Eng 2PreAp

The Romantic period was largely a reaction against the ideology of the Enlightenment period that dominated much of European philosophy, politics, and art from the mid-17th century until the close of the 18th century.  Whereas Enlightenment thinkers value logic, reason, and rationality, Romantics value emotion, passion, and individuality.  Chris Baldick provides the following description: “Rejecting the ordered rationality of the Enlightenment as mechanical, impersonal, and artificial, the Romantics turned to the emotional directness of personal experience and to the boundlessness of individual imagination and aspiration” (222-3).

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834): Coleridge’s role in Lyrical Ballads is often overshadowed by Wordsworth, but Coleridge’s poetic skill stands on its own.  Though not as prolific as Wordsworth, many of Coleridge’s works resonate with readers in ways few other poets are able to match.  “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is a narrative poem that is a mix of traditional ballad form, adventure story, and tale of spiritual redemption.  “Kubla Khan” is slightly less famous as a poem, but its backstory is notorious: Coleridge fell asleep while high on Laudanum (which is basically opium dissolved in alcohol), had a crazy dream in which he wrote a few hundred lines of poetry, woke up claiming to remember everything he had written in the dream and started writing it in real life, only to be interrupted by a knock on his door after recording about 50 lines.  The knock on his door caused him to forget everything else.