Nature was a parent to mankind in Wordsworth’s Ode: Intimations of Immortality, but a rival in Byron’s Darkness. Through Wordsworth’s word choice, structure, and metaphors, Ode paralleled the human lifespan with one day, which portrayed nature as...

Both ‘Their Lonely Betters’ and ‘Resolution and Independence’ convey the feelings of how, along with how great the gift of speech is in allowing us to be unique and communicate with one another, we should appreciate nature for what it is, for...

In the preface to the second edition of his book Lyrical Ballads, William Wordsworth, famed romantic poet, wrote down his definition of romanticism and classifications of romantic poetry. To be considered romantic, in Wordsworth’s eyes, a poem had...

The sonnet is unique among poetic forms. Its appeal has spanned five centuries and has managed to keep up with dramatic shifts in literary and philosophical movements during this time. There is a common perception that the sonnet has a requirement...

The industrial revolution was greatly opposed by the poets of the Romantic movement, due to its corruption of morality and nature, including the exploitation of children. Rousseau stated that ‘everything degenerates in the hands of man’, fueling...

Wordsworth’s “Lucy Series” is a set of poems concentrating on a young woman, possibly a lover, and her death. “Song” focuses on the loneliness and underappreciation of Lucy after she has passed, although the content of the poem involves his...

A mountain, dotted with fully bloomed flowers and orange-leaved trees in autumn, is left barren by the heavy snowfall endured during winter; however, when spring comes, the mountain is embellished with new flowers, its beauty greater than ever...

In their article entitled “Me,” Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royale assert that “Literature, like art more generally, has always been concerned with aspects of what can be called the… ‘not me’ or other,” (Bennett 129-130). Jean-Jacques Rousseau in...

In the stichic passage from William Wordsworth’s autobiographical poem The Prelude, the speaker, who represents Wordsworth himself, encounters unfamiliar aspects of the natural world. The passage is a bildungsroman in verse, a coming-of-age poem...

William Blake, in his work There Is No Natural Religion, and William Wordsworth, in his poem 1799 Prelude, challenge John Locke’s understanding of the nature of the self by offering alternative theories as to the ways in which we as humans...

Wordsworth said that ‘poetry is passion, it is the history or science of feeling’. In conjunction with Shelley’s quote, this is a bold statement to make. Not only does Wordsworth name poetry as the ‘science’ of emotion –creating an authorial sense...

“In what sense is a child of that age a philosopher?” - Coleridge

If philosophy is defined as ‘advanced knowledge or learning’, it can be argued that age is not central to this definition, but the idiosyncratic experiences that are felt by each...

Writing on nineteenth-century London poetry, William Sharpe comments that ‘Regardless of shared reference to sublimity, fog, of Babylonian blindness, each poet’s London is different. Each time we read ‘London’ we have to begin again.’ For poets in...

Wordsworth’s “Lucy Series” is a set of poems concentrating on a young woman, possibly a lover, and her death. “Song” focuses on the loneliness and underappreciation of Lucy after she has passed, although the content of the poem involves his...