In comparison with free verbal
expressions, verse forms are, indeed, artifices; yet they are not
artificial, in the bad sense of functionless, for they possess
irreplaceable values. Nevertheless, it would be strange if they were
not from time to time abandoned, the poet reverting to the freedom of
ordinary speech; just as now and then, in civilized communities, we
find vigorous and sincere men who tire of culture and take to the
woods.
The triplicity of the word, as sound, image, meaning, provides a certain
justification for the variety of tastes in poetry, and accounts for
the difficulty of setting up a single universal standard. There is an
unstable equilibrium between the three aspects of words; hence poetry
tends to become predominantly music or painting or thought, yet can
never succeed in becoming completely any one of these. And it is
inevitable that some people should be more sensitive to one rather
than to another of the aspects of words, preferring therefore the more
musical, or the more thoughtful, or the more pictorial poetry. And so
we have poems that would be music, and others that would be pictures,
and still others that would be epigrams. And each kind has a certain
right and beauty; but no kind has the unique beauty that is poetical.
We do not ask their makers not to produce them, nor do we condemn the
pleasures which they afford us, but we cannot commend them without
reservation. For the best poems achieve a synthesis of the elements
of words,--they are at once musical and imaginative and thoughtful.
Pages:
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242