19th Century Poetry

“A thing of beauty is joy forever” is what poets like John Keats believed in. 19^th century England was an England inspired by its neighborhood enjoying the colours of the French revolution. The poetry of 19^th century England also was an expression to portray the poets’ desire to break free from the restrictions and regulations that neo-classical poets had maintained. The 19^th century poetry, also dubbed as ‘Romantic Poetry’ began officially in 1798 with the publication of Lyrical Ballads of William Wordsworth and the period ends roughly around 1850. 

The 19^th century poetry was marked by taking over of subjective emotions in poetic art. Many forms of poetry were written in this period. Forms like Odes, Sonnets, and Lyrics were the prevalent ones.  The major poets of the era were poets like William Wordsworth, S T Coleridge, L G Byron, John Keats, and P B Shelly.  The poets were writing to express their views about a variety of things they came across. For the first time in the poetical history of England the definition of poetry was “emotions recollected in tranquility” and it was “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”.

Some major works of the era were Prelude, written by William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads, written by Coleridge and Wordsworth together and Don Juan of Byron. These poems were enriched with natural imagery and free from the general constrains of 18^th century poetry. The poetry evoked a feeling of freedom and subjectivity. People who read poetry also increased by this time and also the focus of the subject matter shifted from aristocracy to common masses. A poet in this period was a “man speaking to men” which is pretty inclusive statement

The period though ended with taking over of Novel as a popular literary form but Romantic age was taken to be glorious period for English poetry. During the last stages of romantic age the public read and acknowledge the new form of novel and enjoyed it more than prose. After 1850 there were poets like Rosetti, Robert Browning and E B Browning but they were not as popular as Dickens and other novelists who made their places in the bookshelves of the common masses.

-- Assef Ali

StoryMirror