Romanticism Writing Assignment Paper and Book Review (Book Review Sample)

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Introduction
Romanticism represents an artistic era characterized by the glorification of all the past and nature and it’s built upon aspects of emotions and individualism. Romanticism signifies a radical change of traditions, behaviors, values and emotions in a rational and predetermined phenomenon based on the existing thoughts and actions. British romanticism dates back into the mid-seventeenth century, predetermined to react to the enlightenment period whereby artist across Europe felt the need for a change of values and thoughts. Ostensibly, British Romanticism focused on the aristocratic social and political norms of the industrial revolution and relied on the need to rationalize nature through music, visual arts, education and literature (Almeida 733). In a broader perspective, British Romanticism sought to liberate the poor from exploitation and based on the individuality, the intellectuals, and dissatisfied artists had a conviction that individuals should depend on intuition and ideals and not conventions and rules that accompanied the existing order. On another approach, the need to change nature and order necessitated the natural boundlessness of individual imaginations as a product of personal experiences that exhibited emotional directness towards societal aspirations (Baker 121). William Wordsworth’s works have had aesthetic theories and views on the romantic ideology that promotes individual notions of art through the establishment of a critical authority for freedom and quality of the society. Philosophically, he rationalized the real sense of responsibility to his fellow artists and society at large through inspirations that stemmed from nature, technology, society and revolution. Wordsworth’s works reflect on imagery feelings and ideas as he contemplates on technology, nature, society and technology in a means to reach permanence and universality.
In his “Introduction to lyrical ballads,” he brings out his perceptive powers, ennobling them into tragic heights by mixing the realms of realism and idealism, thus breaking decorum as one aspect of romanticism. Ideologically, the enlightenment period focused on philosophy and history, emphasizing on logic, reason and rationality whereas romanticists emphasized passion and individuality. In this poem, he emphasizes on the individual vitality of a living voice used by the poor to express immediate realities in an assertive manner that beckon the universality of human emotions. Stylistically, he gives out the imagery of a society’s common storytelling mode of ballads that orally give the spontaneity value of an individual that needs attention. Technologically, lyrical ballads privileges a sense of wonder in that it brings out the freshness of a refined urbanity and the innocent wit of the eighteenth century and the need to transform the society through individualism and intuition. In relation to the basic tenets and principles of British Romanticism, lyrical ballads test the impacts of conversation and communication across society’s middle and lower classes and the pleasure derived as people depart from the norms. Thematically, his constructs of a rural and pastoral imagery sought to rationalize on how a society and its people can reverse to the original state of nature and live an innocent life full of purity and little interference from external social influences. Also, the poem prizes individual achievement by advocating for sincerity and authenticity, for the emotions and passion that guarantee individual freedom and sanctity of real truths. For example, in the preface, he observes that romanticists aspire to achieve a freer country that specifically dwells on specific facts and truths rather than on insincere, artificial and “mechanized” or socio-politically influence phenomena that are out of touch with the humanity’s wellsprings.
Philosophically, in his “The Tables Turned”, Wordsworth brought about the nature of the voluntary intellect of a man in that he makes a progression from simpler to complex notion based on intuition power. That is, he observes individuals as subjects full of ready wealth, their minds, that opens their hearts to the spontaneous wisdom that not only ensures good health but also happiness brought about by the truth unearthed in the process. In other words, he tries to sensitize how simple ideas make sensible impressions that familiarize people with their surroundings in relation to art and its face value. Thematically, the poem brings out the revolution aspects of the seventeenth century by aesthetically intertwining the political thought and the revolt against formal education. In this poem, he addresses the mystic power of nature in educating the mind while edifying the soul, rather than relying on formal education and the influence brought about by books in its favor. Romantically, he emphasizes on individual achievements such that what the mind and soul perceives as the general truths of life primarily interests and benefits one’s insight to the nature of consciousness and acuteness in an augmented and sustained manner. Therefore, one needs to ignore ordered rationality and impersonal mechanizations that consciously technologize the way individual minds adapt to the environment and learn new things.
In “Tintern Abbey” he draws a contrastive picture of old-age and youth, but crafts the narrator’s tone through the choice of words such that the lines do not arouse a sympathetic reaction from the reader. In this poem, he emphasizes on physical and personal experience as the platforms for an individual in making technological and mysterious discoveries in relation to contemporary science and other mechanical theories. Romantically, the poem brings out the aspects of individual experiences of appetite, joy, remoter charm, dizzy rapture, and much more in a bid to demonstrate the power of ‘personal experience.’ Despite his naturalistic interpretation of nature, the individual passion demonstrated in the poem showcases a gradual perception of nature and the natural appreciation of physiology of life from childhood and activities across these stages with the associated personal experiences. His emphasis on self-realization and cultural values cement individual’s spiritual neutrality and eternal nature that shapes the social constructs of the society, universality and the efficacious power of the nature.
In “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, he demystifies a transformational wrought within one’s mind that pleases enough through innate senses that form ideas by association. Romantically, he showcases the individual’s sense of living in an active universe and the power of mind in reacting to reality. He tries to bring forth the externality of individual experience and the power of mind in conflict with invisible ideas coupled with thoughts that explain the nature and surrounding. For instance, he narrates that in vacant pensive mood, thoughts and memories flash his inward eye with the bliss of solitude which fill his heart with pleasure making it to dance with daffodils. Assuming the pastoral imagery of common subjects such like the lake, trees, and streamlining his thoughts ...