Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/228

198 Lord Tennyson is reported as saying, with respect It is vital with suggestion and interpretation. to certain contemporary writers: "Truth, as they understand it, is not the essential thing in poetry. For me verses have no other aim than to call to life nobler and better sentiments than we feel, and express in every-day life. If they can suggest pictures worthy of an artist's eye, so much the better." Even the first English writer upon the topic—George Puttenham, whose "Arte of English Poesie" was published anonymously in the year 1589—said that "Arte is not only an aide and coadjutor to nature in all her actions, but an alterer of them, so as by meanes of it her owne effects shall appeare more beautiful or straunge and miraculous." And so there is nothing more lifeless, because nothing is more devoid of feeling and suggested movement, than servilely accurate imitation of nature. Moreover, in poetry as in all other art, a certain deviation from fact is not only justifiable, but required. Some things must be told or painted not Truth of relation to the human faculties. as they are but as they affect the eye or the imagination. The photograph reveals, indeed, the absolute position of the horse's legs at a given instant; by its aid the spokes of the revolving wheel are defined. Without doubt, art has learned most important facts through the photographic demonstration of actual processes; our animal- and figure-painters, our sculptors, can never repeat the absurd untruths which have become almost academic in the past. They will not,