The pecularities of english romanticism: two trends-progressive and regressive. The poets of the "lake school"- w. Wordsworth, S. Coleridge, R. Southey

I could not achieve this myself , But everyone said that the world had never seen such victories.
(Translated by A. Pleshcheev)
Talking about the war, the old man does not hide from his grandchildren the terrible details associated with it.
Southey constantly confronts reality and the version of official historiography in the ballad, and the ironic ballad refrain “The world has not seen more glorious victories” emphasizes in contrast the anti-popular nature of the war waged by England together with Austria against France for the Spanish inheritance.
Unlike Wordsworth, who turned to the acute social problems of the present, Southey uses mainly medieval plots in his ballads. Moreover, it is characteristic that Southey took only the form from the folk ballad. Such are “God's Judgment on the Bishop”, “ Talaba the Destroyer ”, “The Curse of Kehama ”, “ Roderick , the last of the Goths”, etc. In the ballad about the greedy bishop, who during the famine not only did not share grain with the starving, but called everyone petitioners into the barn and set them on fire, the poet emphasizes, first of all, the moral and ethical content of the act. For cruelty, the bishop paid with death - retribution overtook him in the impregnable Rhine tower.
Like Coleridge , Southey emphasizes the miraculous, the supernatural. In the ballad " Warwick " ("Sir William and Evin "), a gloomy killer is shown drowning a baby in a river. The conscience is personified by the poet in the form of the Scarecrow, who wanders everywhere after the criminal and does not give him peace anywhere. In the ballad “About how an old woman rode a black horse together and who was sitting in front”, the author talks about superstitions that are deeply rooted in the patriarchal peasant consciousness, but tries to captivate the reader by artificially inflating drama. Using the folk fairy-tale motif of the devil's struggle for the soul of the deceased, the poet interprets this in a mystical way, drawing naturalistic details of the triumph of the devil's undertaking.
The attitude of Wordsworth and Coleridge towards Southey in the early period of his work is indicative.
Southey 's first poems were published in 1797 , Coleridge noted the poet's apparent tendency to poignantly entertaining subject for plot's sake. Wordsworth appreciated the picturesque details of Madoc , but criticized the author for his complete ignorance of human nature and the human heart.
Southey 's poems , written during the Napoleonic Wars - " Madoc ", " Talaba the Destroyer", "The Curse of Kehama ", " Roderick , the Last of the Goths " - are united by the commonality of Eastern problems and the similarity in the character of the main characters, full of faith that instructs them on the true path or helps to defeat enemies. Such is the Arab knight Talaba , a champion of justice, speaking out against evil wizards, symbolizing world evil; such is the Celtic prince Madoc , going to Mexico to create a new state of the Aztecs; such is Ladurlad , defeating Kehama , or Roderic , expiating his guilt before the vassals by renouncing royal power. Byron called Southey a "ballad seller", deriding the anti-artistic , irrational, and ludicrous fantasy in his ballads.
Having become poet laureate, Southey was forced to write about all the festivities of the court, as well as about important political events. "Vision of the Court" - a poem created in 1821, testifies to the loyal feelings of the poet, who dedicated the laudatory lines of the ode to the memory of the deceased King George III. In the preface to the poem, Southey challenged Byron and the poets of the "satanic school". So he called writers who were opposed to the government and undermined the foundations of law and order, sowing confusion and revolt among the inhabitants of the British Isles.
In the second period of creativity, characterized by the weakening of Southey 's interest in poetry, he wrote prose works (The Life of Nelson, 1813; The Death of Arthur, 1817; The Life of Wesley, 1818, etc.), which affected the skill of Southey as a prose writer. The appeal to major figures who had a significant impact on English history (Nelson, King Arthur, Wesley) was due not only to his position as poet laureate, but also to Southey 's interest in historical issues. During this period, the attacks on Southey by the liberal bourgeois press ( Hazlit , Geoffrey) are especially intensified and his political views are criticized (Byron, Shelley).