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Untitled Article
novelists , Or public speakers , not poets . And the wiser thinkers begin to understand and acknowledge that poetic excellence is subject to the same necessary conditions with any other mental endowment ; and that to no one of the spiritual benefactors of mankind is a higher or a more assiduous intellectual culture needful than to the poet . It is true , he possesses this advantage over others who use the 4 instrument of words , ' that of the truths
which he utters , a larger proportion are derived from personal consciousness , and a smaller from philosophic investigation . But the power itself of discriminating between what really is consciousness , and what is only a process of inference completed in a single instant ; and the capacity of distinguishing whether that of which the mind is conscious , be an eternal truth , or but a
dreamare among the last results of the most matured and perfected intellect . Not to mention that the poet , no more than any other person who writes , confines himself altogether to intuitive truths , nor has any means of communicating even these , but by words , every one of which derives all its power of conveying a meaning , from a whole host of acquired notions , and facts learnt by study and experience . Nevertheless , it seems undeniable in point of fact , and
consistent with the principles of a sound metaphysics , that there are poetic natures . There is a mental and physical constitution or temperament , peculiarly fitted for poetry . This temperament will not of itself make a poet , no more than the soil will the fruit ; and as good fruit may be raised by culture from indifferent soils , so may good poetry from naturally unpoetical minds . But the
poetry of one , who is a poet by nature , will be clearly and broadly distinguishable from the poetry of mere culture . It may not be truer ; it may not be more useful ; but it will be different : fewer will appreciate it , even though many should affect to do so ; but in those few it will find a keener sympathy , and will yield them a deeper enjoyment .
One may write genuine poetry , and not be a poet ; for whosoever writes out truly any one human feeling , writes poetry . All persons , even the most unimaginative , in moments of strong emotion , speak poetry ; and hence the drama is poetry , which else were always prose , except when a poet is one of the characters . What is poetry , but the thoughts and words in which emotion spontaneously embodies itself ? As there are few who are not , at least for some moments and in some situations , capable of some
strong feeling , poetry is natural to most persons at some period of their lives . And any one whose feelings are genuine , though but of the average strength , —if he be not diverted by uncongenial thoughts or occupations from the indulgence of them , and if he acquire by culture , as all persons may , the faculty of delineating them correctly , —has it in his power to be & poet , so far as a life passed in writing unquestionable poetry may be considered to con-
Untitled Article
The Two Kinds of Poetry . 715
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1833, page 715, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2624/page/55/
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