ABC - In 1798, two poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge, compiled a collection of poems entitled “Lyrical Ballads”, which emphasized individuality, imagination, and childhood and its respective innocence and purity. These poems were inspired by the social upheaval of the Industrial Revolution in England, which led to a heightened sense of humanitarianism, and a desire to counter the ugliness of England’s developing cities. This assemblage was the starting point for the entirety of the Romantic Movement, which lasted up until the mid-19th century and encouraged a rejection of the classical techniques and views on art. Along with Wordsworth and Coleridge, other Romantic poets began to emphasize many new tenants, primarily focusing on the importance of imagination in everyday life; the value of the individual; and an appreciation for the beauty of childhood and its innocence. While the Romantic movement began over 200 years ago, its tenants have not been abandoned. In today’s society, man still predominately adheres to the values of the Romantics and continues to place importance on the value of the individual, the assets of imagination, and the beauty of childhood innocence and naiveté. One of the key tenants of the Romantic movement was the emphasis on the importance of imagination and creativity. The imagination stimulates the mind and encourages and enhances creativity, innovative thinking, and artistic thought processes. Imagination also allows people to
The Romanticism art movement praised imagination over reason, emotions over logic, and literature over science. The Romanticism artists were known for replacing the classical 18th century literature heroes with much more complex and passionate characters. Romanticism focuses on self-expression and individual uniqueness that does not lend itself to be defined nor controlled by society. The landscape on Romanticism was commonly displayed in cool rich colors and untamed peaceful surroundings. In Romanticism, nature was used to represent the extension of the human personality, the capability of feeling love, serenity, and sympathy.
American Romanticism is a journey away from the corruption of civilization and the limits of rational thoughts, and toward the integrity of nature and the freedom of imagination. In other words, it is a journey away from industrialism or rationalism, which is working hard and earning money. This movement, originally started in Europe and later reached in America. It can be best defined as a thought that values feeling and intuition over reason. Some of the characteristics include the importance of feeling and intuition over reason, placing faith in inner experience and the power of imagination, preferring youthful innocence over educated sophistication, finding beauty and reality in exotic locales. It encouraged people to enjoy the integrity of nature and freedom of imagination. It also encouraged one to have faith in imagination and inner experience. In addition, romanticists found inspiration in myth, legend, and folk culture and found poetry as the highest expression of imagination. Romanticists believed that the landscape was regarded as an extension of the human personality, capable of sympathy with man 's emotional state, whereas nature was regarded as a vehicle for spirit just as man; the breath of God fills both man and the earth. However, romantics would create chaos when the issues were connected with human rights, individualism, and freedom from oppression (Arpin 138-150).
The Romantic Period centered on creative imagination, nature, mythology, symbolism, feelings and intuition, freedom from laws, impulsiveness, simplistic language, personal experiences, democracy, and liberty, significant in various art forms including poetry. The development of the self and self-awareness became a major theme as the Romantic Period was seen as an unpredictable release of artistic energy, new found confidence, and creative power found in the writings of the Romantic poets Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley, who made a substantial impact on the world of poetry. Two of the Romantic poets, William Blake, and Percy Bysshe Shelley rebelled against convention and authority in search of personal, political and artistic freedom. Blake and Shelley attempted to liberate the subjugated people through the contrary state of human existence prevalent throughout their writings, including Blake’s “The Chimney Sweepers,” from “Songs of Innocence”, “London,” from “Songs of Experience” and Shelley’s A Song: “Men of England.”
Imagine a candle-lit dinner on a starry night in Paris, the Eiffel Tower just in view with dazzling lights shining into the night. This image is probably what you think of when you hear the word “romantic,” correct. However, this image is a stumbling block when people think of the “Romanticism Period” in literature. Where “romantic” means having a lovely time with the person you love the most, “Romanticism” is a piece of literature written with key themes in mind. Those themes tend to be a strong emotion, imagery or worship of nature, and individuality and subjectivity. The peak of inspiration for these pieces was in the years 1800-1850, and there are famous poems that are well loved today from this period. Many of the poets that you enjoy reading and know are, in actuality, Romanticism writers, and instill the themes above in our minds.
Writing about the beauty of nature and the simple life was how romantic artists rebelled against the industrial
The beliefs of the Romantics embodied the concept that children should become experienced through their own personal discoveries. The child’s personal discoveries should consist of a natural environment where they can abundantly grow and learn using their diverse minds. Secondly, the most popularized belief the Romantics supported was the innocence and purity that a child possessed. Lastly, the poets introduced a relationship between children and nature. British romantics believed children had access to a distinct perspective of the
The Romantic Movement, or period, was from the year 1828 to about 1865. The main feature of the American Romantic period was the celebration and praise of individualism. This time is also considered to be the first period of genuine American creativity. Emotion, instead of reason, became the largest source of inspiration and creativity during this period. All of this was a reaction to all of the constraints that were forced on people during the era of Realism. At this time in history, America was in a great period of expansion, the writers of the American Romantic period were discovering that could create a new and vastly different voice for this new era in
Imagination and creativity is part of the many influences that attribute to the writings in the Romantic Era. It influenced writers and poets to expand their art to a new horizons and veer away from the Enlightenment Era of tradition and logic. The use and significance of memory and dreams in the Romantic Era helped strengthen the inner emotions within writings, present ideas outside of traditional expectancies, and display the authors creativity and individuality throughout their writings. These works have resonated throughout history and British Literature inspiring new and old writers to explore within themselves and inside their imagination to create art that portrays their personalities in their work.
To the Romantics, the imagination was important. It was the core and foundation of everything they thought about, believed in, and even they way they perceived God itself. The leaders of the Romantic Movement were undoubtedly Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his close friend, William Wordsworth. Both were poets, and both wrote about the imagination. Wordsworth usually wrote about those close to nature, and therefore, in the minds of the Romantics, deeper into the imagination than the ordinary man. Coleridge, however, was to write about the supernatural, how nature extended past the depth of the rational mind.
During the Romantic period, which began in the late 18th Century, and ended in the early 20th century, there were many political changes, such as the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, repression and reform, pre-industrial economic changes. There were also many changes throughout literature and culture during this time. Poetry during this time often had strong themes of nature, internalization, subjectivity, and imagination. Three highly influential poets who were also often characterized as poets of the Imagination are William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Blake. Imagination is important to romantic poets because it was used as a healing tool for the writers’ troubles, using reason and emotion to relate to and participate in the world around them.
The friendship of Coleridge and Wordsworth is one of the most literary, productive relationships among the poets of the Romantic Period. Coleridge and Wordsworth were “together on daily basis since July 1797” (Matlak 72). Wordsworth’s poetic career was “reconstructed, if not entirely created through the process of a poetic exchange that made his earlier importance an affective power” (73). At the same time, Wordsworth contributed similarly to Coleridge’s literary career. For example, many of Rime of the Ancient Mariner’s imagery and narrative events were suggested by Wordsworth (Matlak 83.) An early important example of their literary partnership was their Lyrical Ballads. As this friendship lasted until the death of Coleridge, many of the
Ground-breaking, momentous, and a time of great struggle, the Industrial Revolution was famous for its innovations and infamous for the sobering reality it inflicted upon the standard family. Mid-18th century Britain brought poverty to everyday urban workers. With it, came an increase in child labor like never seen before. In order for a normal family to survive in the urban lifestyle, all members of a family had to work. This included children as young as four years to work as chimney sweepers, miners, and most popularized in 18th century Britain, factory workers. By the year 1800, children under the age of 14 in Britain’s factories accounted for 50% of the labor force (“Industrial Revolution, Child Labor”). Though the number continued to grow, all did not go unaccounted for. Romanticism, an effort opposite the movement, gave recognition to the emotional conflicts overlooked. Romanticism shed light on the daily struggles of the everyday man, woman, and the most neglected up until that period of time, the child. Throughout history, others have written about childhood, but Romantic poets began to question what it meant to be a child. The question, though not answered directly, later became revealed in their works where it exposed their belief systems. The role of the child in British Romantic Poetry represents the early life of Romantic poets, and the qualities they possessed in childhood.
Romantic poetry was a response to a need for an individual voice; separate from one’s government, William Wordsworth’s “Preface” to Lyrical Ballads established what it meant to be a Romantic poet or writer during that period and “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” is Percy Bysshe Shelley’s attempt to incorporate Romanticism ideals into his own style of poetry. In the new culture of Romanticism, imagination became the subject of many poets’ work. Imagination was argued over for its basis in reality “and the common basis of our experience in a world of concrete, measureable physical realities” (Damrosch and Dettmar 4). Romantic poets like Wordsworth and Shelley were able to demonstrate their understandings of imagination in their own way. Each understanding reflected the lens in which he viewed the world. Wordsworth’s poetry generally reflected themes that were optimistic, hopeful and bound in nature. While Shelley’s work centered around the human mind and tackled issues of the everyday man. The Romanticism period was motivated by a break from monarchies across Europe and the search for individual, “democratic and egalitarian ideals, a new era, shaped by ‘the rights of man’ rather than the entailments of wealth and privilege” (Damrosch and
Literary ballads is considered the seminal inspirational work of literary romanticism in Britain. The publication of Lyrical Ballads represented a turning point for English poetry. Though the book was not originally received as a radical experiment, it was rather controversial for its time. Being released straight during the French revolution which was seen as a social experiment in itself. Coleridge encouraged Wordsworth to write a preface to Lyrical Ballads which would explain the work contained within the collection.
One of the most popular themes for Romantic poetry in England was nature and an appreciation for natural beauty. The English Romantic poets were generally concerned with the human imagination as a counter to the rise of science. The growing intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries placed scientific thought in the forefront of all knowledge, basing reality in material objects. The Romantics found this form of world view to be restrictive. They felt that imagination was crucial to individual happiness. The imagination also provides a common human bond; a means of sympathy, of identification. However, the absence of imagination, the Romantics felt, would lead