Romanticism – Page 12 – Interesting Literature

10 of the Best Poems by English Romantic Poets

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

English Romanticism tends to be dominated by a few names: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats. Here, we’ve tried to strike a balance and offer ten of the very best Romantic poems from English literature, which ensures that these canonical figures are well-represented, while also broadening that canon to include some important but slightly less famous voices.

We hope you like this short introduction to Romanticism told through ten classic Romantic poems…

A Short Analysis of John Keats’s ‘Bright star! Would I were steadfast as thou art’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Bright Star’, or ‘Bright star! Would I were steadfast as thou art’ as it is sometimes known, is probably the most famous sonnet written by the Romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821). He wrote it in 1819 originally, although he revised it a year later. When he wrote ‘Bright Star’, Keats knew that he was dying from consumption or tuberculosis, and the poem is in part about this awareness that he will die young.

10 of the Best Lord Byron Poems Everyone Should Read

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) wrote a great deal of poetry before his early death, in his mid-thirties, while fighting in Greece. But what are Byron’s best poems? Here we’ve selected some of his best-known and best-loved poems, spanning narrative verse, love poetry, simple lyrics, and longer comic works.

A Short Analysis of John Clare’s ‘The Secret’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

This little poem by John Clare (1793-1864) is not his most famous, but it’s worth sharing here because it so perfectly puts into words the power of untold love. ‘I loved thee, though I told thee not’: undoubtedly we could all tell a similar story, especially during those powerful years when we’re in the grip of first love.

I loved thee, though I told thee not,
Right earlily and long,
Thou wert my joy in every spot,
My theme in every song.

And when I saw a stranger face
Where beauty held the claim,
I gave it like a secret grace
The being of thy name.

And all the charms of face or voice
Which I in others see

A Short Analysis of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Youth and Age’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Youth and Age’, as the title suggests, explores the passing of time and the onset of old age. What does it mean to grow old? In this great Romantic poem about ageing, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) grapples with this very question.

Youth and Age

Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee—
Both were mine! Life went a-maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!

When I was young?—Ah, woful When!
Ah! for the change ’twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O’er aery cliffs and glittering sands,
How lightly then it flashed along:—
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,