In spite of all this the study of poetry has an important function,
and it is the purpose of this article to show how to use it most
effectively. Poetry is one of the most difficult of all arts to study,
so difficult that it has had few text-books and no complete
exposition. The inquirer searching for help will find only a few
hand-books, the most useful of which are these: Gummere: "Beginnings
of Poetry" and "Hand-book of Poetry"; Schipper: "Metrik"; Lanier:
"Science of English Verse"; Guest: "English Rhythms"; Stedman: "The
Nature and Elements of Poetry." Excellent as these are, he may lament
when he has read them that he has found the history of poetic forms,
and the technique of poetic method, where he hoped to find the secret
of poetry. He will be likely to get as much help from writings on
poetry that are not text-books, such as Matthew Arnold's Essays: "On
Translating Homer," "Last Words on Translating Homer," "Celtic
Poetry," "Introduction to the Poetry of Wordsworth," and the
"Introduction to Humphry Ward's English Poets"; Emerson's Essays: "The
Poet" and "Poetry and Imagination"; Wordsworth's Introduction to the
"Lyrical Ballads"; Poe's striking little essays on the art of poetry;
Aristotle's "Rhetoric"; Macaulay's "Essay on Milton"; Lowell's "Essay
on Dryden"; and many a passage of illuminative comment from Milton,
from Pope, from Dryden, from Coleridge and from many another.
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