This was a chimera,
however, which never existed but in the brain of the inventor; and
Homer's poetical world has outlived Plato's philosophical Republic.
Poetry then is an imitation of nature, but the imagination and the
passions are a part of man's nature. We shape things according to our
wishes and fancies, without poetry; but poetry is the most emphatical
language that can be found for those creations of the mind "which
ecstasy is very cunning in". Neither a mere description of natural
objects, nor a mere delineation of natural feelings, however distinct
or forcible, constitutes the ultimate end and aim of poetry, without
the heightenings of the imagination. The light of poetry is not only
a direct but also a reflected light, that while it shows us the object,
throws a sparkling radiance on all around it: the flame of the passions,
communicated to the imagination, reveals to us, as with a flash of
lightning, the inmost recesses of thought, and penetrates our whole
being. Poetry represents forms chiefly as they suggest other forms:
feelings, as they suggest forms or other feelings.
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