Did he fling himself down? who knows? for a vast speculation had failed,
And ever he muttered and maddened, and ever wanned with despair,
And out he walked when the wind like a broken worldling wailed,
And the flying gold of the ruined woodlands drove through the air.
--- Maud, 1.1.3 (Tennyson)
Depressing, but splendidly shivery all the same. Here's a long block of text that you are free to skip if you wish to miss out on a fine insight:
I was introduced to zoology and palaeontology ("for children") quite as early as to Faerie. I saw pictures of living beasts and of true (so I was told) prehistoric animals. I liked the "prehistoric" animals best: they had at least lived long ago, and hypothesis (based on somewhat slender evidence) cannot avoid a gleam of fantasy. But I did not like being told that these creatures were "dragons." I can still re-feel the irritation that I felt in childhood at assertions of instructive relatives (or their gift-books) such as these: "snowflakes are fairy jewels," or "are more beautiful than fairy jewels"... I was keenly alive to the beauty of "Real things," but it seemed to me quibbling to confuse this with the wonder of "Other things." I was eager to study Nature, actually more eager than I was to read most fairy-stories; but I did not want to be quibbled into Science and cheated out of Faerie by people who seemed to assume that by some kind of original sin I should prefer fairy-tales, but according to some new kind of religion I ought to be induced to like science. Nature is no doubt a life-study, or a study for eternity (for those so gifted); but there is a part of man which is not "Nature," and which therefore is not obliged to study it, and is, in fact, wholly unsatisified by it.--- An endnote from "On Fairy-Stories." (J.R.R Tolkien, emphasis mine.)
And an unrelated but interesting argument by Matthew Arnold:
We have poems which seem to exist merely for the sake of single lines and passages; not for the sake of producing any total impression. We have critics who seem to direct their attention merely to detached expressions, to the language about the action, not to the action itself. I verily think that the majority of them do not in their hearts believe that there is such a thing as a total-impression to be derived from a poem at all, or to be demanded from a poet; they think the term a common-place of metaphysical criticism. They will permit the Poet to select any action he pleases, and to suffer that action to go as it will, provided he gratifies them with occasional bursts of fine writing.--- "Preface to the First Edition of Poems" (Emphasis mine.)
(He goes on to say that Victorians ought to take some lessons from the Greeks in choosing their subjects or plots. I'm not too sure about that. But substitute 'novel' for the word 'poem' in this passage - are there some plots that are inherently superior, or can any story be successful if told in a certain way? Is it reasonable to read a novel like a poem, that is, expecting brilliance and layers of meaning in every line?)
