SCIENCE AND MODERN POETRY 739 



not too much to say that science and poetry are twin sisters, so 

 intimately bound up are they each with the other. 



That there is some real connection between science and 

 poetry — some direct and real influence of what we call the 

 scientific movement upon poetry — is easily discernible and be- 

 comes very evident when we remember, as we must, that although 

 the poet, like all genius, is born, not made, that is, although 

 genius is largely independent of time and place, he is never- 

 theless and necessarily, and to no inconsiderable extent, a pro- 

 duct of his age, both as regards form and content. For example, 

 Mrs. Browning, Tennyson, Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold — 

 to take a few at random of the greatest of the Victorian poets — 

 have indelibly impressed the poetry of their era. But it must 

 not be forgotten that their greatness — even though it be the 

 greatness of genius — does not alter the fact that what they 

 thought and what they wrote was in large measure determined 

 for them by the circumstances and ideas of the time in which 

 they lived. This fact, though obvious, is often obscured in the 

 minds of those people who talk of great men as being not of an 

 age, but for all time. It is undoubtedly true that great poets, 

 philosophers, artists, statesmen, and great men of all kinds, if they 

 are only great enough, are for all time ; but it is equally true that 

 they are, in a sense, of their own age first of all. Shakespeare is 

 perhaps the first example, as well as the best, that comes to one's 

 mind. His literary form, the atmosphere of his poetry — what 

 one might call the mental dialect in which it was written ; that 

 is, the presuppositions which he carried with him to his work and 

 which he owed entirely to his education and environment — 

 many of his characteristic interests are Elizabethan. His 

 morality, too, is essentially that of the age of the later Tudors 

 — so much, indeed, is this the case that there are not wanting 

 Mrs. Grundys at the present day who would willingly banish 

 some of his plays altogether from the stage. Again, the drama 

 was the most popular form of literature ; and he wrote mainly 

 dramas. Subjects from English History possessed a special 

 interest for his audience and had a special fascination for 

 writers of his time ; and he wrote English historical plays. 

 The fact, therefore, that Shakespeare is for all time does not 

 prevent his being, in a very real sense, of an age, and of his 

 own age. Similar considerations apply to all writers of every 

 age and clime. However great a man may be, the world is 



