Political themes and moral values of the Romantic period
...omantic period is the French revolution. The revolution affected everything it touched. It was because of the French Revolution that England went into a depression when their men came back from war. Shelley's poem, "A Song: Men of England," describes how poor the working conditions were for the servants. This poem expresses Shelley's desire for a revolution among the poor, and to overthrow the commanding power. He describes the lords as "ungrateful drones who would drain your sweat-nay, drink your blood (1698)." It was the French revolution that caused the industrial revolution. It was the French revolution that caused thousands of jobs to be lost because of technological advances in the workplace. The main political theme is revolution, or change. England was once an agricultural country that depended on its land and crops. Now, with the technological advances, England was overcome by technology that people lost their jobs due to these advances. The French revolutions not only sparked changes on the social and political side, but also on the intellectual and literal side. The political and social revolution may have started with the storming of the Bastille, but the intellectual and literal revolution started with the publishing of "Lyrical Ballads" by Wordsworth and Coleridge. This was indeed a revolution of literature. Many writers felt that there was "something distinctive about their time…a pervasive intellectual and imaginative climate "Spirit of the Ages" (1264)." During the "Spirit of the Ages," literature no longer focused on neo-classical themes of wit and reason, but focused on emotion, spontaneity, and imagination. Wordsworth described "all good poetry as, at the moment of composition, "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings (1265)." Poets and writers wrote about natural beings, and pure emotion that flowed from within. Neo-classical writers define imagination as foolish and childlike. In contrast, Romantics consider imagination as a wonderful tool to further elaborate on many subjects. Romantics are breaking the molds that were fit for them, and creating new molds, which are original and come straight from nature. For example, in William Wordsworth's poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," the entire poem shows images of nature, and the natural movement of life. He starts out the poem alone as the "cloud." As the "cloud" moves on, it sees that it is not alone in the world. He then sees stars, "ten thousand at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance (1382)." The word "glance" implies that he is no longer looking through the neo-classical "spectacles" that were molded for him. Instead of analyzing and classifying every living organism, he learns to just enjoy relax. "When on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood (1382)," states that when he lies down to think, he doesn't really try to remember, but he is in high spirits. He thinks and daydreams as if he were a child, and "then my heart fills, and dances with the daffodils (1382)." There is no analytical or questioning of his thoughts. It is just him thinking and enjoying nature, which defines him as a Romantic. Samuel Coleridge, an English Romantic, also wrote many poems that involve the use of nature and references to childhood. In Coleridge's poem, "Frost at Midnight," Coleridge combines imagination and realistic observations in a poem. The various forms water seen in the poem is known as God's verbs or an organic metaphor. The water represents life because life always lives on. The many natural subjects in the poem are sometimes referred to as God's nouns. They represent all natural things that god put on this earth. The poem starts out with the "Frost performing its secret ministry (1522)." The word "frost" is capitalized, which means that frost is longer just an organism, but a human-like subject of the poem. The word frost can be used in both a positive and negative way. It is both a giver of life, and a taker of life. When the frost is performing its secret ministry, the frost can only cause death and darkness because the word secret does not imply joy or birth. After his "musings" he observes all that is around him, especially his infant beside him. He notes the "echo ...