[T]he extent of a poem may be made to bear mathematical relation to its merit — in other words, to the excitement or elevation — again in other words, to the degree of the true poetical effect which it is capable of inducing; for it is clear that the brevity must be in direct ratio of the intensity of the intended effect: — this, with one proviso — that a certain degree of duration is absolutely requisite for the production of any effect at all.
Holding in view these considerations, as well as that degree of excitement which I deemed not above the popular, while
not below the critical, taste, I reached at once what I conceived the proper length for my intended poem — a length of
about one hundred lines. It is, in fact, a hundred and eight.
My next thought concerned the choice of an impression, or effect, to be conveyed: and here I may as well observe that,
throughout the construction, I kept steadily in view the design of rendering the work universally
appreciable. I should be
carried too far out of my immediate topic were I to
demonstrate a point upon which I have repeatedly insisted, and which,
with the
poetical, stands not in the slightest need of
demonstration — the point, I mean, that Beauty is the sole legitimate
province of
the poem. A few words, however, in elucidation of my real
meaning, which some of my friends have evinced a disposition to
misrepresent.
That pleasure which is at once the most intense, the most
elevating, and the most pure, is, I believe, found in the contemplation
of the
beautiful. When, indeed, men speak of Beauty, they mean,
precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect — they refer, in
short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soul — not of intellect, or of heart — upon which I have commented,
and which is experienced in consequence of contemplating “the beautiful."...
I have often thought how interesting a magazine paper might be written by any author who would — that is to say, who could — detail, step by step, the processes by which any one of his compositions attained its ultimate point of completion. Why such a paper has never been given to the world, I am much at a loss to say — but, perhaps, the autorial vanity has had more to do with the omission than any one other cause. Most writers — poets in especial — prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy — an ecstatic intuition — and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes, at the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought — at the true purposes seized only at the last moment — at the innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view — at the fully matured fancies discarded in despair as unmanageable — at the cautious selections and rejections — at the painful erasures and interpolations — in a word, at the wheels and pinions — the tackle for scene-shifting — the step-ladders and demon-traps — the cock’s feathers, the red paint and the black patches, which, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, constitute the properties of the literary histrio.
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