INTRODUCTION

Contents

The Perfect Critic

Imperfect Critics

Tradition and the Individual Talent

The Possibility of a Poetic Drama

Euripides and Professor Murray

"Rhetoric" and Poetic Drama

Some Notes on the Blank Verse of Christopher Marlowe

Hamlet and His Problems

Ben Jonson

Philip Massinger

Swinburne as Poet

Blake

Dante

“Intravit pinacothecam senex canus, exercitati vultus et qui videretur nescio quid magnum promittere, sed cultu non proinde speciosus, et facile appareret eum ex hac nota litteratum esse, quos odisse divites solent ... 'ego’ inquit 'poeta sum et ut spero, non humillimi spiritus, si modo coronis aliquid credendum est, quas etiam ad immeritos deferre gratia solet.’”—Petronius.

“I also like to dine on becaficas.”

For

H. W. E.

“Tacuit Et Fecit”

Certain of these essays appeared, in the same or a more primitive form, in The Times Literary Supplement, The AthenÆum, Art and Letters, and The Egoist. The author desires to express his obligation to the editors of these periodicals.