Nirali vaghela's blog

 Nirali vaghela's blog

What are the characteristics of Romantic poetry? Illustrate with examples from Wordsworth and Coleridge. 

         Romantic age

The Romantic period in English literature was a time of artistic and intellectual movement that began in the late 18th century and lasted through the mid-1800s. It was a reaction to the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, and was influenced by the French Revolution

                                                                                               Romantic poetry

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Romantic poetry is the poetry of the Romantic era, 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,[1] and lasted approximately from 1800 to 1850.[2][3] Romantic poets rebelled against the style of poetry from the eighteenth century which was based around epics, odes, satires, elegies, epistles and songs

Characteristic of romentic poetry

Romantic poetry is known for its emphasis on imagination, nature, emotion, and individualism. Other characteristics include: 

 

Imagination: Romantic poets like John Keats, Samuel Coleridge, and P.B. Shelley placed a lot of importance on imagination, which was different from neoclassical poets who didn't. 

 

Nature: Romantic poetry often celebrates nature and the sublime, or awe-inspiring powers of nature. 

 

Emotion: Romantic poetry is concerned with emotion and subjective experiences. 

 

Medievalism: Romantic poetry was often attracted to medievalism, especially in the works of John Keats and Coleridge. 

 

Solitude: Solitude is a recurring theme in Romantic poetry, as many poems explore the experience of being alone in nature. 

 

Individualism: Romantic poetry values individualism. 

 

Social change: Romantic poems were often written to inspire social change. 

 

Rebellion: Romantic poetry rebelled against tradition and rationality. 

 

Spiritual and supernatural elements: Romantic poetry infused spiritual and supernatural elements.

     William Wordsworth 

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How does Wordsworth define poetry

William Wordsworth defines poetry as:

"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility."

(From the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 1802)

He also defines poetry as:

"The breath and finer spirit of all knowledge... the impassioned expression that is in the countenance of all science."

(From the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 1802)

In other words, Wordsworth sees poetry as:

- A natural and emotional response to experience

- A reflection on and shaping of those emotions through contemplation

- A expression of the deepest human feelings and experiences

- A way to capture and convey the essence of nature, human nature, and the world around us

- A fusion of emotion, imagination, and intellect

For Wordsworth, poetry is not just a literary form, but a way to connect with the world, ourselves, and others on a deeper level.

William Wordsworth defines poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility" (Preface to Lyrical Ballads). This definition is central to his poetic philosophy, which emphasizes the importance of nature, emotion, and the individual experience.

For Wordsworth, poetry is not just a matter of technical skill or intellectual exercise, but an expression of the deepest human emotions and experiences. He believes that poetry should originate from a genuine emotional response to nature, people, or events, and then be refined and shaped through contemplation and reflection.

The phrase "spontaneous overflow" suggests a natural, unforced expression of feelings, while "emotion recollected in tranquility" implies a later reflection on those feelings, in a calm and peaceful state. This definition highlights Wordsworth's emphasis on the importance of nature, the individual's emotional response to it, and the need for contemplation and reflection in the creative process.

In his poetic philosophy, Wordsworth also emphasizes the importance of:

1. Nature: as a source of inspiration, comfort, and spiritual renewal.

2. Emotion: as the foundation of poetry, and the key to authentic expression.

3. Imagination: as the faculty that shapes and transforms experience into poetry.

4. Simplicity: in language and style, to convey the essence of human experience.

5. The individual: as the central figure in poetry, with their unique experiences and perspectives.

Wordsworth's definition of poetry and his poetic philosophy have had a significant influence on Romantic poetry and beyond, shaping the way we think about the role of poetry in capturing and expressing the human experience.

       Samuel Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Definition Of Poetry (1836)

Poetry is not the proper antithesis to prose, but to science. Poetry is opposed to science, and prose to metre. The proper and immediate object of science is the acquirement, or communication, of truth; the proper and immediate object of poetry is the communication of immediate pleasure. This definition is useful; but as it would include novels and other works of fiction, which yet we do not call poems, there must be some additional character by which poetry is not only divided from opposites, but likewise distinguished from disparate, though similar, modes of composition. Now how is this to be effected? In animated prose, the beauties of nature, and the passions and accidents of human nature, are often expressed in that natural language which the contemplation of them would suggest to a pure and benevolent mind; yet still neither we nor the writers call such a work a poem, though no work could deserve that name which did not include all this, together with something else. What is this? It is that pleasurable emotion, that peculiar state and degree of excitement, which arises in the poet himself in the act of composition;—and in order to understand this, we must combine a more than ordinary sympathy with the objects, emotions, or incidents contemplated by the poet, consequent on a more than common sensibility, with a more than ordinary activity of the mind in respect of the fancy and the imagination. Hence is produced a more vivid reflection of the truths of nature and of the human heart, united with a constant activity modifying and correcting these truths by that sort of pleasurable emotion, which the exertion of all our faculties gives in a certain degree; but which can only be felt in perfection under the full play of those powers of mind, which are spontaneous rather than voluntary, and in which the effort required bears no proportion to the activity enjoyed. This is the state which permits the production of a highly pleasurable whole, of which each part shall also communicate for itself a distinct and conscious pleasure; and hence arises the definition, which I trust is now intelligible, that poetry, or rather a poem, is a species of composition, opposed to science, as having intellectual pleasure for its object, and as attaining its end by the use of language natural to us in a state of excitement,—but distinguished from other species of composition, not excluded by the former criterion, by permitting a pleasure from the whole consistent with a consciousness of pleasure from the component parts;—and the perfection of which is, to communicate from each part the greatest immediate pleasure compatible with the largest sum of pleasure on the whole. This, of course, will vary with the different modes of poetry;—and that splendour of particular lines, which would be worthy of admiration in an impassioned elegy, or a short indignant satire, would be a blemish and proof of vile taste in a tragedy or an epic poem.