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Title: English Romantic Poets: Modern Essays in Criticism by M.H. Abrams ISBN: 0-19-501946-6 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: September, 1975 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Romantic (and anti-Romantic) ponderings
Comment: This collection of essays represents a field of perspectives so widely diverse and, in many cases, antipathetical, that it really amounts to too much for a short review like this to give it its full due.-The apt alternative: to give a brief description of the book, and then pick a couple excerpts from essays I like or dislike in the book and explain why.-First of all, the book is not for the shallow-minded. All the essays (with a couple exceptions) are well thought-out explications and critiques of viewpoints of Romantic poems and poets which require considerable exertion of mind to comprehend. The exceptions occur in essays where the writers are too dismissive of certain poets and poems and fail to exert THEIR minds, possibly because of incapacity. Such is the case when F.R. Leavis dismisses the first lines of Shelley's towering, contemplative poem "Mount Blanc" (along with all the rest of Shelley's poetry, one might add) as "...insortably and indistinguishably confused." The lines in question: "The everlasting universe of things flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, now dark-now glittering-now reflecting gloom-now lending splendour, where from secret springs the source of human thought its tribute brings of waters-with a sound but half its own..." These first few lines of the great poem are not that hard to make sense of if one but puts forth half an effort: The contemplative human mind is the passive recepient of all it perceives (i.e., the everlasting universe of things) which like a great river in different parts of its course will exhibit differing reflections and imaginings; whereas the mind, "the source of human thought" is but a tributary to this great river, "with a sound but half its own." In other words, mere human thoughts pale in comparison to the torrent of impressions (i.e., the everlasting universe of things) flowing through the mind. But Leavis had his mind made up, and it is doubtful he even gave the poem a chance, such was his animus for Shelley, as evinced in the rest of his essay-But there, C.S. Lewis in his essay in defense of Shelley offers a fine riposte, "I address myself, of course, only to those who are prepared, by toleration of the theme, to let the poem have a fair hearing. For those who are not, we can only say that they may doubtless be very worthy people, but they have no place in the European tradition."-Ouch!-And also Pottle in his fine essay, "The Case of Shelley," attributes such dismissals as that of Mr. Leavis to "...the very human but unregenerate passion for bullying other people." OK, I've said more than enough for the prospective reader to get an idea of what this book is about: the continuing battle over what the Romantics are all about and what they mean to us, if anything. I, personally, would hope the reader would come away from this book with a refreshed notion of how precious and indispensable they are to our appreciation of all poetry and, moreover, to this life itself.
Rating: 5
Summary: Romantiic (and anti-Romantic) ponderings
Comment: This collection of essays represents a field of perspectives so widely diverse and, in many cases, antipathetical, that it really amounts to too much for a short review like this to give it its full due.-The apt alternative: to give a brief description of the book, and then pick a couple excerpts from essays I like or dislike in the book and explain why.-First of all, the book is not for the shallow-minded. All the essays (with a couple exceptions) are well thought-out explications and critiques of viewpoints of Romantic poems and poets which require considerable exertion of mind to comprehend. The exceptions occur in essays where the writers are too dismissive of certain poets and poems and fail to exert THEIR minds, possibly because of incapacity. Such is the case when F.R. Leavis dismisses the first lines of Shelley's towering, contemplative poem "Mount Blanc" (along with all the rest of Shelley's poetry, one might add) as "...insortably and indistinguishably confused." The lines in question: "The everlasting universe of things flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, now dark-now glittering-now reflecting gloom-now lending splendour, where from secret springs the source of human thought its tribute brings of waters-with a sound but half its own..." These first few lines of the great poem are not that hard to make sense of if one but puts forth half an effort: The contemplative human mind is the passive recepient of all it perceives (i.e., the everlasting universe of things) which like a great river in different parts of its course will exhibit differing reflections and imaginings; whereas the mind, "the source of human thought" is but a tributary to this great river, "with a sound but half its own." In other words, mere human thoughts pale in comparison to the torrent of impressions (i.e., the everlasting universe of things) flowing through the mind. But Leavis had his mind made up, and it is doubtful he even gave the poem a chance, such was his animus for Shelley, as evinced in the rest of his essay-But there, C.S. Lewis in his essay in defense of Shelley offers a fine riposte, "I address myself, of course, only to those who are prepared, by toleration of the theme, to let the poem have a fair hearing. For those who are not, we can only say that they may doubtless be very worthy people, but they have no place in the European tradition."-Ouch!-And also Pottle in his fine essay, "The Case of Shelley," attributes such dismissals as that of Mr. Leavis to "...the very human but unregenerate passion for bullying other people." OK, I've said more than enough for the prospective reader to get an idea of what this book is about: the continuing battle over what the Romantics are all about and what they mean to us, if anything. I, personally, would hope the reader would come away from this book with a refreshed notion of how precious and indispensable they are to our appreciation of all poetry and, moreover, to this life itself.
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Title: The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition by Meyer Howard Abrams ISBN: 0195014715 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: January, 1971 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature by Meyer Howard Abrams ISBN: 0393006093 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: August, 1973 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: The Visionary Company: A Reading of English Romantic Poetry by Harold Bloom, William Golding ISBN: 0801491177 Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr Pub. Date: June, 1971 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: The Romantic Ideology by Jerome J. McGann ISBN: 0226558509 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: November, 1991 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Romanticism and Consciousness: Essays in Criticism by Harold Bloom, William Golding ISBN: 0393099547 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: September, 1970 List Price(USD): $20.60 |
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