Romanticism and Transcendetalism - Essay Example

The most important literary eras include medieval era, classical era, romantic era, Victorian era, modern era, postmodern era and contemporary era. The critics regard the time from 1798 as Romantic era with the publication of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads (Alexander 139). The work turned out to be the revolt from the verbose, pompous and eloquent and sophisticated portrayal of intellectual and creative expressions had been adopted by the great classical authors including Milton, Bacon, Donne, Dryden, Pope and other writers and poets of the era.

Milton’s wonderful Paradise Lost, Donne’s metaphysical poetry and Rape of the Lock produced by Alexander Pope demonstrate the height of glory the authors have applied through superb wording and splendid phrases, which not only prove poetry as a vehemently an intellectual activity, but also distinguishes the authors from common people enjoying the works produced by the talented intellectual stratum of the English society. The Classical Era actually sought inspiration from the outstanding philosophical contributions made by Descartes, Spinoza, Lock, Nietzsche, Hume, Kant and others, reflection of which could be found in the works created during sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.

Somehow, the last decade of eighteenth century witnessed significant change in the diction and style of the works created by the English authors. It was the period when the French Revolution 1789 has taken place with the slogans of liberty, equality and fraternity for all people without discrimination. In a letter to Byron in 1816, Percy Shelley declared that the French Revolution was "the master theme of the epoch in which we live (Greenblatt and Abrams 746). The Romantic Era also adopted the same principles while creating prose and poetry, and applied the language of common people in order to eliminate distinction between the individuals belonging to divergent socioeconomic statuses at large.

Consequently, the poems created by William Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats not only reflect the language of everyday life, but also ordinary people are the subject of their works, as Wordsworth’s Two April Mornings, where a peasant, Mathew, seeks resemblance in a country girl to his dead daughter, while his We are Seven concentrates upon the innocence of a little girl, who finds no difference between sleep and death altogether. Similarly, Coleridge’s poems, including Youth and Age, Christmas Carole, Tomb-less Epitaph and other focus on the individuals belonging to country life of England.

Another most distinguished feature of the era includes the Romantics’ love for the beauties Nature offers to man. The poets wrote the poesy that reflects their profound curiosity to explore and depict the exquisiteness present all around them. Wordsworth’s To the Cuckoo, Shelley’s the Prometheus Unbound and the remarkable Odes created by John Keats draw out an escape from the bitter realities of life into the world, where there is peace and tranquility, beauty and eloquence, freedom and bliss and ecstasy and elation all around the human sight and imagination as well.

Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale is unanimously viewed as one of the greatest pieces of literature ever produced in praise of nature and escapism. Similarly, Coler