The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition

The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (1953) is a foundational work of literary theory, history, and criticism by M.H. Abrams. The book provides a comprehensive overview of the history of literary theory and aesthetic philosophy from the Classical era to the 20th century. The primary focus is on the revolutionary turn that occurred in late- 18th century Germany and early 19th-century England during the Romantic period of literature and philosophy. Abrams’s arguments center on the poet as the primary vehicle for understanding and analyzing poetry. He explores questions related to The Nature of Poetry, The Marriage of Poetry and Philosophy, and The Poet as Critic in his larger argument for the academic and human value of poetry and literary scholarship.

Abrams was a highly respected scholar and professor who spent his entire educational and professional life in America’s Ivy League. He was the founder of the Norton Anthology of English Literature and served as its managing editor for over 30 years.

This guide is based on the 1969 Oxford University Press hardcover edition.

Content Warning: The source text is a product of its time and contains offensive language common in the period, specifically when referencing people with disabilities and Indigenous people.

Summary

Abrams begins with an overview of aesthetic and literary theory that contextualizes his later focus on Romantic thought. He establishes four “co-ordinates” (6) of literary theory which frame all his following discussions: Mimetic Theory, which interprets poetry based on its reflection of the realistic Universe; Pragmatic Theory, which focuses on the effect of poetry on the reader; Expressive Theory, the primary theory of the Romantic period, which examines poetry in light of the emotional expression of the author; and Objective Theory, which looks at the work of art on its own and dominates later critical theory, especially 20th-century criticism.

The framing metaphor of the book is the contrast between poetry as a mirror reflecting the real world, and a lamp illuminating elements of human existence. To explain this metaphor more fully, Abrams turns to Classical philosophy to show the progress of this metaphor from Plato through the 18th century in criticism. Plato had a negative view of poetry, regarding it as a weak reflection of lived experience that did not help people reach Plato’s idea of the best life—a life primarily concerned with peaceful reflection and the desire to reach an understanding of the ideal Forms that shape the universe. Aristotle adjusted this view by arguing that while poetry is not a reflection of reality, it can accurately reflect different elements of real experience.

Abrams provides a quick survey of various thought from the Italian Renaissance through the end of the 18th century to show how Plato and Aristotle’s metaphor echoes even in Pragmatic and Expressive theories of poetry. The shift to Expressive Theory from Pragmatic and Mimetic Theory in the early 19th century is characterized by Wordsworth’s definition of poetry as “an overflow of powerful feelings” (47) from the poet. This marks the shift to artist-focused criticism and the sincerity of emotion that define Romantic literary criticism.

One element of this shift was the comparison between music and poetry. Music was seen as a more directly emotional art that highlighted human experience rather than a visual depiction or reflection of reality. Similarly, in the philosophy of mind in the period, there was an idea that a person perceives the outside world, which then imprints on the human mind. Reality came to be seen as a creative collaboration between the perceiving mind and the external world. Therefore, poetry was a light illuminating elements of reality only perceivable by the human imagination.

The idea that poetry is an expression of emotion, and that internal emotion is the most relevant evaluative criterion, is primarily connected to the rediscovery of Longinus’s theory of the sublime and his five aspects of poetic creation. Another important element of the development of literary theory involves the origin of poetry. Some scholars believed that language and poetry evolved from the human desire to mimic, while Romantic scholars generally held that poetry was a vocal expression of feeling. The shift to Expressive Theory also involved a shift in the scholarly treatment of lyric poetry. In the 19th century, serious critics began to take lyric poetry much more seriously than the philosophers and scholars of the past.

Abrams explains and compares Wordsworth’s view of poetry with Coleridge’s work on the nature of poetry. Wordsworth prized the natural and spontaneous nature of poetry, both in the writing and reading of the art. He rejected or criticized overly mechanical constructions of language, including overly effusive figurative language, as artificial. Wordsworth believed the best poetry spoke with and to purest and simplest elements of human experience. Although Coleridge also prized the natural in poetry, he departed from Wordsworth in that he believed careful language use elevated nature. Coleridge viewed poetry as springing from the imagination with creative talent and genius, and as such argued it was elevated above primitivism.

A significant connection between literary criticism and philosophy occurred in the wake of the Enlightenment, when David Hume tried to reconcile the mechanical perspective of the universe developed by Newton with the creative capacity of the human mind. This led to a theory of a designing artisan as a godlike figure, which in turn corresponded to advancements in biology and a theory of art as a living, organic thing, especially in Coleridge’s thought. Abrams argues that Coleridge, in his exploration of the organic nature of poetry, advances and improves the theories of the unconscious mind and psychology originally proposed by German philosophers.

In light of these developments, literary criticism shifted to focus on the artist as both the origin and the most important element of the poem. Although earlier criticism didn’t ignore the artist, the only real question was moral: If the artist was moral, then the poetry was good; if the artist was corrupt, the poetry was bad. The Romantic focus on the artist, by contrast, focused on how well the poem represented the artist’s subjective experience, regardless of morality. However, Abrams believes that interpreting poetry based on the biography of the author—or based on the reader’s perception of the author’s interests—poses a serious problem of potentially inaccurate interpretation not only of the poem, but of the artist’s life.

The end of the book focuses on the relationship between truth and poetry. Initially, Abrams explains how Enlightenment views of factual truth in literature conflicted with the Pragmatic Theory’s valuing of audience pleasure in depictions of mythology, fairies, and religious stories. This tension was largely ameliorated by Leibniz’s “possible worlds” theory and the potential for figurative language to enhance deeper truths that supernatural imagery can reveal. The question of whether poetic truth is in opposition to scientific truth, or whether the two are complementary, is the subject of the book’s last chapter.

Throughout the history of literary criticism, poetry was typically defined in part by what it was not. Initially, poetry and history were placed in opposition, which led to history and prose being treated as factual while poetry was regarded as false or fanciful. Utilitarianism, a dominant philosophy in the 19th century, argued that everything beneficial to mankind must have a clear, pragmatic use and purpose. Utilitarians believed poetry lacked utility because it did not contain a factual or scientific truth. Some poets had a similarly rigid perspective, albeit by privileging poetry over science. John Keats famously criticized Newton for his revelation of light spectrums because Keats felt the explanation stole the beauty of the phenomena.

However, Wordsworth, Coleridge, John Stuart Mill, and others offered several other possible interpretations of the relationship between truth and poetry. Largely, they agreed that poetry reveals a third element of truth, an emotional truth that science cannot acknowledge or discuss. The emotional utility of poetry, then, is how Mill simultaneously practiced a radical utilitarianism in his philosophical thought while still insisting that poetry was valuable because of its emotional benefit to society.