Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the legacies of Romanticism in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Having gone some way to understanding how legacy has operated in the critical history of Romanticism and within the Romantic aesthetic itself, the book must consider what kinds of legacy can be defined as 'Romantic'. The book argues for the significance of Romanticism to an understanding of both nineteenth- and twentieth-century culture. It explores the extent to which its multifarious legacies have set the terms of future debate. The appreciation of the Romantic poet can only arrive once he has established "the taste by which he may be judged". The variability of the text–in the case of the self-sufficient fragment or the mixed media of word and image in the example of William Blake–is a second legacy that can potentially be described as Romantic.