|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 8
"I do. But Poe was able actually to improve the language of inspiration,
whilst transmitting uninjured the poetic conception. Those stanzas in
Grey's 'Elegy' which convey from him to us the psychic wave of poetic
impulse, may have been hundreds of times altered in their wording,
through seven years of tentative effort; and it is possible that he
succeeded in retaining the original feeling--the poem is certainly
artistic. But the feeling conveyed by Grey is commonplace enough,
anyway; whilst that transmitted by Poe is wholly unique, and intensely
absorbing--indeed, a startling revelation. I have always felt that
Byron, Milton, Shakespeare, found within their souls their poetry, and
that the linguistic expression of it came to them as naturally as did
the feeling."
"Such minds," I said, "will always be a mystery to common mortals."
"I take it," replied Bainbridge, "that waves and wavelets of poetic
feeling are common enough among men--quite as common as mental pictures
of beautiful material images; but the rarity is in the word-conception,
which I hold must as a rule be spontaneous if it is to convey
unblemished the original feeling. The musical genius is able to convey
his psychic impression in harmonious sounds; the true poet, in words. To
the rest of us the process is, as you say, a mystery--we call it
inspiration.
"Take an isolated poem, such as under, say patriotic feeling, springs
from the mind of one who never again writes poetry; does this not help
to prove my theory that all true poetry is a result of inspiration--is
in its inception and in its word-expression quite extraneous to its
apparent author?
"To both my intellect and my feeling, 'The Raven' stands a beautiful
masterpiece, which, because it is both the product of a strange psychic
state and the work of intellect will probably be the last poem, of those
now extant, to be admired by the human race when intellectual
development and growth shall finally have driven from the lives and the
minds of men all romance, all sentiment, all poetry, leaving to the race
only intellect and will."
After some further talk, and in reply to a statement of my own,
Bainbridge said,
"Of course I can speak only for myself; and for me there is music in the
poetry of Byron and of Poe, and there is the psychic effect of color.
The rhythm in certain of their poems, with the arrangement of
word-sound, produces the saddest music possible, I think, to the soul of
man--a prevailing monotone so measured as to result in an effect
decidedly strange and quite indescribable. But the real peculiarity of
their poetry--and in this Poe excels Byron--is a psychic effect the same
as that which remains after viewing certain pictures in black and white,
the shade gradations of which are so artistic as to create an illusion
of color--sombre, highly shaded, yet color. This color effect of Poe's
poetry I have felt very slightly, if at all, immediately on a first
reading, as I feel the music of his verse--a rereading, or the lapse of
time, being required for its full development. I have not read a line of
Poe in the last two or three years, and at the present moment I feel
_Ulalume_ as I would some weird scene or picture viewed long ago."
I asked him what particular color effects Poe's poetry produced in his
mind, and he replied,
"The impression of red I do not at all retain. That of black, more or
less intense, is predominant; but the color effects of almost any
variegated landscape--red being excluded, and the scene having been
viewed by moonlight, or in the dusk of evening, or possibly on a densely
clouded day--is at this moment alive within me. And yet, with a single
exception, I have never received from musical or other sounds a psychic
color effect--the exception being that certain tones of a violin leave
the same mental impression as does the sight of purple. As I am not
acquainted with the technical language of either painter or musician, I
can attempt to describe these effects only in common language. I speak
for myself only, and am anything but dogmatic on the subject of poetry.
The symbolism of Poe's verse we must solve, each for himself. To me, for
myself, the solution seems not difficult--and so no doubt says another;
but on comparison these solutions would no doubt be very different."
But highly as Bainbridge estimated Poe's verse, he placed Poe even
higher among writers of prose fiction than among poets. As I have said,
I am myself an admirer of Poe. His prose I have always thought the work
of a true genius--something, as Doctor Bainbridge said, "more than art,
aided by the most perfect art." But when we came to speak of his prose
writings, Bainbridge was able to express in language all that I had felt
of Poe, and to disclose and explain components of his genius that I had
never before fully recognized.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|