Critical Analysis of the Book

The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and Critical Tradition

An Assignment Submitted to The Department of English & CLS for the partial
fulfillment of the Ph. D Course Work

Submitted by
Dhaval Purohit
Ph. D Research Scholar
Saurashtra University
Rajkot

November: 2015
Introduction of the Book:
The Christian Gauss prize winning book “The Mirror and the Lamp” written by an
American scholar M.H.Abrams, has remarkable place in the history of English literature. It got
first published in 1953 by Oxford University press in New York and first issued as an Oxford
University Press in 1975. This book has marked significant impression in number of other fields
like comparative literature, history of ideas, English literary history, criticism and aesthetics. The
book is compressed into its 335 pages and followed by 55 pages of notes. This book had distant
origin in a study of the writing of Dr. Johnson and Coleridge, under the stimulating direction of
I.A. Richards at Cambridge University and developed at Harvard University with guidance and
encouragement by Abrams’s mentor and friend Theodore Spencer. The title of the book has
contained two important metaphors ‘The Mirror’ and ‘The Lamp’ and both have justified relevant
meaning to its title. His main argument pertaining to its title is that the literature from Plato to
eighteenth century was just mirror, it was just reflector of external objects while nineteenth century
literature was lamp and it was radiant projector which makes contribution to the objects it
perceives. The subtitle of the book “The Romantic Theory and The Critical Tradition” is even
more accurately explained by Abrams. The text has contained 11 chapters and each one has very
well defined by the author. In preface of the book, Abrams talked about primary concern of the
book. He says...
“The primary concern of this book is with the English theory of poetry, and to a lesser extent of
the major arts, during the first four decades of the nineteenth century. It stress the common
orientation which justifies us in identifying a specifically ‘romantic’ criticism; but not at the cost
of overlooking the many important diversities among the writers who concerned themselves with
the nature of poetry or art, its psychological genesis, its constitution and kinds, its major criteria,
and its relation to the other important human concern. The book deals, for the most part, with the
original and enduring critics of the time, rather than with the run of the mill reviewers who often
had a more immediate, though shorter-lived influence on the general reading public. In order to
emphasize the pivotal position of the age in general history of criticism, I have treated English
romantic theory in a broad intellectual context, and I have tried to keep constantly in view the
background of eighteenth century aesthetics from which romantic aesthetics was in a part
development. I have described some of the relations of English critical theory to foreign thought,
especially to the richly suggestive German speculations of the age, beginning with Herder and
Kant, when Germany replaced England and France as the chief exporter of ideas to the Western
world. Finally, I have undertaken, although briefly, to trace to the origins of prominent romantic
ideas, not only in aesthetic discuss, but also in philosophy, ethics, theology and in the theories and
discoveries of the natural sciences.” (Preface 3-4).
Above, passage informs us that Abrams has broad intellectual reading and critical skill to interpret
not only English literature and criticism but German also. Many information has been compressed
here in context to scrutinize Romantic literature. It’s very painful toil for someone when s/he is
going to publish such a landmark before the readers. Abrams himself said:
“I have incurred many intellectual obligation which are indicated in the text and footnotes”
Summary of the book:
First chapter of the book ‘Orientation of Critical Theories’ talks about aestheticism, and
critical theories. It explains that 25 hundred year history of western theory of art deals with
aesthetic of external nature, while 18th century criticism deals with pure art. The field of aesthetic
presents an especially difficult problem to the historian. Abrams goes on to say that what has gone
by the name of the philosophy of art seemed to Santayana “sheer verbiage”. He mentions here
critic D.H.Prall who himself wrote a book on aesthetic subject and comes to an end of conclusion
by saying that traditional aesthetics is in fact only a pseudo-science or pseudo-philosophy. In the
field of criticism there is more than a score of isolated and violently discrepant utterances about
art, from Aristotle to the present time.so with mentioning I.A. Richards’s “Principles of Literary
Criticism” he says we still need to face up to the full consequences of the realization that criticism
is not a physical nor even a psychological science. By setting out from and terminating in an appeal
to the facts, only good aesthetics theory is indeed empirical in method. Its aim however is not to
establish correlation between facts which will enable us to predict, the future by reference to the
past, but to establish principles enabling us to justify, order and clarify our interpretation and
appraisal of the aesthetic facts themselves. A good critical theory, nevertheless has its own kind of
validity. It means it should have scope, precision, and coherence of the insights that it yields into
the properties of single works of the art. Abrams says we tend to think of the work of art in terms
of the artist, who, acting through his powers of imagination, willfully brings into being his creation.
But this artist-cantered interpretation of the text is really a more recent development, first seen in
the early nineteenth century. From Plato until late 18th century the artist was thought to play a
back-seat role in the creation of art, he was regarded as no more than "a mirror," reflecting nature
either as it exists or as it is perfected or enhanced through the mirror. This artist-as-mirror
conception remained dominant until the advent of the Romantic era when the artist began to make
his transformation from “mirror” to “lamp”―- a lamp that actively participates in the object it
illuminates. There are four kinds of literary theory Abrams has divided
1) Mimetic theories- which focus on the relationship between text and universe
2) Pragmatic theories- which are interested in the relationship between text and audience
3) expressive theories-which are concerned with the text-author relationship
4) Objective theories- the most recent classification, which focus on analysis of the text in
isolation.
The second and third chapter is about relation of arts and mirror. In order to illuminate the
nature of one or another art, mirror is required.
The fourth chapter is about the development of the Expressive theory of poetry in Romantic and
German Literature.
The fifth and sixth chapter shows varieties of Romantic theory in Romantic poets like
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Hazlitt, John Keble and others.
The seventh chapter talks about the psychology of literary invention in imagination in context to
Coleridge’s Mechanical Fancy and Organic Imagination
The eight chapter goes with related to previous one but here Abrams talked about theories of
Unconscious Genius and Organic Growth in context to eighteenth century of English literature
and criticism.
In the ninth chapter Abrams dragged us to an age of Milton, Shakespeare, and Homer. Here he
talked about Subjectivity and Objectivity in English theory and relate these two things with
Romantic Polysemism
Poetry is conceived to be an imitation of nature and we may expect cardinal requirement that
poetry be ‘True’ that it accord in some sense to the nature it reflects. Beauty in poetry is truth and
taste is an organ for perceiving truth. In this chapter Abrams says truth may indeed be always
one and always the same. Charms of myth, truth and metaphor in Romantic poetry and criticism
is discussed in this chapter.
Traditional scheme underlying many eighteenth century discussions of the relation of poetry to
other discourses is summarized in this chapter. How science has influenced the literature of
eighteenth century. Here we see Positivism vs Poetry, Poetic truth and Sincerity. How Newton
too influenced by the poetry that things has been discussed in this chapter.

Critical Analysis of the Book:

This is a work in which immense effort has been put in, together with an incredible amount
of brain power and it shows. The difference between this book and others are
1) The scope of reading
2) Tightness of the arguments.
With respect to first point, we may wonder how one man possess so much information and details?
Abrams has it all down, from Plato right up to the latest books aesthetics of his day, that has been
illustrated in the first chapter when he says “25 hundred year history of western theory of art deals
with aesthetics of external nature”. This is very fascinating to all especially Abramsian readers.
The early chapters, up to his precis of Wordsworth and Coleridge are very informative, he explains
how and why Romantic criticism came to be what it is, by putting it into the context of earlier
critics. The classic potential of “The Mirror and the Lamp” is certainly also related to the fact that
it provided an appealing model for understanding the whole complex of literary theory and
criticism. The author managed to map the field of literary criticism in such a way that it made
sense. Despite the complex and organic nature of this area, Abrams made a reasonable case for
the existence of an underlying grid explaining the differences and similarities of all critical
theories. Pointing to what he calls the ‘co-ordinates of art criticism’. Abrams provided a handy tool
for dissecting the intangible research object of literary criticism. The author undertakes to analyses
various views which thinkers have held concerning the nature and function of the literary work of
art. Thus he distinguishes the mimetic, pragmatic, expressive and objective theories describing
their origins, development and survival since the days of Plato and Aristotle. When we move to
on next two chapters, Abrams talks about imitation and the mirror. We remind here Plato and
Aristotle because it is imitative arts which reflect the life. Here Abrams wants to convey, it is art
which act as a mirror upon life. It reminds me Samuel Johnson’s view on Shakespeare when he
said his drama is the mirror of our life. In Renaissance speculation the reference to looking a glass
is frequent and explicit. The mind of the artist should be like a mirror which always takes the color
of the thing that it reflects. In literature we find Caxton’s Mirror of the World and Barclay’s The
Mirror of Minds, which proclaimed same thing. As late as the middle of the eighteenth century
important critics continued to illustrate the concept of imitation by the nature of looking glass.
Even Dr. Johnson, by whom Abrams was most influenced, was fond of this parallel, and found it
the highest excellence of Shakespeare that he holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners
and life. If one has scrutinized the third chapter of the book, we come to know that, Analogy is
best way to judge the literature of a particular nation, in the same way when any art of piece is
being compared with the metaphors, we can come to know that how it becomes successful to
appeal or dazzle the readers. Romantic poets often did analogy of their poetry with various
metaphors. That we can come to know from the poetry of Wordsworth when he says ‘poetry is the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’. Wordsworth’s metaphor, ‘overflow,’ suggests the
underlying physical analogy of a containers- a fountain or natural spring, perhaps from which
water brims over. Romantic poets employed metaphors in order to express the inner feelings of
the poets. John Stuart Mill said ‘Poetry is the expression or uttering forth of feelings’. Abrams
does not divide four critical theories on the basis of his assumption but he has seen the application
of these theories in literature of Europe. Expressive theory is a one among the four. The
development of the Expressive theory is very well seen in poetry and art of Romantic and German
literature. In the course of the eighteenth century, some elements of the traditional poetics drooped,
while others were expanded and various augmented; ideas which had been central became
marginal, and marginal ideas became central; new terms and distinctions were introduced until by
stages, a reversal was brought about in the prevailing orientation of aesthetic thinking. A summary
account of this process, in both England and Germany, will help make clear what is hereditary and
what distinctive in the terminology and methods of the many romantic theories which turns on the
concept that poetry is the expression of feeling, or of the human spirit or of an impassioned state
of mind and imagination. That has been analyzed from the forth chapter. we know the ‘romantic
movement’ in England is a largely convenient fiction of the historian, but one document,
Wordsworth’s Preface to the Lyrical Ballad of 1798, written to justify on a universal ground an
experiment in poetic language, does have something of the aspect of the romantic manifesto. With
agreement with Abrams’s point, one may find various varieties and uniqueness in part of
Wordsworth when his poetry is concerned. For examples when he says
1) Poetry is the expression emerges from a process of imagination in which feelings play the
crucial part.
2) As the vehicle of an emotional state of mind, poetry is opposed not to prose but to science
3) Poetry originated in primitive utterances of passion which, through organic causes, were
naturally rhythmic and figurative.
Same in the case with Coleridge when his applied criticism is independent of a happy escape from
his general philosophic principles is an error common to Coleridgeans and too many anti-
Coleredeans as well. Art its extreme, this opinion results in the conclusion that Coleridge’s critical
method would today be called impressionistic. Abrams rescues Romanticism from those who have
not a clue what it’s about. Part of the problem is the confusion between ‘romantic and Romantic’.
The interesting thing is what modern says in relation to understanding of literature. It seems that
science and poetry might converge in some sort of way again. On J.S.Mill, near the end of the
book on cognitive science and the humanities, this sounds vaguely familiar. I think that many of
the sciences, when used in conjunction with understanding of literature, still operate on the whole
‘literature as mimesis thing’. The question arise at the end of the book is that, if one is critic,
working on aesthetics , how would we incorporate this rich history of writing and criticism on
poetry if we were to enter science? The danger is in allowing science to become a sort of
metanarrative to the poetry which we read and other side of it which thinking science as mutually
exclusive, or even as opposed to literature. As we proceed further in the book we come to arrive
at the conclusion that Abrams has dug the Romanticism from its root to roof. Every poets’
literature, critics’ criticism, theorists’ theory, artists’ art is very well scrutinized from scientific,
sociology, aesthetic, artistic, biographical, historical, cultural, and ecclesiastical point of views.

Language and Structure:

As far as language and structure of the book is concerned, each chapters begins with passages
related to content. Abrams has derived passages from both history and German literature. It gives
very insightful understanding of the particular chapters. Initial chapters are written quite in easy
language but when we arrive at the center of the text, a good dictionary and cyber tools are required
to comprehend. Abrams has used some Latin phrases in order to maintain charm and originality
of the book.

Style:
Abrams writing style is something to be admired. It is very sort of academic writing: impassioned
without being unclear and with the very being very organized. We like it when academics can
detail exactly what it is they are talking about and Abrams has happy habit of thought which allows
him to be able to organize his argument.

References:
The major parts of this book is based on well-known established facts. Even, Analogy has taken
place in a few of the chapters for understanding the theories, base, facts, and literature and criticism
of eighteenth century with German Romanticism. References of individual artists, critics, poets,
and theorists, like Plato, Aristotle Longinus, Milton, Homer, Newton, Robert Blair, Leonardo,
Alberti, Kant, Dr. Johnson, Hamann, Herder, Schelling and Goethe are too referred by the author.
Literature of France and French Revolution will help to comprehend the book.

Conclusion:
After completion of the book, one can realize, in the history English literature and criticism
especially in post-modern era, different theories and Isms have attempted to formulate our ideas
about literature and contribution of this book is one of among the many for shaping, crafting, and
giving clarity of thoughts to understand the literature. The book is well printed and has obviously
been prepared for the press with great care. Misprints are extremely rare and nowhere do they
obscure the meaning.

Bibliography:
Primary Sources:
Abrams, M.H. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. London:
Oxford University Press, 1953. Print

Secondary Sources:
Bargholz, Harry. Review of “The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical
Tradition”. The Modern Language Journal. Vol. 38.7: November 1954. P. 380. Print
Ulmer, William. The Christian Wordsworth 1798-1800. The Journal of English & Germanic
Philology. Vol. 95.3: July 1996. P. 336- 358. Print.