Romantic Poetry

Two famous romantic poets, William Wordsworth (left) and John Keats (right).








I have been in the library for almost three hours now studying for our final exam. I spent some time studying the different literary eras and who the famous writers were at the time. I have discovered that while I have an affinity for Victorian literature (for some reason, aesthetics maybe), Romantic style poetry is probably my favorite. The Romantic poets wrote about the beauty and truth in nature, imagination, and self expression. These components usually make for a pretty poem with an equally pleasing meaning.

William Wordsworth's "I wandered lonely as a cloud" is a perfect example of a Romantic poem. In the work, the speaker experiences The Sublime. This phenomenon is basically an out of body experience, or a really exhilarating and almost frightening feeling of awe. The speaker of the poem experiences The Sublime at line 3: "When all at once I saw a crowd / A host, of golden daffodils" (3). The daffodils are breathtaking, and therefore leave the speaker in a state of awe. He continues describing the flowers in the next stanza: "Continuous as the stars that shine / And twinkle on the milky way, / They stretched in never-ending line / Along the margin of a bay" (7). I think the language here is beautiful, and it creates a wonderful image of nature in the reader's mind. I believe this was the goal of a lot of Romantic poets, to make us appreciate the spectacle that is nature.

John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is another classic Romantic poem. It even has a few famous lines in it, for example: "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter..." (11) and "Beauty is truth, truth beauty--that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know" (49). While some might argue that the second line I mentioned is ironic, it perfectly captures Romantic ideals. It implies that there is truth in beauty, and nature is beautiful, therefore, there is truth in nature. One theme of this poem is imagination, as the speaker of the poem is making up stories about the figures on an ancient urn. Another theme is permanence. In the second stanza, Keats writes "She cannot fade, though thou has not thy bliss, / For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!" (19). There is another good example of permanence in the third stanza: "More happy love! More happy, happy love! / For ever warm and still to be enjoyed, / For ever panting, and for ever young;" (25). The two themes I mentioned are what make this poem a great example of Romantic literature.