english romanticism saw the prevalence of poetry , which best suited the need to give expression to emotional experience and individual feelings. towards the end of the 18th century there had been a growing appreciation of the power of the imagination , but only with the romantics did imagination gain a primary role in the process of poetic composition . the eye of the imagination allowed the romantic poets to see beyond surface reality and apprehend a truth beyond the powers of reason . an almost divine faculty , imagination allowed the poet to re-create and modify the external world of experience . so the poet became a visionary prophet or a teacher whose task was to mediate between man and nature , to point out the evils of society , to give voice to the ideals of beauty , truth , and freedom . the romantic poets however continued to appreciate the natural world and their works were rich in descriptions of natural elements and landscape seen as a reflection of the poet's mood and feelings.
ROMANTIC POETRY
there are some features that can be found in most romantic poems.
1 the presence of the lyric
2 the presentation of nature as a living force and in a pantheistic vein , as the expression of god in the universe .
3 the use of the language of sense impressions because the senses were instruments to set the visionary power in action ..
4 the freedom from models and rules as regards poetic technique .
5 the search for a new individual style throught the choice of a language and subject suitable to poetry .
6 the return to past forms such as the ballad the sonnet and the lyric poems which achieved a freedom , flexilibility and intensity rarely equalled .
7 the use of symbols and images as visible vehicles of the visionary perception rather than as decorative devices.
the great english romantic poets are usually grouped into two generations the first generation , often calles the lake poets , included william wordsworth and S.T coleridge , the poets of the second generation were George Gordon Byron , Shelley , and John Keats.
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
S:T Coloridge : the man and the poet .
Samuel Taylor Coloridge was born in Devonshire in 1772 . he was heavily influenced by French revolutionary ideals. afther the disillusionment with the frech revolution , he and the poet Robert Southey planned to establish a utopian community in Pennsylvania under the name of Pantisocracy in order to provide labour and peace . this project came to nothing in the end . as he suffered from chronic rheumatism, the doctors prescribed opium to ease his bodily pains . in 1797 he met th poet William Wordsworth and settled in Somerset where an important collaboration started.
1 the rime of the Ancient Mariner his masterpiece , is the first poem of the collection lyrical ballads
2 Christable an unfinished poem
3 Kubla Khan again unfinished
In 1799 he joined Wordsworth and his sister in the Lake District , even though his addiction to opium continued to plague him . Finally he settled in London where he produced Biographia Literaria . here he explained the dual task which he and Wordsworth had set themselves in the Lyrical ballads. In contrast to Wordsworth's preoccupation with subjects from ordinary life, his own task was to write about extraordinary events in a credible way . he died in 1834.
THE IDEAL IN THE REAL :
unlike wordsworth , coloridge did not view nature as a moral guide or a source of consolation and happiness . his contemplation of nature was always accopanied by awareness of the presence of the ideal in the real . his strong Chrstian faith did not allow him to identify nature with the divine . he rather saw nature and the material world in a sort of neo Platonic interpretation as the reflection of the perfect world of ideas . but the projection of the real world of ideas on the flux of time . thus <Coloridge believed that natural images carried abstract meanings. . Mystery combination of the supernatural and the commonplace .
ROMANTIC POETRY
there are some features that can be found in most romantic poems.
1 the presence of the lyric
2 the presentation of nature as a living force and in a pantheistic vein , as the expression of god in the universe .
3 the use of the language of sense impressions because the senses were instruments to set the visionary power in action ..
4 the freedom from models and rules as regards poetic technique .
5 the search for a new individual style throught the choice of a language and subject suitable to poetry .
6 the return to past forms such as the ballad the sonnet and the lyric poems which achieved a freedom , flexilibility and intensity rarely equalled .
7 the use of symbols and images as visible vehicles of the visionary perception rather than as decorative devices.
the great english romantic poets are usually grouped into two generations the first generation , often calles the lake poets , included william wordsworth and S.T coleridge , the poets of the second generation were George Gordon Byron , Shelley , and John Keats.
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
S:T Coloridge : the man and the poet .
Samuel Taylor Coloridge was born in Devonshire in 1772 . he was heavily influenced by French revolutionary ideals. afther the disillusionment with the frech revolution , he and the poet Robert Southey planned to establish a utopian community in Pennsylvania under the name of Pantisocracy in order to provide labour and peace . this project came to nothing in the end . as he suffered from chronic rheumatism, the doctors prescribed opium to ease his bodily pains . in 1797 he met th poet William Wordsworth and settled in Somerset where an important collaboration started.
1 the rime of the Ancient Mariner his masterpiece , is the first poem of the collection lyrical ballads
2 Christable an unfinished poem
3 Kubla Khan again unfinished
In 1799 he joined Wordsworth and his sister in the Lake District , even though his addiction to opium continued to plague him . Finally he settled in London where he produced Biographia Literaria . here he explained the dual task which he and Wordsworth had set themselves in the Lyrical ballads. In contrast to Wordsworth's preoccupation with subjects from ordinary life, his own task was to write about extraordinary events in a credible way . he died in 1834.
THE IDEAL IN THE REAL :
unlike wordsworth , coloridge did not view nature as a moral guide or a source of consolation and happiness . his contemplation of nature was always accopanied by awareness of the presence of the ideal in the real . his strong Chrstian faith did not allow him to identify nature with the divine . he rather saw nature and the material world in a sort of neo Platonic interpretation as the reflection of the perfect world of ideas . but the projection of the real world of ideas on the flux of time . thus <Coloridge believed that natural images carried abstract meanings. . Mystery combination of the supernatural and the commonplace .