Casey R. McArdle

Thomas Peacock
“The Four Ages of Poetry”
The Romantics are “studiously
ignorant of history, society, and
human nature” (Peacock 692).

Percy Shelley
“A Defence of Poetry”

VS.

Romantic Theory
 Emphasis from Within
 Internal inspiration
 Poetry as a Creative Process
 The poem is the process
 The Romantic Fragment
 The deteriorating internal spark

Timeline

Emphasis from Within
 The cultivation of those sciences which have
enlarged the limits of the empire of man over the
external world, has, for want of the poetical faculty,
proportionally circumscribed those of the internal
world; and man, having enslaved the elements,
remains himself a slave… Poetry is indeed something
divine. It is at once the centre and circumference of
knowledge; it is that which comprehends all science,
and that to which all science must be referred.
(Shelley 712 & 713)

William Wordsworth
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

Emphasis from Within
Wordsworth
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 5
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay: 10
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay, 15
In such a jocund company:
I gazed – and gazed – but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
(Wordsworth 207)

Poetry as a Creative Process
Percy Shelley
“Ozymandias”

Poetry as a Creative Process
Shelley
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, 10
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing Beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The tone and level sands stretch far away.” (Shelley 103)

The Romantic Fragment
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“Kubla Khan”

The Romantic Fragment
Coleridge
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst 20
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Allegedly, the poem was never finished as he
was interrupted by the stranger from Porlock.

Closing Thoughts
 Rex Veeder’s “Romantic Rhetoric and the
Rhetorical Tradition.” (1997)
Although the general idea of British Romantic theory is that it argues
for the outpouring of emotion, the actual rhetorical practices of the
Romantics were based upon a political philosophy that advocated
contemplation and deliberation; and once we understand the political
philosophy informing British Romanticism, it is difficult to believe
romantic rhetoric is simply expression. In broad terms the Romantic
version of social action is gradual social change brought about by the
habit of applying contemplation to individual concerns and the
individual’s relationship to society. In this view contemplation and
deliberation are not an escape or a purposeless activity. They are
instead the very foundation of organic growth in a society. (Veeder 302)

Works Cited
 Bahti, Timothy. “Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’ and the Fragment of Romanticism.” MLN 96.5
(1981): 1035-1050.
 Coleridge, Samuel. “Kubla Khan.” The Harvard Classics: English Poetry Vol. II. Ed. Charles
W. Eliot. Connecticut: The Easton Press, 2001. 718-719.
 Ford, Newell F. “The Wit in Shelley’s Poetry.” Studies in English Literature: 1500-1900 1.4
(1961): 1-22.
 McGann, Jerome J. The Romantic Ideology: A Critical Investigation. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1983.
 Milne, Fred L. “Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’: A Metaphor for the Creative Process.” South Atlantic
Review 51.4 (1986): 17-29.
 Murray, Roger N. Wordsworth’s Style. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1967.
 Owen, W.J.B. Wordsworth as Critic. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969.
 Peacock, Thomas. “The Four Ages of Poetry.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.
Eds.Vincent B. Leitch et al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. 682-695.
 Shelley, Percy. “A Defence of Poetry.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.
Eds.Vincent B. Leitch et al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. 695-717.
 ---. Shelley’s Poetry and Prose. Eds. Donald H. Reiman and Sharon B. Powers. New York:
W.W. Norton, 1977.
 Veeder, Rex L. “Romantic Rhetoric and the Rhetorical Tradition.” Rhetoric Review 15.2 (1997):
300-320.
 Ware, Tracy. “Shelley’s Platonism in ‘A Defence of Poetry.’” Studies in English Literature:
1500-1900 23.4 (1983): 549-566.
 Wordsworth, William. Selected Poems. Ed. John O. Hayden. New York: Penguin, 1994.

Images Cited
 Peacock http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=3409&rendTypeId=4
 Coleridge http://agaudi.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/coleridge_st_02.jpg
 Real peacock http://www.meaus.com/100-peacock.JPEG
 Pipe http://www.phrases.org.uk/images/pipe-dream.jpg
 Shelley http://www.lovethepoem.com/poets/581percy_bysshe_shelley.jpg
 Ozy http://www.flickr.com/photos/20967519@N00/140936439/
 Wordsworth http://www.englit.ed.ac.uk/studying/undergrd/english_lit_2/Handouts/graphics/wordsworth.jpg
 Cloud http://www.poetseers.org/the_poetseers/sri_chinmoy/library/selected/cloud
 Daffodils http://www.pbase.com/lusobrandane/image/41547634/medium.jpg
 Ozy2 http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/edwards/pharaohs/47.gif
 Shelley2 http://www.wam.umd.edu/~djb/shelley/gallery/homepic.jpg
 Desert http://www.ignorancia.org/uploads/experiments/desert/desert-7.jpg
 Fountain http://z.about.com/d/geology/1/0/S/L/geyser.jpg