The German philosophy has made a distinction between the Subjective and the Objective, which has been found so convenient that it has been already naturalized and is almost acclimated in our literature.The distinction is this: in all thought there ar... Read more

The German philosophy has made a distinction between the Subjective and the Objective, which has been found so convenient that it has been already naturalized and is almost acclimated in our literature.The distinction is this: in all thought there are two factors, the thinker himself, and that about which he thinks. All thought, say our friends the Germans, results from these two factors: the subject, or the man thinking; and the object, what the man thinks about. All that part of thought which comes from the man himself, the Ego, they call subjective; all that part which comes from the outside world, the non-Ego, they call objective.I am about to apply this distinction to literature and art; but instead of the terms Subjective and Objective, I shall use the words Lyric and Dramatic.For example, when a writer or an artist puts a great deal of himself into his work, I call him a lyric writer or artist. Lyrical, in poetry, is the4 term applied to that species of poetry which directly expresses the individual emotions of the poet. On the other hand, I call an artist or poet dramatic when his own personality disappears, and is lost in that which he paints or describes. A lyric or subjective writer gives us more of himself than of the outside world; a dramatic or objective writer gives us more of the outside world than of himself.Lyric poetry is that which is to be sung; the lyre accompanies song. Now, song is mainly personal or subjective. It expresses the singer's personal emotions, feelings, desires; and for these reasons I select this phrase lyric to express all subjective or personal utterances in art.The drama, on the other hand, is a photograph of life; of live men and women acting themselves out freely and individually. The dramatic writer ought to disappear in his drama; if he does not do so he is not a dramatic writer, but a lyrist in disguise.The dramatic element is the power of losing one's self—opinions, feeling, character—in that which is outside and foreign, and reproducing it just as it is. In perfect dramatic expression the personal equation is wholly eliminated. The writer disappears in his characters; his own hopes and fears, emotions and convictions, do not color his work.But the lyric element works in the opposite way. In song, the singer is prominent more than what5 he sings. He suffuses his subject with his own thoughts and feelings. If he describes nature, he merely gives us the feelings it awakens in his own mind. If he attempts to write a play, we see the same actor thinly disguised reappearing in all the parts.Now, there is a curious fact connected with this subject. It is that great lyric and dramatic authors or artists are apt to appear in duads or pairs. Whenever we meet with a highly subjective writer, we are apt to find him associated with another as eminently objective. This happens so often that one might imagine that each type of thought attracts its opposite and tends to draw it out and develop it. It may be that genius, when it acts on disciples who are persons of talent, draws out what is like itself, and makes imitators; when it acts on a disciple who himself possesses genius, it draws out what is opposite to itself and develops another original thinker. Genius, like love, is attracted by its opposite, or counterpart. Love and genius seek to form wholes; they look for what will complete and fulfill themselves. When, therefore, a great genius has come, fully developed on one side, he exercises an irresistible attraction on the next great genius, in whom the opposite side is latent, and is an important factor in his development. Thus, perhaps, we obtain the duads, whose curious concurrence I will now illustrate by a few striking instances.6 Beginning our survey with English literature, who are the first two great poets whose names occur to us? Naturally, Chaucer and Spenser. Now, Chaucer is eminently dramatic and objective in his genius; while Spenser is distinctly a lyrical and subjective poet.Chaucer tells stories; and story-telling is objective. One of the most renowned collections of stories is the Arabian Nights; but who knows anything about the authors of those entertaining tales? They are merely pictures of Eastern life, reflected in the minds of some impersonal authors, whose names even are unknown.Homer is another great story-teller; and Homer is so objective, so little of a personality, that some modern critics suppose there may have been several Homers.Chaucer is a story-teller also; and in his stories everything belonging to his age appears, except Chaucer himself. His writings are full of pictures of life, sketches of character; in one word, he is a dramatic or objective writer. He paints things as they are,—gives us a panorama of his period. Knights, squires, yeomen, priests, friars, pass before us, as in Tennyson's poem The Lady of Shalott. Less