ll speak forth melodiously what the
heart of it means! Italy, for example, poor Italy lies dismembered,
scattered asunder, not appearing in any protocol or treaty as a unity
at all; yet the noble Italy is actually _one_: Italy produced its
Dante: Italy can speak! The Czar of all the Russias, he is strong,
with so many bayonets, Cossacks, and cannons: and does a great feat in
keeping such a tract of Earth politically together; but he cannot yet
speak. Something great in him, but it is a dumb greatness. He has had
no voice of genius, to be heard of all men and times. He must learn to
speak. He is a great dumb monster hitherto. His cannons and Cossacks
will all have rusted into nonentity, while that Dante's voice is still
audible. The Nation that has a Dante is bound together as no dumb
Russia can be.--We must here end what we had to say of the
_Hero-Poet_.

JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT

1784-1859

AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION

WHAT IS POETRY? (1844)

Poetry, strictly and artistically so called, that is to say,
considered not merely as poetic feeling, which is more or less shared
by all the world, but as the operation of that feeling, such as we see
it in the poet's book, is the utterance of a passion for truth,
beauty, and power, embodying and illustrating its conceptions by
imagination and fancy, and modulating its language on the principle of
variety in uniformity. Its means are whatever the universe contains;
and its ends, pleasure and exaltation. Poetry stands between nature
and convention, keeping alive among us the enjoyment of the external
and the spiritual world: it has constituted the most enduring fame of
nations; and, next to Love and Beauty, which are its parents, is the
greatest proof to man of the pleasure to be found in all things, and
of the probable riches of infinitude.

Poetry is a passion,[25] because it seeks the deepest impressions; and
because it must undergo, in order to convey, them.

[25] _Passio_, suffering in a good sense,--ardent subjection
of one's-self to emotion.

It is a passion for truth, because without truth the impression would
be false or defective.

It is a passion for beauty, because its office is to exalt and refine
by means of pleasure, and because beauty is nothing but the loveliest
form of pleasure.

It is a passion for power, because power is impression triumphant,
whether over the poet, as desired by himself, or over the reader, as
affected by the poet.