self-obliterating splendor of his genius:

In poetry there is but one supreme,
Though there are many angels round his throne,
Mighty and beauteous, while his face is hid.
[Footnote: _On Shakespeare_.]

But though an occasional poet lends his voice in support of our censure,
the average poet would brush aside our complaints with impatience. What
right have we to accuse him of swerving from the subject matter proper
to poetry, while we appear to have no clear idea as to what the
legitimate subject matter is? Precisely what are we looking for, that
we are led to complain that the massive outlines of the poet's figure
obscure our view?

Now just here we who assail the poet are likely to turn our guns upon
one another, for we are brought up against the stone wall of age-old
dispute over the function of the poet. He should hold up his magic
mirror to the physical world, some of us declare, and set the charm of
immortality upon the life about us. Far from it, others retort. The poet
should redeem us from the flesh, and show us the ideal forms of things,
which bear, it may be, very slight resemblance to their imitations in
this world.

Now while we are sadly meditating our inability to batter our way
through this obstacle to perfect clarity, the poets championing the
opposing views, like Plato's sophistic brothers, Euthydemus and
Dionysodorus, proceed to knock us from one to the other side, justifying
their self-centered verse by either theory. Do we maintain that the poet
should reflect the life about him? Then, holding the mirror up to life,