Romantic poetry context

Question 1

What is Keats’ concept of negative capability?

Answer 1

Keats’s best-known doctrine, Negative Capability, implies the capacity of poets to pursue the ideals of the sublimity even if it may lead to intellectual confusion as it lacks the pressurising framework of logic

Question 2

How did the Romantic movement grow?

Answer 2

It wasn’t consolidated around a person, place, moment or manifestation but rather a product of the radical context that brought the French and American revolution encouraging revolutionary discussions in England especially from the Peterloo massacre in 1819 which could either do justice for the disadvantaged or it can testify for the poet’s own subjectivity at its most idiosyncratic or experimental

Question 3

What is the sublime?

Answer 3

An immeasurable realm of experience especially through Burke’s definition as, “whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror.”

Question 4

How does Wordsworth and Kant link?

Answer 4

Wordsworth believed in trying to grasp the sublime, the m id loses consciousness and the spirit can only temporarily grasp it. This links to Kant’s transcendental idealism that humans are only tom perceive some things as much of reality is inaccessible

Question 5

What are the 5 Is?

Answer 5

• Imagination
• Intuition
• Idealism
• Inspiration
• Individuality

Question 6

How does imagination link to the romantics?

Answer 6

• Emphasised over religion as the human mind isn’t passive
• Challenges the dichotomy between masculine reason and female imagination
• It was essential for the creative process
• Coleridge called it intellectual intuition

Question 7

How does intuition link to the romantics?

Answer 7

Wordsworth described poetry as, “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” justifying its priority over reason

Question 8

How does idealism link to the romantics?

Answer 8

• The world could be a better place through connecting with nature and enhancing political awareness through the arts
• It politically developed through the abolitionist movement and increasing debates about women’s rights
• The power of thought could shape the world

Question 9

How does inspiration link to the romantics?

Answer 9

Seen as inspired creators as they create an impression of triumph of spontaneous feeling over technical accomplishment