PRE-ROMANTICS

Thomas Gray

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

• you can tell its set in the country bc the title tells you that

• and from the diction used i guess

• set in a cemetery for poor people

• gray talks about how just bc these guys were poor doesn’t mean their lives weren’t important and their deaths should be treated as important too

• ROMANTIC MORAL: rich people and poor people are both still people

Robert Burns

To A Mouse

• really really scottish

• robert burns would get bullied so bad in an 80s movie

• the poem is about “turning her [the mouse] up in her nest with the plow, November, 1785”

• its a lot of stanzas to repeat literally exactly what the title says

• basically he’s like the mouse deserves better

• and the mouse kind of is better too

• bc mice don’t have human issues like regret and ruminating on the past

• ROMANTIC MORAL: mice > humans (animals/nature are superior/equal to man rather than inferior)

To A Louse

• also very scottish

• after reading this i would bully this guy too honestly

• this poem is about “seeing one [a louse] on a lady’s bonnet at church”

• again literally just restates the title for 8 stanzas

• basically he’s like ew a louse stop creeping around on this ladys bonnet what do u have a crush on her or something go find some other person to stick to

• ROMANTIC MORAL: lice < humans < mice

Afton Water

• this girl Mary is taking a nap by this river Afton and Burns is basically like telling the river to keep flowing peacefully so Mary doesn’t wake up

• and then he’s like hey you birds over there shut up you’ll wake mary up

• its kinda weird that he’s like watching this lady sleep and writing a poem about it though

• ROMANTIC MORAL: nature is revered but you can still boss it around

John Anderson, My Jo

• a poem about his childhood friend

• im all for male friendship but honestly this one is a little gay

• but then again who isn’t a little gay with their homies

• anyway he’s basically saying john Anderson is his joy

• and they “climb the hill” together but the hill is life

• so he’s basically saying that they’ve gone through all of their life together and they’ll die together too

• its very sweet actually

• im not sure how it turned into a drinking song

• ROMANTIC MORAL: hold hands with your homies

William Blake !!! my man. i love this guy

The Lamb

• aw look at this baby sheep he’s so cute what an adorable little baby

  • reminds you of a certain someone doesn’t it (this bullet is specifically for riley lmao)

• you are just so cute who created you?

• god created you just as god created me (the speaker of the poem, whos supposed to be a child)

• ROMANTIC MORAL: god created us all, so we are all cut of the same cloth

The Tyger

• not gonna lie this poem is a banger

• its the first blake poem i ever read and i was like nice bro

• eye and symmetry are supposed to rhyme but they don’t which is awkward

• i can only assume back in blakes day they did rhyme

• anyway the poem is like wow tigers are so scary and terrifying who could've possibly created you

• the idea is that the tiger was kind of blacksmithed by God

• and blake is like how could god have made nataan and this tiger that’s crazy

• can the tiger be me actually

• i wanna be the tiger

• ROMANTIC MORAL: we are still all cut of the same cloth but sometimes that’s really hard to believe

The Human Abstract

• this one got deep go back to the animals

• actually no bc i love this one too

• anyway its basically like for us to have kindness other people need to have problems

• ROMANTIC MORAL: see above

Infant Sorrow

• this baby is really upset about being born

A Poison Tree

• COMMUNICATION IS KEY

• don’t bottle up your feelings

• don’t let your anger grow into a poison tree

• just talk it out and patch things up

• ROMANTIC MORAL: idk be in touch with your emotions?

REGULAR ROMANTIC ERA

William Wordsworth

My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold

• rainbows make this guy happy

• riley can’t relate :(

• ROMANTIC MORAL: nature makes everything better

September 3, 1802

• sonnet

• Composed Upon Westminster Bridge

• basically just saying that London is really peaceful and beautiful in the morning

• because none of the people are awake yet

• ROMANTIC MORAL: people make everything worse

It Is A Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free

• sonnet?

• a poem about him walking on the beach with his daughter

• lots of religious allusions

• basically just saying that it is a beauteous evening, calm and free

• he likes the beach in the evenings i think

• ROMANTIC MORAL: beaches slap

London, 1802

• MILTON!

• a sonnet about wordsworth being gay for milton

• he thinks milton was born in the wrong generation and should be alive now

• England has gone to the dogs and milton is the only one who can fix this mess

• he’s going to learn necromancy to raise milton from the dead

• ROMANTIC MORAL: the only thing that can save england is…PARADISE LOST 2: PARADISE FOUND

The World Is Too Much With Us

• sonnet

• i think this guy wrote like only sonnets

• people these days are too obsessed with materialistic possessions and money

• they need to be more in touch with nature

• hell, id rather be a PAGAN than a Christian if this is how yall treat nature

• ROMANTIC MORAL: blasphemy is ok if its in the name of nature

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

• based on his friend’s dream

• this guy shoots an albatross and gets punished for it

• i don't know anything more i found this poem to be incomprehensible

• ROMANTIC MORAL: don't kill birds

Kubla Khan

• i actually love this one

• inspired by kubla khan, the founder of the mongol dynasty in china

• colridge dreamed this poem and then woke up and immediately started drafting it

• he had like 300 lines of poetry dreamed up but then someone interrupted him and he forgot everything except what he had already written down

• im not totally sure what this poem is supposed to be about

• but it has a lot of really cool imagery and appeal to the senses which is actually basically what imagery is but i feel like appealing to like taste and hearing isn’t really imagery but idk honestly

• all five senses are represented in the poem

• overall very cool poem but you can definitely tell that it was dreamed up because its hard to tell what the poem is actually about under all the banger lines

• ROMANTIC MORAL: keep a dream journal

Lord Byron: winner of the highest body count award

She Walks In Beauty

• written to be set to music

• so like a song i guess

• about his first meeting with his cousin by marriage

• she was in mourning so she was in all black

• he’s basically like shes beautiful because she looks like the night which is mellow and peaceful

• and she also seems serene and at peace which makes her beautiful too

• ROMANTIC MORAL: become one with nature, that’s what makes you beautiful

• THE WAY THAT YOU FLIP YOUR HAIR GETS ME OVERWHELMED

So We’ll Go No More A-Roving

• a lot of sexual innuendoes

• byron partied too hard and now he’s over the rave scene

• and he’s like breaking it to his current love affair

• he’s like im tired now we’re not going out on the town anymore

• sorry babe we can still like do stuff but maybe like netflix and chill style instead

• ROMANTIC MORAL: there is such a thing as partying too hard

Don Juan

• in a classic colonizer move, the english butchered this poor guys name

• i don’t remember reading this, perhaps i was gone?

• anyway ill try my best to figure this one out

• satire, of course

• mock epic

• satirizes political and social issues of his time

• spends his younger years focused on the wrong things, giving into vices

• realizes at an older age that he’s done nothing with his life

• and he has to do something meaningful now to atone for his past mistakes

• its also a self insert

• ROMANTIC MORAL: get up off your ass and do something with your life

Percy Bysshe Shelley: died in a boating accident at age thirty, tried unsuccessfully to “deliver the Irish people from tyranny”

Ozymandius

• a story in a story

• about this traveler he met who told him about this half destroyed sculpture of an old pharaoh

• basically emphasizes that nature is in charge, not man, bc the natural processes of nature will eventually destroy anything that man makes

• ROMANTIC MORAL: nature supremacy. literally.

To A Skylark

• basically just an ode to birds

• skylarks are really cool

• in true romantic fashion he compares the skylarks to:

  • a poet

  • a maiden

  • a glowworm

• this just in: shelley would love the skylark if it was a worm

• ROMANTIC MORAL: birds are awesome. the pinnacle of nature. we stan birds.

John Keats

On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer

• sonnet, written in response to reading a translated version of Homer

• he basically never really understood the hype over homer until he read chapman’s translation and then he was like oh i get it now this shit is so banger

• ROMANTIC MORAL: its a good thing we have translators

When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be

• sonnet

• keats’ family has a history of dying from tuberculosis

• so he’s worried he will also die young from tuberculosis

• and he doesnt want to die before he’s written everything he wants to write

• and before he gets to experience true love

• but whenever he feels like this he goes to the ocean

• and when he stands on the shore he remembers that he’s nothing compared to the size of the ocean

• and his love and fame don’t matter at all which i can see how that would make him feel better

• ROMANTIC MORAL: nature is more significant then anything man does

Ode to a Grecian Urn

• nobody has been able to find the urn this poem was allegedly based on

• i say allegedly because knowing the romantic era poets’ track record its very likely he wrote this poem about an urn from one of his dreams

• essentially he talks about how the urn and its depictions will be preserved forever

• and the advantages of that are that these pictures will last forever

• even though they arent alive or tangible they are everlasting

• humans will change and die and whatnot but the dream urn will last forever

• ROMANTIC MORAL: urns are very beautiful ???