The Romantics: Supplemental

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The Romantics Supplemental

• A Radical Departure

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Points of contrast between the Neoclassical (18th
Cent.) and the Romantic periods

• Neoclassical
• Stressed Reason judgment
• Concerned with the general or universal in
  experience
• Asserted values of society as a whole
• Followed authority and rules
• Inspired by classical Greek and Roman authors

• Romantic
• Stressed imagination emotion
• Concerned with the particular in experience
• Championed the value of the individual
• Strove for freedom
• Inspired by medieval subjects and settings

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Points of contrast between the Neoclassical (18th
Cent.) and the Romantic periods

• Neoclassical
• Stressed Reason judgment
• Concerned with the general or universal in
  experience
• Asserted values of society as a whole
• Followed authority and rules
• Inspired by classical Greek and Roman authors

• Romantic
• Stressed imagination emotion
• Concerned with the particular in experience
• Championed the value of the individual
• Strove for freedom
• Inspired by medieval subjects and settings

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B. Changes in poetic form and content (Wordsworth
s preface)

• Form
• a. from specialized, formal language of 18th
  century to the real language of men use the
  expressive power of ordinary speech
• b. So why do you need a poet?
• must select it
• take it from men in a state of vivid
  sensation
• fit it to meter

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B. Changes in poetic form and content (contd)

• Content
• each collaborator had his subject matter
• a. Wordsworth the natural, the commonplace
• incidents and situations from common life,
  usually humble, rustic life. pastoral
• b. Coleridge the supernatural or romantic
• characters and events supernatural, or at
  least romantic.
• a willing suspension of disbelief
• poetic faith that the poet is presenting
  truth even though the details are unreal

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B. Changes in poetic form and content (contd)

• Content (contd)
• c. The two subjects seem opposite, but goals
  similar
• to reveal the essential passions of the
  heart Wordsworth
• to reveal our inward nature Coleridge
• i.e. both try to make us aware of the basic
  operations of the human mind and emotions

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B. Changes in poetic form and content (contd)

• 3. Importance of poets own emotions and
  subjective experience
• a. Poetry must be based on poets own emotions
  and responses, not on books, society or
  scientific reasoning
• b. But emotions and experiences must be
  reflected on in in tranquility before turned
  into poetry.
• so not raw, unbridled emotion
• must be given shape and organized by the
  poets reflective mind to become poetry

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B. Changes in poetic form and content (contd)

• 4. The Poet had special powers
• Wordsworth, in his preface to Lyrical Ballads,
  said the poet is endowed with
• more sensibility
• more enthusiasm and tenderness
• a greater knowledge of human nature
• and a more comprehensive soul
• than is supposed to be common among mankind.

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The End

• Thank you for your attention