Develop a thematic statement and compare/contrast writing styles - Essay Example

The Romantic Poets of the English literature lived during 1785-1830 and they include William Blake, William Wordsworth, T S Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats. Significantly, the characteristic features of Romantic poetry are closely connected to the spirit of Romanticism, although Romantic poetry is not all about Romanticism. “Romantic poetry is revolutionary. It is electrifying. It is dangerous, ‘seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely… Romantic poetry is for Shelley nothing less than the spirit of the age… Romantic poetry may not necessarily define Romanticism, but it is indispensable to any definition of Romanticism.

” (Mahoney, 1) In a reflective exploration of the distinguishing characteristics of Romantic poetry, it becomes evident that the Romantic poets were chiefly concerned with the beauty of the supernatural, championing of the individual, love of nature, dangers of technology, emotionalism, lyricism, and love of medievalism. A profound investigation of the unique characteristics of Romantic poetry confirms that every poet of this category reflected some of the peculiar features of Romantic poetry in their poetic works. . In the poems included in Songs of Innocence, the poet makes use of lyricism, emotionalism, the love of innocence and simplicity, etc.

Like his contemporaries, Blake idealizes imagination and emotion in these poems and he reveals his belief in the purity of human beings through the short lyrics he wrote. In their mixture of the visionary and the observational, his lyrics strike special attention of the readers. Some of these unique characteristics of Romantic poetry are revealed in the following lines from “The Lamb”, a poem from Songs of Innocence: “Little Lamb, who made thee? / Dost thou know who made thee? / Gave thee life & bid thee feed, / By the stream & o’er the mead; / Gave thee clothing of delight, / Softest clothing wooly bright; / Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice.

” (Blake, lines 1-8) William Wordsworth (1770-1850), the chief proponent of the Romantic poetry in British literature, has produced some wonderful poems reflecting the spirit and characteristics of Romantic poetry. His Preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800) provided a theoretical framework to Romantic poetry as a whole. Wordsworth’s poems can be largely categorized in poems of nature and poems of human life. Imagination has been central feature of Wordsworth, just as the case with other Romantic poets.

Significantly, “all Romantic characteristics, either as emphasized by Romantic literature and attitudes such or as isolated by commentary, are simply dispositions of imagination from the first.” (McFarland, 215) Sensitivity to nature and life, truthfulness in the representation of nature, love for beauty in the common world, life of nature, compassion to childhood, natural