_Théorie de l’Invention_, thèse pour le doctorat ès Lettres, Paris, 1881, p. 142.
It is perhaps superfluous to point out that imagination is utterly ignored in this analysis, and to recall Mr. Swinburne’s phrase that “the two primary and essential qualities of poetry are imagination and harmony.”
A curious passage which follows (pp. 149 f.), treats poetry as a supply of coal, rapidly used and close to exhaustion, so far as originality and freshness are concerned.
Professor Masson in the _North British Review_, 1853, reviewed the _Poetics of Dallas_, printing the review later as fifth essay in _Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats_, London, 1874; the sixth essay “On Prose and Verse,” repeats a discussion of De Quincey’s prose in the journal just named for 1854. Poets are led, Masson says, by the “flag” of imagery and the “flute” of verse; and while he inclines to the test of rhythm, he comes to no conclusion. Bain (_On Teaching English_, 1887; see Chap. VII. and pp. 249 ff.) also inclines to the test, but hedges after the manner of his brethren.
_Encycl. Brit._, article “Poetry,” which defines its subject as “the concrete and artistic expression of the human mind in emotional and rhythmical language.... In discussing poetry, questions of versification touch ... the very root of the subject.”
In the sense, of course, that it absorbed the best labour of two centuries.
The same argument, of course, applies to Plato, as in the “hymns” to Eros, noble prose indeed; and in less degree to such passages as De Quincey on the Ladies of Sorrow.
_Œuvres_, Paris, 1810, IX. 227 ff., “De la Prose Mesurée.” See also pp. 185 ff.
See his _Petits Poëmes en Prose_, in _Œuvres Complètes_, Paris, 1869, IV. p. 2,—an interesting preface.
_Young Ofeg’s Ditties_, trans. Egerton, London, 1895.
_Also Sprach Zaruthustra_, III. “Das Andere Tanzlied.”
His defence is very fine and languid and aristocratic,—“inutile dispute _de mots_,” he protests at last: _Œuvres Complètes_, Paris, 1852, V. 84, 295 (“Examen des Martyrs”).
A foreigner is no judge in these things; but he may say how much more the lucidity of Mérimée, of M. Anatole France, appeals to him than the poetic prose of Flaubert’s _Salammbô_.
Has any one noted in the opening chapter of the _Trionfo della Morte_ a prose refrain, “Gocce di pioggia, rare, cadevano,” repeated with considerable effect?