Elder Olson - A Conspection of Poetry II PDF

A Conspectus of Poetry: Part II
Author(s): Elder Olson

Source: Critical Inquiry, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Winter, 1977), pp. 373-396
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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A Conspectus of Poetry
Part II
Elder Olson
We have seen, now, that there are poems which are depictions of single
elementary actions, and we have seen something of the principles by
which they achieve their effects. Such elementary actions, together with
the means and methods of their depiction, contain in germ, so to speak,
all the more complex forms: and we may now consider these latter in
their growingcomplexity.
To begin with, let us go back to our no. 5 and compare it with
Tennyson's poem.
THE EAGLE
With crooked hands
The eagle
Claspsthe crag.
THE EAGLE (Tennyson)

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkledsea beneath him crawls;
He watchesfrom his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolthe falls.
373
374 Elder Olson A Conspectusof Poetry,II
Both of these poems involve perceptions. Both, it is true, involve

comparisons-the first in the metaphor hands, the second in both
metaphor and simile; but the comparisons are present only to sharpen
the perceptions, that is, to make them more precise. Considered as struc-
tures, the two poems differ only in that whereas the first is limited to a
single perception, the second contains several perceptions, bound to-
gether into a unity.
The unity itself is one continuous perception, beginning with the
eagle motionless on the high crag and ending with his stooping to his
prey. The activity depicted in the poem is not the eagle's-at least, not
primarily-but of a man's perception. In poems that depict the percep-
tion of objects in motion, the perception commonly begins with the first
glimpse of the object and continues until it is out of eyeshot or otherwise
no longer visible; and so it is here. The imagery is subtly developed to
suggest the viewer is quite close to the eagle, and practically facing him
(the claws are not only visible, but appear like crooked hands), at a
somewhat lower height (otherwise the "world" would not seem to be
chiefly blue sky "ringing" the eagle) but still a very considerable one (for
the waves seem merely wrinkles, and the motion of the sea is seen merely
as crawling).
Poem no. 5 gives a perception of the eagle only; it fails as a poem
because the detail given (while of course the same as Tennyson's) is by
itself inadequate to establish any aspect of the eagle which might evoke
emotion: the eagle clasps the crag, quite simply (we have no sense of
height, since a crag may be anywhere), and he does it with "crooked
hands." We are left with nothing more than a sense of deformity. Ten-
nyson's poem, on the other hand, is concerned less with the eagle himself
than with the high solitudes in which he lives and the precipitous speed
of his descent from them, as related to attributes of the bird which evoke
the wonder and admiration of the perceiver. In no. 5 the "crooked
hands" precede "eagle," so that we begin with hands and have to modify
them to talons, whereas in Tennyson's poem we begin with the eagle
clasping the crag, and see his talons as hands. The perception expressed
in the first line, insufficient as the whole of no. 5, is acceptable as a part,
as a first view of the eagle in his immobility.
But to return to the question of structure: whereas no. 5 represents
a single, we might say momentary,activity, Tennyson's poem represents a
succession of such moments. This structural difference opens new
possibilities for effect. In all perceptions, the perceiver or the object
of perception or both may be in motion or change of some sort; which-
Part I of a "Conspectus of Poetry" appeared in the Autumn issue of

CriticalInquiry.
Critical Inquiry Winter 1977 375
ever the case, the poem of the sort we have called "momentary" can
depict only one moment in motion or change. Motion or change is
thus, in effect, reduced to a circumstance of the perception. In poems
involving succession, however, there are various possibilities.
Here are two poems, both about parachutists:
JUMPER
He plunges toward a world become a map;
Slowly the map becomes a world once more.
JUMP
A dot explodes; is dome with hanging dot;
The dot becomes a doll, the doll a man.
In "Jumper," the parachutist is the perceiver, the world beneath

him the object of perception; he is in motion, the world is not. In
"Jump," the parachutist is the object of perception, perceived by some-
one on the ground. Brief as they are, these poems do not depict a
moment of perception, but a succession of perceptions; we must not let
their succinctness deceive us. Each deals with something at a distance,
seen from closer and closer points of view; yet we should have to explain
the succession of perceptions differently, for the first would have to be
explained in terms of what was happening to the perceiver, the second,
in terms of what was happening to the object perceived. If Tennyson's
"The Eagle" ended with its fifth line, we should have a poem in which
the succession would be explained wholly in terms of the perceiver, that
is, his seeing the eagle immobile on the rock, then as close to the sun
against a baseground of "lonely lands," then as ringed by sky, etc. With
the last line, however, the eagle moves, terminating the sequence of
perceptions; thus the sequence must be explained in terms both of per-
ceiver and perceived.
All of these matters reduce to questions of probability, that is, prob-
ability that the object would appear thus and so to such and such a
perceiver. The momentary poems entail the probabilities of perception
at a given moment, and these are violated by inconsistencies such as
those of the car that seemed a streak to its passenger and Coleridge's
wake following the ship. The sequential poems entail further prob-
abilities, which include not merely the probabilities of each moment,
but the probabilities of motion or change in a given direction, in a given
order of sequence, etc., on the part of the perceiver or perceived. For
example, an observer moving away from an object will not see it in
greater detail, and a falling leaf does not first hit the ground and then
detach itself from the branch. Even where the experience is imaginary,
imagination establishes its own probabilities. One may imagine a flying

elephant, but then flight and elephants entail their own probabilities,
and a flying elephant will be a flying elephant perceived this way and not
that; and one may imagine a perceiver with X-ray vision, but he would
then see what X-ray vision would see.
10
Thus far our examples of sequential activities have been of percep-

tions only, but of course every activity of mind can be depicted, just as in
the momentary kinds, and indeed more fully than in these. And whereas
our examples were of larger perceptions made up of smaller perceptions
as their parts, as in Tennyson's "The Eagle," there is clearly no necessity
that the wholes be made of parts similar to themselves. For example, an
activity of recollection is not necessarily, as a whole, made up of parts
which are also recollections.
Whatever the activity, however, there must always be an agent who
is engaged in it, whether he is explicitly represented in the poem, or
whether he is there only by implication; and, just as the perceiver in-
volves the probabilities of certain perceptions because of his character or
emotion or circumstances, the agent involves certain probabilities of ac-
tion. In "The Eagle" the speaker is not recounting any and every charac-
teristic of the eagle, but only those which establish him as a noble and
exceptional bird (indeed, the speaker is not recounting a particular ex-
perience with a particular bird, but rather a distillation of such experi-
ences, real or imagined). The perceptions of the bird are those which
would be perceived by someone who admired the bird for certain qual-
ities, although that person and his admiration are only implicit; and the
introduction of a detail jarring with, or irrelevant to, such qualities
would violate the probabilities of the poem. Similarly, the activity in
which any agent is engaged will be determined by what is probable for
that agent.
Probability is more general or more specific according as the agent
and his circumstances are made more general or more specific. Thus the
agent may be anyone (complete generality), or more specifically, some-
one feeling a given emotion (for example, a lover, an enemy) or more
specifically still, someone of a given disposition, character, etc. Similarly,
the circumstances may be so generalized as to suggest no definite time or
place, or, at the opposite extreme, be made highly specific. In general,
the more specific the treatment of agent and circumstance, the more
specific the probabilities established. Compare, for example, the relative
generality of the lover in "O Western Wind" and the relative specificity
of the Duke in "My Last Duchess": it is evident that what a lover might
probably feel or do is far more general than what the Duke might prob-
ably feel or do.
11
When the activity depicted in a poem involves a succession of mo-

ments, it may take one of two possible forms: simple or complex.A simple
activity is like a straight line; that is, it involves progression in a single
direction. A complex activity is like a bent line: that is, it moves first in
one direction, then in another. This changing of course, so to speak, is
called a turning point or reversal. Every complex activity contains at least
one such turning point; and it is possible to have a good many turning
points if the action is long enough, as in an epic like the Odyssey,which in
fact is full of reversals, for Odysseus or his men or those whom they
encounter are always getting into danger and then out of it, or else doing
something and having it produce an opposite effect to the one intended;
and of course all such things are reversals.
These few examples of successive activities have thus far all been
simple ones: there is no reversal in "The Eagle" or "Jumper" or "Jump."
Reversals are found more frequently in longer poems than in shorter
ones-for example, Milton's "Lycidas" and Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale"
contain reversals. In "Lycidas," the mourner falls into deeper and
deeper grief and despair, until he remembers something that changes
him to the opposite feelings; in Keats' "Ode," the listener tries to achieve
such happiness as the bird knows until he discovers something that
makes him forego all further attempts. The reversals in complex ac-
tivities, like any other part, must be probable, must have a sufficiently
established cause. Thus the grief at Lycidas' death is altered to its oppo-
site by the remembrance that since Lycidas was a Christian, he could not
die, for Christ had conquered death; and the listener in Keats' "Ode"
gives over any further attempt to be as happy as the bird when he
realizes that the bird is "immortal," whereas he himself must bear the ills
which attend mortality.
Generally speaking, we feel emotions more powerfully when they
come upon us unexpectedly. Unexpected good fortune seems even bet-
ter than it is, unexpected misfortune even worse, by comparison with
what we had expected: consequently we respond with greater emotion.
Since reversals always involve something of the unexpected, the complex
form of activity offers more possibility of emotional power than the
simple. The reversal must be unexpected if it is to be effective, and also,
as we just saw, it must be probable; the complex activity must therefore
always contain an apparent or on-the-surface probability, which founds
our expectation, and the real probability, which defeats it. The real
probability must be more probable than the apparent, for otherwise we

should not accept it; and it must be hidden (that is, concealed by the
poet), for otherwise we should expect it as the more probable.
In the shorter kinds of poems reversals usually involve a change
from a desire or emotion or opinion to its opposite; in longer kinds, a
change of fortune or situation (from good to bad, or vice versa) or a
change in the character of the protagonist. The reversal in "Lycidas"
involves a change of emotion, that in Keats' "Ode" a change of desire;
that in Matthew Arnold's "Sohrab and Rustum" involves a change of
fortune, in that Rustum learns that the warrior he has killed in a duel is
his only son. Since actions we perform in ignorance are often things we
should never do if we had knowledge, discovery (that is, coming into
knowledge) is closely related to reversal. Discovery can, for example,
occur in time to prevent an act or disclose the nature of what was un-
wittingly done.
Reversal and discovery are, then, parts of the complex action.
12
We have distinguished actions which are momentary from those

which contain a succession, and we have seen that the succession can be
either simple or complex. There are other possibilities of difference
among successive actions. Suppose we lay side by side Tennyson's "The
Eagle," Browning's "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's
Church," Arnold's "Sohrab and Rustum," Homer's Iliad, and Shake-
speare's Hamlet. If we now compare the actions depicted in these works,
certain differences are immediately evident. "The Eagle" (like all of the
other poems quoted so far) involves the single action of a single person
in a single situation. In Browning's poem, several persons are interacting:
although we hear only the Bishop's voice, as though we were hearing
only one side of a conversation, we can guess the whole: the sons clearly
refuse each of the Bishop's requests, forcing him to make new choices.
In short, the action of thepoem is composed of actionsof several agents upon
each other. In Arnold's poem the action is similarly one of the interaction
of several agents; it is, however, of greater compassthan that of Brown-
ing's poem, and on the other hand of less compassthan the action of the
Iliad or of Hamlet. We might obtain some notion of the differences of size
or magnitudeof action-not length of the work, but magnitudeof action-by
observing that "The Eagle" has the magnitude of a speech, Browning's
poem that of a scene containing a number of speeches, Arnold's that of
an episodecontaining a number of scenes, the Iliad or Hamlet that of a plot
containing a number of episodes. Thus the actions of smaller mag-
nitudes are the elements, in each case, from which actions of larger
magnitude are made. Again, we may say that the magnitude of action is
measured by how much has to be done, or has to happen, in order to

bring it to completion.
We may distinguish, thus, four magnitudes of action:
1. The action completed in a single continuous (uninterrupted) speech

of a single person.
2. The action completed in a single continuous (uninterrupted) con-
versation or interaction of two or more persons.
3. The action containing several conversations (or passages of interac-
tion) between two or more persons, as centering about a single domi-
nant incident.
4. The action containing more than one dominant incident.
This classification seems to be exhaustive, since we cannot conceive

any action of a smaller magnitude than (1) or any of a greater magnitude
than (4). It is evident, too, that these magnitudes are related to the
natures of various literary forms; for example, no lyric can have an
action of magnitude (4), and no tragedy or epic can have an action of
magnitude (1). Indeed, it is possible to arrange the various literary forms
in terms of their related magnitudes:
Magnitude (1): most lyrics, a few short stories, such as Virginia Woolf's
A Haunted House; short dramatic sketches, such as Chekhov's Tobacco.
Magnitude (2): all lyrics not belonging to (1); many short stories and
longer dramatic sketches; some one-act plays.
Magnitude (3): some short stories; tales, epic episodes; tragedies with
short plots, like those which make up the Oresteian trilogy.
Magnitude (4): full-length plays; novels; epics.
These, it must be remembered, are not matters of physical length,

such as performance time or number of words, but of length of action.
Although of course there is some correlation between length of action
and physical length, a work with a short plot may be physically longer
than a work with a long plot. For example, the Agamemnonof Aeschylus
has a short plot, the OedipusRex of Sophocles a long plot; yet the former
is almost 150 lines longer than the latter; and Shelley's "Adonais," a lyric
with an action of magnitude (1), is 495 lines long, whereas Yeats' The
Green Helmet, a play with an action of magnitude (3), is only 346 lines
long.
13
The magnitude of an action is of course a quantitative matter; but

actions also differ qualitatively. Set Arnold's "Sohrab and Rustum" be-
side Pope's The Rape of the Lock, and it is at once clear that their actions,
similar in magnitude-they are both episodes-are dissimilar in quality,
for the former is serious, while the latter is comic.
It is usually easy to tell whether something is serious or comic, for
our natural reactions inform us. To say what the serious and the comic
are, and what makes them what they are, however, is a matter of some
difficulty. In life we take seriously anything we estimate as significantly
good or evil, and likely to befall us or those whose fortunes can give us
pleasure or pain; also, whatever may cause such good or evil, or increase
or decrease it; and also whatever indicates that such good or evil has
happened, is happening, or is about to happen. It is evident, thus, that
when we take something seriously, we make certain value judgments: we
evaluate the good or evil involved, the probability of its occurring, to-
gether with any circumstances which may affect either the amount of
good or evil, or its probability. Hence we take any ordinary action, even,
with a certain amount of seriousness-buying chewing gum, opening an
umbrella, and things of the sort-so long as all circumstances concur to
give it whatever value it may have as action. The circumstances of an act
are the act, the agent, the person or thing acted upon, the manner of
action, the instrument if any, the purpose, the result, the time, the place;
and when the act and the result are such as suit the purpose, when the
agent, instrument, and all other circumstances are fitting, and when the
purpose is an achievable one, whether good or bad, the act has some
degree of importance whether as good or evil, and we take it seriously to
that degree. When, on the contrary, the action has one or more of its
circumstances completely opposite to the concurrence required for ef-
fectiveness, in such a way as to rob it of all value, and when this opposi-
tion manifestly involves absurdity, the action is ridiculous. There will be
such manifest absurdity, for example, in someone so ill-equipped for the
part that it is absurd to suppose him as agent, or when the act is so far
from the one proper to achieve the purpose that it is absurd to suppose
that anyone would do it or that it could succeed, or when the purpose
itself is absurd, or when the result, manner, instrument, time or place
involves similar absurdities. But mere absurdity is not of itself sufficient
to produce the ridiculous; it must be absurdity which completelycancelsthe
value of the action, that is, anything in terms of which it might be taken
seriously.
The ridiculous action will never be absurd in all its circumstances;
those which are not absurd are required to set the standard by which we
judge the others, or, to put this somewhat differently, they lay a claim to
be taken seriously which the others negate. The comic action may be
described as a self-devaluating one, part of which proposes itself as seri-
ous, part of which annihilates that claim. The two parts are either pre-
sented simultaneously, as frequently in cartoons, or the claim is pre-
sented and then annihilated. For example, a recent cartoon shows a

number of convicts breaking up rocks. All are using sledgehammers-
except one in the foreground, who is using karate chops. Here the claim
to seriousness and its annihilation-through the circumstance of
instrument-are simultaneously presented. This cartoon is captionless; in
captioned cartoons, the picture usually makes a claim which is nullified
by the caption, or vice versa.
Charactersare ridiculous when they characteristicallydo or say ridicu-
lous things, either through some intellectual deficiency such as igno-
rance or stupidity, or through some moral fault. Characters can also be
ridiculous through physical attributes-facial expression, voice, gesture,
etc.-or through their dress, where these things imply some personal
fault of a kind which might be ridiculed. Not all of the characters in
comic works are ridiculous, however; some are involved in a ridiculous
action by their mere presence (this is the source of all "innocent
bystander" jokes), some are involved simply through ignorance of some-
thing which they could not possibly be expected to know (this is the
source of comedies of error), others, again, are neither ridiculous in
themselves nor perform ridiculous actions, but serve to expose the follies
and errors of others. These last are "wits"; and we may say here that
there are two basic roles in comedy, that of the wit and that of the butt.
We laugh with the wit; we laugh at the butt. Of course it is possible for the
same person to be the wit in one situation and the butt in another, as
when the city slicker ridicules the country bumpkin only to have the
bumpkin turn the joke against him.
While not all comic characters are inferior, all ridiculous actions,
speeches, and characters are; thus all comic works depend upon deprecia-
tion; upon the depreciation, that is, of the importance of what is being
depicted. Praise and blame are both serious, and tend to establish the
gravity of the virtue or vice in actions; comedy is rather related to slight.
Villainy, vice, and depravity can be depicted in comedy; indeed, there is
generally more of that in comic than in serious works; but they are seen,
not as grave faults, but as ridiculous--of no account. Comedy ranges
from the comedy of well-bred wit ("high comedy") to the comedy of low
wit ("low comedy"), which involves horseplay, buffoonery, and physical
indignities.
Since, as we have seen, comedy involves a claim to seriousness which
is immediately or subsequently nullified, the greater the claim to seri-
ousness, the greater will be the effect of the nullification. Small things
appear smaller when contrasted with greater, and unimportant things
appear even more unimportant when contrasted with very important
things; hence the ridiculous appears even more ridiculous when con-
trasted with the heroic or tragic. Thus the use of epic and tragic con-
ventions heightens the absurdity of comic actions, and so we have forms
382 Elder Olson A Conspectusof Poetry, II
like mock-tragedy, as in Fielding's The Tragedyof Tragedies;or, TheLife and

Death of Tom Thumbthe Great,.or mock-epic, as in Pope's The Rape of the
Lock.
The emotion which comedy evokes in us is not laughter, but rather
one which has no name, since it has always been identified with laughter.
It is a pleasurable emotion produced by the relaxation of the mind from
its concern with something as serious, through the evident absurdity of
that thing's claim to seriousness. When it is produced very suddenly, or
when it is produced to excess, laughter ensues, because laughter, like
tears, is one of the body's ways of discharging violent or excessive emo-
tion, whether pleasurable or painful.
14
Both the serious and the comic admit of degree; that is, something
may be more or less serious or comic. The comic ranges from that which
produces quiet mirth to that which produces the convulsive guffaw; the
serious, from that which simply invites serious consideration to that
which calls forth the profoundest emotions of which humanity is capa-
ble. The supremely serious is either the tragic or the heroic. As the comic
is the product of jesting and lightheartedness, and the serious the prod-
uct of earnestness and gravity-in other words, of two contrasting views
of human life and action-so the heroic and the tragic, as we shall use
the terms here, are two contrasting views of human life and action as
supremely serious. The tragic view sees human life in terms of the grave
ills to which man is subject, which he may even bring upon himself by
erroneous action, and the tragic effect involves pity and fear and other
dolorous emotions. The heroic, on the other hand, excites the more
spirited and sanguine emotions. Arnold's "Sohrab and Rustum" is tragic;
Tennyson's Morte d'Arthur is heroic. Both involve sorrowful incidents;
but the attitudes which they express are different. Browning's "Childe
Roland to the Dark Tower Came" is also heroic. The point is not the
difference between tragedy and epic; all of the poems just mentioned
are epic episodes, and among full-length epics, the Iliad is tragic,
whereas the Odysseyis heroic.
Comic works devaluate action and character to produce comic ef-
fect; serious works invest their characters and action with importance.
Comic poems of all sorts, therefore, depend primarily upon deprecia-
tion, whereas serious works depend upon magnification, understood as
the opposite of depreciation. The best way to understand the distinction
between these is, let us say, to compare Giraldi Cinthio's II Moro de
Venezia (The Moor of Venice), which is the seventh story of the third de-
cade of hisHecatommithi(a revolting police-blotter tale of murder because
of sexual jealousy) with Shakespeare's Othello,which transforms the story
to the level of the supremely serious-in this instance, tragic. Cinthio's

tale is-while a mere sensational account of murder and intrigue-also
serious; the opposite or comic treatment may be conjectured by imagin-
ing what Aristophanes or Rabelais might have done with the story.
Serious actions include not merely those of men who are better than
the ordinary, but also of those men conspicuously evil. Tragedy proper,
for example, treats of the actions of those better than the ordinary per-
son; but there also exists a kind which, although it is always called
tragedy, has as its protagonist an eminently villainous person. This
should be distinguished from tragedy, for whereas tragedy excites pity
and fear, on the basis of some kindness and sympathy we feel for its
protagonist, the tragedy of villains evokes emotions opposite to pity and
fear-we do not fear but hope that retribution will overtake the villain; we
feel, not pity, but a sense of satisfied justice when it does; and we feel
hostility, not kindness, for the protagonist. Perhaps this might be called
"punitive" tragedy, since the protagonist is usually punished. Marlowe's
TheJew of Malta, Webster's The Duchessof Malfi and The WhiteDevil are of
this sort; and they require an analysis quite different from that of
tragedy proper.
We have seen that in comic forms it was possible to create the
mock-heroic, and thus to enhance the absurdity of comic actions and
persons, by the use of conventions and devices associated with tragedy
and epic. A reverse method is possible in the serious: the use of devices
associated with comic forms to enhance the seriousness of the serious.
This seems to be a characteristically modern method; at any rate, it
underlies the construction of T. S. Eliot's SweeneyAgonistes and many
plays of the so-called absurdist theatre. Perhaps we may call this method
"mock-comic."
Like the mock-heroic, it involves the ironic use of devices and con-
ventions. It is not strictly a construction of action but of representation.
What is meant by representation will next be made clear.
15
Thus far we have been concerned with what the poem imitated or
depicted: differences in the actions and characters imitated, and dif-
ferences among poems as they depict one kind or another. But poems
differ, not merely in what they depict, but also in how they depict it; and
such differences we may call differences of representation,that is, dif-
ferences in the manner or way in which poems depict.
The broadest difference between methods of representation-one,
that is, which underlies all others-is that between the narrative and the
dramatic methods. From the point of view of the reader or spectator the
difference between the narrative and the dramatic methods is the dif-
ference between listening to someone else's account of an event, and

witnessing it oneself. From the point of view of what the poet does in
narrating or dramatizing, the difference is that between remaining in
one's own person throughout and successively impersonating each per-
sonage as he acts or speaks. In pure narrative there is no direct dis-
course, except perhaps of the narrator; a much more frequent form is
the "mixed" narrative, that is, narrative with some speeches in direct
discourse. The latter is used by most narrators from Homer to the pres-
ent day.
Clearly all methods must fall under one or another of these three
heads; but these are very general, and cover many different specific
methods. In narrative, for example, the narrator may be an impersonal
one, with unlimited knowledge of the action and the agents (the so-called
author omniscient), or with knowledge of a restricted order (for exam-
ple, knowledge only of the externalbehaviorof his characters, as in Dashiell
Hammett's The Maltese Falcon) or only of their thoughtsand emotions,as in
certain avant-garde novels. Or the narrator may be a personal one; if so,
he may be the principal agent, or someone close to, or remote from, the
principal agent; he may be in the center or on the fringes of the action,
or outside it entirely, he may be close to it or remote from it in time. He
may be good or bad, wise or foolish, hostile or friendly to the persons of
the action, he may or may not comment upon the action. Moreover,
there may be several narrators rather than one; they may be of similar or
different moral character, similarly or differently disposed toward the
main person, etc. They may, too, recount different parts of the action (as
in Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae), or retell the same parts, as in
Conrad's Victoryand LordJim; and their accounts may agree or differ
very greatly, and in the latter case, one may be the "true" and authorita-
tive one, or the "true" story may be something arising out of all, but
different from any one, of the accounts. The "true" story may even be
something left a riddle, as in Henry James' The Sacred Fount. The story
may be told, moreover, in a variety of forms; for example, in letters, in
diaries, as a history, as a "stream of consciousness," etc. The story may,
moreover, follow the chronological order of the events, or may depart
from it, using flashbacks and similar devices.
Dramatic method has always been thought of as fairly simple and
uniform, but in fact it is not. The dramatist may, like Shakespeare, show
his main action on the stage, or he may have most of it happen offstage,
like Chekhov. He may keep his main character in constant or almost
constant view, as in Hamlet, or he may never allow his main character to
appear, as in Anouilh'sArdele. He may display chiefly physical actions, as
in melodrama, or he may concentrate on verbal actions and the psycho-
logical processes of his characters, as in Racine's Phidre, or he may show
his characters from within and from without, as O'Neill does in Strange
Interlude. He may let the events speak for themselves, or he may, like
T. S. Eliot, choose some character as his commentator, or he may, like

Aeschylus, comment through a chorus. He may depict character and
action in sharp circumstantial detail, like Shakespeare, or he may univer-
salize them almost to the point of abstraction, like Racine. He may be
bluntly explicit, like Brecht in his more didactic pieces, or he may de-
pend so heavily upon suggestion and innuendo that the audience is
uncertain as to precisely what is happening, as in Edward Albee's Tiny
Alice. He may present his action as happening at the moment, which is
the usual way, or as being recollected, as in Tennessee Williams' The Glass
Menagerie. He may depict a conversation between two or more persons
by representing one end of it only, as Browning does in "The Bishop
Orders His Tomb," and as Jean Cocteau does in his one-act play On the
Wire (La VoixHumaine).
Both narrative and dramatic methods are, then, numerous and var-
ious, and can range from the extremely simple to the highly complex.
The principles on which these methods depend, however, are few and of
extreme simplicity, whatever the literary form. All methodsof representa-
tion determinewhat the readeror spectatoris to knowin what order,what he is to
recollector bear in mind, what he is to infer, and the degreeof attentionhe is to
give to eachpoint, and theydetermine,further, thesynthesiswhichhe is to makeof
the mattersrevealedto him-what he is to associateor correlatewith what. This
is, of course, one of the principal mechanisms by which the poet controls
the emotional response to his poem, for it determines what opinion
reader or spectator will actively entertain at any given moment, and the
opinion determines the emotion. We shall feel fear, for example, if we
hold the opinion that danger is imminent, and we shall not feel it if we
hold a contrary opinion; we shall feel pity if we have the opinion that
someone is suffering undeserved misfortune, and not feel it if we opine
otherwise, and so on. Basically, what happens to us in our encounter
with a poem-a poem of any kind-is that the poet utilizes opinions and
emotional attitudes which we may be presumed already to have in order
to induce in us further emotions. The importance of the method of
representation to this process may easily be seen.
The general principle underlying what ought or ought not to be
represented is simple also. Leaving aside mere ornamentation (as a song
or a dance might be included in a play merely for ornamental purposes),
the representation either establishes probabilities or displays their actu-
alizations, with a view to producing a given emotional effect. It follows,
thus, that whatever would impair probability or counteract the intended
emotional effect should be omitted from, as whatever would establish
probability or promote the intended emotional effect should be included
in, the representation. Thus, something generally probable (as that a
servant will answer his master's summons) need not be shown; some-
thing probable only in certain circumstances (as that a servant will not
answer the summons) must be understood as happening in the circum-
stances which make it probable; and so, too, with matters that obstruct or
promote the intended emotional effect. For example, it is not generally
probable that, by a single speech, a man can convert a hostile audience to
opinions and emotions completely contrary to their original ones, and so
Shakespeare has to show us Mark Anthony convincing the Roman rab-
ble; and an audience which has seen an innocent and defenseless old
man callously murdered in his sleep is not likely to sympathize in future
with the murderer, and so Shakespeare does not show us Macbeth actu-
ally murdering Duncan.
There is, finally, the question of scale of representationin both narra-
tive and dramatic forms. The events of a relatively short span of time
may be dwelt on at length, or, conversely, events over a long period may
be presented with extreme brevity. In Conrad's Under WesternEyes, for
example, more than a third of the novel deals with the events of a single
day, while the events of months are given only a few sentences. Even in
lyrics, the thought or feeling of a moment may be dealt with more
extensively than the thoughts or feelings over a longer period of time.
Scale, too, is determined by probability and emotional effect.
16
Poems differ, not merely according to what they depict and how
they depict it, but also according to the kind of diction employed (this
includes the kind of rhythm or meter as well, since rhythm and meter
are aspects of diction as spoken sounds). People-including critics-have
long supposed, and continue to suppose, that poetic diction is a diction
of a special kind, set apart from the language of ordinary or oratorical or
scientific prose by some special quality; and many theorists have pursued
the elusive quality, and some have built whole theories upon it when they
thought they had found it.
In all such questions it is well to look at the facts; and the facts do not
seem to support the supposition of any one special quality, or even a
complex of qualities. If one examines any considerable body of poetry,
one discovers diction-as diction--of an extraordinary heterogeneity,
ranging from language of a childlike simplicity to language of almost
inconceivable ornateness and complexity. Any quality discovered in the
diction of one poem, one may find absent or even replaced by a contrary
quality in another.
The truth of the matter would seem to be, not that there is some
special quality which sets poetic diction apart from other diction, but
that--far from poetic diction renderingthepoempoetic-it is ratherthat thepoem
rendersits dictionpoetic. The one thing in common between all the vari-
eties of diction to be found in poetry is that they have been used to make
poems. It is their use in a particularpoemthat makes them poetic within that
poem; outside it, they have no more claim to be called "poetic" than clay
or paint or marble have to be called "artistic materials," for clay and
paint and marble are in actuality such only when used in a particular
work of art. They are potentially artistic materials, of course, as almost
anything else may be; in this sense any diction whatsoever is poetic
diction, potentially. These matters should be particularly clear in the
present day, when painters and sculptors have used anything and every-
thing as the media of their arts, and when poets have used language of
every sort.
Probably, therefore, it is time that the chimera of "poetic quality"
and "poetic diction" should be dismissed. We must not, however, rush to
the opposite view and suppose that there is no difference between the
use of language in poetry and the use of language for any other purpose.
The differences in use make for differences in the characteristics of
language which are relevant to that use. The differences between the use
of marble or steel as building material and the use of either as the matter
of a work of art would lead to quite different considerations of, con-
ceivably, quite different characteristics; so it is with language considered,
say, as the medium of communication, or the medium of demonstration
or proof, or the medium of persuasion, or the medium of poetry.
Grammar, for example, is concerned with language as permitting in-
telligibility, logic with it as permitting the statement of true or false
propositions as entering into proof or disproof, rhetoric with it as per-
mitting persuasive statement and argument, poetry with it as permitting
imitation; these are all different concerns with, on the whole, different
(though not unrelated) powers of language.
The principle on which all poetic diction is based is a simple one: the
diction should be determined by what is probable for the speaker and his
circumstances. Thus a man in some violent passion will not speak like
one who is calm, and two men of different disposition and moral charac-
ter will not speak alike even in the same passion, and a man engaged in
strenuous action will not speak like one who is resting, and so on,
throughout the multitudinous differences which may be found in per-
sons and in their circumstances.
Although diction is "determined by what is probable for the
speaker," it is not a replica of actual speech. Actual speech is full of false
starts, digressions, accidental interruptions, and the like; transcribed
verbatim, it is intolerably boring. Poetic diction, even when it seems to
approximate most closely to natural speech, is in fact artificial, since it is
employed, not to serve the natural ends of discourse, but the artificial
ends of a work of art. Even at its simplest and most "natural" it is lan-
guage heightened, developed, made more expressive and vivid, made
more concise and more strictly relevant, more characteristic of the
speaker and his emotion, than ordinary language. The most "natural-
sounding" dialogue in fiction-say, in Sinclair Lewis or Damon Runyon
or Hemingway-is in fact a language no one ever really spoke, as any

competent linguist would be quick to point out. What any poet does
insofar as he develops a "style" is to make a language out of the materials
affordedbya natural language, and turn it to other purposes than those of
natural speech. If he has two or more personages in his poem and
desires to differentiate them through their speech, he has to make sev-
eral such artificial languages.
Innumerable as are the varieties of diction, they too depend upon
simple principles. Some words, like nouns and verbs, have their meaning
in themselves (categorematic words); others, like prepositions and con-
junctions, have their meaning only in showing how the meaningful
words are related to each other (syncategorematic words). There are,
thus, two main aspects of diction: categorematic words as elements, and
the kind of syntax or synthesis into which these enter. Words are used
either literally or metaphorically; they are, in point of origin, either
ordinary (in common native use) or foreign or coined by the poet; where
synonyms exist, one may be more pleasing than another, and is called
ornamental; and any given word either follows the form regularly in use
or does not, in being either contracted (as in o'er for over) or lengthened
(as in beloved) or altered in part. Words are therefore either ordinary or
foreign or coined or metaphorical or ornamental or altered in form.
Similarly, there are normal word orders and normal syntactical con-
structions and normal syntactical elements used to construct these; there
are also various possible departures from these norms. These may in-
clude, among other possibilities, foreign constructions such as Ezra
Pound's use of the Greek (or Latin) Absolute: "wind jamming the tiller,"
"the ocean flowing backward," etc.; Gerard Manley Hopkins' abridging
of clauses by dropping out pronouns and conjunctions, "And they could
not and fell to the deck / (Crushed them) or water (and drowned them)
or rolled / With the searomp over the wreck," or his lengthening of
expressions, "Why do we all, seeing of a soldier," etc.; or e. e. cummings'
use of parts of speech in functions other than their normal ones, "Any-
one lived in a pretty how town / With up so many bells floating down."
These are very general heads, and no doubt not exhaustive; but by
specification of these one may pinpoint (of course it depends on the
sharpness of one's pin) nearly everything that is done in diction by a
poet. The more the poet cleaves to ordinary words in ordinary syntax,
the greater his clarity; on the other hand, distinctiveness of expression is
produced by variation from these norms.
The question of clarity versus obscurity is much discussed nowa-
days. It is a foolish question. The poet uses clarity and obscurity as the
artist uses light and shadow; the question is rather one of what should be
clear and what should be obscure. And it is not a simple question of
white and black, but of many shades in between. The shades are pro-
duced principally by two devices: implicationand suggestion.
Implication is either determinate or indeterminate: that is, the con-

clusion of a syllogism is definite or indefinite. When the premises of a
syllogism are themselves definite, the conclusion is also definite accord-
ingly. For example, if we say that "No Roman Catholic can be divorced;
but the Duke in 'My Last Duchess' was a Roman Catholic; therefore he
could not have been divorced from his 'last duchess,' " we have a de-
terminate conclusion. When we add to this the fact that the Duke is
about to remarry, we can only conclude (despite Browning's remark that
she might have entered a convent) that he "gave commands" for her
death. Indeterminate implications result from premises that necessitate
no determinate conclusion. To illustrate this, one need simply qualify
the premises just given by "possibly": and the conclusion would be that it
was possible that he was not divorced from his last duchess.
Suggestion is achieved by two devices: generality and metaphor.
When the general terms form a definite pattern of characteristics that
suggest a certain thing, we have one sort of suggestion. For example, if
we say "The train glided, coil after coil, and slid into a dark crevice in a
mountain," we have said something literally true of the train but suggest-
ing in its general pattern a snake. If we said that the train "snaked" into a
tunnel we should have metaphor.
Since all metaphor is, as we remarked earlier, a transference of
names from one thing to another, there are four possible kinds: (1) a
more general word may be substituted for a more specific one ("Didst
fettle for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal," for
example, where "fettle," to prepare or make ready, is more general than
"forge"); (2) a more specific term may be used in place of a more general
one, as in "battering" above, since "battering" is a species of "beating"
and the horseshoe will beat the ground as the horse runs; (3) the name of
one species may be given to another within the same genus, as in "san-
dal" above, since sandal and horseshoe are two species within the genus
of things with which one is shod; (4) finally, the proportional or analogi-
cal metaphor is possible whenever four terms can be found such that the
first is to the second as the third to the fourth (A:B : C:D). For example,
since a ruler is to his kingdom as a ship's captain to his ship, Conrad can
speak of Captain Allistown as "the ruler of that minute world" of the
Narcissus. All proportional metaphors are convertible: in this instance, a
ruler might be called "captain of his kingdom."
All metaphors are based on likeness; a metaphor is good as a
metaphorwhen it aptly catches a likeness which is inobvious; if the like-
ness is obvious or the metaphor is trite, pleasure and distinctiveness of
style do not result; and one might as well use the ordinary word. As an
elementin a poem a metaphor is good as it fulfills its poetic function, that
is, gives freshness to the style, or better still, is appropriate to the charac-
ter, emotion, thought, etc., or better still, is significant-that is, sets the
character or his emotion or thought sharply and vividly before us. It is
possible thus, for a metaphor which is good in itself to be bad in its poetic
context; it is possible; conversely, for a metaphor not good in itself to be
excellent in context. For example, the very triteness of a metaphor may
show us the unoriginality of a character, or, while the likeness expressed
may not be striking, perhaps may even be nonexistent, it may be sig-
nificant that certain things seem alike to the character. Obviously, on the
same grounds, ordinary words in ordinary syntactical construction may
be best in certain contexts. Poetic diction on the whole is good in propor-
tion as it functions effectively in the poem.
The same conditions hold in verse. Verse in itself is good if the
sounds or rhythms are pleasant; as an element in a poem, it is good if it is
appropriate, and better still if it is significant. For example, a gay and
lilting rhythm would be inappropriate in a melancholy poem, as a feeble
and plodding rhythm would be in a gay one; and harsh sounds and
unpleasant rhythms might be excellent as setting before us most vividly
the agitation of the speaker. In general, any part should be as pleasant in
itself as it may be, consistently with its discharging its proper function
within the work.
17
In discriminating what a poem may imitate, how it may imitate, and
the means which it may employ in imitation (here simply diction and
verse, although other means such as music might be added), we have laid
a general basis for the discrimination of all forms of imitative poetry. All
imitations must imitate something,somehow,in a certain means or medium;
therefore, they also differ in these respects; by specifying each of these,
we may therefore approach the definition of a given kind.
The distinctions we have made are summarized in this outline:
I. Object of imitation (what imitated)

A. Magnitude
1. First magnitude
a) momentary
b) sequential
2. Second magnitude
3. Third magnitude
4. Fourth magnitude
B. Specific object
1. Mental experience (expression)
a) Not involving moral character
(1) Speaker undefined
(2) Speaker defined as lover, friend, or as member of
some other class not in itself morally good or bad
b) Involving moral character
2. Action (address, colloquy)

a) Not involving moral character
b) Involving moral character
C. Emotional quality (power)
1. Serious
a) Supremely serious
(1) Pleasurable object (heroic)
(2) Painful object (tragic)
b) Lesser degrees of serious
(1) Pleasurable object
(2) Painful object
2. Comic
a) Supremely comic (maximum absurdity: the ridiculous)
b) Lesser degrees of comic
II. Manner of imitation (how imitated)
A. Narrative
B. Dramatic
C. Mixed
III. Means of imitation (in what medium imitated: here, words alone or
words with embellishments such as rhythm)
A. Ordinary words in ordinary construction
B. Diction in degrees of remoteness in words and construction
from the ordinary
1. Single style
2. Mixed styles
These are, as we have suggested, very general heads, but they per-
mit the differentiation of many kinds of poems. There are, first, the
various kinds of lyric involving a single personage in a single situation
(first magnitude); these are momentary or sequential, imitate mental
experiences and activities (perceiving, reflecting, deliberating, etc.), or
an action performed on someone else, all of which either involve moral
character or do not; these are either serious or comic in varying degree.
Moreover, they are either dramatic or narrative in manner, or a mixture
of the two; and they have their appropriate kinds of diction, whether in
verse or prose.
Even very short lyrics may achieve, through nobility of thought or
emotion, the exaltation of the heroic or the tragic, and so must be said to
have as their object of imitation the supremely serious. At their simplest
such forms are exemplified by Issa's haiku "Granted this dew-drop
world / Is but a dew-drop world; / This granted, yet . . ." or Basho's
lament over the castle of Takadate, once the place where warriors lived
in splendor and now only ruin and wild grass: "Summer weeds / Of
heroic dreams / All that remains." The most massive of such forms is the
grand ode; Hopkins' The Wreckof the Deutschland is an example of the
heroic kind. There are many other shades of the serious; for example,
Keats' odes are serious, though not on the heroic or tragic plane. Com-
parably, there are many shades of the comic. There are of course many
comic lyrics, as anyone can tell by looking around a little, although
people and even critics often speak as though all lyrics were serious.
While all lyrics are either narrative or dramatic or a mixture of both,
the distinction is sometimes hard to make in a given instance, particu-
larly in very short pieces. This difficulty is increased by the fact that a
lyric may take its format (superficial form) from any kind of
discourse-hymn, prayer, letter, journal, oration, folk song, etc. The
simplest and surest way to determine whether a lyric is narrative or
dramatic is to observe whether the emotional effect is produced primar-
ily from the reactions and behavior of the speaker or from the nature of
what he recounts. If we react primarily to the behavior of the speaker,
the lyric is dramatic; if to what he recounts, it is narrative. Thus The
Wreckof the Deutschlandis dramatic, as Hopkins himself realized, for the
effect comes primarily not from the wreck itself, important and vivid
though the narration of it is, but from the thoughts and emotions of the
speaker reflecting on it. One single difficulty arises, however, in poems
which, although dramatic, suggest the speaker's thought or emotion
merely by stating the object of it. This point was discussed earlier (see
section 3) in our treatment of similarity and difference between the
response of the reader and that of the speaker. For example, Tennyson's
"The Eagle" imitates a man's reaction to an eagle, though the object of
his perception and emotion (the eagle) alone is given to suggest those
reactions; it is thus, a dramatic poem. The longer forms offer no dif-
ficulty in this respect: in the Homeric epics it is not hard to decide
whether we react primarily to the narrator or to the events he relates,
and there is no difficulty even in shorter pieces like The Rime of theAncient
Mariner. The narrator exists for the sake of the narrated; hence, if what
he recounts is more important than his own reactions, the poem is narra-
tive.
Lyrics of the first magnitude of action imitate, we said, either mental
experiences or activities, or else a single act of a single person in a single
situation. The former may be illustrated by "O Western Wind," "Spring
Day," Landor's "Dirce" and his Borgia poem, as well as by longer pieces
like Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind," Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale," etc.
The latter is exemplified in such pieces as Marvell's "To His Coy Mis-
tress"; the speaker in the poem is acting-that is, attempting to persuade
his mistress. This is clearly different from merely perceiving, feeling, or
thinking.
Were the response of the mistress given in this last poem-were
she to answer, "Not just yet," for example-we should have interactionof
the simplest sort, and we should at once be in the second magnitude of
action: two characters (or more) interacting in a single situation. The
mere presence of a number of people is not sufficient to establish an

action as within this class; the personages must interact; thus Shelley's
"Chorus from Hellas," though presumably spoken by a number of
people, involves an action of the first magnitude, not the second, for they
do not interact. Again, the personages must be really separate entities;
for example, Marvell's "A Dialogue between Soul and Body" is not in the
second magnitude of action; it merely uses what we might call a
"pseudo-dramatic" method (there is, correspondingly, "pseudo-
narrative") since soul and body are one person and not distinct entities.
Again, the fact that only the speech of one person is given does not mean
that there is not interaction; we saw that earlier in discussing Browning's
"The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's Church." "Fra Lippo
Lippi" and "Andrea del Sarto" are, like "The Bishop," poems of the
second magnitude of action, for all involve interaction; the "Soliloquy of
the Spanish Cloister," on the other hand, is not, for while the soliloquist
is affected by Brother Lawrence's actions, Brother Lawrence is not af-
fected by his, and there is no interaction.
We might call a poem with an action of the second magnitude a
"scene," since there is no name for poems of this kind; we have then,
clearly, serious as well as comic scenes, narrative as well as dramatic. In a
similar manner, we might call poems with the third magnitude of
action-a succession of "scenes"--episodes. Poems with the fourth mag-
nitude of action in some cases have names: for example, epic, tragedy,
comedy, etc. Usually they present no great problem of classification.
We observed earlier in section 12 that the actions of smaller mag-
nitude are the elements from which actions of the next larger magnitude
are composed (a speech combines with speeches to make a scene, scene
with scene to make an episode, episode with episode to make the long
plot). The relation between the shorter and the longer forms should thus
be clear. It must be emphasized once more that this is a matter of size of
action; the actual physical length of a work is determined not merely by
the size of its action, but by the scale on which it is represented, the
number of parts of the action represented, and the number and length
of the words used.
We may, however, distinguish actions in a different manner, accord-
ing to the kind of action entailed, rather than the magnitude. Thus we
have (1) the purely mental activity, affecting the individual only; (2) the
act performed by one individual upon another; (3) interaction between
individuals; (4) such acts as we have in (2) and (3) together with their
fully developed consequences. These actions can be seen to be related as
potentiality and actuality: (1) is in itself an actuality and also a potential-
ity out of which (2) is actualized; (2) is in itself an actuality and also a
potentiality out of which (3) is actualized; and (3) is in similar relation to
(4). "Lycidas," Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale," Eliot's "The Love Song of
394 Elder Olson A Conspectusof Poetry, II
J. Alfred Prufrock," and Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium" are all within the
mental sphere purely (1). A difficulty sometimes arises in distinguishing
between actions of this kind and those of (2), because, as we said, lyric
poems can use the format of any kind of discourse. The poem may, for
instance, suggest that the speaker is addressing someone; the question is
whether he is really doing so or merely addressing him mentally, and
therefore figuratively only. If the former, it is possible that the action
constitutes an act upon another person (2); if the latter, it is purely
private reflection or something of the kind (1).
We have now a fairly full apparatus for the statement of the various
forms of imitative poetry; as we suggested earlier, any further forms can
be found by further specification of means, object, or manner of imita-
tion. Certain "forms," however, will not be found. What of the epigram,
the sonnet, the ballad, the pastoral or eclogue, the mock-epic, the elegy,
the love poem, the didactic poem, the poetic allegory? Are these not
forms of poetry?
The answer is that certainly they are "forms" that poetry may take;
they are not poetic forms as such. The epigram is aform of discourse;the
sonnet is a verse-form; the ballad, the pastoral, the eclogue, and the
mock-epic areforms of literaryconvention;the elegy and the love poem are
classifications according to subjectmatter, the didactic poem according to
purpose, the allegory according to the deviceused. What makes an epigram
is its pithiness and wit; whether it is or is not in verse is incidental. The
ballad is a set of conventions which can be used in many quite different
forms of poetry: that is, serious or comic, with actions of one magnitude
or another, narrative or dramatic; clearly, then, it is no one form. The
eclogue and pastoral similarly involve conventions of subject matter and
method which can be employed in a variety of forms; thus we have
pastoral poetry and pastoral drama and pastoral fiction. As to love poem
and elegy and things of the sort, we need only remember that "My
Darling Clementine" is an elegy and the "Lycidas" is one also. Classifica-
tion by emotion is always insufficient; all human beings have the same
emotions: how they feel them, aboutwhat they feel them, how theymanifest
them, and other matters make all the difference. No one is good or bad
simply because he feels an emotion, but he can be heroic or ridiculous in
feeling a certain emotion in certain circumstances. There is a difference
between a noble rage and a petty rage; there is the same distinction in all
the common emotions. We react quite differently to them; and that is
very much the concern of poetry. Thus tragedy exhibits what is truly
pitiful or fearful, as the man of utmost prudence would see it, as comedy
exhibits what is truly absurd.
The case of didactic poetry is somewhat different. Didactic poetry
either uses the devices-that is, the matter-of poetic art, or uses the very
forms and conventions of poetic art to a purpose beyond the ends of
poetic art itself. Scientific and philosophical treatises as well as histories

and chronicles have been written in verse. Many of these have no reason
other than this to be called poetry; some, on the other hand, like Lu-
cretius' "On the Nature of Things" or Pope's "Essay on Criticism,"
"Moral Essays," and "Essay on Man," utilize all the devices of poetry to
didactic ends. Finally, some, like Dante's Divina Commediaor Spenser's
The Faerie Queene, even utilize the imitation of action, presenting a succes-
sion of episodes superficially similar to plot.
For this very reason, poems in the last group are sometimes difficult
to classify as didactic. Yet the difference between plot and the didactic
action is, in principle at least, perfectly clear. In imitative poems, plot is
final; it is the end by which all of the other parts are governed. The
didactic action, on the other hand, is not final; it is a means to a further
end, that of persuading the reader of something. Specifically, it func-
tions as a premise from which something is to be proved. There are
three types of argument, and there are consequently three ways in which
action may serve as a 'premise. (1) There is inductive argument, and
action serves in such an argument by exhibiting individual cases which
imply general or universal ones. Thus in Dante's Inferno we are shown
the sufferings in hell of individual hypocrites, from which particular
torments we are to infer the punishment of hypocrites in general. (2)
There is deductive argument, and action serves here to exhibit a gener-
alized case from which we are to infer individual ones; the Everymanplay
and Pilgrim's Progress have actions of this kind. (3) Finally, there is
analogical argument, and here action provides an analogue which can
always be stated as a proportion. In Aesop's fable of "The Fox and the
Grapes," for example, the fox is to the grapes as a man to the object of
his frustrated desire.
All didactic poems are in reality species of rhetoric-that is, of the
art of persuasion. Persuasion involves such matters as guilt or innocence,
praise or blame, expediency or inexpediency; for example, the intent
may be to persuade us that a certain man is honorable, and poetic con-
ventions and devices may be employed to convince us. Since epic dig-
nifies its heroes, the poet may, like Claudian, go so far as to make his
subject the hero of an epic. Conversely, if the intent is to ridicule the
subject, he might be made the "hero" of a mock-epic. All satire is obvi-
ously rhetorical. One may see the difference between comedy and satire
by observing that comedy presents what is ridiculous, whereas satire
makes something ridiculous; and this distinction sheds light on the gen-
eral difference between the imitative and the rhetorical forms of poetry.
The difference, it should be remembered, is one of kind, not of
merit. Dante, who wrote didactic poetry, is not an inferior poet; he
merely did not write poetry of the same kind as the mimetic poets. He
was well aware of the association of his art with rhetoric: he himself
defined poetry as fictio rhetorica musics composita-"a rhetorical fiction

musically composed."
18
We have now generally examined various kinds of poetry, from the

briefest and simplest to the most massive and complex, and we have seen
something of the different conditions underlying the various kinds, as
well as the mechanisms by which they achieve their effects. We have
found no general definition of poetry, but we have seen at least that
there can be no such definition, as well as the reason why there can be
none, for we have discovered in two major divisions of poetry-the
mimetic and the didactic-distinct arts that had nothing in common but
the materials and devices with which they worked, and which, since they
are of different natures, could not possibly be defined as of one nature.
We have seen, too, in some degree, the growth of one species of
poetry out of another, and we have found nothing that can limit that
process of growth or that suggests it is nearing completion. We must
infer from this that no general account of poetry can be exhaustive until
the last poem is written.
And this is a good thing to know and to keep in mind. Keeping it in
mind, we shall save ourselves from generalizing too impetuously, from
searching for illusory "poetic qualities," and from proclaiming laws and
rules which poet and poem must obey. It does not disallow what we truly
know; but it warns us that such knowledge is only of a part, that we do
not yet know fully what the word "poetry" can mean, and that we must
look to the poets of the future to instruct us.

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A Conspectus of Poetry: Part II

Author(s): Elder Olson

THE EAGLE (Tennyson)

Both of these poems involve perceptions. Both, it is true, involve

Part I of a "Conspectus of Poetry" appeared in the Autumn issue of

In "Jumper," the parachutist is the perceiver, the world beneath

imagination establishes its own probabilities. One may imagine a flying

Thus far our examples of sequential activities have been of percep-

When the activity depicted in a poem involves a succession of mo-

probability must be more probable than the apparent, for otherwise we

We have distinguished actions which are momentary from those

measured by how much has to be done, or has to happen, in order to

1. The action completed in a single continuous (uninterrupted) speech

This classification seems to be exhaustive, since we cannot conceive

These, it must be remembered, are not matters of physical length,

The magnitude of an action is of course a quantitative matter; but

sented and then annihilated. For example, a recent cartoon shows a

like mock-tragedy, as in Fielding's The Tragedyof Tragedies;or, TheLife and

to the level of the supremely serious-in this instance, tragic. Cinthio's

ference between listening to someone else's account of an event, and

T. S. Eliot, choose some character as his commentator, or he may, like

or Hemingway-is in fact a language no one ever really spoke, as any

Implication is either determinate or indeterminate: that is, the con-

I. Object of imitation (what imitated)

2. Action (address, colloquy)

mere presence of a number of people is not sufficient to establish an

poetic art itself. Scientific and philosophical treatises as well as histories

defined poetry as fictio rhetorica musics composita-"a rhetorical fiction

We have now generally examined various kinds of poetry, from the

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