Great Poets of the Romantic Age Strands of the Romantic sensibility, with its emphasis onthe past, the mysterious nature of existence, and the relationship between theindividual and the natural world, has been in existence long before Blake wrotehis first poems. Eighteenth century musicians such as Haydn and Mozart, andeven seventeenth century painters such as Fragonard, Watteau and Claudebetrayed some of these classic ‘Romantic’ characteristics. It was, however, thevolcanic vigor of the French revolution in 1789 with its emphasis on thedignity and freedom of every individual, which was to act as the prism throughwhich the writers in this collection were to express their ideas and feelings.It is this common sensibility and the time at which they were writing whichbind them into a cohesive group, known as the Romantic poets. The most fundamental attitude was a love of moods, scenes,sights and sounds, which the intellect can never hope to understand fully, butwhich the poetic imagination aspires to describe. These poets loved themysterious, the unknown, the half-seen quality of the landscape. Wordsworth sawthe relationship between Man and Nature as crucial; as the source of ‘soul’,‘beauty’ and ‘glory’. The move away from pure rationality led the Romantics tore-examine the stories and philosophies of the Middle Ages, particularlymedieval romance, which the Enlightenment had dismissed as worthless. TheRomantic generation looked back with respect and nostalgia, finding a spiritual depth, which they felt to be missing in their owntime. Thus Coleridge’s The Ancient Mariner, a tale of the supernatural, set inan unfamiliar landscape, and yet primarily concerned with anindividual’s experience of sin, guilt, love and redemption, contains all thecrucial elements of the Romantic framework. A sense of endless searching whether for the perfectexpression of beauty, of creative genius, or the purest form of love is alsostrong in Romantic writing. For Blake, the search was for the perfection of aninnocent past, or for a future in which man could discard his innately eviltendencies, throw off tyranny, and claim a glorious future. For Keats,particularly in his ‘Odes’, the search was for a resolution between transienceand permanence. In Ode to a Nightingale, the nightingale’s song is eternal andbeautiful, but men, dogged by their own mortality, ‘sit and hear each othergroan’. However, in Ode to a Grecian Urn, the conflict between ‘Life’ which isfinite and ‘Art’ which endures, is more complex. Although the scene on the urnwith its throbbing vitality is permanent, it is frozen, inert. Keats concludes:‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’ — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. For Shelley, poetry has a responsibility to ‘reform theworld’ through the power of the imagination. Like Keats, he believed thatbeauty is an absolute force for good, and that poets were the most able tocreate it in the form and content of their work. He deals particularly withthis theme in Ode to the West Wind.Byron was perhaps the most robust of the Romantic poets, andthe wit, drama and the pace of Don Juan mark him out as a superb storyteller,satirist and poet. His love poems are some of the most direct and moving in thecollection.Although John Clare is not always included in collections ofRomantic Poetry, we feel that the pure beauty and simplicity of his pastoralpoetry, written very much in the Romantic tradition, demand that he be awardeda place along with his contemporaries. William Blake 1757- 1827 Born in London, the son of a hosier, Blake had no formaleducation and earned a meager living, not as a poet, but as an engraver. ForBlake, the imagination was man’s sole redeeming feature, and through it hecould transcend the confines of nature and return to the glories of hisunfallen self. William Wordsworth 1770 – 1850 After growing up in the Lake District, Wordsworth waseducated at St. John’s College, Cambridge. He fell in love with Annette Vallonand fathered a child, but the pair did not marry. In 1799 he returned to theLake District to live with his sister, Dorothy. He married in 1802, but thedeaths of two of his children and the tragic drowning of his brother plungedhim into despair, and his poetic powers gradually declined. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 – 1834 The youngest of fourteen children, Coleridge was the son ofa clergyman who died when Coleridge was only nine. A failed academic andsoldier, Coleridge was physically frail, and his dependence on laudanumdegenerated into an addiction. His poetry greatly influenced Wordsworth and hisselfless support of Wordsworth was at the expense of his own poetic ambitions.Towards the end of his life, he concentrated on criticism and philosophy. Lord Byron 1788 – 1824 Although an aristocrat, Byron was born into a chaotic andpoverty-stricken home in Scotland. He took his studies at Cambridge lightly andthen traveled to Spain and Greece. After many love affairs he made a disastrousmarriage to Annabella Milbanke. When they separated in 1816 he left England andsettled in Italy. Having become the darling of the European Romantic movement,he died fighting with Greek insurgents at Missolonghi in 1824. Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 – 1822 Although Shelley was born into a wealthy Sussex family, hisradical sensibility led him to rebel against both Eton and Oxfordand later the English establishment. He went into exile to Italy in 1818 wherehe wrote his major poems. Although intensely revolutionary, he was gentle,selfless and loyal. His passionate search for reconciliation between the headand the heart produced some of the finest Romantic poetry. He drowned a monthbefore his thirtieth birthday. John Keats 1759 – 1821 Keats was often pilloried for his lowly beginnings: hisfather was head hostler at a livery stable. However, Keats was able to supporthimself with a small legacy from his grandmother, and he made his debut as apoet in 1817. He died seven years later from tuberculosis, but has left a seriesof timeless poems, which remind us, above all, that we are compelled to imaginemore than we can ever fully understand. John Clare 1793 - 1864The last of the ‘peasant poets’, John Clare was anagricultural laborer in Northamptonshire. Although his poems enjoyed some briefpopularity, he struggled throughout his life against poverty and encroachingmadness. He ended his life in the Northampton General Lunatic Asylum. Notes by Heather Godwin