The Visionary Company: Reading of English Romantic History

This is a revised and enlarged edition of the most extensive and detailed critical reading of English Romantic poetry ever attempted in a single volume. It is both a valuable introduction to the Romantics and an influential work of literary criticism. The perceptive interpretations of the major poems of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Beddoes, Clare, and Darley develop the themes of Romantic myth-making and the dialectical relationship between nature and imagination.For this new edition, Harold Bloom has added an introductory essay on the historical backgrounds of English Romantic poetry and an epilogue relating his book to literary trends.