Though G.S. Fraser is far better known as a critic and literary historian, it is as a poet that he wished to be remembered. A writer of published verse by age sixteen, Fraser turned to literary journalism and teaching in order to make a living. The promise of his early poetic work, which was usually occasional in nature, was rarely realized in his later poetry, and, as a consequence, his poems often appear to rely on sentimental, hackneyed, or otherwise undistinguished topics and techniques. Fraser once stated that he "never had the time to think out a theory of poetics," and much of his poetry is marked more by lyrical effusiveness and romantic sensitivity than by a carefully reasoned set of aesthetic convictions. As an "occasional" poet, he is of interest for his well-intentioned sincerity and a few memorable lines, not for technical innovation; as he observed...