On English Poetry

Excerpt from On English Poetry: Being an Irregular Approach to the Psychology of This Art, From Evidence Mainly Subjective The greater part of this book will appear controversial, but any critic who expects me to argue on what I have written, is begged kindly to excuse me; my garrison is withdrawn without a shot fired and his artillery may blow the fortress to pieces at leisure. These notebook reflections are only offered as being based on the rules which regulate my own work at the moment, for many of which I claim no universal application and have promised no lasting regard. They have been suggested from time to time mostly by particular problems in the writing of my last two volumes of poetry. Hesitating to formulate at present a comprehensive water-tight philosophy of poetry, I have dispensed with a continuous argument, and so the sections either stand independently or are intended to get their force by suggestive neighbourliness rather than by logical catenation. The names of the glass houses in which my name as an authority on poetry lodges at present, are to be found on a back page. It is a heartbreaking task to reconcile literary and scientific interests in the same book. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.