CHAPTER l l
Before Theory: Romantic Roamings
W h e n Harold Bloom entered the arena of literary
criticism i n t h e l a t e 1950's, readers immediately
recognized that they were confronting "one o f the most
challenging and audacious theoretical voices o f the past
several decades" (Fite, Preface xi). The term "theoretical"
here i s t o be understood i n the sense of "critical" because
at a time when the profession of literary criticism was
recording tremendous progress by featuring criticism
written about criticism, Bloom had the i n t e l l e c t u a l
audacity t o make a strong plea to return t o the poem
itself, to the world of literature. And for Bloom, the world
of literature i s the world of romantic poetry. He opened
his account i n literary criticism with h i s book-length study
of Shelley's poetry anc ever afterwards, h e has faithfully
held on to the one subiect of interest to him
- the
infinite
possibilities o f the romantic imagination.
T h e f i r s t book to be published by Bloom was
Shelley's Mythmaking i n 1 9 5 9 . Along with an introductory
chapter on the mythopoeic mode based o n Martin Buber's
distinction between 'I-'Thou' and ' I - I t ' words, it contains
detailed analysis of Shelley's mythmaking i n h i s important
poems l i k e "1816 Hymns," Prometheus Unbound, "Ode to
the W e s t Wind," "The Sensitive Plant," "The Witch of
Atlas," "Epipsychidion" and "The Triumph of Life."
I t i s s a i d that forthcoming events cast their shadows
beforehand. This i s true of Shelley's Mythmaking,
because i t i s an indication of what i s to be expected from
Bloom. T h e book undertakes a very minute and detailed
interpretation of Shelley's poems i n the New Critical
mode. At the same time the difference i n approach - at
least the desire to be different - i s quite evident from the
very first l i n e of the introduction. Instead of introducing
the subject o f study i n the conventional m o d e Bloom goes
on elaborating Buber's distinction between the two
primary words, / - T h o u and /-It. Later i n the book, he
states beyond doubt that the purpose of the book is to
demonstrate that Shelley i s a passionately religious poet,
"who formulates his religion by the actual writing of his
poems, t h e making of his myths, and further to
demonstrate the nature of those myths, by a close
reading o f the actual f ~ g u r e si n which they are embodied
i n the poems" (67).
I n the introductory chapter, Bloom explains three
kinds o f mythopoeic poetry, based on Buber's distinction
between 'I-Thou' and ' I - I t . ' I n the first, the p o e t uses a
given mythology, but extends its range o f significance
without violating it i n spirit. Shelley's "Hymn of Apollo"
and "Hymn of Pan" are good examples. T h e second kind
of myth poetry i s rather primitive because it embodies the
direct perception of a "Thou" i n natural objects or
phenomena. The poet enters into a relationship with a
natural "Thou" and the relationship i t s e l f constitutes the
myth. I n the third kind, which i s more complex, the poet
creates h i s own myth instead of adhering to traditionally
formulated myths. Shelley's major poems, according to
Bloom, manifest this third kind of mythopoeia.
B e f o r e beginning the analysis of Shelley's "1816
Hymns," Bloom closely analyses Coleridge's "Hymn
Before Sunrise" and Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey Lines."
This i s t o indicate how Shelley's poems show a clear
affinity t o these poems "Mont Blanc," "Hymn to
I n t e l l e c t u a l Beauty" ancl "Zucca" are analyzed i n detail.
Bloom illustrates how Shelley's poems are related t o one
another a n d a l s o t o t h e poems of other romantic poets
l i k e Coleridge and Wordsworth.
I n t h e introductioli to the study of Prometheus
Unbound, Bloom begins with an analysis o f the epigraph
to give i t a meaning which no other editor or scholar
seems t o have noticed. The influence o f Blake and Milton
i n Prometheus Unbound i s carefully traced and
established. Bloom also refers t o the other
representations of Prometheus i n world literature.
A pretty long study of the "Ode t o the West Wind"
follows. Bloom points out that the subject o f the poem is
the nature and function of the prophet. Blake and Shelley
are poets o f the class of Ezekiel. According to Bloom, an
earlier poem which most resembles the Ode i s "The Song
of Deborah" t h a t celebrates courage and f a i t h as prime
virtues of a people. He calls to his help Buber's
interpretation of the earlier poem to show that Shelley's
Ode i s a myth-making poem. Poets before Shelley like
Lucretius, Virgil, Horace and Milton have addressed their
praises t o the wind, which is favourable to life. But no
one has invoked, like Shelley, the West Wind, which is a
destroyer and not a creator. While interpreting the poem,
Bloom quotes almost all the important scholars before him
who have tried t o do so. Finally he brings everything
round t o Buber's 'I- tho^^' relationship, thus making his
approach different from that of all h i s predecessors.
I n the detailed analysis of Prometheus Unbound,
Bloom draws all kinds of parallels and analogues from
other writers and considers various p o s s i b i l i t i e s o f mutual
influences and affinities. He does not forget t o make a
tongue-in-the-cheek remark about readers who are
interested i n reading critical material on the poems
without reading the poems themselves: "[. . . ] our peculiar
literary vice i s to have forgotten how t o read a long poem,
though we are a l l of us adept at reading and judging
essays and even books devoted to the examination of
long poems we ourselves i n fact have n o t r e a d , or are not
able to read" ( 1 10).
Bloom describes "The Sensitive Plant" as "a
prelude t o a greater visionary poem by Shelley, 'The
Witch of Atlas"'(148). l i e cannot discuss a poem i n
isolation, b u t has to relate i t to other poems by the same
author or t o poems by other poets. This method reminds
us o f T.S.Eliot's view of tradition i n his legendary essay
"Tradition and the Individual Talent." Spenser i s the
ancestor o f Shelley as far as "The Sensitive Plant" i s
concerned. Hence Spenser's poem "Muiopotmos" i s
discussed first. Blake's "The Book o f Thel" i s also
discussed as a potential precursor o f Shelley's poem.
Bloom registers his protest against T.S.Eliot who
had dismissed "The Witch of Atlas" as a " t r i f l e . " I n his
opinion, "The W i t c h of Atlas" rates as one of Shelley's
best long poems and the supreme example of mythmaking poetry in English. I t i s the culmination of the
Spenserian tradition and itself i n turn i s the ancestor of
many f i n e poems o f Yeats.
Bloom admits that biographical facts and sources
are necessary for a complete approach t o poems like
"Epipsychidion." His approach to such poems i s
incomplete because he has focused only on the
mythopoeic aspect of the poems. Dante i s the chief
influence on "Epipsychidion," b u t he i s more useful as a
contrast. I n this poem the confrontation o f a 'thou' i n one
human b e i n g by the 'I' i n another i s set f o r t h as the
theme.
Bloom i s of the view that the fragment "Triumph of
Life" h a s been misread by a l l the commentators who have
written on it. But they made valuable contributions
regarding the sources of the poem and interpretation of
d i f f i c u l t passages. The influences of Dante and Spenser
are important i n the reading of the poem. Various
passages are examined by Bloom against the background
of explanations given by scholars before him.
Bloom who i s a romantic critic to the core, published
his second book The Visionary Company i n 1961. I t i s a
study o f the six major English Romantic poets. The
introductory chapter 'Prometheus Rising ..." discusses the
social, political and economic background o f English
Romantic poetry. Bloom observes that one of the major
English contributions to world literature was t h e startling
phenomenon of six major poets appearing i n just two
generations. The Romantic age saw the end of the old
p a s t o r a l England and the beginning o f a new industrial
nation. Power passed from the aristocracy and upper
middle class to a new class including i n d u s t r i a l
employers. I n addition to the peasantry and city artisans,
the common people of England now included the huge
class of tormented industrial workers. This emerging
class was greatly influenced by the American Revolution
and t h e French Revolution in the last quarter o f the
eighteenth century.
England, which was already shaken by continental
wars and economic anarchy, was beginning to experience
social unrest. The ruling class responded to this by
imposing an effective repression. There was considerable
protest against this but England lacked the means and
leadership t o effectively organize t h i s p r o t e s t . The great
writers o f the period reacted to this stagnant situation by
an i n t e r n a l movement, that created a new kind of poetry,
which we now c a l l romantic poetry.
The term "Romantic" was used by later Victorian
literary historians to describe the literary period that was
contemporary with the French Revolution and the
Napoleonic wars. But now the word i s used t o mean not
only that period, says Bloom, b u t to refer t o "a kind of art
that i s timeless and recurrent as well, usually viewed as
being i n some kind of opposition t o an art c a l l e d classical
or neo-classical" (xvi). The six major poets of the period
shared the spirit of the age - the optimistic b e l i e f that "a
renovated universe was possible
- that
l i f e c o u l d never
again b e what i t had been" (xvi).
Bloom observes that the religious background of the
Romantic poets was i n the tradition of Protestant dissent,
"the k i n d o f non-conformist vision that descended from
the l e f t wing of Englanci's P u r i t a n m o v e m e n t " (xvii). I t was
a d i s p l a c e d Protestantism astonishingly t r a n s f o r m e d by
d i f f e r e n t k i n d s o f humanism or n a t u r a l i s m . T h i s religious
t r e n d a d e q u a t e l y explains the attack on R o m a n t i c poetry
by T . S . E l i o t and his followers. T h e New C r i t i c s t o o
d e p r e c a t e d t h e Romantic p o e t s b e c a u s e they b r o k e away
from C h r i s t i a n i t y and attempted t o f o r m u l a t e p e r s o n a l
r e l i g i o n s i n their poetry. Bloom t r a c e s t h e b e g i n n i n g of
t h i s P r o t e s t a n t grouping back to Spenser and Milton from
where it p a s s e s through the major R o m a n t i c a n d Victorian
poets, r e a c h i n g up to Hardy and Lawrence i n t h e
t w e n t i e t h century. T h e poets brought i n t o favour by Eliot
a n d t h e New C r i t i c s
-
Donne, Herbert, D r y d e n , Pope,
Hopkins a n d E l i o t himself
- were
C a t h o l i c s or High
Church A n g l i c a n s . Bloom maintains t h a t t h e r e a r e two
m a i n t r a d i t i o n s of English Poetry and "what distinguishes
t h e m a r e n o t only aesthetic c o n s i d e r a t i o n s b u t conscious
d i f f e r e n c e s i n religion and p o l i t i c s " (xvii). O n e i s the
Protestant, R a d i c a l , Miltonic-Romantic line, w h i c h
a c c o r d i n g to Bloom i s t h e central l i n e . T h e o t h e r i s
C a t h o l i c , conservative and C l a s s i c a l .
T h e R e s t o r a t i o n and Augustan p o e t s t r e a t e d man
"as a d i s t i n c t l y l i m i t e d being, set i n a c o n t e x t of reason,
nature a n d society that ordered his horizons and denied
any possibility of a radical alteration in h i s mundane
hopes" (xxi). Hence they were haunted by t h e fear of
psychic energy and the conviction t h a t death i n life
awaited any poet who indulged his imagination. Romantic
poetry o n the other hand is distinguished by apocalyptic
longings t o b e achieved through and i n imagination.
According t o Bloom, the centre o f Romantic poetic theory
i s "the astonishingly fecund and bewilderingly varied
concept of imagination" (xxii).
Romantic self-exaltation has been viewed as mere
megalomania by many modern critics l i k e I r v i n g Babbitt,
T.E.Hulme, T.S.Eliot and the academic New Critics. But
for Bloom, i t i s a metaphysic, " a vision, a way of seeing
and of living a more human life" (xxiii
- xxiv).
The hope of
the Romantic poets was that poetry, "by expressing the
whole man, could either liberate him from h i s fallen
condition or, more compellingly, make h i m see that
condition as unnecessary, as an unimaginative fiction that
an awakened spirit could slough off" (xxiv). Based on this
vision, Bloom proceeds to perform a reading of the six
great p o e t s who, though so different i n their reactions to
the theme of imaginatjon, had i n common, a quality o f
passion a n d largeness i n speech and i n response t o life.
All o f them knew that the theory o f poetry is the theory of
life.
After the illuminating introduction, Bloom examines
the poetry o f the six major Romantic poets in six
chapters. A l l the important poems are subjected t o
detailed analysis. A brief chapter 7 is devoted to the
poetry of Beddoes, Clare, Darley and others.
In a brief epilogue Bloom observes that no mode of
criticism has dehumanized poetry more than
structuralism. But Romantic poetry, which has survived
several varieties of reduction, will survive the
structuralists against whom it offers a fierce counter
critique. English poets were and are romantic, as poets
used t o b e Christians whether they wanted t o b e or not.
We today cannot read Romantic poetry as i t was meant to
be read. Too many shadows have fallen between the
Romantics a n d ourselves. The freedom t o know appears
to have been lost. The sorrows of poetic influence blight
readers and critics even as they afflict poets. Our
readings are swerving into language.
Yeats, published in 1970, i s a book-length study of
the twentieth century Romantic poet who comes at this
end o f the line o f visionary poets. Bloom describes this
book as "a prolegomenon to a larger study o f poetic
influence, i n addition t o being a critical reading o f Yeats
[. .
.I"
(vii). Yeats's ancestors in the line of vision are
Blake and Shelley and his achievements are judged
against theirs. According to Bloom, Yeats, Hardy and
Wallace Stevens are tne twentieth century English poets
who merit comparison with the major poets of the
nineteenth century. His dislike for poets like T.S.Eliot and
Auden is quite evident when he predicts that they may
prove to b e the Cowley and Cleveland of this age.
The introductory chapter of Yeats gives a clear
indication o f the theory of poetic influence i n the making.
Though his theory differs considerably from that of
Borges, Bloom admits that he has accepted Borges's idea
of the p o e t ' s creation of a precursor as his starting point.
He briefly explains his idea of poetic influence and
introduces some o f the terms used in his l a t e r books on
theory.
Bloom i s so much preoccupied with h i s own theory
o f p o e t i c influence that he cannot treat any poet i n
isolation. I n the book on Yeats also he begins by
comparing various approaches t o Yeats's poetry and the
influence o f precursors l i k e Pater, Blake and Shelley. I n
the preface h e admits that a full discussion of Yeats's
work does n o t commence until part way through chapter
6. I n the remaining 19 chapters, a thorough study of
Yeats's poems and the various influences on them i s
carried out i n a strict chronological order.
Yet another study of Romantic poetry, The Ringers
in the Tower, came out i n 1971. It is a collection of
essays, which had already appeared i n other places. I n
the Preface Bloom states that the major subject o f the
essays i s p o e t i c influence conceived as an anxiety
principle or a variety of melancholy, particularly i n regard
to the relations between poets i n the Romantic tradition.
He a l s o suggests that i f the poets are to survive the
anxieties of influence, they must learn to master and unify
themes l i k e the Promethean quest and its failure, the
estrangement of landscape from the imaginative quester
and so on. Out of the total o f twenty-one essays, only
three are devoted to prose works and t h a t t o o because
these prose works
- Frankenstein,
M a r i u s the Epicurean
- are
Ruskin's criticism and
closely connected to prevalent
themes i n poetry.
According to Bloom, The Odyssey i s the
fundamental quest romance and the first romantic poem.
Romance i s a journey toward home o r toward a supreme
t r i a l after which home is possible. We are given a quester
and h i s quest, antagonists and temptations, a presiding
goal. Even when the goal i s delusive, the journey i s more
valuable than the destination so that there i s no sense of
loss. Romanticism fused romance and prophecy.
I n Bloom's opinion, Romantic poetry has been saved
from t h e worst difficulties "by its sense of i t s own
tradition, by the liberating burden of poetic influence"
(10). Though Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton together
formed a colossal covering cherub and prevented the
romantics from certain achievements, they at the same
time compelled them to invent continuously. Invention i s
the positive mode of divination, which i s the essence of
poetic power.
I n the chapter on "The Visionary Cinema o f
Romantic Poetry," Bloom discusses the abundance of
visual d e t a i l i n Romantic poetry, especially i n the poems
of Blake, Shelley and Wordsworth. A l l o f them tend to
make the visible a little hard to see. After reading the
b e a u t i f u l passage from Shelley's "Epipsychidion" in which
Shelley describes Emilna Viviani, we f e e l dissatisfied with
"the ways we ordinarily describe a woman's beauty
- and
even more, with the grossness o f the motion picture
camera or its manipulator [ . .
.I"
(51).
A whole chapter i s devoted to the discussion of the
dialectic o f t h e "Marriage of Heaven and Hell." According
to Bloom, i t i s f u l l o f irony and it is very d i f f i c u l t t o mark
the limits o f this irony. I n another chapter Bloom
discusses i n d e t a i l Blake's Jerusalem, which according to
him has taken Ezekiel's Book as the model for its
structure. Blake's central image o f t h e Merkabah or the
Divine Chariot and the lmages of the Four Zoas are taken
from Ezekiel. Bloom remarks that Ezekiel i s to Jerusalem
as Homer i s t o Aeneid. I n the brief sixth chapter, Bloom
examines t h e romantic treatment of Napoleon and comes
t o the conclusion that i t was Shelley who wrote the proper
Romantic dirge f o r the great hero.
I n the chapter which Bloom c a l l s a n "Introduction to
Shelley," he admits that after many years o f reading
Shelley's poems, he finds nothing i n them that needs
apology. "Shelley i s a unique poet, one o f t h e most
o r i g i n a l i n the language, and he i s i n many ways the poet
proper, as much so as any i n the language" ( 8 7 ) . Those
who try to belittle the great poet are "churchwardenly
critics." Before concluding the essay, Bloom identifies six
major varieties of anti-Shelleyans, namely: 1. The school
of common sense, 2 . The Christian orthodox school,
3.
The s c h o o l o f wit, 4. The Moralists, 5. The school of
classic form and 6. The precisionists or concretists.
T h e b o o k also contains a brief discussion o f Mary
Shelley's n o v e l Frankenstein. Bloom f e e l s t h a t the
importance o f the novel i s that i t contains o n e o f t h e most
vivid versions we have o f the romantic mythology of the
self. According to him the major influences that haunt the
novel are the novels of William Godwin and "The Ancient
Mariner" o f Coleridge.
The essay on "Keats and the Embarrassments o f
Poetic Tradition" begins with the quotation from W.J.Bate
on the paralyzing embarrassment that a rich tradition can
impose on an aspiring young poet. Indirectly hinting at
t h e impending theory oi the anxiety of influence, he
remarks: "Somewhere i n the heart of each new poet there
i s hidden the dark wish that the libraries b e burned i n
some new Alexandrian conflagration, that the imagination
might b e liberated from the greatness and oppressive
power of i t s own dead champions" (131). Keats had the
g i f t of absolute originality, which according t o Bloom, was
given by a clarity in his knowledge of t h e uniqueness and
finality o f human l i f e and death.
I n "Tennyson and the Romantic Tradition," Bloom
declares that Tennyson was the legitimate heir of Keats.
He is the most extreme instance of imagination going one
way a n d the w i l l going quite another. H i s poetry i s manysided. A considerable portion of the essay i s utilized for
discussing Tennyson's poetry in relation t o t h e romantic
poets.
I t seems that Bloom is especially fascinated by
Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" of
which he has written or1 different occasions. Chapter 1 1
o f Ringers in the Tower is a detailed discussion of this
poem. He claims that the truest precursor o f Childe
Roland is Shelley. Bloom points out that the dominant
mood o f Childe Roland is the anxiety o f influence, "in that
variety o f poetic melancholy that issues from the terrible
strength o f post-Enlightenment literary tradition" (166).
The excellence of the poem is the clinamen or the swerve
i t makes away from i t s precursors, f r o m Shelley i n
particular.
There i s a somewhat lengthy analysis of Ruskin's
literary criticism i n this work. Bloom points out t h a t
Wordsworth's "Immortality Ode" had exerted a haunting
influence on Ruskin. We get a good biography o f the
great c r i t i c and after that an evaluative analysis o f his
literary criticism. Ruskin's achievement c a n b e classified
i n t o three major areas: art, social criticism and literary
criticism. T h e influences behind h i s work are Wordsworth
and Shelley. His ideas and attitudes are examined from
various angles.
Bloom says that Walter Pater's place i n the
Romantic t r a d i t i o n was a consciously chosen one. Pater
i s also one o f the central figures i n the continuity
between Romanticism, Modernism and the emergent
sensibility replacing modernism at t h e time. Bloom
observes that like Eliot, Pater too was a critic, a creator
and a m o r a l i s t at the same time. The essay provides a
detailed interpretation of Marius the Epicurean.
I n t h e chapter o n Lawrence, Eliot, Blackmur and the
Tortoise, Bloom finds fault with Blackmur f o r placing
Lawrence much below Pound and E l i o t and for defending
Eliot as a dogmatic critic and poet. I n h i s opinion,
Lawrence i s the romantic heir o f Coleridge a n d Blake.
The chapter "Poetic Misprision: T h r e e Cases" gives
us Bloom's definition
0.f
poetic influence and revisionism.
Stating that Auden is one of the modern sufferers from
the malady o f poetic influence, he goes on t o explain:
Poetic influence, i n this sense, has little to do
with the transmission of ideas and images from
an earlier poet to a later one. Rather, it
concerns the poet's sense of h i s precursors,
and o f h i s own achievement i n r e l a t i o n t o
theirs. Have they l e f t him room enough, or has
their priority cost him his art? More crucially,
where did they go wrong, s o as to make it
possible for him to go right? I n this revisionary
sense, i n which the poet creates his own
precursors b y necessarily misinterpreting
them, poetic Influence forms and malforms new
poets, and aids their art at the cost of
increasing finally, their already acute sense of
isolation. (209)
'The C e n t r a l Man: Emerson, Whitman and Wallace
Stevens" i s an essay which tries t o drive h o m e B l o o m ' s
belief that, as Emersorr had claimed, the p o e t i s the true
man at the centre of men. Whitman later found the true
centre appearing i n himself. Wallace Stevens who i s heir
to both Emerson and Whitman, is "the ironically yet
passionately balanced fulfillment o f the American
Romantic tradition i n poetry" (218). T h e r e i s a powerful
and direct influence o f Emerson upon Whitman and a
subtler, l e s s direct effect of Whitman on Stevens. But
poetic influence i s as yet "a process about which a l l too
l i t t l e i s presently known anyway" ( 2 1 9 ) .
I n "A Commentary on Notes toward a Supreme
Fiction" Bloom asserts that Stevens had the radiant
fortune to have his most ambitious poem a s h i s best. He
takes t h e p o e m section by section and analyses the whole
poem q u i t e minutely. Chapter 18 i s a comprehensive
interpretation o f the poems o f A.R.Ammons.
Chapter 1 9 , "The Dialectic o f Romantic Poetry in
America" i s a n examination o f four "first volumes" o f
American poetry. Bloonl remarks at the outset o f the
essay t h a t i t i s meant "as prolegomenon t o a projected
larger study o f American Romantic poetry, to b e
conducted o n the princrples of a revisionary theory of
poetic influence, and its consequences f o r practical
criticism" ( 2 9 1 ) . The poets discussed a r e Emerson,
E.A.Robinson, Hart Crane and Alvin Feinman who cover
the p e r i o d from 1846 to 1964. Chapter 20 examines the
view t h a t Romanticism i s opposed t o the rational. Bloom
feels that the great Romantic poets have nothing against
reason.
T h e book concludes with an epilogue i n which Bloom
raises t h e question whether i t i s a new romanticism or
another decadence. At the end of the book, B.loorn fails to
give a d e f i n i t e answer to this question.
The new age of romantic myth in literary criticism
had already been inaugurated by Northrop Frye. The
theory of the visionary imagination of romanticism
presented by Bloom i n his early books belongs fully to
t h i s new trend. Bloom has frequently acknowledged this
indebtedness t o Frye.
One important deviation from conventional romantic
criticism that can be noted in Bloom i s h i s observation
that the Romantics were not poets of nature. H e is also
different from modernist critics in h i s assessment of the
Romantics. According to the modernist critics, Yeats
began as a romantic, but triumphed over romanticism in
h i s l a t e r career. Bloom countered this assumption by
pointing out that Yeats failed as a poet when he
abandoned the visionary power o f imagination.
Bloom places Shelley i n a position o f preeminence
while devaluing in varying degrees the established
Romantics o f traditional criticism like Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Byron and Keats. He has practically nothing to
say o f Byron. Even Coleridge, who was held i n some
esteem by the New Critics, was almost ignored by him.
David Fite points out that there i s "ample evidence
throughout his writings to suggest t h a t Shelley, n o t Blake
or Stevens or Emerson remains the p o e t closest to his
own heart's desires" (Fite 27).
From the very beginning, Bloom's reading of
romantic and modern poetry challenges the main
assumptions o f the modernist approach t o literary texts.
His early books are an extended polemic against the
tradition immediately preceding him that had slighted all
the romantics except Coleridge and that had quite
contemptuously dismissed Shelley. His literary career has
been a n incessant struggle with New Humanism, New
Criticism and the "neo-Christian matrix of modern AngloCatholic letters" represented by Eliot, Auden and Lewis
(Bloom, Ringers 207). Romantic imagination, according to
Bloom, i s an infinite and inexpressible desire i n the
process o f trying to utter itself. His attempt i s t o subsume
Modernism by h i s special version o f visionary
Romanticism and thereby to deliver a resounding blow
against critical tradition. He based his reading method on
a powerful b u t narrow definition of Romanticism as a
primarily visionary mode. As Fite points out, he "fully
engages the imaginative life of the works he admires, and
thus replaces New Critical 'objectivity' with his own
distinctly passionate advocacy of, and prophecy about,
the Romantic cause" (Fite 31).