RomanticismBy: Felicitas Donato and Trinidad Torrendell

felidonato

Period of Time:

❖ The social advancement frequently appears in literature.

For example:

> It may be primarily financial as in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations

> It may involve marrying someone from your same level, as in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.

> It may also be based on education.

❖ The period saw the rise of what constitutes an “Englishman.” Many colonists and politicians saw it as their political (and sometimes religious) duty to “help” or “civilize” native populations in colonized regions through literature.

Literature of the Victorian Period:

Subjectivity: ❖It is an element of poetry and a central philosophical concept, related to

consciousness, agency, personhood, reality, and truth by which the poet goes into himself and finds his inspiration from his own experiences, thoughts and feelings.

❖As much as subjectivity is a process of individuation, it is equally a process of socialization, engaging in interaction with the surrounding world.

❖For example, the “Ode to the Nightingale” by John Keats (1795- 1821) is based on personal matter. When his brother died, he wrote this poem being annoyed by the practical world.

Imagination:❖ The Romantic poets believed that imagination can protect a troubled mind. This idea

appears in different poems in the Romantic age. Through imagination, The cold world is changed into something real and full of life.

Different poets think about the use of imagination in lots of ways such as:

❖ While Coleridge thought that we could transform the given world through imagination.

❖ For Wordsworth's the visionary world is more real than the world of sense.

❖ And For Keats is a power by which he has made more powerful and acceptable than reality.

Keat in a letter once said: “I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affection and truth to the imagination…”

Hellenism:❖By the end of the 18th century

neoclassicism. England became increasingly in love with Greece and the romantic poets Lord Byron (1788- 1824), Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats turned to the past and the East for inspiration.

❖For example, in “The Curse of Minerva” (1815), Byron criticised Lord Elgin for destroying Greek statues.

Supernaturalism:❖In a majority of poems from the

Romantic era there is a great use of supernatural and mythological references.

❖In the poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772- 1834), the poet shows clearly why he is considered one of the best of all times. This poem is not only powerful with supernatural and mythological elements but it also has emotional content.

Nature:❖They have frequently used nature

in their poetry. But nature has taken different shape in different poets. To Shelley nature was a power. To Keats nature was a beauty and Wordsworth considered nature mystically. Coleridge treated nature supernaturally.

❖Some of them had seen nature as art and also they use personification.

Escapism:The desire to retreat imaginative entertainment rather than deal with

the stress, tedium and daily problems of the mundane world. Also, it might be written with a psychological purpose by offering a relief from the stress.

“A great book provides escapism for me. The art and the creativity in a story are better than drugs”

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