The English Poetic MindAfter an opening chapter that examines the nature of poetry itself and analyzes its effect upon the reader, the author, in The English Poetic Mind, moves on to his main purpose, which is to try to reveal the source of the drive to creation in three of the greatest English poets: William Shakespeare, John Milton, and William Wordsworth. In each he identifies a particular kind of crisis that is the origin of the poetic impulse. In the light of these discoveries he addresses the achievements of several lesser poets and concludes with a chapter that, in a more general way, tentatively offers a vision of the paths poetry might take in the future. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 9 | |
THE CYCLE OF SHAKESPEARE | 29 |
MILTON | 135 |
WORDSWORTH | 153 |
THE CRISIS IN LESSER POETS | 172 |
CONCLUSION | 199 |
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Common terms and phrases
action Antony Ariel aware beauty Book Brutus Caesar capacity Cassius cause character Chorus Christ Cleopatra comedies concerned conflict consciousness contradiction Coriolanus crisis death defiance definite delight Desdemona difficulty discover Dream emotion English Poetic Mind experience express fact Falstaff feel figure final find first Ghost glory Hamlet heaven Henry honour human imagination immortal Imogen infinite intense justified Keats King knowledge Lear liberty and power lines Macbeth man’s power Measure for Measure merely Milton Milton’s poetry moral nature never noble Othello Oxus Paradise Lost Paradise Regained passion perhaps phrase play poem poet’s poets Pope’s Prelude romantic Romeo Samson Satan seems self-conscious sense Shake Shakespeare Shakespeare’s genius Shakespeare’s poetry Shelley significant solitary solitude song soul speak speare speare’s speech spirit style sufficiently Tennyson thee theme thing inseparate thou thought Timon tion Troilus Twelfth Night unknown modes utterance verse whole words Wordsworth