作者：T.S.艾略特  厄土译

I

在英国文学写作中，我们很少会谈到传统，尽管偶尔我们在悲叹传统的缺席时也会用到这个名字。但我们无法指出“这种传统”或“一种传统”，顶多，是在讨论某某人的诗歌时，用形容词来说它是“传统的”，或者甚至“太传统”了。这个词汇的确罕见，除了可能在一些贬义的短语中出现。要不然，就是一种含混的赞许，带着这种暗示：被赞许的作品是件令人喜爱的考古复制品。如果不是轻松地提及考古这门让人放心的学问的话，你很难让英国人对“传统”这个词听着顺耳。

当然了，这个名词不会出现在我们对以往或者健在作家的赏析里。每个国家、每个种族不仅在创作上，而且在批评上都有自己的气质；不过，相比自己创作天赋上的缺陷和局限，更容易忘记自己批评习惯上的缺陷和局限。从浩瀚的、法文的、呈现法国人批评理论和习惯的批评著作中，我们明白了，或者以为自己明白了；我们就断定（我们是如此不自觉的民族）法国人比我们“更挑剔”，有时甚至因为这样的事实而有些沾沾自喜，好像法国人没有我们率真。他们或许如此，不过我们也应该提醒自己批评和呼吸一样不可或缺，当我们读到一本好书并且因此感动时，我们仍然应该清楚地表达我们心里的想法，批评我们在批评工作中的思维想法。在这个过程中一个渐趋明朗的事实即是我们坚持的倾向，当我们赞扬一个诗人，我们关注的是他作品中与别人最不相似的部分。在他作品的这些方面或部分中，我们自称找到了什么是个体的，什么是这个人独有的本质。我们在诗人与前辈、尤其是他的直接前辈的不同中满意的栖居，我们竭力挑选出那些可以与世隔绝的部分来欣赏。但是，如果我们在接近一位诗人时摈弃这种偏见，我们会经常发现，不仅在他作品最好的部分、而且最个人最独特的部分里，那些死去的诗人、他的先辈们，也在强有力的宣示着他们的不朽。我所指的不是诗人易受影响的青春期，而是他们完全成熟的时期。

但是，如果传统的、流传的唯一形式，存在于盲目的追随前代的步伐或者懦弱的忠诚于前代的成功方法里，“传统”就绝对是阻碍。我们看到过许多如此迟钝的水流很快就消失在了沙滩里；新颖胜过反复。传统是一个拥有更广泛意义的事物。它不可能通过继承权而得到，如果你想得到它，就必须付出巨大的努力。这就牵涉到：首先，历史意识，对于那些想在二十五岁以后还继续做诗人的人而言是必不可少的；而且历史意识也牵涉到一种感知力，不仅是要领悟过去事物的过去性，而且要领悟过去事物的此在性；历史意识迫使人们写作时不仅要与他自己的时代一起，而且还要意识到从荷马以来整个欧洲文学史以及整个本国文学是一个同在的实体，构成了一个同在的秩序。这种历史意识，既是一种永恒的意识，也是一种现世的意识，同时也是关于永恒与现世相结合的意识，正是这种历史意识，使得一个作家成为传统的。也正是这种历史意识，使一个作家敏锐地意识到自己在时间中的位置，在当代的位置。

没有诗人或者任何艺术形式的艺术家，可以独自具有他全部的意义。他的重要性、对他进行鉴赏就是对他和以往诗人及艺术家之间关系的鉴赏。你不能对他单独进行评估，你必须把他放置在前辈艺术家和诗人之间来对照、比较。我的意思是，这是一条美学批评准则，不仅是历史的。他必须遵守、必须协同，这种必要性并非单方面的；当一件新的艺术作品被创作时发生的情况，正是同时发生于它之前存在的艺术作品的情况。现存的杰作自身就构成了一个完满的秩序，这个秩序在新的（真正新的）艺术作品引入其中时被修正和改良了。现存的秩序在新作品的来临前是完满的，为了在新事物加入之后继续保持完满，整个现存秩序就必须改变，哪怕是微小的变化；因此每件艺术作品相对于整体之间的关系、均衡和价值就会重新调整；这就是新和旧之间的协同。无论谁赞同这个关于秩序、英国文学、欧洲文学的看法，就不会认为过去被现在所更改、现在受过去指引是荒谬的了。明了这一点的诗人就会认识到巨大的困难和责任感。

在一种特殊意义上，他也会知道他不可避免的要经受过去标准的裁判。我说裁判，不是说被他们裁剪；不是被裁判的相比逝者一样好、更好或者更糟糕。当然也不是用已逝的批评家的横尺来裁判。这是一种裁判、对照，其中，两者之间彼此斟酌、横度。如果说协同仅仅只是对新作品而言，那么从根本上说，就不是真正的协同，新作品也就不会被称之为“新”，而且因此就不是一件艺术作品。而且，我们也没有说，新作品之所以更有价值是因为其与（过去的标准）更相符。但是，它是否与之相符确实对其价值的一种测试——这种测试，是真实的，只能缓慢且审慎地运用，因为在对是否协同进行审判上，我们没有人是不会犯错的。我们宣称：它显得协同，而且可能是独特的，或者显得独特，而且可能协同；但是，我们不可能知道它是此非彼。

让我们转而更明白晓畅的阐述诗人和过去的关系：他不能对过去不加区分、胡子眉毛一把抓；也不能完全热衷一两位自己私好的人物；也不能完全扑在自己感兴趣的一个时期。第一条路是不会有效的；第二条是青年人的一次重要经历；第三条是愉悦且高度可取的增补。诗人必须对主流有深刻认识，主流未必会都经过那些最负盛名的人来体现。他必须对这一点有相当的认识：艺术从未进化，但艺术的素材从未完全一样过。他必须相当了解欧洲的思维、本国的思维——他迟早会知道这比他自己的思维更重要——是一种变化的思维，而且这种变化是一种发展，这发展不会在中途丢弃任何事物，它没有把莎士比亚、荷马或者马格林达时期绘画者们的作品，当做落后时代的累赘。这种发展，或许是精细化，当然是复杂化，从艺术家的角度来看，并非进步。也许在心理学家看来也不是进步或者并未达到我们想象的程度；或许最后看来不过是出自经济和机械影响下的并发症候而已。但是过去和当下的差别在于，自觉的当下是对过去某种程度的了解，达到了过去对自身的认识所不能展示的尺幅。

有人说：“那些逝去的作家离我们很远，因为我们知道的远比他们多。”的确如此，他们本身就是我们知道的内容。

对于我为诗歌这个行当所拟订部分纲领，我清楚地知道有一种惯常的异议。这种异议认为：我的教条依赖于一种近乎荒谬的博学（炫学），是一种即使诉诸任何众神殿或者先贤祠去了解诗人们的生平也会横遭拒绝的主张。他们甚至断言，学识渊博会压抑诗感或者使其堕落。但不论如何，我们坚持相信，一个诗人应该知道的越多越好，只要不妨害他必需的感受力和必需的懒散，而那种将知识的作用仅仅局限于应付考试、客厅闲谈或者当众炫耀自夸的观点是不足取的。有人能吸收知识，但较迟钝的则必须下苦功夫。莎士比亚从普鲁塔克那里获得的重要史实，比大多数人从整个大英博物馆获得的还多。我们应该坚持的是，诗人必须设法取得或发着一种对过去的意识，而且应该在他的事业生涯中不断发展这种意识。

为此，一个诗人就需要不断地抛弃“旧我”，同时不断趋向更有价值的事物。一个艺术家的成长之旅，就是一段持续地牺牲自我，持续地消解自己个性的旅途。我们来继续说明这个消解个性的过程极其与传统意识的关系。在这种消解个性的过程中，艺术可能会达到一种科学的状态。因此，我要邀请你们将之当做一种启发性的类比，来考虑一下：当一根细细的铂金被放入充满氧气和二氧化硫的容器中后发生的反应。

II

诚实的批评和细致的鉴赏，其导向是诗歌而非诗人。如果我们留心报端批评家杂乱的喊叫和众人随之而起的人云亦云的私语，我们将能听到大量诗人的姓名；如果我们探寻的并非蓝皮书般的知识，而是诗歌的愉悦；我们寻找一首诗歌，却极难找到。上文中我已经尝试指出了一首诗和其他诗人的其他诗歌之间关系的重要性，表明诗歌是自古以来创作的一切诗歌组成的活生生的整体这样一个概念。这种诗歌的非个人理论的另外一面，即诗歌和他的作者之间的关系。我曾用一个类比来暗示，成熟诗人的思维相比未成熟诗人的思维的差异，并非是具有更精确的“个性”价值上，也并非更具必需的趣味或者拥有“更多内涵”；而是拥有更完美、独特的介质，或者非常丰富多样，各种感情可以自由的进入并组成新作品。

我用化学催化剂来类比。前面提到的两种气体和那根细细的铂金丝混合，它们就会化合成亚硫酸。这个化学反应只有在铂金丝出场时才会发生；然而产生的新化合物中却不含有一点点儿的铂金元素，铂金本身也纹丝未动，依旧保持中立、毫无变化。诗人的思维就是这样一条铂金丝。它可以部分或者全然地在诗人自己的经验上起作用；但是，艺术家越想完美，就越要彻底地在他身上分离出感受者和创造者的角色；就越要完美地消化和炼化激情这个材料。

这种经验，你将注意到，那些接触催化剂而改变的元素有两种：情绪和感觉。一件艺术作品对于欣赏者们的影响是一种特殊的经验，与任何非艺术的经验不同。它可以由一种情绪单独组成，也可以是多种感情的混合；因作者运用的特别的词语、短句或者意象而产生并存在的各种感觉，会综合起来产生最终的效果。也有伟大的诗歌可以不用情感来指引，而是从容地单独依赖感官。《地狱》第15章（布鲁托.拉蒂尼）中的感情，就是明显地通过环境不断的激起的；其效果虽然那和任何其他艺术作品一样单纯，但确是从大量细节错综交织中获得的。最后的四行诗给出了一个意象，一种附着在意象上的感觉，它是“自临”的，不是简单的从前章发展而来的，大概是悬浮在诗人的思维中，直到适当的组合来临才加入其中的。但丁的思维的确是一种容器，收藏着无数感觉、短语和意象，能够到时结合在一起形成一个新的化合物。

如果你比较一下这部最伟大的诗歌中的一些代表性章节，你将明白这种组合种类的多种多样是多么卓越，任何关于“崇高”的半伦理的批评准则是怎样地全然难中肯綮。因为重要的不是感情和或者组成部分的“伟大”与强烈；而可以说是艺术加工的强度，也可以说是压强，在这种压强下，聚变发生了，这才是有意义的。在帕奥罗和弗朗西斯卡那一章节中，作者驱使了一种明确的感情，但是，诗歌中的强烈感和任何我们设想中的经验带来的印象都截然不同。而且，它也不会比第二十六章中描写尤利西斯在海上漂流时更强烈，在二十六章中，同样没有依赖任何一种情感来引导。在炼化感情的过程中种种变化都是有可能的：阿伽门农被刺、奥赛罗的痛苦，带来的艺术效果明显比但丁作品里的情景更接近真实。在《阿伽门农》里，艺术感情仿佛是一种真是旁观者的感情；在《奥赛罗》里，艺术感情似乎就是剧中主角自身的感情。但是艺术和时间之间的差别总是绝对的；阿伽门农被刺的艺术组合和尤利西斯漂流的艺术组合也许一样复杂。两者中任何一个都有各种元素的结合。济慈的《颂歌》中包含了许多和夜莺没有特别关系的感觉，但是这些感觉，一定程度上是因为夜莺美妙的名字，一定程度上是因为夜莺的名声，就都在夜莺身上组合了起来。

一种我竭力想击破的观点，就是关于灵魂实体形而上学的说法：在我看来，诗人没有可以表现的“个性”，只有特别的手法，这仅仅是一种手法而非一种个性，在这种手法里，种种经验和印象以意想不到的方式互相结合。这些对诗人具有重要意义的印象和经验，可能在诗歌中并未显现，但这些对于诗歌来说非常重要的经验和印象对于诗人本身，对于诗人的个性，却几乎没有什么作用。

我要引用一节诗歌，它不为人们熟知，因此我们可以以一种全新的注意力来阅读，以阐述上述见解的光亮——或阴影：

我想如今甚至该责怪自己
在她的美貌中老去，虽然她的死
应该以不寻常之举报复。
难道蚕食她的忧郁之痛
为的是你？为了你，难道她该自毁？
难道老爷们热衷豢养小姐
为的是那令人迷惑的短暂时刻里的些许利益？
为什么那家伙要谎称有女劫匪，
并置他的生命于法官的双唇里，
来文饰这件事——为了她
打发人马击败他们的勇毅。

在这节诗歌里（如果从上下文来看是很明显地），有正反两种情感的交织：一种指向美貌的极度强烈的吸引力，以及同样强烈的出自丑恶的魅惑，后者与前者相反并且毁灭了前者。这种截然相反的情感的平衡，是在那段拥有中肯表述的戏剧化情境中实现的，但仅仅剧情还不足以胜任。不妨说是由戏剧文体提供的那种结构情感。但整体效果，主基调，则应归功于大量悬浮其中的感觉，它们毫不浅显地指向这种感情，并和这种感情结合，带给了我们一种全新的艺术感情。

诗人之所以被尊重或被注意，并非因为他个人的情感，或者他个人生活中的特殊事件所引发的感情。他特有的情感可以是单纯的、粗鲁的或者沉闷的。但他诗歌中的情感必须是一种复杂的东西，但这种复杂性并非是那种生活中感情稀奇古怪的人所拥有的。事实上，诗歌界有种反常的错误，即试图寻找和表达全新的人类感情，这样在错误的地方寻找新颖，最终只能遭遇荒谬。诗人的本分不是去寻找新的人类情感，而是运用寻常的感情，并在这些寻常的感情中提炼诗歌，来表达实际感情中根本没有的感受。而那些诗人从未经受过的情感和他已经熟悉的情感一样，都是合用的。因此，我们必须相信“在心神宁静中回忆起的感情”是个不准确的公式。因为诗歌不是情感，也不是回忆，如果不曲解词义的话，也不是心神宁静。诗歌是一种大量经验的集结，以及这种集结中产生的新事物，这些经验在重实践、有活力的人看来好像未必全是什么经验；这种经验的集中，既非自觉，亦非深思熟虑的产物。这些经验不是“回忆”的，它们最终在一种“宁静”的氛围中结合，这种“宁静”仅指在其中经验被动地服侍着特定的事件。当然，这些也并非诗歌的全部始末。在诗歌写作中，有许多时候是需要自觉和沉思的。实际上，拙劣的诗人往往在该自觉的时候不自觉，在不该自觉的时候自觉。这两种错误让他渐趋“个人的”。诗歌不是情感放纵，而是从感情中逃逸；诗歌不是表现个性，而是从个性中逃逸。但是，当然，只有那些拥有个性和感情的人才明白，要从其中逃逸究竟有什么意义。

III

灵感天赐，圣洁不动凡情。

这篇论文就打算停止在玄学和神秘体验论的边界上，仅限于这些实用的结论，以期能被那些对诗有兴趣、有责任感的人来应用。将人们的兴趣从诗人身上转移到诗歌本身，是一个值得称赞的抱负：因为这有助于人们对一首或好或坏的、真正的诗歌做出公正的评价。很多人能在韵文里鉴赏出真挚感情的表述，较少的人才能鉴赏出卓越的技巧。但却很少有人知道何时才会有重大感情的表达，这种感情的生命在诗歌里，而非在诗人的历史里。艺术情感是非个人的。除非诗人在他所从事的诗歌面前全然放弃自我，否则诗人就不能达到这种“非个人”的境界；除非他不只活在当下，而且活在过去，除非他所注意的不是已死的，而是早就活着的，否则他就不可能知道他该做什么。

Tradition and the Individual Talent

by T. S. Eliot

I

IN English writing we seldom speak of tradition, though we occasionally apply its name in deploring its absence. We cannot refer to “the tradition” or to “a tradition”; at most, we employ the adjective in saying that the poetry of So-and-so is “traditional” or even “too traditional.” Seldom, perhaps, does the word appear except in a phrase of censure. If otherwise, it is vaguely approbative, with the implication, as to the work approved, of some pleasing arch?ological reconstruction. You can hardly make the word agreeable to English ears without this comfortable reference to the reassuring science of archology.

Certainly the word is not likely to appear in our appreciations of living or dead writers. Every nation, every race, has not only its own creative, but its own critical turn of mind; and is even more oblivious of the shortcomings and limitations of its critical habits than of those of its creative genius. We know, or think we know, from the enormous mass of critical writing that has appeared in the French language the critical method or habit of the French; we only conclude (we are such unconscious people) that the French are “more critical” than we, and sometimes even plume ourselves a little with the fact, as if the French were the less spontaneous. Perhaps they are; but we might remind ourselves that criticism is as inevitable as breathing, and that we should be none the worse for articulating what passes in our minds when we read a book and feel an emotion about it, for criticizing our own minds in their work of criticism. One of the facts that might come to light in this process is our tendency to insist, when we praise a poet, upon those aspects of his work in which he least resembles anyone else. In these aspects or parts of his work we pretend to find what is individual, what is the peculiar essence of the man. We dwell with satisfaction upon the poet’s difference from his predecessors, especially his immediate predecessors; we endeavour to find something that can be isolated in order to be enjoyed. Whereas if we approach a poet without this prejudice we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously. And I do not mean the impressionable period of adolescence, but the period of full maturity.

Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, “tradition” should positively be discouraged. We have seen many such simple currents soon lost in the sand; and novelty is better than repetition. Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity.

No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of ?sthetic, not merely historical, criticism. The necessity that he shall conform, that he shall cohere, is not one-sided; what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new. Whoever has approved this idea of order, of the form of European, of English literature, will not find it preposterous that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. And the poet who is aware of this will be aware of great difficulties and responsibilities.

In a peculiar sense he will be aware also that he must inevitably be judged by the standards of the past. I say judged, not amputated, by them; not judged to be as good as, or worse or better than, the dead; and certainly not judged by the canons of dead critics. It is a judgment, a comparison, in which two things are measured by each other. To conform merely would be for the new work not really to conform at all; it would not be new, and would therefore not be a work of art. And we do not quite say that the new is more valuable because it fits in; but its fitting in is a test of its value—a test, it is true, which can only be slowly and cautiously applied, for we are none of us infallible judges of conformity. We say: it appears to conform, and is perhaps individual, or it appears individual, and may conform; but we are hardly likely to find that it is one and not the other.

To proceed to a more intelligible exposition of the relation of the poet to the past: he can neither take the past as a lump, an indiscriminate bolus, nor can he form himself wholly on one or two private admirations, nor can he form himself wholly upon one preferred period. The first course is inadmissible, the second is an important experience of youth, and the third is a pleasant and highly desirable supplement. The poet must be very conscious of the main current, which does not at all flow invariably through the most distinguished reputations. He must be quite aware of the obvious fact that art never improves, but that the material of art is never quite the same. He must be aware that the mind of Europe—the mind of his own country—a mind which he learns in time to be much more important than his own private mind—is a mind which changes, and that this change is a development which abandons nothing en route, which does not superannuate either Shakespeare, or Homer, or the rock drawing of the Magdalenian draughtsmen. That this development, refinement perhaps, complication certainly, is not, from the point of view of the artist, any improvement. Perhaps not even an improvement from the point of view of the psychologist or not to the extent which we imagine; perhaps only in the end based upon a complication in economics and machinery. But the difference between the present and the past is that the conscious present is an awareness of the past in a way and to an extent which the past’s awareness of itself cannot show.

Some one said: “The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.” Precisely, and they are that which we know.

I am alive to a usual objection to what is clearly part of my programme for the métier of poetry. The objection is that the doctrine requires a ridiculous amount of erudition (pedantry), a claim which can be rejected by appeal to the lives of poets in any pantheon. It will even be affirmed that much learning deadens or perverts poetic sensibility. While, however, we persist in believing that a poet ought to know as much as will not encroach upon his necessary receptivity and necessary laziness, it is not desirable to confine knowledge to whatever can be put into a useful shape for examinations, drawing-rooms, or the still more pretentious modes of publicity. Some can absorb knowledge, the more tardy must sweat for it. Shakespeare acquired more essential history from Plutarch than most men could from the whole British Museum. What is to be insisted upon is that the poet must develop or procure the consciousness of the past and that he should continue to develop this consciousness throughout his career.

What happens is a continual surrender of himself as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable. The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.

There remains to define this process of depersonalization and its relation to the sense of tradition. It is in this depersonalization that art may be said to approach the condition of science. I shall, therefore, invite you to consider, as a suggestive analogy, the action which takes place when a bit of finely filiated platinum is introduced into a chamber containing oxygen and sulphur dioxide.

If you compare several representative passages of the greatest poetry you see how great is the variety of types of combination, and also how completely any semi-ethical criterion of “sublimity” misses the mark. For it is not the “greatness,” the intensity, of the emotions, the components, but the intensity of the artistic process, the pressure, so to speak, under which the fusion takes place, that counts. The episode of Paolo and Francesca employs a definite emotion, but the intensity of the poetry is something quite different from whatever intensity in the supposed experience it may give the impression of. It is no more intense, furthermore, than Canto XXVI, the voyage of Ulysses, which has not the direct dependence upon an emotion. Great variety is possible in the process of transmution of emotion: the murder of Agamemnon, or the agony of Othello, gives an artistic effect apparently closer to a possible original than the scenes from Dante. In the Agamemnon, the artistic emotion approximates to the emotion of an actual spectator; in Othello to the emotion of the protagonist himself. But the difference between art and the event is always absolute; the combination which is the murder of Agamemnon is probably as complex as that which is the voyage of Ulysses. In either case there has been a fusion of elements. The ode of Keats contains a number of feelings which have nothing particular to do with the nightingale, but which the nightingale, partly, perhaps, because of its attractive name, and partly because of its reputation, served to bring together.
The point of view which I am struggling to attack is perhaps related to the metaphysical theory of the substantial unity of the soul: for my meaning is, that the poet has, not a “personality” to express, but a particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality, in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways. Impressions and experiences which are important for the man may take no place in the poetry, and those which become important in the poetry may play quite a negligible part in the man, the personality.

I will quote a passage which is unfamiliar enough to be regarded with fresh attention in the light—or darkness—of these observations:

And now methinks I could e’en chide myself
For doating on her beauty, though her death
Shall be revenged after no common action.
Does the silkworm expend her blue labours
For thee? For thee does she undo herself?
Are lordships sold to maintain ladyships
For the poor benefit of a bewildering minute?
Why does yon fellow falsify highways,
And put his life between the judge’s lips,
To refine such a thing—keeps horse and men
To beat their valours for her?…

In this passage (as is evident if it is taken in its context) there is a combination of positive and negative emotions: an intensely strong attraction toward beauty and an equally intense fascination by the ugliness which is contrasted with it and which destroys it. This balance of contrasted emotion is in the dramatic situation to which the speech is pertinent, but that situation alone is inadequate to it. This is, so to speak, the structural emotion, provided by the drama. But the whole effect, the dominant tone, is due to the fact that a number of floating feelings, having an affinity to this emotion by no means superficially evident, have combined with it to give us a new art emotion.

It is not in his personal emotions, the emotions provoked by particular events in his life, that the poet is in any way remarkable or interesting. His particular emotions may be simple, or crude, or flat. The emotion in his poetry will be a very complex thing, but not with the complexity of the emotions of people who have very complex or unusual emotions in life. One error, in fact, of eccentricity in poetry is to seek for new human emotions to express; and in this search for novelty in the wrong place it discovers the perverse. The business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and, in working them up into poetry, to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all. And emotions which he has never experienced will serve his turn as well as those familiar to him. Consequently, we must believe that “emotion recollected in tranquillity” is an inexact formula. For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor, without distortion of meaning, tranquillity. It is a concentration, and a new thing resulting from the concentration, of a very great number of experiences which to the practical and active person would not seem to be experiences at all; it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation. These experiences are not “recollected,” and they finally unite in an atmosphere which is “tranquil” only in that it is a passive attending upon the event. Of course this is not quite the whole story. There is a great deal, in the writing of poetry, which must be conscious and deliberate. In fact, the bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious. Both errors tend to make him “personal.” Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.

III

This essay proposes to halt at the frontier of metaphysics or mysticism, and confine itself to such practical conclusions as can be applied by the responsible person interested in poetry. To divert interest from the poet to the poetry is a laudable aim: for it would conduce to a juster estimation of actual poetry, good and bad. There are many people who appreciate the expression of sincere emotion in verse, and there is a smaller number of people who can appreciate technical excellence. But very few know when there is expression of significant emotion, emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet. The emotion of art is impersonal. And the poet cannot reach this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done. And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living.

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