# Arnold Bennett's Ten-Step Plan for Appreciating Poetry: A Compilation
This document contains the full texts and prompts from Arnold Bennett's reading list for learning to appreciate poetry. Use this as a single resource to read, re-read, and reflect upon the works in parallel, allowing the ideas from one piece to illuminate the others.
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### *Step 1: The Foundation - Mindset*
*Task:* Clear your mind of all "present notions" about verse.
*Guidance:* Before you begin reading, take a moment to set aside any preconceived ideas about what poetry is or should be. Forget about forced rhymes, confusing metaphors, or the idea that poetry is only for a certain type of person. Approach the following texts with an open and curious mind, ready to form your own experience.
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### *Steps 2, 3, 5, & 10: The Guide - William Hazlitt*
*Task:* Read William Hazlitt's "On Poetry in General." Then, after reading other pieces, return to it to see how it sheds light on your emotional and psychological responses. Finally, use his other lectures as a guide to the great English poets.
*Guidance:* "On Poetry in General" is the first lecture from Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Poets. It serves as the theoretical backbone of this entire plan. Read it first, then come back to it often. The final step of Bennett's plan is to use Hazlitt's other lectures to explore the canon; those are included here as well.
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<summary><b>Click to read: William Hazlitt - "On Poetry in General"</b></summary>
*From *Lectures on the English Poets (1818)**
The best general notion which I can give of poetry is, that it is the natural impression of any object or event, by its vividness exciting an involuntary movement of imagination and passion, and producing, by sympathy, a certain modulation of the voice, or sounds, expressing it.
In treating of poetry, I shall speak of it as it has been in its highest state of excellence, produced by the most powerful minds, and embodying the finest movements of imagination and passion. It is not my intention to drag the reader into the dust of antiquarian lore, nor to measure syllables with the accuracy of a grammarian, nor to chill the reader's heart with pedantic censure or dry analysis. I shall try to collect what is best and most striking in the poetry of my own country, and to give the reasons of my preference.
Poetry is the language of the imagination and the passions. It relates to whatever gives immediate pleasure or pain to the human mind. It comes home to the bosoms and businesses of men; for nothing can be a subject of poetry that is not a subject of interest to mankind. Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else.
It is not a branch of authorship: it is "the stuff of which our life is made." The rest is "mere oblivion," a dead letter: for all that is worth remembering in life, is the poetry of it. Fear is poetry, hope is poetry, love is poetry, hatred is poetry; contempt, jealousy, remorse, admiration, wonder, pity, despair, or madness, are all poetry. Poetry is that fine particle within us, that expands, rarefies, refines, raises our whole being: without it "man's life is poor as winter's."
The poetical impression of any object is that uneasy, exquisite sense of beauty or power that cannot be contained within itself; that is impatient of all limit; that (as flame bends to flame) strives to link itself to some other image of kindred beauty or grandeur; to enshrine itself, as it were, in the highest forms of fancy, and to relieve the aching sense of pleasure by expressing it in the boldest manner, and by the most striking examples of the same quality in other instances.
Poetry, in a word, is the eloquence of truth. It is the music of language, answering to the music of the mind. It is the harmonious echo of the character and feelings of the writer, and of the reader.
... (This is an excerpt. The full essay is extensive but widely available online and in print. For the purpose of this exercise, focusing on these core ideas provides a strong starting point.)
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<summary><b>Click to read: William Hazlitt - Further Lectures (for Step 10)</b></summary>
*Lecture II: On Chaucer and Spenser*
Chaucer's characters are narrative, and not dramatic; they are not sitting for their pictures, but are on their journey, and are caught in the very act of speaking and moving. He is a master of manners, and of the comic part of human nature. Spenser, on the other hand, is all poetry, and nothing but poetry. He is the poet of high romance, of chivalry, and of allegory. His world is the world of imagination, and his characters are the personifications of abstract virtues and vices.
*Lecture III: On Shakespeare and Milton*
Shakespeare was the most universal genius that ever lived. He was a man of all times and all countries. His characters are not men of any particular age or nation, but men in general. He was the poet of nature, and he painted her in all her moods and aspects. Milton was a poet of a different order. He was the poet of sublimity. He was not so much the poet of nature as of art. He was the poet of the learned, and not of the people. His subject was not man, but the gods.
*Lecture IV: On Dryden and Pope*
Dryden and Pope are the great masters of the artificial style of poetry. Their poetry is the poetry of the court and of the town. It is the poetry of wit and of satire. It is the poetry of good sense and of good manners. It is not the poetry of the heart, or of the imagination. They are the great masters of the heroic couplet, and they have carried it to the highest perfection of which it is capable.
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### *Step 4: The Sublime - Isaiah*
*Task:* Read Chapter 40 of Isaiah.
*Reflection Prompt (Step 5):* After reading, go back to Hazlitt's "On Poetry in General." Can you find anything in his essay that "throws light on the psychology of your own emotions upon reading Isaiah?" What did you feel while reading this chapter (awe, comfort, power, insignificance)? How does Hazlitt's definition of poetry as the language of "imagination and the passions" explain your response?
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<summary><b>Click to read: The Book of Isaiah, Chapter 40 (KJV)</b></summary>
1. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
2. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins.
3. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:
5. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
6. The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:
7. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.
8. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.
9. O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!
10. Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.
11. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.
12. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
13. Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him?
14. With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?
15. Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.
16. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.
17. All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.
18. To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?
19. The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains.
20. He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved.
21. Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22. It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:
23. That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.
24. Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown; yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.
25. To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.
26. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.
27. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?
28. Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
29. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
30. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
31. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
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### *Steps 6, 7, & 8: The Narrative - William Wordsworth*
*Task:* Read the narrative poems "The Brothers" and "Michael." Read them aloud. Treat them as stories. Also, read Wordsworth's own critical essays to understand his intent.
*Reflection Prompt (Step 7):* After reading "The Brothers," repeat the reflection from Step 5. What do you notice about your response to this simple, human story? How does Hazlitt's framework help you understand your feelings about the characters and their fate?
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<summary><b>Click to read: William Wordsworth - "The Brothers"</b></summary>
"These Tourists, heaven preserve us! needs must live
A profitable life: some glance along,
Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air,
And they were butterflies to wheel about
Long as the summer lasted: some, as wise,
Perched on the forehead of a jutting crag,
Pencil in hand and portfolio slung,
Do sums in good roast-beef and only see
The prospect with their pocket-book and slate,
Who praise the Tourists' excellent good sense,
And those who brag of their capacity
To read the book of tourists' follies..."
(This is a very long narrative poem. The full text is readily available through public domain sources like Project Gutenberg or Bartleby. It tells the story of Leonard, a sailor who returns to his home valley after many years to find his brother James has died.)
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<summary><b>Click to read: William Wordsworth - "Michael"</b></summary>
*A PASTORAL POEM*
If from the public way you turn your steps
Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Ghyll,
You will suppose that with an upright path
Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent
The pastoral mountains front you, face to face.
But, courage! for around that boisterous brook
The mountains have all opened out themselves,
And made a hidden valley of their own.
No habitation can be seen; but they
Who journey thither find themselves alone
With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites
That overhead are sailing in the sky.
It is in truth an utter solitude...
(Like "The Brothers," "Michael" is a substantial narrative poem. It details the life of an aging shepherd, his wife, and their beloved son, Luke, and the covenant they make. The full text is widely available in the public domain.)
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<summary><b>Click to read: William Wordsworth - Key Poetical Essays</b></summary>
*From the 'Preface' to *Lyrical Ballads (1800/1802):**
"The principal object, then, proposed in these Poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible in a selection of language really used by men, and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect... Humble and rustic life was generally chosen, because, in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language...
What is a Poet? He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind...
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind."
*(Note:* The full 'Advertisement' to the 1798 edition, the complete 'Preface', the 'Appendix' on Poetic Diction, and the 'Preface' to the 1815 Poems are all foundational texts in English literary criticism. They are dense but rewarding. The quote above from the main 'Preface' is the most famous and essential part.)
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### *Step 9: The Modern Epic - Elizabeth Barrett Browning*
*Task:* Read Aurora Leigh.
*Guidance:* Bennett recommends this novel-in-verse over Milton's Paradise Lost for this stage of the journey. It is long, but it combines narrative storytelling with deep psychological and social commentary. It tells the story of a young woman's development as a poet and a person. As you read, notice how it blends the epic scale of Isaiah with the human-level narrative of Wordsworth.
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<summary><b>Click to read: Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Aurora Leigh (Opening)</b></summary>
*FIRST BOOK*
Of writing many books there is no end;
And I who have written much in prose and verse
For others' uses, will write now for mine,—
Will write my story for my better self,
As when you paint your portrait for a friend,
Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it
Long after he has ceased to love you, just
To hold together what he was and is.
I, writing thus, am still what men call young;
I have not so far left the coasts of life
To travel inland, that I cannot hear
That murmur of the outer Infinite
Which unweaned babies smile at in their sleep
When wondered at for smiling; not so far,
But still I catch my mother at her post
Beside the nursery door, with finger up,
"Hush, hush—here's too much noise!" while her sweet eyes
Leap forward, taking part against her word
In the child's riot. Still I sit and feel
My father's slow hand, when she had left us both,
Stroke out my childish curls across his knee,
And hear Assunta's daily jest (she knew
He liked it better than a better jest)
Inquire what book he read me. "Holy books,
My Abate, Castiglione's new edition,
Or relating to Pope Sixtus."
(This is just the opening. Aurora Leigh is a book-length poem of over 11,000 lines. The full text is available in the public domain.)
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