Consequently it is not strange that
practically every utterance which we may consider,--even such as deal
with the most superficial aspects of the poet, as his physical beauty or
his health,--falls naturally into one of two divisions, accordingly as
the poet feels the sensual or the spiritual aspect of his nature to be
the more important Yet the fact remains that the quest of unity has been
the most interesting feature of this investigation. The man in whose
nature the poet's two apparently contradictory desires shall wholly
harmonize is the ideal whom practically all modern English poets are
attempting to present.
Minor poets have been considered, perhaps to an unwarranted degree. In
the Victorian period, for instance, there may seem something grotesque
in placing Tupper's judgments on verse beside Browning's. Yet, since it
is true that so slight a poet as William Lisles Bowles influenced
Coleridge, and that T. E. Chivers probably influenced Poe, it seems that
in a study of this sort minor writers have a place. In addition, where
the views of one minor verse-writer might be negligible, the views of a
large group are frequently highly significant, not only as testifying to
the vogue of ephemeral ideas, but as demonstrating that great and small
in the poetic world have the same general attitude toward their gift.
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