Notes on Romantic Poetry

Romanticism

Romanticism as an intellectual and artistic movement came into fashion during the late 19th century. It influenced many disciplines, including literature, art, music, and architecture. Romanticists in art and literature emphasized feelings and
emotions in reaction to the Enlightenment period, which relied solely on facts and rationality to reach truth. Romanticists
chose instead to investigate beauty, landscapes, and intuition to find truth. They also placed heavy emphasis on dreams, individualism, and self-expression as a way to communicate, and they worried less about rationality and objectivity. 

The English Romantic movement was a revival of the themes of great masters: Chauser, Edmund Spencer, William Shakespeare and others. It was also a revolt against the eighteenth century classics and their artificial diction. An exalted appreciation of nature and its bounties along with the heaviness of human emotions paved way to the birth of  romantic movement. 

Salient Features of Romantic            Poetry 

*poetry written during 1798  to 1837 is commonly known as Romantic Poetry 

* Literary Legends also termed romantic poetry as ' the return to native'. 

* The publication of 'Lyrical Ballads' in the year of 1798 by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge brought about a revolution in the history of Romanticism. This ' Manifesto on Poetry established the real intention of romantic poetry. 

* The purpose of the poet was to' choose incidents and situations from common life' and describe them in an language used by or understand by common people. 

*The emphasis was more on feelings and emotions than on following traditional rules 

*Revealing power to open our eyes to ' sensuous beauties' 

* Sublimity, melancholy, Hellenism were the other features of romantic poetry. 

*For the content the romantic poets chose ' humble and rustic life' as Wordsworth puts it out. 

* Their poetry is  also characterised by a subtle sense of mysteries of nature 

*There was an intrest in the supernatural element which is depicted in the poems of Coleridge.

*Romantic poetry is subjective for the simple reason that they deal with the expression of emotions. 

*In its form Romantic poets tried to introduce musical qualities in their poems. 

Eminent poets of the Romantic  Period:

William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Cloridge, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelly, Robert Southey,

William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge had launched the Romantic period and school of thought of English literature with their Lyrical Ballads first published in 1798.

in the poem Tintern Abbey, Wordsworth sees the river, the stream, steep and lofty cliffs through his imaginative eyes. He was enthusiastically charmed at the joyful sound of the rolling river. Here he says,

“Once again

Do I behold those steep and lofty cliffs

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion

and

Connect

The landscape with quiet of the sky.”

In this poem, the poet seems that the nature has a healing power. Even the recollection of nature soothes the poet’s troubled heart. The poet can feel the existence of nature through imagination even when he is away from her, he says,

“In lovely rooms and ‘mid the dim

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them

In hours of weariness, sensation sweet.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge is one of the remarkable poets of Romantic priod and his works made a remarkable contribution to the English Literature.

Coleridge and Wordsworth lived close to each other in the North of England in the lake district, which in fact would end up earning them together with Robert Southey, the label of “Lake poets.”

Cloridge