Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/80

50 equal significance to all the fine arts; each of them, But the foregoing elements pertain to all the arts. in fact being a means of expressing the taste, thought, passion, imagination, and insight, of its devotee. The generic principles of one are those of all. Analysis of one is to this extent that of art as art: a remark illustrated by the talk of every noteworthy virtuoso, from Angelo to Reynolds and Ruskin and Taine. Reflect for an instant upon the simultaneous appearance of a certain phase, such as Preraphaelitism, in the plastic, structural, and decorative arts, in imaginative literature; and on the stage itself, and you see that the Muses are indeed sisters, and have the same food and garments,—often the same diseases. But take for granted the "consensus of the arts." What is it, then, that differentiates them? Nothing so much as their respective vehicles of expression. The '''6. Poetry, then, is an art of Speech.' key-stone of our definition is the statement that poetry, in the concrete and as under consideration, is language''. Words are its specific implements and substance. And art must be distinguished, whatsoever its spirit, by its concrete form. A picture of the mind is not a painting. There is a statue in every stone; but what matters it, if only the brooding sculptor sees it? A cataract, a sunset, a triumph, a poetic atmosphere, or mood, or effect,—none of these is a poem. When Emerson and Miss Fuller went together to see Fanny Elssler dance, and the philosopher whispered to the sibyl, "Margaret, this is poetry!" and the sibyl