When
then you are asked whether the value of a poem lies in a substance got
by decomposing the poem, and present, as such, only in reflective
analysis, or whether the value lies in a form arrived at and existing in
the same way, you will answer, "It lies neither in one, nor in the
other, nor in any addition of them, but in the poem, where they are
not."
We have then, first, an antithesis of subject and poem. This is clear
and valid; and the question in which of them does the value lie is
intelligible; and its answer is, In the poem. We have next a distinction
of substance and form. If the substance means ideas, images, and the
like taken alone, and the form means the measured language taken by
itself, this is a possible distinction, but it is a distinction of
things not in the poem, and the value lies in neither of them. If
substance and form mean anything _in_ the poem, then each is involved in
the other, and the question in which of them the value lies has no
sense. No doubt you may say, speaking loosely, that in this poet or poem
the aspect of substance is the more noticeable, and in that the aspect
of form; and you may pursue interesting discussions on this basis,
though no principle or ultimate question of value is touched by them.
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