This morning, I reached over to the shelf next to my bed, pulled down my copy of The Romantic Agony by Mario Praz, and read the author’s “Note to the Second Edition.” It explains that the book had been out-of-print; and that this new edition would, while correcting some inaccuracies, put paid to the “legends” about it, namely that it is “… the ‘best reading in God’s world’ for a sexual delinquent … .”
I looked at the chapter headings — “The Beauty of the Medusa,” “The Metamorphoses of Satan,” “The Shadow of the ‘Divine Marquis’,” “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” “Byzantium,” “Swinburne and ‘Le Vice Anglais’” — a catalogue of provocations; ingredients for literary notoriety.
The Romantic Movement is not my favorite subject. However, for better or for worse — I think, worse — nearly all contemporary popular culture is built upon Romantic mud. One cannot make head nor tail of our own era’s common coin without understanding the Romantics.
The reason I purchased the book is not so lofty. Mario Praz is a marvellous writer: if his name is on the cover, it’s worth reading. This the man who, in his book on décor, wrote, “Some days I simply must have Empire.”
This is one of the few volumes which I have bought for stock: usually I buy only books I plan to read next. I won’t be reading this next, but … some days I simply must have Praz.
The Romantic Agony by Mario Praz, translated by Angus Davidson, second edition (Cleveland and New York: World Publishing, 1965, reprinted from original published in 1951 by Oxford University Press).
