Edward Thomas and the Imagination

Before his death in the First World War, Edward Thomas was a prominent literary critic who had in late 1914 begun to write lyric poetry. He attempted to write, as he puts it in his poem "Words," "As poets do." The ideas of what "poets do" that he had developed as a literary critic form the foundation of his poetry. This article describes Thomas's theory of what the imagination is and demonstrates how his poetry represents that theory. How and why poets use their imaginations is a key topic in his criticism. What follows demonstrates that it shapes his lyrics. [99 words]