Romanticism, a philosophical, literary, artistic and cultural erawhich began in the mid/late-
18th century as a reaction against the prevailing Enlightenment ideals of the day (Romantics
favored more natural, emotional and personal artistic themes), also influenced poetry.
Inevitably, the characterization of a broad range of contemporaneous poets and poetry
under the single unifying name can be viewed more as an exercise in historical
compartmentalization than an attempt to capture the essence of the actual ‘movement’.
Poets such as William Wordsworth were actively engaged in trying to create a new kind of
poetry that emphasized intuition over reason and the pastoral over the urban, often
eschewing consciously poetic language in an effort to use more colloquial language.
Wordsworth himself in the Preface to his and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads defined good
poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” though in the same sentence he
goes on to clarify this statement by asserting that nonetheless any poem of value must still
be composed by a man “possessed of more than usual organic sensibility [who has] also
thought long and deeply;” he also emphasizes the importance of the use of meter in poetry
(which he views as one of the key features that differentiates poetry from prose). Although
many people stress the notion of spontaneity in Romantic poetry, the movement was still
greatly concerned with the pain of composition, of translating these emotive responses into
poetic form. Indeed, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, another prominent Romantic poet and critic
in his On Poesy or Art sees art as “the mediatress between, and reconciler of nature and
man”. Such an attitude reflects what might be called the dominant theme of Romantic
poetry: the filtering of natural emotion through the human mind in order to create art,
coupled with an awareness of the duality created by such a process.
For some critics, the term establishes an artificial context for disparate work and removing
that work from its real historical context" at the expense of equally valid themes
(particularly those related to politics.)
The six most well-known English authors are, in order of birth and with an example of their
work:
William Blake – The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
William Wordsworth – The Prelude
Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Rime of the Ancient Mariner
George Gordon, Lord Byron – Don Juan "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"
Percy Bysshe Shelley – Prometheus Unbound "Adonais" "Ode to the West Wind"
"Ozymandias"
John Keats – Great Odes "Hyperion" "Endymion"
18th century as a reaction against the prevailing Enlightenment ideals of the day (Romantics
favored more natural, emotional and personal artistic themes), also influenced poetry.
Inevitably, the characterization of a broad range of contemporaneous poets and poetry
under the single unifying name can be viewed more as an exercise in historical
compartmentalization than an attempt to capture the essence of the actual ‘movement’.
Poets such as William Wordsworth were actively engaged in trying to create a new kind of
poetry that emphasized intuition over reason and the pastoral over the urban, often
eschewing consciously poetic language in an effort to use more colloquial language.
Wordsworth himself in the Preface to his and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads defined good
poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” though in the same sentence he
goes on to clarify this statement by asserting that nonetheless any poem of value must still
be composed by a man “possessed of more than usual organic sensibility [who has] also
thought long and deeply;” he also emphasizes the importance of the use of meter in poetry
(which he views as one of the key features that differentiates poetry from prose). Although
many people stress the notion of spontaneity in Romantic poetry, the movement was still
greatly concerned with the pain of composition, of translating these emotive responses into
poetic form. Indeed, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, another prominent Romantic poet and critic
in his On Poesy or Art sees art as “the mediatress between, and reconciler of nature and
man”. Such an attitude reflects what might be called the dominant theme of Romantic
poetry: the filtering of natural emotion through the human mind in order to create art,
coupled with an awareness of the duality created by such a process.
For some critics, the term establishes an artificial context for disparate work and removing
that work from its real historical context" at the expense of equally valid themes
(particularly those related to politics.)
The six most well-known English authors are, in order of birth and with an example of their
work:
William Blake – The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
William Wordsworth – The Prelude
Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Rime of the Ancient Mariner
George Gordon, Lord Byron – Don Juan "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"
Percy Bysshe Shelley – Prometheus Unbound "Adonais" "Ode to the West Wind"
"Ozymandias"
John Keats – Great Odes "Hyperion" "Endymion"
