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CONCLUSION
England could be seen as the birthplace of Romanticism. Many authors, chiefly poets, became rapidly infected with the new Romantic ideals, anticipating characteristic nature-related and melancholic poetry as well as gothic literature.
From the great variety of first English Romantics, a widespread movement arose: Graveyard Poetry. Graveyard poets thrived at the end of the 18th century and were marked by lugubrious and melancholic meditation on death and mortality in the context of graveyards. Most of them had Christian backgrounds, drawing mystical flair from religion, and were not as sensationalist as other Romantics would be in the future. The tone of their poetry is elegiac, reaching for eery mystery, and focused on “skulls and coffins, epitaphs and worms” as stated in Robert Blair’s poem The Grave. They are clearly the precursors of the 19th century gothic literature.
Thomas Gray, depicted above, was one of the most relevant Graveyard poets, author of the recognised work Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Edward Young, James MacPherson or Thomas Percy are other influential examples. On a side note, English Pre-Romanticism would never be complete without the gasps at the story of Thomas Chatterton, the first legendary Romantic martyr, archetypal ‘cursed poet’ and sensationalist Romantic author. This precocious poet set the ideal of the Romantic idol as an impulsive man of arts misunderstood by most ordinary people, in a search for beauty. He also introduced the fashion of early suicide and thus, martyrdom in this context. Chatterton’s poetry gained posthumous recognition and even Keats or Coleridge decided to pay tribute to him later on in the Romantic period.
Chatterton was an adolescent when he precociously started writing poetry. As he came from a poor family, Chatterton wanted to rise as a poet to gain fame and economic security. He indeed gained fame when he wrote pseudo-medieval poetry and forged it as having been written by an imaginary medieval monk called Thomas Rowley. By that time, Chatterton worked as a lawyer’s scribe, under pressure from his family to become a lawyer with a secure work as well. Chatterton continued writing poetry of Romantic and pseudo-medieval taste and moved to London, until he met literary failure when his poems were not approved of or published. Then, in 1770, he committed suicide in his attic with a dose of poisonous arsenic, after writing a few Last Verses there. He was only 17.
It could be said Christ was replaced by Chatterton as the new martyr for the Romantic creed.Romantic literature is marked by six primary characteristics: celebration of nature, focus on the individual and spirituality, celebration of isolation and melancholy, interest in the common man, idealization of women, and personification and pathetic fallacy.Romantic writers saw nature as a teacher and a source of infinite beauty. One of the most famous works of Romanticism is John Keats’ To Autumn (1820):
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,–
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
While working with such themed course paper, I have acquired a lot of information related my own theme. For example, what kind of special features are exist in the methods of teaching vocabulary in context could be used in English literature, associated with modern features and their usage with many examples are now completely understandable to me. I also used various theorists` work and their relation to my up-to-date theme. I tried to apply some of the ideas with their appropriate authors, this way I tried to prove every detail of my work. I recommend others to be introduced with this work or this kind of theme, as it is completely interesting and useful. I wish I will my dissertation in this field.
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