Definition is not all easy. Wordsworth defined poetry in many ways. He believes that poetry is a powerful feeling that gives immense pleasure both to the poet and the reader. It is not something that makes man happy. ‘Pleasure’ is much more than happiness. The pleasure that poetry offers makes man wise. Happiness does not. Pleasure offers a deeper understanding of the things around him including himself. It helps man to see life from a vantage point of view. And it reveals the harmony in nature.
Wordsworth says “Poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”. It does not mean that a poet write at the spur of the moment. He writes after prolonged meditation. Poetry is not an ‘emotional outburst’ so to speak. A poet ponders over for long on what leaves an impression on his mind. The poetic process is a kind of association of ideas. He says that continuous “influxes of feeling” is modified by our earlier impressions and feelings. Slowly and gradually we come to know what is really important to man. And we begin to see the world in a different way. This way of viewing life becomes quite ‘natural’ or our habit.
The important point to note is that a poem before it is written takes its shape in the poet’s mind. The incubation period is very long., ‘ten years’ says Wordsworth. Whatever impresses the poet does not make its appearance in the poem as it was. Reacting with the earlier impressions and feelings in the poet’s mind it loses its particular character and assumes a universal character. The new feeling is “kindred” to the feeling produced in the poet’s mind at first. In Wordsworth’s words the object of poetry is “truth not individual and local but general and operating and standing upon external testimony, but carried alive into the heart by passion”. Thus poetry is “the image f man and nature” says Wordsworth.
At another place Wordsworth says, “Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge”. Wordsworth does not say that science does not offer knowledge. It does. All the same the knowledge it offers is not complete. He believes that only poetry can offer absolute truth. The thinking of a poet is inclusive. A poet does not exclude anything from his field of interest. Everything that affects man interests him.
He goes on to say that the object of a scientist can be the objects of poet as well if the ordinary man is able to relate himself with science and its objects. In his words, “The remotest discoveries of Chemists, the Botanists, or Mineralogists will be as proper objects of the poet’s arts as any upon which it can be employed, if the time should ever come when these things shall be familiar to us as enjoying and suffering beings”.
He agrees with Aristotle’s view of poetry and states, “poetry is the most philosophic of all writings”. The truth the historian or the biographer is looking for is extremely difficult to find, for the obstacles in their way are innumerable. The only obstacle on the poet’s way is that what he writes must to be able to give immediate pleasure to the reader. The picture of the world painted by the poet is whole and is capable of giving pleasure to the reader.

Horace says both familiar and unfamiliar words and expressions can be used in poem if they are unambiguous and effective. However, the familiar words and expressions are to be preferred to the unfamiliar. It improves the diction. However, if the poet feels that the existing expressions cannot convey what he wants to convey to the readers he can coin new words and expressions. Horace does not place any bar on employing new words and expressions. He is well aware of the fact that words have their birth, growth and death. Sometime some words even resurrect after decades and centuries.
The writer must show his ‘taste’ and ‘care’ in ordering his words and expressions. He is of the view that it is the ‘lucid arrangement’ of words that is of utmost importance. He opines that if the new words and expressions are derived from Greek words and expressions they would be appropriate and effective.
Horace has also discusses the issue of ‘genius’ and ‘art’. Is it natural endowment or training that makes a poet great? Horace answers that both are necessary to excel as a poet. He says no amount of training can substitute for lack of natural inclination. Similarly natural inclination alone without appropriate training of the mind cannot produce works of everlasting significance. He says “each gifts needs the other’s aid and joins in friendly union”. However, Horace just as Aristotle does stress the importance of training. Horace holds that “The wind of genius bloweth where it listeth and is beyond human control

Longinus, the most famous Latin literary critic, is known widely for his theory of “the Sublime”. Cassius Longinus of Palmyra as he is widely known lived in the third century. He is credited to be the author of the famous Greek treaties on Greek literary criticism, On the Sublime. His views are radically different from that of Plato and Aristotle.
Longinus’s views are said to be the first ‘affective” theory of literature. He did not accept the views of Plato that poetry is harmful to society as it takes people away from reality. He did not accept the view that the objective of poetry is instruction either. He agreed with Aristotle that poetry is beneficial to society and it can purify the emotions of the people. Just as Aristotle, Longinus also believed that giving pleasure is the objective of poetry. He focused his attention on studying how imaginative literature produce pleasure in the minds of the readers and the spectators.
According to Longinus the power of poetry to move the readers is the most important quality of poetry. The ability of poetry to move the readers is instantaneous and valuable in itself. The reader himself can find out whether he has been ‘affected’ by what he has read. All that the person has to do is to examine his thoughts and feelings. If he finds himself moved the work is good. If the poetry fails to move the reader it is not worth reading. It is the grandeur and nobility that gives pleasure to the reader. Longinus refers to these qualities as “sublime”.
It may be said that Longinus is the first to look upon the reader’s response as important. However, it calls for great experience on the part of the reader. Without experience a reader cannot assess the feelings produced in him by the poem. Experience alone equips the reader with the ability to examine and appreciate the elements that constitute sublimity. A great work excites the readers again and again. Longinus is the first to examine the relationships between the author, the work and the reader. Longinus believed that the right emotion in the right place constitutes grandeur.
According to Longinus, an author can produce great literature only if he employs the various figures of speech in the right places, the nobility of diction. He says, “The purpose of literature is to see how ecstasy is achieved by showing which elements best conduce to the effect.”