SOURCE: "Mary Oliver and the Tradition of Romantic Nature Poetry," in Contemporary Literature, Vol. 30, No. 1, Spring, 1989, pp. 59-77.

In the following essay, McNew discusses why contemporary critics have difficulty analyzing Oliver's poetry within the framework of the romantic tradition.

The special puzzle of Romanticism is the dialectical role that nature had to take in the revival of the mode of romance. Most simply, Romantic nature poetry, despite a long critical history of misrepresentation, was an anti-nature poetry…. Romantic or internalized romance … tends to see the context of nature as a trap for the mature imagination.

—Harold Bloom, "The Internalization of the Quest Romance"

It is the destiny of consciousness … to separate from nature, so that it can finally transcend not only nature but also its own lesser forms.

—Geoffrey Hartman, "Romanticism and 'Anti-Self Consciousness'"

To become poets, women must shift form agreeing to see themselves as daughters of...