poetic principle is the surest sign of the strength of our
Renaissance.

We have seen the artistic spirit working, first in the delightful
and technical sphere of language, the sphere of expression as
opposed to subject, then controlling the imagination of the poet in
dealing with his subject. And now I would point out to you its
operation in the choice of subject. The recognition of a separate
realm for the artist, a consciousness of the absolute difference
between the world of art and the world of real fact, between
classic grace and absolute reality, forms not merely the essential
element of any aesthetic charm but is the characteristic of all
great imaginative work and of all great eras of artistic creation -
of the age of Phidias as of the age of Michael Angelo, of the age
of Sophocles as of the age of Goethe.

Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of
the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us
that which we desire. For to most of us the real life is the life
we do not lead, and thus, remaining more true to the essence of its
own perfection, more jealous of its own unattainable beauty, is
less likely to forget form in feeling or to accept the passion of
creation as any substitute for the beauty of the created thing.

The artist is indeed the child of his own age, but the present will
not be to him a whit more real than the past; for, like the
philosopher of the Platonic vision, the poet is the spectator of
all time and of all existence. For him no form is obsolete, no
subject out of date; rather, whatever of life and passion the world
has known, in desert of Judaea or in Arcadian valley, by the rivers