292
Kansas University Weekly.
tenderness which threatened her composure. The morning dawned clear and radiant. The first red rays of the sun shone past the faded pink geranium and fell full upon the sweet white face of the child, her lips still parted in the smile with which she had greeted God's giftbearing messenger.
The day had come.
HELEN GRIFFIN METCALF.
Poe and Wordsworth.
In spite of the fact that Poe not only disliked, but positively hated the Lake School, his poetical theories have some resemblance to those of Wordsworth and Coleridge. Both Wordsworth and Poe laid stress on the importance of elementary feelings, but the distinction is manifest when they tell why elementary feeling is valuable.
Before illustrating this point let us quote from the theories of Poe and Wordsworth:
Wordsworth:
we shall describe objects and utter sentiments of such a nature, and in such connection with each other, that the understanding of the reader must necessarily be in some degree enlightened and his affections strengthened and purified.
Poetry is the image of man and nature, its object is truth, not individual and local, but general and operative; not standing upon external testimony, but carried alive into the heart by passion.
The principal object proposed in these poems was above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing them, truly, though not ostentatiously, primary laws of our nature.
Poe :
I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of beauty. Its sole arbiter is Taste. With the intellect or with the conscience, it has only collateral relations.
The simple fact is, that, would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls, we should immediately there discover that under the sun there neither exists, nor can exist, any work more thoroughly dignified, more supremely noble, than this very poem; this poem per se; this poem which is a poem and nothing more; this poem written solely for the poem's sake.
All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; and if this be true, poems to which any value could be attached were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a man who, being possessed of more than unusual organic sensibility, had also thought long and deeply. It is hoped that common sense, in the time to come, will prefer deciding on a work of art rather by the impression it makes, by the effect it produces, than by the time it took to produce the effect or by the amount of "sustained effort"which has been found necessary in effecting the impression. The fact is, that perseverance is one thing and genius quite another.
It (the necessity of producing immediate pleasure) is a homage paid to the nature and naked dignity of man, to the grand elementary principle of pleasure, by which he knows, and feels, and lives, and moves.
The poet . . . rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible friend and hourly companion. Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science.
Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem. That pleasure which is at once the most intense, the most elevating, and the most pure, is, I believe, found in the contemplation of the beautiful. When, indeed, men speak of Beauty, they mean, precisely not a quality as is supposed, but an effect—they refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of Soul—not of intellect or of heart—upon which I have commented, and which is experienced in contemplating "the beautiful."
An immortal instinct, deep within the spirit of man, is thus, plainly a sense of the Beautiful. This it is which administers to his delight in the manifold forms and sounds and odors and sentiments amid which he lives.
He must be theory mad beyond redemption who shall still persist in attempting to reconcile the obstinate oils of Poetry and Truth. In the contemplation of the Beautiful we alone find it possible to attain this pleasurable elevation or excitement of the soul which we recognize as the poetic sentiment, and which is so easily distinguished from Truth which is the satisfaction of the Reason, or from Passion, which is the excitement of the heart. It by no means follows, however, that the incitements of Passion or the precepts of Duty, or even the lessons of Truth, may not be introduced into a poem and with advantage; but the true artist will always contrive to tone them down in proper subjection to that Beauty which is the atmosphere and the real essence of the poem.
From these comparisons it is evident that the only common element in the theories of the two poets is that a poem should spring from the elementary feelings of the heart. But even here a distinction is evident when they discuss the nature of elementary feelings. A striking