Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 edition. Excerpt: ... Vos, o Pompilius sanguis, carmen reprehendite, quod nan Multa dies et multa litura coercuit, atque Perfectum decies non casligavit ad unguent. Horace: De Arte Poetica, 291-294. IV TENNYSON'S REVISION OF HIS TEXT The changes which a poet makes, from time to time, in the text of his poems may be taken in part as a measure of his power of self-criticism, and in part as a record of the growth of his mind. It is true, of course, that a man may prefer to put his new ideas altogether into new poems and leave the old ones untouched; true also that the creative impulse may be so much stronger than the critical as to make him impatient of the limce labor et mora. This was the case with Robert Browning. There was a time when he made a point of turning out a poem every day. When reproached for indifference to form he said that "the world must take him as it found him." But Tennyson was a constant, careful corrector of his own verse. He held that "An artist should get his workmanship as good as he can, and make his work as perfect as possible. A small vessel, built on fine lines, is likely to float further down the stream of time than a big raft." He was keenly sensitive to the subtle effects of rhythm, the associations of words, the beauty of form. The deepening of thought and feeling which came to him with the experience of life did not make him indifferent to the technics of his craft as a poet. Indeed it seemed to intensify his desire for perfection. The more he had to say the more carefully he wished to say it. The first and most important revision of his work began in the period of his greatest spiritual and intellectual growth, immediately after the death of his friend Hallam. The results of it were seen in the early poems, republished in the...