The Bridling of Pegasus: Prose Papers on Poetry

"The Bridling of Pegasus: Prose Papers on Poetry" by Alfred Austin is a series of essays that digs into the world of poetry, particularly as it stood around the start of the 1900s. Penned by England's Poet Laureate, the book looks at what makes poetry work, pushing for classic rules about what’s good and what’s not. Austin believes that poetry needs to sound good and be easy to figure out, and he wants to clean up the mess he sees in how people think about poetry today. He kicks things off by saying that things have gotten confusing because we don’t really have solid standards for judging poetry anymore which has watered down the value of what poetry is. Austin passionately thinks that we should value poetry that is both musical and clear, and he points out that too many average writers are taking attention away from the really great ones. His mission is to bring back the idea of timeless standards in poetry, using examples from famous poets of the past to show about their wide impact.