Japanese students. Some of his paraphrases are actually greater poems than the originals. Most of the great poems in literature have been analyzed or paraphrased by biographers and commentators. No one calls these paraphrases poetry. But are we sure that they are not? Are we certain that none of the original emotion or ideas are left intact in the paraphrase? On the contrary, I believe that the poetry still remains in the paraphrase. True, often the manner of expressing an idea or emotion is what counts in making it poetry, but expression alone does not make poetry. Even a metrical, emotional and beautiful utterance of a commonplace idea sometimes becomes poetry, but I cannot concede that the prose version of a great verse poem may not be poetry if still emotionally expressed.

Let me take a concrete instance. The following passage from Paradise Lost is considered, no doubt justly, poetry, because of the idea, the emotion and the rhythm (academically speaking):

"What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield,
And what is else not to be overcome."

Let us paraphrase this passage and try to retain the idea, the emotion and a prose rhythm by just changing a few words:

"And suppose we lost the battle? We have not lost everything.
We still have our unconquerable will, our plans for revenge,
our eternal hatred, and courage never to give in or surrender,
and above all never to be defeated."

Is this passage poetry or not? I submit that it is, if the original is. It is rhythmical (though it doesn't have to be so), the original idea is there, and the passion of the speaker has not been rooted out. All this proves, then, that much of what we call poetry in verse is either not poetry at all or that there is more poetry in the prose of the world than we ever imagined.

Is there any poetry in Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare? Beyond doubt; just as there is poetry in the tales and histories from which Shakespeare drew his plays. Is there not poetry in the critical discourses about poets where the critic loses himself in the poet's emotions and becomes that poet and gives you his spirit, as, for example, Carlyle does in his study of Burns, or Symonds in his Greek Poets?

All this leads to one conclusion: that we should not be concerned as to whether 

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