Any recommendations for Romantic period poems?

[Muses]

Starting to read a few poems here and there, the typical Blake and Wordsworth... Any other works I should be reading?

[toni]

The ones from Thomas Hardy won't disappoint. :)

[Muses]

Ah yes, the 'Satires of Circumstance' is definitely a great place to spend when I have free time :)

[Red-Headed]

Starting to read a few poems here and there, the typical Blake and Wordsworth... Any other works I should be reading?

Any of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Christina Rossetti (preferably before her religious phase), Tennyson, Kipling, Alexander Pope, Charles Wesley, Samuel Johnson, Thomas Gray, Thomas Chatterton, George Crabbe, Sir Walter Scott, Coleridge, Walter Savage Landor, Thomas Campbell, James Leigh Hunt, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Thomas Hood, William Barnes, Winthrop Mackworth Praed, Thomas Lovell Beddoes & Elizabeth Barret Browning's for a start. (Well, they may not all be strictly Romantic poets but you can see where I'm coming from right?)

[Dinkleberry2010]

At least eight of the poets you mentioned are Victorian Age poets, not Romantic Era poets. I know that sometimes labels don't mean much, but in the case of poetry, they often do. There's a world of difference in the form, outlook, and style of, say, Matthew Arnold to that of Shelley. And to call Matthew Arnold a Romantic Era poet is like calling Allen Ginsberg a classicist.

[OrphanPip]

Ya a good deal of those are definitely not Romantics. Alexander Pope wasn't even alive when Romanticism emerged.

Early Romantics - Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge

Later Romantics - Shelley, Keats, Byron, and Leigh Hunt

[Red-Headed]

At least eight of the poets you mentioned are Victorian Age poets, not Romantic Era poets. I know that sometimes labels don't mean much, but in the case of poetry, they often do.

Of course, it depends on when you believe the Romantic era actually ended.


There's a world of difference in the form, outlook, and style of, say, Matthew Arnold to that of Shelley. And to call Matthew Arnold a Romantic Era poet is like calling Allen Ginsberg a classicist.

Yes, point taken. I was thinking of interesting poets & totally forgot the question. My ADHD catches up with me sometimes. Hence why the after note. I think it would be fair to say that Arnold straddles Romanticism & Modernism though. The analogy to Ginsberg is a bit invalid in my opinion. He was heavily influenced by Wordsworth & some of his earlier works like Sohrab and Rustum are certainly more 'Romantic' than Modern. I know where you're coming from though.

[Red-Headed]

Ya a good deal of those are definitely not Romantics. Alexander Pope wasn't even alive when Romanticism emerged.

Early Romantics - Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge

Later Romantics - Shelley, Keats, Byron, and Leigh Hunt

Yeah, I thought it would be good to look at what immediately preceded the Romantics though. Pope was more mock-heroic & satirical & the Romantics were a reaction to that among other things. I should have made this more clear but time was not on my side earlier. I'm sure the original poster was bright enough to figure this out for themselves. I must have got carried away. :lol:

[tamlynn]

This one by Lord Byron is very pretty:

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

[Red-Headed]

This one by Lord Byron is very pretty:

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

It is believed that Lord Byron while attending a party of Lady Sitwell, met the wife of a second cousin, the beautiful Mrs Wilmot & he was inspired to write She walks in beauty like the night (Hebrew Melodies). Possibly one of the finest opening lines in English poetry. Apparently Mrs Wilmot was in mourning & wearing a dark dress with spangles. I bet you didn't know that!

[Dinkleberry2010]

You're right, Red-Headed, when you say that it depends on when you believe the Romantic era actually ended. Now that I think about it, the so-called Victorian age is generally thought to cover the time from the late 1830s to the early twentieth century, but what about writers like Edgar Allen Poe? He is definitely labeled Romantic, but he was writing until 1849. So there is a lot of overlapping, and there is no sharp dividing line between the Romantic era and the Victorian age.

[sixsmith]

I have a soft spot for Coleridge.

This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Such beauties and such feelings, as had been
Most sweet to have remembrance, even when age
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hilltop edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge; —that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,
That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
Of the blue clay-stone.

Now my friends emerge
Beneath the wide wide Heaven—and view again
The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles
Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,
My gentle-hearted Charles! For thou hast pined
And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,
In the great City pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain
And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun!
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,
Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!
And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend,
Struck with deep joy, may stand, as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily; and of such hues
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when he makes
Spirits perceive his presence.

A delight
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,
This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd
Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd
Some broad and sunny leaf, and loved to see
The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree
Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay
Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now with blackest mass
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue
Through the late twilight: and though now the bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble-bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know
That nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes
'Tis well to be bereft of promised good,
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook
Beat its straight path along the dusky air
Homewards, I blessed it! deeming its black wing
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)
Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory
While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still,
Flew creaking o'er thy head, and had a charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

[Red-Headed]

You're right, Red-Headed, when you say that it depends on when you believe the Romantic era actually ended. Now that I think about it, the so-called Victorian age is generally thought to cover the time from the late 1830s to the early twentieth century, but what about writers like Edgar Allen Poe? He is definitely labeled Romantic, but he was writing until 1849. So there is a lot of overlapping, and there is no sharp dividing line between the Romantic era and the Victorian age.

Yes, there are no real dividing lines between Classicists, 'the age of reason' the Romantics & the Modernists. Fortunately it is something that the likes of us can argue for long periods of time on Internet bulletin boards! :lol:

Long live literary discussion I say! Virtually all artistic & cultural movements were (or are) reactions to other movements or paradigms. The Imagists were a reaction to the Georgian poets for example. Poe would definitely be a late Romantic in my opinion. My rather battered & yellowing Penguin copy of English Romantic Verse starts with Pope (1688-1744), includes Poe & ends with Emily Bronte (1818-1848).

[Dinkleberry2010]

Speaking of Poe, here is one of the the things I find interesting: Poe became a big influence on Bauldelaire, who ended up translating Poe into French, the result was that Poe became "big' in France, and he influenced the French Symbolists, who in turn influenced numerous English and American writers. It was like a big circle that came back to Poe.

[Red-Headed]

Speaking of Poe, here is one of the the things I find interesting: Poe became a big influence on Bauldelaire, who ended up translating Poe into French, the result was that Poe became "big' in France, and he influenced the French Symbolists, who in turn influenced numerous English and American writers. It was like a big circle that came back to Poe.

Yeah, even more weirdly, he lived in England not far from Jane Austen for a while as well. I can't quite imagine two more different writers. Poe was a huge & often very original influence on a lot of people I think. It's just a shame he didn't live to see any recognition. Talking of strange connections, albeit on a slightly different topic, you may find James Burke (http://www.k-web.org/) interesting.

[stlukesguild]

Poe was also (along with Whitman and French Symbolism) one of the most important influences upon the literature of Latin America (Borges, Neruda, Cortazar, etc...) whose works in turn have come back to influence American and European writers. Poe, it also might be noted, was a huge influence upon the visual artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Symbolists and Surrealists). He most assuredly cannot be dismissed as easily as some critics suggest.

By the way... I notice that among these great Romantic poets no one has mentioned any non-English language poets. What about Friederich Holderlin, Heinrich Heine, Goethe, Victor Hugo, Nerval, Baudelaire, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Pushkin, etc...

[tamlynn]

Hi Red-Head, no I didn't know the story behind why Lord Byron wrote that poem. Thanks for sharing. I love knowing the story behind the poetry.

[Red-Headed]

By the way... I notice that among these great Romantic poets no one has mentioned any non-English language poets.

Possibly because this is an English language forum. I think poetry in translation is another topic altogether. Unless you read the language of non-English poetry you are having to rely on translations.


What about Friederich Holderlin, Heinrich Heine, Goethe, Victor Hugo, Nerval, Baudelaire, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Pushkin, etc...

Talking of Pushkin, I think the Pushkinian sonnet sort of outlines some of the difficulties of translating into English. I've heard Pushkin in Russian & it sounds marvellous. Not so sure about the translations though. The Pushkinian sonnet was used by him in his allegorical narrative poem ‘Eugene Onegin’. Each stanza was comprised of a sonnet with an ABABCCDDEFFEGG rhyme scheme. Each line has 4 iambic feet (8 syllables) & to cap it all lines 1, 3,5,6,9 & 12 have feminine rhymes the rest being masculine. The iambic tetrameter sounds odd to English speaker’s ears. This is possibly because of the tendency for Balto-Slavic languages to place more emphasis on the first syllable of most words which differs somewhat in English where we don't particularly.

Verse one, Chapter five

That year the season was belated
and autumn lingered, long and slow;
expecting winter, nature waited -
only in January the snow,
night of the second, started flaking.
Next day Tatyana, early waking,
saw through the window, morning-bright,
roofs, flowerbeds, fences, all in white,
panes patterned by the finest printer,
with trees decked in their silvery kit,
and jolly magpies on the flit,
and hills that delicately winter
had with its brilliant mantle crowned -
and glittering whiteness all around.


The peculiar sonnet/stanza form employed by Pushkin (this particular one from chapter five of Eugene Onegin) was possibly developed by the author by the influence of the contes of La Fontaine who had influenced so many other Russian poets. Notice that even in *translation this sonnet is punctuated almost like a prose piece & has a predictable advance in flow & scan. If you read carefully you will notice a spin or eddy type effect mid-way through the piece before its inevitable conclusion. This was compared by the Russian writer Vladimir Nabakov with the effect that a painted spinning ball or top has. It certainly gives the sonnet a strange almost psychedelic feel. However, I feel that in translation much of this sonnet seems contrived or forced somewhat. I doubt that it does in its original Russian.

*Translation ~ Charles Johnston 1977 (Penguin Classics).


Hi Red-Head, no I didn't know the story behind why Lord Byron wrote that poem. Thanks for sharing. I love knowing the story behind the poetry.

I think I read it in Byron: The Years of Fame ~ Peter Quennel.

[Dinkleberry2010]

I was once told in no uncertain terms by an English literature professor in a college course I was taking that in a hundred years from now Poe would be unknown while Shelley would still be considered a great poet. (I dared to disagree with the professor and that seemed to anger him that anyone would have the audacity to question anything he said, much less disagree with him.)

[Red-Headed]

I was once told in no uncertain terms by an English literature professor in a college course I was taking that in a hundred years from now Poe would be unknown while Shelley would still be considered a great poet. (I dared to disagree with the professor and that seemed to anger him that anyone would have the audacity to question anything he said, much less disagree with him.)

I think that they both had their individual respective sparks of genius. I'm pretty sure that Poe will be remembered for much of his originality & Gothic weirdness as much as anything. They'll still be making movies of Poe's stories in a hundred years time. They may be shown in cinemas on Mars by then though. :lol:

[sixsmith]

Shelley reportedly knocked Ozymandias out in less than an hour on the flyleaf of a borrowed book. Bastard.

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

[Red-Headed]

Shelley reportedly knocked Ozymandias out in less than an hour on the flyleaf of a borrowed book. Bastard.

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

He had been reading the Hymns of Homer & the Iliad just before composing this. Mary believed that he had lost his spirit somewhat & was a bit depressed at the time just prior to writing the poem. She reckons that he decided that he couldn't change the world for the better after all & got a bit gloomy. So he found some solace reading the classics. He didn't do sonnets particularly well a a rule but this works because he presents the irony of the subject matter without being ironic I think.

[Dinkleberry2010]

Red-Headed, I would be almost willing to bet money that that Pushkin sonnet you quoted was used by Dostoevsky in his novel Poor Folk. What I mean is Dostoevsky quoted it in the novel. I read Poor Folk recently, so I am familiar with it, and I really think Dostoevsky quoted it.

[sixsmith]

The Ideal (Baudelaire)

It's not with smirking beauties of vignettes,
The shopsoiled products of a worthless age,
With buskined feet and hands for castanets —
A heart like mine its longing could assuage.

I leave Gavarni, poet of chloroses,
His twittering flock, anaemic and unreal.
I could not find among such bloodless roses,
A flower to match my crimson-hued ideal.

To this heart deeper than the deepest canyon,
Lady Macbeth would be a fit companion,
Crime-puissant dream of Aeschylus; or you,

Daughter of Buonarroti, stately Night!
Whose charms to suit a Titan's appetite,
You twist, so strange, yet peaceful, to the view.

— tr Roy Campbell

[sixsmith]

More Than Night's Vault, It's You That I Adore (Baudelaire)

More than night's vault, it's you that I adore,
Vessel of sorrow, silent one, the more
Because you flee from me, and seem to place,
Ornament of my nights! more leagues of space
Ironically between me and you
Than part me from these vastitudes of blue.

I charge, attack, and mount to the assault
As worms attack a corpse within a vault.
And cherish even the coldness that you boast,
By which, harsh beast, you subjugate me most.

— tr Roy Campbell

[stephp108]

The Prelude is poem about Wordsworth remembering his childhood and his experiences with nature as a child. These experiences in nature were what shaped his outlook on life and were the prelude to his adult life as a poet.

One evening-surely I was led by her-
I went alone into a shepherd’s boat,
A skiff that to a willow-tree was tied

Wordsworth feels that one night as young boy he was led by nature to a boat that was tied to a tree.

Within a rocky cave, its usual home.
‘Twas by the shores of Patterdale, a vale
Wherein I was a stranger, thither come
A schoolboy traveller at the holidays.
Forth rambled from the village inn alone,
No sooner had I sight of this small skiff,
Discovered this by unexpected chance,
Than I unloosed her tether and embarked.

As soon as young Wordsworth finds this boat he feels he must get on it, untie it and set off. This represents the beginning of his journey as a poet.

The moon was up, the lake was shining clear
Among the hoary mountains; from the shore
I pushed, and struck the oars, and struck again
In cadence, and my little boat moved on

Wordsworth describes the scenery around him. He notices the moon, the clear lake, the white mountains and the shore. He is experiencing nature around him and describing it. Then he says “he struck the oar, and struck again” symbolizing breaking through his old ways of viewing the world into his new poetic outlook on life/nature.

And serious thoughts; and after I had seen
That spectacle, for many days my brain
Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
Of unknown modes of being. In my thoughts
There was a darkness-call it solitude
Or blank desertion- no familiar shapes
Of hourly objects, images of trees,
Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields,
But huge and mighty forms that do not live

This is Wordsworth reflecting on this first “journey with nature.” He says his mind is “blank” and there are no “familiar shapes” because he does not view the world as he did before his journey. He used to view basic nature, “tree, sea or sky” for just as it was. But now he views nature as “mighty forms” which fill his mind.

[victorianfan]

My favorite love song is To ... Kern by Pushkin (1825)

[humpty dumpty]

Besides the poetry of the major Romantic poets (i.e Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge, Shelly, keats and Byron) I also enjoy Keats's letters, especially those to his beloved, Fanny. As well as Coleridge's Biographia Literaria.
You might want to read them :)

[jaguar12345]

Keats' odes/sonnets and Shelly's longer works and dramatic pieces I recommend. They are among the finest pieces produced by the Romantic era (plus the sadness and suffering of their lives adds that extra touch of human sympathy). Well, just betting on my two cents.

[hamlette]

Ya a good deal of those are definitely not Romantics. Alexander Pope wasn't even alive when Romanticism emerged.

Early Romantics - Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge

Later Romantics - Shelley, Keats, Byron, and Leigh Hunt

They're also called the first generation and the second generation, and they are the "must-haves" of Romantic poetry. Lyrical Ballads by Coleridge and Wordsworth is the definitive work of the era.

If you'd like to read selection from women Romantic poets (and I suggest you do; research and scholarship on female poets is all the rage these days in Romantic studies), I recommend Charlotte Turner Smith, Mary Robinson, Helen Maria Williams, Felicia Hemans, and Anna Letitia Barbauld. Sometimes Elizabeth Barrett Browning is considered late-Romantic as well.