XV. POETRY DISTINGUISHED FROM OTHER WRITING.
Reading edition
Having communicated our sentiments touching the origin of poetry, by tracing tragedy and comedy to their common source, we shall now endeavour to point out the criteria, by which poetry is distinguished from every other species of writing. In common with other arts, such as statuary and painting, it comprehends imitation, invention, composition, and enthusiasm. Imitation is indeed the basis of all the liberal arts: invention and enthusiasm constitute genius, in whatever manner it may be displayed. Eloquence of all sorts admits of enthusiasm. Tully says, an orator should be “vehemens ut procella, excitatus ut torrens, incensus ut fulmen; tonat, fulgurat, et rapidis eloquentiæ fluctibus cuncta proruit et proturbat.” “Violent as a tempest, impetuous as a torrent, and glowing intense like the red bolt of heaven, he thunders, lightens, overthrows, and bears down all before him, by the irresistible tide of eloquence.” This is the “mens divinior atque os magna sonaturum” of Horace. This is the talent,
——Meum qui pectus inaniter angit, Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet, Ut magus. With passions not my own who fires my heart; Who with unreal terrors fills my breast, As with a magic influence possess’d.
We are told, that Michael Angelo Buonaroti used to work at his statues in a fit of enthusiasm, during which he made the fragments of the stone fly about him with surprising violence. The celebrated Lully being one day blamed for setting nothing to music but the languid verses of Quinault, was animated with the reproach, and running in a fit of enthusiasm to his harpsichord, sung in recitative, and accompanied four pathetic lines from the Iphigenia of Racine with such expression, as filled the hearers with astonishment and horror.
Though versification be one of the criteria that distinguish poetry from prose, yet it is not the sole mark of distinction. Were the histories of Polybius and Livy simply turned into verse, they would not become poems; because they would be destitute of those figures, embellishments, and flights of imagination, which display the poet’s art and invention. On the other hand, we have many productions that justly lay claim to the title of poetry, without having the advantage of versification; witness the Psalms of David, the Song of Solomon, with many beautiful hymns, descriptions, and rhapsodies, to be found in different parts of the Old Testament; some of them the immediate productions of divine inspiration: witness the Celtic fragments, which have lately appeared in the English language, and are certainly replete with poetical merit. But though good versification alone will not constitute poetry, bad versification alone will certainly degrade and render disgustful the sublimest sentiments and finest flowers of imagination. This humiliating power of bad verse appears in many translations of the ancient poets; in Ogilby’s Homer, Trapp’s Virgil, and frequently in Creech’s Horace. This last indeed is not wholly devoid of spirit, but it seldom rises above mediocrity; and as Horace says,
——Mediocribus esse poetis Non homines, non Dî, non concessêre columnæ. But God and man and letter’d post denies That poets ever are of middling size.
How is that beautiful ode, beginning with “Justum et tenacem propositi virum,” chilled and tamed by the following translation:
He who by principle is sway’d, In truth and justice still the same, Is neither of the crowd afraid, Though civil broils the state inflame; Nor to a haughty tyrant’s frown will stoop, Nor to a raging storm, when all the winds are up. Should nature with convulsions shake, Struck with the fiery bolts of Jove, The final doom and dreadful crack Cannot his constant courage move.
That long Alexandrine—“Nor to a raging storm, when all the winds are up,” is drawling, feeble, swoln with a pleonasm or tautology, as well as deficient in the rhyme; and as for “the dreadful crack” in the next stanza, instead of exciting terror, it conveys a low and ludicrous idea. How much more elegant and energetic is this paraphrase of the same ode, inserted in one of the volumes of Hume’s History of England:
The man whose mind, on virtue bent, Pursues some greatly good intent With undiverted aim, Serene beholds the angry crowd; Nor can their clamours fierce and loud His stubborn honour tame. Nor the proud tyrant’s fiercest threat, Nor storms that from their dark retreat The lawless surges wake; Nor Jove’s dread bolt that shakes the pole The firmer purpose of his soul With all its power can shake. Should Nature’s frame in ruins fall, And Chaos o’er the sinking ball Resume primeval sway, His courage Chance and Fate defies, Nor feels the wreck of earth and skies Obstruct its destined way.
If poetry exists independent of versification, it will naturally be asked, how then is it to be distinguished? Undoubtedly by its own peculiar expression: it has a language of its own, which speaks so feelingly to the heart, and so pleasingly to the imagination, that its meaning cannot possibly be misunderstood by any person of delicate sensations. It is a species of painting with words, in which the figures are happily conceived, ingeniously arranged, affectingly expressed, and recommended with all the warmth and harmony of colouring: it consists of imagery, description, metaphors, similes, and sentiments, adapted with propriety to the subject, so contrived and executed as to soothe the ear, surprise and delight the fancy, mend and melt the heart, elevate the mind, and please the understanding. According to Flaccus:
Aut prodesse volunt, aut delectare poëtæ; Aut simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitæ. Poets would profit or delight mankind, And with the amusing show the instructive join’d.
Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci, Lectorem delectando, pariterque monendo. Profit and pleasure mingled thus with art To soothe the fancy and improve the heart.
Tropes and figures are likewise liberally used in rhetoric: and some of the most celebrated orators have owned themselves much indebted to the poets. Theophrastus expressly recommends the poet for this purpose. From their source the spirit and energy, the pathetic, the sublime, and the beautiful, are derived.[9] But these figures must be more sparingly used in rhetoric than in poetry, and even then mingled with argumentation, and a detail of facts altogether different from poetical narration. The poet, instead of simply relating the incident, strikes off a glowing picture of the scene, and exhibits it in the most lively colours to the eye of the imagination. “It is reported that Homer was blind,” says Tully in his Tusculan Questions, “yet his poetry is no other than painting. What country, what climate, what ideas, battles, commotions, and contests of men, as well as of wild beasts, has he not painted in such a manner as to bring before our eyes those very scenes, which he himself could not behold!”[10] We cannot therefore subscribe to the opinion of some ingenious critics, who have blamed Mr. Pope for deviating in some instances from the simplicity of Homer, in his translation of the Iliad and Odyssey. For example, the Grecian bard says simply, the sun rose; and his translator gives us a beautiful picture of the sun rising. Homer mentions a person who played upon the lyre; the translator sets him before us warbling to the silver strings. If this be a deviation, it is at the same time an improvement. Homer himself, as Cicero observes above, is full of this kind of painting, and particularly fond of description even in situations where the action seems to require haste. Neptune, observing from Samothrace the discomfiture of the Grecians before Troy, flies to their assistance, and might have been wafted thither in half a line; but the bard describes him, first, descending the mountain on which he sat; secondly, striding towards his palace at Ægæ, and yoking his horses; thirdly, he describes him putting on his armour; and lastly, ascending his car, and driving along the surface of the sea. Far from being disgusted by these delays, we are delighted with the particulars of the description. Nothing can be more sublime than the circumstance of the mountain’s trembling beneath the footsteps of an immortal:
——Τρεμε δ’ ουρεα μακρα και ὑλη Ποσσιν ὑπ’ αθανατοισι Ποσειδαωνος ιοντος.
But his passage to the Grecian fleet is altogether transporting.
Βη δ’ ελααν επι κυματ’, &c.
He mounts the car, the golden scourge applies, He sits superior, and the chariot flies; His whirling wheels the glassy surface sweep: The enormous monsters, rolling o’er the deep, Gambol around him on the watery way, And heavy whales in awkward measures play; The sea subsiding spreads a level plain, Exults and crowns the monarch of the main; The parting waves before his coursers fly; The wandering waters leave his axle dry.
With great veneration for the memory of Mr. Pope, we cannot help objecting to some lines of this translation. We have no idea of the sea’s exulting and crowning Neptune, after it had subsided into a level plain. There is no such image in the original. Homer says, the whales exulted, and knew or owned their king; and that the sea parted with joy; γηθοσυνη δε θαλασσα διιστατο. Neither is there a word of the wandering waters; we therefore think the lines might be thus altered to advantage:
They knew and own’d the monarch of the main; The sea subsiding spreads a level plain; The curling waves before his coursers fly: The parting surface leaves his brazen axle dry.
Besides the metaphors, similes, and allusions of poetry, there is an infinite variety of tropes or turns of expression, occasionally disseminated through works of genius, which serve to animate the whole, and distinguish the glowing effusions of real inspiration from the cold efforts of mere science. These tropes consist of a certain happy choice and arrangement of words, by which ideas are artfully disclosed in a great variety of attitudes; of epithets, and compound epithets; of sounds collected in order to echo the sense conveyed; of apostrophes; and above all, the enchanting use of the prosopopœia, which is a kind of magic, by which the poet gives life and motion to every inanimate part of nature. Homer, describing the wrath of Agamemnon, in the first book of the Iliad, strikes off a glowing image in two words:
——οσσε δ’ οἱ πυρι λαμπετοωντι εικτην. —And from his eye-balls flash’d the living fire.
This indeed is a figure, which has been copied by Virgil, and almost all the poets of every age—oculis micat acribus ignis—ignescunt iræ: duris dolor ossibus ardet. Milton, describing Satan in hell, says,
With head uplift above the wave, and eye That sparkling blazed!— —He spake: and to confirm his words outflew Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs Of mighty cherubims. The sudden blaze Far round illumined hell—
There are certain words in every language particularly adapted to the poetical expression; some from the image or idea they convey to the imagination, and some from the effect they have upon the ear. The first are truly figurative; the others may be called emphatical.—Rollin observes, that Virgil has upon many occasions poetized (if we may be allowed the expression) a whole sentence by means of the same word, which is pendere.
Ite meæ, felix quondam pecus, ite capellæ. Non ego vos posthac, viridi projectus in antro, Dumosâ pendere procul de rupe videbo. At ease reclined beneath the verdant shade, No more shall I behold my happy flock Aloft hang browsing on the tufted rock.
Here the word pendere wonderfully improves the landscape, and renders the whole passage beautifully picturesque. The same figurative verb we meet with in many different parts of the Æneid.
Hi summo in fluctu pendent, his unda dehiscens Terram inter fluctus aperit. These on the mountain billow hung; to those The yawning waves the yellow sand disclose.
In this instance, the words pendent and dehiscens, hung and yawning, are equally poetical. Addison seems to have had this passage in his eye, when he wrote his hymn, which is inserted in the Spectator.
—For though in dreadful worlds we hung, High on the broken wave.
And in another piece of a like nature, in the same collection:
Thy Providence my life sustain’d, And all my wants redress’d, When in the silent womb I lay, And hung upon the breast.
Shakespeare, in his admired description of Dover cliff, uses the same expression:
——half way down Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!
Nothing can be more beautiful than the following picture, in which Milton has introduced the same expressive tint:
——he, on his side Leaning half raised, with looks of cordial love Hung over her enamour’d——
We shall give one example more from Virgil, to show in what a variety of scenes it may appear with propriety and effect. In describing the progress of Dido’s passion for Æneas, the poet says,
Iliacos iterum demens audire labores Exposcit, pendetque iterum narrantis ab ore. The woes of Troy once more she begg’d to hear; Once more the mournful tale employ’d his tongue, While in fond rapture on his lips she hung.
The reader will perceive in all these instances that no other word could be substituted with equal energy; indeed no other word could be used without degrading the sense, and defacing the image.
There are many other verbs of poetical import fetched from nature, and from art, which the poet uses to advantage both in a literal and metaphorical sense; and these have been always translated for the same purpose from one language to another; such as quasso, concutio, cio, suscito, lenio, sævio, mano, fluo, ardeo, mico, aro, to shake, to wake, to rouse, to soothe, to rage, to flow, to shine or blaze, to plough.—Quassantia tectum limina Æneas, casu concussus acerbo—Ære ciere viros, Martemque accendere cantu—Æneas acuit Martem et se suscitat irâ—Impium lenite clamorem. Lenibant curas—Ne sævi magna sacerdos—Sudor ad imos manabat solos—Suspensæque diu lacrymæ fluxêre per ora—Juvenali ardebat amore—Micat æreus ensis—Nullum maris æquor arandum. It will be unnecessary to insert examples of the same nature from the English poets.
The words we term emphatical, are such as by their sound express the sense they are intended to convey; and with these the Greek abounds, above all other languages, not only from its natural copiousness, flexibility, and significance, but also from the variety of its dialects, which enables a writer to vary his terminations occasionally as the nature of the subject requires, without offending the most delicate ear, or incurring the imputation of adopting vulgar provincial expressions. Every smatterer in Greek can repeat
Βη δ’ ακεων παρα θινα πολυφλοισβοιο θαλασσης.
in which the two last words wonderfully echo to the sense, conveying the idea of the sea dashing on the shore. How much more significant in sound than that beautiful image of Shakspeare—
“The sea that on the unnumber’d pebbles beats.”
And yet, if we consider the strictness of propriety, this last expression would seem to have been selected on purpose to concur with the other circumstances which are brought together to ascertain the vast height of Dover cliff: for the poet adds, “cannot be heard so high.” The place where Gloster stood was so high above the surface of the sea, that the φλοισβος, or dashing, could not be heard; and therefore an enthusiastic admirer of Shakspeare might with some plausibility affirm, the poet had chosen an expression in which that sound is not at all conveyed.
In the very same page of Homer’s Iliad, we meet with two other striking instances of the same sort of beauty. Apollo, incensed at the insults his priest had sustained, descends from the top of Olympus, with his bow and quiver rattling on his shoulder as he moved along:
Εκλαγξαν δ’ αρ’ οιστοι επ’ ωμων.
Here the sound of the word Εκλαγξαν admirably expresses the clanking of armour; as the third line after this surprisingly imitates the twanging of a bow.
Δεινη δε κλαγγη γεννετ’ αργυρεοιο βιοιο. In shrill-toned murmurs sung the twanging bow.
Many beauties of the same kind are scattered through Homer, Pindar, and Theocritus, such as the βομβευσα μελισσα, susurrans apicula; the ἁδυ ψιθυρισμα, dulcem susurrum; and the μελισδεται for the sighing of the pine.
The Latin language teems with sounds adapted to every situation, and the English is not destitute of this significant energy. We have the cooing turtle, the sighing reed, the warbling rivulet, the sliding stream, the whispering breeze, the glance, the gleam, the flash, the bickering flame, the dashing wave, the gushing spring, the howling blast, the rattling storm, the pattering shower, the crimp earth, the mouldering tower, the twanging bow-string, the clanging arms, the clanking chains, the twinkling stars, the tinkling chords, the trickling drops, the twittering swallow, the cawing rook, the screeching owl; and a thousand other words and epithets wonderfully suited to the sense they imply.
Among the select passages of poetry which we shall insert by way of illustration, the reader will find instances of all the different tropes and figures, which the best authors have adopted in the variety of their poetical works, as well as of the apostrophe, abrupt transition, repetition, and prosopopœia.
In the mean time it will be necessary still further to analyse those principles, which constitute the essence of poetical merit; to display those delightful parterres, that teem with the fairest flowers of imagination, and distinguish between the gaudy offspring of a cold insipid fancy, and the glowing progeny, diffusing sweets, produced and invigorated by the sun of genius.