"A poet," Keats says, "is the
most unpoetical of anything in existence, because he has no identity; he
is continually in for, and filling, some other body. The sun, the moon,
the stars, and men and women who are creatures of impulse are poetical
and have about them an unchangeable attribute; the poet has none, no
identity." [Footnote: Letter to Richard Woodhouse, October 27, 1818.]
The same conviction is differently phrased by Landor. The poet is a
luminous body, whose function is to reveal other objects, not himself,
to us. Therefore Landor considers our scanty knowledge of Shakespeare as
compared with lesser poets a natural consequence of the
self-obliterating splendor of his genius:
In poetry there is but one supreme,
Though there are many angels round his throne,
Mighty and beauteous, while his face is hid.
[Footnote: _On Shakespeare_.]
But though an occasional poet lends his voice in support of our censure,
the average poet would brush aside our complaints with impatience. What
right have we to accuse him of swerving from the subject matter proper
to poetry, while we appear to have no clear idea as to what the
legitimate subject matter is? Precisely what are we looking for, that
we are led to complain that the massive outlines of the poet's figure
obscure our view?
Now just here we who assail the poet are likely to turn our guns upon
one another, for we are brought up against the stone wall of age-old
dispute over the function of the poet.
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