“The only way to make a long poem palatable to modern tastes is to break it up into a number of brief connected episodes.”

Advocating manageable structure for extended poetic narratives · Essay, Some Thoughts on Modern Poetry (1891)

• Art
• Poetry

“Not merely do important poems of a heroic character expand into portly volumes, but even the lyric, which above all should be brief and inspiring, becomes enormously lengthy.”

Defending brevity as a particular virtue of lyric poetry · Essay, Some Thoughts on Modern Poetry (1891)

• Art
• Poetry

“I am convinced that at this moment there are in our country at least as many skilled writers of verse, and probably as many poets, as she has possessed at any epoch of her literature.”

Rejecting the idea that poetic talent belongs chiefly to the past · Essay, Some Thoughts on Modern Poetry (1891)

• Hope
• Poetry