Modern Æstheticism [pp. 148-163]

TIlR PRINCE TON RE VIE W.
and creations, we read nothing but meaningless words and
phrases. Pointing to the verse of Swinburne and Rossetti as
"flawless in technique," it must be said in reply that the "technique" of the verse is more conspicuous than tlk thought beneath it.
"If you ask," says Wilde, "nine tenths of the British public
what is the meaning of the word'aestheticism,' they will tell
you that it is the word for' affectation.'" The British public is
right. The difference between the sickly sonnets of Sidney to
Astrophel and Stella and the Christian epic of Spenser marks
the difference we are noting between the absence and the
presence of intellectual power in poetry; between a false and a
true aestheticism; between sentiment and sense.
2. Sensualism. The second characteristic of this school of
poetry is a distinctively moral one, and may be expressed in the
statement that the sensual element rules the ethical and spiritual. There is a place for the sensuous or impassioned element
in all genuine lyric verse, as Milton suggests in his definition of
poetry as " simple, sensuous, and passionate." There is a place
for emotional imagery. This, however, never passes the conditions of propriety as in the poetry before us. The sensuous is
one thing; the sensual is another. So recent an author as
Southey utters bitter words against the "Satanic school" of
Byron and his followers in playing the part of "pander-general
to the youth of Great Britain." He deplores the decline of
ethical tone in English letters, protests that the interests of all
true esthetic art are one with those of morality, and wonders in
sadness to what extremes this immoral tendency is to run. As
the published poems of Oscar Wilde lie before.us, we note that
those which are the longest, and in which he aims to exhibit his
best power, are morally the most objectionable, such as "The
Garden of Eros" and "Charmides." We have in this latter one
a verse which answers as the text of most of his poetry:
"Those who have never known a lover's sin
Let them not read my ditty, it will be
To their dull ears so musicless and thin
That they will have no joy of it; but ye
To whose wan cheeks now creeps the lingering smile,
Ye who have learned who Eros is-O listen yet a while."
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