work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
6757,"",Reading,2010-09-26 20:25:40 UTC,"... I am glad you take any pleasure in my poor Poem; -- which I would willingly take the trouble to unwrite, if possible, did I care so much as I have done about Reputation. I received a copy of the Cenci, as from yourself from Hunt. There is only one part of it I am judge of; the Poetry, and dramatic effect, which by many spirits now a days is considered the mammon. A modern work it is said must have a purpose, which may be the God--an artist must serve Mammon--he must have ""self concentration"" selfishness perhaps. You I am sure will forgive me for sincerely remarking that you might curb your magnanimity and be more of an artist, and ""load every rift"" of your subject with ore. The thought of such discipline must fall like cold chains upon you, who perhaps never sat with your wings furl'd for six Months together. And is not this extraordina[r]y talk for the writer of Endymion? whose mind was like a pack of scattered cards--I am pick'd up and sorted to a pip. My Imagination is a Monastery and I am its Monk--you must explain my metapcs to yourself. I am in expectation of Prometheus every day. Could I have my own wish for its interest effected you would have it still in manuscript--or be but now putting an end to the second act. I remember you advising me not to publish my first-blights, on Hampstead heath--I am returning advice upon your hands. Most of the Poems in the volume I send you have been written above two years, and would never have been publish'd but from a hope of gain; so you see I am inclined to take your advice now. I must exp[r]ess once more my deep sense of your kindness, adding my sincere thanks and respects for Mrs. Shelley.
(pp. 389-90)
",,17987,"","""And is not this extraordina[r]y talk for the writer of Endymion? whose mind was like a pack of scattered cards--I am pick'd up and sorted to a pip.""","",2010-09-26 20:25:40 UTC,""
7076,"",Reading,2011-08-31 20:06:17 UTC,"If you lament your decayed faculties, and your present drowsihood, (as Thomson terms it,) how much more cause have I for such lamentations! I say it sincerely and seriously. Yet still what I can do I ought to do. But the complaint in my eyes is a sad hinderance to me in recovering lost ideas and facts. Now in filling my mind with them, and in warming and animating me, you would, I doubt not, do me great good. And I am one of those substances, like sealing wax and other electric bodies, which require to be warmed in order to possess the faculty of attracting objects, of covering and clothing itself with them. I cannot sparkle at all without being rubbed, and this would be effected by your conversation and speechifying. Yet I can perhaps revive the old impressions by meditation and looking at papers. Formerly I had several friends who assisted me to look out for intelligence, Burgh, Dickson, and others. Pitt used to call them my ""white negroes.""
(ii, p. 279)",,19114,"","""Now in filling my mind with them [ideas and facts], and in warming and animating me, you would, I doubt not, do me great good. And I am one of those substances, like sealing wax and other electric bodies, which require to be warmed in order to possess the faculty of attracting objects, of covering and clothing itself with them.""","",2011-08-31 20:06:17 UTC,""
7405,"","Reading M.H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (London: Oxford UP, 1953), 49.",2013-06-06 19:50:03 UTC,"I by no means rank poetry or poets high in the scale of intellect. This may look like affectation, but it is my real opinion. It is the lava of the imagination whose eruptions prevents an earthquake. They say poets never or rarely go mad. Cowper and Collins are instances to the contrary (but Cowper was no poet). It is, however, to be remarked that they rarely do, but are generally so near it that I cannot help thinking rhyme is so far useful in anticipating and preventing the disorder. I prefer the talents of action--of war, of the senate, of even of science,--to all the speculations of those mere dreamers of another existence (I don't mean religiously but fancifully) and spectators of this apathy. Disgust and perhaps incapacity have rendered me now a mere spectator; but I have occasionally mixed in the active and tumultuous departments of existence, and on these alone my recollection rests with any satisfaction, though not the best parts of it.",,20455,"","""I by no means rank poetry or poets high in the scale of intellect. This may look like affectation, but it is my real opinion. It is the lava of the imagination whose eruptions prevents an earthquake.""","",2013-06-06 19:50:03 UTC,""
8194,"","Reading Earl Wasserman, ""The English Romantics: The Grounds of Knowledge,"" Studies in Romanticism 4:1 (Autumn, 1964): 17-34, 21.",2017-01-18 16:34:03 UTC,"[...] This would not disturb me a tittle, if I thought well of the work myself -- I should feel a confidence, that it would win it's way at last / but this is not the case with Gesner's Der erste Schiffer. -- It may as well lie here, till Tomkins wants it -- let him only give me a week's notice, and I will transmit it to you with a large margin. -- Bowles's Stanzas on Navigation are among the best in that second Volume / but the whole volume is woefully inferior to it's Predecessor. There reigns thro' all the blank verse poems such a perpetual trick of moralizing every thing -- which is very well, occasionally -- but never to see or describe any interesting appearance in nature, without connecting it by dim analogies with the moral world, proves faintness of Impression. Nature has her proper interest; & he will know what it is, who believes & feels, that every Thing has a Life of it's own, & that we are all one Life. A Poet's Heart & Intellect should be combined, intimately combined & unified, with the great appearances in Nature -- & not merely held in solution & loose mixture with them, in the shape of formal Similies. I do not mean to exclude these formal Similies -- there are moods of mind, in which they are natural -- pleasing moods of mind, & such as a Poet will often have, & sometimes express; but they are not his highest, & most appropriate moods, They are 'Sermoni propiora' which I once translated -- ' Properer for a Sermon.' The truth is -- Bowles has indeed the sensibility of a poet; but he has not the Passion of a great Poet. His latter Writings all want native Passion -- Milton here & there supplies him with an appearance of it -- but he has no native Passion, because he is not a Thinker & has probably weakened his Intellect by the haunting Fear of becoming extravagant. [...]
(pp. 862-3)",,25007,"","""A Poet's Heart & Intellect should be combined, intimately combined & unified, with the great appearances in Nature -- & not merely held in solution & loose mixture with them, in the shape of formal Similies.""","",2017-01-18 16:34:03 UTC,""