1 Nov 21 – Wordsworth and the Romantic Poets Resistance to the Enlightenment Era

Today is our second exploration of the Romantic poets who thrived for 100 years ending in the late 18th century. Romantic poets had an amazing impact on poetry and literature during that short time. The main point of today’s discussion - before and after the poems - is a contrast, yet a connection between the cultural period preceding the Romantic Era – the Enlightenment.

Romanticism was a reaction to the Enlightenment as a cultural movement, an aesthetic style, and an attitude of mind. Culturally, Romanticism freed people from the limitations and rules of the Enlightenment. The music of the Enlightenment was orderly and restrained, while the music of the Romantic period was emotional. As an aesthetic style, Romanticism was very imaginative while the art of the Enlightenment was realistic and ornate. The Romanticism as an attitude of mind was characterized by transcendental idealism, where experience was obtained through the gathering and processing of information. The idealism of the Enlightenment defined experience as something that was just gathered.

The Enlightenment saw a universe that was mechanical and run by fixed laws. The Romantics saw a universe that was organic and grew in accord with acts of will. Human will and freedom were for them sacred, where the Enlightenment had held human reason and rationality in the highest regard.

To review, the characteristics of Romantic era poetry (English) include: 

• the Sublime.
• reaction against Neoclassicism.
• imagination.
• nature poetry.
• melancholy.
• medievalism.
• Hellenism.
• supernaturalism.

Characteristics of Enlightenment Poetry (and cultural thought)

• independent thought embraced
• skepticism ran freely through work
• new values
• emphasis on science
• reason is the primary source of authority and legitimacy, 
• ideals such as liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.

And now on to the poetry. My goodness, Mr. Wordsworth has a prolific body of work. In “The Poetry Foundations’” list of poets and their works, few poets have more poems noted than Mr. W. Today, we present three more of his poems, each quite different in tone and tale. 

A Complaint

There is a change—and I am poor;

Your love hath been, nor long ago,

A fountain at my fond heart's door,

Whose only business was to flow;

And flow it did; not taking heed

Of its own bounty, or my need.

What happy moments did I count!

Blest was I then all bliss above!

Now, for that consecrated fount

Of murmuring, sparkling, living love,

What have I? shall I dare to tell?

A comfortless and hidden well.

A well of love—it may be deep—

I trust it is,—and never dry:

What matter? if the waters sleep

In silence and obscurity.

—Such change, and at the very door

Of my fond heart, hath made me poor.

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 

Earth has not any thing to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!

Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room

Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room;

And hermits are contented with their cells;

And students with their pensive citadels;

Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,

Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,

High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells,

Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:

In truth the prison, into which we doom

Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me,

In sundry moods, ’twas pastime to be bound

Within the Sonnet’s scanty plot of ground;

Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)

Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,

Should find brief solace there, as I have found.

A Snippet of Background

The year 1793 saw the first publication of poems by Wordsworth, in the collections An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches. In 1795 he received a legacy of £900 from Raisley Calvert and became able to pursue a career as a poet.

Exploration 1: In “Nuns Fret Not . . .” do you think the nuns are anchorites, and if so, what is the comparison Wordsworth makes to mere mortals?

Exploration 2: Which era would you have preferred to live in the Enlightenment Era or the Romantic era.? Before you answer, you may want to peruse a small sample of the poets of each time period. Just google and you’ll find tons. If you want recommendations, contact me at catherineastenzel@gmail.com. 

Exploration 3: In the six Wordsworth poems presented in this and in the prior Wordsworth post, see if you can identify characteristics of poetry in the Romantic Era.