Romanticism In Literature

Romanticism In Literature

Romanticism in literature, began around 1750 and lasted

until 1870. Different from the classical ways of Neoclassical

Age(1660-1798), it relied on imagination, idealization of nature

and freedom of thought and expression.

Two men who influenced the era with their writings were

William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, both English

poets of the time. Their edition of “Lyrical Ballads';, stressed the

importance of feeling and imagination. Thus in romantic

Literature the code was imagination over reason, emotion

over logic, and finally intuition over science. All of these new

ways discouraged and didn’t tolerate the more classic way of

literature.

Other significant writers of the Romantic Age are noted still

as shaping an age of open-mindedness and freedom. Lord Byron

was one of these authors, he wrote “Don Juan';. Another is Percy

Bysshe Shelley wrote in terza rima, a three line iambic

pentameter set up of bcb, cdc, ded, and so on. Johan Keats

created his own fairy tale land in the lyrical poem “Ode on a

Grecian Urn';.

Nature and the natural surroundings were important in

romanticism. Taking pleasure in untouched scenery and the

innocence of life was the basis and theme of “The Seasons'; by

the Scottish poet James Thomson. This inspired the nature tradition

present in English literature, such as

the works by Wordsworth.

Another aspect in romantic writings, most times connected

with the...