ROMANTIC POETS

William Blake

Samuel Taylor Coleridge William Wordsworth

WILLIAM BLAKEProphet of imagination and symbolismContemplation of natureInterest in Medieval and Gothic heritageDemocratic ideasOriginal manyfold poetryAgainst rationalism and materialismHate towards Deism and moral Christianity

WILLIAM BLAKE

PROPHET OF IMAGINATIONHe created his own philosophy

a visionary exaltation of the spirit over the bodyInstict over educationSpiritual vision over the impressions of the physical senseAn urge to grasp the world of childish naivetè to reacquire infinite

WILLIAM BLAKE

POETRY THEMESThe realities of the contemporary worldThe potentiality of the spiritual worldArt as a creative visionFreedom: man must search for itPoet as a seer who awakes generations

WILLIAM BLAKE

POETRY SOURCESBible and MiltonDante’s Divine ComedyChaucer’s worksShakespeare and SpenserSwedenborg and BoehmeGnosticism and Hindù religionNeoplatonists, occultism snd teosophy

SONGS OF INNOCENCE

This lyric anthology evokes a predominantly pastoral world prior to the dualisms of adult consciousness. Human, natural, and divine states of being have yet to be separated. The child is the chief representative of this condition; other recurrent figures, such as the shepherd and lamb, point ultimately to the figure of Christ as the incarnation of the unity of innocence.

SONGS OF EXPERIENCE

This lyric anthology evokes the dualisms of adult consciousness. Anyway these dualisms help man grow up. The adult is the chief representative of this condition; other recurrent figures, such as the tyger and other obscure symbols with elusive meanings point ultimately to a sense of impelling doom submerging mankind.

S.T. COLERIDGE

Ballad structure and themesMedieval settingMystery and supernaturalThe importance of natureExoticismMusic

S.T. COLERIDGE

Imagination is divided into Primary and Secondary. The first is the faculty by which we perceive the world around us, through senses.

The second is the faculty of the poet who assembles and unifies his emotional experience in a state of exstacy

S.T. COLERIDGE

Imagination trascends the data of experience and creates.

It is different from fancy which is inferior since it simply assembles and associates images, metaphors and similes.

Poetry is the product of the unconscious. The poet is a seer looking for truth inside himself.

THE RIME...

Though concerned with the supernatural, it is well organized in a progression of events resulting from a sequence of causes and effects and leading to an acceptable conclusion. The overflowing genius of the author is disciplined through a wise mixture of real and unreal elements

W.

WORDSWORTH

Humble rustic lifeA selection from the simple purified language of menImagination colouring experienceEmotions recollected in tranquillityThe poet with a higher degree of sensitiveness than other men

W.

WORDSWORTH His faculty for drawing inspiration

from everyday life and objects led him to a sort of mystic belief, whereby man and nature were different but inseparable parts of a whole universe, created by God. In his opinion nature had a sort of spirit, a living presence of its own and it could speak to all who entered in contact with it

W. WORDSWORTH

It was through a fusion with nature and the contemplation of its beauty that man becomes aware of his own inner life.

The mission of the poet, like that of a prophet or a priest, was therefore to open men’s souls to the inner reality of Nature and to the calm meditative joy she can offer us

W. WORDSWORTH

He was influenced by D. Hartley with ‘The Observation on man’No ideas are innate in manThey derive from impressions of external objectsGroups of vibrations becomes associated with simple ideas

W. WORDSWORTH

The 3 stages of the mind’s development areSensationsSimple ideasComplex or organized ideas

They correspond to the 3 ages of man

W. WORDSWORTH

Childhood, in which there are only sensations from the external worldYouth in which sensations give rise to emotions and simple ideasManhood in which man organizes his ideas through rational thinking