Between Wordsworth and Hazlitt you will learn all that it behoves you
to know of the nature, the aims, and the results of poetry.
It is no part of my scheme to dot the "i's" and cross the "t's"
of Wordsworth and Hazlitt. I best fulfil my purpose in urgently
referring you to them. I have only a single point of my own to make--
a psychological detail. One of the main obstacles to
the cultivation of poetry in the average sensible man
is an absurdly inflated notion of the ridiculous. At the bottom
of that man's mind is the idea that poetry is "silly."
He also finds it exaggerated and artificial; but these two accusations
against poetry can be satisfactorily answered. The charge of silliness,
of being ridiculous, however, cannot be refuted by argument.
There is no logical answer to a guffaw. This sense of the ridiculous
is merely a bad, infantile habit, in itself grotesquely ridiculous.
You may see it particularly in the theatre. Not the greatest dramatist,
not the greatest composer, not the greatest actor can prevent an audience
from laughing uproariously at a tragic moment if a cat walks across
the stage. But why ruin the scene by laughter? Simply because
the majority of any audience is artistically childish. This sense
of the ridiculous can only be crushed by the exercise of moral force.
It can only be cowed. If you are inclined to laugh when a poet
expresses himself more powerfully than you express yourself,
when a poet talks about feelings which are not usually mentioned
in daily papers, when a poet uses words and images which lie
outside your vocabulary and range of thought, then you had better
take yourself in hand. You have to decide whether you will be on the side
of the angels or on the side of the nincompoops. There is no surer
sign of imperfect development than the impulse to snigger
at what is unusual, naïve, or exuberant. And if you choose to do so,