The Romantic age is best known for its poetry, a genre which produced some of the most

studied and anthologized poems in the English language. Wordsworth and Coleridge
constituted the first generation of poets, followed by Keats, Shelley and Byron.

William Wordsworth

The best known of the Romantic poets is surely William Wordsworth (1770-1850). In a long
poetic career, Wordsworth tried many genres and styles. Wordsworth's main theme can be
summarized in a phrase: man and nature. He wrote poems with a message (which are called
didactic poems). His Prelude (1805), an autobiographical poem, is subtitled growth of a
poet's mind'. His friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge resulted in the classic volume of
the age: Lyrical Ballads (first version in 1798). Wordsworth also took the role of poet-as
prophet very seriously.

Disappointed with the French Revolution and angered at the industrialization of London,
Wordsworth returned to Grasmere and the Lake District. Many of his poems reflect his
critique of modernization and city life. The Excursion, an ambitious poem that combines
many of his lasting preoccupations, declares the poetic vocation in no uncertain terms

Wordsworth believes, like Blake, that imagination is being sidelined in contemporary

London. In his famous Immortality Ode', he mourned the death of imagination and
innocence and of the child's sense of wonder

He spoke nostalgically of the rural way of life in famous poems like The Leech Gatherer',
'The Solitary Reaper', 'Simon Lee' and Michael'. Social themes of vagrancy, poverty and
unemployment figure in 'The Ruined Cottage, The Pedlar' and the Salisbury Plain poems
(including The Female Vagrant'). He shows how nature is a teacher in poems like Prelude
(especially in the bird's egg and boat stealing incidents) and pleads for respect for nature.
Contemporary politics is the theme in Book XIV of Wordsworth's Prelude (a reworking of
his earlier poem, The French Revolution') in which he declared, full of enthusiasm for the
events in Paris.

Wordsworth declared that rural themes were to be his central concern because that was where
'true' human nature existed. Authenticity of expression can be attained only when the poet
uses the language of everyday speech of the farmer and the rural community. Poetic themes
must be rooted in the life of the community (as the famous "Preface' to Lyrical Ballads
emphasizes).

Ruins and cottages populate the landscape of Wordsworth's poetry, from the well known
Tintern Abbey' to 'The Ruined Cottage'.

A central feature of Wordsworth's poetry is its intense self-absorption. People, nature, ruins
and events are not important in and of themselves. They are important in terms of their effect
upon the observing poet.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) initially wrote under the influence of earlier religious
poets and Nature is central to Coleridge too as the extraordinary beauty images in This Lime-
Tree Bower my Prison.

But nature is also a cruel teacher, as the Ancient Mariner finds out in the Gothic poem of the
same name. Here the Mariner's guilt ('instead of the cross, the Albatross/about my neck was
hung') is the heart of the poem. Yet, the poem is also about unpredictability. It also has some
particularly fine descriptions of travel, the sea and nature. The poem effectively captures
loneliness and despair, perhaps better than any other Coleridge work.

Coleridge took the East as his theme in 'Kubla Khan', another fragment poem' . Inspired by
descriptions of India in contemporary travelogues, stories of a lost paradise and by images
that appeared to him in a drug induced stupor, the poem is a stunning prophetic vision of the
Orient.

Coleridge is at his best with images and themes that both frighten and fascinate. His
'Christabel', 'Kubla Khan' and 'Ancient Mariner have this disturbing quality about them,
almost as though Coleridge is writing the poetic equivalent of the Gothic novel. Such poems
are also dramatic while his other poems are quietly reflective.

Coleridge, like Wordsworth, saw the human heart and nature as constituting an 'organic
whole'. In many of his poems, especially in 'The Eolian Harp' and 'Dejection An Ode',
Coleridge portrayed a mind and heart that was 'open' to the influences, sights and sounds of
the world. His poems are journeys into the self and simultaneously into the external world.

Lord Byron

George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) has become associated with a particular kind of
male personality: the brooding, handsome hero. It was an unusual kind of mass cultural
iconization of a literary personality.

He was the largest selling poet in the first decades of the 19th century. He produced some
energetic, if uneven poetry.

His first major achievement was his savage critique on the literary culture of his time,
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809). The biting satire lampooned even
Wordsworth (who was described as 'simple') and Coleridge (whose poetry was termed
'turgid') - dismissing them all in the phrase 'the scribbling crew'. Byron's role as an iconoclast
was decided with this volume.

His contempt for poets like Robert Southey resulted in some exceptionally brilliant satires
such as The Vision of Judgement, Manfred, Cain and other dramatic poetry created the
image of the guilt-ridden hero, thus launching the 'Byronic as an icon.

With Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Byron declared his poetic talents. A poem with a huge
canvas - from Greek civilization to the Ottoman empire and the decay of aristocracy and
feuds - the poem (which Byron expanded in 1816 and 1818) attracted instant attention. It also
expresses, in several places, Byron's views on civilization, art and nature.

Don Juan (1819-24) firmed up his reputation. The hero of the long poem is a young man
who wanders across Europe and has a series of erotic (the descriptions of Juan's love affairs,
for example, in Canto IV) and other adventures. Byron puts in a heavy dose of the dramatic,
with ship-wrecks, cannibalism and Juan's own 'mishaps'.

Some of his more popular works are 'She Walks in Beauty' and 'When We Two Parted',
frequently anthologized worldwide. He was, however, also astute enough to see the problems
of being described as a poet of the passions.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) started as a rebel - dismissed from Oxford for publishing a
pamphlet titled, The Necessity of Atheism

He rejected religious and moral sanctions of the society of his time He was also enthused by
radical ideologies (under the influence of William Godwin, whose daughter Shelley
eventually married) and the idea of political revolution.

His poem on the Peterloo Massacre, The Mask of Anarchy (1819), is a good example of his
view of the monarchy and authoritarian rule in England. Queen Mab (1813) and The Revolt
of Islam (1818) also spoke of the possibility of social change from despotism to democracy.

His most famous dramatic verse occurs in Prometheus Unbound (1820).

The Cenci (1819) had strong Gothic overtones with its theme of incest and evil (it was based
on the history of an ancient Roman family).

Shelley is better known for his great odes and shorter poems. His 'Adonais' (1821), a praise
of John Keats, written in the form of an elegy upon Keats' death.

Hymn to Intellectual Beauty', 'Mont Blanc', 'Ode to the West Wind', To the Skylark' and
'Ozymandias' are some of his best known works. They combine a deep appreciation of
nature while reflecting on the social order

Shelley, despite his gloomy views of contemporary human civilization is also a poet of hope,
as 'West Wind' demonstrates: "if winter comes, can spring be far behind?" In poems like
'Skylark' and 'West Wind', he suggests that art can be a palliative for the ills of society.

John Keats

John Keats (1795-1821) was the last of the really great Romantic poets Extremely well-read
(though essentially self-taught), Keats combined a fervour for the role of poetry with
erudition in European mythology, intense self reflection and a love for nature.
His finest Odes are a combination of all these elements, as a glance at To Autumn reveals
this.

His narrative poems like Endymion (1818) and Hyperion (1820) have been far less popular.
Endymion maps the four stages of experience - of nature, of art, of friendship and of love.
Hyperion took stories from the Renaissance, and Greek and Roman history in his narrative
about the Titans.

A certain Miltonic tone is clearly visible in the poem Lamia and Isabella are narrative poems
that have Gothic elements and an obsession with death. Sickness and death fill Isabella Lamia
has a snake-woman at the centre of the narrative. It is a poem about dreams and reality - a
continuing obsession with Keats.

There are some superlative sensual images in The Eve of St Agnes (1820), a poem about
love and family feuds, especially when Keats describes Madeline.

Keats' own disease-ridden life resulted in some fine meditations on death and art, especially
in ever-popular poems such as 'Ode to a Nightingale' and 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'. Human
mortality and the permanence of art are the twin poles of Keats' work.

In 'Ode on Melancholy', Keats contemplates the twin states of joy and sorrow and the
impermanence of beauty (another persistent theme)

Keats is a poet of sensuality, fully aware of the sights, sounds and smells of the world and
this is best captured in To Autumn.

William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) had almost no formal education but cultivated an avid interest in
literature and painting.

His first publication was the philosophical psychological tract, An Essay on the Principles
of Human Action (1805) in which his pluralist and democratic views were forcefully
expressed.

Lecturing on Shakespeare - which appeared as Characters of Shakespeare's Plays in 1817

- Hazlitt demonstrated his fine critical acumen and his penchant for provocative views.

Later works such as Lectures on the English Poets (1818), Lectures on the English Comic
Writers (1819) and Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (1820)
established his reputation as a leading literary critic.

Miscellaneous essays appeared in two major volumes, The Round Table (1817) and Table-
Talk (1821-22). The Spirit of the Age (1825) was one of his last works.

Thomas de Quincey

Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859), well-known today for his classic The Confessions of an
English Opium-Eater (1822), was born into a wealthy family, but soon squandered his
wealth. Initially published anonymously, de Quincey's work became popular enough to
demand a second expanded version in 1856.

De Quincey's writings are few in number, though, if his literary criticism had survived, the
situation would surely have been different. Confessions, which maps the fears, anxieties and
delirious states of a drugged mind is perhaps one of the finest explorations of the inner self in
Romantic literature.

It is also significant that de Quincey is supplied opium by an 'Oriental (a 'Malay) and has
'dreams of Oriental imagery'.

De Quincey's brilliant essay, 'On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts' (1827) is an
extraordinary exercise in black humour.

Charles Lamb

The most popular essayist of this period is Charles Lamb (1775-1834). A friend of Coleridge
and Wordsworth, Lamb is most famous for his Essays of Elia (serialized between 1820 and
1825 in London Magazine) and Tales from Shakespeare (1807), co-authored with his sister
Mary.

Of the Shakespeare work, Lamb wrote the six tragedies while Mary did the fourteen
comedies (histories and Roman plays were omitted).

In 1808, Lamb published an anthology, Specimens of English Dramatic Poets.

In 1813, Confessions of a Drunkard appeared, though it did not prove to be very popular.

The Last Essays of Elia appeared in 1833. Elia was the name of an Italian clerk, a colleague
of Lamb's when he worked in South Sea House. The Elia essays, written in the expectedly
personal style of the Romantics, were funny, ironic and casual.

In 'The Superannuated Man' (published in his Last Essays of Elia, 1833), Lamb celebrated
retirement with his characteristic irony.

Walter Scott

Walter Scott (1771-1832) wrote the largest selling historical romances of his time and has
remained one of the most popular authors for the reading public well into the 20th century.
Scott wrote about the transformations in Scottish society from the feudal-agrarian to the
urban-rural.

His tales revolved around the themes of Scottish nationalism, the civil war (which
transformed English and Scottish history as nothing else did), class and feudal issues in
society as well as the Jacobite Rebellions.

Later works discussed medieval England. His novels combined realistic descriptions with
poetic representations. The extensive documentation provided a great degree of realism,
while the symbolism contributed to the romance of history. The result is what has come to be
called the historical romance'. Scott's own definition of the genre was as follows: "a poetical
imagination and a strict attention to the character and manners [of the age]". The combination
of historical detail with imaginative plots and evolved symbolism made for complex
narratives layered with fact and fiction.

His use of folk language, courtly mannerisms and details of social life in his fiction lend a
degree of verisimilitude unmatched by any writer of the time. His novels, despite the very
evident fictionality of plot, provide a good introduction to the English and Scottish society of
the period.

Scott's first great success was Waverley (1814), set in the turbulent years Bonnie Prince
Charlie's Jacobite Rebellion.

Guy Mannering (1815) is a social novel, exploring the eroding life of the Scottish gentry.
Scott's nostalgia for an old way of life, under threat from modernizing methods in the age of
improvement, comes through very clearly in this novel.

In The Antiquary (1816), he returned to the same theme, though he now situated it within
the Jacobin versus Anti-Jacobin tensions of the 1790s.

His next major work was Old Mortality (1816), a novel set in the 17th century and exploring
the religious tensions of the 1650s.

Rob Roy (1817-18) was set in the Scottish rebellion of 1715 and dealt with the life of the
Scottish hero of the title.

A novel set in the immediate aftermath of the crucial Act of Union was The Bride of
Lammermoor (1819). One of Scott's gloomiest works - he dictated the entire work, being in
great physical pain at the time - the novel is a revenge story.

Scott returned to English history with his best-known tale Ivanhoe (1819-20). This tale of
Robin Hood, Richard the Lionheart, the Crusades and the Knights of the Templars, with its
dark and fair heroines, has been extremely popular for its themes of revenge (Ulrica's),
chivalry (Robin Hood's), courage (Ivanhoe's) and love (Rebecca and Rowena's).

Scott's nostalgia for the romance and chivalry of the medieval and early modern world also
resulted in Tales of the Crusaders (1825). The Talisman (1825) and The Betrothed
(1825).

Jane Austen

The most significant writer of romances during the period and one of the greatest novelists in
English is Jane Austen (1775-1817).

Austen began writing by adapting earlier writers' works, before going on to publish six novels
between 1811 and 1818.
One of the finest chroniclers of English country life and the social mores of the country
squire and his family, Austen's fiction has remained extremely popular all over the global
literary market.

She explored themes of property, marriage, the status of women, the dysfunctional nature of
the English village and the decline of the gentry. The descriptions of festivities, marriage
alliances, the countryside and clergy are unsurpassed examinations of English social life.

Though she was not a feminist in the contemporary sense of the term, her exposure of the
wrongs of woman reveal a knowledge of the exploitative nature of gender relations in English
society.

Sense and Sensibility (1811) contrasts the two states of reason and emotion in two sisters,
the highly self-controlled Elinor and the impulsive Marianne. While Elinor chooses to be
restrained in her demonstration of affection for Edward Ferrars, Marianne makes visible her
love for Willoughby. The vicissitudes of the sisters love life and the debate between sense
and sensibility constitutes the plot of the novel.

Pride and Prejudice (1813) combines a love story with the theme of property and family
fortunes. Once again a story of sisters and their marriages, the novel explores, chiefly,
Elizabeth Bennett's recognition and admission of her true feelings and faults. The Elizabeth-
Darcy love story is delivered with characteristic wit and fine observations on what marriage
entails for a woman (a recurrent theme in Austen's fiction).

Mansfield Park (1814), one of Austen's more ambitious tales, is about the revival of society.
The moral revival of a family and culture is the central theme in Austen's tale about the
Crawfords. The Crawfords represent, in Austen's vision, all that is wrong with the English
gentry - the rivalry. dysfunctional marriages, hypocrisies, petty jealousies, boorishness.
extravagances and immorality.

Emma (1816) is one of Austen's most popular works, studied in literature classes across
India and the world. It offers a remarkable sketch of the heroine's status a wealthy heiress
conscious of her social role, privileges and obligations and her character Emma's abuse of her
social power, especially at the cost of her social inferiors, is the subject of Austen's attack.

Gothic Novel

Gothicism was a form of architecture that flourished between the 12th and 16th centuries in
parts of Europe Castles with turrets, vast dungeons, winding passages set in facades with
intricate detail and topped by steep spires were typical of Gothic architecture

In terms of literature, Gothic writing dwelt upon the darker sides of human sensibility-
uncontrollable passions, paranoia and evil.

The fiction of Ann Radcliffe Matthew Lewis. Mary Shelley Horace Walpole (who is credited
with creating the first Gothic novel in The Castle of Otranto) and Maria Edgeworth was
usually set in large rolling grounds, castles with mysterious rooms and dungeons moving
statues and lurking evil

There was an atmosphere of brooding menace and unseen dangers Characters are often
governed by some strange obsession and are often unpredictable The supernatural and the
irrational figure prominently in these works Taboo subjects like incest, blasphemy and black
magic become routine elements in them.

They often also take recourse to the detective or adventure story convention Sexuality-its
multiple anxieties, desires and prohibitions-IS central to the Gothic tale

Later authors like Wilkie Collins. Bram Stoker and even Charles Dickens used Gothic
elements in the American context, Edgar Allan Poe proved to be the most popular of Gothic
writers.