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OSMANIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Call No. <&0lf
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Author ^ l '
Title jc^ .
Th!a LouL -'>^W i^'. -..! *." or
last marked below.
PRACTICAL
CRITICISM
A Study of
LITERARY JUDGMENT
I. A. RICHARDS
Fellow of Magdalene College , Cambridge
Author of " Principles of Literary Criticism '
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. LTD.
BROADWAY HOUSE: 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.G.
1930
First Edition . . . . . . 1929
Second Impression (with a few alterations] 1930
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
THK EDINBURGH PRESS, 9 AND II YOUNG STREET, EDINBURGH.
TO MY COLLABORATORS
WHETHER THEIR WORK APPEARS
IN THESE PAGES OR NOT
PREFACE
A CONVENIENT arrangement for the parts of this
book has not been easy to find. A friendly reader
will, I think, soon see why. Those who are curious
to discern what motives prompted me to write it
will be satisfied most quickly if they begin by
glancing through Part IV, which might indeed have
been placed as an Introduction.
The length of Part II, and a certain unavoidable
monotony, may prove a stumbling-block. I have
included very little there, however, that I do not
discuss again in Part III, and it need not be read
through continuously. A reader who feels some
impatience will prudently pass on at once to my
attempted elucidations, returning to consult the facts
when a renewed contact with actuality is desired.
The later chapters of Part III will be found to
have more general interest than the earlier.
I am deeply indebted to the living authors of some
of the poems I have used for their permission to
print them ; a permission which, in view of the
peculiar conditions of this experiment, witnesses to
no slight generosity of spirit. Some contemporary
poems were necessary for my purpose, to avoid the
perplexities which * dated ' styles would introduce
here. But in making the selection I had originally
no thought of publication. The interest of the
material supplied me by my commentators and the
desire that as many types of poetry as possible should
be represented have been the only reasons for my
choice. But in those instances in which I have not
Vll
viii PREFACE
been able to form a high opinion of the poems I
must ask the forgiveness of the authors and plead
as excuse a motive which we have in common, the
advancement of poetry.
My acknowledgments are due also to the publishers
of these poems. Details of these obligations will be
found in Appendix C, in which I have hidden away,
as far as I could, particulars as to the authorship
and date of the poems. For obvious reasons the
interest of these pages will be enhanced if the reader
remains unaware of the authorship of the poems
until his own opinions of them have been formed
and tested by comparison with the many other
opinions here given. I would, therefore, earnestly
counsel an intending reader not to consult Appendix
C until a late stage in his reading.
I. A. R
CAMBRIDGE,
April 1929.
OSMANIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Call No. g C 'I ' 9 / ^ '^ Accession No. / 4 S2
'Author |?lChft.^ < ,
Title pKictu<xl c
This book should be returned on or before the date last marked below.
CONTENTS
PART I
INTRODUCTORY
PA(,B
The conditions of the experiment ; Its aims ; Field-work in
comparative ideology, 6. The theory of interpretation, 9.
Intellectual and emotional navigation, 1 1. Critical principles:
The indemonstrability of values, 12. The ten difficulties of
criticism, 13-18.
PART II
DOCUMENTATION
POEM I ......... 20
Doctrine in poetry. Its expression, 21. Noble thoughts, 22.
Metrical movements, 23. Flabby thoughts, 24. Truth :
temporal perception, 25. Mnemonic irrelevancies : eternity, ~
socialism, the heart, 27. American idiom: 'an inspirational
bit ', 28. Suggestion as falling in love, 29.
POEM II 32
Rhyming, 34. Other tests for poetry, 35. 'Messages', 36.
Moral qualms, 37. Renderings, 38. Correspondences of sound
and sense, 39. Japanese gardening, 40.
POEM III ......... 42
Misunderstanding, 43. Anti-religious icaction, 44. Stock
responses and metre, 45. Moral objections, 46. Technical
presuppositions and arhitiary renderings, 47. The sound alone :
pictures in poetry, 49. Mixed metaphor, 50.
POEM IV 52
Mental prisms, 53. One man's meat another's poison, 54.
The correspondence of form and content, 55. Alternating
personalties, 56. 'Difference in taste', 57. The ascribed
rhythm, 58. Stock responses, 60.
POEM V ......... 62
Obscurity, 63. Incoherence in poetry, 64. A splendid thought
impossible to grasp, 65. The 'atmosphere of approach', 66.
Timidity, 67 Immortal beauty, 68. The stock-subject, 69.
Beliefs in poetry, 70. Tricks of style, 72. Sonnet form, 7<;.
Incapacity to construe, 76. Sincerity and date, 77. Vacuous
resonances, 78,
ix
CONTENTS
PAGE
POEM VI 80
Mental cleavage, 81. Alternative readings, 82. Blank incom-
prehension, 85. Excuses, 86 The * family constellation ', 87.
Analysis, 89.
POEM VII 92
Two-way prejudices, 93. Sincerity, 94 * Pathetic fallacies', 96.
The Cathedral feeling, 96. Sententiousness, 98 Uplift, 99.
Unity and associations, 100. Nature-poetry, 101.
POEM VIII 104
Sentimentality and nausea tion, 105. Music in poetry, 106.
Metaphor, 107. Popular songs, 108. Preconceptions, 109.
Stock rhythms, 1 10. Verse form, in. Closeness of reading, 1 1 2,
1 Appalling risk of sentimentality', 113. Carelessness v.
insincerity, 114. The acceptance struggle, 115. Private
poetry, 116.
POEM IX 118
Occasional poetry, 119. Irrelevancies : royalism, 120 ; re-
publicanism, 121. The drink problem, 122. Matter and
movement: communicative efficiency, 124. Colour, 125.
Exhilaration. 126. Metaphor, 127. Drama, 127. A problem
of stock responses, 128.
POEM X 130
Mnemonic pulls, 131. Visualisation, 132. Unpleasant
images, 133. Inhumanity, 134. Technical presuppositions:
ugly and delicate words, 134. Cacophony, 135. Onom-
atopceia, 136. Represented motion, 137. Prosaicisms, 138.
Romanticism, 139. Nonsense, 140. Change of tone, 141,
Shallow moralising, 143.
POEM XI 146
Rapture, 147. Personal emotion, 148. Illicit expectations, 148.
Logic, 149. Obscurity, 149. Poetic diction, 150. Strained
trash, 151. Bareness and balanced sanity, 152. The middle
kind of writing, 153.
POEM XII 154
Rumbling clouds, 155. Symbolists, 155. * Crystallisation ':
falling in love, 156. Pathetic fallacy, 157. Chemist's poetry, 158.
Prosody, 158. Hypnotic movement, 160. Swoon-reading, 161.
POEM XIII . .162
Double action of stock responses, 163. Death the leveller, 164.
'Was what Christian charity?' 165. The mystery of the
slaves, 166. Conjectures, 167. The monument problem, 168.
Joanna Southcott's Gladstone bag, 169. Impudent senti-
mentality, 170. Prosody, 171. Sense and sound, 172.
Sanctimonious cliches 173. 'Rude' in what sense? 173.
Fatuous solemnity, 174. Urbanity, 175. Humour, 176.
CONTENTS
PART III
ANALYSIS
CHAPTER I. THE FOUR KINDS OF MEANING . 179
The ten difficulties of criticism. The fundamental difficulty :
making out the meaning, 180. Four aspects of meaning : sense,
feeling, tone, intention, 181. Relative subordinations of these :
in scientific writings, 183; in popularisation, 184; in political
speeches, 185 ; in conversation, 185. Statements in poetry, 186.
Emotion criticism, 188.
CHAPTER II. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE . . 189
Causes of misunderstanding, 189. The distraction of metre, 190.
Intuitive versus over-literal reading, 191. Literalism and
metaphor, 192. Poetic liberty, 194. Mixture in metaphor, 196.
Personification, 198; reasons for, 199; advantages of, 200;
dangers of, 201. Critical comparisons, 201. The diversity of
aims in poetry, 203.
CHAPTER III. SENSE AND FEELING . . .205
Interferences between kinds of meaning, 205. Tone in
poetry, 206 ; as an index to * sense of proportion ', 207.
Sense and feeling: three types of interrelation, 210. The pull
of the context, 212; exerted in two ways: directly between
feelings, indirectly through sense, 213. Pre-analytic apprehen-
sion, 214. Methods of improving apprehension, 216. Verbal
means of analysis for sense and feeling, 217. The dictionary, 218.
Definition technique for sense, 219. Our comparative helpless-
ness with feeling, 22O. Projectile adjectives, 220. Metaphor :
sense metaphors and emotive metaphors, 221. Possibilities of
training, 223.
CHAPTER IV. POETIC FORM 225
Difficulty of apprehending form due partly to bad assumptions,
225. The regularity myth, 226. Variation about a norm, 227.
But rhythm goes deeper than the ear, 227. Inherent rhythm
and ascribed rhythm, 229. Inherent rhythm as a necessary
and important skeleton, 230. Damage done by the regularity
myth and by the independence notion, 231. The danger of
neglecting sound, 233. Reading aloud, 233.
CHAPTER V. IRRELEVANT ASSOCIATIONS AND
STOCK RESPONSES 235
Erratic imagery, 235. Visualisers, 236. Irrelevance in
general, 237. Associations with other poems, 238. The
personal situation of the reader, 239. Stock responses : their
omnipresence, 240. Their utility, 240. Demarcation of their
proper field, 241. As systems of energy, 242. As distorting
agents, 243. As ground for complaint against variation, 243.
xii CONTENTS
CHAPTER V continued.
PAGE
The stock response as the poem itself, 244. Resultant popu-
larity, 245. Good and bad stock responses : their origins, 245.
Withdrawal from experience by deprivation, moral disaster,
convention, intellectuality, 246, Loss in transmission of ideas,
248. Home-made notions and genius, 249. And silliness, 251.
The poet and stock ideas, 253.
CHAPTER VI. SENTIMENTALITY AND INHIBI-
TION 255
Sentimental' as an abusive gesture, 255. As uttering a
vague thought, 256. As uttering a precise thought : over-
facility of emotion, 257; as equivalent to 'crude', 258; as
deriving from ' sentiment', 259. Sentiments, 260. Their over-
persistence and warping, 261. Definition of 'sentimental' in
the third sense, 261. Sentimentality in readers and in poetry,
261. Causes of, 262. Subject and treatment, 263. The
justification of the response, 264. Conventional metaphors and
sentimentality, 264. Autogenous emotions, 266. Inhibition
as the complement of sentimentality, 267. Necessity of, 268.
Causes of, 268. Cure of, 269,
CHAPTER VII. DOCTRINE IN POETRY . . .271
Opposition between readers' and poets' beliefs, 271. Difficulty
the same whether the belief is important or not, 272. In-
sufficiency of the ' poetic fiction ' solution, 273. Assumptions :
intellectual and emotional, 274. Distinction between them,
275. 'Justification' for each kind, 276. Logic and choice,
277. Adjustment of emotional and intellectual claims, 278.
Appearance of insincerity, 279. Sincerity as absence of self-
deception, 280. As genuineness, 281. Spontaneity and
sophistication, 282. Sincerity as self-completion, 284. De-
pendent upon a fundamental need, 286. Sincerity and intuition,
287. Improvement in sincerity, 289. Poetry as an exercise in
sincerity, 291.
CHAPTER VIII. TECHNICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS
AND CRITICAL PRECONCEPTIONS . . 292
Our expectations from poetry, 292. Confusions between means
and ends, 293. Encouraged by the language of criticism, 294.
The Summation of details blunder, 295. No critical theory is
directly useful, 296. Examples: the subject and message
tests, 297. The * lilt ' quest, 298. Critical dogmas as primitive
superstitions, 299. Their duplicity, 300. The disablement of
judgment, 301. The rule of choice, 301. Principles only
protective, 302. Critical infallibity, 304.
CONTENTS
PART IV
SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
I. CULTURE IN THE PROTOCOLS . . 310-321
l. Standing of writers. 2. Immaturity. 3. Lack of
reading. 4. Inability to construe. 5. Stock responses.
6. Preconceptions. 7. Bewilderment. 8. Authority.
9. Variability. 10. General values.
II. THE SERVICES OF PSYCHOLOGY . . 321-333
11. Abuse of psychology. 12. Profanation. 13. Prudential
speech. 14. Understanding. 15. Confusions. 16. Further
dissection. 17. Order.
III. SUGGESTIONS TOWARDS A REMEDY . 333-351
18. The teaching of English. 19. Practical suggestions.
20. The decline in speech. 21 Prose. 22. Critical fog.
23. Subjectivity. 24. Humility.
APPENDIX A 353
I. Further notes on meaning. 2. Intention. 3. /Esthetic
adjectives. 4. Rhythm and Prosody. 5. Visual images.
APPENDIX B 365
The relative popularity of the poems.
APPENDIX C ........ 367
The authorship of the poems.
The reader is recommended not to consult this Appendix until
he has read throu ijh Part II.
APPENDIX D 371
The Poems as originally set before the readers.
INDEX 373
PRACTICAL CRITICISM
PART ONE
INTRODUCTORY
INTRODUCTORY
I HAVE set three aims before me in constructing this
book. First, to introduce a new kind of documenta-
tion to those who are interested in the contemporary
state of culture whether as critics, as philosophers,
as teachers, as psychologists, or merely as curious
persons. Secondly, to provide a new technique for
those who wish to discover for themselves what they
think and feel about poetry (and cognate matters)
and why they should like or dislike it. Thirdly, to
prepare the way for educational methods more
efficient than those we use now in developing dis-
crimination and the power to understand what we
hear and read.
For the first purpose I have used copious quota-
tions from material supplied to me as a Lecturer at
Cambridge and elsewhere. For some years I have
made the experiment of issuing printed sheets of
poems ranging in character from a poem by Shake-
speare to a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox to
audiences who were requested to comment freely
in writing upon them. The authorship of the poems
was not revealed, and with rare exceptions it was not
recognised.
After a week's interval I would collect these com-
ments, taking certain obvious precautions to pre-
serve the anonymity of the commentators, since
only through anonymity could complete liberty to
express their genuine opinions be secured for the
writers. Care was taken to refrain from influencing
them either for or against any poem. Four poems
were issued at a time in groupings indicated in the
PRACTICAL CRITICISM
Appendix, in which the poems I am here using will
be found. I would, as a rule, hint that the poems
were perhaps a mixed lot, but that was the full
extent of my interference. I lectured the following
week partly upon the poems, but rather more upon
the comments, or protocols, as I call them.
Much astonishment both for the protocol-writers
and for the Lecturer ensued from this procedure.
The opinions expressed were not arrived at lightly
or from one reading of the poems only. As a measure
of indirect suggestion, I asked each writer to record
on his protocol the number of ' readings ' made of
each poem. A number of perusals made at one
session were to be counted together as one * reading '
provided that they aroused and sustained one single
growing response to the poem, or alternatively led
to no response at all and left the reader with nothing
but the bare words before him on the paper. This
description of a c reading ' was, I believe, well
understood. It follows that readers who recorded
as many as ten or a dozen readings had devoted no
little time and energy to their critical endeavour.
Few writers gave less than four attacks to any of
the poems. On the whole it is fairly safe to assert
that the poems received much more thorough study
than, shall we say, most anthology pieces get in the
ordinary course. It is from this thoroughness,
prompted by the desire to arrive at some definite
expressible opinion, and from the week's leisure
allowed that these protocols derive their significance.
The standing of the writers must be made clear.
The majority were undergraduates reading English
with a view to an Honours Degree. A considerable
number were reading other subjects but there is no
ground to suppose that these differed for this reason
in any essential respect. There was a sprinkling of
graduates, and a few members of the audience were
non-academic. Men and women were probably
INTRODUCTORY
included in about equal numbers, so, in what follows
* he ' must constantly be read as equivalent to ' he
or she'. There was no compulsion to return pro-
tocols. Those who took the trouble to write about
60 per cent. may be presumed to have been actu-
ated by a more than ordinarily keen interest in
poetry. From such comparisons as I have been
able to make with protocols supplied by audiences
of other types, I see no reason whatever to think
that a higher standard of critical discernment can
easily be found under our present cultural conditions.
Doubtless, could the Royal Society of Literature or
the Academic Committee of the English Association
be impounded for purposes of experiment we might
expect greater uniformity in the comments or at
least in their style, and a more wary approach as
regards some of the dangers of the test. But with
regard to equally essential matters occasions for
surprise might still occur. The precise conditions
of this test are not duplicated in our everyday com-
merce with literature. Even the reviewers of new
verse have as a rule a considerable body of the
author's work to judge by. And editorial complaints
are frequent as to the difficulty of obtaining good
reviewing. Editors themselves will not be the
slowest to agree with me upon the difficulty of
judging verse without a hint as to its provenance.
Enough, for the moment, about the documentation
of this book. My second aim is more ambitious and
requires more explanation. It forms part of a general
attempt to modify our procedure in certain forms of
discussion. There are subjects mathematics,
physics and the descriptive sciences supply some of
them which can be discussed in terms of verifiable
facts and precise hypotheses. There are other
subjects the concrete affairs of commerce, law,
organisation and police work which can be handled
by rules of thumb and generally accepted conven-
PRACTICAL CRITICISM
tions. But in between is the vast corpus of problems,
assumptions, adumbrations, fictions, prejudices,
tenets ; the sphere of random beliefs and hopeful
guesses ; the whole world, in brief, of abstract opinion
and disputation about matters of feeling. To this
world belongs everything about which civilised man
cares most. I need only instance ethics, metaphysics,
morals, religion, aesthetics, and the discussions sur-
rounding liberty, nationality, justice, love, truth,
faith and knowledge to make this plain. As a subject-
matter for discussion, poetry is a central and typical
denizen of this world. It is so both by its own nature
and by the type of discussion with which it is tradi-
tionally associated. It serves, therefore, as an emin-
ently suitable bait for anyone who wishes to trap the
current opinions and responses in this middle field
for the purpose of examining and comparing them,
and with a view to advancing our knowledge of what
may be called the natural history of human opinions
and feelings.
In part then this book is the record of a piece of
field-work in comparative ideology. But I hope, not
only to present an instructive collection of con-
temporary opinions, presuppositions, theories, beliefs,
responses and the rest, but also to make some
suggestions towards a better control of these tricksy
components of our lives. The way in which it is
hoped to do this can only be briefly indicated at this
point.
There are two ways of interpreting all but a very
few utterances.
Whenever we hear or read any not too nonsensical
opinion, a tendency so strong and so automatic that
it must have been formed along with our earliest
speech-habits, leads us to consider what seems to be
said rather than the mental operations of the person
who said it. If the speaker is a recognised and
obvious liar this tendency is, of course, arrested.
INTRODUCTORY
We do then neglect what he has said and turn our
attention instead to the motives or mechanisms that
have caused him to say it. But ordinarily we at
once try to consider the objects his words seem to
stand for and not the mental goings-on that led him
to use the words. We say that we * follow his
thought ' and mean, not that we have traced what
happened in his mind, but merely that we have
gone through a train of thinking that seems to end
where he ended. We are in fact so anxious to dis-
cover whether we agree or not with what is being
said that we overlook the mind that says it, unless
some very special circumstance calls us back.
Compare now the attitude to speech of the alienist
attempting to * follow ' the ravings of mania or the
dream maunderings of a neurotic. I do not suggest
that we should treat one another altogether as
c mental cases ' l but merely that for some subject-
matters and some types of discussion the alienist's
attitude, his direction of attention, his order or plan
of interpretation, is far more fruitful, and would lead
to better understanding on both sides of the dis-
cussion, than the usual method that our language-
habits force upon us. For normal minds are easier
to ' follow ' than diseased minds, and even more
can be learned by adopting the psychologist's atti-
tude to ordinary speech-situations than by studying
aberrations.
It is very strange that we have no simple verbal
means by which to describe these two different kinds
of * meaning'. Some device as unmistakable as the
' up ' or * dowrf** of a railway signal ought to be
1 A few touches of the clinical manner will, however, be not out of
place in these pages, if only to counteract the indecent tendencies^ of
the scene. For here are our friends and neighbours nay our very
brothers and sisters caught at a moment of abandon giving them-
selves and their literary reputations away with an unexampled freedom.
!t is indeed a sobering spectacle,*but like some sights of the hospital-
ward very serviceable to restore proportions and recall to us what
humanity, behind all its lendings and pretences, is like.
TACTICAL CRITICISM
available. But there is none. Clumsy and pedantic
looking psychological periphrases have to be em-
ployed instead. I shall, however, try to use one
piece of shorthand consistently. In handling the
piles of material supplied by the protocols I shall
keep the term ' statement ' for those utterances
whose ' meaning ' in the sense of what they say, or
purport to say, is the prime object of interest. I
shall reserve the term * expression ' for those utter-
ances where it is the mental operations of the writers
which are to be considered.
When the full range of this distinction is realised
the study of criticism takes on a new significance.
But the distinction is not easy to observe. Even the
firmest resolution will be constantly broken down,
so strong are our native language habits. When
views that seem to conflict with our own pre-
possessions are set before us, the impulse to refute,
to combat or to reconstruct them, rather than to
investigate them, is all but overwhelming. So the
history of criticism, 1 like the history of all the middle
subjects alluded to above, is a history of dogmatism
and argumentation rather than a history of research.
And like all such histories the chief lesson to be
learnt from it is the futility of all argumentation that
precedes understanding. We cannot profitably
attack any opinion until we have discovered what it
expresses as well as what it states ; and our present
technique for investigating opinions must be ad-
mitted, for all these middle subjects, to be woefully
inadequate.
Therefore, the second aim of this book is to
improve this technique. We shall have before us
several hundreds of opinions upon particular aspects
of poetry, and the poems themselves to help us to
1 We shall meet in the protocols plenty of living instances of famous
critical doctrines that are often thought to be now merely curiosities
of opinion long since extinct.
INTRODUCTORY
examine them. We shall have the great advantage
of being able to compare numbers of extremely
different opinions upon the same point. We shall
be able to study what may be called the same opinion
in different stages of development as it comes from
different minds. And further, we shall be able in
many instances to see what happens to a given
opinion, when it is applied to a different detail or
a different poem.
The effect of all this is remarkable. When the
first dizzy bewilderment has worn off, as it very
soon does, it is as though we were strolling through
and about a building that hitherto we were only
able to see from one or two distant standpoints.
We gain a much more intimate understanding both
of the poem and of the opinions it provokes. 1 Some-
thing like a plan of the most usual approaches can
be sketched and we learn what to expect when a
new object, a new poem, comes up for discussion.
It is as a step towards another training and
technique in discussion that I would best like this
book to be regarded. If we are to begin to under-
stand half the opinions which appear in the protocols
we shall need no little mental plasticity. And in
the course of our comparisons, interpretations and
extrapolations something like a plan of the ways in
which the likely ambiguities of any given term or
opinion-formula may radiate will make itself appar-
ent. For the hope of a new technique in discussion
lies in this : that the study of the ambiguities of one
term assists in the elucidation of another. To trace
the meanings of ' sentimentality', * truth', ' sincerity',
or * meaning ' itself, as these terms are used in
criticism, can help us with other words used in other
1 A strange light, incidentally, is thrown upon the sources of
popularity for poetry. Indeed I am not without fears that my efforts
may prove of assistance to young poets (and others) desiring to
increase their sales. A set of formulas for ' nation-wide appeal*
seems to be a just possible outcome.
PRACTICAL CRITICISM
topics. Ambiguity in fact is systematic ; the separate
senses that a word may have are related to one
another, if not as strictly as the various aspects of
a building, at least to a remarkable extent. Some-
thing comparable to a ' perspective ' which will
include and enable us to control and ' place ' the
rival meanings that bewilder us in discussion and
hide our minds from one another can be worked out.
Perhaps every intelligence that has ever reflected
upon this matter will agree that this may be so.
Every one agrees but no one does any research into
the matter, although this is an affair in which even
the slightest step forward affects the whole frontier
line of human thought and discussion.
The indispensable instrument for this inquiry is
psychology. I am anxious to meet as far as may be
the objection that may be brought by some psycho-
logists, and these the best, that the protocols do not
supply enough evidence for us really to be able to
make out the motives of the writers and that there-
fore the whole investigation is superficial. But the
beginning of every research ought to be superficial,
and to find something to investigate that is accessible
and detachable is one of the chief difficulties of
psychology, I believe the chief merit of the experi-
ment here made is that it gives us this. Had I
wished to plumb the depths of these writers' Un-
conscious, where I am quite willing to agree the
real motives of their likings and dislikings would
be found, I should have devised something like a
branch of psychoanalytic technique for the pur-
pose. But it was clear that little progress would
be made if we attempted to drag too deep a plough.
However, even as it is, enough strange material
is turned up.
After these explanations the reader will be pre-
pared to find little argumentation in these pages,
but much analysis, much rather strenuous exercise
INTRODUCTORY n
in changing our ground and a good deal of rather
intricate navigation. Navigation, in fact the art of
knowing where we are wherever, as mental travellers,
we may go is the main subject of the book. To
discuss poetry and the ways in which it may be
approached, appreciated and judged is, of course,
its prime purpose. But poetry itself is a mode of
communication. What it communicates and how
it does so and the worth of what is communicated
form the subject-matter of criticism. It follows that
criticism itself is very largely, though not wholly, an
exercise in navigation. It is all the more surprising
then that no treatise on the art and science of
intellectual and emotional navigation has yet been
written ; for logic, which might appear to cover
part of this field, in actuality hardly touches it.
That the one and only goal of all critical en-
deavours, of all interpretation, appreciation, exhorta-
tion, praise or abuse, is improvement in communica-
tion may seem an exaggeration. But in practice it is
so. The whole apparatus of critical rules and prin-
ciples is a means to the attainment of finer, more
precise, more discriminating communication. There
is, it is true, a valuation side to criticism. When we
have solved, completely, the communication problem,
when we have got, perfectly, the experience, the
mental condition relevant to the poem, we have still
to judge it, still to decide upon its worth. But the
later question nearly always settles itself ; or rather,
our own inmost nature and the nature of the world
in which we live decide it for us. Our prime
endeavour must be to get the relevant mental con-
dition and then see what happens. If we cannot
then decide whether it is good or bad, it is doubtful
whether any principles, however refined and subtle,
can help us much. Without the capacity to get the
experience they cannot help us at all. This is still
clearer if we consider the use of critical maxims in
12 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
teaching. Value cannot be demonstrated except
through the communication of what is valuable.
Critical principles, in fact, need wary handling.
They can never be a substitute for discernment
though they may assist us to avoid unnecessary
blunders. There has hardly ever been a critical
rule, principle or maxim which has not been for
wise men a helpful guide but for fools a will-o'-the-
wisp. All the great watchwords of criticism from
Aristotle's c Poetry is an imitation ' down to the
doctrine that c Poetry is expression', are ambiguous
pointers that different people follow to very different
destinations. Even the most sagacious critical prin-
ciples may, as we shall see, become merely a
cover for critical ineptitude ; and the most trivial or
baseless generalisation may really mask good and
discerning judgment. Everything turns upon how
the principles are applied. It is to be feared that
critical formulas, even the best, are responsible for
more bad judgment than good, because it is far
easier to forget their subtle sense and apply them
crudely than to remember it and apply them finely.
The astonishing variety of human responses makes
irksome any too systematic scheme for arranging
these extracts. I wish to present a sufficient selection
to bring the situation concretely before the reader,
reserving to the chapters of Part III any serious
attempt to clear up the various difficulties with
which the protocol-writers have been struggling. I
shall proceed poem by poem, allowing the internal
drama latent in every clash of opinion, of taste or
temperament to guide the arrangement. Not all
the poems, needless to say, raise the same problems
in equal measure. In most, some one outstanding
difficulty, some special occasion for a division of
minds, takes precedence.
INTRODUCTORY 13
It is convenient therefore to place here a some-
what arbitrary list of the principal difficulties that
may be encountered by one reader or another in the
presence of almost any poem. This list is suggested
by a study of the protocols themselves, and drawn
up in an order which proceeds from the simplest,
infant's, obstacle to successful reading up to the
most insidious, intangible and bewildering of critical
problems.
If some of these difficulties seem so simple as to
be hardly worth discussion, I would beg my reader
who feels a temptation to despise them not to leap
lightly to his decision. Part of my purpose is docu-
mentation and I am confident of showing that the
simple difficulties are those that most need attention
as they are those that in fact receive least.
We soon advance, however, to points on which
more doubt may be felt where controversy, more
and less enlightened, still continues and we finish
face to face with questions which no one will pretend
are yet settled and with some which will not be
settled till the Day of Judgment. In the memorable
words of Benjamin Paul Blood, ' What is concluded
that we should conclude anything about it ? '
The following seem to be the chief difficulties of
criticism or, at least, those which we shall have most
occasion to consider here :
A. First must come the difficulty of making out the
plain sense of poetry. The most disturbing and
impressive fact brought out by this experiment
is that a large proportion of average-to-good
(and in some cases, certainly, devoted) readers
of poetry frequently and repeatedly fail to under-
stand it, both as a statement and as an expression.
They fail to make out its prose sense, its plain,
overt meaning, as a set of ordinary, intelligible,
English sentences, taken quite apart from any
1 4 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
further poetic significance. And equally, they
misapprehend its feeling, its tone, and its in-
tention. They would travesty it in a paraphrase.
They fail to construe it just as a schoolboy fails
to construe a piece of Caesar. How serious in
its effects in different instances this failure may
be, we shall have to consider with care. It
is not confined to one class of readers ; not
only those whom we would suspect fall victims.
Nor is it only the most abstruse poetry which
so betrays us. In fact, to set down, for once,
the brutal truth, no immunity is possessed on
any occasion, not by the most reputable scholar,
from this or any other of these critical dangers.
B. Parallel to, and not unconnected with, these
difficulties of interpreting the meaning are the
difficulties of sensuous apprehension. Words in
sequence have a form to the mind's ear and
the mind's tongue and larynx, even when
silently read. They have a movement and
may have a rhythm. The gulf is wide be-
tween a reader who naturally and immediately
perceives this form and movement (by a con-
junction of sensory, intellectual and emotional
sagacity) and another reader, who either ignores
it or has to build it up laboriously with finger-
counting, table-tapping and the rest ; and this
difference has most far-reaching effects.
C. Next may come those difficulties that are con-
nected with the place of imagery , principally
visual imagery, in poetic reading. They arise
in part from the incurable fact that we differ
immensely in our capacity to visualise, and to
produce imagery of the other senses. Also
the importance of our imagery as a whole, as
well as of some pet particular type of image,
in our mental lives varies surprisingly. Some
INTRODUCTORY 15
minds can do nothing and get nowhere without
images ; others seem to be able to do everything
and get anywhere, reach any and every state of
thought and feeling without making use of them.
Poets on the whole (though by no means all
poets always) may be suspected of exceptional
imaging capacity, and some readers are con-
stitutionally prone to stress the place of imagery
in reading, to pay great attention to it, and even
to judge the value of the poetry by the images
it excites in them. But images are erratic
things ; lively images aroused in one mind need
have on similarity to the equally lively images
stirred by the same line of poetry in another,
and neither set need have anything to do with
any images which may have existed in the poet's
mind. Here is a troublesome source of critical
deviations.
D. Thirdly, more obviously, we have to note the
powerful very pervasive influence of mnemonic
irrelevances. These are misleading effects of the
reader's being reminded of some personal scene
or adventure, erratic associations, the interfer-
ence of emotional reverberations from a past
which may have nothing to do with the poem.
Relevance is not an easy notion to define or
to apply, though some instances of irrelevant
intrusions are among the simplest of all accidents
to diagnose.
E. More puzzling and more interesting are the
critical traps that surround what may be called
Stock Responses. These have their opportunity
whenever a poem seems to, or does, involve
views and emotions already fully prepared in
the reader's mind, so that what happens appears
to be more of the reader's doing than the poet's.
The button is pressed, and then the author's
1 6 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
work is done, for immediately the record starts
playing in quasi- (or total) independence of the
poem which is supposed to be its origin or
instrument.
Whenever this lamentable redistribution of
the poet's and reader's share in the labour of
poetry occurs, or is in danger of occurring, we
require to be especially on our guard. Every
kind of injustice may be committed as well by
those who just escape as by those who are caught.
F. Sentimentality is a peril that needs less comment
here. It is a question of the due measure of
response . This over-facility in certain emotional
directions is the Scylla whose Charybdis is
G, Inhibition. This, as much as Sentimentality, is a
positive phenomenon, though less studied until
recent years and somewhat masked under the
title of Hardness of Heart. But neither can
well be considered in isolation.
H. ' Doctrinal Adhesions present another troublesome
problem. Very much poetry religious poetry
may be instanced seems to contain or imply
views and beliefs, true or false, about the world.
If this be so, what bearing has the truth-value
of the views upon the worth of the poetry ?
Even if it be not so, if the beliefs are not really
contained or implied, but only seem so to a non-
poetical reading, what should be the bearing
of the reader's conviction, if any, upon his
estimate of the poetry ? Has poetry anything
to say ; if not, why not, and if so, how ?
Difficulties at this point are a fertile source of
confusion and erratic judgment.
I. Passing now to a different order of difficulties, the
I effects of technical presuppositions have to be
noted. When something has once been well
INTRODUCTORY 17
done in a certain fashion we tend to expect
similar things to be done in the future in the
same fashion, and are disappointed or do not
recognise them if they are done differently.
Conversely, a technique which has shown its
ineptitude for one purpose tends to become
discredited for all. Both are cases of mistaking
means for ends. Whenever we attempt to judge
poetry from outside by technical details we are
putting means before ends, and such is our
ignorance of cause and effect in poetry we
shall be lucky if we do not make even worse
blunders. We have to try to avoid judging
pianists by their hair.
J. Finally, general critical preconceptions (prior
demands made upon poetry as a result of
theories conscious or unconscious about its
j nature and value), intervene endlessly, as the
history of criticism shows only too well, between
the reader and the poem. Like an unlucky
dietetic formula they may cut him off from
what he is starving for, even when it is at his
very lips.
These difficulties, as will have been observed, are
not unconnected with one another and indeed over-
lap. They might have been collected under more
heads or fewer. Yet, if we set aside certain extreme
twists or trends of the personality (for example,
blinding narcissism or grovelling self-abasement
aberrations, temporary or permanent, of the self-
regarding sentiment) together with undue accumula-
tions or depletions of energy, I believe that most of
the principal obstacles and causes of failure in the
reading and judgment of poetry may without much
straining be brought under these ten heads. But
they are too roughly sketched here for this to be
judged.
1 8 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
More by good luck than by artful design, each
poem, as a rule, proved an invitation to the mass of
its readers to grapple with some one of the difficulties
that have just been indicated. Thus a certain
sporting interest may be felt by the sagacious critic
in divining where, in each case, the dividing line of
opinion will fall, and upon what considerations it
will turn. No attempt will be made, in the survey
which follows, to do more than shake out and air
these variegated opinions. Elucidations, both of the
poems and the opinions, will be for the^most part
postponed, as well as my endeavours to 'adjudicate
upon the poetic worth of the unfortunate subjects of
debate.
A very natural suspicion may fittingly be countered
in this place. Certain doubts were occasionally ex-
pressed to me after a lecture that not all the protocol
extracts were equally genuine. It was hinted that I
might have myself composed some of those which
came in most handily to illustrate a point. But none
of the protocols have been tampered with and nothing
has been added. I have even left the spelling and
punctuation unchanged in all significant places.
But another falsification may perhaps be charged
against me, falsification through bias in selection.
Space, and respect for the reader's impatience,
obviously forbade my printing the whole of my
material. Selected extracts alone could be ventured.
With a little cunning it would be possible to make
selections that would give very different impressions.
I can only say that I have been on my guard against
unfairness. I ought to add perhaps that the part of
the material least adequately represented is the
havering, non-committal, vague, sit-on-the-fence,
middle-body of opinion. I would have put in more
of this if it were not such profitless reading.
PART TWO
DOCUMENTATION
But enough of this ; there is such a variety of game
springing up before me, that I am distracted in my
choice, and know not which to follow. It is sufficient
to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's
plenty.
DRYDEN on the Canterbury Pilgrims.
Life's more than breath and the quick round of blood.
'Tis a great spirit and a busy heart ;
The coward and the small in soul scarce do live.
One generous feeling, one great thought, one deed
Of good, ere night, would make life longer seem
Than if each year might number a thousand days
Spent as is this by nations of mankind.
We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breaths ;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
POEM I
HERE, for once, in the opinions maintained about
the central point, Nature shows a taste for system,
and gives us the rare satisfaction of seeing nearly all
the logical possibilities well represented in living and
lively form. The central dispute concerned the place
and value of the doctrine these verses propound, and
whether that doctrine be well or ill expressed.
Differing replies upon these matters were associated
with high degrees of delight or disgust. That the
thought contained is true ; that, on the contrary, it
is false ; that, though true enough, it is common-
place ; that it is original and profound ; that, as a
commonplace or as a paradox, it is finely or tamely,
clearly or confusedly expressed ; these were the ques-
tions agitated. The various possible answers were so
well represented that it seems worth while making up
a table :
THOUGHT Feeling Metre
TRUE False
I Remarkable Commonplace
\ Profound Obvious
( Original Trite
Expression Expression
Vivid Confused Dull Convincing Obscure Tame
21
PRACTICAL CRITICISM
First let the advocates of its excellence be heard.
i-ii. 1 Truth is the essence of art, and the outstanding feature
of this passage is truth. The poet has expressed in vivid terms
his conception of the higher, if not the highest plane of life and
we who read his work, cannot fail to appreciate its nobility of
thought 2 and realise its challenge to mankind. The verse is full
of sentiment, but sentiment of the best kind.
Alas ! we often fail to appreciate it, as is lamentably
shown in what follows. But let those of more elevated
temper continue.
i- 12. Here is noble thought clothed fittingly and strikingly in
powerful verse. The first nine lines especially appeal to me,
ending, as they do, in effective antithesis.
1*13. A noble message, well conveyed by the form chosen.
' Noble ' seems indeed a key-word to this passage.
1-14. These lines express the thoughts of a lofty soul in a
simple yet impressive manner. They are lines which are worth
remembering both on account of their thought and their concise
and clear expression. The last phrase haunts the mind, but
apart from this the whole passage moves forward with a gentle
motion which tends to infix the words on the memory.
1 This numbering of the protocols is primarily introduced to
facilitate reference. But the decimal system allows me also to use it
to suggest certain groupings. The number before the decimal point
(r to 13* ) indicates the poem which is being discussed. The
first number after the point suggests, when it remains the same for a
sequence of extracts, that the same general problem, approach, or
view is being illustrated. Thus m, ri2, 1-13 . . . have some
cognate bearing, t>ut with r2 a different general topic has taken its
place. Similarly with the later decimal places. For example, 1*141,
1-142 . . . may be especially considered along with 1-14, all being
concerned in different ways with the same secondary point. (Here
the metrical qualities of the passage.)
But I have not attempted to make this numbering strictly
systematic. It is used as a rough indication of the moments when we
pass over to a new question ; it is a mere supplement to paragraphing,
and any reader may neglect it at his discretion.
Unless otherwise expressly stated a different number implies a
different writer.
2 The italics in all cases are mine and are introduced not to distort
the protocols (the reader will become used to them) but to direct the
reader's attention without toil to the points with which, for the
moment, my commentary is concerned or to indicate where
comparisons may be interesting.
POEM I 23
It may seem strange that the phrase ' acts the best '
should haunt the mind, but this is possibly not what
the writer intended.
Not all those who agree about the lofty jiobility of
the passage and who most admire its expression are
at one as to why this expression is to be admired.
i -14 1. The rather rugged metre makes the best possible setting
for the noble idea of the poet. It carries one along with it, con-
veying the idea of someone speaking rapidly, his words almost
tumbling over each other y in the stress of emotion : an instance
of how a npble^theme can inspire a poet to clothe it in noble
diction, without any of the verbal embroideries often employed
by poets, to^ makejnferiQr thejnes palatable..
Words which * almost tumble over one another '
and yet ' move forward with a gentle motion ' would
seem impossibly versatile if we did not know how
much this kind of movement in verse depends upon
the reader. Several other views about the verse
qualities are also found even among admirers.
i'i42. The thought is the most important thing about this
poem. The hint of paradox arrests the reader's attention, the
truth of it gives one a feeling of satisfaction. It is expressed in
plain , straightforward speech which is the best medium for a
didactic poem.
i '143. I admire this because I think the thought expressed is
true and interesting, and original in that it gives the impression
of vivid personal experience, and it is of interest to all since it
concerns all. The choice of common everyday words drives
home the thought, by connecting it closely to ordinary life.
The passage gains little from the beauty of rhythm and might
with little or no loss have been written in prose.
i '144. A stimulating thought well expressed. The Author
protests against half-heartedness. The theme, dealing with the
true way of living, is naturally of a lofty character, and blank,
verse suits the subject-matter with peculiar felicity. *""
i '145. The short phrases in line four and the long sweep in 5,
6 dying away in 7, are magnificent.
The last four lines clinch the argument perfectly.
24 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
Let us now hear something of the other side of
the case before turning to the extreme enthusiasts.
1-15. The poem is worthless. The underlying idea, that life
must be measured by its intensity as well as its duration is a
familiar one. Consequently the poem is to be judged by its
strength and originality of expression. The author has brought
no freshness to his material ; his thought is flabby and confused ;
his verse is pedestrian. Away with him !
The next writer adds a complaint which looks as
though it might apply to much blank verse.
i'i6. The moralising of this poem is too deliberate to be
swallowed without a grimace. The poet had a few trite precepts
of which to deliver himself, and failed to make the pills palatable
by poetic wrappings. The metre and necessary accentuations
are awkward, and no relief is offered by any sort of rime scheme.
Still more severe upon the same point is 1-161 ;
it is left to 1*162 to restore the balance.
i-i6i. Excellent prose but not good verse ; not even smallest
attempt at metre or rhyme. Writer probably more of a philosopher
than a poet : too matter-of-fact, too little Imagination and Fancy.
1-162. It is difficult to express one's attitude to this. The
sentiment is very proper, but fails to rouse one to enthusiasm.
What does the vague phrase " Spent as this is by nations of
mankind ", mean ? And the construction from lines 4 to 7 is
very clumsy. The thing could have been said five times more
quickly and would have been so in poetry. This is prose,
c/iopped up to fit a metrical scheme. Contrast its rhetorical
phrases with the concentration and fullness of No. 3.
An approach through comparisons is also made by
1*163 which is more introspective and shows more
emancipation from the tyranny of the ' message '.
i '163. Reminded of the pitched-up movement or strong
artificial accent of post-Elizabethans. But this is without their
complexity of thought, especially shown in metaphor. Imitative.
Here the movement becomes more reflective, less an experience ;
a deliberate loading of rhythm influence of the didactic pre-
tentions. Wordsworth ? Spurious. Mid-Victorian poetic
drama ? A collection of commonplace aphorisms on borrowed
stilts. I accept the statements with indifference. It might
POEM I 25
have been written for a Calendar of Great Thoughts. Reading
it aloud, I have to mouth it, and I felt ridiculously morally
dignified.
Truth, of some kind, has hitherto been claimed or
allowed by all, but more than one of the poet's
assertions challenged a division.
I'ly. On reading this my mind jumps up and disagrees
if living is measured by intensity of feeling, cowards live as much
as heroes. Line 3 might be parodied with equal truth
" One wounded feeling, one foul thought, one deed
Of crime, ere night, would make life longer seem "
The impression received was one of the self-satisfaction of the
author (I do not say " poet ") : a spinster devoted to good
works, and sentimentally inclined, or perhaps Wordsworth.
Large query to the last line.
Why Wordsworth's name should be considered
such a telling missile is uncertain.
Still more vigorous is dissent upon the temporal
issue.
1-18. Finally I disagree entirely that " great thoughts ", " good
deeds " or " noble feelings ", make life seem longer, personally
I feel they make it seem shorter.
But there are some who refuse to let a little differ-
ence like this come between them and the poet.
1-181. This poem expresses for me just that view of the
difference between existence and life which seems truest. I
never can conceive of time as some measurement indicated " in
figures on a dial". Thought is the chief activity regarded as
foolish or with complete indifference by those with whom one
comes in contact oftenest, i.e. " the small in soul ". I do not speak
in any bitterness but from my normal experience. It is this
conclusion to which I seem to be forced which makes such a stanza
as this seem to me to be fit to be * shouted from the house tops '.
That is why it appeals to me.
I do not agree however that " one great thought, one deed of
good . . . would make life longer seem ", than it does to men
each humdrum day, but rather think " shorter " would express the
idea better. I may think of it in a special sense however, which
would not appeal to most and which I should find it almost
impossible to explain, and in any case metaphysics is banned.
I am sorry, for the idea is always the chief joy to me in poetry.
26 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
I must have been responsible for the ban on meta-
physics by some request that the protocols should
deal with the poetry rather than with the Universe.
The 'stanza' remark may offset 1-16 and 1-161.
The misanthropy finds a slight echo in 1-182 which
again expresses doubt based on the facts of Temporal
Perception ; but a balm for disillusionment is dis-
covered by 1-183.
1-182. Good on the whole, though it is doubtful if life really
seems longer to the good than to the wicked or to the merely
passive.
The lines are worth reading twice because they really do
express something instead of just drivelling on like those of
number II.
1-183. Suggests Browning to me, and is more interesting for
that reason. But there is in this piece a more all-round handling
of the idea than Browning would have given it. It seems to be
the product of a man of middle age, who has taken the sweets of
life and proved them mere vanity, but who has not turned cynic.
It is at once healthy and profound.
Browning figures again in 1-19, where Words-
worth has some amends made to him.
1-19. One thought clearly and forcibly expressed. Idea
expressed in the first two lines, amplified in the next seven and
finally summed up in the last two. Chief effect a familiar
thought brought home with new conviction. The rhythm of blank
verse restraint combined with even flow expressive of the
meditativeness and yet obvious truth of the idea. The passage
reminiscent of the whole effort and accomplishment of the
greatest poets, and in a secondary way of passages in Shakespeare,
Shelley, Wordsworth, Browning, etc.
1-191. The thought a little obvious and / don't find anything
in the expression to drive it home.
i -192. It is not a new thought, but the symmetry and perfect
meter makes the old thought more impressive than if said in
prose. The meter lends dignity, and makes it serious and
profound.
After these jarring voices a more unanimous
chorus will make a soothing close. It will be noticed
POEM I 27
that the central issue, the doctrinal aspect of the
passage, becomes less and less prominent and that
Mnemonic Irrelevances and the possibilities of
Sentimentality take its place.
1*193. I don't know why, but as soon as I read it, I linked it
somehow with that poem of Julian GrenfelPs, " Into Battle ",
and especially with this stanza, which immediately came into
my mind.
" The black-bird sings to him, Brother, brother,
If this be the last song you shall sing,
Sing well, for you may not sing another,
Brother, sing."
I think this was suggested by " we shall count time by heart-
throbs " once again. A phrase of Robert Lynd's also came into
my mind " the great hours of life hours of passionate happiness
and passionate sorrow ". And I thought to myself " how true
that is. These ARE the only hours in life that mean anything.
Any why ? Because they lift one to the infinite . . . " le silence
tternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie I "
1-194. Appeals to me because it sums up my creed as a Socialist,
of service not self. A further appeal lies in its emphasis of a fact
we are too apt to forget, namely, that the real test of life is action
and nobility of thought and feeling, not length of years. This
amounts to a solemn warning, and as befits the solemnity of the
theme the movement is wedded to the thought. The long line
and the slow movement, rendered more impressive by the
number of long vowels, hammer the thought into the mind.
But even the c lofty ideal ' of the passage has its
turn to be challenged.
1-195. This appeals ; not as a passion, not by sympathetic
interests nor as beauty, but by its simple truth and teaching
a teaching which seems to come from a fellow human being, and
one to which we may all attain. There is no lofty ideal , the
regard of which makes us feel poor creatures and realise the
impossibilities of perfection. True it may be judged sentimental
if carefully dissected, but some amount of sentiment appeals
naturally to the instincts of every one : what moral teaching is
successful without some appeal to sentiment ? It is a call not
to sense, nor to the soul but to the heart.
28 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
A Transatlantic smack 1 now makes itself unmis-
takably felt and continues through several extracts.
1-2. This is fine a grand appeal to us to make our lives
bigger, greater, more sublime, to put aside the petty and material
interests which shut in our souls and let forth our big and generous
impulses. It is an appeal to us to live, and not merely to exist,
and this appeal culminates in a grand climax in the last two lines.
The superb luxuriance of the style in 1-21 has as
characteristic a savour as the looser idioms of 1-22.
Nor are the contents less significant in their rendering
of one powerful trend of that western world.
1-21. It successfully catches the rythm of the human heart
beat the fundamental rythm of all music and of all poetry.
The swing catches the heart and the emotions, the thought leads
the mind on to inspiration. The more you read the verse the
more the rythm and the theme, the two together, catch your
soul and carry you completely in tune on to the end ; and you
wish there were more.
Even the first reading takes you into its cadence and its spirit.
It wears better with each succeeding reading that you really
have concentrated on.
It is an inspirational bit, yet full-blooded and perfectly con-
versant with life as it is in its sorrows, despairs, and its fulfilled
and unfulfilled hopes. More than much poetry it has a taste of
life life as Shakespeare knew it and Hugo, not as Shelley or
Keats, or a shallow modern novelist know it. In it is a punch,
an energy and the vigour of red-blooded manhood tinged with a
deep tone of " God's in his heaven, all's right with the world "
if you do your own fighting to live your own full, rich life.
It surely has inspired something here !
1-22. Worldly ideals and philosophy run through it. It is
modern, speaking of self-expression. // says to self -express a
full emotional and a rich intellectual life.
It is clear in parts at first. Subsequent readings show subtlety
as well as clarity.
Not poetic in comparison with the Romantic age, it being
too serious and too of the soil and the streetcar for the average
romantic.
1 I cannot plume myself that my literary acumen alone is responsible
for this perception. I have other evidence.
POEM I 29
We go back now to English speech-rhythm, but
the crescendo of praise does not flag.
1*3. After reading over this passage for the first time, I received
one impression " How much every one of those words means,
ordinary words they are, too, such as I myself probably use
every day * every rift loaded with ore* ". And then I read it
again. And this impression deepened, and others arose. The
vividness of the thing ! What a sure hand guided this pen . . .
how strong it is ! And what a gradual rise to the glorious lifting
of the veil in the last line but one " we should count time by heart-
throbs ". The voice has risen for an instant to passion. And
then it dies away, firm and masterful to the end.
From this high peak of admiration to the complete
union of hearts, with all the appropriate trappings of
a romantic attachment thrown in, is a mere glissade.
1-31. Yes, intensely. This is first rate. Why? [in order].
(1) Curious way it suggests immediately great intimacy with
the author. FRIENDSHIP. A room at night, curtains drawn,
roaring log fire, chimney corner, author musing, old inns, you
and him alone.
One of those rare and inexplicable moments which stand out
as REAL in a world of phantasms. When your mind seems to
touch another's, and you realise that far beyond our being
brothers, we are all ONE person.
(2) Most loveable nobility [unconscious] to which I immediately
respond.
(3) Artistic reasons
a. Topping condensation of language. No vapid and
ineffectual adjectives. Each word contains multi-
tudes.
b. Freedom and balance of lines. Like wonderful
music.
Could the variety of the human garden be better
displayed, even in the sunlight, than in this pot-
pourri of academic lucubrations ?
With Poem I we have been concerned chiefly with
30 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
the problem of the ' message ', the truth and worth
of the doctrine embodied in the poem. Discussion
of this general question of the place of ' messages '
and doctrines in poetry is postponed until Part III,
expecially Chapter VIL (The Index may also be
consulted.) With Poem II we pass to a different
group of critical difficulties.
Gone were but the Wijjter, w
Come were but me Spring,
I would to a covert
Where the birds sing.
Where in the whitethorn
Singeth a thrush,
And a robin sings
In the holly-bush.
Full of fresh scents
Are the budding boughs
Arching high over
A cool, green house.
Full of sweet scents,
And whispering air
Which sayeth softly :
" We spread no snare :
" Here dwell in safety,
Here dwell alone,
With a clear stream
And a mossy stone.
" Here the sun shineth
Most shadily ;
Here is heard an echo
Of the far sea,
Though far off it be."
POEM II
THE adverse comments upon this poem show some
interesting uniformities. One particular allegation
recurs again and again like a refrain. A very wide-
spread, well-inculcated presupposition may be sus-
pected behind such a confident general agreement.
2*1. The writer has only got to find twelve rhyming words to
express very trivial thoughts so why ' thrush ', * bush ', * boughs ',
' house '.
Whole poem silly.
2- n. It has little merit parts of it are deplorable.
The first two verses are quite attractive, and the rhyme * thrush '
with ' bush ' is almost bearable. When * boughs ' and ' house '
come next however, the attempt to enjoy the poem fails. There
are not only poor rhymes, there is also much poverty of thought,
and much real silliness in the poem.
Does this certainty that imperfect rhymes make a
perfect indictment arise from any real pain they
inflict upon readers' ears ? Or are the reasons for
this contempt more subtle ?
2*12. The first 2 lines are not sense. I laughed at the
rhyming of thrush and bush ; and boughs and house. Reminds
one quite pleasantly of the "poetry " one wrote when aged ten.
Probably this brings us nearer to the true explana-
tion. Reminders of our own poetic efforts, not only
at the age of ten but. even in years closer at hand,
have an inevitable influence on our judgment, a
useful influence when it keeps within its province,
but dangerous when it meddles with matters beyond
it. All but a very few beginners in verse find rhyming
a great strain upon their verbal ingenuity and atten-
33
34 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
tion. Success or failure for the neophyte is very
largely a question of the control of rhymes. More
often than not the strain of finding rhymes and
fitting them together has been so intense that nothing
else has been genuinely attempted. It is probably
true, even of the best writers, that
Rimes the rudders are of verses
By which, like ships, they steer their courses,
but most people's first voyages, in command, are
made in vessels that are all rudder, and they fre-
quently retire from the trade before this stage has
been passed. An exaggerated respect for rhyming
ability is the result, and a tendency to great severity
towards verses in which the poet, if concerned only
with making his rhymes perfect, could be charged
with partial unsuccess. That the poet may have had
other, more difficult and more important, tasks in
hand is easily overlooked. And that he could possibly
have intended only a partial rhyme, and have pre-
ferred it to a full one, is too bewildering a thought to
be entertained.
Another strong motive for the avidity with which
imperfect rhymes are fastened upon is the desire for
something tangible by which to judge poetic merit.
Normal sensibilities can decide with considerable
certainty whether two sounds rhyme perfectly or
not. The task is nearly as simple as that of a car-
penter measuring planks. It is a grateful relief to
pass from the nebulous world of intellectual and
emotional accordances to definite questions of sensory
fact. By assuming that the poet intended to rhyme
perfectly, we get a clear unambiguous test for his
success or failure. The assumption need not be
explicit and usually is not, but the temptation to
entertain it is very comprehensible.
Details of scansion, opportunities for grammatical
objection, for allegations of descriptive inaccuracy,
POEM II 35
for charges of logical inconsistency, share this attrac-
tion. To put the point generally, all those features
which can be judged without going into the poem,
all details or aspects that can be scrutinised by the
mind in its practical, every - hour, non-poetical
capacity, are so many invitations to make short work
of the task of critical appraisement. Instead of trying
the poem on, we content ourselves with a glance at
its lapels or its buttons. For the details are more
easily perceived than the ensemble , and technical
points seem more obtrusive than the point of the
whole.
The following extracts may perhaps be considered
to illustrate these remarks :
2-2. I think this is utterly absurd. Sentiment utter rubbish.
Poet not in love with nature merely fed up with life. Idea of
peace CAN be made attractive, but this is a wish for a lazy and
" secure " life rather than a longing for peace.
Who has ever seen a " green " house, or seen the sun shine
shadily ?
Why bring in a line at the end, to upset, what is at its best but
a jingle of a metre, when the whole thing has been said in the
preceding line ?
/> Idea of living with a mossy stone singularly unattractive.
V
The sternness of the opening finds its complement
in a later extract (2-8) ; and some clearly much
needed elucidations of the ' cool green house' are
given in 2-6.
The cavils continue :
2-21. Green houses not usually cool, though I suppose they
might be if anyone was foolish enough to erect them under
arches of budding boughs.
What does the air mean when it sayeth softly we spread no
snare. What are we ?
The charge of descriptive inaccuracy now spreads
to the robin's song, though ' most shadily ' continues
to prove a particularly tough morsel to assimilate.
36 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
2' 22. Full of mistakes. Firstly it is nonsense : moreover it
is trite and not " inspired nonsense ". How can the sun shine
" most shadily " ? Set out to be natural and fresh and has
become commonplace and ridiculous. Though no ornithologist,
do robins sing ? The metre is sing-songy and the rhymes such as
" boughs " and " house " and " shadily " and " the sea " require
a lot of imagination. The addition of the 5th line in the last
stanza though permissible seems uncalled for.
2-23. First reading produced a feeling of irritation at having
to read such silly stuff because it was so senseless. One feels
that the poem is meant to be one of musical simplicity and the
peace of nature. But in effect it is silly as it is very slight in
thought and hideously worded. To begin a poem with such a
line as " Gone were but the Winter " gives the show away.
Rhymes such as " boughs " and " house " grate on one's ear.
When you look into it it is hardly sense, how can the sun shine
shadily ? and who wants to live with a mossy stone anyway ?
2' 24. Trivial. Commonplace idea. Ambiguity of the idea of
budding boughs arched over a cool green house.
In the last verse the phrase " Here the sun shineth most
shadily " is stupid and also ambiguous in meaning. The sun
cannot shine shadily, it can only cause shadows to be cast ; besides,
the term " most shadily " might mean that the sun is ashamed
of shining when perhaps it had no right to do so.
Grammar has its turn.
2-25. A very light set of verses of very little merit. The
rhyming is poor e.g. thrush and bush, boughs and house and
the construction of the whole thing is extremely weak.
The verbs are used badly e.g. " Singeth a thrush ", but " Sings
a robin ", and the grammar of verse 4 is quite obscure ; if, as
apparently is the case, both the scents and the air say, " We
spread no snare " obviously " sayeth " is incorrect. How,
again, can the sun shine shadily ? Altogether, a very slight,
futile example.
The ' message ' question (what the poem says)> also
a comparatively external consideration, is noticed in
2*3, which puts forward a devastating view of literary
history.
2*3. This poem might have been pleasing to the reading public
a few hundred years ago, but to-day I can see little reason why
it should be read, except for historical interest. It is simple, almost
POEM It 37
childish, without being charming. The riming of " boughs "
with " house " is distinctly irritating, as is a fifth line on the last
verse. It is rambling, discursive, and says nothing that matters.
But there is melody and rhythm, which redeem it slightly.
Moral qualms similar to those in 2-2 appear in
2-4 and 2-41.' Such just remarks upon ' make-
believe ' may seem to owe their application here to
Mnemonic irrelevance as much as to Stoicism.
2'4. Communication extraordinarily successful. Experience
most pleasant and refreshing and consolatory : the last makes
indulgence seem rather childish and cowardly. Make-believe has
its after-effect of increasing rather than decreasing present dis-
content. To make this experience an end in itself is to ignore
our responsibility to society, etc. etc. and sacrifice the latter
half of life, while temporarily to indulge is mental " dope."
Doubtful whether I like it or not owing to an unfortunate
dislike of the trifling. Pleasure never a strong influence (in
literature).
It seems a pity that this severe critic should be
throwing away such valuable views. May they help
and support some other earnest student, such an
one as the next writer, for example :
2*41. The passage is obviously intended to possess lyrical
simplicity. Assonance, rather than strict metre, is used to heighten
effect of simplicity. I may appreciate the poem better in a lighter
moment. A more serious subject fits better my serious working
mood.
The assonance suggestion is probably an attempt
to meet such strictures on the rhymes as we have
noticed above.
It is slightly surprising, in view of the subject-
matter of the poem, that mnemonic irrelevance did
not have more play. One writer was on his guard.
2'5 I fear I am not an impartial judge, as the lines inevitably
associate themselves with a scene and experience which I value.
Its influence elsewhere in the protocols is so great
that mere caution hardly explains its absence. More
probably the explanation is the extreme difficulty so
38 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
many writers found in reading (rendering) it so as
to yield them any satisfaction. An extremely
illuminating account of this difficulty is given in
2-6, a document of capital importance for under-
standing the reception of this poem.
2-6. An interesting example of the difference made by reading
the same poem in different ways. In reading this, one must not
let the rhythm become too square-cut. If one does, the whole
thing becomes jerky and amateurish : one accentuates faults of
scansion, and throws emphasis upon the wrong words. I read
this three times. The first two times, I gave it four accents or
three to each line :
Full^of fre*sh scents,
Are the budding boughs.
Arching high 6Wr,
A co61 green house,
But this is certainly wrong : it should be
Full of fresh scents
^Are the budding boughs,
Arching high 6ver
A c6ol green house.
This is faster, lighter : it goes with a swing. It reminds one of
Morris* lines for his bed-hangings :
Rest then and rest
And think of the best,
or however they go. Read like this, the poem is a light little
thing, without indeed much intellectual appeal, but expressing
certainly the pleasant feeling of joy and peace one feels in the
spring. Read heavily, the poem would disgrace some boys of
14 : the scansion is faulty alternating wildly between 4 feet
and 3 : the rhymes (e.g. thrush and bush) atrocious.
The sense suffers too : e.g.
" With a clear stream
And a m6ssy st6ne.
(instead of
" With a cledr stream/*
etc.)
is silly : it suggests the poet saying : " Here, you'd better take
a stream too : yes, and a stone." Again, with the accent thrown
ff "green" in the yd stanza, one is less likely to be worried by
thoughts of "greenhouses", or alternatively (which is worse), of
POEM II 39
houses of brick and mortar, painted that blatant shade of bright
green which is so distressing. The " cool green house " is of
course the place under the trees. The important points are
(i) that it is cool (2) that it is like a house. But if one accentuates
" green," these are just the points which do not stand out.
How widely renderings of the same poem may
differ is demonstrated by 2-61, where a reply to the
earnest student (2-4) is also suggested.
2-61. In writing these lines the author is carried along by
a deep passion for real life, as distinct from mere existence. The
depth of his feeling expresses itself in the breathless, tumultuous
music of the whole.
Very detailed analyses of correspondences between
sound and sense are perhaps always open to sus-
picion ; but 2-7 is persuasive as well as subtle, and
2-71 does seem to be recording rather than inventing.
2-7. This poem is full of the most delicate changes of metre.
There are two accents in every line, but they are so changed
about, and the unstressed syllables are so varied in position and
number, that there are scarcely any two lines alike.
The vowels are also well arranged.
" Arching high over
A cool green house. "
The sudden transition to the long i sound gives an impression
of height in the arch, set off by the broader vowels on either side.
The whispering air is perfectly expressed by the repeated s's
in verse 4.
The echo ts wonderfully suggested in the last verse by the quiet
additional last line, and by the fact that the third line is an exact
metrical repetition of the first line of the first verse. I like
" here the sun shineth, most shadily ". It is at once suggestive and
concise.
2-71. The sincerity and spontaneity of this lyric might be
contrasted with the muddled sentimentality of IV. In its own
rather tiny way, it is quite exquisite. One feels the delicate
movement of the rhythm as it changes from the clear fine tone
of the 3rd and 4th verses to, the gravity and steadiness of the
last two. The corresponding shift in vowel values might be
noticed the deepening effect given by the long * a's ' and * o's.'
The adjectives are chosen with a full regard for their emotive
40 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
value in particular, " mossy stone " which at once produces the
intended atmosphere of quietness and uninterrupted peace.
In the last remark a reminiscence of the principles
of Japanese gardening might be respected. * Its
own rather tiny way ' supplements the impression.
With this fine balance and sense of proportion 2-8
may be contrasted.
2-8. No thoughts whatever would come to me until I had
committed these verses to memory. Then I saw that the words
and the subject were simple enough, but underneath lay some-
thing which I cannot define. It seems to be unutterable sadness,
the cry of a sensitive heart, betrayed by someone it trusted.
(Perhaps Tess felt like this). The kindness and solace in nature
appears to be emphasized, in contrast to the cunning and the
strife of men. The sound of the echo of the sea seems to me to
be necessary to make such a scene complete, as it gives a soothing
sense of the vastness of nature all round us, that we are not
alone, that there is someone above us, greater and wiser and stronger
than we. It reminds me of " The Forsaken Merman ".
There may in fact have been something of this in
the poet's mind ; yet, even were it so, we could
hardly put this reader's divination down to anything
but accident.
To step back too far from a poem, to pay too little
attention to its actual detail, to allow thoughts and
feelings to wander off into a development of their
own may be as mistaken a method as the most
captious selection of details. But 2-7 and 271 will
show, if it needed showing, that the closest scrutiny
of details is compatible with the fullest, fairest and
most discriminating appraisal of the whole. Indeed,
the two inevitably go together. The sovereign
formula in all reading is that we must pass to judg-
ment of details from judgment of the whole. It is
always rash and usually disastrous to reverse the
process.
The following description of this poet's work by
the late Sir Walter Raleigh will be of interest : ' Full
POEM II 41
of that beautiful redundance and that varied re-
iteration which are natural to all strong feeling and
all spontaneous melody . . . the expression rising
unsought, with incessant recurrence to the words or
phrases given at first, with a delicate sense of pattern
which prescribes the changes in the cadence.'
At the round earth's imagined corners blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go ;
All whom the flood did, and lire shall o'erthrow,
All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you, whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.
But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space ;
For, if above all these my sins abound,
'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,
Teach me how to repent, for that's as good
As if Thou hadst seal'd my pardon with Thy blood.
POEM III
BETWEEN the bare apprehension of the literal sense
of a passage and the full comprehension of all its
meanings in every kind, a number of half-way houses
intervene. To ascertain, even roughly, where failure
has occurred is, in many cases, beyond our power.
Innumerable cat and mouse engagements between
some investigator of the acumen and pertinacity of
Freud and a string of hapless * patients ' would be
needed to make plain even the outlines of the process
that we so glibly call ' grasping or realising a mean-
ing '. That the final stages are very sudden and
surprising in their effects is nearly all that is known
about it.
The failures to grasp the meaning which are the
impressive feature of our third set of protocols are,
therefore, not easy to range in order. Inability to
construe may have countless causes. Distractions,
preconceptions, inhibitions of all kinds have their
part, and putting our finger on the obstructing item
is always largely guesswork. The assumption, how-
ever, that stupidity is not a simple quality, such as
weight or impenetrability were once thought to be,
but an effect of complex inhibitions is a long stride
in a hopeful direction. The most leaden-witted
blockhead thereby becomes an object of interest.
Hazardous though this guesswork be, some of the
writers supply hints which are too tempting not to be
followed up.
3 i. I confess immediately that I can't make out what all the
shouting is about. The poem is completely confusing. The
43
44 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
numerous pronouns and adverbs mix up the thought, if indeed
there is one definite thought throughout.
/ don't like Shakespearean sonnets , I mean that form, as a rule,
so it ts particularly annoying to have " good " and " blood " rime.
The first two lines are vigorous and imaginative, but the list of
oppressions of God, Man, and Nature is a huge mental obstacle in
reading this sonnet. But the confusion in thought has failed to
establish, in the reader, communication, and even comprehension.
The prejudice against the alleged Shakespearean
form, or rather against the couplet as a close, is
hardly sufficient as an explanation, though his over-
looking the form of the octave argues some strength
in it. His pounce on the rhymes was at most a slight
distraction. A better hint comes from his use of the
word ' oppressions '. The parti pris that this suggests
is indicated more clearly in 3-11 and may very
possibly be responsible for a considerable proportion
of the failures.
3*1 1. I can connect this stanza with nothing which has or
does appeal to me. And where is " there " ? There is or can be
no condition as to whether any sin whatever will " abound " over
the fearful damage which war, dearth, chance, age and all the
other tyrannies may have inflicted upon the soul. A man who
sins repents : but what cause has that man to repent, who is the
victim of those scourges here enumerated ?
I suppose, really, I do not understand the lines, and certainly
wish they had some context, some ' co-ordinates ' which might
furnish an invaluable clue.
A doctrinal grudge is clearly apparent here however
little luck the writer may have had in making his
objection precise. And we shall probably not be
wrong in tracing his misreading to his grudge, rather
than the other way about. Something more than a
surprising unfamiliarity with the elements of the
Christian religion seems to be needed to explain the
query " Where is ' there ' ? " As a speculation, no
more, a paralysing influence from an anti-religious
reaction seems a permissible hypothesis. That its
victim was unaware of this seems to be indicated by
POEM III 45
his desire for a context. The odd failure to recognise
the sonnet form is found again in 3.15.
The localisation of * there ' baffles more apprecia-
tive readers.
3*12. The first four lines of the extract are impressive. The
" round earth's imagined corners " is a pretty conceit and appeals
by its apparent contradiction, while " numberless infinities "
conveys very well, the idea of the immensity of life's history.
Lines 5-8 lapse into a matter of fact, cold-blooded, catalogue of
the various possible ways of meeting a violent end. The sixth
line is particularly irksome. The rest of the poem is not too
coherent. The phrase " When we are there " is extremely
mystifying, and " that's as good " hardly fits in with solemn,
religious tone of the piece.
This perhaps tells against our hypothesis of an
anti-religious prejudice. None the less the descrip-
tion of the * catalogue ' as ' cold-blooded ', the in-
ability to realise it, almost amounting to a refusal,
and the demand for the intimate, colloquial ' that's
as good ' to be replaced by some less actual and im-
mediate phraseology are suggestive. Among ideas
that the mind might be loath to come too near to,
that of the Judgment may well claim a place.
Some slight corroboration may perhaps be seem in
the easy patronage which another writer extends.
3' 13. The sudden change from the fine tang of the first lines
to the simplicity of the last is effective, but the long strings of
monosyllables are ugly, and the fifth line is inexcusable while
the sense is not altogether clear. It is difficult to share the poet's
attitude, because although he is evidently sincere, his technique
is bad. The lines do, however, in spite of this express the simple
faith of a very simple man.
Contempt is a well-recognised defensive reaction.
This ' unconscious fright ' hypothesis must not
be overworked however. Two extracts in which
the distaste for the doctrine present is avowed will
round the matter off. The second is more remark-
able as an astonishing example of the power of stock
responses.
46 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
3 14. A poem of this kind needs perfection. If not, enumera-
tions as " war, dearth, age . . ." cannot but bore. Gloomy
poems must express deep thoughts or give a harmonious feeling
of melancholy not only a feeling of fear and discomfort else they
are a failure.
3i5. Mouthfuls of words. Has no appeal whatsoever. Make
a good hymn in fact, that's the way the metre goes.
Too religious for one who doesn't believe in repenting that way.
That a stock response, elicited merely by the
religious subject-matter, should be able to make a
sonnet sound like a hymn is a fact that surely stretches
our notions of the mind's power over matter.
A nervous reader offers a too simple excuse for his
failure to grasp the meaning.
3-2. The first effect of this poem is confusion of the mind,
owing to the clamorous vigour of the first half. The second half
is quiet and effective and this effect is obtained largely by its
contrast with the beginning. None the less the first half is
rather oppressive, such a line as " all whom the flood did and
fire shall o'erthrow " being superfluous.
A moral objection to the poet's attitude, which
appears in 3-3, 3-31 and 3-32, may be allowed more
occulting power.
3-3. The first line is stimulating " the round earth's imagined
corners "is associated in my mind with some great poem does
the idea come from somewhere in Paradise Lost ? But the
first 8 lines of the sonnet seem to have nothing to do with
the last 6 the only connection being between the number of
souls to be resurrected and the number of the writer's sins, which
seems irrelevant. It is irritating to think of the " numberless
infinities of souls " being aroused only to be put to sleep again
while the writer repents he doesn't even tell us anything about
his sins to make it interesting. I noticed " whose eyes . . .
shall never taste death's woe " on my third reading and when
" we are there ", instead of when " I am there." More irritating
every time I look at it.
3*31. There is nothing particularly poetic in the passage, it
doesn't move me as poetry ought to, it lies flat like the speaker.
3*32. This ought to have a most terrific effect : in one sonnet
we have compressed the two huge subjects of the Day of Judgment,
POEM III 47
and the Redemption of the world by Christ. But somehow the
poem does not raise as much emotion as one feels it ought to
have raised. I think this is because it seems to progress down-
wards from greater emotion to less. First one has the terror of
the Judgment Day : then one has what is really a selfish fright
on the part of the writer, that he personally may be damned.
But it is a considerable achievement to have dealt with these
two subjects at all within the narrow limits of one sonnet.
Having tried unsuccessfully to write sonnets myself, I have a
perhaps abnormal admiration for sonnet-writers. Had this not
been so, I think I would in the end have said that this sonnet
was bad.
Technical presuppositions, by destroying the move-
ment of the verse and so precluding the emotional
links from developing, certainly co-operated in pro-
ducing miscomprehension and negative judgments.
3-4. Difficult to * get ' either sound or sense almost in-
distinguishable from blank verse at first reading sonnet form
unperceived till second reading.
Short, sharp, jerky syllables in
1 . . . war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance . . .
do not at all suit the sonnet form or the majesty which the subject
calls for in its choice of a mode of expression. Thought-sequence
obscure, and the condensation in the fifth line of the octet is ugly
both as regards rhythm and harmony.
The sharp and jerky way in which he read these
lines probably prevented him from taking in their
sense. This poet is perhaps the slowest mover in
English literature and here the trumpets are still
blowing right down to * taste death's woe '. The
* condensation ' complained of is, most likely, only
his name for ignorance of Christian cosmology. The
same ignorance helps to frustrate the next writer.
3-41. Vigorous but obscure, particularly vigorous in the first
five lines and particularly obscure thereafter. Who is or are
" you, whose eyes shall behold God, and never taste death's
woe ". The last two lines lack the forcefulness so desirable at the
close of a sonnet. The list in lines 6 and 7 is tedious and the
rhymes are not perfect.
48 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
A reader unacquainted with the rules for attend-
ance at the Day of Judgment next claims our interest.
3 '42. The invocation contained in the octet seems to be rather
out of relation to the sextet, which is presumably the main part
of the poem. Why invoke all those spirits more than others?
Merely because the idea of death is in the front of the man's
mind. The sextet expresses an idea which is not uncommon,
and does so in a rather unsatisfactory, unconvincing way.
Although I don't think I like the thing, I find something striking
and even puzzling about it.
Sonority in the octet and quietness in the sextet are obviously
indicated ; and obviously it slows down and stumbles towards
the end.
The same expectation that a sonnet should con-
form to some foreordained movement affected 3-43
3-43. The first impression I received from this passage was
the thought " Rather pedestrian verse. Halting rhythm. Some-
how it lets you down ". And this impression was only deepened
by further consideration. I felt that the writer had aimed at a
high mark, but that the arrow had fallen short. He achieves
loftiness and dignity for the first four lines, but no further. For
then, I thought, a certain monotony creeps in. There is an
abundance of monosyllables and of trivial words, whose very
triviality becomes evident by the failure to heighten them in the
same manner as he has done in the opening four lines, namely
by a noble rhythm and a deep, quiet music.
In the next extract this velleity is exalted to mania.
3-44. After repeated reading, I can find no other reaction
except disgust, perhaps because I am very tired as I write this.
The passage seems to be a rotten sonnet written in a very tempera-
mental kind of iambic pentameter. Not even by cruel forcing and
beating the table with my fingers can I find the customary five
iambic feet to the verse ; the feet are frequently not iambic, and
there are sometimes four, and even six accented syllables to the
verse. In structure the passage sounds like the first labors of a
school boy. Particularly displeasing are verses 5, 6, and 7. Yet
the idea seems really worth while.
This is the first time that we have met the
scansion enthusiast. We shall have more to do
with his fellows later.
POEM III 49
Inexperience, lack of familiarity (in spite of the
reference to Milton) with any but very simple verse
movements is probably behind 3-5 and 3-51.
3-5. The passage has a miltonic ring, and shows the usual
miltonic devices (cf. w. 6, 7, where we get a list of human woes
strung together to give the verses a heavy slow movement).
Quite an ordinary piece of versification, neither striking nor
inspiring.
3*51. The first point about this sonnet, which seems most
obvious is that it could have been written quite, if not more,
effectively in prose. Rhythm seems to be lacking.
In contrast 3-6 provides us with a neat little object
lesson.
3-6. I like the grand Reveille of the first 6J lines. I appreciate
the gentle sadness of the last yj, and the contrast, but all the same
it disappoints me, I prefer feeling martial. The promise and the
beginning fizzles out.
I should never bother about the sense ; the sound is enough for me.
He goes very far, as far perhaps as he can get, by
the purely sensuous approach. The relation of the
second part to the first can only be given by the
sense, and missing the sense he mistakes the feeling
of the opening. c Martial J is hardly an apt descrip-
tion. His neglect of the sense is perhaps not un-
connected with his jejune preference.
3*7. It is impressive but leaves no very clear impression
there are no pictures in it.
The frustrated visualiser is here not a very sym-
pathetic figure. Those who want pictures in their
poems must put them in themsleves. There is
nothing in this sonnet to prevent Stanley Spencer
from doing with it what he pleases.
After so many grumblings three tributes from
readers who seem to have understood the poem may
come not amiss. That they are not so rich or glowing
as in the case of some of the other poems may not
amount to a slight upon this sonnet. It is in the
D
50 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
nature of some performances that they leave the
spectator feeling rather helpless.
3-8. An interesting fragment. ' The round earth's imagined
corners ' annoying at the first reading but if this is a quotation
from the Bible everything is all right.
Contrast good between whole of first and second part. Also
a most effective change from * all whom war, dearth, age, agues,
tyrannies, etc. ; and c you whose eyes Shall behold God, and
never taste death's woe '. Here there is a mixed metaphor and
it doesn't seem to matter much. The theme of the passage lifts
one above such a difficulty. There is a certain humour and a
very human interest about these lines.
The poetic part of this reader's mind probably
supplied the * who shall ' before ' never ' which un-
mixes the metaphor, though his commentator part
stepped in afterwards to muddle him.
3-81. Has the power of a trumpet in the first eight lines. Is
an impassioned outburst, and cannot be read calmly. Note the
crescendo in the sixth line ending with the shrill ' tyrannies.'
In the sestet, the voice is lowered, the poet's desire for a revelation
changes to a sense of humility.
3-82. If the ' sweet slipping ' movement of rhythm to express
a chance mood is the characteristic excellence of No. 2 that of
No. 3 is the marshalling and management of large ideas within
the restrictions of poetic form. The first 5 lines sweep up in
increasing intensity, to culminate in the shattering list of
destructions and then, masterly done, conies the pause, with
the accent on the first word of the line * But ' and the whok
thing quietens off to the level pitch of sanity and humour. Of
these four pieces, this alone has the power and assurance of the
poet who knows what it is that he has to say, and its value.
There was rapture of spring in the morning
When we told our love in the wood.
For you were the spring in my heart, dear lad,
And I vowed that my life was good.
But there's winter now in the evening,
And lowering clouds overhead,
There's wailing of wind in the chimney-nook
And I vow that my life lies dead.
For the sun may shine on the meadow lands
And the dog-rose bloom in the lanes,
But I've only weeds in my garden, lad,
Wild weeds that are rank with the rains.
One solace there is for me, sweet but faint,
As it floats on the wind of the years,
A whisper that spring is the last true thing
And that triumph is born of tears.
POEM IV
IT is sometimes convenient to regard a poem as a
mental prism, capable of separating the mingled
stream of its readers into a number of distinguish-
able types. Some poems the last, for example
merely scatter or throw back a large proportion of
the intellectual-moral light that is applied to them.
Others, of which Poem IV is a notable example, are
transparent ; and, since they have, as it were, a high
refractive index, they perform their analytic function
to perfection. They split up the minds which en-
counter them into groups whose differences may be
clearly discerned. And the reasons for these differ-
ences may sometimes be made out with assurance.
Here the divergent groups formed are two in
number, and, apart from some minor complexities
not at all difficult to explain, the principle of division
is shown quite clearly.
4' i. Absolute tripe.
Frightfully hackneyed in conception.
" Pretty " suits it best. On a par with the adjective " nice "
applied as a standard of character.
It's a sham. Sentimentality recollected in very sentimental
tranquillity. If the girl's life indeed lay dead she would not write
like that. Why, she's thoroughly enjoying herself more than
I am. Not one tear in the whole piece. It's PSEUDO, it
PRETENDS, its values are worthless. False coin. Low, mimic,
stuff.
4*11. A sigh a great sigh, despairing and tremulous. That
is what these lines seem to mean. The sigh though is put into
words and these seem to convey to us a sense of some ineffable
sorrow, too deep for words. Blighted hopes which seemed in
the spring so rapturous now have sunk into the hopelessness
53
54 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
the utter hopelessness of the words " And I vow that my life lies
dead."
It is the very fact that the words are so quiet and yet hopeless
that lends such a poignancy to it. No passionate utterance but
a stony blank grief. And yet despite this in the last stanza a
faint trembling hope is put forth and this must be so for " hope
springs eternal in the human breast ".
Above all in this piece one feels a keen sense, as it were, of
some deserted ruins, stark and bare, the wind moaning, the sky
lowering and a vivid sense of decayed splendour.
Not too often is the adage so beautifully illustrated.
One man's meat is another man's poison.
4*12. An invitation to a debauch which one can hardly claim
credit for declining.
4-13. This is a fine poem written with deep, emotional feeling
and a choice of words that is only possible for the genuine poet.
The melancholy power of the whole is transformed into some-
thing greater by the inspiring and courageous thought of the
last verse.
The very features which are the worst offence to
one group are the poem's crowning glory to the other.
The critical maxim ' When in doubt reflect whether
the most glaring fault is not the prime virtue, and
vice versa', could hardly receive a better practical
recommendation .
The antiphony continues. Those for whom the
assurance given above is insufficient to guarantee the
authenticity of the protocols will certainly accuse me
of over- reaching myself at this point. But not a
syllable has been added or changed.
4 14. This is such poor stuff that it hardly is worth the trouble
of criticizing. The rhythm is a meaningless jog-trot, which doesn't
vary or change with any change of feeling. The metaphors are
taken from the usual hackneyed and most obvious forms of
Nature, not always even appropriate, as in stanza 3 . Sentimentality
takes the place of feeling, and falls to the limit of bathos in the
last verse. It has the true cheap-magazine tone.
But the next writer is so persuaded to the con-
POEM IV 55
trary that he is able to certify the absent one's
affections.
4 15. There is nothing of silly sentimentalism in the lines but
they show the love of one true heart for another.
4i6. This piece alone of all the four got me straight away.
It is very effective indeed obviously sincere and very pleasant
to read. The theme, though somewhat obvious is one that can
never be hackneyed, especially when so originally and pleasantly
treated as in this case. The ending is very good and strong
which always is a great point. It has a lilt in it which is very
pleasant when reading provided it is not overdone.
Such exact correspondence of opposing views is
strong testimony to the poem's communicative effici-
ency. It is indeed extraordinarily successful in
* getting there/ Sometimes when widely different
views are expressed we receive the impression that,
through some twist or accident in communication,
different poems are being judged. But here it is
evident enough that the same poem (the same primary
modification of consciousness) has penetrated into
these different minds. It is at a comparatively late
stage of the response that the divergence begins.
Thanks to this, perhaps, some of the most famous
critical dicta gain an interesting corroboration. The
identity, or rather the close connection, of content
with form, for example. I may quote Matthew
Arnold : " The superior character of truth and
seriousness, in the matter and substance of the best
poetry, is inseparable from the superiority of diction
and movement marking its style and manner. The
two superiorities are closely related, and in steadfast
proportion to one another." From both sides of
the gulf this steadfast proportion between superior-
ities (and inferiorities) is pointed out with equal
confidence.
42. Really first-rate. The technique in particular is very good.
One notices particularly the alliterations, e.g. " Wild weeds that
are rank with the rains. " Again ,^ the double rhyme in the last
56 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
line but one is very effective : it suddenly makes the thing more
cheerful. One also notices the way in which various details are
symbolical. The " rains " suggest tears, to take only one example.
In the last line but one, the poet is of course thinking that death
is after all only the beginning of another life. But it is, of course,
by the emotion in it that one must judge a poem. The emotion in
this poem is strong and sincere.
4-21. Reminds me of Australian Bush ballads. Has little
meaning and no musical value. A mere jingling rime, in which
words are chosen carelessly. * Life lies dead ' is nonsense. Too
many unaccentuated short words ; hence slurring necessary in
reading. One expects ' trala ', and repetition of last line of
each verse.
In cooler, more distant praise, the conventional
abstract classification of the content matches well
with the routine description of the form.
422. Here is a pleasant, melodious lyric, with love interest and
philosophy. The antithetical effects are well achieved ; the
repetition of " weeds " in the third verse is an excellent touch,
as is the internal riming in the third line of the fourth verse.
The poem has a swing and lilt to it which make it delightful
reading. It is altogether well constructed and successful.
The exercise of imaginatively realising the re-
sponses of the next two readers, pondering them,
and the poem with them, until each seems the only
possible response, may be recommended. A few
Jekyll and Hyde transformations from the one into
the other and back again, will be found instructive.
4-23. Few things are more disgusting than cheap emotion
expressed in easy tears. No. 4 speaks of a " triumph born of
tears " and apparently wishes to express a long and painful
struggle. If the triumph, and the tears and the passing years
are linked together only because at a first glance they seem to
have a pathetic significance and a vaguely poetical and romantic
effect (and surely " rapture of spring," " love in the wood/'
vows, lowering clouds, wailing winds, dog roses and rank weeds
are the conventional trappings and catchwords of romance). No. 4
merits nothing but contempt. If the writer were actuated by
intense feeling surely he was deplorably misguided to choose as
his medium of expression a regular fluent metre, cant phrases and
obvious rhymes. The rhymes seem to have a great influence over
POEM IV 57
the sense : in line 15 " thing " means exactly nothing but it
rhymes with spring so there it is. Finally the easy antitheses
spring and winter, roses and weeds etc. is fatal to any hope of
real feeling behind the verses, and without sincerity poetry is an
impossibility.
4*24. The simplicity of this poem contrasts with the empty-
headedness of 2. Here ordinary words and images are used to
celebrate the most elemental passion love, and to express faith in
the comforting philosophy so well known by the last line of Shelley's
Ode to the West Wind " If Winter comes, can Spring be far
behind ? " The metaphors are apt, and although not complicated,
they carry such a train of suggestions as must appeal to the most
prosaic person. The third verse contains a flood of pathos,
emphasized by an admirable contrast, and the line " floats on the
wind of years " reveals that genius for expression which is one
of the most important characteristics of a great poet (as dis-
tinguished from a clever versifier).
It will be seen that what is usually described as a
' difference in taste ' may have inexhaustible implica-
tions ; whole orders of moral and intellectual per-
ceptions and discriminations flash into view or blur
out and fade as we pass from the view of one writer
to that of the other. And what crudities must each
writer not recognise in the other ! We should re-
member that these sorts of differences are in the
background always, even e.g., in 4-22.
But where are we, and where is our personality,
amid such dizzying kaleidoscopic transformations of
the moral world ? We may perhaps steady ourselves
a little with 4-25, which is rather more objective and
has opinions upon pretence, upon love, and upon
vowing.
4*25. Conveys a uniformly artificial impression verse has no
adequate volume of sound to impart a strong emotion and no
cadences to express a deep one, such as is pretended to be con-
veyed. Altogether too jaunty an effect, with a most annoyingly
regular jig-jigging rhythm. Sentimentality mistaken for the deeper
passion of love One does not
1 vow that my life lies dead *
in quite such a perfunctory way.
58 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
Opinions about the technique of the poem and
opinions about its goal or final effect here hang
together with a rare fidelity ; and if it were desired
to prove, for example, that the way in which the
rhythm of words is received is not independent of
the emotional response which their sense excites,
such evidence as this should not be overlooked. But
these theoretical developments may be postponed to
a later page (Part III, Chapter IV).
One dissentient upon this point demands in-
clusion ; but the ' subject ' here spoken of is some-
thing quite remote from the * content/ * matter ' or
* substance ' which we have been considering. The
c subject ' here is the content regarded abstractly
and from a distance. (Part III, Chapter VI, p. 263.)
4-26. The subject is serious but the treatment childishly and
forcedly simple and they don't fit in with each other. It has
degenerated into mere sentimentality, the use of the word " lad "
in a serious way now sounds out of place and " wild weeds rank
with the rains " are all right on a rubbish heap but not in
writing.
The appearance of the word c lad ' had other con-
sequences.
4*27. Perfect adaptation of rhythm and sound to meaning.
Why is there such an appeal in the poetry of dejection ?
Probably the answer is partly in the last two lines and partly in
the fact that it is an easy experience to get and common to all.
It is rather like A. E. Housman, but better than most of his , because
there is less of the morbid despairing of dejection in it, and none of
the macabre.
It leaves no final impression of sadness, but of greatness.
The same rash inference from ' lad ' was re-
sponsible for 4-26. It is perhaps not unnatural to
feel some regret that one was not present at some of
the discussions alluded to.
4-28. This must be from " A Shropshire Lad " or " Last
Poems " though I cannot place it exactly. The most pleasing to
me of the four. Excellent lyrical form a single idea arousing a
POEM IV 59
single emotion that rises rapidly to the climax of the last two
verses. Rhythm so pleasing that I have read and re-read solely
for that. Pleasing melancholy because it gives one the safe " luxury
of grief " second-hand. The singing quality and the unexpected
internal rhyme of the last verse but one are decidedly effective.
This verse is my particular reason for liking the lyric. It
expresses with greater skill than I have ever before found an idea
which I have long held and discussed with many people.
The attribution to Housman allowed this reader
to indulge also in the * safe ' luxury of ' correct '
praise.
To offset one of the best points made in 4-1 the
opinion of 4-3 may be cited.
4-3. There is something very real about the atmosphere of these
lines. Here is a kind of naive rural simplicity, as if the lines
are actually uttered from the heart of a country maid. Possibly
this is suggested by the metre, which is to a certain extent
dactylic. It is difficult to express just how the verses obtain
their effect, but these lines " find " their reader more easily than
the other extracts.
The metrical suggestion does not much illumine
the problem. Both points are taken further by 4-31.
It is disconcerting to find him hedging, a tendency
very little shown in this set of protocols.
4-31. Turn, turn ti ti Turn titi Turn ti
Ti turn ti ti turn titi turn
This makes me feel ribald it seems so silly worse than a
barrel-organ (which has a beauty of its own).
Surely sorrow and loneliness are not like this ? All is correct
spring, love, woods, the lad, morning winter, loneliness, house,
no lad, evening the desolate " garden of my heart " and the
proper sentiment of good out of evil etc. at the end.
Tears can drown triumph Do women feel like this? I don't.
I doubt of even a kitchenmaid's liking this.
Perhaps in another mood this would appeal to me, so simple
and so sad, and yet so brave but I cannot say.
The personal association, the mnemonic irrelev-
ance, might be expected to threaten this poem to an
especial degree. Some writers were on their guard
against it :
60 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
4'4. I have a special personal association with regard to this
composition which might pre-dispose me in its favour. My
judgement however is that it is thoroughly bad. The author
seems to me to have attempted to communicate a really valuable
emotion, but he has failed completely. He has however suc-
ceeded in writing words that may justly be described as both
sloppy and sentimental.
The metre employed suggests doggerel and the worst kind of
limerick. The words themselves are badly chosen and the
metaphors are conventional and unconvincing. For example the
use of the word " spring " in verse i and " weeds " in verse 3.
The final impression is one of Disgust.
4-41. This to me is excellent. I cannot tell whether from
the things with which I associate it or from its accurate expression
and its simplicity. Seasons and sun affect me more than any-
thing, and in this I can feel the spring, the best season of life and
nature. It has the perfect imagery so essential to a poem on
nature.
Still more subtle must have been the influence of
Stock Responses.
4-5. We have, obviously, here an expression of something the
writer really felt. The idea that " hope springs eternal in the
human breast " and is in fact the great attribute of the human
spirit, is very aptly expressed by means of the simile, or rather
here, metaphor of spring. One's feelings rush out to endorse
those last two lines :
". . . that spring is the last true thing
And that triumph is born of tears. "
Spring has always been the favourite theme of poets whose outlook
is what we ordinarily term ' Romantic '. // ty, with all its
associations, the physical complement of poetry to the mind of
man. I am very obscure, I suppose, but a little poem like this
does do for my feelings, what spring does for flowers and birds
and fields, after winter with all that it, too, presses upon the
intelligence.
* One's feelings rush out.' So do comparisons, not
only with The Shropshire Lad.
4*51. Nature here used most effectively as an " appui ", in manner
of Lamartine and of Wordsworth (" Margaret " ?). Love is
depicted with freshness of a Burns, without his sensuousness .
Pathos of contrast between weeds in the garden (in her heart)
POEM IV 61
and Nature's bloom. Epigrammatic conclusion, of importance.
Comfort is born of affliction same lesson in Wordsworth. Fine
musical rythm. Nature beautifully and faithfully depicted.
And the feelings that rush out may take a course
that is only partially directed by the poem.
4-52. * One solace there is for me, sweet but faint.' ' Sweet
but faint ' this seemed to me to sum up the whole atmosphere,
to which I should also add the epithet ' delicate '. It is a mingling
of joy and sorrow, and from this is born an emotion, at once
sharper, more intense, but sweet and faint still like the caravan
bells in Hassan. The music seems to rise and fall, like a breath
of wind. Now strong and flaming, with the memory of love
present, now sad and gentle with the memory of love past.
And at the end it seems to rise to triumph, the very triumph
that the writer was thinking of " born of tears ".
Whether the next writer is alluding to the heroine
of the poem or to the author is not made clear.
4-6. The " sweet but faint solace " floating with foolish
optimism on metaphorical winds fills me with a sense of superiority
and contempt. I cannot and will not give any more attention to
this effeminate weakling.
His arrogance may contrast, finally, with the
humility of 4-61.
4-61. As
(1) I am only 19.
(2) I have never been in love.
(3) I do not know what a dog-rose is.
(4) I consider that spring has no rapture.
(5) tne alliteration is bad and unnecessary.
(6) this symbolism utterly worthless.
I will declare the whole poem to be sentimental rubbish.
More detailed criticism would be foolish and futile. One reading
gave me this opinion. I never hope to read it again.
Comment here again must be postponed until
Part III, where the allied problems of Sentimentality
and Stock Responses can be fully discussed.
What's this of death, from you who never will die ?
Think you the wrist that fashioned you in clay,
The thumb that set the hollow just that way
In your full throat and lidded the long eye
So roundly from the forehead, will let lie
Broken, forgotten, under foot some day
Your unimpeachable body, and so slay
The work he most had been remembered by ?
I tell you this : whatever of dust to dust
Goes down, whatever of ashes may return
To its essential self in its own season,
Loveliness such as yours will not be lost,
But, cast in bronze upon his very urn,
Make known him Master, and for what good reason.
POEM V
THE mere sense of this poem baffled an unusually
large number of readers. Of 62 who returned
protocols, 17 declare themselves bewildered ; 14
appear to have fathomed it that is to say they have
followed its thought, made out what it says ; 7 are
doubtful cases ; and 24, no less, appear not to have
understood it without themselves knowing that such
was the case.
These figures would suggest that the poem really
is extraordinarily obscure. Yet no one who has
once made out the sense will easily persuade himself
that this is so. But, since, at the best, only some
twenty readers construed it, and the remaining two-
thirds wittingly or unwittingly failed, it seems im-
perative to begin by supplying a prose paraphrase
which will at least bring the central issue into due
prominence. Here it is :
" You should not think of death, for you will not
die. It is inconceivable that God having made you
so perfect will let you perish, since you are his
masterpiece. Whatever may perish, your loveliness
is too great to be lost, since when God dies your
image will be permanently retained as a memorial
of his skill as a creator." (' You ', it may be added,
being a human being.)
The strain of believing that this really is the sense
of a piece written with such aplomb explains the
bewilderment and the failure to construe which mark
so many of the protocols. What we think of it as
sense is, however, not the important point here, but
64 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
rather the general question of the place of the plain
prose sense, or thought, in poetry.
No general rule, of course, can be laid down.
Every case must be judged on its own merits, and
the particular structure of the poem under judgment
must be fully taken into account. There are types
of poetry (Swinburne's Before the Mirror for example)
where the argument, the interconnection of the
thought, has very little to do with the proper effect
of the poem, where the thought may be incoherent
and confused without harm, for the very simple
reason that the poet is not using the argument as
an argument, and so the incoherence may be neg-
lected. There are other types where the effect of
the poem may turn upon irrationality, where the
special feelings which arise from recognising in-
compatibility and contradiction are essential parts
of the poem. (Not always mirthful feelings ; they
may be desperate or sublime. Compare the close
of Marvell's The Definition of Love.} But this poem
belongs to neither of these types. Since the hyper-
bole of this particular beauty as God's memorial is
worked in twice at the two most salient places of
emphasis, there can be little doubt that a full com-
prehension of it is necessary to the reading of the
poem. This thought is really an essential part of
the structure, and the poem has to accept whatever
risks are implied by this fact. The core, or turning-
point of the poem is in the emotional effects of this
culminating thought as realised.
If this is so, the various struggles of the protocol-
writers with the thought are instructive. First, those
who knew that they did not understand may be
represented.
5-1. No appeal to me. Failure of communication, as after the
2Oth reading the nature of the addressee was still obscure.
5*12. I don't understand whether the poet is addressing a
woman, or a statue.
POEM V 65
The interesting assumption that the * unimpeach-
able body ' must be a woman's, not a man's, may be
noted in passing. It frequently reappears.
5-13. I find the poem unintelligible as it stands. Is it a living
woman or a statue ? / cannot reconcile the last two lines. A title
would possibly have saved the situation. The expression is
otherwise curiously excellent. The subject is viewed as by a
painter or sculptor. The thought compact and forcible, somewhat
suggestive of Browning.
How the thought, though unintelligible, can be
recognised as compact and forcible is rather a
mystery. Probably the writer meant that the
expression sounds as though this were so, which is
a true and important observation indicating that the
sense here is not irrelevant to the full reading of the
poem. Actually, as some readers will point out,
compactness is hardly a character of this sonnet.
The same willingness to accept the envelope in
place of the contents is shown again and again.
5-14. I found the poet's idea difficult even impossible to grasp.
Was the " wrist that fashioned " the wrist of God, or merely of
a human sculptor ? It is hard to reconcile the " clay " and the
" thumb that set the hollow ", of the first few lines, with the
" cast in bronze upon his very urn " of the last lines. The sonnet,
however, is finely constructed. In reading it, the voice gradually
swells throughout the octave, and sinks to the close. The thought
is evidently a splendid one, but it is obscurely expressed, and the
sonnet fails in its object.
The thought evidently ought to be a splendid one,
if it is to accord with the manner of the sonnet ; this
is the reflection that dominated many judgments.
The readers' pathetic distrust of their own power to
construe, to penetrate through to the content, their
inability to work out and grasp the splendid thought,
is a point that educators will recognise as crucial.
But not all those who approved the thought with-
out mastering it were wooed thereto by the glamour
of the expression.
E
66 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
5-15. What does " cast in bronze upon his very urn " mean ?
The phrase seems unfortunate, bringing one to a sharp stop,
seeking the meaning. A good point (for immortality}, well worked
out and well put : but is the expression very high ? " What's
this of death " is not very felicitous, tho' perhaps a striking
opening. " I tell you this " gives a very * prosy ' impression.
On the other hand the whole idea is well communicated by the
poem, which leaves a sense of satisfaction and completeness,
perhaps mostly on account of the last two lines, puzzling as is
the " urn " phrase mentioned above. I always feel attracted to
religious poetry, and anxious to get the best out of it.
The search for the meaning did not go very far.
It would be interesting to know what exactly ' the
whole idea ' was for this reader, and how the argu-
ment for immortality runs, and for what kind of
immortality. Other writers will later shed some
more light upon all this. Whatever it was, it probably
had a great deal to do with the popularity of the
poem.
But the confident air of the sonnet, by creating a
very favourable ' atmosphere of approach ', as text-
books of salesmanship say, was also influential.
5'i6. Pm sure this is a good sonnet, but it takes a lot of getting
at. / like the rhythm, and the words please me immensely, but in
spite of many readings I have not yet arrived at its precise
meaning. Obviously the lady will die, physically, but whether
her loveliness is to be preserved in the minds of others or actually
in bronze is more than I can fathom. The octave points to the
latter, but the sestet seems to confuse the issue.
Both appeals, the superficial rhythm and the ' idea ',
may be seen combined.
5-17. I am not quite sure whether the person addressed is the
most famous statue of a great sculptor, or a beautiful human
being. The communication is not quite clear.
But I like the poem very much. It expresses an idea, with
which I heartily agree, but which is, perhaps, not new, in a very
satisfactory way. It has some body to it.
The form I also like. The words and the rhythm are very good.
I cannot tell quite how it should be read.
POEM V 67
Such shivering on the brink of understanding,
such coy reluctance to plunge into the depths of
ideas which, if liked so much, should surely prove
more attractive, is very suspicious. In some of these
surface-gazers, general or constitutional triviality and
lack of enterprise may be explanation enough. But
Narcissism and an intellectual timidity or inhibition
based on a sense that * things will not bear looking
into and are best left alone ' are often co-operating
factors.
Some of the bewildered brought objections to
parts of the sense. The next writer must find
Genesis ii. 21 very risible, but he puts his finger
upon a difficulty in the poem that few commented
upon, the shift from the immortality of the individual
suggested by the opening to the mere eternity of
beauty later on.
5*18. I don't like the general atmosphere of the poem. I
really don't understand it. Is the " Master " God ?
If so it is ludicrous to imagine him thumbing a hollow in some-
body's throat. If the " Master " is a sculptor, someday he will
have to " let lie, broken, forgotten, underfoot " the unimpeachable
body even if the " loveliness " lives. The poem presumably
an extract seems to contradict itself and is irritating.
The failure to recognise a sonnet we have met
before and shall meet again.
More curious are those many instances in which
the reader is unaware that his interpretation does not
exhaust the possibilities.
5-2. Quite an ingenious way of saying that the artist has made
a cast of a beautiful woman. The opening is good the working
up to the climax, too, sustained by the questions.
The " I tell you this " almost necessary to recover one's
breath but so unnecessary otherwise. Ending very weak.
I like the way he expresses the moulding " so roundly from
the forehead ". But the wrist and thumb idea is dropped care-
lessly, although the sense is never obscure.
Words well chosen, and rhythm carries the sense along with it.
68 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
5*21. I do not like this sonnet; it has no deep thought for
common sense tells us that a statue will not die.
Read with this sense the poem did not meet with
much favour, though some of the objections made to
it seem hardly less arbitrary than the reading.
5-22. This gives the impression that it was written as an
exercise and does not suggest genuine or deep emotion. The
feeling is not strong enough to carry the reader along with it
and so he notices that the ' body ' is held up and that ' he ' is created
from a wrist and thumb. It all seems rather a waste of courtly
and artificial compliments such as ' unimpeachable ' and ' loveli-
ness such as yours ' on stocks and stones, while the second half of
the last line is almost enough to damn the whole piece.
But most readers did not attempt so close a grip
upon the meaning of the poem. A more general
response to a traditional theme contented them.
5-3. The thought in this sonnet is noble and well expressed,
the theme being that Beauty will never die. From beginning to
end the thought is clear and the form is impeccable.
This was the most popular theme, but others
sometimes served as well.
5-31. I like this sonnet very much. Its significance depends
on the close connection which it presumes between physical
and spiritual beauty, and this connection is one of the factors
which make me think it is by Rossetti, since in his ideal world of
art, the connection always held. I like the triumphant note of
the second part of the poem.
These seem to express parts of c the whole idea '
mentioned above (5-15). As we might expect other
handlings of the more popular theme are recalled.
5-32. Reminds me of Keats' glorious Ode to the Nightingale,
especially of the verse beginning " Thou wast not born for
death, ". The thought expressed is one which most of us feel
at some time in our lives. We feast (our eyes) on some lovely
object, not necessarily animate, and groan at the idea of the
dusty road to death engulfing so much loveliness and at length
we burst out into remonstrance, and, if we have little time to
spare, we either resign ourselves to the inevitable or console
ourselves with the philosophy of John Keats.
POEM V 69
This poem expresses, at once, a passionate remonstrance and
an inspiring hope, in verse which, if not polished, is at least
effective.
Such comparisons may have a positive or a nega-
tive effect. Sometimes the other poetry that is re-
called assists the reader to make the best he can out
of the poem that is before him. But equally often
these recollections, rationally or irrationally, are a
stumbling-block. This dual possibility recurs when-
ever a poem seems to (or actually does) treat a stock-
subject or invite a stock-response. Two readers at
least, who appear to have grappled more closely with
this sonnet, are as much hindered by their recollec-
tions of Keats as the last writer was helped.
5-33. Keats expressed the message of this poem in much
simpler and yet quite as effective language when he wrote " A
thing of beauty is a joy for ever. Its loveliness increases, it will
never pass into nothingness . . ." To me the poem seems
grandiloquent rather than grand. The obvious truth of the senti-
ment expressed seems to be wrapt in unnecessary difficulties and
the meaning of the last two lines, presuming they have a meaning,
is quite lost to me.
5-34. The opposition of the ideas of beauty and death is not
unusual but the expression in the octet is admirable. I cannot
understand the last two lines of the sestet and the third line in
the sestet appears to me to be clumsy. The underlying idea is
valuable but is not so well expressed as in " A thing of beauty
is a joy for ever " etc.
So, too, with the emotional response which follows
the presentation of the theme. Very different feelings
are recorded.
5*35. This poem is a good one because it is a sincere expression
of the writer's feeling, and this feeling is one of exalted worship.
Whether the belief is true or false, we rise to something great.
5-36. I cannot decide definitely about this poem. Its expression
is simply marvellous, but the thing expressed is to me false
consolation for which I have no use. I recognise the poem as a
fine expression of a certain way of looking at things, but it is
to me an inadequate way, and therefore I do not hesitate to put
70 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
the poem aside. Perhaps it is because I feel the poet is trying
to argue the point.
Yet we find other readers, less exigent intellectually,
who are more responsive :
5-37. I like both the thoughts and the way they are expressed.
For a sceptic as I it is one of the few trains of thought that
carries him towards belief in immortality. Expressed with great
conviction.
One wonders what kind of immortality this sceptic
is persuaded towards, or exactly what comfort the
next reader desires. Private poems due to Stock
Responses are almost certainly the explanation in
both cases.
5*38. Someone, fearing death, has expressed his doubts to the
poet and the poet has, in consequence, written a solace. This
message of comfort sweeps away any cynical belief in " out of sight
out of mind 9 ' and states that "loveliness will not be lost", but
will be cast in bronze on an urn in Heaven, will be eternally
remembered. The thought that " is it likely that God would
have made you so comely and beautiful just to destroy you ? "
is not a common one ; it offers comfort to those who have
their doubts about the next world death does not seem so
dreadful. The last six lines which form the solace of the poem,
are said with such calm assurance that the troubled mind
has its fears allayed, and, as the lines seem to run more
smoothly, and soothingly to the end, they cause a placidity of
spirit.
It is plain that the doctrinal problem, the place and
importance of beliefs in poetry, is in need of dis-
cussion. Several writers indeed either state or imply
a view upon this most difficult general problem.
5-4. A sonnet expressing a sense of the permanence of beauty.
Connected with a sense of the immortality behind things even
human and material, and with a sense of a definite power which
creates beauty for a given purpose a ' good reason '. The poem
is interesting from this point of view, though it is not an un-
familiar thought. It is indeed a thought common to all poets
and expressed by all of them in some way or another. It is
both the explanation and the justification of poetry itself as of all
forms of art.
POEM V 71
This writer's interpretation of the last words of
the sonnet ' and for what good or reason ' is rather
too bold, but his view of the beliefs supposed to give
rise to poetry is very common. It is elaborated, with
an added note of nervous asceticism, in 5-41, where
some misgivings lest doctrine should too much in-
trude are also shown.
5*41. This aesthetic conviction of immortality was most prob-
ably written by some sculptor or artist poet who could fully
appreciate the joy of creation. The poet's pleasure in physical
beauty is very sincere. The note of sensuality which one might
have expected in such an admirer is entirely absent because the
poet is thinking rather of the creator's satisfaction in contem-
plating the thing he has created than of the emotional effect
beauty has on people. The poet has put himself in God's place,
or rather he has considered Him as a sculptor whose name can
only be perpetuated by the creations of His hands. The poet
has the religion of the artist who sees the beauty and glory of God
in Nature and in this poem what religious ideas do enter are made
very subservient to the glorification of the person to whom the
poem is addressed.
Troubled by the same doubts as to how far
doctrine is admissible in poetry, two writers advance
the ' state of mind ' or * mood ' solution of the diffi-
culty. If poetry only expresses a ' state of mind ' or
' mood ', the thoughts presented, it is suggested, need
not be examined on their own account. This sugges-
tion perhaps disposes of those who boggle at the
truth of the thought, but not of those whose objection
is to its intellectual or emotional incoherence.
5*42. Here is a hopeful state of mind expressed in verse. It is
an attractive poem. It seems rather a pity to dissociate the
opinions expressed in it from the impression made by the verse
itself. The opinions are a little religious the religion that loveli-
ness cannot die. If the question must be discussed, I believe
that people's bodies must die, however perfect they may be
though loveliness in one form or another always remains in the
world. On the other hand, mind-loveliness remains as the real
thing. You must accept the truth of change in your body.
Verse form quite good. This is not a didactic poem that's
why it doesn't matter very much about the discussion of the
72 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
opinions in it. I don't think it was definitely meant to teach
people but just to express a state of mind.
Probably any mention of anything mentioned in
religion would make a passage religious for this
reader.
5*43. The attraction to me of this is its extreme definiteness
and conviction. It may be the expression of a mood only. I think
it probably is, because a man who could write this, however
fervently he believed that " loveliness such as yours will not be
lost " would yet scarcely hold as his real creed that any " body "
however unimpeachable would be " The work He most had
been remembered by ". But its being only the expression of a
mood this doesn't matter because for the moment the mood has
complete domination : / can find no trace of a pose assumed for
the writing of the sonnet. The sonnet form is peculiarly felicitous
because a very definite form is thus used for a very definite idea.
I think the impression I have received of a slightly careless
technique is intentional ; so that the reader may visualise a man
too eager to express his thoughts and emotions to pause over
the exact words he uses.
One is tempted to inquire what it was that set this
writer looking for traces of a pose. A rather sus-
picious disclaimer.
The general problem of doctrine in poetry will be
discussed later ; it is enough here to have noted the
influence of its attendant difficulties upon judgment
of this poem. By way of transition to opinions about
the detail of the language and handling 5-5 may be
given.
5-5. I feel the rather desperate endeavour of the poet to throw
the reader into an attitude of belief. To believe in her loveliness
and immortality is essential to the realisation of the experience.
I am no more than a spectator.
Generally, I can believe in
loveliness such as yours will never die
but specifically, the loveliness perishes.
think you the wrist
that set the hollow just that way
these are tricks of style not genuine : self-conscious, too, is
" unimpeachable ". Isn't the finger too evident ? / tell you
POEM V 73
this too heavy that the style is not quite genuine I feel from
the continual change. Here, quite Miltonic weight of statement
Make known him Master and for what good reason. Here,
spilling over, without much need
in its own season
But what really prevents my belief in the immortality is the
narrowing, specific, quite miniature picture of immortality
cast in bronze upon an urn.
True, God's urn, but concrete and the figure merely decorative.
This reader clearly followed the thought of the
poem through to the end. The two examples of
praise that follow do not make this so apparent ;
they confine themselves to questions of ' treatment '.
5-51. I like this : it is not particularly good English or a very
fine sonnet, but it has a youthful directness about it, a clear
incisiveness which makes it very attractive. It is, I think, fairly
obviously, by Rupert Brooke : it has his touch, or the touch of
his school about it. It is utterly unemotional, being more like
a description of a picture, or a bust being worked by god the
sculptor, than a sonnet to a girl he loves. It has the irregularity
common to nearly all Brooke's sonnets, whether he wrote it or
not. I like it because it has no veiled or obscure nonsense about
it : it is direct and striking, but oh how cold !
5*52. A strong, Browningesque vein both in substance and
rhythm. I like " your unimpeachable body ". The poem
certainly " gets across ". The last line, however, is disturbing
to the extreme. Ugly and flat and banal. But, I believe,
intentionally so. It reminds one of
' Hobbes prints blue, straight he turtle eats.
Who fished the murex up :
What porridge had John Keats ? '
The poem leaves one with a sense of strength, amounting almost
to physical brute force ; something rugged, something clean. ' Of
the earth, earthy '.
Such studies in manner divorced from matter
rarely go further than those which show the converse
bias in the choice of approach. To consider either
treatment or content exclusively is a means of keeping
at a distance from the actual poem. Two who, on the
74 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
whole, admired the poem, did attempt to come closer,
and both note in its obscurity an added relish, though
on other points they contradict one another.
5-53. On first reading, without fitting together the whole
grammatically, meaning and spirit is caught. Bold start : uneven,
forceful rhythm ; imagery (human, intimate, though so rapid) :
absence of colour : chiefly Saxon words with bold, unrestrained
Latin interpolations : all give clarity, vigour, cleanness, virility, etc.
Absence of least artifice, but natural suggestion of sounds
"full throat . . . forgotten''. Perfect, unfaltering conviction.
Thus matter and general effect ultimately is fine. But is whole
raised or degraded by uneven quality of (a) rhythm, (b) sense ?
(a) Lines i, 7, 9, 10, 14 all most difficult to render. But
although marred as verse, it gains a conversational, intimate,
forceful note.
(b) Sense obscure on first reading (8, 9-11, 14). But if it lacks
limpidity, it does, by becoming something of a nut to crack, take on
a " tang " an enticement.
But is it artistically better or worse ? Worse easier to
appreciate, but rather a puzzle than a poem.
5-54. In the first part of the poem / do not think the description
of the woman's beauty sufficiently vivid and living to make one
realise the terrible tragedy of beauty " broken and forgotten "
which is so simply and masterfully conveyed by the next lines.
If it were not for the last two lines of the poem one would be
inclined to take the poem literally and the thought of the poem
would degenerate into a pathetic defiance of the laws of nature
giving one nothing but a sense of unrest. The last 2 lines
I think show that the poet is thinking of beauty as being a high
ideal which is never lost and which is in itself a revelation of the
Divine thought.
The poem is simple in language and this simplicity tends to
mask the thought any way in the first reading but adds to the effect
when the poem is more closely studied.
How far this closer study really carried the writer
towards a comprehension of the last two lines is a
point which can, I think, be fairly clearly made out.
Another, who finds much in the detail to admire,
also shows us the trouble that this original feature of
the poem caused him.
POEM V 75
5-55. There is a crescendo in this sonnet made more effective
by the restraint of its language. The first lines with their long
vowel sounds move slowly and melodiously. In the first four
lines of the sextet the movement quickens and the passionate
intensity is admirably rendered by the additional syllables and
the prevalence of * S ' sounds in it culminates in the quick
monosyllables ' will not be lost.' Then follow the slower, more
impressive two last lines to mark the final close.
The thought is clear enough but for the last two lines, where
the sense of " his very urn " presumably means " that containing
the ashes of the dead " and " for what good reason " is not at first
very clear. The defect of these lines is more apparent in a poem
which aims at communicating a line of action.
Throughout the moulded image and the human body are
present in the thought, the word ' slay ' giving just the trend
towards the living.
More hostile though as much at fault over the
meaning is 5-56. The virtue of a ' definite division *
in a sonnet is a tenet firmly held by many. Its dis-
tribution is doubtless to be put to the credit of
teaching. With a thousand other equally arbitrary
and misleading snippets of critical dogma it might
well be exchanged for a little more training in the
construing of ordinary English. That ' for what
good reason ' is almost as troublesome as the ' urn '
is a fact that should make all members of the teaching
professions ponder.
5-56. This is not absolutely commonplace, though the conceit
has been a favourite one for millemums. The expression is
Browningian, with forced words to ensure a rime, e.g., slay, a
most unsuitable word. The metaphor at first suggests a potter
(in 2nd and 3rd lines), and the abrupt introduction of " in
your full throat " is disconcerting. " Unimpeachable " is toler-
able, but it suggests that striving after effect which typifies some
modern poetry.
The construction of the sonnet is excellent, as there is a definite
division. The sestet is not so good as the octave, as there is
obscurity in the next to last line " Cast in bronze upon his
very urn." Who does " his " refer to ? Presumably the Master,
but it is not clear.
" and for what good reason " is a strikingly prosaic ending.
One suspects the power of " season " earlier on.
76 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
Just as arbitrary in his conceptions of sonnet form
is another writer whose capacity to construe is on
much the same level.
5-57. The writer seems to be trying to write a sonnet on some
lofty theme about which, no doubt, he thinks deeply. But
certainly the result of his effort is not very pleasing. It seems
as if he is incapable of expressing clearly his thoughts. On
first reading, the various sentences seem detached and it is
(at first) rather difficult to see wherein lies the connection between
the various phrases ; but after a further reading the meaning of
the first eight lines can be extracted. I consider that a sentence
of seven lines, relieved only by commas, is rather unwieldy and
clumsy for a sonnet, and the general impression of the first eight
lines is that of clumsiness and disunity. The sextet is consider-
ably worse. Even if one supplies a mark of interrogation after the
phrase " and for what good reason " one still has to explain the
significance of the phrase. It seems to have no connection with
the rest of the sonnet.
Taking " his very urn " to be a misprint for " this very urn ",
/ still fail to see the use of the urn.
I have illustrated at some length these failures to
construe because of their overwhelming practical
importance. When such a very humble yet indis-
pensable part of a reader's equipment is defective we
need hardly be surprised if more difficult critical
endeavours meet with ill-success. Practical remedial
measures are not impossible if the need for them is
once frankly recognised. And to make this need
evident I have risked some monotony. However
much it may be thought that there was ultimately
nothing in this sonnet to construe, no meaning to
arrive at and I have admitted the strain put upon
us by the contrast of its air and its actuality none
the less a reader ought to be able to tackle it. He
ought to be given better defensive technique against
the multifold bamboozlements of the world. He
need not be as helpless as these extracts show him
to be. I have not, however, nearly exhausted the
material that lies before me. But we may pass on to
other questions.
POEM V 77
The sincerity of the poem always a troublesome
matter, see Part III, Chapter VII occasioned varied
pronouncements. Some attempted to judge by the
rhythm.
5-6. Marked by sincerity. The restrained yet passionate utter-
ance of a lover. Style full of vigour : simple yet forcible language,
the very opposite of false " poetic diction ". The irregularity of
the metre emphasises the sincerity and passion, giving the
impression of emotion trying to break through the control which
verse imposes : it lays a heavier stress on some words, as in
line i , and in this way gives more force and reality to the whole.
But the rhythm of most verse is so closely depend-
ent upon the rest of the response that this excellent
test may mislead. Another reader who reached the
same result (and illustrates again the sonnet-form
dogma above noticed) incidentally propounds a
puzzling and interesting question.
5-61. This sonnet is a very fine one. The break between the
octet and sestet is very pronounced. The rhythm of the octet
is faster than that of the sestet and denotes the impetuosity of the
speaker and his great admiration for the subject of the poem.
The hyperboles lavished on the subject are however very
conventional and the worth of the sonnet and its genuineness ,
depends largely on the time it was written. It does not seem false
however by the rhythm.
The mere date of a poem cannot by itself settle its
genuineness, in the sense of its sincerity. All it can
do is to offer presumptive evidence for or against. A
poet may very well write an entirely sincere poem in
the manner of a different age, but on the whole the
probability is strongly against this. It is only a
probability, however, though it is enough to make
knowledge of a poem's date a useful aid to judgment.
The final decision can only be made through a closer,
fuller, contact with the poem itself. And only in this
fullest contact can the rhythm test be applied. The
last two writers, it will be noticed, disregard the
thought, paying attention rather to the passion-
78 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
broken and impetuous utterance of the poet. But
these characters are far more easily mimicked than
the deeper movements of thought and feeling. Com-
pared with coherence, incoherence is a ' stunt '. To
gain order and control is the poet's difficulty ; not
to express agitation ; and what they praise may not
be a merit.
5-7. The whole thing seems somehow laboured. There seems
to be a conscious striving after effect, after the striking word and
phrase. " Unimpeachable body " is a bit too far-fetched. There
is something would-be passionate about the whole thing ; it does
not ring quite true.
5*71. I do not think this successful, because the writer is not
himself convinced in what he is expressing : he is playing with
an idea, rather than expressing a conviction.
It is the off-hand manner of the poem which leads me to make
this criticism : the absence of awe and reverence which should
co-exist with religious feeling. It is especially noticeable in the
first two lines of the last six, and in the word " unimpeachable "
which when used in this way suggests a sneer.
These suspicions that all was not as it should be,
that a flashy fa9ade rather than a solid building was
being erected before them, that a bright thought was
being aired rather for its supposed originality and
daring than for what it was, troubled several more
readers. Only two , however, coupled these suspicions
with detailed observation of the matter and manner
of the poem and it is these observations which we
seek in criticism.
5 '8. It seems to me that these four poems have been chosen
because they all play for easily touched off and full-volumed
responses, and so are in danger of sentimentality and kindred
vices. This one offers cheap reassurance in what is to most men a
matter of deep and intimate concern. It opens with Browning's
brisk no-nonsense-about-me directness and goes on with a
cocksure movement and hearty alliteration. It contains (along with
the appropriate " dust to dust ") echoes of all the best people.
It is full of vacuous resonances (" its essential self in its own
season ") and the unctuously poetic .
POEM V 79
5-81. This is a studied orgasm from a * Shakespeare-R. Brooke '
complex, as piece 7 from a * Marvell-Wordsworth-Drinkwater,
etc., stark -simplicity ' complex. Hollow at first reading, resound-
ingly hollow at second. A sort of thermos vacuum, ' the very
thing ' for a dignified picnic in this sort of Two-Seater sonnet.
The ' Heroic ' Hectoring of line i, the hearty quasi stoical button-
holing of the unimpeachably-equipped beloved, the magisterial
finger-wagging of * I tell you this * ! ! Via such conduits magna-
nimity may soon be laid on as an indispensable, if not obligatory,
modern convenience.
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleafing ?
Ah ! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Tho' world of wanwood leafmeal lie ;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name.
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no, nor mind expressed,
What heart heard of, ghost guess 'd :
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
POEM VI
BOTH response and opinion here divide with a pleas-
ing neatness. Furthermore, all stages of the cleavage
are well shown. If some of the other protocol sets
have something of the wildness and unexpectedness,
the untidiness and bizarrity, of industrialised hill-
country, or the variety of a rich but ill-tended garden,
this set, on the other hand, has the soothing simplicity
of a demonstration in elementary geology.
The incipient crack to pursue the metaphor a
little way and the forces that provoke it appear
in 6-1. This writer might, later on, be found on
either side of the gulf. He is sufficiently susceptible
and sufficiently impatient to have landed himself
anywhere.
6-i. Has a decided fascination for me, but it is an irritating
rather than a satisfactory fascination. I can't be quite sure I
have grasped the meaning. One reading I really feel I do
understand it, but at the next reading I am not sure that I am
not completely on the wrong tack after all. Part of the fascination
is the balanced alliterative rhythm and rhyme scheme, but at
the same time that is part of the irritation because I find myself
attending exclusively to the sound and general feel of the word-
pattern regardless of the sense. Finally / cannot make up my
mind whether or not I understand it or whether or not I like it.
Rather more pertinacity, and perhaps more in-
telligence, carry 6-12 over to the positive side. He
shows a prudent awareness of some of the dangers
of this poetic theme and a due sense of what their
avoidance implies.
6-12. I have not had time to " attack " this poem as much as
I should like to. It conveyed little to me on the first reading,
F 81
82 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
but now I like it, and think the sentiment as good and genuine
as that of No. 8 is spurious and false. I think it is a beautiful
expression of a mood often expressed in poetry that of the poet
watching a child, and thinking of its future, and I think that, as
the mood is one that particularly lends itself to false sentiment,
it is a triumph for a poet to give us a new and impressive
rendering of it.
Since so many readers did not succeed in applying
their intelligence, a paraphrase kindly supplied by
one writer may be inserted here. It will help more-
over to bring out an interesting double-reading that
the seventh line of the poem lends itself to.
6-13. It is difficult to understand this poem at first. After
thinking about it a good deal I have come to the conclusion
that this is the meaning of it an elderly man, experienced in
such matters, has found a girl grieving at the falling of leaves
in autumn.
He shows that she will not longer have the same quick sensitive-
ness when she is old she will no longer be able to grieve for
such things (Cf. lines 2-4). Then she will weep, but this time,
not for such things as the falling leaves in autumn, but because
she can no longer have such feelings the feelings of youth.
(Cf. ' And yet you will weep and know why '). Even now in
weeping at the transience of the things she enjoys in autumn, she
is really weeping for the transience of all things. She is mourning
among other things, for the fleetingness of her own youth.
The other and the preferable reading of the line is
indicated in 6-2 where an admirable power of detailed
analysis is displayed.
6-2. This poem shows great skill and I think it is by far the
most difficult of the four. The more I read it the more I find
in it ; I did not really grasp its whole meaning till I had made
about three attacks on it and even now I am not sure I thoroughly
understand it. / do not think this is because it is obscure, but
because it requires a special reading ; the accenting of the seventh
line is particularly important the accent falls on * will weep '
and ' know why '.
The way the poem is written I admire greatly. I like the
simple opening and closing couplet, the one answering the other.
The first six lines begin at a low pitch and then rise at * Ah 1 as
the heart grows older ', only to fall again in the sixth line. I like
the even accentuation of the sixth line. Then there is great
POEM VI 83
control of vowel music, the more open vowels where the voice
rises in the third and fourth lines ; the vowel ' i ' introduced in
* sights ' is made much of in the next line, and a triple rhyme made
on it. There is a breathing sigh in ' By and by, nor spare a sigh '.
I like the whole idea of the poem, and I think the last couplet
is excellent, giving the poem universal application and making
this specially refer to Margaret.
That the author of the poem was aware of the
possible alternative readings of the seventh line is
shown by an accent-mark he originally placed on
' will '.
And yet you will weep and know why.
This mark I omitted, partly to see what would
happen, partly to avoid a likely temptation to irre-
levant discussions. Without it, * will ' may be read
as giving the future tense, as 6-13 in fact reads it.
Then the accents may fall on * weep ' and on ' and ' ;
the sense being that in the future she will know the
reason for a sorrow that is now only a blind grief.
When ' will ' is accentuated it ceases to be an
auxiliary verb and becomes the present tense of the
verb ' to will '. She persists in weeping and in
demanding the reason for the falling of the leaves,
and perhaps also for her grief. The rhythmical
difference made by the change of sense is immense.
Both the sense and the movement rejected by the poet
are very good, however, and doubtless some readers
will privately retain them. But because the authentic
version is perhaps better still the hint given by the
accent-mark ought to be retained. The swing over
from one reading to another (without perhaps sufficient
appreciation of the first) is remarked upon in 6-21.
6'2i. I like this best of all. What looks like preciosity
" Golden grove unleafing " and " world of wanwood leafmeal
lie " is really a means of compression. I was puzzled at first
reading because I took " will " in " and yet you will weep and
know why " to be future. Wistfulness without sentimentality :
the pang of transience well conveyed.
84 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
How much the poem conveyed to those who
admitted it will appear from the next two protocols.
It will be noticed that few of our chosen poems evoke
praise of such quality even when most admired.
6-22. Excellent, the emotions of sorrow and forlornness lose
nothing in communication ; I have never experienced them more
poignantly, and could not imagine myself doing so, than in
reading the poem. Rhyme words are the (intellectually and
emotionally) important ones both separately and in their pairs.
Tl^T fi [ very strong associations.
nor mind expressed }
ghost guessed J
Rhythm and " sense " (scientific) inseparable. Contrast lilt of
" By and by nor spare a sigh "
with
" Tho' world of wan wood leafmeal lie."
The last two lines stick in the throat like real sorrow.
The praise here of the rhymes is worth noting, for
our rhymesters, as indeed always happens whenever
the least opportunity occurs, were not slow to pounce
upon the opening and the close, though I am not,
this time, illustrating these antics.
6-23. Unless really soaked in, would pass unnoticed. Sounds all
way through. " Margaret " strikes note, colour and sadness.
" Golden grove unleafing " full, soft. " Tho J world of wanwood
leafmeal lie " gloriously melancholy (worthy of Keats' " La
Belle Dame sans Merci"). Last two lines especially rhyme.
Metre : 7, 9, n, jar unless read most sympathetically : they can
be made to sound in perfect keeping with rest. Sound, sense,
rhythm and rhyme really wonderfully interwoven. Freedom of
words (wanwood leafmeal, unleafing) and the newness of the
whole : with its strange simplicity, lend distinction, intimacy,
spontaneity. Not the least particularising detail, therefore its
appeal is universal : yet subtle strokes like " Golden grove ",
" Margaret ", remove any suggestion of the " airy nothing ".
Perfect melancholy, perfect artistry. It has conveyed to me a
sentiment as completely as very few poems have ever done
before.
POEM VI 85
This reader is mistaken in his opening remark.
Many who by no means ' soaked in ' the poem, yet
had plenty to say about it.
Another paraphrase at this point may make the
poem seem more confusing and so assist us.
6-3. It took me a long time to find out what was being said,
and even now I am not sure that my solution is correct. The poem
reminds me of Browning's remark of one of his poems " When
I wrote this God and I only knew what it meant, now, God
only knows/'
Margaret is grieving over the falling leaves, and she is told
that there are other sights colder than this, meaning death, which
when she gets older she will not even sigh for ; yet she will weep
when she realises that all of us like leaves must die. Her mouth
and her mind had neither expressed this idea of death which
she felt at heart in a vague way. Man was born to die, and she
is mourning for herself. The poem might have been expressed
far more intelligibly without loss of any charm or impression.
A great contrast to No. 5 where death is made light of here it is
regarded dismally.
6-31. I read this ten times without finding any meaning in it
and very little attraction. Either I am, or the writer is, more
than usually idiotic, but I really am quite unable to digest this
doughy, heavy, obscure, indigestible and unsustaining piece of
whatever it is meant to be.
We may remind ourselves here that these are the
opinions of serious and professed students of English.
6-32. The thought is worthless, and hopelessly muddled.
A nonsensical conglomeration of words. Expressed in jerky,
disconnected phrases, without rhythm.
Blank bewilderment and helpless inability to com-
prehend either the sense or the form of the poem
naturally gave rise to irritation.
6*33. This is difficult to read and difficult to understand, and
not worth the effort to understand it. I find it impossible to
recreate the poet's experience : the poem merely annoys me
when I try.
86 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
There doesn't seem to be the least vestige of a metrical scheme.
It is most difficult to scan or to read. Such lines as
" Nor mouth had, no, nor mind expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed "
are enough to put anybody off from reading it a second time.
I certainly shouldn't have done except for this test.
Excuses were suggested :
6'34. If this is an extract we ought to have more of it to judge
from. If not, there is probably some biographical information
needed. I frankly don't understand it.
And many explanations offered :
6'35. This, to me, is a jumble of ideas, most badly expressed.
The poet is apparently sermonising in words, in order that the
reader shall exercise his ingenuity. The whole thing is cramped
in thought and expression. It is not surprising that a poet of
this kind considers himself born for a " blight ". It is very
annoying being told that * the name ' in the 8th line does not
matter. It would be so delightful to know. It might be a part
of a dialogue, in which one lunatic addresses another. I presume
this is typically modern-born in the little philosophy which I
can gather. And in the style, the only aim of which seems to
be to baffle the reader.
6-36. What does all this mean ? Margaret has apparently been
jilted and is, very sensibly, finding solace in the autumn tints of
golden-grove. Whereat the poet tells her, by way of comfort,
that as she gets older she will get accustomed to sorrow, ' nor
spare a sigh '. " This has only been a dream. But naturally
you're feeling it a bit. Never mind, my dear. You'll get over
it. We all do".
But I should like to know precisely what is the * blight man
was born for '.
Tenderness for Margaret prompted further com-
plaints :
637. This is the worst poem I have ever read. It is vague
and incoherent, and does not appeal to any of my senses, except
my sense of humor. The parent or whoever it is who is advising
Margaret is a bitter, hard individual who seems to be trying to
take away all the hope and happiness of the child. I don't
think that any really kind person would feel so little sympathy
POEM VI 87
for a child's trivial sorrow, and make her unhappy by telling
her that the worse is yet to come. As for the line
" Tho' world of wan wood leafmeal lie "
I have looked up both " wan wood " and " leafmeal " in four
dictionaries, and I cannot find their meanings. I see no excuse
for making a poem so vague.
The ' family-constellation ' may have its part in
this as another personal situation may have in 6-36.
Another intrusion of something not easily to be found
in the poem is made in 6-38 and seems also to voice
some personal reverberation.
6-38. An average reader will probably not get anything out of
this poem it is much too complicated and symbolical. The
melancholy reproachful voice from a wasted life. It is true with
exception of the last line but one but not sound.
The note of conscious superiority rings out clearly
in many of the protocols as the indignation swells :
6-4. This seems to me to be a remarkably bad attempt to put
into poetry a thought that possibly the author imagined was original.
Namely, that Margaret, though she thinks she is grieving for
Goldenbrook, is really mourning for herself. The poem appears
to me to be disconnected and rather pointless ; the few sane
remarks in it are trite. An extra line seems to have dropped
into the middle of the poem as it were by mistake ; thus making
three rhyming lines instead of two as in the rest of the poem.
Why the line
" And yet you will weep and know why "
is there at all I don't know.
Trite thought, somewhat incoherently and badly expressed.
The unfortunate readers bray, snort, and bleat, so
overmastering is their contempt.
6-41. This is extraordinarily bad poetry, embodying the trite
philosophy that the world is * a vale of tears '. Winter, as so
often, reminds the speaker of the desolation and sorrows of life.
In putting his doggerel together, the poet mixes his verbs and his
metaphors hopelessly. The grave air of the thing adds to the
laughableness of it.
6-42. Pish-posh !
PRACTICAL CRITICISM
6-43. Sentamental. It is very remeniscent of Hardy in
language and form, but Hardy was not in the least sentamental,
he plunged in the depths for truth and felt it to be sad. I find
this poem quite unintelligable and useless.
* Sentamentality ' was certainly invited by the
poem, and the invitation was not refused. As so
often happens the reader's own revulsion at his own
devious excesses is counted against the poet.
6-5. The Poet has used his technical perfection to express a
common human failing to which he is subject, in veiled language ;
he is ashamed of it and only wishes to be understood by fellow
sufferers (or cowards). That is that form of egotism which
allows a person to identify himself with the changes of the
seasons and to live autumn as well as see it to read Sir Thomas
Browne, Ibsen and the pro founder Russian pessimists and
imagine that he is depressed. Usually he realises that it is a form
of self-satisfaction before he commits suicide for haply he may
hit upon Aldous Huxley :
" If, O my Lesbia, I should commit
Not fornication, dear, but suicide,"
K.T.L.
The ' Obscurity Ah ! Browning ' association
must be very widely and firmly established. It is
not surprising that here it is accompanied by in-
ability to apprehend form.
6-6. The communication of this is bad. Thoughts are packed
together, half-evolved, and the sentences are consequently ruth-
lessly clipped. It is a sort of combination of A. S. M. Hutchinson
and Browning. It is very difficult to untangle the real points.
I don't think it would lose as much as it would gain by a prose
paraphrase.
I like the ideas implied, except that of the last couplet, which
denies the existence of disinterestedness. The other ideas are
worth expressing better than they are here.
6-61. This is either an imitation of Browning, or Browning in
one of his worst moments. The thought expressed is a fairly
simple one, and there does not appear to be any reason why it
should be expressed in so complicated a manner. We guess the
general meaning of the sixth line. The other lines are in-
harmonious, and rather flat. The poet adopts rather a patronising
attitude towards Margaret, in order to explain a quite elementary
POEM VI 89
truth, i.e. that when we weep for the past we are only weeping
for the death of ourselves. He is earnest and evidently likes his
idea. He even shows some emotion in the expression of it.
How near a reader may come to an understanding
of both aspects of a poem, only to be deprived of it
by a false expectation of what a poet should do with a
given subject appears in 67.
6-7. This is clearly an experiment in sound and in striving
after effect the sense suffers considerably. The style is jerky,
like convulsive sobbing, throughout : and suffers from lack of
clarity. In fact the later part of the piece is so cramped that it
takes quite a long time to make out the sense, though the meaning
is there right enough. The ingenious arrangement of Is and
ws, ms and ss seems rather a misdirection of energy, though
the result goes far to justify the attempt. This is no mournful
and majestic dirge ; but a very passable whimper.
Finally, a long and very subtle analysis of the
rhythm (giving perhaps a third reading to line seven,
for 6-21 may have stressed ' and ') will round the
discussion off, as in such a case justice requires.
6-8. Love at first sight. Perfect in its sonnet-like di-partite
valvular structure ; in its ' whole ' and * local ' rhythms ; in its
emotion content (the poignancy with which it brings home,
from its objective Pathetic Fallacy, the subjective ' Tragedy ') ;
and in the intellectual articulation that contrasts with its formal
economy. A fusion, in the culmination of the last 2 lines, of
tragic disclosure with a Katharsis that unites the individual to
the universal fate.
Thy symmetry on either side the crucial, rhythmically broken,
central line is admirably managed. Less obvious, qua symmetry,
is the lilt, and subtly contrasted change in it, as between the
groups of six lines on either side the lilt-breaker (1. 7). This, it
seems to me, should be read in two portions :
And yet you will weep (gap) and know why
the emphatic words * know why ' receiving strong but long-
drawn stresses, that on krtow being slightly stronger on an uptake
and upward inbreathe of pitch, * why ' being on an, equally
slight, down outbreath of pitch. Nowhere, I think, should the
speed-tempo be as slow as here. If read like this the element of
slightly more argumentative disturbance differentiating the last
half from the first is more likely to be demasked and the
go PRACTICAL CRITICISM
rhythmical rendering invested with a certain distractedness, which
expressing itself in lines n and 12 (n especially) disturbs the
continuity of the rhythmic sighing which characterises all but
the central line, and never so exquisitely as in 4th, 5th and 6th
lines of the piece.
Particularly admirable is the relation of the first and last
couplets and their manner of functionally framing the inter-
mediate argument that draws the veil of illusion from ineluctable
disillusion. They frame the remorselessly remorseful dis-
closure between two solicitudes a solicitude presaging dis-
closure that must dispel the enchanting premise of naivety, and a
solicitude that must make what amend it can for this exquisite
vandalism , by consolatory merging of the individual in the
common fate.
(Of course I don't mistake this for overt dialogue. It is no
more and no less than meditated dialogue, an imaginary con-
versation between young mind and old, between old and youthful
Between the erect and solemn trees
I will go down upon my knees ; ^
I shall not find this day
So meet a place to pray.
Haply the beauty of this place
May work in me an answering grace, '
The stillness of the air
Be echoed in my prayer.
The worshipping trees arise and run,
With never a swerve, towards the sun,;
So may my soul's desire
Turn to its central fire.
With single aim they seek the light,
And scarce a twig in all their height
Breaks out until the head
In glory is outspread.
How strong each pillared trunk ; the bark
That covers them, how smooth ; and hark,
The sweet and gentle voice
With which the leaves rejoice !
May a like strength and sweetness fill
Desire and thought and steadfast will,
^ When I remember these
Fair sacramental trees !
POEM VII
HERE, as with Poem V, before more essential ques-
tions can be considered, a complication must first be
untangled and set aside. It is not, this time, a mis-
understanding of the sense. Strange to say, hardly
a reader, here, either complained of obscurity or
even misread the sense, though one particular aberra-
tion, concerning the kind of trees described, in-
veigled some. The relief this lucidity afforded was
several times commented upon, and the collocation
of this set of four poems (V-VIII) may be thought to
have acted rather unfairly as a trap. But this mutual
influence between poems that are presented together
is as difficult to calculate as to avoid.
7 i. This is certainly better than V and VI for one is able to
understand what the author means, and coming after the first
two rather appealed to me. It certainly is clearer and more
easy to understand. The metre is regular and the whole poem
gives a general impression of quiet orderliness which is certainly
suited to the theme. The ' atmosphere ' of the poem is that of
a prayer but it seems to be rather a prosy sort of a prayer. After
reading it through a few more times I still do not know why
I must refrain from criticising it favourably, but although I
think it is much better than the two previous ones, I think there
seems to be something lacking.
But first the special complication must be dealt
with. Before the poem can have judgment passed
upon it, a particular set of double-action prejudices
must be got rid of. There is a doctrinal bee to be
driven out of our bonnets and it is well to realise
that our opinion of this poem need, and should, have
nothing to do with, or in any way derive from, or be
93
94 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
affected by, the buzzing of this bee. Whether we
have it either in the right-hand side, the traditional
side, of our critical bonnets, or in the left-hand, the
advanced side, we should not, on any excuse, allow
it to influence our decision.
Here it is as it buzzes on the right.
7-2. The whole poem pictures a man who with " desire and
thoughts, and steadfast will " seeks the light ; consciously and
quietly. It does not help people struggling with incredulity. It
does not give an answer to any how ? or why ? and that is the
weak point of it. The form fits the contents to perfection.
It was not the business of the poet here to help
such people, or to answer such questions, so this
charge may fairly be put aside. As to the final
remark, it can be agreed to by people who take very
different views upon the character and worth both
of form and contents.
Here is the same bee buzzing on the left.
7-21. I don't like to hear people boast about praying. Alfred
de Vigny held that to pray is cowardly, and while I don't go as
far as this, I do think that it is rude to cram religious ecstasies
down the throat of a sceptical age.
The violence which such prejudices can do to
poetry will be remarked. Writing a modest piece of
verse is hardly cramming religious ecstasies down
our throats. Some of the less distracting influences
of the doctrinal bee, as it buzzed in more median
positions, will be noticed in the sequel.
Relevant opinion on the poem turned largely upon
two points : its sincerity, whether the prime shaping
motive of the poem was what it professes to be ; and
its expression, whether its third verse, for example,
does or does not suggest a note of factitiousness that
throws doubt upon its authenticity. Both points are
subtle and difficult to decide. As to the first : in-
sincerity, in the crude and flagrant sense in which a
man is insincere when he writes with his tongue in
POEM VII 95
his cheek, when he consciously and deliberately tries
to produce effects in his readers which don't happen
for himself, is a charge which can hardly be brought
on the strength of a single poem. A whole volume
of verse may justify it sometimes, though conclusive
evidence is hard to obtain. Here we could only be
concerned with a much less damning though, from
a literary point of view, a more important kind of
insincerity. The flaw that insinuates itself when a
writer cannot himself distinguish his own genuine
promptings from those he would merely like to have,
or those which he hopes will make a good poem.
Such failures on his part to achieve complete imagina-
tive integrity may show themselves in exaggeration,
in strained expression, in false simplicity, or perhaps
in the manner of his indebtedness to other poetry.
We may confine our attention to this second point,
about expression, since it concerns the evidence, if
any, as to the fundamental integrity of the shaping
impulse of the poem. The deeper problems of
sincerity are discussed in Part III, Chapter VII.
The continuation of 7-21, clearly a biassed witness,
will introduce us to the chief complaint.
7-3. Certainly a very commendable desire, this about " re-
membering sacramental trees ", but hardly necessary when the
trees do such remarkable things.
Is this mysticism, humbug, or the mere raving of a fanatic ?
To give the writer his due, the verse is smooth and clever, and
the expression of the fifth admirable.
The same objection is stated in a more judicial
manner by 7-31 who is not alone, either, in his other
complaint.
7-31. I don't like the poem. The general effect of sweetness
and calmness is for me quite overbalanced by two internal
though outstanding blemishes. The first is the predominating
pathetic fallacies. The trees don't worship, arise, or run. I know
this sounds Johnsonian criticism but I feel it is too blatant and
insistent. The other is I object to people going down on their
96 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
knees among some trees. It would be a curious prayer that
would be offered under the circumstances. Personally I don't
think any words would be said ; and so why kneel ?
The problem of the ' pathetic fallacy ' we shall
meet with again (cf. 10-6 and 12-4). This writer
shows a clear awareness of the real difficulty about
it, the question whether the attribution of feelings
is used as an argument and overworked, a question
that clearly cannot be divorced from the end to which
the poem is directed.
Some of the other objections here have a more
capricious air. The intrusive, accidental, visual
image, for example, proved troublesome.
7-32. When I first read the third verse, a vivid picture came
into my mind of a forward breaking away with the ball, from a
loose scrum and " with never a swerve " making straight for the
line. I didn't try to think of the verse in a ridiculous light but
this idea occurred to me spontaneously. Do you think it could
be reckoned as a fault in the poem ?
The precise image let loose cannot of course be
counted against the poet ; the tendency towards the
exaggerated and ludicrous might.
7-33. I could not help thinking that the poet who could leave
the third verse as it stands lacks a sense of humour.
Yet some other readers found in this very ex-
pression one of the apices of the poem's perfection
a fact which will not now surprise us.
7*34. ' If this be not poetry what is ' ? The thoughts behind
this approach perfection ; the expression of the sentiment is as
exquisite as the sentiments themselves. " The erect and solemn
trees " " The worshipping trees arise and run with never a
swerve towards the sun ", or, again, " Fair sacramental trees " . . .
What a use of epithet and what a clear picture ! A sunlit avenue
always inspires me, as little else can, with a sense of the Almighty,
a feeling of smallness and insignificance. There is something
holy about a tree, a feeling of superiority, such as only some fine
cathedral or Westminster Abbey can give. I find my thoughts
expressed in this.
POEM VII 97
7-35. This is a successful poem ; the blend of religious
experience with nature is forceful and sincere. The imagery of
such a line as " The worshipping trees arise and run, with
never a swerve, towards the sun " is profound, impassioned and
effective.
7-36. I think this is a very fine poem indeed. I like the metre,
and I like the atmosphere of the whole thing. It gives at once
a grand picture of the forest, and the devotional feeling with
which the author was imbued by the sight which he depicts.
It is a fine communication of a fine feeling. The two first lines
of the third verse perfectly express the meaning by their sudden
change of rythm.
7-37. I think the dominant note of this poem is harmony of
thought and sound and expression and also of the atmosphere
and the aspirations. This is seen in the third verse where the
rhythm seems to leap forward to keep pace with the
" Arise and run, with never a swerve towards the sun."
It succeeds in giving an impression of dignity and restfulness ; and
sincerity It pictures not only the thoughts roused by the trees
but also the trees themselves.
The rhythm seems to match the march of the thought perfectly.
But what of the thought that is so perfectly
matched ? Another writer is not so willing to
accept ' arise and run ', though he does not show
that he has considered very closely what the poet
might be attempting to describe.
7-38. If the fourth verse is not literally true, the metaphor is
valueless. If it is true, the trees should not be in a lyric of faith,
but in a Botanic Garden.
A Menagerie, perhaps, would have been a still
more suitable suggestion.
Too few of the readers attempted to connect the
difficulty they felt over this line with other points
in the diction and manner of the poem. A single
fault, by itself, may always be merely clumsiness.
To decide whether it is more than this we should
have to consider with it such things as * so meet a
place ', ' Haply . . . may work in me ', * central fire '
98 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
and the words * fill ' and c sacramental ' in the last
verse. What may be just a blunder, taken by itself,
becomes evidence of a tendency when it finds echoes.
The direction of this tendency is sketched by several
readers who respond to it with more or less hostility.
7-4. This poem seems to me disappointing ; it would have
more appeal if it were differently expressed. Almost everywhere
there is a certain smugness which makes it rather repellent.
I think this lies in the choice of words * so meet a place to
pray * ; the second line of the poem too is displeasing, and
particularly the last verse with its moral hopes, and the last line
of all where the word * sacramental ' is rather offensive.
7*41 . He is in a majestic forest, he is upon his knees and
presumably hidden away between the erect and solemn trees.
But nevertheless he is much more prominent than the trees.
The desire expressed in the last verse is laudable. But it
is much too self-conscious and far-fetched to make me regard it
as good poetry.
7*42. Uplift.
Here is one who makes his reasons for the same
judgment superabundantly clear.
7-43. Highly suspicious at first and very cursory reading, after
momentary marvell-ine elation, due to the verse form, and
uncomfortably check 'd by a Je ne sais quoi of sententious egoism
combined with suspicion that a rather stark Grand Manner had
been both under-studied and over-studied.
2nd reading uncovered it as quite loathsome a sin against
the Holy Ghost.
Here we have the stoical sublime to order as from the appro-
priate department of a literary stores out-Harroding Harrods, as
they say or Waring its rue with a Gillow.
Yet in spite of its horrid * competence ', this mercenary piece
phrases the image of verse 3 (ist 2 lines) so ludicrously as
almost to reconcile me, in withering amusement, to its inherent
factitiousness.
Verse 4 also exhibits its facture, wears its craft on its sleeve,
in spite of itself is discerned to be nastily " forced ", after
concentration upon it has unveiled (as a general might a War
Memorial) the smug sententiousness of its parable.
POEM VII 99
In Verse 5, Parable is served up cold, as at Sunday Supper
the dose is almost domestically homiletic
[' strong trunk = father
' smooth bark = mother
and ' leaves ' the pinafored little ones
an exquisite realisation of the simple banale.]
The clinically-minded critic must recognise this sort of thing
for what it is an infallible symptom of the anesthetizing of
spontaneity and impulse by the gas that breeds above the staid and
unspontaneous uplift spirit of a Democracy whose Literature has
been commercialised.
Here we have the commercialisation of, say, Wordsworth's
Ode to Duty, etc. etc. of rock-bottom by rock-bun simplicities.
In this " poem "-er piece Wordsworth is stabbed to the heart
by a suburban Brutus, in, so to speak, the Senate House of
Literature.
* Assuredly ' the Contractor for this Peace-work did not find,
that day, so meet a subject to exploit. It was not, however, his
knees that he went down upon, but his SHANKS !
A contributory motive for such outbursts is
indicated by 7 -44.
7-44. This poet is so prim that we are moved to laugh at
him, even though we feel that he would be deeply hurt if he
heard us.
Favourable opinions were not wanting, indeed
they made up a majority. The root question, as so
often, is whether these responses reflect the poem
itself, or some private poem prompted by the material
set before the reader and by his own reminiscences.
7-5. An atmosphere of peace, and deep reverence, which
transports the reader into another world, more pure and white
than this. With what magic is the rhythm used to bring out
first the majesty and awe that is within the speaker's soul and
then the gradually deepening solace and peace which comes over
him, as it were radiated down by the green, gaunt figures of
the trees, rising motionless up into the sky, full of worship.
Finally after peace, strength and fervent desire enter the soul,
so that the poem typifies the progress of emotion, of which the
outcome is action in accordance with the natural response to
that emotion, whatever it is. Although here, the poem stops
short of action ; but we feel that it is there, if only in the heart.
PRACTICAL CRITICISM
Most of the admirers were more occupied by the
effect of the poem on their feelings than by the detail
of the poem itself.
7-51. I like this poem because it expresses my feelings at times
when I am out-of-doors alone. God seems much nearer, and
I feel inclined to pray. I like the thought that the trees are
worshipping God. In fact the poem shows us that we can find
a religion in nature.
That more than a little of the appeal of the poem
came from sources outside it is shown by the fre-
quency with which admiration wanders off to linger
upon other thoughts.
7-52. Not a forced simplicity but natural and spontaneous.
The forest trees are described very beautifully showing that the
poet has clearly felt the sense of stability and grandeur with
which they impress one. He has well conveyed their stillness
and sense of purpose which is contrasted with the feeling that one
is rather aimless and unsettled and must pay homage to something
which lasts longer than oneself.
Another admirer (7-56) expressly mentions the
' everlastingness ' of these trees, so that the praise
f 7'53> w h i s unlucky in his use of ' mutual ', needs
careful consideration.
7-53. Simplicity and unity seem to me the outstanding qualities
of this poem. There is only one central idea : the bond between
man and nature in mutual worship : the poet identifies his own
purpose, prayer, w r ith that of the trees ; and the natural qualities
of the trees, beauty of form and strength, with traits in his own
mind. Each verse is confined to this one idea, nothing is admitted
to suggest any other train of thought to the reader ; and this seems
to me a very considerable achievement.
The Cathedral image was, however, a dominant
motive.
7-54. The poet has succeeded in universalizing his desire to
worship. The * erect and solemn trees ' that rush upward to
the sun, suggest the long aisle of a great cathedral, its stillness and
sanctity, and the leaves rejoicing with " sweet and gentle voice "
fill it with gladness and delight in a way that trebles the evocative
power of its solemnity. A very lovely poem.
POEM VII 101
7*55- Unimportant, as the experience is capable of excitation at
will by normal people , and probably therefore not very deep-seated :
cf. the frequent reference to " forest-aisles " in little books on
Architecture.-
This writer seems to be putting his finger on one
of the most interesting problems of Stock Responses.
(See Part III, Chapter V.)
7-56. Simplicity of sheer description especially noticeable after
two preceding poems which are in the form of direct addresses.
Perfect communication, but meaning not exhausted at first
reading by any means. Describes a feeling which is inextricably
interwoven with the simplicity of the actual verse form. The
solemnity, grandeur, beauty everlastingness of the trees can only
be expressed in the simplest language. The value of the trees
to the writer does not consist in their offering a meet place to
pray, though the suggestion of the cathedral-like majesty of the
pillared trunks " bare ruined choirs " haunts the poem. The
central thought is in " fair sacramental trees ". The spiritual
value and significance of the different aspects of the trees is the
main theme, and for this reason the appeal of the poem is direct
to those who find the sacrament which means most to them in
Nature. The language cannot be criticised because it is one
with the poem in perfect expression
The revival of a set of feelings very ready to be
revived, and the strict conformity of the poem with
what many people have been taught to expect from
' nature-poetry ', undoubtedly explain much of its
popularity. That it can create enthusiasm without
being read is proved by the next extract.
7-57. This is the gem of the four pieces. It creates the solemn
peaceful reverent atmosphere of a pine wood for us. We recollect
how often similar thoughts, occasioned by the reverent calm of the
trees, have arisen in us, as we stand awed by their grandeur and
majesty. It is calm and beautifully euphonius in sound.
These ' how smooth ' pine-trees (with leaves) must
be set beside the vision of one who, just as arbitrarily,
disliked the poem. He had also a more intentional
shot to aim at it.
102 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
7-58. A sense of humour spoils the last line of the 3rd verse
it reminds one (especially to-day) of " chauffage centrale ".
I suppose the trees are Pines or Cypresses.
Finally, not to leave an important minority view
under-represented, we may end as we began.
7-6. There is something superficial and conventional in the
rhythm and thought. It is all rather obvious the reaction being
* Yes of course quite '. But . . .
S V I *~r I \^S / f I I /
Softl^/in the dusly, a womarj ^s^ging/to me/;
Takmgjme back down trie vista of ye^rs,"tlfi I see
A child sitting ' under the piano, in the boom of the tingling
strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as
she sings.
In spite of myself the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the
past.
POEM VIII
FEW readers will have difficulty in guessing where
the division of opinion fell here. In subject, in
metre, in treatment, in diction, in every isolatable
character, the poem almost pressingly invites con-
demnation on the score of gross sentimentality. And
the invitations were accepted. A few readers, how-
ever, on all sides of the central mob of opponents
came to a different decision. We shall begin our
survey at the heart of the melee and consider these
others later.
8-1. If this, on further inspection, should prove not to be
silly y maudlin, sentimental twaddle, I have missed the point.
Such it certainly seems to me, and I loathe it. // is a revelling
in emotion for its own sake, that is nothing short of nauseating.
Moreover, it's badly done. I object to " cosy ", and " tinkling "
used of a piano that elsewhere " booms " or is " appasionato " is
just absurd. If this be poetry, give me prose.
8-1 1. The general effect upon me of IV is mild. I consider
it sentimental verse rather than poetry but it doesn't strike me
as being of the really nauseating type. The emotion described
might well be sincere as far as it went but to be enthusiastic
over the poem I should have to be convinced that the poet's
miseries were worth weeping about or casting down his manhood,
and I certainly am not convinced. It seems to me to be full
of " appeals to the gallery ", e.g. " small poised feet " anyhow
they're certainly not worth weeping about, nor is a hymn in a
cosy parlour, and to a great number of people a tinkling piano is
execrating. On further consideration / think it fails to arrive at
the nauseating stage not because of any redeeming sincerity but
because it is just too feeble to be anything so definite as nauseating.
8-12. I think this poem imperfectly nauseating. The triviality
of the sentiment is equalled only by the utter puerility of the
versification as in the third line of the first verse. The poet's
105
106 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
attitude to music is disgusting , and is perfectly summed up in his
phrase about the " insidious mastery of song ". He regards it
not as an art, but as an emotional stimulus of a very low kind,
and the hymn tunes he recalls were probably those of Messrs
Sanky and Moody, and the more sentimental specimens from
the Ancient and Modern Hymn Book. Sir H. Hadow once
divided the main run of concert goers into two classes. Those
who regarded music as a kind of audible confectionery, and those
who left their intellects in the cloak room, and went in to have
their souls shampooed. This man is not content with a shampoo,
he is positively wallowing in a warm bath of soapy sentiment.
These will introduce us to some of the minor
issues.
First, as to the sounds emitted by pianos, a point'
of fact that proved as disastrous to many readers as
the description of the child's position.
8-13. Since I have formed my own opinion on the poem,
I have experimented on one or two friends and each has started
to grin when we have arrived at the phrase " a child sitting
under a piano, in the boom of the tinkling strings ". Allowing
that it may possibly have been a grand and not an upright piano
that the child was sitting under we have still to satisfy ourselves
that " tinkling " strings can boom. Another rather unfortunate
expression is that about the feet of the mother poised. It is
an uncommon word in poetry and naturally, as it doesn't fit in
properly, it leads us away from the central idea of the poem.
All these points, though small in themselves, do not allow us to
get a good view of the poem as a whole.
Always, in looking over these protocols, it is
illuminating to compare the type of comment with
the closeness of reading evinced. So particular
attention here may be invited to the fact that 8-13
has not noticed any difference between ' tingling '
and * tinkling ', he has not even observed which word
is used when. It would be superfluous to expect
him to have considered whether the closeness of the
child's ear to the strings might have anything to do
with the character of the sounds, or whether, when
the children stand up to sing, a ' tinkling ' would not
POEM VIII 107
then replace ' the boom of the tingling strings/ l
Such a thing too as a premeditated contrast between
' the great black piano ' of the present, obviously a
grand piano, and the slighter notes of the instrument
in the ' parlour ' would escape him. 8*1 is at the
same distance from the poem, the two pianos are one
piano, any piano, for him. We shall frequently
notice the influence of this summary, * newspaper '
type of reading in what follows.
The geometry of * under the piano ' is almost as
distressing as the problem of the sounds to these
readers, such sticklers for ' accuracy ' do they show
themselves to be.
8-14. So many imperfections that one is prevented from judging
the poem as a whole. After the first two lines, the vision of a
child sitting under the piano can move nothing but laughter. It
is odd, too, that tingling strings should boom.
8-15. I don't see how a child could sit under the piano. He
could sit under the key board but not under the piano.
Even when with great acumen he has answered
his question, he is not satisfied. Does he hesitate to
enter the ' Underground ' at West Kensington, or
has he never taken shelter ' under a tree ' ? There
would appear to be some use after all for technical
instruction in the modes of metaphor.
We have already met one music-lover rebuking
the poet for his misuse of that art. But 8.12 is not
the only protocolist with severe standards. An
admirer will demonstrate for us how such irrelev-
ances can distort our reading.
8-2. This is the best. Its excellence lies in its securing a
feeling of ecstacy from a sordid incident^ because it happened in
the past. Time throws a pleasantly mellow light upon even
unpleasant events, and it is this light which the poem expresses.
1 A quite simple experiment will settle these points. Singling'
of course, is the vibration. The vividity of the poet's memory is
remarkable.
io8 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
I may add that the use of " unpoetical " words conforms
admirably with the " unpoetical " character of the incident.
P.S. Please do not think, because I consider hymns sordid,
that I have an inhibition : / merely dislike bad music. I take it
that the poet didn't really enjoy the experience otherwise he
wouldn't have said " tinkle " and suchlike words. But he
enjoyed recollecting the experience.
It would appear that if the child did enjoy singing
hymns the poem must be condemned. Alas, there
is good reason in the poem to think that he did.
Another writer is more aware of this danger,
perhaps because his associations are stranger.
8-21. This poem unfortunately associates itself with jazz, and
" coal black mammies " thumping the old piano down in Dixie.
This association condemns it somewhat prematurely. After careful
study, however, it appears to be worthless. Its appeal is entirely
sentimental, and the subject is one of the most hackneyed.
Nearly every popular song deals with the same topic, and the
thing is not well done. " Piano " as a disyllabic has an unpleasant
sound. " The heart of me " is also obnoxious.
From proper attitudes to music (8-12) to correct
behaviour to performers is but a step.
8*22. The second verse, which should have been the most
poignant, is especially uninspiring. And / don't think the lady
singing at the piano would have been very pleased to hear her efforts
described as " bursting into clamour ".
This reader, too, is a long way from having noticed
what the poem is about.
With the remark about popular songs (8-21) we
approach the stock-responses difficulty which more
than anything else prevented this poem from being
read.
8-3. One cannot help disliking the evocative use of such phrases
as ' old .Sunday evenings ', ' cosy parlour ', * vista of years ', etc.,
which are nothing but so many calls to one's loose emotion to
attach itself to them.
A great number could not help themselves :
8-31. This poem suggests that some " Vain inglorious Milton "
had unhappily been moved by that mawkish sentiment with which
POEM VIII 109
we so often think of childhood, to commit to verse thoughts that
lie too shallow for words. These thoughts he expresses in
phrases culled from The News of the World or others his ethereal
links with literature.
That the poet might have a further use for such
phrases, beyond that which his readers made of
them, they failed to notice in their uneasy haste
to withdraw. A haste which other things in the
protocols (notably in connection with Poem IV)
make me think suspicious.
In natural alliance with this nervousness are sundry
prior demands, preconceptions as to what is proper
and improper in poetry, and some personal twists and
accidents.
8-32. Sentamental. The author has attached an emotion
about his mother to music which should arouse very different
emotions. Besides, who would be a wretched, dependent child
again when he can be a free person ? A particular tune might be
associated with a particular person, especially if it was a lover,
but that is different. I don't find this poem at all helpful nor
does it express any feelings I have ever had or want to have.
That ' family-constellation ' again !
8-33. A good example of feeling without artistry. The man
evidently means everything he says, but he doesn't know how to
say it, and he hasn't any idea that hymns in the cosy parlour are
somehow wrong in poetry. The picture of the time the poet is
grieving for is vivid and even awakes an answering sorrow, but
the expression is all wrong ; the continual running over of the
lines is irritating, and the middle verse is very like a " Pears'
Annual " sort of print.
At this point the metrical question here a really
useful test as to whether the reader has understood
what the poet is, at least, attempting to do comes
to the front. For, in fact, unless the reader does
contrive to master the movement of the poem he will
hardly discover what its purport is. A general pre-
conception that lines of verse should not run over
would be a serious obstacle in this endeavour.
PRACTICAL CRITICISM
Though the last writer need not be accused of this,
here is one who makes his views on metre quite clear.
8*4. A very vivid piece of prosy poetry if one may call such
a string of pictures poetry. I find some charm in the thoughts
but none in the verse or very little. Contrast the last line of each
verse with Swinburne's " Thou has conquered, oh pale Galilean ;
the world grows grey at they breath ". The same metre, but what
a difference of sentiment. I can't really like this.
That he should misquote his Swinburne altering
its slow and weary rhythm (read : * has grown grey
from ') is just what we should expect !
All the difficulties of the stock emotional response
(see Part III, Chapter VI) are paralleled in the stock
reading of metre. It is as easy to import a con-
ventional movement into the rhythm as to drag in
conventional feelings. And it is just as easy to be
revolted by our own importations in either case.
Indeed, those who intrude the one commonly add
the other.
8-41. After about 3 readings decide / don't like this. It
makes me angry ... I feel myself responding to it and don't
like responding. I think / feel hypnotised by the long boomy
lines. But the noise when I stop myself being hypnotised seems
disproportionate to what's being said. A lot of emotion is being
stirred up about nothing much. The writer seems to love feeling
sobby about his pure spotless childhood and to enjoy thinking of
himself as a world-worn wretch. There's too much about " insi-
diousness " and " appassionato " for me. The whole comparison
between childhood's Sunday evenings and passionate manhood
etc. is cheap by which I mean (i) It is easy ; (2) It is unfair
both to childhood and manhood. I expect I am too irritated for
this criticism to have value.
Re-read.
If not too lazy would throw the book into the corner.
Here * the long boomy lines ' join hands neatly
with the poet's * pure spotless childhood \ Both the
movement and the material are introduced by the
reader ; they are not given in the poem, and they
reflect only the reader's own private attempt at an
POEM VIII in
analogous poem constructed on the basis of a remote
and superficial awareness of this poem's apparent
subject-matter. ' Insidious ' and ' appassionato ', the
most evident hints that the poet is not doing, or
attempting to do, what the reader is expecting, are
dismissed without consideration. The poet ' as a
world-worn wretch ' and his ' passionate manhood '
of which there is no hint, rather the reverse, in
the poem, are occupying the reader's attention
instead.
These importations are so frequent and have so
much influence upon what professes to be critical
' judgment ' that they merit close attention. It would
seem that a dense medium of the reader's own poetic
product ' much embryo, much abortion '
surrounds him and intervenes very often to prevent
communication with the poet.
How intricate may be the co-operation between
what may be called * detective ' or ' imaginative 9
intelligence and susceptibility to the suggestions of
speech-rhythms (partially concealed, of course, in
print), is again shown in 8-42.
8*42. A very dangerous metre to use unless the poetic thought
is really fine as it is so easy to go thudding away when reading it
without bothering to see if there is anything beautiful contained
in it. Here I think it fails because although " Sunday evenings
at home " and " tinkling pianos " are all right in themselves
they don't go in that metre. They become hackneyed in the
extreme. I don't appreciate the pictorial value any more than
the thought, diction or metre. I don't like the " boom of tingling
strings ", it isn't right and I don't like " a great black piano
appassionato ". The poem starts off well and raises one's hopes
only to be dashed beneath the piano.
The writer feels the danger of misreading the verse
form, but through not coming close enough, imagina-
tively, to * the boom of the tingling strings ' and
though not working out the contrasts in the poem,
he is victimised by his imparted rhythm in the end.
Since the poem does not turn out to be what he
PRACTICAL CRITICISM
expected, he does not take the trouble to find out
what it is.
The same inability to apprehend the verse-form
frustrates 8-43. He describes with fair success some
of the peculiarities of the movement, but an applica-
tion of external canons (usually fatal) to * cast down ',
and failure to interpret the salient clue in the move-
ment of ' the insidious mastery ' prevent him from
profiting by his observation. Perhaps if someone
had read the poem to him, giving decent prominence
to the natural speech rhythm, he would have been
converted.
8-43. The subject matter is appealing ; the picture given in
the first verse is vivid and original. The metre, however, detracts
considerably from the poem, and so takes from the charm of the
thought that the reader scarcely gives the verses a second con-
sideration.
In the first verse it is line 3 that spoils the verse which is both
harmonious and charming if considered without this line. But
" sitting under the piano " upsets the whole balance of the metre,
and gives a feeling of banality to what is otherwise an appealing
and original verse. The metre of the second verse offends less,
but " the insidious mastery " makes it hard to read and throws the
rhythm out. In the third verse the pauses in the lines give an
impression of jerkiness. The curtailing of the number of beats in
the 2nd line is not compensated for, while the splitting-up of
" cast down " over two lines is inexcusable.
This harping on the word * charm ', however, is a
discouraging indication, and the final remark implies
preconceptions about metre which are not lightly
overcome.
It is significant with this poem, that the further
away any reading seems to be from the actual imagina-
tive realisation of its content the more confidently it
is dismissed. Another musical expert who has also
prepossessions in favour of metrical ' regularity ' will
strengthen the evidence on this point.
8-44. The sentimentality of this poem is perhaps the best
thing that can be said for it. For in all other respects its values
POEM VIII 113
are even more negative. The diction is so forced as to appear
nothing short of ludicrous, and the metre rivals a grasshopper in
elasticity.
* In spite of myself the insidious mastery of song ' would
seem to me to make a fair bid for one of the worst lines of poetry
ever written. The poet is trying to get effects the whole time.
This is so painfully obvious.' To say something out of the
common. Well, my dear sir, if * boom of the tingling strings '
is the best you can do, / would rather have the actual thing in
real life, much better expressed by any second-rate saxophonist.
It is a pity that he did not attempt to discover
what effects the poet was trying to get.
While the music in the poem is under examination
yet another queer interpretation deserves admission.
8-45. Obviously a poem of homesickness but the man who
wrote it went to the concert feeling homesick * the great black
piano appassionato ' as he calls it, probably didn't really awaken
the feelings of homesickness in his mind. It merely gave him
an excuse for, and a way of putting his feelings down. But
with all this the poem doesn't express a particularly good
state of mind. Written in the heat of emotion it is simply
sloshy sentiment. The style of the poem, too, seems rather
exaggerated.
A reader who can think the woman is singing
' softly, in the dusk ' on a concert platform has not
managed to approach very closely to the poem, and
his strictures are less binding for that reason.
It was inevitable that most of those who approved
the poem should comment upon the perils it escaped.
8-5. I have not been able to find a moment for this when I
have not been too tired to trust my judgment. It runs an
appalling risk of sentimentality and yet seems to have escaped all
offensiveness : a considerable achievement. It is poignant, but
not, I think, of very great value. The accent is familiar. D.H.L. ?
8-51. . . . One is made keenly aware of the strange relationship
of past and present experience one feels the emotion the poet
experienced through his identity with and separation from his
past self. He has succeeded in conveying the acute emotion he
experienced and he has succeeded in dealing with a situation
fraught with the danger of sentimentality, without sentimentalism .
The ideas of Motherhood the past Sunday evenings etc. all
H
u 4 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
lend themselves to insincere emotion. In the second verse, it
seems to me, the poet recognises and dispels that danger. He
recognises there the difference between his man's outlook and
his childish outlook and we share his experience of being " betrayed
back " by "the insidious mastery " I'm not sure if this
explains how sentimentality is missed. I am convinced it is
missed by the fact that the poem moves me more as I read it
more often. An insincere emotion betrays itself by slovenly
expression if one watches it closely I think.
The last remark is more a pious hope than a sound
opinion. Carelessness may accompany the sincerest
feelings. Perhaps the kind of carelessness will be
different, but any dogmatism would be hazardous.
Deft craftsmanship can easily elude this too con-
venient test.
8*52. The writer who introduces * old Sunday evenings at
home ' and * hymns in the cosy parlour ' must be very sure of
the sincerity of his feelings and his capability to express them
if he is to avoid cheap sentimentality. Here the writer has
avoided them and has succeeded in expressing the effect of
music which calls back memories. The power of music is even
sufficient though this is being very bold to carry off the weeping.
Then there is the usual setting of the sentimental, dusk and soft
singing, a little child ; one hesitates ; I think it is the * great
black piano ' that decides the day.
This writer seems less close in his reading than the
last, but he illustrates the struggle the poem nearly
always entailed, a struggle that did not always end in
defeat.
A very few escaped this conflict and it thus becomes
difficult to evaluate their acceptance.
8-6. Sentimental fearfully so but if sentiment must be
expressed then here it is in its right setting and well done really.
Honestly I wish more people would throw off their sophistica-
tion and cynicism and be honest with themselves like the fellow
in this poem !
It should be recognised that * sentimental ' has
several senses (see Part III, Chapter VI) and does
POEM VIII 115
not always impute low value. How near this reader
came to the actual poem must, however, always
remain undetermined. On the strength of ' honest
with themselves like the fellow in this poem ', which
seems to correspond to the analyses of 8-51, I incline
to accord him the full benefit of the doubt.
More particulars of the acceptance struggle are
given in 8-61.
8-61. Although I feel almost ashamed to say so this poem makes
the biggest appeal (up to the moment of writing) of all four
selections. The poem seems to be so eminently sentimental
(I see no real reason why I, a grown man, should allow myself
the luxury of tears) and yet the happiness of childhood does
return at times in this way under the influence of music. There
seems to be a weakness in the metre in line 3 stanza i. I can't
make it scan. And in stanza 2, c the tinkling piano our guide '
' guide * I don't think a good word. Too obviously used for the
sake of the rime.
This reader would have found a justification for
* guide ' if he had been able to recall, or imagine, the
hymn-singing described the children's uncertain
voices rather tentatively following the * tinkling '
notes of the piano. In line 3, stanza i, a pause after
' piano ' for the realisation of the quivering thunder
of the base notes would have met his difficulty with
scansion.
The accusations (cf. 8-31, 8-21, 8-33) of naivety or
of exploiting conventional responses, together with
the objections on the ground of inaccuracy, are well
countered in 8-7.
8-7. It is difficult to pass judgment on this poem. The
communication is excellent, and the experience one familiar to
most people. I suppose this emotional reversion to an ordinary
incident of one's childhood, and the indulgence in grief for it
simply because^it is past, is really sentimental. The striking
thing i>, that the poet [D. H. Lawrence ? or American ?] knows
quite well that it is so, and does not try to make capital out of the
sentiment. The simplicity and accuracy with which he records
his feelings and the justness of the expression , not pitching the
thing up at all somehow alters the focus ; what might have
n6 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
been merely sentimental becomes valuable the strength of the
underlying feeling becoming apparent through the sincerity and
truthfulness of the exprsesion.
Another useful note of analysis is added in 871.
8-71. Associations make it difficult to judge this poem im-
partially. The first verse is sentimental, but pleasing ; it is
curious that the poet too feels sentimentality coming upon him
1 In spite of myself and he gives way to it entirely. The last
two lines of the second verse particularly show sentimentality
a shallow and languishing feeling but yet they convey adequately
the qualities of the evenings they describe ; thus we can scarcely
accuse the poet of sentimentality
The poem is extremely simple, and whether it is itself weak or
no, it well describes a certain psychological state of mind. The
poet can convey pictures. The poem I think succeeds in doing
what it sets out to do.
Whether the poem is so simple may well be
doubted on the evidence now before us.
How much nearer these readers come to the poem
than those who most abused it may be measured by
the collocation of 872, where the writer is rather
describing some other poem floating in his private
limbo than attempting to discover what the poet is
doing.
8-72. This poem is false. One worships the past in the present,
for what it is, not for what it was. To ask for the renewal of the
past is to ask for its destruction. The poet is asking for the
destruction of what is most dear to him.
Finally 8-8 may add an observation not elsewhere
made upon the peculiar quality of the emotion
present.
8-8. I can't decide about this poem it portrays something,
which post- Victorians have little sympathy with, and yet there
is a sense of infinite longing, and the man's weeping is the
unrestrained soul satisfying crying which we only experience in
dreams.
The rhythm emphasises the reflective strain the words are
sophisticated the result is puzzling.
POEM VIII 117
This brings us to the end of the first two groups
of poems. The writers who supply the comments
on the following five poems belonged to an audience
of the same type gathered two years later. Only a
few of the original members remained. The change
greatly increases the representative character of these
extracts.
A Health, a ringing health, unto the king
Of all our hearts to-day ! But what proud song
Should follow on the thought, nor do him wrong ?
Unless the sea were harp, each mirthful string
Woven of the lightning of the nights of Spring,
And Dawn the lonely listener, glad and grave
With colours of the sea-shell and the wave
In brightening eye and cheek, there is none to sing !
Drink to him, as men upon an Alpine peak
Brim one immortal cup of crimson wine,
And into it drop one pure cold crust of snow,
Then hold it up, too rapturously to speak
And drink to the mountains, line on glittering line,
Surging away into the sunset-glow.
POEM IX
I AM privileged to print the following Note from the
author of Poem IX, written after he had seen some
of the protocols.
" The original version was written for a special occasion, which
left the writer little time for revision. The final edition of the
poem reads as follows :
FOR THE EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY OF GEORGE
MEREDITH
A HEALTH, a ringing health, to the uncrowned king
Of all our hearts to-day ! But what brave song
Should follow on the thought, nor do him wrong ?
Unless, with bird-like body and dusky wing
Sandra return to his deep woods in Spring,
And nightingale and sky-lark, all night long,
Pour their new- wedded notes in a golden throng
Through her dark throat till dawn, there is none to sing !
Pledge him, as men upon an Alpine peak
Brim one immortal cup of crimson wine,
And into it drop one pure cold crust of snow,
Then hold it up, too rapturously to speak
And drink to the mountains, line on glittering line,
Surging away into the sunset-glow.
At the same time the readers of the first version showed an
incapacity to take in the fact that it was not the king, but the
king of the hearers' hearts on that occasion, of which the first
sentence spoke. The absence of the title of the poem deprived
readers of a clue ; but by no means of every clue if they had
exercised a little thought. The suggestion that the * mirthful
strings ' of the harp in question were to be woven of spring
lightning was, of course, an allusion to the peculiar, flickering,
and dazzling character of Meredith's wit, and had no relation
whatever to the cheap ideas of the readers themselves. Un-
fortunately, in reading poetry too many persons * impute their
own personalities ' to what they read, and often attack their
own musical-comedy faults in those whom they fail to under-
stand. This is a problem for psycho-analysis, not criticism. I
hope it is unnecessary to say that * Sandra ', in the new version
does not mean a wife of Botticelli/*
119
120 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
Two minor chases, each, unluckily, after a Wild
Goose, complicate this set of protocols. The first
introduces us to the Royalist Imbroglio.
9- 1. Prejudice against first line. Nobody worships the King,
and patriotic verse tends to be insincere.
The only other objection this writer raised was to
the awkwardness of ' unto '. The rest was praise.
9- 1 1. This poem seems to be written in the grand manner.
To me it seems theatrical, full of sound but little else. One has
ceased to think of Kings in that particular way, and in consequence
the poem is without vitality.
9-1 1 1. The poem suggests an attempt of one of the late Cavalier
poets led to think this by association of ' the King ' with a
' ringing health ' drunk by his defeated, though not dejected, sup-
porters. Impossible to fully criticise this since no modern reader
in his room can have same feeling as the writer writer probably
half tipsy, vastly elated by the fact that he was a care-free
roisterer and not a Puritan.
The assumptions behind these views upon the
obsolescence of poems deserve and must receive a
thorough scrutiny later.
An extraordinary number of readers were betrayed
by this first line, and made no attempt to read more
closely.
9-12. The similes are unsuitable. Why, when one drinks to
the King, presumably in a crowded room, should one think of
Alpine peaks and crusts of cold snow ? For these reasons I
think the poem bad.
Speculation, however, awoke in some, and the
Wild Goose flies high.
9-13. After reading the sonnet I do not know who ' the King '
is. Does the poet mean God, or an earthly Monarch ?
9-131. This rapturous ecstacy in the presence of natural
objects is one of the most obvious forms of self complacency.
Perhaps the writer has another King for his ' mind ' ; but that
he should be content to find him in situations which have a smack
of the romantic musical comedy harps and glittering mountains
perhaps more suggestive of the Gothic revival shows a man
POEM IX 121
who maybe through unconscious protest, probably through
mere natural blindness ignores all that is interesting and vital in
life in his worship of God. The expression has all the vigour of
the Psalms and is an adequate translation of the cold, hard,
primary-coloured emotion.
The more popular Stock Response, as such things
will, had diverse effects.
9-14. As a staunch royalist and one who loves to sing with all
his might and main that grand old song " Here's a Health unto
His Majesty " I had thought after reading the first line to enjoy
this little poem. But what a disappointment ! One could, I
suppose, imagine some sense into the imagery of lines 4-8
inclusive, but the result would be a vain thing, at any rate so far
as the main idea of the poem is concerned.
After the Royalist the Republican :
9-15. An altogether unpleasant effect on me : I could not
persuade myself I was not reading a poem in the * Observer '.
" King " associates itself in my mind with Tyranny, an impossible
subject for poetry.
Alas, poor Shelley !
One confusion not unnaturally breeds another.
9-16. It starts with a health to the King, which is drunk later
on an Alpine peak.
Many who did not go so far as this expressed a
concern which may be regarded as more properly a
criticism of the poem :
9-17. Does the subject, the 'King' justify the rather high-
flown language ? I want to know more about this personage
before I accept the poem.
Hitherto our commentators have been rather
querulous. Here, unless my leg was being pulled,
is the real Hero-worshipper.
9-18. Main effect is a feeling of the size, strength and grandeur
of the king. A king comparable with a line of mountains, com-
parable with what that line of mountains represents to moun-
taineers, a king fit to be addressed by the never ending song
of the sea, sung to by a * glad and grave ' dawn with the colours
PRACTICAL CRITICISM
of the sea-shell in her cheek. This king to be pledged in a cup,
more precious than gold almost ranks with the gods. Yet he is
essentially cold and reserved, more remarked for his capability than
for his humanity , more respected than loved, more like a gaunt
and "glittering" mountain than a grass covered hill basking in
the sunshine. I like this poem and the effect of such lines as
" Brim one immortal cup of crimson wine
And into it drop one pure cold crust of snow "
is too marvellous to be described.
A fine example, towards the end, of c reading into
the poem '. Those who form an adverse view of the
merits of the poem will perhaps recognise in the
praise a faithful summing up of the very points they
would themselves charge against it as defects.
It is noteworthy that so many readers (I have by
no means emptied the basket) should have been
misled by so simple a trope as ' the king of all our
hearts ', and hardly less remarkable that they should
have considered the identity of the actual person
celebrated in the sonnet so germane to the question
of its merit. This, however, is a matter to be dis-
cussed later. (See Appendix A, p. 355.)
After the Royalist Imbroglio the Drink Problem !
9-2. This poem could well have been written by a drunk
devotee of Mr Rudyard Kipling. It is incorrect to say men
drink wine on Alpine peaks, even though it be in immortal
cups. No one will be sufficiently foolish to mix snow with
their wine.
I regret that, as a Member of the Alpine Club, I
have to declare that this critic is too positive in his
assertions. The proper inference, if one must go
into such matters, would seem to be either that this
peak has an uncommonly easy and quick descent, or
that the climbers, in view of the date, were the Signori
Gugliermina.
9-21. The picture of the mountaineers rapturously holding up
frozen wine seems silly to me, and I react with annoyance.
Why should they drop snow into their wine? They would be
quite cold enough already, upon an Alpine peak.
POEM IX 123
9'2i. To what are these bibulous gentlemen drinking ? Firstly
to a king ; then to the mountains, line on glittering line. Above
all it is irritating to read a poet who doesn't even know how to
drink red wine ; a pure cold crust of snow would never be put
into a red wine by a connoisseur.
The writers evidently felt some difficulty in re-
sisting the temptation to ribaldry this topic extends.
But here are two entirely different objections.
9-22. Words such as ' immortal ', * pure ', * rapturously ', seem
to fill out the line and put the drink in the far distant future.
One further point were the cup brimmed, the ' pure cold crust of
snow ' would certainly have slopped over some of the ' crimson
wine ', and that were a pity and a mess !
For the sake of completeness it is worth adding
that one protocol records an " intimate personal
association affecting my opinion of the poem I am
a teetotaller/'
Passing now to matters more closely connected
with critical opinion on the poem, two complete
protocols may be set beside one another to show once
again how often what most pains one reader is exactly
what most pleases another.
9-3. This poem is a fake. What passes for enthusiasm in the
first few lines is in reality only a spurious form of ' heartiness '.
The elaborate sea-harp simile is meaningless : the music, so catchily
tuneful, that of a sublimated barrel-organ. The rhythm not
organic but superimposed from without. But it is a clever fake.
The writer has evidently had much practice in versification, he
has a considerable degree of skill in putting words together to
form a pretty pattern. He achieves a sense of completeness and
finality in the sextet by alliteration which is almost enviably ' slick \
If he had anything to say it is likely that he would communicate
it effectively : unfortunately he has next to nothing. His poem
is a form of verbal flatulence and belongs to a class of verse which
appears with distressing regularity in the pages of such periodicals
as The Spectator and The London Mercury.
9*31. / like this it is so exuberant and joyful I read it three
or four times at the first attack, not because I could not make
much out of it, as was the case with the third poem (No. XI),
but because the poet's mood was so infectious, and made me feel
124 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
as hearty as he must have felt when he wrote the poem. I think
he has achieved a stroke of genius with ' Dawn the lonely
listener ' and he succeeds in impressing us with his own mood
by such words as ' mirthful ', and * rapturously '. The metre, too,
is appropriate to- the mood, the verse goes with a swing, one
might say.
Here matter, mood, and movement alike come in
for correspondent praise and dispraise, strong evid-
ence that the poet has done what he wished and well
suited his means to his end. Only those who objected
to the aim quarrelled with the means.
9*32. The whole poem seeks to slap you on the back with a
false joie-de-vivre, and lamentably fails.
Very many writers acclaimed this exuberance. It
was certainly one of the two chief sources of the great
popularity of the poem. It is admirably described in
the following extract where the other source of
popularity is also indicated.
9-4. A poem of extreme enthusiasm and consequently filled with
a sort of excess of expression which seems to say * Take me or
leave me '. Personally I revelled in it. In the first half the poet
gives his ideas with the help of alliteration and some telling
phrases, especially his * lightning of the nights of Spring '. In
the second he paints a truly grand picture. Colours, Alpine peaks,
crimson wine, cold crust of snow, and mountains in the back-
ground. An admirable poetical canvas.
Colours and pictures, the appeal to the mind's
eye, to the visualiser, is a source of attraction that
able advertising agents have known and used for
many years.
9-41. I like the poem because of its colour and imagery. Lines
such as ' brim one immortal cup of crimson wine ' always appeal
to my sense of colour. That is why I like Keats.
9-42. The poet has the right idea and picks his words care-
fully with due regard to their effect ; so it is he gives us a mind-
picture of the coldness of the snow and the crystal clearness of the
crimson wine which is naturally immortal.
POEM IX 125
A question that had troubled many, though I have
not represented it, is thus answered. Why im-
mortal ? Naturally so. In what sense ? This
writer does not venture so far, nor do any of the other
writers who admire this much-praised line expatiate
upon the epithet. The hostile party, however, not
only quarrelled much about ' immortal ' but quibbled
over l crimson ' too. There are clearly several senses
in which we may have a ' sense of colour \ Nor was
this the only colour-point objected to.
9-421. There are jarring fallacies in the detail : Dawn is made
to have pink eyes and green cheeks.
But the majority w r ere content with a less metic-
ulous examination.
9*43. I liked the modern romantic freshness, the warmth and
colour.
9-44. What I like in this sonnet are the two vividly -drawn
pictures it contains, the first reminding me in its delicate touches
of a Botticelli picture, and the second glowing with warm colour
and human triumph.
9*45. This is good. The lines go with a swing. The phrasing
is musical and the imagery quite original and striking.
Others were concerned rather with its fittingness :
9-46. I was at first partly carried away by the succession of excit-
ing images sonorously and effectively expressed, but was unable to
respond fully to the poet's demand on my emotions. The sight
of mountains stirs me deeply, but I am quite sure they do not
occasion feelings at all comparable with any feelings of enthusiasm
I might have for a fellow man. The difference is one of kind,
not degree.
Since visual images were concerned it is not sur-
prising that different imaginers saw different visions.
We have already read two descriptions (9-4, 9-44).
Here are others.
9*47. The second stanza suggests a Swiss Tourist Agency
poster.
126 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
9-48. As to the Alpine simile, when one has shaken off the
strong emotion which naturally arises when such associations are
aroused, one is disgusted by the banality of diction and general
railway advertisement character of the poet's manner.
The enlivening effect of the sonnet is much re-
marked upon.
9-5. The mood of exhilaration is contagious > so that without
appreciating the poet's reason for the feeling I share this
exhilaration so that to this extent this poem fulfils the demand I
make of poetry. To bring me in contact with a spirit who has
pondered to such effect that his work will open a window of
my own spirit to the larger purer universe of his own.
9-51. The * Alpine peak ' and the * pure cold crust of snow '
convey exactly the sense of exhilaration produced by the intense
and enthusiastic idealism of the poet.
9*52. It exhilarates me by its series of vivid images. The
adjective I think of in connection with these images is ' chaste '.
A comment which, perhaps through association by
contrast, reminds one of the American publisher who
complained of the word ' chaste ' as ' always deplor-
ably suggestive '. But certainly a too conscious quest
for a larger, purer universe of intense and enthusiastic
idealism does open ground for suspicion.
Keats who occurred in an earlier protocol (9*41)
reappears several times :
9-6. The simile forming the last six lines of the sonnet is very
fine ; it can be held on a par with that similar one by Keats at
the end of his sonnet on " Chapman's Homer ".
9'6i. The last verse is far clearer action, and there is something
in the metre which seems suggestive of mountains for it brings to
mind at once stout Cortes and a peak, in Darien.
A much simpler explanation seems sufficient. The
word * peak ' by itself would be quite enough.
Images other than visual played their part. The
mind's ear was invited to attend.
9*7. * Surging away into the sunset glow '. A suitable diminuendo
after the roar of the song of the sea and the lightning.
POEM IX 127
Readers with musical interests were more critical :
9-71. The only concrete simile in the octet is the likening of
the sea to a harp surely a little extravagant,
9-72. The imagery is bad. The sea may sound like an organ
but it never had the sound of a harp.
9-73. One wonders if the poet has correctly grasped the idea
conveyed in the description of the harp,
11 each mirthful string
Woven of the lightning of the nights of Spring ".
9-74. A far-fetched metaphor in which the sea is pictured as a
harp and each string , besides being mirthful, is made up of the
lightning of Spring nights. For some unknown reason Dawn-.
listens to the music of this incredible instrument.
9-75. The first definite clue to the poem's true character is the-
word ' woven J (5th line). Since strings are spun or twisted,
* woven ' must have been brought in for its higher potency in releasing
vague emotion. From that point onwards the poet was obviousbg
overwhelmed with recollected phrases and pilfered epithets.
The facts implied in this metaphor were also
challenged on another ground :
9-76. Common sense suggests that if the Dawn were present
the lightning of spring nights would be inevitably absent.
9-77. Since Dawn does not come into being till the end of
night, the strings and the listener could not exist contempor-
aneously.
It is clear that the spirit of Dr Johnson has happily
not altogether vanished from literary criticism.
Failure to recognise the sonnet form appeared
again :
9- 8. It seems to be part of a drama
9-81. This is essentially a piece of dramatic poetry, one which
can only be properly appreciated when heard declaimed in the
course of a play.
Against these may be set a more common com-
plaint, which incidentally well illustrates some of the
dangers of technical presuppositions.
128 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
9-82. I am confronted by a sonnet a cold fact recognised
before I had read a word. I have very definite ideas of what
should be the general content of a sonnet, and of all of them, a
toast is outside the list. A ringing health needs a quicker, livelier,
rhythm, a faster stream of rhymes than a sonnet affords.
It will have been noticed that, for some of his
readers at least (9-31, 9*45) the poet quite overcame
these objections. Also :
9-83. Subject chosen is very suitable to the sonnet form ;
both are dignified.
The favourable verdict of the majority has hitherto
been insufficiently represented.
9-9. I like it best, because it is a song from within me. The
words are simple, consequently the sense immediately touches
my mind. * Lightning of the nights of spring ', * one pure cold
crust of snow ' recall ecstasies of my own. The imperative mood
moves me directly. The long swinging evenness of the thought
running unbroken through many lines makes it one emotion,
not a series of metaphorical attacks. The poet has crammed in
the most moving manifestations of nature, personified them, toasted
the most austere of them in a rapture, and moved me beyond
explaining.
But surely this writer has himself, in the italicised
passages, provided a quite satisfactory explanation.
9-91. Appeals to me because of sincerity and nobility of
sentiment. The warmth of the feeling justifies the hyperbole
which might so easily sound hollow, but here seems the just
expression of an emotion inexpressible in words. The appeal
to the imagination is as strong as that to the heart, for nature is
alluded to in its loveliest and grandest aspects. The poem must
have a lasting value because of the freedom it allows the aesthetic
sense in the images called up ' the lightning of the nights of
spring ', the colours of sea-shell and wave.
These, with the counterblasts in 9-22 and 9-93
will serve to indicate the point upon which opinion
chiefly turned whether the poem earned a right to
exploit the associations it evoked. In other words,
a problem of Stock Responses.
POEM IX 129
9-92. The poem contains all the customary apparatus of poetical
hack-work, the conventional similes and personifications Dawn,
the sea, sunset, the Alpine peaks all in fourteen lines !
9-93. The main experience has nothing to do with the first line.
Health drinking may have given rise to the conviction that a
song ought to be written even a sonnet, though that is a most
unlikely form in which to express a mood of anniversary high
spirits but then that isn*t the experience expressed. What is ?
Almost certainly, an adolescent reaction to the vocabulary of the
romantics.
Only one writer made allusion to what may be
thought a marked influence in the sonnet.
9-94. The style is Swinburne cum water.
The comments on this poem may show, more clearly
than with any of the others, how much at a loss
many readers are if required to interpret and judge
figurative language. Several important questions as
to the proper approach to hyperbole, and the under-
standing of similes which are emotive rather than
elucidatory, arise for attention. These matters are
discussed in Part III, Chapter II.
Climb, cloud, and pencil all the blue
With your miraculous stockade ;
The earth will have her joy of you
And limn your beauty till it fade.
Puzzle the cattle at the grass
And paint your pleasure on their flanks ;
Shoot, as the ripe cornfield you pass,
A shudder down those golden ranks.
On wall and window slant your hand
And sidle up the garden stair ;
Cherish each flower in all the land
With soft encroachments of cool air.
Lay your long fingers on the sea
And shake your shadow at the sun,
Darkly reminding him that he
Relieve you when your work is done.
Rally your wizardries, and wake
A noonday panic cold and rude,
Till 'neath the ferns the drowsy snake
Is conscious of his solitude.
Then as your sorcery declines
Elaborate your pomp the more,
So shall your gorgeous new designs
Crown your beneficence before.
Your silver hinges now revolve,
Your snowy citadels unfold,
And, lest their pride too soon dissolve,
Buckle them with a belt of gold.
O sprawling domes, O tottering towers,
O frail steel tissues of the sun
What ! Have ye numbered all your hours
And is your empire all fordone ?
POEM X
MNEMONIC and other irrelevances, some problems
of imagery, and a swarm of technical presuppositions,
mainly concerning movement and diction, mark this
set of protocols too, and the Stock Response is not
absent. But some deeper and more disturbing
problems, concerning not so much the nature of
the poem as the kind of value it may possess, will
be noticed to lurk frequently below the surface and
to come out occasionally into explicit words.
First, let us survey the more accessible particular-
ities of opinion.
lo-i. The charm of this is twofold : first, one can bask in the
warm sunshine of a perfect September day (such as I have not
experienced in England in 1927), and realise that America is a
good country also, England having no "golden ranks" of corn ;
secondly, the rhythm, rhyme and alliteration make one want to
read it aloud a second time and then try to sing it. Did Bryant
write it ? I don't know.
The mnemonic pull, with less justification and in
a totally different direction, also governs 10-11. The
alleged ground in the tone of the poem is not easy to
make out.
io- 1 1. The authoress (I fear it is so) should be prohibited
by law from ever approaching any child whose sense and
imagination are not certified normal and healthy. The poem
is the type which invades school anthologies though it is a disreputable
offspring of Shelley (misunderstood) and a woolly sentimental
mind. It endeavours to bring the young mind close to " Nature "
by adopting a tone of skittish patronage. It is such and not the
Goths nor the classics that desolate Europe.
With 10-2 we pass to the image problem.
131
132 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
10-2. / like this because clouds have a fascination for me. Also
the passage of the cloud's shadow over the fields, cottages,
gardens and the sea is cleverly told. If the test of the mental
picture arising in reader's mind from poet's words is a test at all,
the poem is good. Even the necessity of looking up " Limn " in
line 4 did not detract from pleasure in reading it. The words
are not so happy as the picture formed : one would get tired
of having the picture raised in the mind by the repetition of the
words. Musically they do not satisfy. Yes, the more I read it
the less I like^it.
On the metrical question we shall hear other views.
The imagery issue, as we have learned to expect, pro-
voked the most extreme divergencies of opinion.
10-21. This is a very pleasant poem. // makes heaps of pictures
in the mind some new, some recalling things one has seen before.
Stanza 3 connected itself with a certain flight of stone steps for
me at once. Stanza 5 is the best of all. One feels the chill, when
the hot sun suddenly ' goes in ', perfectly.
10-22. This poem fails utterly for me. The words do not call
up the pictures of what the poet is trying to represent. The cloud
shaking its shadows at the sun, or sidling up the stair appears
merely ludicrous. / dislike the whole idea of the cloud with a
pencil in its fingers. The poet does not give me the impression
that a little cloud in the sky has really given him the inspiration
to write ; all is artificial and sentimental.
If suitable images are for one reader an invaluable
adjunct to his reading, erratic images for another may
be a fatal bar. In general the effect of the inter-
vention of images is to make good better and bad
worse. Images in reading are perhaps best regarded
as a sign of how the reader is getting on with the
poem, they are hardly ever a means which the poet
uses, the gap between the verbal image (the figure of
speech, the description, simile, or metaphor) and the
visual image being too great, and readers' idiosyn-
crasies too surprising. The littleness of the cloud
in 10-22, and the pencil in its fingers are contribu-
tions of this reader's uncontrolled visualising faculty
and these exercises, like the refusal to see what the
POEM X 133
poet did try to suggest, are prompted by a prior
distaste for the poem whose source is perhaps in-
dicated in his final remark. This seems to be the
usual state of affairs when erratic imagery intervenes.
It is not invariably so as 10-23 w ^ show. A few
victims of extremely lively and vivid imagery do
really approach poetry (and life) through their visual
imaginations, but often their other mental operations
are able to correct and compensate for the freakish
whimsicality this approach entails.
I could make little of this poem. It persists in suggesting
a night-marish forest scene, with giant drooping ferns, writhing
snakes and flashes of red lightning in a blue mist. Superimposed
on this, a still more weird picture of a tumbling Babylon. There
seems to be a breathless haste in the words when read mentally,
but not when read aloud. There is also a rapid and chaotic
jump from idea to idea which is bizarre and confusing. None
the less the poem is rather fascinating.
This reader writes to me, " I visualise everything
otherwise, things mean little to me ", developing by
an accident of punctuation a criticism I would not be
so rude as to make.
Another curiosity of imagery will ventilate a differ-
ent objection :
10-24. This poem seems to me positively bad. Some of the
lines are decidedly silly, like : " till 'neath the fern the drowsy
snake is conscious of his solitude ". The image is so unpleasant.
It seems the poet had a few vulgar ideas and thought he could
write a poem about them.
The reader has himself to blame if his image was
actually unpleasant. If all allusions to snakes are to
be avoided, how lacking in taste must Milton appear.
And further, the assumption that only pleasant images
have a place in poetry should be hailed and challenged
whenever it appears.
To pass now to quite another source of irrelev-
ance ; critical preconceptions when they intervene as
134 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
obstacles to reading are often respectable doctrine
crudely applied ; of this the following may appear
an example :
10*3. The poem is dead because it wants in human interest.
The poet has escaped from the world of men. His nearest
approach to mankind is the * garden stair \ The interest of the
poem lies in its cinematographic reproduction in words of a
phenomenon which every mortal has the joy of witnessing with
his own eyes. Success lies in the magic of words which in plain
black and white are capable of exciting the senses to a vivid
appreciation of a series of events the poet has himself minutely
observed. Turner does as much by a different medium.
It may be that l The proper study of mankind is
man'. But, if so, in poetry everything that can
interest man is part of him. Every poem is a tissue
of human impulses, and mention of man and his
affairs is not needed to interest us. It is a little
difficult to make out whether in the end this reader
overcame his preconception or not.
Some other presuppositions, but of a technical
order, deserve more attention. They are many and
varied. First may be instanced the assumption that
words in themselves have characters are ugly, beauti-
ful, delicate, light, weighty or cumbrous apart from
the way in which they are used. With it appears the
parallel assumption that the * subject ' of a poem
automatically prescribes a certain selection from the
dictionary.
10-4. The alliteration in the poem is very effective and gives
one the idea of the cloud drifting slowly over the land and sea.
/ think the author has rather spoilt it in places by using long, ugly
words, such as beneficence, encroachment and elaborate.
10-41. The poet has endeavoured to paint a word picture of a
cloud. In order to do this a poet must choose words in accordance
with his picture. If the picture is going to be delicate, then must
the words be light. If the picture is going to be heavy then must
the words be weighty. This poet wanted to paint a delicate picture,
but he mixed delicate and cumbrous words. Such words as
miraculous, encroachments, elaborate and benificence tend to
POEM X 135
blurr the picture. Having painted his picture it is a pity to break
it with a harsh question
What ! Have ye numbered all your hours
And is your empire all fordone ?
The poet should be content that something beautiful has been
shown to him.
Everything of course turns upon the fashion in
which the words are put together, and it is the
detailed, instant to instant, development of the poem,
not the separable subject abstractly regarded, that
governs the diction. The final rebuke to the poet
will be considered later.
Allied objections were brought on the ground of
cacophony.
10*42. Very ugly first verse. Climb, cloud 2 hard words,
consonants together.
Climb cloud and pencil all the blue
With your miracwlous stocAade.
Hard word like * limn ' not appropriate for the beauty of
cloud scenery. 2nd verse, silly thought, awkward rhythm
of second line.
' Cherish each ' awful mix-up of ch and sh. I don't quite know
what the last 2 verses mean what the steel tissue of the sun is
but it doesn't seem to matter.
10-43. The whole poem is a rather ungracious and blunt
address to the cloud. It strikes me as the work of an amateur
or beginner. On the whole it is ugly, chiefly because certain words
are used, and placed badly. E.g. " Climb, cloud/' repeats sound
cl. " Miraculous stockade " " his solitude J> are difficult to say
easily and correctly, and are ugly when said correctly because of
the repetition of the s sound.
Without going so far as one reader, who heard in
these last sibilants the hissing of the serpent, we may
yet lay down as a general principle that no sound in
poetry can be judged apart from its place and function
in the poem. To apply canons of euphony from out-
side and bar out certain conjunctions of consonants
as ugly, without regard to their exact particular effect
i 3 6 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
in the precise context in which they come, is as
foolish as to condemn a line in a picture without
looking at the other lines which may co-operate in
the design. Such arbitrary canons are popular
because they are simple and because they can be
applied (like the imperfect rhyme test, cf. 2-12) with-
out entering into the poem. Fairly specious detailed
justifications for all the sounds here inveighed against
could be worked out, but the justification would be
nearly as arbitrary as the accusation. The relations of
sound-effects to the rest of the happenings in the
poem are too subtle and too mingled for any analysis
to have much cogency. It is sad to have to discourage
so harmless a pastime, but the facts are so. Most
alleged instances of onomatopoeia, for example, are
imaginary, are cases of the suggestion much more
than of the actual imitation of sounds, and equally
strong suggestion can be given in other ways. More-
over onomatopoeia never by itself gave any line of
verse poetic merit. All these are questions of means
and to decide about most of them we have to look to
the end.
Parallel reflections apply to another technical pre-
supposition that occupied many readers :
10-44. The verse is jangling and jerky and is not what one
would think of associating with the steady flowing of a fleecy
cloud.
The ' fleeciness ' of this cloud is possibly an
accident of visual imagery. The poet said nothing
about it. The demand for correspondence between
subject and movement is a typical example of
illegitimate technical expectations. The poet has
certain effects in view. If he chooses to employ
certain means, well and good. But to prescribe them
is to confuse poetry with parlour games. This is true
at least of English and of most European poetry.
Matters appear to have been otherwise in Chinese
POEM X 13?
poetry, but so was it with Chinese battles. A
victory was not a victory unless it was won on a
fine day.
A poet may imitate the motion of his subject by
the motion of his verse. Sometimes it is a great
merit that he does so, if his purpose requires that this
should be done. It is never a defect if he does not,
unless it is clear that he meant to, and that it was
necessary for his purpose. Furthermore, the ques-
tion whether or not a given movement of verse
corresponds to any other movement, of visible things
or of thoughts or of passions, is excessively delicate.
It largely turns on whether the reader is willing to
give it this correspondence, on the inducements the
poet offers him to find it. For the rhythm of words
is not independent of the way the reader chooses to
take them.
10-45. Floating, dancing movement of the poem its most striking
feature. The second verse is the most successful in the whole
poem one feels that the writer really has watched a summer
cloud. Note effectiveness of the words " shudder " and " sidle ".
Compare with this :
10-46. The scheme of this poem is hardly suited to the light
and airy subject which is full of motion, while the short monotonous
stanzas are essentially static.
The same writer introduces us to another illegiti-
mate expectation which worried many.
10-47. Unfortunately this poem immediately challenges com-
parison with Shelley's " The Cloud " and somewhat naturally
suffers by it. We cannot imagine this cloud would
". . . bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone ".
10-48. A comparison with Shelley's poem to the cloud, shows
this poem in a very unfavourable light. The treatment is some-
what similar, but whereas Shelley succeeds, this author fails
completely. The poem is a fantasy untouched by imagination
in the Words worthian sense, a cold, dead piece of work with
138 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
no appeal to the reader. If it arouses any interest at all, it
awakens antagonism. We are inclined to question whether
clouds paint patterns on the flanks of cows, for instance. The
last two stanzas seem turgid and over-loaded with gorgeousness.
(Cf., however, 12-7).
There are still some points about diction to be
considered.
10-5. I consider this poem faulty. There is a tendency to
introduce prosaicisms (puzzle, sidle, encroachments, elaborate)
which, though doubtless deliberate, is not quite successful.
10-51. I get too much of an impression of artificiality from
this to like it. The words are picturesque enough, but the way
in which they are strung together seems to me forced and in-
sincere. " Puzzle ", " encroachments ", " shoot a shudder ",
" shake your shadow ", " frail steel tissue " ... are all terms
that seem to me either out of place or else too prosaic. It is too
full of conceits to ring true.
10-53. One is continually let down by such words as limn,
encroachments and benevolence.
10-54. Words with poor, commonplace and prosaic associations
are used, e.g. stockade, gorgeous, hinges, sprawling, elaborate.
10-55. Though occasionally the poetry rises to the highest
poetic pitch yet it contains many words and phrases unsuited to
verse. It adds a prosaic nature to the cloud to term it a ' stockade ' ;
or to say that it ' sidles ' up the garden stair. More than * sidle ',
the shadow would seem to glide swiftly over the steps. A bathetic
ending to the poem is to describe the clouds as * sprawling domes '
and ' tottering towers '. It is realistic description, no doubt, but
not poetry. A drunken man sprawls and totters.
In the absence of any precise theory as to the
nature of the prosaic and of any exact demarcation
of poetic diction, the term * prosaic ' must be re-
garded as equivalent only to * unsatisfactory '. It is
often only a term of abuse. All the words and
phrases objected to here are selected as particularly
felicitous by other writers. The prosaic flavour
attributed to * stockade ', whether through associa-
tion with ' stocks and stones ', with stocks and shares
POEM X 139
or with bully beef, may indicate that Masterman
Ready and Treasure Island are not as popular as they
used to be.
How oddly single words may be flavoured for
individual readers may be seen from 10-57, perhaps
another instance of an accidental visual image.
10-57. ' Sprawling ', which is anyhow an ugly word to bring
into the climax, does not belong to the kind of cloud that has
citadels and a golden belt, but to the filmy pink variety.
The chorus-girl type perhaps !
Another prepossession concerning diction we have
met before :
10-58. The mixture of Latin and Anglo-Saxon words is
scarcely happy in many places.
Who is responsible for disseminating this wide-
spread piece of nonsense about the incompatibility
of English words of different origin is a question that
deserves to be looked into. It is too frequent not to
have some active contemporary source.
After the accusation of ' prosaicism ' that of
* romanticism ' will be a change.
10-6. Presumably cloud obliged by climbing and pencilling,
etc. Whole ' poem ' choice example of ugliness of romantic animism
(cf. Roll on, thou deep and stormy ocean !). If the wind had
changed would poet have got angry ? Puzzle the cattle did
anyone ever see cattle puzzled by a cloud. This written in study
by one who might have done better by going to the country
to learn that clouds are blown by the wind, and do not climb and
puzzle cattle and shoot shudders, lay long fingers and perform
similar human actions at command of prigs.
" O sprawling domes, O tottering towers "
O God ! O Montreal !
Possibly the vocative and the imperatives are
responsible for this outburst. The poem succeeded
in eliciting much vigorous abuse.
10-61. This poet tumbles over his metaphors. We confess
we have never seen a cloud ' pencil ' the sky with its * miraculous
stockade ' and never shall. All is confused in the last stanza
i 4 o PRACTICAL CRITICISM
but one also. There is no clear image, nothing to tell that the
writer has grasped the significance of what he is trying to describe.
He has certainly brought no clear vision ; we seem to have
heard of the * golden ranks ' of corn before. At last he gives
up trying to describe even what he has seen, and bolsters up his
verse with abstractions * wizardries ', ' sorcery', ' pomp ', ' bene-
ficence ' terms for which the rest of the poem gives no justification.
There is no rhythm. The metrical framework is just filled up
according to the set pattern. The rhymes are vapid and meaning-
less. The poet could have gone on rhyming a hundred similar
stanzas. The last stanza is ludicrous, with its ' What ! ' and its
feeble question. The whole thing breaks down. ' O most lame
and impotent conclusion ! '.
A few found the poem incomprehensible.
10-62. The first two lines of the poem form a good index to
the characteristic of the whole. The mixture of the metaphor is
significant. Shelley in writing the Ode to the West Wind,
conceived of the wind as of a person with very definite charac-
teristics " the uncontrollable " " destroyer and preserver ". Our
poet has no such clear conception ; and the result is that his cloud
is as a person with no character, doing all kinds of things, per-
forming all kinds of antics. There is the touch reminiscent of
Lewis Carroll in the lines
" shake your shadow at the sun
Darkly reminding him that he
Relieve you when your work is done ".
In a single stanza, one learns how the cloud puzzles the cattle,
paints its pleasure on their flanks, and shoots a shudder down the
golden ranks of the cornfield. There is no need to multiply instances.
The diction lacks strength as much as the poem, and often leaves
one wondering what it all means.
10-63. This piece bores and angers me. It is a mere string
of words meaning nothing except that they seem vaguely to talk
about clouds. Ridiculous phrases are endless " miraculous
stockade ", " the earth will . . . limn your beauty (!?!?!) ",
" shoot ... a shudder ", " shake your shadow at the sun " etc.,
etc., etc. It must have been written by a candidate for Colney
Hatch, I should imagine.
10*64. I cannot gather what made the poet wish these strange
things. If the poet wants rain, why does he dare the sun to shine
in the last verse ? It's all very obscure.
POEM X 141
Some special obscurity does perhaps attach to the
fourth verse.
10*65. ' Shake your shadow at the sun *, I dislike. I cannot
imagine a cloud shaking its shadow at anything, and the word
destroys the steady progress of the cloud through the rest of the
poem.
The geometry in this verse proved too difficult for
several.
10-66. The cloud cannot shake its shadow at the sun, since it
is between them, nor does it appear dark to him.
Others supposed that the cloud itself shook and
suggested that only thunder-clouds shake. But if it
be the shadow of the cloud, not the cloud itself, that
shakes, and if it shakes only through the motion of
the sea, there seems to be nothing but sound physics
in the thought of the verse.
Equally so, if another interpretation is favoured :
10-67. A cloud which, moving across the heavens, casts a
shadow over the earth, causing as it were, a shudder on the
areas it touches.
A certain change of tone in the poem at the sixth
verse will be noted. It caused much perturbation
and searching of spirit.
10-7. This poem, after raising me to the keenest delight for
five stanzas, suddenly gave way and let me down again with a
bang. The first part quickly met a response. Even as I enjoy
the metaphysical poets, I rejoiced here in new imagery, familiar
words in new connotations the alliteration added to the sonority
of the lines. I like " puzzle the cattle . . ." and the cloud
shooting " a shudder down those golden ranks " of corn ; I like
it slanting its hand and sidling ; its " soft encroachments " ;
I like its long fingers laid on the sea and the " noonday panic
cold and rude ". The words seem simple and accurate the
poem lives and means new vistas to me. Then, ah then. The
sixth stanza is respectable, but " pomp ", " gorgeous designs ",
and " beneficence " creep in unwelcome guests. The spirit has
changed, Polonius is talking now where Professor Housman spake
before. Aping the grand style succeeds so very infrequently,
I wonder gifted poets still try and fail.
i 4 2 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
10-71 . This pleased me at first by the easy quality of the
metre which seemed in fact rather more suitable for addressing
a cloud than Shelley's much brisker one, also the pictures were
so very exact things such as * paint your pleasure on their
flanks ' and above all ' sidle up the garden stair ' which exactly
described one of the most fascinating things, to me personally,
in nature, this constant pursuit of light by darkness, especially
when seen in progress across an open tract of country from a
mountain top. Then in the fifth verse I began to slow up.
Something new had entered the poem. I struggled through the
first two lines of the sixth verse and absolutely crashed at the second
couplet. This may be due to natural stupidity, but I felt I owed
the poem a grudge for misleading me as to the style at the
beginning.
The possibility that this change was something
deliberately intended by the poet was not meditated
by these two readers. If they had considered it I
think it unlikely that they would not have changed
their feeling. The manner in which they describe
their sense of the change gives them the air of people
pushing at a door that opens inwards.
10-72. Slight, perhaps, but charming. An original idea worked
out with the aid of original metaphors. An easy flow of language
and sound construction. The " Then " of stanza 6 is perfectly
timed to avoid monotony and at the same time preserve un-
hurried motion. It is a pity that the last two lines tail off into an
anti-climax which looks suspiciously like a stop -gap.
These last two lines troubled many readers. All
manner of conjectures were made as to their
emotional tone, though no very satisfactory descrip-
tion was given.
1073. The last two lines are declamatory and spoil the effect
of the delicacy of the preceding part of the poem.
10-74. The question of the last two lines expresses a rather
perfunctory and not really earnest regret hardly even a sigh.
10-75. The feeling in the last verse of half regretfulness is
important because it raises the poem out of the class of the
pleasantly descriptive. It raises a question which the poet does
not answer directly, except perhaps in the line " O frail steel
POEM X 143
tissue of the sun " which shows he is aware of both ideas, that
all is illusionary or that all is of value. It is because he contrasts
these 2 and raises this idea that the poem seems to me to
be good.
Echoes of The Tempest may be influencing this
reader ; and Shelley, as well as Wordsworth, inspires
and imperils the next.
1076. You feel the cloud travelling rapidly in the first five
verses ; declining in the next, and finally disappearing in a
glorious sunset ; leaving the world cold and desolate behind it.
The brief pleasure and joy of living is followed by darkness and death.
But although the world totters, you feel the cloud still sailing
inevitably on. The glorious survives, man's mortal work dies.
You breathe " the still sad music of humanity ".
10-77. This poem is the expression of a common enough feeling
transitoriness . The whole of the first five verses is rapid move-
ment the sudden change from dark to light, cold to warmth,
the contrast between " frail " and " steel " suggested throughout
by this fleeting note. It is doubtful if the poet thoroughly
realised the emotion of joy of an added exhilaration in life
through a knowledge of its transitoriness, which should be the
natural sequence of the poem. He does not really express this
in his last verse, which in its shallow moralizing lessens the more
subtle result of the rest of the poem.
The chief difficulty seems to be to admit that the
poet may have intended a real transition in feeling ;
that he may have passed the point at which 1077
would wish him to stop and have gone on to do
something more.
10-78. It commences like an airy Robert Louis Stevenson
rhyme for young and old, it ends with the tone of Kipling's
"Recessional". Thus it seems to lack unity and to express a
misapplied importunate spirit. If intended to be merely quizzical^
the clearly serious lines about " beneficence " and " pride " are
out of place.
Exactly how seriously the grandiloquence of the
last three verses is to be taken, is the problem. That
a slightly mocking tone comes in with * rally your
144 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
wizardries ' is continued with c sorcery', ' pomp ' and
' gorgeous new designs ' and culminates in the much
disliked word * sprawling ' was not noticed. Humour
is perhaps the last thing that is expected in lyrical
poetry, above all when its theme is nature. If the
poet is going to smile he is required to give clear and
ample notice of his intention.
Forty years back, when much had place
That since has perished out of mind,
I heard that voice and saw that face.
He spoke as one afoot will wind
A morning horn ere men awake ;
His note was trenchant, turning kind.
He was of those whose wit can shake
And riddle to the very core
The counterfeits that Time will break . .
Of late, when we two met once more,
The luminous countenance and rare
Shone just as forty years before.
So that, when now all tongues declare
His shape unseen by his green hill,
I scarce believe he sits not there.
No matter. Further and further still
Through the world's vaporous vitiate air
His words wing on as live words will.
POEM XI
AMONG the results of printing Poems X and XI on
opposite pages of the issued sheet of four poems was
the following :
II- 1. This poem took me a considerable time to enjoy. At
the first two readings I could make little of it the transition
from verse 8 to verse 9 rather struck me. I think it is a little
sudden. The poem strikes me as imagination run riot. The
poem is at first a series of little pictures, very beautiful, and not
extravagant for the poet has seized on the right words,
* shudder ', ' sidle '. Then comes a rather extravagant passage on
' silver hinges ', ' snowy citadels ', ' sprawling domes ', etc. Then
the poet seems to turn, suddenly, to old reminiscences and one
particular lost friend seems to occupy his thoughts solely, to the
oblivion of the airy imaginations of the former stanzas of the
poem. This change is suitably marked by a change in the verse
form four lines to three lines ottava rime, the stanza form
which, with a variation, Shelley uses for the * West Wind ' ode.
Who shall say after this that our readers do not go
out to meet our poets ?
This poem stirred comparatively few flights of
enthusiasm. One good reason for this is stated in a
protocol, 1 1 -2, to which particular attention may be
drawn. The demand there expressed is not often
explicitly avowed yet it is frequently present and is
doubtless the explanation of as much poetry-reading
as it is of concert-going.
1 1 *2. Its reflective, conversational manner awakens a quiet
mood, rather than a rapture, and since rapture is what 1 want of
poetry i it is lacking to me. Its allusion to * much, perished out
of mind ', clothes its subject in a mysterious importance. ' Vaporous
vitiate air ' offended me. Outside of the mood, / felt no real
personal connection, no personal emotion. If they had been my
147
148 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
words winging on, or my closest friend's if he had alluded to
my death, or let me apply it so I should have felt it more
deeply.
The writer is making a demand we shall have
little difficulty in agreeing to be illegitimate when he
asks for personal emotion in this fashion. Yet
poetry which refuses to be so misused is rarely very
popular. His desire for * rapture ' may meet with
more sympathy. But is there any good reason to
require it from all poetry ? The confusion between
quality and intensity of experience we have noticed
before.
The complaint that the poet here has avoided any
violent stirrings of emotion appears frequently :
!! 21. It arouses no emotions in me. I understand what it
says, but feel no interest in it.
This is a typical example. It is allied to two other
expectations that the poet also failed to fulfil.
ii22. The reader has a feeling of knowing the man described
only at second hand. We are not made to see htm.
1 1 '24. I feel there is something wrong with this poem. Perhaps
it is that the poet plunges too quickly into his subject ; he does
not pause to create an atmosphere.
Vivid presentation, with or without a visual appeal,
and ' atmosphere ' are, of course, rightly required
from some poetry. It is a natural result that they
should by some readers be expected from all. But
to avoid them is often precisely the poet's endeavour.
To prescribe what he shall try to do is less reason-
able than to hope that he will do something we should
not have thought of suggesting.
The prescription that the dead man should be
described led not only to disappointment. It led
some to find more description than they perhaps had
warrant.
POEM XI 149
11-25. He has, as he intended, given the reader a complete
understanding of the man whom he wished to describe.
11-26. We can recognise the subject of this poem as a man
with depth of character, power of inspiration and leadership, a
friend with a great and loving heart.
To compensate for these excesses :
11-27. Portraits of strangers seldom interest me, although this
has the air of being a good one.
One curiously logical enthusiast did come forward.
11-28. Evidently written by a sincere admirer i.e. an idealist,
for an admirer reveres the man who is carrying out his ideals.
Since we are all idealists we must approve of this poem : extreme
friendship between men (i.e. admiration) always appeals to us,
since we imagine our state of life if we found someone who
proves an inseparable part of whole. Bears mark of sincerity
not idle tongue-worship : sincerity can never be despised ;
another reason for approval.
It is a pity that such admirable sentiments should
make such insubstantial premises ; but the con-
clusion that all idealists should approve of every-
thing that other idealists do is more easy to reject
than to refute.
Complaints of obscurity were, on the whole, not
more frequent than might have been expected.
11*3. I think prolonged and very careful study might reveal its
meaning. At present I have only an idea that there is one.
11-31. Bad, vague simile " as one afoot etc." " His note was
trenchant, turning kind " ? Language again vague and thought
obscure : " can shake and riddle etc." Last stanza particularly
ludicrous : as all the poem is inconsequential, trivial in con-
ception and words, last verse sinks into bathos. With the
language of degree of feeling of a Patmore or a Christina Rossetti,
the inconsequence, the triviality and the cheerful faith of the
amateur that after all the poem might be the real thing, mark it
as fourth or fifth class.
11*32. The poem seems an incoherent medley of unrelated
fragments. Leaves the reader with no impression of the actual
character or appearance of his subject. One learns that the old
man has a voice of volume and power.
150 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
Others learnt, or failed to learn, even stranger
things.
11-33. There is a feeling of the great, strong , silent man which
means nothing at all. The poem is summed up in the last few
words : " as live words mean ". I feel here that the poet is
trying to make a strong impression and failing miserably. What
are live words and whatever they are why should they vitiate
through the vaporous air ?
Not much more successful was this more apprecia-
tive effort :
11-34. A. few deft strokes of a powerful brush painting a
portrait of a powerful character on a < counterfeit which Time
would break ' if the poem were lost. I like the poem for (i) Its
life-force, (2) its appreciation of truth of * live-words '.
Points of diction came in for much discussion,
even an admirer being shocked by the last verse.
11-4. Merits of sincerity, of simplicity, of probability. Provides
clear picture of subject. The line * I scarce believe he sits not
there ' trembles on Browning's " This is Ancona, yonder is the
sea ", but actually reaches the height of Wordsworth's " Milton !
thou shouldst be living at this hour. England hath need of
thee ". Would have done well to end here. Last stanza weak:
though this more due to vocabulary and construction. " Vaporous
vitiate air " damnable. " As live words will ", to finish off tribute
like this, very feeble : should have ended on note of words
winging on.
On the whole good, tho' apparently immature.
The comparisons adduced probably explain why
the ending so frustrated this reader's expectation,
though the movement of the last line gave several
sorts of trouble.
11-41. The last verse is not convincing. " Vaporous vitiate "
is not happy. Is it reasonable to expect air to be anything else
but vaporous ? The briskness, almost the skittishness, of the last
line of all I find intolerable.
The answer to the question seems to be * In some
climates, yes \ Intellectual-moral climates need not
be supposed to be more uniform than their physical
POEM XI 151
analogues. We might agree, however, about the
effect of the alleged skittishness if it existed. The
rhythm of the poem seems to have been elusive :
11*411. It does not seem great, but there is something
attractive about it. I must say that it is the attraction of a jazz
tune which one can only tolerate a few times. The poem may
answer a real emotion, but so do some of the horrid writings on
tombstones. r
11-42. This is trash. There is no compelling subject , in fact no
subject at all. The construction is forced and at times the
metaphors are absurd. The second verse is nonsense. The
second line of verse four is particularly poor, only excelled perhaps
by the second line of the last verse. Who ever heard anything so
strained, so artificial as " The world's vaporous vitiate air ". The
effort was not worth the ink it used.
Yet once more the fatal correlation may be
observed :
1 1 -42 1. I feel as though I were indulgent and just a bit
sentimental, to say that it attains my standards except for the one
phrase " vaporous vitiate air ".
To complete the indictment :
11-43. " He was of those . . . Time will break ", is a long
way of saying " He hated all frauds ". Stanza 5, too, is very
difficult to read aright. The poem has not the majesty required
for an epitaph on an honoured friend.
The prior demand expressed in the last sentence
seems to have as little justification as the paraphrase
given in the first. Here is another paraphrase to set
beside those in 11-32, and 11*34.
11-44. " All tongues declare", is being pompous over, "it is
said " just for the sake of the form of the poem. " Vaporous,
vitiate air ", is ridiculous rather than impressive.
The exercise of imagining a better reason for the
* pomposity ' may be suggested.
1 1 -45. This might well have been written by one common-
place clergyman of another commonplace clergyman. It is
redeemed neither by pleasing metaphors nor deep thought,
1 52 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
while passion is entirely absent. It failed after several readings to
make any impression at all on me. One thing alone is striking
and significant in the poem that the complimented person
would never * wing ' * live words '.
And to prove how rash some attempts to infer the
character of a writer from his poetry may be :
11*46. It is the work of someone who, whilst acquainted with
much at second hand through the experience of others, has not
taken the trouble to acquire his own set of experiences as a
basis for values and judgment.
Some more favourable opinions will redress the
balance :
1 1 '5. The rhythm at once suggests real emotion successfully
dealt with by the technique (' That voice . . . that face '
simple, but not affectedly simple). The similes are used not as
added decoration^ but to make the shades of experience clearer
(e.g. 2nd stanza). So too * trenchant, turning kind ' shows
an effort at accuracy which a lesser poet would have abandoned
on account of the slight clumsiness involved.
Some of the praise has, at first sight, an air of
paradox.
1 1 5 1. Heightened by none of usual poetic diction. Bareness
varied by occasional effectively ugly phrase. Experience as bare
as words, nothing more than statement of fact. Bareness gives
impression of intensity. Poet has no time or wish to play with
pretty images. Thing described too weighty to be added to or
dressed up in poetic formula.
11*52. We notice first the perfect suitability of the metre and
the language. There is a tranquility and gentle melancholy
which we can feel by reading the poem without paying very
much attention to the subject matter. When this latter element
is considered, it will be found that the poem is an harmonious
whole. There is something very balanced and sane about this
poem. It seems to say just what is wanted in the best possible
way. Every sentence seems fitting there is no expression we
should quarrel with.
1 1 '53. This is the real thing. In contrast to Poem IX the
rhythm is in the poem. Moreover there is a sense of universality
about this piece which stamps it as poetry of the major order.
The poet is not concerned with trivialities but with the funda-
POEM XI 153
mental facts of existence. His poem is in the best sense a
" criticism of life ". It is positive, creative, dynamic. His
technique moreover is equal to the task of giving completely
effective expression to his experience. There is an economy, a
lack of verbosity or any kind of ornamentation, which is utterly
appropriate to the subject. The metre also is in keeping, and the
rhyme-form one of considerable subtlety. The whole poem
leaves one with a sense of complete satisfaction.
11-54. This is a straightforward piece of work in the " middle
kind of writing which . . . neither towers to the skies nor creeps
along the ground " (Johnson's Life of Dryden). It is a graceful
tribute, born rather of a general feeling slowly finding voice than
of a definite emotional experience. The style, everywhere relying
on the sequence of ideas, is appropriate (and this is the greatest
praise) to an elegy on a dead friend : restrained and yet dignified,
fresh without false emphasis, sincere without gush.
Finally, lest this opinion should be thought too
easily attained :
11-56. I dislike it for its stilted and high-flung style, and feel
that the author might have come down from his high-horse for just
a moment in speaking of his departed friend.
The further these researches extend, the more
misleading does Bishop Butler's celebrated paradox
appear. * Everything is what it is, and not another
thing ', may be a convenient principle to apply to
things when we have caught them, but until then it
is a poor guide to the investigator.
Solemn and gray, the immense clouds of even
Pass on their towering unperturbed way
Through the vast whiteness of the rain-swept heaven,
The moving pageants of the waning day ;
Heavy with dreams, desires, prognostications,
Brooding with sullen and Titanic crests,
They surge, whose mantles' wise imaginations
Trail where Earth's mute and languorous body rests :
While below the hawthorns smile like milk splashed down
From Noon's blue pitcher over mead and hill ;
The arrased distance is so dim with flowers
It seems itself some coloured cloud made still ;
O how the clouds this dying daylight crown
With the tremendous triumph of tall towers !
POEM XII
HERE again some irrelevances have to be noticed, but
in this case, as they had more influence in increasing
the popularity of the poem so they may be thought
to have more critical significance.
1 2- 1. At a glance the poem reveals its grandeur and power.
Not only is the description powerful but the very roll of the
lines is as the rumble of heavy clouds. In these sonorous lines
whose sound is so well suited to its sense, there is something
which sets one dreaming.
12- n. The majestic pageantry of the clouds is ever a favourite
topic with poets. In the other poem on clouds, the atmosphere
was light ; here the sky is black with rain filled clouds of ill
omen. The poet conveys the right atmosphere. When I look
at the evening sky in windy wintry moods, / always love to think
I am looking at a pageant of souls, passing on to the throne of
the Most High, to be judged and atone for misdeeds " The
moving pageants of the waning day ".
Is it unfair to be reminded of the concert-goer's
explanation : "I always love to go and hear Tristan
and Isolde. I live all my love-affairs over again " ?
Several writers contrasted the poem with No. X.
12-2. Offers a great contrast to the opposite poem. Here a
certain grandeur, and reverence in the poet for his subject reflects
itself in the verse.
A poet who permits himself to be anything but
very respectful to Nature does so at his peril.
I2-2I. When this poet broods on the cloud patterns he sees
not so much the long fingers on the sea and the shudder on the
corn (though he is conscious of them and of their beauty) but rather
the spiritual elements of which these are to him the symbols.
155
156 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
The reader seems here to know too much. Another
symbolist, however, in part explains these certitudes.
12*22. Not merely a picture of nature but suggestive. The
clouds are symbolic of some brooding spirit : they arouse dreams,
desires, prognostications in their beholder. The atmosphere is
that of the poet's mind : while we read the poem it hypnotises us
into the same mood. We become languorous and absorbed in
" the arrased distance ".
The persistence with which so many readers
loaded the poem with such extra interpretations,
with Stendhalian * crystallisations ', has probably
two explanations. 12-23 ma Y P ut us on the track of
them both.
12-23. I get more ' kick ' out of this at each reading, partly
because of the rolling rhythm and sonority, and partly because I
can feel something I cannot understand, and I want to go on
trying to understand until I get right into the poet's mind.
Like falling in love.
This seems a valuable hint. The process is very
like falling in love, under rather distant and formal
conditions and without much intimate acquaintance.
Others, with a different result, were affected in a
similar manner.
12-24. This is elusive at a first reading. One is led by the
general vagueness of the opening to attribute to it poetic qualities
which it lacks. Actually there is not a great deal to be said for
it, it apes, rather obviously, Shelley's manner, with inconspicuous
success. Nearly all the words are so well worn as to have
become commonplace unless very adroitly used. When the
writer attempts originality he is almost unintelligible. What,
for instance, is the wise imagination of the mantel of a cloud,
or the smile of spilt milk ?
12-25. I f ee l someone is trying to play with my emotions,
and I dislike it in the same way that I dislike sobstuff in a film.
Those who most admired the poem gave as their
reason, with unusual unanimity, the movement of
the rhythm.
POEM XII 157
12-3. I think this very good. Its power to move is in its
rhythm which is so swelling and big and solemn in the first part.
It does not give many pictures or visual images and I do not
think the sense has very much to do with the effect. It is just
that, somehow, one is brought into touch with the grandeur of
the clouds, which one feels as a permanent thing not a transitory
pleasure like that the clouds give in the second poem.
i2'3i. The poem starts grandly: its stately roll approaches
ecstasy.
12*32. Here we have lines distantly reminiscent of Shakespeare
and the ' honest boldness ' of the Elizabethans. Especially in
the management of the long words, which help to * get across '
the effect of the vastness of the scene described, are we reminded
of the great poets of our language. The vastness of the picture
and the ideas of the poet are conveyed in magnificent lines that
strain and nearly break down the imagination.
Before examining these declarations more closely
let us consider some of those objections which do
not seem to invalidate them.
The c pathetic fallacy ' is again made a ground for
abuse. (Cf. 7-31 and 10-6.)
12-4. The rest of the poem seems to be rubbish because :
(a) A cloud cannot have * desires '.
(b) A mantel cannot have * imaginations '.
(c) ' Imaginations ' cannot * trail '.
(d) ' Milk ' does not ' smile '.
(e) * Dim with flowers ' is rather weak. I always thought
flowers brightened things.
(/) * Tall towers ' do not * triumph ' so far as I know.
Anyhow I never saw one doing it ! Might be an interesting
sight !
These complaints (except (#)) rest upon an assump-
tion about language that would be fatal to poetry.
All these things may happen in a poem if there is
any good reason for them happening or advantage
gained. Some sympathy may be felt, however, in
the present instance, with complaints (6), (c) and (d).
Worse-founded objections with the same pre-
supposition actually stated are combined in 12*41
with other misunderstandings.
158 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
12*41. A terrible wash of words without any Swinburnian
rhythmic music. After half-a-dozen readings one has a faint
glimmer of the meaning, only to find it not worth while. There's
nothing in the shop, But Lor ! Don't 'e take the shutters down
dignified. Says the clouds sink in course of day, producing sunset.
Again animistic pitfall : heavy with dreams, desires, prognostica-
tions, Brooding with sullen and Titanic crests, they surge.
Yes but they don't. They may be heavy with H t O vapour but
that's all. The dreams etc. are in poet's mind. Should take
a course in elementary psychology. Contradiction of arrased
(arras shows clear-cut figures) and dim with flowers. The last
line a Toothful.
There is much here that will have to be discussed
in Part III.
The assumption that ' subject ' automatically de-
fines * treatment ' dies hard. Several complained
that the author's poem was not exactly that which
they would have written themselves.
12-5. Gone is the fundamental poetry of earth and all that the
author supplies us with in its place, is a " mute and languorous
body " what a joyless vision. Can anyone imagine Wordsworth
receiving inspiration from such a cold cheerless sunset, duly set
off by conventional clouds, with their " tremendous triumph of
tall towers " ? no. Instead of the quiet beauty of an English
evening full of the fresh smell of newly watered foliage, when the
drowsy twilight creeps from the hawthorn thickets across the dusty
white road and the wayfarer stops for his evening meal, we find
an extravagantly portrayed vista of a totally unsympathetic and
unnatural world. If poetry is the best words in the best order
such words as prognostication seem a little out of place.
Prosodists indulge in their usual antics.
12-51. This sonnet is spoilt by its irregularity of arrangement,
and by some harsh scansion. It is only by a great effort that one
can render the first line at all as an iambic pentameter. The accent
on " the " in that line is very ugly. Again in the gth line.
There are three syllables in the first foot, and two are full long
ones, so that " below " becomes something like " blow ".
The simile in the gth and roth lines must be peculiar to
the writer. In any case, why should Noon splash milk more
than any other part of the day ?
In the nth line we have a word which three English
dictionaries fail to recognise. Does " arrased " mean the same
POEM XII 159
as " erased ", or " raised ", or is it something to do with " scraped'
up " or with " arras " meaning tapestry ?
" The tremendous triumph of tall towers " is not strictly
applicable to clouds which are the " moving pageant " which
" surge ", yet trail a " mantle on the earth ". Such towers would
be somewhat unstable
12*52. The poem is depressing, the use of such words and
phrases as " heavy as dreams ", " waning ", " prognostications ",
etc. create a gloom which to me is almost " macabre ". The
language is heavy, and prosaic ; in fact it seems almost like a
piece of prose, turned into blank verse for the occasion.
The complaint that the language is prosaic is
hardly what one would have expected, nor do the
rhymes seem so unobtrusive.
Abuse that shows evidence of closer reading is not
lacking.
12*6. This sonnet is plastered with highly-coloured words
whose use is not strongly justifiable. The fifth line, for example,
is, though mildly pleasing, vague. ' Titanic ' is clap-trap.
1 Mantles ' wise imaginations J is nonsense. The simile of the
hawthorns is easily the best thing in the poem ; but there is
some confusion in making the milk issue from Noon's blue
pitcher why Noon? Moreover the very mention of Noon
disturbs the picture of evening. * Arrased distance ' is an affected
phrase, and ' dim with flowers ' is inaccurate.
12*61. Licentiously verbose. Words used blindly for their
mothy aura of suggestion rather than for their meaning.
Comparison with Poem X exercised an influence,
negative or positive, that was perhaps unfortunate.
We may conclude with two protocols which show
clearly what the main division of opinion, and the
choice between the two poems, turned upon.
12*7. This poem gives what the other poem on the cloud does
not, the impression that the author is deeply moved by his own
thoughts. This man can move us to see and feel the picture he
shows the heavy menacing clouds, the deep violent colouring,
the majestic grandeur of sky and earth. The clouds become
alive, " brooding with sullen and Titanic crests ", " triumphant ",
" solemn". With long weighty words " unperturbed 'V* imagina-
tions ", " Prognostications ", " languorous ", " tremendous " ; with
r6o PRACTICAL CRITICISM
a sparing use of unimportant syllables the author achieves the
desired impression of weight. It is a poem that can be repeated
again and again for the mere delight of the richness of the language.
It is an exceptionally strong and colourful poem, not merely
descriptive but showing in a small degree the author's attitude
to life.
With this may be compared 10-48, by the same
writer. It is interesting to note that neither he nor
any other admirer of Poem XII attempted to ex-
pound lines 9 and 10, though not a few were inclined
to question them.
12*71. This poem elicited a hearty grin and several re-readings.
It annoyed me and I think I know why. It instantly challenges
comparison with the second poem Nature, " clouds ", " tower-
ing ", " decline ", " waning day ", " garden ", " flowers ", " corn-
fields ", " mead and hill ", " crown ", and " towers ". This poem
seems highly conceived. It ought to be enjoyable and yet I had
great difficulty in catching its mood. When I was convinced I had
it I found I was feeling quite artificial and unnatural. I believe
it tries hard to be poetic the author knows his " poetic diction "
(which I count against him).
The subjects of both poems invite the reader to
make up, in his own soul, a poem of his own. Both
supply material. Any description of such scenes
will easily start the poetic function going in the
average reader. When, as in Poem XII, the in-
vitation is coupled with a high-sounding grandi-
loquent diction and a very capably handled march
of verse, when, above all, the movement is familiar
and ' hypnotic ', when there is nothing to force the
reader to work at it, we feel safe in going ahead, the
poetic function slips loose and private poems result.
It was with such poems that so many readers fell in
love. I am confirmed in this opinion by noticing
that none, even of the most ardent admirers of
Poem XII, attempted any close analysis of it of the
the kind which admirers of Poem X constantly pro-
duced. No one seriously tried to elucidate c whose
mantles' wise imaginations trail ', to explain the force
POEM XII 161
of ' mute and languorous ' or ' dim with flowers ' ;
or to point out some appropriateness in ' the moving
pageant of the waning day ' or to appraise moving in
this line. The application of these words in the
poem was little considered, they were enjoyed, as it
were in vacuo, by readers content to loll at ease
swinging softly in the hammock of the rhythm,
satisfied to find at last something that sounded like
poetry and disinclined to be at pains to ascertain
whether it also read like poetry.
There remains, of course, for later discussion, the
question of the value of such swoon-reading as
compared for example with the querulousness of
12-41.
In the village churchyard she lies,
Dust is in her beautiful eyes,
No more she breathes, nor feels, nor stirs ,
At her feet and at her head
Lies a slave to attend the dead,
But their dust is white as hers.
Was she a lady of high degree,
So much in love with the vanity
And foolish pomp of this world of ours ;
Or was it Christian charity,
And lowliness and humility,
The richest and rarest of all dowers ?
Who shall tell us ? No one speaks ;
No colour shoots into those cheeks,
Either of anger or of pride,
At the rude question we have asked ;
Nor will the mystery be unmasked
By those who are sleeping at her side.
Hereafter ? And do you think to look
On the terrible pages of that Book
To find her failings, faults, and errors ?
Ah, you will then have other cares,
In your own shortcomings and despairs,
In your own secret sins and terrors !
POEM XIII
INDIGNATION rose high in the case of this poem, and
ranged wide. A glance at Appendix B will show
that it was by far the most disliked of all the poems.
Some special explanation seems to be required for a
combined attack so varied in temper, ground and
direction, yet so united in hostile intention.
As has been remarked before, a very wary eye is
needed with any poetry that tends to implicate our
stock responses. And this for two opposite reasons.
If the easiest way to popularity is to exploit some
stock response, some poem already existent, fully
prepared, in the reader's mind, an appearance of
appealing to such stock responses, should the reader
happen to have discarded them, is a very certain way
of courting failure. So that a poet who writes on
what appears to be a familiar theme, in a way which,
superficially, is only slightly unusual, runs a double
risk. On the one hand, very many readers will not
really read him at all. They will respond with the
poem they suppose him to have written and then,
if emancipated, recoil in horror to heap abuse on the
poet's head. On the other hand, less emancipated
readers, itching to release their own stock responses,
may be pulled up by something in the poem which
prevents them. The result will be more abuse for
the hapless author.
Now to illustrate and justify these reflections.
Here is a writer who finds only a stock experience in
the poem. He is only mildly disappointed however :
13-1. This one seems to me a successful communication of an
experience whose value is dubious, or which at most is valuable
163
164 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
only on a small scale. Plainly, I think, the communication
succeeds by reason of its medium ; simple, straightforward,
almost bald language, making no demand on any peculiar
individual characteristic which might be a bar to general appre-
ciation, as in the poetry of Blake, for instance. The reasons
for my judgment of the experience-value are harder to formulate.
I think one may be that the experience does not go very much
further than it would in the case of an " ordinary man " who was
not a poet, so that its very raison d'etre is a questionable quantity.
It does, in fact, seem to me rather trite.
Here is another in the same case and only slightly
less tolerant.
13-11. The theme is commonplace and the poet has failed to
give it new significance by his treatment. The simplicity of the
poem is that of sentimentality rather than that of profound
emotion.
A third finds again only stock material and stock
treatment. His description of what he finds, ' just
a few commonplaces about Death the Leveller ' may
make us doubt the closeness of his reading.
13-12. The poet has attempted to describe a quiet contemplative
mood. He has not felt it. These are just a few commonplaces
about Death the Leveller uttered with an ill-feigned naivete which
cannot pass for sincerity. The poem is like the oft-delivered
sermon of a preacher who knows what he ought to say. Hence
all its conventional tricks " a lady of high degree ", " vanity
and foolish pomp", " Christian charity", "failings, faults and
errors " he might have added " trespasses " and above all
" the village churchyard", the conventional setting for ruminations
upon death.
The same interpretation appears in other protocols :
13-13. The first three stanzas are preoccupied with the power-
lessness of humans in the grip of death.
The power of the stock response to hide what is
actually in the poem is remarkable here, for he adds :
13-131. It is all on the same dead level. Each stanza is divided
into two parts which balance each other. But the two parts bear
precisely the same relation to each other in each stanza ; and all
the six half -stanzas embody precisely the same idea.
POEM XIII 165
The opposing danger that may arise from the
interference of stock responses is well illustrated
in 13-2. Instead of complaining that the poem is
too much, he condemns it for being too little what
he expected, but in the end he combines these
objections.
13-2. This poem is rubbish. The first couplet invites com-
parison with
11 I wish I were where Helen lies ;
Night and day on me she cries ",
which shows up its crudeness. The dust in her eyes is confusing
and the additional dust of the sixth line raises such a cloud that
it is impossible to see through it.
Questions in poetry rarely come off and this second stanza is
weak-kneed. If only he could have substituted his questions with
something like
" She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleam'd upon my sight ".
// is not poetic to refer to the sensitive colouring of a maiden's
cheek as shooting.
The prophecy in the last stanza is a gross example of a pious
platitude and an insult to anyone with a conscience. If the
writer had been the first to tell us to remove the ' beam ' from
our own eyes before looking for a * moat ' in another's the poem
might have stimulated. But the thought has many times been
better clothed.
Whether there is any emphasis on ' you ' in the
first line of the last verse of the poem, and, if so, of
what character, are points discussed below. But,
lest it be thought that I over-estimate the part played
by stock responses in these readings of the poem,
let me cite another example as to which no doubt
will be felt.
13-3. Or was it Christian charity,
And lowliness and humility ?
Might I be permitted to ask what ' it ' refers to ? Was what
Christian charity ? Also does " the richest and rarest of all
dowers " refer to Christian charity, lowliness or humility ? or
all three ? If the latter then I must object, because Christian
166 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
charity is a very ugly thing and neither rare nor rich (v. The Way
of All Flesh, Samuel Butler, passim).
The writer has evidently fitted himself up with a
* reach me down ' reaction from one of the most
up-to-date dealers. He continues with notable con-
fidence in his powers of divination :
13-31. Don't think I mind obscurity, because I don't ; but I
do like to get somq meaning sooner or later, and this poem seems
very muddled and confused. At all events the poem is not worth
much effort on the part of the reader because the underlying
emotion is not of sufficient value. Nor has the poet anything
to impart to us, he merely writes to hear his own voice, and any
other subject would have suited him just as well.
Possibly the poem did not receive much effort in
this case, but many other readers, who may have
been more pertinacious, had little better success.
13-4. The sentiments expressed in this poem are by no means
uncommon. The poem leaves the reader as it found him.
The first verse of the poem states the lady's present condition.
The first two lines of the second verse ponders on the question
as to whether she was a lady of high degree, then goes on to ask
" Or was it Christian charity ".
Was what Christian charity ? Perhaps the slaves lying at her
head and feet, in that case was there need to ask the question.
The charity of Christians hardly takes such a peculiar form.
These slaves proved a great difficulty.
13-41. I do not know what suggested the slaves to attend the
dead ; if villagers' graves, the idea is far-fetched, if statuary on a
monument to the lady, we are given no other hint of such a
monument anyway, the metaphor is exotic and out of place.
13-42. I don't know what the 2 slaves are symbolic of I
should like to know.
13-43. This gush of sentiment and evangelical piety is one of
the worst things I have seen in the manner of Longfellow and
Mrs Hemans. It has not even the merit of lucidity. // is not
customary to bury slaves by the body of their mistress in a village
churchyard. A typical mark of uninspired writers of verse is
their tendency to dwell on the theme of the brevity of human
POEM XIII 167
life. This poem is a vague reflection on that subject, with little
genuine emotion, good rhythm, or effective phrasing.
This reader was very delicate for he adds :
13-431. The number of marks of interrogation in the piece is
enough to make one sick.
Apparently, for all that, they were not enough to
make him inquire what it was all about. If such
burials were customary, the poem, which turns
entirely upon the surprising presence of the slaves,
would, presumably, never have been written.
Some of the conjectures advanced by those who
took note of this point were not lacking in daring.
13-45. It is a satirical poem. The words which mar the poem
as a poem of beauty aid it as a satire. These words persuade
the reader that the poem is not to be taken seriously and we are
not shocked too forcibly by the first verse in which, I believe, we are
meant to realise that two slaves were buried alive with their dead
mistress, and in the last verse the poet is able to deliver his attack
on us because he has disguised his seriousness by a light,
artificial manner.
Why their dust should be as ' white as hers ', and
whether ' those who are sleeping at her side ' are the
same as those lying ' at her feet and at her head ',
were further questions, and even some very careful
and acute readers were in doubt whether a monument
is implied.
13-46. If the lady was not known to the poet before her
decease how does he know that her eyes were beautiful ? And why
bring such very big guns to bear on a piece of surely quite
harmless curiosity unnecessarily hard on himself for asking a
question very innocent if rather foolish for if Christian charity
had prompted the disposition of the bodies the slaves would
scarcely have been at the feet and head, but at the side. Its
extreme seriousness and queer na'iveU point, I feel, to an American
origin.
13-461. Why shouldn't slaves have white dust ? And is what
Christian charity ? The coy surprise in the third verse at the
lack of a response seems uncalled for.
1 68 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
1 3 -462. Careful reading reveals muddle and makes response to
the poem harder.
" Dust ". We think of her dust in the earth.
" Beautiful eyes ". This makes us think of her alive. But
we know nothing about her, not whether she is "of high
degree " or not. But here we are asked to assume her
eyes were " beautiful ", presumably because she was a
woman.
" But their dust is white as hers ". This muddles one. What
is the point of it ? Why white ? Unless it is symbolic
of something, it suggests that he had actually seen the
dust. But he hadn't, apparently, to judge by the rest of
stanza i.
Then " those cheeks ". But she is dust, and here we are
asked to think of her flesh.
In view of all this there is reason to think either that there was
some sort of a monument, or that she is seen sometimes as a
heap of dust round a skeleton and sometimes as a beautiful
corpse. This makes stanzas i and 3 worthless, because they
build on a visual image which has no reality.
r
13-47. If visual images are introduced, however, we need, I
shall maintain, at least two sets. This I like but find imperfect.
Dust in the eye has of course the authority of Nashe, 1 but I do
not feel it quite right in this more concrete work. Nor do I
know quite how to account for a lady in a village churchyard
with a couple of Egyptian (?) slaves. And " their dust " seems
to indicate that the bodies are long since pulverised, which is all
right but jars with the dust-in-eye image. But also if the lady
is dust you would hardly expect to find colour " shooting " into
her cheeks. " Rude question " seems just a bit comic. But the
rhythm seems to me good, and the last stanza is very good. If this
is Longfellow it shows traces of his muddle of Gothic stuff with
New England meeting-house experience. Not null, though, by
any means. Simply a bit clumsy.
It will perhaps be well to insert here my own
interpretation of these points.
That the slaves are negro servants seems sufficient
1 Brightness falls from the air,
Queens have died young and fair.
Dust hath closed Helen's eyes.
POEM XIII 169
justification of the last line of stanza i . Those sleep-
ing at her side are all the other inmates of the
churchyard. I take the lines
Dust is in her beautiful eyes
and
No colour shoots into those cheeks
t
to refer to her sculptured effigy, and find no difficulty
in passing from the thought of the monument to the
thought of the mortal remains at the end of the first
stanza. This reading seems to me to remove the
jars and inconsistencies felt by the two last writers.
Whether there actually exists such a monument any-
where is, of course, an entirely immaterial, though
not an uninteresting, question.
We may now turn to some of the objections
brought not against the logic or clarity of the poem
but against its tone and feeling. Here are some of
the more spirited denunciations. The influence of
the stock response danger will not be overlooked.
13-5. This poem is a bastard of spurious rectitude and false
simplicity or, if you prefer, was gotten by a small Squire on
some cretinous evangelical ninny. (I hardly liked to come near
it but must confess to being a little fascinated by such an emana-
tion from Joanna Southcott's Gladstone bag).
13-51. This poem is maudlin. Artistically it is beneath
contempt. The meter is quite unsuited to the subjectas well as
being irregular from verse to verse : the tripping metre of the line :
And foolish pomp of this world of ours
jars terribly. The thought is either bitter and coloured with the
idea of retributive justice as in the last verse which is most
unpleasant in tone ; or utterly commonplace, and cheaply senti-
mental. It was certainly written by a neurotic or a fanatic with a
diseased mind.
Protests against the tripping rhythm were, indeed,
not infrequent, and were associated with evidence of
moral shock.
1 70 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
13-52. Artistically insincere. Contrast the solemnity of the
theme with the frivolous rhythm.
(" On the terrible pages of that Book
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
With a hey and a ho and a hey nonny no ").
The uncertainty whether the slaves in the first stanza were really
buried with the lady or only shown on the tomb, introduces an
irritation at the start. There is a* mock pre-Raphaelitish simplicity
in the 2nd stanza (" lady of high degree " " Christian charity ") :
" this world of ours " is a piece of impudent sentimentality. Next
stanza is a fuss about nothing ; and " rude " a serious lapse of
taste. It is intolerable that this Sunday-school didacticism (vide
especially stanzas 2 and 4) should be connected with the idea of
death and decay.
i3'53. From the rhythm of this poem I deduce that it was
written in a state of semi-somnolence by a man with St Vitus's
Dance. He was unable to keep himself awake after the end of
the fourth stanza, and he wants us now to suppose that the
poem ends there. I dare say that the author writes pieces like
this with quite effortless fluency ; God protect us from this kind
of spontaneity ! The author has no concrete notion of what he
wishes to communicate, or why, and assumes a false, specious kind
of naivete* to make his reader think he is being passionately
sincere.
A phrase like " foolish pomp of this world of ours " is both
foolish and pompous. " The richest and rarest of all dowers "
is sheer gush
13-54. This is beyond all words. If the last stanza represents
the purpose and spirit of the piece a sermon in four stanzas
one can only be thankful the sermon was not any longer. Also
the good lady's * failings, faults, and errors ' are most * common-
place, everyday and typical '. Had the ' poet ' hinted at revenge
by a jealous husband for a sordid domestic intrigue between the
dusty wife and her dusky slaves, the last stanza might have
assumed some reality.
This expert on reality adds :
13-6. I am no prosodist, but those who are will doubtless have
some choice comments to make.
They had. Here are some of them.
13-61. The versification is worth examining. The first verse
is presumably the criterion. It consists of three eight syllable lines
POEM XIII 171
followed one of seven syllables, one of eight syllables and one of
seven syllables. The next verse consists of three nine syllable
lines followed by one of eight and two of nine. The third and
fourth verses seem to have no plan at all. The third verse
consists of one line of seven syllables, three of eight, one of ten
(hitherto imintroduced) and one of nine. The fourth verse
consists of one line of nine syllables, followed by one of ten,
nine, eight and two of nine. TJie irregularities of the metre are
very confusing and displeasing to the ear.
13-62. The rhythm is very poor. Although the arrangement
of metres chosen is one with a pleasant lilt to it, the poet fails to
keep any regularity of rhythm. In the first stanza, the first line
and the fifth, the last line in the second, the last of the third
and the first in the fourth only read comfortably by a difficult
elision or an accent on the wrong syllable. For example, ' to
attend ' has to be read ' t'attend \ The rhetorical questions are
unfortunate in this light piece. The heaviness of the dismal,
fatalistic last verse resembles a man of light build with a club
foot.
Here, however, is a different complaint :
I 3*63- The versification is correct, and flows with a gentle
lilt, the sense stresses coinciding with metrical ones not in
precisely the same pattern in every stanza but near enough to be
tiring. The last stanza, too, (if counted on the fingers) reveals a
derangement of metre.
These opinions we may trace to a presupposition
which we have seen in action before. That mis-
understanding of metre which derives from the
application of external measures. But another group
of complaints against the movement of the poem
must be noticed. These show an altogether superior
understanding of rhythm and a much better applied
sensibility. But they are perhaps too evidently
motived by a violent negative reaction to the supposed
stock sanctimoniousness of the poem.
13-64 (continuing 13*5). I had come to hope, during the first
three progressive spasms that the inane zigzag of her staggering
would take her from me, as we passed, on a receding tack, but
the monstrous accosting lurch towards me of verse 4 completed,
172 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
as they say, my discomfiture, and my first instinct was to
hurry off.
This ' close-up ' lurch, however, jerked to my notice not
merely the ludicrous pomposity of the portent, but that this
pompous moral go-getting was spavined, also, by a peculiar structural
disjointedness, as well as by a tendency, as it were, to mark a
sort of muddy time, whether in bogged and sluggish redundance
(as in lines 3 of verses i and 4),,or in a sort of awe-struck loyalty
to the sanctimonious clichds in lines 3 and 6 of verse 2. These and
other things, such as the peculiarly desperate staggering to the
support in the last half of verse 4 of the rhymes, here hectically
pitched like camp-stools, at the last moment, to catch their tottering
burden such phenomena tempted me, I must confess, to linger,
however distastefully, with " the case ". I thus observed that
there was another, more typical, close to the linear spasm ; in
this case the patient would accompany the more normal attain-
ment of adequate stasis by a sort of repetitive ' caw ' which I
again took to be intended for rhyme. I could not, however, be
certain whether such apparently nuclear utterance was the cause
of a process or the excuse for it.
The justice of these strictures entirely depends
I believe, upon the sense of the lines picked out for
reproof, and our view of this is, of course, inseparable
from our interpretation of the whole poem. Given
the last writer's reading of the sense of the poem, and
given his emotional response to the sense, as he takes
it, then his reading of its sound follows. It is as
subtly observed as it is surprisingly expressed. The
question of the interconnection of form and content
in poetry is here delicately illuminated ; and no
better occasion could be imagined for insisting once
more upon the meet subordination of means to ends.
To come down to detail. First as to the * bogged
and sluggish redundance ' of
No more she breathes, nor feels, nor stirs.
Another reader agrees.
13-65. * No more she breathes ' we are told, and we are truly
most surprised to hear that she ' nor feels nor stirs ' !
But poetry does not aim at conciseness if there is
anything to be gained by expansion. The poet might
POEM XIII 173
reply that he was not aiming at surprise, but at its
opposite, at making more obvious what is obvious
already. More noticeably still with
To find her failings, faults and errors.
The alleged redundance has the effect of turning
these things into a list, a catalogue an effect which,
in view of the lines which* precede it, is hardly fair
ground of complaint against the poet.
As to the ' sanctimonious cliches ' of verse 2, if
there are no such things here and so no ' awe-struck
loyalty ' to them, the complaint against the verses as
' marking a sort of muddy time ' lapses, supposing
there to be some other warrant for the slowness of
movement. And perhaps there may be. This second
verse is discussing the motive which prompted the
strange disposal of the slaves' bodies. Was it an
ignoble and mundane impulse or a more extraordinary
motive ? So far from being * a piece of impudent
sentimentality ', the phrase ' this world of ours '
makes a necessary point ; and, if the great mystery
1 Was what Christian charity ? ' is solved, the very
strangeness of this possible instance justifies the
epithets of the last line of this verse.
Yet other complaints concerned the word * rude '
which is, indeed, the key to the tone of the poem.
13-7. Surely an awfully frivolous, finicky word in the presence
of death ? It seems to be used in the sense of " What a rude
man ! " not in the much less offensive sense of rough or violent.
13-71. Like a scurrilous controversialist the writer arbitrarily
attributes to his imaginary interlocutor a despicable intention
and then rails at him for it. One can see, without consulting the
Book to which the writer refers, that he is a conceited, con-
temptible prig.
13-72. At times, also, the banality of the wording is ludicrous,
reminiscent of an elderly maiden lady shaking a mittened hand in
remonstration ' The rude question we have asked '.
13-73. The winsome personal touches (e.g., ' the rude question
we have asked ') strongly suggest Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
I 74 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
Some of these associations we can safely set aside
as just the personal misfortune of the individuals
they distress. We have to ask what the tone of the
poem at this point is and what the word * rude ' does
to the tone. It was very generally assumed that
since the subject of the poem is solemn the treatment
must be solemn too, and many readers made it as
serious as they could. Not unnaturally their results
often displeased them.
13-8. If the poem tends to check the reader from making specula-
tions on other peoples lives then it has some value. The poem
however does not seem to do this, but rather stimulates than
quiets a man's interest in the private deeds of other people. The
reason for this is that the poet lays too little stress on the results
of the enquiry. This form of stimulation to the mind can do it
no good and may do it harm. The poem is therefore bad.
This seems perfectly to express a possible way of
reading the poem. A reading whose solemnity fully
merits all the adjectives that other readers found to
fling against it. Sanctimonious, didactic, pompous,
portentous, priggish, seem, indeed, if the poem is
looked at in this light, hardly too strong. Only one
reader attempted to state the issue between this view
of the poem and another view by which it would
escape these charges. And he so over-states his case
that he discredits it.
13-9. I am in two minds as to the intention of this poem.
If the mood in which it is written is serious, if we are meant to
take the situation in profound meditation closing in self-abasing
remorse, then the whole thing is clearly vicious and preposterous.
The idea of an eternity spent in turning up the files of other
people's sins or crouching to cry peccavi for our own is either
amusing or disgusting or both. But if the last three lines are a
sudden impish whirl on the complacent moral speculation of
the first three stanzas the whole is a very delightful little whimsy.
It must be the latter " a rude question " very impertinent
indeed. And if the latter the manner is perfect with its echoing
parody of similar but serious poems.
Yet on the turning-point of the word * rude ' he
seems possibly to be right. For if, to state the middle
POEM XIII 175
view more fairly, the poet is not trying to be im-
pressive, to inflate the reader with swelling sentiments
and a gaseous * moral,' but to keep the poem cool
and sober, he does so by bringing back the con-
versational, the social tone ; and the word ' rude '
would begin this process. If this interpretation of
the poem is right, * rude ' is simply an acknowledge-
ment of the social convention, not in the least a
rebuke. Whether the buried lady were proud or
humble, this questioning of her motives in her living
presence would have had the same effect. Her
cheeks would have coloured with resentment or
with modesty. And in both cases the questioning
would have been an impertinence, a rudeness, in
the simplest social sense. The word belongs to the
texture of the poet's meditation and is not aimed at
anyone, not even at the poet himself. It is the
admission of a fact, not an attack upon anyone, or
anything.
On this theory of the structure of the poem the
last verse would be in the same tone. Not a grim
warning, or an exhortation, but a cheerful realisation
of the situation, not in the least evangelical, not at
all like a conventional sermon, but on the contrary
extremely urbane, rather witty, and slightly whim-
sical. If it were said that it has more of a chuckle
in it than a groan or a threat, that might be over-
stating this view, but, even so, this would be a less
distortion than that which evoked the following':
13-91 (continuation of 13*5, 13*64). To close, as I began, on a
suggestion of invective. This " poem " is a storm brewed amongst
sodden Typhoo-tips, in the dregs of a cracked Woolworth
tea-cup, by an incorrigible moral charlatan, simpleton, or bore,
who has become immune from self-criticism through the public
acceptance, nem con.> of a piously truistic diffuseness which
easily flatters and cozens the naifly self-regarding morale of a
society in part too simple, in part intolerably smug.
We may grant that, if the demands of 13-8 repre-
1 76 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
sent its aim, it might be all this. But another reading
is possible, one by which the poem becomes a very
unusual kind of thing that it would be a pity to miss.
That so few read it in this way is not surprising, for
if there is any character in poetry that modern
readers- who derive their ideas of it rather from
the best known poems <rf Wordsworth, Shelley and
Keats or from our contemporaries, than from Dry den,
Pope or Cowper are unprepared to encounter, it
is this social, urbane, highly cultivated, self-confident,
temperate and easy kind of humour.
PART THREE
ANALYSIS
Let us go closer to the fire and see what we are saying.'
(The Bubis of Fernando Po.)
M
CHAPTER I
THE FOUR KINDS OF MEANING
From whence it happens, that they which trust to books, do as
they that cast up many little summs into a greater, without considering
whether those little summes were rightly cast up or not ; and at last
finding the errour visible, and not mistrusting their first grounds,
know not which way to cleere themselves ; but spend time in flutter-
ing over their bookes ; as birds that entring by the chimney, and
finding themselves inclosed in a chamber, flutter at the false light of
a glasse window, for want of wit to consider which way they came in.
Leviathan.
AFTER so much documentation the reader will be in a
mood to welcome an attempt to point some morals, to
set up some guiding threads by which the labyrinth
we have perambulated may be made less bewildering.
Otherwise we might be left with a mere defeatist
acquiescence in quot homines tot sententice as the
sovereign critical principle, a hundred verdicts from
a hundred readers as the sole fruit of our endeavours
a result at the very opposite pole from my hope
and intention. But before it can be pointed, the
moral has first to be disengaged, and the guiding
threads cannot be set up without some preliminary
engineering. The analyses and distinctions that
follow are only those that are indispensable if the
conclusions to which they lead are to be understood
with reasonable precision or recommended with
confidence.
The proper procedure will be to inquire more
closely now that the material has passed before
us into the ten difficulties listed towards the end
of Part I, taking them one by one in the order there
adopted. Reasons for this order will make them-
179
i8o PRACTICAL CRITICISM
selves plain as we proceed, for these difficulties
depend one upon another like a cluster of monkeys.
Yet in spite of this complicated interdependence it
is not very difficult to see where we must begin.
The original difficulty of all reading, the problem of
making out the meaning, is our obvious starting-point.
The answers to those apparently simple questions :
* What is a meaning ? ' ' What are we doing when
we endeavour to make it out ? ' ' What is it we are
making out ? ' are the master-keys to all the problems
of criticism. If we can make use of them the locked
chambers and corridors of the theory of poetry open
to us, and a new and impressive order, is discovered
even in the most erratic twists of the protocols.
Doubtless there are some who, by a natural dis-
pensation, acquire the ' Open Sesame ' ! to poetry
without labour, but, for the rest of us, certain
general reflections we are not often encouraged to
undertake can spare us time and fruitless trouble.
The all-important fact for the study of literature
or any other mode of communication is that there
are several kinds of meaning. Whether we know r
and intend it or not, we are all jugglers when we
converse, keeping the billiard-balls in the air while
we balance the cue on our nose. Whether we are
active, as in speech or writing, or passive, 1 as readers
or listeners, the Total Meaning we are engaged
with is, almost always, a bland, a combination of
several contributory meanings of different types.
Language and pre-eminently language as it is used
in poetry has not one but several tasks to perform
simultaneously, and we shall misconceive most of
the difficulties of criticism unless we understand
this point and take note of the differences between
1 Relatively, or technically, * passive' only; a fact that our
protocols will help us not to forget. The reception (or interpretation)
of a meaning is an activity, which may go astray ; in fact, there is
always some degree of loss and distortion in transmission. For an
account of * understanding ' see Part IV, 13.
THE FOUR KINDS OF MEANING 181
these functions. For our purposes here a division
into four types of function, four kinds of meaning,
will suffice.
It is plain that most human utterances and nearly
all articulate speech can be profitably regarded from
four points of view. Four aspects can be easily
distinguished. Let us callHhem Sense, Feeling, Tone,
and Intention.
1. Sense.
We speak to say something, and when we listen we
expect something to be said. We use words to
direct our hearers' attention upon some state of
affairs, to present to them some items for con-
sideration and to excite in them some thoughts about
these items.
2. Feeling. 1
But we also, as a rule, have some feelings about
these items, about the state of affairs we are referring
to. We have an attitude towards it, some special
direction, bias, or accentuation of interest towards
it, some personal flavour or colouring of feeling ;
and we use language to express these feelings, this
nuance of interest. Equally, when we listen we
pick it up, rightly or wrongly ; it seems inextricably
part of what we receive ; and this whether the
speaker be conscious himself of his feelings towards
w r hat he is talking about or not. I am, of course,
here describing the normal situation, my reader will
be able without difficulty to think of exceptional
cases (mathematics, for example) where no feeling
enters.
1 Under * Feeling' I group for convenience the whole conative-
aftective aspect of life emotions, emotional attitudes, the will, desire,
pleasure-unpleasure, and the rest. ( Feeling ' is shorthand for any or
all of this.
182 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
3. Tone.
Furthermore, the speaker has ordinarily an attitude
to his listener. He chooses or arranges his words
differently as his audience varies, in automatic or
deliberate recognition of his relation to them. The
tone of his utterance reflects his awareness of this
relation, his sense of how he stands towards those
he is addressing. Again the exceptional case of
dissimulation, or instances in which the speaker
unwittingly reveals an attitude he is not consciously
desirous of expressing, will come to mind.
4. Intention^
Finally, apart from what he says (Sense), his
attitude to what he is talking about (Feeling), and
his attitude to his listener (Tone), there is the
speaker's intention, his aim, conscious or unconscious,
the effect he is endeavouring to promote. Ordinarily
he speaks for a purpose, and his purpose modifies
his speech. The understanding of it is part of the
whole business of apprehending his meaning. Unless
we know what he is trying to do, we can hardly
estimate the measure of his success. Yet the number
of readers who omit such considerations might make
a faint-hearted writer despair. Sometimes, of course,
he will purpose no more than to state his thoughts
(i), or to express his feelings about what he is
thinking of, e.g. Hurrah ! Damn! (2), or to express
his attitude to his listener (3). With this last case
we pass into the realm of endearments and abuse.
Frequently his intention operates through and
satisfies itself in a combination of the other functions.
Yet it has effects not reducible to their effects. It
may govern the stress laid upon points in an argu-
1 This function plainly is not on all fours with the others. See
Part IV, 16 and Appendix A, where a further discussion of these
four functions is attempted.
THE FOUR KINDS OF MEANING 183
ment for example, shape the arrangement, and even
call attention to itself in such phrases as ' for con-
trast's sake ' or ' lest it be supposed '. It controls
the ' plot ' in the largest sense of the word, and is
at work whenever the author is * hiding his hand '.
And it has especial importance in dramatic and
semi-dramatic literature. Thus the influence of his
intention upon the language he uses is additional to,
and separable from, the other three influences, and
its effects can profitably be considered apart.
We shall find in the protocols instances, in plenty,
of failure on the part of one or other of these
functions. Sometimes all four fail together ; a
reader garbles the sense, distorts the feeling, mistakes
the tone and disregards the intention ; and often a
partial collapse of one function entails aberrations
in the others. The possibilities of human misunder-
standing make up indeed a formidable subject for
study, but something more can be done to elucidate
it than has yet been attempted. Whatever else we
may do by the light of nature it would be folly to
maintain that we should read by it. But before
turning back to scrutinise our protocols some further
explanation of these functions will be in place.
If we survey our uses of language as a whole, it
is clear that at times, now one now another of the
functions may become predominant. It will make
the possible situations clearer if we briefly review
certain typical forms of composition. A man writing
a scientific treatise, for example, will put the Sense
of what he has to say first, he will subordinate his
Feelings about his subject or about other views upon
it and be careful not to let them interfere to distort
his argument or to suggest bias. His Tone will be
settled for him by academic convention ; he will, if
he is wise, indicate respect for his readers and a
moderate anxiety to be understood accurately and
1 84 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
to win acceptance for his remarks. It will be well
if his Intention, as it shows itself in the work, be on
the whole confined to the clearest and most adequate
statement of what he has to say (Function i, Sense).
But, if the circumstances warrant it, further relevant
aims an intention to reorientate opinion, to direct
attention to new aspects,/ or to encourage or dis-
courage certain methods of work or ways of approach
are obviously fitting. Irrelevant aims the accept-
ance of the work as a thesis for a Ph.D., for example,
come in a different category.
Consider now a writer engaged upon popularising
some of the results and hypotheses of science. The
principles governing his language are not nearly so
simple, for the furtherance of his intention will
properly and inevitably interfere with the other
functions.
In the first place, precise and adequate statement
of the sense may have to be sacrificed, to some
degree, in the interests of general intelligibility.
Simplifications and distortions may be necessary if
the reader is to ' follow '. Secondly, a much more
lively exhibition of feelings on the part of the author
towards his subject-matter is usually appropriate
and desirable, in order to awaken and encourage the
reader's interest. Thirdly, more variety of tone will
be called for ; jokes and humorous illustrations, for
example, are admissible, and perhaps a certain
amount of cajolery. With this increased liberty,
tact, the subjective counterpart of tone, will be
urgently required. A human relation between the
expert and his lay audience must be created, and
the task, as many specialists have discovered, is not
easy. These other functions will interfere still more
with strict accuracy of statement ; and if the subject
has a ' tendency ', if political, ethical or theological
implications are at all prominent, the intention of the
work will have further opportunities to intervene.
THE FOUR KINDS OF MEANING 185
This leads us to the obvious instance of political
speeches. What rank and precedence shall we assign
to the four language functions if we analyse public
utterances made in the midst of a General Election ?
Function 4, the furtherance of intentions (of all
grades of worthiness) is unmistakably predominant.
Its instruments are Function 2, the expression of
feelings about causes, policies, leaders and opponents,
and Function 3, the establishment of favourable
relations with the audience (' the great heart of the
people '). Recognising this, ought we to be pained
or surprised that Function i, the presentation of
facts (or of objects of thought to be regarded as
facts are regarded), is equally subordinated ? l But
further consideration of this situation would lead us
into a topic that must be examined later, that of
Sincerity, a word with several important meanings.
(See Chapter VII.)
In conversation, perhaps, we get the clearest
examples of these shifts of function, the normal
verbal apparatus of one function being taken over
by another. Intention, we have seen, may com-
pletely subjugate the others ; so, on occasion, may
Feeling or Tone express themselves through Sense,
translating themselves into explicit statements about
feelings and attitudes towards things and people
statements sometimes belied by their very form
and manner. Diplomatic formulae are often good
examples, together with much of the social language
(Malinowski's ' phatic communion '), 2 the c Thank
you so very much ' es, and ' Pleased to meet you ' s,
1 The ticklish point is, of course, the implication that the speaker
believes in the ' facts' not only as powerful arguments but as facts.
1 Belief here has to do with Function 2, and, as such examples
suggest, is also a word with several senses, at least as many as attach
to the somewhat analogous word 'love'. Some separation and
ventilation of them, beyond that attempted in Ch. VII below, is very
desirable, and I hope to explore this subject in a future work.
2 See The Meaning of Meaning, Supplement I, iv.
186 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
that help us to live amicably with one another.
(But see Appendix A, Note i.)
Under this head, too, may be put the psychological
analyses, the introspective expatiations that have
recently flourished so much in fiction as well as in
sophisticated conversation. Does it indicate a con-
fusion or a tenuousness t in our feelings that we
should now find ourselves so ready to make state-
ments about them, to translate them into disquisitions,
instead of expressing them in more direct and
natural ways ? Or is this phenomenon simply
another result of the increased study of psychology ?
It would be rash to decide as yet. Certainly some
psychologists lay themselves open to a charge of
emptiness, of having so dealt with themselves that
they have little left within them to talk about.
* Putting it into words,' if the w r ords are those of a
psychological textbook, is a process which may well
be damaging to the feelings. I shall be lucky if my
reader does not murmur de te fabula at this point.
But Feeling (and sometimes Tone) may take
charge of and operate through Sense in another
fashion, one more constantly relevant in poetry. (If
indeed the shift just dealt with above might not be
better described as Sense interfering with and
dominating Feeling and Tone.)
When this happens, the statements which appear
in the poetry are there for the sake of their effects
upon feelings, not for their own sake. Hence to
challenge their truth or to question whether they
deserve serious attention as statements claiming truth,
is to mistake their function. The point is that
many, if not most, of the statements in poetry are
there as a means to the manipulation * and expression
of feelings and attitudes, not as contributions to
any body of doctrine of any type whatever. With
1 I am not assuming that the poet is conscious of any distinction
between his means and his ends. (Compare foot-note on p. 190.)
THE FOUR KINDS OF MEANING 187
narrative poetry there is little danger of any mistake
arising, but with l philosophical ' or meditative poetry
there is great danger of a confusion which may have
two sets of consequences.
On the one hand there are very many people who,
if they read any poetry at all, try to take all its
statements seriously anci find them silly. ' My
soul is a ship in full sail/ for example, seems to them
a very profitless kind of contribution to psychology.
This may seem an absurd mistake but, alas ! it is
none the less common. On the other hand there
are those who succeed too well, who swallow ' Beauty
is truth, truth beauty. . . .', as the quintessence of
an aesthetic philosophy, not as the expression of a
certain blend of feelings, and proceed into a complete
stalemate of muddle-mindedness as a result of their
linguistic naivety. It is easy to see what those in
the first group miss ; the losses of the second group,
though the accountancy is more complicated, are
equally lamentable.
A temptation to discuss here some further intri-
cacies of this shift of function must be resisted. An
overflow into Appendix A, which may serve as a
kind of technical workshop for those who agree with
me that the matter is important enough to be
examined with pains, will be the best solution. I am
anxious to illustrate these distinctions from the
protocols before tedium too heavily assails us. It
will be enough here to note that this subjugation of
statement to emotive purposes has innumerable
modes. A poet may distort his statements ; he may
make statements which have logically nothing to do
with the subject under treatment ; he may, by
metaphor and otherwise, present objects for thought
which are logically quite irrelevant ; he may perpetrate
logical nonsense, be as trivial or as silly, logically, as
it is possible to be ; all in the interests of the other
functions of his language to express feeling or
188 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
adjust tone or further his other intentions. If his
success in these other aims justify him, no reader
(of the kind at least to take his meaning as it should
be taken) can validly say anything against him.
But these indirect devices for expressing feeling
through logical irrelevance and nonsense, through
statements not to be taken strictly, literally or
seriously, though pre-eminently apparent in poetry,
are not peculiar to it. A great part of what passes
for criticism comes under this head. It is much
harder to obtain statements about poetry, than
expressions of feelings towards it and towards the
author. Very many apparent statements turn out
on examination to be only these disguised forms,
indirect expressions, of Feeling, Tone and Intention.
Dr Bradley's remark that Poetry is a spirit^ and
Dr Mackail's that it is a continuous substance or
energy whose progress is immortal are eminent examples
that I have made use of elsewhere, so curious that
I need no apology for referring to them again.
Remembering them, we may be more ready to apply
to the protocols every instrument of interpretation
we possess. May we avoid if possible in our own
reading of the protocols those errors of misunder-
standing which we are about to watch being com-
mitted towards the poems.
CHAPTER II
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Que fait-il ici ? s'y plairait-il ? penserait-il y plaire ?
RONSARU.
THE possibilities of misunderstanding being fourfold,
we shall have four main exits from true interpretation
to watch, and we shall have to keep an eye open, too,
upon those underground or overhead cross-connec-
tions by which a mistake in one function may lead
to erratic behaviour in another.
We cannot reasonably expect diagnosis here to be
simpler than it is with a troublesome wireless set,
or, to take an even closer parallel, than it is in a
psychological clinic. Simple cases do occur, but
they are rare. To take aberrations in apprehending
Sense first : those who misread ' a cool, green house '
in Poem //, the victims of c the King of all our
hearts to-day ' in Poem IX ', the rain-maker (10-64),
and the writer (5-2) who took Poem V to be * quite
an ingenious way of saying that the artist has made
a cast of a beautiful woman ' (if we interpret ' cast '
charitably), are almost the simplest examples we shall
find of unqualified, immediate misunderstanding of
the sense. Even these, however, are not perfectly
simple. Grudges felt on other grounds against the
poem, misunderstandings of its feeling and tone,
certainly helped 2-2 and 2-21 to their mistakes, just
as the stock emotive power of ' King ' was the strong
contributing factor, mastering for 9-111 all historical
probabilities and every indication through style.
Mere inattention, or sheer carelessness, may some-
189
1 9 o PRACTICAL CRITICISM
times be the source of a misreading ; but carelessness
in reading is the result of distraction, and we can
hardly note too firmly that for many readers the
metre and the verse-form of poetry is itself a powerful
distraction. Thus 9-16, who understands that it is
the King that is being toasted on the peak, and 5-3
and his fellows, no less than 5-2, may be regarded
with the commiseration we extend to those trying to
do sums in the neighbourhood of a barrel-organ or
a brass band.
There is one difference however. All will agree
that while delicate intellectual operations are in pro-
gress brass bands should be silent. But the band
more often than not is an essential part of the
poetry. It can, however, be silenced, if we wish,
while we disentangle and master the sense, and
afterwards its co-operation will no longer confuse
us. A practical ' moral ' emerges from this which
deserves more prominence than it usually receives.
It is that most poetry needs several readings in
w r hich its varied factors may fit themselves together
before it can be grasped. Readers who claim to
dispense with this preliminary study, who think that
all good poetry should come home to them in
entirety at a first reading, hardly realise how clever
they must be.
But there is a subtler point and a fine distinction
to be noted. We have allowed above that a good
poet to express feeling, to adjust tone and to
further his other aims 1 may play all manner of
tricks with his sense. He may dissolve its coherence
altogether, if he sees fit. He does so, of course, at
1 For simplicity's sake, I write as though the poet were conscious
of his aims and methods. But very often, of course, he is not. He
may be quite unable to explain what he is doing, and I do not intend
to imply that he necessarily knows anything about it. This dis-
claimer, which may be repeated, will, I hope, defend me from the
charge of so crude a conception of poetic composition. Poets vary
immensely in their awareness both of their inner technique and of the
precise result they are endeavouring to achieve.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE 191
his peril ; his other aims must be really worth while,
and he must win a certain renunciation from the
reader ; but the liberty is certainly his, and no close
reader will doubt or deny it. This liberty is the
careless reader's excuse and the bad poet's oppor-
tunity. An obscure notion is engendered in the
reader that syntax is somehow less significant in
poetry than in prose, and that a kind of guess-work
likely enough to be christened * intuition ' is the
proper mode of apprehending what a poet may have
to say. The modicum of truth in the notion makes
this danger very hard to deal with. In most poetry
the sense is as important as anything else ; it is
quite as subtle, and as dependent on the syntax, as
in prose ; it is the poet's chief instrument to other
aims when it is not itself his aim. His control of
our thoughts is ordinarily his chief means to the
control of our feelings, and in the immense majority
of instances we miss nearly everything of value if
we misread his sense.
But to say this and here is the distinction we
have to note is not to say that we can wrench the
sense free from the poem, screw it down in a prose
paraphrase, and then take the doctrine of our prose
passage, and the feelings this doctrine excites in us,
as the burden of the poem. (See p. 216.) These
twin dangers careless, ' intuitive ' reading and
prosaic, * over-literal ' reading are the Symplegades,
the * justling rocks ', between which too many
ventures into poetry are wrecked.
Samples of both disasters are frequent enough in
the protocols, though Poem /, for example, gave
little chance to the * intuitive ', the difference there
between a ' poetic ' and a ' prosaic ' reading being
hardly marked enough to appear. Poem V , on the
other hand, only allowed intuitive readings. In 2*22,
10-22 and 10-48, however, the effect of a prosaic
reading is clear ; in 6-3, intuition has all its own
i 9 2 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
way, and the effect of its incursions in 11-32 and
11-33, * s as striking as the triumph of the opposite
tendency is in 12-41. l
Still keeping to the reader's traffic with the sense
as little complicated as may be with other meanings,
mention may perhaps be expected of ignorance, lack
of acquaintance with thejtsense of unfamiliar words,
the absence of the necessary intellectual contexts,
defective scholarship, in short, as a source of error.
Possibly through my choice of poems (Poem HI
did, however, bring out some odd examples) and
perhaps through the advanced educational standing
of the protocol- writers, this obstacle to understanding
did not much appear. Far more serious were certain
misconceptions as to how the sense of words in
poetry is to be taken. (12-41 may have struck the
reader as an example.) Obstacles to understanding,
these, much less combated by teachers and much
more troublesome than any mere deficiency of in-
formation. For, after all, dictionaries and encyclo-
paedias stand ready to fill up most gaps in our
knowledge, but an inability to seize the poetical
sense of words is not so easily remedied.
Some further instances of these misconceptions
will make their nature plainer. Compare the
chemistry of 12-41 with the ' literalism ' of 12-4,
10-6, 8-15 and 7-38. Not many metaphors will
survive for readers who make such a deadly demand
for scientific precision as do these. Less acute
manifestations of the same attitude to language
appear frequently elsewhere, and the prevalence of
this literalism, under present-day conditions of
education, is greater than the cultivated reader will
1 I must apologise for the manual labour such references impose.
I have tried to space these bouts of leaf-turning as conveniently as
may be, with long intervals of repose. The alternative of reprinting
all the protocols referred to proved to have counter-disadvantages.
To mention one only the cost of the book would have been
considerably increased.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE 193
imagine. How are we to explain to those who see
nothing in poetical language but a tissue of ridiculous
exaggerations, childish ' fancies ', ignorant conceits
and absurd symbolisations in what way its sense is
to be read ?
It would be easy to expound a grammatical theory
of metaphor, hyperbole ..and figurative language,
pointing out the suppressed 'as if ' s, 'is like ' s,
and the rest of the locutions that may be introduced
to turn poetry into logically respectable prose. But
we should (as textbooks enough have shown us) be
very little advanced towards persuading one of these
hard-headed fellows that poets are worth reading.
A better plan, perhaps, will be to set over against
these examples of literalism some specimens of the
opposing fault 5-3 and 5-32 will do as well as any
others and then consider, in the frame supplied by
this contrast, some instances of a middle kind when
both a legitimate demand for accuracy and precision
and a recognition of the proper liberties and powers
of figurative language are combined. It may then
be possible to make clearer what the really interesting
and difficult problems of figurative language are.
Let us therefore examine the hyperbole of the sea-
harp in Poem IX in the light of comments 9-71 to
9-77. We shall, I hope, agree that these comments
rightly point out a number of irremediable incoher-
ences in the thought of the passage. The sense has
at least four glaring flaws, if we subject it to a logical
analysis. Moreover, these flaws or internal incon-
sistencies are unconnected with one another ; they
do not derive from some one central liberty taken
by the poet, but each is a separate crack in the
fabric of the sense. Setting aside for a while the
question of the suitability and fittingness of the
figure as a whole, let us survey its internal structure,
trying the while to find every justification we can.
Taking the objections in the order in which they
N
194 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
appear in the protocols, we have first the difficulty
that ' the sea may sound like an organ, but it never
has the sound of a harp '. I think we shall be forced
to admit that the more closely we compare these
sounds the less justification shall we find in their
similarity. But this, by itself, is not a very heavy
objection. A very slight similarity might be sufficient
as a means of transition to something valuable. We
ought never to forget, though we constantly do, that
in poetry the means are justified by the end. It is
when the end disappoints us that we can usefully
turn to look into the means to see whether or not
the kind of use the poet has made of them helps to
explain why his end is unsatisfactory.
Next comes the objection that each string of this
harp ' is made up of the lightning of Spring nights '.
Here the poet has undoubtedly abrogated both fact
and possibility. He has broken the coherence of
his sense. But to say this, of course, settles nothing
about the value of the passage. I have urged above
that nonsense is admissible in poetry, if the effect
justifies it. We have to consider what the effect is.
The effect the poet proposed is clear an exhilarating
awakening of wonder and a fusion of the sea,
lightning and spring, those three c most moving
manifestations of Nature ', as some of the other
protocols pointed out. But an external influence so
compelling that it may fairly be supposed to have
overridden both thought and intention in the poet
is unmistakable, and we shall not fully understand
this passage unless we consider it. As 9-94 pointed
out, * the style is Swinburne-cum-water ', a sadly
too appropriate admixture. Not only the diction
(sea, harp, mirthful, string, woven, lightning, nights,
Spring, Dawn, glad, grave . . .), and the subject-
matter, but the peculiar elastic springy bound of the
movement, and the exalted tone, are so much
Swinburne's that they amount less to an echo than
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE 195
to a momentary obsession. A poet so dominated for an
instant by his devotion to another, submitting himself,
as it were, to an inspiration from without, may well
be likely to overlook what is happening to his sense.
The general problem of all responses made to
indirect influences may here be considered. A
reader's liking for this passage might often be affected
by his acquaintance with Swinburne's descriptions
and sea-metaphors. ' Who fished the murex up ? '
is a pertinent question. The point constantly recurs
when we are estimating the enthusiasm of readers
whose knowledge of poetry is not wide. Have they,
or have they not, undergone the original influence ?
It would be interesting to compare, by means of
such a passage as this, a group of readers before and
after they had first spent an evening over Songs of
the Springtides > or Atalanta in Calydon.
But however widely they read in Swinburne I do
not believe they would ever find him turning his
sea into lightning not even in the interests of
Victor Hugo or Shelley. He is full of slight abroga-
tions of sense. He is indeed a very suitable poet in
whom to study the subordination, distortion and
occultation of sense through the domination of
verbal feeling. But the lapses of sense are very
rarely so flagrant, so undisguised, that the reader,
swept by on the swift and splendid roundabout of
the verse, is forced to notice them. And, more often
than not, when the reader thinks he has detected
some nonsense, or some inconsequent distortion of
sense, he will, if he examines it, be troubled to find
it is he who is at fault. The celebrated opening of
the Second Chorus of Atalanta in Calydon is a very
representative example :
Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time, with a gift of tears ;
Grief, with a glass that ran.
1 96 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
We may think, at first, that the tears should belong
to Grief and the hour-glass to Time, and that the
emblems are exchanged only for formal reasons, or
to avoid a possible triteness ; but a littje reflection
will show that several things are added by the
transposition. With the third line compare the verse
in A Forsaken Garden, which begins
Heart handfast in heart
and with the fourth line compare
We are not sure of sorrow
from The Garden of Prosperine. Some connection,
though it may be tenuous or extravagant, can almost
always be found in Swinburne, perhaps because of
his predilection for the abstract and the vague.
Vague thoughts articulate one with another more
readily than precise thoughts.
We have still to decide about the effect of the too
audacious physics of Poem IX. Do they not destroy
the imaginative reality that is to say, the proper
power over our feelings of both the sea and the
lightning, to say nothing of the harp and (presumably)
the harper 1 that are in the background of our con-
sciousness ? We can perhaps here extract another
moral for our general critical guidance. It might
take this form. Mixtures in metaphors (and in
other figures) may work well enough when the
ingredients that are mixed preserve their efficacy,
but not when such a fusion is invited that the
several parts cancel one another. That a metaphor
is mixed is nothing against it ; the mind is ambi-
dextrous enough to handle the most extraordinary
combinations if the inducement is sufficient. But
the mixture must not be of the fire and water type
which unfortunately is exactly what we have here.
1 It is not unfair, I think, to list' this missing harper among the
blemishes of the passage, for the sea here has somehow to play itself.
Cf. Swinburne, The Garden of Cymodoce, Str. 8, 1. 3 :
Yea surely the sea as a harper laid hand on the shore as a lyre.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE 197
Objection number three, given in 9-75, that strings
are not woven, will illustrate this moral. The
4 higher potency in releasing vague emotion ', that
woven in a proper context certainly possesses, is
damped and cancelled as it blends with the sea and
lightning ingredients, nor is there anything else in
the passage that it can seek help from in preserving
an independent existence.
The fourth objection, the time difficulty, is less
serious. Personification, as we shall shortly see in
connection with another passage, is a device which
allows a poet to do almost anything he pleases with
impunity provided, of course, as usual, he has any-
thing worth doing in hand. The protocol writers,
9.76 and 9-77, rely too confidently upon common
sense, a useful servant to the critic but not to be
entrusted with much responsibility. Surely we need
not fly very high in imagination, not so high as an
aeroplane may fly, to see night and dawn very
plainly present contemporaneously in the cosmic
scene. Or, with less imaginative effort, we may
reasonably urge that in Spring the usual separation
of night and day may be said to lapse. But will
these justifications really help the poem ? Dawn, we
may still feel, has really no sufficient business in the
poem. She is there as a pictorial adjunct whether
deserving of the opinion of 9-44 or of 9-421, I must
leave it to the reader to decide, for the defect of
syntax upon which 9*421 relies would be allowed, if
the result were a sufficient compensation. But in
her capacity as a listener she adds nothing. Dawn
has certainly to listen to plenty of queer noises, and
her presence does not necessarily glorify the song
that the poet has in his mind.
This has brought us to the larger question of the
suitability of the whole figure, how well it serves the
intention of the sonnet ; upon which some very
simple remarks may suffice. This intention is neither
I 9 8 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
recondite nor subtle being the expression of a rather
vague and generalised enthusiasm, the creation of
an exalted feeling. Nor is any great precision
necessary in the feeling evoked. Any lofty, expansive
and ' appreciative ' feeling will do. This being so,
a certain negligence about the means employed is
not unfitting. ' Qu'importe la boisson pourvu qu'on
ait Vivresse ', might be our conclusion but for one
consideration. The enjoyment and understanding
of the best poetry requires a sensitiveness and dis-
crimination with words, a nicety, imaginativeness
and deftness in taking their sense which will prevent
Poem IX, in its original form, from receiving the ap-
proval of the most attentive readers. To set aside this
fine capacity too often may be a damaging indulgence.
We have been watching a group of readers, with,
on the whole, a well-balanced tendency to literalism,
making their points against a passage of figurative
language whose liberties and inconsistencies were
of a kind that might excuse the dislike which
less well-balanced literalists sometimes feel for all
the figurative language of poetry. Let us turn
now to another group of exhibits, where rationality
is rather more in danger of tripping itself up. Can
the metaphors of the first two lines of Poem X, and
those of the last two verses, defend themselves from
the attacks of 10-61 and 10-62 ? Is their literalism
of the kind exemplified in the chemistry of 12-41
(which would be fatal to nearly all poetry) ; or is it
the legitimate variety, aimed at the abuse, not at the
use, of figurative language ? And if the latter, is it
rightly aimed, does the poem deserve it, or have we
here only instances of misreading ?
First we may reconsider 10-6, with a view to
agreeing, if we can, that the objection there lodged
would really condemn a great deal of good poetry, if
it could be sustained. It is a general objection to
Personification and, as such, worth examining irre-
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE 199
spective of the merits of Poem X. ( Animism ', as
this writer calls it, the projection of human activity
into inanimate objects of thought, has been expressly
pointed to by innumerable critics as one of the most
frequent resources of poetry. Coleridge, for example,
declared that ' images ' (by which he meant figurative
language) ' become a proof of original genius . . .
when a human and intellectual life is transferred to
them from the poet's own spirit '. And he instanced
it as * that particular excellence ... in which Shake-
speare even in his earliest, as in his latest, works
surpasses all other poets. It is by this, that he stiU
gives a dignity and a passion to the objects which he
presents. Unaided by any previous excitement, they
burst upon us at once in life and power.' (Biographia
Liter aria, Ch. XV). There are indeed very good
reasons why poetry should personify. The structure
of language and the pronouns, verbs and adjectiveg
that come most naturally to us, constantly invite iJS
to personify. And, to go deeper, our attitudfify
feelings, and ways of thought about inanimate things
are moulded upon and grow out of our ways $
thinking and feeling about one another. Our minds
have developed with other human beings always ft
the foreground of our consciousness ; we are shapeo,
mentally, by and through our dealings with other
people. It is so in the history of the race and in the
individual biography. 1 No wonder then if what we
1 Compare Wordsworth on the effects of the tie between the infant
Babe and his Mother.
For him, in one dear Presence, there exists
A virtue which irradiates and exalts
Objects through widest intercourse of sense
No outcast he, bewildered and depressed
Along his infant veins are interfused
The gravitation and the filial bond
Of nature that connect him with the world.
The Prelude, Bk, II.
One result is that for some seven years all objects are regarded
more as though they were alive than otherwise. The concept of 'the
inanimate' develops late. Cf. Piaget, The Language and Thought of
the Child.
PRACTICAL CRITICISM
have to say about inanimate objects constantly
presents itself in a form only appropriate, if strict
sense is our sole consideration, to persons and
human relations.
Often, of course, there is no necessity for per-
sonification so far as sense is concerned, and we use
it only to express feelings towards whatever we are
speaking about (Function 2). But sometimes per-
sonification allows us to say compendiously and
clearly what would be extraordinarily difficult to
say without it. Poem X in its third verse provides
a good example :
On wall and window slant your hand
And sidle up the garden stair.
Both ' slant ' and * sidle ' were occasion for divided
opinions, as the protocols show ; those readers who
took their sense accurately being pleased. To get
this sense into a prose paraphrase with the personi-
fication cut out is not an easy matter. In fact the
task almost calls for geometrical diagrams and
illustrative sketches. But the bending of the cloud
shadow as it passes from the surface of the earth to
the upright plane of * wall and window ' is given at
once by ' slant your hand'. The changed angle of
incidence thus noted adds a solidness and parti-
cularity to the effect described, and since vividness
is a large part of the intention of the poem at this
point, the means employed should not be overlooked.
Of course, if ' hand ' be read to mean a part of the
cloud itself and not as the extremity of a limb of the
cloud's shadow, the image becomes merely silly, and
some of the condemnations in the protocols are
explained if not excused.
So, too, with ' sidle ' ; it gives the accidental, oblique
quality of the movement of the shadow, and gives it
in a single word by means of a single particularising
scene. Condensation and economy are so often
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
necessary in poetry in order that emotional impulses
shall not dissipate themselves that all means to it
are worth study. Personification, for the reasons
suggested above, is perhaps the most important of
them.
But there are degrees of personification ; it can
range from a mere momentary loan of a single human
attribute or impulse to the projection of a complete
spiritual being. Nothing recoils more heavily upon
a poet than a too ample unjustified projection. As
with some other over-facile means of creating an
immediate effect, it destroys the poetic sanction, and
seems to empty the poet in the measure that the
poem is overloaded. In Poem XII the dreams, the
desires, the prognostications, the brooding and the
wise imaginations of the clouds' mantles may seem
in the end to have just this defect. Yet to decide
whether a personification is or is not ' overdone ' is
a matter of very delicate reading. In 10-62, however,
we have a complaint that the personification is not
carried far enough and a useful peg for some further
critical ' morals '.
In the first place, what another poet (here Shelley)
did in another poem is never in itself a good ground
for deciding that this poet by doing differently has
done wrong. This over-simple form of ' comparative
criticism ' is far too common ; in fact we hardly ever
see any other kind. Shelley's intent and this poet's
intent differ, the means they use inevitably differ too.
It is hardly possible to find instances so closely
parallel that divergence of method will prove one
poem better or worse than another. We have always
to undertake a more subtle inquiry into the ends
sought or attained. It would be an excellent thing
if this type of critical argument could be labelled and
recognised as fallacious. It is really only one of the
more pretentious forms of recipe-hunting. This is
not to say that comparisons are not invaluable in
202 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
criticism, but we must know what it is we are com-
paring and how the relevant conditions are also to be
compared.
To come closer to this example, 10-62 has not
asked himself whether so shifting and various a thing
as this cloud can be given a definite character, whether
a changeful tricksiness is not all the personality it
can bear. A ' clear conception ' of the personality
of the cloud would have hopelessly overburdened
the poem. The poet indeed has been careful of this
very danger. When after five verses of ' antics ',
chiefly concerned with the cloud-shadows, he turns
to the cloud itself in its afternoon dissolution, he cuts
the personification down, mixing his metaphors to
reflect its incoherence, and finally, * O frail steel
tissue of the sun ', depersonifying it altogether in
mockery of its total loss of character. This recog-
nition that the personification was originally an
extravagance makes the poem definitely one of Fancy
rather than Imagination to use the Wordsworthian
division but it rather increases than diminishes the
descriptive effects gained by the device. And its
peculiar felicity in exactly expressing a certain shade
of feeling towards the cloud deserves to be remarked.
Probably 10-62 expected some different feeling to
be expressed. But 10-61, who also quarrels with the
opening metaphor, seems to miss the descriptive
sense of the poem for some other reason. In view
of the effect of ' miraculous stockade ', no less than
of * limn ', ' puzzle ', ' paint ', ' shoot ' and * sidle '
upon other readers, one is tempted to suspect some
incapacity of visual memory. 1 Or perhaps he was
one of those who supposed that a cloud rather than
its shadow was being described. ' Pencil ', if we
take it to mean ' produce the effects of pencilling '
(such are the exigences of paraphrasing) hardly
mixes the metaphor in any serious fashion. Its
1 Not of visualisation, however. See Ch. V and Appendix A.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE 203
suggestion both of the hard, clear outline of the
cloud's edge and of the shadowy variations in the
lighting of its inner recesses, is not in the least
cancelled by c climb ' or by the sky-scraper hoist
of * miraculous stockade \ Incidentally, would it
be capricious to meet the many objections to the
sounds in these words (10-42 and 10-43) with the
remark that they reflect the astonishment that
a realisation of the height of some clouds does
evoke ? c Miraculous stockade ' seems, at least, to
have clear advantages over * the tremendous triumph
of tall towers ' in point of economy and vividness.
' Puzzle ' has accuracy also on its side against these
cavillers. Anyone who watches the restless shift of
cattle as the shadow suddenly darkens their world
for them will endorse the poet's observation. But
if the cows never noticed any change of light the
word would still be justified through its evocative
effect upon men. Similarly with ' paint ' and
* shoot ' ; they work as a rapid and fresh notation
of not very unfamiliar effects, and there is no reason
to suppose that those readers for whom they are
successful are in any way damaging or relaxing their
sensibility.
With this we come back to the point at which we
left Poem IX. We can sum up this discussion of
some instances of figurative language as follows : All
respectable poetry invites close reading. It en-
courages attention to its literal sense up to the point,
to be detected by the reader's discretion, at which
liberty can serve the aim of the poem better than
fidelity to fact or strict coherence among fictions. It
asks the reader to remember that its aims are varied
and not always what he unreflectingly expects. He
has to refrain from applying his own external
standards. The chemist must not require that the
poet write like a chemist, nor the moralist, nor the
man of affairs, nor the logician, nor the professor,
20 4 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
that he write as they would. The whole trouble of
literalism is that the reader forgets that the aim 1 of
the poem comes first, and is the sole justification of
its means. We may quarrel, frequently we must,
with the aim of the poem, but we have first to
ascertain what it is. We cannot legitimately judge
its means by external standards 2 (such as accuracy
of fact or logical coherence) which may have no
relevance to its success in doing what it set out to
do, or, if we like, in becoming what in the end it
has become.
1 I hope to be understood to mean by this the whole state of mind,
the mental condition, which in another sense ts the poem. Roughly
the collection of impulses which shaped the poem originally, to which
it gave expression, and to which, in an ideally susceptible reader it
would again give rise. Qualifications to this definition would, of
course, be needed, if strict precision were needed, but here this may
suffice. I do not mean by its 4 aim 3 any sociological, aesthetic,
commercial or propagandist intentions or hopes of the poet.
2 This was Ruskin's calamitous though noble mistake. See his
remarks on the Pathetic Fallacy (Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, pt. 4).
He is unjust, for example, to Pope, because he does not see tha
poetry may have other aims besides clear thinking and strong feeling.
CHAPTER III
SENSE AND' FEELING
My belief is that there every one is under the sway of preferences
deeply rooted within, into the hands of which he unwittingly plays
as he pursues his speculation. When there are such good grounds
for distrust, only a tepid feeling of indulgence is possible towards the
results of one's own mental labours. But I hasten to add that such
self-criticism does not render obligatory any special tolerance of
divergent opinions. One may inexorably reject theories that are
contradicted by the very first steps in the analysis of observation, and
yet at the same time be aware that those one holds oneself have only
a tentative validity. FREUD, Beyond the Pleasure Principle.
So far we have been concerned with some of the
snares that waylay the apprehension and judgment
of the sense of poetry, treated more or less in isolation
from its other kinds of meaning. But the inter-
ferences with one another of these various meanings
give rise to more formidable difficulties. A mistake
as to the general intention of a passage can obviously
twist its sense for us, and its tone and feeling, almost
out of recognition. If we supposed, for example,
that Poem I should be read, not as a passage from an
Epic, but as a piece of dramatic verse put in the
mouth either of a prosing bore, or of a juvenile
enthusiast, our apprehension of its tone and feeling
would obviously be changed, and our judgment of
it, though still perhaps adverse, would be based upon
different considerations. The different intentions
attributed to Poem II by readers who take it to
express on the one hand * a deep passion for real
life ' (2-61) and on the other ' an atmosphere of
quietness and uninterrupted peace ' (2-71) reflect
themselves in the different descriptions they give of
its tone (' breathless tumultuous music ', * delicate
205
206 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
movement with clear, fine tone, 1 gravity and steadi-
ness '). More plainly the rather one-sided debates
about the intentions of Poems VIII and XIII reveal
how much this major aspect, as it were, influences
the minor aspects, through which the major aspect,
one would suppose, must be apprehended. The
rapidity with which many readers leap to a conviction
as to a poem's general intention, and the ease with
which this assumption can distort their whole
reading, is one of the most interesting features in the
protocols. And its moral is perhaps as important
as any that can be drawn. With most good poetry
more than one look is needed before we can be sure
of the intention, and sometimes everything else in the
poem must become clear to us before this.
Tone, as a distinct character in a poem, is less easy
to discuss than the others, and its importance may
easily be overlooked. Yet poetry, which has no
other very remarkable qualities, may sometimes take
very high rank simply because the poet's attitude to
his listeners in view of what he nas to say is so
perfect. Gray and Dryden are notable examples.
Gray's Elegy, indeed, might stand as a supreme
instance to show how powerful an exquisitely
adjusted tone may be. It would be difficult to
maintain that the thought in this poem is either
striking or original, 2 or that its feeling is exceptional.
It embodies a sequence of reflections and attitudes
that under similar conditions arise readily in any
contemplative mind. Their character as common-
1 'Tone 5 in a quite different sense here, of course; but these
descriptions of the qualities of the verse sounds do enable us to infer
differences in the way the reader feels that he is being addressed.
2 The originality of the thoughts and that of the expression are to be
distinguished here. * The four stanzas beginning, Yet e?en these bones,
are to me, original : I have never seen the notions in any other place ;
yet he that reads them here persuades himself that he has always felt
them.' Dr Johnson may be right in this, but I find it hard not to
believe that the notions in these four stanzas have not been familiat
to many who neither knew the Elegy nor received them from those
who did.
SENSE AND FEELING 207
places, needless to say, does not make them any less
important, and the Elegy may usefully remind us that
boldness and originality are not necessities for great
poetry. But these thoughts and feelings, in part
because of their significance and their nearness to
us, are peculiarly difficult to express without faults
of tone. If we are forced ,to express them we can
hardly escape pitching them in a key which * over-
does ' them, or we take refuge in an elliptic mode
of utterance hinting them rather than rendering
them to avoid offence either to others or to ourselves.
Gray, however, without overstressing any point,
composes a long address, perfectly accommodating
his familiar feelings towards the subject and his
awareness of the inevitable triteness of the only
possible reflections, to the discriminating attention
of his audience. And this is the source of his
triumph , which we may misunderstand if we treat it
simply as a question of ' style '. Indeed, many of
the secrets of * style ' could, I believe, be shown to
be matters of tone, of the perfect recognition of the
writer's relation to the reader in view of what is being
said and their joint feelings about it.
Much popular verse, of the type with which the
name of Wilcox is nowadays somewhat unfairly
associated, fails more in this respect than in any
other. It ' overdoes ' what it attempts, and so insults
the reader. And such overstressing is often a very
delicate indication of the rank of the author. When
a commonplace, either of thought or feeling, is
delivered with an air appropriate to a fresh discovery
or a revelation, we can properly grow suspicious.
For by the tone in which a great writer handles these
familiar things we can tell whether they have their
due place in the whole fabric of his thought and
feeling and whether, therefore, he has the right to
our attention. Good manners, fundamentally, are
a reflection of our sense of proportion, and faults of
208 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
tone are much more than mere superficial blemishes.
They may indicate a very deep disorder,
The importance of tone appears clearly if we
reflect how comparatively easy it is to acquire
acceptable doctrines and how difficult to avoid
mistakes in tone.
We must distinguish, however, between what may
be called fundamental manners and the code that
rules in any given period. Good manners for the
eighteenth century may be atrocious by twentieth-
century standards, or vice versa , and not only in
literary matters. There are more than a few verses
in The Rape of the Lock, for example, which would
be thought in very poor taste if they were written
to-day. But the codes that rule wit are peculiarly
variable. Of all literary products jokes are the most
apt to become ' flat ' and tasteless with the passage
of time.
Eighteenth-century verse writers, on the whole,
rarely foiget the reader. They paid him, indeed,
rather too much deference, a result of the social
character of the period. In comparison, Swinburne
and Shelley often show atrocious manners as poets l ;
they please themselves and continually neglect the
reader. Not that good tone requires that the reader
be remembered always, much less that he be con-
stantly flattered. But the occasions on which he is
ignored must be exciting enough to excuse the poet's
rapt oblivion. Faults of tone, especially over-in-
sistence and condescension, can ruin poetry which
might otherwise have had value, though usually, as
I have suggested, they betoken fatal disabilities in
the poet. They may, however, be due to clumsiness
only. The poet has to find some equivalent for the
1 Unless we suppose that we are not so much being addressed as
invited to stand by the poet's side and harangue the multitude with
him. Tone in Swinburne frequently lapses altogether ; he has neither
good nor bad manners, but simply none. This, perhaps, aristocratic
trait in part excuses his long-windedness for example.
SENSE AND FEELING 209
gestures and intonations which in ordinary speech
so often look after this whole matter, and this
translation may at times ask for special discernment
and tolerance in the reader. It will have been
noticed that the reception of Poems V and VII was
very largely determined by the readers' estimation
of their tone (5-5, 5-8, 5-81^ 7-4, 7-43, 7-6). But in
judging such questions we must remember, though
it is not at all easy to do so, that tone is not inde-
pendent of the other kinds of meaning. We can
allow a poet to address us as though we were
somewhat his inferiors if what he has to say convinces
us of his right to do so. But when what he offers us
is within our own compass, w r e may be excused if we
grow resentful. The subtleties possible here can
easily be imagined, and some effects that may seem
very mysterious until we look into them from this
point of view can then be explained. Questions of
tone arise, of course, whether the reader is ostensibly
addressed in the second person or not. The reader
can be as grossly insulted in a third-person narrative
or in an Elegy, by underrating his sensitiveness or
intelligence for example, as by any direct rudeness.
But the most curious and puzzling cases of mutual
dependence between different kinds of meaning
occur with sense and feeling. They are, as a rule,
interlinked and combined very closely, and the exact
dissection of the one from the other is sometimes an
impossible and always an extremely delicate and
perilous operation. But the effort to separate these
forms of meaning is instructive, and can help us both
to see why misunderstandings of all kinds are so
frequent, and to devise educational methods that will
make them less common.
Let us set one complication aside at once. The
sound of a word has plainly much to do with the
feeling it evokes, above all when it occurs in the
PRACTICAL CRITICISM
organised context of a passage of verse. Let us
postpone so far as we can all consideration of this
whole sensuous aspect of words (including their
character as products of the speech-organs and their
associated dance-movement) until the following
Chapter, where the difficulties of the apprehension of
poetic form must be tackled. In practice, of course,
the sound is very important, as one of the causes
(together with the word's history, its semantics, its
usual applications and contexts and its special
context in the poem) of the feeling it carries. But
here let us confine our attention to the relations
between sense and feeling and to the ways in which
the feeling may be, in various degrees, dependent on
the sense. And let us be careful to remember that
we are concerned, firstly, with the feeling actually
aroused by the word in the poem, not with feelings
the word might have in other contexts, or the
feeling it generally has, or the feeling it ' ought to
have ', though these may with advantage be re-
membered, for a word's feeling is often determined
in part by its sense in other contexts. 1
Even the evident complexities of this subject are
prodigious, and it must be left for some treatise of
the future on the Emotive Functions of Language
to display in full their tedium, their beauty, and their
supreme significance. 2 Here three main situations
can alone be discussed, three types of the interrelation
of sense and feeling.
Type I. This is the most obvious case where the
feeling is generated by and governed by the sense.
1 On the semantic aspects of this, Owen Barfield, History in
English Words, may be profitably consulted. His Poetic Diction is
less satisfactory, owing to an unfortunate attempt to construct a
philosophical account of meaning an account which blurs the
distinction between thought and feeling and reduces the many-sided
subject of Meaning to a matter of one aspect only, namely, semantics.
2 If we reflect, for example, upon the emotive formuke in the
liturgies of various religions, we shall not underrate the importance
of this topic.
SENSE AND FEELING
The feeling evoked is the result of apprehending the
sense. As examples, ' miraculous y and ' sorcery '
may serve (Poem X). Given the apprehension of
their sense, the feeling follows, and as a rule the two,
sense and feeling, seem to form an indissoluble whole.
Type II. Here there is an equally close tie, but
fixed the other way round. For the word first
expresses a feeling, and such sense as it conveys is
derived from the feeling. ' Gorgeous ' (Poem X] is
an excellent example ; its sense is ' being of a kind
to excite such and such feelings '. The description
of the feelings would have to be long and include
mention of a tendency to contempt, grudging
admiration, and a certain richness and fullness and,
perhaps, satiation. ' Gorgeous ', it will be noticed,
is a representative ' aesthetic ' or c projectile ' adjec-
tive. 1 It registers a * projection ' of feeling, and
may be considered along with * beautiful ', ' pleasant *
and * good ' in some of their uses.
Type HI. Here sense and feeling are less closely
knit : their alliance comes about through their
context. ' Sprawling ' may be taken as an example.
Its sense (in Poem X) may be indicated as an absence
of symmetry, regularity, poise, and coherence, and
a stretched and loose disposition of parts. I have
been careful here to use only neutral (or nearly
neutral) words, in order not to import the feeling
in my paraphrase of the sense. The feeling of
' sprawling ' here is a mixture of good-humoured
mockery and affected commiseration. And this
feeling arises from the sense of the word only through
the influence of the rest of the poem. It does not
derive at all inevitably from the sense of the word
considered by itself. One test by which we can
distinguish Type III from Type I is by noticing that
1 See Appendix A, Note 3. Like most projectile adjectives it is
applied to very different things by different people.
212 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
very special circumstances would be needed to make
' miraculous ' evoke quite another set of feelings,
whereas no great change need be imagined for
' sprawling ' to excite feelings either of contempt or
of easeful relaxation. As 10-55 puts it, ' A drunken
man sprawls and totters ', and 10-57 has some other
association, though what^t is, is open to conjecture.
The looser relation described in Type III is of
course the usual condition in poetry. Its separation
from Type I x is a matter only of degree, for no
word carries a fixed feeling quite irrespective of its
context. But the distinction between words whose
feeling tends to dominate their context and words of
a more malleable nature is useful, for upon it most
mistakes in apprehending feeling turn. The last
two lines of Donne's Sonnet (3*12, 3*31, 3*41), the
last verse but one of Poem VII (7-4, 7-43, 7-53),
' boom ', * poised ', and * tinkling ' in Poem VIII
(8-1, 8-n, 8-13), ' immortal ' in Poem IX (9-41, 9*42)
'vaporous vitiate air ' in Poem XI (i i -2, 11-4, 11-421),
and ' rude ' in Poem XIII (13-7, 13*73), provide
some examples upon which to test the distinction.
Is the pull exerted by the context (and in these
cases the whole of the rest of the poem is the con-
text) sufficient to overcome what may be described
as the normal separate feeling of the questionable
word ? Can this pull bring it in, as an item either
in accordance or in due contrast to the rest ? Or
does the word resist, stay outside, or wrench the
rest of the poem into crudity or confusion ? To
triumph over the resistances of words may some-
times be considered the measure of a poet's power
(Shakespeare being the obvious example), but more
1 These types of situation are not mutually exclusive. The same
word may give rise simultaneously to situations of Types I and II.
We are often unable to say which of the two, sense or feeling, is the
dominant partner, both views being possible. The dilemma may be
a tribute to our insight rather than a sign of its deficiency, for both
views may be true.
SENSE AND FEELING 213
often it is the measure of his discretion, and a
reader who is aware of the complexity and delicacy
of the reconciliations of diverse feelings that poetry
effects will walk as carefully.
The influence of the rest of the poem upon the
single word or phrase is exerted in two ways
directly between feelings and indirectly through sense.
The feelings already occupying the mind limit the
possibilities of the new word ; they may tinge it,
they may bring out one of its possible feelings with
an added tang of contrast. Words, as we all recognise,
are as ambiguous in their feeling as in their sense ;
but, though we can track down their equivocations
of sense to some extent, we are comparatively help-
less with their ambiguities of feeling. We only
know that words are chameleon-like in their feeling,
governed in an irregular fashion by their surroundings.
In this ' psychical relativity ' words may be compared
with colours, but of the laws governing the effects of
collocation and admixture hardly anything is known.
It is more interesting, therefore, to consider the
other way in which the feeling of a phrase or word is
controlled by the context through the transactions
between parts of the sense in the whole passage.
On this much more can be said, for here the whole
apparatus of our verbal and logical intelligence can
be brought to bear. When a phrase strikes us as
particularly happy, or particularly unfortunate, we
can usually contrive, by examining the fabric of the
sense into which it fits, to find rational grounds for
our approval or dislike. And we often seem to see
clearly why the emotional effect should be just what
it is. But there is an odd fact to be noted which
may make us hesitate. The phrase commonly is
accepted or rejected, and its feeling merged, for
good or ill, into the poem long before the discursive
intelligence has performed its task of working out
the cross-implications, affiliations and discrepancies
214 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
of senses which later on may seem the explanation
of its success or failure.
Three conjectures may be offered to account for
an instantaneity which has led many critics to under-
value the work of intellectual analysis in the reading
of poetry. It may be that the apprehension of a
network of logical relations between ideas is one
thing and that the analysis and clear formulation of
them is quite another, and that the first may often
be easy and instantaneous when the second is difficult
and laborious. This seems likely, and many parallel
cases can be found. A cricketer, for example, can
judge a ball without in the least being able to
describe its flight, or say how or why he meets it as
he does. Secondly, if, as seems possible, some
degree of ' dissociation ' occurs in the reading of
poetry, we may actually, while under the influence of
the poem, apprehend more than we are able to
recall when we come to reflect upon it out of the
' trance ' afterwards. This conjecture, however,
seems extravagant. Thirdly, the compression of
poetic language tends to obstruct the discursive
intelligence that works by spreading ideas out and
separating their parts. But this very concentration
may assist immediate, instantaneous, apprehension.
Nowhere but in poetry, unless in mathematics, do
we meet with ideas so closely packed together, so
tightly woven. (See further Appendix A, Note 5.)
An instance may assist us to keep in touch with
the observable facts while considering this obscure
but important matter. The point is worth some
trouble, for it is cardinal to any account of how
poetry is read and why misunderstandings both of
sense and feeling are so common and so difficult to
avoid. The second line of the last verse of Poem X
will serve our purpose :
O frail steel tissue of the sun
It will be agreed that the sense here is intricate, and
SENSE AND FEELING 215
that when it is analysed out it shows a rational
correspondence with the feeling which those readers
who accept the line as one of the felicities of the
poem may be supposed to have experienced. Let
me give a fairly detailed analysis, first asking any
reader who approves of the line to consider how
much logical structure the sense seems to him to
have as he reads (not when he reflects). How far
does this logical structure which appears to him
while reading seem the source of the feeling of the
words ? Does it not rather remain in a vague
background, more a possibility than an actuality ?
* Tissue ', to begin with the noun, has a double
sense ; firstly, ' cloth of steel ' in extension from
' cloth of gold ' or ' cloth of silver ', the cold, metallic,
inorganic quality of the fabric being perhaps im-
portant ; secondly, ' thin, soft, semi-transparent ' as
with tissue-paper. c Steel ' is also present as a sense-
metaphor of Aristotle's second kind, when the
transference is from species to genus, steel a particular
kind of strong material being used to stand for any
material strong enough to hold together, as it appears,
the immensity of the cloud-structure. The colour
suggestion of ' steel ' is also relevant. ' Frail ' echoes
the semi-transparency of ' tissue ', the diaphanousness,
and the impending dissolution too. * Of the sun ' it
may be added runs parallel to * of the silk worm ',
i.e., produced by the sun. I give such an elaborate
explanation partly because of the many readers
(10-42) who had difficulty in making out this line.
It is safe, perhaps, to affirm that few readers will
become clearly aware of more than a small part of
these fibrillar articulations and correspondences of
the sense until they deliberately question the line and
think it over. Yet it can be accepted (and, I must
add, rejected) with certainty and conviction on the
strength of what seems the merest glimpse of its
sense. Moreover, a definite and relevant feeling can
2i6 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
be aroused at once. In fact, a feeling that is quite
pertinent seems often to precede any clear grasping
of the sense. And most readers will admit that, as
a rule, the full sense, analysed and clearly articulated,
never comes to their consciousness ; yet they may
get the feeling perfectly. The reception of Poems I
and V was largely determined by whether the readers
responded first to sense or to feeling. (Compare
1-17 and 1-3 ; and 5-81, 5-38 and 5-53. Also 7-43.)
Still more does all this apply to tone.
I am far from wishing to quarrel with this sum-
mary kind of reading when it is practised by highly
competent readers. A mere glimpse, to the right
kind of eye, may be amply sufficient, but the dangers
to those who are less quick and sensitive are obvious.
Dangers both of a false understanding of the sense
and of a distorted development of feeling. The
corrective, in ideal perfection, is equally obvious
exercise in analysis and cultivation of the habit
of regarding poetry as capable of explanation. But
in practice the corrective has its own dangers. It
has not been enough recognised in schools that
making a paraphrase or gloss for any poem worth
reading is a delicate exercise. Recalling some of the
atrocities which teachers sometimes permit them-
selves, one is tempted to believe that the remedy
might be worse than the disease. The risk of
supposing that the feelings which the logical expansion
of a poetic phrase excites must be those which the
phrase was created to convey is very great. We
easily substitute a bad piece of prose for the poem
a peculiarly damaging form of attack upon poetry.
(See p. 191.) Furthermore, we must recognise that
a single paraphrase will rarely indicate more than
a single partial aspect of a poem. We often need one
form of paraphrase to elucidate its sense and quite
another to suggest its feeling. Since the only cure
that can be suggested for the general unintelligibility
SENSE AND FEELING 217
of poetry that the protocols exhibit is some more
enlightened use of interpretation exercises in our
schools, it is worth while to consider what means
are available for developing this power of appre-
hending both sense and feeling in teachers and pupils
alike. It may be remarked that this is not a matter
which concerns poetry only, though incapacity,
obtuseness and failure in discrimination most appear
through poetry, the most concentrated and delicate
form of human utterance.
If we compare our powers of analysing sense and
feeling we shall recognise at once that feeling, in
contrast with sense, is a will-o'-the-wisp. We have
a marvellous apparatus of inter-engaging and over-
lapping symbols for handling and elucidating sense,
a logical machine of great sensitiveness and power,
equipped with automatic safety devices and danger
signals in the form of contradictions. Logical
language has even reached such a high state of
development that it can now be used to improve
and extend itself, and may in time be made self-
running and even fool-proof. For handling feeling
we have nothing at all comparable. We have to rely
upon introspection, a few clumsy descriptive names
for emotions, some scores of aesthetic adjectives and
the indirect resources of poetry, resources at the
disposal of a few men only, and for them only in
exceptional hours. Introspection has become a by-
word, even where intellectual and sensory products
and processes are concerned, but it is even more
untrustworthy when applied to feelings. For a
feeling even more than an idea or an image tends to
vanish as we turn our introspective attention upon it.
We have to catch it by the tip of its tail as it decamps.
Furthermore, even when we are partially successful
in catching it, we do not yet know how to analyse it.
Analysis is a matter of separating out its attributes,
and no one knows yet what attributes a feeling may
218 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
have, what their system of interconnections is, or
which are important, which trivial.
This, it may be hoped, matters less than might be
supposed. For if we had to wait until psychology
had conquered this territory we might reasonably
despair. But we shall find encouragement if we
look more closely into the methods by which we do
actually in spite of the backwardness of psychology
contrive to discriminate between feelings, and it
is not impossible that by so doing we may be able
to give psychology a leg up.
We do somehow manage to discuss our feelings,
sometimes with remarkable facility and success. We
say things about them sometimes that seem to be
subtle and recondite, and yet true. We do this in
spite of our feebleness in introspection and our
ignorance of the general nature of feelings. How
do we come to be so knowledgeable and clever ?
Psychologists have never, I think, resolutely faced
this question of how we know so much about our-
selves that does not find any way at present into their
text-books. Put shortly, the answer seems to be
that this knowledge is lying dormant in the dictionary.
Language has become its repository, a record, a
reflection, as it were, of human nature.
No one who uses a dictionary for other than
orthographic purposes can have escaped the shock
of discovering how very far ahead of us our words
often are. How subtly they already record dis-
tinctions towards which we are still groping. And
many young philologists and grammarians must have
indulged dreams of bringing some of this wisdom
into the ordered system of science. If we could read
this reflection of our minds aright, we might learn
nearly as much about ourselves as we shall ever wish
to know ; we should certainly increase enormously
our power of handling our knowledge. Many of
the distinctions words convey have been arrived at
SENSE AND FEELING 219
and recorded by methods no single mind could
apply, complex, methods that are, as yet, not well
understood. But our understanding of them is
improving psychology has notably helped here
and our power of interpreting the psychological
records embodied in words is increasing and capable
of immense increase in the future. Among the
means to this end a combination or co-operation of
psychology and literary analysis, or criticism, seems
the most hopeful. Neither alone can do much, both
together may go far. There is a possibility that
something parallel to the recent advances in physics
might be achieved if we could combine them. As
geology, in the early stages of inquiry into radio-
activity, came in to supply evidence that experiments
could not elicit, so the records, hidden not in rocks
but in words, and accessible only to literary pene-
tration, may combine 1 with groping psychological
analysis to produce results as yet unprofitable to
conjecture.
From these high speculations let us come back
nearer to the problem of sense and feeling. How
actually do we enquire into the feeling a word (or
phrase) carries ? How we inquire into its sense is
not so difficult to make out. We utter the word or
phrase and note the thoughts it arouses, being careful
to keep them in the context of the other thoughts
aroused by the whole passage. We then attempt,
by a well recognised and elaborate technique, to
construct a definition, choosing from among several
methods to suit our purpose and the situation. If
we still have any difficulty in distinguishing the
precise sense, we can put definite questions, we can
substitute other words which the dictionary will
supply that in part arouse the same thoughts. We
1 This inquiry will not be so much a matter of semantics (though
semantics obviously provide invaluable infotmation) as of a com-
parative study of the resources (direct and indirect) available in
different languages and periods for psychological purposes.
220 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
note the samenesses and differences and plot the
position of the thought we wish to define with regard
to these other thoughts.
In these and other ways we exploit the syntactical
suppleness of language and its overlapping vocabulary
to disentangle sense, but if we consider how far the
same resources are available for disentangling feeling
we find a difference. There is, it is true, a depart-
ment of language, a certain selection of the dictionary,
which can be applied in the same fashion. There
are the names of the emotions and of the emotional
attitudes anger, fear, joy, sorrow . . . ; hope, sur-
prise, discouragement, dread. . . . And the derivative l
adjectives, verbs and adverbs, enthusiastic, passionate,
tender . . . ; startle, delight, distress . . . ; mourn-
fully, eagerly, gaily. . . . Moreover, we have the
special apparatus of the aesthetic or ' projectile '
adjectives. We express our feeling by describing
the object which excites it as splendid, glorious, ugly,
horrid, lovely, pretty . . . words which really indicate
not so much the nature of the object as the character
of our feeling towards it. 2 Thus we obtain an
indirect notation for our feelings by projecting them
rather than describing them. But we use this
notation in a very unsystematic fashion, though a very
curious and interesting order may be sometimes
glimpsed behind it. Some of these words, for
example, may be used together, while others bar one
another out. A thing may be both grand and
sublime, it can be glorious and beautiful, or gorgeous
and ugly ; but it can hardly be both pretty and
beautiful, it can certainly not be pretty and sublime.
These accordances and incompatibilities reflect the
organisation of our feelings, the relations that hold
between them. But our power to take advantage of
this linguistic reflection of our emotional constitution
1 Logically, not grammatically, derivative, of course.
2 See Appendix A, Note 3.
SENSE AND FEELING 221
is at present very limited perhaps because so little
work has been done upon this subject. And it is
when we attempt to describe the difference between
the feelings which pretty and beautiful express,
for example, that we discover how unsatisfactory
are the verbal resources expressly allocated to this
purpose.
There is, it is true, a certain apparatus of qualifying
words and phrases that we use rather speculatively
and uncertainly to describe feelings. We can say
of a feeling that it is elevated or gross, or tenuous, or
calm, or grave, or expansive. Most of these are
clearly metaphorical expressions, words whose sense
has not normally anything to do with feeling, trans-
ferred and applied to feeling on account of some
glimpsed or supposed character in the feeling
analogous to a character in the object the word
usually describes. Sometimes the analogy is close
fleeting, massive, intense, constricting and our slight
knowledge of the physiology of emotions may also
help us here. But often the resemblance or analogy
is remote and will not bear pressing. It is hard to
be certain what is being said when a feeling is
described as profound, or vital. Perhaps very little
indeed, may be being said. And often, if we look
closely, the metaphor turns out to be not a prose or
sense metaphor at all but an emotive metaphor. The
difference between these is worth some reflection. 1
A metaphor is a shift, a carrying over of a word
from its normal use to a new use. In a sense
metaphor the shift of the word is occasioned and
justified by a similarity or analogy between the object
it is usually applied to and the new object. In an
emotive metaphor the shift occurs through some
similarity between the feelings the new situation and
the normal situation arouse. The same word may,
1 Some further explanations of this distinction will be found in
Principles, p. 240, and in The Meaning of Meaning, Ch. VI.
PRACTICAL CRITICISM
in different contexts, be either a sense or an emotive
metaphor. If you call a man a swine, for example,
it may be because his features resemble those of
a pig, but it may be because you have towards him
something of the feeling you conventionally have
towards pigs, or because you propose, if possible, to
excite those feelings. Both metaphorical shifts may
be combined simultaneously, and they often are. But
in studying our methods of describing feelings they
have to be distinguished. Consider, for example,
profound, one of the commonest terms by which we
attempt to describe emotions. When we use it we
may be doing either of two things, or both together.
We may be simply inviting from our reader the awed
respectful feelings he usually has towards other
things that are said to be profound deep lakes, vast
chasms in the earth, night, human error, the wisdom
of sages, and so forth. Often we can obtain this
respect for our feeling without requiring the reader
to consider the feeling itself in any fashion, and in
fact while discouraging investigation. This is the
simplest type of emotive metaphor. Or we may be
asking him to recognise that our feeling has in some
(undefined) way something of the character of other
profound things that it is not easily explored, for
example, that it may contain all kinds of things, or
that it is easy to get lost in it. This is the sense
metaphor. Usually the two are combined, without
analysis of either. It is not a very encouraging sign
of our general intelligence, or of our emotional
discrimination, that this word has been found
invaluable by many popular critics and preachers.
I must take some credit for charity in not citing
a collection of examples that lies upon my table.
Most descriptions of feelings, and nearly all subtle
descriptions, are metaphorical and of the combined
type. The power to analyse explicitly the ground
of the transference is not widely possessed in any
SENSE AND FEELING 223
high degree, and it is less exercised both in school-
training and in general discussion than might be
wished. A better understanding of metaphor is one
of the aims which an imposed curriculum of literary
studies might well set before itself. But a writer
may use a metaphor and a reader take both its sense
and feeling correctly without either writer or reader
being capable of explaining how it works. Such
explanations are 1 a special branch of the critic's
business. Conversely, however acute and pene-
trating a reader may be, it does not follow that he
will be able to create good metaphorical language
himself. It is one thing to be able to analyse
resemblances and analogies when they have first
been seized and recorded by someone else ; it is
quite another thing to effect the discovery and
integration oneself.
This brings us obviously back to the poet, one of
whose gifts, ordinarily, is just this command of
original metaphor. From the technical point of
view indeed the poet's task is constantly (though not
only) that of finding ways and means of controlling
feeling through metaphor. He has to be expert, if
not in describing feeling, in presenting it, and
presenting and describing are here rather near
together. Even in the case of profound, dissected
above, there was a third possibility. The word
may instigate in the reader an echo, a shadow-
semblance of the emotion it describes. He may find
a sympathetic pulse awaken in his bosom, and feel
serious, self-conscious and responsible, at grips with
Destiny. If so, the word may in part have presented
the feeling as well as described it. Any lively, close,
realistic thought of an emotion is so apt to revive it
that most descriptions that are at all concrete or
intimate, that do succeed in ' putting it before one ',
also reinstate it.
Of the two kinds of paraphrasing which, we
224 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
^
suggested, might be made more use of in our schools
the one to exhibit the sense of a poem, the other
to portray its feeling the first requires only an
intelligent use of the dictionary, logjcal acumen,
a command of syntax, and pertinacity. The second
demands qualities of sensitiveness and^imagination,
the power to use remote experience and to create
metaphors, gifts which v may seem to belong by
birthright to the poet alone. It may seem strange
to suggest that these gifts could be, developed by
school training, but remembering the original endow-
ment of average children and comparing it with the
obtuseness of the sample adult, the proposal (if we
can guard against some of the dangers hinted at
above), may not in the end prove to be so unduly
optimistic. It was partly to shp^v the need and to
suggest the possibility of improved methods in
education that my documentation in Part II was
extended to such length. :
CHAPTER IV
POETIC 'FORM
Beauty and melody have not the arithmetical password, and so are
barred out. This teaches us that what exact science looks for is not
entities of some particular category, but entities with a metrical
aspect. ... It would be no use for beauty, say, to fake up a few
numerical attributes in the hope of thereby gaining admission into
the portals of science and carrying on an aesthetic crusade within.
It would find that the numerical aspects were duly admitted, but
aesthetic significance of them left outside.
A. S. EDDINOTON, The Nature of the Physical World.
THAT the art of responding to the form of poetry is
not less difficult than the art of grasping its content
its sense and feeling will be evident to anyone who
has glanced through Part II. And since half
perhaps of the feeling that poetry carries comes
through its form (and through the interaction of
form and content) the need for better educational
methods, here also, will be admitted. The condition
of blank incapacity displayed in 1-161, 3-15, 3-51, in
half the comments on Poem VI, in 10-61, 11-41,
12*52 and 13 -61 , to mention but a few salient examples ;
the desperate efforts to apply the fruits of the
traditional classical training shown in 3-44, 6-33,
12-51 and 13-62 ; and the occurrence of such
divergences as those between 1-14 and 1-141, 2-2
and 2-61, 4-27 and 4-31, or 9-3 and 9-31, all tell the
same story. A large proportion of even a picked*
public neither understand the kind of importance'
that attaches to the movement of words in verse,
nor have any just ideas of how to seize this movement
or judge it.
It may be objected that just ideas upon a point
p 225
226 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
admittedly so difficult as the nature of rhythm are
not easy to attain, that what matters is sensitiveness,
and that this is a special endowment. But, once
again, too many young children show an aptitude
for the reading of poetry and a capacity to seize its
rhythm, for us to admit that so many adults need
be so obtuse. Mistaken ideas, and crude uncon-
sidered assumptions certainly play their part. It
may be that the best way to learn how verse should
be spoken is to listen to a good speaker ; but a few
reasonable ideas upon the matter can certainly
assist, and without them we remain unnecessarily
at the mercy of any authoritative mangier of verses
we may encounter.
Let us begin with the assumption that the protocols
show to be most damaging, the notion that regularity
is the merit of verse. (13-62 and 3-44 will make the
force of this notion clear to us). It derives very
largely from the cruder by-products of Classical
Education. Unless very well taught, Latin verse
composition is a bad instrument by which to train
a mind in the appreciation of rhythm. A few very
brilliant or very rebellious boys escape, but the rest
receive the impression (often indelible) that good
verses are simply those that fit a certain framework
of rules, and that this framework is the measure of
their rhythmical virtue. Applied to English verse
the notion meets with a check in the fact that no
set of rules has been found (or, at least, agreed upon),
but the efforts of the rival schools of prosodists seem
all directed towards establishing some set of rules,
and the general impression that metrical excellence
lies in regularity is encouraged* and readers who
have not heard of more refined ideas naturally retain
this simple notion. ' Irregular ', as we know from
other contexts, is a word that carries several shades
of disapprobation.
But the patent fact that the best verses are fre-
POETIC FORM 227
quently irregular, that almost as often as not they
fail to conform, however many ' licences ', 'sub-
stitutions ' and c equivalences ' are introduced into
the rules of scansion to bring them into line, has
forced upon many prosodists an improved idea of
metre. Instead of strict conformity with a pattern,
an arrangement of departures from and returns to
the pattern has come to b*e regarded as the secret
of poetic rhythm. The ear, it has been thought,
grows tired of strict regularity but delights in
recognising behind the variations the standard that
still governs them.
This conception, though an improvement, is still
too superficial. I have put it in a language which
reveals its weakness, for the apprehension of poetic
rhythm is only partly an affair of the ear. The
defect of the view is that it regards poetic rhythm
as a character of the sound of the words apart from
their effects in the mind of the reader. The rhythm
is supposed to belong to them and to be the cause
of these effects. But the difference between good
rhythm and bad is not simply a difference between
certain sequences of sounds ; it goes deeper, and to
understand it we have to take note of the meanings
of the words as well.
This point, which is of some practical importance,
appears clearly if we imagine ourselves reciting verses
into the ear of an instrument designed to record (by
curves drawn on squared paper) all the physical
characters of the sequences of sounds emitted, their
strength, pitch, durations, and any other features
we choose to examine. (This is not a fantastic
suggestion, for such instruments can be arranged
and begin to be part of the furniture of good phonetic
laboratories.) The shape of our curves will give us
a transcription of all the physical rhythms 1 of the
1 I use the word ' rhythm ; here in the very wide sense of a
repetitive configuration, i.e., a group of groups such that the several
228 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
verses. Now the view objected to would lead us to
conclude that verses which are good poetry would show
some peculiarity l in their curves, that verses which
are bad poetry could not show. Put in this manner,
it will be agreed, I hope, that the conclusion is most
unplausible. But if we say, as many have said, that
poetic rhythm is a quality of the sound, the sensuous
form, of words, there is ho means of escaping it.
Yet it is perfectly true that many great passages of
poetry do seem to possess, merely as sounds, a peculiar
undeniable virtue. And it is sometimes suggested
that a sensitive listener, knowing no Italian, who
listens to Dante, well read, would be able to dis-
tinguish the verses of the Divina Comedia from those
of some skilful but negligible imitator. Their
superiority in sound, it is said, would reveal them.
The experiment might be interesting, but it has an
obvious flaw which makes it inconclusive. The
reader must be presumed to understand what he is
reading, and it is likely that what the sensitive listener
would really discern would be signs, in the reader's
voice and manner, of the differences due to this
understanding. For whether a speaker is really
interested or not in what he is saying, and in what
fashion, is a point we can be quick to detect.
How, then, are we to explain this apparent
superiority in the sound of good poetry if we admit
that on the recording drum its curves might be
constituent groups are similar to one another, though not necessarily
exactly similar. Elsewhere (in Principles of Literary Criticism,
Ch. XVII) I have used the word in a quite different sense, namely, for
that dependence of part upon part within a whole which derives x from
expectation and foresight. This last is not, perhaps, the most natural
use of the word, but this dependence is, I think, what many people
who discuss, for example, the rhythm of prose, rhythm in pictures, or
rhythm in golf, have in mind ; if so, the use is justified. The sense
here used, on the other hand, allows us to speak of the movements of
the planets as being rhythmical apart from any mind which observes
them.
1 Not, of course, a simple, direct similarity of rhythm ; but some
order or regularity, some relevant peculiar property.
POETIC FORM 229
indistinguishable from those of rubbish. The
answer is that the rhythm which we admire, which
we seem to detect actually in the sounds, and which
we seem to respond to, is something which we only
ascribe to them and is, actually, a rhythm of the
mental activity through which we apprehend not
only the sound of the wgrds but their sense and
feeling. 1 The mysterious glory which seems to
inhere in the sound of certain lines is a projection 2
of the thought and emotion they evoke, and the
peculiar satisfaction they seem to give to the ear is
a reflection of the adjustment of our feelings which
has been momentarily achieved. Those who find
this a hard saying may be invited to consider anew
the reception of Poem IV, pp. 55-58 above.
Such an explanation has this incidental advantage,
that it accounts for the passionate admiration some-
times accorded to stray lines that seem of a mediocre
manufacture. The reader (1-31) who compares
the exhortations in Poem I to ' wonderful music '
serves us excellently as an example (1-145, 1-21 and
1-3 may also be re-examined). The phenomenon is
paralleled in all human affairs into which feeling
enters, and this is no occasion to expatiate upon it.
But the theory of poetic rhythm as something
' projected ', ascribed to verses rather than inherent
in them, must not lead us to wwrfer-estimate the part
played by the actual sounds. They are a very
important contributing factor though they do not
carry the whole responsibility for the rhythm. They
are the skeleton upon which the reader casts flesh
1 See Appendix A, Note 4.
2 Projected in the sense that our pleasure is projected when we
describe someone as 'pleasant' (to be distinguished from 'pleasing')
or ugly (to be distinguished from 'causing a loathing'). See
Appendix A, Note 3. A clear indication that this projection occurs
in apprehending rhythm is the fact that we can give several alternative
rhythms to a simple series of stimuli, such as a metronome-beat or the
ticking of a clock. Many other facts of experiment and observation
might be brought to support this conclusion.
230 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
and clothing. And if the skeleton is too much out
of joint, or if it is the skeleton of a whippet, when
sense and feeling demand that of a cat, no goodwill
on the part of the reader and no depth of realisation
of sense and feeling will overcome the disability.
To see this we have only to change the rhythm of
any convenient passage of good verse, while preserving
its vocabulary and, so far as possible, its syntax.
Whether nobler it is in the mind to suffer
The arrows and slings of Fortune outrageous.
The effect is that of comic-opera patter. The sense
fights in vain to master the form, and its failure gives
it an inevitable air of frivolity.
Metrical form, therefore, that is to say the rhythm
inherent in the sequence of the actual sounds in
verse, the rhythm that appears in the records of the
kymograph, is very important. It can easily make
what might be a good poem into a bad one. But it
cannot be judged apart from the sense and feeling of
the words out of which it is composed nor apart from
the precise order in which that whole of sense and
feeling builds itself up. The movement or plot of
the word-by-word development of the poem, as
a structure of the intellect and emotions, is always,
in good poetry, in the closest possible relation to the
movement of the metre, not only giving it its tempo,
but even distorting it sometimes violently. Readers
who take up a poem as though it were a bicycle, spot
its metre, and pedal off on it regardless of where it
is going, will naturally, if it is a good poem, get into
trouble. For only a due awareness of its sense and
feeling will bring its departures from the pattern
metre into a coherent, satisfying whole.
The notion that verses must conform to metrical
patterns was described earlier in this chapter as
the most damaging enemy to good reading. It is
a double-edged notion, blindly destructive on both
POETIC FORM 231
sides. It leads, on the one hand, to mechanical
reading, to a ' cruel forcing ' (3-44) of syllables into
a mould which they were never meant to fit, and to
a ruthless lopping away of vocables (cf. 8-44, 12-51,
13-62), treatment that is fatal to the movement of
the verse. On the other hand it leads to bitter
complaints against irregularity and a refusal to enter
into poems which do not accord smoothly with the
chosen pattern (8-43).
Against these unnecessary mistakes it cannot be
too much insisted that there is no obligation upon
verses to conform to any standard. The pattern is
only a convenience, though an invaluable one ; it
indicates the general movement of the rhythm ; it
gives a model, a central line, from which variations
in the movement take their direction and gain an
added significance ; it gives both poet and reader
a firm support, a fixed point of orientation in the
indefinitely vast world of possible rhythms ; it has
other virtues of a psychological order ; but it has no
compulsory powers, and there is no good reason
whatever to accord it them.
After the conformity notion, its close cousin, the
notion that poetic rhythm is independent of sense, is
the most hurtful. It is easy, however, to show how
much the rhythm we ascribe to words (and even their
inherent rhythm as sounds) is influenced by our
apprehension of their meanings. Prepare a few
phrases with their sounds and inherent rhythms as
closely alike as possible but with different meanings.
Then compare for example :
Deep into a gloomy grot
with
Peep into a roomy cot.
The ascribed rhythm, the movement of the words,
trivial though it be in both cases, is different, though
almost every prosodist would have to scan them in
232 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
the same fashion, and the kymograph would, I think,
for most readers, show few important differences. 1
Going a step further, if the meaning of the words
is irrelevant to the form of the verse, and if this
independent form possesses aesthetic virtue, as not
a few have maintained (3-6 will do as a specimen)
it should be possible to take some recognised master-
piece of poetic rhythm and compose, with nonsense
syllables, a" double or dummy which at least comes
recognisably near to possessing the same virtue.
J. Drootan-Sussting Benn
Mill-down Leduren N.
Telamba-taras oderwainto weiring
Awersey zet bidreen
Ownd istellester sween
Lithabian tweet ablissood owdswown stiering
Apleven aswetsen sestinal
Yintomen I adaits afurf I gallas Ball.
If the reader has any difficulty in scanning these
verses, reference to Milton, On the Morning of
Christ's Nativity, xv, will prove of assistance, and
the attempt to divine the movement of the original
before looking it up will at least show how much the
sense, syntax, and feeling of verse may serve as an
introduction to its form. But the illustration will
also support a subtler argument against anyone who
affirms that the mere sound of verse has independently
any considerable aesthetic virtue. For he will either
have to say that this verse is valuable (when he may
be implored to take up his pen at once and enrich
the world with many more such verses, for nothing
could be easier), or he will have to say that it is the
differences in sound between this purified dummy and
the original which deprive the dummy of poetic
merit. In which case he will have to account for
1 I am aware that all such experiments are invalidated by the fact
that some difference in vowel and consonantal sounds is introduced,
and so the balance of the inherent rhythm is to some degree disturbed,
but though not persuasive, these experiments seem to me instructive.
POETIC FORM 233
the curious fact that just those transformations which
redeem it as sound, should also give it the sense and
feeling we find in Milton. A staggering coincidence,
unless the meaning were highly relevant to the effect
of the form.
Such arguments (which might be elaborated) do
not tend to diminish the power of the sound (the
inherent rhythm) when it works in conjunction with
sense and feeling. The reception of Poem VI (and
especially 6-32, 6-33) proves both the subtlety and
the importance of this collaboration. The twofold
contrasts of 4*23 and 4-24 and 4-25 also admirably
display the point. The mistake of neglecting sound
altogether must rank next after the Regularity and
Independence myths as a source of bad reading. In
fact the close co-operation of the form with the
meaning modifying it and being modified by it
in ways that though subtle are, in general, perfectly
intelligible is the chief secret of Style in poetry.
But so much mystery and obscurity has been raised
around this relation by talk about the identity of
Form and Content, or about the extirpation of the
Matter in the Form, that we are in danger of forgetting
how natural and inevitable their co-operation must be.
By bad reading I suggest that we should mean
not so much reading that would offend our sus-
ceptibilities if we were listening, 1 as reading that
prevents the reader himself from entering into the
poem. The sounds most people make when they read
aloud probably seem very different to their audience
and to them. The phenomena of ' projection ' are
noticeable here. We invest our rendering with the
1 Very unfortunately most of the gramophone records yet available
must be described as exceedingly bad in both senses. They would
justify in a sensitive child a permanent aversion from poetry. And
less sensitive children may pick up habits of 'sentimentalisation ',
4 emotionality' and exaggeration, very difficult to cure. Some of
Mr Drinkwater's records, however, point in a better direction and
deserve honourable mention.
234 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
qualities we wish it to have unless some critical eye
is cocked upon us and two readings of the same
poem that sound very different may not, to the
readers themselves, be after all so unlike. The
rhythms they ascribe to the poem may be more
similar than the rhythms they actually succeed in
giving it. Thus though private reading aloud is
much to be recommende'd l as an aid in working out
the form of a poem, it is doubtful whether public-
reading (in the classroom for example) should be
encouraged. Nothing more easily defeats the whole
aim of poetry than to hear it incompetently mouthed
or to struggle oneself to read out a poem in public
before it has given up most of its secrets. For to
read poetry well is extremely difficult. One piece
of advice which has proved its usefulness may perhaps
be offered : to remember that we are more likely to
read too fast than to read too slow. Certainly, if
the rhythm of a poem is not yet clear to us, a very
slow private reading gives a better chance for the
necessary interaction of form and meaning to develop
than any number of rapid perusals. This simple
neurological fact, if it could be generally recognised
and respected, would probably more than anything
else help to make poetry understood.
1 Partly because movements of the organs of speech (with muscular
and tactile images of them) enter into the ascribed sound of words
almost as much as auditory sensations and images themselves.
CHAPTER V
IRRELEVANT ASSOCIATIONS AND STOCK RESPONSES
O now when the Bardo of the Dream-State upon me is dawning !
Abandoning the inordinate corpse-like sleeping of the sleep of
stupidity,
May the consciousness undistractedly be kept in its natural state ;
Grasping the true nature of dreams, may I train myself in the clear
Light of Miraculous Transformation :
Acting not like the brutes in slothfulness,
May the blending of the practising of the sleep state and actual
experience be highly valued by me.
Tibetan Prayer^
FROM the first two of our ten critical difficulties
(p. 14) we must pass to a group of more particular,
less general, obstacles to just discernment. As to
erratic imagery whether visual imagery or imagery
of the other senses when the extreme variety of
human beings in the kinds of imagery they enjoy,
and the use they make of it, has been realised, little
need be added to what has already been said a propos
of Poem X (10-2-10-24) and elsewhere. (Cf. 13-462,
12-7, 11-22; 9-4-9-48, 9-91, 7-32, 3-7. Also Ap-
pendix A, Note 5.) With some readers imagery of
all kinds rightly plays an immensely important part
in their reading. But they should not be surprised
that for equally good readers not of the visualising
or image-producing type images hardly appear, and
if they appear have no special significance. It may
seem to the visualisers that the poet works through
imagery, but this impression is an accident of their
mental constitution, and people of a different
constitution have other ways of reaching the same
results.
1 See W. Y. Evans Wentz, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, p. 202.
236
236 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
Visualisers, however, are exposed to a special
danger. The vivid and precise images which arise
before us, owe much of their character and detail to
sources which are quite outside the poet's control.
To use them as an important thread in the texture
of the poem's meaning, or to judge the poem by them,
is a very risky proceeding. In so far as the meaning
of the poem has actually embodied itself for us in
our imagery, and is really reflected therein, we are
justified, of course. And I would not deny that many
readers may find their imagery a most sensitive and
useful index to the meaning. But the merit of the
poem is not in the imagery. To put the error in
its cruder form : a poem which calls up a * beautiful
picture ' is not thereby proved to be a good poem.
The detail, especially, of most readers' imagery is
likely to be irrelevant, to depend upon circumstances
only by accident connected with the meaning of the
poem ; the general character of the imagery and its
feeling may be more significant. We ought to be
very wary in discussing such a point, for the threads
of relevant connection which the poem may touch,
as it enters now into one, now into another of the
vast reservoirs of experience in different readers'
minds, are too various, complex and subtle for any
external observer to trace. In this sense there is far
more in any poem than any one reader can discover.
A quality in an image which seems to one reader
quite beside the point may be an essential item to
another. Those whose experience comes to them
chiefly through their eyes may rightly attach extreme
importance to nuances in their imagery. None the
less, in less sensitive and more chaotic visualisers,
imagery is a frequent occasion for irrelevance.
We shall understand the situation better if we
consider some other instances of irrelevance, for the
problem of the intrusion of what is not germane to
the meaning is a general one. Examples in plenty
IRRELEVANT ASSOCIATIONS AND STOCK RESPONSES 237
will have been noticed in the protocols, and we may
resurvey a few of them with advantage. The
simplest case is where some particular memory of
the reader's personal biography is recalled, and his
response to the poem becomes largely a response to
this reminiscence. The * tinkling piano ' association
of 8- 1 1 belongs here. It is^ not hard to imagine the
sounds which the poem recalled to this reader's
mind, nor (if we read ' execrating ' as a portmanteaux-
word for ' excruciating ' and ' execrable ') difficult to
sympathise with him. But his association fails to
illustrate the poem as evidently as the odder associa-
tions of 8-21. More doubt may be felt about the
thunder-storm association of 12-1. It must surely
be this, for clouds, however * heavy J , will not
otherwise be heard to * rumble '. But there is, it
may be thought, something oppressive and thundery
about the feeling of Poem XII. The cathedral
associations of Poem VII ', on the other hand, were
clearly relevant (7* 54-7*56), and may be sharply
contrasted with the pine-wood phantasy of 7-57.
Slightly more complicated are these instances where
it is a train of thought, not a memory, that intrudes.
The home-sickness of 10-1, the opinions on the
musical qualities of hymns (8-2) and on the proper
use of music (8-12, 8-32), the historical background
of 9-111 and the politics of 9*15, betray themselves
as having nothing to do with the matter, but it is not
so easy to decide about the War Memorial (7-43) or
Joanna Southcott's gladstone-bag (13*5). The as-
sociated train of ideas may be merely an ignis fatuus,
or a flash of inspiration. Everything depends upon
how essential the bond of thought or feeling may be
that links it with the poem. We have to ask whether
it really springs from the meaning 1 or whether it is
1 I may remind the reader that, here and elsewhere when I use the
word ' meaning', all the four kinds of meaning discussed in Chapter I
are referred to.
238 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
an accidental by-product of a reading which does
not realise the meaning ; whether the train of
association has at least started right and is rooted in
something essential, and whether or not accidents of
the individual reader's mood or history or tempera-
ment have twisted it.
A special case which well illustrates the general
situation occurs when what is thought of is some
other poem. If it is another poem by the same
author the association is likely to be relevant ; but
if the title, the subject, or some similarity of a single
phrase is responsible, the dangers of aberration are
obvious. Something has already been said about
them in connection with the introduction of Keats
into the discussion of Poem V (5*32, 5*34), and the
effect of Shelley on Poem X (10-47, 10-48, 10-62, also
Ch. II, p. 201). Only the very closest and most
sensitive reading will show whether two poems
really have anything that matters in common, and
such superficial resemblances as may be picked up in
cursory reading prove nothing unless we can trace
them deeper. The great services that comparisons
so often render come from the assistance they can
give to closer reading, and the greatest possible
difference may be as useful as the closest similarity
in shaking our minds out of the routine of expecta-
tion. But direct comparisons based upon the
supposition that poems can be classified by their
themes, or metres, for example and that poems
in the same class (cloud poems, immortal-beauty
poems, graveyard poems, sonnets, and so forth ,, . .)
must be alike, can only serve to exhibit stupid
reading. As with other associations, the quality of
the link (the depth of its grounds in the inner nature
and structure of the associated things) is the measure
of its relevance.
Often, of course, an association with another
poem will be no more than a means by which a
IRRELEVANT ASSOCIATIONS AND STOCK RESPONSES 239
reader defines, for himself or for others, the kind of
feeling the poem evokes in him. This is perhaps
what is happening in 1-193 and in 11-4. Such
comparisons do not so much influence the reader's
judgment pf the poem as reflect it, but with most of the
associations we are concerned with here, the association
becomes clearly a contributing factor to the poem.
The most flagrant cases of irrelevance come from
the intrusion into the poem of the hobby-horse or
the obsession. The unlucky lover (6-36), the victim
of parental advice (6-37), and the victim of circum-
stances (6-38) provide hardly less clear examples
than the symbolist (12-11), the indignant moralist
(8-41), or the educational reformer (10-11). What
stray reminiscence prompted this last is a point that
should be not uninteresting to teachers.
The personal situation of the reader inevitably (and
within limits rightly) affects his reading, and many
more are drawn to poetry in quest of some reflection
of their latest emotional crisis than would admit it
if faced with such a frank declaration as that in 11-2.
Though it has been fashionable in deference to
sundry confused doctrines of ' pure art ' and ' im-
personal aesthetic emotions ' to deplore such a state
of affairs, there is really no occasion. For a com-
parison of the feelings active in a poem with some
personal feeling still present in the reader's lively
recollection does give a standard, a test for reality.
The dangers are that the recollected feelings may
overwhelm and distort the poem and that the reader
may forget that the evocation of somewhat similar
feelings is probably only a part of the poem's
endeavour. It exists perhaps to control and order
such feelings and to bring them into relation with
other things, not merely to arouse them. But
a touchstone for reality is so valuable, and factitious
or conventional feelings so common, that these
dangers are worth risking.
240 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
Thus memories, whether of emotional crises or of
scenes visited or incidents observed, are not to be
hastily excluded as mere personal intrusions. That
they are personal is nothing against them all
experience is personal the only conditions are that
they must be genuine and relevant, and must respect
the liberty and autonomy of the poem. Genuine
memories, for example, of ' the most moving mani-
festations of nature ' and ' its loveliest and grandest
aspects ' (9-9 and 9-91), if they were compared with
what the poem contained, would have influenced the
opinions there expressed of Poem IX. It is the
absence of such memories that allows a word like
* glittering ' to pass unchallenged in the last line but
one of the poem. At a moment when accuracy and
verisimilitude in description are important, appears
a word completely false to the appearances that are
being described. Mountains that are * surging away
into the sunset glow ' do not glitter ; they cannot,
unless the sun (or moon) is fairly high in the heavens.
But * glittering ' is a stock epithet for icy mountains.
With this we are brought to the important, neglected
and curious topic of Stock Responses.
So much that passes for poetry is written, and so
much reading of even the most original poetry is
governed, by these fixed conventionalised reactions
that their natural history will repay investigation.
Their intervention, moreover, in all forms of human
activity in business, in personal relationships, in
public affairs, in Courts of Justice will be recog-
nised, and any light which the study of poetry may
throw upon their causes, their services, their dis-
advantages, and on the ways in which they may be
overcome, should be generally welcome.
A stock response, like a stock line in shoes or hats,
may be a convenience. Being ready-made, it is
available with less trouble than if it had to be specially
made out of raw or partially prepared materials.
IRRELEVANT ASSOCIATIONS AND STOCK RESPONSES 241
And unless an awkward misfit is going to occur, we
may agree that stock responses are much better than
no responses at all. Indeed, an extensive repertory
of stock responses is a necessity. Few minds could
prosper if they had to work out an original, * made
to measure ' response to meet every situation that
arose their supplies of mental energy would be too
soon exhausted and the wear and tear on their
nervous systems would be too great. Clearly there
is an enormous field of conventional activity over
which acquired, stereotyped, habitual responses
properly rule, and the only question that needs
to be examined as to these responses is whether they
are the best that practical exigencies the range of
probable situations that may arise, the necessity of
quick availability and so forth will allow. But
equally clearly there are in most lives fields of
activity in which stock responses, if they intervene,
are disadvantageous and even dangerous, because they
may get in the way of, and prevent, a response more
appropriate to the situation. These unnecessary
misfits may be remarked at almost every stage of the
reading of poetry, but they are especially noticeable
when emotional responses are in question. Let us
survey a few examples to show the range of incidence
of this disorder before attempting to analyse its
causes. We may then inquire whether it is inevitable,
to what extent and by what means it might be avoided.
At the humbler end of the scale, those readers
who were barred out from Poem II through their
stock response to ' cool, green house ', and those
betrayed by the monarch in Poem IX, show the
mechanism of the mistake very clearly. The ordinary
meaning, the automatic, habitual interpretation, steps
in too quickly for the context of the rest of the poem
to make its peculiarities effective. Similarly, when it
is a larger body of ideas that intrudes the religious
and anti-religious prejudices of 7-2 and 7-21, the
Q
242 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
political leanings of 9-14 and 9*15, the R.S.P.C.C.
zeal of io- n, all tell the same story, but they show
something further. An * idea ', as we are using the
term here, is not a merely passive item of conscious-
ness, dragged up by the pull of blind forces at the
mercy of routine laws of association. It is rather an
active system of feelings and tendencies which may
be pictured as always straining to appear and ready
to seize any opportunity of disporting itself. We
shall not understand the phenomena of stock
responses unless we regard them as energy systems
which have the right of entry, unless some other
system of greater energy can bar them out or perhaps
drain their energy away from them. Fundamentally,
though this is an unfair way of putting it, when any
person misreads a poem it is because, as he is at that
moment y he wants to. The interpretation he puts
upon the words is the most agile and the most active
among several interpretations that are within the
possibilities of his mind. Every interpretation is
motivated by some interest, and the idea that appears
is the sign of these interests that are its unseen masters.
When the interest is unusual in kind and its distorting
effect large and evident, as in 10-11, we readily
admit that this is so. With stock responses where
the dominating interest is excessively ordinary and
no distortion may result we are more likely to
overlook this ' energetic ' aspect of ideas, but to
remember it is the key to the whole matter.
The principle that it is the most ' attractive '
reading which is adopted is often disguised, and may
seem to be contradicted, for example, when a reader
says that he would like to read a poem in a certain
way and regrets that he cannot. But there a major
interest his desire to read faithfully has over-
reached and controlled a more local interest. It is
to be feared that this major interest is too often
dormant, and the need for its watchful control too
IRRELEVANT ASSOCIATIONS AND STOCK RESPONSES 243
little realised. In its place an initial prepossession,
the desire to find grounds for approval (or con-
demnation) a desire arising well ahead of any
adequate justification frequently takes charge of the
whole process.
A stock rhythm can be imported quite as easily
as a stock idea, as we have, seen (8-41) ; and if we
could listen to the readings of the protocol writers
it is probable that we should notice this often, but
whether distortions equal to that in 3-15 are common
may be doubted.
In the cases so far cited the stock response inter-
venes to distort a passage whose more adequate
reading develops otherwise. To the same group
belong 5-37, 5*38 and 5-4 (where more traditional
notions than those really present in the poem are
responsible for the effects recorded), 8-3-8-33 (where
the poet is modifying conventional feelings, but his
readers refuse to let him change them), and 13-1-13-4
(where several different stock sentiments replace the
poem and bring discredit upon it). But the stock
response can interfere in other ways. In 12-5 it is
the difference between the poem and the stock poem
the reader has in his mind that is the objection.
Similarly in 10-44 and 11*43, deviation in the one
case from a stock image of a cloud, in the other from
a stock notion of an epitaph is the ground of
complaint. This type of adverse criticism, objection
brought to a poem for not being quite a different
poem, without regard paid to what it is as itself,
ought to be less common. Poets are often guilty of
it towards one another, but they have some excuse,
since absorption in one kind of aim may well make
a man blind to other aims. Intelligent critics,
however, who realise that no poem can be judged by
standards external to itself, have no excuse. Yet
few original poems have escaped general abuse for
not being more like other poems which proves
244 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
how hard the task of being intelligent and a
critic is.
But a much more subtle situation involving stock
responses remains to be discussed. Here instead
of distorting the poem or of setting up an irrelevant
external standard the stock response actually is in
the poem. Poems I, IV, VII and IX, with some
differences in level and degree, I believe illustrate
this condition of affairs. The most correct reading
of them, the reading which most accords with the
impulses that gave them being, is in each case, unless
I am mistaken, such that every item and every strand
of meaning, every cadence and every least movement
of the form is fatally and irrevocably familiar to
anyone with any acquaintance with English poetry.
Furthermore this familiarity is not of the kind which
passages of great poetry ever acquire, however often
we may read them or however much we have them
by heart. We may be weary to death of ' To be or
not to be . . . ', but we still know that if we were to
attend to it again it could surprise us once more.
The familiarity of these poems belongs to them as
we first read them, it is not an acquired familiarity
but native. And it implies, I think, that the mental
movements out of which they are composed have
long been parts of our intellectual and emotional
repertory and that these movements are few and simple
and arranged in an obvious order. In other words the
familiarity is a sign of their facility as stock responses.
There is a contributory reason for taking this
view. The more we examine the detail of these
poems the more we shall notice, I believe, their
extreme impersonality the absence of any personal
individual character either in their movement as
verse or in their phrasing. The only touches of
character that anyone can point to are the echoes of
other poets. Each of them might well have been
written by a committee. This characterlessness
IRRELEVANT ASSOCIATIONS AND STOCK RESPONSES 245
appears very plainly if we compare 1 them with
Donne's Sonnet, where there are hardly seven words
together anywhere which have not a peculiar personal
twist. Such impersonality, like the familiarity, is
a sign that they are composed of stock responses.
In addition it will be recalled that these poems
(with the exception of the fii^t line of Poem IX) were
rather oddly immune from serious misunderstanding.
With this point in view I included all the examples
of misreading that occurred.
Such stock poems are frequently very popular.
They come home to a majority of readers with
a minimum of trouble, for no new outlook, no new
direction of feeling, is required. On the other
hand, as we have seen, readers who have become
more exigent often grow very indignant, the degree
of their indignation being sometimes a measure, it
may appear, of the distance they have themselves
moved from the stock response and the recency of
the development. But such cynical reflections are
not always in place here, for these responses must
evidently be judged by two partially independent
sets of considerations their appropriateness to the
situations to which they reply, and the degree in
which they hinder more appropriate responses from
developing. There are clearly stock responses which
are in both ways admirable they are right as far
as they go, reasonably adequate to their situations,
and they assist rather than prevent further, more
refined, developments. On the other hand, no one
with the necessary experience will doubt that
inappropriate stock responses are common and that
they are powerful enemies to poetry. Some of the
differences in origin between good and bad responses
are therefore worth tracing.
1 Such a comparison is not an introduction of an external standard :
it is merely a means of bringing out more clearly a feature of the
poems which might escape us.
246 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
If we consider how responses in general are formed,
we shall see that the chief cause of ill-appropriate,
stereotyped reactions is withdrawal from experience.
This can come about in many ways. Physically, as
when a London child grows up without ever seeing
the country or the sea ; morally, as when a parti-
cularly heavy parent deprives a child of all the
adventurous expansive side of life ; through con-
vention and inculcation, as when a child, being too
easily persuaded what to think and to feel, develops
parasitically ; intellectually, as when insufficient
experience is theoretically elaborated into a system
that hides the real world from us.
These last two cases are the more interesting for
our purpose here, though the effects of sheer
ignorance and of such moral disasters as produce
timidity are not to be overlooked. But more often,
perhaps, it is a too loose and easy growth in our
responses that leads to premature fixation. Ideas,
handed to us by others or produced from within, are
a beguiling substitute for actual experience in
evoking and developing our responses. An idea
of soldiers for example can stay the same through
innumerable repetitions ; our experience of actual
soldiers may distressingly vary. The idea, as a rule,
presents one aspect ; the actual things may present
many. We can call up our idea by the mere use
of a word. And even in the presence of the Army
it. is by no means certain that what we perceive will
not be as much our idea as the soldiers themselves.
Since a response becomes firmer through exercise,
it is clear that those among our responses that are
early hitched to an idea, rather than to the actual
particularities of the object, gain a great advantage
in their struggle for survival. It behoves us, there-
fore, to consider very carefully what kinds of things
these ideas are, how we come by them and to what
extent they can be trusted.
IRRELEVANT ASSOCIATIONS AND STOCK RESPONSES 247
An idea, in the sense we are using here, is a
representation 1 but it is both very much less and
very much more than a mental replica or copy of the
thing it represents. It is less, because even the most
elaborate idea falls short of the complexity of its
object, is a sketch that is incomplete and probably
distorts. It is more than a replica because besides
representing the object it Represents (in a different
sense) our interest in the object. We can all observe
that our idea of an acquaintance, for example, is
a compromise. It reflects in part his actual qualities,
some of them ; but it also reflects our feelings
towards him, our tendencies to act in one way or
another towards him, and these, as we well know,
are governed not by his real qualities only as though
we were impartial deities but by our needs, desires,
habits and the rest. The example is typical. Pure
ideas, that reflect only features of the object, are to
be found only in some of the sciences where
centuries of careful testing have reduced the effects
of our partiality to a minimum. All our ordinary
ideas about objects that matter to us, that are, as we
say, interesting, are coloured by our emotional and
practical relations to them. We can hardly help
thinking that our nation, for example, is, on the whole,
the best. Naturally enough, we are usually blind
to this subjective colouring and our quickness to
detect bias in other people rarely makes us ponder
long upon our own. This is one of the reasons for
thinking that Part II may be useful, for to imagine
that a mirror stands between us and other people is
certainly the most reliable means of studying
ourselves.
1 Whether the mental representative is an image more or less like
the object representedor a word, or some other more mysterious
kind of event in the mind, we need not discuss here. As a rule it is
probably this latter. The author's opinions upon these matters will
be found in The Meaning of Meaning and, more summarily, in
Principles of Literary Criticism. See also Appendix A, Note 5.
248 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
We come by our ideas in three main fashions : by
direct interaction with the things they represent,
that is, by experience ; by suggestion from other
people ; and by our own intellectual elaboration.
Suggestion and elaboration have their evident dangers,
but are indispensable means of increasing our range
of ideas. It is necessary in practice to acquire ideas
a great deal faster than r we can possibly gain the
corresponding experience, and suggestibility and
elaboration though we must make them responsible
for our stock responses, are after all the capacities
that divide us from the brutes. Suggestion, working
primarily through language, hands down to us both
a good and an evil heritage. Nine-tenths, at the least,
of the ideas and the annexed emotional responses
that are passed on by the cinema, the press, friends
and relatives, teachers, the clergy . . . to an average
child of this century are judged by the standards
of poetry crude and vague rather than subtle or
appropriate. But the very processes by which they
are transmitted explain the result. Those who hand
them on received them from their fellows. And
there is always a loss in transmission which becomes
more serious in proportion as what is transmitted
is new, delicate and subtle, or departs in any way
from what is expected. Ideas and responses which
cost too much labour both at the distributing end
and at the reception end both for writer and
reader are not practicable, as every journalist
knows. The economics of the profession do not
permit their transmission ; and in any case it would
be absurd to ask a million tired readers to sit down
and work. It is hard enough to get thirty tired
children to sit up, behave and look bright.
A very simple application of the theory of com-
munication shows, then, that any very widespread
diffusion of ideas and responses tends towards
standardisation, towards a levelling down. But, as
IRRELEVANT ASSOCIATIONS AND STOCK RESPONSES 249
we have already agreed, any responses that work,
even badly, are better than none. Once the basic
level has been reached, a slow climb back may be
possible. That at least is a hope that may be
reasonably entertained. Meanwhile the threat to
poetry in this state of affairs must be recognised.
As our chief means by which subtle ideas and
responses may be communicated, poetry may have
a part to play in the climb back. It is, at least, the
most important repository of our standards.
We have still to consider the other influence which
encourages in the individual the fixation of inappro-
priate responses speculative elaboration divorced from
experience. Thinking in the sense of a thorough
attempt to compare all the aspects of an object or
situation, to analyse its parts, to reconcile one with
another all its various implications, to order it in one
coherent intellectual fabric with everything else we
know about everything connected with it is an
arduous and not immediately profitable occupation.
Accordingly, outside the scientific professions and
endowed institutions and even within them, it is
much less practised than we conventionally suppose.
What we usually describe as thinking is a much
more attractive mental exercise ; it consists in
following out a train of ideas, a process which affords
us most of the pleasures of thinking, in the stricter
sense, without its pains and bewilderments. Such
trains of associations may, and in the minds of men
of genius often do, lead to new and valuable ideas.
But accidents apart the condition for this happy
result is a wide available background of relevant
experience. The valuable idea is, in fact, the
meeting-point, the link between separate parts of
this field of experience. It unites aspects of existence
that ordinarily remain unconnected, and in this lies
its value. The secret of genius is perhaps nothing
else than this greater availability of all experience
250 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
coupled with larger stores of experience to draw
upon. The man of genius seems to take in more
every minute than his duller companion, and what he
has received seems to be more readily at his disposal
when he needs it. This obvious description of
Shakespeare seems to apply in lesser degree to other
good poets.
The man of less end&wment (I am incidentally
describing many bad poets) attempting a similar
achievement with less experience and with what
experience he has less available, 1 is likely to arrive
at merely arbitrary results. Lacking the control
of a many-sided, still active, past experience, his
momentary tendencies, desires, and impulses shape
and settle his conclusions for him, and it is more
likely to be the attractiveness of the idea (in the light
of some particular desire) than its relevance that
causes it to be adopted. It might be thought that
the test of subsequent experience would lead such
a man to abandon or correct the inappropriate ideas
and responses he arrives at in this arbitrary fashion.
So it does in many practical matters. We all know
enthusiasts who constantly have their unreal hopes
and projects dashed to th ground. But attitudes
and responses of the kinds with which poetry is
likely to be concerned unfortunately escape this
corrective test. The erratic individual cannot him-
self see that his responses are inappropriate, though
others might tell him. When he misreads a poem,
no practical consequences arise to teach him his
folly ; and, similarly, if he mismanages his emotional
relations with his fellow-beings he can readily per-
suade himself that they are at fault. I have been
describing a type of reader familiar to every teacher
concerned with poetry whose interpretations have
1 If we ask why one man's past experience should be less available
to him than another man's, and so less useful to him in guiding his
desires and thoughts, the answer must be given in terms of inhibitions.
See Chapter VI,
IRRELEVANT ASSOCIATIONS AND STOCK RESPONSES 251
a quality of wilful silliness which matches well the
obstinacy and conceit that are the primary traits of
the character. Often considerable mental agility is
shown, enough to support an affectation of
* brilliance ', but in time a striking monotony, a
repetition of the same forms of response is equally
apparent. Though fundamentally some disorder of
the self-regarding sentiment l a belated Narcissism,
perhaps must be at the root of these afflicting
phenomena, their approximate cause is certainly
withdrawal from experience through the day-dream
habit. And since milder forms of this condition
seem a very frequent cause of erratic reading (cf.
2-2, 6-4, 6-5, 7-38, 8-4, 8-45, 9-111, io-ii, 10-6,
11-33, 12-41, 13-51) it seemed worth while to attempt
a rough analysis. But on the whole the charactero-
logical aspects of the protocols will have to be
neglected.
Enough perhaps as to some of the causes of stock
inappropriate responses, whether of the standardised,
or the personal- whimsy, type. The only corrective
in all cases must be a closer contact with reality,
either directly, through ^experience of actual things,
or mediately through other minds which are in closer
contact. If good poetry owes its value in a large
measure to the closeness of its contact with reality,
it may thereby become a powerful weapon for
breaking up unreal ideas and responses. Bad poetry
certainly can be their very helpful guardian and ally.
1 Cf. the opening lines of Part II of Pope's Essay on Criticism.
Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules ;
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
Whatever nature has in worth denied
She gives in large recruits of needful pride !
For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find
What wants in blood or spirits, swcll'd with wind. . .
Trust not yourself; but, your defects to kno\v,
Make use of every friend and every foe.
The last couplet may perhaps be taken to indicate one piece of profit
that may be drawn from study of the protocols.
252 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
But even the best poetry, if we read into it just what
we happen to have already in our minds, and do not
use it as a means for reorganising ourselves, does
less good than harm.
Most good poetry, of course, resists this kind of
misusage, but often the emotional and intellectual
habits of the readers are too strong for the poet.
Moreover, the official cfoctrine of the eighteenth
century that
True wit is nature to advantage dress 'd,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd.
is still firmly entrenched in many minds. The notion
that all that a poet can do is to put strikingly, or
nicely, or elaborately, or euphoniously, ideas and
feelings that we already possess, is so serious and
frequent an obstacle to good reading, that I need
not apologise for quoting from a letter I received
from one of the protocol writers at about this stage
in my discussion :
* Although interested in the remarks you made
yesterday, I could not help feeling that your talk
about " Stock Responses " was somewhat obscure
and misleading. . . . The truth of the matter is,
I think, that every poem calls up stock responses,
but bad poetry is poetry which touches us super-
ficially and leads us to take the response for
granted. Thus in reading Gray's Elegy we are
prepared to have certain feelings about life and
death stirred up within us. Nor are we dis-
appointed, for we find at the end of the poem
that we have genuinely been moved as we expected,
and the stock response to Churchyard scenery has
been drawn out of us, as it were, and given a
chance to expatiate. But in Poem XIII on your
sheet, the process is different. We expect 1 the
1 Compare Seami Motokiyo on one of the 'secrets' of the No
'The "flower" consists in forcing on the audience an emotion which
they do not expect.' Waley, The No Plays of Japan, p. 47.
IRRELEVANT ASSOCIATIONS AND STOCK RESPONSES 253
stock responses to thoughts on Death to be drawn
out, but in reality they are not, since the poet does
not touch us deeply enough to do so. However
we take the drawing-out of these responses for
granted, and it is not until we read the poem
through a second or third time that we find we
have been deceived '.
My correspondent's account does peculiarly fit the
Elegy of which Dr Johnson well wrote : * The Church-
yard abounds with images which find a mirror in
every mind, and with sentiments to which every
bosom returns an echo ', though it is doubtful whether
* mirror * is a word which the lexicographer would,
on reflection, have here retained. The Elegy is per-
haps the best example in English of a good poem
built upon a foundation of stock responses. These
responses are of the kind which we granted
indeed insisted above, may be admirable, perfectly
appropriate as far as they go and no hindrance to
responses which may go further. But these stock
responses do not exhaust * the Elegy ; though its
extreme familiarity may blind us to the peculiarities
of tone and sequence of feeling that it contains
the qualities in the poem that belong to Gray, not to
the common stock from which it develops. And we
have only to open Hardy's poems at almost any page
to discover that besides ' the stock response to
Churchyard scenery ' there are many other possible
responses. Furthermore, as with other good poems
so even with the Elegy , the interpretations of good
readers will vary appreciably with their varied minds.
No one can say, ' There is only this and this in
the poem and nothing more '. There is everything
l All that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave
Awaits alike the inevitable hour.
Between the stock response to these lines which may be rendered by
4 How sad ! ' and the response of Gautama Buddha, there is evidently
room for many other responses, some of a stock pattern and some not.
254 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
there which a reader who starts right and keeps in
a balanced contact with reality can find. But minds
too much subjugated to their own fixed stock
responses will find nothing new, will only enact once
more pieces from their existing repertory. Better
this than nothing perhaps. The shock of dis-
covering how alive with new aspects everything
whatever is when contact with reality is restored is
anaesthetising to minds that have lost their capacity
to reorganise themselves ; it stupefies and bewilders.
Nearly all good poetry is disconcerting, for a moment
at least, when we first see it for what it is. Some
dear habit has to be abandoned if we are to follow it.
Going forwards we are likely to find that other
habitual responses, not directly concerned, seem less
satisfactory. In the turmoil of disturbed routines
that may ensue, the mind's hold on actuality is tested.
Great poetry, indeed, is not so safe a toy as the con-
ventional view supposes. But these indirect effects
of the overthrow of even a few stock attitudes and
ideas is the hope of those who think humanity may
venture to improve itself. And the belief that on
the whole and accidents apart finer, subtler, more
appropriate responses are more efficient, economical,
and advantageous than crude ones, is the best ground
for a moderate optimism that the world-picture
presents.
CHAPTER VI
-
SENTIMENTALITY AND INHIBITION
May the tears of sympathy crystallise as they fall and be worn as
pearls in the bosom of our affections.
Nineteenth Century Commercial Travellers Toast.
AMONG the politer terms of abuse there are few so
effective as ' sentimental '. Not very long ago the
word ' silly ' was fairly useful for this purpose. The
most intelligent would wince, the less intelligent
would become angry, and the stupid would grow
indignant if they, or views dear to their hearts, were
so described the three shades of feeling corre-
sponding perhaps to a suspicion, a fear, and an
absolute certainty as to there not being something in
it. But since Bergsonism began its insidious dry-
rot-like invasion of contemporary intellectualism the
word * silly ' has lost some of its sting. Nowadays
the accusation of sentimentality is more annoying
than any slur cast upon our capacity as thinkers, for
our moral capital is invested in our feelings rather
than in our thoughts.
The very fact that it is so annoying suggests that
' sentimental ' though often it may mean something
precise and capable of definition may be also, like
an insulting gesture, the vehicle of another kind of
utterance ; that it is sometimes not so much the
instrument of a statement as an expression of con-
tempt. Such an expression cannot, of course, be
defined as though it were a scientific term. Given
the occasion and the speakers we can describe the
feelings the word excites and the attitudes from
255
256 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
which it springs. But there we have to leave the
matter. And * sentimental rubbish ' is doubtless
more often than not a mere phrase of abuse. Com-
pare the phrase * damn nonsense \ The logician or
the expert in definitions would waste his time trying
to assign a precise scope to the adjective in either case.
But ' sentimental ' may be more than a piece of
abuse, an emotive gesture. It may be a description,
may stand for a vague idea, or for any one of several
precise ideas ; and two of these are extremely
important. So important that there is no need to be
surprised if * sentimental ' is one of the most over-
worked words in the whole vocabulary of literary
criticism. Its frequency, its twofold use, as an
insult and as a description, its fogginess in the second
capacity and its social significance in the first are all
sufficiently evidenced in the protocols. Poems IV
and VIII and, to a lesser degree, Poems II and XIII
provide us with our most instructive examples. But
before examining these in detail we must attempt
some definitions and elucidations.
Setting aside the abusive use of ' sentimental ' as
a mere gesture indicating little more than dislike, let
us reflect first upon the vaguer senses of the word.
We often use it to say only that there is something
wrong in the feelings involved by the thing, whatever
it is, which we call sentimental. And we do not
attempt to specify what is wrong. Using a vague
thought like this has been happily compared by
Bertrand Russell to aiming at a target with a lump
of putty. The putty spreads out, and we have
a good chance of bespattering the bull's-eye with
some of it. But it will spread over the rings too.
A precise thought is more like a bullet. We can
perhaps hit with it just what we want to hit and
nothing else, but we are much more likely to miss
altogether. Vague thoughts are best sometimes ;
they economise labour and are easier to follow, they
SENTIMENTALITY AND INHIBITION 257
have their obvious uses in* poetry ; but for this
purpose we need more precise ones.
The first of these is easy to state. A person may
be said to be sentimental when his emotions are too
easily stirred, too light on the trigger. As we all
know to our cost the trigger adjustment for the
feelings varies with all manner of odd circumstances.
Drugs, the weather, ' the l5rave music of a distant
drum ', fatigue, illness these and many other ex-
traneous factors can make our emotions too facile.
The lover of the bottle in his maudlin stage is
a famous sentimentalist. Certain rhythms as in
the case of the brass band above mentioned and
sounds of a certain quality, perhaps through their
associations the trumpet and the nightingale, for
example all these readily facilitate emotional orgies.
So do certain conditions of mass suggestion. Re-
unions, processions ; we often have to blush for our
sentimentality when we escape from the crowd.
Most remarkable of all, perhaps, are some effects of
illness. I reluctantly recall that the last time I had
influenza a very stupid novel filled my eyes with
tears again and again until I could not see the pages.
Influenza is thought by many to be a disorder of the
autonomic nervous system, and if this be so, there
would be nothing surprising in this effect. All our
emotional susceptibilities may be more or less
affected, but the results are most marked with those
which we can luxuriate in, those which do not
obviously endanger our self-esteem.
This last factor is one in which individuals vary
amazingly. Some people regard indulgence in the
soft and tender emotions as always creditable, and
they wallow in them so greedily that one is forced
to regard them as emotionally starved. Others are
apt to think about these emotions as Alexander Bain,
the once celebrated author of The Emotions and the
Will y thought about kissing (he called it osculation).
258 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
" The occasion ", he said, " should be adequate and
the actuality rare ".
But what is this adequate occasion and what makes
it adequate ?
Postponing consideration of this awkward problem,
let us first trace these differences in emotional
susceptibility, in the touchiness of the feelings,
a little further. They ark very noticeable as between
infancy, maturity, and old age. The child often
appears singularly unfeeling, so does the over-
experienced adult.
No more, no more, O never more on me
The freshness of the heart will fall like dew,
Which out of all the lovely things we see
Extracts emotions beautiful and new
as Byron wrote. The point expressed in the last
word will also have to be considered later. In
between the infant and the adult come the adolescents,
who, as is well known, are regarded both by their
juniors and their seniors as sentimentalists in excelsis.
The girl of twelve is apt to think her seventeen-year-
old sister very * sloppy '. As we shall see, there may
be several reasons for this phenomenon. In old age,
sometimes, but not always, a return of heightened
emotional susceptibility takes place. ' Sentimental '
here applies to persons. It means that they are too
susceptible, the flood-gates of their emotions too
easily raised.
This then gives us a precise, though very general,
sense for ' sentimental ', a quantitative sense. A
response is sentimental if it is too great for the
occasion. We cannot, obviously, judge that any
response is sentimental in this sense unless we take
careful account of the situation.
Another sense, of which this is not true, is that
in which ' sentimental ' is equivalent to * crude '.
A crude emotion, as opposed to a refined emotion,
can be set off by all manner of situations, whereas
SENTIMENTALITY AND INHIBITION 259
a refined emotion is one that can only be aroused by
a narrow range of situations. Refined emotions are
like sensitive instruments ; they reflect slight changes
in the situations which call them forth. The
distinction is parallel in several ways to the dis-
tinction made above between vague and precise
thoughts. Though refined responses are capable of
much more appropriateness than crude ones, they
are much more likely to go astray, as super-subtle
folk often show us. On the other hand, though crude
emotions are less likely to go altogether wrong, they
are less likely to go entirely right, if we judge them
by high standards of rightness. Neither crudeness
nor refinement need imply anything about the
intensity of the emotion they are qualitative not
quantitative characters. A crude emotion need not
be intense, nor a refined one feeble. It is true,
however, that the most violent emotions are usually
crude. Terror and rage, as we all know, are apt,
once they are aroused, to spread and apply them-
selves to anything. And while intensity is under
discussion one further point may be noted. Violence
of emotion, though much popular criticism seems to
assume so, does not necessarily imply value. Poems
which are very * moving ' may be negligible or bad.
It is the quality rather than the violence which
matters. As Wordsworth wrote,
The Gods approve
The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul.
We may suspect that to-day the demand for violence
reflects some poverty, through inhibition, in the
everyday emotional life. In Elizabethan times a
perhaps not analogous demand could not, however,
admit of this explanation.
One more sense of ' sentimental ' requires definition
before we can turn to consider when accusations of
sentimentality are justified and when they are not.
260 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
This sense derives from the psychologists' use of the
word ' sentiment '. A sentiment in his terminology is
not an experience in the way that an emotion, a pain,
the sight of something, an image, and a thought, are
experiences. It is not a momentary thing but
a more or less permanent arrangement in the mind :
a group of tendencies towards certain thoughts and
emotions organised around a central object. Love,
for example, is a sentiment, if by love we mean, not
a particular experience lasting certain minutes or
hours, but a set of tendencies to behave in certain
ways, to think certain thoughts, to feel certain
emotions, in connection with a person. Sentiments
can be very complex ; love includes a tendency to
feel resentful towards anyone who annoys the loved
person, and so on. A sentiment, in brief, is a per-
sisting, organised system of dispositions.
Sentiments, in this sense, are formed in us through
our past experience in connection with the central
object. They are the result of our past interest in
the object. For this reason they are apt to persist
even when our present interest in the object is
changed. For example, a schoolmaster that we
discover in later life to have been always a quite
unimportant and negligible person may still retain
something of his power to overawe us. Again the
object itself may change, yet our sentiment towards
it not as it was but as it is may so much remain the
same that it becomes inappropriate. For example,
we may go on living in a certain house although
increase in motor traffic has made life there almost
insupportable. Conversely, though the object is just
what it was, our sentiment towards it may completely
change through a strange and little understood
influence from other sentiments of later growth. The
best example is the pathetic and terrible change that
can too often be observed in the sentiments enter-
tained towards the War by men who suffered from it
SENTIMENTALITY AND INHIBITION 261
and hated it to the extremist degree while it was
raging. After only ten years they sometimes seem
to feel that after all it was * not so bad ', and a
Brigadier-General recently told a gathering of Com-
rades of the Great War that they ' must agree that
it was the happiest time of their lives '. A familiar
parallel example is the illusion so many middle-aged
men entertain that they enjoyed their school-days,
when in fact they were then acutely wretched.
I shall use these two forms of distortion to define
a third sense of ' sentimental ' as follows : A response
is sentimental when, either through the over-
persistence of tendencies or through the interaction
of sentiments, it is inappropriate to the situation that
calls it forth. It becomes inappropriate, as a rule,
either by confining itself to one aspect only of the
many that the situation can present, or by sub-
stituting for it a factitious, illusory situation that may,
in extreme cases, have hardly anything in common
with it. We can study these extreme cases in dreams
and in asylums.
Let us now apply these three definitions to some
of the accusations of sentimentality contained in the
protocols. With the first two senses however the
quantitative sense and the crudeness sense an
obvious ambiguity remains that must first be disposed
of. When we apply the word to a human product,
a poem for example, we may mean either of two
things which we hardly ever distinguish, or we may
mean both. If we would more often distinguish
them we should avoid many mistakes and some
needless injustice.
We may mean to take Sense One that the poem
was the product of a mind which was too easily
stirred to emotion, that it came about through facile
feelings, that the author was himself sentimental. Or
we may mean that we should be too easily moved, we
should ourselves be sentimental, if we allowed our
262 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
own emotions a vigorous outing. Sometimes doubt-
less, both these assertions are true, but often we are
only entitled to make the second. (Compare what
has been said about sincerity in connection with
Poem VII, p. 95, and Poem VIII, p. 114.)
Now let us consider Poem IV with this distinction
in mind. We must, of , course, not read the verses
as a piece of imaginative sociology such as Zola
dreamed of. It is not an attempt by a novelist to
render realistically the stock thoughts and feelings
and the diction of a girl without poetic ability,
expressing herself in verse. (But cf. 4-1, 4-3.) We
have to take it, in the usual way that lyrical, emotional
verse is taken, as a semi-dramatic utterance not
inviting ironical contemplation to be judged on its
merits as poetry.
This problem of approach is especially relevant
here. ' Sentimentality recollected in very senti-
mental tranquillity ' (4- 1) with the rest of the protocol
as a gloss, seems to accuse the author (perhaps
identified, improperly, with the heroine of the poem)
of over-production of emotion (Sense One) and
suggests further a cause for this excess : x namely,
preoccupation with the emotion for its own sake
rather than with the situation occasioning it. New
emotions as Byron hints in the verse quoted above
easily divert attention to themselves. Very few
people, for example, fall in love for the first time
without becoming enthralled by their emotions
merely as a novel experience. They become absorbed
in them often to the exclusion of genuine interest
in the loved object. Similarly those who are dis-
covering for the first time that poetry can cause
them emotion do often, for this very reason, pay
little attention to the poetry. Writers too, who find
1 Not, of course, an excess in the feeling ascribed to the girl, but
an excess of the author's sympathetic emotion or of our sympathetic
motion.
SENTIMENTALITY AND INHIBITION 263
that they can imagine feelings and express them in
words, may readily become fascinated by this
occupation, as a kind of game, and lose sight of the
real sanctions of the feelings in experience. We
may easily work the feelings up for their own sake,
forgetting intermittently what the feelings are like
in our eagerness to hang J:hem on to the forms of
expression which occur to us. Seeing a chance to
make a violent emotional effect, we forget whether
this is the effect we desire.
Both the accusation and the suggestion as to the
source of the excess feeling seem justified here.
The antitheses, so much praised (4-22, 4-24) and so
much disliked (4-23, 4-31), the rhymes, and the
mechanical structure, do seem to indicate that
facilities and conveniences of expression have led
feeling, rather than that feeling has dictated expres-
sion. As to the excess of feeling over its justification
in the actual situation presented by the poem, we
must beware of a misconception which though
obviously a mistake is none the less insidious.
If we separate out the subject or theme of the
poem, A girl bewailing her lost or absent lover, and
take this, abstractly, as the situation, we may think
that it sounds sufficient to justify any extremity of
sympathetic emotion. But this abstracted theme is
nothing in itself, and might be the basis of any one of
as many different developments as there are kinds
of girls. It cannot in itself be an excuse for any
emotion. If the mere fact that some girl somewhere
is thus lamenting were an occasion for emotion, into
what convulsions ought not the evening paper to
throw us nightly ? This is obvious, but there is
reason to think that very many people are ready to
react emotionally to a * pathetic ' situation merely at
this level of abstractness, provided it is put before them
in some kind of metre ; and, if so, such reactions are
certainly ' sentimental ' in the sense of excessive.
264 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
The situation evidently has to be something more
concrete. It is the poet's business to present it
not necessarily apart from his presentation of the
emotion. He will usually be presenting both together
through the same words. Here, since the girl is
speaking herself, every word, every cadence, every
movement and transitiorj of thought and feeling is
part of the situation.
This being so, we may ask two questions. Is the
situation so given concrete enough, near enough to
us, and coherent enough to justify the vigorous
emotional response invited from us ? And is it, in
its concreteness, nearness and coherence so far as
they go, of the kind to which this response is
appropriate ? (I am not saying that nearness, con-
creteness and coherence are required in all poetry
this would be an illegitimate technical presupposition.
But I am saying that if certain effects are aimed at,
certain methods are thereby prescribed.) m*
On the first question 4-23, 4-25 and 4-31 forcibly
present the adverse opinion, though as we have seen
in Chapter IV we must be careful in applying the
rhythm test. (4*25 seems, however, here to be
justified in the rhythm he ascribes to the verses.)
These writers, in contrast to 4-11, 4-24 or 4-52, seem
to be responding to the situation as actually presented
by the poet not to situations they have imagined
for him or to the ' trappings and catchwords of
romance ' in which he has decked out the verses.
These decorations by their conventional quality
raise all the problems reviewed in the last chapter.
That they were the source of the poem's great
popularity is not to be doubted. Equally evident is
the great danger of snobbery whenever such questions
arise. That a metaphor is conventional and familiar
is not, of course, in itself sufficient ground for
objection, though it is often enough the whole
explanation of the complaint. Similarly, if the
SENTIMENTALITY AND INHIBITION 265
situation and emotion were ordinary, simple and
familiar (as 4-3 suggests), that in itself would be no
bar to merit, provided the emotion were properly
founded in the situation. (Compare Gray's Elegy.}
To suppose otherwise would be a very stupid kind
of emotional snobbery. Or if lack of skill in the
author were the cause of the conventional metaphors,
that again would be no ground for indignation. But
if the borrowed, second-hand, quality of the expression
In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds
Oreworn and soild
reflects, not merely neediness or carelessness, but
a similar second-hand, reach-me-down, quality in
the thing expressed, then the vigour of some of the
rejections is excused.
These reflections apply to the concreteness and
nfamess we are looking for in the poem. Con-
venTOnal metaphors tend to fail in both characters,
a tendency not avoided here. But they apply still
more to the coherence that is required. Borrowed
decorations and here is the gravest objection to
their use are almost always irrelevant. The various
items do not hang together, and their combined
effect, if any, is likely to be crude in the sense dis-
cussed above. Here, for example, the sunshine and
dog-roses of verse three have somehow to adjust
themselves to the winter and the wailing of the wind
in verse two, and the idly circulating ' wind of the
years ', which has possibly blown in from the pages
of Swinburne, 1 has to ' whisper ' above this wailing.
(Such incoherences are characteristic of conventional
verse ; only a very intent concentration of the poet's
imaginative faculties can prevent them. In them-
selves they need not be destructive (cf. Ch. II), but
1 It may also be suggested that the phrase 'life lies dead* is
possibly an echo of Swinburne's A Forsaken Garden.
PRACTICAL CRITICISM
they are a very useful corroboration if we suspect
on other grounds that the central impulse of a poem
is weak.) By the time these incoherent items have
pooled their effects the response can hardly here be
anything but crude an undirected, objectless feeling
of pathos that will attach itself to anything that will
give it an excuse to the caravan bells of Hassan
(4-52), for example.
The emotion, in fact, which this poem can excite
(and on which its popularity depends) is easily
enjoyed for its own sake, regardless of its object or
prompting situation. Most people will not find it
difficult, if they so desire, to sit down by the fireside
and concoct a precisely similar emotion without the
assistance of any poem whatever merely by saying
Oh ! to themselves in various tones of sadness,
regret and tremulous hope. It is an emotion that
we tend, if we indulge it at all, to luxuriate in, as 4-1
remarks. Hence the pow r er of these verses to divide
readers sharply into two camps.
Passing now to Poem VIII, accusations of senti-
mentality in the first and third of our senses appear
most instructively. The charge of excessive emotional
response, too light a trigger adjustment for the
feelings, is coupled with the suggestions that the
poet is ' revelling in emotion for its own sake ' (8-1),
' positively wallowing in a warm bath of soapy
sentiment ' (8-12), that he ' seems to love feeling
sobby ' (8-41), and that he is ' trying to get effects
the whole time ' (8-44) as explanations of this
excess of feeling. As a rule the complainants
demonstrate satisfactorily that they have mistaken
the situation to which the emotion is a response. It
is music in general for 8-12, ' the poet's miseries '
for 8- 1 1, his 'pure, spotless childhood' and his
present state as a * world- worn wretch' for 8-41.
And as a result of these mistakes the characters of
the emotions these writers attributed to the poem
SENTIMENTALITY AND INHIBITION 267
are equally irrelevant. The moral again is that
before we can decide whether a poem is or is not
sentimental in this sense we must be sure that we
know both what the presented situation is and what
response is invited. Only the very closest reading
will tell us enough about either to make judgment
worth while.
The charge of sentimentality in our third sense
raises a more complicated issue, for the poem is
itself clearly a study of a border-line case, and, if not
read more carefully than, for example, by 8*3, or
8-31, is likely to be disastrous in its emotional effects.
There is, it is true, a * mawkish sentiment with which
we so often think of childhood ' ; and ' one's loose
emotion ' does as easily attach itself to ' old Sunday
evenings at home ', ' the cosy parlour ' and ' the
vista of years ' as to ' the chimney-nook ' or ' the
wind of the years '. But the danger, * the appalling
risk*' (8-5) of arousing only these emotions need not
frighten the poet away from such topics if he can
give enough nearness, concreteness and coherence 1
to the situation to support and control the response
that ensues. Or if he can build these dangerous
elements into a whole response which completes and
frees them. For what is bad in these sentimental
responses is their confinement to one stereotyped,
unrepresentative aspect of the prompting situation.
This brings us to the subject of inhibitions. Most,
if not all, sentimental fixations and distortions of
feeling are the result of inhibitions, and often when
we discuss sentimentality we are looking at the wrong
side of the picture. If a man can only think of his
childhood as a lost heaven it is probably because he
is afraid to think of its other aspects. And those who
contrive to look back to the War as ' a good time/
1 I am not recommending nearness, concreteness and coherence as
specifics for the avoidance of sentimentality. All depends upon what
it is that is brought near, what is concrete and what coheres.
268 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
are probably busy dodging certain other memories.
The mind is curiously quantitative in some of its
operations ; undue curtailment in one direction seems
to imply excess in an opposite direction. Inhibition,
in due place and degree, is, of course, a necessity for
mental activity quite as much a necessity as exercise.
It was Bergson, I think, who once described Time as
resistance the resistance namely against everything
happening at once ! Without inhibition everything
in the mind would happen at once, which is tanta-
mount to saying that nothing would happen or that
Chaos would return. All order and proportion is
the result of inhibition, we cannot indulge one
mental activity without inhibiting others. Therefore
the opinion sometimes emitted that all inhibition
(or repression) is bad, is at the least an overstatement.
What is unfortunate is the permanent curtailment of
our possibilities as human beings, the blanking out,
through repeated and maintained inhibition, of
aspects of experience that our mental health requires
us sometimes to envisage.
As a rule the source of such inhibitions is some
painfulness attaching to the aspect of life that we
refuse to contemplate. The sentimental response
steps in to replace this aspect by some other aspect
more pleasant to contemplate or by some factitious
object which flatters the contemplator. There are
innumerable cross-currents of motive here which
may conceal from us what we are doing. The man
who, in reaction to the commoner naive forms of
sentimentality, prides himself upon his hard-
headedness and hard-heartedness, his hard-boiledness
generally, and seeks out or invents aspects with
a bitter or squalid character, for no better reason
than this, is only displaying a more sophisticated
form of sentimentality. Fashion, of course, is
responsible for many of these secondary twists.
Indeed the control of Society over our sentiments,
SENTIMENTALITY AND INHIBITION - 269
over our publicly avowable sentiments, is remarkably
efficient. Compare, for example, the attitudes to
tears (especially to masculine tears) approved by the
eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Very little
reflection and inquiry will show conclusively that
the eighteenth century in regarding a profuse dis-
charge of the lachrymal glands as a proper and almost
necessary accompaniment of tender and sorrowful
emotion was much more representative of humanity
in all ages than are our contemporary wooden-eyed
stoics. The current attitude naturally appeared in
the protocols (8-52, 8-6, 8-61). Even Poem VIII
itself shows it, for an eighteenth-century writer would
have felt no need to fight against such an emotion.
A widespread general inhibition of all the simpler
expansive developments of emotion (not only of its
expression) has to be recognised among our educated
population. It is a new condition not easily paralleled
in history, and though it is propagated through social
convention its deeper causes are not easy to divine.
To put it down, as many have done, to the excesses
of the Victorians, is only to show an ignorance of the
generations that preceded them. Possibly it is due
to the increasing indefiniteness of our beliefs and
disbeliefs, to the blurring of the moral background of
our lives, but such speculations would take us too far.
Whatever its cause, the fact that so many readers
are afraid of free expansive emotion, even when the
situation warrants it, is important. It leads them,
as Poem VIII showed, to suspect and avoid situations
that may awaken strong and simple feeling. It
produces shallowness and trivial complexity in their
response. And it leaves those * sentimental ' over-
growths that escape the taboo too free a field for their
semi-surreptitious existence. The only safe cure for
a mawkish attachment to an illusory childhood
heaven, for example, is to take the distorted sentiment
and work it into close and living relation with some
2 70 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
scene concretely and truthfully realised, which may
act as a standard of reality and awaken the dream-
infected object of the sentiment into actuality. This
is the treatment by expansion, and Poem VIII may
stand as an example of how it may be done. The
other, more practised, form of treatment which we
apply to sentimentalists treatment through sneers,
through ' realism ', through caustics, the attempt by
various means not to enlarge the canalised response,
but to destroy it or dry it up is ineffective, and may
lead only to increased impoverishment. For the
curse of sentimentality in the third sense is not that
its victims have too much feeling at their disposal,
but that they have too little, that they see life in too
specialised a fashion and respond to it too narrowly.
The sentimentalist, in brief, is not distributing his
interest widely enough, and is distributing it in too
few forms.
CHAPTER VII
*
DOCTRINE IN POETRY
Logic is the ethics of thinking, in the sense in which ethics is the
bringing to bear of self-control, for the purpose of realising our desires.
CHARLKS SAUNDKRS PIERCE.
WITH most of our critical difficulties what we have
had to explain is how mistakes come to be so frequent.
But here we are in the opposite case, we have to
explain how they come to be so rare. For it would
seem evident that poetry which has been built upon
firm and definite beliefs about the world, The Divine
Comedy or Paradise Lost, or Donne's Divine Poems, or
Shelley ' Prometheus Unbound, or Hardy's The Dynasts ,
must appear differently to readers who do and readers
who do not hold similar beliefs. Yet in fact most
readers, and nearly all good readers, are very little
disturbed by even a direct opposition between their
own beliefs and the beliefs of the poet. Lucretius
and Virgil, Euripides and Aeschylus, we currently
assume, are equally accessible, given the necessary
scholarship, to a Roman Catholic, to a Buddhist and
to a confirmed sceptic. Equally accessible in the
sense that these different readers, after due study,
may respond in the same way to the poetry and arrive
at similar judgments about it. And when they differ,
their divergencies will commonly not be a result of
their different positions with regard to the doctrines *
of the authors, but are more likely to derive from
1 I am not accusing these authors of doctrinal poetry in the narrow
sense of verse whose sole object is to teach. But that a body of
doctrine is presented by each of these poets, even by Virgil, can
hardly escape any reader's notice.
271
272 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
other causes in their temperaments and personal
experience.
I have instanced religious poetry because the
beliefs there concerned have the widest implications,
and are the most seriously entertained of any. But
the same problem arises with nearly all poetry ; with
mythology very evidently ; with such supernatural
machinery as appears in The Rime of the Ancient
Manner :
The horned Moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip,
with Blake's manifestoes ; but equally, though less
obtrusively, with every passage which seems to make
a statement, or depend upon an assumption, that
a reader may dissent from without, thereby giving
proof of mental derangement.
It is essential to recognise that the problem 1 is
the same whether the possible stumbling-block, the
point of dissent, be trivial or important. When the
point is trivial, we easily satisfy ourselves with an
explanation in terms of c poetic fictions '. When it
is a matter of no consequence whether we assent
or dissent, the theory that these disputable state-
ments, so constantly presented to us in poetry, are
merely assumptions introduced for poetic purposes,
seems an adequate explanation. And when the
statements, for example, Homer's account of * the
monkey-shines of the Olympian troupe ', are frankly
incredible, if paraded solemnly before the bar of
reasoned judgment, the same explanation applies.
But as the assumptions grow more plausible, and as
the consequences for our view of the world grow
important, the matter seems less simple. Until, in
the end, with Donne's Sonnet (Poem ///), for example,
it becomes very difficult not to think that actual
1 A supplementary and fuller discussion of this whole matter will
be found in Principles of Literary Criticism, Ch. XXXII-XXXV,
where difficulties, which here must be passed by, are treated in detail.
DOCTRINE IN POETRY 273
belief in the doctrine that appears in the poem is
required for its full and perfect imaginative realisa-
tion. The mere assumption of Donne's theology,
as a poetic fiction, may seem insufficient in view of
the intensity of the feeling which is supported and
conveyed to us by its means. It is at least certain,
as the protocols show (3-15, 5-42, 5-37, 5-38, 7-21),
that many who try to read religious poetry find them-
selves strongly invited to the beliefs presented, and
that doctrinal dissent is a very serious obstacle to
their reading. Conversely, many successful but
dissenting readers find themselves in a mental
attitude towards the doctrine which, if it is not
belief, closely resembles belief.
Yet if we suppose that, beyond this mere ' poetic '
assumption, a definite state of belief in this particular
doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body is required
for a full reading of Donne's poem, great difficulties
at once arise. We shall have to suppose that readers
who hold different beliefs incompatible with this
particular doctrine must either not be able to read
the poem, or must temporarily while reading it
abandon their own beliefs and adopt Donne's.
Both suppositions seem contrary to the facts, though
these are matters upon which certainty is hazardous.
We shall do better, however, to examine the ' poetic
fiction ', or assumption, theory more closely and see
whether when fully stated it is capable of meeting
the complaint of inadequacy noticed above.
In the first place the very word * assumption '
is unsuitable here. Ordinarily an assumption is
a proposition, an object of thought, entertained
intellectually in order to trace its logical consequences
as a hypothesis. But here we are concerned very
little with logical consequences and almost ex-
clusively with emotional consequences. In the effect
of the thought upon our feelings and attitudes, all
its importance, for poetry, lies. But there are
274 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
clearly two ways in which we may entertain an
assumption : intellectually, that is in a context of
other thoughts ready to support, contradict, or
establish other logical relations with it ; and emotion-
ally, in a context of sentiments, feelings, desires and
attitudes ready to group themselves around it.
Behind the intellectual q?sumption stands the desire
for logical consistency and order in the receptive side
of the mind. But behind the emotional assumption
stands the desire or need for order of the whole
outgoing emotional side of the personality, the side
that is turned towards action.
Corresponding to this distinction there are two
forms of belief and similarly two forms of disbelief.
Intellectual belief more resembles a weighting of an
idea than anything else, a loading 1 which makes
other, less heavily weighted, ideas, adjust themselves
to it rather than vice versa. The loading may be
legitimate ; the quantity of evidence, its immediacy,
the extent and complexity of the supporting systems
of ideas are obvious forms of legitimate loading :
or it may be illegitimate ; our liking for the idea,
its brilliance, the trouble that changing it may
involve, emotional satisfactions from it, are illegiti-
mate -from the standpoint of intellectual belief be it
understood. The whole use of intellectual belief is
to bring all our ideas into as perfect an ordered
system as possible. We disbelieve only because we
believe something else that is incompatible, as
Spinoza long ago pointed out. Similarly, we perhaps
only believe because it is necessary to disbelieve
whatever is logically contradictory to our belief.
Neither belief nor disbelief arises, in this intellectual
sense, unless the logical context of our ideas is in
1 To introspection this loading seems like a feeling of trust or
trustworthiness. We 'side' with the belief intellectually, and though
traditionally belief has been discussed along with judgment it is, as
William James pointed out, more allied to choice.
DOCTRINE IN POETRY 275
question. Apart from these logical connections the
idea is neither believed nor disbelieved, nor doubted
nor questioned ; it is just present. Most of the
ideas of the child, of primitive man, of the peasant, of
the non-intellectual world and of most poetry are in this
happy condition of real intellectual disconnection.
Emotional belief is a v*Jry different matter. In
primitive man, as innumerable observers have
remarked, any idea which opens a ready outlet to
emotion or points to a line of action in conformity
with custom is quickly believed. We remain much
more primitive in this phase of our behaviour than
in intellectual matters. Given a need 1 (whether
conscious as a desire or not), any idea which can be
taken as a step on the way to its fulfilment is accepted,
unless some other need equally active at the moment
bars it out. This acceptance, this use of the idea
by our interests, desires, feelings, attitudes, tendencies
to action and what not is emotional belief. So far
as the idea is useful to them it is believed, and the
sense of attachment, of adhesion, of conviction,
which we feel, and to which we give the name of
belief, is the result of this implication of the idea
in our activities.
Most beliefs, of course, that have any strength or
persistence are mixtures of intellectual and emotional
belief. A purely intellectual belief need have little
strength, no quality of conviction about it, for unless
the idea is very original and contrary to received ideas,
it needs little loading to hold its own. When we
find a modern physicist, for example, passionately
attached to a particular theory, we may suspect
1 I use 'need' here to stand for an imbalance mental or physical,
a tendency, given suitable conditions, for a movement towards an
end-state of equilibrium. A swinging pendulum might thus be said
to be actuated by a need to come to rest, and to constantly overdo its
movements towards that end. We are much more like pendulums
than we think, though, of course, our imbalances are infinitely more
intricate.
276 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
illegitimate loading, his reputation is perhaps involved
in its acceptance. Conversely, a very strong emotional
belief may have little persistence. Last night's
revelation grows dim amid this morning's affairs,
for the need which gave it such glamorous reality was
only a need of the moment. Of this kind are most
of the revelations received from poetry and music.
But though the sense of revelation has faded, we
should not suppose that the shaping influence of
such experiences must be lost. The mind has
found through them a pattern of response which
may remain, and it is this pattern rather than the
revelation which is important.
The great difference between these two kinds of
belief, as I have defined them, appears most plainly
if we consider what justification amounts to for each.
Whether an intellectual belief is justified is entirely
a matter of its logical place in the largest, most
completely ordered, system of ideas we can attain
to. Now the central, most stable, mass of our ideas
has already an order and arrangement fixed for it
by the facts of Nature. We must bring our ideas
of these facts into correspondence with them or we
promptly perish. And this order among the every-
day facts of our surroundings determines the
arrangement of yet another system of our ideas":
namely, physical theory. These ideas are thereby
weighted beyond the power of irreconcilable ideas
to disturb them. Anyone who understands them
cannot help believing in them, and disbelieving
intellectually in irreconcilable ideas, provided that
he brings them close enough together to perceive
their irreconcilability. There are obviously countless
ideas in poetry which, if put into this logical
context, must be disbelieved at once.
But this intellectual disbelief does not imply that
emotional belief in the same idea is either impossible
or even difficult much less that it is undesirable.
DOCTRINE IN POETRY 277
For an emotional belief is not justified through any
logical relations between its idea and other ideas.
Its only justification is its success in meeting our
needs due regard being paid to the relative claims
of our many needs one against another. It is
a matter, to put it simply, of the prudence (in view of
all the needs of our being) ,of the kind of emotional
activities the belief subserves. The desirability or
undesirability of an emotional belief has nothing to
do with its intellectual status, provided it is kept
from interfering w r ith the intellectual system. And
poetry is an extraordinarily successful device for
preventing these interferences from arising.
Coleridge, when he remarked that ' a willing
suspension of disbelief ' accompanied much poetry,
was noting an important fact, but not quite in the
happiest terms, for we are neither aware of a disbelief
nor voluntarily suspending it in these cases. It is
better to say that the question of belief or disbelief,
in the intellectual sense, never arises when we are
reading well. If unfortunately it does arise, either
through the poet's fault or our own, we have for the
moment ceased to be reading poetry and have
become astronomers, or theologians, or moralists,
persons engaged in quite a different type of activity.
But a possible misconception must be noted here
The intellectual exploration of the internal coherence
of the poem, and the intellectual examination of the
relations of its ideas to other ideas of ordinary
experience which are emotionally relevant to it, are
not only permissible but necessary in the reading of
much poetry, as we saw in connection with the sea-
harp in Poem IX, and in connection with the
sentimentality and stock-response problems of Poems
IV, VIII and XIII. But this restricted intellectual
inquiry is a different thing from the all-embracing
attempt to systematise our ideas which alone brings
up the problem of intellectual belief.
278 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
We can now turn back to Poem III, to the point
from which this long analysis started. There are
many readers who feel a difficulty in giving to Donne's
theology just that kind of acceptance, and no more,
that they give to Coleridge's ' star within the nether
tip '. They feel an invitation to accord to the poem
that belief in its ideas ^yhich we can hardly help
supposing to have been, in Donne's mind, a powerful
influence over its shaping. These readers may,
perhaps, be content if we insist that the fullest
possible emotional belief is fitting and desirable. At
the same time there are many who are unable to
accord intellectual belief to these particular theological
tenets. Such readers may feel that a threatened
liberty is not thereby denied them. The fact that
Donne probably gave both forms of belief to these
ideas need not, I think, prevent a good reader from
giving the fullest emotional belief while withholding
intellectual belief, or rather while not allowing the
question of intellectual belief to arise. The evidence
is fragmentary upon the point, largely because it has
been so strangely little discussed. But the very fact
that the need to discuss it has not insistently arisen
seeing how many people from how many different
intellectual positions have been able to agree about
the value of such doctrinal poems points strongly
in this direction. The absence of intellectual belief
need not cripple emotional belief, though evidently
enough in some persons it may. But the habit of
attaching emotional belief only to intellectually
certified ideas is strong in some people ; it is
encouraged by some forms of education; it is
perhaps becoming, through the increased prestige of
science, more common. 1 For those whom it conquers
it means c Good-bye to poetry '.
1 I have discussed this danger at length in Science and Poetry.
There is reason to think that poetry has often arisen through fusion
(or confusion) between the two forms of belief, the boundary between
DOCTRINE IN POETRY 279
For the difficulty crops up, as I have insisted, over
all poetry that departs, for its own purposes, from the
most ordinary universal facts of common experience
or from the most necessary deductions of scientific
theory. It waylays the strict rationalist with Blake's
* Sunflower ', Wordsworth's c River Duddon ', and
Shelley's ' Cloud ', no less than with their more
transcendental utterances/ Shakespeare's Lark is
as shocking as his Phoenix. Even so honest a man
as Gray attributes very disputable motives to his
Owl. As for Dry den's c new-kindled star ', the
last verse of Keats' Ode to Melancholy > or Landor's
Rose Aylmer it is very clear where we should be
with them if we could not give emotional assent apart
from intellectual conviction. The slightest poetry
may present the problem as clearly (though not so
acutely) as the greatest. And the fact that we solve
it, in practice, without the least difficulty in minor
cases shows, I think, that even in the major instances
of philosophic and religious issues the same solution
is applicable. But the temptation to confuse the
two forms of belief is there greater.
For in these cases an appearance of incompleteness
or insincerity may attach to emotional acceptance
divorced from intellectual assent. 1 That this is
what is intellectually certified and what is not being much less sharply
definited in former centuries and defined in another manner. The
standard of verification used in science to-day is comparatively a new
thing. As the scientific view of the world (including our own nature)
develops, we shall probably be forced into making a division between
fact and fiction that, unless we can meet it with a twofold theory of
belief on the lines suggested above, would be fatal not only to poetry
but to all our finer, more spiritual, responses. That is the problem.
1 The most important example of this divorce that history provides
is in the attitude of Confucius towards ancestor-worship. Here are
the remarks of his chief English translator, James Legge, upon the
matter. * It will not be supposed that I wish to advocate or defend
the practice of sacrificing to the dead. My object has been to point
out how Confucius recognised it, without acknowledging the faith
from which it must have originated, and how he enforced it as a
matter of form or ceremony. It thus connects itself with the most
serious charge that can be brought against him the charge of
28o PRACTICAL CRITICISM
simply a mistake due to a double-meaning of ' belief '
has been my contention. To ' pretend to believe '
what we ' don't really believe ' would certainly be
insincerity, if the two kinds of believing were one and
the same ; but if they are not, the confusion is
merely another example of the prodigious power of
words over our lives. Arjd this will be the best place
to take up the uncomfortable problem of ' sincerity ',
a word much used in criticism, but not often with
any precise definition of its meaning.
The ideas, vague and precise, for which * sincere '
stands must have been constantly in the reader's
mind during our discussion both of Stock Responses
and of Sentimentality. We can set aside at once the
ordinary ' business ' sense in which a man is insincere
when he deliberately attempts to deceive, and sincere
when his statements and acts are governed by * the
best of his knowledge and belief '. And we can deal
briefly with another sense, already touched upon in
connection with Poem VII (see p. 95), in which a man
is insincere when * he kids himself ', when he mistakes
his own motives and so professes feelings which are
different from those that are in fact actuating him.
Two subtle points, however, must be noted before
w r e set this sense aside. The feelings need not be
stated or even openly expressed ; it is enough if they
are hinted to us. And they need not be actual
personal ' real, live feelings ' ; they may imagined
feelings. All that is required for this kind of insin-
cerity is a discrepancy between the poem's claim
upon our response and its shaping impulses in the
poet's mind. But only the shaping impulses are
relevant. A good poem can perfectly well be
written for money or from pique or ambition,
provided these initial external motives do not interfere
insincerity', The Chinese Classics, Vol. I, Prolegomena, Ch. V, p. 100.
How far Legge was qualified to expound the Confucian doctrine of
sincerity may perhaps be divined from this passage.
DOCTRINE IN POETRY 281
with its growth. Interferences of all kinds notably
the desire to make the poem ' original ', * striking ',
or ' poetic ' are, of course, the usual cause of
insincerity in this sense. A sense which ought not,
it may be remarked, to impute blame to the author,
unless we are willing to agree that all men who are
not good poets are therefore blameworthy in a high
degree.
These subtleties were necessary to escape the
conclusion that irony, for example where the feeling
really present is often the exact contrary to that
overtly professed is as insincere as simple readers
often suppose it must be.
A more troublesome problem is raised if we ask
whether an emotion, by itself and apart from its
expression, can be sincere or insincere. We often
speak as if this were so (witness 4-2, 4-23 and 8-51),
and though sometimes no doubt this is only an
effective way of saying that we approve (or dis-
approve) of the emotion, there are senses in which
a fact about the emotion, not about our feelings about
it, is meant. Sincere emotions, we say, are genuine
or authentic, as opposed to spurious emotions, and
the several senses which we may imply thereby are
worth examining. We may mean that the emotion
is genuine in the sense that every product of a perfect
mind would be genuine. It would result only from
the prompting situation plus all the relevant experience
of that mind, and be free from impurities and from
all interferences, from impulses that had in any way
got out of place and become disordered. Since such
minds are nowhere obtainable in this obstructive
world, such a sense is useful only as an ideal standard
by which to measure degrees of relative insincerity.
' There is not a just man on earth that doeth good
and sinneth not '. Some great poetry, we might
say, represents the closest approach to sincerity that
can be found. And for extreme degrees of insin-
282 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
cerity we should look in asylums. Possibly however,
the perfect mind, if it ever appeared among us, might
be put there too.
But this is plainly not a sense of sincerity which
we often use, it is not what people ordinarily mean.
For we would agree that stupid people can be very
sincere, though their minds may be very much in
a muddle, and we might* even suggest that they are
more likely to be sincere than the clever. Simplicity,
we may think, has something to do with sincerity,
for there is a sense in which * genuine ' is opposed
to c sophisticated '. The sincere feeling, it may be
suggested, is one which has been left in its natural
state, not worked over and complicated by reflection.
Thus strong spontaneous feelings would be more
likely to be sincere than feelings that have run the
gauntlet of self-criticism, and a dog, for example,
might be regarded as a more sincere animal than
any man.
This is certainly a sense which is frequent, though
whether we should praise emotions that are sincere
in this sense as much as most people do, is extremely
doubtful. It is partly an echo of Rousseau's romantic
fiction, the ' Natural Man '. Admiration for the
' spontaneous ' and ' natural ' tends to select favour-
able examples and turns a very blind eye to the less
attractive phenomena. Moreover, many emotions
which look simple and natural are nothing of the
kind, they result from cultivated self-control, so
consummate as to seem instantaneous. These cases,
and an attractive but limited virtue in some children's
behaviour, explain, I believe, the popularity of
sincerity in this sense. So used, the word is of little
service in criticism, for this kind of sincerity in poetry
must necessarily be rare.
It will be worth while hunting a little longer for
a satisfactory sense of ' sincerity '. Whatever it is, it
is the quality we most insistently require in poetry.
DOCTRINE IN POETRY 283
It is also the quality we most need as critics. And,
perhaps, in the proportion that we possess it we shall
acknowledge that it is not a quality that we can take
for granted in ourselves as our inalienable birthright.
It fluctuates with our state of health, with the quality
of our recent companions, with our responsibility and
our nearness to the object, with a score of conditions
that are not easy to take account of. We can feel
very sincere when, in fact, as others can see clearly,
there is no sincerity in us. Bogus forms of the
virtue waylay us confident inner assurances and
invasive rootless convictions. And when we doubt
our own sincerity and ask ourselves, * Do I really
think so ; do I really feel so ? ' an honest answer is
not easily come by. A direct effort to be sincere,
like other effects to will ourselves into action, more
often than not, frustrates its intention. For all these
reasons any light that can be gained upon the nature
of sincerity, upon possible tests for it and means for
inducing and promoting it, is extremely serviceable
to the critic.
The most stimulating discussion of this topic is to
be found in the Chung Yung l (The Doctrine of the
Mean, or Equilibrium and Harmony), the treatise
that embodies the most interesting and the most
puzzling part of the teachings of Confucius. A more
distinct (and distinguished) word than * stimulating '
would be in place to describe this treatise, were the
invigorating effect of a careful reading easier to
define. Sincerity the object of some idea that
seems to lie in the territory that ' sincerity ' covers
appears there as the beginning and end of personal
L As might be expected, no translation that entirely commends
itself is available. Those to whom Legge's edition of 77ic Chinese
Classics, Vol. I, is not available, may consult the translation by
L. A. Lyall and King Chien Kun, The Chung Yung or The Centre, the
Common (Longmans), very literal, but perhaps slightly too much
tinctured with a Y.M.C.A. flavour. Here what is translated by others
* sincerity' or 'singleness' is rendered by 'to be true and 'being' true'.
284 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
character, the secret of the good life, the only means to
good government, the means to give full development
to our own natures, to give full development to the
nature of others, and very much more. This virtue
is as mysterious as it is powerful ; and, where so
many great sinologues and Chinese scholars have
confessed themselves bailed, it would be absurd for
one who knows no Chinese to suggest interpretations.
But some speculations generated by a reading of
translations may round off this chapter.
The following extracts from the Chung Yung seem
the most relevant to our discussion.
' Sincerity is the way of Heaven. The attain-
ment of sincerity is the way of men. He who
possesses sincerity, is he who, without an effort, hits
what is right, and apprehends, without the exercise
of thought ; he is the sage who naturally and easily
embodies the right way. He who attains to sincerity,
is he who chooses what is good, and firmly holds it
fast ' (Legge, XX, 18). ' Sincerity is that whereby
self- completion is effected, and its way is that by
which man must direct himself ' (Legge, XXV, i).
' In self-completion the superior man completes
other men and things also . . . and this is the way
by which a union is effected of the external and the
internal ' (XXV, 3). ' In the Book of Poetry, it is
said, " In hewing an axe-handle, in hewing an axe-
handle, the pattern is not far off ". We grasp one
axe-handle to hew the other, and yet, if we look
askance from the one to the other, we may consider
them as apart ' (XIII, 2). ' There is a way to the
attainment of sincerity in one's self ; if a man does
not understand what is good, he will not attain
sincerity in himself ' (XX, 17). ' When we have
intelligence resulting from sincerity, this condition
is to be ascribed to nature ; when we have sincerity
resulting from intelligence, this condition is to be
ascribed to instruction. But given the sincerity,
DOCTRINE IN POETRY 285
there shall be the intelligence, given the intelligence
there shall be the sincerity ' (XXI). How far apart
any detailed precise exposition in English, or in any
modern Western language, must be from the form of
thought of the original, is shown if we compare
a more literal version of this last passage : * Being
true begets light, we call tjbat nature. Light leads
to being true, we call that teaching. What is true
grows light ; what is light grows true ' (Lyall and
King Chien-Kim, p. 16).
Meditating upon this chain of pronouncements
we can perhaps construct (or discover) another sense
of sincerity. One important enough to justify the
stress so often laid upon this quality by critics, yet
not compelling us to require an impossible per-
fection or inviting us to sentimental (Sense 3)
indiscriminate over-admiration of the ebullitions of
infants. And it may be possible, by apprehending
this sense more clearly, to see what general con-
ditions will encourage sincerity and what steps may
be suggested to promote this mysterious but necessary
virtue in the critic.
We may take self-completion as our starting-point.
The completed mind would be that perfect mind we
envisaged above, in which no disorder, no mutual
frustration of impulses remained. Let us suppose
that in the irremediable default of this perfection,
default due to man's innate constitution and to the
accidents to which he is exposed, there exists
a tendency towards increased order? a tendency which
1 I have in several other places made prolonged and determined
efforts to indicate the types of mental order I have in mind (The
Foundations of Esthetics, XIV ; Principles of Literary Criticism,
Ch. XXII ; Science and Poetry -, II), but without escaping certain
large misunderstandings that I had hoped to have guarded myself
against. Thus Mr Eliot, reviewing Science and Poetry in The Dial,
describes my ideal order as * Efficiency, a perfectly-working mental
Roneo Steel Cabinet System', and Mr Read performing a similar
service for Principles in The Criterion, seemed to understand that
where I spoke of * the organisation of impulses' I meant that kind of
286 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
takes effect unless baffled by physical interferences
(disease) or by fixations of habit that prevent us
from continuing to learn by experience, or by ideas
too invested with emotion for other ideas that
disturb them to be formed, or by too lax and volatile
a bond between our interests (a frivolousness that
is perhaps due to the draining off of energy elsewhere)
so that no formations firm enough to build upon
result.
There is much to be said in favour of such a sup-
position. This tendency would be a need, in the
sense defined above in this chapter deriving in fact
from the fundamental imbalance l to which biological
development may be supposed to be due. This
development with man (and his animal neighbours)
seems to be predominantly in the direction of
greater complexity and finer differentiation of
responses. And it is easy to conceive the organism
as relieving, through this differentiation, the strain
put upon it by life in a partly uncongenial environ-
ment. It is but a step further to conceive it as also
tending to relieve internal strains due to these
developments imposed from without. And a re-
ordering of its impulses so as to reduce their
interferences with one another to a minimum would
deliberate planning and arrangement which the controllers of a good
railway or large shop must carry out. But * organisation ' for me
stood for that kind of interdependence of parts which we allude to
when we speak of living things as 'organisms' ; and the 'order' which
I make out to be so important is not tidiness. The distinguished
names cited in this foot-note will protect the reader from a sense that
these explanations are insulting to his intelligence. A good idea of
some of the possibilities of order and disorder in the mind may be
gained from Pavlov's Conditioned Reflexes.
1 Whether we can profitably posit a primal imbalance in certain
forms of matter for which the appearance of living substances and
their development in increasingly complex forms right up to Shake-
speare would be, as it were, the swings of the pendulum 'attempting'
to come to rest again, is a speculation that has perhaps only an
amusement value. The great difficulty would be to get round the
separation of the reproductive functions, but that is a difficulty for
any cosmologist.
DOCTRINE IN POETRY 287
be the most successful and the c natural ' direction
which this tendency would take.
Such a re-ordering would be a partial self-
completion, temporary and provisional upon the
external world remaining for the individual much
what it had been in the past. And by such self-
completion the superior map would ' effect a union
of the external and the internal '. Being more at
one within itself the mind thereby becomes more
appropriately responsive to the outer world. I am
not suggesting that this is what Confucius meant.
For him ' to complete other men and things too ', is
possibly the prerogative of the force of example,
other men merely imitating the conduct of the sage,
But he may have meant that freedom calls out
freedom ; that those who are ' most themselves '
cause others about them to become also ' more
themselves ' ; which would, perhaps, be a more
sagacious observation. Perhaps, too, * the union of
the external and the internal ' meant for him some-
thing different from the accordance of our thoughts
and feelings with reality. But certainly, for us, this
accordance is one of the fruits of sincerity.
This tendency towards a more perfect order, as
it takes effect, ' enables us, without effort, to hit
what is right, and, without the exercise of thought,
to apprehend '. The * exercise of thought ' here
must be understood as that process of deliberately
setting aside inappropriate ideas and feelings, which,
in default of a sufficient inner order a sufficient
sincerity is still very necessary. Confucius has
enough to say elsewhere in the Chung Yung (Ch. XX,
20) of the need for unremitting research and reflection
before sincerity is attained to clear himself from any
charge of recommending ' intuition ' as an alternative
to investigation. ' Intuition ' is the prerogative only
of those who have attained to sincerity. It is only
the superior man who ' naturally and easily embodies
288 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
the right way '. And the superior man will know
when his sincerity is insufficient and take ceaseless
steps to remedy it. 'If another man (more sincere)
succeed by one effort, he will use a hundred efforts.
If another man succeed by ten efforts, he will use
a thousand ' (Chung Yung, XX, 20). It is the
sincerity to which the superior man has already
attained which enables P him to know when it is
insufficient ; if it does not yet enable him to embody
the right way, it at least enables him to refrain from
embodying the wrong, as those who trust intuition
too soon are likely to do. Indeed, looking back over
the history of thought, we might say, ' are certain
to do ', so heavy are the probabilities against the
success of guess-work.
Sincerity, then, in this sense, is obedience to that
tendency which * seeks ' a more perfect order within
the mind. When the tendency is frustrated (e.g., by
fatigue or by an idea or feeling that has lost its link
with experience, or has become fixed beyond the
possibility of change) we have insincerity. When
confusion reigns and we are unable to decide what
we think or feel (to be distinguished sharply from
the case when decided thoughts or feelings are
present, but we are unable to define or express them)
we need be neither sincere nor insincere. We are
in a transitional stage which may result in either.
Most good critics will confess to themselves that
this is the state in which a first reading of any poem
of an unfamiliar type leaves them. They know that
more study is needed if they are to achieve a genuine
response, and they know this in virtue of the
sincerity they have already attained. It follows that
people with clear definite ideas and feelings, with
a high degree of practical efficiency, may be in-
sincere in this sense. Other kinds of sincerity,
fidelity to convictions for example, will not save
them, and indeed it may well be this fidelity which
DOCTRINE IN POETRY 289
is thwarting the life of the spirit (Chung Yung,
XXIV) in them.
Any response (however mistaken from other
points of view) which embodies the present activity
of this tendency to inner adjustment will be sincere,
and any response that conflicts with it or inhibits
it will be insincere. Thus to be sincere is to act,
feel and think in accordance with * one's true nature ',
and to be insincere is to act, feel or think in a contrary
manner. But the sense to be given to * one's true
nature * is, as we have seen, a matter largely con-
jectural. To define it more exactly would perhaps
be tedious and, for our purposes here, needless.
In practice we often seem to grasp it very clearly ;
and all that I have attempted here is to sketch the
state of affairs which we then seem to grasp. ' What
heaven has conferred is man's Nature ; an accordance
with this is the Path ' (Chung Yung, I). Sometimes
we can be certain that we have left it. 1
On the ways in which sincerity may be increased
and extended Confucius is very definite. If we seek
a standard for a new response whose sincerity may
be in doubt, we shall find it, he says, in the very
responses which make the new one possible. The
pattern for the new axe-handle is already in our
hand, though its very nearness, our firm possession
of it, may hide it from us. We need, of course,
a founded assurance of the sincerity of these in-
strumental responses themselves, and this we can
gain by comparison. What is meant by * making
the thoughts sincere ' is the allowing no self-
deception * as when we hate a bad smell, and as when
1 Hut see Chung Yung, I, 2. ' The path may not be left for an
instant. If it could be left, it would not be the path.' Possibly we
can escape this difficulty by admitting that all mental activities are,
to some degree, the operation of the tendency we have been speaking
of. Thus all are the Path. But the Path can be obstructed, and may
have loops. 'The regulation of (what keeps trim) the path is instruc-
tion ^ (Chung Yung, I, i).
T
2QO PRACTICAL CRITICISM
we love what is beautiful ' (The Great Learning,
VI, i). When we hate a bad smell we can have no
doubt that our response is sincere. We can all, at
least, find some responses beyond suspicion. These
are our standard. By studying our sincerity in the
fields in which we are fully competent we can extend
it into the fields in which our ability is still feeling
its way. This seems to fee the meaning of ' choosing
what is good and firmly holding fast to it/ where
c good ' stands not for our Western ethical notion
so much as for the fit and proper, sane and healthy.
The man who does not ' hate a bad smell ' * does not
understand what is good ' ; having no basis or
standards, ' he will not attain to sincerity '.
Together with these, the simplest most definite
responses, there may be suggested also, as standards
for sincerity, the responses we make to the most
baffling objects that can be presented to our con-
sciousness. Something like a technique or ritual
for heightening sincerity might well be worked out.
When our response to a poem after our best efforts
remains uncertain, when we are unsure whether the
feelings it excites come from a deep source in our
experience, whether our liking or disliking is genuine,
is ours, or an accident of fashion, a response to
surface detail or to essentials, we may perhaps help
ourselves by considering it in a frame of feelings
whose sincerity is beyond our questioning. Sit by
the fire (with eyes shut and fingers pressed firmly
upon the eyeballs) and consider with as full
' realisation ' as possible :
i. Man's loneliness (the isolation of the human
situation).
ii. The facts of birth, and of death, in their
inexplicable oddity.
iii. The inconceivable immensity of the Universe.
DOCTRINE IN POETRY 291
iv. Man's place in the perspective of time,
v. The enormity of his ignorance,
not as gloomy thoughts or as targets for doctrine,
but as the most incomprehensible and inexhaustible
objects for meditation there are ; then in the glow
of their emotional reverberation pass the poem
through the mind, silently * reciting it as slowly as it
allows. Whether what it can stir in us is important
or not to us will, perhaps, show itself then. Many
religious exercises and some of the practices of
divination and magic may be thought to be directed
in part towards a similar quest for sanction, to be
rituals designed to provide standards of sincerity.
These are serious steps, it may be thought, to take
in such a matter as the reading of poetry. But
though sometimes the irresolute tide of impulses,
whose hesitation has been our difficulty, is shallow,
sometimes it is deep. And whether deep or shallow
the sincerity of our response is all-important. It
might be said, indeed, with some justice, that the
value of poetry lies in the difficult exercise in sincerity
it can impose upon its readers even more than upon
the poet.
CHAPTER VIII
TECHNICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS AND CRITICAL
PRECONCEPTIONS
Man lives that list, that leaning in the will
No wisdom can forecast by gauge or guess,
The selfless self of self, most strange, most still,
Fast furled and all foredrawn to No or Yes.
GERARD HOPKINS.
* MY children ', said Confucius once, ' why does no
one of you study the Odes ? They are adapted to
rouse the mind, to assist observation, to make people
sociable, to excite indignation. They speak of duties
far and near ; and it is from them that one becomes
conversant with the names of many birds, beasts,
plants and trees V
In addition to these benefits many other advantages
may be expected from the reading of poetry. It is
these expectations, and their varying degrees of
legitimacy and importance, that are the subject of
this chapter. Few people approach poetry without
expectations explicit or, more often, implicit. ' It
is supposed that by the act of writing in verse an
author makes a formal engagement that he will
1 Analects, XVII, 9.
The Odes: a compilation arranged and edited by Confucius himself,
so that the philosopher's plaintive tone is intelligible.
Observation : be used for purposes of self-contemplation (Legge).
Very true and in more than one sense.
Sociable : no longer true in England, distinctly so in America.
To excite indignation : virtuous indignation (Jennings) ; to regulate
feelings of resentment (Legge) ; possumus jure indignari (Zottoli).
All these interpretations, too, seem justified by our protocols.
Duties far and near: Cf. Treasure Island: ' " Dooty is dooty," says
Captain Smollett, and right he is. Just you steer clear of the Cap'n."'
Birds : especially noteworthy in view of twentieth-century English
Poetry. And surely fishes should be added.
292
PRESUPPOSITIONS AND CRITICAL PRECONCEPTIONS 293
gratify certain known habits of association ', said
Wordsworth in his famous Preface. The reader need
not know what he is expecting ; it is enough that he
expects it. He will be gratified or annoyed accordingly.
We may sort these expectations under two headings
as they concern the means employed by the poet and
the ends that he endeavour^ to attain ; but so much
confusion exists between the two that they must
first be considered together. Often a reader will
not know in the least whether the demand he makes
concerns the t one or the other, and without a good
deal of evidence it may be difficult to decide the
point for him. There is nothing surprising in this,
for in no complex field of human activity is the
distinction between means and ends easy to draw.
And in the case of poetry an imposing doctrine of
Formal Virtues has lately been in vogue, whose
effect is simply to deny the distinction. If * Art
for Art's Sake ', or ' Pure Poetry ', is in the back-
ground of our minds 1 we may well despair of
reaching any clarity in this matter.
Before we begin again to dip for examples among
the protocols a danger already mentioned in Part I
may be recalled. We must not suppose that bad
critical principles imply bad reading. A good reader
may allege the most inept reasons for a judgment
which in every other way is entirely to the point.
It is not so much the stated reasons that we have to
examine, as the actual influence of prior expectations,
for good or ill. An illegitimate expectation, however,
is always a threat to the reader ; it waits until his
sensitiveness, his ' neural vigilance ', ebbs enough to
leave him at its mercy.
1 See Principles, Chs. II, X, XVIII, where the confusions which are
responsible for such doctrines are discussed. The distinction between
means and ends is not, of course, normally clear to the poet in the
act of composition, or to the reader at the climax of his reading. But
when the reader attempts to discuss the poem he ought at least to try
to draw the distinction.
294 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
Technical presuppositions, though they may trap
even intelligent readers, are not a very interesting
subject and may be dealt with briefly. They inter-
fere whenever we make the mistake of supposing
either that the means a poet uses are valuable for
their own sake, or that they can be prescribed without
reference to his aim, so tlpat by mere inquiry into the
means we can conclude as to the value. Put in
this form the mistake may seem too silly to be
frequent, but in fact it is extremely insidious, for
the language of criticism and many of its current
assumptions invite us constantly to commit it. If
we wish, as critics, to write what the cultivated
unspecialised world will accept as a tolerable prose,
we are often compelled, for example, to say things
about the poem, or the words in it, which are only
true of the effects of the poem upon the minds of
its readers. We use a shorthand which identifies the
ascribed rhythm of the poem with its actual sounds,
the various meanings of the words with the words
themselves, and our response to the whole poem
with a character of the poem itself. We speak of
the poem's beauty instead of entering upon elaborate
and speculative analyses of its effect upon us. (We
may, perhaps, be trusting that our more intelligent
and informed readers will decode and expand our
shorthand, but in fact few of them will do so.) And
because we write in this way very ancient mental
habits are restored to power in our own minds and
we come temporarily ourselves to think that the
virtues of a poem lie not in its power over us, but
in its own structure and conformation as an assem-
blage of verbal sounds. With this recrudescence of
an attitude to language, which has long been obsolete
and discredited for reflective persons, we become at
once exposed to every kind of mistake and confusion.
The frequency and variety of these dogmatic
pronouncements upon detail, irrespective of the
PRESUPPOSITIONS AND CRITICAL PRECONCEPTIONS 295
final result, are amply demonstrated in the protocols.
Many were commented upon, as they appeared, in
Part II ; but here may be listed some of the chief
occasions for this blunder, if only to point a moral.
No other critical moral, perhaps, deserves more
insistence. The blunder in all cases is the attempt
to assign marks independently to details that can only
be judged fairly with reference to the whole final
result to which they contribute. It is the blunder of
attempting to say how the poet shall work without
regard for what he is doing. I shall proceed from
the more obvious to the more debatable instances.
First among these representative occasions for
folly may come Imperfect Rhymes (2-1-2-22, 3-1,
3-41) and Metrical Irregularities (2-2, 3*44, 8-44,
12-51, 13-61, 13-62), the Line-end Stop (8-33, 8-43)
and Sonnet Form (3-1, 3-4, 3-41, 5-56, 6-4, 9-82,
12-51). Next, perhaps, should come Cacophony
(2-23, 3-4, 6-33, 10-42, 10-44) and Euphony (4-22,
7-57), and the Intrinsic Qualities of Words (10-4,
10-55). Then demands for Descriptive Accuracy
(2-22, 8-15, 9-2) deserve mention, along with Vivid-
ness (11-22), Logic (2-24), Unmixed Metaphor (6-41,
10-61) and the various problems of figurative
language discussed in Part III, Chapter II.
More doubt may be felt about insistence upon
Clarity (5-51, 6-37), Conciseness (13*65), Majesty
in Epitaphs (11*43) and the demand for a Serious
Subject or Message (2-3, 11-42, 13*8). But with
this we pass to a border-line case where a Technical
Presupposition may be indistinguishable from a
critical preconception as to the aim of poetry.
The writer of 2-3, for example, may be combining,
along with his two other technical presuppositions,
a requirement that the sense of the poem be im-
portant when taken by itself. The verb * to say ',
when used of poetry, is always ambiguous. It may
be equivalent to ' communicate ' in which case, of
296 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
course, every poem worthy of attention ' says *
something of importance. But it may be equivalent
to ' state ', and many great poems state nothing.
Even when something important is stated, we should
beware of considering the statement in isolation
from its place in the poem. But on this enough has
been said in the last chapter.
In contrast to 2-3, the t*wo writers who follow (2-4
and 2-41) seem to be showing a concern, not with
the technique or detail of the poem, but with its
general nature or with the result. Their demand
for a serious subject may be a demand for an end,
not for a means. And a serious subject may be
only their name for a serious result. If so, we pass
over to the more interesting question of the views
that may be held as to the value of poetry and the
influence of these views, whether they are held
implicitly or explicitly, upon our reading and
judgment.
Technical presuppositions, as a rule, are not
products of reflection. The man who supposes that
rhymes must be perfect, that lines must not run over,
that sonnets must have a definite division, that strict
descriptive accuracy must be achieved, would usually,
if challenged, admit that he saw no conclusive reason
why these things should be so. Accidents of
teaching, bad inductive inferences from a few salient
examples, expectations we slip into without reflection,
are responsible for most of this technical dogmatism.
But general preconceptions as to the value of poetry
are theories, that is to say, they are due to reflection ;
and the sincerity and intelligence of this reflection
can, it fortunately happens, be tested. The test is
whether the values of poetry are described in a way
which pretends to be directly serviceable in criticism.
I can make this rather cryptic assertion clearer by
a few examples. Let us take first the common
theory that the value of poetry is in the value of its
PRESUPPOSITIONS AND CRITICAL PRECONCEPTIONS 297
subject. It can be, and usually is, framed in such
a way that we can very easily decide for ourselves,
according to our tastes and temperament, about the
value of the subject. A reader approaching Poem X
or Poem XI 1 , for example, may say to himself,
' Ah, this is a description of the experience of lying
and looking at clouds ! ' He picks out something he
can call the subject. Usually he has little difficulty
in deciding about the value of this subject. He can
then argue c It is good to lie and look at clouds ; this
poem conveys the experience of lying and looking
at clouds ; therefore, this poem is good '. (See
10-2.) Or conversely : ' Lying and looking at
clouds is a commonplace and trivial activity ; this
poem represents such an activity ; therefore, this
poem is commonplace and trivial '. (See 2-3, 4*24.)
One might as well argue that a faithful portrait of
a bad man is therefore a bad picture.
Similarly, with the very frequent ' message '
theories. Half the readers of Poem /, especially
i-iSi and i -21, will serve us as examples ; or 4-13,
4-24, 4-28, 4-5 ; or 5-3, 5-32, 5'35>.5'38 ; or 7-2,
7-34, 7-5 ; or 9-5, 9-51 ; the list might have been
made much longer. The reader finds, or fails to
find, something in the poem which seems to him
' an inspiring message ', and argues from the presence
or absence of this ' inspirational bit ' to the value or
lack of value of the poem. It can hardly be doubted
that this quest for a message, this preconception
that the value of poetry is in its power to inspire us,
is a strong influence in most readers' approach to
poetry, and that it determines their reading and
judgment in a high degree. What then is wrong
with it ?
It may help us to make the fundamental error of
this approach clearer if we compare it with another
case in which a similar preconception leads to
similar indiscrimination and loss of values : the
2Q8 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
preconception in favour of ' lilt ' in poetry (4-16,
4-22, 8-43, 12-41). Lilt is an excellent thing in its
due place, but it does not give value to poetry unless
the rest of the poem requires it, accords with it, con-
ditions it and justifies it. (See Chapter IV above.)
As an independent demand and a test for value, the
quest for lilt makes us insusceptible to other more
important movements wliich may be present in its
place. It blinds us to more important things which
the poet may be doing. So it is with the quest for
' inspiring thoughts '. Sometimes they are in place
who would deny it ? but to expect them is to grow
blind to better things that poetry may offer. And,
as we may observe if we watch one another, the
' thirst for inspiration ' is as capable of refinement
or crudity as any other thirst.
The more refined and discriminating our precon-
ception of poetry is, the more impossible any direct
application becomes. A crude * subject-theory ' or
' message-theory ' can be applied directly. It will
enable us to conclude quickly and easily (and
mistakenly) whether the poetry is good or bad. So
too will theories that poetry must be * vivid ', simple',
' musical ', * stirring ', ' passionate ', ' sensuous ',
* impersonal ', or ' sincere Y in fact so will any
theory that gives us a definite character that we can
look for in a poem and decide is present or absent.
An enormous amount of trouble has been devoted
to the discovery of such keys, and to making them
more and more complex. This trouble, if what we
are seeking is a key, is wasted. But if what \ye are
seeking is not a key, but an understanding of the
whole matter, and particularly of the reasons why
no such keys can be used, then the trouble is very
1 It may be thought that, on my own showing in the preceding
chapter, I should make an exception of sincerity. But it is only in
the conjectural Confucian sense that we could take sincerity as a
criterion of excellence in poetry ; and on this see p. 301 below. Some
kinds of insincerity are perhaps useful negative indications.
PRESUPPOSITIONS AND CRITICAL PRECONCEPTIONS 299
well rewarded. For the more thoroughly we work
out our account of the differences between good and
bad poetry the more intricate and complex the
account becomes. Alternatives, conditions, qualifica-
tions, compensating conditions . . . and the rest,
force themselves into it under the pressure of the
facts, until it becomes evi4ent that a direct practical
application of an adequate account to any poem is
impossible. It is much easier to decide that a poem
is good or bad than to frame a description of its
merits and decide whether this description applies
to it.
We might be tempted to conclude from this that
inquiry into the differences between good and bad
in poetry is futile, and that indulgence in it is an
example of academic fatuity. But this conclusion
will be seen, I hope, to be a mistake. The physical
sciences offer innumerable parallels. It is much
easier, for example, to tell whether a falling stone
on a mountain is likely to hit you or not than to
collect the necessary data and calculate its trajectory.
None the less the mathematical and physical theories
that here seem so useless have innumerable indirect
and roundabout applications. (Not two of my
readers in a hundred would be alive without them.
Such has been the effect of the steamship, itself
a result of Galileo, upon civilisation !) And though
all the theory in the world does not make it possible
to be sure that we shall not be hit, it can at least
satisfy us that the stone is not a hostile magician in
disguise, and that incantations will not appreciably
divert it from its course.
Most critical dogmas, preconceptions of the kind
that can be and are applied to poetry, have almost
exactly the intellectual standing and the serviceable-
ness of primitive ' superstitions '. They rest upon
our desire for explanation, our other desires, our
respect for tradition, and to a slight degree upon
300 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
faulty induction. Sometimes, by good fortune, they
are useful ; on the whole they make us much more
stupid than we would be without them. Only such
an experiment as that which produced the protocols
(a small selection only of the harvest and not, in this
respect, a selection of extreme examples) can convince
anyone of the extent of their interference.
They interfere in two different ways. By blinding
the reader to what else is in the poem, so that he
forces his predilection, if he can, upon the poem
rejecting, comparatively unread, poems that will not
allow it. Secondly, by blurring and disabling his
judgment. Any general theory that we may be
tempted to apply to poetry and continue to apply,
must unless we are very Napoleonic readers be
of the kind which disguises great vagueness and
ambiguity behind an appearance of simplicity and
precision. Most critical key -words excel in this
duplicity, as we have seen with ' sentimental ' and
with ' sincere '. Supplied with one of these words
* sincere ' is a great favourite in its primitive un-
analysed condition we have the poem up before
us and apply the test. There will probably be from
seven to eleven senses, more or less important, all
confusedly among the possibilities of the word in
the context. The word is the meeting-point of these
senses, which without this common outlet of ex-
pression might never run any risk of being confused.
Such words, like blunderbusses, cover much ground ;
yet it is quite easy to suppose that only one unambigu-
ous (though, of course, ' subtle ') meaning is present.
Words like * sincerity ', ' truth ', ' sentimentality ',
1 expression ', * belief ', ' form ', ' significance ', and
' meaning ' itself, seem to those who rely on them
to hit the mark repeatedly in an almost miraculous
fashion. But this is only because a cloud of
heterogeneous missiles instead of a single meaning
is discharged on each occasion, and the marksman-
PRESUPPOSITIONS AND CRITICAL PRECONCEPTIONS 301
ship is no more notable than the similar exploits at
a Buffalo Bill's Wild Western Show. What is
wonderful is the naivety of the spectators, and of
the performers, who here have no suspicion that
with such words a total miss is almost an impossi-
bility. But to discover which missile hit what on any
occasion is not at all an easy matter.
The result of a highly ambiguous though simple-
seeming doctrine, when it collaborates with our well
ascertained capacity to read poems much as we wish
to read them, is to disable our judgment to a point
well below its normal unindoctrinated level. Or
rather, to put the point in a better way a way that
more clearly reflects the operations of our minds
the result of doctrine is to transform what was
choice into judgment. Judgment in these matters is
not a refinement upon choice (as it is in legal matters),
but a degradation ; it is a disguise which hampers
and confuses an activity of choice which to the end
remains the animating spirit beneath all the trappings
of judgment.
All critical doctrines are attempts to convert
choice into what may seem a safer activity the
reading evidence and the application of rules and
principles. They are an invasion into an inappro-
priate sphere of that modern transformation, the
displacement of the will by observation and judgment.
Instead of deciding that we are too cold or too warm
we hang up a thermometer. Perhaps wisely, for
our feelings here are not altogether to be trusted
since the invention of central heating. But in
poetry our feelings (in the large sense which x makes
them as much currents in our will as objects to
introspection) are in the end the whole matter. We
cannot substitute for them any poetic-thermometer
in the form of any doctrine whatsoever without being
betrayed. The only exception would be some
doctrine such as the account of sincerity fathered
302 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
on Confucius in the last chapter which amounts to
making the discernment of what is good a matter of
choice. But it must be an essential not an arbitrary
choice, one which expresses the needs of the being
as a whole, not a random gust of desire or the
obstructing capacity of some dead member.
Thus no theory, no description, of poetry can be
trusted which is not too intricate to be applied This
may be what Blake meant by saying that ' Virtue
resides only in minute particulars '. Value in poetry
turns nearly always upon differences and connections
too minute and unobtrusive to be directly perceived.
We recognise them only in their effects. Just as the
differences of phase through which we locate sounds
in space are too slight in their auditory effects to be
discriminated, 1 yet through their ocular reflexes
perfectly fulfil their function ; so the differences
between good and bad poetry may be indiscernible
to direct attention yet patent in their effects upon
feeling. The choice of our whole personality may
be the only instrument we possess delicate enough
to effect the discrimination.
When we have the poem in all its minute particulars
as intimately and as fully present to our minds as
we can contrive no general description of it but
the very experience itself present as a living pulse in
our biographies then our acceptance or rejection of
it must be direct. There comes a point in all criticism
where a sheer choice has to be made without the
support of any arguments, principles, or general
rules. All .that arguments or principles can do is
to protect us from irrelevancies, red-herrings and
disturbing preconceptions. They may remind us
perhaps, that every poem has many more aspects
than are presented on one occasion. They may help
us to bring more of our personality to bear upon the
poem than we otherwise might do. They certainly
1 See Piron, Thought and the Brain. Part II, ch. iv.
PRESUPPOSITIONS AND CRITICAL PRECONCEPTIONS 303
can prevent us from judging by the detail rather
than by the whole. They may preserve us from
bad arguments but they cannot supply good ones.
So complex is poetry. And in general if we find
ourselves, near this crucial point of choice, looking
for help from arguments, we may suspect that we
are on the wrong track. The point is critical in
the secondary sense too, for it is in these moments
of sheer decision that the mind becomes most
plastic, and selects, at the incessant multiple shifting
cross-roads, the direction of its future development.
The critical act is the starting-point, not the
conclusion, of an argument. The personality stands
balanced between the particular experience which is
the realised poem and the whole fabric of its past
experiences and developed habits of mind. What
is being settled is whether this new experience can
or cannot be taken into the fabric with advantage.
Would the fabric afterwards be better or worse ?
Often it must be the case that the new modification
of experience would improve the fabric if it could
be taken in, but too much reconstruction would be
needed. The strain, the resistance, is too great, and
the poem is rejected. Sometimes nothing essential
in the fabric prevents the incorporation of the poem.
Only some slight unnecessary fold or twist or crumple,
or some piece of adventitious scaffolding stands
in the way, a result of clumsy thinking rather than
a flaw or malformation in the self. Yet these
obstructions may cut us off from the thing we most
need. Among these accidents inadequate critical
theories, withholding what we need and imposing
upon us what we do not need, are sadly too frequent
in our minds.
The critic himself, of course, in the moment of
choice knows nothing about all this. He may feel
the strain. He may notice the queer shifts of
emotional perspective that may affect all his other
3 o 4 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
thoughts as his mind tries, now in one way now
in another, to fit itself to the poem. He will sense
an obscure struggle as the poem's secret allies and
enemies manoeuvre within him. When these in-
ternal parties in dispute cannot escape their deadlock,
or sit down to a war of attrition, he will know, if he
is sincere, that any decision he takes about the
poem is merely a postponement. For it is not only
his opinion about it which is unsettled, but the form
and order of his personality itself. He will do well
to make a temporary decision however, and persuade
himself provisionally either of its excellence or its
demerits. The experiment often stirs the internal
dispute into a healthy movement. And the
oppression which follows the forced acceptance
of a bad poem may give its enemies their chance
for a revolution. But when the conflict resolves
itself, when the obstruction goes down or the crumple
is straightened out, when an old habit which has been
welcoming a bad poem is revivified into a fresh
formation, or a new limb which has grown to meet
a good poem wakes into life, the mind clears, and
new energy wells up ; after the pause a collectedness
supervenes ; behind our rejection or acceptance
(even of a minor poem) we feel the sanction and
authority of the self-completing spirit.
This amounts, perhaps, to a claim that a certain
kind of critical choice is infallible. We know only
too well what to expect when a man begins by saying
' Of course, we are all fallible. . . '. We are in for
some impudent affirmation or other. What ought
we to divine in an author who ends by announcing
that we are all infallible ? Doubt, presumably ;
doubt in every direction and to the extremest degree.
I am anxious not to disappoint this expectation.
Indeed I would infect these last pages, if I could,
with such a virulent culture of doubt that all critical
certainties, except one, would wither in the minds
PRESUPPOSITIONS AND CRITICAL PRECONCEPTIONS 305
of all their readers. Points of analysis would
remain unaffected, since these are but tentative
explorations of a subject-matter which future inquiries
will penetrate far more deeply. But critical cer-
tainties, convictions as to the value, and kinds of
value, of kinds of poetry, might safely and with
advantage decay, provided f there remained a firm
sense of the importance of the critical act of choice,
its difficulty, and the supreme exercise of all our
faculties that it imposes. Mere acquiescent im-
mersion in good poetry can give us, of course, much
that is valuable. Acquiescent immersion in bad
poetry entails a corresponding penalty. But the
greater values can only be gained by making poetry
the occasion for those momentous decisions of the
will. The alluring solicitancy of the bad, the secret
repugnancy of the good are too strong for us in most
reading of poetry. Only by penetrating far more
whole-mindedly into poetry than we usually attempt,
and by collecting all our energies in our choice, can
we overcome these treacheries within us. That is
why good reading, in the end, is the whole secret of
' good judgment '.
PART FOUR
SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Mencius said : ' The son of the K'ung Clan (Confucius)
climbed the Eastern Hillock and thought the State of
Lu looked small ; he climbed the Great Mountain arid
found All-below-the-sky inconsiderable. He who has
gazed upon the ocean scorns other waters ; and he who
has entered in at the gate of enlightened men is critical
of words.'
SUMMARY
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.
W. B. YEATS.
THREE tasks remain, and this final part is accordingly
divided under three heads. Under the first, I discuss
the current state of culture, as it is indicated in the
protocols, and some inferences to be drawn from it ;
under the second, the services that psychological
theory may afford us here, its uses and limitations ;
under the third, the practical measures that seem
advisable and possible. It is not inevitable, or in the
nature of things, that poetry should seem such a
remote, mysterious, unmanageable thing to so large
a majority of readers. The deficiencies so noticeable
in the protocol writers (and, if we could be franker
with ourselves, in our own reading) are not native
inalterable defects in the average human mind. They
are due in a large degree to mistakes that can be
avoided, and to bad training. In fact, does anyone
ever receive any useful training in this matter ? Yet,
without asking more from average humanity than
even a misanthrope will grant, something can be
done to make men's spiritual heritage more available
and more operative. Though I may seem to be
traversing, in what follows, ground with which every
teacher (and every person thrust into close contact
with humanity) is familiar to the point of desperation,
I am confident that the last word in this matter has
not been spoken. A better technique, as we learn
daily in other fields, may yield results that the most
whole-hearted efforts fall short of if misapplied. And
309
3 io PRACTICAL CRITICISM
the technique of the approach to poetry has not yet
received half so much serious systematic study as
the technique of pole-jumping. If it is easy to push
up the general level of performance in such ' natural '
activities as running or jumping (not to insist upon
the more parallel examples of mountaineering, fly-
fishing and golf) merely by making a little careful
inquiry into the best methods, surely there is reason
to expect that investigation into the technique of
reading may have even happier results. With this
not extravagant hope to encourage us, let us try to
see what exactly is needed, and what is within our
power to do.
I
i. The standing of the men and women who
supplied the protocols has been described in Part I
(p. 3). With few exceptions they are products of the
most expensive kind of education. I would like to
repeat, with emphasis, that there is no reason what-
ever to suppose that a higher capacity for reading
poetry will be manifested by any similar group any-
where in the world. Sons and daughters of other
Universities who are tempted to think otherwise may
be invited to bring experimental evidence collected
under the same conditions. But no experienced
teacher will be surprised by any of the protocols ;
no teacher, at least, who has refrained from turning
his pupils into sounding-boards that reflect his own
opinions. And, candidly, how many of us are con-
vinced, with reason, that we would have made a
better showing ourselves under these conditions ?
2. Immaturity. Thus the gaps in these readers'
equipment are very significant. First may be placed
the general immaturity of the readers. Their average
age would be between nineteen and twenty. Yet
with several of the poems (notably Poems /, // and
SUMMARY 311
XIII) one important reason for erratic opinions
seems undeniably to be lack of general experience,
I wish very much that I could include as a frontis-
piece a good group photograph of the protocol-
writers. It would help us to realise, better than
pages of discussion, the concrete significance of some
of these revelations. Statistics as to the proportion
of the writers who are going later to be teachers
would also assist this realisation. Yet it may be
doubted whether any large proportion of those who
showed themselves to be under age not in intelli-
gence alone but in emotional development also are
destined to become much more mature with the
passage of time. In some respects the years will do
their work, for good and ill, but in others (cf. Ch. V,
p. 291) there is little reason to expect any essential
change. Much though there is to be said, on general
anthropological grounds, in favour of a delayed
maturity, an educational and social system which
encourages a large proportion of its most endowed
and favoured products to remain children permanently
is exposing itself to danger. The point is a familiar
one ; I merely bring my mite of evidence.
3. Lack of Reading. A strong suspicion that I
developed in looking over the protocols, that the
women- writers were of higher average discernment
than the men, is perhaps relevant in this connection.
For the young woman of nineteen is generally
supposed to be nearer to her final settled character,
in most respects, than the equivalent young man. A
better explanation would be the greater familiarity
with poetry that is certainly possessed by the average
girl. A lack of experience with poetry must be
placed next to general inexperience of life in this
list of deficiencies. A large number of writers showed
clearly (a fact which one knew well enough already)
that they had hardly any reading at all to serve them
3 i2 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
as a background and means of orientation. And those
readers who did try to use their background often
proved the naivety of their outlook and the poverty
of their literary experience by the comparisons and
identifications they made. Apart from this wide
experience it is hard to see how any but the most
gifted readers can help being impressed, for example,
by work which is merely & feeble echo of something
else. We may sometimes say, then, that it is the
original work which is at second-hand the source of
the impression. We must acknowledge that very
much of the worship that a more experienced and
better reader may condemn as too facile is merely
faute de mieux worship. Also, but more rarely, the
condition of poetic starvation appears. The reader,
having discovered some value in poetry, swallows all
he can of it for a while, hoping that it will do him
good, and improve his taste, even when he does not
really like it. But there is not a great deal of this in
our examples. We could have safely inferred from
the protocols that the relatively cultivated youth of
our age spends extremely little of its time over poetry,
4. Construing. Partly to this well-recognised
fact, but partly to more interesting causes, we may
trace the widespread inability to construe meaning,
which is perhaps the deficiency made most apparent
in my selections. But it is not only those with little
experience of poetry who fail in this. Some who
appear to have read widely seem to make little or no
endeavour to understand, or, at least, to remain
strangely unsuccessful. Indeed, the more we study
this matter the more we shall find ' a love for poetry '
accompanied by an incapacity to understand or con-
strue it. This construing, we must suppose, is not
nearly so easy and ' natural ' a performance as we
tend to assume. It is a craft, in the sense that
mathematics, cooking, and shoemaking are crafts.
SUMMARY 313
It can be taught. And though some gifted individuals
can go far in the strength of their own sagacity alone,
instruction and practice are very necessary for others.
The best methods of instruction remain to be worked
out. At present, apart from not very satisfactory
exercises in translation from other languages and
some still less satisfactory experiments with precis
writing and paraphrasing, ! this instruction ceases at
too early a stage. No attempt at imparting a reasoned
general technique for construing has yet been made.
Perhaps because the need for it has not been
sufficiently realised. Two problems for reflection,
suggested by this low capacity in construing, may be
noted, (i) What is the worth of poetry for readers
who cannot make out what it means ? (2) How far
can we expect such readers to show themselves
intelligent, imaginative and discriminating in their
intimate relations with other human beings ? Neither
question can be answered summarily, certainly not
the second (see 10, below). But it is not doubtful
that certain 4 sentimental ' addictions to poetry are of
little value, or that this poor capacity to interpret
complex and unfamiliar meanings is a source of
endless loss, for those whose lives need not be
narrowly standardised at a low level. If anything
can be done, educationally, that is not already being
done to improve it, the attempt would be worth much
trouble. This defect in our equipment is so essential
a point for any student of poetry to realise, and so
neglected, that I need not apologise for the emphasis
laid upon it in what follows.
5. Stock Responses. Closely connected with this
incapacity to apprehend unusual meanings is the
fatal facility with which usual meanings reappear
when they are not wanted. Great stress was laid in
Part III upon this tendency of our acquired responses
to intervene in situations to which they are not
314 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
appropriate, and little need be added here. If we
wish for a population easy to control by suggestion
we shall decide what repertory of suggestions it shall
be susceptible to and encourage this tendency except
in the few. But if we wish for a high and diffused
civilisation, with its attendant risks, we shall combat
this form of mental inertia. In either case, since
most of the protocol writers would certainly regard
themselves as belonging to the few, rather than the
many, were such a division to be proposed, we shall
do well to recognise how much of the value of
existence is daily thrust from us by our stock re-
sponses, necessary though a substratum of stable and
routine mental habits may be.
6. Preconceptions. As special cases of these in-
appropriate acquired responses : certain tests, criteria
and presuppositions as to what is to be admired or
despised in poetry proved their power to hide what
was actually present. A pretension to knowledge of
such criteria is sometimes linked with a certain
temptation, never lurking far below the surface, to
teach the poet his business. But, apart from this
motive, a serious but less arrogant reader, unpro-
vided with any such criteria, theories and principles,
often feels himself distressingly at a loss before a
poem. Too sheer a challenge to his own unsupported
self seems to be imposed. The desire to condense
his past experience, or to invoke doughty authority,
in the form of a critical maxim, is constantly over-
whelming. Without some objective criteria, by which
poetry can be tested, and the good distinguished
from the bad, he feels like a friendless man deprived
of weapons and left naked at the mercy of a treacher-
ous beast. We decided that the treacherous beast
was within him, that critical weapons unless too
elaborate to be employed would only hurt him,
that his own experience not as represented in a
SUMMARY 315
formula but in its available entirety was his only
safeguard, and that if he could rely sufficiently upon
this, he could only profit from his encounter with the
poem.
7. Bewilderment. But this advice, however well
meant, can perhaps only further perplex that great
body of readers whose first and last reaction to poetry
(it is hardly a response) is bewilderment. An over-
tone of despairing helplessness haunts the protocols
in a degree that my selections do not sufficiently
display. I omitted a great mass of sit-on-the-fence
opinion. Without further clues (authorship, period,
school, the sanction of an anthology, or the hint of a
context) the task of ' making up their minds about
it ', or even of working out a number of possible
views from which to choose, was felt to be really
beyond their powers. The extraordinary variety of
the views put forward, and the reckless, desperate
character of so many of them, indicate the difficulty
that was felt, and how unprepared for such a testing
encounter the majority of the readers were. It
should surely be possible, even without devoting
more time or trouble to the reading of English than
is given at present, to prepare them better, and make
them more reasonably self-reliant.
8. Authority. The protocols show, equally, how
entirely a matter of authority the rank of famous
poets, as it is accepted and recognised by public
opinion, must be. Without the control of this rather
mysterious, traditional authority, poets of the most
established reputations would very quickly and sur-
prisingly change their places in general approval.
This is, if we pursue it, a disturbing reflection, for it
should lead us to question very closely the quality
of the reading \ve ordinarily give to authors \vhose
rank and character have been officially settled. There
cannot be much doubt that when we know we are
316 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
reading Milton or Shelley, a great deal of our
approval and admiration is being accorded not to the
poetry but to an idol. Conversely, if we did not
know that we were reading Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
much of our amusement or patronising condescension
might easily be absent. Far more than we like to
admit, we take a hint fqr our response from the
poet's reputation. Whether we assent or dissent,
the traditional view runs through our response like
the wire upon which a climbing plant is trained.
And without it there is no knowing at what con-
clusion we might not have arrived.
The attempt to read without this guidance puts a
strain upon us that we are little accustomed to.
Within limits it is a salutary strain. We learn how
much we are indebted to the work of other minds
that have established the tradition, at the same time
that we become aware of its dangers. And we dis-
cover what a comparatively relaxed and inattentive
activity our ordinary reading of established poetry is.
Even those who have won a deserved eminence
through their critical ability, who have worthily
occupied Chairs of Poetry and taken their part in
handing on the torch of tradition retrimmed, would
probably admit in their secret souls that they had
not read many poems with the care and attention
that these anonymous items, under these conditions,
invite. But while we become, through such reflec-
tions, on the one hand more ready to question
tradition, we become on the other more sensible of
our dependence upon it.
9. Variability. It was interesting to observe the
wide range of quality that many individual readers
varied through. They would pass, with contiguous
poems, from a very high level of discernment to a
relatively startling obtuseness, and often force one
to consider very closely whether what appeared to be
SUMMARY 317
so stupid did not mask unexpected profundity, and
whether the obtuseness was really where one hoped
it was. The odds, I know, are much against my
having escaped this danger. I have not illustrated
these variations, for such studies of individual readers
would have taken this book too far from its main
path, and made what is already a complex investiga-
tion too unwieldy. Nor have I attempted to trace
carefully any correlations between approval of one
type of poem and disapproval of another, and so
forth. I have only a strong impression that such
correlations would be difficult to find ; as, indeed,
on theoretical grounds seeing how complex the
conditions are we should expect. But this in-
dividual variability in discernment was striking
enough to deserve notice. It has the comforting
moral attached to it that however baffled we may be
by one poem, we may still be extraordinarily acute
with another with a poem perhaps that to most
readers proves more difficult. Some of these un-
evennesses may be put down to fatigue. I am
inclined to think that four poems are too many for a
week's reading absurd though this suggestion will
seem to those godlike lords of the syllabus-world,
who think that the whole of English Literature can
be perused with profit in about a year !
But apart from fatigue there are other very evident
reasons why critical capacity should vary. ' Making
up our minds about a poem ' is the most delicate
of all possible undertakings. We have to gather
millions of fleeting semi-independent impulses into
a momentary structure of fabulous complexity, whose
core or germ only is given us in the words. What
we ' make up ', that momentary trembling order in
our minds, is exposed to countless irrelevant in-
fluences. Health, wakefulness, distractions, hunger
and other instinctive tensions, the very quality of
the air we breathe, the humidity, the light, all affect
3i8 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
us. No one at all sensitive to rhythm, for example,
will doubt that the new pervasive, almost ceaseless,
mutter or roar of modern transport, replacing the
rhythm of the footstep or of horses' hoofs, is capable
of interfering in many ways with our reading of
verse. 1 Thus it is no matter for surprise if we find
ourselves often unable tc, respond in any relevant
and coherent fashion.
What is indeed remarkable is that we should
pretend that we can even usually do so. We should
be better advised to acknowledge frankly that, when
people put poems in our hands (point to pictures,
or play us music), what we say, in nine cases out of
ten, has nothing to do with the poem, but arises
from politeness or spleen or some other social motive.
It cannot arise from the poem if the poem is not yet
there in our minds, and it hardly ever, in fact, is
there, under such public and hurried conditions
of reading. It would be an excellent thing if all
the critical chitchat which we produce on these
occasions were universally recognised to be what it
is, social gesture, ' phatic communion '. But though
people to whom tone is more interesting than either
sense or feeling have always treated it as such, the
sincere and innocent reader is much too easily
bounced into emptying his mind by any literary
highwayman who says, ' I want your opinion ', and
much too easily laid low because he has nothing to
produce on these occasions. He might be com-
forted if he knew how many professionals make a
point of carrying stocks of imitation currency, crisp
and bright, which satisfy the highwaymen and are
all that even the wealthiest critic in these emergencies
can supply.
1 Mr T. S. Eliot, than whom there could be no more qualified
observer, has suggested that the internal combustion engine may
already have altered our perception of rhythms. (Preface to
Savonarola, by Charlotte Eliot.)
SUMMARY 319
10. General Values. It is natural to inquire how
far insensitiveness, poor discrimination, and a feeble
capacity to understand poetry imply a corresponding
inability to apprehend and make use of the values of
ordinary life. This is a large and awkward question
which we shall answer in different ways as our
experience varies. Two Answers, however, would
certainly be wrong : the view that a man who is
stupid with poetry must be as stupid with life, and
the view that obtuseness in literary matters implies
no general disabilities. Doubtless to some degree
poetry, like the other arts, is a secret discipline to
which some initiation is needed. Some readers are
excluded from it simply because they have never
discovered, and have never been taught, how to
enter. Poetry translates into its special sensory
language a great deal that is given in the ordinary
daily intercourse between minds by gesture, tones
of voice, and expression, and a reader who is very
quick and discerning in these matters may fail for
purely technical reasons to apprehend the very same
things when they are given in verse. He will be in
the same sad case as those Bubis of Fernando Po,
who need to see one another before they understand
what is said. On the other hand, it is sometimes not
difficult in reading through the protocols to dis-
tinguish those who are incapacitated by this ignor-
ance and lack of skill in reading from those whose
failure has deeper causes. And, moreover, those who
have naturally a fine imagination and discrimination,
who have a developed sensibility to the values of life,
do seem to find the password to poetry with great
ease. For there is no such gulf between poetry and
life as over-literary persons sometimes suppose.
There is no gap between our everyday emotional life
and the material of poetry. The verbal expression
of this life, at its finest, is forced to use the technique
of poetry ; that is the only essential difference. We
320 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
cannot avoid the material of poetry. If we do not live
in consonance with good poetry, we must live in
consonance with bad poetry. And, in fact, the idle
hours of most lives are filled with reveries that are
simply bad private poetry. On the whole evidence,
I do not see how we can avoid the conclusion that a
general insensitivity to poetry does witness a low
level of general imaginative life. There are other
reasons for thinking that this century is in a cultural
trough rather than upon a crest. I need not expatiate
here upon them. But the situation appears suffi-
ciently serious to force us to consider very carefully
what influences are available as remedies. When
nature and tradition, or rather our contemporary
social and economic conditions, betray us, it is
reasonable to reflect whether we cannot deliberately
contrive artificial means of correction.
It is arguable that mechanical inventions, with
their social effects, and a too sudden diffusion of
indigestible ideas, are disturbing throughout the
world the whole order of human mentality, that our
minds are, as it were, becoming of an inferior shape
thin, brittle and patchy, rather than controllable
and coherent. It is possible that the burden of
information and consciousness that a growing mind
has now to carry may be too much for its natural
strength. If it is not too much already, it may soon
become so, for the situation is likely to grow worse
before it is better. Therefore, if there be any means
by which we may artificially strengthen our minds'
capacity to order themselves, we must avail ourselves
of them. And of all possible means, Poetry, the
unique, linguistic instrument by which our minds
have ordered their thoughts, emotions, desires . . .
in the past, seems to be the most serviceable. It
may well be a matter of some urgency for us, in the
interests of our standard of civilisation, to make this
highest form of language more accessible. From
SUMMARY 321
the beginning civilisation has been dependent upon
speech, for words are our chief link with the past
and with one another and the channel of our spiritual
inheritance. As the other vehicles of tradition, the
family and the community, for example, are dis-
solved, we are forced more and more to rely upon
language. 9
Yet, as the protocols show, such reliance as we
place in it at present is quite unjustified. Not a
tenth of the power of poetry is released for the
general benefit, indeed, not a thousandth part. It
fails, not through its own fault, but through our
ineptitude as readers. Is there no means to give the
' educated ' individual a better receptive command
of these resources of language ?
II
ii. Abuse of Psychology. The psychologist is
properly suspect to-day when he approaches these
topics. A shudder is a likely, and to some degree a
justified, response to the suggestion that he can be
called in to assist us in reading poetry. Statistical
inquiries into the * efficiency ' of different forms of
composition, into types of imagery, into the relative
frequency of verbs and adjectives, of liquids, sibilants
and fricatives in various authors ; classifications of
literary ' motives ', of ' drives ' that may be employed
by writers ; inquiries into the proportions of * sex-
appeal ' present ; measurements of * emotional re-
sponse ', of * facility in integration ', of * degree of
retention of effects ' ; or gradings of ' artistically
effective associations ' ; such things will make any
reader of poetry feel curiously uncomfortable. And
it is worse still with the efforts of some psycho-
analysts to elucidate masterpieces which they are
clearly approaching for the first time and only for
322 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
this purpose. Poetry has suffered too much already
from those who are merely looking for something to
investigate and those who wish to exercise some
cherished theory. The best among the experi-
mentalists and the analysts will agree over this.
But between these two extreme wings of the
psychological forces there is the comparatively
neglected and unheard-oi' middle body, the cautious,
traditional, academic, semi-philosophical psycho-
logists who have been profiting from the vigorous
manoeuvres of the advanced wings and are now much
more ready than they were twenty years ago to take
a hand in the application of the science. The general
reader, whose ideas as to the methods and endeavours
of psychologists derive more from the popularisers
of Freud or from the Behaviourists than from
students of Stout or Ward, needs perhaps some
assurance that it is possible to combine an interest
and faith in psychological inquiries with a due
appreciation of the complexity of poetry. Yet a
psychologist who belongs to this main body is
perhaps the last person in the world to underrate
this complexity. Unfortunately, the subject-matter
of psychology to a centrist is so immense that few
have been able to devote much attention to literature.
Thus this field has been left rather too open to
irresponsible incursions.
12. Profanation. If we propose to look closely
into the mental processes active in the reading of
poetry a certain reluctance or squeamishness will
often be felt. * We murder to dissect ', someone will
murmur. This prejudice must be countered. No
psychological dissection can do harm, except to
minds which are in a pathological condition. The
fear that to look too closely may be damaging to
what we care about is a sign of a weak or ill-balanced
interest. There is a certain frivolity of the passions
SUMMARY 323
that does not imply a greater delicacy, a more perfect
sensibility, but only a trifling or flimsy constitution.
Those who ' care too much for poetry ' to examine
it closely are probably flattering themselves. Such
exquisites may be pictured explaining their objections
to Coleridge or to Schiller.
But we should recognise how grim the prospect
would be if these scruples were justified. For it is
as certain as anything can be that in time psychology
will overhaul most of our ideas about ourselves, and
will give us a very detailed account of our mental
activities. I am not prepared to argue that the
acceptance of inept ideas about ourselves will not
prove damaging. Damage is very likely already
being done, in America and elsewhere, by elementary
courses in Behaviourism, and by a too simplified
stimulus-response psychology. Yet it is not the
inquiry which is harmful, but the stopping short of
inquiry. It would be better, no doubt, for the
immediate prospects of poetry that we should content
ourselves with our traditional notions than accept in
their place ideas too simple to mark any of the dis-
tinctions which matter the ' spiritual ' distinctions.
But this is not the only option we are allowed. A
naturalistic psychology that observes these finer
distinctions is possible, though civilisation is perhaps
in for a bad time before it arrives, and has become
generally accepted. Watson in place of the Bible, or
in place of Confucius or Buddha, as a source of our
fundamental conceptions about ourselves is an alarm-
ing prospect. But the remedy of putting the clock
back is impracticable. Inquiry cannot be stopped
now. The only possible course is to hasten, so far
as we can, the development of a psychology which
will ignore none of the facts and yet demolish none
of the values that human experience has shown to be
necessary. An account of poetry will be a pivotal
point in such a psychology.
324 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
13. Prudential Speech. The understanding of
speech is an art which we are supposed to acquire
chiefly by the light of nature through the operation
of sundry instincts and to perfect by dint of practice.
That in most cases it remains very imperfect indeed
is the principal contention of this book. During the
earlier stages of the acquisition of language in child-
hood and early years at school it is possible that
nature works well enough, though the researches of
Piaget 1 suggest that considerable assistance might be
given. But after a certain stage, when the individual
has become fairly competent, the pressure of the
need to understand ever more and more finely
relaxes. Errors and failures no longer so clearly
entail the penalty of being left out. Nor are they so
easily exposed. A child of eight is constantly made
to feel that he is not understanding something. At
eighteen he may misunderstand nearly as often, but
the testing instance, which makes him realise that
this is so, infrequently arises. Unless either his
company or his studies are exceptional, he will rarely
be forced to face any such disagreeable facts. For
he will have acquired enough skill in the reproduction
of more or less appropriate language to disguise most
of his failures both from the world and from himself.
He can answer questions in a way which may con-
vince everybody, himself included, that he under-
stands them. He may be able to translate difficult
passages with every sign of discernment, write pass-
able essays and converse with great apparent intelli-
gence upon many subjects. Yet in spite of these
acquirements he may be making at innumerable
points, what Mr Russell once called, in connection
with the words number and two, * a purely prudential
use of language/ That is, he may be using words
not because he knows with any precision what he
means by them, but because he knows how they are
J The Language and Thought of the Child.
SUMMARY 325
ordinarily used, and does with them what he has
heard other people do with them before. He strings
them together in suitable sequences, manoeuvres
them aptly enough, produces with them pretty well
the effects he intends, yet meanwhile he may have
not much more inkling of what he is really (or should
be) doing with them than % telephone-girl need have
of the inner wiring of the switchboard she operates
so deftly. He may merely be in the condition that
Conrad ascribed to those Russians who pour words
out ' with such an aptness of application sometimes
that, as in the case of very accomplished parrots, one
can't defend oneself from the suspicion that they
really understand what they say '. 1
It may make this accusation seem less unjustifiable
if we underline really, and then ask ourselves how
often, even in our most enlightened, most conscious
and most vigilant moments, we would be prepared
to claim such understanding ourselves. Under-
standing is very evidently an affair of degree, never
so consummate as to be insusceptible of improve-
ment. All we can say is that the masters of life the
greater poets sometimes seem to show such an
understanding and control of language that we
cannot imagine a further perfection. And judged,
not by this exalted standard, but by a much humbler
order of perceptions, we can be certain that most
' well-educated ' persons remain, under present-day
conditions, far below the level of capacity at which,
by social convention, they are supposed to stand.
As to the less ' well-educated ' genius apart they
inhabit chaos.
Few sincere minds will perhaps, in their private
councils, be prepared to dispute this, however much
the pretensions which are socially imposed upon us
may force us to deny it. But to fathom the implica-
tions of this situation we shall need to make some
1 Under \Vestern Eyes, p. 3.
326 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
distinctions. What do we understand here by
' understanding ' ? Various senses of this loose and
ambiguous word invite our attention.
14. Understanding. To take the most primitive
sense first, we shall agree that when nothing whatever
happens in our minds beyond the mere perception
of the sound or shape of words as words, we do not
understand them. Comparatively, any thoughts or
feelings or impulses stirred into activity by the words,
and seemingly directed towards something which the
words represent, are a beginning of understanding.
In this primitive sense it is possible that a dog or a
horse may come to ' understand ' a few r words and
phrases. In a more developed instance we under-
stand when the words prompt in us action or emotion
appropriate to the attitude of the person who speaks
them. Animals achieve this level also, and much
of the conversation we address to infants asks only
for this degree of understanding. (This aim a
blend of tone and intention continues in some
degree perhaps through all human intercourse right
up to the highest utterances of the philosopher.) At
a third level ' understanding ' implies some degree
of intellectual discrimination. We are required to
distinguish the thought invited by the words from
other thoughts more or less like it. The words may
mean ' This not That ', the nearness of This to That
corresponding to the precision of the thought invited.
Here we meet with our first opportunity for
deceiving ourselves as to the quality of our under-
standing. For as soon as we pass out of the realm
of immediate action or nai've emotional expression,
as soon as pointing and touching, seeing and trying
can no longer be applied as a test of our under-
standing, we have to fall back upon other words. If
we wish to prove to other persons that we have really
discriminated the This from That, our only method
SUMMARY 327
will be to produce some description of This and That
to make their difference clear. Now a ' purely
prudential ' use of such descriptions is not difficult
to acquire. It need not be accompanied by any
precise thoughts of either This or That. If we are
asked, ' What do you mean by so and so ? ' by
understanding, for example, we can usually reply by
giving a few other words that experience has taught
us can be used in its place. We reply, ' I mean com-
prehending, grasping the sense, realising the signi-
ficance, seizing the meaning, that's what I mean ',
and it does not follow in the least that because we
can supply these alternative locutions we have any
precise ideas upon the matter. This dictionary under-
standing, as it may be called, has long been recognised
as an insidious substitute for more authentic kinds
of understanding in the elementary stages of all those
sciences in which definitions are required. But its
operation is really much more extensive. No one
with experience of philosophical discussion will con-
fidently set bounds to it, and we are all in danger of
becoming philosophers as soon as we attempt to
explain our use of words or draw distinctions between
our thoughts.
The real danger of dictionary understanding is that
it so easily prevents us from perceiving the limitations
of our understanding ; a disadvantage inseparable
from the advantage it gives us of concealing them
from our friends. A parallel disguise with similar
disadvantages is available for the other chief form
of communication. In addition to directing a fairly
precise thought, most language simultaneously en-
deavours to excite some refinement of feeling. As
we have seen above, this function of language fails
at least as often as the communication of sense.
And our means of discovering for ourselves whether
we have or have not understood this feeling correctly
are even less satisfactory than in the case of thought.
328 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
As a rule, only close contact with persons who are
exacting in this respect can give us the necessary
training. They must be exacting in the sense of
noticing with discrimination what feeling we appre-
hend, not, of course, in the sense of constantly
demanding certain definite feelings from us. Most
of our devices for exhibiting feeling through words
are so crude that we easify convince ourselves and
others that we have understood more perfectly than
is, in fact, the case. Humanity's pathetic need for
sympathy also encourages this illusion. Thus
dictionary understanding of feeling, though less glib,
is as treacherous as with sense.
Similar considerations apply to the other two
forms of understanding the apprehension of tone
and of intention. 1 Subtleties of tone are rarely
appreciated without some special training. The
gift reaches its heights perhaps only in certain
favourable social settings. 2 In the same way the
man engaged all his days in intricate (and preferably
shady) negotiations most easily becomes an expert
in divining other people's intentions. Natural
shrewdness and sensibility (a phrase which covers
deep mysteries) sometimes compensate for these
specially favourable settings.
15. Confusions. Even for a reader who has a good
ability in all these four kinds of understanding yet
further dangers lie in wait. Pre-eminently the danger
of mistaking one function of language for another, of
taking for a statement what is merely the expression
of a feeling, and vice versa, or of interpreting a
modification due to tone as an indication of irrelevant
intention. These confusions to which all complex
1 Yet other senses of ' understanding ' can, of course, be constructed
a sense in which ' understanding' is contrasted with 'knowledge,'
for example. But I am anxious here to keep my treatment as simple
and unspeculative as possible.
2 As an example, consider the social development of Julien in Le
Rouge et le Noir.
SUMMARY 329
or subtle writing is much exposed have been illus-
trated and discussed above. As soon as metaphorical
or figurative uses of speech are introduced, and such
writings can rarely avoid them, these dangers become
much increased. I have made, since the bulk of
this book was prepared, some further experiments
with the paraphrasing of fairly simple figurative
and semi-allegorical passages. They more than
corroborate what was shown by the protocols here
given. Not nearly thirty per cent, of a University
audience are to be trusted not to misinterpret such
language. The facts are such that only experienced
teachers would credit a statement of them apart
from the evidence. 1 I hope to be able to give it, and
discuss the theory of interpretation further in a
future work.
This separation or disentanglement of the four
language functions is not an easy matter. Even to
state the distinctions between them clearly if we
are to go beyond dictionary understanding is diffi-
cult. What is thought ? What is feeling ? How are
we to separate a writer's attitude to us (or to a
hypothetical listener) from his intention ? And what
is an attitude or what an intention ? To be able to
answer these questions is not, of course, necessary
for the good understanding of a phrase involving
these four functions. All that is required is that the
mind should actually receive each separate con-
tributory meaning without confusion. It is not even
desirable, as a rule, that it should think of the feeling,
the tone and the intention. It is sufficient if it think
of the sense. The other meanings are best received,
when possible, each in its appropriate more direct
and immediate manner. But when difficulty arises,
thought may come to the rescue.
1 But when the root and stem (in our nurseries, preparatory schools
and public schools) are as we know them to be, ought we to be
surprised that the flower and crown are imperfect ?
330 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
1 6. Further Dissection. Thought, 1 to put these
distinctions rather simply, is a direction of the re-
ceptive side of the mind, a sort of mental pointing to
one kind of object or another. We may think by
means of images, or words, or by other less describable
means, but what is important is not the means but
the result. We turn our attention this way or that to
perceive or contemplate something. Thought thus
implies something else, not itself, which is what the
thought is ' of ' 2 its object.
In contrast, a feeling does not imply an object.
It is a state of the mind. It is not necessarily directed
to anything, or ' of ' anything. It is true that we can
speak of * a feeling of pity ' or ' of anger ', but this
is clearly a different use of the word c of '. No con-
fusion should arise, although sometimes we may use
the word in both ways at once, as when we speak of
a * sensation of blue '. (' Feeling ', too, we use in all
kinds of ways. * I feel chilly '/I feel you ought to ',
* I feel doubtful '. It is the Jack-of-all-trades in the
psychologist's vocabulary.)
So far as * feeling ', in the sense I am giving it
here, seems to have an object, to imply something
towards which it is directed, it gets this direction
either from an accompanying thought or from an
accompanying intention. For intentions, too, have
objects, though the relation of an intention to its
object is not the same as that between a thought and
its object. An intention is a direction of the active
1 These definitions are merely those which seem to me, for my
purpose here, most convenient . Like all similar definitions they can
neither be right nor wrong, but only more or less serviceable. They
are not identical with those I should use for other purposes, and have,
in fact, used elsewhere. All that is needed is that they should be
intelligible and should correspond with the facts in nature to which
attention is to be directed.
2 The kind of relation for which this word 'of here stands is
discussed at length in The Meaning of Meaning, Second Edition,
Ch. Ill, and Principles of Literary Criticism, pp. 85-91. See also
Appendix A, Note 5.
SUMMARY 331
(not the receptive) side of the mind. It is a pheno-
menon of desire not of knowledge. Like a thought,
it may be more or less vague, and it is exposed to
analogous forms of error. Just as a thought may be
actually directed to something other than it professes
to be directed to, so with an intention. We may, in
fact, be trying to do something different from what
we seem to ourselves to be aiming for. (I intend by
this to indicate a different case from that common
form of error in which we persuade ourselves by
thinking that we desire something that, in fact, we
do not at all desire.)
A feeling is thus an innocent and unfallacious
thing in comparison with thoughts and intentions.
It may arise through immediate stimulation without
the intervention of either thought or intention.
Musical sounds, colours, odours, the squeaking of
quill-pens, the skins of peaches, scissor-grinding, all
these can excite feelings without our minds being
directed thereby to anything. But incipient attention
and action ordinarily accompany even the slightest
arousal of feeling. The most elaborate feelings
develop in us, however, only through thought and
intention. Thought turns the mind to certain objects
(presents them to us), or some intention is furthered
or thwarted, and feeling ensues.
There are two important senses in which we can
* understand ' the feeling of a passage. We can
either just ourselves undergo the same feeling or we
can think of the feeling. Often in witnessing a play,
for example, we think of the feelings of the char-
acters, but undergo the feeling the whole action
conveys. Obviously we can and do make mistakes
in both forms of understanding. Much the same is
true of the apprehension of tone, our appreciation
of the speaker's attitude towards us. His attitude
invites a complimentary attitude from us. So we
can either simply adopt this attitude (thereby in one
332 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
sense ' recognising ' his attitude), or think of his
attitude (perceive it, thereby ' recognising ' it in quite
another sense).
The actual arousal in ourselves either of the feeling
or of the complimentary attitude may take place
directly or through our awareness of sense or in-
tention. An alarmed chimpanzee utters a peculiar
cry which instantly throws his fellows in the group
into a state of sympathetic alarm. So it is with
humanity, too. The cadence of a phrase may in-
stigate a feeling without any intermediaries. Tone,
also, we seem to understand sometimes directly.
Biologically, there is good reason to expect us to
have this capacity. The same may be true of simple
cases of intention especially intentions which regard
ourselves, but more complex cases require (as we
saw in Part III, Ch. II) careful study of the sense,
if grotesque mistakes are to be avoided. But here
again to ' recognise ' an intention is not quite the same
thing as to think of it.
17. Order. Innumerable cross influences and
complications between these four kinds of meaning
are possible, and frequently present, in what may
appear a quite simple remark. A perfect under-
standing would involve not only an accurate direction
of thought, a correct evocation of feeling, an exact
apprehension of tone and a precise recognition of
intention, but further it would get these contributory
meanings in their right order and proportion to one
another, and seize though not in terms of explicit
thought their interdependence upon one another,
their sequences and interrelations.
For the value of a passage frequently hangs upon
this internal order among its contributory meanings.
If feeling, for example, too much governs thought,
or, in another case, if thought too much controls
feeling, the result may be disastrous, even though
SUMMARY 333
thought and feeling in themselves are as good as can
be. More obviously perhaps, a proper feeling, pre-
sented not in its own right or in right of the thought,
but in undue deference to the reader (tone), or to
cajole him (intention), will lose its sanction, unless
the author saves the situation either by successfully
concealing this fact or by a suitable avowal. But the
exact tone of this avowal will be all-important.
It would be tedious to continue upon this aspect
of meaning without giving examples, and these would
take up too many of these pages. If a mind is valuable,
not because it possesses sound ideas, refined feelings,
social skill and good intentions, but because these
admirable things stand in their proper relations to
one another, we should expect this order to be re-
presented in its utterances, and the discernment of
this order to be necessary for understanding. Once
again, however, this discernment is not the same
thing as an intellectual analysis of the Total Meaning
into its contributories. It is an actual formation in
the receptive mind of a whole condition of feeling
and awareness corresponding, in due order, to the
original meaning which is being discerned. Without
some discernment analysis would plainly be im-
possible. We have now to consider whether practice
in such analysis could possibly lead to improvement
in the capacity to discern.
Ill
1 8 . The Teaching of English . l I am not aware that
any work has been done that would test this sugges-
1 Those who wish to acquaint themselves with the methods
employed in schools could hardly do better than to consult the
Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the President
of the Board of Education into the position of English in the
educational system of England, entitled The Teaching of English in
England (H.M. Stationery Office, 1921, is. 6d.) ; and the Memor-
andum on the Teaching oj English, issued by the Incorporated
334 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
tion. Exercises in parsing and paraphrasing are not
the kind of analyses I have in view. And I have not
heard of any schoolmaster who may have attempted
to make a systematic discussion of the forms of mean-
ing and the psychology of understanding part of his
teaching. I have met not a few, however, who would
treat the suggestion with an amused or indignant
contempt. * What ! Fill the children's heads with
a lot of abstractions ! It is quite hard enough already
to get them to grasp one meaning THE MEANING
let alone four or sixteen, or whatever it is ! They
couldn't understand a word you were talking about.'
I have been the less discouraged by such remarks,
however, by the perception that some of the speakers
were in precisely the same case. But even if any
teacher should have wished to experiment in this
way, it is difficult to see where he would have
obtained his intellectual instruments from. Neither
the critics nor the psychologists as yet have provided
them in any serviceable form. Indeed, it is the
oddest thing about language, whose history is full
of odd things (and one of the oddest facts about
human development) that so few people have ever
sat down to reflect systematically about meaning. 1
For no daring or original steps are needed to carry
our acquaintance with these matters at least a step
further than the stage at which it usually remains.
A little pertinacity and a certain habit of examining
our intellectual and emotional instruments as we use
them, is all that is required. From the point of view
thus attained one would expect that our libraries would
be full of works on the theory of interpretation, the
Association of Assistant Masters in Secondary Schools (Cambridge
University Press, 1927, 35. 6d.). But Mr George Sampson's English
for the English should on no account be overlooked. It says some
plain things in a plain way, with passion and with point.
1 Cf. The Meaning of Meaning, Ch. II, where evidence is brought
to show that the ground for our reluctance to inquire too closely into
language lies deep in the early beliefs of the race.
SUMMARY 335
diagnosis of linguistic situations, systematic am-
biguity and the functions of complex symbols ; and
that there would be Chairs of Signifies or of General
Linguistic at all our Universities. Yet, in point of
fact, there is no respectable treatise on the theory of
linguistic interpretation in existence, and no person
whose professional occupation it is to inquire into
these questions and direct *study in the matter. For
grammatical studies do not trespass upon this topic.
Surely systematic investigation of the uses of language
may be expected to improve our actual daily use
of it, at least in the same measure that the study of
plant-physiology may improve agriculture or human
physiology assist medicine or hygiene. There is no
other human activity for which theory bears so small
a proportion to practice. Even the theory of football
has been more thoroughly inquired into. And if we
ask what is most responsible for this neglect, the
answer should probably be ' Vanity '. We are with
difficulty persuaded that we have much to learn
about language, or that our understanding of it is
defective. And this illusion re-forms whenever it is
shattered, though any efficient educational procedure
ought to have no trouble in shattering it as often as
is needed. The first condition for improvement in
the adult's use of language must be to disturb this
ludicrous piece of self-deception.
19. Practical Suggestions. There is little room
for doubt that some progress in this direction can
be made through such experiments as the one upon
which this book is based. We are quicker to detect
our own errors when they are duplicated by our
fellows, and readier to challenge a pretension when
it is worn by another. But the logic of the situation
can be made in time too strong even for the vainest.
And when a systematic publicity is given to these
ordinary phenomena of misinterpretation that usually
336 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
remain so cunningly hidden, the stoutest self-
confidence is shaken. Language is primarily a social
product, and it is not surprising that the best way
to display its action is through the agency of a group.
The only way perhaps to change our attitude to
language is to accumulate enough evidence as to the
degree to which it can be misunderstood. But the
evidence must not only be accumulated, it must be
pressed home. The wild interpretations of others
must not be regarded as the antics of incompetents,
but as dangers that we ourselves only narrowly
escape, if, indeed, we do. We must see in the mis-
readings of others the actualisation of possibilities
threatened in the early stages of our own readings.
The only proper attitude is to look upon a successful
interpretation, a correct understanding, as a triumph
against odds. We must cease to regard a misinter-
pretation as a mere unlucky accident. We must
treat it as the normal and probable event.
But this distrustful attitude takes us but a little
way towards a cure. We must, if possible, gain some
power of diagnosis, some understanding of the risks
that interpretations run, and some capacity to detect
what has occurred. This may be considered too
abstruse and baffling a matter, bad enough for the
determined adult, and self-condemning as an educa-
tional suggestion. The reply is that those who think
so have probably forgotten how abstruse and baffling
every subject is until it has been studied and the
best methods of learning it and of teaching it have
been worked out. It would have seemed fairly
absurd if somebody in the seventeenth century had
suggested that the Method of Fluxions (though with
an improved notation) could be profitably studied
by schoolboys, and not very long ago Elementary
Biology would have seemed a very odd subject to
teach to children. With innumerable such in-
stances behind us, we ought to hesitate before deciding
SUMMARY 337
that a Theory of Interpretation in some slightly more
advanced and simplified form (with perhaps a new
notation and nomenclature to help it) may not quite
soon take the foremost place in the literary subjects
of all ordinary schools. No one would pretend that
the the- ry as it is propounded in this book is ready,
as it s^nds, for immediate and wide application.
But a very strong case can, I think, be made out,
both for the need and the possibility of practical
steps towards applying it. No one who considers
the protocols closely, or considers with candour his
own capacity to interpret complex language, will, I
think, deny the need. As to the possibility, the only
improvements in training that can be suggested must
be based upon a closer study of meaning and of the
causes of unnecessary misunderstanding.
This, then, may be made a positive recommenda-
tion, that an inquiry into language no longer con-
fused with the grammarian's inquiry into syntax
and into comparative linguistic morphology, or with
the logician's or the philologist's studies be re-
cognised as a vital branch of research, and treated no
longer as the peculiar province of the whimsical
amateur.
But it is possible without too much rashness to go
further. However incomplete, tentative, or, indeed,
speculative we may consider our present views on
this subject, they are far enough advanced to justify
some experimental applications, if not in the school
period then certainly at the Universities. If it be
replied that there is no time for an additional subject,
we can answer by challenging the value of the time
at present spent in extensive reading. A very slight
improvement in the capacity to understand would so
immensely increase the value of this time that part
of it would be exchanged with advantage for direct
training in reading. This applies quite as much to
such studies as economics, psychology, political
Y
338 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
theory, theology, law or philosophy, as to literature.
For though the material handled in this book has
not allowed me to demonstrate it (except perhaps in
ways which I should deplore), quite as many readers
blunder unnecessarily over intricate argumentation
and exposition as over poetry. And a direct study
of interpretation here can be made quite as useful.
The incidental training that every one is supposed to
receive in the course of studying other subjects is
too fragmentary, accidental and unsystematic to
serve this purpose. Sooner or later interpretation
will have to be recognised as a key-subject. But
only the actual effort to teach such a subject can reveal
how it may best be taught.
There is this to be added in favour of the subject.
It enlists at once a natural interest, a cousin belonging
to that family of interests which govern the cross-
word puzzle, acrostics and detective fiction. And
a type of curiosity about words and their meanings
that infants and primitive savages share with sophisti-
cated philologists (very different from a psychological
interest in the problem of meaning, and sometimes in
conflict with it), can also be engaged with discretion.
Thus, although it would probably be wisest to begin
with advanced classes in the Universities, it would be
rash to say how far from the Elementary School we
need in the end stop.
20. The Decline in Speech. My suggestion is that
it is not enough to learn a language (or several
languages), as a man may inherit a business, but that
we must learn, too, how it works. And by ' learning
how it works ', I do not mean studying its rules of
syntax or its grammar, or wandering about in its
lexicography two inquiries that have hitherto
diverted attention from the central issue. 1 I mean
1 There is no intention here to diminish the importance of grammar,
which is nowadays not overestimated by teachers, but rather to insist
that grammar does not cover the whole subject of interpretation.
SUMMARY 339
by ' learning how it works ', study of the kinds of
meaning that language handles, their connection
with one another, their interferences ; in brief, the
psychology of the speech-situation. The parallel
with the case of a man inheriting a business can be
followed a little further. Some generations ago,
when businesses were simpler and more separate,
the owner could carry one on by rule of thumb or
by a mere routine proficiency without troubling
himself much about general industrial or economic
conditions. It is not so now. Similarly, when man
lived in small communities, talking or reading, on
the whole, only about things belonging to his own
culture, and dealing only with ideas and feelings
familiar to his group, the mere acquisition of his
language through intercourse with his fellows was
enough to give him a good command of it. A better
command, both as speaker and listener, than any but
a few happy persons can boast to-day. For a decline
can be noticed in perhaps every department of
literature, from the Epic to the ephemeral Magazine.
The most probable reasons for this are the increased
size of our * communities ' (if they can still be so
called, when there remains so little in common), and
the mixtures of culture that the printed word has
caused. Our everyday reading and speech now
handles scraps from a score of different cultures.
I am not referring here to the derivations of our
words they have always been mixed but to the
fashion in which we are forced to pass from ideas
and feelings that took their form in Shakespeare's
time or Dr Johnson's time to ideas and feelings of
Edison's time or Freud's time and back again. More
troubling still, our handling of these materials varies
from column to column of the newspaper, descending
from the scholar's level to the kitchen-maid's.
The result of this heterogeneity is that for all kinds
of utterances our performances, both as speakers (or
340 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
writers) and listeners (or readers), are worse than
those of persons of similar natural ability, leisure and
reflection a few generations ago. Worse in all four
language functions, less faithful to the thought, less
discriminating with the feeling, cruder in tone and
more blurred in intention. We defend ourselves
from the chaos that threatens us by stereotyping
and standardising both 'our utterances and our
interpretations. And this threat, it must be insisted,
can only grow greater as world communications,
through the wireless and otherwise, improve.
21. Prose. If this decline and its explanation
are accepted, and I do not think many students
either of literary history or of current sociology will
deny them, the moral is clear. A more conscious
and deliberate effort to master language is imperative.
Since mere practice under these conditions is- in-
sufficient, we must look to theory to help us. We
must make ourselves more aware of how the language
we so much depend upon works. It is important to
realise that these deficiencies in our use of words
cripple prose quite as much as poetry. Poetry, with
its direct means of conveying feelings and its meta-
phorical modes, suffers especially from certain types
of misinterpretation, but prose, the prose of dis-
cussion, reflection and research, the prose by which
we try to grapple intellectually with a too bewildering
world, suffers quite as much from other confusions.
Every interesting abstract word (apart from those
that have been nailed down to phenomena by the
experimental sciences) is inevitably ambiguous yet
we use them daily with the pathetic confidence of
children. A few terms in these pages have had some
of their ambiguities displayed meaning, belief, sin-
cerity, sentimentality, rhythm, understanding, and so
forth but scores of others which deserve the same
treatment have been used in apparent innocence,
SUMMARY 341
and no fully satisfactory account of poetry can be
forthcoming until their ambiguities have been ex-
posed.
But a more considered technique of discussion has
a wider importance. Our opinions about poetry do
not much differ in type from our opinions about
many other topics ; and all such opinions are very
liable to ambiguity. The* methods I have here tried
to apply to critical questions, have to be applied to
questions of morals, political theory, logic, economics,
metaphysics, religion and psychology, both for pur-
poses of research and in higher education. Only by
comparing a given opinion, or its verbal formula if
you like, as it is applied by many minds to many
different matters, do we get an opportunity to
observe its ambiguities and analyse them systematic-
ally. But this is an opportunity that we need no
little hardihood to embrace. Dread of the bewilder-
ment that might ensue if we recognised and investi-
gated the inevitable ambiguity of almost all verbal
formulae is probably a strong reason for our general
reluctance to admit it. For this is one of the most
unpopular truths that can be uttered.
Therefore, we hide it away as often as is possible,
and make the most of those occasions in which the
ambiguity of our speech is reduced to the minimum.
So long as we stay in the realm of things which can
be counted, weighed and measured, or pointed to,
or actually seen with the eyes or touched by the
fingers, all goes well. And beyond this realm, such
things as can be inferred from observations of
measurable and touchable things, as the physicist
infers his molecules and atoms, such things lend
themselves to unambiguous discussion. And in yet a
third region, the region of ordinary conversation,
with its vague meanings that are ruled by social
conventions talk about sport, literature, politics,
news, personalities and the rest we manage moder-
342 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
ately well, because our meanings are so large and
vague that they can hardly help engaging with one
another. But let such conversation improve (or
degenerate, the point of view varies), let an attempt
at precision be made let the question be mooted
whether so and so really is an ' intelligent ' or
* intuitive ' person, and in what his intelligence or
intuitiveness precisely consists ; or the question
whether it really is * right ' or not to pay different
kinds of work with different wages ; or the question
whether this or that poem is ' romantic ' ; or the
question whether this or that composition is poetry ;
or almost any of the questions discussed in these
pages and another state of affairs soon appears.
Before long we begin ' mistaking one another's
points ', ' failing to understand one another's posi-
tions ', ' seeing no justification whatever for one
another's assertions ', ' quite misconceiving one an-
other's arguments ', ' utterly misrepresenting per-
fectly obvious matters of fact ', ' introducing bare-
faced equivocations into the discussion J , * saying
things that no honest and sensible person could
possible mean ', and generally behaving like a mixed
assembly of half-wits and scamps. The full situation,
however, only develops if we are serious, sincere and
pertinacious persons who are determined to * see the
discussion through to the end ' the only end which
such discussions unfortunately can as yet attain.
Ordinarily some degree of mental youth is needed
if the full harvest of mutual misunderstanding is to
be garnered. More mature intelligences tend to
retreat at an earlier stage and reserve the more exact
statement of their opinions for other occasions. Even
then, at a course of lectures, for example, or before
the pages of a monograph, the ironical student of
communication finds occasion to indulge his per-
verted tastes. Let the listeners or the readers be
suitably questioned, and again the old story has to
SUMMARY 343
be told. There can be few who have ever attempted
by word or pen to expound any general subject with
precision who have not had ample opportunity to
admit that the satisfaction they gained from saying
what they had to say must be offset by the pain of
contemplating the other things which they have been
supposed to have said.
If I am overrating thesfe difficulties it is to a less
degree than they are customarily and conventionally
underrated. They increase in proportion as our
effort towards wide and precise communication in-
creases, and it is very necessary to find a means of
avoiding them. I have written at length about this
necessity elsewhere, and will not labour the point
further here. The escape does not lie through the
avoidance of abstract discussion or the relegation
of such matters to specialists, for it is precisely the
specialists who most indulge in mutual misunder-
standing (cf. The Meaning of Meaning, Chs. VI
and VIII). It does not lie in stricter definition of
leading terms and a more rigid adherence to them
this is the * militarist ' solution of the problem raised
by the fact that people's minds do not all work alike.
It fails, because the other people cannot really be so
easily persuaded to adopt our point of view. At the
worst they will seem to. The only way out does, in
fact, lie in the opposite direction, not in greater
rigidity but in greater suppleness. The mind that
can shift its view-point and still keep its orientation,
that can carry over into quite a new set of definitions
the results gained through past experience in other
frameworks, the mind that can rapidly and without
strain or confusion perform the systematic trans-
formations required by such a shift, is the mind of
the future. It may be objected that there are very
few such minds. But have we ever attempted to
train them ? The whole linguistic training we
receive at present is in the other direction, towards
344 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
supplying us with one or other of a number of
frameworks of doctrine into which we are taught to
force all the material we would handle.
This omnipresent ambiguity of abstract terms,
when we reflect upon it, may well appear to present
insuperable difficulties for the speculative appre-
hension of the world. Even the fundamental terms
by which we might seek *to define and limit these
equivocations betray us. For mind, cause , thing,
event, time, space and even datum, all on inspection
reveal varieties of possible and actual meanings. As
analysis proceeds, any coherent intellectual outlook
will derive more and more from the order we can
maintain among distinctions that become increasingly
abstract and intangible, and therefore more word-
dependent. With a confused or self-conflicting out-
look it is not easy to live well, but many good minds
are not in health to-day without some general world-
picture.
This again, unless we can call in the theory of
meanings to our help, is a condition which is more
likely to grow worse than to improve, as the con-
ceptions of present-day physics and psychology pass
into the stream of general speculation. But certainly
for most types of discussion and reflection the theory
of meaning can help us. By pointing out the system-
atic character of much ambiguity or by tracing the
process of abstraction, for example, by preparing us
to distinguish between those * philosophical ' utter-
ances, which are really expressions of feeling, and
statements that claim to be true, and by accustoming
us to look not for one meaning but for a number of
related meanings whenever we encounter trouble-
some words. And even for this puzzling branch
of the study of interpretation, exercises not too
difficult for practical application in education can be
devised.
It may be thought that these equivocations among
SUMMARY 345
abstractions betray only philosophers, amateur or
professional, and that, therefore, they are of no
great moment. But it is not so. One has only to
glance at any controversy proceeding in the corre-
spondence columns of the weeklies and watch the
proceedings of men of eminence and intelligence at
grips, for example, with the distinction between
Prose and Poetry, or between Rhythm and Metre,
to see clearly that even in simple discussions a better
general technique for handling two or more defini-
tions of the same word is badly needed. Without
such a technique, confusion, or at best narrowness
of outlook, is unavoidable. The habit of beginning
a statement with ' Poetry is so and so ', instead of
with, 'I am defining " poetry " as " so and so"',
constantly stultifies even the most intelligent and
determined efforts towards mutual understanding.
It would be interesting to know how many persons who
interest themselves in these matters can carry even
three mutually incompatible definitions of * poetry '
in their heads simultaneously. And, at least, three
definitions would be needed for a satisfactory dis-
cussion of the differences between Prose and Poetry.
Yet the trick of analysing them and the effort of
memory required to carry them over intact are not
more difficult than those involved in mental arith-
metic. The difference that we all notice is grounded
in the fact that we receive no systematic training
in multiple definition, and so the required attitude
towards words is hardly ever developed. At the
best it remains a temporary, instable, precarious
attitude, and we succumb easily to the temptation
of supposing our ' adversary ' to be in obvious error
when, in fact, he may merely be using words for the
moment in another sense from our own. 1 To the
eye of an intelligence perfectly emancipated from
1 This is not to say that error is not frequent. But we must know
what is being said before we can convict it of error.
346 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
words, most of our discussions would appear like the
manoeuvres of three dimensional beings who for
some reason believed themselves to exist only in two
dimensions.
22. Critical Fog. Partly for this reason our
current reflective attitudes to poetry contain an
undue proportion of bewilderment. It is regarded
too often as a mystery. There are good and evil
mysteries ; or rather there is mystery and mystery-
mongering. That is mysterious which is inexplicable,
or ultimate in so far as our present means of inquiry
cannot explain it. But there is a spurious form of
mysteriousness which arises only because our ex-
planations are confused or because we overlook or
forget the significance of what we have already under-
stood. And there are many who think that they are
serving the cause of poetry by exploiting these diffi-
culties that every complex explanation presents.
They are perhaps under the impression that ' to
explain ' must mean * to explain away '. But this is
to show a poor respect for poetry. Since we no
longer receive by tradition any proper introduction
to it, explanations, when explanation is possible, are
needed. At present, gross general misunderstand-
ings are certainly poetry's worst enemies. And these
confusions have been encouraged by those who like
to regard the whole matter, and every detail of it, as
an incomprehensible mystery because they suppose
that this is a ' poetic ' way of looking at it. But
muddled-mindedness is in no respectable sense
' poetic ', though far too many persons seem to think
so. What can be explained about poetry can be
separated from what cannot ; and at innumerable
points an explanation can help us both to understand
what kind of thing poetry in general is, and to under-
stand particular passages. As to the truly mysterious
aspect of poetry that ' leaning of the will ' in virtue
SUMMARY 347
of which we choose what we shall accept or reject
we are not likely to approach an explanation within
any foreseeable period . And when the human intellect
does reach a stage at which this problem is solved,
there will perhaps be no need to fear this or any
other result of investigation. We ought by then to
have learned enough about our minds to do with
them what we will. 1
23. Subjectivity. This distinction between what
can and what cannot be explained is not quite equiva-
lent to the distinction between what can and what
cannot be argued about profitably in criticism. A
difference in opinion or taste may be due to a mis-
understanding of the meaning of a passage on one
side of the dispute or both. But it may be due to an
opposition of temperaments, to some difference in
the direction of our interests. If so, discussion may
perhaps make this difference clearer, but it is hardly
likely to bridge it. We must admit that when our
interests are developing in opposed directions we
cannot agree in our ultimate valuations and choices.
Unless we are to become most undesirably
standardised, differences of opinion about poetry
must continue differences, not only between in-
dividuals, but between successive phases in the growth
of the same personality. As any attitude is genuinely
1 It is instructive to conjecture what would be the major interests
of such an infinitely plastic mind. Being, by hypothesis, able to
become any kind of mind at will, the question 'What kind of mind
shall I choose to be?' would turn into an experimental matter ; and
the process of surveying and comparing the possibilities of experience
from all the relevant different 'personalities' (with varying degrees
of dominance of the intellectual, emotional, and active components
perhaps, and with different degrees of projection, self-awareness, etc.)
would occupy much attention. Our present critical activities would
compare with those of such a mind much as the physical conceptions
and experimental technique of an Aristotle compare with these of an
Eddington. We are still far from a General Theory of Critical
Relativity, but at least we are reaching the point of knowing how
much we shall soon come to need one.
348 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
and enthusiastically taken up, it inevitably appears
to be the right attitude, and the perception that
accompanies it seems sagacious, penetrating and
illuminating. Until, for obscure reasons, the mind
changes, finds itself with different interests and a new
outlook. All emotional development, in an active
mind that retains any remembrance of its past, must
appear a jerky and inconsequent process. What will
be thought or felt next year seems uncertain, for
what seemed fundamental last year seems to-day
hardly worth notice. This is not a description of the
neurotic temperament, but of the vigilant, living,
growing individual.
But this shifting, because living, basis for all
literary responses does not force us, as some in-
tellectual defeatists, misled by the word ' subjective ',
may suppose, to an agnostic or indifferentist position.
Every response is ' subjective ' in the sense that it is
a psychological event determined by the needs and
resources of a mind. But this does not imply that
one is not better than another. We may also grant
that what is good for one mind may not be good for
another in a different condition with different needs
and in a different situation. Nevertheless the funda-
mental question of values, the better or worse, does
not lose any of its significance. We have only
shifted it to a clearer ground. Instead of an illusory
problem about values supposed to inhere in poems
which, after all, are only sets of words we have a
real problem about the relative values of different
states of mind, about varying forms, and degrees, of
order in the personality. * If you look deeply into
the ultimate essentials of this art, you will find that
what is called " the flower " has no separate existence.
Were it not for the spectator who reads into the
performance a thousand excellences, there would be
no " flower " at all. The Sutra says, " Good and ill
are one ; villainy and honesty are of like kind ".
SUMMARY 349
Indeed, what standard have we whereby to discern
good from bad ? We can only take what suits the
need of the moment and call it good/ 1 One man's
need is not another's, yet the question of values still
remains. What we take we do indeed judge accord-
ing to ' the need of the moment ', but the value of
this momentary need itself is determined by its place
among and its transactiortfe with our other needs.
And the order and precedence among our needs
incessantly changes for better or worse.
Our traditional ideas as to the values of poetry
given us automatically if poetry is set apart from life,
or if poems are introduced to us from the beginning
as either good or bad, as * poetry ' or ' not poetry '
misrepresent the facts and raise unnecessary diffi-
culties. It is less important to like ' good ' poetry
and dislike ' bad ', than to be able to use them both
as a means of ordering our minds. It is the quality
of the reading we give them that matters, not the
correctness with which we classify them. For it is
quite possible to like the * wrong ' poems and dislike
the ' right ' ones for reasons which are excellent.
Here our educational methods are glaringly at fault,
creating a shibboleth situation that defeats its pur-
pose. So long as we feel that the judgment of
poetry is a social ordeal, and that our real responses
to it may expose us to contempt, our efforts, even
after passing the gate, will not take us far. But
most of our responses are not real, are not our own,
and this is just the difficulty.
24. Humility. If the specimens of contemporary
judgments given in Part II have no other uses,
they will, at least, do us this service : that those
who have read carefully through them will be for a
little while after less impressionable by literary
1 Seami Motokiyo (A.D. 1363-1444). Quoted from Waley, The Nd
Plays of Japan, p. 22.
350 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
judgments, however confidently or trenchantly ex-
pressed, less dogmatic, less uncharitable, less subject
also to floating opinion. ' I know not how it is ',
wrote Matthew Arnold, ' but their commerce with
the ancients appears to me to produce, in those who
constantly practise it, a steadying and composing
effect upon their judgment, not of literary works
only, but of men and eVents in general. They are
like persons who have had a very weighty and im-
pressive experience : they are more truly than others
under the empire of facts, and more independent of
the language current among those with whom they
live '. It would be absurd to compare the effects
upon our minds of the masterpieces of antiquity
with those that an attentive scrutiny of these scraps
of literary opinion may produce. But there is an
obverse aspect to every human achievement. And
there is in the inner history of every opinion, if we
can examine it and compare it with the other opinions
it so narrowly missed becoming, a spring of ironical
comedy. The confluence of many such rivulets
might well have both a cleansing and a ' steadying
and composing effect upon the judgment '. We
might become less easily imposed upon by our
fellows and by ourselves.
Some discipline that will preserve us from these
twin dangers we badly need. As the finer parts of
our emotional tradition relax in the expansion and
dissolution of our communities, and as we discover
how far out of our intellectual depth the flood-tide
of science is carrying us so far that not even the
giants can still feel bottom we shall increasingly
need every strengthening discipline that can be
devised. If we are neither to swim blindly in schools
under the suggestion of fashion, nor to shudder into
paralysis before the inconceivable complexity of
existence, we must find means of exercising our
power of choice. The critical reading of poetry is
SUMMARY 351
an arduous discipline ; few exercises reveal to us
more clearly the limitations under which, from
moment to moment, we suffer. But, equally, the
immense extension of our capacities that follows a
summoning of our resources is made plain. The
lesson of all criticism is that we have nothing to rely
upon in making our choices but ourselves. The
lesson of good poetry se&ms to be that, when we
have understood it, in the degree in which we can
order ourselves, we need nothing more.
APPENDIX A
i. Further Notes on Meaning.
Function 2 (feeling) and Function 3 (tone) are probably more
primitive than either Function i (sense), or the more deliberate
explicit forms of Function 4 (intention). Originally language
may have been almost pu r ely emotive ; that is to say a means of
expressing feelings about situations (the danger cry), a means of
expressing interpersonal attitudes (cooing, growling, etc.), and
a means of bringing about concerted action (compare the
rhythmical grunts that a number of individuals will utter while
pulling together at some heavy object). Its use for statement , as
a more or less neutral means of representing states of affairs, is
probably a later development. But this later development is
more familiar to us now than the earlier forms, and we tend, when
we reflect upon language, to take this use as the fundamental use.
Hence perhaps in a large degree our difficulty in distinguishing
clearly between them. And when we are expressing feeling and
tone in comparative purity we are usually not in a mood to make
abstract inquiries into our uses of language. This is another
difficulty.
If Sir Richard Paget's recent views are accepted, sense (the
descriptive indication of states of affairs) would however be very
primitive in language indeed. If we suppose, that is, that a great
deal of speech from the beginning has been an equivalent by
means of gestures (movements) made with the organs of speech
for descriptive gestures earlier made by the hands. Certainly
we must admit that the sounds and movements of many words
and phrases do seem even still to correspond significantly with
their sense. And this correspondence probably gives them an
important power of bringing their sense concretely before our
minds, of making us * realise ' what they mean this realisation,
however, being very largely an awakening of feelings.
In much poetry as has often been remarked language tends
to return towards a more primitive condition : a word like iron,
for example, exciting, in poetry, a set of feelings rather than
thoughts of the physical properties of that material, and a word
like spirit evoking certain attitudes rather than ontological
7 353
354 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
reflections. Hence Function i, as we know it in its developed
form in strict prose discussion, frequently appears to lapse in
poetry. Or it returns there to that vaguer kind of reference by
which we speak of This or That, not as objects having the pro-
perties by which, if challenged, we might in some science define
them, but as objects of a kind towards which we have certain
attitudes and feelings, or objects that have this or that effect
upon us. This vagueness is very frequently misunderstood in
poetry. It is due to a replacement of scientific classifications by
emotive classifications. We make use of external properties in
place of internal properties the effects produced by objects on
us, instead of qualities inherent in the objects. But these emotive
classifications are in their own way very strict and definite. Thus
incoherence in the thought of poetry, though it cannot be demon-
strated by the same means as incoherence in a logical exposition,
can be inquired into once we have grasped the principle at work.
But thought governed by emotive classifications is still thought,
and with words so used Function i (sense), though not in the
most obvious way, may still be dominant. More puzzling
situations arise when the whole aspect of words as conveying
thought is either abrogated or subordinated. Let us take
the case of complete abrogation of thought first. * How do you
do ? ' as uttered on most occasions is an excellent example. It
has ceased to be an inquiry and become a social ritual, its function
being to adjust the tone of intercourse between two people. It is
analogous on a small scale to the spirit-calming ceremonies with
which the Japanese begin some of their greater rites. So is it
with ' Dear Sir ' and * Yours sincerely '. To a less degree,
weather-talk and much conversation about current affairs fill the
same need. In poetry, Function 2, rather than Function 3, is
usually responsible for this abrogation, this reduction of what
looks like sense to nonsense. The * meaningless ' refrains of many
ballads are the obvious example subtler forms of Hurrah I and
Alas I More usually the sense is negligible rather than nonsense
such that though a scheme of sense could be given to the words
it is not sufficiently relevant to make the effort worth while.
Much diction in songs is of this kind, and it is not a demerit.
Subordination (as opposed to abrogation) of sense is nearly
omnipresent in poetry. The poet makes a statement about
something, not in order that the statement may be examined and
reflected upon, but in order to evoke certain feelings, and when
these are evoked the use of the statement is exhausted. It is
idle and irrelevant to consider the statement further. This is
a hard saying for those whose habit it is to look for inspiring
messages in poetry, but this habit frequently leads to a profanation
of poetry.
APPENDIX 355
The frequent independence of poetry from what it says
(Function i) is clearly shown in many odes, elegies and celebra-
tions. Perhaps very little that is said in Dry den's Ode to the
Pious Memory of the Accomplished Young Lady, Mrs Anne
Killigrew, is true ; perhaps Dryden himself had in fact no such
opinion of these accomplishments as he there expressed. Perhaps
Milton was not thinking very closely about Edward King in
composing Lycidas. Perhaps Burns when writing Ae Fond Kiss
was only too glad to part from the lady for whom it was written.
Perhaps neither Shelley nor Victor Hugo deserved in fact half
what Swinburne wrote about them. But whether what was
written was good or bad is unaffected by these doubts. The
identity of the addressee is irrelevant to the poetry as poetry.
As biography or as criticism it would be all important. This is
not to say that a certain amount of knowledge about the addressees
may not be useful to the reader in understanding the poet, but
it ought not to be used to condemn or to exalt the poem. These
remarks apply evidently to some of the comments on Poems IX
and XI.
Taking now the converse case when Function 2 is subordinated
to Function i. Whatever noble, elevated, moral or otherwise
admirable sentiments may be explicitly stated by the poet, they
are clearly not to be taken as proof of his lofty poetic stature.
The reception of Poem I and some of the comments on Poems V
and XI may help to preserve us from this danger. It is easy to
insist that our feelings are interesting, it is less easy to prove it.
It is easier to describe them than to present them. For if we
are to present them, a natural not an artificial form of utterance
must be found. We must not only state our feelings but express
them. And the fact that a poet is stating them is almost in
itself suspicious at least it is with much Georgian verse of the
anecdotal nature-description kind. A poet who is conscious of
his feelings in a form in which he can describe them and analyse
them is in some danger. Another step and he is mentally inside
out, as so many contemporary intellectual emotionalists are.
There is a big difference between controlling and conveying
feelings and talking about them.
2. Intention.
Intention may be thought a more puzzling function than the
others. We may admit the distinctions between sense, feeling
and tone, but consider that between them they cover the uses of
language, and that to speak of intention as a fourth additional
function is to confuse matters. There is some justification for
this. None the less there are plenty of cases, especially in drama,
in dramatic lyrics, in fiction which has a dramatic structure, in
z*
356 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
some forms of irony, in writings of the detective type whether
of the order of Conan Doyle or of Henry James when this
additional function may assist our analysis. Where conjecture,
or the weight of what is left unsaid, is the writer's weapon, it
seems unnatural to bring this under the heading of sense (or
statement). The false trail or misleading hope may be due not
to anything the writer has said or to any feelings he has expressed,
but merely to the order and degree of prominence that he has
given to various parts of his composition. And when we have
admitted this, it is no long step to admitting that the form or
construction or development of a work may frequently have
a significance that is not reducible to any combination of our
other three functions. This significance is then the author's
intention.
But there is a better way of showing how constantly intention
intervenes. It controls the relations among themselves of the
other three functions. We have seen that to read poetry success-
fully we must constantly distinguish the case where sense is
autonomous from the case when it is in subjection to feeling.
Sometimes the sense is the most important thing in a line of
verse, and our feelings take their quality from it. Verses 1-5
of Poem X may be instanced. What is said there, the sense, is
the source of the feeling. But with verse 6, distortion, in the
form of exaggeration, begins. Feeling is subordinating sense to
its own ends. The distortion, provided we realise to some
degree what is happening, then produces other reciprocal dis-
tortions in the feeling. These alternations in the precedence of
sense and feeling we apprehend as a rule automatically, by an
acquired tact. 1 We may not explicitly remark them. If we had to
describe them we might perhaps say that one verse was * serious ',
another * not quite serious ' or ' extravagant '. But we do
certainly interpret them differently, and this subtle, extremely
delicate variation in our modes of interpreting different passages
of poetry is what I hope to bring out.
Another example is provided by those worthy people who
refuse to leave any utterance of Hamlet or Lear, however
* distraught ', without extracting some recondite philosophical
import. Any indication of sense can be compared to a man
pointing to something ; and this question can be put by asking
whether we are to look at what he is pointing to or concentrate
our attention on his gestures. For example, in Pope's Elegy to
the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, the poet's eye is very plainly
on himself and on his reader rather than on the imaginary
1 Or as some would say, using a word which now has in these
connections only an obfuscatory value, 4 instinctively.'
APPENDIX 357
object, and the reader should follow him in this, otherwise such
lines as
So flew the soul to its congenial place,
Nor left one virtue to redeem her race.
Cold is the breast which warmed the world before,
and
Thus, if eternal Justice rules the ball,
Thus shall your wives and thus your children fall ;
On all the line a sudden vengeance waits,
And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates . . .
ought certainly to produce effects very unlike those which Pope
intended. But examples are innumerable. Whether we proceed
from the sense to the feeling or vice versa, or take them simul-
taneously, as often we must, may make a prodigious difference in
the effect, altering not only the internal structure of the Total
Meaning, but even such apparently unconnected features as the
sound of the words.
Of this last fact ' vaporous vitiate air ', the much disputed
phrase from the last verse of Poem XI, may serve as an instance.
What may appear to a first reading as a displeasing and atfected
piece of mouthing, may as the first strain put upon the sense by
the feeling relaxes, and the return effect of the notion of spiritual
climates upon the feeling develops come to seem not only natural
but even inevitable as sound. It may, however, be more obvious
that Poem 1 was interpreted by some readers primarily in terms of
sense and by others primarily in terms of feeling, the divisions of
opinion as to its merits being also determined by the way in which
its tone was interpreted. The protocols of Poem VI supply
further excellent material for tracing these variations. Sense,
tone and feeling being there very exquisitely adjusted, clumsy
reading has evident effects upon the apprehension both of meaning
and form.
3, Esthetic Adjectives.
These aesthetic or * projectile ' adjectives and their corre-
sponding abstract substantives raise several extraordinarily
interesting questions. I can only indicate them here for even
an outline discussion would require a whole volume. In so far
as they register the projection of a feeling into an object they
carry a double function at least and give rise to a systematic
series of ambiguities. 1 We may take such a word as beauty either
as standing for some inherent property (or set of properties) in
1 Hence arise those special difficulties in discussion labelled in The
Meaning of Meaning (Ch. VI) as due to the Utraquistic Subterfuge.
358 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
the object said to be beautiful ; or as standing for an emotive
classification (i.e., placing the object in the class of things that
affect us in a certain way) ; or, thirdly, as expressing the occurrence
of a certain feeling in the speaker. Obviously the word may very
well be doing all three simultaneously. Which of them has
priority in any case may depend upon the degree of reflection and
the direction of sophistication in the speaker.
It may make this linguistic situation clearer if we compare
three examples that show different degrees of projection. Let
us take pleasant first. Few would maintain that all pleasant things
possess any peculiar property in common, except that of causing
(under suitable conditions) pleasure in suitable persons. The
tendency to projection here though the grammatical form
supports it is slight. We all agree that when we say * this is
pleasant ' we might equally well say * this is pleasing ' (to me,
as I am, and to folk like me in these conditions), without any
consciousness of a change of meaning. And correspondingly we
agree easily that what may be pleasant on one occasion may not
be pleasant on another or to a different person.
Now consider pretty. If we say that something or someone is
pretty, we do seem to be doing more than merely saying that we
are affected by it or her in a certain fashion. Pretty things do
seem to have some property in common that is perhaps peculiar
to them, though it is extremely hard to discover what it can be
that can belong in common to landscapes, kittens, book-bindings,
geisha and tunes, and to nothing that is not pretty. Moreover,
what seems pretty as a rule goes on seeming pretty to us. If the
thing remains the same itself, no very obvious changes in the
mere conditions, provided we can still attend to it, suffice to make
it seem no longer pretty. All this shows that the projection in
this case is much more pronounced and more stable. None the
less, if challenged, few people would maintain that there is in
fact an objective, inherent quality or property, namely prettiness,
which belongs to certain things quite apart from their effects
upon our minds, a quality that, as it were, independently makes
them pretty. The very termination -ness (compare pleasantness ,
prettiness, loveliness, ugliness, attractiveness), is, perhaps, a slight
indication too, but not one to be relied upon, of the middle stage
at which the projection remains.
A further degree of projection is found with beautiful. Half
at least of the literature of aesthetics is a proof that we find it
exceedingly difficult not to believe that some simple or complex
property does in fact reside in all the things however different
in other respects they may be that we correctly call beautiful.
And this inherent property, Beauty, is, we tend to think, inde-
pendent of any effects .upon our minds or other minds and
APPENDIX 359
unaffected by changes in us. Similarly, though with some slight
but curious difference, with sublime (sublimity) and holy (holiness).
Four stages of relative naivety or sophistication may be remarked
in our handling of this word beauty. The least sophisticated
view assumes that, of course, things are beautiful or not in
themselves , just as they are blue or not blue, square or not square
A less naive view plunges to the other extreme and regards beauty
as * altogether subjective ', as perhaps merely equivalent to
* pleasing to the higher senses '. A still more sophisticated view
reconstructs again as a counterblast to this ' subjective view '
a doctrine of real inherent objective tertiary qualities, giving it
a complex philosophical and logical scaffolding and perhaps
venturing some provisional formula as a description of this
property ' unity in variety ', ' logical necessity in structure ',
1 proportions easeful to the apprehension ', and so forth. Lastly
a perhaps still more sophisticated view reduces this formula to
something so vague and general that it ceases to be useful as an
instrument for investigating differences between what is said to
be beautiful and what is not. For example, if we define beautiful ',
as I suggest for this purpose we might, as ' having properties
such that it arouses, under suitable conditions, tendencies to
self-completion in the mind ' (or something more elaborate of
this kind), beauty ceases to be the name of any ascertainable
property in things. It is still objective, it is still the property in
virtue of which the beautiful thing does arouse these tendencies.
But we cannot take these beautiful things and look to see what
they have in common, for in fact they need have nothing in
common (if the conditions are dissimilar) beyond this purely
abstract property of ' being such as to arouse, etc.' In each case
there will be some account that can be given as to how the thing
is beautiful, but no general account will be possible. (Compare
the case of the word lovable. In each case we can perhaps point
to characters which explain why the thing is loved, but we cannot
give any general account of the common and peculiar properties
that all lovable things possess those they all share and which
nothing not lovable possesses.)
This last view clearly does away with our traditional notion
of Beauty as an august embodied principle or power inherent in
beautiful things, and those who hold it will be thought by many
to be cut off * by their barren and materialistic logic-chopping * ?
from a natural source of inspiration. (Similarly materialists
are frequently supposed to be debarred from the appreciation and
use of spiritual values.) But this is a result of a mistaken theory
of poetry and a confusion of poetry with science. It brings us
back to the point at which we started the use of ' projectile '
language.
360 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
When we utter the word Beauty or when we read it, we may,
as we have seen, be making any one of at least three distinct
uses. We may be using it for either of two kinds of senses, or to
express feeling. Whatever view we take philosophically as to the
status of beauty as an inherent objective quality or as to the
process of projection, we are not (this is a fact of observation
not a theoretical position) necessarily deprived of our capacity
to use it as though it stood for such an objective quality, and to
enjoy all the advantages that derive from this usage. It is difficult
for those who have long been accustomed to the idea of beauty
as a projected quality to recall the chill and dismay with which
a first acquaintance with this account may be received. Yet
much of the opposition to psychological aesthetics has this
emotional origin, and it is important to insist that the first numbing
effect wears off. (Similarly with those who feel that it is more
1 poetic ' to regard poetry as a mystic, inexplicable power ; the
feeling can be retained after the obscurantism has been rejected.)
Even though we hold firmly that there is no inherent general
quality ' beauty ' we can still use the word as though there were.
The effects upon our feelings will be the same, once the initial
shock of the mental operation by which we recognise the fact of
projection has passed away. And it is the same with all the rest
of our projectile language. Happily for otherwise the effect
of investigation here would be not only to destroy poetry but to
wreck our whole emotional life.
In some minds, perhaps some such danger is to be feared
minds in which too close a dependence of feelings upon notions
has developed, minds without sufficient intellectual suppleness,
and cut off from the natural sources of emotion and attitude.
But this problem has been discussed in Chapters V and VII.
4. Rhythm and Prosody.
In a recent authoritative work (What is Rhythm ? by E. A.
Sonnenschein) the following definition of rhythm is recommended:
* Rhythm is that property of a sequence of events in time
which produces in the mind of an observer the impression of
proportion between the durations of the several events or groups
of events of which the sequence is composed/ (p. 16.)
A serious objection may be brought against this type of
definition. The property so defined may not be an internal
property of the sequence at all. The impression of proportion
may be due to no character of the object which is regarded as
rhythmical but to some other cause. As some of the phenomena
of opium, nitrous oxide and hashish dreams show, a single
stimulus may give rise to a most definite impression of rhythm.
And, to take a less extreme example, it is a common phenomenon,
APPENDIX 361
noticeable constantly in connection with verse, for the rhythm
attributed to a sequence to be determined less by the configuration
of the sequence than by other factors external to it in poetry
the meanings of the words. It may be granted that usually when
a rhythm is attributed to a sequence by some observer * some
proportion between the durations of the several events in the
sequence ' can be found. But it is doubtful, to say the least,
whether study of the details of these proportions is very useful
if the * impressions of proportipn * they produce are only in part
due to them.
Professor Sonnenschein seems himself to go some way towards
admitting this when he says (p. 35) : ' What we are concerned with
in all manifestations of rhythm is not so much a physical fact
as a psychological fact i.e., the impression made by the physical
fact upon the mind of man through the organs of sense '. My
objection is that he does not make the fact we are concerned with
psychological enough. The processes we have discussed under
the heading The Apprehension of Meaning enter, I believe,
as important factors in the formation of the impression, though,
of course, they do not wholly determine it. The impression is
a compromise.
In any case it is surely the relations of the ascribed rhythm
to the meaning (in its various forms) that is of interest to the
student of poetry, not the characters of the ascribed rhythms in
this respect or that. And though these relations can be felt
(they are, of course, psychological relations, correspondences
between different systems of activity in the mind), and in all
good reading of good poetry they are felt continuously, it is hard
to see how any description of the characters of rhythms, such as
prosodists could supply, could be of any assistance in the matter.
To suppose that we can ever intellectually observe the relation of
a rhythm to a meaning in any example that is poetically interesting,
and with the degree of nicety that would be required if our
observations were to be useful or provide a basis for a scientific
generalisation, is, I believe, to be unwarrantably optimistic. For
apart from the difficulties of measuring the ascribed rhythm, we
should need also in some way to measure the meaning.
To study rhythm in poetry apart from meaning, since meaning
is undoubtedly the controlling factor in the poet's choice of the
rhythmical effects he will produce, seems from this point of view
an enterprise of doubtful value. None the less, certain general
effects of rhythms, mentioned in Principles, Ch. XVII, seem worth
attention. And as a means of indicating to absent persons how
certain verses may be read, prosody has an obvious function.
But even this will soon perhaps be made obsolete by wireless and
the gramophone. And to distinguish the differences in the
362 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
rhythms to be ascribed, for example, to different types of blank
verse is, of course, a valuable accomplishment ; but whether
instruction in prosody can really enable anyone to do this who
could not do it without (or with only the most obvious notation)
is also questionable. If prosody is only a means of directing
a reader's attention to the formal features of verse, then clearly
it long ago reached a stage of development sufficient for this
purpose, and further researches are not required. But if it is
hoped that some correlation may be established, we may ask
* Between what is this correlation to hold and what reasons are
there to expect it ? ' This question seems to have been strangely
neglected, and there has perhaps here been a confusion between
the two senses of law. Indeed it seems possible that the terribly
laborious studies of modern prosodists may in time to come be
placed among the curious displays of misdirected intelligence
and great ability that the history of science so often presents.
* Cette page nuira de plus d'une fagon au malheureux auteur,'
as Stendhal was fond of saying. There may however be other
persons as much in need of instruction as the writer instruction
as to the precise goal or purport of the labours of so many
distinguished men.
5. Visual Images.
The word * visualise ' has been given a metaphorical extension
so that it is often used for ' to think of something in any concrete
fashion '. There is no harm in this, of course, unless it leads us
to suppose that we cannot think concretely without using visual
or other images. But in fact it is possible, for many people, to
think with the utmost particularity and concreteness and yet to
make no use of visual images at all. Sometimes other, non-visual,
imagery is being used instead. Many people think they are
using visual imagery when, in fact, if they examined the matter
more closely, they would discover that kinaesthetic imagery of
movements of the eyeballs has taken its place. But it is also
possible to think concretely without any imagery of any kind, or
at least (for this point is disputed) without imagery corresponding
at all closely to what is being thought of. (This point is not
disputed.) The imagery we use (if we do use any) may be very
sketchy, vague and incoherent, yet our thought may be rich,
detailed and coherent. 1
1 Dogmatic assertions to the contrary are common. 'Thus in
reading poetry one of the first necessities is to visualise, to see clearly
every picture as it is presented by the poet. Without visualising the
poet's words the reader in no sense has before him that which the
poet had at the time of writing. Nor can he in any full sense share
APPENDIX 363
Confusion and prejudice on this point are chiefly due to a too
simple idea of what is necessary for mental representation. Images,
we may think (and traditionally psychologists, too, have thought)
must be required, if absent sights and sounds and so forth are to
be represented in our minds ; because images are the only things
sufficiently like sights and sounds and so forth to represent them.
But this is to confuse representation with resemblance. In order
that a may represent A it is not necessary for a to resemble A
or be a copy of A in any respec^ whatever. It is enough if a has
the same effect upon us, in some respect, as A . Obviously a and A
here have both the effect of making us utter the same sound if we
read them out and they have other effects in common.
This is in outline the way in which words represent things.
In order that a word should represent a thing the word cow
represents a cow it is not necessary that it should call up an
image of a cow that is like a cow ; it is enough if it excite any
considerable set of those feelings, notions, attitudes, tendencies
to action and so forth that the actual perception of a cow may
excite. 1 This clearly is a more general sense of * representation '
which includes * representation ' in the sense of * being a copy J
as a special case.
Words on the whole now, however it may have been in the
his emotion.' J. G. Jennings Metaphor in Poetry, p. 82. The writer's
intention here is excellent, we must read poetry receptively, but his
knowledge of psychology is insufficient.
1 The most fundamental sense of representation (or meaning) is, I
believe, different from this, which may, however, serve sufficiently
well to indicate the case against the copy theory of representation.
(And against Wittgenstein's principle, for example.) What is given
above is, roughly, Mr Bertrand Russell's (1921) view of representation.
The Analysis of Mind, pp. 210, 244. My own view is that a word
represents a thing, not by having similar effects to the thing, but by
having things of that kind among its causes. His view, in brief, was
in terms of 'causal efficacy,' mine in terms of causal origin. In his
Outline of Philosophy (1927), however, Mr Russell combines both
theories (p. 56) with a distinction between active meaning, that of a
man uttering the word, and passive meaning, that of a man hearing
the word. He suggests that Mr Ogden and myself in writing The
Meaning of Meaning neglected passive meaning. I think this is a
misunderstanding, but we do consider active meaning the more
fundamental of the two, since it explains much in passive meaning
and because consideration of it throws more light upon the growth
and development of language. Incidentally we cannot accept Mr
Russell's summary of our view : ' It says that a word and its meaning
have the same causes'. It says, on the contrary, that the meaning is
the cause of the word, in a not quite usual sense of * cause'. (Cf. The
Meaning of Meaning > 2nd Ed., p. 55.) The two accounts need not be
incompatible. They yield, however, two distinct kinds of meaning
and it may on occasion be very important to separate them.
364 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
remote past, do not resemble the things they stand for. None
the less traces of resemblance in the form of onomatopoeia and,
more important perhaps, tongue and lip gesture can be noticed.
We can grant some part of the effect of words in poetry to these
resemblances if we are careful not to overwork them. For the
representative and evocative power of words comes to them more
through not resembling what they stand for than through resembling
it. For the very reason that a word is not like its meaning, it
can represent an enormously wide range of different things.
Now an image (in so far as it represents by being a copy) can only
represent things that are like one another. A word on the other
hand can equally and simultaneously represent vastly different
things. It can therefore effect extraordinary combinations of
feelings. A word is a point at which many very different
influences may cross or unite. Hence its dangers in prose
discussions and its treacherousness for careless readers of poetry,
but hence at the same time the peculiar quasi-magical sway of
words in the hands of a master. Certain conjunctions of words
through their history partly and through the collocations of
emotional influences that by their very ambiguity they effect
have a power over our minds that nothing else can exert or
perpetuate.
It is easy to be mysterious about these powers, to speak of the
* inexplicable ' magic of words and to indulge in romantic reveries
about their semantic history and their immemorial past. But it
is better to realise that these powers can be studied, and that
what criticism most needs is less poeticising and more detailed
analysis and investigation.
APPENDIX B
THE RELATIVE POPULARITY OF THE POEMS
THE following figures (given in percentages) are rough estimates
only, no precision being, under these conditions, attainable. No
reliance should be placed in them and they are intended only as
an indication of the voting. In any case, since the reasons for
liking and disliking the poems are so various, no numerical
estimate could have much significance.
Favourable. Unfavourable. Non-committal.
Poem I 45 37 18
II 5 1 43 6
/// 30 42 28
M IV 53 42 5
V 5 2 35 13
VI 3 1 59 I0
VII 54 3 1 15
VIII 19 66 15
IX 48 41 ii
X 37 36 27
XI 31 42 27
44 33 23
5 92 3
365
APPENDIX C
AUTHORSHIP OF THE POEMS
Poem I. From Festus, by PHILLIP JAMES BAILEY (1816-1902).
Published in 1839.
Poem II. Spring Quiet (1847), by CHRISTINA ROSSETTI (1830-
1894). The word ' go ' (as the third word in the third line)
was accidentally omitted in the version given to the writers
of the protocols.
Poem HI. JOHN DONNE (1573-1631). Holy Sonnets VII.
Probably composed in 1618. The modernised spelling was
adopted in the interests of the experiment.
Poem IV. From More Rough Rhymes of a Padre , by the Rev.
G. A. STUDDERT KENNEDY (" Woodbine Willie "). Pub-
lished by Hodder & Stoughton.
A reference to the War in the first line of the second verse,
which runs in the original :
" But there's winter of war in the evening,"
was disguised by me, and a fifth verse was omitted. I am
greatly in debt to the author, who wrote : " You can use
any of my poems for any purpose you like. The criticisms
of them could not be more adverse and slaughterous than
my own would be."
Poem V. From The Harp-Weaver (1924), by EDNA ST VINCENT
MILLAY. By permission of Messrs Harper & Brothers.
Poem VI. Spring and Fall, to a young child (1880), by GERARD
MANLEY HOPKINS (1845-1889). By permission of Mr
Humphrey Milford.
Poem VII. The Temple from Parentalia and other Poems, by
J. D. C. PELLEW. The author wrote in reply to my request
to be allowed to use this poem : " It is pleasant to know
that I am serving the cause of science ! " By permission of
Mr Humphrey Milford.
367
APPENDIX 368
Poem VIII. Piano, by D. H. LAWRENCE. From Collected Poems
(1928). By permission of Mr Martin Seeker.
Poem IX. For the Eightieth Birthday of George Meredith, by
ALFRED No YES. I took the version used from the anthology
Shorter Lyrics of the Twentieth Century (1900-1922), selected
by Mr W. H. Davies. The final version (see p. 119) is
published by Messrs Wm. Blackwood & Sons.
Poem X. By G. H. LUCE, in Cambridge Poetry, An Anthology
(1900-1913). Published by W. Heffer & Sons.
Poem XL George Meredith (1828-1909), by THOMAS HARDY.
By permission of Messrs Macmillan & Co.
Poem XII. From Ivory Palaces (1925), by WILFRED ROWLAND
CHILDE. Published by Messrs Kegan Paul & Co.
Poem XIII. In the Churchyard at Cambridge, by HENRY WADS-
WORTH LONGFELLOW. Cambridge, Massachusetts, of course.
APPENDIX C
AUTHORSHIP OF THE POEMS
The reader is advised not to make himself
acquainted with the contents of this
Appendix until Part II has been studied.
369
INDEX
lus, 271.
Alpinism, 122.
Ambiguity, 34-45-
American Language, 28, 115, 167.
Aristotle, 12.
Arnold, Matthew, 350.
Assumption, 273-75-
Bain, A., 257.
" Beautiful," 221, 357-60,
Behaviourism, 322, 323.
Belief, 185, 271, 300.
Belief, Intellectual versus emotional,
274-77.
Bergson, 255, 268.
Blake, 164, 272, 302.
Blood, B. P., 13-
Bradley, A. C., 188.
Brooke, Rupert, 73, 79.
Browne, Sir Thomas, 88.
Browning, 65, 73, 78, 85, 88, 150.
Bubis, 177.
Burns, 60, 355.
Butler, Bishop, 153.
Butler, Samuel, 166.
Byron, 258, 262.
Cacophony, 135.
Carroll, Lewis, 140.
Chemistry, 158.
Chinese Poetry, 1 36.
Coleridge, 199, 272, 277, 3 2 3-
Colour, 124.
Common sense, 197.
Confucius, 279, 284, 292, 323.
Concentration, 173, 20O, 214.
Conrad, 325.
Construing, 14, 76, 3 12 -
Cowper, 176.
Critical * morals,' 179, 190, *9 6 > 201,
267, 295.
Critical superstitions, 299.
Dante, 271.
Decimal numbering, 22.
Decline in speech, 338-40.
Definition, 217, 219, 343 345-
Dictionary, 327.
Discussion, technique of, 5-
Doctrinal adhesion, 16.
Doctrine, 71.
Donne, 271.
Doyle, Conan, 356.
Drinkwater, 233.
Dryden, 19, 176, 206, 279, 355
Eddington, 225.
Edison, 339.
Eliot, T. S., 285, 318.
Emotive functions, 210, 353.
Emotive reading, 129.
English, teaching of, 333-35-
Euripides, 271,
Evans Wentz, W. Y., 7, 235.
Fatigue, 317.
Feeling, 181, 209, 326, 329-32.
Flecker, 6 1.
Form, 14, 55, 217, 233, 300.
P'reud, 204, 322, 339.
Galileo, 299.
Gautama Buddha, 253, 323.
Genius, 249.
Grammar, 36, 337, 338.
Gray, 206, 252, 265.
Grenfell, Julian, 27.
Habitual responses, 241.
Hadow, Sir H., 106,
Hardy, 253, 271.
Hemans, Mrs, 166.
History of Criticism, 8.
Hobbes, 179.
Homer, 272.
Honours Degree, 4.
Hopkins, C. M., 292.
Housman, A. E., 58, 141.
Hugo, Victor, 28, 355.
Hutchinson, A. S. M., 88.
Huxley, Aldous, 88.
Ibsen, 88.
Idea, 247.
Imagery, 15, 49. 96, 124, I2<
139, 168, 235-37, 247.
873
374
INDEX
Immaturity, 310.
Influenza, 257.
Inhibition, 16, 43, 267.
Intention, 181, 204, 205, 326, 355'57-
Interpretation, 6.
Intrinsic character of words, 134, 138,
173-
Introspection, 217.
Intuition, 191, 287.
James, Henry, 356.
James, William, 274.
Japanese gardening, 40.
Jennings, J. G., 363.
Johnson, Dr, 127, 153, 206, 253, 339.
Judgment and choice, 301.
Keats, 28, 68, 69, 73, 84, 176, 238.
King Chien Kim, 283.
Kipling, 143.
Kissing, 257.
Landor, 279.
Lamartine, 60.
Latin verse, 226.
Lawrence, D. H., 113, 115.
Legge, James, 279, 283.
Literalism, 191.
Logic, 149, 187, 217, 273.
Longfellow, 166, 168.
Love, falling in, 156.
Lucretus, 271.
Lyall, L. A., 283.
Lynd, Robert, 27.
Mackail, 188.
Marvell, 64.
Maudlin states, 257.
Meaning, 7, 43, 180, 237, 300.
Mechanical inventions, 320.
Mental navigation, II.
Metaphor, 97, 107, 221-23.
Metaphor, mixed, 140, 193-98.
Metre, 24, 26, 48, 109, 112, 158, 170,
190, 225-34.
Milton 46, 49, 73, '33. 232, 316, 355.
Misunderstanding, 130, 189, 329, 337,
346.
Mnemonic irrelevances, 15, 27, 59,
107, 131, 174, 237.
Morality, 37, 174.
Music, 105, 107 127.
Narcissism, 17, 251.
Nashe, 1 68.
* Need ' defined, 275, 286.
Newton, 336.
Nobility, 22.
Obscurity, 63, 74, 82, 85, 141, 166.
Ogden, C. K., 363.
Onomatopoeia, 135.
Originality, 206.
Origin of stock responses, 245-49.
Paget, Sir Richard, 353.
Paraphrase, 191, 216, 223.
Pathetic fallacy, 95, 139, 157.
Patmore Coventry, 149.
Pavlov, 286.
Personal emotion, 147.
Personification, 198.
Phatic communion, 185, 318.
Piaget, 199, 324.
Pierce, C. S., 271.
Pieron, 302.
Poetic diction, 160.
Poetic fictions, 272-74.
Political speeches, 185.
Pope, 176, 204, 208, 251, 356.
Preconceptions, 17, 148, 300, 314.
Prejudice, 93,
1 Pretty,' 220.
Profundity, 221, 222.
Projectile adjectives, 211, 220, 357-60.
Projection, 199, 211, 220, 229.
Prose, 340.
Prosody, 361-62.
Prudential speech, 324.
Psychical relativity, 213.
Psychology, 321-333.
Psychology, prejudice against, 322.
Psychology, uselessness of, 321.
Rapture, 147.
Read, Herbert, 285.
Reviewing, 5.
Rhymes, 33, 34, 44, 84.
Rhythm, 58, 66, 77, 89, 140, 225-34
318, 360-62.
Rhythm defined, 227.
Ritual, 290.
Romantic, 28, 29, 56, 60, 139.
Rossetti, Christina, 149.
Rossetti, D. G., 68.
Rousseau, 282.
Ruskin, 204.
Russell, Bertrand, 256, 324, 363.
Sampson, G., 334.
Seami, Motokiyo, 252, 349.
Schiller, 323.
Self-abasement, 17.
Semantics, 210, 219.
Sense, 181, 209, 326.
Sentimental, as abuse, 255.
Sentimental, and past experience, 261.
INDEX
375
Sentimental, as qualitative, 259.
Sentimental, as quantitative, 257, 268,
Sentimental, and the war, 260.
Sentimentality, 16, 27, 53, 55, 57, 61,
88, 105, 109, 112, 114, 116, 300.
Sentimentality, cure of, 270.
Sex differences, 311.
Shakespeare, 3, 26, 28, 44, 143, 157,
212, 250, 339.
Shelley, 26, 28, 57, 121, 131, 137, 140,
142, 147, 156, 176, 208, 238, 271,
316.
Sincerity, 56, 57, 77, 94, 114, 170,
280-91, 300, 301.
Sincerity and self-completion, 285.
Sincerity and self-deception, 280.
Sincerity and sophistication, 280.
Slow reading, 234.
Sonnenschein, E. A., 360-61.
Sonnet form, 45, 75, 76, 77, 127.
Southcott, Joanna, 169.
Spencer, Stanley, 49.
Spinoza, 274.
Standardisation, 248, 340, 347.
Statement, 186, 296, 353.
Stendhal, 156, 328.
Stevenson, R. L., 143, 292.
Stock Responses, 15, 99, 101, 108,
121, 128, 131, 163 240-54, 313.
Stock Rhythms, 243.
Stout, 322.
Style, 207, 233.
Subject, 58, 263, 297, 298.
Subjectivity, 347.
Swinburne, 64, no, 129, 158, 194,
208, 265.
Symbolism, 155? 15^*
Technical presuppositions, 16, 34, 47,
134, W J 5i) 171, 172, 264, 294-
96.
Ten critical difficulties, 13-17, 179.
Theology, 44, 47.
Thoroughness, 4.
Thought, 249, 329-30.
Tone, 181, 206, 326.
Tradition, 315.
Turner, 134.
Unconscious fright, 45.
Unconscious technique, 186, 190.
Understanding, 13, 67, 81, 93, 213,
324-29.
Uselessness of principles, 296, 298.
Versatile Verses, 23.
Vigney, Alfred de, 94.
Virgil, 270.
Visualisation, 132, 235-37, 362-64.
Wagner, 155.
Walcy, Arthur, 252, 349.
Ward, 322.
Watson, 323.
Wilcox, Klla Wheeler, 3, 207, 316.
Wittgenstein, 363.
Wordsworth, 25, 26, 60, 79, 99, 137
I43 I5> I5 8 J 76, 199, 259.
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