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1、The Poetical PrincipleIN SPEAKING of the Poetical Principle，I have no design to be either thorough or profound.While discussing, very much at random, the essentiality of what we call Poetical, my principle purpose will be to cite for consideration, some few of those minor English or American poems w
2、hich best suit my own taste, or which, upon my own fancy, have left the most definite impression. By “minor poems” I mean, of course, poems of little length. And here, in the beginning, permit me to say a few words in regard to a somewhat peculiar principle, which, whether rightful or wrongfully, ha
3、s always had it influence in my own critical estimate of the poem. I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, “a long poem,” is simple a flat contradiction in terms.I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul. The
4、 value of the poem is the ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitement are, through a psychal necessity, transient. The degree of excitement which would entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a composition of any great length. After the lapse of half an hour,
5、 at the very utmost, it flags - fails - a revulsion ensues - and then the poem is, in effect, and in fact, no longer such.There are, no doubt, many who have found difficult in reconciling the critical dictum that the “Paradise Lost” is to be devoutly admired throughout, with the absolute impossibili
6、ty for maintaining for it, during perusal, the amount of enthusiasm which that critical dictum would demand. This great work, in fact, is to be regarded poetical, only when, losing sight of that vital requisite in all works of Art, Unity, we view it merely as a series of minor poems. If, to preserve
7、 its Unity - its totality of effect or impression - we read it(as would be necessary) at a single sitting, the result is but a constant alternation of excitement and depression. After a passage of what we feel to be true poetry, there follows, inevitably, a passage of platitude which no critical pre
8、-judgment can force us to admire; but if , upon completing the work, we read it again; omitting the first work-that is to say, commencing with second - we shall be surprised at now finding that admirable which we before condemned - the damnable which we had previously so much admired. It follows fro
9、m all this that the ultimate, aggregate, or absolute effect of even the best epic under the sun, is a nullity: - band this precisely the fact.In regard to the Iliad, we have, if not possible proof, at least very good reason, for it intended as a series of lyrics; but, granting the epic intention, I
10、can say only that the work is based in an imperfect sense of art. The modern epic is, of the suppositious ancient model, but an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But the day of these anomalies is over. If , at any time, any very long poem were popular reality, which I doubt, it is at least clea
11、r that no very long poem will ever be popular again.That extent of a poetical work is, ceteris paribus, the measure of its merit, seems undoubted, when we thus state it, a proposition sufficiently absurd - yet we are indebted for it to the Quarterly Reviews. Surely there can be nothing in mere size,
12、 abstractly considered - there can be nothing in bulk, so far as a volume is concerned, which had so continuously elicited admiration from these saturnine pamphlets! A mountain, to be sure, by the mere sentiment of physical magnitude which it conveys, does impress us with a sense of the sublime - bu
13、t no man is impressed after this fashion by material grandeur of even “The Columbiad.” Even the Quarterlies have not instructed us to be so impressed by it. As yet, they have not insisted on our estimating Lamartine by the cubic foot, or Pollok by the pound - but what else are we to infer from their
14、 continual prating about “sustained effort?” If, by “sustained effort,” any little gentlemen has accomplished an epic, let us frankly commend him for the effort - if this indeed be a thing commendable - but let us forbear praising the epic on the efforts account. It is to be hoped that common sense,
15、 in the time to come, will prefer deciding upon a work of art, rather by the impression it makes, by the amount of “sustained effort” which had been found necessary in effecting the impression. The fact is, that perseverance is one thing, and genius quite anther - nor can all the Quarterlies in Chri
16、stendom confound them. By and-by, this proposition, with many which I have been just urging, will be received as self-evident. In the meantime, by being generally condemned as falsities, they will not be essentially damaged as truths.On the other hand, it is clear that a poem may be improperly brief. Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A very short poem, while now and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never
