M.H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp
Abrams, M.H. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1953.
Oh man, this really is how it's done. Remember how an account can be detailed and historically grounded without being reductive about it? Remember?...
One thing this has finally brought me to articulate is that if you're going to talk seriously about lit and philosophy, you have to distinguish between philosophy and poetics - that is the poetics are rules of art which may imply a philosophy but need not necessarily do so - they are a background for the construction of forms and are not identical with philosophy any more than life itself - though both life and poetic form may be subjected to the interpretive art which aims to distill out the unspoken propositions of philosophy drop by drop - All this needs much more room to spread like the pattern of a Persian carpet into the length and breadth of the treatise I hope to complete if I am granted the time - and yes I have been reading the letters of Keats and have contracted his epistolary style. Gentle Poet! - yours ever - adieu
Oh man, this really is how it's done. Remember how an account can be detailed and historically grounded without being reductive about it? Remember?...
One thing this has finally brought me to articulate is that if you're going to talk seriously about lit and philosophy, you have to distinguish between philosophy and poetics - that is the poetics are rules of art which may imply a philosophy but need not necessarily do so - they are a background for the construction of forms and are not identical with philosophy any more than life itself - though both life and poetic form may be subjected to the interpretive art which aims to distill out the unspoken propositions of philosophy drop by drop - All this needs much more room to spread like the pattern of a Persian carpet into the length and breadth of the treatise I hope to complete if I am granted the time - and yes I have been reading the letters of Keats and have contracted his epistolary style. Gentle Poet! - yours ever - adieu
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