The Psalmist describes the process accurately: "While I was
thus musing the fire kindled, and at the last I spake with my tongue."
"Poetry," writes Shelley, "is not, like reasoning, a power to be exerted
according to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, _I will
compose poetry_. The greatest poet, even, cannot say it: for the mind in
creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an
inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness." But the Poet's way
of reporting these apprehensions to his fellows, since he deals with
Universals or ideas, is by "universalising" or "idealising" his story:
and upon these two terms, which properly mean much the same thing, we
must pause for a moment.
The word "idealise," which is the more commonly used, has unfortunately
two meanings, a true and a false; and, again unfortunately, the false
prevails in vulgar use. To "idealise" in the true sense is to disengage
an "idea" of all that is trivial or impertinent or transient or
disturbing, and present it to men in its clearest outline, so that its
own proper form shines in on the intelligence, as you would wipe away
from a discovered statue all stains or accretions of mud or moss or
fungus, to release and reveal its true beauty.
Pages:
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33