English Literature

SHUAIB ASGHAR DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH GOVT. RAZVIA ISLAMIA COLLEGE HAROONABAD, PAKISTAN The period from 1798 to 1824 is termed as �The Romantic Age� of English Literature. In this period the writing was mostly poetry. A revolution was taking place in poetic language and its themes. Previously the head controlled the heart, now the heart controlled the head; for the previous poets feelings and imagination were dangerous, but for the Romantics reason and the intellect were dangerous. The romantic period is the most fruitful period in the history of English literature. The revolt against the classical school which had been started by writers like Chatterton, Collins, Gray, Burne, Cowper etc. reached its climax during this period and some of the greatest and most popular English poets like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats belong to this period. To have knowledge of the trends and characteristics of this age we are to discuss some of its prominent and representative figures. T...

SHUAIB ASGHAR DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH GOVT. RAZVIA ISLAMIA COLLEGE HAROONABAD, PAKISTAN The Romantic period is the most fruitful period in the history of English literature. The revolt against the Classical school which had been started writers like Chatterton, Collins, Gray, Burne, Cowper etc. reached its climax during this period and some of the greatest and most popular English poets like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats belong to this period. This period starts from 1798 with the publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, and the famous �Preface to Lyrical Ballads� which Wordsworth wrote as a manifesto of the new form of poetry which he and Coleridge introduced in opposition to the poetry of the Classical school. Wordsworth chose the language of the common people as the vehicle of his poetry, because it is the most sincere expression of the deepest and rarest passions and feelings. This was the first point of attack on the artificial and formal style ...

Shelley is primarily a poet of love, as Keats is of beauty. The story of his life is, in fact, a story of love. But it has to be remembered that Shelley as a love poet is a complex phenomenon. For him love, is not the name of one particular feeling or thing. It is tinged with many colours. It is sexual love, Platonic love, cosmic energy and love of humanity. Shelley devoted his brief life to the pursuit of love. Yearning for perfect Love, Beauty and Liberty is keynote of Shelley's poetry. He considers love a regenerating power, which is closely bound up with his conception of human perfectibility. Shelley's attitude of love was greatly influence by the teachings of Plato. According to Plato, beauty has such as enormous power over men because they have previously beheld it in a heaven and since, sight is the keenest of bodily senses. Shelley looked upon love that is, by no means, a simple phenomenon. In his essay, 'A Defense of Poetry', he has defended this concept as: ...

Love for Nature is one of the prerequisites of all the Romantics and Shelley is no exception. Love for Nature is one of the key-notes of his poetry. His poetry abounds in Nature imagery. 'On Love' reflects colourful Nature imagery and glorification of Nature. He shows fruition and fulfillment in his poems. Other poems e.g. 'A Dream of the Unknown', 'Ode to the Westwind', 'The Cloud', 'To Skylark', 'To the Moon', etc. are remarkable poems of Nature in which we find a profusion of Nature. Like Wordsworth, Shelley believes that Nature exercises a healing influence on man's personality. He finds solace and comfort in Nature and feels its soothing influence on his heart. Shelley, in his poetry, appears as a pantheist too. In fact, his attitude towards Nature is analogous to that of Wordsworth, whao, greatly influenced Shelly. However, as against Wordsworth, who linked the spirit in Nature with God, Shelley, on the other hand, linked it an...

�For the Romantic poet, the idea of revolution has a special interest, and a special affinity. For Romanticism seeks to effect in poetry what revolution aspires to achieve in politics: innovation, transformantion, defamiliarisation" (Divid Duff,p. 26) Revolution is a dominant spirit in almost all the romantic poets. Percy Bysshe Shelley, a Romantic poet, is also called rebel for his idea of revolution in his poetry. As The French Revolution dominated all politics in those years, unlike Wordsworth or Coleridge, Shelley never abandoned the ideals of the revolution, though he was appalled by the dictatorship of Napoleon. Shelley only experienced the revolution at second hand through the books of various writers and was influenced by Rousseau, William Godwin etc. When he looked back, all he could see was the flame of revolution still flickering in spite of the terror, was and disease. His long poem, The Revolt of Islam, written at the height of his powers, is clear on one matter above...

          The poem "Ode to the West Wind" directly conforms to Shelley�s poetic creed. Poetry, Shelley writes in A Defence of Poetry , ��awakens and enlarges the mind by rendering it the receptable of a thousand unapprehended combination of thought. Poetry lifts its veil from the hidden beauty of the world.� Consistent with this theory of poetc creation, Shelley�s Romanticism is filled with vehement feelings, ecstatic, mournful, passionate, desperate or fiercely indignant. Sometimes this turns inward to talk about himself. It is in this that he is unique among the Romantics�looking for a better world of liberty, equality and fraternity in his idealistic project of life. For this, he is seen to be pessimistic about the present but highly optimistic about the future to come.           The wind is itself a powerful and recurrent Romantic metaphor. But in Shelley�s treatment it is not a �correspondent breeze�. It is ...

To a skylark P. B. Shelley Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it Pourest thy full heart In profuse strain of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are brightning, Thou dost float and run; Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd. What thou art we know not:, What is most like thee? F...