Byron, Shelley or Keats?

[KateXX]

Which is your favourite poet of that generation of the romantic poets who blossomed early and died young? Why?
Thanks

[Kafka's Crow]

In the order of preference: Keats, Byron and Shelley.

Keats is lyrical and delicate and vivid, Byron is more descriptive and solid, Shelley is ephemeral and "ineffectual". All three can be extremely beautiful. They might not be very influential in our time but their unique beauty will keep them alive whether our generation care for them or not.

[JCamilo]

Keats is my favorite poet, if I have any and regarding Byron and Shelley, I think Shelley was a more mature poet, because Byron had that "compromisse" with himself. If we consider Lord Byron to be Byron's greatest creation...
Anyways, I disagree with the words used to describe Shelley. For once I think ephemeral is something that is better applied to Keat's poetry and since you used ineffectual between "" I have no real clue of what you meant.
Anyways, Shelley was the true intelectual of the trio, the most conected with the philosophical and social changes of his time. His poetry reflects it quite strongly, he is the more idealogical of the trio.

[Kafka's Crow]

"a beautiful ineffectual angel beating in the void his luminous wings in vain." Mathew Arnold on Shelley,

[stlukesguild]

a beautiful ineffectual angel beating in the void his luminous wings in vain." Mathew Arnold on Shelley

Yet Shelley is certainly a far greater poet than Matthew Arnold.

[JBI]

Byron. Shelly was got what he deserved dying young, and Keats uses way too much visual description; his work is way too thick to enjoy on the same scale as Byron..

[stlukesguild]

Shelly got what he deserved? Keats uses too much visual description? Where is the cut-off point?

Personally, I like all three... a lot. I might also add Novalis and Hölderlin (who may not have died at an exceptionally young age... but certainly his career as a poet was cut tragically short. My personal favorite of the generation, however, would have to be William Blake... who still died far too young in spite of his age.

[JCamilo]

Yes that is an odd comment. There is a few names that we could add, Baudelaire didn't die that old either, the two greatest brazilian romantic poets (Castro Alves and Gonçalves Dias) died before the 30's and if we think well, the Bronte sisters (they are a later generation) also died rather young and Rimbaud "died"

I am really wondering what Keats have to do with visual description. I think nothing, ,maybe in his hyperion or such, but those are his minor works without doubt.
And Mathew Arnold is just influeced by the early vision of Shelley as a minor romantic poet that didn't considered Shelley's critical capacities (His Defense of Poetry is one of the best texts ever about Poetry) and his philosophical capacity. He is considerable less vain that Arnold supposes him to be.
But I agree, while Wordsworth and Coleridge proposed a new poetic vision, it was Blake that dared to take it to new world of symbolism and imagination and Keats that went most far in pure aesthetical perfection. Those two are the giants of the english romanticism.

[Kafka's Crow]

Shelley being greater than Arnold is highly debatable. Maybe (I repeat 'maybe') greater as a poet but as a critic, Arnold's influence is far more noticeable and effective (thanks to TS Eliot) than Shelley's. What makes Keats great makes Shelley less so. Shelley's 'dying ambers', 'shifting clouds' 'flying leaves' are transient and abstract compared to Keats's concrete 'gleaner' or 'deep delved earth' or all that we find on the Grecian Urn. Byron is great at writing long descriptive poems. Name a great 'long' poem by Shelley while Don Juan sits up there along with the greatest poems written in English language. If that was not enough, couple this achievement with Childe Harold and the poetic play, 'Manfred' (all three 'younger Romantics') tried their hands at poetic plays but 'Manfred' is the only true masterpiece written by any of this lot). Even Keats's Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion etc are great enough long poems. Keats wins hands down as a writer of shorter poems, sonnets and lyrics. Shelley had lyricism but then... (sorry time for the school run!)

[stlukesguild]

Shelley being greater than Arnold is highly debatable.

I suppose that any critical assertion is "debatable". You might argue that the assertion that Shakespeare is greater than Matthew Arnold is debatable. I don't know that many would agree. The fact that Shelley is immediately thought of among the ranks of the 6 great English Romantics (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Blake, Keats, and Shelley) certainly says much for his recognition as a poet. Whether Keats or Shelley was the greater poet... well THAT is certainly "highly debatable. I'd probably lean toward Keats myself. Arnold... as good as he may be... is certainly not of that rank. Arnold's influence as a critic may certainly have been influential... especially during the era when T.S. Eliot was seen as the last word in literary criticism. Let's face it, Eliot's criticism must always be taken with a very large grain of salt. He repeatedly dismissed and underrated (and even denied having read) Whitman... in spite of the earlier poet's obvious influences. He also dismisses Shelley, and Blake (who is "only a poet of genius?") and Romanticism in general... often, one suspects, out of a fear of direct comparison with those poets most influential upon his own development.

I'm afraid that I'd rather take Yeat's opinions or Harold Bloom's critical appraisal of Shelley's achievements. He is on of the great lyric poets. The fact that Shelley may not have been as successful as that Byron (not to underrate him) or any number of other poets in composing extended or long poems is irrelevant. The scale of a work of art has little to do with its aesthetic value. Baudelaire generally stands as the greatest poet of France (again arguable) and yet he composed no truly "long" poem. The reputation of Chopin and Debussy rests largely upon small... even intimate compositions. The same may be said of Degas and Van Gogh. In spite of this... I question the notion that Shelley was unable to compose a successful long poem, his grand elegy to Keats, Adonais, in which Shelley, as Bloom states, "beautifully sustains his lyric drive through four hundred and ninety-five lines." I suspect that many poets, including certainly Matthew Arnold, would wish only once to have written a lyric as memorable as Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, The Cloud, Mont Blanc, Mutability II, or unquestionably Ozymandias. The fact that he had composed such a body of poetry the age of thirty is further remarkable... especially when one considers that very few of the great epic poets (Dante, Milton, Virgil, Edmund Spencer, etc...) would have survived as anything more than minor poets had they died at such an early age.

[JBI]

By Shelly getting what he deserved, I was commenting on the fact that he abandoned his son and pregnant wife to go chase Marry, eventually leading to her suicide, just days before he went out to finally marry Marry.

[stlukesguild]

Oh I'm sure that Shelley in many ways was a less-than-ideal human being. Indeed... if I were to meet him today I might just think he was a jerk... but then again, a great many artists were jerks (or worse). The problem is that it is quite easy to confuse the artist's biography with the artist. Picasso was a jerk... unquestionably. Beethoven was surly at best... as was Michelangelo. I don't know that I'd like to hang out with either of them in spite of their artistic brilliance. Caravaggio? Well what can you say about a hateful drunkard that peddled homo-erotic imagery of young boys to pedophile Catholic Cardinals and Bishops and killed a man in a duel over a tennis match... but what a painter! J.L Borges once tackled the question "Can an artist create art that is truly greater than he?" (It was in one of his many essays). He came to the conclusion that one cannot create art that is more intelligent or more moral or more sensitive than one is oneself. As a result... in spite of Mozart's social immaturity, Borges would argue that there was a side of him of the true depth and maturity which allowed him to compose a work such as The Marriage of Figaro or the Requiem. I don't know. But I somehow suspect that in spite of certain questionable traits there was something more to Shelley. Something that allowed him... inspired him to produce poems of real depth and feeling... and even compassion for humankind.

[mayneverhave]

I'd say Keats, Byron, Shelley.

I rank Keats so highly because of his sheer talent at writing verse. His longer poems like Enymion (which he, himself, considered terrible), Lamia, Hyperion, etc. all display the depth and sensuality of his use of imagery. His best works are definitely his shorter poems though, when his ideas are more concentrated.

Personally, I think Keats possessed more talent than Byron, but Byron's thematic influences outlasted Keats. The Byronic hero has been used on numerous occassions by both Byron's contemporaries and in the modern times (M. Shelley's Frankenstein, Bronte's Heathcliff, etc.), and Byron's very life embodied romantic sentiments, more so than Keats (although Byron held all the other romantic poets contempuously)

As for Shelley. I personally enjoy everything he's written, from short poems like Ode to the West Wind, to long poems like Adonias. In all actuality though, Shelley had less talent than Keats and less innovation than Byron (a fact he was most likely fully aware of).


**

Also, Matthew Arnold's literary reputation (aside from his criticism) rests entirely on one poem, Dover Beach, while Shelley produced numerous outstanding poems that no one poem characterizes him.

[nebish]

best of each : Keats - Ode to a Nightingale
Byron - Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Shelley-Ozymandias

[KateXX]

My personal favorite of the generation, however, would have to be William Blake... who still died far too young in spite of his age.

I meant those three of the second generation of the English romantic poets (W.Blake is sometimes considered pre-romantic, sometimes is incuded in the first generation with Wordsworth and Coleridge)

...However I find your discussion also interesting!