Man being what he is, the time could never have been in
which poesy was not. Its first element is the thirst for supernal
BEAUTY- a beauty which is not afforded the soul by any existing
collocation of earth's forms- a beauty which, perhaps, no possible
combination of these forms would fully produce. Its second element
is the attempt to satisfy this thirst by novel combinations among
those forms of beauty which already exist- or by novel combinations of
those combinations which our predecessors, toiling in chase of the
same phantom have already set in order. We thus clearly deduce the
novelty, the originality, the invention, the imagination, or lastly
the creation of BEAUTY (for the terms as here employed are
synonymous), as the essence of all Poesy. Nor is this idea so much
at variance with ordinary opinion as, at first sight, it may appear. A
multitude of antique dogmas on this topic will be found when
divested of extrinsic speculation, to be easily resoluble into the
definition now proposed. We do nothing more than present tangibly
the vague clouds of the world's idea. We recognize the idea itself
floating, unsettled, indefinite, in every attempt which has yet been
made to circumscribe the conception of "Poesy" in words. A striking
instance of this is observable in the fact that no definition exists
in which either the "beautiful," or some one of those qualities
which we have mentioned above designated synonymously with "creation,"
has not been pointed out as the chief attribute of the Muse.
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