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History of English Literature

Notes Goldsmith was equally convinced that the classical standards of writing poetry were the best and
that they had attained perfection during the Augustan Age. All that was required of the poets was
to imitate those standards. According to him “Pope was the limit of classical literature.” In his
opposition to the blank verse, Goldsmith showed himself fundamentally hostile to change. His
two important poems, The Traveller and The Deserted Village, which are versified pamphlets on
political economy, are classical in spirit and form. They are written in the closed couplet, are
didactic, and have pompous phraseology. These poems may be described as the last great work of
the outgoing, artificial eighteenth century school, though even in them, if we study them minutely,
we perceive the subtle touches of the new age of Romanticism especially in their treatment of
nature and rural life.
Before we consider the poets of the Age of Johnson, who broke from the classical tradition and
followed the new Romantic trends, let us first examine what Romanticism stood for. Romanticism
was opposed to Classicism on all vital points. For instance, the main characteristics of classical
poetry were: (i) it was mainly the product of intelligence and was especially deficient in emotion
and imagination; (ii) it was chiefly the town poetry; (iii) it had no love for the mysterious, the
supernatural, or what belonged to the dim past; (iv) its style was formal and artificial; (v) it was
written in the closed couplet; (vi) it was fundamentally didactic; (vii) it insisted on the writer to
follow the prescribed rules and imitate the standard models of good writing. The new poetry
which showed romantic leanings was opposed to all these points. For instance, its chief
characteristics were: (i) it encouraged emotion, passion and imagination in place of dry
intellectuality; (ii) it was more interested in nature and rustic life rather than in town life; (iii) it
revived the romantic spirit—love of the mysterious, the supernatural, the dim past; (iv) it opposed
the artificial and formal style, and insisted on simple and natural forms of expression; (v) it
attacked the supremacy of the closed couplet and encouraged all sorts of metrical experiments; (vi)
its object was not didactic but the expression of the writer’s experience for its own sake; (vii) it
believed in the liberty of the poet to choose the theme and the manner of his writing.

Notes The poets who showed romantic leanings, during the Age of Johnson, and who may
be described as the precursors or harbingers of the Romantic Revival were James
Thomson, Thomas Gray, William Collins, James Macpherson, William Blake, Robert
Burns, William Cowper and George Crabbe.

James Thomson (1700-1748) was the earliest eighteenth century poet who showed romantic tendency
in his work. The main romantic characteristic in his poetry is his minute observation of nature. In
The Seasons he gives fine sympathetic descriptions of the fields, the woods, the streams, the shy
and wild creatures. Instead of the closed couplet, he follows the Miltonic tradition of using the
blank verse. In The Castle of Indolence, which is written in form of dream allegory so popular in
medieval literature, Thomson uses the Spenserian stanza. Unlike the didactic poetry of the
Augustans, this poem is full of dim suggestions.
Thomas Gray (1716-1771) is famous as the author of Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, “the
best-known in the English language.” Unlike classical poetry which was characterised by restraint
on personal feelings and emotions, this poem is the manifestation of deep feelings of the poet. It
is suffused with the melancholy spirit which is a characteristic romantic trait. It contains deep
reflections of the poet on the universal theme of death which spare no one. Other important poems
of Gray are The Progress of Poesy and The Bard. Of these The Bard is more original and romantic.
It emphasises the independence of the poet, which became the chief characteristic of romantic
poetry. All these poems of Gray follow the classical model so far as form is concerned, but in spirit
they are romantic.
William Collins (1721-1759). Like the poetry of Gray, Collin’s poetry exhibits deep feelings of
melancholy. His first poem, Oriental Eclogues is romantic in feeling, but is written in the closed
couplet. His best-known poems are the odes To Simplicity, To Fear, To the Passions, the small lyric
How Sleep The Brave, and the beautiful “Ode to Evening”. In all these poems the poet values the

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