Romanticism was a literary movement that began in the late 18th century, ending around

the middle of the 19th century—although its influence continues to this day. Marked by a
focus on the individual (and the unique perspective of a person, often guided by irrational,
emotional impulses), a respect for nature and the primitive, and a celebration of the
common man, Romanticism can be seen as a reaction to the huge changes in society that
occurred during this period, including the revolutions that burned through countries like
France and the United States, ushering in grand experiments in democracy.

THE ROMANTIC IMAGINATION

The event that marked the birth of English Romanticism was the publication of the Preface
to the Lyrical Ballads (1801) by the poet William Wordsworth.

English Romanticism underlined the necessity to give expression to emotional experience

and individual feelings. So imagination gained a primary role in the composition, and
moreover, imagination let the Romantic poets to see beyond the reality and to overcome
reason, and as a divine faculty, it permitted the poet to re-create and modify the external
world of experience.

The poet was described as a visionary prophet or a teacher, whose aim was that of being a
mediator between man and nature, pointing out evils of society and to give voice to the
ideas of freedom, beauty and truth. However, Romantic poets continued to consider
reality, because natural world and their works mirrored the poet’s mood and feelings and
for this reason, reality was very well described.

THE FIGURE OF THE CHILD

As already said, there was some serious interest about the experience and insights of
childhood. First of all it is relevant to say that the figure of child was always an important
role for the literature, but there is an important difference between Augustan Age and
Romantic Age: in the first age, so Augustan Age, a child was seen and considered
important as far as he would become a civilised adult, and Childhood was just a temporary
state of growing, necessary to arrive to the adulthood. Meanwhile, in the Romantic vision,
a child was purer than an adult because he was unspoilt, so not influenced, by civilisation,
this underlined a closer relationship with God and the sources of creation, therefore
childhood was a state to be admired and cultivated.
THE IMPORTANT OF THE INDIVIDUAL

Instead, talking about the figure of the individual, this one had a more powerful and
relevant role in the romantic literature than the one of the child; in fact, there was more
emphasis on the significance of the individual. The Augustans had described the man as a
social animal, in relationship with his fellows. The Romantics saw him essentially in a
solitary state, and stressed the special qualities of each individual’s mind. The individual
embodied the idea of being a rebel, an outcast and an atypical (Sturm und Drang)

The current thought of the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau stated that the
conventions of civilisation represented intolerable limits on the individual’s liberty and
creativity and produced every kind of evil and corruption. Therefore “natural behaviour” is
good in contrast to behaviour which is governed by reason and by rules and costumes. The
“noble savage” concept was born during the Romantic poetry, it could seem a paradox,
because a savage is considered a primitive, but has got an instinctive knowledge of himself
and of the world often superior to knowledge which has been acquired by civilised man.

THE CULT OF EXOTIC

Exoticism describes a cultural phenomenon that projects Western fantasies about

profound cultural differences. It adopts a cultural perspective that is firmly entrenched in
the conventions and belief systems of Western civilization and therefore constructs the
East as the archetypical location of otherness. In simple words, is the veneration of what is
far away both in space in time.

THE VIEW OF NATURE

The Romantic poets also regarded nature as a living force and, with a pantheistic influence,
as the expression of God in the universe. Nature became a main source of inspiration, a
stimulus to thought, a source of comfort and joy, and a means to convey moral truths.

POETIC TECHNIQUE

Concerning poetic technique, breaking free from models and rules, there was a new
individual style with the choice of a language and subject suitable to poetry. The problem
of poetic diction was a central issue in Romantic aesthetics. There were more vivid and
familiar words replacing the artificial circumlocutions of 18th-century diction; syntax was
less linked to rhyme and metre, and symbols and images lost their decorative function to
assume a vital role as the vehicles of the inner visionary perceptions. As verse forms, there
was a return of the ballad, who became literary ballad, of the Italian “terza and ottava
rima”, of the sonnet and of the blank verse.
TWO GENERATIONS OF POETS

We can divided the English Romantic poets into two main groups:

The first generation, which includes the poets called “the Lake poets”, who are:

 William Wordsworth, who focused on the power of imagination an ‘common life’;

 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who gave importance to imagination, the supernatural
and the sublime;

These two poets were characterised by the attempt to theorise bout the poetry. They
worked together on Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth would write on the beauty of nature and
ordinary things with the purpose of making them interesting for the reader. Coleridge
analysed visionary topics, the supernatural and mystery.

The second generation, which includes:

 Lord Byron
 Percy Bysshe Shelly
 John Keats

Who embodied the ideal of the poet as a rebel and a bohemian and often gave voice to the
sense of disillusionment of the years that followed the French Revolution. They died very
young and far away from home. They experienced political disillusionment which reflected
in the clash between the idea and the real. So poetry coincided with the desire to change
the cosmos, nature, political and social aspects. Individualism and escapism, as well as the
alienation of the artist from society, were stronger in this generation and found expression
in the different attitudes of the three poets: the anti-conformist, rebellious and cynical
attitude of the 'Byronic hero'; the revolutionary spirit and stubborn hope of Shelley's
“Prometheus”, and finally, Keats's escape into the world of classical beauty.
LIFE AND WORKS

William Wordsworth was born in English Lake District, known as Cumberland or actually
Cumbria, 1770. He studied in Cambridge and 1790 he went on a walking tour of France and
the Alps. His contact with revolutionary France had filled him with enthusiasm for the
democratic ideals, which he hoped could lead to a new and just social order.

The brutal, destructive and violent developments of the Revolution and the declaration of
war between England and France in 1793 brought him to a nervous breakdown. In 1795 he
received an inheritance and moved to Dorset with his sister Dorothy, who remained his
most faithful friend. She constantly supported his poetry, she copied down his poems and
recorded their life in her Journals, which sometimes provide an interesting insight into the
experiences which generated Wordsworth's poems.

In the same year he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Their friendship proved crucial to the
development of English Romantic poetry: they produced a collection of poems called
Lyrical Ballads which appeared anonymously in 1798. The second edition in 1800 also
contained Wordsworth's famous “Preface”, which was to become the Manifesto of English
Romanticism. Wordsworth is also celebrated for his “Lucy poems” a series of five poems
written between 1798 and 1801. In 1799.

In the following years Wordsworth wrote some of his best poems, which were published in
two volumes in 1807. In 1805 he finished his masterpiece, The Prelude, a long
autobiographical poem in 14 books, subtitled 'Growth of a Poet's Mind, which was
published only after his death. His reputation as a poet grew steadily and, in 1843, he was
made Poet Laureate. The last years of his life were marked by the growing conservatism of
his political views. He died in 1850.

THE MANIFESTO OF ENGLISH ROMANTICISM

While in the 18th century in poetry there was an high diction, Wordsworth proposed a
radically solitary act originating in the ordinary. During the composition of the Lyrical
Ballads with Coleridge, they decided that Wordsworth would deal with man, nature and
everyday things, while with Coleridge supernatural and mystery would be described.

Since Wordsworth refused the artificial and elevated language of the 18 th century poetry, in
the preface of the masterpiece, he stated that the subject of poetry should be linked with
everyday situations and with ordinary people and for this reason language should be
simple and the objects should be called with their normal names.
This choice is connected to the fact that in humble and rural life man is nearer to his
passions. Besides, he considers the poet as a single man who writes about what interests
the mankind.

MAN AND NATURE

Wordsworth believes in the goodness of nature, sharing Rousseau's faith, as well as in the
excellence of the child. He trusts in the good that man could get with cultivation of his
senses and feelings. The poet is also interested in the relationship between the natural
world and the human consciousness. In fact his poetry offers a detailed account of what
arise with the interaction between man and nature, of the influences, insights, emotions
and.

When a natural object is described, the main focus of interest is actually the poet's or
man’s main response regarding that object. Wordsworth believed that man and nature are
inseparable; man exists not outside the natural world but as an active participant in it. In
his pantheistic view Wordsworth saw nature as something that includes both inanimate
and human nature: each is a part of the same whole. Nature is a source of pleasure and
joy, it comforts and even teaches to the man how to love and act morally.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SENSES AND MEMORY

Nature means also the world of sense perceptions. What Wordsworth exploited most was
the sensibility of the eye and ear through which he could perceive the so-called “beautiful
forms” of nature and the sounds of winds and water, but even in the silence. In this sense,
Wordsworth was influenced by the philosopher David Harley who believed that our moral
character develops during childhood as a result of pleasure and pain caused by physical
experiences. In fact, Wordsworth was interested in his relationship with nature, how it
influenced him in different moment of his life ad how his awareness of it changed.
Besides, memory is an important force of growth of the poet’s mind and moral character,
and it is the memory that let Wordsworth to give life and power to poetry.

RECOLLECTION IN TRANQUILLITY

Wordsworth saw imagination as a supreme gift but, at the same time, he refers to his
accurate observation of nature. Wordsworth used imagination as means of intuition and of
seeing into and through reality, even if he never admitted a division between it and reality.

Besides, for the poet, all genuine poetry takes is origin from emotion, which is recollected
in tranquillity and in doing so, what we read in the poem come from the active relationship
of present with post experience. Through memory, the emotion is reproduced in poetic
form and a second new emotion, which is kindred to the first, is generated.
THE POET’S TASK AND STYLE

Even if he’s a common man, the poet has a great sensibility and an ability to see into the
heart of things. His power of imagination lets him to communicate his knowledge, so that
he becomes a teacher showing others how to understand their feelings and improve their
moral being. So he want to draw attention to the ordinary things of life, to the humblest
people, where the deepest emotions and truths can be found. Wordsworth abandoned the
18th-century heroic couplet; he almost always used blank verse, though he proved skilful
at several verse forms such as: sonnets, odes, ballads and lyrics with short lines and simple
rhymes.