Blog on the magnificence of the Romanticism Era in American Poetry
Poem One: Inspired by my reading of -Lady Labyrinth's---magnificent
poem , "Courting the Sublime Significance of Nothingness"
(1.) Poem One
Seeking The Boundaries Of Love's Depths And Her Hand
The air, its surging breath sings
into the soul of a willing fan
one that leaves baggage far behind,
an emboldened adventurer
Such that looks for rarity
for the invisible truth
a soft kiss within a whisper
a song that invades heart, soul and mind
Becomes a diviner, an escape artist,
calm wading ebony seas of despair
jealous of only Time
envious of only beauty
fearful of enormity of mortal blindness
What curses may the shadows then utter
the pains of life and a dark pit
nay, such does not faze
the hardy, the faithful, the true seeker
Alas! So recites the ailing poet
lost amidst memories long fled
begging the stars to shine again
the heavens to gift
Love, deep love , sweet love
and the divine tastes of her love
Dare the Gods such deny
risking vanity and hateful mortal wrath
inked curses and paper cuts to hardened hearts
not so, for the seeker - lives to seek
to touch her lips
to into bliss fairly fall
And should such treasure be gained
die as a humble servant to fate
without regret.
without of arrows malice,
shot at invisible beasts
under a dying moon and a wicked host
Fanciful the imagination and poet's heart
mixing of dreams and elusive elements
self-aggrandizing, a warrior
combating invisible foes
stabbed by those eyeless ghosts
crying into wounded nights and fading lights
Aye, this and more- the seeker finds
never the eternity of lost love
the infinity of peace and joy
the heart of her
the touch of her
the depths of love only she gifts
And at last, the poet begs Aphrodite
to this life extinguish
for without love
without warmth
without her return
the universes exists not…
dying embers in finality embrace the cold
yielding in sorrows to the darkness, to its empty cries…
Robert J. Lindley, 2-10-2021
Romanticism
( Inspiration found, a memory revisited, a truth accepted )
Poem number one-- my new blog
(2.)
Sight Of Gazing At Those Gleaming-Bright Newborn Rainbow Hues
Sweetness and splendor of Nature's beauty- The Rose
Imagination, myriad paths, life we each chose
Hopes and dear dreams, glory of love and life we seek
Enormity of choices, traversing this realm, scaling its mighty peaks
Curse of mortality, these flesh and bone cast bodies so weak!
Sight of gazing at those gleaming-bright newborn rainbow hues
Splendor and immense bounty of flowing skies, shining blues
Man's vanity that invades to set us on darken paths
Woes and sorrows, birthed by Fate's accursed wraths
Man's science, ingenuity, greed and love affair with math.
Humanity- earth's wonders its bounties of teeming throngs
The Arts- beauty of poetry, literature and majestic songs
Life, oft a cup gathered into warm welcoming hands
Honor, duty, the task of taking hard defiant stands
The unpredictability of Time's falling sands.
Yet dare we forget that life demands truth and sincere love
For the rose may prick if plucked without the needed gloves
In youth, those honey-eyed dreams of hot romantic nights
Lovely maiden gifting her jewels her sexual delights
That which a brief moment may overcome world's darkest blights.
Sweetness and splendor of Nature's beauty- The Rose
Imagination, myriad paths, life we each chose
Hopes and dear dreams, glory of love and life we seek
Enormity of choices, traversing this realm, scaling its mighty peaks
Curse of mortality, these flesh and bone cast bodies so weak!
Robert J. Lindley, 2-12-2021
Romanticism, ( Of mortality, love, literature, poetry and the Arts )
From blog- "Blog: On The Romanticism Era In American Poetry"
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(3.)
Dare We Wake To Wade In Life's Luscious New Streams
As dawn comes singing and gifts its soft golden beams
Dare we wake to wade in life's luscious new streams
Shall we welcome with ardor of lover and friend
With truth and hope forgive those that only pretend
For what is life, if we but such grace dare refuse
Man was given the honor to in life so choose.
Within passion's deep gifts, love such great treasures gives.
As soothing balm, in the beauty of all that lives.
Can our dreams this dark raging world evil subside
Conquer its demons, its wicked devilish pride
Set a new course in which hope and love may flourish
Seed romanticism that our spirits so nourish
Bring on faith, that our crying souls should so cherish.
Within passion's deep gifts, love such great treasures gives.
As soothing balm, in the beauty of all that lives.
As dawn comes singing and gifts its soft golden beams.
Dare we wake to wade in life's luscious new streams.
Robert J. Lindley, 2-13-2021
Romanticism, ( Of mortality, love, literature, poetry and the Arts )
From blog- "Blog: On The Romanticism Era In American Poetry"
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Blog: On The Romanticism Era In American Poetry
(1.)
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The Romantic Period (1800-1840)
The Romantic Period (1800-1840)
Romanticism (or the Romantic era/Period) was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1840. Partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, it was also a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education and the natural sciences. Its effect on politics was considerable, and complex; while for much of the peak Romantic period it was associated with liberalism and radicalism, in the long term its effect on the growth of nationalism was probably more significant.
The movement validated strong emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities, both new aesthetic categories. It elevated folk art and ancient custom to something noble, made spontaneity a desirable characteristic (as in the musical impromptu), and argued for a "natural" epistemology of human activities as conditioned by nature in the form of language and customary usage. Romanticism reached beyond the rational and Classicist ideal models to elevate a revived medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be authentically medieval in an attempt to escape the confines of population growth, urban sprawl, and industrialism, and it also attempted to embrace the exotic, unfamiliar, and distant in modes more authentic than Rococo chinoiserie, harnessing the power of the imagination to envision and to escape.
Although the movement was rooted in the German Sturm und Drang movement, which prized intuition and emotion over Enlightenment rationalism, the ideologies and events of the French Revolution laid the background from which both Romanticism and the Counter-Enlightenment emerged. The confines of the Industrial Revolution also had their influence on Romanticism, which was in part an escape from modern realities; indeed, in the second half of the 19th century, "Realism" was offered as a polarized opposite to Romanticism. Romanticism elevated the achievements of what it perceived as heroic individualists and artists, whose pioneering examples would elevate society. It also legitimized the individual imagination as a critical authority, which permitted freedom from classical notions of form in art. There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability, a Zeitgeist, in the representation of its ideas.
Washington Irving
Washington Irving was an American author who composed a collection of stories that became The Sketch Book (1819), which included "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." After serving as a US ambassador, he turned out a succession of historical and biographical works. Irving advocated for writing as a legitimate career, and argued for laws to protect writers from copyright infringement.
Perhaps best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle," Washington Irving was born on April 3, 1783 in New York City, New York, USA. He was one of eleven children born to Scottish-English immigrant parents, William Irving, Sr. and Sarah. He was named Washington after the hero of the American revolution (which had just ended),George Washington, and attended the first presidential inauguration of his namesake in 1789.
Washington Irving was educated privately, studied law, and began to write essays for periodicals. He travelled in France and Italy (1804–6), wrote whimsical journals and letters, then returned to New York City to practice law -- though by his own admission, he was not a good student, and in 1806, he barely passed the bar. He and his brother William Irving and James Kirke Paulding wrote the Salamagundi papers (1807–8), a collection of humorous essays. He first became more widely known for his comic work, A History of New York (1809), written under the name of "Diedrich Knickerbocker."
In 1815 Irving went to England to work for his brothers' business, and when that failed he composed a collection of stories and essays that became The Sketch Book, published under the name "Geoffrey Crayon" (1819–20), which included ‘Rip Van Winkle’ and ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’. In 1822 he went to the Continent, living in Germany and France for several years, and was then in Spain (1826) and became attache at the US embassy in Madrid. While in Spain he researched for his biography of Christopher Columbus(1828) and his works on Granada (1829) and the Alhambra (1832).
He was secretary of the US legation in London (1829–32), and later returned to Spain as the US ambassador (1842–6), but he spent most of the rest of his life at his estate, ‘Sunnyside’, near Tarrytown, NY, turning out a succession of mainly historical and biographical works, including a five-volume life of George Washington. Although he became a best-selling author, he never really fully developed as a literary talent, he has retained his reputation as the first American man of letters. Irving also advocated for writing as a legitimate career, and argued for stronger laws to protect writers from copyright infringement.
William Cullen Bryant
Bryant was born on November 3, 1794, in a log cabin near Cummington, Massachusetts; the home of his birth is today marked with a plaque. He was the second son of Peter Bryant, a doctor and later a state legislator, and Sarah Snell. His maternal ancestry traces back to passengers on the Mayflower; his father's, to colonists who arrived about a dozen years later.
Bryant and his family moved to a new home when he was two years old. The William Cullen Bryant Homestead, his boyhood home, is now a museum. After just two years at Williams College, he studied law in Worthington and Bridgewater in Massachusetts, and he was admitted to the bar in 1815. He then began practicing law in nearby Plainfield, walking the seven miles from Cummington every day. On one of these walks, in December 1815, he noticed a single bird flying on the horizon; the sight moved him enough to write "To a Waterfowl".
Bryant developed an interest in poetry early in life. Under his father's tutelage, he emulated Alexander Pope and other Neo-Classic British poets. The Embargo, a savage attack on President Thomas Jefferson published in 1808, reflected Dr. Bryant's Federalist political views. The first edition quickly sold out—partly because of the publicity earned by the poet's young age—and a second, expanded edition, which included Bryant's translation of Classical verse, was printed. The youth wrote little poetry while preparing to enter Williams College as a sophomore, but upon leaving Williams after a single year and then beginning to read law, he regenerated his passion for poetry through encounter with the English pre-Romantics and, particularly, William Wordsworth.
The Fireside Poets
The Fireside poets (also called the "schoolroom" or "household" poets) were the first group of American poets to rival British poets in popularity in either country. Today their verse may seem more Victorian in sensibility than romantic, perhaps overly sentimental or moralizing in tone, but as a group they are notable for their scholarship, political sensibilities, and the resilience of their lines and themes. (Most schoolchildren can recite a line or two from "Paul Revere's Ride" or The Song of Hiawatha.)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and William Cullen Bryant are the poets most commonly grouped together under this heading. In general, these poets preferred conventional forms over experimentation, and this attention to rhyme and strict metrical cadences made their work popular for memorization and recitation in classrooms and homes. They are most remembered for their longer narrative poems (Longfellow's Evangeline and Hiawatha, Whittier's Snow-bound) that frequently used American legends and scenes of American home life and contemporary politics (as in Holmes's "Old Ironsides" and Lowell's anti-slavery poems) as their subject matter.
At the peak of his career, Longfellow's popularity rivaled Tennyson's in England as well as in America, and he was a noted translator and scholar in several languages--in fact, he was the first American poet to be honored with a bust in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner. Hiawatha itself draws not only on Native American languages for its rhythmic underpinning, but also echoes the Kalevala, a Finnish epic. Lowell and Whittier, both outspoken liberals and abolitionists, were known for their journalism and work with the fledglingAtlantic Monthly. They did not hesitate to address issues that were divisive and highly charged in their day, and in fact used the sentimental tone in their poems to encourage their audience to consider these issues in less abstract and more personal terms.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy and was one of the five Fireside Poets.
Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, then part of Massachusetts, and studied at Bowdoin College. After spending time in Europe he became a professor at Bowdoin and, later, at Harvard College. His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and Ballads and Other Poems(1841). Longfellow retired from teaching in 1854 to focus on his writing, living the remainder of his life in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a former headquarters of George Washington. His first wife, Mary Potter, died in 1835 after a miscarriage. His second wife, Frances Appleton, died in 1861 after sustaining burns when her dress caught fire. After her death, Longfellow had difficulty writing poetry for a time and focused on his translation. He died in 1882.
Longfellow wrote predominantly lyric poems, known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular American poet of his day and also had success overseas. He has been criticized, however, for imitating European styles and writing specifically for the masses.