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§5The Poetry of the 'SeventiesBy JOHN DRINKWATERX HE conventions of criticism have imposed on our mindsa habit which on the whole is helpful in organising ourthought, but which needs an occasional challenge to keepit from taking more upon itself than habits should. Intheir application to English poetry the conventions havehad a clearly definable effect. We all of us habituallythink of that poetry as falling concisely into a series ofepochs, each of which is readily separable from the restin character. Thus the story presents itself with veryplausible organisation; we have the Chaucerian Age, thepre-Shakespearean, the Elizabethan, Caroline and Restoration,the Augustan Age and the Romantic Revival,the Victorian Age, and so down to our own neo-Georgians.There is something in it; there is, indeed, a great deal init, and criticism has not been really wide of the mark indevising these categorical labels. Each of the designatedAges has, in fact, some governing attribute or attributesthat distinguish it in a general way from all others.Sometimes the contrast is rather an obscure one, as forexample that between the lyric verse of such representativepoets as Marvell and Landor; or again, it may beimmediately striking, as that between the narrativepoems of Shakespeare and Pope. But the distinctionsmay be maintained. Criticism on the whole is justifiedof its epochs.Nevertheless, we have sometimes to remind ourselvesthat here, after all, is nothing but a critical convention,