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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 March 2010
The poetry of the age of Wordsworth … is great, we say to ourselves but why is it not greater still? It shows a wonderful abundance of genius: why does it not show an equal accomplishment? The disappointment that we feel attends … mainly our reading of the long poems.
A. C. Bradley, ‘The Long Poem in Wordsworth's Age’, in Oxford Lectures on Poetry, p. 177The Romantic poets … found a new language, but clung to old forms; yet their best poetry transcends the limitations of those forms which conflict with the essential purposes of the poet, and the completion of the ostensible structure ceases to matter.
R. A. Foakes, The Romantic Assertion, p. 58To Generalize is to be an Idiot.
William Blake, Marginalia to Sir Joshua Reynolds' Discourses (1798)We have now followed the history of the romantic tale in verse from its beginnings up until the time when it was practically at an end. As in a mosaic we have pieced together the details. Has a recognizable pattern been identified? Has it been possible to understand the ‘generic character’ of this type of poetry? Have we found the ‘key’ to this whole field, which W. M. Dixon said did not exist?
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