Summary
Bayley, John. The Romantic Survival
Summary by David Marra
In this book, Bayley compares a few
questions of Romantic writers in
a section called "The Romantic Dilemmas."
The first, "Annex or Survive," discusses
the reasons and ways in which writers
of the Romantic period broke away
from Classical traditions. "Prose
or Poetry?" takes a brief look at
the differences between the two,
asserting that "the novelists rather
than the poets of the nineteenth
century are the real beneficiaries
of the Romantic endowment" (15).
The third chapter, "Romance or Reality,"
deals with the subject matter of
the period's literature. Poetry
attempted to represent reality, while
Romantic fiction was fantasy. Other
chapters discuss the relationship
between a poet's mind and the outside
world, and the different attitudes
toward poetry analysis. The second
section of the book, entitled "The
Romantic Survival," contains more
detailed studies of W. B. Yeats,
W. H. Auden, and Dylan Thomas.
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Jesse D. Hurlbut--Last Updated November 5, 1993