SOURCE: Trevelyan, George Macaulay. “The Poet.” In The Poetry and Philosophy of George Meredith, pp. 7-63. New York: Russell & Russell, 1966.

In the following excerpt from a work originally published in 1906, Trevelyan emphasizes the inventiveness and variety of Meredith's poetry. He characterizes Meredith's work as uniquely intellectual, sometimes at the expense of accessibility.

It is the characteristic of George Meredith as a writer both of prose and verse, that poetical inspiration and intellectual power are developed in him each to the same degree. In most writers, one is the handmaid of the other. But in Mr. Meredith they contend or unite on equal terms. It is partly because his verse has these two cardinal functions instead of one, that his poems have such variety. Not merely are some very much better than others (that could be said of the works of any of our great English poets); but some...