Romantic Poetry and Related Terms: Romanticism, New Romanticism, Neo-Romanticism, Post-Romanticism, Late Romanticism

Socrates says that we should define our terms before we engage in verbal battles (of wits, or, one assumes, otherwise) ...

If there is an overused and misunderstood term in terms of poetry, it is probably "romantic" in its various incarnations and resurrections. For the editor's musings about the very early (caveman) origins of Romanticism, please click here.

The specific use of "Romantic poetry" varies, but the most common definition is a movement in poetry seeking formal freedom, increased emotional effect and use of ancient and folk sources for poetry. Its first important members were Robert Burns, Goethe and James MacPherson; it would then flower in English Poetry with the works of the " Big Six": William Blake, Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Shelley, William Wordsworth and John Keats. The birth of English Romanticism is often dated to the publication in 1798 of Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads. However, Blake had been publishing since the early 1780s. In poetry, the Romantic movement emphasised the creative expression of the individual and the need to find and formulate new forms of expression. The Romantics, with the partial exception of Byron, rejected the poetic ideals of the eighteenth century, and each of them returned to Milton for inspiration, though each drew something different from Milton. They also put a good deal of stress on their own originality. However, as has already been noted, many of their themes and attitudes had already begun to appear earlier in the century. -- Wikipedia

"Romanticism" was an artistic and intellectual movement in the history of ideas that originated in late 18th century Western Europe. It stressed strong emotion—which now might include trepidation, awe and horror as aesthetic experiences—the individual imagination as a critical authority—which permitted freedom within or even from classical notions of form in art—and overturning of previous social conventions, particularly the position of the aristocracy. There was a strong element of historical and natural inevitability in its ideas, stressing the importance of "nature" in art and language. Romanticism is also noted for its elevation of the achievements of what it perceived as heroic individuals and artists. It followed the Enlightenment period and was in part inspired by a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms from the previous period, as well as seeing itself as the fulfillment of the promise of that age. -- Wikipedia

The main movement in post-war 1940s poetry was the New Romantic group that included Dylan Thomas, George Barker, W. S. Graham, Kathleen Raine, Henry Treece and J. F. Hendry. These writers saw themselves as in revolt against the classicism of the New Country poets [politically active, left-leaning poets led by W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Cecil Day-Lewis and Louis MacNeice]. They [the New Romantics] turned to such models as Gerard Manley Hopkins, Arthur Rimbaud and Hart Crane and the word play of James Joyce. Thomas, in particular, helped Anglo-Welsh poetry to emerge as a recognisable force. -- Wikipedia

The term "neo-romanticism" is synonymous with post-Romanticism or late Romanticism. It is a long-lived movement in the arts and literature. It is considered to be a reaction to naturalism. The naturalist in art stresses external observation, whereas the neo-romanticist adds feeling and internal observation. These artists tend to draw their inspiration from artists of the age of high romanticism, and from the sense of place they perceive in historic rural landscapes; and in this they react in general to the 'ugly' modern world of machines, new cities, and profit. Characteristic themes include longing for perfect love, utopian landscapes, nature reclaiming ruins, romantic death, and history-in-landscape. Neo-romanticism is often accused by critics of being too insular, too interested in figurative painting and beauty, too fond of intuition, too distrustful of ideological & theoretical ways of comprehending art, and too in love with the past and the idealised / spiritual / haunted landscape. A more persuasive criticism is that neo-romanticism lacks an adequate conception of evil in the modern world. Neo-romanticism tended to shed somewhat the emphasis of Romanticism on 'the hero' and romantic nationalism. This was particularly so in the decades after both of the world wars. -- Wikipedia