A Study of Poetry

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Title: A Study of Poetry
Author: Bliss Perry
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A STUDY OF

POETRY ***
Produced by Eric Eldred, Charles Bidwell
and the Online Distributed
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A STUDY OF POETRY
by
BLISS PERRY
Professor of English Literature in Harvard University
Author of "A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION," "WALT WHITMAN,"

"THE AMERICAN MIND," etc.
TO
M. S. P.
PREFACE
The method of studying poetry which I have followed in this book was
sketched some years ago in my chapter on "Poetry" in _Counsel Upon
the Reading of Books_. My confidence that the genetic method is the
natural way of approaching the subject has been shared by many lovers
of poetry. I hope, however, that I have not allowed my insistence upon
the threefold process of "impression, transforming imagination, and
expression" to harden into a set formula. Formulas have a certain
dangerous usefulness for critics and teachers, but they are a very small
part of one's training in the appreciation of poetry.
I have allotted little or no space to the specific discussion of epic and
drama, as these types are adequately treated in many books. Our own
generation is peculiarly attracted by various forms of the lyric, and in
Part Two I have devoted especial attention to that field.
While I hope that the book may attract the traditional "general reader,"
I have also tried to arrange it in such a fashion that it may be utilized in
the classroom. I have therefore ventured, in the Notes and Illustrations
and Appendix, to suggest some methods and material for the use of

students.
I wish to express my obligations to Professor R. M. Alden, whose
Introduction to Poetry_ and _English Verse I have used in my own
Harvard courses in poetry. His views of metre have probably
influenced mine even more than I am aware. The last decade, which
has witnessed such an extraordinary revival of interest in poetry, has
produced many valuable contributions to poetic theory. I have found
Professor Fairchild's _Making of Poetry_ particularly suggestive.
Attention is called, in the Notes and Bibliography, to many other recent
books on the subject.
Professors A. S. Cook of Yale and F. B. Snyder of Northwestern
University have been kind enough to read in manuscript certain
chapters of this book, and Dr. P. F. Baum of Harvard has assisted me
most courteously. I am indebted to several fellow-writers for their
consent to the use of extracts from their books, particularly to Brander
Matthews for a passage from These Many Years and to Henry Osborn
Taylor for a passage from his Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.
I wish also to thank the publishers who have generously allowed me to
use brief quotations from copyrighted books, especially Henry Holt &
Co. for permission to use a quotation and drawing from William
James's Psychology, and The Macmillan Company for permission to
borrow from John La Farge's delightful Considerations on Painting.
B. P.
CONTENTS
PART I
POETRY IN GENERAL
I. A GLANCE AT THE BACKGROUND
II. THE PROVINCE OF POETRY

III. THE POET'S IMAGINATION
IV. THE POET'S WORDS
V. RHYTHM AND METRE
VI. RHYME, STANZA AND FREE VERSE
PART II
THE LYRIC IN PARTICULAR
VII. THE FIELD OF LYRIC POETRY
VIII. RELATIONSHIPS AND TYPES OF THE LYRIC
IX. RACE, EPOCH AND INDIVIDUAL
X. THE PRESENT STATUS OF THE LYRIC
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS
APPENDIX
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
A STUDY OF POETRY
PART I
POETRY IN GENERAL
"Sidney and Shelley pleaded this cause.
Because they spoke, must we
be dumb?"
GEORGE E. WOODBERRY, A New Defense of Poetry
A STUDY OF POETRY

CHAPTER I
A GLANCE AT THE BACKGROUND
It is a gray day in autumn. I am sitting