What Is Romantic Poetry?
Romantic poetry was written during the Romantic literary movement, which emphasized emotion, nature and individuality. This movement was most powerful at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century.
Romantic poetry tends to use fairly simple language because it endeavors to have the flavor of spontaneous speech. One of the most famous Romantic poets, William Wordsworth, said that poetry was the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” Other poets in the Romantic tradition include John Keats, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake, Friedrich Schiller and Emily Dickinson. This movement evolved as a response to the Augustan movement, which emphasized symmetry, erudite references and complex vocabulary and syntax. The Romantic poets were also generally pessimistic about the Industrial Revolution, which had destroyed nature, and optimistic about political revolutions, like the ones in America and France, which gave freedom to individuals.
