Antin, Some Questions about Modernism

I think it is clear that the rela­tion of poe­try to truth, which is a ques­tion of domain, not of medium, haunts all great Romantic art, which had rejec­ted the more modest role of exis­ting “to divert and to amuse.” Poets like Wordsworth laun­ched a power­ful claim to truth through a com­pli­ca­ted poe­tic argu­ment that adjus­ted mind to nature in the medium of the image, while poets like Keats split “truth” from “value” and lined up poe­try on the side of “value,” giving this new domain of truth­less value the name Imagination.