A Study of Poetry by Bliss Perry (ereader with android TXT) đ
- Author: Bliss Perry
- Performer: -
Book online «A Study of Poetry by Bliss Perry (ereader with android TXT) đ». Author Bliss Perry
For sometimes, assuredly, the synthesis of images seems to take place without the volition of the poet. The hypnotic trance, the narcotic dream or revery, and even our experience of ordinary dreams, provide abundant examples. One dreams, for instance, of a tidal river, flowing in with a gentle full current which bends in one direction all the water-weeds and the long grasses trailing from the banks; then somehow the tide seems to change, and all the water and the weeds and grasses, even the fishes in the stream, turn slowly and flow out to sea. The current synthesizes, harmonizes, moves onward like music,âand we are aware that it is all a dream. Coleridgeâs âKubla Khan,â composed in a deep opium slumber, moves like that, one train of images melting into another like the interwoven figures of a dance led by the âdamsel with a dulcimer.â There is no âconscious purposeâ whatever, and no âmeaningâ in the ordinary interpretation of that word. Nevertheless it is perfect integration of imagery, pure beauty to the senses. Something of this rapture in the sheer release of control must have been in Charles Lambâs mind when he wrote to Coleridge about the âpure happinessâ of being insane. âDream not, Coleridge, of having tasted all the grandeur and wildness of fancy till you have gone mad! All now seems to me vapid, comparatively so.â (June 10,
1796.)
If âKubla Khanâ represents one extreme, Poeâs account of how he wrote âThe Ravenâ [Footnote: The Philosophy of Composition.] âincredible as the story appears to most of usâmay serve to illustrate the other, namely, a cool, conscious, workmanlike control of every element in the selection and combination of imagery. Wordsworthâs naive explanation of the task performed by the imagination in his âCuckooâ and âLeech-Gathererâ [Footnote: Preface to poems of 1815-1845.] occupies a middle ground. We are at least certain of his entire honestyâand incidentally of his total lack of humor!
ââShall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?â
âThis concise interrogation characterizes the seeming ubiquity of the voice of the cuckoo, and dispossesses the creature almost of a corporeal existence; the Imagination being tempted to this exertion of her power by a consciousness in the memory that the cuckoo is almost perpetually heard throughout the season of spring, but seldom becomes an object of sightâŠ.
ââAs a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie
Couched on the bald top of an eminence,
Wonder to all who do the same espy
By what means it could thither come, and whence,
So that it seems a thing endued with sense,
Like a sea-beast crawled forth, which on a shelf
Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun himself.
Such seemed this Man; not all alive or dead.
Nor all asleep, in his extreme old age.
*
Motionless as a cloud the old Man stood,
That heareth not the loud winds when they call,
And moveth altogether if it move at all.â
âIn these images, the conferring, the abstracting, and the modifying powers of the Imagination, immediately and mediately acting, are all brought into conjunction. The stone is endowed with something of the power of life to approximate it to the sea-beast; and the sea-beast stripped of some of its vital qualities to assimilate it to the stone; which intermediate image is thus treated for the purpose of bringing the original image, that of the stone, to a nearer resemblance to the figure and condition of the aged man; who is divested of so much of the indications of life and motion as to bring him to the point where the two objects unite and coalesce in just comparison.â
Wordsworthâs analysis of the processes of his own imagination, like Poeâs story of the composition of âThe Raven,â is an analysis made after the imagination had functioned. There can be no absolute proof of its correctness in every detail. It is evident that we have to deal with an infinite variety of normal and abnormal minds. Some of these defy classification; others fall into easily recognized types, such as âthe lunatic, the lover and the poet,â as sketched by Theseus, Duke of Athens. How modern, after all, is the Dukeâs little lecture on the psychology of imagination!
âThe lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact;
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helenâs beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poetâs eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poetâs pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!â [Footnote: Midsummer Nightâs Dream, v, i, 7-22.]
Shakspere, it will be observed, does not hesitate to use that dangerous term âthe poet!â Yet as students of poetry we must constantly bring ourselves back to the recorded experience of individual men, and from these make our comparisons and generalizations. It may even happen that some readers will get a clearer conception of the selection and synthesis of images if they turn for the moment away from poetry and endeavor to realize something of the same processes as they take place in imaginative prose. In Hawthorneâs Scarlet Letter, for example, the dominant image, which becomes the symbol of his entire theme, is the piece of scarlet cloth which originally caught his attention. This physical object becomes, after long brooding, subtly changed into a moral symbol of sin and its concealment. It permeates the book, it is borne openly upon the breast of one sufferer, it is written terribly in the flesh of another, it flames at last in the very sky. All the lesser images and symbols of the romance are mastered by it, subordinated to it; it becomes the dominant note in the composition. The romance of The Scarlet Letter is, as we say of any great poem or drama, an âideal synthesisâ; i.e. a putting together of images in accordance with some central idea. The more significant the idea or theme or master image, the richer and fuller are the possibilities of beauty in detail. Apply this familiar law of complexity to a poetâs conscious or unconscious choice of images. In the essay which we have already quoted [Footnote: Studies and Appreciations, p. 216.] Lewis Gates remarks:
âIn every artist there is a definite mental bias, a definite spiritual organization and play of instincts, which results in large measure from the common life of his day and generation, and which represents this lifeâmakes it potentâwithin the individuality of the artist. This so-called âacquired constitution of the life of the soulââit has been described by Professor Dilthey with noteworthy acuteness and thoroughnessâdetermines in some measure the contents of the artistâs mind, for it determines his interests, and therefore the sensations and perceptions that he captures and automatically stores up. It guides him in his judgments of worth, in his instinctive likes and dislikes as regards conduct and character, and controls in large measure the play of his imagination as he shapes the action of his drama or epic and the destinies of his heroes. Its prejudices interfiltrate throughout the molecules of his entire moral and mental life, and give to each image and idea some slight shade of attractiveness or repulsiveness, so that when the artistâs spirit is at work under the stress of feeling, weaving into the fabric of a poem the competing images and ideas in his consciousness, certain ideas and images come more readily and others lag behind, and the resulting work of art gets a colour and an emotional tone and suggestions of value that subtly reflect the genius of the age.â
6. âImagistâ Verse
Such a conception of the association of images as reflecting not only this âacquired constitution of the soulâ of the poet but also the genius of the age is in marked contrast to some of the theories held by contemporary âimagists.â As we have already noted, in Chapter II, they stress the individual reaction to phenomena, at some tense moment. They discard, as far as possible, the long âloop-lineâ of previous experience. As for diction, they have, like all true artists, a horror of the clichïżœâthe rubber-stamp word, blurred by use. As for rhythm, they fear any conventionality of pattern. In subsequent chapters we must look more closely at these matters of diction and of rhythm, but they are both involved in any statement of the principles of Imagist verse. Richard Aldington sums up his article on âThe Imagistsâ [Footnote: âGreenwich Village,â July 15, 1915.] in these words:
âLet me resume the cardinal points of the Imagist style: 1. Direct treatment of the subject. 2. A hardness and economy of speech. 3. Individuality of rhythm; vers libre. 4. The exact word. The Imagists would like to possess âle mot qui fait image, lâadjectif inattendu et prïżœcis qui dessine de pied en cap et donne la senteur de la chose quâil est chargïżœ de rendre, la touche juste, la couleur qui chatoie et vibre.ââ
In the preface to Imagist Poets (1915), and in Miss Amy Lowellâs Tendencies in Modern American Poetry (1917) the tenets of imagism are stated briefly and clearly. Imagism, we are told, aims to use always the language of common speech, but to employ always the exact word, not the nearly-exact nor the merely decorative word; to create new rhythmsâas the expression of new moodsâand not to copy old rhythms, which merely echo old moods; to allow absolute freedom in the choice of a subject; to present an image, rendering particulars exactly; to produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred or indefinite; to secure condensation.
It will be observed that in the special sort of picture-making which Imagist poetry achieves, the question of free verse is merely incidental. âWe fight for it as a principle of liberty,â says Miss Lowell, but she does not insist upon it as the only method of writing poetry. Mr. Aldington admits frankly that about forty per cent of vers libre is prose. Mr. Lowes, as we have already remarked, has printed dozens of passages from Meredithâs novels in the typographical arrangement of free verse so as to emphasize their âimagistâ character. One of the most effective is this:
âHe was like a Tartar
Modelled by a Greek:
Supple
As the Scythianâs bow,
Braced
As the string!â
Suppose, however, that we agree to defer for the moment the vexed question as to whether images of this kind are to be considered prose or verse. Examine simply for their vivid picture-making quality the collections entitled Imagist Poets (1915,1916,1917), or, in the Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1915, such poems as J. G. Fletcherâs âGreen Symphonyâ or âH. D.âsâ âSea-Irisâ or Miss Lowellâs âThe Fruit Shop.â Read Miss Lowellâs extraordinarily brilliant volume Men, Women and Ghosts (1916), particularly the series of poems entitled âTowns in Colour.â Then read the authorâs preface, in which her artistic purpose in writing âTowns in Colourâ is set forth: âIn these poems, I have endeavoured to give the colour, and light, and shade, of certain places and hours, stressing the purely pictorial effect, and with little or no reference to any other aspect of the places described. It is an enchanting thing to wander through a city looking for its unrelated beauty, the beauty by which it captivates the sensuous sense of seeing.â [Footnote: Italics mine.]
Comments (0)