Rhythm and Harmony in Poetry and Music: Together With Music as a Representative Art; Two Essays in Comparative AEsthetics (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Rhythm and Harmony in Poetry and Music First, a philosophic Object. The causes underlying the effects of art are in themselves as interesting as any um derlying the effects of nature A like the rising and falling Of the tides, the coming and going of the storms, the sprouting of the leaves in spring, and their falling in the autumn. And, second, a practical object. If a man be a painter, to let him know precisely what it is that Charms us in a color or an outline may enable him by a few touches to change an unsuccessful product into one fitted to charm all those whose tastes agree with our own. And so with a poet. Those who have ever attempted verses know the constant danger of having the forms metre, alliteration, assonance, rhyme A to which their thought is harnessed, run away with it and wreck it. Yet without the aid of these, what could carry the thought a single step in an artistic direction? The poet must learn to get along, not without them but with them; yet in such a way as to keep them in subjection, as exemplified in what is done by the acknowledged masters.