“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

“But there is a great difference between natural and fabricated feelings, even in poetry.”

A brief critical axiom from his defence of the early sonnets as lived emotion · Preface to the Sonnets, 1805

• Feeling
• Honesty
• Poetry

“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