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British Romantic
Poets
A tiny sampling . . .
Neoclassical Period begins in 1660
Important authors are: John Dryden,
Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison,
Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson,
Oliver Goldsmith, and Edmund Burke
JL David, Bonaparte Crossing the St Bernard Pass
Romantic Period begins in approximately 1789 with the outbreak
Of the French Revolution
Some argue that the Romantic Period begins with the publication of
Lyrical Ballads by Samuel Coleridge and William Wordsworth
Authors include Wordsworth, Coleridge, John Keats, William Blake,
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, and
Thomas De Quincey
Eugene Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People
Neo-classicism
Romanticism
1) importance of form and order;
individualresponsibility to society
1) importance of free expression; integrity of the
individual
2) rule-governed life
2) freedom of judgment and will
3) supremacy of reason (reflection, logic)
3) supremacy of intuition (imagination)
4) the reign of order and restraint
4) the reign of chaos and passion
5) the immutability of natural law
5) the constant flux in nature
6) freedom of the social man
6) freedom of the individual
7) style set by decorum
7) style set by flamboyance and abandon
8) evil the product of blindness on the
part ofpeople to natural law
8) evil innate in some people; inherent in social
institutions
9) regularity in natural order; logic in the laws of 9) chance and random results as the product of
nature
the laws of nature
10) Language of literature should be dignified
because it should reflect the highest ideals in
human experience.
10) Language of literature should
be natural speech of the common
man about whose lives, affairs,
and aspirations literature should reflect since
they are the more representative of the life of
the race.
William Blake (1757-1827)
• Trivia: Blake’s paintings were used in the movie, Red Dragon
• His two most familiar works are Songs of Innocence and Songs
of Experience
• “The Tyger “(647)/”The Lamb” (650)
Literary Terms
• Symbol: A person, object, image, word, or event that evokes a
range of additional meaning beyond and usually more abstract
than its literal significance.
• Image: A word, phrase, or figure of speech (especially a simile
or a metaphor) that addresses the senses, suggesting mental
pictures of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, or actions.
Images offer sensory impressions to the reader and also
convey emotions and moods through their verbal pictures.
• Speaker: The voice used by an author to tell a story or speak a
poem. The speaker is often a created identity, and should not
automatically be equated with the author's self.
• Parallelism: When words are arranged in balanced, similar
structures
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
• “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,”
BUT poems of lasting value are produced ONLY by someone
who has “thought long and deeply.”
• Key elements: power of nature; blank verse; language of the
people (a man writing of men)
• “Tintern Abbey” (659)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (17721834)
• Key elements: isolation, pain, supernatural, dreams and
visions, imagination
• “Kubla Khan” (680)
• “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (684)
Literary Terms
• Rhyme Scheme: The rhyme scheme of a poem describes the pattern
of end rhymes. Rhyme schemes are mapped out by noting patterns
of rhyme with small letters: the first rhyme sound is designated a,
the second becomes b, the third c, and so on.
• Alliteration: The repetition of the same consonant sounds in a
sequence of words, usually at the beginning of a word or stressed
syllable
• Meter: When a rhythmic pattern of stresses recurs in a poem, it is
called meter. Metrical patterns are determined by the type and
number of feet in a line of verse; combining the name of a line
length with the name of a foot concisely describes the meter of the
line.
• Internal Rhyme: Internal rhyme places at least one of the rhymed
words within the line, as in "Dividing and gliding and sliding" or "In
mist or cloud, on mast or shroud."
• Assonance: The repetition of internal vowel sounds in nearby words
that do not end the same, for example,"asleep under a tree," or
"each evening."
George Gordon, Lord Byron (17881824)
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“Mad, bad, and dangerous to know”
Rather shocking private life
(Was at the famous ghost story party)
Although always considered a “Romantic,” he often models his
poetry on the Neoclassical poets.
• “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” (721) – note the painting
Literary Terms
• Apostrophe: An address, either to someone who is absent and
therefore cannot hear the speaker or to something nonhuman
that cannot comprehend.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
• Mary Shelley is probably now more famous. Percy Shelley was
an important writer, both of poetry and pamphlets.
• Shocking personal life, atheist
• Many great long epic poems
• “Ode to the West Wind” (735)
• (I recommend “Ozymandias”)
Literary Terms
• Ode: A relatively lengthy lyric poem that often expresses lofty
emotions in a dignified style. Odes are characterized by a serious
topic, such as truth, art, freedom, justice, or the meaning of life;
their tone tends to be formal.
• Paradox: A statement that initially appears to be contradictory but
then, on closer inspection, turns out to make sense. For example,
• Onomatopoeia: A term referring to the use of a word that resembles
the sound it denotes. Buzz, rattle, bang, and sizzle all reflect
onomatopoeia.