Phillip Larkin

Phillip Larkin was a prominent figure of the Movement. He championed

the cause of anti-symbolic and unobtrusive poetry. The complex and
transcendent mode of thought employed by T.S. Eliot and W. B. Yeats
which limited the comprehension of modern poetry to the elite
intelligentsia was shunned by Larkin and the poets of the Movement.
Larkin particularly wrote argumentative, empirical and expository poems
in colloquial style. He made poetry the property of common people
instead of select literary circles.

Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes is a poet deeply moved by the circumstances around him.
His poetry touches almost all aspects of life. From spiritual inspiration to
poetic intuition to defending the great bard Geoffrey Chaucer, he exhibits
a wide range of delicate sensibility.Violence and animal imagery
conspicuously permeates his poetry. The obsession with violence is due
to the harrowing after effects of the world war. The violence within his
self finds an outlet in his poetry. The animal imagery used frequently by
Hughes is a proper tool for the depiction of anger and passion against
cruelty and injustice.

Blake
William Blake is the first of the Romantic Poets. He invigorates the
senses with his imagery. He provokes the intellect with logical argument
and conveys his belief in the divine will as something natural rather than
didactic. The subtle comment on the hypocrisy of modern life, the
revelation of corruption and moral degradation is raw and unapologetic. It
invokes the reader to think, to contemplate and change the world with a
strong will and determination. The prophet or the seer in him accepts all
mankind and its follies but he never disregards human beings as servile.
Instead he makes it his purpose to change and reform it into a better
species. Blakes' humanity and probing into the self is also consistent with
his preaching and mysticism which make him more than a self-
proclaimed prophet or a despondent Romantic poet.

Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge is one of the few poets who mastered the art of
shaping imagination into words. Unlike Wordsworth who simply
depicted beauty as he saw it, Coleridge has the ability to turn dreams into
reality. His vast reading enabled him to form images out of thin air and
add a supernatural element in his poetry without over-reaching fancy or
diving into the grotesque. His opium addiction may have rendered his
“shaping spirit of imagination” as he called it; to decline into nothingness
but the period in which he possessed this unique quality makes him a
gigantic figure in English literature.
The agony, isolation, guilt, repentance and on the flip side redemption,
happiness and leisure noted down as phases of his poetic career are
excellently explored. The freedom from heroic couplet and a revision of
the old ballad form into a variety of stanzas and metres add perfection to
the poetic excellence he had reached in a short span. The last of his poetic
excursions in “Dejection,an Ode” maybe pathetic in thought but is vivid
and passionate in expression and rendered the ensuing silence all the
more meaningful.