Readers often mistakenly treat Romantic poetry as a poetry of doctrine. It is predominantly a poetry of question, asking rather than telling. Like Descartes in his Meditations, the Romantic poet searches for certainty, employing the test of doubt, submitting supposed certainties to question. As with Descartes, the search leads into the realm of mental activity. But unlike Descartes, the Romantic poet finds further questions here: Cogito, but in what ways does man think? Romantic poetry has two main movements. First, the poetry works in several ways to expose doctrine to question, suspending a reader's sense of certainty. Next, the poetry explores what underlies doctrine, the basic data of mental experience from which doctrine is constructed. These movements establish a number of patterns in the poetry. The Romantic poet does not find certainty, but this failure is the poetry's success: it challenges man's ability to construct doctrine out of the data of experience.