ABSTRACT
The term 'romantic', as it has been commonly used in criticism, has been seen to have only limited utility in the discussion of English poetry. Criticism has often described Thomas Gray as a 'pre-romantic', and William Blake as a 'complete romantic'; the first term is almost meaningless and the second so diffuse as to be useless if the same expression characterizes the work of Sir Walter Scott and of John Keats. With Gray no problem of belief arises, for the verse is to be enjoyed as a picture or statue, or a vase elaborately chased and burnished. Gray's range of interests often obscures the classical loyalty to which he held naturally and unobtrusively. The contrast between Gray and Blake arises in part from the relation of poetry to belief. Blake sought an extreme, pitting his own personality not only against the inadequacies of his contemporary world, but against the whole of the inheritance of culture.
