_]
it is difficult to see how he could seriously have advanced such a
claim, inasmuch as, assuming Villon's sincerity, the reader, without
recourse to a biography, may reconstruct the whole course of his moral
history from his writings.
Unquestionably if the poet wishes to satisfy his enemies as to the
ethical worth of his poetry, he is under obligation to prove to them
that as "the man of feeling" he possesses only those impulses that lead
him toward righteousness. And though puritans, philosophers and
philistines quarrel over technical points in their conceptions of
virtue, still, if the poet is not a criminal, he should be able, by
making a plain statement of his innocence, to remove the most heinous
charges against him, which bind his enemies into a coalition.
There is no doubt that poets, as a class, have acknowledged the
obligation of proving that their lives are pure. But the effectiveness
of their statements has been largely dissipated by the fact that their
voices have been almost drowned by the clamor of a small coterie which
finds its chief delight in brazenly exaggerating the vices popularly
ascribed to it, then defending them as the poet's exclusive privilege.
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