Essays on Poetic Theory
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By William Hazlitt 1818
Poetry, then, is an imitation of nature, but the imagination and the passions are a part of man’s nature. We shape things according to our wishes and fancies, without poetry;...
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By John Keats 1817
[On Shakespeare and “Eternal Poetry”: Letter to J. H. Reynolds, 17, 18 April 1817] Carisbrooke April 17th My dear Reynolds, Ever since I wrote to my Brothers from Southampton I have been...
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By Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1817
Occasion of the Lyrical Ballads, and the objects originally proposed—Preface to the second edition—The ensuing controversy, its causes and acrimony—Philosophic definitions of a poem and poetry with scholia. During the...
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By William Wordsworth 1800
The first volume of these Poems has already been submitted to general perusal. It was published, as an experiment, which, I hoped, might be of some use to ascertain, how...
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By Samuel Johnson 1779
“LIFE OF MILTON” (1779; EXCERPT) He was at this time [1624, aged fifteen] eminently skilled in the Latin tongue; and he himself by annexing the dates to his first compositions, a...
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By Alexander Pope 1715
Homer is universally allowed to have had the greatest invention of any writer whatever. The praise of judgment Virgil has justly contested with him, and others may have their pretensions...
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By Alexander Pope 1711
PART 1 'Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill Appear in writing or in judging ill; But, of the two, less dang'rous is th' offence To tire our patience, than mislead our...
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By John Milton 1674
The Measure is English Heroic Verse without Rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and Virgil in Latin; Rhime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good...
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By John Dryden 1668
It was that memorable day, in the first Summer of the late War, when our Navy engaged the Dutch: a day wherein the two most mighty and best appointed Fleets...
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By John Milton 1644
For the studies, first they should begin with the chief and necessary rules of some good grammar, either that now used, or any better: and while this is doing, their...
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By Sir Philip Sidney 1583
When the right virtuous Edward Wotton and I were at the Emperor’s [Maximilian II] court together, we gave ourselves to learn horsemanship of John Pietro Pugliano, one that with great...
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By Longinus 100
II First of all, we must raise the question whether there is such a thing as an art of the sublime or lofty. Some hold that those are entirely in error...
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By Horace 15 BCE
(EPISTLE TO THE PISOS) If a painter should wish to unite a horse’s neck to a human head, and spread a variety of plumage over limbs [of different animals] taken from...
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By Aristotle 335 BCE
SECTION 1 PART I I propose to treat of Poetry in itself and of its various kinds, noting the essential quality of each, to inquire into the structure of the plot...
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By Plato 380 BCE
BOOK III [participants] SOCRATES–ADEIMANTUS [Socrates narrates:] Such then, I said, are our principles of theology—some tales are to be told, and others are not to be told to our disciples from their youth...
