Poetry and Imagination

Poetry and imagination are closely allied that it is not possible to think of one without thinking of the other. To us today it is a common fact of literary criticism, that imagination is central to poetry. In fact we distinguish literature as an art from other writings, by adding to it he adjective 'imaginative'. In other words when we are speaking of poetry we are really speaking of imaginative literature.Critics from Plato to Eliot have studied the relation between poetry and imagination. It is concluded that poetry and imagination are closely allied that it is not possible to think of one without thinking of the other.