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Editionsbericht
Literatur: Anthologie
[III] THE influence of poetry as a beneficent auxiliary in education is hardly yet appreciated; but there is a growing sense of its importance, and to meet the demands of this growth the present collection has been made. It is composed mainly of pieces of approved excellence, and such as are fitted as well by their pure moral tone as by the harmony and beauty of their structure to elevate the standard of taste, and happily impress the memory. Genuine poetry, in its simplest forms, appeals to the sympathies of all, – of the old as well as the young; and although this collection is adapted to the wants of more advanced pupils, it will be found to contain much that will be easily learned and recited by children. The aid of the pencil has been occasionally called in, to impart a graphic interest to pieces, and to indicate the alliance between the sister arts. All the original designs in the volume are by Mr. Hammatt Billings, an artist of singular merit, and of much felicity of execution.
It is remarked by an English compiler, – Dr. Allen, to whose collection of "Select English Poetry" we are [IV] happy to acknowledge our indebtedness, – that "the earliest advantage which is found to arise from the practice of learning and reciting passages of poetry is an improvement of the faculty of memory. Sentiments which, if expressed in prose, would soon be forgotten, frequently, when clothed in verse, produce a permanent impression. The mind may thus be gradually stored with maxims of the purest morality; while the reciting of poetry is, in the language of Lord Clarendon, 'the best and most natural way to introduce an assurance and confidence in speaking with that leisure and tone of pronunciation that is decent and graceful, and in which, so few men are excellent, for want of information and care when they were young.'"
We do not suppose that any vindication of poetry is needed in this country, at this stage of the world's cultivation. The time has gone by for illiberal notions on the subject. Poetry, like religion, rests on the necessity of supplying the inherent cravings of our intellectual and spiritual nature; and a taste for it should be cultivated with the assiduity with which any other faculty, essential to the health of a well-balanced organization, is brought into activity. It is ever the companion of an earnest religious faith. Genuine poetry, even in its most cheerful moods, is always religious; indeed, it is cheerful simply because it is religious. It cannot survive in an atheistical atmosphere. Some few instances may be named in which the poetical faculty has been allied with intellectual [V] unbelief; but the union has never been of long duration. The one flame must absorb the other. If the undevout astronomer be mad, an undevout poet is an anomaly in nature. "Creation has too much of the divinity insinuated into her beauties," says the Rev. Charles Wolfe, "to allow poetry to hesitate in her creed. She demands no proof. She waits for no demonstration. She looks, and she believes. She admires, and she adores."
"It seems to us," says Dr. Channing, referring to poetry, "the divinest of all arts; for it is the breathing or expression of that principle or sentiment which is deepest and sublimest in human nature. No doctrine is more common among Christians than that of man's immortality; but it is not so generally understood that the germs or principles of his whole future being are now wrapped up in his soul, as the rudiments of the future plant in the seed. As a necessary result of this constitution, the soul, possessed and moved by these mighty though infant energies, is perpetually stretching beyond what is present and visible, struggling against the bounds of its earthly prison-house, and seeking relief and joy in imaginings of unseen and ideal being. This view of our nature, which has never been fully developed, and which goes further towards explaining the contradictions of human life than all others, carries us to the very foundation and sources of poetry." "It is not true that the poet paints a life which does not exist. He only extracts [VI] and concentrates, as it were, life's ethereal essence, arrests and condenses its volatile fragrance, brings together its scattered beauties, and prolongs its more refined but evanescent joys. And in this he does well; for it is good to feel that life is not wholly usurped by cares for subsistence and physical gratifications, but admits, in measures which may be indefinitely enlarged, sentiments and delights worthy of a higher being. This power of poetry to refine our views of life and happiness is more and more needed as society advances."
If these views of poetry are true, we cannot well exaggerate the importance of the cultivation of a taste for its enjoyments by the young; and especially by the female portion, by whom the destinies of future immortals are to be to so great an extent influenced, for evil or for good.
"What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? – a beast, no more!
Sure He that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and God-like reason
To rust in us unused!"
Erstdruck und Druckvorlage
Epes Sargent (Hrsg.):
Selections in Poetry for Exercises at School and at Home.
Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwait & Co. 1853, S. III-VI.
Die Textwiedergabe erfolgt nach dem ersten Druck
(Editionsrichtlinien).
PURL: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hnzvqf
URL: https://books.google.com/books?id=qKcQAAAAYAAJ
URL: https://archive.org/details/selectionsinpoe00sarggoog
Literatur: Anthologie
Albrecht, Jörn:
Was heißt und zu welchem Ende kompiliert man eine Lyrikanthologies
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Edition
Lyriktheorie » R. Brandmeyer