The Helena, or the second part of Faust, is a philosophy of literature
set in poetry; the work of one who found himself the master of
histories, mythologies, philosophies, sciences, and national
literatures, in the encyclopaedical manner in which modern erudition,
with its international intercourse of the whole earth's population,
researches into Indian, Etruscan, and all Cyclopaean arts, geology,
chemistry, astronomy; and every one of these kingdoms assuming a certain
aerial and poetic character, by reason of the multitude. One looks at
a king with reverence; but if one should chance to be at a congress
of kings, the eye would take liberties with the peculiarities of each.
These are not wild miraculous songs, but elaborate forms, to which the
poet has confided the results of eighty years of observation. This
reflective and critical wisdom makes the poem more truly the flower
of this time. It dates itself. Still he is a poet,--poet of a prouder
laurel than any contemporary, and under this plague of microscopes
(for he seems to see out of every pore of his skin), strikes the harp
with a hero's strength and grace.
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