PROFESSOR PRESCOTT was one of the first critics in this country to emphasize the similarity between the poetic faculty and the dream-state of the average man. Ten years ago he published a brochure, "Poetry and Dreams," of which the present volume is an expansion but not an improvement. Although his early booklet was as punctilious as is his recent volume in excluding references to sex in connexion with poetry, it was a simpler, more diverting and less cumbrous performance."The Poetic Mind" is a sort of anthology of what ...
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PROFESSOR PRESCOTT was one of the first critics in this country to emphasize the similarity between the poetic faculty and the dream-state of the average man. Ten years ago he published a brochure, "Poetry and Dreams," of which the present volume is an expansion but not an improvement. Although his early booklet was as punctilious as is his recent volume in excluding references to sex in connexion with poetry, it was a simpler, more diverting and less cumbrous performance."The Poetic Mind" is a sort of anthology of what critics and poets have said concerning the influence of the unconscious life of the poet on his poetic composition. The author contributes very little that is new to the theory that a literary work is largely the result of an unconscious process. He is not misled into thinking that because a large number of manuscripts of famous poets show numerous corrections and interlineations, that therefore a finished poem is entirely a conscious work. Nor does Professor Prescott bore us with trivial discussions about technique of prosody. Though he is inclined to look with favour upon the use of conventional metres, he does not insist upon hairsplitting in the matter of vowels and accents. Moreover, he has the art of making r???sum???s of his views; his illustrations are always apt; in his chapter on "The Poetic Madness and Catharsis" he shows a true insight into the function of poetry, and he is highly entertaining in "The Formation of Imaginary Characters" as he proceeds to read the personalities of the writers in their fictitious creations. He pays due tribute to such true critics of poetry as Sidney, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley and Poe; and one is glad to see that he recognizes the profundity of Keble, whose views, in "Occasional Papers and Reviews" and especially in "De Poetic??? Vi Medica," are among the most illuminating ever advanced since Aristotle. His familiarity with other literatures than English is limited. For example, on three different occasions he assigns Gautier's "La Morte Amoureuse" to Flaubert, who wrote only three short stories in his life. On the whole, however, one has no fault to find with his literary equipment....-- The Freeman, Volume 5
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