Description
Book SynopsisM. H. Abrams''s writings on the Romantics have had an incalculable influence on the literary history of his time. High Romantic Argument, treating as it does various aspects of Abrams''s work, is in a sense an appraisal of that history. Arising from a conference held in his honor at Cornell University in the spring of 1978, it is made up of essays by six distinguished contributors who explore important critical questions related directly or indirectly to Abrams''s work and its broader implications. The essays deal with Wordsworth as a prophet (Geoffrey Hartman) and as a poet of silence (Jonathan Wordsworth); history as metaphor (Wayne C. Booth); the nature of the critical canon (Thomas McFarland); the personal element in literary history (Lawrence Lipking); and the relation of Abrams''s work to current developments in literary criticism (Jonathan Culler).
Two central themes run throughout: the radically metaphorical nature of Romantic thought and the tendency of today''
