Romanticism refers to the profound shift in Western attitudes to art and human creativity that dominated much of European culture in the first half of the 19th century, and that has shaped most subsequent developments in literature-even those reacting against it, such as the opinions of T. S. Eliot and T. E. Hulme.
The task of providing a viable definition for the cultural and literary phenomenon called "Romanticism- has never been easy, as it is, the vexed question of what salient attributes constitute this literary phenomenon has been answered in a variety of ways by different literary critics in England and America, but no solution has been satisfactory to all subsequent critics and readers. Isaiah Berlin, in his lectures entitled "The Roots of Romanticism", wisely evades the problem of generalizing or defining romanticism. He quotes Northrop Frye's statement to the effect that any generalization on romanticism would be met with "countervailing evidence" from great writers of antiquity. On the contrary, he contents himself with only assessing the importance of this literary movement by stating that "the importance of romanticism is that it is the largest recent movement to transform the lives and the thought of the Westem world.
Romanticism refers to the profound shift in Western attitudes to art and human creativity that dominated much of European culture in the first half of the 19th century, and that has shaped most subsequent developments in literature-even those reacting against it, such as the opinions of T. S. Eliot and T. E. Hulme.
The task of providing a viable definition for the cultural and literary phenomenon called 'Romanticism- has never been easy, as it is, the vexed question of what
Introduction
William Blake (1757-1827)
Selected Poems by William Blake
Introduction to Songs of Innocence
The Echoing Green
The Lamb
The Little Black Boy
The Chimney Sweeper
Holy Thursday
Introduction to Songs of Experience
Earths Answer
The Chimney Sweeper
Holy Thursday
The Sick Ro s e
Ah Sunflower
The Garden of Love
I Saw a Chapel
Auguries of Innocence
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Plate 4)
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Plate 5)
Proverbs of Hell
Robert Burns (1759-1796)
Selected Poems by Robert Burns
Holy Willies Prayer
To a Mouse on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough November 1785
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Selected Poems by William Wordsworth
Simon Lee the Old Huntsman; with an Incident in Which He Was Concerned
Lines Written in Early Spring 1798
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey on Revisiting the
Banks of the Wye during a Tour July 13 1798
“Strange fits of Passion Have I Known 1799
She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways 1799
A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal 1800
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
Selected Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The Eolian Harp
This Lime Tree Bower My Prison 1834
Dejection: An Ode (composed c July 1802)
Frost at Midnight 1834
Christabel
Biographia Literaria
Lord Byron (1788-1824)
Selected Poems by Lord Byron
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto One
Manfred: a Dramatic Poem
Don Juan
The Vision of Judgement
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Selected Poems and Prose by Shelley
Mutability (A) 1816
Mutability (B) 1821
To Wordsworth 1816
Alastor; or the Spirit of Solitude
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty
Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni
On Life
A Defence of Poetry
John Keats (1795-1821)
Poems and Prose by John Keats
Endymion
Sleep and Poetry 1816
……
Minor Romantic Writers and Essayists
Women Romantic Poets