ABSTRACT
It is widely known that what is called the Romantic revolution in England in the early nineteenth century was marked by a phenomenal number of distinguished works of literature. And yet it is known mainly to specialists that this literary revolution was accompanied by a similar movement in criticism, an equally phenomenal outburst of periodical criticism, even though evidence of the accompanying critical movement can be found without delving very deeply into the literary background of the period—in passages and chapters of well-known prose works, in the correspondence of most of the writers, in defensive or provoking prefaces to volumes of poetry, and even in the poetry itself.
