underlying them being that no verse which is unmusical or obscure can be regarded as Poetry, whatever other qualities it may possess; that Imagination in Poetry, as distinguished from mere Fancy, is the transfiguring of the Real, or actual, into the Ideal, by what Prospero calls his “so potent art”; and, if these conditions are complied with, that the greatness of the poem depends on the greatness of the theme.

To no one so much as to you am I indebted for criticism of the frankest kind. That alone would lead me to ask you to accept the dedication of these pages. But I find a yet further and stronger impulse to do so, in the long and uninterrupted friendship that has subsisted between us, and to which I attach so much value.

Believe me always, Yours most sincerely, Alfred Austin.

Believe me always,

Yours most sincerely,

Alfred Austin.

Alfred Austin

Swinford Old Manor, January 1910.

Swinford Old Manor,

Swinford Old Manor

January 1910.

CONTENTS

The Essentials of Great Poetry

The Feminine Note in English Poetry

Milton and Dante: A Comparison and a Contrast

Byron and Wordsworth

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