Romanticism in Shelley’s and Keats’s Verse and Prose: A Comparative Study

Abstract

This paper argues that it is probably unavoidable perceiving the works of Shelley and Keats without putting these works in the context of the age and in the context of Romanticism. On the whole the selected pieces of prose and verse of the poets such as Keats’s Letters and Ode to a Nightingale, Shelley’s Defense of Poetry and Skylark represent their postulations in an era which witnessed great revolutions, political and industrial bringing about new trends in literature and in society. From the personal perspective of the two poets, the birds in the poems represent ideals reflecting the treatment of imagination, nature and ideology of their time and their individual experience, knowledge of the world and of prosody. Keats’s Letters and Shelley’s Defense of Poetry are reflections upon which to test the poets’ works. Thus the treatment of this topic as such opens an old and new interpretation of the poets’ verse and prose. This work, then, applies to their age and ours if we follow the measures suggested in the study.