Natural supernaturalism: tradition and revolution in romantic literature

769 Pages·1973·3.77 MB·English

by  Meyer Howard Abrams

Natural
Supernaturalism
TRADITION AND REVOLUTION
IN ROMANTIC LITERATURE
M. H. ABRAMS
W · W · NORTON & COMPANY
New York London
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 10 Coptic Street, London WC1A 1PU
Copyright © 1971 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
First published in the Norton Library 1973
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Books That Live
The Norton imprint on a book means that in the publisher's
estimation it is a book not for a single season but for the years.
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Abrams, Meyer Howard.
Natural supernaturalism: tradition and revolution in
romantic literature.
( Norton library)
Indudes bibliographical references.
1. Romanticism. I. Title.
[PN603.A3 1973]
809'.9'14
73-7855
ISBN 0-393-00609-3
Printed in the United States of America
6 7 8 9 0
For Jane
and
For Judy
[This page intentionally left blank.]
Contents
PREFACE 11
O N E / "This Is Our High Argument" 17
1. Wordsworth's Program for Poetry 21
2. The Design of Biblical History 32
3. The Shape of Things to Come: The Apocalyptic
37
Marriage
4. Christian History and Christian Psycho-Biography 46
5. Alternative Ways to the Millennium: Progress and
56
Revolution
6. Natural Supernaturalism 65
T W O / Wordsworth's Prelude and the
Crisis-Autobiography 71
1. The Idea of The Prelude 74
2. Proust's Gothic Church 80
3. The Art of Augustine's Confessions 83
4. The Transactions of Mind and Nature 88
5. The Theodicy of the Private Life 95
6. The Theodicy of the Landscape 97
7. The Redemptive Imagination 117
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8. The New Mythus: Wordsworth, Keats, and Carlyle 122
9. Wordsworth as Evangelist 134
T H R E E / The Circuitous Journey: Pilgrims and
Prodigals 141
1. The Great Circle: Pagan and Christian
146
Neoplatonism
2. Divided and Reunited Man: The Esoteric
154
Tradition
3. The Prodigal's Return 164
4. Forms of Romantic Imagination 169
F O U R / The Circuitous Journey: Through
Alienation to Reintegration 197
1. The Paradox of the Fortunate Division: Schiller and
201
Universal History
2. Romantic Philosophy and the High Romantic
217
Argument
3. Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit: Metaphysical
Structure and Narrative Plot 225
4. Some Other Educational Travelers: Hölderlin's
Hyperion, 237
Goethe's Faust, the Romances of Novalis
F I V E / The Circuitous Journey: From Blake to
D. H. Lawrence 253
1. Unity Lost and Integrity Earned: Blake and
256
Coleridge
2. Wordsworth: The Long Journey Home 278
3. Romantic Love 292
4. Shelley's Prometheus Unbound 299
5. Carlyle and His Contemporaries 307
6. Four Versions of the Circuitous Return: Marx,
Nietzsche, 313
Eliot, Lawrence
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s I X / Revelation, Revolution, Imagination, and
Cognition 325
1. Apocalypse by Revolution 329
2. Apocalypse by Imagination 335
3. Apocalypse by Cognition 348
4. The Politics of Vision: Mastery, Servitude, and
356
Freedom
S E V E N / The Poet's Vision: The New Earth and the
Old 373
1. Freshness of Sensation 377
2. Moments 385
3. Transvaluations 390
4. Hamann and Wordsworth: Some Parallels in Spiritual
399
Discovery
E I G H T / The Poet's Vision: Romantic and
Post-Romantic 409
1. Freshness of Sensation and the Disordering of the
412
Senses
2. Varieties of the Modern Moment 418
3. The Romantic Positives 427
4. The World's Song of Life and Joy 431
5. The Romantic Reverdie 437
6. Hope and Dejection 442
7. The Eagle and the Abyss 448
A P P E N D I X / Wordsworth's Prospectus for The
Recluse 463
1. In the Preface to The Excursion 465
2. The Manuscripts of the Prospectus 470
NOTES 481
INDEX 533
ILLUSTRATIONS BETWEEN PAGES 464 AND 465
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