Romanticism During The Romantic Period

The Romantic Period was revolutionary in terms of breaking away from poetic traditions. Romantic Literature included a focus on the writer or narrators emotions and the inner world. It was a celebration of nature, beauty and imagination with an emphasis on the individual experience of the sublime, supernatural and mythological elements as well as the search for individual definitions of morality rather than blindly accepting religious beliefs. Part of the emotional and sentimental aspect of poets during the Romantic Period was because it followed the Enlightenment, which was an intellectual movement that emphasized reason above emotion. The Romantics did not agree with this point of view expressing that, to be human is to be emotional and irrational. Percy Bysshe Shelley is amongst the few English Romantic poets who incorporated these characteristics into their writing. While Shelley’s literary works is widely recognized today, at the time he was one of the most controversial individuals of the early nineteenth century.

Throughout his life, Shelley was often seen as misguided and misunderstood. His passion for gender equality and the power of love and imagination was continuously found in his poetry. He felt as though the society around him was unresponsive to the changes he wished to see, so he focused on embodying his ideas within his literary works. Shelly, amongst other Romantics believed that nature could heal everything. Part of this had to do with the fact that