Romanticism was a movement in the arts and literature. It was originated in Europe from the late 18th to the mid-19th century. There were also Classicism and Neoclassicism. These two stuck to the rules of order. Romanticism can be accepted as a rejection of Classicism and especially Neoclassicism. It emphasized the subjective, the imaginative, the spontaneous, the emotional etc. Romanticism in literature had two phases. The first phase was called Pre-Romanticism and it was in the mid-18th century. William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Blake were some of the poets during this period. At the second phase of Romanticism, John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley were two of the most known poets. In the next paragraphs, Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale" and Shelley's "Ozymandias" will be discussed.
Initially, John Keats was very important romantic poet. He was born in London in 1795. His father died abruptly. This was a shock for him and his family. Four years later from this time, his mother also died. Her death was because of tuberculosis. During these situations, Keats was going to the school. He became closer with his headmaster, John Clarke, and his son, Cowden. John Clarke had an important role in Keats's love of poetry. Clarke was lending some books to Keats. Edmund Spenser's Faerie was a turning point for him. He had a sense of beauty, a sense of nature. He wrote fifty-four poems throughout his life, and at the age of 25, he died from tuberculosis.
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Ode to a Nightingale was probably the most famous of John Keats's Great Odes -John Keats composed six odes, and named them generally as Great Odes-. So, what is ode? An ode is a lyric poem; typically one in the form of an adress to a particular subject, written in varied or irregular metre. The poem starts with poet's heartache. He feels numb, besides he has taken a drug a moment ago. Then, he hears a joyful singing of a bird. In the second stanza, the poet expresses his wish for wine, and wish for going into the forest with nightingale. In the third stanza, he explains his wish for death, he would like to forget the troubles of human life. He thinks that the nightingale is consciousness about troubles of human life. Then, he mentions that whether youth nor beauty do last forever. In fourth stanza, he expresses his love of poetry as poetry gives him viewless wings. In fifth stanza, he mentions some flowers that he cannot see, but can guess. And, in sixth stanza, he says to the nightingale that he has called Death as soft names. And then, he realizes if he were be dead, the nightingale would continue to sing. In the last, he confuses and cannot understand if this song was a "vision, or a waking dream". Lastly, the poem was written in ten-line stanzas, its metre is varied. The first seven and last two lines of each stanza were written in iambic pentameter: the eighth line of each stanza was written in trimeter. The rhyme scheme is ababcdecde.
On the other hand, Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets, as well. He was born in 1792. When he was a kid, he was bullied by his schoolmates. When he entered a college, his interests about literature began, thanks to Dr. Lind who was a physician and who allowed him to use his own library. While at Eton College, he started to write poems. In 1818, he wrote Ozymandias which was important because of its fine irony. Shelley died from drowning in 1822.
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Finally, let's dive into "Ozymandias". Ozymandias was Greek form of Rameses 11 who was an Egyptian pharaoh and Egyptian King. Primarily, Ozymandias as a poem is a sonnet. It is first a metaphor for the mortal nature of political power, and the poem is Shelley's most outstanding political sonnet. In the poem, the story about the ruins of a statue in the desert was told by a traveller to the poet. The traveller told that "sneer of cold command" on the statue's face signifies that the sculptor understood well "passions" of the statue's subject. Those "passions" mean emotions, and the memory of those emotions survives, besides the sculptor and his subject are dead. Then, the ironical part comes. "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!". Ozymandias's statue was referred to his greatness. But now, it's shattered and in the middle of the wasteland.
To sum up, Romanticism was a period around 18th and 19th centuries. John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley were very important poets during this period. They both lived the life fast, they experienced bad situations at early ages, and somehow they met with literature. They understood the Romantic movement well and they produced important works. They fell in love with nature, and used it as an assistant. In "Ode to a Nightingale", Keats emphasizes his love of poetry, and how poetry makes him feel good. And in the last part, he realizes whether he dies or not, poetry will last forever. And in "Ozymandias", Shelley emphasizes that it does not matter how great you are, you will perish when the time comes. So, briefly, they both succeeded in literature, although their lives were short.
