Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/110

80 not likely to flourish in a society where ostracism, the custody of the Eleven, and the draught of hemlock were looked upon as rather mild and exemplary modes of criticism.

Now, in distinction from unsophisticated and creative The subjective poet. song comes the voice of the poet absorbed in his own emotions and dependent on self-analysis for his knowledge of life. Here is your typical modern minor poet. But here also are some of the truest "bards of passion and of pain" that the world has known. Again, there are those who are free from the Parnassian egoism, but whose manner is so pronounced that every word they utter bears its author's stamp: their tone and style are unmistakable. Finally, many are confined Specialists. implacably to certain limits. One cares for beauty alone, an artist pure and simple; another is a balladist; a third is gifted with philosophic insight of nature; still another has a genius for the psychological analysis of life. Each of these appears to less advantage outside his natural range. The vision of all these classes is conditioned.

An obvious limitation of the speechless arts is Language the freest means of self-expression. that they can be termed subjective only with respect to motive and style. We have the natural landscapist, and the figure-painter, while nearly all good painters, sculptors, architects, musicians, are recognizable, as you know, by their respective styles, but otherwise all arts, save those of language, are relatively impersonal and objective.