III

(Aristotle, De Anima: "While the intellect is doubtless a thing more divine and is impassive.")

This essay proposes to halt at the frontier of metaphysics or mysticism, and confine itself to such practical conclusions as can be applied by the responsible person interested in poetry. To divert interest from the poet to the poetry is a laudable aim: for it would conduce to a juster estimation of actual poetry, good and bad. There are many people who appreciate the expression of sincere emotion in verse, and there is a smaller number of people who can appreciate technical excellence. But very few know when there is expression of significant emotion, emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet. The emotion of art is impersonal. And the poet cannot reach this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done. And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living.

靈感天賜，聖潔不動凡情。（另譯：理智無疑更為神聖，且本質上不受外物所動。）——亞里斯多德：論靈魂

這篇論文就打算停止在玄學和神秘體驗論的邊界上，僅限於這些實用的結論，以期能被那些對詩有興趣、有責任感的人來應用。將人們的興趣從詩人身上轉移到詩歌本身，是一個值得稱贊的抱負：因為這有助於人們對一首或好或壞的、真正的詩歌做出公正的評價。很多人能在韻文裡鑑賞出真摯感情的表述，較少的人才能鑑賞出卓越的技巧。但卻很少有人知道何時才會有重大感情的表達，這種感情的生命在詩歌裡，而非在詩人的歷史裡。藝術情感是非個人的。除非詩人在他所從事的詩歌面前全然放棄自我，否則詩人就不能達到這種「非個人」的境界；除非他不只活在當下，而且活在過去，除非他所注意的不是已死的，而是早就活著的，否則他就不可能知道他該做什麼。

（T. S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” in The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism（London: Methuen, 1920），第29–34页。；T.S.艾略特：傳統與個人才能）

I will quote a passage which is unfamiliar enough to be regarded with fresh attention in the light—or darkness—of these observations:

And now methinks I could e'en chide myself
For doating on her beauty, though her death
Shall be revenged after no common action.
Does the silkworm expend her yellow labours
For thee? For thee does she undo herself?
Are lordships sold to maintain ladyships
For the poor benefit of a bewildering minute?
Why does yon fellow falsify highways,
And put his life between the judge's lips,
To refine such a thing—keeps horse and men
To beat their valours for her?...

(Cyril Tourneur, The Revenger's Tragedy, 1606-7)

In this passage (as is evident if it is taken in its context) there is a combination of positive and negative emotions: an intensely strong attraction toward beauty and an equally intense fascination by the ugliness which is contrasted with it and which destroys it. This balance of contrasted emotion is in the dramatic situation to which the speech is pertinent, but that situation alone is inadequate to it. This is, so to speak, the structural emotion, provided by the drama. But the whole effect, the dominant tone, is due to the fact that a number of floating feelings, having an affinity to this emotion by no means superficially evident, have combined with it to give us a new art emotion.

It is not in his personal emotions, the emotions provoked by particular events in his life, that the poet is in any way remarkable or interesting. His particular emotions may be simple, or crude, or flat. The emotion in his poetry will be a very complex thing, but not with the complexity of the emotions of people who have very complex or unusual emotions in life. One error, in fact, of eccentricity in poetry is to seek for new human emotions to express; and in this search for novelty in the wrong place it discovers the perverse.

The business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and, in working them up into poetry, to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all. And emotions which he has never experienced will serve his turn as well as those familiar to him. Consequently, we must believe that "emotion recollected in tranquillity" is an inexact formula. For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor, without distortion of meaning, tranquillity. It is a concentration, and a new thing resulting from the concentration, of a very great number of experiences which to the practical and active person would not seem to be experiences at all; it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation. These experiences are not"recollected," and they finally unite in an atmosphere which is "tranquil" only in that it is a passive attending upon the event. Of course this is not quite the whole story. There is a great deal, in the writing of poetry,which must be conscious and deliberate. In fact, the bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be
conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious. Both errors tend to make him "personal."

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.

我要引用一節詩歌，它不為人們熟知，因此我們可以以一種全新的注意力來閱讀，以闡述上述見解的光亮——或陰影： 

我想如今甚至該責怪自己

在她的美貌中老去，雖然她的死

應該以不尋常之舉報復。

難道蠶食她的憂郁之痛

為的是你？為了你，難道她該自毀？

難道老爺們熱衷豢養小姐

為的是那令人迷惑的短暫時刻裡的些許利益？

為什麼那家伙要謊稱有女劫匪，

並置他的生命於法官的雙唇裡，

來文飾這件事——為了她

打發人馬擊敗他們的勇毅。 

在這節詩歌裡（如果從上下文來看是很明顯地），有正反兩種情感的交織：一種指向美貌的極度強烈的吸引力，以及同樣強烈的出自丑惡的魅惑，後者與前者相反並且毀滅了前者。這種截然相反的情感的平衡，是在那段擁有中肯表述的戲劇化情境中實現的，但僅僅劇情還不足以勝任。不妨說是由戲劇文體提供的那種結構情感。但整體效果，主基調，則應歸功於大量懸浮其中的感覺，它們毫不淺顯地指向這種感情，並和這種感情結合，帶給了我們一種全新的藝術感情。

詩人之所以被尊重或被注意，並非因為他個人的情感，或者他個人生活中的特殊事件所引發的感情。他特有的情感可以是單純的、粗魯的或者沉悶的。但他詩歌中的情感必須是一種複雜的東西，但這種複雜性並非是那種生活中感情稀奇古怪的人所擁有的。事實上，詩歌界有種反常的錯誤，即試圖尋找和表達全新的人類感情，這樣在錯誤的地方尋找新穎，最終只能遭遇荒謬。詩人的本分不是去尋找新的人類情感，而是運用尋常的感情，並在這些尋常的感情中提煉詩歌，來表達實際感情中根本沒有的感受。而那些詩人從未經受過的情感和他已經熟悉的情感一樣，都是合用的。因此，我們必須相信「在心神寧靜中回憶起的感情」是個不準確的公式。因為詩歌不是情感，也不是回憶，如果不曲解詞義的話，也不是心神寧靜。詩歌是一種大量經驗的集結，以及這種集結中產生的新事物，這些經驗在重實踐、有活力的人看來好像未必全是什麼經驗；這種經驗的集中，既非自覺，亦非深思熟慮的產物。這些經驗不是「回憶」的，它們最終在一種「寧靜」的氛圍中結合，這種「寧靜」僅指在其中經驗被動地服侍著特定的事件。當然，這些也並非詩歌的全部始末。在詩歌寫作中，有許多時候是需要自覺和沉思的。實際上，拙劣的詩人往往在該自覺的時候不自覺，在不該自覺的時候自覺。這兩種錯誤讓他漸趨「個人的」。詩歌不是情感放縱，而是從感情中逃逸；詩歌不是表現個性，而是從個性中逃逸。但是，當然，只有那些擁有個性和感情的人才明白，要從其中逃逸究竟有什麼意義。