DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61290#0315
PERSONAL ELEMENTS 263
“The Stream’s Secret,” “The Portrait,” and
many of the shorter lyrics, the personal note of
love or grief, of memory or hope, is wholly
dominant; the poet’s soul is absorbed with its
individual being, and sees in all the life around
him the illustration and interpretation of his own.
In the other class, in the great romantic ballads,
in “ Rose Mary ” and “ The Blessed Damozel,” in
“The White Ship” and “The King’s Tragedy,”
in “The Bride’s Prelude” and “Sister Helen,”
the imagination takes a higher and a larger
range; the one soul interprets others, waiting
not to be interpreted. The art becomes im-
personal in this sense only—that the thought of
self is merged in the full and immense life of
humanity, laying hold of the universal conscious-
ness through its own initiative experience ; the
heart beats with the world’s heart, shares its
eternal struggles, contributes to its eternal growth ;
and the spirit knows itself one fragment of an in-
finite whole. In such a sphere the art remains
the more vitally personal, in that the poet brings
the mysteries of existence, the abiding problems
and realities of the conscious world, to the touch-
stone, as it were, of his own spirit, and submits
himself thereby to the more crucial test,—of how
he can interpret humanity to man, and make more
clear the knowledge, more possible the realization,
of his highest ideals.
“The Stream’s Secret,” “The Portrait,” and
many of the shorter lyrics, the personal note of
love or grief, of memory or hope, is wholly
dominant; the poet’s soul is absorbed with its
individual being, and sees in all the life around
him the illustration and interpretation of his own.
In the other class, in the great romantic ballads,
in “ Rose Mary ” and “ The Blessed Damozel,” in
“The White Ship” and “The King’s Tragedy,”
in “The Bride’s Prelude” and “Sister Helen,”
the imagination takes a higher and a larger
range; the one soul interprets others, waiting
not to be interpreted. The art becomes im-
personal in this sense only—that the thought of
self is merged in the full and immense life of
humanity, laying hold of the universal conscious-
ness through its own initiative experience ; the
heart beats with the world’s heart, shares its
eternal struggles, contributes to its eternal growth ;
and the spirit knows itself one fragment of an in-
finite whole. In such a sphere the art remains
the more vitally personal, in that the poet brings
the mysteries of existence, the abiding problems
and realities of the conscious world, to the touch-
stone, as it were, of his own spirit, and submits
himself thereby to the more crucial test,—of how
he can interpret humanity to man, and make more
clear the knowledge, more possible the realization,
of his highest ideals.