Romantic Poetry

(END OF 18^TH CENTURY- MID-19^TH CENTURY)

Romanticism-What and when

• Romanticism was an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. It involved a reaction against prevailing Enlightenment ideas of the 18th century, and lasted approximately from 1800 to 1850.
• The Enlightenment period (1715-1789), which preceded the Romantic Era, placed a heavy emphasis on rationalism, science, and empiricism. In other words, the Enlightenment Era was about facts and rational thinking!
• The Enlightenment Era came to an end because of two major events: the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution of 1789. The artists emphasized that sense and emotions - not simply reason and order - were equally important means of understanding and experiencing the world.
• Romanticism can be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that typified Classicism

​

Reaction against Neoclassicism

• Romantic poetry contrasts with Neoclassical poetry, which was the product of intellect and reason, while Romantic poetry is more the product of emotion. Romantic poetry at the beginning of the nineteenth century was a reaction against the set standards, conventions of eighteenth-century poetry.

[T]he Romantic movement was marked, and is always marked, by a strong reaction and protest against the bondage of rule and custom which in science and theology as well as literature, generally tend to fetter the free human spirit. (William J. Long)

John Keats (1795-1821)

Opening a new world of Imagination

• Belief in the importance of the imagination is a distinctive feature of romantic poets such as John Keats, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and P. B. Shelley, unlike the neoclassical poets. Keats said, “I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination- What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth.” Furthermore for Keats, “truth is beauty, and beauty truth”.
• For Wordsworth and William Blake, the imagination is a spiritual force, is related to morality, and they believed that literature, especially poetry, could improve the world. The secret of great art, Blake claimed, is the capacity to imagine.
• To define imagination, in his poem "Auguries of Innocence", Blake said:

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

​

An ardent belief in ‘The Sublime’

• The Sublime is considered one of the most important concepts in Romantic poetry. In literature, it refers to use of language and description that excites thoughts and emotions beyond ordinary experience. Although it is often associated with grandeur, the sublime may also refer to the grotesque or other extraordinary experiences that "take us beyond ourselves.”
• The literary concept of the sublime became important in the eighteenth century. It is associated with the 1757 treatise by Edmund Burke, though it has earlier roots. The idea of the sublime was taken up by Immanuel Kant and the Romantic poets including especially William Wordsworth.
• Another characteristic of romantic poetry is power and passion. The writer feels the poem when they write it. They try to imagine in it. In the midst of industrialization, the Romantic poets felt they bore the responsibility of reinvigorating that spiritual connection to nature by portraying the Sublime in their poetry.
• Want to see this in action? The glorification of nature and its wildness can be seen in William Blake’s poem, “The Tyger,” and in William Wordsworth’s poem, “The Prelude.”

Predominantly the Nature poetry

• Love for nature is another important feature of Romantic poetry. It is seen as a source of inspiration.
• It involves a relationship with external nature and places, and a belief in pantheism. Different poets differ in their views about nature.

​

• Wordsworth recognized nature as a living thing, teacher, god, and everything.
• Shelley believed that there is a union between nature and man.
• Coleridge has a realistic perspective on nature. He believed that joy does not come from external nature, but that it emanates from the human perception of the nature.
• Wordsworth approaches nature philosophically, while Shelley emphasizes the intellect, John Keats for his sheer love of nature.

Tinged with Melancholy

• Melancholy occupies a prominent place in romantic poetry, and is an important source of inspiration for the Romantic poets. In '"Ode to a Nightingale", Keats wrote:

​

• ...................................................for many a time
• I have been half in love with easeful Death,
• Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
• To take into the air my quiet breath;
• Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
• To cease upon the midnight with no pain.

Attraction for the Medieval and Hellenic

• Romantic poetry was attracted to nostalgia, and medievalism is another important characteristic of romantic poetry, especially in the works of John Keats, for example, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, and Coleridge.[citation needed] They were attracted to exotic, remote and obscure places, and so they were more attracted to Middle Ages than to their own age.

​

• The world of classical Greece was important to the Romantics. John Keats' poetry is full of allusions to the art, literature and culture of Greece, as for example in "Ode on a Grecian Urn".

Supernaturalism and Subjectivity

• Most of the romantic poets used supernatural elements in their poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is the leading romantic poet in this regard, and "Kubla Khan" is full of supernatural elements.

​

• Romantic poetry is the poetry of sentiments, emotions and imagination. Romantic poetry opposed the objectivity of neoclassical poetry. Neoclassical poets avoided describing their personal emotions in their poetry, unlike the Romantics.

Preface to 2^nd Edition of “Lyrical Ballads”

• Romanticism in English literature began in the 1790s with the publication of the Lyrical Ballads of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Wordsworth’s “Preface” to the second edition (1800) of Lyrical Ballads, in which he described poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” became the manifesto of the English Romantic movement in poetry. William Blake was the third principal poet of the movement’s early phase in England.

• English Romantic poetry had reached its zenith in the works of John Keats, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
• Romantic poets were extremely interested in understanding how poetic genius works. In other words, they wanted to figure out what made someone a poetic genius!
• Thus, it makes sense that Romantic poets would write odes lauding the creative genius of divine beings. Actually, Romantic poets saw themselves as creators, and they were constantly searching for inspiration for the creative genius within themselves.
• The Romantic poets also wanted to explore the complexity of how they responded emotionally to their experiences in the natural world. Lyric poetry allowed them to express these emotional reactions in first-person by describing the sounds and visual images that caused them. It was a way for poets to share their feelings with their readers.
• Finally, sonnets also provided an ideal form for expression of feelings exchanged between people. The form of the sonnet was used to move away from the logic and rationality of the Enlightenment and more toward mood and feeling. Percy Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” is an apt example of this.
• .

• Wordsworth also coined the phrase “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” during the Romantic Era. For the Romantics, that phrase pretty much summed up their understanding of how that creative genius played out in writing poetry. Writing poetry wasn’t a calculated, meticulously planned process. At its purest, poetic inspiration occurred when the writer was so overcome with emotion in response to something witnessed or experienced that, when they sat down to reflect on that experience in a quiet moment later on, a poem flowed forth freely.

​

• But this kind of poetic genius wasn’t just about seeing things that others couldn’t—it was also about putting that vision into words that everyday people could understand. The Romantic poets lauded the ability to use the language of everyday people to capture everyday events, too.

Wordsworth as a Romantic Poet

• “My Heart Leaps Up“ is a wonderful example of a romantic poetry which is dedicated to man’s supreme bliss in the proximity of nature. The poet describes the pure delight the speaker feels upon seeing a rainbow. This joy prompts the speaker to shift to the philosophical and of thought reflect on the passing of time and the significance of childhood. It is in childhood, the poem argues, that people first feel a sense of powerful awe and wonder at the natural world around them. Similarly, in “The Solitary Reaper,” the poet is fascinated with the spectacle of the girl who is reaping the crop in the valley and the music of the song she is singing. He views it all as an integral part of the nature. The experience is, indeed, a sublime experience. His Lucy poems are an epical appeal to the humanity to go back in the lap of nature, for it is the best guide, teacher, friend, and it preserves and manifests the good in humanity.
• Likewise, ‘The World is Too Much with us’ laments the growing alienation of man and nature. The growing materialistic tendencies in man have made him look at nature only as a means to an end. It has resulted in his exploitation of the nature.

1770-1850

S T Coleridge as a Romantic Poet

​

• If Wordsworth was committed to give the novelty of charm to the everyday things around us, Coleridge aroused a similar feeling of excitement over the depiction of supernatural characters and events. Both the poets awaken the minds’ attention from the lethargy of custom.
• The supernatural touches in “Kubla Khan” are in perfect harmony with the depiction of the character. The ghostly voices and sounds coming from the cavern- a mind like structure, are prophesying the wars and devastation to come. The chasm is given a romantic shape with a touch of mystery by the mention of a ‘woman wailing for her lover’. The dream quality and the touch of medievalism heightens the romantic elements.
• The depiction and celebration of nature in his poem “Frost at Midnight’ makes it his one of the most Wordsworthian poems. The dreamy state is sustained by remembering the past, and a determination that his son will be brought up amidst nature unlike him brings up the poets love and appreciation of nature as a far better influence on a growing child.
• “ …thou shall learn far other lore,
• And in far other scenes!”

Coleridge (1772-1834)

Byron as a Romantic Poet

• Byron’s poem “She Walks in Beauty” brings out the poets perception of a woman’s beauty. He is all for the beauty that is natural and as distanced as artificialities as possible.
• The simplicity, lyrical quality and the imagination ingrained in his poetic thought is a clearly indicative of the romanticism.

​

Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-1824)