Cottage at Olney_.] have appeared most often in the verse of the last
century. Cowper's inclusion among his poems of verses written during
periods of actual insanity has seemed to indicate that poetic madness is
not merely a figure of speech. There is also significance, as revealing
the poet's attitude toward insanity, in the fact that several fictional
poets are represented as insane. Crabbe and Shelley have ascribed
madness to their poet-heroes, [Footnote: See Crabbe, _The Patron_;
Shelley, _Rosalind and Helen_.] while the American, J. G. Holland,
represents his hero's genius as a consequence, in part, at least, of a
hereditary strain of suicidal insanity. [Footnote: See J. G. Holland,
_Kathrina_. For recent verse on the mad poet see William Rose Benet,
_Mad Blake_; Amy Lowell, _Clear, With Light Variable Winds_; Cale Young
Rice, _The Mad Philosopher_; Edmund Blunden, _Clare's Ghost_.]

It goes without saying that this is a romantic conception, wholly
incompatible with the eighteenth century belief that poetry is produced
by the action of the intelligence, aided by good taste. Think of the mad
poet, William Blake, assuring his sedate contemporaries,

All pictures that's painted with sense and with thought
Are painted by madmen as sure as a groat.
[Footnote: See fragment CI.]

What chance did he have of recognition?

This is merely indicative of the endless quarrel between the inspired
poet and the man of reason. The eighteenth century contempt for poetic
madness finds typical expression in Pope's satirical lines,

Some demon stole my pen (forgive the offense)