drive the poet either into an
arid display of wit, on the one hand, or into sentimental excess, on the
other, and the native English distrust of emotion led eighteenth century
critics to praise the poet when the intellect had the upper hand. But
surely poets have made it clear enough that the intellect is not the
distinctive characteristic of the poet. To be intelligent is merely to
be human. Intelligence is only a tool, poets have repeatedly insisted,
in their quarrel with philosophers. In proportion as one is intelligent
within one's own field, one excels, poets would admit. If one is
intelligent with respect to fisticuffs one is likely to become a good
prize-fighter, but no matter how far refinement of intelligence goes in
this direction, it will not make a pugilist into a poet. Intelligence
must belong likewise, in signal degree, to the great poet, but it is
neither one of the two essential elements in his nature. Augustan
critics starved the spiritual element in poetry, even while they
imagined that they were feeding it, for in sharpening his wit the poet
came no nearer expressing the "poor soul, the center of his sinful
earth" than when he reveled in emotion. We no longer believe that in the
most truly poetic nature the intelligence of a Pope is joined with the
emotionalism of a Rousseau. We believe that the spirituality of a
Crashaw is blent with the sensuousness of a Swinburne.

Nineteenth century criticism, since it is almost entirely the work of
poets, should not be thus at odds with the conception of the poet
expressed in poetry. But although nineteenth century prose criticism
moves in the right direction, it is not entirely adequate. The poet is
not at his best when he is working in a prose medium. He works too
consciously in prose, hence his intuitive flashes are not likely to find
expression. After he has tried to express his buried life there, he
himself is likely to warn us that what he has said "is well, is
eloquent, but 'tis not true." Even Shelley, the most successful of
poet-critics, gives us a more vivid comprehension of the poetical
balance of sense and spirit through his poet-heroes than through _The
Defense of Poetry_, for he is almost exclusively concerned, in that
essay, with the spiritual aspect of poetry. He expresses, in fact, the
converse of Dryden's view in that he regards the sensuous as negation or
dross merely. He asserts:

Few poets of the highest class have chosen to exhibit the