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History of English Literature

Notes touches to things otherwise strange; Wordsworth, on the other hand, gives subtle, exalting touches
to things otherwise real and common. Coleridge naturalises the supernatural and Wordsworth
“supernaturalises” the natural. Thus both meet at the same via media of romance which is realistic
as well as wonderful. Such common objects as a leech-gatherer, a solitary reaper, and a cuckoo
become in Wordsworth poetry objects of wonder and curiosity. It is easy to excite wonder in
strange or supernatural things, but to do so in ordinary objects require the artistic imagination of a
real poet. Wordsworth transforms plain reality into beautiful romance. Led by Wordsworth almost
all the romantic poets took interest in Nature and loved to dwell on her multifarious moods and
aspects. Shelley looked at the West Wind, the skylark, and the clouds not as dull and never-changing
objects of never-changing Nature, but as objects of wonderful freshness and perennial interest.
Keats, Coleridge, and Byron had each his own conception of Nature, but all of them evinced much
interest in the world of Nature and studied and described her with infectious wonder and curiosity,
as if she by herself were an unexplored world waiting to be discovered and studied with fresh
attention and virgin wonder.

16.6 Influence of French Revolution on the Poets of the Age
It would be peremptory to treat the French Revolution as just another historical incident having
political significance alone. The French Revolution exerted a profound influence not only on the
political destiny of a European nation but also impinged forcefully on the intellectual, literary,
and political fields throughout Europe. It signalised the arrival of a new era of fresh thinking and
introspection.
The conditions prevailing in England at that time made her particularly receptive to the new ideas
generated by the Revolution. In literature the French Revolution was instrumental in the creation
of anew interest in nature and the elemental simplicities of life. It accelerated the approach of the
romantic era and the close of the Augustan school of poetry which was already moribund in the
age of Wordsworth.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
1. The Romantic movement in England was directed against the traditions of the neoclassical
poetry of the school of Dryden, pope and .................... .
2. Theodore watts-Dunton, likewise, interpreted the Romantic movement as the .................... .
3. Moore was interested in the world of oriental splendour and .................... .
4. Coleridge's most outstanding poems, namely, the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, and
.................... have all a strong tincture of the supernatural.
5. The supernaturalism of the writers of the novel of terror is as counterfeit as their .................... .
6. Coleridge naturalists the supernatural and wordsworth “....................” the natural.

16.7 Poetry and Politics

The age of Wordsworth was an age of revolution in the field of poetry as well as of politics. In both
these fields the age had started expressing its impatience of set formulas and traditions, the
tyranny of rules and the bondage of convention. From the French Revolution the age imbibed a
spirit of revolt asserting the dignity of the individual spirit and hollowness of the time-honoured
conventions which kept it in check. Thus both in the political and the poetic fields the age learnt
from the Revolution the necessity of emancipation-in the political field, from tyranny and social
oppression; and in the poetic, from the bondage of rules and authority. The French Revolution, in
a word, exerted a democratising influence, both on politics and poetry. Inspired by the French
Revolution, poets and politicians alike were poised for an onslaught on old, time-rusted values. It
was only here and there that some conservative critics stuck to their guns and eyed all zeal for
change and liberation with suspicion and distrust. (Thus, for instance, Lord Jeffrey wrote in the
Edinburgh Review that poetry had something common with religion in that its standards had
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