Skip to main content

What is Romanticism? Mention the characteristics of Romanticism with reference to the main poets who represented this era.

Romanticism was a literary and artistic movement that lasted from the late 18th century to the middle of the 19th century. In terms of poetry, Romanticism is known as the successor to the previous period, Neoclassicism. Neoclassicism was a movement that paid homage to Classical literature. These poets stressed structure, order, and reason. Conversely, the Romantic poets focused more on subjectivity, emotion, and experimentation.


Given the Romantic's interest in subjective, emotional experiences in art, the poetry tended to be more personal than that of their Neoclassical predecessors. Wordsworth's poem "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" is about a the poet's return to a place of his youth. In perceiving this old haunt, the poet reimagines his experiences as a younger man. He finds a connection with nature once again and treats this act of perception as an active, rather than a passive, experience. In other words, the act of perceiving becomes like an act of creation. Finding such an intuitive experience this personally rewarding was a staple of Wordsworth's thinking as a poet. Poets like John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley shared this feeling.


Nature was certainly an important element for a lot of Romantic poets. But there was also a Gothic movement that came out of Romanticism. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus was the most famous of these. Like Wordsworth and the others mentioned, this was a work that got its inspiration from imagination. Although it is clearly a darker work of literature, it shares that idea of exploring the depths of the imagination.


Samuel Taylor Coleridge was another prominent Romantic poet. He and Wordsworth collaborated on Lyrical Ballads, one of the staples of Romantic poetry. His poems "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan" explore dreams, psychological depth, and imagination.


William Blake, who sort of got the Romantic movement going, was a cultural critic, sculptor, and poet. His interest in religion and mysticism caused many to consider him a pre-Romantic.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

etymology - Origin of the greeting "Sweet dreams".

Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

What are the similarities between the relationships of the characters in The Outsiders and Romeo and Juliet?

At first glance, it might appear as if the characters in  The Outsiders  by S. E. Hinton and  Romeo and Juliet  by William Shakespeare do not have much in common; however, when one isolates the core of the conflicts, it becomes clear that the relationships in both stories are rooted in rivalry and secrecy.  In both  The Outsiders  and  Romeo and Juliet , an overarching theme is rivalry. While   socioeconomic status separates the greasers from the Socs in The Outsiders , last names separates the Montagues from the Capulets, who appear to be relatively equal in terms of socioeconomic status. Due to these rivalries, there are instances of deadly interactions in both stories. In  The Outsiders , Johnny kills Bob (whether his actions were justified or not is debatable). In  Romeo and Juliet , Romeo kills Tybalt and Paris, and Tybalt kills Mercutio. These deaths have profound effects on the main characters. In Ponyboy's case, the Johnny's death and other events in the novel inspire h...
Post a Comment
Read more