NATURE POETS
NATURE POETS
The beginning of the nineteenth century witnessed the flourish of Romanticism in English Literature. Here we shall read about the NATURE POETS of this era. Romanticism in English Literature took its inspiration from the French Revolution. This revolution stormed through Europe and shook it.
NATURE POETS
RETURN TO NATURE
In the year 1789 broke out the French Revolution. It shook the younger generation of the time with its initial message of liberty and humanity. Inspired by the humanitarian idealism of Rousseausim, the French Revolution propagated a new social doctrine. The new slogan of French Revolution was liberty, fraternity, and equality.
Napoleon’s conquests shocked terribly the admirers of French Revolution
This crossed the sea and reached the shores of England. The Romantic poets of English Literature like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge made extensive tours in France. They were drawn to the activities of the revolutionists of the French Revolution. French Revolution sowed the seed of Romanticism in English Literature.
NATURE POETS
Napoleon’s conquests shocked terribly the admirers of French Revolution
However, the lofty ideals of the French revolution gave birth to dangerous absolutism. Napoleon assumed full imperial power in 1799. Napoleon’s conquests usurped the rights and liberty of the Europeans. This no doubt shocked terribly the warm admirers of the French Revolution. The French Revolution filled the earlier romanticists of English Literature. They, however, found a serious threat in Napoleon. We already know he was a destroyer of human freedom and human happiness. The association of these romanticists of English Literature with the French Revolution was a ‘melancholy dream’ to them.
NATURE POETS
Napoleon’s conquests shocked terribly the admirers of French Revolution
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s joint work – Lyrical Ballads, published in 1798, marked the beginning of a new literary movement. This movement is known as ‘Romanticism’ in the history of English Literature.
Napoleon’s conquests shocked terribly the admirers of French Revolution
The new movement may well be associated with Elizabethan romanticism in English Literature. It is a sharp contrast to the English Literature of the age of prose and reason of the eighteenth century. Rather, it can be said, there was a birth of the new poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge in English Literature.
Napoleon’s conquests shocked terribly the admirers of French Revolution
There was a barren period of rationality and social criticism in the poetic realm of eighteenth-century English Literature. Romanticism marks a happy and inspiring trend in the world of English Literature in England at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
WHAT IS ROMANTICISM IN ENGLISH LITERATURE?
Napoleon’s conquests shocked terribly the admirers of French Revolution
In the art of romanticism in English Literature, this endeavor for the liberation of creative energy and imagination is a distinct feature. Romanticism, in English Literature, is actually to break the bars of the real. It is to transcend the limitations of matter and time to establish the unknown and unreal. As if this world of imagination was where we always lived in.
NATURE POETS
In the history of English Literature, the uniqueness of the artists of romanticism lies not in what they say. There is neither any exception or unnaturalness in what they say nor in the subject they choose. Romantic English Literature binds together the love for freedom, fondness for mysticism, and the passion for beauty.
NATURE POETS
Napoleon’s conquests shocked terribly the admirers of French Revolution
THE POETS OF THE ROMANTIC AGE AND THEIR LOVE FOR NATURE
Wordsworth is a poet of nature and his poetry is an idealization of the natural world, with meditation and devotion. His paganism forms a romantic appreciation of nature. Nature to Wordsworth is a mighty and majestic spirit that enlivens and summons every object of the visible world. Shelley’s love for nature is, too, passionate, though he is found to romanticize and humanize different natural phenomena.
Napoleon’s conquests shocked terribly the admirers of French Revolution
His legends are the extraordinary presentation of the romance of poetic imagination in nineteenth-century Romantic English Literature. In Byron, Keats, Coleridge, and Southey ( poets of Romantic English Literature ), romantic love for nature is also intense. Sir Walter Scott’s Scottish lays, as well as historical novels, are also rich in distinct natural details.
THE ART OF MYSTICISM IN RETURN TO NATURE
NATURE POETS
Napoleon’s conquests shocked terribly the admirers of French Revolution
Mysticism forms the third distinctive feature of Romantic English Literature. This Renaissance of wonder, as it is often termed, is found to have entered intimately into Romantic English Literature. It had coloured profoundly not only poetry but also fictional as well as non-fictional prose-writings of nineteenth-century English Literature. Wordsworth’s paganism, Shelley’s legends, and Coleridge’s supernaturalism bear out the mystical notes of romantic poetry.
MYSTERY AND SUPERNATURALISM
Napoleon’s conquests shocked terribly the admirers of French Revolution
NATURE POETS
We also notice the romantic interest in the mystery and the supernatural in the romances of terror ( English Literature ) of Mary Shelley, Anne Radcliffe, Horace Walpole and others. Mysticism is also evident in Charles Lamb’s Elian Essays ( nineteenth century English Literature ) in his mystification of readers in a natural witty way.
RETURN TO THE BYGONE DAYS
Napoleon’s conquests shocked terribly the admirers of French Revolution
NATURE POETS
One of the haunting attractions of romantic English Literature we find in its keen attachment to the past. The authors of Romantic English Literature, exhausted with the shoddy present, seem to turn back to the romance of bygone ages – of the days which are no more. There took place, what we popularly call, a revival of the past. Coleridge and Keats we find were drawn to the dim medieval past.
Napoleon’s conquests shocked terribly the admirers of French Revolution
Hellenism, too, forms a part of the poetic mood of the romanticists, like Byron, Shelley, and Keats. Scott’s historical novels very well explain the attraction of the romantic era poets and novelists’ fascination for the past. This is equally applicable to the novels of Bulwer Lytton. We can very rightly call the literary interest of the past the fourth feature of Romantic English Literature.
SUBJECTIVITY OF THE NATURE POETS
Napoleon’s conquests shocked terribly the admirers of French Revolution
Subjectivity constitutes a paramount trait in Romantic English Literature. In fact, self-revelation is a part of romantic expressions. Romantic poets and authors reveal much of themselves – their moods, feelings, and experiences – in their works.
CONCLUSION
Napoleon’s conquests shocked terribly the admirers of French Revolution
NATURE POETS
The Romantic Age is certainly an age of poetry. The chief literary glory of the age lies in the great poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, Keats, and Scott. But however, the prose literature of the Romantic Age is in no way less impressive. The historical novels of Sir Walter Scott, social novels of Jane Austen, thrillers of Mary Shelley are remarkable contributions to the world of fiction.
