The Romantic poets

The Romantic poets

The lonely poet

Much of today’s view of what a poem should like is down to the influence of a loose affiliation of poets who were composing in the final quarter of the eighteenth century and the first of the nineteenth. The (charicatured) image of a spiritual wanderer profoundly affected by daffodils and nightingales marked a distinct change from the witty epigrams and clever arguments of the Augustan and Metaphysical poets.

Simple words

Using simple daily vocabulary the Romantic poets drew their reader’s attention to vivid natural images and fleeting emotional states, to the experiences of ordinary lives which spoke to them of awesome Nature.

Blake (pictured), Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron and Keats were the most famous of the movement. Their odes and lyrics are in many people’s top ten favourite poems today.

Radicals and revolutionaries

However, the Romantic poets weren’t just inspired by the natural world. Blake and Wordsworth started out as revolutionaries who supported the common people’s bid for freedom in France. Byron later fought for the Greeks in their war of independence. Shelley was a political radical who eschewed conventional social structures like marriage. He lived with the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, the first notable feminist. Their poems reflect their ideals.

A window on their world

The Romantics were not ‘apart’ from their society, but fully engaged with it. Which is why it helps to get a window on their world to make better sense of what inspired them. As usual, Crossref-it.info can guide you to what you need to know in a helpful and accessible way. Whether you are reading Wordsworth, Keats or their associates, Context links: The Romantic poets will show you where relevant information is, whilst the complete guide on Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience fills out the picture of that London based poet.

Next week another complete guide to an English poet will arrive on your screens. Watch this space!