Poetry: Feast of the Poets

Overview
Leigh Hunt's "Feast of the Poets" is a buoyant, satirical poem that stages a mock banquet where contemporary poets are summoned, sized up, and served slices of judgment. Written in the early 1810s and revised across editions, the poem blends playful invective with genuine critical sense, using the convivial setting of a feast to dramatize aesthetic quarrels of the Romantic era. Hunt assumes the role of host and commentator, arranging a public parlor game that lets him praise, prod, and parody the leading literary personalities of his day.
The poem's conceit is simple and theatrical: poets arrive at a table, each presented with a dish that symbolizes their poetic virtues and vices. Hunt's wit transforms literary criticism into social comedy, so readers learn as much about the taste of the age as about the poets themselves. The piece functions simultaneously as caricature, appraisal, and manifesto for a more open, affectionate standard of poetic value.

Satirical Frame and Structure
The banquet frame gives Hunt a flexible structure. Scenes shift between ceremonial pronouncements and direct addresses to individual poets, allowing bursts of epigrammatic satire alongside longer, more sympathetic sketches. The ritualized language of the feast, invocations, toasts, and culinary metaphors, creates a witty distance that invites laughter while sharpening critical judgments.
This theatricality keeps the poem lively and varied. Hunt balances mock solemnity with conversational asides, so the work reads at once like a public roast and a series of literary notes. The resulting tone is urbane and teasing rather than merely mean-spirited, which lets Hunt be sharply corrective without alienating readers who prefer convivial energy to scorched-earth denunciation.

Portraits of Contemporary Poets
Hunt turns his eye to the major figures of the period, sketching them in a few memorable strokes. Poets associated with the Lake School are portrayed with both admiration and gentle irony; their strengths in contemplation and descriptive power are acknowledged even as Hunt lampoons tendencies toward obscurity or excessive solemnity. Others are satirized for mannerism, bombast, or conventional taste, each caricature revealing a perceived mismatch between personality and poetic mode.
These portraits do more than lampoon: they are critical portraits that aim to correct. Hunt rewards spontaneity, warmth, and linguistic directness, while he punishes what he sees as the pretensions of dogmatic critics and the dullness of overly didactic verse. The poem thus serves as a kind of candid conversation about who should be admired and why, with individual sketches operating as rhetorical nudges toward a more humane literary standard.

Themes and Tone
Central themes include the social role of the poet, the value of natural expression, and resistance to aesthetic orthodoxies. Hunt champions sympathetic, accessible writing and warns against the twin dangers of pedantry and overwrought grandeur. Humor functions as moral and critical oxygen: by making subjects laughable, Hunt frees readers to rethink entrenched judgments and to consider new, livelier alternatives.
Despite the satire, an underlying generosity remains. Praise and ridicule are often interwoven, and Hunt's mockery typically aims to correct rather than simply to crush. The tone mixes conviviality, irony, and occasional moral earnestness, producing a piece that is both entertaining and ideologically pointed.

Reception and Legacy
The poem caused a stir among contemporary readers and helped to cement Hunt's reputation as a spirited critic and central figure in the literary culture of his time. Its mixture of criticism and comedy influenced later satirical approaches to literary judgment and contributed to wider debates about taste and the public role of poetry. As a document of its moment, "Feast of the Poets" remains a vivid record of Romantic-era literary skirmishes and a lively example of criticism performed as entertainment.