Mackail, J. W. (John William), 1859-1945

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I1 WHAT IS POETRY? order to discuss anything rationally, we must first have I" a clear notion of what the thing is which we are discuss- ing. Most  misunderstandings, most false opinions, arise from mere confusion; and the heat of debate increases with the vagueness of definition. Even in the sphere of the phys- ical sciences, where perpetual reference back to  facts is implied in the nature of the case, and where these facts are visible, tangible, and ponderable, such confusion is not un- known. But the confusion is more apt to arise, and can spread further without detection, in matters where theory cannot be so readily, and has not to  be so constantly, brought to the test of experience; where experience itself is fluctu- ating, and subject to the distorting influence not merely, as in physical science, of tradition and habit, but also of unrea- soned instinct and variable emotion. Only by the continuous effort of generations have the physical sciences been brought into the state in which their really scientific pursuit is secured; only by constantly applying them to practical problems can we test the truth of generalisations and the relevance of theories, and be sure that our knowledge is real knowledge, and bears relation-a real and helpful relation -to the actual world in which we find ourselves and with which we have to deal. In what are called the humane studies-those of art  and letters-the same twofold necessity exists: the necessity of a clear definition of  terms, and the necessity of testing the value of any study o r  pursuit by laying it alongside of facts IO What is Poetry‘? 1 1  and seeing what relation it bears to the claims of life. Be- fore  considering, as it is my main object to  do, the function and task of poetry in the actual modern world, whether as a subject of study, an a r t  in practice, o r  (more largely) an element in civilisation, it will be proper, and indeed neces- sary, to clear the ground by saying what poetry is. In  this as in so many other matters the instinctive tendency in many minds is to  give to  the question, ‘What is poetry?’ the answer, ‘I know, so long as you do not ask me.’ And it is no doubt true that most people have some vague and gen- eral conception of what is meant by the word ‘poetry’ float- ing in their minds. But their conception is so vague and indeterminate as to be of little use. T h a t  poetry is a kind of language, differing in its nature alike from the ordinary language of our daily intercourse and from the lan- guage used in books of science or  philosophy or  history, of treatises on politics o r  economics or  religion, of memoirs o r  essays o r  narratives, would be generally admitted; but when we go beyond this and ask what is its specific nature, many would be unable to  say more than that it islanguage arranged in lines of a certain arbitrary length, with the words so artificially ordered as to  produce an agreeable effect upon the ear, and to excite a certain pleasure, com- parable to  that produced by music, in the senses of the reader. Beyond that, they would have to  fall back on in- stances : poetry, they would say, is, in ancient literature, Homer  and Virgil; in our common English inheritance, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton; in more modern times, Words- worth, Keats, Tennyson, Browning on one side of the At- lantic, Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, and a thousand other writers who have succeeded to  them, in our own Republic. But what are we to think of these and other poets, not merely as men, not merely as writers, but as poets? What  12 The Study of Poetry is that thing called ‘poetry’ which they all produced, and what are  we to  think of it, as an art, as a way of occupying life and affecting the lives of others, as a subject to  be studied o r  a craft to  be exercised? When we come to this point we are faced at once with the confusion which arises from the absence of a clear notion of what is meant by poetry, and from the consequent absence of any firm common ground when we try to  state and to  appraise its function, its value, its relation to  the task, the duty, the privilege of actual men and women here in the twentieth century. This  confusion affects the eulogists and the detractors of poetry alike. Many wild words are  spoken on both sides. I t  is needless to  enlarge on this notorious fact. On the one side are the dev- otees of poetry, who regard it as something too lofty and sacred for  definition, as something that stands outside of and apart  from common people and their pursuits. On  the other, in much larger numbers, are those who think of it as a rather trifling amusement, suitable for  people who have nothing better to do ;  or  even as something vicious and de- moralising, something that weakens the mind, destroys in- dustry and accuracy, cuItivates fancy and sentiment at the expense of intelligence, and is a stumbling-block in the way of the pursuit of truth. To  them poetry is like alcoholic liquor, a dangerous servant and a destructive master. ‘One of the Fathers,’ says Bacon in his ‘Essay of Truth,’ ‘called Poesy vinum dmzoniim (devils’ wine), because it filleth the imagination with the shadow of a lie.’ T h e  churches, and religious people generally, have always, if they did not go as fa r  as St. Augustine, a t  all events regarded poetry with sus- picion, and not been comfortable about it. And here they are, for  once, in agreement with the rough common-sense of business men who care fo r  religion as little as they care for  poetry. I t  is easy to  laugh at  the mathematician who What is Poetry? 13 asked of Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost,’ ‘What  does it prove?’ But it is not so easy to ignore the man in the street who asks of poetry, not ‘What  does it prove?’ but ‘What  sense is there in it ?’ I t  is not so easy to confute, before a careless public, the discontented man of letters who turns against his own ar t ,  and says of poetry, in the words of a contemporary of Shakespeare, that it is a thing ‘whereof there is no use in a man’s whole life but to  describe discontented thoughts and youthful desire.’ T o  such minds poetry is either a childish folly o r  a deliberate misapplication of human powers. Against such an attitude we may set the many splendid tributes in which, while pretending to  give a definition of poetry, the poets themselves have claimed for  it qualities so marvellous, a value so great, that  nothing else in life is so precious. Wordsworth calls poetry ‘the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge.’ Shelley calls it ‘the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.’ Matthew Arnold says that it is not only ‘the most perfect speech of man,’ but also ‘that in which he comes nearest to  the truth.’ When poets commend poetry, their testimony may be taken by the outer world with some of the suspicion which attaches to  people who cry up their own wares. Yet even after making all due allowance for this, the two atti- tudes of mind towards poetry are clearly inconsistent with each other. W e  may admit that there is truth in both, as there is truth somewhere at the basis of any widely and sin- cerely held opinion on matters which affect life. But i f  both are  true, they are  clearly not both true of the same thing and in the same sense. In order to  reconcile them in any wider and more comprehensive truth, we must try to avoid on the one hand the glitter of rhetoric and sentiment, the ‘luminous mist’ (in Coleridge’s fine phrase) which imaginative artists are apt to  wrap round their own art, and on the other hand 14 The Study of Poetry the impatience of the practical and unimaginative man with anything that falls beyond the scope of his own daily expe- rience, that uses terms with which he is not familiar and aims a t  objects which he has not learned to appreciate. And the best way towards arriving at common ground is to  define our terms as clearly and simply as possible. With this object, let us now proceed, not to praise o r  blame poetry (both are easy, and both are useless), but to  explain what poetry is. I will first state the technical defini- tion of poetry; from it, and keeping it in view, we shall be able to  frame a substantial or vital definition of it, to  define it not merely as a technical term, but as an organic process o r  function. Like all other arts, poetry has both sides. Like music, painting, o r  architecture, it is a thing subject t o  laws which can be taught and learned, historically studied and practically applied. Like them, it is also not merely an art, but a fine a r t ;  that is to say, it is a form of creative human activity, bearing an intimate relation with the energies of human nature, and with the outlook of man upon the mate- rial and spiritual world. Poetry is, formally and technically, patterned language. This is its bare and irreducible definition. I ts  specific qual- ity, its diferentia from other kinds of artistry exercised on the material of language, is that it works language into pat- terns and uses it not only for its common and universal pur- pose of expressing meaning,-not only for its heightened or artistic purpose of expressing meaning in such a way as to express it beautifully and thus satisfy the artistic sense,- but also, and expressly, so as to  bring it within the scope, and make it subject to  the laws, of that kind of decorative design- ing which we call pattern. Some brief further explanation may here be added to  make the point quite clear. When we are defining poetry What is Poetry? 15 and separating it formally from other kinds of spoken o r  written language, it is not enough to say that it is language which possesses design and has decorative value. All beauti- ful, dignified, and elevated language has that. T h e  quality peculiar to poetry is something different. W e  may call it, as we choose, a decorative o r  a structural quality: for what lies a t  the root of all true art  is, that in it structure and deco- ration are inseparable; each implies the other, and each exists, in any artistic sense, only by virtue of its essential relation to  the other. Structure in the abstract, apart from the decorative quality through which it manifests itself t o  the senses .and affects the imagination and the emotions, is matter of science, not of art. Decoration in the abstract, apart  from the material in which it is wrought and its rela- tion to  the structure which it decorates, is meaningless. T h e  synthesis of the two constitutes beauty; their vital union is the aim of art .  Now the specific quality of poetry as distin- guished from other kinds of literature is that in construction and decoration (its construction being decorative, and its decoration constructive) it follows the laws of pattern. T h e  essence of pattern, as is well known to all pattern-designers, consists in its having what they term a repeat. Pattern is built up out of ,  o r  grows out of, a repeated unit; and the a r t  and skill of the pattern-designer are shewn by his success not merely in making the repeat mechanical, but in so handling it that the whole field over which it extends has a beauty and a unity of its own, rising out of and yet distinct from the quality of the repeated unit. A row of equal dots is a pat- tern in its crudest and simplest form;  these dots may be grouped, and the group repeated: these repeated groups may be themselves regrouped into a larger design, and that re- peated; and so on. N o t  only so, but when the pattern is to be executed by hand and not by a machine, it may be treated 16 The Study of Poetry flexibly and varied subtly; it may depart from exact repeti- tion without ceasing to be a pattern so long as the repeat, o r  its main elements, continue to  be felt. All really excellent patterns, patterns which are works of art ,  have something of this flexibility. I t  may extend so f a r  that the repeat has to be sought for, is visible only to the trained eye, and affects other eyes with a pleasure which they feel but cannot analyse and do  not fully understand. This is well understood as regards the arts of painting and music. I t  is less well understood as regards the art  of poetry; but it is true of poetry equally with the other arts of pattern. Poetry, according to a definition which in all prob- ability comes to  us from no less an authority than Milton, is the kind of language which ‘consists of rhythm in verses.’ Prose also has rhythm, and its rhythm may be of great and intricate beauty, but it is not ‘in verses’; its rhythm is not subject to the law of repeat. I t  is indeed the essence of prose that it has not a repeat; so much so that when it slips into a repeat it becomes bad prose, and affects us disagree- ably. This is what its name means: ‘prose’-the Latin prosa oratio-means language which moves straight for- ward without a repeat in its rhythm. Similarly, ‘verse’ (also a Latin word) simply means repeat. T h e  distinction then between prose and verse is funda- mental. I t  is not quite the same as the distinction between prose and poetry; for while no prose is poetry (except in a very loose and figurative way of speaking, unhappily not seldom used), all verse is not poetry. All patterned lan- guage is verse, but to  make it poetry the pattern must be skil- fully designed and governed by the sense of beauty. Or, i f  we like, we may say that poetry and verse are the same, only then we must include bad poetry as well as good. I t  is sim- pler to  say that bad poetry is not poetry a t  all. Milton again What is Poetry? 17 here supplies us with an illuminating phrase. In  the ‘Para- dise Lost’ he speaks of ‘prose o r  numerous verse.’ Verse which is ‘numerous,’ in which the repeated unit and the way in which the repeat is managed are  alike beautiful, is poetry. T h e  scope of pattern, in language as in all the other ma- terials upon which human craftsmanship is exercised, is very wide. I ts  development varies f rom country to  country, f rom age to age, from one school of artists t o  another; and even the same artist may use it very variously at  different times and for  different purposes. I t  suffers alternations of growth and decay: a period of healthy growth is succeeded by one of stagnation and disintegration, out of which again in time fresh growth arises. T h e  condition of decorative ar t  in any nation is, at any time, an index to  the state of its civilisation; for  a r t  is a function of, o r  an element in, the whole process of national life. Ar t  in a sense exists for  its own sake; but in a more important sense it exists for  the sake of the human life in which it is a factor. Just as, amid great varieties and fluctuations of movement, there are  traceable certain broad lines of national development, so it is with the decorative arts of a nation, and with poetry among these: there are certain normal or  dominant types of pattern; on these each artist varies according to  his own imagination and skill; and from the normal and central type extend out- wards in all directions other types, continually in process of invention, cultivation, and change. Some of them are  ex- periments which come to nothing; others strike root and become important enough to affect o r  alter the normal type of pattern. Thus the a r t  of poetry is always renewing itself through fresh invention under the stimulus of individual genius, and always rebalancing itself through a slow but final current of judgment as to  the success or failure of the new type. Instances may be found anywhere by even a cursory 18 The Study of Poetry glance over contemporary poetry. But we shall be on clearer ground if we put aside living authors and look to the work of an earlier generation, which has already taken its place and can be looked at as a whole and from a distance. Among American poets of the last century we shall find the normal patterns of language, for instance, in the work of Longfellow, perhaps still the greatest, as he is the sweetest- voiced and sanest-minded, of them all. Notable divergences from normal pattern may be seen on the one hand in the lyrics of Poe, with whom curiousness of pattern was almost an obsession; on the other hand, in the singular and hitherto unique work of Wal t  Whitman, in which the reaction against formalism of pattern went so fa r  that it has been questioned whether any pattern, in the strict sense, is left at all: o r  in other words, whether the contents of ‘Leaves of Grass’ are, o r  are not, poetry. Poetry, then, according to its formal and technical defini- tion, is patterned language, the material of words wrought by art  into patterns; and it gives the pleasure, partly sen- suous and partly intellectual, which all pattern gives through, and in proportion to, its decorative fitness and beauty. If we regard it not on its technical side, but in its substance and meaning, it has a corresponding definition: it is the art  or process which makes patterns out of the subject-matter of language. T h a t  subject-matter is life. As  soon as we have grasped this truth firmly we shall un- derstand the things which the poets have said about poetry. Life, as it presents itself to us as we pass through it, has no pattern, or at least none (except to some people of very simple and fervid religious belief) that is certain and intel- ligible. I t  is multiplex and bewildering; its laws are con- fused; it does not satisfy our hopes o r  our aspirations: sometimes it seems purposeless, often it seems, as Hamlet What is Poetry? 19 says, ‘out of joint.’ I t  makes no pattern; still less does it make a pattern of beauty. T h e  high office, the unique func- tion, of poetry is to  compose this disorder into a pattern ; to bring out, make visible, lift up as a light in darkness, the particular portion o r  aspect of life which it touches; and in the hands of the greatest poets, to do  this with life as a whole. In the beautiful words of Shelley, which I may now quote with the hope that their significance can be understood, poetry ‘makes familiar things be as i f  they were not fa- miliar.’ I t  shews us the confused, depressing texture of experience in a new and strange light under which we can realise it as part  of the divine order. I t  lets us see life in its inherent beauty and value, and gives us strength to  live. Thus  poetry is, in no mere rhetorical o r  sentimental sense, the highest human achievement. I t  is the culminating point of that wide combined effort or instinct which is at the base of all education, of all study, of all work; and this is, t o  realise the potentialities of life, to master the world and enter into our inheritance. To  do this is, in the full sense, t o  live. 

What is poetry?

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What is poetry?

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