A new approach to literature and art that rose in late eighteenth century was the beginning of the Romantic Movement. This was the first time poets and authors were able to strive for originality. The Romantic era was more open to mythic, mystic and spirituality than the enlightenment era had ever been. William Blake was a romantic poet. Romanticism was a movement, which was marked primarily by its rejection of the enlightenment ideologies and scientific methods, as well as its emphasis on the natural world, emotions, artistry and the personal expression. Growing up Blake`s childhood was dominated by spiritual visions which influenced his works and personal life. As a little boy he said he had seen a tree filled with angels. He was a strong supporter in liberty and freedom of all, including women, he sparked controversy with his nonconventional views on the church and state. Blake`s personal ideas of theological issues and spiritual filter into his own works. Blake trusted in the correspondence between the physical world and spiritual world, be was able to do that by using poetic metaphors and express his beliefs. Blake was able to integrate the bible and other Christian traditions into his mythology.
Romanticism “is a phenomenon characterized by reliance on the imagination and subjectivity of approach, freedom of thought and expression, an idealization of nature”. It has been said that Romantics wrote with several of the following characteristics a return to nature, idealization of women and children, an interest in the past, championing personal freedom, melancholy, the supernatural, imagination and emotion. Wars between England and France as well as the French Revolution were a huge influence to many of the writers during...
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...ophies. This was something that many writers didn’t do during his day. Blake questions God and his reasoning to why he created someone so fierce and scary as a tiger. Blake was trying to show is the fact that evil, violence and terror that exist is the world. The lamb is used to show the innocence, purity and peace found in the world. These two poems are able to show individualism and experience as part of the time period. The lamb is used to be a symbol `of as an innocent child. He uses the lamb to show innocence like Jesus Christ did in the bible. Blake`s poem illustrates the basic values and morals of Christianity, that are found in the bible.
The romantic period was extremely vibrant and rich in literary criticism and nonfictional prose. Blake moves back and forth between innocence and experience through his poetry in Song of Innocence and Song of Experience.
To start with, Romanticism was the first writing movement of the nineteenth century. It originated at the close of the eighteenth century in Europe, but was popular from the 1800s to 1850s. This movement was a revolt against the political and social standards of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction to the reasoning of nature through science. Romanticism’s characteristics came from philosophical sources and, because it is a reaction against reasoning, it focuses on intuition, nature, and human emotions. The philosophical background of this movement came from an author named Jean-Jacques Rousseau who emphasized the individual and the power of inspiration. Romanticism later then broke off into another two movements called Parnassian and Realism.
Romanticism is a revolt against rationalism. The poets and authors of this time wrote about God, religion, and Beauty in nature. The romantics held a conviction that imagination and emotion are superior to reason. One such author is William Cullen Bryant, he wrote the poem Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood. This poem uses many literary devices, and has a strong message to portray to the reader.
The Romantic period at its height extended over just a bit more than a century, from the latter half of the eighteenth century through to nearly the end of the nineteenth century. During this period, a new school of poetry was forged, and with it, a new moral philosophy. But, as the nineteenth century wound down, the Romantic movement seemed to be proving itself far more dependent on the specific cultural events it spanned than many believed; that is, the movement was beginning to wind down in time with the ebbing of the industrial and urban boom in much the same way that the movement grew out of the initial period of industrial and urban growth. Thus, it would be easy to classify the Romantic movement as inherently tied to its cultural context. The difficulty, then, comes when poets and authors outside of this time period-and indeed in contexts quite different then those of the original Romantic poets-begin to label themselves as Romantics.
History is the story and knowledge of the past. There are individuals that are interested by history and wish to study it by learning more. It is very informative to know what has happened in the past for self-knowledge. An individual cannot be naïve to the past including but not limited to how literature came to. One can understand literature more when they understand the time period the author wrote during and the way they wrote. There are several time periods different authors have been through with each period having specific beliefs. Romanticism is the time period that interests me the most; it was a time during the eighteenth century and focused on nature along with the individual’s expression of imagination and emotion.
William Blake, born in 1757 and died in 1827, created the poems “The Lamb,” “The Tyger,” and Proverbs of Hell. Blake grew up in a poor environment. He studied to become an engraver and a professional artist. His engraving took part in the Romanticism era. Romanticism is a movement that developed during the 18th and early 19th century as a reaction against the Restoration and Enlightenment periods focusing on logic and reason.
His spiritual beliefs reached outside the boundaries of religious elites loyal to the monarchy. “He was inspired by dissident religious ideas rooted in the thinking of the most radical opponents of the monarchy during the English Civil War” (E. P. Thompson). Concern with war and the blighting effects of the industrial revolution were displayed in much of his work. One of Blake’s most famous works is The Songs of Innocence and The Songs of Experience. In this collection, Blake illuminates the naive hopes and fears that inform the lives of children and follow them into adulthood.... ...
When many hear “Romanticism” they think of love, but Romanticism isn’t mainly about love. Yes, it may have some love, but it’s also about reasoning, nature, imaginations, and individualism. Like American Romanticism, that occurred from 1830 – 1865. It was actually caused by Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper. For Americans, “it was a time of excitement over human possibilities, and of individual ego. American writers didn’t know what “America” could possibly mean in terms of literature, which was American and not British. It questioned their identity and place in society, creatively” (Woodlief). It was characterized by an interest in nature, and the significance of the individual’s expression on emotion and imagination; good literature should have heart, not rules. Some of the most famous authors who wrote during American Romanticism were Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. American Romanticism is important because it was the “historical period of literature in which modern readers most began to see their selves and their own conflicts and desires”. Romanticism was a literary revolution.
... I enjoyed the poem. Blake keeps the reader fascinated with not only the structure and literary analysis aspect, but also with the taboo message of the laws of morality organized religion puts on our society. I admire Blake because he was truly ahead of his time in his thinking about free love and spirituality. Considering how controversial the discussion of the laws of morality is today, is isn’t a wonder that his work went largely unnoticed in his time. This poem has opened my eyes, and made me question the legitimacy of all the briars that bind to my joys and desires.
He based most of his works in the style of Romanticism - Blake wrote from the heart, he let his thoughts and beliefs take over.
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.
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)
Writers during the Romantic Period wrote from their imaginations rather than presenting life realistically. So, in contrast to the realistic literature written during the Enlightenment, literature written during the Romantic Period was imaginative and unrealistic. Romantic literature was also a break with classicism, which creates its own themes and forms. They understood that the human mind believed beyond reason.
Romanticism was an artistic and literary movement that began in the late 18th century Europe that stressed the individual’s expression of emotion and imagination, glorification of the past and nature, and departure from forms of classicism. The movement emerged as a reaction against the ideas
Literature of the Romantic Era was heavily influenced by the politics, major events and social reforms of the time, the most notable being the French Revolution in 1789, which is typically marked as the beginning of this period. Many authors of the time period were attracted to the ideal of universal equality and the abandonment of monarchy in favor of democratic go...
LaGuardia, Cheryl. "WILLIAM BLAKE: SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE." Library Journal 128.9 (2003): 140. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 13 July 2011.