The Romantic Period The French Revolution 1798 The

The Romantic Period The French Revolution 1798 - The publication of The Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge Wordsworth wrote preface to 2 nd and 3 rd editions of The Lyrical Ballads and laid down the principle of the Romantic poetry. The preface is considered to be the manifesto of The Romantic Poetry.

• Wordsworth described all good poetry as «the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings» . Poetry expresses the poet’s own mind, imagination and emotion. Therefore, in the romantic poetry, the ‘I’ is not a dramatis persona, but the poet himself.

• Great romantic poets such as Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge and Keats described natural phenomena accurately. But their aim is to use nature to express their emotions. – Lamp metaphor

• Romantic poets choose incidents and situations from common life. • Wordsworth insisted that the language of poetry should be the language ordinary men and women, and it is found unspoilt in the speech of rural people. • Rural Urban

Some poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and John Keats dealt with the magical and mysterious. They used folklore, superstition to impress their reader. Such poems are usually set in the distant past or in faraway places or both. The Orient

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by W. Wordsworth This poem has been assigned previously. So the students are expected to read and participate in class discussion.