Critically Enlightened Romantic Values and English Pedagogy: A Response to Peter Medway

In this response to Peter Medway's paper, ‘English and Enlightenment’ (Changing English 17:1, 2010), I take issue with little of what he so lucidly writes, except his implicit and occasionally explicit denunciation of Romanticism as the proper basis of English pedagogy. I am concerned in this paper to emphasise the positive aspects of Romanticism in giving a vivid flavour to experience – surely the foundation of any humane values – whilst simultaneously attempting to reposition Romanticism in the direction of Critical Pedagogy. In this venture, I draw especially on William Blake, the subject of a previous exploration in this journal (Stevens, Changing English 7:1, 2000), and Paulo Freire.