c. CE 101 - Lines Written in Early Spring by William Wordsworth
Channel: Ishan Marvel
Date: 2020-12-05

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTSoWRKkWJTZHH9sr7bmr37Wd16TTbRbr
From The Blossoming Mind

ROMANTIC AGE (towards end of 18th century)
An artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe as a reaction against the prevailing Enlightenment ideas -- a move from intellectual objectivity towards emotional subjectivity.

Major English Romantic Poets: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats and Byron.
[Chhayawaad: Maithilisharan Gupt, Sumitranandan Pant, Dinbandhu Nirala, etc.]

Wordsworth in Preface to 'Lyrical Ballads':
"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin in emotion recollected in tranquility . . . By fitting to metrical arrangement a selection of the real language of men." 

Key traits of Romantic poetry:
* Emphasis on the 'sublime': by using language and description that excites the thoughts and emotions beyond ordinary experience. Though often associated with grandeur, the sublime may also refer to the grotesque or other extraordinary experiences that "take us beyond ourselves.”
* Belief in the importance of the imagination is a distinctive feature. Keats said, “I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination- What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth.” 
William Blake:
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
* Love for nature is another important feature of romantic poetry, as a source of inspiration.
* Melancholy occupies a prominent place in romantic poetry, and is an important source of inspiration for the Romantic poets.
* Therefore, Romantic poetry is the poetry of sentiments, emotions and imagination. Romantic poetry opposed the objectivity of neoclassical poetry. Neoclassical poets avoided describing their personal emotions in their poetry, unlike the Romantics. This could be seen to precursor the trends of celebrity authors and confessional/personal poetry, as with later American poets.

* * *

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850)
* Pioneer Romantic poet who gave a new direction to English poetry.
* Through his poems, presented everyday objects and sights of nature with such freshness and emotion that they appear extraordinary and full of life.
* Tried to use the language of ordinary people as far as possible.
* Often talks of the same life moving through all nature and the human mind, which he believed can develop best in association with nature -- for man-made systems and rules tend to distort and frustrate the natural human condition.

LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING (1798)
* Describes how everything in nature appears to be full of joy -- like the flowers, birds and plants moving in the air -- while the distortions of human society often make the life of most human beings unhappy.
* Sitting in nature and absorbing its joy, the poet feels that his soul had become one with the nature. Yet, he feels sad when he thinks of how most human beings are unhappy as a result of the unnecessary suffering caused by socio-political systems, and their own selfish and blind actions.