In honor of the month of February I thought I would look into the Romantic period and it's authors. I am not talking about Harlequin and other romances. But instead the time period from late 18th century to mid 19th century. Many well known authors and poets came out of this period. Out of Europe we were given poets like William Blake, Wordsworth and Lord Byron. America brought about authors Hawthorne and Melville along with Poe. Just to name a few. Of course we can't forget American poet Walt Whitman.
Romanticism was varied among topics and themes along with what they wrote about. There was a strong emphasis on the pastoral, natural, mythology, and medievalism. The authors and poets also delved into the supernatural (as evidenced in Hawthorne and Poe) as well the past and present and looking at the darker side of humanity. Josh Rahn writes in his topic of Romanticism that "[it] can best be described as a large network of sometimes competing philosophies, agendas, and points of interest." (The Literature Network) He also continues on to say that Romanticism can be seen in all periods of literature. Along with all the fiction and poetry being written there was nonfiction writing and literary criticism making it's mark.
This month I plan to look at different authors and poets in more depth and learn more about their works and influences. There are so many of them! Great books like Frankenstein by Shelley, Young Goodman Brown by Hawthorne, all the works by Poe. I have never read The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by Blake or Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads. I also want to take a look at Charles Lamb and his personal essays as well as some of the criticism that was written during this time. We shall see how many I can get into one month. I may have to stretch it into March. We shall also see how much I learned in college classes comes back to me! That will be interesting.