Romanticism was a movement in the 18th and 19th centuries that focused primarily on the beauty of nature and the audience's emotional experience of the work while celebrating creativity over logic. Poets such as William Wordsworth, John Keats, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge are three examples of artists who were part of the romantic movement. Nature is a dominant theme in romantic poetry and is most identified with romanticism. In poems such as Wordsworth's “Michael” or Keats’ “Ode to a Grecian Urn” nature becomes a thing to be greatly appreciated in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, which prompted a rise of tourism and country escapism.
In “Michael” William Wordsworth describes the beauty of the setting in the poem as something that gave the viewer “A pleasurable feeling of blind love, The pleasure which there is in life itself.” Describing nature in a way that plays to the reader's emotions was an amazing way for authors to advocate for the preservation of nature in a time when factories would have been seen as more profitable than forests or rural work. Wordsworth filled his poems with language that encouraged nostalgia and encouraged the reader to picture peaceful pastoral images leading to a longing for the sense of wonder that nature can bring to a person. Descriptive dialogue in poems such as Tintern Abbey with “These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs" encouraged readers to ‘return to nature’ while passages such as “A presence that disturbs me with the joy; Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime” suggest a presence of divinity or the divine in nature.
John Keats was a poet from the second generation of Romantic poets. As a writer, he was respected more after his death at the age of 25. He Succumbed to Tuberculosis after writing only 54 poems and publishing a few magazines. During his life, Keats’ work was accused of being “mawkish and bad-mannered" as well as “the work of an upstart vulgar Cockney poetaster” (John Gibson Lockhart). Keat’s writing focused on exploring the beauty of nature. In his poem “Ode to a Grecian Urn,” he describes his theories of the concept of beauty and states in the last lines that “Beauty is truth, truth beauty — that is all; Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” or in other words, a person will become aware of ‘the truth’ when they fully understand the concept of beauty. In the poem, Keats describes the artist's rendition of a gathering of people and their surroundings, as well as praising the urn for being something “Unravished” or immortal in the sense that the artwork will always remain beautiful. The location of the image on the urn is described as “With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought; As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!” to enhance the reader's experience regarding the imagery.
The movement of Romanticism and the concepts of nature and natural beauty are almost synonymous. Writers during the period used heavy descriptions in pastoral poetry to give the reader a chance to connect imagery with their own emotional state. Poets such as William Wordsworth told narratives in their poems, using heavy descriptions of rolling hills and babbling brooks to make the story come to life, while authors such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge used the idea of nature on more of a reflective level. In his poem “The Eolian Harp” Coleridge makes the statement that nature in the abstract sense is “one Life within us and abroad” and emphasized the connection between nature and meditation. The poem itself is narrated by the poet himself, who is speaking with his fiancé. They are in front of a cottage where they plan to live in the future. In the first stanza of the poem, Coleridge describes the “white-flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Myrtle, (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)” and the general feeling of happiness that he feels while holding his fiancé. Romanticism was a movement that could be used to advocate for the preservation of nature as well as for self-reflection and meditation. Writers wanted their readers to truly feel the emotional effect of the poems as well as have a clear depiction of the subject of the writing by describing exciting narratives and even experiences from their own lives.
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