The English Poetic Mind

Beschrijving van het boek

"The English Poetic Mind" is a literary critique of the poems by such names as Shakespeare, Wadsworth, Longfellow among others. The author seeks to explore the subject of what constitutes a great poem. The author explains his method thus, "I have been concerned with the poetry only as it exists, and with its interrelation. Even the prose statements which the poets themselves made about their poetry are omitted. Criticism has done so much to illuminate the poets, and yet it seems, with a few exceptions, both of the past and the present, still not sufficiently to relate the poets to the poets, to explain poetry by poetry. Yet in the end what other criterion have we? Wordsworth's poetry is vii likely to explain Shakespeare's poetry much better than we can, because poetry is a thing sui generis. It explains itself by existing…"