Howell 1

Destiny Howell

Prof. Scott McWaters

British Literature II

12 February 2014

The Enlightenment was a tumultuous period for European citizens. In this period which

spanned from the late 17th century to the 18th century, reason dethroned tradition as the main

method of action. Widely held beliefs about science and religion began to be questioned.

Whether the church was fit to hold the power that they did or not was put into dispute. The very

structure on which European society was based began to fall apart. The period that followed, as

sort of a pushback to the Enlightenment, was the Romantic Period. If science and reason are the

words that best define the Enlightenment, imagination and personal experience are the words that

exemplify the Romantic. Many notable Romantic authors made use of the term “imagination” in

some form or another and featured their interpretation of it in their works. Additionally, instead

of being concerned with cut and dry scientific facts, Romantic authors were more interested in

personal perception of events. By looking at the works and words of notable Enlightenment

writers, it is easy to see how big of an impact these two concepts had on the writers that played

the biggest part in the Romantic period.

An artist by trade, William Blake delivered some of the most anthologized poems in the

history of British literature. He also had some very clear ideas about imagination and its role in

poetry. He offered up many quotes on the subject, such as “The imagination is not a state: it is

the human existence itself” (Milton: A Poem). To him, imagination is the “poetic genius” (All

Religions 116) in every person, the sense which connects man to the divine most closely. In his
 Howell 2

The Four Zoas, Blake creates a personal myth of human history in which a twisted version of the

Biblical fall occurs. In that fall, the essential human spirit breaks up into four parts, one of which

is Los, a spirit which represents the human imagination. The fact that he felt that imagination

was important enough to include in his pantheon says a lot about the pedestal on which he places

it. The concept of imagination also shows up in his poem “London”. In the poem, which

describes the squalor of the title city, he uses the metaphor “mind-forg’d manacles” (London

132) to describe the state he finds the people in. The phrase evokes the image of people who are,

perhaps unknowingly, mentally affecting themselves in a way that’s coloring their real world

life. The inclusion of this powerful line speaks to Blake’s assessment of the human imagination

as a powerful human capability. His most direct statement on imagination comes in his “The

Marriage of Heaven and Hell” where he states, “What is now proved was once only imagin’d.”

(The Marriage 152). That, of course, carries the implication that imagination is a necessary stop

on the road to progress. If any kind of innovations are to be made, they have to first be imagined.

Another Romantic poet that spoke frequently of imagination is Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

In his “Biographia Literaria”, he makes sure to clarify the distinction that he made between

imagination and mere fancy. He argues that the two terms have become mistakenly conflated. To

him, fancy is, “no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of time and space;

and blended with, and modified by the empirical phenomenon of the will” (Biographia 491).

Imagination on the other hand is “the living power and prime agent of all human perception”

(Biographia 491). He then goes on to differentiate between primary and secondary imagination.

The first is basically the direct mind and thoughts of God ,or “the infinite I Am” (Biographia

491), while the secondary is more akin to being inspired by God, indirectly. All of these points

are displayed in his epic poem, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. In it, a man tells a traveler a wild
 Howell 3

tale about an incident that occurred to him while he was out at sea. The poem, marked by many

fantastical elements such as spirits, curses, and reanimation, might be seen as fanciful if he didn’t

ground it in reality with symbols and use the story to make a point about real life and a spiritual

one at that. In the poem, the traveler, after hearing the story, leaves a “sadder and a wiser man”

(Rime 459) and that really is Coleridge’s idea of the power of imagination in a nutshell: the

power to construct and tell a story that, more than just entertains, leaves a man changed forever.

Percy Bysshe Shelley was also a Romantic advocate of imagination. In his “Defense of

Poetry”, he displays this even more bluntly than either Blake or Coleridge. He starts off by

stating that the human mind has two types of thought: reason and imagination. Reason is the

function that analyzes while imagination synthesizes. Shelley then links both poetry and

language to imagination. Obviously, bringing up that point in an essay that’s meant to be a

defense of poetry means that he sees it as a positive but he makes it explicitly clear when he

states, “The great instrument of moral good is the imagination; and poetry administers to the

effect by acting upon the cause. Poetry enlarges the circumference of the imagination by

replenishing it with thoughts of ever new delight[...]. Poetry strengthens the faculty which is the

organ of the moral nature of man, in the same manner as exercise strengthens a limb.” (Defense

862) According to Shelley, poetry is important because it engages the imagination and the

imagination is responsible for human morality. Because the imagination allows one to put

himself/herself in another’s position, it makes one more empathetic. He even goes as far as to say

that the condition of the world would be unmanageable if not for poets such as Dante, Petrarch,

Shakespeare, and Milton. As a result of this, he says that “poets are the unacknowledged

legislators of the world” (Defense 869).

Personal experience and perception of experience were also hallmarks of the Romantic
 Howell 4

period. This trend first showed up in religion, with the rise of liberal Protestantism. This form of

Christianity held personal relationship with God over doctrine and dogma as a way to stave off

fears of the church being fanatical, which was common during the age of Enlightenment. This

also carried over into Romantic literature with authors such as William Wordsworth. His

definitions of poetry were “emotion recollected in tranquility” (Preface 303) and “the

spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (Preface 303). Both definitions display the premium

on personal feelings that this period is known for. His poems often had himself as the narrator

describing the natural world around him. In his poem, “I wandered lonely as a cloud” he makes

liberal use of the pronoun “I”, making it clear that the poem is about his own personal

experience. The poem details an incident he had while walking out in a valley where he saw

flowers and trees and other aspects of nature which delighted him. The last stanza of the poem is

about how, when he is “in vacant or in pensive mood” (I wandered 335), he’s able to look back

on the experience and get a sense of peace from it. Although the poem is by content, mostly

about the nature, Wordsworth makes sure that it is focussed on him. How he saw the flowers and

thought that they looked like they were dancing, how he likes to think back on the experience.

The poem is even called “I wandered lonely as a cloud”, suggesting that he, not the nature, is the

prime subject of the poem, right from the start.

John Keats’s odes also center heavily on personal experience. His “Ode to a Nightingale”

immediately starts off with the pronoun “my” in the lines, “My heart aches, and a drowsy

numbness pains/My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk.” (Ode 927). Although the poem is

titled “Ode to a Nightingale”, it starts off by describing how the Nightingale makes the author

feel. In the second stanza, the nightingale isn’t even mentioned until the last line. The rest of the

stanza is taken up by Keats talking about how he’d like to drink wine so that he can fade into the
 Howell 5

forest to be with the nightingale. It’s really more of an ode to himself in relation to the

nightingale than a poem about the actual bird. Writers more concerned with facts and details

might prefer to describe the bird’s features or characteristics, but a Romantic poet cares about his

personal relation to it.

In conclusion, the concepts of imagination and personal experience were alive and

flourishing during the Romantic Period. The covered poems and essays above prominently

feature the concepts that mark the period more than any others. From Shelley’s insistence that

poets shape the moral climate of the world to Wordsworth’s personal poems, Romantics had a

specific approach and, as it turned out, a long lasting one as well. Even though many of their

ideas were fought against during the coming Victorian Era, their ideas on art are what categorize

much of modern day art. This longevity is a testament to just how correct these writers were

about the power of their craft.

 Howell 6

Works Cited

Blake, William. "All Religions are One." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed.

Stephen Greenblatt. 9th ed. Vol. D. New York: W. W. Norton &., 2012. 116. Print.

Blake, William. "Full text of "The prophetic books of William Blake : Milton"." Internet

Archive. N.p.,

n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.

Blake, William. "London." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. Stephen

Greenblatt. 9th ed. Vol. D. New York: W. W. Norton &., 2012. 132-133. Print.

Blake, William. "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell." The Norton Anthology of English

Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. 9th ed. Vol. D. New York: W. W. Norton &., 2012.

149-159. Print.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "Biographia Literaria." The Norton Anthology of English

Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. 9th ed. Vol. D. New York: W. W. Norton &., 2012.

488-499. Print.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." The Norton Anthology of

English Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. 9th ed. Vol. D. New York: W. W. Norton &.,

2012. 443-459. Print.

Keats, John. "Ode To A Nightingale." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed.

Stephen Greenblatt. 9th ed. Vol. D. New York: W. W. Norton &., 2012. 927-929. Print.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "A Defence of Poetry." The Norton Anthology of English

Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. 9th ed. Vol. D. New York: W. W. Norton &., 2012.

856-869. Print.
 Howell 7

Wordsworth, William. "I wandered lonely as a cloud." The Norton Anthology of English

Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. 9th ed. Vol. D. New York: W. W. Norton &., 2012.

334-335. Print.

Wordsworth, William. "Preface to Lyrical Ballads." The Norton Anthology of English

Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. 9th ed. Vol. D. New York: W. W. Norton &., 2012.

293-304. Print.