Shelley; an essay by Francis Thompson
page 30 of 31 (96%)
page 30 of 31 (96%)
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{1} That is to say, taken as the general animating spirit of the Fine Arts. {2} The Abbe Bareille was not, of course, responsible for Savonarola's taste, only for thus endorsing it. {3} We mean, of course, the hymn, "I rise from dreams of time." {4} We are a little surprised at the fact, because so many Victorian poets are, or have been, prose-writers as well. Now, according to our theory, the practice of prose should maintain fresh and comprehensive a poet's diction, should save him from falling into the hands of an exclusive coterie of poetic words. It should react upon his metrical vocabulary to its beneficial expansion, by taking him outside his aristocratic circle of language, and keeping him in touch with the great commonalty, the proletariat of speech. For it is with words as with men: constant intermarriage within the limits of a patrician clan begets effete refinement; and to reinvigorate the stock, its veins must be replenished from hardy plebeian blood. {5} Wordsworth's adaptation of it, however, is true. Men are not "children of a larger growth," but the child _is_ father of the man, since the parent is only partially reproduced in his offspring. {6} _The Rhythm of Life_, by Alice Meynell. {7} "And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind" (Rev. vi, 13). |
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