VI ἡ ἀπὸ Μουσῶν κατοκωχή τε καὶ μανία It was maintained in the Introductory Part of this work that the Poet performs his essential function as Poet only in so far as he rouses Transcendental Feeling in his patient, and that he does so by inducing in him the state of dreamconsciousness. It is characteristic of this state, as induced by the Poet, that it does not continue for any appreciable length of time, but takes the form of fitfully recurrent lapses in the midst of a waking consciousness, which it is also the Poet's function-but only as skilled workman, not as inspired Poet-to furnish with suitable objects. As workman the Poet must have skill to tell a story, whether in narrative, or in dramatic or in lyrical form, whether true or fictitious, which shall be interesting to the waking consciousness as a story—which shall appeal powerfully to our natural love of "anthropology," and to other common sentiments of the human breast. The interesting story, with its appeal to our common sentiments, constitutes, as it were, the Body of the poem, and bulks largely She would na ha'e a Lowland Laird, Nor be an English Lady; But she's awa wi' Duncan Graham, An' he's row'd her in his plaidie. This is "what the poem is about "-its subject matter, its Body-and is always with us. But the Soul-the essential Poetry of a poem, is apprehended only at those moments when the common sentiments-wonder, love, pity, dread, curiosity, amusement roused by the workman's artistic handling of the subject-matter, are satisfied fantastically, as in a dream, by some image presented or suggested, or by some 1 Phaedrus, 245 Α: τρίτη δὲ ἀπὸ Μουσῶν κατοκωχή τε καὶ μανία λαβοῦσα ἁπαλὴν καὶ ἄβατον ψυχὴν ἐγείρουσα καὶ ἐκβακχεύουσα κατά τε ᾠδὰς καὶ κατὰ τὴν ἄλλην ποίησιν μυρία τῶν παλαιῶν ἔργα κοσμοῦσα τοὺς ἐπιγιγνομένους παιδεύει. ὃς δ ̓ ἂν ἄνευ μανίας Μουσῶν ἐπὶ ποιητικὰς θύρας ἀφίκηται, πεισθεὶς ὡς ἄρα ἐκ τέχνης ἱκανὸς ποιητὴς ἐσόμενος, ἀτελὴς αὐτός τε καὶ ἡ ποίησις ὑπὸ τῆς τῶν μαινομένων ἡ τοῦ σωφρονοῦντος ἠφανίσθη. Plato's Ion should be read in connection with this. It is a study of "Poetic Inspiration." καθ ̓ ὕπνον. mysterious omen of word or phrase or cadence. It is in giving such satisfaction to natural sentiments which his art has aroused in his patient that the Poet shows his genius as distinguished from his art. His gift is a sort of μαντικὴ In sleep some ordinary sensation of cold, or heat, or of some other kind, starts an explanatory pageant of dream-images. So in the Poet's mind some common sentiment, which he experiences more vividly than other men as he tells his story, expresses itself suddenly in some image or other representation; and his reader, in whose mind he has already roused the same sentiment by his story, welcomes the image or other representation, as expressing the sentimentas relieving the weight of it, as solving the mystery of it, as justifying it. It is in a dream, fantastically, that the relief, the solution, the justification, are found; for the Poet's image, the product in him of the dream-consciousness, becomes in the Poet's patient the producer of a state of consciousness like that which produced it in the Poet. The case is analogous to that of one mimicking or dwelling on the outward expression of a mental state in another, and having the state thereby produced by reaction in himself. The dream-state produced in the patient by the reaction on his consciousness of the imagery, and other dream-products, supplied by the genius of the Poet, though it lasts as dreamstate but for a moment, yet leaves an effect behind which persists more or less sensibly throughout the waking consciousness which follows; and if the lapses into the dreamstate induced by a poem are frequent, the effect, persisting in the waking consciousness which apprehends the subject-matter, becomes always more and more impressive. This effect may be described as a feeling of having lately been in some daiμóvios TÓTOS, where the true reasons of the things which happen in this world of ordinary experience are laid up; a Place in which one understood the significance of these things, although one cannot now explain what one then understood. In the Phaedrus Myth, where the Souls peep over the edge of the Cosmos for a moment into the Tedíov åλnocías beyond, and then sink down into the region of the sensible, this feeling of "having just now understood the true significance of things" is pictorially rendered. I venture to urge on those who discuss that vexed question "What is Poetic Truth?" the importance of not neglecting this "feeling of having just now understood the true significance of things"-a feeling which, of course, is experienced pretty generally, and quite apart from the influence of Poetry, although in the case of those who come under that influence it is so elaborately procured and regu lated as to become an important factor in their lives. When we are told by the exponents of "Poetic Truth," from Aristotle downwards, that it is the "Universal,”—that "Poetry sets forth the Universal," we are not asked to believe that there are Universals (in the plural) of Poetry like those of Science -principles supplied by Poetry which explain particulars, or furnish some definite guidance in respect of them, as, e.g., the Law of Gravitation "explains" the orbits of the planets, or even as the "Principles of Economics" furnish guidance in particular cases arising in the course of business. If, then, the exponents of "Poetic Truth" do not claim for the "Universal" of Poetry that it provides any such explanation or guidance in detail, what do they understand it to be and do? It seems to me that their exposition amounts to this:The Universal of Poetry is that which does for the details of the Poet's interesting Story or Picture what "Knowledge of the Good" does for the objects of Conduct: it is olov Tò pws, as it were a Light, in which they are bathed and altered -an atmosphere of solemn elemental feeling through which we see the representations of Poetry, as we see the presentations of Social Life-its claims and temptationsthrough the medium of the Sense of Duty. If this is what the doctrine of the "Universal of Poetry," as expounded by those who have written on the subject, amounts to, I am entirely in agreement with them. I am merely putting their doctrine in other words when I state my own view as follows:-The "Universal of Poetry" is apprehended by us when, having entered at the beck of the Poet, our μvoтaywyós, into the vast wonderland of the dream-consciousness, we presently return therefrom to the waking world of his interesting story, and see its particulars again with the eyes of revenants who now know their secret meaning—or rather, know that they have a secret meaning-that they represent, here in the world of our ordinary observations and sentiments, the truth of a deeper order of reality. So, Plato1 will have his Guardians believe that the particular events of their lives here are but representative doubles of things which are accomplished in a real life behind: the Guardians are to be told that "their youth was a dream"-that they merely imagined that they were being educated here: in reality, all the while, it was elsewhere, in the womb of their Mother Earth, that they were being fashioned and nurtured. Let me not be misunderstood. I do not underrate the importance in Poetry of all that appeals to our love of " anthropology." The Odyssey must be interesting as, say, the Voyages of Columbus are interesting; the Songs of Burns and Goethe must be interesting as the common sentiments and experiences which they set forth are interesting to us all in our own lives and the lives of our neighbours. Minute character-drawing, the picturesque portrayal of people as they strike the eye in their surroundings, dramatic representation of their doings and fortunes, and description of the natural world, especially as scene of man's adventures and musingsall these, in their proper places, must be supplied by the Poet; but they are what I have called the Body of Poetry-they constitute the material which the Soul of Poetry inspires. The material must, indeed, be interesting to the waking consciousness, if it is to be inspired; but it may well be interesting without being inspired. The inspiration, I have argued, if it comes, comes from the dream-consciousness. The Soul of Poetry is apprehended in its Body at the moment when we awake from the "Poet's Dream," and on a sudden see the passing figures and events of his interesting story arrested in their temporal flight, like the "brede of marble men and maidens " on the Grecian Urn, and standing still, sub specie aeternitatis, as emblems-of what?-of Eternal Verities, the purport of which we cannot now recall; but we know that they are valid, and are laid up in that other world from which we are newly returned.2 1 Republic, 414. 2 See Plotinus, Enn. vi. 9. 9 and 10: speaking of the return from the ecstatic to ordinary consciousness, he says--dúσppаσтov Tò éаua (what was seen in the ecstatic state). πῶς γὰρ ἂν ἀπαγγείλειέ τις ὡς ἕτερον οὐκ ἰδὼν ἐκεῖνο ὅτε ἐθεᾶτο ĕтερоv, åλλà Ev πpòs éavтóv; and see infra, p. 387, where it is contended that the feeling of being "one with the world" is that experienced when great poetry exerts its influence most powerfully. It may be objected that "Poetic Truth" is not rated. highly enough when its "Universal" is identified with a vague feeling" of some inexplicable significance attaching to objects and sentiments, within the sphere of ordinary experience, which are brought before us in the Poet's story. The patent fact that Poetry "elevates" men's lives may be urged against a view which reduces its "Truth" to the low level, it may be thought, of a feeling of the "Irrational Part of the Soul." I would meet this objection by referring to what I have said about the relation of the conscious Self of waking experience the sensitive and rational Self-to the Self of the dream-consciousness, and of both to the unconscious Self of the "Vegetative Part of the Soul," in which they have their roots. The Vegetative Part, I argued, is the principle within us which inspires the conscious life with that which is the foundation of conduct, and (when we turn to speculation) the beginning and end of Metaphysics-that faith in reality and goodness in the strength of which we struggle on, seeking ever new experiences and adventures. I put no slight, therefore, upon the "Universal of Poetry" if I ascribe it to the inspiration of this fundamental principle making itself felt in consciousness, not in the normal form of implicit belief in the Worth of Life, but less normally as the dreamintuition of a ground of that belief. The Metaphysician is too often found trying to set forth a ground which shall be plain to the Understanding, forgetting that Thou canst not prove the Nameless, Nor canst thou prove the world thou movest in, The Poet does better: he induces the dream-intuition of a ground, and leaves us with the wonder of the vision haunting our minds when we wake to pursue the details of his interesting story. It But in what form, it will be asked, does this ground of our faith present itself to the dream-consciousness? presents itself, I would answer, as "another world" one, unchanging, good, certified, by the testimony of one swift act of perfect intuition, to exist beyond, or rather within, the |