The Progress of Poesy

The Progress of Poesy is a lecture by John William Mackail (1859-1945), the Scottish classicist and critic, delivered during his tenure as Professor of Poetry at Oxford between 1906 and 1911. Taking its title from Gray’s Pindaric ode, the lecture surveys the movement of poetry through history as a single continuing life, from the ancient world through the medieval and modern European literatures, developing Mackail’s characteristic theme that poetry is one art renewing itself across languages and ages. Mackail brought to the chair the authority of his Latin scholarship, his Greek Anthology translations, and his connection to the Pre-Raphaelite circle through his Life of William Morris. The lecture was collected among his Oxford addresses on poetry. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.