The idea that poetry and philosophy are intricately linked is by no means original to Abrams. In Republic, Plato describes an ideal society created and ruled by Philosopher Kings, and that concept influenced those who believed that poetry was an extension of philosophy. Abrams suggests that serious poetry—especially the poetry from the Romantic period—does similar work to philosophy in trying to identify and describe human thought and experience. Abrams’s conscious choice to include philosophers and poets side-by-side throughout the book connects poetry and philosophy as equally valid and important, creating a marriage between poetry and philosophy.

Much of Abrams’s early chapters deal with how philosophers addressed the concept of aesthetics and the purposes of art, with a particular emphasis on how the dynamic between poetry and philosophy changed in philosophers’ thought over time. He highlights how early Greek philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle, tended to regard poetry more as a “mirror” of ideal Forms (Plato) or material reality (Aristotle) than as something that existed in its own imaginative sphere and according to its own rules. Much of Plato’s skepticism of poetry was rooted in his belief that poetry was an inadequate mirror of ideal Forms, and as such served little to no purpose in terms of morality or truth. Aristotle kept the idea of poetry as a “mirror” but credited it with accurately reflecting aspects of reality and experience, thus elevating it within philosophy, albeit within limited terms. As Abrams argues, in the centuries that followed, philosophers of aesthetics began to move away from this mimetic “mirror” conception of poetry towards one centered upon poetry as a “lamp”—i.e., capable of illuminating aspects of experience while also providing its own means of exploring emotional and psychological truths that science or materialism alone cannot explain.

In the later chapters of the book, Abrams shifts focus from philosophers to poets, with the poets now stepping forward as philosophical commentators on the nature of poetry, aesthetics, and reality in their own right. The Romantics are of central importance in these chapters, with Abrams arguing that the Romantics often conceived of poetry as sharing important links with scientific, ethical, and even sociopolitical concerns. Wordsworth and Coleridge were both heavily invested in poetry as a vehicle for depicting and interacting with the natural world and advanced different theories on how the human imagination functions. Percy Bysshe Shelley explicitly cast poets as philosophers in his Defence of Poetry, arguing that poets are the “unacknowledged legislators” of human society, helping to actively shape civilization and its values instead of merely mirroring it in their work.

By explaining the Romantic poets’ philosophical beliefs and arguments, Abrams elevates them to the same level as the philosophers he discusses, thereby solidifying the marriage between poetry and philosophy in Abrams’s thought. Placing poets and philosophers on equal ground also implies that poetry is just as important as philosophy to human satisfaction and success.