The world of literature is rich in the outstanding writers and poets. Prose and poetry were developing throughout years when each epoch gave birth to another one. Thus, it is vital to pay special attention to the British poetry and the eminence the Romantic period that created grounds for the emergence of Victorian era. In fact, such division of the epoch and streams in literature is caused due to several reasons. Some among them are: philosophical trends, social life of the society, recurrence to the ancient manner of composing artistic works (antique period of literature), or scientific and technological progress. These factors provide lots of assumptions on how the literature can be shaped. Moreover, it makes possible for an observer to delineate the similarities and differences of genre diversity taking place within various epochs.
Six well-known poets of Great Britain who represented both Romantic and Victorian trends are highlighted in this paper. These are: William Wordsworth, William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats. The theme of ‘supernatural’ was frequently interwoven with social reality that surrounded the poets. This motive is felt throughout the poetry of all six poets. Supernatural in poetry is the result of an artist (poet) to predict an entire nature of human souls. Thus, it is vital to work out the extent and the presence of supernatural in poems of each among them.
Before discussing the era of British Romanticism (1785-1830) in poetry, it is vital to take a glance at the epoch preceded it. Age of Sensibility featuring such a great writer as Lawrence Stern (a founder of sentimentalism) was aimed at discovering an enlightened nature of human feelings (Abrams 21). Romantic poets loaned this feature and made it even more picaresque due to additional “focus on nature and supernatural” (Thaler 35). To say more, the period itself is rather splendid in the world literature. The gothic motives and symbolism added to the originality of the period in literature. It was a triumph of feelings in their versatility in the nature of a man. Further still, the six poets, along with the latest born poet, John Keats, were representatives of Romanticism.
First of all, William Wordsworth is eminent in British literature, for it was one of the “Lake” poets. It means that he was greatly impressed by the natural uniqueness of the North England that impressed him much. He was constantly “bred” by new images and characters for his works while reasoning over life and people placed within nature. His works, The World is too Much with Us, The Solitary Reaper, etc., Wordsworth was likely to place a man between nature and its supernatural part (Barth 27). Hence, pagan images of “old Triton” and “Proteus” and many others are heard in the situations happened with the main character in each poem. Another example of supernatural metamorphosis is seen on the example of The Daffodils; or, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. After the key line, namely “When all at once I saw a crowd” the poet sees a very incredible picture of imaginary creatures (Barth 30).
However, many historians, such as Lucy Newlyn, tend to think of Wordsworth’s poetry as something more applied to the theme of nature as such. Picturesque passages and masterly described storming afloat invoke a reader’s imagination to think of supernatural patterns. It is about time to go over another Romantic poet, namely Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The poet used quite ornate language in his poems. There are too many works on researching the talent of this poet. “Coleridge was committed to the ‘supernatural’, Wordsworth to the ‘natural’” (Newlyn 2). This idea can be proved when taking some glimpse at the poems by Coleridge. What Is Life? and To Nature seem to manifest a struggling soul of the poet. However, in Christablel there is a set of gothic and supernatural elements, when, for example, love transmutes to “one rich Dower” (Sarker 178). This poet tried to follow writing poems in tandem with Wordsworth.
Lord George Gordon Byron is applicable for his sincerity in feelings. His life is apparently reflected in his poems. His active social position cannot, but pushed him on using supernatural elements to give more expression to his poetical word. When we two parted, She walks in beauty, like the night, and I had a dream, which was not all a dream are examples of Byron’s aptness at depicting love and beauty through some supernatural (mystical) elements. He tried to give Romantic poetry a breath of an incredible hope for something sincere in a human soul. Though, there are a lot of dark motives in this poetry, he uses “the pall of a past world” to transfigure the present world (Galt 210). Moreover, Byron along with Shelley tried to incorporate the artistic word of Milton. They wanted to use supernatural episodes in their poetry likewise Milton uses in The Lost Paradise (Carter and McRae 184). Thus, it is better to put emphasis on Shelley’s poetry.
Percy Bysshe Shelley tried to manifest his gothic style through the tragedy of peoples’ living on earth. However, the poet places himself, as an observer of what is happening around. It reminds a reader Dante’s implication in The Divine Comedy. Shelley writes in Laon and Cythna:
And Faith, and Custom, and low-thoughted cares,
Like thunder-stricken dragons, for a space
Left the torn human heart, their food and dwelling place (Shelley et al. 57).
This extract beginning with the title represents wholly supernatural theme throughout the poem. In fact, one cannot imagine Shelley, as some trivial or ordinary poet. He proved that his artistic style is original. Moreover, it stimulated other poets in extending the natural elements turning into supernatural prescriptions. Some critics state an opinion that Shelley “aligns this presentation of the human – witnessed from an impossible perspective occasioned by a supernatural event – with the preservation of the human” (Guer 89). It makes the whole discussion over Shelley’s poetry full of sense as for the place of supernatural episodes. He never used it in vain or just in order to follow Romantic postulates. He adored looking at the hidden powers of the nature that are inherent to humans.
William Blake complemented the Romantic period in literature by a scope of poems that he personally divided into The Songs of Innocence and The Songs of Experience. The poet amazes by the fact that he tried to combine the main attributes of Romanticism with the social life of people. Thus, in The Divine Image he attempts to prescribe divinity to people who are struggling because racial diversity. The elements of supernatural are herd especially in The Human Abstract. Bad emotions and bad deeds done by a human Blake draws in terms of exaggerated images of insects and mystical animals. It is, particularly, his lovely artistic device. Thus, he writes:
Soon spreads the dismal shade
Of Mystery over his head,
And the caterpillar and fly
Feed on the Mystery (Gilchrist 110).
In fact, Blake tried to open eyes of a reader on the perfection of the nature and a man within it. He wanted to be apart from the progress grabbing more attention of people on the entire charms of imagination about humanity and nature. Supernatural incorporation of the main ideas in his poetry Blake saw in spiritual appearances by the exercise of a special faculty – that of imagination (Gilchrist 265)…
John Keats’s Romantic poetry is a representation of the second wave in Romanticism (Colvin 45). His talent is shaped in the fact that he intentionally wanted to describe “nature as embodied in concrete shapes of supernatural human activity and grace” (Colvin 95). In fact Keats was a real Romantic poet with all that relates to Romanticism as such. However, his poetry seems to be so patterned with supernatural insertions that he attempts to humanize the main ideas in his poems. Hence, in Hyperion Keats writes:
As once fair angels on the ladder flew
From the green turf to heaven (Wolfson 80).
To conclude, Romantic era was apparently apart from social changes that had place in the world in the beginning of the 19th century. With the start of Victorian era poets were more interested in the economic, social, and political issues (Thaler 40). It resulted later in the dissatisfaction of intelligence about social life. Moreover, the movement of Decadence appeared in the literature arena. Romanticism is still thought of as the epoch of triumphal manifestation of the supernatural word interwoven in images of nature and everything that relates a human being to the nature.
Works cited
Abrams, M. H. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2 A: The Romantic Period. Ed. 7. Liverpool: Karnac Books, 1999.
Barth J. Robert. Romanticism and transcendence: Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the religious imagination. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2003.
Carter, Ronald and McRae, John. The Routledge history of literature in English: Britain and Ireland. Ed. 2. London: Routledge, 2001.
Colvin, Sidney. Keats. London: BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2008.
Galt John The Life of Lord Byron. Teddington, Middlesex: Echo Library, 2007.
Gilchrist, Alexander. Life of William Blake. New York, NY: READ BOOKS, 2008.
Guyer, Sara Emilie. Romanticism after Auschwitz. Stanford, CT: Stanford University Press, 2007.
Newlyn, Lucy. Coleridge, Wordsworth and the language of allusion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Sarker, Sunil Kumar. S.T. Coleridge. Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2001.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, Matthews, Geoffrey and Everest, Kelvin. The Poems of Shelley: 1817-1819. London: Pearson Education, 2000.
Thaler, Engelbert. Teaching English Literature. New York, NY: UTB, 2008.
Wolfson, Susan J. The Cambridge companion to Keats. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.