The Poet's Poet: Essays on the Character and Mission of the Poet as Interpreted in English Verse of the Last One Hundred and Fifty Years

What happens when poets turn their gaze inward? Elizabeth Atkins undertook this exact inquiry in 1922, producing a remarkable excavation of how English poets over 150 years have understood themselves, their art, and their strange place in culture. She finds a recurring paradox: the most ambitious poets seek to transcend the self, to channel something larger than individual ego, yet they repeatedly circle back to making themselves the center of their own mythology. Atkins traces this tension from the Romantics forward, examining how poets have articulated their mission, justified their existence, and wrestled with the egocentric trap inherent in their art. Her analysis is not merely academic taxonomy; it is a diagnosis of poetry's peculiar bind, where the self is both the obstacle and the instrument of transcendence. For anyone curious about how artists construct their own mythology, or how the figure of the poet has evolved in English literary consciousness, this remains a quietly radical work of cultural criticism.