Spasmodic School

Spasmodic School, a name applied to a group of English poets about the middle of the 19th century, among whom were Philip James Bailey, Sydney Dobell, and Alexander Smith. The name implied an overstrained and unnatural method of sentiment and expression, which sometimes grew out of sheer affection and not seldom sank hopelessly into bathos. Professor Aytoun's Firmilian (1854) was an excellent burlesque of the high-strung and grandiose style of these poets who took themselves much too seriously, and were for a moment also taken at their own valuation by the world.