The term spasmodic poets, certainly with some derogatory as well as humorous intention, was applied by William Edmonstoune Aytoun to a group of British poets of the Victorian era. This includes, possibly with justice, George Gilfillan, the friend and inspiration of William McGonagall; Gilfillan worked for 30 years on a long poem. Others associated were Sydney Thompson Dobell, Philip James Bailey, John Stanyan Bigg (1826–1865), Alexander Smith, and possibly Gerald Massey. Spasmodic poetry often took the form of verse drama, the protagonist of which was often a poet. It was characterized by a number of features including "extreme subjectivity" (see Richard Cronin's "The Spasmodics" in A Companion to Victorian Poetry(2002)), which led to the charge that the poetry was egotistical.

The epithet itself is attributed to Thomas Carlyle to Lord Byron. Aytoun's parodic Firmilian: A Spasmodic Tragedy (1854) is credited with getting the verse of the Spasmodic School, to dignify it, laughed down as bombast.