href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@50174@[email protected]#XLVII" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">XLVII

SEQUELS ARE BARRED, 111 XLVIII TOM FOOL, 111 XLIX CROSS RHYTHM AND RESOLUTION, 113 L MY NAME IS LEGION, FOR WE ARE MANY, 116 LI THE PIG BABY, 121 LII APOLOGY FOR DEFINITIONS, 122 LIII TIMES AND SEASONS, 124 LIV TWO HERESIES, 125 LV THE ART OF EXPRESSION, 126 LVI GHOSTS IN THE SHELDONIAN, 129 LVII THE LAYING-ON OF HANDS, 130 LVIII WAYS AND MEANS, 132 LIX POETRY AS LABOUR, 134 LX THE NECESSITY OF ARROGANCE, 134 LXI IN PROCESSION, 137   APPENDIX: THE DANGERS OF DEFINITION, 143

I

DEFINITIONS

THERE are two meanings of Poetry as the poet himself has come to use the word:—first, Poetry, the unforeseen fusion in his mind of apparently contradictory emotional ideas; and second, Poetry, the more-or-less deliberate attempt, with the help of a rhythmic mesmerism, to impose an illusion of actual experience on the minds of others. In its first and peculiar sense it is the surprise that comes after thoughtlessly rubbing a mental Aladdin’s lamp, and I would suggest that every poem worthy of the name has its central idea, its nucleus, formed by this spontaneous process; later it becomes the duty of the poet as craftsman to present this nucleus in the most effective way possible, by practising poetry more consciously as an art. He creates in passion, then by a reverse process of analyzing, he tests the implied suggestions and corrects them on common-sense principles so as to make them apply universally.

Before elaborating the idea of this spontaneous Poetry over which the poet has no direct control, it would be convenient to show what I mean by the Poetry over which he has a