a continuity between nature and thenhuman spirit, which the poets locatednin a common origin in infinity. Wasnnot nature infinite? And was not thenspirit that rose to meet it also infinite?nWere man and nature not twonindissoluble—and at happy moments,nindistinguishable — parts of a singlenentity? To call the Romantic poet egocentricnin a pejorative sense is rathernlike trying to insult a carpenter byncalling him tool-oriented. The ego wasnthe poet’s tool, an instrument used fornsympathetic identification.nIn Seas and Inland Journeys Applewhitenunderscores the differences betweennDerrida and Wordsworth bynmeans of similes contained in thenworks of both: “Derrida’s model of thenrelation of the writer’s mind to naturenis masturbational: the writer never actuallynpossesses the thing desired, butnaccepts words instead, whose role is tonsubstitute for, to defer. Wordsworthnproposed a different sexual metaphornfor the imagination’s relation to reality.nHe called it a marriage, and lookednupon both mind and nature as activen(and interactive) partners.”nApplewhite’s sturdy contrast will notnmake him popular among the mostnfashionable critics, and it is easy tonforesee the objections that will benbrought against him. Derrida and hisncousins are so firmly entrenched in thenacademic mind that his propositionsnare accepted as scientific fact. Thencrihcs will simply reiterate that thenwriter obviously cannot possess thenthing desired by means of language.nPerhaps that is true, in a final sense,nbut it has to be equally true of everynhuman endeavor involving nature:nphilosophy, art, science, and evenngrammatology. Language is anthropocentric,nbut it is less anthropocentricnthan any form of pure thought, whethernabstract, analytic, logical or illogical,nor wishful reverie. Language, innits attempt to engage with the objectsnof nature, first names and numbersnthem, and all the rest of our complexnand ungainly engagement stems fromnthese two basic operations. If they arenmistaken attempts, then all the thingsnthat follow from them are sterilenabsurdities, including especially suchnconcepts as mass, inertia, logic, andnmetalanguage.nIn fact, this was just what the Ro- •nmantic poets suspected, that languagenon its analytic side was inadequate tonengage with nature in its infinite aspect.nOnce we begin counting, thenNumberless escapes us; once we beginnnaming, the Nameless retreats farthernfrom our senses. Once we pulverizenour largest impression of nature, anlifeless dust is all that remains. “Wenmurder to dissect.”nThe poets needed a language whichncould deal with infinity as infinity andnnot just as an enormous catalog withnonly a few of the pages turned. Thenlanguage they found was first of allnobjective; it was landscape itself, certainnselected scenes of nature that indicated,nand partiy illustrated, the infinitynof the whole. Mountains, oceans,ndeserts, fields, skies full of weathern—these exhibited the spatial infinity ofnnature; ruins and rural scenes exhibitednthe temporal infinity. By 1712,nJoseph Addison had glimpsed the tendencynof future endeavor: “Our Imaginationnlo’es to be filled with an object,nor to grasp at anything that is too bignfor its Capacity.” And by 1747, JohnnBaillie was able to formulate part ofnthe Romantic longing as clearly as itneer needed to be: “Where an Objectnis vast and at the same Time uniform,nthere is to the Imagination no Limitsnof its Vastness, and the Mind runs outninto’Infinity, continually creating as itnwere from the Pattern.”nOne matter that has always troublednthe precise reader is the vagueness ofnthe Romantic vocabulary. Words likenawesome, primordial, vast, skyey, endless,nand so forth turn up with reflexivenregularity and seem to deliver a limitedncontent or none at all. There is, ofncourse, justice in this criticism, but wenalso have to recognize that every poeticnmovement develops a certain idiomnfor its subject matter and then comesnto identify that idiom with the subjectnitself In our time, sincerity of sentimentnis the accepted subject matter ofnerse and its proper occasions recognizednin such autobiographical situationsnas family difficulties, personalndespair, political protest, and divorce.nSo that our contemporary poetry cannhardly do without such words andnphrases as empty, bitter, alone, Onfather, this year again, you, nightmare,nand so on, and if a poet renouncesnthese familiar rhetorical turnsnhe must content himself with at least antemporary neglect.nnnAnd just as a contemporary poet willnargue that his idiom is precise, sonwould a Romantic poet argue for his.nA fixed idiom acquires a precision ofnconnotation within a certain period;ncertain words become indicators ofnattitudes whose intellectual content isnwell-known in their generation. Thennthe familiar attitudes are absorbed intonemotional and intellectual history,nand the words begin to indicate newnattitudes. Wordsworth’s noun eveningnand T.S. Eliot’s evening almost belongnto two different languages, yet Eliot’snusage has absorbed part of Wordsworth’snand to some extent dependsnupon it.nSeas and Inland Journeys explores atnlength a single complex of Romanticnimagery which portrays the individualnspirit against a backdrop of infinitennature. From the works of Poe, Keats,nWordsworth, Shelley, Yeats and others,nApplewhite selects scenes such asnwe would find in a picture gallery ofnworks by Turner, Constable, CaspernDavid Friedrich, Peter De Wint,nThomas Girtin, Joseph Wright ofnDerby, and even by Gainsborough.nHere in the poets are the broad cloudwildnskies, the beaten and lonely towersnbeside the turbulent waters, thenmountain crags, and the forest wastesn—“Horrid with fern and intricate withnthorn,” as Dryden wrote. Against thesenenormities is set the figure of man ornsome evidence of the works of man,nthe human spirit isolate withinninfinity.nThis landscape also connotes,nApplewhite finds, the conscious rationalnmind reflecting upon its primevalnunconscious origins. The imagenpresented is one of contrast, the smallnagainst the vast, the mortal against thentimeless. But this contrast is only partnof the idea, for the two elementsninterpenetrate one another. “Thendream of the Romantic self’s approachnto the not-self of nature depends uponnjust this obscure intuition that thenself and the not-self, at some deepnenough level, are coextensive andncorrespond.”nWhat was it then that happened?nWhat caused the downslide into modernistnpoetry? The fact, says Applewhite,nthat the modern poet begannusing the tools of analysis in his creativenwork and, in effect, went over tonthe side of the enemy. “The presencenOCTOBER 1986/31n