“After her death in 1833 he maintained he wrote nothing of value, as his heart was not in his work.”

Acknowledges loss of creative drive following maternal influence and criticism · Reported remark after his mother's death

• Loss
• Motherhood
• Writing

“As to writing poetry, or doing anything else that is rational in this floating Inferno, it is almost next to a moral impossibility.”

Expresses frustration at naval life blocking literary work · Letter from HMS Venerable (1809)

• Frustration
• Poetry
• Writing

“Poetry was the mental rattle that awakened the attention of intellect in the infancy of civil society: but for the maturity of mind to make a serious business of the playthings of its childhood, is as absurd as for a full-grown man to rub his gums with coral, and cry to be charmed to sleep by the jingle of silver bells.”

Argues that poetry belongs to society's childhood and has no place in mature intellect · Essay, The Four Ages of Poetry (1820)

• Childhood
• Intellect
• Poetry