“They can be considered in no other light than as exhibiting occasional reflections which naturally arose in his mind, chiefly during various excursions, undertaken to relieve, at the time, depression of spirits.”

He presents the early sonnets as private feeling prompted by travel rather than as studied literary display · Preface to the Sonnets, ninth edition, 1805

• Feeling
• Melancholy
• Poetry

“Images drawn from nature are more poetical than images drawn from art.”

Distinguishing direct natural experience from artificial ornament · Essay, The Invariable Principles of Poetry

• Art
• Nature
• Poetry

“Those who have attained the highest rank in poetry, as Homer, Shakespeare, and Milton, will be found invariably to have drawn their poetical imagery more from nature than from art.”

The central claim of his long controversy over Pope and poetic rank · The Invariable Principles of Poetry, letter to Thomas Campbell, 1819

• Art
• Nature
• Poetry