The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1889-01-25

/ or reverence for God " Such concep-
ton Of poetry as is conveyed in these
words would certainly appear to many
/ people rs in the highest degree strained
and fantastic: yet it is the fact that
the greatest of the worlds thinkers
from Aristotle to Stuart Mill have
been Of WORDSWORTH opinion.
1t was one of England's greatest
lawyers who said that the wisdom of a
country is to be searched for in its
poets: and it was Aristotle's opinion
that poetry deals with the highest
forms of truth and conveys it most i'm
pressively. The production of poetry
is certainly no trifling matter for the
poet himself. There is indeed. no
form of mental exercise that puts such
a strain on the whole man. Goethe.
who is remarkable among poets for his
self-control, declared that to write
more than one tragedy year would
kill him; and Scott, who prided him
self on his stoical self-repression, says
in an interesting passage: Il will avoid
any occupation so laborious and agitat-
ing as poetry must be to be worth any
thing AS far therefore as the expen-
diture eofintellectual and emotional force
is concerned, poetry demands as seri-
Gus consideration as the most abstruse
of the sciences.
The question has often been discuss
ed whether the tendency of civilization
is to benumh the higher imaginative
faculties. However this may be. it is at
least certain that the influence IF the
poet of necessity diminishes as the in
terests of society grow more complex.
In the simpler states of men the bard
is, next to the chief, the most impor-
tant parsonage in the nation. As poe
try is almost universally the earliest
form Of literature, he is at once the
historian. the law-giver, the prophet of
the race. He originates public opinion,
and he makes the tradition that gives
birth to national sentiment. Even at
comparatively late periods of Il nations 5
development it is extraordinary what
power the poet still wields over the
minds Of men During the middle
ages the words of the trouveres and the
troubadours determined the ideals and
formed the temper of the choice spirits
Of the time. When the revival of let
ters came and the birth of the scien-
titic spirit followed, it was no longer
possible that imaginative literature
could fill the place in mems minds it
had hitherto done. Their thoughts
were directed into thousand other
channels, calling into play other men
tai faculties, which gradually over
threw the paramont rule of the imagi-
nation. In this relation Sir Philip
Sidneys delightful treatise, THE De
fence of Poesie, acquires 4 peculiar
interest. Sidney was the last and no.
blest of the knights: and his passion
ate plea for the high function of the
poet Is but the expression of the senti-
ment of chivalry toward its trouveres
and its troubadours. What poetry had
been in the past to men of action, he
conceived that.it might still be in the
failure. 1t cannot be owing to the dis
appearance of poetical genius from the
world that his hope has not been fulfill
ed, rs we have had Milton and Words
worth and Shelly since his day. The
truth must therefore be that the poet
has simply been iostled from his high
pedestal, and is now but one of Il thous-
and other intellectual forces.
In one respect, indeed, the poet is as
greatly honored as ever he has been.
1t is frankly acknowledged by men OF
the best type that poetry is the high
est expression of the human mind. and
that the poet himself is the finest and
rarest product of nature. Analysis
has done its utmost in the way of ex-
planning to us the genius of the poet
and the essence of his work, yet both
still remain the same incalculable ele-
ments that have bewildered and en-
chantcd the mind of man from the be-
ginning. The poet thus, even in those
days of the all-pervading lights OF sci
once. sings like Wordsworth : lark in u
privacy OF glorious light Nevcrthe
less, the reputed question of the senior
wrangler regarding Paradise Lost
But what does it prove::' is doubtless
the genuine expression Of the general
attitude towards poetry in the present /
day.
A> mas brcn sdlu. II Is Ittic 10 tiilnk I
that poetry can. ever have that place
in public instruction it once legitimate
* held. The conditions of modern
life have made this impossible. An
Athenian boy might have leisure to
commit the twenty-four books of the /
"lIiai;" but though the discipline
would doubtless be an excellant one. |
it would hardly be wise that the
schoolhoy of to-day should achieve the .
rival feat of committing Paradise
Lost" or the excursion. Still. if
We keep before us the idea of Fenelon.
poetry, even in the present condition