Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/43

 Creek 37 and communication was made by Professor Fred N. Scott in an article entitled "The Most Fundamental Differentia of Poetry and Prose," which appeared in the Publications of the Modern Language Association as long ago as 1904. Art is there denned as " the means by which an individual expresses his thoughts, feelings, and experiences (that is, himself) and communicates them to his fellowmen. " The impulse to express and the impulse to communi- cate are coincident, but, according to Professor Scott, the product is different as one or the other predominates. Naturally in poetry the impulse to expression predominates and in prose the impulse to communication. On this helpful distinction I would make two remarks: First, it distinguishes between different kinds of poetry and different kinds of prose as well as between poetry and prose. Secondly, as I have previously indicated, the impulse to communi- cate is an essential element in expression. Now the prose in which the impulse to express predominates is of course that which has most of poetical quality that is, it is the prose which is full of personal feeling and a permeating sense of beauty. And it is in such prose that style is of greatest importance, for as the impulse to communicate becomes less important (we are accepting, for the moment, as true the distinction beween com- munication and expression), the style becomes more important. Yet style is supposed to refer particularly to the medium of com- munication. If communication and expression are clearly dis- tinguishable, how can this fact be explained? It is the impossibility of making sharp distinctions between expression and communication and between form and content in poetry and literary prose alike that justifies the creative theory. Perhaps the difficulty in distinctions can be brought home by a consideration of the relation of language and thought. Naturally, of course, we think of language in relation to form and of thought in relation to content. But the matter is not so simple. Raleigh, "The aesthetic fact is altogether completed in the expressive elaboration of the impressions" (Croce's Aesthetics, translated by Douglas Ainslee, p. 82). I am not prepared to accept this interpretation of "expression" as equivalent to what I mean by "creation" largely because I believe that communication at least as a feeling of sympathetic communion in the mind of the writer is a real element in the "creation" of literature. In Professor Scott's use of the word "expression" communication is of course not implied, but I do not un- derstand that he identifies the aesthetic fact with expression.