POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART.

CHAPTER I.

POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE.

Introduction-All Art Representative-Poetry an Artistic Development of Language-Language Representative of Mental Processes through Material Sounds or Symbols-Primitive Words are developed according to Principles of Association and Comparison, partly Instinctive, through Ejaculations; partly Reflective, through Imitative Sounds-This Theory need not be carried too far-How Language is a Gift from GodAgreement with Reference to Ejaculatory and Imitative Sounds would form a Primitive Language-This Book to show how Language, and hence, how Poetic Language, can represent Thought, by pointing out, first, how SOUNDS represent Thought in Primitive and then in Poetic Words and Intonations; and, second, how Sounds accepted as Words are used in Different SENSES, and how these Represent Thought in Conventional and then in Poetic Words and Phrases-Sounds represent Thought both in Single Words and in Consecutive Intonations-Elocution, the Interpreter of Sounds used Consecutively-Representing that Blending and Balancing of Instinctive and Reflective Tendencies, which express the Emotive Nature.

WORDSWORTH, in one of his finest passages, says

of the results of his studies in poetry:

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man :
A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

-Lines Composed a few Miles above Tintern Abbey.

How many are there who have learned for themselves this lesson - undoubtedly a valuable one-of which Wordsworth speaks? How many are there who can apprehend clearly his meaning in what he says of it? How many are there who can discover in themselves any important addition to their mental or moral development that has been due to poetry, or who can appreciate fully its best thought, if at all subtle in its nature, even though presented in the best possible form? That in our day there are very few of these, is only too apparent to any competent judge of the subject who questions the leaders in our literary circles, who reads the verses in our magazines, who examines the criticisms in our reviews, or who listens to the accounts of what students of poetry are taught in our schools. Yet in his "Defence of Poesy Sir Philip Sidney tells us that this art "is of all other learnings the most ancient,-that from whence all other learnings have taken their beginnings, and so universal that no learned nation doth despise it; nor no barbarous nation is without it." Bailey says that:

Poetry is itself a thing of God.

He made his prophets poets, and the more
We feel of poesy do we become

Like God in love and power.

-Festus.

And Holmes assures us that

There breathes no being, but has some pretence
To that fine instinct called poetic sense.

-A Metrical Essay.

If statements like these, which could be multiplied indefinitely, be true, then it is both important and possible for men of all classes and conditions to have the character and methods of this art-the only one accessible to the members of every household-so explained to them that they shall be able to appreciate it, and to judge intelligently of its products, and hence to enjoy it, and to profit by it. It is with this belief that the present work has been undertaken, in which it will be maintained throughout that there are absolute standards of poetic excellence; that these can be ascertained; and that upon them can be founded a system of criticism as simple as it is scientific.

At the threshold of our undertaking, the first thing for us, of course, is to become thoroughly acquainted with the facts of the case, and the fact of primary importance for us here will be ascertained when, in some form, we have answered the question, What is poetry?

Poetry is acknowledged to be an art, ranking, like music, with the fine arts,-painting, sculpture, and architecture. It is acknowledged, also, that the peculiar characteristic of all these arts is that they have what is termed form (from the Latin forma, an external appearance). This form, moreover, is æsthetic (from the Greek aio Ontós, perceived by the senses); and it is presented in such a way as to address the senses through the agency of an artist, who, in order to attain his end, re-presents the sounds or sights of nature. All these arts, therefore, in a broad sense of the term, are representative. What they repre

sent is partly the phenomena of nature and partly the thoughts of man; partly that which is imitated from things perceived in the world without, and partly that which is conceived in the mind of him who, in order to express his conception, produces the imitation. Both of these factors are present in all artistic forms, and cause them to be what they are. That painting and sculpture represent, is recognized by all; that music and architecture do the same, needs to be proved to most men. As for poetry, with which we are now to deal, all perceive that it contains certain representative elements; but few are aware to what an extent these determine every thing in it that is distinctive and excellent.

The medium used in poetry is language, of which it is simply an artistic development. To understand the one, we should begin by trying to understand the other. Let us consider, then, for a little, what language is. Only a moment's thought will show, that, like the arts of which I have spoken, it, too, is representative. Through outward and perceptible sounds or symbols it makes known our inward thoughts, which, without the representation, others could not know. If, in any way, we can ascertain how it does this, we may gain a clew by which to find how poetry can do the same.

How, then, does language represent thought through the agency of sound? The best way to find an answer to this is to trace, as far as possible, the course of a few thoughts from their inception in the mind outward to the full expression of them in words. For this purpose we might imagine ourselves to be living in some early, or, at least, uncultivated age; we might ask what would be done by the members of a race with a limited number of words and desirous of expressing ideas for which they had no

terms in their vocabulary. But, without taxing our imagination thus, we can accomplish our purpose by watching the children of our own time. We can note the different stages in the development of their efforts to tell us what they think; and then we can argue from analogy that there would be a similar order of development in language during the childhood of the race. Let us pursue this course. As we do so, we shall find ourselves, instinctively, making two divisions of our subject: the first dealing with the methods of originating sounds so as to represent thought; the second, with the use of them after they have been originated so as to represent different thoughts. It is best to begin by considering the former of these, and then, immediately in connection with it, its bearings on poetic forms; not because, in its relations either to language or to poetry, it occupies the more important position, but because it comes the earlier in the order of time.

The first sounds made by the babe are instinctive, and seem to be accepted as words in fulfilment mainly of the principle of association. By instinctive, as used in this book, is meant an expression allied in its nature to instinct; due, even in a rational being, to the operation less of conscious rationality than of natural forces vitalizing all sentient existence. The child cries and crows while the mother hums and chuckles, and both understand each other. They communicate through what may be termed ejaculations or interjections. This kind of language is little above the level of that of the brutes; in fact, it is of the same nature as theirs. The sounds seem to have a purely muscular or nervous origin; and for this reason may be supposed to have no necessary connection with particular thoughts or psychic states intended to be expressed by