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Emerson and Huxley on Literature
Thesis:
1 What Constitutes Poetry?
2 What is the best period of poetry/poets?
3 Analysis of Emerson and Huxley’s poetry (Compare actual poetry to their ideals of poetry)
“…For the most part the poets do not concern themselves with fresh conquests; they prefer to consolidate their power at home, enjoying quietly their hereditary possessions” (Huxley 91).
-Here, Huxley comments on the formulaic nature of poetry; noting how the subject matter and the interests of the poets themselves vary only a small amount. This he finds to be tedious and boring as he sees the intrinsic beauty and significance of science and poetry to be largely ignored.
“All subjects- ‘the remotest discoveries of the chemist’ are but one unlikely theme –can serve the poet with material for his art, on one condition: that he, and to a lesser degree, his audience will be able to apprehend the subject with a certain emotion” (Huxley 92).
-Here, Huxley explains by quoting Wordsworth that the inclusion of more diverse subject matter can not only be by the delivery of the poet but must also include the reader as their aptitude to both endure and understand the subject matter will be crucial to the success of the piece. However, the main burden is still given to the poet as he must not only intimately understand the field which he chooses to write about but, must also have a great interest in it as well. From this one may draw that Huxley is commenting on the lack of integration in poetry. He does not agree that science and philosophy have no place in literature such as poetry, as many have separated the fields of science and literature completely, polarizing the two into their own distinct realms.
-He goes on to say that poetry should never be purely sensual or intellectual but, instead a blend of many things, a renaissance-like puree of ideas, senses, facts, and figments of the imagination. On content and inherent significance of poetry he comments:
“An abstract idea must be felt with a kind of passion, it must mean something emotionally significant, it must be as immediate and important to the poet as a personal relationship before he can make poetry of it” (Huxley 92).
-Here, Huxley again comments on the grandiose and bland style of “contemporary” poetry. He harkens back to the “intimate” relation between the poet and his poetry which he feels is necessary in order to compose a truly enlightening or provocative piece of poetry. As he argues much of modern day poetry is devoid of the passion and hunger for expression. He frowns on the poetry which is labeled as experimental or free-verse, takes no advantage of the “freedom” of free-verse to venture through endless topics, genres, and subjects.
——Huxley feels the 1890’s was the golden age of poetry (94).
——Huxley also cites Lucretius as “The greatest of all the philosophic and scientific poets” (Huxley 94). –Goethe and Dante are also noted.
-Like Emerson however, Huxley falls short of his own standards when his ideals of poetry put to use. I find his poetry to be cold and emotionless, and yet like Emerson his essays are so brimming with sentiment and insight.
Emerson also shares a disdain for the poets of his time saying “I could cite from the seventeenth century and phrases of edge not to be matched in the nineteenth” (Emerson 452).
-He continues on to further coaberate with Huxley’s concept that the modern poet is missing a more diverse range of subject matter and knowledge. He refers to poets like Ben Johnson saying “The manner in which they learned Greek and Latin before our modern facilities were yet ready, without dictionaries, grammars, or indexes, by lectures of a professor, followed by their own searchings,-required a more robust memory and cooperation of all the faculties…” (Emerson 452).
—–What does Emerson consider poetry?
—–Both Emerson and Huxley hold contempt for the industrial ages which they live in as poems about the revels of everyday life speak only of machines and machinery.
——————-“There is nothing intrinsically novel or surprising in the introduction into poetry of machinery and industrialism, or labor unrest” (Huxley 94).
-Here, Huxley relays how modern poetry flaunts its “newness” yet sticks to the same convention of attempting to depict modern life in profound way, as Huxley cites how the same formula has existed since the writings of Homer.
He continues speaking about the topics of modern poetry: “That is not extending the range of poetry; it is merely asserting its right to deal with the immediate facts of contemporary life, as Homer and Chaucer did” (Huxley 94).
“Judge the splendor of a nation by the insignificance of the great individuals in it” (Emerson 452).
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