398
PARTISAN REVIEW
dictions which, moreover, do not so much express the experience
of medieval art as the negative interest taken in it by the Docton
of the Church.
Historically, the norm of the evolution of poetry is its prac·
tice as an inspired profession, which in the past could only develop
as an episode in the history of religion. This means that to under·
stand the peculiarities of modern poetry we must examine the
recent behavior of the profession in relation to those powers by
which it was formerly uplifted. Maritain's artisan theory of
poetry eliminates from discussion a comparison of the particular
influences of the religions and the productive conditions of the
past; his idea of poetry's modern turn towards "enthusiasm
in
a
pure state" likewise ignores the particular shape given to poetry
by the beliefs, official and popular, of the past century and by its
changed methods of work.
Social historians have established that the religious world
is
created and given intensity by the
conscience*
of the community,
and that in early societies all professions rely on the
supernatura~
though not
in
the same way nor to the same degree.** This col·
lective
conscience
has, however, been dissolving steadily, though
irregularly, since the beginnings of recorded history, under the
pressure of the progressive division of labor and its complication
of social life. By the nineteenth century, with specialization tre·
mendously quickened by scientific method, common sentiments
have not indeed vanished, but they have lost their surface clarity,
have sunk deeper, and have ceased to emit the well-formed myths
lof earlier times. In brief, the "supernatural forces" which had
made themselves felt in poetry since its origin- these forces them·
selves have reached in our epoch a crisis, and not one of growth.
"The individual feels himself to be," says Durkheim, "he is in
•The French word "conscience," which refers to consciousness as well as
to
COD·
science and the moral sentiments, is here intended.
••Everyone knows that prayers used to accompany every undertaking, and &Ucceu
was credited to supernatural favor. But even when all work was thus "inspired,"
poetic inspiration differed from that of the trades. The aid received by the smith or
mariner merely augments a useful minimum resulting from his own
skill;
while
tbe
afBatus of the poet adds to his work not more of the same thing but a speeial
element
for which the practice as a whole is valued. Thus poetry is to a greater extelll
thu
other professions dependent on the mysteries; and from this very "weakness"
co–
its prestige in religion-dominated societies, and its human meaning wherever the
indi·
vidual is set into motion from "the outside."
