Romantic Literature: Romanticism And The Romantic Period

Mumtaz Ali
Lecturer Adnan Riaz
M.A English Literature
Date 20.01.2018 Romantic poetry
Romantic age or the romantic period is an artistic, literary and musical movement that originated throughout Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century and reached to its peak between the years of 1800 and 1850. Firstly, it started in Germany, but later the ideologies of the French revolution became the dominant reasons for its spread and circulation. And English writers were much influenced by the French Revolution. During romanticism, the emotions and individualism were highly emphasized. Walter Peter called romanticism the addition of strangeness to beauty. The influence of French Revolution with the thinker Rousseau left a dominant mark in

The Romantic Movement in English literature was a revolt against the neo-classical school of poetry of John Dryden (1631-1770) and Alexander Pope (1688-1744) above all in poetry. The classical days of Dryden and Pope were gone who believed in strict rules, realism and controlled their imaginations in poetry. Moreover, the neo-classical poets lacked emotions in their poetry which is one of the greatest characteristics of romantic poetry. Because the romantic poets believed that a poet has to be free to express his/her emotions. Wordsworth emphasizes subjectivity and thinks that the basic idea is the emotion. That’s why Victor Hugo called it “liberalism in literature.” Because with the commencement of the romantic age, the poets felt free to choose any subject for their poetry. The characteristics of the romantic period include emotions, feelings, imaginations, spontaneity, love of nature, supernaturalism, love of beauty, subjectivity, medievalism, hellinism, sensuousness and simple diction. Though there were many poets who penned their feelings in lines during the romantic age, but the major romantic poets were William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Samuel Taylor Coleridge(1772-1884), Robert

John Keats, Coleridge and Shelley are famous for using imagination in their poetry. They believed that literature above all poetry can be a cause for the improvement of the world using imagination to change the mind of the people. William Blake believed that imagination is the capacity of great art. Medievalism is also one of the characteristics of the romantic poetry. Many romantic poets were attracted by the medievalism and they brought the different aspects of the middle ages in their poetry. Coleridge and John Keats much focused the middle age in their poetry than their own age. As Coleridge says concerning the medievalism, “Look before and after, /and pine for what is not.”
Hellinism can also be seen in English romantic poetry where some poets showed the beauty of classical Greece. The term Hellinism is attached with this concept because Helen was known as the most beautiful woman in the ancient Greece before 3000 B.C. John Keats best reflected Hellinism in his poetry among the romantic poets. Supernaturalism is another characteristic of the romantic poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is the leading poet among the romantic poets. His “Kubla Khan” is an example which is full of supernatural