Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Carol L. Bernstein

Critical Essay by Carol L. Bernstein

SOURCE: Bernstein, Carol L. “The Union of Our Earth and Skies.” In Precarious Enchantment: A Reading of Meredith's Poetry, pp. 73-109. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1979.

In the following excerpt, Bernstein identifies Meredith's debt to Romanticism, focusing on the poem “Hymn to Colour.” Bernstein emphasizes Meredith's Romantic sympathies to demonstrate that the poem is not merely philosophical, but also sensual.

Although Meredith dissociated himself from any one poetic tradition, there are strong affinities with romantic poetic experience. Many of the typical romantic metaphors recur in Meredith. But there is a noticeable shift: where the reciprocal relation, the “correspondent breeze” between poet and nature is often the subject or theme of the romantic poem, Meredith is apt to assume this relation as a “given” of poetic experience. The result is two types of poem: one an elaboration, a further description of the correspondence or harmony between man...
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