This power...reveals itself in the balance or reconcilement of opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness, with difference; of the general with the concrete; the idea with the image; the individual with the representative; the sense of novelty and freshness with old and familiar objects; a more than usual state of emotion with more than usual order; judgment ever awake and steady self-possession with enthusiasm and feeling profound or vehement; and while it blends and harmonizes the natural and the artificial, still subordinates art to nature; the manner to the matter; and our admiration of the poet to our sympathy with the poetry.

The poet, described in ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the subordination of its faculties to each other according to their r…

It has been observed before that images, however beautiful, though faithfully copied from nature, and as accurately represented in words, do not of themselves …

That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.

Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters;united with it,she is the mother of the arts and the source of its marvels.

You advise me, too, not to stray far from the ground of experience, as I become weak when I enter the region of fiction; and you say, 'real experience is peren…

'I would take a twirling baton and use it as my 'icaphone' - that's what I called it - and lay a towel on the floor as my stage.'