The initial consideration was that of extent. If any literary work
is too long to be read at one sitting, we must be content to
dispense with the immensely important effect derivable from unity of
impression- for, if two sittings be required, the affairs of the world
interfere, and everything like totality is at once destroyed. But
since, ceteris paribus, no poet can afford to dispense with anything
that may advance his design, it but remains to be seen whether there
is, in extent, any advantage to counterbalance the loss of unity which
attends it. Here I say no, at once. What we term a long poem is, in
fact, merely a succession of brief ones- that is to say, of brief
poetical effects. It is needless to demonstrate that a poem is such
only inasmuch as it intensely excites, by elevating the soul; and
all intense excitements are, through a psychal necessity, brief. For
this reason, at least, one-half of the "Paradise Lost" is
essentially prose- a succession of poetical excitements
interspersed, inevitably, with corresponding depressions- the whole
being deprived, through the extremeness of its length, of the vastly
important artistic element, totality, or unity of effect.
It appears evident, then, that there is a distinct limit, as regards
length, to all works of literary art- the limit of a single sitting-
and that, although in certain classes of prose composition, such as
"Robinson Crusoe" (demanding no unity), this limit may be
advantageously overpassed, it can never properly be overpassed in a
poem.
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