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r ticular characteristics of the literature of romanticism includes subjectivity and an emphasis on individualism; spontaneity; freedom from rules; solitary life rather than life in society; the beliefs that imagination is superior to reason and devotion to beauty; love of and worship of nature; and fascination with the past, especially the myths and mysticism of the middle ages. " web > In this essay I will be looking mainly at Tears, Idle Tears by Tennyson and discussing how it focuses on aspects of imagination and emotion. I will also look briefly at Rose by Walter de la Mare. I will be examining the ways in which they incorporate imagery and emotions into their poems. I will also compare the poems in terms of the degree of imagery and emotion they contain, to see whether some Romantics were more 'romantic' than others were. Romanticism was a movement in poetry (and art and literature in general) of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in revolt against the type of poetry of previous centuries. It allowed poets to write about anything; no longer were there 'fit subjects for writing'.
It introduced the use of realistic-sounding language and talked about first-hand experience, thus communicating meaning much more effectively to the reader. The German poet Friedrich Schlegel first used the term romantic to describe literature, defining it as "literature depicting emotional matter in an imaginative form. " The British Romantic poets lived through a period of rapid social change (brought about by the French Revolution) and responded fully to these changes in their writing. Examples of British poets who were highly influential in the Romantic period were Blake, Coleridge, Keats, Scott, Shelley, Wordsworth and Tennyson. "Many hold to the theory that it was in Britain that the Romantic Movement really started quite early in the 18 th century one can discern a definite shift in sensibility and feeling, particularly in relation to the natural order and Nature" (J. A. Cuddon) Now that I have discussed what Romanticism is, I will now look at Tears, Idle Tears, which is one of the three songs from The Princess by Tennyson. The poem is set out into four stanzas of equal length, and is written in blank verse, meaning that it has no rhyme scheme.
The title of the poem is interesting because the word 'idle' can have many different meanings (Tennyson revised it from Tears, Foolish Tears, for this reason). The word 'idle' is associated with laziness, but it can also mean empty, worthless or dead. The speaker in the poem experiences tears and questions what sort of tears they are: "TEARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean, " The first word of the poem being 'tears' in capital letters is significant because it is highlighting the subject matter of the poem. Throughout the poem he explores the reasons for tears to find out why he is experiencing them. Tennyson uses an oxymoron when he describes them as: "Tears from the depth of some divine despair" The word 'divine' has religious connotations as it means heavenly or sacred, but 'despair's eem's opposite as it means to lose all hope; the poet is describing very powerful emotions. I feel that the speaker is saying that one of the possible reasons for his tears is a loss of hope in God.
The alliteration of the consonant 'd' creates a very sombre and melancholic tone, whilst also creating a sense of rhythm. Tennyson uses nature imagery when he says: "In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, " The image is made stronger by the use of personification, which makes it seem as if the fields themselves are happy, although it is just the feeling they evoke in the speaker. Tennyson uses a paradox because he is describing emotions that contradict each other, despair and happiness. The end of the last line of each stanza is: "the days that are no more" This creates a pattern in the poem and also acts as a summary to each stanza, and to the poem as a whole, because the speaker discovers that the reasons for his tears are his thoughts about "the days that are no more." This could mean death, or just simply moments in the past that you can't get back again. In the second stanza, Tennyson says: "Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, " The freshness of memories is what is being described here and Tennyson uses an image of the sun shining on a boat's sail to emphasise it. Tennyson believes in religious mythology, and this is evident when he says: "That brings our friends up from the underworld, " The 'underworld' is a term that could mean a criminal world, but in this context (and due to the period in which the poem was written) it is obvious that he is talking about the abode of the dead.
He says that the beam on the sail will "bring our friends up from the underworld", which suggests that he believes in spirits, or re-incarnation. The beam is like a symbol of hope, as the first two lines of this stanza are hopeful. However the next two lines are about the emotion of sadness: "Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge" The speaker is now describing the last beam of sun at the end of the day that is cast over a boat's sail. The use of 'reddens's ugg ests this because sunset is a red colour.
The boat then sinks "with all we love below the verge" which suggests that the spirits that were conjured up by the freshness of the first beam, have now been banished to the depths with the sinking boat. The whole image creates a feeling of gain and then loss, which is sad. The last line is a summary to the stanza: "So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more" The speaker is saying that the memories of dead loved ones are both sad, and fresh in his memory, and remind him of the days that are gone. The third stanza begins: "Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns" The use of 'Ah' to begin the stanza emphasises the fact that the speak...
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