εἶσὶ γὰρ οὖν, οἳ ἐν ταῖς
ψυχαῖς κυοῦσιν
Plato
The supreme problem of every age
is that of finding its consummate artistic expression. Before this
problem every other remains of secondary importance. History
defines and directs its physical course, science cooperates in the
achievement of its material aims, but Art alone gives to the age
its spiritual physiognomy, its ultimate and lasting
expression.
The process of Art is on the one
hand sensuous, the conception having for its basis the fineness of
organization of the senses; and on the other hand it is severely
scientific, the value of the creation being dependent upon the
craftsmanship, the mastery over the tool, the technique.
Art, like Nature, its great and
only reservoir for all time past and all time to come, ever strives
for elimination and selection. It is severe and aristocratic in the
application of its laws and impervious to appeal to serve other
than its own aims. Its purpose is the symbolization of Life. In its
sanctum there reigns the silence of vast accomplishment, the
serene, final, and imperturbable solitude which is the ultimate
criterion of all great things created.
To speak of Poetry is to speak of
the most subtle, the most delicate, and the most accurate
instrument by which to measure Life.
Poetry is reality's essence
visioned and made manifest by one endowed with a perception acutely
sensitive to sound, form, and colour, and gifted with a power to
shape into rhythmic and rhymed verbal symbols the reaction to
Life's phenomena. The poet moulds that which appears evanescent and
ephemeral in image and in mood into everlasting values. In this act
of creation he serves eternity.
Poetry, in especial lyrical
poetry, must be acknowledged the supreme art, culminating as it
does in a union of the other arts, the musical, the plastic, and
the pictorial.