the art of poetry and to our sense of its importance in the life of
humanity. There is no field of inquiry where the interrelations of
knowledge are more acutely to be perceived. The beginner in the study of
poetry may at once comfort himself and increase his zest by remembering
that any real training which he has already had in scientific observation,
in the habit of analysis, in the study of races and historic periods, in
the use of languages, in the practice or interpretation of any of the fine
arts, or even in any bodily exercise that has developed his sense of
rhythm, will be of ascertainable value to him in this new study.

But before attempting to apply his specific knowledge or aptitude to the
new field for investigation, he should be made aware of some of the wider
questions which the study of poetry involves. The first of these questions
has to do with the relations of the study of poetry to the general field
of Aesthetics.


_1. The Study of Poetry and the Study of Aesthetics_

The Greeks invented a convenient word to describe the study of poetry:
"Poetics." Aristotle's famous fragmentary treatise bore that title, and it
was concerned with the nature and laws of certain types of poetry and with
the relations of poetry to the other arts. For the Greeks assumed, as we
do, that poetry is an art: that it expresses emotion through words
rhythmically arranged. But as soon as they began to inquire into the
particular kind of emotion which is utilized in poetry and the various
rhythmical arrangements employed by poets, they found themselves compelled
to ask further questions. How do the other arts convey feeling? What
arrangement or rhythmic ordering of facts do they use in this process?
What takes place in us as we confront the work of art, or, in other words,