Scarica The Romantic poetry: characteristics e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! Romantic poetry The romantic imagination At the end of the 18th century a new cultural and literary movement started to spread: Romanticism. It was based on poetry which best suited the need of the authors to give vent to their emotional experience. Imagination became a necessary tool used by the Romantic poets, an almost divine faculty that allowed him to see beyond the world of reason and recreate the physical world. It is a divine faculty that let man discover the "real truth" of nature, namely God. The poet as a prophet Since the poet, thanks to the power of imagination, could see far beyond the perceptible world, he was seen as a prophet, and his role was to guide humanity as a teacher, to be the bridge between man and nature, to condemn the evils of humankind and to spread Romantic ideals of freedom, beauty and truth. The figure of the child In Romantic poetry childhood went through a revaluation: compared to the consideration of the Augustan Age, during the Romantic Era child wasn’t seen as an adult in being anymore, but as a purer state of humanity, unspoilt, uncorrupted, leading a simpler life and therefore closer to God / spiritual source of creation. The romantic idea of individualism As opposed to the Augustans, who considered man as a social animal, in his relationship with his fellows, the Romantics exalted individualism: they were interested in the atypical, the outcast, the rebel. Romantics thought that restrictions and rules of society (civilization) brought men to evil and corruption. The current of thought that encouraged this view was represented by J.J. Rousseau and was explained in the myth of the “noble savage”. The cult of the exotic The “cult of the exotic”, influenced by Rousseau, was the cult of anything that is far away from the norm, both spatially and temporally. Because of this veneration for the unfamiliar, Romantics appreciated foreign sceneries, customs and social structure. The view of nature The Romantic poets regarded nature as something pure, almost spiritual. In fact, in their pantheistic view, nature was the expression of God in the universe. Since it created sensory experiences, nature became one of the main sources of inspiration, reflection and comfort for the poets. Through nature, it was also possible to convey moral truths. 18th - century poetry Romantic poetry Models and rules The rules were strictly followed. New and spontaneous individual style, they want to
