eBooks Base 2000

If one poet shows us the world highly colored by his
personality, it is inevitable that his followers should have their
attention caught by the different coloring which their own natures throw
upon it. The more acute their sense of observation, the more they will
be interested in the phenomenon. "Of course you are self-conscious,"
Elizabeth Barrett wrote to Robert Browning. "How could you be a poet
otherwise?" [Footnote: February 27, 1845.]
This modern individualizing trend appears equally in all the arts, of
course. Yet the poet's self-consciousness appears in his work more
plainly than does that of painters and sculptors and musicians. One
wonders if this may not be a consequence of the peculiar nature of his
inspiration. While all art is doubtless essentially alike in mode of
creation, it may not be fanciful to conceive that the poet's inspiration
is surrounded by deeper mystery than that of other geniuses, and that
this accounts for the greater prominence of conscious self-analysis in
his work. That such a difference exists, seems obvious.


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