Note 107 — Chapter II · RHYTHM AS THE ESSENTIAL FACT OF POETRY

“Wodurch Poesie erst zur Poesie wird,”—the erst will bear a stronger translation. Schiller, too, said that one must put into verse whatever rises above the commonplace; and Goethe agreed with him: all poetry “should be treated rhythmically.” Victor Hugo, in his Preface to Cromwell, pp. 33 f., defends verse for the drama; prose has not adequate resources.