II AN ILLUMINATING HYPOTHESIS
(pp. 11-23)
Reverting to the two contrasting lists of poems on page 8, we see that they present a peculiar critical puzzle for our solution.
Here are two groups of poems; all the poems are popular; nearly all of them have stood the test of time; yet, though we can understand in most essentials the technique by which the intellectualist poems achieve their results, we are baffled by the technique of the spellweaving poems.
We are, in fact, so seriously baffled that many critics refuse a place of honor to poems likeEvangelinewhich have endeared themselves to hosts of readers. The…