Chapter III: Introduction: I (2)

(_α_) Furthermore, inasmuch as poetry does not accept the universal in scientific abstraction from its object, but seeks to represent what is rational under the mode of individuality,[6] the specific traits of national character are essential to its growth; the content and the particular mode of its presentation are in fact conditioned by the nature of these and the general outlook in each case. We find it consequently adapting itself to every variety of form and peculiarity. It matters not what the poetry may be, whether Oriental, Italian, Spanish, English, Roman, Hellenic, or German, each and all differ totally in their spirit, emotional impulse, general outlook and expression.

A similar distinctive variety asserts itself in particular epochs as they are favourable to the art of poetry or the reverse. The results secured, for example, by our German poetry were impossible in the Middle Ages, or the times of the thirty years' war. The particular motives, which in our own day excite the greatest interest, are inseparable from the entire evolution of contemporary life. And in the same way every age has its own wider or more restricted, more exalted and liberal, or more depressed phase of emotional life, in short its specific outlook on the world, which it is the express aim of poetry to bring home to the artistic consciousness in the most intelligible and complete manner, inasmuch as language is the one medium capable of expressing the human spirit wherever and in whatever form it may be manifested.

(_β_) Among these national characteristics, or views and opinions peculiar to particular epochs, some have closer affinity with the poetic impulse than others. The Oriental consciousness is, for example, in general more poetic than the Western mind, if we exclude Greece. In the East the principle predominant is always that of coherence, solidity, unity, substance. An outlook of this nature is intrinsically most penetrative, even though it may fail to reach the freedom of the Ideal. Our Western point of view, especially that of modern life, is based on the endless breaking up and division of its boundless material into fragments, in virtue of which process, the extreme emphasis laid here on particular facts, what is merely finite becomes substantive for the imagination, and despite of this must be once more subsumed under the converse action of relativity. For the Oriental nothing persists as really substantive, but everything appears as contingent, discovering its supreme focus, stability and final justification in the One, the Absolute, to which it is referred.

(_γ_) By means of this diversity of national traits and the evolutionary process of the centuries we find that what is shared by all mankind alike, no less than all that claims to be artistic, is drawn as a common element within the reach of other nations and epochs, intelligible and enjoyable to the same. It is in this twofold connection that of late years to an exceptional degree Hellenic poetry has roused the admiration and imitation of most diverse nationalities. And this is so because in the content of it no less than in the artistic form it receives the simply human is disclosed with most beauty. The literature of India itself, however, despite all the difficulties attendant on an outlook and artistic expression so alien to our own, is not wholly outside our sympathy; and the boast is no empty one that in our modern era pre-eminently a keen sense for all that art and the human spirit embraces in every direction has begun to unfold itself.

Were we in our present investigation of this impulse toward individualization, pursued so persistently by poetry, under the aspects we have already described, to restrict the same to a _general_ treatment of the art of poetry, such a generalization, however established, could not fail to be abstract and devoid of content. It is therefore of first importance, if our object be to consider poetry of a really genuine type, that we include in our survey the forms of the creative spirit as presented in their national form, the unique product of one age; and further we must not overlook the individuality which creates, the soul of the poet. Such, then, are the main points of view to which I would draw attention by way of a general introduction to poetical creation and conception.

2. THE ART-PRODUCT OF POETRY AND PROSE

Poetry is not, however, exhausted by the imaginative idea alone: it must necessarily proceed to make itself articulate and complete in the _poetical work of art._

Such an object of study opens a large field of investigation. We may conveniently arrange and classify the course of our discussion as follows:

_First,_ we shall endeavour to point out what is of most importance relatively to the _poetical composition generally._

_Secondly_, we shall distinguish it from the principal types of _prose composition_, in so far as the same are compatible with artistic treatment.

We shall then, _finally_ be in a position to deduce with some completeness the notion of the _free art-product._

(_a_) In respect to the poetical work of art under its generic aspect all that is necessary is once more to enforce our previous contention that it must, no less than any other production of an unfettered imagination, receive the form and independence of an organic whole. This demand can only receive satisfaction as follows:

(_α_) In the _first_ place that which constitutes a homogeneous content, whether it be a definite object of action and event, or a specific emotion and passion, must before everything else possess intrinsic unity.

(_αα_) All else must be posited under relation to this bond of unity, and thereby combine to form a freehand concrete coherence of all parts. This is only possible under the condition, that the content selected is not conceived as abstract _universal_, but as the action and emotion of men, as the object and passion which are actually present in the mind, soul, and volition of definite individuals, arising as such from the distinctive basis of an individual nature in each case.

(_ββ_) The universal, which is to receive representation, and the individuals, in whose character events and actions the manifestation of poetry is asserted must not consequently fall into fragments, or be so related that the individuals are merely of service as an abstract universal; both aspects must combine in vital coalescence. In the Iliad, for example, the contest of Greeks and Trojans, and the victory of the former is inseparably bound up with the wrath of Achilles, which for this reason becomes the common focus welding all together. No doubt we also find poetical works in which the fundamental content is partly more abstract in its generalization, and also partly is executed in a way that expresses a universal of more significance. Dante's great epic poem is an illustration, which not only embraces the world divine throughout, but displays individuals of the most varied character in their relation to the punishments of hell, purgatory and the blessedness of Paradise. But even here we find no entirely abstract separation, of the two points of view, no mere relation of service between the particular objects. For in the Christian world the focus of conscious life is not conceived as nothing more than an accident of Godhead, but as essential and infinite cause or end itself, so that here the universal purpose, that is the divine justice in condemnation and salvation can verily appear as immanent fact, the eternal interest and being of the individual himself. In this divine world the individual is throughout of pre-eminent importance. In that of the State he can of course be sacrificed in order to save the universal, that is the State. In his relation to God, however, and in the kingdom of God he is essentially and exclusively the end.

(_γγ_) We must, however, _thirdly_, conceive the universal, which supplies the content of human emotion and action as self-subsistent, intrinsically complete where it is, and constituting as such in itself a definitive and exclusive world. When, for instance, in our contemporary life mention is made of any officer, official, general, professor, and so forth, and we try to imagine what kind of action such a man or personality is likely to attempt or carry out under his own particular conditions of environment, we place before ourselves simply a content of interest and activity, which in part is not itself a rounded and self-substantive whole, but one which stands in infinitely manifold external connections, relations and conditions, in part also, if we regard it as abstract totality, one which can receive the form of a universal concept in its separation from the individuality of the, in other respects, entire personality, as for instance that of personal obligation. Conversely we may have no doubt a content of sterling character, making, that is to say, an essentially independent whole, which, despite of this, and without further development and advance, is complete in one sentence. It is really impossible to say whether a content of this nature belongs more properly to poetry or prose. The grand affirmation of the old Testament, "God said Let their be Light and there was Light," is at once in its penetration, no less than the precision of its embrace,[7] as much essentially sublime poetry as it is ordinary prose. Of a similar nature is the command, "I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods but me"; or that, "Honour thy father and thy mother." The golden epigrams of a Pythagoras and the wise sayings of Solomon are of the same type. Phrases, so rich in content as the above, have their origin in a world where the distinction between poetry and prose is as yet absent. We can, however, hardly affirm of such that they are a poetical work of art, even though many such phrases may be combined together. The independence and rounding off of a genuine poetical work must be assumed at the same time to be of the nature of a process, and a differentiation of parts: we assume it therefore to be a unity, the true character of which is only made explicit by emphatic insistence upon its diversity. This process, absolutely essential in the plastic arts, regarded at least according to the requirements of their form, is also more generally of the greatest moment in a poetical composition.

(_β_) This introduces us, then, to a _second_ feature of the work of art, namely, the organic differentiation of its several parts, essential to it not merely that it may be presented as an organic unity, but that the elaboration of all it implies may be rendered complete.

(_αα_) The most obvious reason of this necessity is referable to the fact that Art in general tends instinctively to particularization. The effect of the scientific faculty is that what is particular and singular fails to receive its complete vindication. And this is so not merely because the understanding apprehends the manifold, as such theoretic faculty, starting from its principles of generalization, causing the particular fact thereby to evaporate in its abstract deductions and categories; but also because it makes this manifold subserve ends of purely practical import. Severe adherence to that purely relative value, which strictly belongs to the nature of the process, appears to the understanding as useless and tedious. To the conception and composition of poetry on the contrary every part, every phase in the result must remain of essential interest and vital. It dallies therefore with delight in detail, depicts the same with enthusiasm, and treats every part as an independent whole. However great, therefore, in addition the content may be of a poetical work in its central interest, the organic completeness is equally asserted in subordinate detail, precisely as in the human organism every member, every finger is rounded with exquisite delicacy in its unified completeness, and as a rule, we find in Nature that every particular existence is enclosed within a perfect world of its own. The advance of poetry is therefore more slow than that compatible with the judgments and conclusions of the understanding, where we find that, whether regarded theoretically as science or with reference to practical conduct and action, the main stress is on the final result, this rather than on the path by which it is reached. As for the degree in which poetry approaches realization in its tenderness for such detail we have already pointed out that it is not its vocation to describe with excessive diffuseness what is exterior in the form of its sensuous appearance. If it therefore undertakes extensive descriptions without making them reflect at the same time the claims and interests of soul-life it becomes heavy and tedious. Above all it must take care not to enter into deliberate rivalry with the actual detail, in its exact completeness, presented by natural fact itself. Even painting in this respect should aim at circumspection and restriction. We have therefore here and in the case of poetry a twofold point of view to consider. On the one hand we must remember that the impression is on our mental vision; and on the other the art can only place before the mind the object, which in Nature we can survey and comprehend in a single glance in a series of separate traits. For this reason it is important that poetry does not carry its elaboration of detail so far, that the vision of the whole in its entirety becomes inevitably disturbed, confused, or lost. It is obvious therefore that difficulties of an exceptional nature have to be overcome when the attempt is made to place an action or event of varied nature before our vision, and where in actual life such happen in a single moment of time, and in close connection with such immediacy, for all it can do is to present the same in a continuous series. As respects this difficulty, no less than the general way in which poetry, as already described, approaches the detail of Nature, we find the demand of the several generic types of the art differs very considerably. Epic poetry, for instance, attaches itself to the particularity of the external world with an emphasis totally different from that of dramatic poetry, with its rapidity of forward movement, or from that of lyrical poetry with its exclusive insistence on the ideally significant.

(_ββ_) It is through an elaboration of this kind that the several parts of a composition secure _subsistency._ No doubt this appears to stand in direct contradiction to the unity which we established as a primary condition: as a matter of fact the opposition is merely apparent. This independence should not, that is to say, assert itself in such a way that the several parts are placed in absolute separation from each other: it must on the contrary only be carried so far that the several aspects and members of the whole are clearly seen on their own account to be asserted in the vital form peculiar to each, and to stand on their own free basis of independence. If, on the contrary, this individualized life is absent from the several parts, the composition becomes, precisely as Art generally can only invest the universal with determinate existence under the form of actual particularity, cold and defunct.

(_γγ_) Despite of this self-subsistency, however, these several parts must remain likewise in conjunction to the extent that the _one_ fundamental motive or purpose, made explicit and manifest in and through them, must declare itself as the unity which pervades the whole, and in which the parts coalesce and to which they return. This is the condition of art, and pre-eminently so of poetry, where it falls short of its noblest reach, upon which it most readily is wrecked, and the work of art declines from the realm of a free imagination into that of mere prose. To put it in another way, the connexion into which the parts fall must not merely be one of final _cause and effect._ For in the relation of teleology the end is the universal as essentially presupposed and willed, which it is true succeeds in making the several aspects tally with the process, yet employs them none the less as means and to this extent robs them of all really free stability and thereby of every sort of vitality. In such a case the parts merely fall under a relation of purpose to one end, which is asserted imperiously to the disadvantage of all else, and which accepts the same in abstraction as subservient and subordinate to itself. The freedom and beauty of art contradict flatly this servile relation of the abstract faculty of science.

(_γ_) On these grounds the unity, asserted in the several parts of the composition, must be of another character. The definition of this may be stated under two aspects of conception, as follows.

(_αα_) In the _first_ place, the vital presence we have already referred to as peculiar to every part separately must be maintained. If we direct our attention, however, to that which in fact justifies the introduction of any detail whatever into the composition, we find the point of departure to be _one_ fundamental idea which the same as a whole is undertaken to manifest or interpret. Consequently everything defined and particular must announce that as the source of its own specific appearance. In other words, the content of a poetical work must not be itself intrinsically abstract, but concrete, one that by reason of its own wealth conducts us to a rich unravelment of its varied aspects. And when this variety, even assuming that in its realization it falls to every appearance into plain contradictions, yet is as a matter of fact rooted in the essentially unified content we have adverted to, in that case we may affirm that by necessity the content itself, in a form agreeable to its notion and being, comprises what is fundamentally an exclusive and harmonious totality of particular characteristics, which it possesses as its own, and in the continuous expatiation of which what it is in its real significance is in truth rendered explicit. It is only _these_ several parts, which originally belong to the content, and which consequently should be carried into the composition under the mode of actual and essentially sound and vital existence. In this respect, therefore, despite all appearance the display of particular characteristics present of opposition to others, they are throughout combined in a union of mysterious accord, rooted in its own nature.

(_ββ_) _Secondly,_ since the composition is presented under the form of _natural_ phenomena, the unity must, in order to preserve the vital appearance of such reality, only be the _ideal_ bond, which to all appearance without intention holds together the parts and includes them in an organic whole. It is just this animating union of organic life which alone is able to bring into being true poetry as contrasted with the expressed intention of plain prose. That is to say whenever particularity exclusively appears as means to a definite end, it does not possess and cannot conceivably possess an independent and unique vitality of its own; what it does testify to, on the contrary, is that it exists for the sake of something else, that is the end proposed. Purpose of this type declares its sovereignty over the objective facts through which it is fulfilled. An artistic composition should, however, confer upon all that is particular within it, all in the expatiation of which it displays continuously the central and fundamental content selected, the appearance of an unfettered stability. This is absolutely necessary, because what we here comprise under the term particularity is just that content itself under the mode of the reality which corresponds with it. We may therefore recall to our minds the analogous task of speculative thought, which in the same way has on the one side to develop the particular to the point of self-subsistency or freedom from that which is at first an indefinite universality; and likewise, too, it is called on to demonstrate how within this totality of what is particular, in which that and that only is divulged which essentially reposes in the universal, the unity is on this very account once more asserted, and indeed then and only then is truly concrete unity, established through its own differences and their mediation. Speculative philosophy is thus, in the same way, through the method of dialectic above adverted to, responsible for works which resemble in this respect those of poetry, containing, that is, by virtue of the content, an essential identity of self-seclusiveness and a revelation of differentiated material in accord with it. We must, however, despite this similarity between these two activities, and apart from the obvious difference between the evolution of pure thinking and creative art, draw attention to a further essential distinction. The deduction of philosophy no doubt vindicates the necessity and actuality of particularity, but none the less, in virtue of the dialectic process in which this aspect of reality is asserted, it is expressly demonstrated of this particularity and all of it, that it for the first time discovers its truth and its stability in the concrete unity.[8] Poetry, on the contrary, does not proceed to any such express demonstration. The concordant unity must no doubt be completely vindicated in every one of its creations, and be operative there in all their manifold detail as the soul and vital core of the whole; but this presence remains for Art an ideal bond which is implied rather than expressly posited, precisely as the soul is immediately made vital in all the bodily members, without robbing the same of the appearance of an independent existence. We have the same truth illustrated by colour and tone. Yellow, blue, green and red are different colours which admit of the most absolute contrast; but none the less, on account of the fact that as colour they all essentially belong to one totality, they maintain a harmony throughout; and it is not, moreover, necessary that this union as such should be expressly declared in them. In a similar way the dominant, the third and the fifth remain independent as tones, and yet for all that give us the harmony of the trichord; or, rather, we should put it that they only produce this harmony so long as each tone is permitted to assert its own essentially free and characteristic sound.

(_γγ_) In connection with this organic unity and articulate synthesis of a poetical composition we have further to consider essential _features of distinction_ which are due to the particular _artistic form_ appropriate to the composition under review, no less than the particular _type_ of poetry in which we discover the specific character of its working out. Poetry, for example, of symbolic art is unable, owing to the more abstract and indefinite traits which constitute its essential and significant content, to attain to a fully organic fusion in the degree of transparency possible to the works of the classical art-form. In symbolism generally, as we have already established in the first part of this enquiry, the conjunction of general significance and the actual phenomenon, in association with which Art embodies its content, is of a less coherent character: as a result of this we find that what is particular in one direction preserves a greater consistency; in another, as in the case of the Sublime, only so far asserts this quality in order, through the negation thus implied, to render more intelligible the _one_ supreme power and substance, or merely to advance the process to a condition of mysterious association of particular, but at the same time heterogeneous no less than related traits and aspects of natural and spiritual facts. Conversely, in the romantic type, wherein the ideality of truth reveals itself in essential privacy to soul-life only, we find a wider field for the display of the detail of rational reality in its self-subsistency; in this latter case the conjunction of all parts and their union must necessarily be present, but the nature of their elaboration can neither be so clear or secure as in the products of classical art.

In a similar way the Epic gives us a more extensive picture of the external world; it even lingers by the way in episodical events and deeds, whereby the unity of the whole, owing to this increased isolation of the parts, appears to suffer diminution. The drama, in contrast to this, requires a more strenuous conjunction, albeit, even in the drama, we find that romantic poetry permits the introduction of a type of variety in the nature of episode and an elaborate analysis of characteristic traits in its presentation of soul-life no less than that of external fact. Lyric poetry, as it changes conformably to the fluctuation of its types, adapts itself to a mode of presentment of the greatest variety: at one time it is bare narration; at another the exclusive expression of emotion or contemplation; at another it restricts its vision, in more tranquil advance, to the central unity which combines; at another it shifts hither and thither in unrestrained passion through a range of ideas and emotions apparently destitute of any unity at all.

This, then, must suffice us on the general question of a poetical composition.

(_b_) In order now,--this is our _second_ main head in the present discussion,--to examine more closely the distinction which obtains between the organic poem as above considered and the prose composition, we propose to direct attention to those specific types of _prose_ which, despite their obvious limitations, do none the less come into closest affinity with art. Such are, without question, the arts of history and oratory.

(_α_) As regards history, there can be no doubt that we find ample opportunity here for _one_ aspect of genuine artistic activity.

(_αα_) The evolution of human life in religion and civil society, the events and destinies of the most famous individuals and peoples, who have given emphasis to life in either field by their activity, all this presupposes great ends in the compilation of such a work, or the complete failure of what it implies. The historical relation of subjects and a content such as these admits of real distinction, thoroughness and interest: and however much our historian must endeavour to reproduce actual historical fact, it is none the less incumbent upon him to bring before our imaginative vision this motley content of events and characters, to create anew and make vivid the same to our intelligence with his own genius.[9] In the creation of such a memorial he must, moreover, not rest satisfied with the bare letter of particular fact; he must bring this material into a co-ordinated and constructive whole; he must collectively conceive and embrace single traits, occurrences and actions under the unifying concept; with the result that on the one hand we have flashed before us a clear picture of nationality, epoch of time, external condition and the spiritual greatness or weakness of the individuals concerned in the very life and characterization which belonged to them; and on the other that the bond of association, in which the various parts of our picture stand to the ideal historical significance of a people or an event, is asserted from such without exception. It is in this sense that we, even in our own day, speak of the art of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Tacitus, and a few others, and cannot cease to admire their narratives as classical products of the art of human language.

(_ββ_) It is nevertheless true that even these fine examples of historical composition do not belong to free Art. We may add that we should have no poetry even though we were to assume with such works the external form of poetry, the measure or rhyme of verse and so forth. It is not exclusively the manner in which history is written, but the nature of its _content_, which makes it prose. Let us look at this rather more closely.

Genuine history, both in respect to aim and performance, only begins at the point where the heroic age, which in its origination it is the part of poetry and art to vindicate, ceases, for the reason that we have here the moment when the distinct outlines and prose of life, in its actual conditions, no less than the way they are conceived and represented, come into being. Herodotus does not for instance describe the Greek expedition to Troy, but the Persian wars, and takes pains, in a variety of ways, with tedious research and careful reflection, to base the narrative proposed on genuine knowledge. The Hindoos, indeed we may say the Orientals generally, with almost the single exception of the Chinese, do not possess this instinct of prose sufficiently to produce a genuine history. They invariably digress either into an interpretation and reconstruction of facts of a purely religious character, or such as are fantastic inventions. The element of prose then native to the historical age of any folk may be briefly described as follows.

In the _first_ place, in order that we may have history we must presuppose a common life, whether we consider the same on its religious side, or that of a polity, with its law, institutions, and the like, established on their own account, and possessing originally or in their subsequent modification a validity as laws or conditions of general application.

It is out of such a common life, _secondly_, that we mark the birth of definite activities for the preservation or change of the same, which may be of universal import, and in fact constitute the end or motive of their continuance, and to complete and carry into effect which we have to presuppose individuals fitted for such a task. These individuals are great and eminent in so far as they show themselves, through their effective personality, in co-operation with the common end, which underlies the ideal notion of the conditions which confront them: they are little when they fail to rise in stature to the demand thus made on their energy: they are depraved when, instead of facing as combatants of the practical needs of the times,[10] they are content merely to give free rein to an individual force which is, with its implied caprice, foreign to all such common ends. Where, however, any of such conditions obtain we do not have either a genuine content or a condition of the world such as we established in the first part of our inquiry as essential to the art of poetry. Even in the case of personal greatness the substantive aim of its devotion is to a large or less extent something given, presupposed, and enforced upon it, and to that extent the unity of individuality is excluded, wherein the universal, that is the entire personality should be selfidentical, an end exclusively for itself, an independent whole in short. For however much these individuals discover their aims in their own resources, it is for all that not the freedom or lack of it in their souls and intelligence, in other words the vital manifestation of their personality, but the accomplished end, and its result as operative upon the actual world already there, and essentially independent of such individuality, which constitutes the object of history. And, moreover, from a further point of view we find manifested in the historical condition the play of contingency, that breach between what is implicitly substantive and the relativity of particular events and occurrences, no less than of the specific subjectivity of characters displayed in their personal passions, opinions and fortunes, which in this prosaic mode of life present far more eccentricity and variation than do the wonders of poetry, which through all diversity must remain constant to what is valid in all times and places.

And _finally_, in respect to the actual execution of affairs within the cognisance of history we find here again the introduction of a prosaic element, if we contrast it with the impulse of genuine poetry, partly in the division asserted by personal idiosyncracy from a consciousness of laws, principles, maxims and so forth, which is thereby necessarily absorbed in the universal condition or fact; and in part also the realization of the ends proposed involve much preparation and arrangement, the means to effect which extend far, and embrace many necessary or subservient relations, which have to be readjusted and adapted, in order to carry out the course proposed, with intelligence, prudence and prosaic circumspection. The work in short cannot be undertaken offhand, but only to a large extent after extensive introduction. The result of this is that the particular acts of execution, which, it is here assumed, come into effect for the _one_ main purpose, are often either wholly contingent in respect to their content, and remain without ideal union, or are asserted under the form of a practical utility regulated by a mind dominated by the aims proposed; in other words, they do not proceed unmediated from the core of free and independent life itself.[11]

(_γγ_) The historian then has no right to expunge these prosaic characteristics of his content, or to convert them into others more _poetical;_ his narrative must embrace what lies actually before him and in the shape he finds it without amplification,[12] or at least poetical transformation. However much, therefore, it may become a part of his labours to make the ideal significance and spirit of an epoch, a people, or the particular event depicted, the ideal focus and bond which holds all together in one coherent whole, he is not entitled to make either the conditions presented him, the characters or events, wholly subordinate to such a purpose, though he may doubtless remove from his survey what is wholly contingent and without serious significance; he must, in short, permit them to appear in all their objective contingency, dependence and mysterious caprice. No doubt in biography the full animation of personality and an independent unity is conceivably possible, because in such a work the individual, no less than all which proceeds from him and is operative in moulding such a figure, is throughout the focus of the composition. A historical character is, however, exclusively one of two opposed extremes. For although we deduce a unity of subject from the same, none the less from another point of view various events and transactions obtrude, which in part are without any essential ideal connection, and in part come into contact with such individuality without any free co-operation on the part of the same, and to this extent involve the same within the contingency of such an external condition. So, for example, Alexander is without question a personality, pre-eminent above all others of his epoch, and one which, in virtue of its unique forces, falling as they do in accord with contemporary world conditions, becomes engaged in the Persian invasion. The continent of Asia none the less, which Alexander vanquishes, is in the capricious variety of its nationalities a whole united by no necessary bond.[13] Historical events pass before him as the bare panorama of purely objective phenomena. And, finally, if the historian adds to his survey his private reflections as a philosopher, attempting thereby to grasp the absolute grounds for such events, rising to the sphere of that divine being, before which all that is contingent vanishes and a loftier mode of necessity is unveiled, he is none the less debarred, in reference to the actual conformation of events, from that exclusive right of poetry, namely, to accept this substantive resolution as the fact of most importance. To poetry alone is the liberty permitted to dispose without restriction of the material submitted in such a way that it becomes, even regarded on the side of external condition, conformable with ideal truth.

(_β_) _Secondly_, _oratory_ appears to have a closer affinity with the freedom of art.

(_αα_) For although the orator avails himself of the opportunity for and content of his effort out of actual life and definite circumstances and opinions, all that he utters remains none the less, in the _first_ place, subject to his free choice. His personal aims and views are immanent therein, in virtue of which he can make the same a complete and living expression of his personality. And, _secondly_, the development of the subject of his oration and the mode of delivery depends entirely on himself, so that the impression he makes is as though we received in his speech a wholly independent expression of mind. And, _finally_, it is his vocation not merely to address himself to the trained or ordinary intelligence of his hearers, but to work upon their entire humanity, their emotions, no less than their judgment. The substance of what he has to say and in which he strives to awake interest, is not merely the abstract aspect of it, nor is it this aspect of his main purpose, in the fulfilment of which he invites co-operation, but rather for the most part also a definite and very real thing. For this reason the substance of the orator's address, while embracing what is essentially substantive in its character, ought equally to grasp his general principle under the form of its specific manifestation, and render the same intelligible to conscious life in the full concrete sense of the term. The orator then must not merely satisfy our understanding with the cogency of his deductions and conclusions, but has it in his power to address the soul itself, to rouse human passion and carry it captive, to absorb the whole attention, and by such means, through all the avenues of spirit, to ravish and convince his audience.

(_ββ_) Despite, however, such considerations, looked at rightly we find that it is just in the arts of oratory that this apparent freedom is almost wholly subordinate to the rule of practical _utility_. In other words what confers upon public speaking its unique motive force is not implied in the particular purpose, to promote which the speech is made; we must refer it to the general principle, the laws, rules, axioms which the particular case suggests, and which are already essentially present in this form of universality, partly, as actual laws of the State, partly too as ethical, juristic or religious maxims, emotions, dogmas, and so forth. The particular circumstance and end, which we find here as the point of departure, and this universal are in every respect separate from each other, and this separation is the relation maintained throughout. No doubt the orator intends to make these two aspects unite: what, however, in poetry, in so far as poetry is really present, attests as already from the first accomplished, is present in oratory merely as the personal aim of the orator, the fulfilment of which lies outside the speech itself altogether.

The only alternative we have left us is a process of _subsumation_, whereby the phenomenon, the actual and defined thing, here the concrete case or end, is not unravelled in immediate unity with the universal as such, and freely from its own substance, but only receives validity by virtue of its dependence upon general principles and in its relation to legislative acts, morality, customs, and the like, which on their own account possess independent stability. It is not the spontaneous life of the fact in its concrete manifestation, but the prosaic division between notion and reality, a mere relation of both to each other and a mere demand for their union, which constitutes the fundamental type under consideration.

Such a process of thought is frequently adopted by the religious teacher. For him religious doctrines, in their widest connotation, and the principles of morality or of philosophy, political or otherwise, which follow in their train, are in fact precisely the object whereto he can refer cases of every conceivable variety; and they are this for the reason that these doctrines have to be accepted, believed and recognized by the religious consciousness as essentially and in their own worth the substance of all particular appearance. No doubt the preacher may at the same time appeal to our heart, may suffer the divine laws to unveil from the depth of soul-life as their source, and face to face with his audience may refer them to such a source. But it is not in their absolutely individual guise that he must necessarily present and assert them; on the contrary, he must bring effective universality to consciousness under precisely this form of commands, promises and maxims of faith. The oratory of courts of law is even a better illustration. Here we find in addition the twofold point of view, that while on the one hand all turns most obviously on the particular case, yet conversely the subsumation of this case to general considerations and laws is equally a necessity. As regards the _first_ aspect, we may remark that the element of prose is already implied in the enforced investigation of the actual facts and the collocation and able reconstruction of all singular circumstances and accidents; a process such as this at once opens our eyes to the poverty involved in this investigation of the truth of such a legal case, no less than the tedious ingenuity engaged in its display, if we contrast it at least with the free creations of poetry. We have in fact to carry our analysis of the concrete facts to a yet further point. Such must not merely be traced in a series that does justice to all features, but every one of such features, no less than the whole case, have to be referred back to the statute accepted from the first as of independent validity. At the same time, even in this prosaic affair, we still have considerable scope for an impression on the heart and emotions. For it is possible so to present the rightness or wrongness of the case under discussion to the imagination that we are no longer bound to acquiesce in the bare knowledge of the facts and a general conviction; on the contrary, the case in its entirety is capable of becoming, by virtue of the style adopted in its exposition, so marked with the characteristics of personality to everyone who hears it, that no one can fail to discover there a personal interest as of something which concerns himself.

_Secondly_, in the oratorical art, artistic delivery and elaboration is not that which constitutes the ultimate and highest interest of the speaker; he possesses in addition and beyond his art an ulterior aim, that the entire form and working out of his discourse should rather be used exclusively as the most effective means to promote an interest which is outside. From this point of view the audience too have to be influenced not on their own independent account, but the effort is rather to excite emotion and conviction exclusively as a means toward the attainment of the purpose, the fulfilment whereof the orator has proposed from the first. The mode of presentation, therefore, ceases to be an end for itself even to the listener; its claim becomes exclusively that of a means to some particular conviction, or an incentive to definite conclusions or activities.

For these reasons from this point of view also the art loses its freedom of form; it becomes a means to a purpose, to a further demand[14], which, this is a _third_ point, in relation to the _consequence_, is not satisfied in the actual speech itself and its artistic handling. The composition of poetry on the contrary has no other object than the manifestation and enjoyment of beauty. End and accomplishment reposes here immediately and essentially in the independent work, which for that reason is complete; artistic activity is no means to an essentially ulterior result, but an end which at once is rounded in itself by virtue of its own execution. In oratory art receives merely a position of service to something collateral; the genuine end is therefore not as such consonant with art, but of a practical character, that is to say, instruction, edification, judgment of legal matters or political affairs, and therewith a reference to some matter which has first to happen, or to a decision not yet carried out, but which, however, are in neither case terminated or completed through the resultant effect of the art in question, but can only be so in various ways after a contact with quite other activities. A speech in fact may often conclude with a dissonance, which the hearer has first to resolve as judge, and only then is able to act agreeably with such a verdict. Just as, for example, the oratory of the pulpit starts from the point of the unconverted soul, and in the result makes the hearer pass judgment over his own self and his soul's condition. In such a case religious conversion is the object of the preacher; but whether such a conversion follows as a result of all the edification and excellence of his eloquent exhortations, and thus the end proposed is carried out, is a point of view which the sermon itself cannot deal with; it must be perforce relegated to subsequent conditions.

(_γγ_) In all these directions the notion of eloquence will fall rather under the main principle of utility than maintain itself within the free and organized whole of the poetical art-product. In short the orator must necessarily and above all make it his mark to subordinate the whole, no less than the parts, to that purpose in his mind, from which his effort proceeds, a process in which the self-consistent independence of his exposition disappears, and in lieu of which we must assume a relation of service to a definite end that ceases to be of artistic significance. And above all, inasmuch as the object in view is one of practical influence upon human life, he must keep throughout before his mind the nature of the place in which he speaks, the degree of education, the receptive powers, and, in short, the general atmosphere of his audience, that he may not fall short of the practical success desired through an inability to meet the local conditions of the moment, and the idiosyncrasies of his audience. By reason of this very attachment to external conditions it is impossible that either the entirety of his address or its parts can any longer originate in a free artistic activity[15]; it will constantly tend in its detailed elaboration to appropriate utilitarian points of association, and be dominated by conceptions of cause and effect, and other categories more proper to science.

(_c_) And, _thirdly_, we may, as flowing from the above distinction between what is really poetical and the creations of the historian and the orator, establish the following points pertinent to the poetical composition itself.

(_α_) We found that in history the element of prose consisted above all in this that however much the content thereof could be ideally substantive and possessed of a downright penetrative power, the actual form of the same was, however, invariably accompanied with many conditions of relative validity, massed together with much that was contingent, and finally often referable to caprice simply as its ground, aspects of immediate objective fact which the historian was not entitled to translate into the terms of a reality of profounder grasp.

(_αα_) The effort of such a transfiguration is in fact a fundamental _desideratum_ of the poetical art when it, so far as its material is concerned, steps into the arena of history. It is its business in short in such a case to discover the mere ideal core and significance of an event, action, or a national type, a famous historical personality, and as decisively to brush aside aspects of contingency, everything in fact purely incidental or indifferent, which plays round such types or individuals, and stands to them in a purely relative connection. It has then to establish, in the place of the circumstances and traits it rejects, others which reveal the ideal essence of the facts in their clarity, to the intent that in this transfigured presence such shall so discover concrete truth in its fulness that the reason, which has hitherto lain concealed, though implied in them, shall now for the first time assert itself as evolved and declared in complete realization. By this means alone poetry is able in the proposed work to make its content coalesce in the secure unity of a centre, able as such to round and unfold itself in a whole. And this is possible because it not only is operative as a more effective bond between the parts, but also because, without compromising the unity of the whole, all its varied particularity is suffered to assert its claim to an independent impression.

(_ββ_) Poetry may in this respect make a yet further advance, when, it accepts as its main content, in lieu of the material and significance of the historical fact, some fundamental idea, some human collision in general associated with it in a close or more remote affinity, and employs the historical _factum_ and personages, everything local in short, merely in the guise or garment of individualization. The difficulty to be encountered here is twofold: either the historically ascertained data, when appropriated by the composition, may fall out of line with the fundamental idea; or, conversely, it may be that the poet in some measure retains these data, but also too in essential features moulds them conformably to his purposes, and by doing this work fails to harmonize the element of stability with that of original design which were both essential to our conception of the poetical product. To dispel such an opposition and to reassert the accordant note able to do this is a difficult matter; it is none the less necessary, for objective reality has itself too an unquestionable title to what is essential in the character of its appearance.

(_γγ_) We may extend the reach of poetry yet further and we shall still find that the demand to be met is the same. In other words, all that the art of poetry represents in external local condition, characterization, actions, passions, situations, conflicts, events, and human destiny, all this material is borrowed, far more so in fact than is generally credited, from the facts of life itself. This being so, poetry here too is on the historical arena; and, consequently, its deviations or variations of such data must, in this field also, find their point of departure in the rational core of the facts in question and the demand of the art to discover for this ideal essence a form that exhibits it with greatest adequacy and life. And this must not be sought for in the poverty of a superficial knowledge, an inability to penetrate what is really vital in fact, or in the moods of caprice and with the craving after the quaint or perverse ingenuities of a spurious originality.

(_β_) And further, as already stated, oratory is allied to prose on account of the practical end which is thereby proposed, and, to carry out which, it is forced to admit to the full the claims of utility.

(_αα_) In this respect poetry must take care to detach itself from any end of this kind outside Art's domain, and the claim of artistic enjoyment simply; that it may not fall into the sphere of prose. For if any purpose of this sort is made to appear of essential importance, as part of the entire conception and presentation, the composition at once descends from that loftier region, in whose free atmosphere it floats on its own account and on no other, and is drawn into that of relation merely. As a result of this we have either a breach made between the fundamental aim of art and the ends of ulterior intendments; or art is used as a means simply, contradicts its substantive notion, and becomes the menial of utility. The edifying effusions of many church hymns are of this character. Particular ideas are simply admitted on religious grounds, and receive a style of composition which is alien to the beauty of poetry. And, speaking generally, poetry, simply as poetry, has no right to edify in a _religious_ sense, or at least _exclusively_ in this sense. If it does so we are carried into a region, which no doubt possesses relationship with both poetry and art, but is for all that distinct from it. We may say the same of teaching generally, ethical instruction, political treatises, or writings of all kinds written for our momentary recreation and enjoyment. All these are objects, to whose attainment the art of poetry is, or can be more than any other, contributory. But such contributions must not enter into the purpose, if the spirit of the work is to assert itself freely in its own character. In the poetical effort it is only what is really poetic, eliminated from all that is foreign to this quality, which must remain paramount as the end proposed and accomplished. And in fact such ulterior aims as the above can be carried out far more appropriately by quite other means.