English Romantic Poets: Modern Essays in Criticism (Galaxy Books)

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Summary: Romantic (and anti-Romantic) ponderings
Review: 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.