The poet seems so easy on the
matter that we are almost driven to pretend that we see his meaning,
that we know the peculiar difficulties of a Pobble, that we are as old
travellers in the 'Gromboolian Plain' as he is.
Our claim that nonsense is a new literature (we might almost say a new
sense) would be quite indefensible if nonsense were nothing more than a
mere aesthetic fancy. Nothing sublimely artistic has ever arisen out of
mere art, any more than anything essentially reasonable has ever arisen
out of the pure reason. There must always be a rich moral soil for any
great aesthetic growth. The principle of _art for art's sake_ is a very
good principle if it means that there is a vital distinction between the
earth and the tree that has its roots in the earth; but it is a very bad
principle if it means that the tree could grow just as well with its
roots in the air. Every great literature has always been
allegorical--allegorical of some view of the whole universe. The 'Iliad'
is only great because all life is a battle, the 'Odyssey' because all
life is a journey, the Book of Job because all life is a riddle. There
is one attitude in which we think that all existence is summed up in the
word 'ghosts'; another, and somewhat better one, in which we think it
is summed up in the words 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.
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