Linked article on 19th Century Poets

” I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die. “

– Percy ShelleyFrom: “The Cloud” 1820

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The Solitary Reaper

BEHOLD her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings? –
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate’er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o’er the sickle bending; –
I listen’d, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

– William Wordsworth

The early 19th Century saw the blossoming of the great Romantic poets such as Keats, Shelley and William Wordsworth. In America there was also a powerful movement of poets, loosely termed “Early American Poets” these included Emily Dickinson, Ralph Emerson and Walt Whitman. After the great Romantic poets the next generation of British Poets became associated with the Victorian age. To some extent they offered greater conformity of vision and were more likely to use Christian imagery but they were still influenced by powerful undercurrents of the Romantic movement. In fact the influence of Romanticism can be seen even in modern poets such as Gerard Manley Hopkins. Later poets of the twentieth century also acknowledged the influence of this creative period in poetry.

In India Swami Vivekananda epitomised the revitalisation of Hindu culture. After centuries of decline under Muslim and then British rule Vivekananda powerfully called his countrymen to invoke the ancient universal and eternal ideals of Sanatana Dharma.

British Poets in the 19th Century