Diction. The embodying of streaks the "famous poet's page" in occasional lines of His ever heard that it is in Whatsoever is entirely independent of the mind, and external to it, is generally equal to its own enunciation. Ponderable facts and external realities are intelligible in almost any language: they are self-explained and selfsustained. But, the more closely any exercise of mind is connected with what is internal and individual in the sensibilities, that is, with what is philosophically termed subjective, precisely in that degree, and the more subtly, does the style or the embodying of the thoughts cease to the thoughts. be a mere separable ornament, and in fact the more does the manner become confluent with the matter. In saying this we do but vary the form of what we once heard delivered on this subject by Mr. Wordsworth. remark was by far the weightiest thing we on the subject of style; and it was this: the highest degree unphilosophic to call language or diction "the dress of thoughts." . . . He would call it "the incarnation of thoughts." Never in one word was SO profound a truth conveyed. . . . And the truth is apparent on consideration: for, if language were merely a dress, then you could separate the two; you could lay the thoughts on the left hand, the language on the right. But, generally speaking, you can no more deal thus with poetic thoughts than you can with soul and body. The union is too subtle, the intertexture too ineffable, each co-existing not merely with the other, but each in and through the other. An image, for instance, a single word, often enters into a thought as a constituent part. In short, the two elements are not united as a body with a separable dress, but as a mysterious incarnation. And thus, in what proportion the thoughts are subjective, in that same proportion The incarnation of thoughts. does the very essence become identical with the expression, and the style become confluent with the matter. T. DE QUINCEY, Style, 1840-1841. Style, in my sense of the word, is a peculiar re-casting Style. and heightening, under a certain condition of spiritual excitement, of what a man has to say, in such a manner as to add dignity and distinction to it. M. ARNOLD, Study of Celtic Literature, 1867. I begin to try and define the grand style, a specimen of The grand what it is. Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole, There is the grand style in perfection; and any one who has a sense for it, will feel it a thousand times better from repeating those lines than from hearing anything I can say about it. ... Let us try, however, what can be said, controlling what we say by examples. I think it will be found that the grand style arises in poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject. I think this definition will be found to cover all instances of the grand style in poetry which present themselves. think it will be found to exclude all poetry which is not in the grand style. And I think it contains no terms which are obscure, which themselves need defining. . . . Here is the great difficulty: the poets of the world have been many; there has been wanting neither abundance of poetical gift nor abundance of noble natures; but a poetical gift so happy, in a noble nature so circumstanced and trained, that the result is a continuous style, perfect in simplicity or perfect in severity, has been extremely rare. One poet has had the gifts of nature and faculty in unequalled fulness, without the circumstances and training which make this sustained perfection of style possible. Of style. The grand style simple. The grand style severe. other poets, some have caught this perfect strain now and then, in short pieces or single lines, but have not been able to maintain it through considerable works; others have composed all their productions in a style which, by comparison with the best, one must call secondary. The best model of the grand style simple is Homer; perhaps the best model of the grand style severe is Milton. But Dante is remarkable for affording admirable examples of both styles; he has the grand style which arises from simplicity, and he has the grand style which arises from severity; and from him I will illustrate them both. In a former lecture I pointed out what that severity of poetical style is, which comes from saying a thing with a kind of intense compression, or in an allusive, brief, almost haughty way, as if the poet's mind were charged with so many and such grave matters, that he would not deign to treat any one of them explicitly. Of this severity the last line of the following stanza of the Purgatory is a good example. Dante has been telling Forese that Virgil had guided him. through Hell, and he goes on :— Indi m' han tratto su gli suoi conforti, Che drizza voi che il mondo fece torti. "Thence hath his comforting aid led me up, climbing and circling the mountain, which straightens you whom the world made crooked." These last words, "la montagna che drizza voi che il mondo fece torti”—“the mountain which straightens you whom the world made crooked"—for the mountain of Purgatory I call an excellent specimen of the grand style in severity, where the poet's mind is too full charged to suffer him to speak more explicitly. But the very next stanza is a beautiful specimen of the grand style in simplicity, where a noble nature and a poetical gift unite to utter a thing with the most limpid plainness and clearness :-- Tanto dice di farmi sua compagna Quivi convien che senza lui rimagna. "So long," Dante continues, "so long he (Virgil) saith he will bear me company, until I shall be there where Beatrice is; there it behoves that without him I remain." But the noble simplicity of that in the Italian no words of mine can render. Both these styles, the simple and the severe, are truly grand; the severe seems, perhaps, the grandest, so long as we attend most to the great personality, to the noble nature, in the poet its author; the simple seems the grandest when we attend most to the exquisite faculty, to the poetical gift. But the simple is no doubt to be preferred. It is the more magical: in the other there is something intellectual, something which gives scope for a play of thought which may exist where the poetical gift is either wanting or present in only inferior degree: the severe is much more imitable, and this a little spoils its charm. has its own M. ARNOLD, On Translating Homer, 1861-1862. [L]anguage is the incarnation of thought, and every art has its own speech, every work of art its own voice, Every art which belongs to it as the voice of Esau to the hands of speech. Esau. Epic imagery and verse belong to epic art, the Epic art. dramatic apparatus of language belongs to dramatic art, and Dramatic lyrical technicalities belong to the essence of lyrical art with such an indefeasible right of possession as the systematic critics confining their attention to the language almost wholly, that is, to the body without the soul, little suspect. E. S. DALLAS, The Gay Science, 1866. art. Lyrical art. Verse is no cause to poetry. poet. METRE AND VERSIFICATION FUNCTIONS OF METRE [T]HE greatest part of poets have apparelled their Not rhyming not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet, no more than Sir P. SIDNEY, Apology for Poetry, c. 1583. It is already said (and, as I think, truly said) it is not rhyming and versing that maketh poesy. One may be a poet without versing, and a versifier without poetry. But yet presuppose it were inseparable (as indeed it seemeth |