《奇萊前（後）書》允為楊牧的記憶之書，既收拾往日斷片，也對應現在、設想未來。其中濟慈《恩迪密昂》（Endymion）開頭「美的事務是永恆的歡愉」數句，尤其反覆出現在不同的人生事件中，楊牧不但由此衍伸對於浪漫主義正面價值的維護，濟慈之外，還廣泛論及華茨華斯、拜倫、雪萊、葉慈；同時，藉由與浪漫主義詩人的對話，詩人持續進行關於「美」、「大自然」、「永恆」、「真理」的辯論與追求。本文將由詩人與大自然、詩人與自我，以及詩人與詩三個面向，追蹤這衍生多端的「美」的體系，如何被每一個現實的曲折─如憂鬱、虛無或抵抗所重新建構，而成為人生中可以據以反芻、興感或嚮往的關鍵模式。

The Former (and The Latter) Book of Mt. Ch’i-Lai is a collection of writings not only about the life of Yang Mu but about the development of Yang Mu the “poet.” In the series, the poet tries to organize the past into something that echoes with the present and projects into the future. “A thing of beauty is a joy forever” – beginning line from John Keats’s Endymion – is a recurring theme in the poet’s recollection of life events. As the line indicates, Yang presents a positive attitude towards romantic poets including Keats, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley and Yeats. Yang’s dialogue with the romantic poets beautifully illustrates an untiring pursuit of and reflection on beauty, nature, eternity and truth. This essay will explore this multifaceted system of “beauty” from three aspects – the poet and nature, the poet and his self, and the poet and his poetry – to see how the idea of “beauty” is constantly reconstructed with every sense of melancholy, nothingness or resistance. It is a key model on which the poet ruminates his past by making associations with and looking into something eternal.