Pure Poetry
THIS is the enlargement of a lecture delivered at Manchester University earlier this year, and at every turn, the and and the writing betray an interesting and idiosyncratic mind able to im- pose a style upon everything that passes thrOugh it. The less ambitious aim of the lecture is to provide a definition of Art : or of `Poetry,' as Professor Oakeshott rather pedantically calls it, in imitation of the Greek. The definition for which. he settles is in terms of 'image,' itself an undefined term. Art is, characteristically, the making of images that are designed for contem- plation and that have nothing to offer but.delight. Error in aesthetic theory arises, it would seem, from misunderstanding or misconceiving the nature of the images that are created in art. A common error, for instance, is that these images are to be understood or 'read,' like the concepts of science : an error only too obviously at work in any doctrine of 'poetic truth,' but which is no less present in the doctrine that Art is the 'expres- sion' or 'representation' of an experience that the artist has enjoyed. Against any such attempt to look outside the work of art for its significance or its moral or its utility, Professor Oakeshott main- tains. what is, or used 'to be, called a 'pure' theory of art. The elements of any work of art must be
regarded as objects of delight in themselVes, and not interpreted as symbols or symptoms.
The difficulty, of course, is to maintain such a theory across the whole range of art. For in an
art like poetry the elements arc naturally or auto-
matically interpreted, which is not true of the elements in an art like music. Professor Oakeshott is aware of this objection, and asserts that in all
arts alike any temptation'to interpret the elements must be successfully resisted. But. what hi fails
to see is what follows frorn this : namely that the contemplation of certain arts—those employing elements which are interpreted outside these arts —would become enormously more difficult and unnatural than the contemplation of those arts where the elements arc, relatively speaking. `abstract' or uninterpreted.
The more ambitious task that Professor Oake- shott sets himself is to draw up a system or hierarchy of all human activities from which one could read off not merely the character bin. also the value of.any such activity. Once again, the lec- turer's specific interest is in Art. The device employed is to define all activities in terms of 'images.' Each activity is to be distinguished frRin every other by the characteristic images it makes: and the characteristic way in which it moves, amongst them. • What does Professor Oakeshott mean by `image'—this is only the first of about forty ques tions that spring to mind. To answer them he would need a book; and to answer him the pertin- acious critic would need another book. Meanwhile we have a suggestive essay on a large and neglected theme.
RICHARD WOLLIIIiIM
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