Shelley as a romantic poet
Write a brief note on Shelley as a romantic poet.
Shelley as a romantic poet – The English Romantic movement started in 1789 with the publication of the Lyrical Ballads. The Romantic poets of the nineteenth century are divided into two groups the Elder and the Younger Romantic poets. Wordsworth, Coleridge and Keats belong to to the elder group and Byron, Shelley belong to the younger group of the Romantic poets. The two groups differed in task, temperament and outlook.
Wordsworth was both attracted and repelled by the French Revolution. Coleridge was not much effect by it and it could not produce any effect on Scott. On the other hand French Revolution had a great effect on Byron and Shelley. Their poems are full of revolutionary ideas. They fought for liberty, fraternity and equality. Wordsworth’s outlook on life was serene and placid but in Byron and Shelley it became passionate and enthusiastic. About the difference of their outlook Herford has said, “The revolution which had profoundly disturbed the elder poets, had for the younger already become history. The ideas and aspirations which Wordsworth and Coleridge first embraced and then did battle with and which Scott abhored, had passed into the blood of Byron and Shelley, and kindled humanitarian ardours even in the artist Keats.
Shelley was the most imaginative poet. He ragarded Poetry as, “The expression of the imagination”. He believed that poetry helps the poet to create a world of his own where he could find shelter from the fever and fret of the world. Shelley lived in the world of fancy and imagination. The dreamy quality of Shelley’s poetry is the result of an exuberance of imagination in his poetry. Shelley could behold the future in the present through his power of imagination. The most important thing is that one should be very imaginative inorder to understand and appreciate the poems of Shelley.
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