No More Learning

You surely were mistaken in what you said
Of the Earl, mirthful, indeed! --which of us said
Politian was a melancholy man? (Exeunt. )




POEMS OF YOUTH




INTRODUCTION TO POEMS--1831




_LETTER TO MR. B--. _

"WEST POINT, 1831.

"DEAR B. . . . . . . . .
Believing only a portion of my former volume to be
worthy a second edition-that small portion I thought it as well to
include in the present book as to republish by itself. I have therefore
herein combined 'Al Aaraaf' and 'Tamerlane' with other poems hitherto
unprinted. Nor have I hesitated to insert from the 'Minor Poems,' now
omitted, whole lines, and even passages, to the end that being placed
in a fairer light, and the trash shaken from them in which they were
imbedded, they may have some chance of being seen by posterity.

"It has been said that a good critique on a poem may be written by
one who is no poet himself. This, according to your idea and _mine _of
poetry, I feel to be false-the less poetical the critic, the less just
the critique, and the converse. On this account, and because there are
but few B-'s in the world, I would be as much ashamed of the world's
good opinion as proud of your own. Another than yourself might here
observe, 'Shakespeare is in possession of the world's good opinion, and
yet Shakespeare is the greatest of poets. It appears then that the world
judge correctly, why should you be ashamed of their favorable judgment? '
The difficulty lies in the interpretation of the word 'judgment' or
'opinion. ' The opinion is the world's, truly, but it may be called
theirs as a man would call a book his, having bought it; he did not
write the book, but it is his; they did not originate the opinion, but
it is theirs. A fool, for example, thinks Shakespeare a great poet-yet
the fool has never read Shakespeare. But the fool's neighbor, who is a
step higher on the Andes of the mind, whose head (that is to say,
his more exalted thought) is too far above the fool to be seen or
understood, but whose feet (by which I mean his everyday actions)
are sufficiently near to be discerned, and by means of which that
superiority is ascertained, which but for them would never have been
discovered-this neighbor asserts that Shakespeare is a great poet--the
fool believes him, and it is henceforward his _opinion. _This neighbor's
own opinion has, in like manner, been adopted from one above him,
and so, ascendingly, to a few gifted individuals who kneel around the
summit, beholding, face to face, the master spirit who stands upon the
pinnacle.

"You are aware of the great barrier in the path of an American writer.
He is read, if at all, in preference to the combined and established wit
of the world. I say established; for it is with literature as with law
or empire-an established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne in
possession.