PREFACE

SOME of the principles presented in this book are new. This I acknowledge with misgiving, for in a subject as old as poetry, where orthodox views are particularly apt to be sound, novelty is not a recommendation. Fortunately most of the principles are old, and all, I hope, rest on old foundations. Indeed I have tried to return to and develop classical views of poetry which are now somewhat out of vogue. In the main, then, old principles at most receive new interpretation and relation. A discussion, even of the present length, dealing with many aspects of the large subject of poetry, must be somewhat superficial. It would have been easier and more satisfying to completeness to apply the principles herein developed to one or two divisions of the subject. I have thought it better to carry them through several, and apply them to poetry in most of its important aspects, with the prefatory statement, however, that the treatment is introductory and provisional. Each chapter invites correction, and also demands development. Some chapters, I hope, may lead to more thorough and sagacious inquiries.

The subject undertaken the operation of the poet's mindis fortunately not quite so broad as poetry itself. This limitation, however, is counterbalanced by its lying halfway between two provinces-literature on the one hand and psychology on the other. Evidently its treatment calls for a special psychological training, to which I cannot pretend, as will no doubt sufficiently appear. The subject The subject as a whole, so far as I know, has not been attempted by the psychologists; perhaps it is a field in which they wisely fear to tread. In what follows a literary treatment is hazarded, which may in the end, I hope, prove helpful to psychology. Evidently the subject must be approached from both sides. If the student of literature lacks the

much needed psychological training, the psychologist on the other hand might lack the wide reading in literature which must supply a large part of the evidence. The best evidence must in the nature of things come from the lives and works of the poets. The poets are in general excellent psychologists, and where the question concerns the working of their own minds they are the best. Psychology must obtain most of its facts ultimately from introspection. If then, instead of mind in general, the poet's mind is to be investigated, the poets are obviously in sole possession of the most important data. Fortunately also many of the poets-notably, for example, in England Dryden, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, and in America Emerson and Poehave been disposed to introspection and self-analysis; and where they have been so disposed they have far surpassed ordinary men in subtlety of discrimination and in acuteness and depth of insight. For these reasons-because they possess in their own minds the facts to be observed and because they also have quite exceptional powers of observation-the poets must furnish the chief material in any investigation of the subject. If the psychologist may make best final use of this material, it is perhaps the business of the student of literature to collect, classify, and correlate it. I have made such constant use of these sources, and have so burdened, if not overburdened, the text with quotations from them, that the book might almost be regarded as a description of the poetic mind in the language of the poets themselves.

I may say here further that the rigorously scientific method, which would be employed by the psychologist, seems to me inapplicable to the subject of poetry in its present stage of investigation. Psychology is a science, and even promises, I am told, to become an exact one. But science is not always serviceable, and it may be the enemy as well as the friend of progress. Since the time of Bacon we have made tremendous advances; but since that time also we have been inclined to cut ourselves off from other sources of truth in our scientific preoccupation. We neglect the employment of other methods, or we employ

them under the frown of science, apologetically and surreptitiously, leaving them mainly to the poets, when we ought to proclaim them as often the only methods available for our purpose. Some aspects of the large subject of poetry, as for example the mechanism of verse, are relatively simple, and may profitably be subjected to scientific analysis. Others, like the prophetic character of poetry, are as complex and difficult as any the mind is called upon to consider; indeed though poetry has long been the subject of investigation, it contains many such obscurities and mysteries. If these, which are the very matters calling most loudly for explanation, are approached by a purely scientific method the result is nil; and if such a method be insisted upon as is too often the case in this age of science-all advance is for the present barred. For approaching these, and in general for proceeding into regions entirely new and unknown -as will, I trust, appear in the following chapters-only an intuitive method is possible. Some day, we may hope, these will be completely rationalized by the psychologist. Meanwhile if they are to be treated at all the method must be a compromise, or considerable relaxation in the direction of intuitive processes; or, what amounts to the same thing, there must be a large use of the intuitions of the poets.

Just now when there is much talk of "scientific research" and "laboratory methods" in literary study-though there are signs that the fashion is passing-it is well to remember the advantage in older and freer methods. It is a great gain-I say this seriously-to be able to form or even state conclusions without proof. If the proofs, which are of only mediate importance, can be dispensed with there is tremendous saving. "The end of understanding," Carlyle was certainly right in saying, "is not to prove and find reasons, but to know and believe." Proving is the toilsome journey; knowing is the journey's end; and we should be ready enough to shorten the journey. Consider the poet, who instead of plodding, flies; who even has only to think earnestly on his destination in order to arrive and with the quickness of thought. To change the figure a little, proving is

like the day's labor; knowing is labor's reward at evening; and the two must not be disproportionate. Literary "research" is sometimes a hard task-master, rewarding a long and painful induction with a pittance of uncertain value-even withholding the pittance and pretending that the labor is its own reward. Think again of the profit of poetry which omits the proofs and crowds the page with valuable conclusions. In literary investigation we can gain much by using some of the conclusions the poets have already provided for us.

I have suggested for literary investigation a compromise method. Truths drawn from the poets, though entirely lacking in inductive evidence, may be checked by tests of a strictly scientific kind. If, for example, the statement of a poet on a matter of importance connected with the present subject, though standing unproved, is yet found to agree with the statement of another, it is strengthened; if further this agreement is found among many poets, of different ages and countries, the consensus is an argument of the strongest kind-stronger indeed than any single inductive proof. Right conclusions also show an agreement of another kind; they have a way of agreeing with each other, of fitting into and explaining each other, and of readily forming part of a larger structure. The test of them is whether they will "work," and this test is also entirely scientific. Finally, wrong conclusions are sterile, right ones productive; the former die when the book containing them is closed; the latter are alive and remain so, and soon gather to themselves other opinions. A little time applies the test, and however it may be in the practical sciences, in the investigation of poetry there is no hurry. One writing on the present subject, then, need not be too much afraid of promoting error.

Indeed I am convinced that proving and testing the material available in the dicta of the poets on the subject of poetry is the least difficult and most dispensable part of the work. When we consider these dicta we do not question their value or their truth. When we find Shakespeare saying that the poet is of imagination all compact, or Shelley saying that the poet is at

once legislator and prophet, we take for granted—rather we feel that these expressions are valuable and true. The task is usually not to verify them, but to understand them and to bring them into proper relation to other thought. Taken independently these statements of the poets about poetry throw a fitful light on the subject,-sometimes the only light we have. If they could be taken together, many of them, from many ages and countries; if they could be systematized and correlated so that one might confirm, interpret, and illumine another, a theory of the greatest value would result. Some day a synthesis of this kind may be accomplished. I speak here, however, of the collection and correlation of such materials only to indicate a method a very valuable one as I believe,-which I have tried to keep before me in what follows.

This book has grown out of brief articles which I contributed to the Journal of Abnormal Psychology in 1912, and which were reprinted by Mr. Richard G. Badger in Poetry and Dreams, 1912. I have to thank Mr. Badger for his courtesy in consenting to the use from this earlier work of some paragraphs and parts of paragraphs, the most important of which, in chapters II, XIV, and XV, are indicated in the notes. I am much indebted to my brother, Mr. C. F. Prescott, and to my friends Professor J. E. Creighton and Professor William Strunk, Jr., for criticism of my manuscript; to Professor Strunk I am especially grateful for his kindly appreciation and encouragement.

Ithaca, New York

February 15, 1920.

F. C. PRESCOTT.