From the point of view of form there is only one kind of
writer to be recognised--the artist in words. Of him there are two
varieties: the artist who uses rhyme and metre, and the artist
who--wilfully or through impotence--dispenses with them. From the point
of view of matter there is the artist with "soul" and the artist without
"soul." "Soul" is shorthand for that mysterious something the absence of
which urges people to deny Pope the title of poet. They feel the
intangible something is not there, "the consecration and the poet's
dream." But with the conventional distinctions, there is no name left for
Pope, if he is not a poet. The truth is that he was an artist in
words--as masterly as the Mantuan himself, though without that golden
cadence and charm which keep Virgil a poet by any classification. On the
other hand, Carlyle, who had such scorn of the rhyming crew, was himself
a poet to the popular imagination, though to us he will be an artist in
prose _plus_ soul. There are, thus, really two classes of writers:
I. Prose-Artists.
II. Verse-Artists.
Each of these splits up into two kinds, according as the writer has or
lacks "soul." Or, if you think "soul" the more important differentia, we
will say there are artists with "soul" and artists without "soul," and
that some of each sort work in prose and some in verse.
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