Dear all,

As we study the so called "Romantic Poets" let´s first consider what Romanticism means (From English Literature in Context by Paul Poplawski (Ed.), 2008).

The Romantic period covers the period between the 1780s and 1830s although some authors argue that the period starts in the 1760s and it finishes in the 1850s.

Romantic refers to a kind of writing in opposition to neo-classicism in which "reason" dominated.
It marked a profound change in sensibility as a violent reaction to 18th century "reason".

The most representative British Romantic poets are William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy B. Shelley, John Keats and Lord Byron.

Romanticism was apparently inspired by te political revolutions of America in 1776 and France in 1789, and therefore the products of Romanticism were often radical.

Characteristics:
Romantic poets affirm the creative powers of the imagination.

They introduce us to a new way of looking at nature which becomes the main subject of their work. The "Unity of being" or transcendence can be achieved through communion with nature: mountains, glaciars, storms, strange and exotic settings.

Romantic poets often write about the nature of the individual self and the nature of individual experience. They also show high regard for the figure of the artists.

Below you will find the poem "The little black boy" by William Blake. Read it, what images does it evoke? What is the relationship between the mother and the boy? Think of the contrast between black and white, how is it presented, what does it represent?


THE LITTLE BLACK BOY

My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but oh my soul is white!
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black, as if bereaved of light.
My mother taught me underneath a tree,
And, sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissed me,
And, pointed to the east, began to say:
"Look on the rising sun: there God does live,
And gives His light, and gives His heat away,
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.
"And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love
And these black bodies and this sunburnt face
Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.
"For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear,
The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His voice,
Saying, 'Come out from the grove, my love and care
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice',
" Thus did my mother say, and kissed me;
And thus I say to little English boy.
When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy
I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our Father's knee;
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him, and he will then love me.

Claudia