Romantic poetry
Romantic imagination
an almost divine faculty, imagination help the poet to discover the thruth of reality beyond reason and to re-creat the external world of experience
poet was a visionary prophet or a teacher who mediate between nature and man and give voice to the ideals of freedom, beauty and thruth
imagination gained a primary role in the process of composition
prevalence of poetry, best suited to the need of express personal emotions and feelings
the child
to the Augustan Age, childhood was considered only a stage in the process leading to adulthood
to a Romantic, a child was puerer than an adult because he was unspoilt by civilization, nearer to God
a serious interest about the insight and experience of childhood
Childhood was a state to admire and imitate
the importance of the individual
the outcast, the rebel
Jean Jacque Rousseau: he stated that the convention of civilitation represented intolerable restriction on the individual and produced corruption and evil
the Romantics, saw the individual in a solitary state, and stressed the potentialities of each individual's mind
natural behaviour was considered good in opposition of a behaviour controlled by reason and society laws: the concept of the 'noble savage'
the Augustan age had seen human as a social animal, in relationship with his fellows
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individualism and alienation were important themes and found different expression
Bryon,Shelley,Keats,experienced political disillusionment which is reflected in their poetry in the clash between the ideal and the real:
Byronic hero was anti-conformist and rebelllius
while Wordsworth wrote on the beauty of nature and ordinary things,Coleridge,dealed with supernatural and mistery
Shelley's Prometheus was full ofrevolutionary spirit
the great English Romantic poets are usually grouped in two generations
Keat's escape into the world of classical beauty