It is a heartbreaking task to reconcile literary and scientific interests in the same book. Literary enthusiasts seem to regard poetry as something miraculous, something which it is almost blasphemous to analyse, witness the outcry against R. L. Stevenson when he merely underlined examples of Shakespeare’s wonderful dexterity in the manipulation of consonants; most scientists on the other hand, being either benevolently contemptuous of poetry, or if interested, insensitive to the emotional quality of words and their associative subtleties, themselves use words as weights and counters rather than as chemicals powerful in combination and have written, if at all, so boorishly about poetry that the breach has been actually widened. If any false scientific assumptions or any bad literary blunders I have made, be held up for popular execration, these may yet act as decoys to the truth which I am anxious to buy even at the price of a snubbing; and where in many cases no trouble has apparently been taken to check over-statements, there is this excuse to offer, that when putting a cat among pigeons it is always advisable to make it as large a cat as possible. R. G. Islip, Oxford. CONTENTS I DEFINITIONS, 13 II THE NINE MUSES, 15 III POETRY AND PRIMITIVE MAGIC, 19 IV CONFLICT OF EMOTIONS, 22 V THE PATTERN UNDERNEATH, 24 VI INSPIRATION, 26 VII THE PARABLE OF MR. POETA AND MR. LECTOR, 27 VIII THE CARPENTER’S SON, 31 IX THE GADDING VINE, 33 X THE DEAD END AND THE MAN OF ONE POEM, 36 XI SPENSER’S CUFFS, 38 XII CONNECTION OF POETRY AND HUMOUR, 40 XIII DICTION, 41 XIV THE DAFFODILS, 42 XV VERS LIBRE, 45 XVI MOVING MOUNTAINS, 50 XVII LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI, 50 XVIII THE GENERAL ELLIOTT, 55 XIX THE GOD CALLED POETRY, 62 XX LOGICALIZATION, 66 XXI LIMITATIONS, 69 XXII THE NAUGHTY BOY, 71 XXIII THE CLASSICAL AND ROMANTIC IDEAS, 72 XXIV COLOUR, 76