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HIS POETRY

BY

WILLIAM HENRY HUDSON
Staff-Lecturer in Literature to the University
Extension Board of the University of London
Author of "An Introduction to the Study of
Literature" etc. Editor of "The Elizabethan
Shakespeare" etc.

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PRINTED BY

BALLANTYNE & COMPANY LTD AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN

LONDON

GENERAL PREFACE

A

GLANCE through the pages of this little book will suffice to disclose the general plan of the series of which it forms a Only a few words of explanation, therefore, will be necessary.

part.

The point of departure is the undeniable fact that with the vast majority of young students of literature a living interest in the work of any poet can best be aroused, and an intelligent appreciation of it secured, when it is immediately associated with the character and career of the poet himself. The cases are indeed few and far between in which much fresh light will not be "thrown upon a poem by some knowledge of the personality of the writer, while it will often be found that the most direct-perhaps even the only-way to the heart of its meaning lies through a consideration of the circumstances in which it had its birth. The purely æsthetic critic may possibly object that a poem should be regarded simply as a self-contained and detached piece of art, having no personal affiliations or bearings. Of the validity of this as an abstract principle nothing need now be ‣ said. The fact remains that, in the earlier stages of study at any rate, poetry is most valued and loved when it is made to seem most human and vital; and the human and vital interest of poetry can be most surely brought home to the reader by the biographical method of interpretation.

This is to some extent recognised by writers of histories and text-books of literature, and by editors of selections from the works of our poets; for place is always given by them to a certain amount of biographical material. But in the histories and text-books the biography of a given writer stands by itself, and his work has to be sought elsewhere, the student being left to make the connection for himself; while even in our current editions of selections there is little systematic attempt to link biography, step by step, with production.

This brings us at once to the chief purpose of the present series. In this, biography and production will be considered together and in intimate association. In other words, an endeavour will be made to interest the reader in the lives and personalities of the poets dealt with, and at the same time to use biography as an introduction and key to their writings.

Each volume will therefore contain the lifestory of the poet who forms its subject. In this, attention will be specially directed to his per sonality as it expressed itself in his poetry, and to the influences and conditions which counteri most as formative factors in the growth of his genius. This biographical study will be used as a setting for a selection, as large as space will permit, of his representative poems. Such poems, where possible, will be reproduced in full, and care will be taken to bring out thei connection with his character, his circumstances and the movement of his mind.

Then, i

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