A period rich in poetry This period extends from the beginning of the French. Revolution to the death of Scott. It is fittingly named after two great writers, who best represent the new tendencies in literature: Wordsworth the poet of nature, who stands but little lower than Milton; and Scott, the most prominent figure in the field of historical romance in verse and prose. This period produced no great actable drama, no epics, yet with the exception of the Elizabethan it is the most remarkable in all English literature, particularly rich in lyrical poetry, though prose fiction and the essay are prominent. It is represented by many names, far more than appear in our necessarily limited table. That the literature of this period is not only better than that of the two preceding ones but very different in character is seen at every turn, especially in Burns poetry, and nowhere more conspicuously than in the works of Robert Burns. A poor, uneducated peasant boy, composing songs in the vernacular to fit old Scottish airs as his plow turned the furrow; but a few years later, for a brief time the lion of brilliant Edinburgh society; at thirty-seven, poor, neglected, deeply remorseful concerning his dissipated life, dying miserably in pitiful obscurity: such is the familiar story of our greatest songwriter. His simple melodies, full of tenderness and sympathy touched with humor, full of love for nature, his fellow men, his rugged country, full of hatred of sham and bigotry, have endeared him to the entire world. A greater contrast can hardly be imagined than that between the artificial, coldly intellectual lines which brought fame and riches to Pope, the commanding poet at the beginning of the century, and the tender, spontaneous songs of the unlettered peasant with which the century closes. Burns, the lyric poet and painter of familiar scenes from country life, found his subject matter at his door. Scott's passion was for the long ago when the harp Scott was heard in hall and bower. He lamented the disappearance of the minstrel, so prominent a figure in earlier times. His hobby during his young manhood days had been the collecting of ancient legends and ballads. At length he tried his own hand at minstrel poetry. The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Marmion, and The Lady of the Lake, first of some seven or eight long poems which came from his pen in rapid succession, gained an immediate popularity, so different were they from anything else that had ever appeared. The reading world was tired of satirical and philosophical poetry, and quickly cast it aside for these new romances with their scenes of love and war and adventure in which historical personages figure as heroes and heroines. The sales were unprecedented, and Scott, the none too successful lawyer, became famous. Byron Although these poems still have hundreds of thousands of readers, for the world seldom wearies of gallant knights and ladies fair and all the trappings that go with chivalry, this new Scottish minstrel slipped into the background when the young and beautiful Lord Byron awoke one morning to find himself famous through his romance of travel, Childe Harold. Childe Harold is but Lord Byron, his long poem but a record of European travels in lands recently brought into prominence through the stirring events following the French Revolution. Its descriptive passages, its stanzas in which the moody, pessimistic, yet freedom-loving poet describes his emotions upon contemplating this scene and that, so appealed to the great masses that Byron became the idol of all Europe. A man of "careless yet great poetical gifts" undoubtedly he was; his subject matter was new and his personality fascinating; but his fame has slowly declined. Scott, posterity has decided, is the sweeter, more wholesome poet. His works are not tainted with voluptuousness and scorn for accepted codes of morals as are Byron's; nor does Scott ever parade his own sorrows. Wordsworth Byron's life ended nobly, for he died of fever while fighting for Greek freedom; but his young manhood days were wild and passionate, and his later life on the continent, where much of his time was spent, was far from faultless. Very different was the career of William Wordsworth, who lived a quiet, blameless life of plain living and high thinking. A small legacy from a friend, afterwards supplemented by other sums gained through inheritance, relieved him of all care concerning money matters. We associate him with the beautiful lake and mountain region of northwestern England, where most of his days were passed in ideal companionship with his wife and his sister Dorothy. He was a life-long poet, for years the object of ridicule on the part of the critics, but living to be recognized as one whose works were in a way revolutionary. theory of The Queen Anne writers had believed that correctness and polish should be sought even at the expense of individWordsworth's uality. They subjected themselves to rules. The heroic couplet was adopted as the one poetry perfect measure, and poets employed a select vocabulary of choice words, as if the phrases of common speech were too inelegant for verse. The favorite themes were philosophical and satirical. Against all this Wordsworth rebelled. He believed no vocabulary more poetical than that of common speech, no matter more fit for the poet's use than his daily experiences and the simple objects contemplated day by day. He employed a variety of meters, including the sonnet form, which had been neglected for a century and more. Wordsworth a nature poet Wordsworth is our greatest nature poet. He lived with Nature, communed with her as if she were a spirit, drew from her his philosophy, if not his religion. Volumes have been written on Wordsworth's nature-worship, but we do not need to read them to enjoy, and in a measure understand, the simpler of his poems in which he records his companionship with mountains, brooks, trees, flowers, birds, the peaceful lake, and the starlit skies. Coleridge Notwithstanding the fact that Wordsworth's poetry deals largely with nature and the simple life of the peasants who lived about him, he should be credited with imagination and deep thought. His imagination is of a very different kind, however, from that which we find in Coleridge's weird poem of the supernatural, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which first appeared in a little volume made up of verses written by these brother poets. Coleridge was a life-long dreamer, his career most exasperating to those who believe that even poets should support themselves and their families. Apparently he was absolutely helpless in business affairs, unable to follow a venture for any length of time. His will, never very strong, was weakened by the use of opium, first taken as a medicine. Much of his life he was dependent on others for support. And yet this indolent man, most of whose poems are but fragments of uncompleted works, was one of the greatest thinkers of his day. As a conversationalist he ranks with Johnson. His lectures on Shakespeare, saved to us through notes taken by those who listened, are among the best in that field. What poet can be named whose verses have the melody peculiar to Coleridge's best lines? The Ancient Mariner stands alone, the only great poem of the weirdly supernatural in the language. Shelley and Keats, the last two poets to be considered, present a number of striking contrasts. Keats was of lowly parentage, his father a groom in a Keats London livery stable. He was physically frail, destined to die of consumption at twenty-six. He had little education, and was practically without influential friends. What he would have produced had his life been spared can be conjectured only; yet even amid adverse circumstances he produced a few poems which clearly entitle him to rank among the great. Keats was not a thinker; his poetry is not a vehicle for ideas, but a record of acutely felt sensations. It is sometimes affirmed that his one message is contained in his well known, though enigmatic, lines |