Oxford Lectures on Poetry Part 2

It is of course possible to use a distinction of 'pure' and 'mixed' in another sense. Poetry, whatever its kind, would be pure as far as it preserved the unity of content and form; mixed, so far as it failed to do so--in other words, failed to be poetry and was partly prosaic.

NOTE E

It is possible therefore that the poem, as it existed at certain stages in its growth, may correspond roughly with the poem as it exists in the memories of various readers. A reader who is fond of the poem and often thinks of it, but remembers only half the words and perhaps fills up the gaps with his own words, may possess something like the poem as it was when half-made. There are readers again who retain only what they would call the 'idea' of the poem; and the poem _may_ have begun from such an idea. Others will forget all the words, and will not profess to remember even the 'meaning,' but believe that they possess the 'spirit' of the poem. And what they possess may have, I think, an immense value. The poem, of course, it is not; but it may answer to the state of imaginative feeling or emotional imagination which was the germ of the poem. This is, in one sense, quite definite: it would not be the germ of a decidedly different poem: but in another sense it is indefinite, comparatively structureless, more a 'stimmung' than an idea.

Such correspondences, naturally, must be very rough, if only because the readers have been at one time in contact with the fully grown poem.

NOTE F

I should be sorry if what is said here and elsewhere were taken to imply depreciation of all attempts at the interpretation of works of art. As regards poetry, such attempts, though they cannot possibly express the whole meaning of a poem, may do much to facilitate the poetic apprehension of that meaning. And, although the attempt is still more hazardous in the case of music and painting, I believe it may have a similar value. That its results _may_ be absurd or disgusting goes without saying, and whether they are ever of use to musicians or the musically educated I do not know. But I see no reason why an exceedingly competent person should not try to indicate the emotional tone of a composition, movement, or pa.s.sage, or the changes of feeling within it, or even, very roughly, the 'idea' he may suppose it to embody (though he need not imply that the composer had any of this before his mind). And I believe that such indications, however inadequate they must be, may greatly help the uneducated lover of music to hear more truly the music itself.

NOTE G

This new question has 'quite another sense' than that of the question, What is the meaning or content expressed by the form of a poem? The new question asks, What is it that the _poem_, the unity of this content and form, is trying to express? This 'beyond' is beyond the content as well as the form.

Of course, I should add, it is not _merely_ beyond them or outside of them. If it were, they (the poem) could not 'suggest' it. They are a partial manifestation of it, and point beyond themselves to it, both because they _are_ a manifestation and because this is partial.

The same thing is true, not only (as is remarked in the text) of the other arts and of religion and philosophy, but also of what is commonly called reality. This reality is a manifestation of a different order from poetry, and in certain important respects a much more imperfect manifestation. Hence, as was pointed out (pp. 6, 7, note B), poetry is not a copy of it, but in dealing with it idealises it, and in doing so produces in certain respects a fuller manifestation. On the other hand, that imperfect 'reality' has for us a character in which poetry is deficient,--the character in virtue of which we call it 'reality.' It is, we feel, thrust upon us, not made by us or by any other man. And in this respect it seems more akin than poetry to that 'beyond,' or absolute, or perfection, which we want, which partially expresses itself in both, and which could not be perfection and could not satisfy us if it were not real (though it cannot be real in the same sense as that imperfect 'reality'). This seems the ultimate ground of the requirement that poetry, though no copy of 'reality,' should not be mere 'fancy,'

but should refer to, and interpret, that 'reality.' For that reality, however imperfectly it reveals perfection, is at least no mere fancy.

(Not that the merest fancy can fail to reveal something of perfection.)

The lines quoted on p. 26 are from a fragment of Sh.e.l.ley's beginning 'Is it that in some brighter sphere.'

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The lecture, as printed in 1901, was preceded by the following note: "This Lecture is printed almost as it was delivered. I am aware that, especially in the earlier pages, difficult subjects are treated in a manner far too summary, but they require an exposition so full that it would destroy the original form of the Lecture, while a slight expansion would do little to provide against misunderstandings." A few verbal changes have now been made, some notes have been added, and some of the introductory remarks omitted.

[2] Note A.

[3] Note B.

[4] What is here called 'substance' is what people generally mean when they use the word 'subject' and insist on the value of the subject. I am not arguing against this usage, or in favour of the usage which I have adopted for the sake of clearness. It does not matter which we employ, so long as we and others know what we mean.

(I use 'substance' and 'content' indifferently.)

[5] These remarks will hold good, _mutatis mutandis_, if by 'substance' is understood the 'moral' or the 'idea' of a poem, although perhaps in one instance out of five thousand this may be found in so many words in the poem.

[6] On the other hand, the absence, or worse than absence, of style, in this sense, is a serious matter.

[7] Note C.

[8] This paragraph is criticized in Note D.

[9]: Note E.

[10] Not that to Schiller 'form' meant mere style and versification.

[11] Note F.

[12] Note G.

[13] In Schiller's phrase, they have extirpated the mere 'matter.' We often say that they do this by dint of style. This is roughly true, but in strictness it means, as we have seen, not that they decorate the mere 'matter' with a mere 'form,' but that they produce a new content-form.

THE SUBLIME

THE SUBLIME[1]

Coleridge used to tell a story about his visit to the Falls of Clyde; but he told it with such variations that the details are uncertain, and without regard to truth I shall change it to the shape that suits my purpose best. After gazing at the Falls for some time, he began to consider what adjective would answer most precisely to the impression he had received; and he came to the conclusion that the proper word was 'sublime.' Two other tourists arrived, and, standing by him, looked in silence at the spectacle. Then, to Coleridge's high satisfaction, the gentleman exclaimed, 'It is sublime.' To which the lady responded, 'Yes, it is the prettiest thing I ever saw.'

This poor lady's incapacity (for I a.s.sume that Coleridge and her husband were in the right) is ludicrous, but it is also a little painful.

Sublimity and prettiness are qualities separated by so great a distance that our sudden attempt to unite them has a comically incongruous effect. At the same time the first of these qualities is so exalted that the exhibition of entire inability to perceive it is distressing.

Astonishment, rapture, awe, even self-abas.e.m.e.nt, are among the emotions evoked by sublimity. Many would be inclined to p.r.o.nounce it the very highest of all the forms a.s.sumed by beauty, whether in nature or in works of imagination.

I propose to make some remarks on this quality, and even to attempt some sort of answer to the question what sublimity is. I say 'some sort of answer,' because the question is large and difficult, and I can deal with it only in outline and by drawing artificial limits round it and refusing to discuss certain presuppositions on which the answer rests.

What I mean by these last words will be evident if I begin by referring to a term which will often recur in this lecture--the term 'beauty.'

When we call sublimity a form of beauty, as I did just now, the word 'beauty' is obviously being used in the widest sense. It is the sense which the word bears when we distinguish beauty from goodness and from truth, or when 'beautiful' is taken to signify anything and everything that gives aesthetic satisfaction, or when 'Aesthetics' and 'Philosophy of the Beautiful' are used as equivalent expressions. Of beauty, thus understood, sublimity is one particular kind among a number of others, for instance prettiness. But 'beauty' and 'beautiful' have also another meaning, narrower and more specific, as when we say that a thing is pretty but not beautiful, or that it is beautiful but not sublime. The beauty we have in view here is evidently not the same as beauty in the wider sense; it is only, like sublimity or prettiness, a particular kind or mode of that beauty. This ambiguity of the words 'beauty' and 'beautiful' is a great inconvenience, and especially so in a lecture, where it forces us to add some qualification to the words whenever they occur: but it cannot be helped. (Now that the lecture is printed I am able to avoid these qualifications by printing the words in inverted commas where they bear the narrower sense.)[2]

Now, obviously, all the particular kinds or modes of beauty must have, up to a certain point, the same nature. They must all possess that character in virtue of which they are called beautiful rather than good or true. And so a philosopher, investigating one of these kinds, would first have to determine this common nature or character; and then he would go on to ascertain what it is that distinguishes the particular kind from its companions. But here we cannot follow such a method. The nature of beauty in general is so much disputed and so variously defined that to discuss it here by way of preface would be absurd; and on the other hand it would be both presumptuous and useless to a.s.sume the truth of any one account of it. Our only plan, therefore, must be to leave it entirely alone, and to consider merely the distinctive character of sublimity. Let beauty in general be what it may, what is it that marks off _this_ kind of beauty from others, and what is there peculiar in our state of mind when we are moved to apply to anything the specific epithet 'sublime'?--such is our question. And this plan is not merely the only possible one, but it is, I believe, quite justifiable, since, so far as I can see, the answer to our particular question, unless it is pushed further than I propose to go, is unaffected by the differences among theories of repute concerning beauty in general. At the same time, it is essential to realise and always to bear in mind one consequence of this plan; which is that our account of what is peculiar to sublimity will not be an account of sublimity in its full nature. For sublimity is not those peculiar characteristics alone, it is that _beauty_ which is distinguished by them, and a large part of its effect is due to that general nature of beauty which it shares with other kinds, and which we leave unexamined.

In considering the question thus defined I propose to start from our common aesthetic experience and to attempt to arrive at an answer by degrees. It will be understood, therefore, that our first results may have to be modified as we proceed. And I will venture to ask my hearers, further, to ignore for the time any doubts they may feel whether I am right in saying, by way of ill.u.s.tration, that this or that thing is sublime. Such differences of opinion scarcely affect our question, which is not whether in a given case the epithet is rightly applied, but what the epithet signifies. And it has to be borne in mind that, while no two kinds of beauty can be quite the same, a _thing_ may very well possess beauty of two different kinds.

Let us begin by placing side by side five terms which represent five of the many modes of beauty--sublime, grand, 'beautiful,' graceful, pretty.

'Beautiful' is here placed in the middle. Before it come two terms, sublime and grand; and beyond it lie two others, graceful and pretty.

Now is it not the case that the first two, though not identical, still seem to be allied in some respect; that the last two also seem to be allied in some respect; that in this respect, whatever it may be, these two pairs seem to stand apart from one another, and even to stand in contrast; that 'beauty,' in this respect, seems to hold a neutral position, though perhaps inclining rather to grace than to grandeur; and that the extreme terms, sublime and pretty, seem in this respect to be the most widely removed; so that this series of five const.i.tutes, in a sense, a descending series,--descending not necessarily in value, but in some particular respect not yet a.s.signed? If, for example, in the lady's answer, 'Yes, it is the prettiest thing I ever saw,' you subst.i.tute for 'prettiest' first 'most graceful,' and then 'most beautiful,' and then 'grandest,' you will find that your astonishment at her diminishes at each step, and that at the last, when she identifies sublimity and grandeur, she is guilty no longer of an absurdity, but only of a slight anti-climax. If, I may add, she had said 'majestic,' the anti-climax would have been slighter still, and, in fact, in one version of the story Coleridge says that 'majestic' was the word he himself chose.

What then is the 'respect' in question here,--the something or other in regard to which sublimity and grandeur seemed to be allied with one another, and to differ decidedly from grace and prettiness? It appears to be greatness. Thousands of things are 'beautiful,' graceful, or pretty, and yet make no impression of greatness, nay, this impression in many cases appears to collide with, and even to destroy, that of grace or prettiness, so that if a pretty thing produced it you would cease to call it pretty. But whatever strikes us as sublime produces an impression of greatness, and more--of exceeding or even overwhelming greatness. And this greatness, further, is apparently no mere accompaniment of sublimity, but essential to it: remove the greatness in imagination, and the sublimity vanishes. Grandeur, too, seems always to possess greatness, though not in this superlative degree; while 'beauty'

neither invariably possesses it nor tends, like prettiness and grace, to exclude it. I will try, not to defend these statements by argument, but to develop their meaning by help of ill.u.s.trations, dismissing from view the minor differences between these modes of beauty, and, for the most part, leaving grandeur out of account.

We need not ask here what is the exact meaning of that 'greatness' of which I have spoken: but we must observe at once that the greatness in question is of more than one kind. Let us understand by the term, to begin with, greatness of extent,--of size, number, or duration; and let us ask whether sublime things are, in this sense, exceedingly great.

Some certainly are. The vault of heaven, one expanse of blue, or dark and studded with countless and prodigiously distant stars; the sea that stretches to the horizon and beyond it, a surface smooth as gla.s.s or breaking into innumerable waves; time, to which we can imagine no beginning and no end,--these furnish favourite examples of sublimity; and to call them great seems almost mockery, for they are images of immeasurable magnitude. When we turn from them to living beings, of course our standard of greatness changes;[3] but, using the standard appropriate to the sphere, we find again that the sublime things have, for the most part, great magnitude. A graceful tree need not be a large one; a pretty tree is almost always small; but a sublime tree is almost always large. If you were asked to mention sublime animals, you would perhaps suggest, among birds, the eagle; among fishes, if any, the whale; among beasts, the lion or the tiger, the python or the elephant.

But you would find it hard to name a sublime insect; and indeed it is not easy, perhaps not possible, to feel sublimity in any animal smaller than oneself, unless one goes beyond the special kind of greatness at present under review. Consider again such facts as these: that a human being of average, or even of less than average, stature and build may be graceful and even 'beautiful,' but can hardly, in respect of stature and build, be grand or sublime; that we most commonly think of flowers as little things, and also most commonly think of them as 'beautiful,'

graceful, pretty, but rarely as grand, and still more rarely as sublime, and that in these latter cases we do not think of them as small; that a mighty river may well be sublime, but hardly a stream; a towering or far-stretching mountain, but hardly a low hill; a vast bridge, but hardly one of moderate span; a great cathedral, but hardly a village church; that a model of a sublime building is not sublime, unless in imagination you expand it to the dimensions of its original; that a plain, though flat, may be sublime if its extent is immense; that while we constantly say 'a pretty little thing,' or even 'a beautiful little thing,' n.o.body ever says 'a sublime little thing.' Examples like these seem to show clearly--not that bigness is sublimity, for bigness need have no beauty, while sublimity is a mode of beauty--but that this particular mode of beauty is frequently connected with, and dependent on, exceeding greatness of extent.

Let us now take a further step. Can there be sublimity when such greatness is absent? And, if there can, is greatness of some other sort always present in such cases, and essential to the sublime effect? The answer to the first of these questions is beyond doubt. Children have no great extension, and what Wordsworth calls 'a six-years' darling of a pigmy size' is (if a darling) generally called pretty but not sublime; for it _is_ 'of a pigmy size.' Yet it certainly _may_ be sublime, and it is so to the poet who addresses it thus:

Thou whose exterior semblance doth belie Thy soul's immensity....

Mighty prophet! Seer blest!

On whom those truths do rest Which we are toiling all our lives to find.