The Romantic Image
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Romantic Image (1957) is a book on Romantic poetry by Frank Kermode.
In its preface it says it is indebted to Romantic Agony by Italian critic Mario Praz, The Romantic Soul and the Dream (for which at one time he produced a foreword) by Swiss critic Albert Béguin, The Mirror and the Lamp by M. H. Abrams and The Symbolist Aesthetic in France, 1885-1895 by A. G. Lehmann.
Kermode looks at two assumptions of relevance to modern poetry and criticism: first, "the image is the `primary pigment' of poetry," and, second, "the poet, who uses it is by that very fact differentiated from other men, and seriously at odds with the society in which he must live." He calls these ideas "thoroughly Romantic," and maintains that they remain fundamental for twentieth century writers and critics.
