SOURCE: Abrams, M. H. “Varieties of Romantic Theory: Shelley, Hazlitt, Keble, and Others.” In The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition, pp. 125-55. New York: Oxford University Press, 1953.

In the following excerpt, Abrams explains the various critical perspectives of a number of Romantic poets and essayists including Shelley, Keats, Hazlitt, and Keble.

Will you believe me? I am almost ashamed to confess the truth, but I must say that there is hardly a person present who would not have talked better about their poetry than the poets did themselves.

Plato, Apology

The question should fairly be stated, how far a man can be an adequate … critic of poetry who is not a poet, at least in posse? … But there is yet another distinction. Supposing he is not only a poet, but is a bad poet? What then?

Coleridge, Anima Poetae

Thomas Love Peacock's ‘Four...