Mirror and the Lamp, The: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition

Traces the evolution of the Romantic approach to literary criticism and compares it to the other methods which prevailed in the early nineteenth century. Interesting and very thorough history of literary criticism as pertaining to poetry. It was published in the 1950s so does not include any of the more modern theories or stances but gives a very good idea of the foundations on which attitudes to art and poetry are based. It is quite technical at times and so perhaps not very useful as an introduction to the subject as even after getting a degree in literature I found myself struggling at times. I suppose some of the beliefs about what poetry should be seem to ignore the reader which for me is paramount so they appear quite bizarre. It is remarkable that the importance of the reader has only been considered seriously in fairly modern times.” pp. vii