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INDIANA UNIVEESITY STUDIES 



But if his egotism rendered him frequently unsusceptible to the 

 lights and shades of his art, one must surely add that the poem is 

 the one surpassingly vivid analysis of the function of poetry. By 

 this I do not at all mean that Wordsworth is a poorer poet and a 

 better critic. I intend to express part of the paradox of his poetic 

 nature, the paradox of his now blinding, now illuminating egotism. 

 In his weaknesses he has his strength, in his faults their compensa- 

 tion. An emotional egotism, occasionally blinding him to the differ- 

 ences between prose and poetry, making him feel that whatever he 

 writes is per se poetry, makes him also supremely faithful in the 

 analysis of his emotions. It leads him always finally into the sanc- 

 tuary of his mind and in such a way that we there understand with 

 him what are the great functions of his art. 



This is not mere criticism. It is a new kind of creative poetry. 

 It cannot be described facilly in the way Mr. Symons has described 

 it as 'a talking about life, not a creation of life — a criticism of the 

 imagination, not imagination at work on its own indefinable ends.' 

 Such a statement only serves to raise the question whether poetical 

 imagination is ever at work on indefinable ends, so far as the poet 

 himself is concerned. Wordsworth is always a philosopher even 

 when most a poet, just as he is most romantic, as I have tried to 

 show previously, when most intent on a definite purpose. The 

 question, however, is a proper question and demands an adequate 

 answer. It seems to me a question Wordsworth himself must have 

 raised or been conscious of ; and I believe that the adequate answer 

 to it, as I hope to make evident, is 'The Prelude' as a whole, his 

 creative poetical philosophy. For 'The Prelude' is two things: it 

 is not only talking about life, a criticism of the imagination, an 

 attempt to create the taste whereby the poet's teaching is to be 

 relished; it is also a creation of life in just so far as it makes the 

 emotions of the poet poetically vivid to our imagination. That is 

 really all that any poet has ever done for us, and in ' The Prelude ' 

 Wordsworth has done it supremely. The accomplishment of this 

 twofold purpose is the result of his blended egotism, which, as a 

 form of high poetic energy, is both critical and creative in char- 

 acter. 



'Never forget,' he wrote to Lady Beaumont, shortly after finish- 

 ing 'The Prelude,' 'what, I believe, was observed to you by Cole- 

 ridge, that every great and original writer, in proportion as he is 

 great or original, must himself create the taste by which he is to be 

 relished ; he must teach the art by which he is to be seen. ' This is 



