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Show ADMINISTBATIVE REPOBT LXXXVII POETRY The fifth in order of the fine arts is poetry. All of the esthetic arts are activities designed to produce pleasure. This is their fundamental purpose. Poetry is an art of pleasure. Its fundamental purpose must be pleasure, although it sometimes may be a good method of presenting the truth; in fact it often serves this purpose in an admirable manner, but its wisdom must be veiled whether it be intellectual or moral. That which makes poetry is the method of expression that is adopted by poetry. In music the method of expression is rhythmic sound and the combinations of rhythmic sound which appear also in melody, harmony, and symphony. Graphic art is expression of form which at first gives us form as molded in sculpture, then form as relief, then the combination of form in perspective, and finally the delicate expression of forms in values or chiaroscuro. In drama we have an art which employs gesture speech as its mode of expression. Its root is the dance, and the first stage of the drama is terpsichorean; its second stage is sacrifical, its third stage is ceremonial, its fourth stage is histrionic. Romance is expression by fictitious history. It appears first as beast fable, then as power myth, then as necromantic tale, and finally in the novel. In poetry the method of expression is metaphor. We are yet to see the stages through which metaphor is developed. Again I must remind my reader that all of these stages have roots in the primitive stage, that they develop by minute increments, and that a characteristic of poetry is never developed in full panoply of action. Personification- Personification is the germ of poetic expression. Personification is the fundamental error in the philosophy of savagery. Tylor called this belief animism; already we have set forth its nature. It arises from mental necessity of making judgments and comparing them with the inferences which the mind draws from sense impressions. The savage interprets the world of bodies in the environment from the concepts of human bodies. From the standpoint of psychology this is anthropomorphism, while from the standpoint of |