ABSTRACT
Joseph Warton and John Aikin seem to the author to anticipate much modern criticism of eighteenth-century poetry. These men were discontented with that poetry, and their criticism, in general terms, is what one is likely to hear. Trapp’s position is that the language of poetry should be true to the principles of philosophy, and in matters of natural description, to those of natural philosophy. Coleridge, on the other hand, condemned the use of any language in poetry which was designed to serve the purposes of truth more than those of pleasure, and he was, in effect, pointing out the chief fault of Trapp’s criticism. Aikin settled too easily the question of the relation of truth to poetry by accepting the claim of natural philosophy to represent truth. Aikin was bored by this language because it was stereotyped, while its inaccuracy offended him.
