Literary Remains, vol 2 | Page 4

second condition,
sensuousness, insures that framework of objectivity, that definiteness
and articulation of imagery, and that modification of the images

themselves, without which poetry becomes flattened into mere
didactics of practice, or evaporated into a hazy, unthoughtful,
daydreaming; and the third condition, passion, provides that neither
thought nor imagery shall be simply objective, but that the passio vera
of humanity shall warm and animate both.
To return, however, to the previous definition, this most general and
distinctive character of a poem originates in the poetic genius itself;
and though it comprises whatever can with any propriety be called a
poem, (unless that word be a mere lazy synonyme for a composition in
metre,) it yet becomes a just, and not merely discriminative, but full
and adequate, definition of poetry in its highest and most peculiar sense,
only so far as the distinction still results from the poetic genius, which
sustains and modifies the emotions, thoughts, and vivid representations
of the poem by the energy without effort of the poet's own mind,--by
the spontaneous activity of his imagination and fancy, and by whatever
else with these reveals itself in the balancing and reconciling of
opposite or discordant qualities, sameness with difference, a sense of
novelty and freshness with old or customary objects, a more than usual
state of emotion with more than usual order, self-possession and
judgment with enthusiasm and vehement feeling,--and which, while it
blends and harmonizes the natural and the artificial, still subordinates
art to nature, the manner to the matter, and our admiration of the poet to
our sympathy with the images, passions, characters, and incidents of
the poem:-
Doubtless, this could not be, but that she turns Bodies to spirit by
sublimation strange, As fire converts to fire the things it burns-- As we
our food into our nature change!
From their gross matter she abstracts their forms, And draws a kind of
quintessence from things, Which to her proper nature she transforms To
bear them light on her celestial wings!
Thus doth she, when from individual states She doth abstract the
universal kinds, _Which then reclothed in diverse names and fates Steal
access thro' our senses to our minds._ [1]

[Footnote 1: Sir John Davies on the Immortality of the Soul, sect. iv.
The words and lines in italics (_between_) are substituted to apply
these verses to the poetic genius. The greater part of this latter
paragraph may be found adopted, with some alterations, in the
'Biographia Literaria', vol. ii. c. 14; but I have thought it better in this
instance and some others, to run the chance of bringing a few passages
twice over to the recollection of the reader, than to weaken the force of
the original argument by breaking the connection. Ed.]

GREEK DRAMA.
It is truly singular that Plato,--whose philosophy and religion were but
exotic at home, and a mere opposition to the finite in all things, genuine
prophet and anticipator as he was of the Protestant Christian
aera,--should have given in his Dialogue of the Banquet, a justification
of our Shakspeare. For he relates that, when all the other guests had
either dispersed or fallen asleep, Socrates only, together with
Aristophanes and Agathon, remained awake, and that, while he
continued to drink with them out of a large goblet, he compelled them,
though most reluctantly, to admit that it was the business of one and the
same genius to excel in tragic and comic poetry, or that the tragic poet
ought, at the same time, to contain within himself the powers of
comedy. [1] Now, as this was directly repugnant to the entire theory of
the ancient critics, and contrary to all their experience, it is evident that
Plato must have fixed the eye of his contemplation on the innermost
essentials of the drama, abstracted from the forms of age or country. In
another passage he even adds the reason, namely, that opposites
illustrate each other's nature, and in their struggle draw forth the
strength of the combatants, and display the conqueror as sovereign even
on the territories of the rival power.
Nothing can more forcibly exemplify the separative spirit of the Greek
arts than their comedy as opposed to their tragedy. But as the
immediate struggle of contraries supposes an arena common to both, so
both were alike ideal; that is, the comedy of Aristophanes rose to as
great a distance above the ludicrous of real life, as the tragedy of

Sophocles above its tragic events and passions;--and it is in this one
point, of absolute ideality, that the comedy of Shakspeare and the old
comedy of Athens coincide. In this also alone did the Greek tragedy
and comedy unite; in every thing else they were exactly opposed to
each other. Tragedy is poetry in its deepest earnest; comedy is poetry in