The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1915-09-04


every form of art. The nearest APP
proach to this is Italy, with it's poets,
its painters, it's sculptors, it's archi-
tects and its musicians.
Yet in the whole sum of poetry
England, think, is easily first This
is her compensation. 1t would be folly,
however, to claim for her such
painters, sculptors and musicians as
glorify the annals of Italy. She has
indeed but few of these.
1t might be interesting to inquire
here why England has given the world
such bead roll of poets,-not one but
many, reaching adown the centuries
from Chaucer to Tennyson Is poetry
the highest art expression of national
life, Does painting foreshadow de-
cline2 | mean, of course, national
decline?
We know that the dominant note in
German genius is the philosophical, in
French genius the social, in English
genius individualism, in Italian the
artistic, and in Spanish genius the
chivalrous. Now, is it not true that
the very basis of great poetry is
individualism-that neither philosophy
nor art nor chivalry can of themselves
produce great poets? Is it not, then,
to this very individualism which be-
longs to English genius that we owe
the wealth of English poetry?
Elements of Great Poetry.
Then, when one analyses the ele-
ments which enter into the making of
great poetry, is it not true that they
are found in abundance in the work
of the master poets of England?
Imagination and fancy and feeling fill
the pages of Chaucer, Spenser,
Shakespeare, Milton, Coleridge, Shell
ley, Keats and Tennyson. AS Leigh
Hunt points out in his volume dealing
with Imagination and Fancy in the
Great Poets, imagination belongs in a
particular manner to tragedy or the
serious muse, and Fancy to the comic.
Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Mil
ton, are characterized by great
imagination. So, too, are Spenser,
Chaucer and Coleridge, though in
Spenser fancy predominates, as imagi-
nation does in Coleridge.
Of all poets, Shakespeare possesses
in equal perfection both imagination
and fancy. Take, for instance, Mer-
cutio's description of Queen Nab and
her equipage in Romeo and Juliet,
beginning with the lines
20, then l see Queen Nab has been
with you.
She is the fairies midwife"
Was there ever such playful creative
fancy expressed before as is found in
this description of Queen Nab? In
truth from the days of Chaucer to our
own, English poetry simply riots in its
wealth of imagination and fancy. In
philosophical insight, compleXity and
suggestiveness, think German poetry
surpasses English poetry, but it lacks
the strength, individuality and virile
tone of English poetry; nor has the
German poet in any age contributed to
the advancement of freedom and the
uplifting of mankind as has the Eng
lish poet In his plea for justice a
Campbell, Byron; a Shelley, has not
I4hesitRtedJotD Summon nlOnarchsE and
governments to answer for their deeds
before the tribunal of justice. This
plea for justice plays but little part
among the poets of either France or
Germany.
1t is worth noting, by the way, that
there is a certain similarity between
the arts of painting and poetry. There
are painters like Michel Angelo who
have all the grandeur of the epic.
There are others like Perugino who
have the sweet pensive sadness that
charms as in the elegy. Still others,
like Correggio, have the soaring, pal
pitating brilliancy of the lyric and re-
mind us of the skylark's song. Some,
like Goya, have all the bitterness of
the most envenomed satire. Others
are by nature dramatic; and among
these Giotto occupies a position in the
foremost rank.
Ethical Value of Poetry.
The worth of every poet-his real
ethical value, and this in every case is
more important than the aesthetic
may be justly measured by his attitude
towards God, towards Nature, and
towards Woman. The poet blinded by
| the earth and it's phenomena will not
put much of the light of the skies into
| his work. He will write too low for
| Heaven or it's divine message to man
| His poetry, though revealing mar
velous workmanship, will be full OF
emptiness. It's melody, winding
through the senses, will be as rivulet
without heart song, full of murmur-
ings but laden with no real music;
| for it has come not from the fountains
of the soul and is therefore devoid OF
the message and meaning of life. The
two most subtle, significant and soul
searching poems of the last hall
century have blossomed from the
| fruitful soil of Catholic faith. They
are Newman's Dream of Gerontius'
and Thompson's' Hound of Heaven.
Beside these splendid conceptions
growing out of the fullness of Catholic
| faith and Catholic teaching, the
anaemic poetry for our day, leaning
upon the staff of agnosticism or pan
theism, of nothingism, is only as water
unto wine.
AS | write / have before me a
Il rTS1.. nd