And the other heresy--which is indeed rather a practice than
a creed--encourages us in the habit so dear to us of putting our own
thoughts or fancies into the place of the poet's creation. What he meant
by _Hamlet_, or the _Ode to a Nightingale_, or _Abt Vogler_, we say, is
this or that which we knew already; and so we lose what he had to tell
us. But he meant what he said, and said what he meant.
Poetry in this matter is not, as good critics of painting and music
often affirm, different from the other arts; in all of them the content
is one thing with the form. What Beethoven meant by his symphony, or
Turner by his picture, was not something which you can name, but the
picture and the symphony. Meaning they have, but _what_ meaning can be
said in no language but their own: and we know this, though some strange
delusion makes us think the meaning has less worth because we cannot put
it into words. Well, it is just the same with poetry. But because poetry
is words, we vainly fancy that some other words than its own will
express its meaning.
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