And who then would say better things of Homer than
Milton?"--Goethe supreme in literary criticism, Milton on Homer; this
touches the root of the matter; sympathy with the writer and his work
the critic must have,--sympathy as one of the sources of good
judgment, and even of knowledge. You cannot know, and therefore not
judge of a man or book or thing, unless you have some fellow-feeling
with him or it; and to judge well you must have much fellow-feeling.
The critic must, moreover, be a thinker; reason is the critic's sun.
Scott and Byron could say just and fresh things about poets and
poetry; but neither could command the whole field, nor dig deep into
the soil. Witness Byron's deliberate exaltation of Pope. Whereas
Wordsworth and Coleridge were among the soundest of critics, because,
besides being poets, they were both profound thinkers.
For the perfecting of the literary critic the especial
sympathy needed is that with excellence; for high literature is the
outcome of the best there is in humanity, the finished expression of
healthiest aspirations, of choicest thoughts, the ripened fruit of
noble, of refined growths, the perfected fruit, with all the perfume
and beauty of the flower upon it.
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