Who Are the Great Poets? [pp. 230-238]

2h/o are the Great Poets?
bly the result of the Hebrew substance,
I should still claim that the greater value
of the Hebrew substance would more
than compensate for any loss in form.
Let us first make sure that the Hebrew poet knew he was writing poetry
and not prose. Friedrich Bleek, in his
"Introduction to the Old Testament,"
says:
"The distinction between the poetical and prose style of composition is the
one that can be perceived the most decidedly and certainly. The poetic style
of the Hebrews is not distinguished
from the prose by any prescribed metre,
but by a certain rhythmical measurement and division of the periods and separate sentences, and also by many linguistic peculiarities, the form of words,
grammatical constructions and inflections, which are not used in the prose."
Again, he says, "This distinction between prose composition and that which
is allowable in poetry, prevails in all languages; but in no other language whatever do we find the expressions which
are unusual in prose, and allowable solely
in poetical composition, stamped so distinctly as they are in Hebrew."
So the Hebrew poet knew that he was
writing poetry: now as to the forms he
used. What says Schlegel? "But in
the poetry of the Hebrew, besides this
aphoristic Biblical form, there is another
peculiar law of living, breathing thought
and rhythmical motion, not indeed of
words and syllables, but of images and
feelings undulating in free symmetry
like the waves of the sea."
The idea of the rhythm of thought is
both beautiful and true, but though we
can know nothing of the quantity that
entered into the construction of Hebrew
verse, are we not warranted in inferring
that,in addition to the rhythm of thought,
or of sentiment, as another terms it, it
had a rhythmical motion of words and
syllables? The ancient Hebrew poetry
was not in Greek verse, but can we say
that it "was not in verse?" Mr. Theo
dore Watts speaks singularly well on the
point of rhythm: "Perhaps it may be
said that deeper than all the rhythms of
art is that rhythm which art would fain
catch, the rhythm of nature; for the
rhythm of nature is the rhythm of life
itself. This rhythm can be caught by
prose as well as by poetry, such prose,
for instance, as that of the English Bible.
Certainly the rhythm of verse at its
highest, such, for instance, as that of
Shakspeare's greatest writings, is nothing more and nothing less than the
metre of that energy of the spirit which
surges within the bosom of him who
speaks, whether he speak in verse or
impassioned prose. Being rhythm, it is
of course governed by law, but it is a
law which transcends in subtlety the
conscious art of the metricist, and is
only caught by the poet in his most inspired moods; a law which, being part of
nature's own sanctions, can of course
never be formulated, but only expressed
as it is expressed in the melody of the
bird, in the inscrutable harmony of the
entire bird-chorus of a thicket, in the
whisper of the leaves of the tree, and
the song or wail of wind and sea."
In this admirable passage the ancient
Hebrew writer is paired with our great
dramatist: both have a "rhythm deeper
than all the rhythms of art." Had Arnold meant this when he said the Hebrews were without art, I should not
have this one quarrel with the greatest
of English critics. But he did not mean
this, hence I can not find the last link
in his chain of masterful perceptions
and reasonings of the pure metal of those
that lead to it. One may say, if one
chooses, that the Hebrew'poets had
something higher than art; I am content to say that they had art, art as adequate for the expression of their poetry
as the art of the Greeks for the expression of theirs. I say further, that their
subject matter being incomparably higher, their seeing of life wider and deeper
by far than that of the Greek poets, that
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[Sept.