{"id":2536,"date":"2013-07-13T01:42:16","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2536"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:42:16","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:16","slug":"53-appreciation-of-poetry-vol-27-letters-on-poetry-and-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/27-letters-on-poetry-and-art\/53-appreciation-of-poetry-vol-27-letters-on-poetry-and-art","title":{"rendered":"-53_Appreciation of Poetry.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPart Three
\n<\/font><\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLiterature, Art, Beauty and Yoga<\/font><\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSection One <\/font><\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAppreciation of Poetry and the Arts<\/font><\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tAppreciation of Poetry <\/font><\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Subjective Element<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nAll criticism of poetry is bound to have a strong subjective element in it and that is the source of the violent differences we find
\nin the appreciation of any given author by equally “eminent” critics. All is relative here, Art and Beauty also, and our view of
\nthings and our appreciation of them depends on the consciousness which views and appreciates. Some critics recognise this and
\ngo in frankly for a purely subjective criticism ―”this is why I like this and disapprove of that, I give my own values”. Most
\nlabour to fit their personal likes and dislikes to some standard of criticism which they conceive to be objective; this need of
\nobjectivity, of the support of an impersonal truth independent of our personality or anybody else’s, is the main source of theories,
\ncanons, standards of art. But the theories, canons, standards themselves vary and are set up in one age only to be broken in
\nanother. Is there then no beauty of art independent of our varying mentalities? Is beauty a creation of our minds, a construction
\nof our ideas and our senses, not at all existent in itself? In that case Beauty is non-existent in Nature, it is put upon Nature
\n\u00af<\/i> by our minds through mental imposition, adhyāropa<\/i>. But this
\ncontradicts the fact that it is in response to an object and not independently of it that the idea of beautiful or not beautiful
\noriginally rises within us. Beauty does exist in what we see, but there are two aspects of it, essential beauty and the forms it takes.
\n“Eternal beauty wandering on her way” does that wandering by a multitudinous variation of forms appealing to a multitudinous
\nvariation of consciousnesses. There comes in the difficulty. Each individual consciousness tries to seize the eternal beauty ex
\npressed in a form (here a particular poem or work of art), but is either assisted by the form or repelled by it, wholly attracted
\n   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-663<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

or wholly repelled, or partially attracted and partially repelled. There may be errors in the poet’s or artist’s transcription of
\nbeauty which mar the reception, but even these have different effects on different people. But the more radical divergences arise
\nfrom the variation in the constitution of the mind and its difference of response. Moreover there are minds, the majority indeed,
\nwho do not respond to “artistic” beauty at all ―something inartistic appeals much more to what sense of beauty they have
\n\t\t\t―or else they are not seeking beauty, but only vital pleasure. <\/p>\n

\n

A critic cannot escape altogether from these limitations.
\nHe can try to make himself catholic and objective and find the merit or special character of all he reads or sees in poetry
\nand art, even when they do not evoke his strongest sympathy or deepest response. I have little temperamental sympathy for
\nmuch of the work of Pope and Dryden, but I can see their extraordinary perfection or force in their own field, the masterly
\nconciseness, energy, point, metallic precision into which they cut their thought or their verse, and I can see too how that
\ncan with a little infusion of another quality be the basis of a really great poetic style, as Dryden himself has shown in his
\nbest work. But there my appreciation stops; I cannot rise to the heights of admiration of those who put them on a level with or
\non a higher level than Wordsworth, Keats or Shelley ―I cannot escape from the feeling that their work, even though more consistently perfect within their limits and in their own manner (at least Pope’s), was less great in poetic quality. These divergences
\nrise from a conception of beauty and a feeling for beauty which belongs to the temperament. So too Housman’s exaltation of
\nBlake results directly from his feeling and peculiar conception of poetic beauty as an appeal to an inner sensation, an appeal
\nmarred and a beauty deflowered by bringing in a sharp coating or content of intellectual thought. But that I shall not discuss
\nnow. All this however does not mean that criticism is without any true use. The critic can help to open the mind to the kinds of
\nbeauty he himself sees and not only to discover but to appreciate at their full value certain elements that make them beautiful or
\ngive them what is most characteristic or unique in their peculiar   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-664<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nbeauty. Housman for instance may help many minds to see in Blake something which they did not see before. They may not
\nagree with him in his comparison of Blake and Shakespeare, but they can follow him to a certain extent and seize better that
\nelement in poetic beauty which he overstresses but makes at the same time more vividly visible. <\/p>\n

\n 5 October 1934 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n Abiding Intuition of Poetic and
\n<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n Artistic Greatness <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n Yes, of course there is an intuition of greatness by which the
\ngreat poet or artist is distinguished from those who are less great and these again from those who are not great at all. But
\nyou are asking too much when you expect this intuition to work with a mechanical instantaneousness and universality so that
\nall shall have the same opinion and give the same values. The greatness of Shakespeare, of Dante, of others of the same rank is
\nunquestioned and unquestionable and the recognition of it has always been there in their own time and afterwards. Virgil and
\nHorace stood out in their own day in the first rank among the poets and that verdict has never been reversed since. The area of
\na poet’s fame may vary; it may have been seen first by a few, then by many, then by all. At first there may be adverse critics and
\nassailants, but these negative voices die away. Questionings may rise from time to time
\n\t\t\t―e.g. as to whether Lucretius was not a
\ngreater poet than Virgil ―but these are usually from individuals and the general verdict abides always. Even lesser poets retain
\ntheir rank in spite of fluctuations of their fame. You speak of the discrediting of some and the rehabilitation of the discredited.
\nThat happened to Pope and Dryden. Keats and his contemporaries broke their canons and trampled over their corpses to
\nreach romantic freedom; now there is a rehabilitation. But all this is something of an illusion
\n\t\t\t―for mark that even at the worst
\nPope and Dryden retained a place among the great names of English poetic literature. No controversy, no depreciation could
\ntake that away from them. This proves my contention that there is an abiding intuition of poetic and artistic greatness.
\n   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-665<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

The attempts at comparison of poets like Blake and Shakespeare or Dante and Shakespeare by critics like Housman and
\nEliot? It seems to me that these are irrelevant and otiose. Both Dante and Shakespeare stand at the summit of poetic fame, but
\neach with so different a way of genius that comparison is unprofitable. Shakespeare has powers which Dante cannot rival; Dante
\nhas heights which Shakespeare could not reach; but in essence they stand as mighty equals. As for Blake and Shakespeare, that
\nopinion is more a personal fantasy than anything else. Purity and greatness are not the same thing; Blake’s may be pure poetry in
\nHousman’s sense and Shakespeare’s not except in a few passages; but nobody can contend that Blake’s genius had the width and
\nvolume and riches of Shakespeare’s. It can be said that Blake as a mystic poet achieved things beyond Shakespeare’s measure
\n― for Shakespeare had not the mystic’s vision; but as a poet of the play of life Shakespeare is everywhere and Blake nowhere. These
\nare tricks of language and idiosyncrasies of preference. One has only to put each thing in its place, without confusing issues and
\none can see that Housman’s praise of Blake may be justified but any exaltation of him by comparison with Shakespeare is not
\nin accordance with the abiding intuition of these things which remains undisturbed by any individual verdict. <\/p>\n

The errors of great poets in judging their contemporaries are personal freaks
\n―they are failures in intuition due to the mind’s
\ntemporary movements getting in the way of the intuition. The errors of Goethe and Bankim were only an overestimation of
\na genius or a talent that was new and therefore attractive at the time. Richardson’s
\nPamela <\/i>was after all the beginning of
\nmodern fiction. As I have said, the general intuition does not work at once and with a mechanical accuracy. Overestimation
\nof a contemporary is frequent; underestimation also. But, taken on the whole, the real poet commands at first or fairly soon the
\nverdict of the few whose eyes are open ―and often the attacks of those whose eyes are shut
\n―and the few grow in numbers till the
\ngeneral intuition affirms their verdict. There may be exceptions, for there is hardly a rule without exceptions, but this is, I think,
\ngenerally true.   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-666<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

As for the verdict of Englishmen upon a French poet or vice<\/i> versa<\/i>, that is due to a difficulty in entering into the finer spirit and
\nsubtleties of a foreign language. It is difficult for a Frenchman to get a proper appreciation of Keats or Shelley or for an Englishman to judge Racine, ―for this reason. But a Frenchman like Maurois who knows English as an Englishman knows it,
\ncan get the full intuition of a poet like Shelley well enough. These variations must be allowed for; the human mind is not
\na perfect instrument, its best intuitions are veiled by irrelevant mental formations; but in these matters the truth affirms itself
\nand stands fairly firm and clear in essence through all changes of mental weather. <\/p>\n

6 October 1934 <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contemporary Judgment of Poetry
\n<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n<\/b>
\nIf you send your poems to five different poets, you are likely to get five absolutely disparate and discordant estimates of them. A
\npoet likes only the poetry that appeals to his own temperament or taste, the rest he condemns or ignores. (My own case is different, because I am not primarily a poet and have made in criticism a practice of appreciating everything that can be appreciated, as
\na catholic critic would.) Contemporary poetry, besides, seldom gets its right judgment from contemporary critics. <\/p>\n

Nothing can be more futile than for a poet to write in expectation of contemporary fame or praise, however agreeable
\nthat may be, if it comes: but it is not of any definitive value; for very poor poets have enjoyed a great contemporary fame and
\nvery great poets have been neglected in their time, their merit known only to a few and gathering very slowly a greater volume
\nof appreciation around it. A poet has to go on his way, trying to gather hints from what people say for or against, when their
\ncriticisms are things he can profit by, but not otherwise moved (if he can manage it)
\n―seeking mainly to sharpen his own sense
\nof self-criticism by the help of others. Differences of estimate need not surprise him at all. <\/p>\n

2 February 1932 <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n*<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-667<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

It is quite true that all art and poetry is largely dependent on the vital for its activity and if there is no force of vitality in the
\npoetry then it cannot be strong or great. But it does not follow that the vital element in poetry will appeal to everybody or a
\ngreat number of people; it depends on the kind of vital movement that is there. The forceful but inferior sort of vital energy that
\nyou find in Kipling’s ballads appeals to a large mass of people, ―the vital element in Milton which is very powerful affects only
\na few in comparison ―the rest take him on trust because he is a great classic but have not the true intense enjoyment of him
\nas of Kipling. Yet Milton’s greatness will endure ―that cannot be said certainly of Kipling’s ballads. The problem therefore
\nremains where it was. Spiritual poetry also needs the vital force for expression; mere spiritual philosophy without the uplifting
\npoetic force in its expression (which needs the vital energy for its action) cannot appeal to anybody. But all the same in spiritual
\npoetry the vital element adopts a turn which may not go home to many, unless it takes a popular religious form which has a general appeal. There I do not follow quite Khagen Mitra’s position ―does he contend that one ought to suit one’s poetry to the mentality of others so that it may have a general appeal, not keeping it to its natural purpose of expressing what is felt and seen by the
\npoet according to the truth of the inspiration within him? Surely that cannot be recommended; but if it is not done, the possibility
\nof reaching (at first, of course) only a few remains uneliminated. It is not that a poet deliberately sets out to be appreciated by a
\nfew only ―he sets out to be himself in his poetry and the rest\u00b4
\nfollows. But consider a poet like Mallarm\u00e9. In writing his strange enigmatic profound style which turned the whole structure of
\nFrench upside down he cannot have expected or cared to be read and appreciated even by that part of the general public
\nwhich is interested in and appreciative of poetry. Yet there is no one who has had more influence on modern French poets
\n\t―he
\n\u00b4 helped to create Verlaine, Valery and a number of others who
\nrank among the great ones in French literature and he himself too now ranks very high though he must still, I should think,
\nbe read only by a comparatively small though select audience;<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-668<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

yet he has practically turned the current of French poetry. So
\nthere is something to be said for writing for oneself even if that implies writing only for the few and not for the many. <\/p>\n

As for the actor, that is quite a different art, meant for the public, depending on its breath of applause, ineffective if
\nits public is not moved or captured. A poet publishes, but he can take his chance; if he does not succeed in commanding
\nwidespread attention, he can still continue to write; there is something in him which maintains its energy and will to create.
\nIf he seeks acknowledged greatness and success ―though that is a secondary matter to the force that makes him write
\n―he
\ncan still sustain himself on the hope of a future greatness with posterity ―there are plenty of illustrious examples to console
\nhim. But an actor unappreciated is an actor already dead ―there is nothing before him. <\/p>\n

5 November 1936 <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

Valery, whom you mention, is unintelligible to all but a very
\nnarrow coterie, and even they say that he is too intellectual and divorced from the life of the emotions. This makes his
\npoetry admirable as a specimen of great workmanship, but it will not last. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWell, but did they not say the same thing about Mallarm\u00e9? And
\nwhat of Blake? Contemporary opinion is a poor judge of what shall live or not live. The fact remains that the impressionist
\n\u00b4 movement in poetry initiated by Mallarm\u00e9 has proved to be
\nthe most powerful stream in France and its influence is not confined to that country. The whole thing is that it is a mistake
\nto erect a mental theory and try to force into its narrow mould the infinite variety of the processes of Nature. Shakespeare may
\nhave so much vital force as to recommend himself to a large audience not so much for his poetry at first as for his dramatic
\nvividness and power; it must be remembered that it was the German romantics two centuries later who brought about the
\napotheosis of Shakespeare ―before that he had a much more limited circle of admirers. Other great poets have started with a
\nmore scanty recognition. Others have had a great popularity in   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-669<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

their lifetime and sunk afterwards to a much lower level of fame. What is important is to preserve the right of the poet to write
\nfor himself, that is to say, for the Spirit that moves him, not to demand from him that he should write down to the level of the
\ngeneral or satisfy even the established taste and standard of the critics or connoisseurs of his time. For that would mean the end
\nor decay of poetry ―it would perish of its own debasement. A poet must be free to use his wings even if they carry him above
\nthe comprehension of the public of the day or of the general run of critics or lead him into lonely places. That is all that matters. <\/p>\n

Tolstoy’s logic is out of place. Nobody says that the value of the poet must be measured by the scantiness of his audience any
\nmore than it can be measured by the extent of his contemporary popularity. So there is no room for his
\nreductio ad absurdum<\/i>.
\nWhat is contended is that it cannot be measured by either standard. It is to be measured by the power of his vision, of his
\nspeech, of his feeling, by his rendering of the world within or the world without or of any world to which he has access. It may
\nbe the outer world that he portrays like Homer and Chaucer or a vivid life-world like Shakespeare or an inmost world of
\nexperience like Blake or other mystic poets. The recognition of that power will come first from the few who recognise good
\npoetry when they see it and from those who can enter into his world; afterwards it can spread to the larger number who can
\nrecognise good poetry when it is shown to them; finally, the still larger public may come in who learn to appreciate by a
\nslow education, not by instinct and nature. There was a sound principle in the opinion always held in former times that it is
\ntime alone that can test the enduring power of a poet’s work, for contemporary opinion is not reliable. <\/p>\n

There remains the case of the poets great or small or null who immediately command a general hearing. They have an
\nelement in them which catches at once the mind of the time: they are saying things which have a general appeal in a way that
\neverybody can understand, in a language and rhythm that all can appreciate. As you say, there must be a vital element in the
\npoetry of such a writer which gets him his public. The question   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-670<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nis, has he anything else and, again what is the value of this vital element? If he has nothing else or not much of any high value,
\nhis aureole will not endure. If he has something but not of the best and highest, he will sink in the eyes of posterity, but not set
\nout of sight. If he has in him something of the very greatest and best, his fame will grow and grow as time goes on
\n―some of
\nthe elements that caught him his contemporary public may fade and lose their value but the rest will shine with an increasing
\nbrightness. But even the vital and popular elements in the work may have different values
\n―Shakespeare’s vitality has the same
\nappeal now as then; Tennyson’s has got very much depreciated; Longfellow’s is now recognised for the easily current copper
\ncoin that it always was. You must remember that when I speak of the vital force in a poet as something necessary, I am not
\nspeaking of something that need be low or fitted only to catch the general mind, not fit to appeal to a higher judgment, but of
\nsomething that can be very valuable ―from the highest point of view. When Milton writes <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable, <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nor describes the grandeur of the fallen archangel, there is a vital
\nforce there that is of the highest quality, ―so is that of Shakespeare; so is that of many pieces of Blake. This vital energy
\nmakes the soul stir within you. Nothing can be more high and sublime than the vital energy in Arjuna’s description of the Virat
\nPurusha in the Gita. <\/p>\n

6 November 1936 <\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI remain convinced that fame is a fluke. Even a settled literary
\nfame seems to be a very fluctuating affair. Who gave a thought to Blake or Donne in former times, when I was in England,
\nfor instance? But now they bid fair to be reckoned among the great poets. I see that Byron is in the depths, the quotations
\nfor Pope and Dryden are rising; it was very different in those days. <\/p>\n

5 February 1932 <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n*<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-671<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Dilip says, “If you want to publish your literary work, you must see that people understand it
\n―not the public at large
\nbut, as Virginia Woolf says, a select public.” <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWhat is not understood or appreciated by one select circle
\nmay be understood or appreciated by another select circle or in the future like Blake’s poetry. Nobody appreciated Blake in
\nhis own time ―now he ranks as a great poet, ―more poetic than Shakespeare, says Housman. Tagore wrote he could not
\nappreciate Dilip’s poetry because it is too “Yogic” for him. Is Tagore unselect, one of the public at large? <\/p>\n

I don’t agree at all with not publishing because you won’t be understood. At that rate many great poets would have remained
\nunpublished. What about the unintelligible Mallarm\u00e9 who had
\nsuch a great influence on later French poetry? <\/p>\n

24 July 1936
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nHousman’s Poetics <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have been waiting for a long time to take a look at A. E.
\nHousman’s little book The Name and Nature of Poetry<\/i>. It’s been with you for months now. Perhaps you could spare it for
\na while? How did you like it? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[A few days later<\/i>] What has happened to my Housman letter? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nHoused, man! <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n[Still later<\/i>] Here is the book. I kept it with the hope of noting
\ndown my own ideas on Housman’s theory, but all this time has elapsed without my being able to do it. Apart from the theory,
\nHousman, judging from the book, has a fine sense of true poetic quality ―in others. For his own poetry, from the extracts I have
\nseen, looks rather thin. I have read the book three or four times and always with satisfaction to my solar plexus. <\/p>\n

22 September 1936 <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

Read the remarks of Housman on the magnificent poem of Blake he quotes in full [“My Spectre around me night and day”<\/i>] and
\n   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-672<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe attempts of people to explain it. I quite agree with him there though not in his too sweeping theory of poetry. To explain that
\npoem is to murder it and dissect the corpse. One can’t explain it, one can only feel and live the truth behind it. <\/p>\n

\n 3 December 1936 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n Spiritual Poetry and Popular Taste <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

In a recently published lecture on art, Tagore writes [in
\nBengali<\/i>]: <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The question naturally arises, “Why has this [mathematical delight<\/i>] not been made the subject of poetry?” The
\nreason is that the experience of it is confined to very few people, it is out of the reach of the general public. The
\nlanguage through which it can be known is technical, it has not been made into a living material by contact with
\nthe hearts of the people. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Put “yogic poetry” in place of mathematics and you will at
\nonce understand why he cannot accept yogic poetry as poetry proper. Khagendra Mitra has echoed this identical view in his
\nrather obscure term
\n\t\t\t. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nMathematical delight be blowed! What does he mean? that you can’t write mathematics in verse? I suppose not, it was not meant
\nto be. You can’t start off <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Oh, two by three plus four plus seven! <\/p>\n

To add things is to be in heaven. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nBut all the same, if one thinks it worth while to take the trouble,
\none can express the mathematician’s delight in discovery or the grammarian’s in grammatising or the engineer’s in planning a
\nbridge or a house. What about Browning’s Grammarian’s Funeral<\/i>? The reason why these subjects do not easily get into poetry
\nis because they do not lend themselves to poetic handling, their substance being intellectual and abstract and their language also,
\nnot as the substance and language of poetry must be, emotional and intuitive. It is not because they appeal only to a few people
\nand not to the general run of humanity. A good dinner appeals   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-673<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

not to a few people but to the general run of humanity, but it would all the same be a little difficult to write an epic or a
\nlyric on the greatness of cooking and fine dishes or the joys of the palate and the belly. Spiritual subjects on the other hand can lend
\nthemselves to poetic handling because they can be expressed in the language of high emotion and radiant intuition. How many
\npeople will appreciate it is a question which is irrelevant to the merit of the poetry. More people have appreciated sincerely
\nMacaulay’s Lays <\/i>or Kipling’s Barrack Room Ballads <\/i>than ever really appreciated
\nTimon of Athens <\/i>or Paradise Regained <\/i>―but
\nthat does not determine the relative value or appropriateness of these things as poetry. Artistic or poetic value cannot be reckoned by the plaudits or the reactions of the greatest number. I am only just reading Khagen Mitra’s 
\n
\n\t―this is only a splenetic comment on your quotation from Tagore. <\/p>\n

\n

2 November 1936 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mystic poetry will ever remain for Tagore mystic and mysterious and occupy a second place. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThat is another matter. It is a question of personal idiosyncrasy. There are people who thrill to Pope and find Keats and Shelley
\nempty and misty. The clear precise intellectual meanings of Pope are to them the height of poetry
\n―the emotional and romantic
\nsuggestions of the Skylark <\/i>or the Ode to the Nightingale <\/i>unsatisfactory. How the devil, they ask, can a skylark be a spirit,
\nnot a bird? What the hell has “a glow-worm golden in a dell of dew” to do with the song of the skylark? They are unable to
\nfeel these things and say Pope would never have written in that incoherent inconsequential way. Of course he wouldn’t. But that
\nsimply means they like things that are intellectually clear and can’t appreciate the imaginative connections which reveal what
\nis deeper than the surface. You can, I suppose, catch something of these, but when you are asked to go still deeper into the concrete of concretes, you lose your breath and say “Lord! what an unintelligible mess. Give me an allegorical clue for God’s sake,
\nsomething superficial, which I can mentally formulate.” Same attitude as the Popists’
\n―in essence. <\/p>\n

8 December 1936  
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage-674<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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