arch-egoist

Updated: May 12, 2025

Did Browning mean that Shakespeare was less the poet, as well as less the dramatist, if he revealed himself to us in his poetry? And is this our contention? It seems a reasonable contention, at least, the more so since poets are practically unanimous in describing inspiration as lifting them out of themselves, into self-forgetful ecstasy. Even that arch-egoist, Byron, concedes this point.

Elizabeth Atkins - The Poet's Poet : essays on the character and mission of the poet as interpreted in English verse of the last one hundred and fifty years