Natural Supernaturalism TRADITION AND REVOLUTION IN ROMANTIC LITERATURE M. H. ABRAMS W · W · NORTON & COMPANY New York London W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110 W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 10 Coptic Street, London WC1A 1PU Copyright © 1971 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. First published in the Norton Library 1973 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Books That Live The Norton imprint on a book means that in the publisher's estimation it is a book not for a single season but for the years. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Abrams, Meyer Howard. Natural supernaturalism: tradition and revolution in romantic literature. ( Norton library) Indudes bibliographical references. 1. Romanticism. I. Title. [PN603.A3 1973] 809'.9'14 73-7855 ISBN 0-393-00609-3 Printed in the United States of America 6 7 8 9 0 For Jane and For Judy [This page intentionally left blank.] Contents PREFACE 11 O N E / "This Is Our High Argument" 17 1. Wordsworth's Program for Poetry 21 2. The Design of Biblical History 32 3. The Shape of Things to Come: The Apocalyptic 37 Marriage 4. Christian History and Christian Psycho-Biography 46 5. Alternative Ways to the Millennium: Progress and 56 Revolution 6. Natural Supernaturalism 65 T W O / Wordsworth's Prelude and the Crisis-Autobiography 71 1. The Idea of The Prelude 74 2. Proust's Gothic Church 80 3. The Art of Augustine's Confessions 83 4. The Transactions of Mind and Nature 88 5. The Theodicy of the Private Life 95 6. The Theodicy of the Landscape 97 7. The Redemptive Imagination 117 -7- 8. The New Mythus: Wordsworth, Keats, and Carlyle 122 9. Wordsworth as Evangelist 134 T H R E E / The Circuitous Journey: Pilgrims and Prodigals 141 1. The Great Circle: Pagan and Christian 146 Neoplatonism 2. Divided and Reunited Man: The Esoteric 154 Tradition 3. The Prodigal's Return 164 4. Forms of Romantic Imagination 169 F O U R / The Circuitous Journey: Through Alienation to Reintegration 197 1. The Paradox of the Fortunate Division: Schiller and 201 Universal History 2. Romantic Philosophy and the High Romantic 217 Argument 3. Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit: Metaphysical Structure and Narrative Plot 225 4. Some Other Educational Travelers: Hölderlin's Hyperion, 237 Goethe's Faust, the Romances of Novalis F I V E / The Circuitous Journey: From Blake to D. H. Lawrence 253 1. Unity Lost and Integrity Earned: Blake and 256 Coleridge 2. Wordsworth: The Long Journey Home 278 3. Romantic Love 292 4. Shelley's Prometheus Unbound 299 5. Carlyle and His Contemporaries 307 6. Four Versions of the Circuitous Return: Marx, Nietzsche, 313 Eliot, Lawrence -8- s I X / Revelation, Revolution, Imagination, and Cognition 325 1. Apocalypse by Revolution 329 2. Apocalypse by Imagination 335 3. Apocalypse by Cognition 348 4. The Politics of Vision: Mastery, Servitude, and 356 Freedom S E V E N / The Poet's Vision: The New Earth and the Old 373 1. Freshness of Sensation 377 2. Moments 385 3. Transvaluations 390 4. Hamann and Wordsworth: Some Parallels in Spiritual 399 Discovery E I G H T / The Poet's Vision: Romantic and Post-Romantic 409 1. Freshness of Sensation and the Disordering of the 412 Senses 2. Varieties of the Modern Moment 418 3. The Romantic Positives 427 4. The World's Song of Life and Joy 431 5. The Romantic Reverdie 437 6. Hope and Dejection 442 7. The Eagle and the Abyss 448 A P P E N D I X / Wordsworth's Prospectus for The Recluse 463 1. In the Preface to The Excursion 465 2. The Manuscripts of the Prospectus 470 NOTES 481 INDEX 533 ILLUSTRATIONS BETWEEN PAGES 464 AND 465 -9-