Forms of Discovery begins with a short introductory chapter, in which Yvor Winters summarises his theory of poetry.

(He goes on to explain the functions of metre, rhythm, syntax, and grammar in poetry.) It should be noted that Winters's account of poetry omits all reference to invention, imagination, or feigning. The core of it is his insistence that a poem is a ‘rational statement’ about ‘reality’. And as ‘reality’ is defined as ‘the realm which we perceive with our unaided senses’, it is not easy to see how invention, imagination, or feigning come in. We may also wonder how the critic is to decide whether a poem's ‘rational statement’ is ‘understandable and acceptable’, and whether the ‘feeling’ it motivates is ‘proper’. To take an example. The poet wishes to say ‘I think longingly of my beloved's beauty.’