William Wordsworth

Wordsworth was born in 1770, his mother died when he was 7 and he lost his father at 13. He studied at Cambridge University and
he graduated in 1791. Full of enthusiasm for the ideals of the Revolution, he visited France in 1790. In 1795 he started to live with
his younger sister, Dorothy. That same year he met Coleridge: they worked together on the Lyrical Ballads, a collection of poems
that was published anonymously im 1798. A second edition including a Preface was published in 1800. As he grew older he contin-
ued to produce poetry but his most creative period was between 1798 and 1808. He became England’s poet Laureate in 1843 and
died in 1850.
Recollection in tranquillity
He believed that poetry should be written in the natural language of common speech. His focus was on simple country people and
natural scenes.
The role of imagination and memory
The poet himself is seen as a visionary figure with sensibity and imagination. In the Preface he says that poetry should flow from
emotions recollected in tranquillity, focusing om these genuine feelings rather than on poetic technique. The poet is inseparable from
nature, to which he belongs and which represents his main source of inspiration and joy.
A plain and easy style
His style is simple and easy to understand. His images and metaphors mixed natural scenery, religious sentiment and memories of his
childhood in the country.
Preface to Lyrical Ballads
In this preface, Wordsworth expressed a new concept of poetry as spontaneous overflow of feelings in a common language. He ex -
plaines the fact that he wants to describe rustic life because in that condition the passions of the heart can grow and mature. He took
inspiration from incidents and situations from common life and he used a very common language. Poetry creates a sense of enjoy -
ment in the soul of a poet.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Coleridge was born in Devon in 1772, he studied Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English literature and composition. He started writing at a
very young age and he became interested in the political situation of his time (he was unsure about the Revolution in France but he
supported the idea of freedom). In 1793 he enlisted the army but left 5 months later. In 1794 he strarted a walking tour dreaming up
the idea of emigration to America, where a small group of people would found a utopian community in Pennsylvania, where work
and rewards would be shared equally. In 1796 he published his first volume of Poems on Barious Subjects. In 1795 he married Sarah
Ficker and moved to Bristol, that became a meeting place for friend like Wordsworth: this marked a period of co-operation and
friendship with him (they published Lyrical Ballads). His most important work is The Rime of Ancient Mariner. Wordsworth and
Coleridge went to Germany in 1798, Coleridge was impressed by the principles od idealistic philosophy and he started to learn Ger -
man and began translating. In 1800 the two friends settled in the Lake District, where Coleridge married Sara Hutchinson. Over the
next two decades, Coleridge continued to write about different topics, then he bacame I’ll and depresse, as a result of his use of
opium. In 1816 he moved to London, and published Christabek and Kubla Khan. In 1817 he published Biographia Literaria (literary
criticism). He died in London in 1834.
The fantastic and the supernatural
All of his most important works are based on a fantastic vision of the mysterious, supernatural and exotic. With Coleridge there is a
return to the magical and supernatural, ventured into the realm of marvellous.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
It’s a narrative poem, in archaic ballad form, divided into 7 parts introduced by a short summary. He uses the ballad form to reflect
the romantics’ interest in the Medieval past and the traditional theme of supernatural events. His ballad form lacks the regularity
which characterises the typical ballad, has fewer repetition and doesn’t make use of refrains. The stanzas vary in length, the meter is
usually an alternation of iambic tetrameter and trimeter, the rhyme scheme is mostly ABAB. The poem is rich in figures of speech: it
contributes to creating a hypnotic atmosphere. There is always a juxtaposition of ordinary experience and supernatural events.
The mariner’s tale
The story is set in the framework of an old Mariner stopping a men who is about to get married to tell him about his ocean voyage: as
the ship reaches the frozen polar lands, an albatross appears, the sailors feed it, seeing it as a bird of good omen, but the mariner kills
it with his crossbow. This action is followed by misfortune. The ship is blocked in the middle of the ocean, haunted by an evil spirit.
The crew members hang the albatross around the Mariner’s neck as a punishment. Another ship appears: the crew is composed by a
woman who represent Life in death and her mate Death. The two play dice to decide the fate of the mariner and the crew, life in
death wins (the mariner will be punished but won’t die). The crew dies around the mariner. One day he sees water snakes in the sea
and blesses these creatures, then the albatross falls from his neck: his gesture of lobe towards nature has restored the balance lost by
killing the bird. He’s now able to sleep, while the ship is brought home by a ghostly crew of his dead shipmates. He is saved but he
has to do penance: he must wander alone and tell the story to a person. The wedding guess misses the ceremony but is changed by
listening to the mariner’s tale.
Interpretation and moral teaching
Religious level: killing the albatross is a sing against nature and God, and it brings the mariner into a hellish world of adverse nature
and supernatural characters. His journey is a process of suffering with a turning point (when he blesses the snakes). Salvation comes
with his return at home, where the final element of his “confession” consists in the penance of being compelled to wander and retell
his story.
Artistic level: the mariner is an artist who moves beyond the everyday world into a terrifying realm of the fantastic and the supernatu-
ral, then he tells the story to a everyday world man. The artist-mariner has lost his innocence but has gained knowledge which he can
communicate to others. The price of this is that he must accept his condition as a wandering outcast in the society.
George Gordon Byron.
Byron was born on 22 January 1788, when his father died he bacetto Lord Byron. He was born with a club foot, that caused unhappiness and
isolation. He segued little and he had a detached life. In 1809 started a tour of the Mediterranean, he then settled in Greece, studying the lan -
guage and working on Childe Harold’s Pilgrimsge, based on his adventures. He returned in England in 1811 having completed the opening
cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, which tells the story of a world weary young man looking for meaning in the world. He became fa -
mous and he housed his popularity for public good (workers rights and social reform) and he continued to publish Romantic tales. He had an
incestuose relationship with his Alf sister with whom he had a daughter. In 1815 he married Anne Isabelle Milbanke who gave him a daugh -
ter but left him, accusing him of incest and homosexuality. Now ostracised by English society, he went to Switzerland and Italy, pursuing
various love affairs. He was a sympathiser with the revolutionary carbonari movement. In Italy he wrote manfred and Don Juan. He sup -
ported the Greek liberation from Turkish oppression. He died of fever in 1824.
The Byronic hero
Byron’s works until 1816 are long melodramatic verse narratives, his later works were about biting, satirical criticism of society. He wrote
dramas in verse but also letters and journals talking about his life. The Byronic hero is a character who exercised great fascination and myste -
rious seductive power, he possesses a dark side and may be a social outcast with little compassion of social conventions.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
Is a long narrative poem in 4 cantos written in Spenderain stanzas, using eight verses in iambic pentameter followed by a 12-syllable iambic
line.
Much of the content is based on Byron’s own experience (travels of a young man seeking distraction in foreign lands). The themes of disillu -
sionment, longing and exile appealed to the British public for the first time, and the publication brought him fame. In the last two cantos he
examined the impact of the forces of history on common man. This poem introduced the Byronic hero (Childe Harold) who regrets his
wasted youth and seeks a meaningful experience in his years of pilgrimage.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Shelley was born on 4 august 1792 in Sussex into an aristocratic family. He was a rebel: in 1811 he published The Necessity of Atheism, a
radical pamphlet challenging belief in God. Estranged from his family, he faced some financial difficulties. He traveled a lot with his wife,
spending some time in Ireland. He published privately his first serious work: Queen Mab: A Philosophical Poem (revolutionary view of a
new society). He fell in love with Mary Godwin and travelled to Switzerland where he met Shelley. His first wife committed suicide and he
lost custody of his two children: the public opinion considered him an immoral figure and he moved to Italy. He wrote Ode To The West
Wind (1819), The Cenci and his greatest long work is Prometheus Unbound, insipred by the trilogy of the Greek dramatic Aeschylus. He
also made an important contribution to literary criticism with A Defence of Poetry. He drowned on 8 July 1822 and died.
A prophet of social change
He is characterised by his immense lyric powers and his own romantic biography, he was also a man of geat culture and this enabled him to
range a lot of poetical forms and meters. He hated oppression and injustice: the poet was a prophet of social change, and his poetry has a re -
generating function. Shelley emerged as a writer with highly developed social and political conscience and with a hope in the possibility of
reform and a better world.
Imagination and nature
In his Defence of Poetry, he says that imagination and nature are the centre of knowledge. Imagination is the power that allows him to go be -
yond the materialistic reality and to transcend the limits of poetry itself. It’s a highly creative faculty and it’s a symbol of a Shelley’s power
to revolutionise the world. He is more interested in reoreeenting nature as a mask that covers the spiritual and eternal truth of the universe.
He focuses on natural elements that reflect the poet’s desire to overcome human limitations and to become part of the universe.
Ode to the west wind
In this ode he talks about the wind to foretell the change in nature, in the poet and in the political climate. First stanza: he describes the au -
tumn wind that preserves the seeds and destroys the dead leaves. Second and third stanza: he describes the renovating effects of the wind in
the sky and in the sea (the storm stimulates the circle of death and renewal in nature). Fourth and fifth stanza: the poet turns to himself and
implores the wind to do the same with him, so that his poetic voice will have the same power to renovate the world. The last line expresses
hope for the future.
John Keats
Keats was born on 31 October 1795 in London. He studied medicine and he became an apothecary but never practised his profession. He be -
came a member of a literary circle including Shelley and Wordsworth and they encouraged him to publish Poems By John Keats. In 1818 he
published Endymion, an erotic allegorical romance based on the Greek myth of Endymion. Critics attacked his work. After the death of his
brother he moved to Hampstead where he met Fanny Brawne, in the same year he contracted tuberculosis. Between 1818 and 1819 he wrote
Hyperion and La Belle Dame sans Merci, telling the story of a mortal man falling in love with a supernatural “femme fatale”. In 1820 he
published Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems dealing with mythical and even dart themes of ancient, medieval and Re -
naissance times (romantic love). He died in Rome in 1821 and on his tomb he had written “Here lies one whose name was writ in water”.
Negative capability
Keats’ works were immersed in the universal and eternal using the evocative force of the subjects. He developed the concept of “Negative
Capability”, the poets ability to put reason aside and lose himself in an imaginative experience to create great poetry. A poet has the power to
subdue self consciousness in order to identify with the objects he hobserves. For him, imagination is more powerful than reason, because
through imagination you can see the beauty.
Truth through beauty
He was attracted to art and nature because it represented immortal beauty. His conceit of the value of beauty made him a precursor of aes -
theticism.
Ode on a Grecian Urn
The main theme is the difference between the eternal perfection of art and the mutability and suffering of human excistence. The poet is try -
ing to imagine the story told on the urn. Since it’s a picture, it cannot change. In the last stanza he turn to the urn as a whole and reflects on
its meaning: the urn simbolyses art, which offers a refuge from time, change and decay to succeeding generations.