Summary
Foakes, R. A. The Romantic Assertion
Foakes begins with a discussion of
modern criticism of Romantic poetry.
He says that modern poetry has one
commitment: the commitment to metaphor.
Consequently, modern critics wrongly
accuse some Romantic poetry of being
inadequate in this respect when it
is they who are missing the "skillful
writing of a kind of poetry which
they do not understand because they
do not like that kind of poetry"
(22). The following chapters explain
how the Romantic poet used poetic
imagery in their poems and defines
the primary task of the Romantic
poet: to produce order out of chaos.
The concluding chapters explore individual
works including: Wordsworth's The
Prelude, Keats's The Eve of St. Agnes,
Shelley's Adonais, Tennyson's In
Memoriam, and Browning's Men and
Women.
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Jesse D. Hurlbut--Last Updated November 5, 1993