" [Footnote: _The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_, "A Memorable
Fancy."] To the cold critic, such an answer as Emerson's and Blake's is
doubtless unsatisfactory, but to the poet, as to the religious
enthusiast, his own ecstasy is an all-sufficient evidence.
The thoroughgoing romanticist will accept no other test. The critic of
the Johnsonian tradition may urge him to gauge the worth of his impulse
by its seemliness and restraint, but the romantic poet's utter surrender
to a power from on high makes unrestraint seem a virtue to him. So with
the critic's suggestion that the words coming to the poet in his season
of madness be made to square with his returning reason. Emerson quotes,
and partially accepts the dictum, "Poetry must first be good sense,
though it is something more." [Footnote: See the essay on
_Imagination_.] But the poet is more apt to account for his belief
in his visions by Tertullian's motto, _Credo quod absurdum_.
If overwhelming passion is an absolute test of true inspiration, whence
arises the uncertainty and confusion in the poet's own mind, concerning
matters poetical? Why is a writer so stupid as to include one hundred
pages of trash in the same volume with his one inspired poem? The answer
seems to be that no writer is guided solely by inspiration.
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