The Poet's Poet : essays on the character and mission of the poet as interpreted in English verse of the last one hundred and fifty years

Utterances of poets regarding their character and mission have perhaps received less attention than they deserve. The tacit assumption of the majority of critics seems to be that the poet, like the criminal, is the last man who should pass judgment upon his own case. Yet it is by no means certain that this view is correct. Introspective analysis on the part of the poet might reasonably be expected to be as productive of æsthetic revelation as the more objective criticism of the mere observer of literary phe