The major poets of the Romantic era are ardent followers of beauty and through their poetry theytry to

figure that out. The definition of poetry by Wordsworth is "Spontaneous overflow

of powerful feelings" and this refers to those feelings that cause the mind to feel and the poet toexpress
in poems spontaneously. The concept of beauty can be identified as the most importantfeature of
poetry. Thus in every poet's mind there's a fact, so vital and so influential to ensue thespontaneous
overflow, that no one can even pen down a poem without the feeling of beauty. Butthe Romantic poets
are more sensational in this aspect; they are more than associated with beautyas they are more close to
nature. Here comes the question of their concept of beauty, 'What is beauty to them?' In "Ode on a
Grecian Urn" John Keats defined beauty as truth telling, "Truth
is beauty, beauty truth". As far other poets are in our concern, they have been trying to find out

Ahmed
3 beauty. But the Romantic Poets interpret beauty as a way to resolve the day to day problems.Focus:P
oetry is nothing but the worshiping of beauty. The title itself represents that the concept
of beauty of three major romantic poets; Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ahmed 8Beauty means revolution, revolution means change and change means beauty, that is
Shelley's beauty concept in brief. This beauty is not constant and is always changing. It
does well to thehuman civilization even if it takes away the best out of us. All that are conjured by
time arereturned with double interest. The world is a nest of changes. In his "Ode to the West Wind"
hefinds beauty in the wind as it changes by taking away the dirt. It changes because it carriagesaway
all that it gets in its way and renders place for the new. Thus he says in his "Ode to theWest
Wind"-"Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!"All good
deeds are done for beauty in constructive and destructive ways! But here, west windstands for
revolution and we can take it as a symbol of beauty as Shelley's beauty is one kind ofabstract that
changes. By taking this symbol, we can go for the quest to find out beauty.Seemingly this beauty
causes destruction, yet it pacifies speed too. The west wind takes away theseeds of trees from one
place to another and thus paves the growth of trees and makes the worldgreener and prettier."The
wingd seeds, where they lie cold and low,Each like a corpse within its grave, untilThine azure sister
of the Spring shall blow"Seemingly this form of beauty is ugly, yet it is mobile and dynamic. It reveals
that beauty is

Ahmed 9always destructive and it goes through reformation. So, to him beauty is what that brings
acollective development. It is not and never philosophical because, spiritual or philosophical beauty
doesn't bring collective or visible change and development. Beauty has a power and thatis to change.
Where there is power in nature, there's beauty. Thus we find in the concluding partof "Ode to the West
Wind"-"Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;And,
by the incantation of this verse,Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearthAshes and sparks, my words
among mankind!Be through my lips to unawaken'd earthThe trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,If Winter
comes, can Spring be far behind?"

Shelley's understanding of Beauty as an ideal and universal aspect, as opposed to the common
understanding of the word as an aesthetic judgment of an object, was influenced by his
knowledge of Plato's writings. However, where Plato believed Beauty should be sought after
gradually in degrees until one can achieve true Beauty, a process made possible
through dialectic, Shelley believed that Beauty could also be found through its earthly
manifestations and could only be connected to through the use of the imagination. The origins of
Shelley's understanding of Beauty and how to attain it can be found within "Hymn to Intellectual
Beauty". The poem's theme is Beauty, but Shelley's understanding of how the mind works is
different from Plato's: Plato wrote (principally in the Symposium) that Beauty is a metaphysical
object existing independent of our experiences of particular concrete objects, while Shelley
believed that philosophy and metaphysics could not reveal truth and that an understanding of
Beauty was futile. Instead, Beauty could only be felt and its source could not be known.

The "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" was conceived and written during a boating
excursion with Byron on Lake Geneva, Switzerland, in June 1816. The beauty of the
lake and of the Swiss Alps is responsible for Shelley's elevating what he calls
"Intellectual Beauty" to the ruling principle of the universe.

Alpine scenery was new to Shelley and unutterably beautiful. He was profoundly
moved by it, and the poem, he wrote to Leigh Hunt, was "composed under the
influence of feelings which agitated me even to tears." Thanks to the Alps, Shelley,
who had given up Christianity, had at last found a deity which he could
wholeheartedly adore. The worship of beauty is Shelley's new religion, and it is
significant that he calls his poem a hymn, a term used almost exclusively for religious
verse. Later, in August 1817, Shelley read Plato's Symposium and his faith in beauty
was no doubt strengthened by Plato's discussion of abstract beauty in that work and
in the Phaedrus, which Shelley read in August 1818. It was daily intercourse with
stunning beauty, not Plato, however, that brought Shelley to his new faith. Joseph
Barrell, in his Shelley and the Thought of His Time: A Study in the History of
Ideas, makes it abundantly clear that the "Hymn" is not Platonic.

The central thought of "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" is that there is a spiritual power
that stands apart from both the physical world and the heart of man. This power is
unknown to man and invisible, but its shadow visits "this various world with as
inconstant wing / As summer winds that creep from flower to flower" and it visits also
"with inconstant glance / Each human heart and countenance." When it passes away
it leaves "our state, / This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate." Shelley does
not profess to know why Intellectual Beauty, which he calls "unknown and awful," is
an inconstant visitor, but he is convinced that if it kept "with [its] glorious train firm
state" within man's heart, man would be "immortal and omnipotent." But since the
Spirit of Beauty visits the world and man's heart with such irregularity, Shelley pleads
with his deity rather than praises it. It remains remote and inaccessible. In the
concluding stanza Shelley is a suppliant praying that the power of the Spirit of Beauty
will continue to supply its calm "to one who worships thee, / And every form
containing thee."