I POETICAL CONCEPTION THERE is a certain irony in the relation between art and criticism. The artist under the impulse of imitation within him follows the lead of Nature, and brings his imaginative idea into being guided only by instinct and judgment. At a later stage in the history of society, perhaps after creative energy has ceased, comes the critic, and traces the idea backward as far as he can through the artist's mind, always stopping short, however, of the real sources of life. Then deeming that he has penetrated the secret of art, the critic begins to lay down the law for the artist, and his law is usually wrong. Wrong, indeed, he is almost bound to be, because he has followed the order not of Nature but of logic. Yet, so vast is the persuasive power of logic, that deductive criticism, a priori priori criticism, has had an appreciable influence on the course of literature, has, in fact, been the parent of all the Academies. And it is observable that this kind of criticism flourishes most in societies in which the spirit of political liberty has been, or is being, extinguished. Academies began to thrive in the Italian Republics after they had lost their freedom, in France when the nation was tending towards absolute monarchy. As regards the art of poetry, those who helped to found the Academies submitted themselves without reservation to the authority of Aristotle. Misconstruing the text of the Poetics, they deduced from their own misunderstanding of the philosopher a code of supposed artistic necessity, which had no basis in the nature of things. They succeeded in getting recognition for a set of rules which Corneille, while submitting to them in theory, was obliged to disregard in practice, and which were of such stringent logic as to convince Voltaire and Frederick the Great that Shakespeare was a barbarian and a bungler. Criticism, in my opinion, is only of value so long as it follows an inductive method. As I said in my inaugural lecture, the sole authorities in the art of poetry are the great classical poets of the world: the business of the critic is to infer from their work the true means of producing lasting pleasure. I propose, therefore, in a series of lectures to discuss the question of life in poetry, regarding it in three aspects: (1) Poetical Conception; (2) Poetical Expression; (3) Poetical Decadence. In my present lecture I shall endeavour to trace the course of an imaginative creation from the moment when a design first begins to shape itself in a poet's brain. I shall ask to be allowed to make but one assumption-one, indeed, which has been regarded as self-evidently true by all |