Classic Writings on Poetry

555 Pages·2003·2.04 MB·English

by  William Harmon

Classic Writings on Poetry

Classic Writings on Poetry
Edited by William Harmon
columbia university press
new york
ColumbiaUniversityPress
PublishersSince1893
NewYork Chichester,WestSussex
Copyright(cid:1)2003ColumbiaUniversityPress
Allrightsreserved
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Classicwritingsonpoetry/editedbyWilliamHarmon.
p.cm.
ISBN0–231–12370–1(cloth:alk.paper)
1.Poetry—Historyandcriticism.2.Poetics.I.Harmon,William,1938–
PN1016.C532003
809.1—dc21
2003040917
A
ColumbiaUniversityPressbooksareprintedonpermanentanddurableacid-freepaper.
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
c10987654321
contents
Introduction ix
1. Plato 1
The Republic (excerpt) 3
2. Aristotle 31
Poetics 33
3. Horace 63
“Ars Poetica” 64
4. Publius Cornelius Tacitus 75
Germania (excerpt) 76
5. Longinus(?) 79
“On the Sublime” (excerpt) 80
6. Snorri Sturluson 107
Ska´ldskaparma´l 109
vi contents
7. Sir Philip Sidney 115
The Defence of Poesy 117
8. John Milton 153
“Of Education” (excerpt) 155
9. John Dryden 157
An Essay of Dramatic Poesy 159
10. Alexander Pope 207
An Essay on Criticism 209
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot 229
11. Samuel Johnson 243
Lives of the Poets (excerpts) 245
“LifeofMilton” 245
“PrefacetoAbrahamCowley” 253
“LifeofDryden 256
“LifeofThomasGray” 263
12. Thomas Gray 269
The Progress of Poesy 271
13. William Wordsworth 277
Observations Prefixed to Lyrical Ballads 279
14. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 297
Biographia Literaria, Chapter XIV 299
15. Francis Jeffrey 305
The State of Modern Poetry (excerpt) 307
16. William Hazlitt 313
On Poetry in General (excerpt) 315
17. Thomas Love Peacock 317
The Four Ages of Poetry (excerpt) 318
18. George Gordon, Lord Byron 331
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (excerpt) 333
contents vii
19. Percy Bysshe Shelley 349
A Defence of Poetry 351
20. William Cullen Bryant 375
The Poet 377
21. John Keats 379
Poems 381
22. Ralph Waldo Emerson 385
The Poet (excerpt) 387
23. Elizabeth Barrett Browning 405
Aurora Leigh, Fifth Book (excerpt) 407
24. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 423
Poems 424
25. Edgar Allan Poe 429
The Philosophy of Composition 431
26. Walt Whitman 441
Preface to Leaves of Grass, first edition (1855, excerpt) 443
27. Matthew Arnold 461
The Study of Poetry 463
28. Emily Dickinson 485
Poems 487
29. Rudyard Kipling 493
“Proofs of Holy Writ” 495
30. Ezra Pound 507
A Retrospect 508
31. T. S. Eliot 519
The Possibility of a Poetic Drama 521
32. Laura (Riding) Jackson 527
Poetic Reality and Critical Unreality 529

introduction
1
Inthebeginning,letussay,peopleusedlanguageforpracticalpurposesexclu-
sively.Thentheseliteralancestorsofoursdiscoveredthattheycouldaugment
the practical with the aesthetic, and poetry was born—poetry defined loosely
aslanguageusedinaspecialwayandforaspecialpurposebeyondimmediate
practicalities. It remains possible, however, that theorderof evolutionwasre-
versed,andthatpoetrycamefirstandpracticalitysecond;somespeculatethat
even pottery was first ornamental or ritual in purpose and only later foundto
beusefulforcookingandstorage.
Whatever the order of the first two stages—communication then poetry,
poetrythencommunication—itislikelythatthethirdstageinvolvedreflection
on poetry, which we usually call criticism. Early in these early days, a poet
wrotesomethinglike
Perhapsinthisneglectedspotislaid
Someheartoncepregnantwithcelestialfire...,
atwhichanynormal,intelligentreadermightbridle.Onewouldhavetonote,
first, that it is notone’s heartthatbecomes pregnant;second,thatwhatsome-