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Page 53
Along with the poetry of every age and of every nation, I would have you
diligently study the criticisms of the masters of the art. It is true
that the intimate knowledge of all that has been written on this
hackneyed subject will never supply the want of natural poetic taste, of
that union of mental and moral refinement which produces the only
infallible touchstone of the beautiful; still such criticisms will tend
to refine and sharpen a natural taste, where it does exist; and without
bringing its technical rules practically to bear upon the objects of
your delighted admiration,[82] they will insensibly improve, refine, and
subtilize the natural delicacy of your perceptions.
No criticisms can perhaps equal the masterly ones of Frederick Schlegel,
or those of the less powerful but not less rich mind of Augustus William
Schlegel,"--those two wonderful brothers," as a modern litt�rateur has
justly called them. Leigh Hunt, with perhaps more poetic originality,
but with less accuracy of �sthetical perception, will be a useful guide
to you in English poetry. Burke's "Treatise on the Sublime and
Beautiful" will give you the most correct general ideas on the subject
of taste. These are always best and most influential after they have
been for some time assimilated with the forms of the mind. It is a far
more useful exercise to apply them yourself to individual cases than
merely to lend your attention, though carefully and fixedly, to the
applications made for you by the writer. Alison's "Essay on Taste,"
though interesting and improving, saves too much trouble to the reader
in this way.
Your enjoyment and appreciation of poetry will be much heightened by
having it read aloud,--by yourself to yourself, if you should have no
other sympathizing reader or listener.
The sound of the metre is essential to the full _sense_ of the meaning
and of the beauty of all poetry. Even the rhymeless flow of blank verse
is absolutely necessary to an accurate and entire perception of the
effect the author intends to produce: it is in both cases as the
colouring to a picture. It may be, indeed, that part of the composition
which appeals most directly to the senses; but all the works of art must
be imperfect which do not make this appeal; for, as I said before, all
works of art are intended to affect our _human_ nature.
A well-practised _eye_ will, it is true, detect in a moment either the
faults or the excellence of the rhyme or the flow; but the effect on the
mind cannot be the same as when the impression is received through the
_ear_.
Nor is the fuller appreciation of the poetry you read aloud the only
advantage to be derived from the practice I recommend. Few
accomplishments are more rare, though few more desirable, than that of
reading aloud with ease and grace. Great are the sufferings inflicted on
a sensitive ear by listening to one's favourite passages, touching in
pathos, or glorious in sublimity, travestied into twaddle by the false
taste or the want of practice of the reader. For it is not always from
false taste that the species of reading above complained of proceeds; on
the contrary, there may be a very correct perception of the writer's
meaning and object, while from want of practice, from mere mechanical
inexpertness, there may be an incapability of giving effect to that
meaning: hence arises false emphasis, and a thousand other
disagreeables.
In this art, this important art of reading aloud, simplicity ought to be
the grand object of attainment, at the same time that it is the last
that can be attained. It is a point to reach after long efforts; not to
start from, as those of uncultivated or artificial taste would imagine.
I must repeat, that it cannot be acquired without persevering practice.
The best time to set vigorously about such practice would be when you
have but just listened with dismay to the injuries inflicted on some
favourite poet by the laboured or tasteless reading of an unpractised
performer.
From reading aloud, I pass on to a still more important subject,--that
of writing: both are intimately connected branches of the main
one--cultivation of the mind. When this latter is attained in the first
place, a slight individual direction of previously acquired powers will
enable you to succeed in both the former. In your own case, however, as
in that of all those who have not the active organisation which involves
great facilities for mechanical efforts, it will be quite necessary to
give a special direction to your studies for the attainment of any
degree of excellence in both those arts. Those, on the contrary, whose
organization is more lively and vigorous, and whose nature and habits
fit them more for action than thought, will find little difficulty in
making any degree of cultivation of mind an immediate stepping-stone to
the other attainments: such persons can read at once with force and
truth as soon as education has given them accurate perceptions; they
will also write with ease, rapidity, and energy, as soon as the mind is
furnished with suitable materials. This is a kind of superiority which
you may often be inclined to envy, at least until experience has taught
you, in the first place, that the law of compensation is universal, and
in the second, that every thing is doubly valuable which is acquired
through hard labour and many struggles. For the first, you may observe
that such persons as possess naturally the mechanical facilities of
which I have spoken will never attain to an equal degree of excellence
with those whose naturally soft and inactive organization obliges them
to labour over every step of their onward way. They can, I repeat, never
attain to the same degree of excellence, either in feeling or
expression, because they do not possess the same refined delicacy of
perceptions, the same deep thoughtfulness and intuitive wisdom, as those
who owe these advantages to the very organization from which they
otherwise suffer. This is another illustration of the universal
law--that action is always in inverse proportion to power. For the
second, you will find that there is a pleasure in overcoming
difficulties, compared with which all easily attained or naturally
possessed advantages appear tame and vapid:[83] and besides the
difference in the pleasurable excitement of the contest, you are to
consider the advantage to the character that is derived from a battle
and a victory.
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