POETRY, POESY, is a term derived from the Greek ;roc nrcia, of I make, intimating, that the art which it denotes was regarded of unrivalled eminence, or of pe culiarly difficult execution. In nothing have critics differ ed and disputed so much as about the definition of this di vine art, each succeeding writer rejecting altogether, or essentially qualifying, the definition given by his predeces sors. The father of criticism has denominated it " a mi metic or imitative art." Others have characterized it as "the art of expressing our thoughts by fictions," a defini tion supported by the authority of Aristotle and Plato. Neither of these definitions is correct. The former is de fective, inasmuch as it does not discriminate poetry from other arts which depend equally on imitation ; for, not to mention sculpture and painting, "an imitation of human manners and characters," says an excellent critic, " may be carried on in the humblest prose, no less than in the more lofty poetic strain." The latter is equally defective, and for similar reasons, because, though fiction be one of the characteristics of poetry, yet many of the happiest po etical effusions may be literally descriptive of real life, and of things which actually exist ; while fiction forms also one of the great lineaments and features of prose as well as of poetical composition. There have been numberless other definitions more or less objectionable ; but that given by our countryman Dr. Blair may probably be regarded as the most just and comprehensive that has yet been submitted to the public, "that it is the language of passion, or of en livened imagination, formed most commonly into regular numbers." "The historian, the orator, the philosopher," says the same author, " address themselves for the most part primarily to the understanding ; their direct aim is to inform, to persuade, or to instruct. But the primary aim of a poet is to please and to move; and therefore it is to the imagination and the passions that he speaks. He may, and he ought, to have it in his view, to instruct and to re form ; but it is indirectly, and by pleasing and moving, that he accomplishes this end. His mind is supposed to be animated by some interesting object which fires his imagi nation, or engages his passions ; and which, of course, com municates to his style a peculiar elevation suited to his ideas, very different from that mode of expression which is natural to the mind in its calm ordinary state." This definition, so clearly expressed, and so admirably illustrat ed, may probably be made yet more simple and accurate by being rendered more minute. And poetry may there fore be defined, as the language of passion, or of enlivened imagination, expressed in the most elegant and rich terms, whether in regular numbers or otherwise, ornamented with similics, metaphors, tropes, figures, episodes, allegories, and hyperboles ; in which fiction and imagination may, with propriety, be indulged beyond the strict limits of truth and reality. This definition, we presume, is free from the de
fects by which those quoted above are characterized, and yet, at the same time, combines their truth and excellen cies.
Verse or regular numbers, it is evident, are not essen tial to the existence of poetry. Verse is, we grant, the common external distinction of poetry, and probably may be regarded as contributing much to its beauty and fasci nation ; yet poetry consists not in the form or dress in which it is presented to the eye ; it consists in the soul and spirit by which this form is animated, and which imparts to it all its native fire. There is, besides, a species of verse scarcely distinguishable from prose, as that of the comedies of Te rence; and there are various productions, apparently writ ten in prose, of so elevated and impassioned a character, as virtually and undeniably to belong to the highest and purest kind of poetical composition. The Telemachus of Fene Ion, and the English translation of Ossian, will at once ot cur to every reader. Hence it is, since verse and prose are not inherently and radically distinct, but like light and shade run on some occasion into each other, that the exact limit between poetry and eloquence (the art most closely connected with poetry) cannot with precision be determin ed. They both depend essentially, though probably in somewhat different degrees, on the same principles, on deep susceptibility of feeling, on boldness and originality of invention, on animated and figurative language. The exact boundaries of the two arts, therefore, it would be dif ficult, and at present we have not time, to ascertain ; and it need merely be mentioned, as one of the greatest distinc tions between them, that study and discipline are more ne cessary in the one than in the other ; or, in other words, that to an orator, whatever be his natural genius, study, education, and rigid discipliv.e, are indispensably necessary ; while a poet may attain to the very perfection of his art without education, without the benefit of human learning, merely by the innate force of genius alone. An orator must necessarily be a student and a scholar, erc he can gain distinction; a poet, though learning and reading may be useful, may reach to eminence without the assistance of either. Homer is known to us as the greatest of all poets in consequence of natural endowments alone : Demosthenes enjoyed the same distinction in eloquence as the result of human learning and the most inflexible study, united with genius,---a result which genius of itself would have been insufficient to accomplish.