“Great poetry, therefore, it is evident, must possess many of these attributes, and the greatest at times seems to combine all.”

Arguing that the greatest poetry combines many distinct artistic qualities · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Art
• Poetry

“I have believed that without direct natural speech it is cramped or crippled; without true musical rhythm, destitute of grace; without imagination, shorn of beauty”

Making natural speech, musical rhythm and imagination essential poetic strengths · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Beauty
• Music
• Poetry

“I have believed that poetry without fundamental vitality is bloodless; without passion, fleshless; without spirit, nerveless; and without thought, spineless.”

Describing poetry as weakened when vitality, passion, spirit or thought is absent · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Art
• Poetry

“Impressionism is the literature of sense impressions that are evanescent or atmospheric.”

Defining impressionism through fleeting or atmospheric sensation · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Art
• Beauty

“Realism is most largely concerned with the senses and sense-observation of life.”

Defining realism chiefly through sensory observation · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Art
• Truth

“Rareness of rhythm—just now stressed as if it were the whole of inspiration—and of passion, imagination, etc., are immemorial standards of judging, and to them all critics must, and invariably do, appeal.”

Treating rhythm, passion and imagination as permanent critical measures · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Art
• Music
• Poetry

“For although poets may transcend, or critics repeal, the laws of criticism of their predecessors, they can never abrogate the fundamental permanent standards of judging true poetic literature.”

Defending enduring critical standards even when poetic laws change · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Poetry
• Truth

“We must get rid of the "twilight zone" around poetry in which irresponsible criticism can ambush mere likes and dislikes.”

Calling for firmer standards against purely subjective criticism · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Poetry
• Truth

“Poetry is the expression of our experience in emotional word-rhythms more lyrically measured or organized than those of prose, and having some permanency of appeal not possessed by mere verse.”

Offering Rice's concise working definition of poetry · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Art
• Poetry

“The critics of any generation may be right in their estimate of a poem, but only the continued survival of its lines for the experts of other generations suffices to give them final standing.”

Giving posterity a decisive role in establishing poetic reputation · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Fame
• Poetry
• Time

“There are many qualities—of imagination, passion, charm, etc.—which make poetry when they are embodied in a sufficiently musical rhythm.”

Linking poetry's substance to imagination, passion, charm and musical rhythm · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Art
• Music
• Poetry

“This rhythm must differ from prose rhythm by being more lyrically or measuredly organized.”

Making lyrical organisation the key formal distinction from prose · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Music
• Poetry

“Poetry on its formal side is an art of rhythm, metrical or unmetrical.”

Defining poetry formally through organised rhythm · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Music
• Poetry

“This is like asking that a definition of gold should contain the name of the acid that detects its pureness.”

Showing why a definition cannot by itself certify artistic quality · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Art
• Truth

“When Keats calls sweet peas beautiful flowers "on tiptoe for a flight," he is not defining sweet peas, but magically praising them.”

Distinguishing poetic praise from precise definition · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Beauty
• Poetry

“Art may depend on exasperation rather than inspiration to break its bonds, but exasperation is not inspiration.”

Distinguishing creative frustration from genuine inspiration · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Art
• Poetry

“What is surprising is that so many fail to see that the measure of our artistic sincerity and intelligence is not determined by revolt alone, but by the things to which we revolt—and by what we are willing to destroy.”

Arguing that rebellion must be judged by what it rejects and destroys · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Art
• Truth

“Most people, for example, prefer the beautiful to the ugly, the true to the false, the noble to the base.”

Observing that basic human judgement tends towards beauty, truth and nobility · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Beauty
• Truth

“Preference is fundamental in all judgment, as faith—according to Mr. Balfour's famous argument—is the foundation of all belief.”

Grounding judgement in preference while comparing it to the role of faith · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Faith
• Truth

“Only a selective liberalism offers both the repose and unrest necessary to permanently interesting creativeness.”

Arguing for a liberal middle course between artistic extremes · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Art
• Poetry

“Art freedom and finality no more spring from excesses than from conservatism.”

Rejecting both artistic excess and rigid conservatism · Preface, Shadowy Thresholds (1919)

• Art
• Truth

“Perhaps no narrative poet can do better than to ask himself if this be true.”

Urging narrative poets to test their craft against modern storytelling technique · Preface, Wraiths and Realities (1918)

• Art
• Poetry

“To a real criticism, therefore, the last two decades of our poetry are still richly open.”

Calling contemporary American poetry a field still open to serious criticism · Preface, Wraiths and Realities (1918)

• Poetry
• Truth

“Yet the romanticist would seem to have the better theoretical viewpoint.”

Arguing that romanticism offers the broadest theoretical position · Preface, Wraiths and Realities (1918)

• Art
• Poetry