“I thought nothing about the strict Italian model; the verses naturally flowed in unpremeditated harmony, as my ear directed.”

He privileges ear and unity of feeling over inherited sonnet rules · Introduction, Scenes and Shadows of Days Departed, 1837

• Music
• Originality
• Poetry

“Images drawn from nature are poetically finer than those drawn from art.”

The brief formula that set him against Byron, Campbell and the Pope party · Critical writings on Pope and the principles of poetry

• Art
• Nature
• Poetry

“They were, therefore, in general, suggested by the scenes before them; and wherever such scenes appeared to harmonise with his disposition at the moment, the sentiments were involuntarily prompted.”

Landscape and mood are treated as partners that call the poem into being without calculation · Preface to the Sonnets, 1805

• Inspiration
• Nature
• Poetry