Romantic Literature

Romantics challenged the complacency, rigidity, and objectivity of neoclassical artists and philosophers. The new focus in literature captured freedom from tyranny, freedom of thoughts, belief, and speech, and freedom for each individual to pursue his dreams.

William Blake, 1757-1827

Blake rejected traditional assumptions about human beings, politics, religion, and art. Rather than restraint and imitation, Blake called for freedom and imaginative vision. Known for his imaginative intensity, Blake wrote Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794) to display two contrary conditions of the human soul. 

I have no name.
I am but two days old -
What shall I call thee?
I happy am
Joy is my name-
Sweet joy befall thee!
- “Infant Joy,” Songs of Innocence, lines 1-6

My mother groand! My father wept.
Into the dangerous world I leapt:
Helpless naked piping loud:
Like a fiend hid in a cloud
- “Infant Sorrow,” Songs of Experience, lines 1-4

 William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Wordsworth believed that natural objects could strengthen, enliven, and stimulate the imagination. One could achieve a vision by using senses, memory, imagination, and heart along with the spiritually charge natural universe.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings:
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things-
We murder to dissect.
- “The Tables Turned,” lines 25-29 (1798)

Mary Shelley (1797-1851)

Best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein, Shelley touched on such topics as dangerous knowledge, secrecy, frightening memories, abortion, loneliness, nature, and monstrosity. Her novel was first published anonymously to hide the fact that the book was written by a female author.

So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein—more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.
- Frankenstein, chapter 3 (1818)

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Credited as the first American short story writer, Poe often chose themes that could be firmly rooted in realities of life; his narrators frequently explored the feelings of guilt and grappled with the mysteries of death.

If, still, you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.
- “The Tell Tale Heart” (1843)