Lake Poets Critical Essay | Francis Jeffrey

Francis Jeffrey

SOURCE: A review of Thalaba, the Destroyer, in The Edinburgh Review, Vol. I, No. I, October, 1802, pp. 63-83.

In the following excerpt, Jeffrey identifies Southey as one of a "sect of poets" that included Wordsworth and Coleridge, and offers a harsh assessment of this group and its aim to focus on "ordinary" language and themes.

Poetry has this much, at least, in common with religion, that its standards were fixed long ago, by certain inspired writers, whose authority it is no longer lawful to call in question; and that many profess to be entirely devoted to it, who have no good works to produce in support of their pretensions. The catholic poetical church, too, has worked but few miracles since the first ages of its establishment; and has been more prolific, for a long time, of doctors than of saints: it has had its corruptions, and reformation also, and...
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