on the impression that the objects [including the objects of both the natural
and the social world] make upon him and only on the basis of that reflection
is the emotion founded, into which he is transported and into which he
transports us.”^12 Reflection is here the mental action of holding together in
thought awareness of present actuality with a sense of the nonactualized
possibilities of lived meaningfulness.
The object [represented] here is related to an idea [of how we might live
meaningfully], and [modern or sentimental] poetic power rests solely upon
this relation. The [modern, sentimental] poet thus always has to deal with two
conflicting images and feelings, with the actual world as a limit and with
his idea as something infinite.^13The product of poetic and artistic reflection will then take on one of two basic
forms depending on how the contrast and relation between the actual and
the ideal is presented, as Schiller puts it; depending on whether the poet or
artist“dwells more on the actual or on the ideal.”^14
If actuality is the predominant focus in presenting a subject matter, then
the work will be satirical in a special, broad sense of this term. It will
represent actuality as falling short of the ideal, either tragically and with
pathos or comically and with a sense of absurdity.^15 Alternatively, if the poet
or artist dwells more on the ideal and on satisfaction within it, then the work
will be elegiac, again in a special broad sense, and again divided into two
subclasses.
Either nature and the ideal are objects of mourning, when the former is
presented as something lost, the latter as something unattained, or both are
objects of joy, because they are represented as something actual. The first [sub]
class yields the elegy in the narrow sense, the second [sub]class the idyll in the
broadest sense.^16No matter, however, whether the poet or artist works in satire (tragedy or
comedy) or elegy (idyll or elegy in the narrow sense), perfect success in
artistic making remains elusive.“The [modern] sentimental poet does not
complete his task, but his task is an infinite one...The sentimental poet will
always make us feel, at least temporarily, out of tune with actual life,”^17 as
(^12) Ibid., p. 204. (^13) Ibid. (^14) Ibid., p. 205.
(^15) Seeibid., pp. 205–09. (^16) Ibid., p. 211. (^17) Ibid., p. 234.
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