ROMANTICISM AND MODERN POETRY
635
creation." For them, the imagination had a special metaphysical status.
It was not merely one mental faculty among others; it was an inde–
pendent source of truth, through which they gained access--or so they
thought-to a sphere of reality closed to science and the analytical
intellect. Quite properly, Mr. Bowra stresses that the Romantics cannot
be understood unless their belief in the truth-value of the imagination–
their conviction that its products were not mere subjective fantasies–
is thoroughly grasped. The truths of the imagination, or, as we should
call it now, the myth-making faculty, were what the Romantics opposed
to the science of their day.
I.
A. Richards, in his
Coleridge on Imagination,
has remarked that
the Romantic view of imagination, and particularly the problem of the
truth-value of the imagination, raises "the most comprehensive problem
of philosophy." A literary study like
The Romantic Imagination
is hardly
the place where all the complexities of this issue can be explored; but
it is disconcerting, nonetheless, to find Mr. Bowra discussing the matter
in these terms: "Most of us, when we use our imaginations, are in the
first place stirred by some alluring puzzle which calls for a solution, and
in the second place enabled by our own creations in the mind to see
much that was before dark or unintelligible. As our fancies take coherent
shape, we see more clearly what has puzzled and perplexed us. This is
what the Romantics do. They combine imagination and truth because
their creations are inspired and controlled by a peculiar insight." With
Richards' analysis to draw upon, it is difficult to understand why Mr.
Bowra could not have formulated this crucial question more adequately.
The reader is hardly likely to derive any clear idea from these amiable
generalities;-except perhaps that the Romantics were working out
"alluring puzzles" and made an unnecessary fuss about doing so.
If
by
accident he reads the passage closely, he may notice that Mr. Bowra
has slipped into using the term "imagination" in a purely empirical
sense, although telling us himself that for the Romantics "the imagina–
tion is a divine faculty concerned with the central issues of being."
This
is
a good example of how, by oversimplifying, Mr. Bowra some–
times obscures rather than clarifies a vital point.
Despite such occasional lapses, the individual essays in
The Romantic
Imagination
are uniformly well done. The material, as Mr. Bowra
states candidly, is "essentially popular," and he makes no attempt to
explore it on any other level; but his remarks are just and discriminating,
he is perceptive in handling poetic details, and he shows a nice sense of
how to relate biographical and historical information to critical issues.
Best of all
l
he avoids the error of defending the Romantics by praising
