Romanticism in Literature: A Revolt of the Senses and Passions

Romanticism

A movement in philosophy but especially in literature, romanticism is the revolt of the senses or passions against the intellect and of the individual against the consensus. Its first stirrings may be seen in the work of William Blake (1757-1827), and in continental writers such as the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the German playwrights Schiller and Goethe.

The publication, in 1798, by the poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge of a volume entitled was a significant event in English literary history. The elegant Latinisms of the Augustans are dropped in favour of a kind of English closer to that spoken by real people. Robert Burns (1759 1796) writes lyric verse in the dialect of lowland Scots.

Later Romanticism

The work of the later romantics John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley (husband of Mary Shelley) is marked by an attempt to make language beautiful, and by an interest in remote history and exotic places. Lord Byron (1788-1824) uses romantic themes, sometimes comically, to explain contemporary events. Romanticism begins as a revolt against established views. Its main ideas include:

• Poetry as the expression of personal feelings and emotions.
• Imagination as a main source of poetry.
• Nature in Romantic poetry is a living thing, a teacher of man, and a healing power.

Blake

He began experimenting with printing techniques and it was not long before he compiled his first illuminated book, 'Songs of Innocence' in 1788. Blake wanted to take his poetry beyond being just words on a page and felt they needed to be illustrated to create his desired effect. It was a sign of his increasing awareness of the social injustices of his time, which led to the completion of his 'Songs of Experience' in 1794.

One of Blake’s main influences was the society in which he lived. He lived during revolutionary times and witnessed the downfall of London during Britain’s war with republican France. His disgust with society grew as he matured and 'The Songs of Innocence and Experience' depict this transition. As well as having radical religious ideas for the time (he did not believe in “religion of nature or reason, but thought man’s nature was imaginative and mystical” (Lister 1968, ) he also had radical political ideas.
Blake’s preoccupation with good and evil as well as his strong philosophical and religious beliefs remained throughout his life and he never stopped depicting them in his poetry and engravings.