ROMANTIC POETRY∕ THE ROMANTIC

The term “Romanticism” comes from the French word “romance” , referred to the languages derived from
Latin and to the works written in that language. The adjective first appeared in English in the second half of
the 17th century, meaning fabulous, unreal, extravagant. Gradually the term was used to describe the
picturesque in the landscape.

Romanticism was born in England in 1798 (in the same year was also born in Germany) with the publication
of “The Lyrical Ballads” by William Wordsworth and Coleridge, and it saw the prevalence of a new poetry,
which emphasized emotions and individual feelings. Also a new element was born, that is to say
“imagination”, seen as a divine faculty that only poets had. ---------> reason proved to be not enough for
many mysteries so imagination was born to go through.
The poet in that period was considered like a prophet because he knew thing that the other common
people didn’t, indeed he had the task to communicate to the society the divine and so to be understood by
them. He was very creative and endowed with imagination; he also wanted to denounce the evils in
society. According to the romantic, children were real closed to God and the sources of creation, indeed
children were pure and not corrupted by the civilisation and they can perceive easily the truth.
There was a new emphasis on the meaning of the individual: during the Augustan Age man was seen as a
social animal , while during Romanticism man was in a solitary state and out of the convention of the
civilisation. There is an inner freedom because institutions are viewed as restrictions of individual power;
the theme of “Le bon Savage” (J.J. Rousseau) was indeed resumed .(=ripreso) -------> the savage man may
appear primitive but actually he has a great knowledge of himself and of the world often superior to the
knowledge of the civilised man. A new taste of the exotic was born, that is to say the veneration of what is
far away in the space and in time and what is different from your origins. They were really closed to the
divine, indeed there is a sublime beauty. Sublime implied something beautiful and at the same time also
scaring, in order to give an idea of divine inside nature. The more powerful the nature was, the more
almighty it was. Divine is inside the nature, which is immortal, the circle of nature is perennial.
“If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” ------> nature never ends, is born again in spring.
Regarding the poetic technique, the Romantics broke free from the strict models and rules of the 18 th
century poetry, by using vivid and familiar words in contrast to artificial circumlocution. Some of the
romantic poets are Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, William Blake.

 “Byronic Hero”: Lord Byron was a very fascinating and billionaire man. One day he decided to go in
Greece in order to find a heroic death, but at the end he died of malaria.

ILLUMINISM (REASON) ROMANTICISM (DIVINE IMMAGINATION)

Reason is used to understand the reality Only poets possess imagination.
Used to understand reality Allows the poet to write and to grasp the truth
Balance, Harmony, Decorum He teaches common people how to react in the
reality