AIDS TO EMOTIONAL QUALITIES. Under all the Emotional Qualities, there is a common attempt to evoke Emotion of the pleasurable kind. There are, therefore, aids, precautions and limitations, equally applicable throughout. REPRESENTATIVE VOCABULARY. 1. The comprehensive requirement for arousing the emotions, is REPRESENTATIVE FORCE in the language. In discussing the Figures of Speech and the Intellectual Qualities, more especially Picturesqueness, reference has been made to various conditions of emotional effect. All the arts ministering to intellectual ease contribute to the object now in view. In our English vocabulary, each of the leading emotions is provided with verbal designations, as will be seen in the detailed treatment of the Qualities. Yet, whatever be the emotions that we wish to inspire, the names or terms to be employed may be made to fall under the following heads. 6 (1) Names appropriated to the Feelings, as such. 'Pleasure,' 'charm,' delight,' 'happiness,' satisfaction,' exhilaration,'cheerfulness,' 'hilarity,'' gaiety,'' serenity,' 'content,' 'ease,' 'repose'; 'pain,' misery,' 'depression,' 'gloom,' 'melancholy,' 'sadness,' 'sorrow'; 'warmth,' 'cold,' 'fatigue'; 'sweetness,' 'bitterness,' 'pungency,' 'lusciousness'; 'melody,' 'harmony'. This class of names is designated subjective; being distinguished from our objective terminology, or names for things external. The relative value of each class will be seen afterwards. In the meantime, we must separate the purely subjective terms, above exemplified, from those that imply a slight reference to something external. Such are: 'hunger,' 'satiety'; 'fear,' 'love,' hatred,' 'rage,'' wonder,' 'selfishness,' 'envy,' jealousy,' ambition,' benevolence,' pity,' admiration,' reverence'; 'good,' 'bad'; ‘grand,' 'imposing,' 'noble'; 'consolation,' 'relief,' 'refreshment'; -in all which an outward object is indicated, thereby preventing us from dwelling upon the inward state apart from all objective accompaniments. The description of the feelings is extended by epithets, which vary both the degree and the species: Great pleasure,' 'excruciating anguish,' 'intense sweetness,' 'noble rage,' 'profound reverence,' 'acute pain,' biting care,' 'paralyzing fear,' 'intense disgust,' supreme contempt, 'burning indignation,' 'vehement love,' ardent curiosity,' cruel hate,' fierce revenge,' tumultuous joys'. 6 (2) Names appropriated to objects that, by Association, give rise to feelings. Thus the words 'light,' 'sunshine,' darkness,' 'heat,' cold,' are naines for outside influences; yet they have also an emotional effect, by means of their association with agreeable or disagreeable feelings. So, beauty,' 'saint,' heaven,' 'paradise,' 'music,' 'storin,' 'tempest,' 'volcano,'' ocean,'' wilderness,' ' abyss,' 'hell,' 'night,' 'hero,' victor,' 'giant,' 'benefactor,' 'genius,' assassin,' devil,' liar,' Hercules,' 'Venus,' 'Cupid,'' knowledge,' 'wealth,' 'freedom,' ' empire,' 'duty,' 'prosperity,' 'war,' 'death'. Epithets here, too, play an important part: 'reddening Phoebus,' 'rosy-fingered morn,' 'gathering storms,'' smiling morn,' 'twinkling stars,' 'brilliant meteors,' 'fiery comets,' 'howling winds,'' sounding lyre,' 'good fortune'. 6 (3) Names and phrases appropriated to the Outward Expression of feelings. This class is remarkable for containing associates with feelings of instinctive origin. 'Smile,' 'laugh,' 'frown,' 'stare,' cry,' scream,' howl,' 'pout,' 'sneer,' 'tremble,' 'blush,'' kiss,' embrace,' sigh,' shout,' groan,' 'wail,' 'gnash the teeth,' 'yawn,' 'yearn,' 'burn,' smirk,' 'grin,' 'titter,' 'twinge,' 'shake,' 'scratch the head,' 'ready to split,' 'hold the sides,' 'hair standing on end'. (4) Phraseology of Collateral circumstances, associations and harmonious surroundings: Hoary age; the silent land. EXTRANEOUS HELPS. Melancholy lifts her head, Morpheus rouses from his bed, Listening Envy drops her snakes.- (Pope.) 13 Gray's Ode, entitled 'On a Distant Prospect of Eton College,' exemplifies all the classes of terms now enumerated. For the more purely subjective, special reference may be made to lines 16-20. 2. The feeling evoked by the Representative Force of language may be helped and intensified by certain additional and extraneous circumstances. (1) The Causes, or Occasions of a Feeling. A burst of wrath is brought home to us more vividly when a strong provocation is assigned; as with Achilles in the Iliad. (2) The Conduct that follows. The same instance may be adduced. The separation from the Greek host, the sullen isolation, impresses us still more with the intensity of the angry passion. The details of Lady Macbeth's conduct after the murder and down to her tragical end assist in our appreciation of her remorse. (3) The effect on Belief. Fear exag Love blinds us to the defects of the object. gerates danger. Party spirit is evinced by the credit given to calumnious accusations against opponents. (4) Influence on the Thoughts. The influence over attention and the direction of the thoughts measure the intensity of the feelings, and are constantly used in Poetry, to express the higher degrees of emotion. Milton makes Adam say of Eve So Burns With thee conversing, I forget all time. By day and night, my fancy's flight Is ever wi' my Jean. The intensity of our feeling towards any object has an exact measure in the frequency of its recurrence, and the degree of its persistence in the thoughts. Another effective measure of the strength of a feeling is the interest it imparts to objects remotely connected with it, and of themselves trivial; as relics, keepsakes, souvenirs, local associations, and the like. (5) Power to submerge opposing states. The love of Jacob for Rachel was evinced by his submitting to fourteen years' service on her account. (6) Comparisons. As in Gray Sweet is the breath of vernal shower, Sweet music's melting fall, but sweeter yet Hamlet, at his lowest depths, exclaims: 'Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither'. By a common hyperbole, in representing the love passion, Tennyson, in Maud,' makes the lover speak thus: I have led her home, my love, my only friend, There is none like her, none. So, in In Memoriam ’— Dear as the mother to the son, More than my brothers are to me. In the catastrophe of 'The Rape of the Lock,' Pope portrays the heroine's intensity of emotion by a series of comparisons: Not youthful kings in battle seized alive, Not scornful virgins who their charms survive, All this is mock hyperbole. The kind of comparison here intended is real and not figurative, and is so much the more effective. It is remarked by Mr. Theodore Watts ('Poetry,' Encyclopædia Britannica) that a certain heat of passion defies and transcends words; this fact constituting the infirmity of poetry as compared with sculpture and painting. In the acted drama, the blanks are filled up with silent gesture. In verbal composition, the poet's chief resource is the bold figures — Exclamation, Apostrophe, Interrogation. Com POETICAL DICTION. 15 pression and Suggestiveness, at their utmost pitch, become significant. 3. The topic of Suggestiveness has numerous bearings, as regards power of representation. One important circumstance is restraint, or reserve of emotion. There ought to be no more expression used than is sufficient for the effect. A surplus is not only needless, but hurtful. Something should be left to the hearers to expand in their own minds. When Richard exclaims-' the king's name is a tower of strength,' he can do no more. The hearer readily supplies the comparison with the enemy, which Richard superfluously tacks on. So, in Milton— Such a numerous host Fled not in silence through the frightful deep. 4. Connected with the Vocabulary of artistic emotion is the existence of a select Poetical Diction. The language habitually employed by poets has become an essential of poetry. It has these characteristics. (1) In the first place, when Strength is aimed at, there is a certain degree of dignity or elevation, which, if not absolutely necessary to the quality, is a valuable adjunct. This is seen in such words as 'vale,' ' vesture' or 'attire,'' azure,' 'chanticleer,' for the more prosaic terms 'valley,'' clothes' or' garments,' 'sky,' 'cock'. This means that purely colloquial terms, slang words, and the like, are excluded from poetry; as well as words and phrases that have grown thoroughly hackneyed. On the other hand, it means that distinct preference is given to words that are rarely employed in vulgar speech: such as--wot,' 'ween,' 'wane,'' sheen,' 'trow'. (2) In the second place, as regards the quality of Feeling, the effect may be described as warmth or glow. These two characteristics may be readily exemplified from any of the greater poets. Take, first, the opening lines of Pope's 'Messiah': Ye nymphs of Solyma! begin the song: To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong. |