Universidade de A Coruña Facultade de Filoloxía

Marta Iglesias González May 6th, 2021

Filoloxía 2º

ENGLISH LITERATURE 2. FILOLOXÍA 2º

Unit 2: "Romanticism- Poetry: Wordsworth, Keats and Coleridge”

2.1. The first generation and the second generation of Romantic poets.

The Romantic movement is generally divided into two generations. On the one hand, there is
the first generation, which is composed by William Blake, William Wordsworth and
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. They were the founders of the Romantic movement indeed —as
expressed by Wordsworth in the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads—, and they were, of course,
very influenced by the French Revolution, especially Wordsworth, who travelled several
times to the French city of Paris. However, although influenced, they were pretty
disappointed by the final results of it —the violent results it had, such as the execution of
Louis XVI—. William Blake was almost a man of Renaissance, for he was an engraver, a
painter, an artist, and, of course, a poet. As I’ll say later on, he was kind of in the margins of
Romanticism, he was not really in connection with Wordsworth nor with Coleridge.
Wordsworth, on his part, was the first real ecologist. He simply was in connection with
nature, and not only in his literature.

On the other hand, the second generation is composed by Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and
John Keats. This generation is totally different from the first generation, although they had
some connections with it, especially with Wordsworth, for he’s considered the father of the
Romantic movement. They were not so involved in religion —but they were involved in
moral aspects—, some of them declaring themselves as being totally atheists, as the case of
Shelley. They were, also, more revolutionary, and more interested in Classical art and
Mediterranean culture.

Despite the Romantic poets being characterized as individualistic, and as not developing
relationships with one another, Coleridge really did state that the poet must not be an
isolated man, an ivory tower. In fact, he did develop a close relationship with one of his
comrades: Wordsworth. The same happened in the second generation, with Shelley and
Byron becoming pretty close, travelling together to Italy and having mutual influence in each
other. Lord Byron was a peculiar figure of Romanticism. He was not exactly a poet, he was
more than that. We could say he was, in fact, a public figure, with him being involved in
many love affairs and scandals. He even had to flee England because of this, which was, in
fact, beneficial for him in some way, for his strong desire to travel around Europe —a very
typical desire among the Romantics—. He was also really involved in politics and in social
life. There is a link between him and Spain, for he actually came to Spain and met General
Castaños, one of the most important figures during Napoleonic times. Shelley, on his part, as
I’ve already said, declared himself an atheist, which got him expelled from Oxford University.
He was extremist and revolutionary, and he deeply wanted to be very influential in her wife’s
(Mary Shelley) life and writing —he was particularly worried about the publication of
Frankenstein, and wanted to modify many aspects of the novel—. On the other side, John
Keats, although he did not develop such a close relationship with Byron and Shelley, he did
meet them many times. He was a special individualistic and solitary man, for he had many
personal and health problems. He, in fact, as I’ve said, died at the early age of 25 of
tuberculosis in Rome, where his doctor had sent him, thinking the Mediterranean weather
would be good for his health. He also just personally wanted to visit the Italian city, for its
artistic value. He was the leading figure for the second generation.

All poets from the second generation died at a very early age. Lord Byron was the oldest
out of the three of them, and he died at age 36 in Greece. Shelley died at age 29 in Lerici
(Italy), and Keats at age 25. Although it is very unfortunate the fact that the world lost so
many important poets in such a short time, they indeed were very Romantic figures because
of this, fulfilling this idea of Romanticism of being still young and beautiful at the moment of
one’s death.

2.2. William Wordsworth.

William Wordsworth was born on April 7th, 1770, and died on April 23rd, 1850. He was a
major figure in the first generation of English Romantic poets. He was born in
Cockermouth, in the Lake District, where most of his life was spent. He died in Ambleside, in
the same region. In 1791, he visited France, initially attracted by the revolutionary
movement. However, deeply disappointed by the revolution, he became more and more
conservative throughout his life. In 1797, he begins a literary friendship with Coleridge,
which leads to the planning of the Lyrical Ballads, published anonymously in 1798. This
work, considered one of the most famous documents of literary criticism in English literature,
was so successful that a second edition appeared in 1800 with a preface by Wordsworth,
where he explained his poetical theory.

We must firstly take into account his subject matter of poetry. In his preface to the second
edition of the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth said that poetry should deal with everyday
situations and incidents; ordinary people, especially humble rural people; and homely
objects called by their ordinary names. The reason for this choice is in the fact that men are
better when closer to nature and far from the artificialities of civilization.

Another important aspect of Wordsworth’s poetical theory has to do with the poet’s
imagination. For him, everyday life should be transfigured by the poet’s imagination,
whose function is that of conferring a new splendour on external, ordinary things so as to
make them more attractive and interesting. In particular, Wordsworth said that the aim of
poetry was “to throw over the incidents and situations of common life a certain colouring of
imagination whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way”.
Moreover, although many Romantics belonged to rich families and, in many occasions, their
language was refined and complex, for Wordsworth, the language of poetry should be
familiar, simple, and that of ordinary people, because humble, country people live in
communion with the objects from which language originates, and thus express their
feelings in a more immediate, forceful and effective way. We can see that, for instance, the
language used in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the poem written by Coleridge in 1834, is
far from an ordinary language. However, we can actually see this kind of language in the
conversations there are throughout the poem.

Something in which all Romantic poets insisted, and especially Wordsworth, was the
importance of the poet’s identity. For Wordsworth, the poet is not a man in an ivory tower,
isolated and separated from other men, not a man among other men who writes about things
which interest mankind; but he also is a man gifted with special powers:

- a greater sensibility which enables him to see the beauty of nature and respond to it
more deeply.
- the ability to express his thoughts and feelings more clearly and effectively.
- the capacity to penetrate the heart, the essence of things.

Despite many people seeing Wordsworth as simply a poet who depicts or describes rural
areas and the countryside as a painter, he is more than that. With his poems, he transmits
emotions through nature, with tranquility. This word, tranquility, was actually kind of his
mantra, his leitmotiv. Thus, the poet’s task, for Wordsworth, is to reveal the beauty of
familiar sights, to teach men how to enter in communication with Nature, and to show them
how to understand their feelings and how to improve their moral being.

He also referred to The Creative act of Poetry. According to Wordsworth, poetry is a

natural expression of feelings and originates from emotions recollected in tranquility. This
means that the poet produces poetry on recollecting certain emotions previously
experienced. A good example of such a process is his poem I Wandered Lonely as a
Cloud or Daffodils. In this poem, in fact, we find the poet lying in tranquility on his couch at
home and recollecting the emotions of joy and happiness he felt at the sight of a host of
golden daffodils in the Lake District. We could sum up this process as:
That is, the poet recollects in tranquility an emotion he felt during a past experience. Then,
the art of recollecting arouses a new emotion in the poet, kindred to the first one. Finally,
this new emotion urges the poet to write a poem which will be read by someone thus
producing a third emotion in them.

Moving on to the main themes of his poems, we must stand out the following:

1. Children and childhood: During the Enlightenment, children were not valued for
what they were —irrational and spontaneous beings—, but for what they might
become as adults —i.e. human beings characterized by rationality and willing to
accept all social conventions and rules—. This was the consequence of the great
emphasis the society of that time placed on Reason. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(1712-1778), a French philosopher and writer, instead, developed a completely
reversed vision of childhood. He believed that man is good by nature but corrupted
by society and, accordingly, childhood is the most important period of man’s life
because this phase of human life is closer to “the ideal state of nature” and therefore
the least corrupt. Wordsworth, like all Romantic poets, knew Rousseau’s ideas and
was influenced by his theories. Wordsworth, in fact, thought that childhood is when
man is closest to God and can perceive God in the natural beauty of the world
around him.
2. Nature: Wordsworth really was the founder of spiritual ecologism. He had a very
special connection with nature, embarking, many times, in very difficult trips to the
mountains, valleys, etc. Nature is seen by Wordsworth as:
● the countryside as opposed to the town: In fact, the landscape the poet
describes in his poems is mainly rural and solitary, and even when he
describes urban settings like in the poem Composed upon Westminster
Bridge, the words the poet uses are those typically used to refer to a natural
setting. In other words, London in this poem becomes part of nature itself and
is even more beautiful than “valley, rock and hill”.
● a source of feelings: His poems are full of words that emphasize the joy
aroused at the sight of particular scenes such as a host of golden daffodils or
a solitary girl working and singing alone in the Highlands.
● an active Force: He sees nature as a goddess which manifests herself in
the wild isolated countryside; as the expression of God, who is everywhere
and, therefore, can be found everywhere; and as the evidence of a wonderful
mysterious power which permeates the universe and deserves religious
reverence and love.

His poem The Solitary Reaper is also a poem about nature, very much linked to his own
experiences walking around the countryside. It is about a girl working in the fields, in the
Highlands, in Scotland. The poet is presumably walking around the area, and he suddenly
hears a song, because this girl is singing a song. He can not understand it very well, he
doesn’t know what kind of song it is. The Solitary Reaper looks like some paintings,
probably, by Millais and some other painters that depict similar countryside scenes like this:
the solitary reaper, working in the fields, in the Highlands, with no people around. As I was
saying, she’s singing a beautiful song that nobody can understand —or, at least, the poet
can not understand— what it is about. The poet thinks that this song is probably about
ancient things, about old battles. It is like an epic or heroic song, like a folksong, actually,
telling, most likely, sad stories from the past, old battles from the Medieval times —here we
have this connection with the Medieval times, with the past, so common and typical at the
time—. Probably, what happens is that this song is in Gaelic, and not in English, and this is
the reason why the poet is unable to fully understand this song the solitary reaper is singing.
So, again, the poem is very much in connection with daily activities, domestic activities,
ordinary people, rural people working in the fields. This is exactly what William Wordsworth
says in the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads. The poem is based on an experience that is based
on the recollection of a former experience. As I said earlier, he was probably walking around
the Highlands, in one of these trips that he did to the mountains —very extreme trips,
sometimes, he went, sometimes, to massive mountains, such as the Welsh mountains or the
Highlands in Scotland, which is the case here—, and he had this vision of this young woman
singing solitarily, working, using the sickle to cut the wheat. This vision is very simple indeed,
there is not a very complex plot in the poem, the same as in Daffodils. This feeling of
tranquility and calm is very important for the poet. For some critics, the poem could have
some other meanings, second meanings, with the woman being a representation of Death.
However, there is a moment in the poem in which the poet can not move, he says I listened,
motionless and still; so, apparently, he is unable to move, because he’s like enchanted by
the singer. Some people think that he feels the song like a spell because of the music, which
has a magic component. The music is extremely beautiful, and he doesn’t need to
understand, of course, the lyrics, to absorb its beauty. The observer may not be able to
understand the lyrics because they’re, apparently, in a different language; or even because
he is enchanted, somebody is using a kind of magic to keep him motionless. However, at the
same time, he feels very happy and calm, like in a dream. The poet has to hear the whole
song. He then comes back some years after, and he receives the same impression. This girl
was like a ghost in the fields, and she persists there singing forever and ever. Thus, the poet
is very dreamy, it’s kind of an oniric interpretation of nature.

His poem The World Is Too Much With Us is his shortest one, because it is a sonnet
—and, of course, sonnets have 14 lines—. It is a poem against the industrialized world,
one of Wordsworth's poems in which he presents his reaction against the Industrial
Revolution, against the industrial transformation in England, in a very interesting way —as
usual—. It’s a bit different as compared to I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud or to The Solitary
Reaper. It is a poem that can be understood very clearly, and, as I say, a good example of
the ecological side of the figure of William Wordsworth. He defended nature extremely, he
was a pioneer of ecologism. He sometimes demonstrated this very well, as in this particular
poem, which is actually like an activist’s poem. Throughout the poem, we discover some
important key ideas concerning this defense of nature. For instance, in this line: Little we see
in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! With this line, it seems
like he’s wanting to transmit that we are, all the time, getting and spending, wasting
everything. We don’t care about nature, we don’t care that it belongs to us. It’s like a bad gift,
a sordid boon —some words in the poem are current, like sordid; others are old-fashioned,
like boon—. But the real motto of this poem lies within these lines: For this, for everything,
we are out of tune; It moves us not. We are not in tune with nature anymore, we are like
Pagan having an outworn creed. This industrialized world is too much with us. So might I,
standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of
Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. The lea means
meadow, this beautiful place that the Medieval poets called the locus amoenus. The poet
lives, apparently, happily in a present meadow, contemplating nature. We get from these
lines this mythical vision of Proteus rising from the sea, from the realm of Neptune; and of
Triton blowing his horn. These mythical figures he uses from time to time. They are very
common among Romantic poetry, especially in John Keats’ work. Thus, the lesson of this
poem is that we have to do something, we have to stop pollution and the Industrialized
world.

Finally, Wordsworth’s poem Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On
Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798 is a longer poem, and the
result of one of his trips to the countryside. The poem is not as complex as some others, it is
the description of the place in which Tintern Abbey is, on the west bank of the River Wye. It
is a good connection with this connection of nature and memory, especially with memories
that go back to remote and unknown times, such as the Medieval times. In fact, Romantics
believed that these abbeys transmitted a special kind of energy, being surrounded by wild
nature, not touched for many years. It is like the total opposite image to Industrialization. So,
this poem was composed after his trip to Tintern Abbey. It is more narrative, it is not really
telling a story. It is like Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, a repetitive chant that defends the
beauty of the place, and the transcendence of ancient history. Lines Composed a Few Miles
above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798 also
contains some emblematic words of the Romantics, like tranquility and sublime. To sum up,
the poem is a praise of nature, so common in the Romantics, but especially in William
Wordsworth.

2.3. John Keats.

John Keats was born in London on October 29th or 31st, 1795, and died in Rome in 1821. He
was the son of a rich livery stable owner. He first studies at a private school at Enfield. His
father dies when he is only eight, and his mother dies of tuberculosis six years later. He had
great affection for his family, and the death of both his parents causes a great shock. At the
age of fifteen, he is apprenticed to a surgeon and apothecary. The next four years, he
studies Medicine at Guy’s Hospital in London. However, in 1816, he abandons the medical
career for literature. In fact, 1817 is the year of the publication of his first volume of verse,
titled Poems, containing his first great sonnet On first looking into Chapman’s Homer,
which reveals his great qualities in embryo. Chapman was a very famous translator of the
18th century, who had translated Homer’s poets. Thus, this is the first time we discover
Keat’s interest in artistic manifestations from Classical art. April 1818 is the date of the
publication of Endymion —his first long and serious poem—, a long mythological poem
which is an allegory of his search for an ideal female love. This work clearly reveals his cult
of beauty from the very first line which reads A thing of beauty is a joy for ever. His last
poem was written in the city of Rome.