Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature by M. H. Abrams

How hard is Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature to read?

Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature scores 48 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 82 out of 100

Abrams draws on specialized literary-critical, theological, and philosophical vocabularies simultaneously — typology, theodicy, apocalyptic figuration, Bildungsroman, Aufhebung — often citing Greek, Latin, German, and French sources without translation. Readers encounter terms from biblical exegesis, German Idealism, and Romantic poetics within single paragraphs. The density resembles Gravity's Rainbow's encyclopedic range, though in an expository rather than fictional register.

Sentence structure: 72 out of 100

Sentences are long and carefully subordinated, accumulating qualifications and embedded clauses in the tradition of academic prose at its most elaborate. Abrams constructs periodic sentences that defer main verbs across multiple dependent clauses, demanding sustained grammatical tracking. The syntax is navigable but never casual — closer to In Search of Lost Time in deliberate complexity than to the compressed directness of modern criticism.

Abstraction: 90 out of 100

Natural Supernaturalism operates almost entirely at the level of philosophical and theological abstraction — the book's central argument concerns how Romantic poets secularized inherited Christian doctrines of fall, redemption, and apocalypse into humanist and psychological terms. There is no narrative, minimal concrete scene-setting, and even the close readings are vehicles for conceptual synthesis. The abstraction level rivals The Waste Land's, though Abrams always anchors claims in textual evidence.

Information density: 88 out of 100

Every page synthesizes allusions from the Bible, Neoplatonism, German Idealism, and Romantic poetry, cross-referencing Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge, Schiller, Hegel, Novalis, and Hölderlin simultaneously. Abrams quotes primary sources extensively in multiple languages and traces single concepts across centuries of intellectual history. The density rivals Ulysses's encyclopedic reference, though organized as argument rather than stream of consciousness.

Narrative indirection: 30 out of 100

As expository scholarship, Natural Supernaturalism states its arguments directly and supports them with evidence. Abrams announces his thesis, defines his terms, and builds his case with academic clarity. There is no unreliable narrator, no reader assembly required — the book's difficulty is cognitive, not inferential.

Symbolic density: 55 out of 100

Abrams analyzes symbolic and typological density in the Romantic poets, but his own prose employs metaphor mainly as rhetorical illustration rather than as autonomous meaning-carrier. The title itself — 'Natural Supernaturalism' — functions as an organizing metaphor for secularized transcendence. The writing is less symbolically layered than the literary works it studies.

Ironic distance: 20 out of 100

The prose is earnest and sincere — Abrams means exactly what he says and advances his argument without ironic detachment. The book's serious engagement with Romantic idealism reflects its author's genuine sympathy with the tradition under study. The famous deconstructive critique by J. Hillis Miller hinges precisely on Abrams's lack of ironic distance from his material.

Resolution withholding: 25 out of 100

Natural Supernaturalism is a work of academic argument, not literary ambiguity. Abrams offers definitive interpretive conclusions and synthesizes his major claims in a culminating vision of Romantic literature as a secularized theodicy. The book ends with resolution, not withholding — its ambiguities are scholarly debates, not structural design.

Structural complexity: 35 out of 100

The book is organized thematically and progresses through its argument in a largely linear fashion — from an overview of Romantic revisionism through detailed chapters on Wordsworth's Prelude, Blake's prophetic books, and European Romanticism. The structure is sophisticated but well-signposted. More complex than a simple chronological survey, but far less fragmented than experimental fiction.

How Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature is regarded

Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature holds a literary regard score of 86 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

About the author

M. H. Abrams