Spontaneity & Tranquility in Romantic Poetry: A Short Analysis

It is hard to define poetry in few lines. Because in every literature in every language poetry is considered to be the most complex and sophisticated form of art. Poetry describes so many things and changes its colour so frequently that it cannot be called a static form of art. As poetry is not static it can’t be defined as a concrete and static element. After all, poetry is always moving. Every significant era or movement of literature has its own style and shape of poetry.

     As mentioned above every significant era or movement of literature has its own definition of poetry and that is the overall ruling definition of poetry of that time as it happens in case of romantic poetry of English literature. Often it is considered that romantic poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings ……..recollected in tranquility. This definition is a bit revised definition of poetry of William Wordsworth for poetry not for any significant kind of poetry because he himself is a romantic poet. But this definition of romantic poetry can be rejected to some extent and to do so little need be said about romantic poetry.

      Romantic poetry is the fruit of late 18^th century to middle of 19^th century, a time of poetry when imagination triumphs over wit and mere logic, a time when poetry is constructed with nature, memory, beauty, revolution, etc. The life became the subject matter of poetry. The language became lucid and the language of common people. Nothing artificial was there but of course they were artistic. Individual’s ideas were the mainstream of romantic poetry. Individual identity became ruling over the conventional form of poetry. The major poets of romantic period are William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelly, George Gordon Byron and John Keats. These six are not only the major but also the best of romantic era. With the reference of some textual notes it will be discussed why the definition regarding romantic poetry is to some extent not true.

     Romantic poetry starts to walk mainly holding the hands of William Blake, a poet of imagination and contrast. For Blake human life is a mixture of interacting ‘contraries’; without contraries is no progress. His thought is, to understand life it is necessary to know the two opposite side of life ‘good’ and ‘bad’. To equilibrate life both side should rule equally. His highly imaginative and visionary Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience show his philosophy. On one hand Blake says:

Piping down the valleys wild,

Piping songs of pleasant glee,

On a cloud I saw a child,
                 (Introduction, Songs of Innocence)

And on the other hand he also says:

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright

In the forest of the night,

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry.

(Tyger, Songs of Experience)

Or,

In every cry of every Man,

In every Infant’s cry of fear,

In every voice, in every ban

The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.

(London, Songs of Experience)

       In the first poetry Blake’s watching a child on the cloud is the fruit of high imagination, only romantics could do such things finding vision in every common thing. But in the next two we find Blake confused, disturbed and discontent. In both cases the poet is fed with feelings and figures like ‘songs of pleasant glee’, ‘fearful symmetry’ and ‘mind-forg’d manacles’ can easily show how strong the feeling is. The ‘Introduction’ can be a creation of tranquil mind but in ‘Tyger’ and ‘London’ there is no tranquility but anger. Perhaps a tranquil mind cannot shape such powerful contrast between two things. Perhaps Blake writes as long as the memory is fresh and the fire is inside him.

William Wordsworth’s poetry is also fed in imagination and strong feeling for nature. He is a genius to make common country things so uncommon and beautiful to the readers. He often time takes his idea from past experience and writes down about the feeling of that time and his present time as

I wondered lonely as a cloud

………………………………

………………………………

For often when on my couch I lie

In vacant or pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;
                (Wordsworth; I wondered lonely as a cloud)

         One can see both the strong feeling about the past time in ‘I wondered lonely as a cloud’ and the tranquil recollection ‘In vacant or pensive mood’. The feeling and the recollection of things in tranquil mood suits Wordsworth best. But not every romantic follow the rule of Wordsworth.

         Coleridge is a dream fed one. He takes his imagination from books and dreams. In ‘Kubla Khan’ Coleridge writes

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw;

It was and Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

(Blake; Kubla Khan)

        It is considered ‘Kubla Khan’ is a dream vision of Coleridge and shortly after waking up from sleep he writes it. The feeling of the dream is still in his mind and he writes it while it is fresh. Here Coleridge differs from Wordsworth. Wordsworth feels things from far past times where he needs tranquility to recollect them.

        Nothing tranquil is found in Byron’s poetry. He hated everything and lived at the age of society. His pride attitude and tendency to become the lord of his own universe makes his a romantic. He mocked almost everything. ‘The lake poets’, ‘Childe Harold’ are the magnificent example of mockery. But his mockery comes from the strong feeling of disgust, hate, etc. When John Keats died he wrote 

"Who Killed John Keats

I, says the quarterly"

         It is a direct mockery to the quarterly He is shocked to the death of Keats and blames the quarterly as guilty. One can find the sorrowful feeling but not the tranquility in these lines.

          Shelly, like his west wind was fast and rebellious. One cannot write ‘Prometheus Unbound’ if one cannot feel the pain of imprisonment of human kind on the hands of false gods. The strength of feeling is immense but these rebellious ideas cannot come from a tranquil mind because calmness, peace and revolution are so different in nature. His poetry holds a passionate communication with the universe and the west wind

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is;

What if my leaves are falling like its own!

The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,

Sweet thought in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce,

My Spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
                              (Ode to the West Wind

       The feeling is strong enough to desire the west wind to be himself whatever it takes but at the same time he is ‘impetuous one’ not calm or tranquil.

         Keats is almost same like Wordsworth in imagination and recollection. Like Wordsworth he sees beauty in nature and truth in everything.

…………… how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage tree

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core
                   (Keats;To Autumn)

         These are the Autumn Description of Keats making a personification. It is easily guessed that only an imaginative mind can think a season as a person. But if one looks at the composition it is clear that he is same like other romantic in feeling but not in the recollection. His autumn is still fresh and full of life not tranquil.

         All the poets of romantic poetry were fed in imagination, dream, vision, but to their expression they differed from one another and so does their poetry. It can be said that romantic poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling but the recollection is not tranquil always. It is true to poetry of all ages. The definition is a hard task. One can sketch a figure but one cannot name of define it always.