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Excerpt: ...should we call the man who makes one pretty conceit rhyme with another pretty conceit an artist, and deny the term to the man whose sentences pair with great laws and forces? Of course it is much easier for a poet to use the regular verse-forms and verse language than it is to dispense with them; that is, a much less poetic capital is required in the former case than in the Pg 132 latter. The stock forms and the stock language count for a good deal. A very small amount of original talent may cut quite an imposing figure in the robes of the great masters. Require the poet to divest himself of them, and to speak in the language of men and in the spirit of real things, and see how he fares. XV Whitman was afraid of what he called the beauty disease. He thought a poet of the first order should be sparing of the direct use of the beautiful, as Nature herself is. His aim should be larger, and beauty should follow and not lead. The poet should not say to himself, "Come, I will make something beautiful," but rather "I will make something true, and quickening, and powerful. I will not dress my verse up in fine words and pretty fancies, but I will breathe into it the grit and force and adhesiveness of real things." Beauty is the flowering of life and fecundity, and it must have deep root in the non-beautiful. Beauty, as the master knows it, is a spirit and not an adornment. It is not merely akin to flowers and gems and rainbows: it is akin to the All. Looking through his eyes, you shall see it in the rude and the savage also, in rocks and deserts and mountains, in the common as well as in the rare, in wrinkled age as well as in rosy youth. The non-beautiful holds the world together, holds life together and nourishes it, more than the beau Pg 133 tiful. Nature is beautiful because she is so much else first,
| ISBN-13 | 9781153825726 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 1153825724 |
| Weight | 0.43 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 0.29 In |
| List Price | $19.99 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 124 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2010-03-01 |
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