Download or read book Poetry and Time (Classic Reprint) written by Sir Henry Newbolt and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-07-08 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Poetry and Time Among the greatest English poets, some by their poetical work, some by the utterance in prose of their deliberate reflections, have supplied us with materials from which we can construct a definition of Poetry: a definition resting not upon mere authority, but upon a scientific analysis of the facts of human feeling, thought, and expression. This definition might perhaps be set down and annotated in some such words as these: - Poetry is the expression in speech, more or less rhythmical, of the aesthetic activity of the human spirit, the creative activity by which the world is presented to our consciousness. But this is not enough: it gives us only Poetry in the abstract, and makes no distinction between good and bad, greater and lesser poetry. The two necessary further stages are these: good poetry is not merely the expression of our intuitions, it is the masterly expression of rare, complex, and difficult states of consciousness: and great poetry, the poetry which has power to stir many men and stir them deeply, is the expression of our consciousness of this world, tinged with man's universal longing for a world more perfect, nearer to the heart's desire. By definition, and in a plain prosaic way, we are all poets, all makers of our own world: but the great poets re-make it for us - they take this very world of time in which we live, and by an incantation they rebuild it for us, so that for an instant we see it under a light that is not the light of Time. This definition, it will be seen, covers not only the more ordinary examples of poetical expression, but includes also the utterance of desires more profound and more far-reaching in their significance, and consequently more difficult to submit to any effective analysis. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.