Poetry is the language of imagination and the passions. It relates to whatever gives immediate pleasure or pain to human min. it comes home to the bosoms and business of men: for nothing but what comes home to them in the most general and intelligible shape can be a subject of poetry. Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry cannot have much respect for himself or for anything else. Whatever there is a sense of beauty, or power, or harmony, as in the motion of the waves of the sea, in the growth of a flower, there is a poetry in its birth. If history is a grave study, poetry may be said to be graver, its materials lie deeper, and are spread wider. History treats, for the most part, cumbersome and unwieldy masses of things, the empty cases in which the affairs of the world are packed, under the heads of intrigue or war, in different states, and from century to century but there is no thought or feeling that can have entered into the mind of man which he would be eager to communicate to others, or they would listen to with delight, that is not a fit subject for poetry. It is not a branch of authorship: it is “the stuff of which our life is made”. The rest is mere oblivision, a dead letter, for all that is worth remembering gin life is the poetry of it. Fear is Poetry, hope is poetry, love is poetry; hatred is poetry. Poetry is that fine particle within us that expands, refines, raises our whole being; without “man’s life is poor as beasts”. In fact, man is a poetical animal. The child Is a poet when he first plays hide and seek, or repeats the story of Jack the Giant Killer, the shepherd – boy is a poet when he first crowns his mistress with a garland of flowers; the countryman when he stops he stops to look at the rainbow; the miser when he hugs his gold; the courtier when he builds his hope upon a smile; the vain, the ambitious the proud, the choleric man, the hero and the coward, the beggar and the king, all live in a world of their own making; and the poet does no more than describe what all others think and act. Hazlitt

(a) In what sense is poetry the language of the imagination and the passion?
(b) How is poetry the Universal Language of the heart?
(c) What is the difference between history and poetry?
(d) Explain the phrase: “Man is a poetical animal”.
(e) What are some of the actions which Hazlitt calls poetry and its doers poet?
(f) Explain the followings underlined expression in the passage.
(i) It relates to whatever gives immediate pleasure or pain to human heart
(ii) A sense of beauty, or power, or harmony.
(iii) Cumbersome and unwieldy masses of things.
(iv) It is the stuff of which our life is made.
(v) The poet does no more than describe what all others think and act.

1)The subject matter of poetry is related to ordinary but real human emotions like sources of gratification or causes of pain.It gives generalized and simplistic form to human emotions and other affairs related to human life in such a way that it appeals to common sense.Thus poetry in this sense becomes a language of imagination and the passion. 2)Poetry is actually the ultimate reflection of unique feelings of heart and thus a source of self understanding.Besides it brings into prominence the relation of self with external world of nature. 3)History by its very nature is chronological account of events devoid of emotions.By contrast poetry brings life to even historical events by giving them a humanistic touch. 4)The value of life devoid of poetry comes to the level of animals.This is so since all human emotions are in essence poetical in nature .Thus poetry places humans on a higher pedestal than animals by giving form to human nature

1)The subject matter of poetry is related to ordinary but real human emotions like sources of gratification or causes of pain.It gives generalized and simplistic form to human emotions and other affairs related to human life in such a way that it appeals to common sense.Thus poetry in this sense becomes a language of imagination and the passion. 2)Poetry is actually the ultimate reflection of unique feelings of heart and thus a source of self understanding.Besides it brings into prominence the relation of self with external world of nature. 3)History by its very nature is chronological account of events devoid of emotions.By contrast poetry brings life to even historical events by giving them a humanistic touch. 4)The value of life devoid of poetry comes to the level of animals.This is so since all human emotions are in essence poetical in nature .Thus poetry places humans on a higher pedestal than animals by giving form to human nature

comprehension2001