elops, whether in historic
states singly or in the progress of mankind, the direct expression of
self for its own sake becomes more usual; literature becomes more
personal or purely subjective. If the poet's private story be one of
action, it is plain that it has interest only as if it were objectively
rendered, from its being illustrative of life in general; so, too, if
the felt emotion be given, this will have value from its being treated
as typical; and, in so far as the intimate nature of the poet is
variously given as a whole in his entire works, it has real importance,
has its justification in art, only in so far as he himself is a high
normal type of humanity. The truth of the matter is, in fact, only a
detail of the general proposition that in art history has no value of
its own as such; for the poet is a part of life that is, and his nature
and career, like that of any character or event in history, have no
artistic value beyond their universal significance. In such
self-portraiture there may be sometimes the depicting of a depraved
nature, such as Villon; but such a type takes its place with other
criminal types of the imagination, and belongs with them in another
sphere.

This element of self finds its intense expression in lyrical
love-poetry, one of the most enduring forms of literature because of its
elementariness and universality; but it is also found in other parts of
the emotional field. In seeking concrete material for lyrical use the
poet may take some autobiographical incident, but commonly the world of
inanimate nature yields the most plastic mould. It is a marvellous
victory of the spirit over matter when it takes the stars of heaven and
the flowers of earth and makes them utter forth its speech, less as it
seems in words of human language than in the pictured hieroglyph and
symphonic movement of natural things; for in such poetry it is not the
vision of nature, however beautiful, that holds attention; it is the
colour, form, and music of things externalizing, visualizing the inward
mood, emotion, or passion of the singer. Nature is emptied of her
contents to become the pure inhabitancy of one human soul. The poet's
method is that of life itself, which is first awakened by the beauty
without to thought and feeling; he expresses the state evoked by that
beauty and absorbing it. He identifies himself with the objects before
him through his joy in them, and entering there makes nature translucent
wi