ABSTRACT
Most critics consider Leigh Hunt's imprisonment for seditious libel to have been one of the most positive events of his life. From a literary perspective as well, Hunt made the most of his imprisonment. He discussed literature with old friends, and his network of literary acquaintances expanded while he read and wrote poetry extensively. The two versions of The Feast of the Poets clearly indicate Hunt's awareness of his own public situation in each case: one version is confidently critical and satirical of his contemporaries, while the other shows a more temperate and modest attitude toward them. In fact, Lord Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers is another important model for Hunt's Feast of the Poets, although not one acknowledged directly by Hunt. Hunt follows his contemporaries in treating Southey as linked to Coleridge and Wordsworth, but he demonstrates his independence when he refers favorably to Southey's poetry in the Reflector version of The Feast of the Poets.
