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Literary critics consider 1798, the year when Wordsworth and Coleridge published their "Lyrical Ballads,"
to mark the beginning of the English Romantic Movement. However, its actual beginnings date back to
the poetry of Gray, Collins, Blake and Burns who are regarded as 'Transition Poets' who lived and wrote
at the end of the Neo-Classical Age. Critical opinion is divided as to when the Romantic Movement
actually came to an end; in fact, some critics consider the Victorian age to be a continuation of the
Romantic Age and that the English Romantic Age extended till the beginning of the Modern Age in
the twentieth century. The characteristic features of English Romantic poetry are:
1. Love and worship of Nature and dislike for the urban life.
2. Love for the Medieval Age.
3. Love for the supernatural and the mystical.
4. Poetry came to be regarded as the spontaneous expression of the poet's own subjective feelings
and did not conform to the poetic conventions of classical doctrines.
1. 5. Completely abandoned the 'Heroic Couplet and substituted it with simpler verse forms like
the ballads which belonged to the English rural Folk. In fact the 'Ballad Revival' is said to have
sparked off the English Romantic Movement.
5. The 'poetic diction' of the Neo-Classical Age was completely done away with and the language
of the ordinary people became the language of Romantic poetry.
6. The subjects of Romantic poetry were often ordinary people: The Idiot Boy."
The Romantic Movement in English poetry is often associated with a number of typical characteristics,
and many of these characteristics appear in William Wordsworths The Prelude and in Samuel Taylor
Coleridges Kublai Khan and Dejection: An Ode. Among the typical Romantic traits that appear in all
three poems are the following:
Features of Romanticism:
Literature was the first branch of art to be influenced by the waves of Romanticism, although the
concepts remain the same in all the art forms. Let us look at some of the characteristics which
influenced the Romantics.
Love of Nature:
The Romantics greatly emphasized the importance of nature and the primal feelings of awe,
apprehension and horror felt by man on approaching the sublimeness of it. This was mainly because of
the industrial revolution, which had shifted life from the peaceful, serene countryside towards the
chaotic cities, transforming man's natural order. Nature was not only appreciated for its visual beauty,
but also revered for its ability to help the urban man find his true identity.
Exoticism:
Along with Nationalism, the Romantics developed the love of the exotic. Hence, far off and mysterious
locations were depicted in many of the artistic works from that period. Though this was not exactly
apposite to the Romantic ideal of Nationalism, separate factions were never formed. Exoticism is also
one of the most prominent characteristics in art, along with sentimentality and spirituality.
Supernatural:
Another characteristic of this movement is the belief in the supernatural. The Romantics were
interested in the supernatural and included it in their works. Gothic fiction emerged as a branch of
Romanticism after Horace Walpole's 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto. This fascination for the
mysterious and the unreal also led to the development of Gothic romance, which became popular
during this period. Supernatural elements can also be seen in Coleridge's Kubla Khan', The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner and Keats' La Belle Dame Sans Merci.
As no Romantic artist followed any strict set of rules or regulations, it is difficult to define the
characteristics of this movement accurately. Nevertheless, some of these characteristics are reflected in
the works of that period. Though many writers and critics have called this movement "irrational", it
cannot be denied that it was an honest attempt to portray the world, especially the intricacies of the
human nature, in a paradigm-shifting way.