Chapter II: Preface: I. the Ego-Centric Circle

Apparent futility of verse dealing with the poet.--Its justification.--The poet's personality the hidden theme of all verse,--The poet's egotism.--Belief that his inspirations are divine.--Belief in the immortality of his poems.--The romantic view that the creator is greater than his creations.--The poet's contempt for uninspired men.--Reaction of the public to the poet's contempt.--Its retaliation in jeers.--The poet's wounded vanity.--His morbid self-consciousness.--His self-imposed solitude.--Enhancement of his egotism by solitude.

II. THE MORTAL COIL

View that genius results from a happy combination of physical conditions.--The poet's reluctance to embrace such a theory.--His heredity.--Rank.--Patricians vs. children of the soil.--His body.--Poetic beauty.--Features expressing alert and delicate senses.--Contrary conception of poet rapt away from sense.-- Blindness.--Physique.--Health.--Hypersensibility of invalids.-- Escape from fleshly bondage afforded by perfect health.--The poet's sex.--Limitations of the woman poet.--Her claims.--The poet's habitat.--Vogue of romantic solitude.--Savage environment.--Its advantages.--Growing popularity of the city poet.--The wanderer.-- The financial status of the poet.--Poverty as sharpener of sensibility.--The poet's age.--Vogue of the young poet.--Purity of youthful emotions.--Early death.--Claims of the aged poet.-- Contemplation after active life.

III. THE POET AS LOVER

The classic conception.--Love as a disturbing factor in composition.--The romantic conception.--Love the source of inspiration.--Fusion of intense passion with repose essential to poetry.--Poetic love and Platonic love synonymous.--Sensual love not suggestive.--The poet's ascent to ideal love.--Analogy with ascent described in Plato's _Symposium_.--Discontent with ephemeralness of passion.--Poetry a means of rendering passion eternal.--Insatiability of the poet's affections.--Idealization of his mistress.--Ideal beauty the real object of his love.--Fickleness.--Its justification.--Advantage in seeing varied aspects of ideal beauty.--Remoteness as an essential factor in ideal love.--Sluggishness resulting from complete content.--Aspiration the poetic attitude.--Abstract love-poetry, consciously addressed to ideal beauty.--Its merits and defects.--The sensuous as well as the ideal indispensable to poetry.

IV. THE SPARK FROM HEAVEN

Reticence of great geniuses regarding inspiration.--Mystery of inspiration.--The poet's curiosity as to his inspired moments.--Wild desire preceding inspiration.--Sudden arrest rather than satisfaction of desire.--Ecstasy.--Analogy with intoxication.--Attitude of reverence during inspired moments.--Feeling that an outside power is responsible.--Attempts to give a rational account of inspiration.--The theory of the sub-conscious.--Prenatal memory.--Reincarnation of dead geniuses.--Varied conceptions of the spirit inspiring song as the Muse, nature, the spirit of the universe.--The poet's absolute surrender to this power.--Madness.--Contempt for the limitations of the human reason.--Belief in infallibility of inspirations.--Limitations of inspiration.--Transience.--Expression not given from without.--The work of the poet's conscious intelligence.--Need for making the vision intelligible.--Quarrel over the value of hard work.

V. THE POET'S MORALITY

The poet's reliance upon feeling as sole moral guide.--Attack upon his morals made by philosophers, puritans, philistines.--Professedly wicked poets.--Their rarity.--Revolt against mass-feeling.--The aesthetic appeal of sin.--The morally frail poet, handicapped by susceptibility to passion.--The typical poet's repudiation of immorality.--Feeling that virtue and poetry are inseparable.--Minor explanations for this conviction.--The "poet a poem" theory.--Identity of the good and the beautiful.--The poet's quarrel with the philistine.--The poet's horror of restraint.--The philistine's unfairness to the poet's innocence.--The poet's quarrel with the puritan.--The poet's horror of asceticism.--The poet's quarrel with the philosopher.--Feeling upon which the poet relies allied to Platonic intuition.

VI. THE POET'S RELIGION

Threefold attack upon the poet's religion.--His lack of theological temper.--His lack of reverence.--His lack of conformance.--The poet's defense.--Materialistic belief deadening to poetry.--His idealistic temper.--His pantheistic leanings.--His reverence for beauty.--His repudiation of a religion that humbles him.--Compatibility of pride and pantheism.--The poet's nonconformance.--His occasional perverseness.-- Inspiring nature of doubt.--The poet's thirst for God.--The occasional orthodox poet.

VII. THE PRAGMATIC ISSUE

The poet's alleged uselessness,--His effeminacy.--His virility.--The poet warrior.--Incompatibility of poets and materialists.--Plato'scharge that poetry is inferior to actual life.--The concurrence of certain soldier poets in Plato's charge.--Poetry as an amusement only.--The value of faithful imitation.--The realists.--Poetry as a solace.--Poetry a reflection of the ideal essence of things.--Love of beauty the poet's guide in disentangling ideality from the accidents of things.--Beauty as truth.--The poet as seer.--The quarrel with the philosopher.--The truth of beauty vs. cold facts.--Proof of validity of the poet's truth.--His skill as prophet.--The poet's mission as reformer.--His impatience with practical reforms.--Belief in essential goodness of men, since beauty is the essence of things.--Reform a matter of allowing all things to express their essence.--Enthusiasm for liberty.--Denial of the war-poet's charge.--Poets the authors of liberty.--Poets the real rulers of mankind.--The world's appreciation of their importance.--Their immortality.

VIII. A SOBER AFTERTHOUGHT

Denial that the views of poets on the poet are heterogeneous.--Poets' identity of purpose in discussing poets.--Apparent contradictions in views.-Apparent inconsistency in the thought of each poet.--The two-fold interests of poets.--The poet as harmonizer of sensual and spiritual.-- Balance of sense and spirit in the poetic temperament.--Injustice to one element or the other in most literary criticism.--Limitations of the poet's prose criticism.--Superiority of his critical expressions in verse.--The poet's importance.--Poetry as a proof of the idealistic philosophy.

INDEX