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Now this objective trio tallies point by point with the subjective trinity unfolded in the Second Book of this treatise, the triune law of poetic feeling. The three kinds of poesy pair with the three laws of poetry, Dramatic with the law of imagination, Epic with that of harmony, and Lyrical with that of unconsciousness. This will be self-evident as we go along, and more especially when we shall have grasped the innermost meanings of the different kinds of poesy. Partly, however, it may be seen at once. You can at once understand how the drama, the essence of which is action, should be affianced to the law of activity; how the epic, taking the fleshly form of history, and therefore, with history, being the embodiment of experience, should, so long as experience is possible only through the correlation of subject and object, in plain English, through the affinity of what is in the mind for what is out of the mind, be connected with the law of harmony; and lastly, how, like water from the rock, the outpourings of the lyric should spring from the law of unconsciousness. Personality or selfhood triumphs in the drama; the divine and all that is not Me triumphs in the lyric; while, lying betwixt both, the epic is the complete harmony of self with unself. The first delights in the imagination of variety; the last depicts the struggle of one mind after the absolute One; to the middle belongs variety in unity, variety of life and character conforming with the narrator's individuality. Such being the principles that underlie

the orders of poesy, it needs not to show that they accord with the three laws of poetry. It may seem strange at first sight that the lyric, wherein the poet's individuality is most apparent, should be the offspring of the law of unconsciousness; and that the drama, wherein it is least evident, should come of that law which is the most conscious. A second thought will convince the reader that we are most ourselves when we forget ourselves, and that in becoming self-conscious we become what we are not. What Sophocles said of Eschylus, that he always did the right thing, but without knowing it, affords a glimpse into his own frame of mind as well as into that of his rival: the most truly dramatic of the Greek tragedians betrayed his own self-consciousness in drawing attention to the unconsciousness of the most highly lyrical.

I.

II.

III.

Law of Imagination; Law of Harmony; Law of Unconsciousness. Dramatic Poesy;

Epic;

Lyrical.

These trinities, objective and subjective, are paralleled by another, which has an outer and an inner meaning, as referring both to the history and to the spirit of Let us first view it in the outward or historic

poesy. aspect.

Every one must be more or less acquainted with that distinction between romantic and classical poesy drawn at the close of last century by the German school of critics, and since then adopted on all hands. It was

in truth the old comparison between the ancients and the moderns pursued on deeper grounds; Perrault and Lamothe, Racine and Boileau raised from the dead and ghostly in their talk; a French distinction done into German; history turned philosophy. The distinction has been carried into every branch of art, but chiefly has been applied to the drama, and there employed in settling the rival claims of the French and Italian theatres on the one side, of the English and Spanish on the other. The dramas of the one are said to be written in a classical, those of the other in a romantic vein; and as the French critics had trumpeted the praise of the former, the German critics entered the lists as challengers of these pretensions, and as champions of the latter. Successful as they were in thus battling for the right, it was not all victory with the champions. The issue at stake lay not entirely between the classical and the romantic dramas; it lay, or was understood to lie, between the whole of classical art and the whole of romantic art; and these issues, the lesser and the greater, seemed to be so interwoven, that whichever school of art won the dramatic prize, to that school belonged the prize in every other department. If the drama of classical must yield to that of romantic mould, why, for the same reason, should not every art of classical cast rank below every art of romantic? These issues were never fairly disentangled; nor could they be unravelled so long as no distinct ideas were attached

to the words, classical and romantic; words, which if they expressed any thing more than the terms, ancient and modern, formerly in use, kept their meaning to themselves, dark and miserly as the cabala. Ancient and modern-these were words denoting a plain historical distinction; but classical and romantic, beyond the historical, implied a philosophical, distinction. They only implied it however; for, following them in hopes of catching their meaning as it glimmers through page after page, we soon find that we might as well be chasing a Will-o-wisp or a lapwing through the marshes. Take a few examples. To say that classical art is heathen, romantic art Christian, is a change of words without a stiver of gain. To say that classical art gives expression to the poetry of joy, romantic art to the poetry of desire, is to utter false coin. To say that classical art is founded on melody, and that romantic art is built of harmony, has the ring of true metal, but no earthly use did they make of it. Is it wonderful that thus attaching no definite, no available, meaning to the words, they should have failed to separate sharply the points at issue, and should have so allotted their praise and their blame that often one can hardly tell how far the praise was in earnest and how far the blame was merited.

The division of poesy into romantic and classical, though complete so far as it goes, and sufficient for the practical purposes of the time, is not complete if we take

a wider view whether of the history or of the spiritual meaning of poesy: we must add a third division. There is not only a modern and an antique, but there is also a primitive poesy; that there is a Western and a Græcian is not more true than that there is likewise an Eastern poesy; if there is a romantic and a classical, there is also a divine poesy. This threefold instead of the twofold division will make everything straight. For it is a notable circumstance that the controversy between the romantic and classical schools came to hinge upon a question of dramatic fitness. Now, if the reader is prepared to accept this doctrine—that romantic art is essentially dramatic, and that classical art is not so, but truly epic, the third or primitive kind being by nature lyrical, he will understand how it should have come to such a pass, and see moreover how it is not out of keeping to award the dramatic ivy-crown to modern art, while in every thing else the Greek bears away the palm. And if his own critical insight will not at once assure him of the doctrine, perhaps the following arguments may have some weight.

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In each column of the foregoing table, it must be self

evident that the three last titles are titles of one style of

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