Excerpt from The Use of Color in the Verse of the English Romantic Poets The use of color in literature has, in the last half century, attracted the attention of many eminent scientists. Philologist, anthropologist, and physicist have alike found in this subject a fruitful field for investigation. As yet, however, study has been largely confined to ancient writings such as the Rig-Veda, the Zend Avesta, the Iliad, and the AEneid; and the character of these investigations may be inferred from the fact that the results have been published chiefly in philological and anthropological journals. The possible aesthetic value of such study, and its significance in the interpretation of the author himself, have been but cursorily touched upon; while the color-terms of modern English poets have never received serious treatment. A few brief articles or sections of articles on this latter division of the subject have, it is true, been published within the past twenty years; but Mr. Grant Allen's book on The Colour Sense is written from the anthropologist's point of view, and devotes only a few pages to the English poets. E. W. Hopkins, in an article on "Words for Colour in the Rig-Veda" (American Journal of Philology, 1883), has mentioned the color-range of the Paradise Lost as essentially the same as that of the Rig-Veda. The only deliberate attempt to examine and compare the color-terms of English and other poets, made from an aesthetic and literary point of view, is that of Mr. Havelock Ellis in the Contemporary Review, May, 1896, filling sixteen pages, and ranging rapidly over a broad and varied field, from the Volsunga Saga and Isaiah to Pater and Olive Schreiner. Mr. Ellis's article is extremely interesting, and, to the average reader, full of suggestive stimulus. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."