...regarded as just "a fading coal" as shown in the extract below: A man cannot say, "I will compose a poetry." The greatest poet even cannot say it: for the mind in creation is as a fading coal which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness...but when composition...

...Defence of Poetry that describe poetry's power in terms of the attenuation of authorial agency: Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according...for the mind in creation is as a fading coal which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness: this power arises...

...exclusively on inspiration and could not write without it. "Poetry is not like reasoning," he argued, "a power to be exerted according to the determination...the will. A man cannot say, 'I will compose poetry.' "6 As a consequence he left behind mostly fragments and fell into despair when inspiration was absent....

...author (or artist, or musical composer, etc.). In his essay "A Defense of Poetry", Shelley wrote: Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according...for the mind in creation is as a fading coal which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises...