SOURCE: Rubin, Merle. “Summer Reading: A Time for Fiction and Fantasy.” Christian Science Monitor (29 June 1995): B1, B4.

In the following excerpt, Rubin lauds The Romantic Movement as witty, intelligent, and insightful.

Summer, it's been said, is the season of romance, and not only the moon-June kind of romance promised by popular song lyrics, but also that category of literature including everything from verse narratives of medieval troubadours and Shakespeare's Cymbeline to Melville's Omoo and Hawthorne's The House of Seven Gables.

For those who may remember the archetypal literary criticism of Northrop Frye, every season has its genre: tragedy for fall; for spring, comedy; winter, irony; and summer (the season of fulfillment and freedom from workday contingencies), romance—a rich, green dream world where imagination runs riot.

For Frye's devotees, the perfect summer reading list might include titles such as Scott's Ivanhoe, Keats's Endymion, Shelley's Alastor, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and...