We see the hall of Menelaus, we see the
garden of Alcinous, we see Nausicaa among her maidens on the shore, we
see the mellow monarch sitting with ivory sceptre in the market-place
dealing out genial justice. Or, again, when the wild mood is on, we can
hear the crash of the spears, the rattle of the armor as the heroes
fall, and the plunging of the horses among the slain. Could we enter the
palace of an old Ionian lord, we know what we should see there; we know
the words in which he would address us. We could meet Hector as a
friend. If we could choose a companion to spend an evening with over a
fireside, it would be the man of many counsels, the husband of Penelope.
I am not going into the vexed question whether history or poetry is the
more true. It has been sometimes said that poetry is the more true,
because it can make things more like what our moral sense would prefer
they should be. We hear of poetic justice and the like, as if nature and
fact were not just enough.
I entirely dissent from that view. So far as poetry attempts to improve
on truth in that way, so far it abandons truth, and is false to itself.
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