Part 15 (1/2)
--and so on No, to be short, it was not At the age of twenty-four, or thereabouts, he deliberately proposed to hireat poet To this end he practised and studied, and travelled unweariedly until his thirty-first year Then he tried to make up his mind what to write about He took some sheets of paper--they are to be seen at this day in the Library of Trinity College, Cae--and set down no less than ninety-nine subjects for his proposed _num opus_, before he could decide upon _Paradise Lost_ To be sure, when the _num opus_ ritten it fetched 5 only But even this does not prove that Milton was before his age Perhaps he was behind it _Paradise Lost_ appeared in 1667: in 1657 it ht have fetched considerably more than 5
If the Typical Poet have few points in common with Shakespeare or Milton, I fear that the Typical Poet begins to be in a bad way
Of Coleridge
Shall we try Coleridge? He had ”great thoughts”--thousands of thehtest difficulty in uttering thereat achievements in verse--his _Genevieve_, his _Christabel_, his _Kubla Khan_, his _Ancient Mariner_--are achievements of expression When they appeal from the senses to the intellect their appeal is usually quite sireat and se is not the Typical Poet
On the whole I suspect the Typical Poet to be a hasty generalization from Shelley
POETS ON THEIR OWN ART
May 11, 1895 A Prelude to Poetry
”To those who love the poets ht to be the one indispensable book of devotion, the _credo_ of the poetic faith” ”This little book” is the volume hich Mr Ernest Rhys prefaces the pretty series of Lyrical Poets which he is editing for Messrs Dent & Co He calls it _The Prelude to Poetry_, and in it he has brought together the lish poets in defence and praise of their own art Sidney's es from Ben Jonson's ”Discoveries,” Wordsworth's preface to the second edition of ”Lyrical Ballads,” the fourteenth chapter of the ”Biographia Literaria,” and Shelley's ”Defence”
Poets as Prose-writers
What admirable prose these poets write! Southey, to be sure, is not represented in this voluth upon his art--in spite of his confession that, riting prose, ”of what is now called style not a thought enters my head at any time”--we may be sure the reflection would have been even more obvious than it is But without hiainst all that has been said in disparagement of the prose style of poets
Let us pass what Hazlitt said of Coleridge's prose; or rather let us quote it once again for its vivacity, and so pass on--
”One of his (Coleridge's) sentences winds its 'forlorn way obscure' over the page like a patriarchal procession with camels laden, wreathed turbans, household wealth, the whole riches of the author's mind poured out upon the barren waste of his subject The palm tree spreads its sterile branches overhead, and the land of promise is seen in the distance”
All this is very neatly malicious, and particularly the last co-ordinate sentence But in the chapter chosen by Mr Rhys froe's prose is seen at its best--obedient, pertinent, at once iinative and restrained--as in the conclusion--
”Finally, good sense is the body of poetic genius, fancy its drapery, ination the soul that is everywhere, and in each; and forent whole”
The prose of Sidney's _Apologie_ is Sidney's best; and when that has been said, nothing re I will take three specimens only First then, for beauty:--
”Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapistry, as divers Poets have done, neither with plesant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-s flowers: nor whatsoever else may make the too much loved earth olden: but let those things alone and goe to s are, so it see is iht forth so true a lover as _Theagines_, so constant a friende as _Pilades_, so valiant a ht a Prince as _Xenophon's Cyrus_; so excellent a il's Aeneas_”
Next for wit--roguishness, if you like the term better:--
”And therefore, if _Cato__Ennius_ with him to the field, it may be answered, that if _Cato_ misliked it, the noble _Fulvius_ liked it, or else he had not done it”
And lastly for beauty and wit combined:--
”For he (the Poet) doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweete a prospect into the way, as will intice any man to enter into it Nay he doth, as if your journey should lye through a fayre Vineyard, at the first give you a cluster of Grapes: that full of that taste, you inneth not with obscure definitions, which ent with interpretations, and load the memory with doubtfulnesse: but he cohtful proportion, either acco skill of Musicke: and with a tale forsooth he cometh unto you: with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old lorious way to talk?” dee, when he talked about Sidney, the other day, in Mr