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Untitled Article
such , an attempt , we can employ etymology so far onl y as it serves to detect the original conception , \ jx which a particular term had its rise , and so assist us in tracing the historical process , through
which it has passed into its actual meaning : and to this extent alone I shall refer to the etymology of the terms , Poetry , Science , and Philosophy *—in endeavouring to ascertain and discriminate their legitimate application . 1 . The radical idea , involved in the term Poetry , is the vivid
re-production of feelings and impressions previously experienced , It is not identical with pure description ; for description selects only those properties in an external object , which enable the mind to recognise the original , and to refer it to a known class of beings ; and it may , in this respect , be merely subservient to classification—the mere handmaid of science . The object of Poetry is not simply to exhibit an image of outward objects , or past
occurrences , or a situation in real life , but to revive the feelings associated with them , and to put the mind into a similar mood to what would have been produced b y the presence of the scenes and circumstances themselves . Though its materials are drawn from individual nature , yet it selects and combines , not so much what is an object of sense , as what acts upon the feelings and awakens
the sympathies . Creatkm is implied in the original application of the word . The Greek and Latinpoem from iroiiiv—the German dichtitng , arid the old English make and making , which are used by Chaucer and Spenser to signify the composition of Poetry , agree in the primary conception , which they are designed to express , and represent it as the essence of Poetry , to make or invent an ideal world , which excites emotions akin to what would have
resulted from the corresponding reality . The process seems to be this : a poet has observed by what combination of circumstances a particular effect is produced on the feelings in actual life ; he conceives a similar combination ; he embodies it in language ; and through that ideal representation succeeds in producing a state of mind and feeling accordant with it . In the wildest fictions of imagination there must still be a correspondence , in the several parts , to reality ; the elements of the most fantastic whole must still be taken from individual nature ;
since it is only through > this similarity , though upon a larger scale and under more impressive circumstances , to what we have ourselves witnessed or experienced , that those familiar trains of association can be called into exercise , which affect the imagination and touch the heart . Now this adherence , in the elements
of its most diversified combinations , to individual reality , to what has at some former period acted through the senses upon the feelings ; this avoidance of the abstract and the general , is an esseutial attribute of all true Poetry ; for the sole object of Poetry , as such—is to produce emotion ; and the more our language re-
Untitled Article
824 On the Application of the Terms
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1834, page 324, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2633/page/12/
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