English Romantic Poets
Uploaded by Aleem on Mar 17, 2007
The Romantics
By: Aleem Yousaf
The period of Romantic poets in the history of English literature is full of beauty of human thought. William Wordsworth belongs to this era and is ascribed to as the pioneer of the Romantic Movement in poetry. His poetry is full of exquisite word-pictures of nature and presents it beautifully. Wordsworth felt the being of nature as no one ever has felt it and his poetry transforms the reader to same heights of experience as nature and Wordsworth used to enjoy. In fact, his poetry is about common man and common things, all those things that are in our surrounding. He presents them to us by coloring them with imagination and thus uttering before us in the form his unprecedented nature-poetry. It was Wordsworth that defined poetry in terms the romantics wanted it to bedefined. According to him, “ [i:882d08e8ef]Poetry is an overflow of powerful feelings and emotions recollected in tranquility.”[/i:882d08e8ef]
Another big name among the giants of English romantic poets is John Keats. Keats was a poet of beauty and a true admirer of beauty. His poetry is full of sensuous experiences about beauty. He is the master of ode writing. His odes are masterpieces and embody some wonderful work of a poet such a high merit as Keats himself was. They speak about the poet’s personal anguish against the hardship of life as well as cruel treatment of beauty at the hands of its owners. Keats’ sonnets are written in Shakespearean style and are really a treat for the lovers of sonnet. His beautiful sonnet, [i:882d08e8ef]“When I have fears that I may cease to be,”[/i:882d08e8ef] touches the heights of experiences poetic expressions.
One big name in the Romantic Movement was that of Percy Bysshe Shelly. Shelley, as compared to his two above-mentioned contemporaries, wrote poetry that was both represented by love for beauty and nature. His treatment of nature is very artistic and the language used is also exquisite. His memorable elegy, Adonais written at the death of John Keats is one of the best-written elegies in English literature. The grief expressed in it is genuine and heartrending. It speaks volumes of how much the Shelley felt loss of a true preacher of truth and beauty.
To conclude, English literature has many movements and many great poets but the period of Romantics presents to the reader that experience of poetic joy, which is a characteristic of the...