Romanticism in literature is a quality of frequent recurBut towards the end of the eighteenth century circumstances shaped a particular form of romanticism from which there developed an explicit conception of poetry. In the present book this conception will be considered chiefly as it was formulated by six English romantics-Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, De Quincey, Shelley, and Keats. From the work of these writers there emerges, in spite of individual differences, a coherent theory of the poet's function, more definite and more comprehensive than any which has since been formulated in this country. Throughout the nineteenth century this doctrine was the chief influence on English poetic creation and criticism. But for the last two generations there have been 'signs, finding perhaps their best expression in Pater's essay on Style, and continued in the protests of more recent writers,1 that these romantics have not said the last word, and that poetry has done and will do things which do not belong to their philosophy. The tone of criticism, in all its branches, has undergone a change. And after a period of hesitation and conflicting tendencies we have been confronted with a new comprehensive theory of art in the æsthetic of Benedetto Croce. In the classroom, in the newspapers and in the minds of the ordinary educated public, philosophical opinions, especially those which flatter our nature and have the authority of great names, commonly retain their ascendancy long after it has begun to be questioned by the leaders of thought. In this fact lies my original motive for undertaking the present work, as well as my chief justification for publishing it. In my own mind the romantic theory—or rather, 1 Cf. for example Flecker's apology for the French Parnassians (Preface to The Golden Journey to Samarkand). One may note also the predominance of conscious self-expression over narrative and observation in modern painting and fiction. This is good evidence that Croce fulfils what he himself believes to be the philosopher's task-namely, to define the new matter of a new age. religion-died hard, and I felt the need to make clear to myself the intellectual grounds of my apostasy. I have not set out either to praise or to disparage the great achievements of romantic art and criticism-in our time the one would be superfluous and the other impertinent-but to state and examine, in the light of Croce's searching analysis, the theoretical presuppositions which underlie these achievements, and to study the relation between the theory and the practice of certain English romantics. The plan of the book is as follows. In the first chapter the romantic view of poetry is presented in its main features, as it became a working influence upon English literary opinion. For the convenience of non-philosophical readers a similar, but rather fuller, exposition of Croce's view is given in Chapter II. The six following chapters deal severally with the work of the six above-named English romantics: an attempt is made to trace in detail the influences, temperamental and external, which fostered or modified in each writer the development of romanticism, to examine the relation to his theoretical opinions of his critical or creative work, and to compare the conclusions thus reached with the æsthetic doctrine of Croce. This method inevitably involves some repetition; but while certain broad principles are common to all or nearly all the writers in question, it will be found that each of them approached the romantic position by his own path, and that each made his distinctive contribution to the architecture of the common edifice. The last chapter is in the nature of an appendix; in it I have tried to formulate and discuss certain difficulties in Croce's teaching, of which I became aware only after the greater part of the book was composed, and which, though they have not caused me to modify seriously my earlier judgement upon the romantic contention, make it impossible for me fully to accept Croce's solution of the æsthetic problem. I am acutely conscious of the inconclusive character of the discussions in this chapter. But to suppress my doubts would have been scarcely honest; to seek complete answers to them would have been to essay the construction not only of a new æsthetic but of a new metaphysic. For the leisure to write this work and the opportunity to publish it I am indebted to the generosity of the late William Noble, founder of the fellowship of that name at Liverpool University. My thanks are due to Professor Oliver Elton for much helpful criticism and encouragement; to Professor L. P. de Castelvecchio for her revision of my translations from the Italian; to Dr. E. de Selincourt for his courtesy in allowing me to make use of his edition of The Prelude before its publication; and chiefly to my husband, who besides furnishing materials for my study of the influence of Plato and the Neoplatonists, also undertook the tedious labour of preparing my MS. for the press, when the accidental loss of a large part of it, together with two years of illness, had almost caused me to abandon the thought of publication. |