Romantic Poetry Anthology

University Degree Linguistics, Classics and related subjects

Nurses Song – Blake

The Evening Star - Blake

The Garden Of Love – Blake

Frost At Midnight – Coleridge

The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner – Coleridge

This Lime Tree Bower My Prison - Coleridge

Ode On A Grecian Urn – Keats

Ode To A Nightingale – Keats

To Autumn – Keats

The World Is Too Much With Us – Wordsworth

Tintern Abbey – Wordsworth

She Dwelt Among The Untrodden Ways - Wordsworth

Romanticism is not about love or romance, it is a system of attributes relating to poetic and artistic practice from the late 18th century to the 1830’s. In fact the romantic era cannot be pin pointed to a particular century. Instead it is said that Romanticism started around 1789, when the French Revolution had begun, and ended when Queen Victoria took to the throne in 1836. Romanticism was a reaction against poetry of the previous period. 18th Century poetry was, amongst other things, harmonious, graceful and balanced. Romantic poetry was a revolution and an innovation. Wordsworth stated that it was the ‘real language of men’. There are six key figures on Romanticism; the first generation consisted of William Blake, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The second generation, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and John Keats.

As there would be in many different eras and periods, there are certain characteristics of Romantic Poetry, although not all of them would be found in a single poets work. Nature was dramatic and seen by most poets as inspiring. There was often a use of feeling; Wordsworth felt that poetry was “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling”. Other characteristics included the supernatural and a concern with the unexplainable. Coleridge’s “The Ancient Mariner” is a good example of this. Connected to the supernatural, the Romantic poets were also interested in dreams and the altered state, with the mystical and spiritual concept of an ultimate being manifested in Nature, “Frost at Midnight” by Coleridge. They also looked at the selfhood and individuality; it is felt that many poems contain the poets’ thoughts and feelings. Keats “Ode to a Nightingale” is a good example as it is known that he wrote this after his brother’s death.

Nature meant many things to the Romantics; different perspectives included seeing nature as a healing power, nature as a source of subject and image and nature as a safe haven from the artificial constructs of the world. At the same time, they paid great attention to describing these natural phenomena’s accurately and this can be found not just in romantic poetry, but in any aspect of literature and even landscape painting. Romantic nature poetry is essentially poetry of meditation.

Blake did not worship nature like other poets such as Wordsworth, but nature did feature in many of ...

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Blake did not worship nature like other poets such as Wordsworth, but nature did feature in many of his poetic works. In “Nurse’s Song” (from Songs of Innocence), we find children playing outside and enjoying the nature around them. Time is marked by signs in the natural world. “Come home my children, the sun is gone down / and the dews of the night arise…” (Lines 5 – 6). Nature acts as a guide for the children, explaining the time of the day to them in a way that they can understand. Other scenes of nature appear in this poem amongst lines 11 – 12, “Beside, in the sky the little birds fly / And the hills are all covered in sheep.” However, the version of “Nurse’s Song” printed in Songs of Experience is very different. There is little mention of nature and the time that it tells of, nor is there any sentimentality in the Nurse.

Nature was not the central focus of Blake’s poems but it was a theme that ran through several of his poetic works including “The Lamb”, “The Garden of Love” and “The Evening Star”. However, on the other hand, Wordsworth looks at nature and feels that he is a part of it. In “Tintern Abbey” he writes about a “green pastoral landscape” (ii. Line 158) and he shows nature to be a gentle force. He felt that nature was true and the best environment and that our thoughts would become clear and calm.

In other poems such as “The World Is Too Much with Us”, Wordsworth uses images and metaphors in order to conjure up the theme of nature. Symbolism represents the authors’ deep passion about the relationship and conflict between nature and money. “The world is too much with us; Late and soon / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers” (lines 1 – 2). In just the first two lines Wordsworth describes how the past and future are important, not only is he setting the scene for what has already happened, the author intends to refer to what is going to happen in the future also. The poet is trying to make the reader understand that the world is too pre-occupied with material things in life and then goes on to accuse the world of having lost its connection with nature and therefore everything that is meaningful. Wordsworth reaches back into Ancient Greece for their Gods who symbolised nature and had the strength to make a change. Wordsworth believed that if the world kept on following industrialisation and wealth, then they will continue to place themselves at odds with nature. People have made a God out of money instead of recognising nature as their true goddess. In this poem, Wordsworth makes an attack on industrialisation and urbanisation. He longs for the return of the fundamental love of Nature, which is indeed at the centre of Wordsworth’s poems.

Nature and the sublime were important features of Romanticism. All poets of the Romantic era wrote about romantic poetry at some point. However in comparing Wordsworth to Blake, it can easily be seen that Wordsworth had a huge focus on nature and everything revolved around that whereas Blake acknowledged the importance of nature but did not worship it.

Nature had inspired Keats and Coleridge to write personal poems to reflect God, childhood and memory. Keats strongly worships nature as a god. In his poem ‘To Autumn’ he has personified nature by calling it a “close bosom-friend” (Line 2), he personifies autumn as a female, “Thy hair, soft-lifted by the winnowing wind” (Line 15) gives her physical features. He relies on nature in the poem to nurture the fruits and plants. He believes that autumn controls nature and these are qualities that only a god could have. He makes nature accessible and shows his own true love of nature. “Frost At Midnight” by Coleridge is about the importance of childhood. “Shalt thou see and hear the lovely shapes and sound intelligible of that eternal language, which thy God utters” (Line 59 – 60). Coleridge wishes that his son may witness and love nature as much as he does. By calling nature the eternal language that God utters he is bringing another link with nature and God. He emphasises that nature is a major part of god and that god breaths life into nature and with every breath he is giving nature life. He believes that nature carries on throughout the year and has explained how nature is a characteristic of the world what ever the season. In summer nature is believed to “clothe the general earth with greenness” (Line 66) and in winter “The redbreast sit and sing betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch of mossy apple-tree” (Line 66 – 68).