The Poets Poet | Page 4

himself long enough to write a poem that will prove his
genius, and so lend worth to the perusal of his idiosyncratic records,
and his judgments on poetic composition.
The first impulse of our revulsion from the self-infatuated poet is to
confute him with the potent name of Aristotle, and show him his doom
foreordained in the book of poetic Revelations. "The poet should speak
as little as possible in his own person," we read, "for it is not this that
makes him an imitator." [Footnote: Poetics, 1460 a.] One cannot too
much admire Aristotle's canniness in thus nipping the poet's egotism in
the bud, for he must have seen clearly that if the poet began to talk in
his own person, he would soon lead the conversation around to himself,
and that, once launched on that inexhaustible subject, he would never
be ready to return to his original theme.
We may regret that we have not Aristotle's sanction for condemning
also extra-poetical advertisements of the poet's personality, as a
hindrance to our seeing the ideal world through his poetry. In certain
moods one feels it a blessing that we possess no romantic traditions of

Homer, to get in the way of our passing impartial judgment upon his
works. Our intimate knowledge of nineteenth century poets has been of
doubtful benefit to us. Wordsworth has shaken into what promises to be
his permanent place among the English poets much more expeditiously
than has Byron. Is this not because in Wordsworth's case the reader is
not conscious of a magnetic personality drawing his judgment away
from purely aesthetic standards? Again, consider the case of Keats. For
us the facts of his life must color almost every line he wrote. How are
we to determine whether his sonnet, When I Have Fears, is great poetry
or not, so long as it fills our minds insistently with the pity of his love
for Fanny Brawne, and his epitaph in the Roman graveyard?
Christopher North has been much upbraided by a hero-worshiping
generation, but one may go too far in condemning the Scotch sense in
his contention:
Mr. Keats we have often heard spoken of in terms of great kindness,
and we have no doubt that his manners and feelings are calculated to
make his friends love him. But what has all this to do with our opinion
of their poetry? What, in the name of wonder, does it concern us,
whether these men sit among themselves with mild or with sulky faces,
eating their mutton steaks, and drinking their porter? [Footnote: Sidney
Colvin, John Keats, p. 478.]
If we are reluctant to sponsor words printed in Blackwoods, we may be
more at ease in agreeing with the same sentiments as expressed by
Keats himself. After a too protracted dinner party with Wordsworth and
Hunt, Keats gave vent to his feelings as follows:
Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing that enters into one's
soul, and does not startle or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.
How beautiful are the retired flowers! How they would lose their
beauty were they to throng into the highway crying out, "Admire me, I
am a violet! Dote upon me, I am a primrose!".... I will cut all this--I
will have no more of Wordsworth or Hunt in particular.... I don't mean
to deny Wordsworth's grandeur and Hunt's merit, but I mean to say that
we need not be teased with grandeur and merit when we can have them
uncontaminated and unobtrusive. [Footnote: Ibid., p. 253.]

If acquaintance with a poet prevents his contemporaries from fixing
their attention exclusively upon the merits of his verse, in how much
better case is posterity, if the poet's personality makes its way into the
heart of his poetry? We have Browning's dictum on Shakespeare's
sonnets,
With this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart. Once more
Did
Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he.
[Footnote: House.]
Did Browning mean that Shakespeare was less the poet, as well as less
the dramatist, if he revealed himself to us in his poetry? And is this our
contention?
It seems a reasonable contention, at least, the more so since poets are
practically unanimous in describing inspiration as lifting them out of
themselves, into self-forgetful ecstasy. Even that arch-egoist, Byron,
concedes this point. "To withdraw myself from myself--oh, that
accursed selfishness," he writes, "has ever been my entire, my sincere
motive in scribbling at all." [Footnote: Letters and Journals, ed,
Rowland E. Prothero, November 26, 1813.] Surely we may complain
that it is rather hard on us if the poet can escape from himself only by
throwing himself at the reader's head.
It would seem natural to conclude from the selflessness of inspiration
that the more frequently inspired the poet is, the less will he himself be
an interesting