Book Description

Excerpt from The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal, Vol. 60: For July, 1834;;; January, 1835; To Be Continued Quarterly Readers of poetry are indebted to the author of Philip Van 'Artevelde' for something more than temporary amusement. He is entitled to their acknowledgments, not only as a good poet, but as a useful experimentalist. In a period of marked indifference to poetical productions, he has brought forward a work which is at once a test whereby to prove whether a taste for poetry is dead or only dormant, - and a remedy for that overexcited and unhealthy tone of feeling of which this marked indifference is the result. It is such a work as the public needed - such a work as he who would 'minister to a taste diseased' should be anxious to recommend. At the same time it is not such a work as is likely to be hailed with acclamations of astonishment and pleasure. To some it may appear that the languid indifference of a satiated public requires the stimulus of novelties more attractive, of originality more startling, of a style more brilliant and exciting than Mr Taylor's work can offer. But such judgments would be founded on a misconception not less of the causes of the present indifference towards poetry, and of the remedy which that indifference requires, than of the peculiar species of merit in relation to that state of public feeling, which the author of Philip Van Artevelde has brought into the literary field. That he has been the brilliant originator of something novel and startling in poetry, is not the praise that we are either able, or should, a priori, have been most anxious to accord. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.