James 1 Tiffany James Mr.

McCauley Survey of English Literature II 27 October 2012 Romanticism Several different styles of writing came out of the Romantic Period and along with that came brilliant poets and novelists. They wanted to move away from reason and logic and move into experimentation and form their own identities as poets. These people brought many different elements to their work to define what poetry is today. Some of the elements that they tended to use the most are nature, sensual writing, and talking about themselves. In the early poems we read most of the poets focused on nature and comparing people to nature. This is due to the creation of the industrial revolution, which had caused peoples lives to shift from peaceful, serene country sides, to chaotic city environments. This caused people and poets especially, to revere nature for its beauty, but also for its ability to help man find his inner self. An example of this is William Blakes poem, Nurses Song. In the poem the reader can see nature right from the start in the first two lines, when the voices of children are heard on the green, /and laughing is heard on the hill, (Blake 1-2). After reading these two lines even I can see the country side and how peaceful people back in the day must have found it. The last two lines of the first stanza, my heart is at rest within my breast, /and everything else is still, (Blake 3-4), would give anyone the impression that the narrator enjoys being in the country and he became at peace within himself. The poem also talks about birds flying in the sky and sheep

James 2 grazing on the hill. This is just another example of nature in the poem. However, the last two lines of the poem, the little ones leaped and shouted and laughd, and and all the hills echoed, (Blake 15-16), produces the mental picture of happy times when life was simpler and people gained pleasure out of the simple things in life. It is also possible to see nature right from the start in William Wordsworths poem, I wandered lonely as a cloud. The poem starts off with floats on high oer vales and hills, and a host of golden daffodils;/ beside the lake, beneath the trees, /fluttering and dancing in the breeze, (Wordsworth 2, 4-6). The imagery of these lines makes you feel like youre right there. They make you think of sitting on a hill surrounded by daffodils on a beautiful day, watching the clouds flit by on a warm breeze. There is also another trait that poets from early Romanticism give to their nature poems and that trait is the fact that they make it seem like nature is alive; for example in I wandered lonely as a cloud, tossing their heads in sprightly dance, and but they out-did the sparkling waves in glee, (Wordsworth 12, 13-14). These lines are talking about the daffodils as if they were humans dancing just because their happy. Later on in the Romantic Period poets started becoming more and more sensual with what they wrote about. And John Keats was the king of writing sensual poetry. For example, in Keats poem La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad, in the third stanza Keats starts to hint at something a little more fragrant, a little more adult than what people of the time period were used to. The stanza starts out saying, I see a lily on thy brow/ with anguish moist and fever dew, and it moves to and on thy cheeks a fading rose/ fast withereth too (Keats 9-12). This is just the beginning, though, because in the next few stanzas the readers get a description of the lady, and, depending on how a person looks at it, her description could be taken as plain and uneventful, but if you read between the lines then it becomes something so much more. But at the end of

James 3 stanza five, she lookd at me as she did love, /and made sweet moan, (Keats 19-20), there is no mistaking this poem for what it is, which is a story of sensual passion. Then the narrator goes on to describe to the readers what exactly is happening during this sexual experience. However, there is one strange factor to these sensual poems; they seem to end in quite a gloomy way, I saw their starvd lips in the gloam/ with horrid warning gaped wide, (Keats 41-41) and the poem ends with this, alone and paley loitering,/ though the sedge is witherd from the lake,/ and no birds sing, (La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad lines 46-48). When someone tells you that there were no birds singing where there normally are some then you question what has happened there. Keats was not the only sensual author from the Romantic Period, Lord Byron was also a sensual writer and it can be seen in his epic poem Don Juan. For example, in stanza 107 it easy to see that the narrator is saying that Julia is afraid to get intimate with Juan, and of the folly of all prudish fears (Byron 850). However, in stanza 115 the narrator gets straight to the point, and Julia sate with Juan, half embraced/ and half retiring from the glowing arm,/ which trembled like the bosom where twas placed (Byron 913-915). These lines indicate that Julia and Juan were already intimate and are just finishing. And the lines but then the situation had its charm,/ and then-God knows what-I cant go on;/ Im almost sorry that I eer begun, (Byron 918-920) speaks for themselves and their indicating that the two love birds went at it again. Throughout the Romantic Period there has been one major element that brings things full circle and connects the early poets to the poets near the end of the period and that is the fact that they like to write about themselves. During this time period a person could encounter countless poems written in first person. And the person who started it all would be none other William Blake and you can see it clearly in his poem A Poison Tree. The poem starts out with I was

James 4 angry with my friend:/ I told my wrath, my wrath did end, (Blake 1-2), which both start with I. The end of the first stanza ends with, I was angry with my foe:/ I told it nor, my wrath did grow, (Blake 3-4). Every line in the first stanza starts with I which, I believe is symbolic of the fact that he is talking about himself. I believe that this poem is Blake himself talking about one of his rivals in writing. But he lets it go until it just eats him up inside until it manifests into something else. For example, And it grew both day and night,/ till it bore an apple bright, (Blake 9-10). I believe this is Blake saying that he got so tired of his rival ripping him off that he wrote a fake poem and let his rival find it on purpose. The rival then finds this fake work and knows that its one of Blakes and steals it, but the rival didnt expect the horrible consequences of stealing the work. These lines, In the morning glad I see/ my foe outstretched beneath the tree, (Blake 15-16), indicate that after the rival stole the work for his own, it backfired on him and his career died from it. Towards the middle of the romantic period poet named Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote a poem named The Pains of Sleep, which seems to talk about himself. Near the end of the first stanza the narrator talks about himself, a sense oer all my soul imprest/ that I am weak, yet not unblest,/ since in me, round me, every where/ eternal strength and wisdom are, (Coleridge 1013), and it starts to seem that the whole poem is about him. These lines make it seem like the narrator doesnt think much of himself and what he has to contribute to the world. But he sees the people and the works around him as wise and profound. The second stanza seems to delve more into the fears of the speaker, for example, deeds to be hid which were not hid, and for all seemed guilt, remorse or woe,/ my own or others still the same/ life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame, (Coleridge 27, 30-32). It seems as if the speaker has done something so horrendous that they cant sleep and when they do they dream of the incident over and over again. The poem

James 5 ends with to beloved is all I need,/ and whom I love, I love indeed, (Coleridge 51-52), which brings everything full circle. The poem was obviously about a woman whom the speaker wanted for his own, but he did something horrible and lost her and now he can do nothing but relive the incident in his dreams. I believe that Coleridge lost a woman whom he dearly loved and couldnt find a way to cope with the loss, so he wrote about it. This poem isnt the only one that talks of regret and fear; the poem When I have fears that I may cease to be, by John Keats also reflects on these issues. For example, when I behold, upon the nights starrd face,/ huge cloudy symbols of high romance,/ and think that I may never live to trace/ their shadows, with the magic hand of chance, (Keats lines 5-8). These lines talk of the speakers fear of dying and not being able to do the things he loves the most. And he regrets the fact that may never get to do some of the things he wanted to do, but may have had the courage to do, never have relish in the fairy power/ of unreflecting love, (Keats 11-12). I believe this poem talks about how Keats had regrets in his life for the things he hadnt done and fear of the things and people he would never see again. After reading several poems from the Romantic Period, common theme came to the forefront like nature, sensual writing, and how the writers liked to talk about themselves in their poems. I found the poems enlightening to read, but some poems were better than others. I came to learn that it is a common theme to talk about your feelings in your work no matter what era you are from. And that the romantic period really loved to talk about nature and all the great things that are to be found out there. However, I learned other things about the period other than what I wrote about, like the fact that the ports liked to talk other countrys issues and supernatural things.

James 6 Works Cited Greenblatt, Stephen, editor. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. The Romantic Period Volume D 8th ed. New York City: Norton and Company, 2012. Print. Blake, William. A Poison Tree. Greenblatt. 134 Blake, William. Nurses Song. Greenblatt. 122 Byron, Lord. Don Juan. Greenblatt. 688 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Pains of Sleep. Greenblatt. 483-484 Keats, John. La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad. Greenblatt. 923-924 Keats, John. When I have fears that I may cease to be. Greenblatt. 911 Wordsworth, William. I wandered lonely as a cloud. Greenblatt. 334-335