In this essay T.S. Elliot discusses the theme of the richness of the English language considering it as the richest language for poetry. He demonstrates his statements with several qualifications, clarifications, examples and refutations of contrary statements.
In the first qualifications of statement the essayist wants to highlight that his thesis doesn't mean that England has produced the greatest poets or amount of poetry, but he wants to demonstrate his thesis considering that English language has the largest vocabulary. Its richness is due to the variety of element of which English is made of: Germanic,Scandinavian,Norman French,Latin and Celtic elements. In addiction, he refers to its rhythm variety and linguistic sources in support of his thesis(e.g. Saxon,Norman French,Welsh,Latin and Greek rhythm).
Further the essayist highlights the fact that England has not necessarily produced the greatest poets and he denies the general thought that the greatest people excel in one art (e.g. England in poetry, Italy and France in painting, Germany in music) because no one country had a possession of any art and there have been periods when another country has taken a "lead" in one art (e.g. France and England in the second half od 19th century). He makes a further refutation of this thought confirming that a nation which leads in a particular art form in a particular period does not necessarily produce the greatest artists (e.g. the comparison between Goethe and Wordsworth).
The essayist continues affirming the importance of neighboring countries in art's developing.
In the conclusion T.S. Elliot delineates two most important poetry's factors for renewing itself: ability to receive and assimilate influences from abroad and ability to go back and learn from its own sources
The language used by essayist is simple, clear and focus the reader's attention to the meaning of text, while the structure with logical sequences leads the reader to the point made by essayist.