Romanticism Comes of Age

I am rereading Owen Barfield's Romanticism Comes of Age, a collection of essays written between 1929 and 1966, roughly. The edition of the book is a newly printed one published by The Barfield Press, a just recently created press for the very purpose of bringing back to print eight titles of Barfield's that have been out of print.

I've finished the first two essays, "East And West", and "Thinking and Thought." The first time I read this collection of essays, both Barfield and philosophy were new enough to me that they were indistinguishable, so far as content and style were concerned. On this reading, Barfield's voice is more obvious and separate from the topics he takes up with. Not only that, but the period in which he writes is more noticeable. He's clearly not a contemporary, judging by the authors he discusses - Croce re aesthetics, I. A. Richards re literary criticism - and by his writing style.

In spite of all that, and evident even after two short essays, Barfield takes the reader down paths that are still not common, seventy years later. That may be because he's writing hogwash; it may be for other, insignificant reasons. I really don't know. But I find his work still challenging, and relevant, and worthwhile.