1) Poetry is not "matter of fact or science."

2) Poetry's purpose is to "act upon the emotions."

3) The interest felt in a novel . . . and is derived from incident.

4) The interest excited by poetry comes from the representation of feeling.

5) Poetry works internally--this is the appeal of poetry.

6) Novels work externally--this is the appeal of eloquence.

7) That which is eloquent aims primarily to achieve a desired effect on other people.

8) That which is poetic is "feeling confessing itself to itself . . . in symbols.

9) Eloquence is heard; poetry is overheard.        

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        Mill begins his search for a definition of what poetry is by telling us what it is not. Poetry is not "matter of fact or science." Poetry's purpose is to "act upon the emotions." Science "addresses itself to the belief" (roughly corresponding to Shelley's category of reason), while poetry addresses itself to the "feelings" (Shelley's category of imagination).
        But, Mill says, poetry isn't the only thing which acts on the emotions. Novelists work to make an emotional impression on readers just as poets do. Here Mill makes his primary categorical distinction: "there is a radical distinction between the interest felt in a novel . . . and the interest excited by poetry; for the one is derived from incident, the other from the representation of feeling." Poetry works internally; novels work externally. Mill calls these the appeals of poetry and of eloquence. That which is eloquent aims primarily to achieve a desired effect on other people; that which is poetic is "feeling confessing itself to itself . . . in symbols which are the nearest possible representations of the feeling in the exact shape in which it exists in the poet's mind." Eloquence is heard; poetry is overheard.
        The passion for story is the passion of an individual's childhood of a society's primitivism: "the minds and hearts of greatest depth and elevation are commonly those which delight in poetry."