Originally published in 1939, this book examines the critical careers of a number of English poets. Bronowski looks at the reasons why English poets took an interest in criticism and how the role of poets as critics affected English criticism at large by taking Sidney, Dryden, Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Swinburne, Housman and Yeats as his examples. This book will be of value to anyone with an in English literature and literary criticism.