Poets During the 17th and 18th Centuries

3214 Words7 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: 3.2. What was the impact of Wollstonecraft’s work on the feminist movement

Poets during the 17th and 18th centuries, which were also referred to as the Neo-Classical period, focused on a revival of classical forms and restraints. Two well known Neo-Classical poets were John Dryden and Alexander Pope, who both used heroic couplets and stanzas, satire, and other epic tropes to create mock heroic poetry with strict form. By the turn of the 19th century, poets began to loosen the restraints on forms that were enforced during the Neo-Classical period. Mary Wollstonecraft and Elizabeth Barrett Browning were among the female authors during the years surrounding the romantic period that wrote in condemnation of the strict expectations English society had placed on women. Another female author, Joanna Baillie, was an influential source of admiration for well-known Romantic poets such as Lord Byron and William Wordsworth. In opposition to the formal regulations that the Neo-classical poets upheld, Romantic poets focused on experimenting with form as a way to express their radical ideas that explored freedom in politics, society, education, nature, and imagination.
Romanticism was a literary movement in response to the Enlightenment ideals of the Neo-classic period. Rather than being in direct conflict, the authors of the two periods simply took different approaches to support a needed critical assessment of their society through their writing. Janko Lavrin’s book, Studies in European Literature, began with a chapter entitled “On Romantic Mentality” where Lavrin defined the Romantic period in relation to the Neo-classical period; “[a]fter an age of fermentation and chaos there follows a period of organizing discipline; and when this ‘conservative’ period threatens to become stale and stagnant, a new centrifugal or...

... middle of paper ...

...ra and
De Monfort." Gothic Studies 3.2 (2001): 117. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Dec
2013.
Horace. "Ars Poetica." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch.
New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001. 124. Print.
Hubbell, J. Andrew. “A Question of Nature: Byron and Wordsworth.” Wordsworth Circle 41.1
(2010): 14-18. Literary Reference Center. 15-16. Web. 14 Dec. 2013.
Lavrin, Janko. Studies in European Literature. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1970. Print.
McGann, Jerome J. The Romantic Ideology: A Critical Investigation. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago, 1983. 61. Print.
Peyre, Henri. What Is Romanticism?. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1977. 59. Print.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Women: By Mary Wollstonecraft. With an
Introduction by Elizabeth Robins Pennell. London: Walter Scott, 1891. 37. Print

Show More
Related

  • Pre 1900 Poetry

    1149 Words  | 3 Pages

    lust. To his Coy Mistress is a pure lust one even though in parts may

    Read More

  • Female Rebellion In Aurora Leigh and The Lady in the Looking-Glass

    719 Words  | 2 Pages

    Women of both the ages of Victorian and early Modernism were restricted from education at universities or the financial independence of professionalism. In both ages, women writers often rebelled against perceived female expectations as a result of their oppression. To lead a solitary life as a subservient wife and mother was not satisfactory for writers like Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Virginia Woolf. One of the most popular female poets of the Victorian era, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, illustrated "a woman's struggle to achieve artistic and economical independence in modern society" (Longman P.1858). Many Victorian critics were shocked by Barrett Browning's female rebellion, which was rare for the era. With her autobiographical epic poem, Aurora Leigh provoked critics who were "scandalized by its radical revision of Victorian ideals of femininity" (P.1859). In the age of Modernism, women were finally given the some rights to a higher education and professionalism i n 1928 (p.2175). However, female poets of early Modernism, such as Virginia Woolf, were raised in the Victorian age. Rebellion toward "Victorian sexual norms and gender roles" (P.2175) are reflected in Woolf's modern literary piece, such as The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection. Also echoed in the piece, is how Woolf  "never lost the keen sense of anguish nor the self-doubt occasioned by the closed doors of the academy to women" (P.2445).

    Read More

  • Goblin Market Literary Analysis

    1511 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the Victorian Age, society commonly saw a woman’s sexuality as an incredibly taboo thing to discuss, let alone write and publish a whole poem about. The majority of the Victorian society not only advocated the idea that “respectable women were not supposed to enjoy sex or seek it,” but also adamantly denied the fact that women were able to take on any of the roles of men (Goblin 103). However, despite what the majority of society asserted, this era was also the point at which progressive authors started to use their writings to contradict these norms (Goblin 103). Christina Rossetti avidly broke these social standards by taking components of the Pre-Raphaelite styles of this time and applying them to the female characters in her work (Goblin

    Read More

  • Theme Of Romanticism In The Birthmark

    1364 Words  | 3 Pages

    Romanticism has been described as a “‘Protestantism in the arts and letters’, an ideological shift on the grand scale from conservative to liberal ideas”. (Keenan, 2005) It was a movement into the era of imagination and feelings instead of objective reasoning.

    Read More

  • Voltaire's Candide and Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther

    2108 Words  | 5 Pages

    ... a piece of literature written in the romanticism age than the neo-classicism age. The books are very different from each other, and both use their respective literary definitions to show the reader the relevance to the time frame in which it was written. All in all, both of the conclusions were appropriate and expected, each finding an answer to the long struggle with their problems. Romanticism literature offers more to the reader: more detail, more emotion, and a more clear, concise dilemma that could relate to readers more than neo-classicism.

    Read More

  • Real Romanticism

    1779 Words  | 4 Pages

    Interestingly enough, the Romanticism movement was not what the regular person would think as “romantic”. Delacroix's Death of Sarandapalus (27-15) was inspired by one of Lord Byron's poems. What the textbook did not mention was that many of Byron's poems reflected his wild living, that is, Byron chose scandalous moments throughout history to write about. The Romantic era was one of art picturing tumult and imagery, not one of normal “romantic” attributes.

    Read More

  • Empiricism In Poe's The Fall Of The House Usher

    1295 Words  | 3 Pages

    Romanticism was a movement in art and literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in revolt against the Neoclassicism of the previous centuries. The romanticism movement in literature consists of a few of the following characteristics: intuition over fact, imagination over fact, and the stretch and alteration of the truth. The death of a protagonist may be prolonged and/or exaggerated, but the main point was to signify the struggle of the individual trying to break free, which was shown in “The Fall of the House Usher” (Prentice Hall Literature 322).

    Read More

  • Writers During The Age of Discovery and The Romantic Period

    1169 Words  | 3 Pages

    Writers throughout history have always influenced or have been influenced by the era that which they live in. Many famous authors arose during The Age of Discovery and The Romantic Period all of whom had very distinctive writing styles that held true to their era. To find the differences between the two eras, it is important to understand the era at which time the literature was wrote, the writing style, and the subject matter.

    Read More

  • Frankenstein: Development through Romanticism

    1601 Words  | 4 Pages

    "Romanticism." A Guide to the Study of Literature: A Companion Text for Core Studies 6,

    Read More

  • John Keats Bright Star Analysis

    1168 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Romantic period was an expressive and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century and peaked in the 1800s-1850s. This movement was defined and given depth by an expulsion of all ideals set by the society of the particular time, in the sense that the Romantics sought something deeper, something greater than the simplistic and structured world that they lived in. They drew their inspiration from that around them. Their surroundings, especially nature and the very fabric of their minds, their imagination. This expulsion of the complexity of the simple human life their world had organised and maintained resulted in a unique revolution in history. Eradication of materialism, organisation and society and

    Read More

  • American Romanticism

    794 Words  | 2 Pages

    Despite its name, the Romantic literary period has little to nothing to do with love and romance that often comes with love; instead it focuses on the expression of feelings and imagination. Romanticism originally started in Europe, first seen in Germany in the eighteenth century, and began influencing American writers in the 1800s. The movement lasts for sixty years and is a rejection of a rationalist period of logic and reason. Gary Arpin, author of multiple selections in Elements of Literature: Fifth Course, Literature of The United States, presents the idea that, “To the Romantic sensibility, the imagination, spontaneity, individual feelings and wild nature were of greater value than reason, logic, planning and cultivation” (143). The Romantic author rejects logic and writes wild, spontaneous stories and poems inspired by myths, folk tales, and even the supernatural. Not only do the Romantics reject logic and reasoning, they praise innocence, youthfulness and creativity as well as the beauty and refuge that they so often find in nature.

    Read More

  • Effects of Realism in Literature and Art

    2050 Words  | 5 Pages

    Keenan, Richard "Romanticism." Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature. London: Continuum, 2005. Credo Reference. Web. 25 April 2014.

    Read More

  • The Romantic Period

    920 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Romantic period has many beginnings and takes different forms; so that in a celebrated essay, On the Discrimination of Romanticism (1924), A.O. Lovejoy argued that the word “Romantic” should no longer be used, since it has come to mean so many things that by itself, it means nothing. On the derivation of the word “Romanticism” we have definite and commonly accepted information which helps us to understand its meaning. Critics and literary historians differ widely and sometimes as violently, about the answer then have differed about love truth and other concepts. Romanticism is concerned with all these concepts and with others with equal importance. It is an attitude toward life and experience older than religion, as permanent as love, and as many-sided as truth. (Watson, J.R. English Poetry of the Romantic Period, Longman Inc. New York)

    Read More

  • Essay On Neo Romanticism

    913 Words  | 2 Pages

    The main reason for the rise of neo-romanticism was to oppose realism which had dominated the minds of many writers. By rejecting realism, it means that the literary scholars would no longer have to do the following. In the first place, they would not be compelled to incorporate the element of emotionalism in their works. This is one of the techniques which had been upheld by the realists (Hopkins 97). Since they had abandoned the use of romantic conventions, the rea...

    Read More

  • Metaphysical Poetry in The Seventeenth Century

    885 Words  | 2 Pages

    Metaphysical wit and conceit are two of the most famous literary devices used in the seventeenth century by poets such as John Donne. Emerging out of the Petrarchan era, metaphysical poetry brought a whole new way of expression and imagery dealing with emotional, physical and spiritual issues of that time. In this essay I will critically analyse the poem, The Flea written by John Donne in which he makes light of his sexual intentions with his lover.

    Read More

More about Poets During the 17th and 18th Centuries

Open Document