]
and Burns, but it is by no means stilled at present. Yeats [Footnote:
See _The Scholar_.] and Vachel Lindsay [Footnote: See _The Master of the
Dance_. The hero is a dunce in school.] have written poetry showing the
persistence of the quarrel. Though the acrimony of the disputants
varies, accordingly as the tone of the poet is predominantly thoughtful
or emotional, one does not find any poet of the last century who denies
the superiority of poetic intuition to scholarship. Thus Tennyson warns
the man of learning that he cannot hope to fathom the depths of the
poet's mind. [Footnote: See _The Poet's Mind_.] So Richard Gilder
maintains of the singer,
He was too wise
Either to fear, or follow, or despise
Whom men call science--for he knew full well
All she had told, or still might live to tell
Was known to him before her very birth.
[Footnote: _The Poet's Fame_. In the same spirit is _Invitation_, by J.
E. Flecker.]
The foundation of the poet's superiority is, of course, his claim that
his inspiration gives him mystical experience of the things which the
scholar can only remotely speculate about.
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