are externalized, that is, are transferred from the mind of the artist who conceives them to the work of art, and so to the minds of other men who hear or read or behold. In the art of poetry this medium is language. As the painter uses color and surface-form to give expression to his conceptions, and as the musician uses musical sound, so the poet uses the word, the phrase. 2. The Superiority of Language as a Medium. And here we may observe that, if we compare together these three vehicles of expression, if we compare language, musical sound, and the painter's colors, we shall find that each has its own effectiveness, and each its own limitations; yet that, all considered, poetry possesses in language a more perfect power to |