The Romantics

The Romantics

Romanticism was a secular and intellectual movement in the history of ideas that originated in late 18th century Western Europe. It stressed strong emotion the individual imagination as a critical authority, which permitted freedom within or from classical notions of form in art, and overturning of previous social conventions, particularly the position of the aristocracy. There was a strong element of historical and natural inevitability in its ideas, stressing the awe of "nature" in art and language and the experience of sublimity through a connection with nature. An influence upon the Romantic movement by the ideologies and events of the French Revolution is thought to have characterized the movement. Romanticism is also noted for its elevation of the achievements of what it perceived as misunderstood heroic individuals and artists that altered society altogether. Poets in the romanticism period used their poems to express their romantic characteristics.

The first poem I read “Lines Composed Few Miles above Tintern Abbey “ by William Wordsworth. Wordsworth wrote this poem July 13, 1978, this is one of Wordsworth finest, is an ecstatic meditation on nature, the senses, and the sublime. As a poet Wordsworth wrote with the voice of a true romantic. As a romantic his relationship with nature was astonishing; “in nature and the language of the senses the anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, the guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul, of my moral being. Of course Wordsworth is referring to nature, and his love for nature, the relationship that he with nature is his love for it. “These beauteous forms, through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind mans eyes” in other words he is saying that his absence from nature, is that of a huge and beautiful picture not being able to be seen. This is one of the reason that William is an excellent romantic.

“Kubla Khan” written in 1798 a poem I studied by “Samuel T. Colridge.” Colridge was born October 21, 1772 and died July 25, 1834. Colridge was an English poet, critic, philosopher who was one of the founders of the romantic movement. “Kubla Khan” a masterpiece by Colridge, Colridge said that the poem was inspires by a opium induced dream. “Down to the sunless see, so twice five miles of fertile ground with walls and towers were griddled round” he understands nature, his owner. Colridge he has the feeling as if he was their in his dream. “Five miles meandering with a mazy motion through wood and dale the scared river ran, then reached the caverns measureless to man.” again it seems as if he has experienced what his poems is expressing.

“Ozymandias” a famous sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelly, published in 1818. It is frequently