Pre Romantic Poetry and their Response to Nature

The word ‘romantic’ loosely refers to something sensational or startling. However, this hackneyed meaning isn’t enough to portray the sense of truth which has been expressed in art and literature. The publication of Lyrical Ballads, a joint work by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1798, marked the beginning of a new literary movement in the history of English Literature, known as ‘Romanticism’. The birth of new poetry emerged after a barren period of rationality and social criticism in the poetic realm of the eighteenth century of Wordsworth and Coleridge. 

Romanticism refers to an extraordinary expansion of mind and imagination through a literary or artistic expression. It claims a protest against the restraint of classism, a healthy effort to breathe in an air of freedom. In the realm of romanticism, grace in childhood and simple rural life, glory in such natural elements as lakes, mountains, and clouds, suspense, and thrill in the supernatural and interest in the soul of the past – are some of the manifestations of the creative imagination put in nature.

Historical Context

The upheaval of romantic literature that flourished in England at the beginning of the 19th century had its immediate inspiration from the French Revolution that stormed and shook Europe, both in its ideals and its excesses. A new literary impulse was born out of the French Revolution, sown as the seed of romantic literature. However, the high ideals of the Revolution gave way to dangerous absolutism with Napoleon’s conquest in 1799. The unfortunate development was a sudden blow of distress for the warm admirers of the Revolution. 

The earlier enthusiastic English romanticists found in Napoleon a destroyer of human freedom, a serious threat to human happiness. Their association with the French Revolution was a ‘melancholy dream’ and resulted in a bitter illusion. After Napoleon’s fall appeared in 1815, the Bourbon dynasty was restored. Social progress, equality, and stability promised in the Revolution, were all set at naught. The earlier romanticists felt frustrated at the existing social state of France and England. Both Shelley and Byron turned rebels in their poetry, against the social order, ruled by monarchical power and clerical authority. Although they adhered still to the revolutionary doctrines, the echoes of the Revolution could be heard no more. Materialism and rationality, in thoughts and deeds, developed, affecting much spontaneity of life.

Return to Nature in Romantic Poetry

The term ‘Return to Nature’ in its ordinary sense, means a renewed interest in the world of nature. The interest in nature is exclusively shown in the poetry of the age of Wordsworth. This tradition of kingship with nature in English Poetry is found rather severed in the literary age of Dryden and Pope. The poems of that age are rather social, intellectual, satirical, and critical. 

Romantic poets are the mighty makers of the great tradition of nature poetry. They are not merely ignorant, thoughtless lovers. Their approach to the world of nature is rather meaningful and philosophical. In the conception of romantic poets, nature is not something lifeless or inanimate, but a living, mighty and majestic force that does not live like ordinary men. In fact, it’s a turn from Rousseau’s simple naturalism to the romantic mysticism of Wordsworth and Shelly in particular. There are many mythopoeic qualities in Shelley’s concept of the west wind or the cloud. The philosophy of romantic poetry assimilates nature and man, creating a spiritual relationship between them.