The Character of English Poetry – 1 49which is even now one of the strongest shades in the literary
tone of modern Europe, — to the present day Shakespeare and
Byron are the only two great names of English poetry which are
generally familiar on the continent and have had a real vogue,
— we find the literature of the English tongue and especially
its poetry flowing in a large side-stream, always receiving much
from the central body of European culture but returning upon
it in comparison very little. This insularity, not of reception but
of reaction, is a marked phenomenon and calls for explanation.
If we look for the causes, — for such a paucity of influence
cannot, certainly, be put down to any perversity or obtuseness
in the general mind of Europe, but must be due to some insuffi-
ciency or serious defect in the literature, — we shall find, I think,
if we look with other than English-trained eyes, that there is even
in this rich and vigorous poetry abundant cause for the failure.
English poetry is powerful but it is imperfect, strong in spirit, but
uncertain and tentative in form; it is extraordinarily stimulating,
but not often quite satisfying. It aims high, but its success is not
as great as its effort. Especially, its imaginative force exceeds its
thought-power; it has indeed been hardly at all a really great
instrument of poetic thought-vision; it has not dealt fruitfully
with life. Its history has been more a succession of individual
poetic achievements than a constant national tradition; in the
mass it has been a series of poetical revolutions without any
strong inner continuity. That is to say that it has had no great
self-recognising idea or view of life expressive of the spiritual at-
titude of the nation or powerful to determine from an early time
its own sufficient artistic forms. But it is precisely the possession
of such a self-recognising spiritual attitude and the attainment of
a satisfying artistic form for it which make the poetry of a nation
a power in the world’s general culture. For that which recognises
its self will most readily be recognised by others. And, again, that
which attains the perfect form of its own innate character, will
be most effective in forming others and leave its stamp in the
building of the general mind of humanity.
One or two examples will be sufficient to show the vast
difference. No poetry has had so powerful an influence as Greek