William Blake and John Keats were both prolific English poets of the Romantic era. Blake, an early Romantic along with Wordsworth and Coleridge, produced a poem titled "Night" in 1789, which is part of a series of illustrated poems called "Songs of Innocence." This poem represents Romantic values through its emphasis on self-realization, freedom of expression, and the natural world. These ideas are conveyed by Blake's use of sensory imagery and evocative language. Keats, a late Romantic along with Shelley and Byron, produced “Ode on Melancholy” in 1819 along with other odes known as “The Great Odes.” This ode embodies the romantic turn towards nature, the importance of expressing emotions and experiencing through the senses. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The late 18th century saw a movement toward the ideal that to be a truly modern person, one had to free oneself from the rules that constrained society. This movement was labeled Romanticism, a term derived from medieval tales of myth, magic, and the supernatural that were called "Romances" because they were written in the language of Romanz. The movement lasted from 1798 to 1832 and was thought to have started on par with the French Revolution. It was the first time England had been involved in a revolution, and the violence and terror that accompanied it came as a shock to many. It was Wordsworth who contemplated the idea of a revolution of the imagination and of this completely dissociated from war rather than a revolution of the people. The Romantic period was in many ways a reaction against the Enlightenment that preceded it. The Enlightenment of the early 1700s emphasized a mechanical, deterministic universe with an emphasis on rationalism and science, and was thus called "The Age of Reason". In a Europe torn by revolutions and wars, the certainties of the Enlightenment had already proven false. Philosophically, Romanticism represented a shift from the certainty of science to the uncertainty of the imagination, from the objective to the subjective. This move coincided with German philosopher Immanuel Kant's proposal that we do not directly see "things in themselves" but that we understand the world only through our human point of view. Romanticism was essentially the opposite of everything the Enlightenment stood for. The roots of Romanticism had grown at the same time as neoclassicism, but from 1780 the neoclassical virtues of reason and decorum were rejected and the romantic atmosphere took over in music, poetry, painting and architecture. The Romantic values of expressing emotion and imagination were embodied in all art forms. Romantic music was concerned with conveying moods, feelings and passions. Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream overture and Berlioz's Fantastic Symphony are both examples of works that make use of instrumental expressive capabilities, and each tells some sort of story. Poetry relied on the use of the senses to narrate experience, while paintings saw a shift towards the depiction of landscapes and other objects of nature. The Romantic emphasis on the individual was reflected in ideas of self-realization and turning to nature. It was believed that the individual could directly understand nature without the need for social artifices and that the solitary individual achieved salvation. People generally tended to adopt informal behaviors, allowing their emotions to flow freely and focusing on their inner selves. They held the concept of human freedom in high regard rather than thehuman moderation. Romanticism brought an existence beyond superficial reality and a sense of abstract idealism. There was a revolt against conventional morality, authority and government. People began to more significantly question fundamental questions such as the existence of a God and conventional Christianity. The Romantics had beliefs in the exploration of the senses rather than in the use of the brain or any rationalistic mode of thinking. This was in direct contrast to the ideals of the Enlightenment and the neoclassical period. The 1792 publication of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women kicked off the beginnings of the feminist movement, with the formation of women's political nightclubs in Paris in the wake of the French Revolution. Romanticism remained a force in the arts until the late 19th century. Blake's poem about the night exemplifies Romantic values. The first stanza sets the "night" scene of the poem. He creates this atmosphere by using sibilants throughout the verse, an example of which is "The sun going down in the west, the evening star shines." This soft sound establishes an atmosphere of calm and quiet, which is further enhanced by the use of alliteration, as demonstrated in the last line "with silent pleasure, he sits and smiles in the night" and also by the repetition of the word "silent" . " The poem is organized into six stanzas, each consisting of eight lines, the first four of which are in iambic pentameter, with an alternating rhyme scheme (ABAB). The use of iambic pentameter serves to add a lilting quality to the poem, its smooth rhythm echoes the pleasant tone of the poem and the scenes that Blake is describing. Blake paints a picture of these scenes in the reader's mind through his use of visual imagery, shown by "the evening star shines"; “the moon… sits and smiles”; and simile, “the moon, like a flower.” These techniques allow Blake to adequately portray the scene of “Night” and create the atmosphere of the poem in the first stanza Next stanza introduces a supernatural, somewhat magical, element to the poem. This is evident from the appearance of the angels, which reinforces the allusions to "heaven" that Blake depicted in the first stanza. The angels are depicted as pouring out "the blessing. .. on each sleeping breast." This emphasizes the romantic ideal of caring for the individual. This ideal is upheld throughout the poem, seen by the angels protecting the sheep from its prey and guarding "every beast, to preserve them all from evil." The nocturnal atmosphere is conveyed through the second stanza by the repetition of the words "silent" and "sleeping" and by figurative imagery: "silent moves the feet of bright angels" (visual) and "where the lambs have gnawed" (tactile). Blake's use of alliteration in "every bud, every flower, and every breast" at the end of the second stanza emphasizes the fact that angels care for every single creature. The fourth stanza witnesses the angels crying for the sheep that is about to be eaten and also for the wolves and tigers who cannot help but be cruel to the sheep. This is representative of the romantic value of letting go of emotions and expressing oneself freely. It is implied by "receive every meek spirit new worlds to inherit" that the angels will take the sheep to heaven even if the tigers kill them. Blake juxtaposed the natural with the supernatural perhaps to install a message of protection for the weak and to show the innocence of angels' sympathy for creatures. This emotional mood in the fourth stanza is strengthened by Blake's use of assonance on the "ee" sound through words such as "cry", "seek", "keep", "ewe" and "listen" as well asfrom his auditory images as shown in "when wolves and tigers howl for prey". The last two stanzas demonstrate the epitome of romantic sentiment, with the lion pitying the "tender cries" of the sheep while from his "ruddy eyes golden tears will flow." The lion's tears could symbolize the awareness of the fragility of innocence, an innocence clearly represented by the sheep. The sound image of the "bleating lamb" emphasizes his helplessness and thus accentuates the lion's role in caring for him. The allusion to the "immortal" once again suggests a paradisiacal atmosphere, pertinent to the "new world" referred to in the previous stanza. It has been suggested (I) that the "new world" is simply an extension of the earthly world, since earthly creatures reside in the new world and experience the same emotions. However, the lion clearly says that wrath "for his health the disease is driven out of our immortal day" and so Blake may be suggesting that the world must be transcended in order for the innocent vision to triumph. Romanticism is reflected in this poem by the references to nature, the individual, and emotions supported throughout the poem. Nature is not only used to describe the atmosphere but also in conjunction with the ideas presented, such as the metaphor "the river of life" and the simile "the moon, like a flower". Blake's use of sensory imagery is also representative of Romantic values, which held that things should be experienced rather than achieved through the use of reason. The image of angels “standing pitiful and crying” embodies this statement: everything angels achieve is through the use of their senses and emotions. Likewise, Blake uses sensory imagery to describe the setting and set the scene. The juxtaposition between natural and celestial is based on imagination and a sense of the abstract, also a romantic characteristic. The wolves and tigers can be seen to represent a form of authority, which Blake clearly rejects, as most Romantics would, shown when the angels try to "keep them away from the sheep". However this can also be seen as the innocence of the "natural order" (the tiger and wolf preying on the lamb) which is actually a challenge to Romantic values as it does not promote care for the individual. However, the final image that sticks in the reader's mind is that of the lion standing guard "beyond the fold." It is evident that the lion has achieved happiness in this way when he uses the simile "My shining mane will forever shine like gold." Perhaps this is Blake's way of saying that true happiness is achieved only through self-realization, focus on the individual, and freedom of expression, all characteristics of Romantic values. In three stanzas of ten lines each and a decasyllabic structure for each line, Keats chose the theme of "melancholy" on which to write an ode. In the first stanza, Keats urges the reader not to be consumed by the misery of life, because sooner or later death will come. This is implied in “for the shadow in the shade will come too drowsy and drown the waking anguish of the soul.” This evocative use of language implies that sleep will eventually drown all sorrows. The mood of this poem, unlike Blake's, is, as the title suggests, rather melancholy. This melancholic atmosphere is established in the first stanza by neoclassical symbols of pain and death, such as the "death moth", "down", and the "yew berry rosary". Keats alluded to symbols of Greek mythology, such as Lethe, a river whose water produced oblivion of the past, as well as Proserpine and Psyche, Olympian deities who govern emotions. Keats has, 1998.
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