The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1043]
In fact, the one strong point of defence for his friends has been unaccountably neglected by Outis. To attempt the rebutting of a charge of plagiarism by the broad assertion that no such thing as plagiarism exists, is a sotticism, and no more — but there would have been nothing of unreason in rebutting the charge as urged either against Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Aldrich, or Mr. Hood, by the proposition that no true poet can be guilty of a meanness — that the converse of the proposition is a contradiction in terms. Should there be found any one willing to dispute with me this point, I would decline the disputation on the ground that my arguments are no arguments to him.
It appears to me that what seems to be the gross inconsistency of plagiarism as perpetrated by a poet, is very easily thus resolved: — the poetic sentiment (even without reference to the poetic power) implies a peculiarly, perhaps an abnormally keen appreciation of the beautiful, with a longing for its assimilation, or absorption, into the poetic identity. What the poet intensely admires, becomes thus, in very fact, although only partially, a portion of his own intellect. It has a secondary origination within his own soul — an origination altogether apart, although springing, from its primary origination from without. The poet is thus possessed by another's thought, and cannot be said to take of it, possession. But, in either view, he thoroughly feels it as his own — and this feeling is counteracted only by the sensible presence of its true, palpable origin in the volume from which he has derived it — an origin which, in the long lapse of years it is almost impossible not to forget — for in the meantime the thought itself is forgotten. But the frailest association will regenerate it — it springs up with all the vigor of a new birth — its absolute originality is not even a matter of suspicion — and when the poet has written it and printed it, and on its account is charged with plagiarism, there will be no one in the world more entirely astounded than himself. Now from what I have said it will be evident that the liability to accidents of this character is in the direct ratio of the poetic sentiment — of the susceptibility to the poetic impression; and in fact all literary history demonstrates that, for the most frequent and palpable plagiarisms, we must search the works of the most eminent poets.
MR. LONGFELLOW, MR. WILLIS, AND THE DRAMA.
A BIOGRAPHIST of Berryer calls him “l’homme qui dans sa description, demande le plus grande quantité possible d’ antithése,” — but that ever recurring topic, the decline of the drama, seems to have consumed, of late, more of the material in question than would have sufficed for a dozen prime ministers — even admitting them to be French. Every trick of thought, and every harlequinade of phrase have been put in operation for the purpose “de nier ce qui est, et d’ expliquer ce qui n’est pas.”
Ce qui n’est pas: — for the drama has not declined. The facts and the philosophy of the case seem to be these. The great opponent to Progress is Conservatism. In other words — the great adversary of Invention is Imitation: — the propositions are in spirit identical. Just as an art is imitative, is it stationary. The most imitative arts are the most prone to repose — and the converse. Upon the utilitarian — upon the business arts, where Necessity impels, Invention, Necessity’s well-understood offspring, is ever in attendance. And the less we see of the mother the less we behold of the child. No one complains of the decline of the art of Engineering. Here the Reason, which never retrogrades or reposes,