ABSTRACT
The emotive theory of literature usually operates with ideas like the transmission of emotion, the evocation of emotion, the expression of emotion to describe the function of poetry. A confirmation of the existence of purely aesthetic standards, even where religious or possessed or magical arts are concerned, is adduced by Mrs. Chadwick in Poetry and Prophecy. Now, to a certain extent the aesthetic spectator, as distinct from the wide-eyed open-mouthed mob, must take part in the artist's duplicity, must be able to accompany him part of the way. This is so because the spectator must consciously react to a work of art, and not be simply, naively moved. For the comprehensive apprehension of the aesthetic form of a work like the Agamemnon, or Faust, far from being an immediate, direct perception and reaction, is the hard-won result of all that analysis critical knowledge and experience can supply.
