Analysis of Themes & the Tenets of Romanticism Within Poetry
Analysis of Themes & the Tenets of Romanticism within Poetry
The romantic period in literature started in roughly the 1790s and ended around the 1830s. This was a period when people’s imagination and love for nature flourished, prospered and then sky-rocketed. When comparing the two poems The Ropewalk and Because I Could Not Stop for Death for theme and tenets of romanticism, it is evident that both poets’ exemplify the power of imagination and the weight of nature through poetic devices. While one poet expresses the individual-self the other contradicts with a more social mindset. These comparisons help reveal that the poets’ purposes are to notice the influence of imagination and to also relish nature.
One of the major themes of both these poems is the poets’ expression of a common message of how we rely on our imagination over and over again. Longfellow, the poet of The Ropewalk, demonstrates this common theme by scripting, “While within this brain of mine,/ cobwebs brighter and more fine.” (Longfellow 15-16) One of the poetic devices in this quote is rhyme scheme. The poet uses rhyme scheme to get the readers mind working- it causes the audience to use their imagination. This flow and rhyme helps exemplify the common theme of imagination. It does this by prying open the reader’s tightly enclosed mind, making him or her think, and use their imagination to predict what is coming next. By having a consistent rhyme scheme the reader will have a consistent surge of imagination. Emily Dickson then writes in the poem Because I could not stop for Death, “Because I could not stop for Death-/ He kindly stopped for me-” (Dickenson 1-2) This quote has many different rhetorical devices which, like The Ropewalk, also creates the theme of inspiring imagination. One very powerful device Emily Dickenson has used throughout her poem is the use of hyphens at the end of lines. This way of finishing each line is significant, because it tells the reader, unconsciously, to drift
The romantic period in literature started in roughly the 1790s and ended around the 1830s. This was a period when people’s imagination and love for nature flourished, prospered and then sky-rocketed. When comparing the two poems The Ropewalk and Because I Could Not Stop for Death for theme and tenets of romanticism, it is evident that both poets’ exemplify the power of imagination and the weight of nature through poetic devices. While one poet expresses the individual-self the other contradicts with a more social mindset. These comparisons help reveal that the poets’ purposes are to notice the influence of imagination and to also relish nature.
One of the major themes of both these poems is the poets’ expression of a common message of how we rely on our imagination over and over again. Longfellow, the poet of The Ropewalk, demonstrates this common theme by scripting, “While within this brain of mine,/ cobwebs brighter and more fine.” (Longfellow 15-16) One of the poetic devices in this quote is rhyme scheme. The poet uses rhyme scheme to get the readers mind working- it causes the audience to use their imagination. This flow and rhyme helps exemplify the common theme of imagination. It does this by prying open the reader’s tightly enclosed mind, making him or her think, and use their imagination to predict what is coming next. By having a consistent rhyme scheme the reader will have a consistent surge of imagination. Emily Dickson then writes in the poem Because I could not stop for Death, “Because I could not stop for Death-/ He kindly stopped for me-” (Dickenson 1-2) This quote has many different rhetorical devices which, like The Ropewalk, also creates the theme of inspiring imagination. One very powerful device Emily Dickenson has used throughout her poem is the use of hyphens at the end of lines. This way of finishing each line is significant, because it tells the reader, unconsciously, to drift