This will suffice for discussion of the general relation under which poetry is placed to the other arts. We shall now proceed to a closer examination of the art of poetry itself, and with a view to this propose to co-ordinate the same as follows. We have already seen that in poetry it is the ideal concept itself from which we derive content no less than medium. By reason, however, of the fact that we already find outside Art's domain the world of idea to be the most obvious mode of conscious life, it is above everything else important to distinguish the conception of _poetry_ from that of _prose._ The art of poetry, however, is not complete in this ideal world of the imagination alone. It is necessary that it should clothe the same in expressive _language._ It has therefore a twofold task confronting it. On the one hand it is called upon so to arrange this world of constructed idea that it may admit of complete translation into speech: on the other it must take care not to leave this medium of language in the form appropriated by ordinary conscious life. In other words such must be treated poetically in order that the expression of art may be distinguishable in the selection of words no less than their position, and even their sound from that of ordinary prose. Furthermore, on account of the fact that, though poetry avails itself of language as a means of expression, it secures by far the most unqualified freedom from those conditions and restrictions imposed on the other arts by virtue of the particularization of their material, it is possible for a poetical composition in a pre-eminent degree to elaborate every one of the various modes of expression, otherwise adopted unaffected by the onesidedness incidental to their application to a particular art. The subdivision of such _modes of expression_ in all their variety is consequently by far the most complete in the works of poetry. The further course of our investigation may now be epitomized as follows: _First,_ we have to elucidate what is in general terms _poetical,_ and the _poetical composition_ in particular. _Secondly,_ poetry will be examined as a means of _expression._ _Thirdly_, we shall deal with the subdivision of the art into _Epic, Lyric,_ and _Dramatic_ poetry. [Footnote 1: _Mittelpunkt._ We should rather say the unifying significance of the creation.] [Footnote 2: It would be perhaps better to translate _geistigen Innerlichkeit_ with the words "the self-conscious life of the human reason." This is developed and explained, however, in the next paragraph.] [Footnote 3: Hegel expresses this as "making the inner or ideal content perceptible to the ideal faculty," that is, _prima facie_, consciousness, or at least that sense which is nearest related to it, viz., hearing.] [Footnote 4: By _statt des Geistigen_ Hegel clearly contrasts pure music with music related as accompaniment to human speech in song.] [Footnote 5: Lit., "one that merely plays by the way."]