But the practice of prefixing explanatory passages is
utterly at variance with such unity. By the prefix, we are either
put in possession of the subject of the poem, or some hint, historic
fact, or suggestion, is thereby afforded, not included in the body
of the piece, which, without the hint, is incomprehensible. In the
latter case, while perusing the poem, the reader must revert, in
mind at, least, to the prefix, for the necessary explanation. In the
former, the poem being a mere paraphrase of the prefix, the interest
is divided between the prefix and the paraphrase. In either instance
the totality of effect is destroyed.
Of the other original poems in the volume before us there is none in
which the aim of instruction, or truth, has not been too obviously
substituted for the legitimate aim, beauty. We have heretofore taken
occasion to say that a didactic moral might be happily made the
under-current of a poetical theme, and we have treated this point at
length in a review of Moore's "Alciphron"; but the moral thus conveyed
is invariably an ill effect when obtruding beyond the upper-current of
the thesis itself. Perhaps the worst specimen of this obtrusion is
given us by our poet in "Blind Bartimeus" and the "Goblet of Life,"
where it will be observed that the sole interest of the
upper-current of meaning depends upon its relation or reference to the
under.
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