Romantic Poetry

What is romanticism? No other period in English literature displays more variety in style, theme, and content than the Romantic Movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Romanticism is concerned with the individual more than with society Highlights individual consciousness, especially the individual imagination Romanticism was highly influenced by the Industrial Revolution in which they wrote poems in opposition of it. They evoke and depict emotional matter in poems. It praised imagination over reason, emotions over logic, and intuition over science

Key elements of romanticism Belief in the individual and common man Love of nature Interest in the bizarre and supernatural Interest in the past Looks at the world with more than reasonable optimism Faith in inner experience and the power of the imagination

AP Style Writing Prompts: Techniques Allusion in reference to the past End Rhyme: A rhyme that occurs in the last syllables of verses. Italian Sonnet: 14 line sonnet that consists of an octave (8 lines) and a sestet (six lines) AP Style Writing Prompts: Explain how the Industrial Revolution resulted in the rise of Romanticism. Analyze the major social contributions of Romanticism to society Compare the differences between Romantic and Victorian Era.

Themes Romantics tend to evoke emotion to emphasize a love of nature and a valuing of individualism Anything you want you can have if you only want it enough You’ll see the true beauty of nature if you look past the overpowering industrialized society You’ll rise above what you are with the use of imagination You’ll have the potential for great things if you have an internal beauty, born of the intellect Altruism has a limit, for everyone is motivated by self interest

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) One of the major English Romantic poets and is regarded by critics as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. In oxford 1810, expelled for the suspected authorship of a pamphlet entitled The Necessity of Atheism. A radical in his poetry as well as his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition for his poetry grew steadily following his death. In 1811 he met and eloped to Edinburgh with Harriet Westbrook but in 1814 eloped with Mary Godwin In the autumn 1816 Harriet drowned herself in the Serpentine in Hyde Park and Shelley then married Mary and settled with her in 1817. Shelley himself drowned in a sailing accident in 1822. Notable works : Hymn to Intellectual Beauty Ozymandias Ode to the West Wind The Indian Serenade To a Skylark

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850) In the early 1790s William lived for a time in France, then in the grip of the violent Revolution; Wordsworth’s philosophical sympathies lay with the revolutionaries, but his loyalties lay with England, whose monarchy he was not prepared to see overthrown. The theory he produced and the poetics he invented to embody it, caused a revolution in English literature He romanticized peasants and children, whom he believed are capable of perceiving the divine more purely than those corrupted by city living. Wordsworth believed that, upon being born, human beings move from a perfect, idealized realm into the imperfect, un-ideal earth. Wordsworth’s most important legacy, besides his lovely, timeless poems, is his launching of the Romantic era, opening the gates for later writers such as John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley Notable works: An Evening Walk (1793) Descriptive Sketches (1793) Borders (1795) Lines Written Above Tintern Abbey (1798) Lyrical Ballads (1798)

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) May 31, 1819-March 26, 1892 Learned the printer's trade at age twelve Started reading/ getting inspired by Homors, Shakespeare, and the works of the Bible and admired Ralph Waldo Emerson Journalism became a part of him Editor of Brooklyn and New York's paper Took a copyright of the Leaves on Grass and self-published it Used his skills and wrote about the Civil War Became a poet, essayist, and Journalist Poetry usually was about society and race Notable works: Franklin Evans (1842) Leaves of Grass (1855) Drum-Taps (1865)

John keats (1795-1821) In 1816 Keats became a licensed apothecary, but he never practiced his profession, deciding instead to write poetry. Writing some of his finest poetry between 1818 and 1819, Keats mainly worked on "Hyperion," a Miltonic blank-verse epic of the Greek creation myth. Keats's important poems are related to, or grow directly out of inner conflicts Keats often associated love and pain both in his life and in his poetry. Keats repeatedly combines different senses in one image; he attributes the trait(s) of one sense to another, a practice called synaesthesia. His synaesthetic imagery performs two major functions in his poems: it is part of their sensual effect, and the combining of senses normally experienced as separate suggests an underlying unity of dissimilar happenings, the oneness of all forms of life. Notable works: "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (1819) "Ode to a Nightingale" (1819) "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" (1819) "On Autumn" (1820)

QUIZ What do Romantics write in response to? What is Romanticism concerned more about? Name at least three different topics that Romantics focused more on.

The Oxbow by Thomas Cole Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway by J. M. W. Turner

Links http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_poetry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats