Library Journal - Library Journal

Davies (humanities, Univ. of Ulster) has written a volume of eight essays that is part of a series including Thomas Moore's The Planets Within and Noel Cobb's Archetypal Imagination. Examining esoteric themes, such as intimate dialog, the soul's journey, and active imagination, he shows how esoteric traditions of the East and the West correspond to the important themes and ideas of the major Romantic poets, such as Byron, Keats, and Shelley. His book builds on Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Reverie and works by Owen Barfield but goes beyond these earlier discussions and into the more modern topic of ecological criticism. He ends by relating the themes of the Romantic poets to the study of present-day spiritual quests. As this work is a bit weighty, especially because it encompasses such a variety of ideas, it is recommended for large academic libraries with extensive religion and literary studies collections.Kim Woodbridge, Athenaeum of Philadelphia Lib.