The poet, described in
ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the
subordination of its faculties to each other, according to their
relative worth and dignity. He diffuses a tone and spirit of unity
that blends, and (as it were) fuses, each into each, by that synthetic
and magical power to which we have exclusively appropriated the name
of imagination. This power, first put in action by the will and
understanding, and retained under their irremissive, though gentle and
unnoticed, control (_laxis effertur habenis_), reveals itself in the
balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities: of
sameness, with difference; of the general, with the concrete; the idea,
with the image; the individual, with the representative; the sense of
novelty and freshness, with old and familiar objects; a more than usual
state of emotion, with more than usual order; judgment ever awake and
steady self-possession, with enthusiasm and feeling profound or
vehement; and 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 poetry.
Pages:
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323