ry apt to miss the true spirit
of poetry, which ought to be the infinite. The problem can only be
solved in one way: by the pathetic satire assuming the character of the
sublime, and the playful satire acquiring poetic substance by enveloping
the theme in beauty.

In satire, the real as imperfection is opposed to the ideal, considered
as the highest reality. In other respects it is by no means essential
that the ideal should be expressly represented, provided the poet knows
how to awaken it in our souls, but he must in all cases awaken it,
otherwise he will exert absolutely no poetic action. Thus reality is
here a necessary object of aversion; but it is also necessary, for the
whole question centres here, that this aversion should come necessarily
from the ideal, which is opposed to reality. To make this clear--this
aversion might proceed from a purely sensuous source, and repose only on
a want of which the satisfaction finds obstacles in the real. How often,
in fact, we think we feel, against society a moral discontent, while we
are simply soured by the obstacles that it opposes to our inclination.
It is this entirely material interest that the vulgar satirist brings
into play; and as by this road he never fails to call forth in us
movements connected with the affections, he fancies that he holds our
heart in his hand, and thinks he has graduated in the pathetic. But all
pathos derived from this source is unworthy of poetry, which ought only
to move us through the medium of ideas, and reach our heart only by
passing through the reason. Moreover, this impure and material pathos
will never have its effect on minds, except by over-exciting the
affective faculties and by occupying our hearts with painful feelings; in
this it differs entirely from the truly poetic pathos, which raises in us
the feeling of moral independence, and which is recognized by the freedom
of our mind persisting in it even while it is in the state of affection.
And, in fact, when the emotion emanates from the ideal opposed to the
real, the sublime beauty of the ideal corrects all impression of
restraint; and the grandeur of the idea with which we are imbued raises
us above all the limits of experience. Thus in the representation of
some revolting reality, the essential thing is that the necessary be the
foundation on which the poet or the narrator places the real: that he
know how to dispose our mind for ideas. Provided the point from which we
see an