Romanticism Influence on the Romantic Poets

Romantic age is more important than any other age in the history of English literature. Its literary name is the age of Wordsworth; its historical name is the later Georgian age, or the age of Revolt.

Romanticism means the expressions of sharpened sensibilities in English literature, including heightened imaginative feelings. Romanticism was on the peak in the age of Shakespeare and Wordsworth. The triumph of romanticism was accompanied by that of naturalism. We must understand that the movement had two aspects; one political and the other literary. Both the aspect flourished properly at the bottom of the movement. Both the groups revolted against the prevailing traditions, convictions and tyranny of deeds. People were craving for the freedom of thoughts.

In the doctrine of the new poetry, as in the teaching of the revolutionary theories is taught that got the new shape of challenge and attack. The long accepted rules of art were treated with contempt, the reaction against Pope and the Augustan school became aggressive and the principles of spontaneity were thrust to the front. Keats once said that the genius of poetry must work out its own salvation in a man. It cannot be matured by laws and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness.

There are described five characteristics of romantic poetry; 1. Order, 2. Clarity, 3. Tranquility, 4. Curiosity, 5. Love for Beauty. Especially, love for beauty and curiosity both were integral parts of romanticism but love for beauty was called a pure romanticism. In the broader sense, the supreme romanticism movement was Renaissance that produced romanticism in England.

Romanticism not only changed the lives of the England but also it changed the whole European lives. In this respect, all the romantic writers were realist who dealt with the business of common sense. But the germs of romanticism were present in the French Revolution. The slogan of romanticism was liberty, equality and fraternity.

Actually, romanticism was opposed by the new power of vision-reality and feelings. In this respect Marlowe and Scott, both were realist due to their romantic imaginations.

It may be seen in all romantic poetic style. The earlier eighteenth century writers imitated Spenser, Milton, and Donne in their poetry.

Here Compton Ricketts says that during the last few years of 18th century, the revolution movement was started in Germany under the leadership of Macaulay. It was a forceful movement in which John Jacob; Henry Millar took greater interest against the literary movement of France.

After this the Romantic Movement was started against the Classical Movement. Actually, it was an open challenge against reason and intellect. It was a violent protest against those who prefer reason to imagination because the base of all progress is not reason but pure imagination; the root of human respect and knowledge.

Romanticism produced many great poets and we may divide them into two groups; The Group of Wordsworth and the second was The Group of Shelley. The first group-writers were Wordsworth, Robert Southey, Samuel Roger, Thomas Montgomery and Robert Montgomery; The second group-writers, Shelley, Keats, Byron, Leigh Hunt, C. J. Wells, Thomas Wade and Walter Procter. Wordsworth was the leader of his group and used to say, ‘peace lies in nature.’ Shelley also opposed the idea of Wordsworth and Coleridge proved it, there is no peace in nature but peace lies in heart.

 

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Wordsworth spent much of his time among the shepherds and dales man of his native country and was educated at Lance shire and Cambridge. After this he visited France twice and published An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches in 1793. In which he used classic couplets that remind us of Pope, Goldsmith and Crabbe.

After a short time Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote The Lyrical Ballads. In the beginning he failed to catch the public eye but with the passage of time people started understanding Wordsworth’s philosophy of life.

On Southey’s death he was made the poet laureate and in this period he wrote his famous poem The Prelude in which he tells the reader how Nature helped him to make great poet of nature. In Lyrical Ballads we find the elements of romanticism and naturalism because Wordsworth chooses common incidents of life and describes their beauty in his poetry while Coleridge describes supernatural elements in his poems. Both the writers used the language known to common people. They do not use artificial language but the language of common people.

There are shown many characteristics of Wordsworth’s poetry; his love for nature, his knowledge of nature, and he considers Nature his guider who taught his how to write poetry and shapes his trends in the best way. He calls Nature a divine Spirit roaming everywhere for human spirit’s help.

 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

Wordsworth’s friend Coleridge welcomed his theory and worked on it with full

devotion. In 17 94 he met Robert Southey who inspired him to write on supernatural elements. Both the writers made a royal society on the ban of Susquehanna River in America. It was the product of revolutionary zeal but Coleridge gave his to full attention to Religious Musings, The Destiny of Nation and Ode to Departing Year.

After this a change occurred in his mind that he describes in his Ode as Dejection  an Ode, from here he came to know that Nature is neither charm full nor harm full but it depend on our heart’s feelings which makes men’s happy or sad. Soon after this, he falls prey to opium-eating and that is why his most of his poems are incomplete as Kubla Khan is an incomplete poem of Coleridge.

He wrote many poems; Dejection, The Ancient Mariner, Christable…all these poems show romanticism in detail and with a charm full effect. Wordsworth saved naturalism from the hands of literalism, and Coleridge saved supernaturalism from the coarse sensationalism.

 

Sir, Walter Scott (1771-1832)

Scott was born in Edinburg and spent most of his childhood at his grand-father’s house. He made many trips and collected material for future use in poetry. He did not affect with the revolution and disliked democracy, but soon he became interested in German literature. After this, he translated many German ballads in English. In such efforts he was encouraged by Lewis and inspired by Percy.

At last he published his first book named, The Minstrelsy of Scottish Border. His long poem is The Lay of the Minstrel; it is a ballad, full of border-incidents, The Lady of the Lake Rukeby which shows more romance in a fine way.

His poetry is the poetry of laymen and rejected classic couplets in poems and in his style he is vigorous and rapid but often careless, diffuse and common place, but in depicting landscapes he is an expert master. His poetry is free of mystical power like Wordsworth and Coleridge.

 

Lord Byron (1788-1824)

Byron was the most important poet of his age because he expressed in his poetry rebellious comprehensive rebellious ideas but with great passions. He first published his little volume of verses Hours of Idleness and it was attacked by Edinburg Review, but Scot replied it in a vigorous satire named, English Boards and Scottish Reviews. Besides, he wrote his famous Cantos of Child Harold’s Pilgrimage, The Bride of Abydos, The Sage of Corinth, Corsair.

Soon after this, he produced his greatest works; Manfred, Cain, Fourth Cantos of Child Harold and unfinished Dan Juan.

Byron wrote lyrics, satires and narrative poems, serious and serio-comic, regular tragedies and dramatic poems. He did not care for Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s spirit of poetry or style. He loves natural scenes and beauty just for the sake of beauty, not considered her his guardian like Wordsworth.

 

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1622)

Byron was a great interpreter of revolutionary ideas and Shelley was a great revolutionary idealist and the poet of our faith and hole in difficult time of life. On writing a pamphlet named, The Necessity of Atheism, he was expelled from the Oxford University because it contained revolutionary ideas. His elegy on Keats’s death is most important, theme and subject-wise.

Shelley’s genius was lyrical, his thoughts natural, mood cogitative and emotions natural were prominent in his poetry. AS a lyrist he wrote The Skylark, The Cloud, The Sensitive Plant, ode to the West Wind and Lament.

In his personal poems he wanted to reform the world as in The Revolt of Islam. In Queen Mon his revolutionary creed has not yet passed beyond the destructive stage. It is the model of Goldwin’s Political Justice.

According to Shelley, The Revolt of Islam is a charge against the poet’s hope for the future generation. But the fullest and finest hope of Shelley is fund in his famous lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound. In the drama Titan stands for the mankind struggling against the forces of despotism symbolized by Jupiter.

 

John Keats (1795-1821)

Keats was neither a rebel nor utopian dreamer, but endowed with purely artistic nature. He knew nothing of Byron’s stormy spirit of antagonism to the existing order of things and he had no sympathy for Shelley’s humanitarian zeal and passions to reform the world. According to Keats that poetry is not the vehicle of teaching personal thoughts, feelings and emotions, poetry is the incarnation of beauty; Keats’ Endymion and A Thing of Beauty both representation beauty, beauty and beauty. Keats used to say, A thing of beauty of joy forever.’

He traced the principles of beauty of in everything; Lama, Hyperion, the Eve of St. Agnes, La Belle Dame Sane Dame Sane Merci; all these poems show his love for beauty in the finest way. According to Keats there is nothing in nature for religious teaching or spiritual teaching as Wordsworth and Coleridge used to say.

He died at the age of 25, in youth. He wrote great odes named, Ode to Autumn, Ode to Nightingale, Ode on Grecian Urn. He is a most romantic poet in English literature. His language is fine and compels ears to listen to his poetry. He freed poetry from any kind of pressure and declared poetry the business of beauty, not the preaching of personal feelings. He left a greater effect on the later generation

Other romantic poets of this age are these who got less fame in their life time; Leigh Hunt, Tom Hood, Mac worth Reade, Dr. Hemans, John Clare, Samuel Roger, Thomas

Hogg, Robert Southey, Thomas Compell, Thomas Moore, W. S. Landor and William Bowles, they wrote well but could not get fame as other poets did.