Nature Imagery of the Major Romantic Poets, Rajnath

Abstract

First published in 1965 and out of print as well as attention of readers ever since, Rajnath’s Nature Imagery of the Major Romantic Poets has been deservedly resurrected after five decades by Doaba House Publishers. As the morning star of the author’s illustrious academic journey, spanning over fifty years, the book was, surprisingly, written by him in his early twenties. It is noteworthy that the book has been republished at such a crucial juncture when practical criticism is not only a spent force but a vanished literary feat. A highly abstract understanding of literature under the rubrics of theory and cultural studies has eclipsed the reader’s focussed grasp of the text. Its publication becomes more relevant when Eliot’s warning apropos of Matthew Arnold’s tendency of keeping literature in a corner for extra-literary concerns seems to have come true in contemporary times. The book with its focus on textual analysis based on the use of imagery demonstrates ‘literariness’ in an excellent way.