V · Section 4

V

IS THERE A POETIC VIEW OF THE WORLD?

SUMMARY

View of the World, or ‘World-view,’ defined. Distinction of _religious_ and _philosophical_ World-views. The present essay attempts to define and describe a _poetic_ World-view.--I. Character of poetic experience. Types of belief about Man and Nature to which it predisposes. Though rarely detached from religious or philosophical presumptions, it habitually modifies them, and the method here proposed is to study, in some salient examples, the character and direction of these modifications (p. 150).--II. (i) Modifications of _religious_ World-views by the poetic inspirations of Personality and Love. HOMER. ÆSCHYLUS. DANTE (p. 156).--III. (ii) Modifications of _philosophical_ World-views: (_a_) Materialistic schools. Epicureanism and LUCRETIUS. Poets of Pessimism: LEOPARDI (p. 169).--IV. (_b_) ‘Objective idealisms.’ Stoic pantheism and VERGIL. WORDSWORTH. SHELLEY. Philosophic doctrine of ‘Nature’ in WORDSWORTH, and in GOETHE. SPINOZA and GOETHE (p. 184).--V. (_c_) ‘Subjective idealisms.’ ‘Mind’ in the philosophers and in the poets of the age of WORDSWORTH. The poets subordinate (1) the rational to the emotional and imaginative factors of soul: WORDSWORTH, BLAKE, SHELLEY, and (2) moral categories to a good ‘beyond good and evil.’ Of this poetic ethic the most vital constituent is Love; and Love, comprehensively understood, will be an intrinsic element of every World-view won through poetic experience (p. 198).