38 Prosscr Hall Fryc 



sistency of the detail as it builds up an experience which is again 

 felt as real in as far as it is complete and sig-nificant in itselt. 



Finally, therefore, literature is always a matter of ideas ; and 

 since it deals with human life and conduct, a matter consequently 

 of moral ideas. So far it seems perfectly proper with Matthew 

 Arnold to consider poetry a criticism of life. In another aspect, 

 however, the attitude is less satisfactory and is likely to introduce 

 a confusion, the direct contrary of that involved in naturalism or 

 I'art pour I'arf, but no less serious on that account. For the meth- 

 ods as well as the ultimate aims of poetry and criticism are thor- 

 oughly incompatible. The final object of criticism consists in 

 disengaging the idea from the various accidents and circumstances 

 with which it is invested in consciousness and in holding it up to 

 steady contemplation by itself; while the object of poetry, on the 

 contrary, consists in the incorporation of the idea 'in such a set of 

 accidents and circumstances as w'ill produce a sense of higher or 

 significant reality. In other words, criticism seeks to dispel the 

 illusion which it is the Very purpose of poetry to produce. What 

 the latter attempts to embody, the former tries to isolate. And 

 while there is no illusion without an idea to give it significance, 

 there is equally no illusion without some semblance to reality to 

 serve as a foundation. In short, we are poets and romancers by 

 nature, but critics only by profession. While we inform our life 

 with illusion instinctively, our criticism, in a deliberate attempt to 

 see the thing "as in itself it really is," renounces at once illusion 

 and poetry. 



Such, however, is the natural consequence of romantic excess. 

 The more irresponsible and sensational a poetry allows itself to 

 become, just so much the more violent is the inevitable classical 

 reaction. Literature is always in extremes. And after a period 

 of dissipation and extravagance, it is only to be expected that 

 Pope and his contemporaries, like Matthew Arnold in our own 

 day, should over-emphasize the critical function of poetry. In 

 recognizing the importance of moral ideas they w-ere doing good 

 service to literature. Their mistake lay in attempting to apply to 

 the treatment of these ideas the methods of criticism rather than 

 those of poetry. In those kinds of poetry which are most nearly 



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