ROMANTICISM
Romanticism was a reaction to the 18th-century cult of reason. Romanticism valued the subjective and
irrational parts of human nature: emotion, imagination, introspection and nature.
The great English Romantic poets are usually grouped into two generation. The poets of the first generation
theorised about poetry: William Wordsworth wrote on the beauty of nature. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
dealt with visionary topics, the supernatural and mystery. The poets of the second generation experienced
political disillusionment, which is reflected in the clash between the ideal and the real. Individualism and
escapism were stronger in this generation.
The language adopted by 18th century poets had been that of “poetic diction”, which was based on the
imitation of the classics. The romantic poets rejected this poetic diction in favour of simple, spontaneous
language with symbols to express the creative mind.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Blake emphasised the importance of imagination over reason and believed that the poet should create
ideals forms from his inner visions. He wrote two collections of poem, Songs of Innocence and Songs of
Experience. In the first one, the narrator is a shepherd. The imagery of the poem is full of lambs, flowers
and children. Childhood is the symbol of innocence. While the second one, the narrator is a bard who
questions the themes of the previous collection. Experience is identified with adulthood. The imagery of
the poem is full of biblical references from the Genesis. There is a more pessimistic view of life.
For Blake, imagination, was the means to know the world. The poet therefore become a prophet. He can
see more deeply into reality through imagination and warn man of the evils of society. His poetry is
regarded as early Romantic because he rejected neoclassical literary style and themes.
Blake was interested in the evil consequences of the Industrial Revolution: materialistic attitude and
exploitation of human beings, especially children.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
He was born in the English Lake District in 1770. Wordsworth is usually considered “the poet of nature”, but
his poems contain very little natural description. He was more interested in the relationship between the
natural world and human consciousness. He thought that man and nature are inseparable. It is from
nature that man learns joy and love.
Wordsworth and his friend Coleridge worked on a collection of poems called Lyrical Ballads. Second edition
of Lyrical Ballads contained Wordsworth’s famous Preface, the Manifesto of English Romanticism where he
stated what the subject matter and the language of poetry should be.
For Wordsworth, the poet is a man speaking to other men, but he has more lively sensibility and the ability
to see in the heart of things. He is considered as a teacher because through the power of his imagination he
gets to the real knowledge of the world.
Daffodils
This poem records the poet’s experience of a walk with his sister, Dorothy, near their home in the Lake
District. This poem is not only about nature and daffodils, but also about the process of poetic creation. He
starts from describing the world of nature, but is particularly interested in the effects of this world “inside”
him, on his feelings.
