Themes and Imagery in Selected Romantic Poems
Chapter One
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF STUDY
The objective of this study are to examine the thematic focus of selected Romantic poems and evaluate the various images which are employed to develop the subject matter. In doing this, one needs to establish the nature of the Romantic aesthetic tradition.
The Romanticists believe in using the external to change the internal workings of man; these external elements are seen in natural landscape which is made of beauty and beauty is seen as good, pure and peaceful. However, due to the emergence of science and technology, man got seperated from the use of natural elements and so, did not appreciate nature enough to see that nature is the only tool with which man can exist peacefully. In addition to the presentation of nature and its spiritual composition as the only way for peaceful co-existence, this research work will emphasize on the unfeeling nature of man towards natural elements and how insignificant they place nature despite the importance which these writers attach to nature.
Furthermore, the wide gap in social class which was caused by science and technology will be analysed (though not over-emphasized) as not only did the invention of machines cause man to deviate from nature, it also made the society segregated in terms of class. This is perhaps the early beginnings of what is now known as Marxism which the Modern period writers now adopts in their writings.
Finally, the aim and objective of this research is to make intended researchers appreciate the Romantic age and see it as, perhaps, an age of enlightenment which can be referred to as the soul and beginning of literary writings.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter different review of literature by scholars of the Romantic period will be made. These reviews centers on the origin of the Romantic period, the meaning of Romanticism and how it came to be an accepted name and theory, the themes of natures, supernatural and the use of imagery.
Just like every other period, the Romantic period, the Romantic period did not have a collective term with which to identify the writers of the part of eighteenth and nineteenth century. It was towards the end of this period that it was asserted that the theory with which Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge and other writers of this period worked with was based on the theory of Romanticism which has its main focus on the return of man back to nature. Butler (1981, p1) asserts that:
Not until the 1960’s did the term “Romantic’become an accepted collective name for Blake,Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Bryon, Shelley and Keats and an agreement began to emerge about what an English Romantic poet was like. It was not until the twentieth century that there was analytical discussion of the abstraction ‘Romanticism’ as a recognized term for theories of imagination of language. (Butler, 1981, p1)
It was by the twentieth century, that it was really understood the concept of using nature as a major tool for writing during the Romantic period. The use of nature came as a result of too much quest for materialism. Wright (1986, pXIV) posits that:
It was the spiritual and metaphysical implications of
the scientific and technological revolution which began
in the seventeenth century and was going at full throttle
by the end of the eighteenth century, together with the
changed and changing view of man’s place in the
universe, that sparked off the Romantic movement. (Wright, 1986, pXIV).
The Romantic period was a turnover in the English literature as well as in the societies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as inventions were made in the English literature like a new and captivating definition of poetry by Wordsworth and Keats as well as the freedom attached to writing which entailed that writers did not have to follow all the rules of writing for to them nature gives man spontaneous flow of emotions and also brings out passion as well as the imaginative and intuitive part of a man. The Romantics negated logic, reasoning and order. Literature and the society at this point, was no longer seen from the eyes of higher class only, the lower class became an important aspect of literature as the writings of these Romanticists became the voice of the majority that constituted the exploited and oppressed in the society. Blamires (1991, p217) has this to say on the Romantic period:
CHAPTER THREE
ANALYSIS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH’S ‘THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US’ AND ‘I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD’
In the chapter two of this study, the features of the Romantics in which they appreciate nature and use supernatural elements to negate the industrial revolution, the way Wordsworth and Blake puts forth their writings in a bid to express the usefulness of nature and the supernatural was reviewed. Therefore in this chapter, two poems by William Wordsworth titled “The world is too much with us” and “I wandered lonely as a cloud” shall be analyzed as related to nature and the supernatural and how imagery is used by this poet to convey his message of doing away with the machines which seem to be causing immorality, economic depression, and premature deaths as well as the need for self-knowledge and reflection of our lives.
CHAPTER FOUR
ANALYSIS OF WILLIAM BLAKE’S “LONDON” AND “THE GARDEN OF LOVE”
“LONDON”
The Romantics had much more artistic freedom than any other period. Romantics’ revolution is webbed with passion, not reason. Imagination was more precious and important than logic or any form in writing. Blake in his critical mind observes the variation in human’s behaviour; and how thoughts and behaviour towards mother earth affcet the society. The poem “London” can be tagged “song of sorrow”. Blake’s keen observations of the mother earth using London as a case study.
CHAPTER FIVE
FINDINGS, SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
After an analytical investigation on the Romantic period as regards the use of the theme of nature and the supernatural through the use of imagery, it is noticeable that the Romantic era had a shift from aristocracy to the common man. This is because they felt that the aristocrats were oppressors and exploiters, therefore they no longer seem relevant to be written about. This is a diversion from the neo-classical tradition which did not regard the peasants as being important. Literature should be a tool used to mirror a society therefore, if the aristocrat class are the only ones examined in the works of literature, then the society has not been well represented.
Also, the Romantic composition was predominant with feelings and emotions. The intellect is regarded as below intuition. The Romantics seek for absolute truth and in doing so go beyond the physical world into a world of imagination such that one feels the duality of nature. The Romanticists were like poet- prophets and took up the roles of bards so as to help man retrace his steps back to nature.
The Romantics in their bid to appreciate nature treat natural creations as the ultimate because of their belief that what the human brain produces is temporal and unreliable. The Romantics view the inventions of man to be inferior therefore rejecting the intellect and products of man.
The Romantic tradition covers genres like pastoral poetry, lyrical ballads, idylls, sonnets, dreams, visions and odes. The sonnet like “The World is too Much with Us” is about love and appreciation of nature. Wordsworth uses this to describe the way man involves himself in too much unnecessary activity, hence not taking time to communicate with nature. Sonnets are poems of fourteen lines and have love as its subject matter. The love potrayed in this poem therefore, is love for nature and for one’s country. It is Wordsworth’s love for nature and his country that moves him to express this work of art using a sonnet. He uses captivating words through the employment of similes, metaphors and personification to project imagery which is formed in the reader’s mind to cause a change.
In “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, the poet uses simple structure to convey his message though he fills it with strong captivating words like “golden”, “bliss”, “dances” to show the strong essence of nature. The poem is a pastoral in a sonnet form with four six-line stanza, with each stanza formed by a quatrain-couplet rhyme scheme: ABABCC. Each line is metered in iambic tetrameter.
Unlike Wordsworth’s poems which is subtle, Blake’s poems are more radical and daring. Blake designed his own mythology, which appears in his works which are prophetic. His works are based mainly on the bible and Greek mythology to support his idea of his everlasting Gospel and his ideas are also based on the symbolism of the vital relationship and unity between divinity and humanity. He believes that the joy of man glorifies God and that the religious of this world is actually the worship of Satan.
He identified the ills of cruelty, social inequity, revolutionary violence, sexual disturbance, self-righteousness as the symptoms of the absence of love, starvation of the spirit, and the fragmentation of both the individual personality and the human family. The poet sees all this as a result of the Fall of Man due to man’s lack of the appreciation of nature.
Blake and Wordsworth desires to awake the society from the sleep of death called life though they do this in very different ways. Wordsworth is subtle in his approach to trying to revive an already decaying society while Blake is radical in his approach. He presents the society using harsh imagery that seems to get the reader enveloped in fear of what the future holds with the industrial revolution going on a fast trail. Wordsworth appeals to the conscience of man to change as Blake makes the reader feel guilt as to how he or she treats the environment.
In conclusion, this study has shown that the use of imagery in expressing the themes of nature and the supernatural by the Romanticists and as well to negate the industrial revolution has been the best that could happen to the literary world.
TENTATIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Abrams, M. H. (1972). Wordsworth. USA:Prentice Hall Inc. “Art of the Romantic Age”. (2010). Shoshone Online Encyclopedia. Retrieved September 5,2010 from www. Shoshone.k12.id.us/romantic/art.htm.
- Blamires, H. (1991). A History of Literary Criticism. London: The Macmilliam Press Ltd.
- Butler, M. (1981). Romantic Rebel and Reactionaries. London: Oxford University Press.
- Bygrave, S. (Ed.). (1996). Approaching Literature, Romantic Writings. (P VII) USA & Canada:Routledge.
- Coombes, H. (1953). Literature Criticism. London: Chattus and Windus Ltd.
- Dickens, C.(1859). A Tale of Two Cities. Retrieved November’ 13,2010 from http://www.planet pdf.com/planet pdf/pdfs/free-ebooks/A_ Tale_of_Two_Cities_NT.pdf.
- Durrant, G. (1969). William Wordsworth. Britain: Cambridge University press.