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Shelley's
characterization of Byron in _Julian and Maddalo_,
The sense that he was greater than his kind
Had struck, methinks, his eagle spirit blind
By gazing on its own exceeding light,
has been followed by many expressions of the same thought, at first
wholly sympathetic, lately, it must be confessed, somewhat ironical.
Consciousness of partnership with God in composition naturally lifts the
poet, in his own estimation, at least, to a super-human level. The myth
of Apollo disguised as a shepherd strikes him as being a happy
expression of his divinity. [Footnote: See James Russell Lowell, _The
Shepherd of King Admetus._] Thus Emerson calls singers
Blessed gods in servile masks.
[Footnote: _Saadi._]
The hero of John Davidson's _Ballad in Blank Verse on the Making of a
Poet_ soars to a monotheistic conception of his powers, asserting
Henceforth I shall be God, for consciousness
Is God. I suffer. I am God.
Another poet-hero is characterized:
He would reach the source of light,
And share, enthroned, the Almighty's might.


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