The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

accessories were for a moment to distract the spectator's attention from this;

that the tone of the parts was to be perpetually kept down, in order not to

impair the grandiose effect of the whole. The terrible6 old mythic story on

which the drama was founded stood, before he entered the theater, traced in

its bare outlines upon the spectator's mind; it stood in his memory, as a group

of statuary, faintly seen, at the end of a long and dark vista: then came the

poet, embodying outlines, developing situations, not a word wasted, not a

sentiment capriciously thrown in: stroke upon stroke, the drama proceeded:

the light deepened upon the group; more and more it revealed itself to the

riveted gaze of the spectator: until at last, when the final words were spoken,

it stood before him in broad sunlight, a model of immortal beauty. This was what a Greek critic demanded; this was what a Greek poet endeav

ored to effect. It signified nothing to what time an action belonged; we do not

find that the Persae occupied a particularly high rank among the dramas of

Aeschylus, because it represented a matter of contemporary interest:7 this was

not what a cultivated Athenian required, he required that the permanent ele

ments of his nature should be moved; and dramas of which the action, though

taken from a long-distant mythic time, yet was calculated to accomplish this

in a higher degree than that of the Persae, stood higher in his estimation

accordingly. The Greeks felt, no doubt, with their exquisite sagacity of taste,

that an action of present times was too near them, too much mixed up with

what was accidental and passing, to form a sufficiently grand, detached, and

self-subsistent object for a tragic poem: such objects belonged to the domain

of the comic poet, and of the lighter kinds of poetry. For the more serious

kinds, for pragmatic poetry, to use an excellent expression of Polybius,8 they

were more difficult and severe in the range of subjects which they permitted.

Their theory and practice alike, the admirable treatise of Aristotle, and the

unrivaled works of their poets, exclaim with a thousand tongues�"All depends

upon the subject; choose a fitting action, penetrate yourself with the feeling

of its situations; this done, everything else will follow." But for all kinds of poetry alike there was one point on which they were

rigidly exacting; the adaptability of the subject to the kind of poetry selected,

and the careful construction of the poem.

How different a way of thinking from this is ours! We can hardly at the

present day understand what Menander9 meant when he told a man who

inquired as to the progress of his comedy that he had finished it, not having

5. The son of a legendary Greek hero, who, like 7. Aeschylus's Persians (472 B.C.E.) portrays the Orestes, avenged his father's death by killing his Greek victory over the Persian invaders, which had mother. He was the subject of several Greek plays occurred only a few years before the play was pro- now lost. Merope. queen of Messene in Greece, duced. appears in plays by Euripides and in Arnold's own 8. Greek historian (ca. 200-ca. 118 b.c.e.). play Merope (1858). 9. Greek writer of comedies (ca. 342�ca. 292 6. Terrifying, awe-inspiring. B.C.E.).

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PREFACE TO POEMS (1853) / 1 379

yet written a single line, because he had constructed the action of it in his

mind. A modern critic would have assured him that the merit of his piece

depended on the brilliant things which arose under his pen as he went along.

We have poems which seem to exist merely for the sake of single lines and

passages; not for the sake of producing any total impression. We have critics

who seem to direct their attention merely to detached expressions, to the lan

guage about the action, not to the action itself, I verily think that the majority

of them do not in their hearts believe that there is such a thing as a total

impression to be derived from a poem at all, or to be demanded from a poet;

they think the term a commonplace of metaphysical criticism. They will permit

the poet to select any action he pleases, and to suffer that action to go as it

will, provided he gratifies them with occasional bursts of fine writing, and with

a shower of isolated thoughts and images. That is, they permit him to leave

their poetical sense ungratified, provided that he gratifies their rhetorical sense

and their curiosity. Of his neglecting to gratify these, there is little danger. He

needs rather to be warned against the danger of attempting to gratify these

alone; he needs rather to be perpetually reminded to prefer his action to every

thing else; so to treat this, as to permit its inherent excellences to develop

themselves, without interruption from the intrusion of his personal peculiar

ities; most fortunate, when he most entirely succeeds in effacing himself, and

in enabling a noble action to subsist as it did in nature. But the modern critic not only permits a false practice; he absolutely pre