At least this is the view of Shelley, and Shelley
has, more largely than any other man, moulded the beliefs of later
English poets. It is because he judges imaginative feeling to be always
in harmony with the deepest truths perceived by the reason that he
advertises his intention to purify men by awakening their feelings.
Therefore, in his preface to _The Revolt of Islam_ he says "I would
only awaken the feelings, so that the reader should see the beauty of
true virtue." in the preface to the _Cenci,_ again, he declares,
"Imagination is as the immortal God which should take flesh for the
redemption of human passion."
The poet, while thus expressing absolute faith in the power of beauty to
redeem the world, yet is obliged to take into account the Platonic
distinction between the beautiful and the lover of the beautiful.
[Footnote: _Symposium,_ sec. 204.]
No man is pure poet, he admits, but in proportion as he approaches
perfect artistry, his life is purified. Shelley is expressing the
beliefs of practically all artists when he says, "The greatest poets
have been men of the most spotless virtue, of the most consummate
prudence, and, if we would look into the interior of their lives, the
most fortunate of men; and the exceptions, as they regard those who
possess the poetical faculty in a high, yet an inferior degree, will be
found upon consideration to confirm, rather than to destroy, the rule.
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