Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Life and Works of George Eliot, Vol. 17: Poems
It must not be supposed that this is by any means a matter of mere ?uency, correctness, or ease of numbers. Macaulay wrote verses far su perior in these particulars to many of Mr. Henry Taylor's and many of Wordsworth's. Yet verse was, unequivocally, Macaulay's left-hand; and after adolescence, few people can read his verse for poetry. If I were not unwilling to rouse the prejudice of (i fear!) most of my readers, I should here add Edgar Poe; and, indeed, I really cannot Spare him as an illustration. He must have some queer hybrid place, all to himself (which it would take an essay to define) but though he may be said to have felt verse his right-hand medium of expression, some few of us hesitate to call him a poet. Not to complicate this matter, let us come at once to the point. What is it that in excellent verse differentiates 1 that which is poetry and that which is not? Not mere ?uency, but unconscious ?uency; in a word, simplicity. Whatever art may do for the poet, he must be a simple musician to begin with.
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