The+Romantics

 The Romantic poets  wrote during a period of the late 18th to early 19th century. Most commonly known among English speakers are the British Romantic poets. While there were many poets  that would fit the  Romantic poets  “framework,” generally the ones considered most relevant are William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, [|John Keats] and [|Lord Byron]. Though each of the Romantic poets  had their own special qualities, they all had things in common. They triumphed the belief that nature and emotion were the places in which one found spiritual truth, a response to the “Age of Enlightenment,” poets  preceding them. Most attributed to children special innate gifts, as Wordsworth stated, they come from heaven “trailing clouds of glory.” As well, they wrote poetry as a “spontaneous overflow of feelings,” again a Wordsworthian concept. The Romantic poets  particularly changed the way in which poetry was written. Many wrote in a style of [|free verse] at times, moving away from the elaborate rhyming patterns of poets  preceding them. The Romantic poets  were also much more interested in triumphing the rights of women. Shelley was married to Mary [|Wollstonecraft], whose mother wrote one of the earliest and most celebrated feminist tracts, //A Vindication of the Rights of Women//. Mary Shelley can be considered an important Romantic  [|novelist] of the period with her masterpiece//Frankenstein//. Nature was of supreme importance to the Romantic poets. The idea of immersing oneself in the natural or beautiful, or in some cases the natural and frightening as in Blake’s //The Tiger// is distinctly Romantic. Blake contrasts the concept of the fierce burning tiger to his poem //The Lamb// which seems like a child’s nursery poem in its innocence and sweetness. When Blake inquires in //The Tiger// “Did he who made the lamb make thee?” he is essentially questioning the great mysteries of nature in its contrast of beautiful and fearsome. It is difficult to pick just a few of the pieces that most resemble the Romantic poets  as examples. However, a few examples can give one the sense of the variety of the Romantic poets  as well as their sentiments. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is especially known for //The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner//. William Blake is known for poems like //The Tiger// and especially for his collected works in //Songs of Innocence// and //Songs of Experience//. William Wordsworth’s //Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood// is a fundamental work. However, many of his other poems are quite frequently quoted. Lord Byron’s narrative poems are greatly celebrated, including //Childe Harold// and //Don Juan//. Taken in sum, the Romantic poets  may be seen as reactionary and humanist. They forever changed poetry, inventing new forms and influencing later poets. Nowhere is their influence felt more than in the American poets  and writers of the mid 19th century. Many suspect the poetry of Walt Whitman, or the theories of Ralph Waldo Emerson could not exist without the influence of the Romantic poets