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Untitled Article
cedes from the particular , and approaches the character of a general symbol , the less does it enable us to realize to our imaginations the circumstances , moral or physical , which it is designed to express , and the less consequently is it fitted for reviving the feelings , that would be associated with the reality .
We are hence furnished , as it seems to me * with a general definition of Poetry . Wherever a strong emotion is excited by revived impressions of reality , provided the emotion be so far tempered and idealized by art , as to become predominantly pleasurable , and to exclude all such associations as would defeat the general effect contemplated- —there is Poetry * And if this
definition be just , it will help us , by fixing the attention on the end of Poetry , to a decision of the long agitated question con - cerning the proper distinction between Poetry and Prose , and point out the meaning of the term , when it is applied , as it is occasionally , to subjects that are usually considered as lying beyond its range .
With Poetry , therefore , in this enlarged sense , the form in which its conceptions are clothed , and the medium through which its appropriate emotions are excited , have no essential coirnexion . Poetry may exist in prose or in verse , in history or in eloquence ; it may speak alike to the eye and to the ear ; it may
breathe in animated words and flowing numbers ; it may be embodied in marble , or glow on canvass , or be distilled into the depth of the soul in the thrilling strains of sublime and pathetic music . Whatever the medium of expression , if the effect be , through the awakening * of familiar associations , to call up an ideal world around us , and to make us feel , within the limits of
pleasurable excitement , as we should have done , had a corresponding reality been present , there , in its essence , is Poetry . Many years ago , Mr . Wordsworth , in the preface to his Lyrical Ballads , * pointed out the impropriety of opposing Poetry and Prose . ' Much confusion / says he , ' has been introduced into
criticism by this contra-distinct ion of Poetry and Prose , instead of the more philosophical one of Poetry and matter-of-fact or Science . The only strict antithesis to Prose is Metre : nor is this , in truth , a strict antithesis , because lines and passages of metre so naturally occur in writing prose , that it would be scarcely possible to avoid them , even were it desirable . '
The end of Poetry , that of producing emotion , remains always the same ; the means , by which it accomplishes this end , must vary in some degree with the progress of manners and art . The first vivid draughts from external nature lose their freshness and charm , by incessant repetition ; and in this respect the elder poets have an advantage over their successors , of which they can never be deprived • \ Vor *»* —F « rw Edit . p . 253 ,
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Poetry , Science ^ arid Philotophy . 325
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1834, page 325, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2633/page/13/
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