Importance of Language and Style in Romantic Poetry

Mahmut Deniz

25th May, 2009

Importance of Language and Style in Romantic Poetry

Throughout the history of literature, all movements appeared as reaction to one another, and one of them is Romantic Movement which appears in the second half of the eighteenth century and flourished in the first half of the nineteenth century as a reaction to the Enlightenment Period. Romantic Movement and its authors take folk tales and poetries and nature as their important source. Since we know that folk poetry was created by ordinary people, such as, uneducated people living in a rural life, we can also say that Romantics are in favor of these ordinary people, rather than educated and elite part of the society. Being their important source, nature, for them, exists before society, culture, traditions, and emotions and so on. These important events naturally influenced Romantic authors’ language and style which are used in their works. As we know that a poem is different from a prose due to its language, form and style used by poets, it is fair enough to say that Romantic poets did their best to show this difference with their powerful abilities along with using a simple language. By using metaphors, imagery, symbols and vocabulary within a figurative language in their works, Romantic authors such as, William Blake and Percy Bysshe Shelley contributed greatly to Literature. In my essay I am going to analyze the significance of the language and style used in the poems The Tyger by William Blake and To a Skylark by Percy B. Shelley. 

In the poem The Tyger by William Blake, he uses symbolism to give a deep meaning to his poem. Since the poem is from Blake’s “The Songs of Experience” it includes terrible feelings that can be understood from the language and its use as well.  Our main character “tyger” in the poem is a symbol of power of God’s creation. Another symbol is “spears” which we see in this line “When the stars threw down their spears”. The “spears” are simple weapons used in battles and thus the word “spears” are used as symbol of fighting, and by throwing their spears we understand that fighting is over. Here, we see how Blake uses metaphors to convey the meaning in a way to make us sense the harshness of language together with its beautiful usage.

 Also, William Blake gives awful feelings and creates frightening atmosphere with the use of vocabulary in his poem. For example, in these lines ‘Tyger! Tyger! burning bright / In the forests of the night”. Fire is used metaphorically here. “burning” connotes the reader the fire of the Hell. Surely the imagination of this fire is not something dim but “bright”. By bringing these two words the poet creates a frightening and powerful image at the first line of the poem. The word “night” can directly be interpreted as evil, as the dark is a big obstacle for the eyes to see. Without seeing one might even be suspect for the good, because in the dark nothing is certain and clear.  Apart from these words, there are many other words which represent the evil and thus, terrifies the reader, such as; “fearful”, “fire”, “dread hand”, “dread feet”, “terror”, “spears”, etc. all these words contain negative meanings and they were used to create a horrific atmosphere throughout the poem. So, we can see how Blake plays with the words and, as a result, how the vocabulary of the poem can change the poem and its meaning.

            Personification is another poetic element which William Blake uses to contribute the language. Personification is giving qualities of a person to inanimate objects or animals. By these lines he makes stars actions as human beings. In the poem, firstly, “Tyger” itself is the most important example of personification which the poet deals with by asking some questions. Furthermore, “When the stars threw down their spears, and watered heaven with their tears.”  As we know the words “threw” and “tears” are the features of humans. Because stars neither could throw their spears nor did they shed tears. However, the importance of this is that due to the figurative language, the poem conveys more meanings and feelings to the readers.

As we see William Blake uses symbolism, personification, nature to give a more meaning and feelings to his poem. He uses simple language and common words which can be understood by anybody and infer the meaning of the poem easily. Of course, the simplicity of the language does not make the poem itself simple, but the most important aspect of its being simple is that it address to everybody, regardless of how educated one is.

Form is very important for a poem because it determines the way how the idea and the content are introduced to the reader. In “The Tyger” William Blake uses a regular form and meter. The poem consists of six quatrains and the stanzas rhyming aabb .That means each stanza have two rhyming couplets. Rhyming couplets are very helpful in terms of reserving the words in reader’s mind. The lines are written in trochaic tetrameter in other words a stressed syllable is followed by an unstressed one. Most of lines are written like this. However, in the first line of the poem, Blake starts with the line using spondee which consists of two stressed syllables. ‘Tyger, tyger’ is the example of spondee. The reader can understand that spondee is used purposefully. By starting with stressed syllables not only takes attention of the reader but also emphasizing the word ‘tyger’ which the central theme is built on it. Also by using alliteration, Blake makes the poem very remarkable. He uses alliteration in every stanza such as ‘burning bright’, ‘distant deeps’, ‘what wings’, ‘frame fearful’, ‘dare deadly’. Also he uses alliteration in order to emphasize key words which strengthen the central idea of the poem.

The second poem I am going to analyze is To a Skylark by Percy B. Shelley. With its harmony which is provided by its form and content, the poem is an important example in Romantic literature. The poem begins by claiming that the bird is not a simple bird, but it is a spirit: “Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert”. As the poet tries to give a metaphorical meaning to the bird, this statement is a significant point in the poem to let us understand metaphorical meaning of the bird, because, the bird’s physical nature is not important, but, what is important is metaphysical and the spiritual nature of the bird. Another verse, “Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun” proves the bird’s not just being a simple bird but it symbolizes the bird as a spiritual reality and the poet also shows us that the spiritual reality of the bird as deeper than nature itself. Besides, the bird in literature symbolizes the poetry and the poem gives a parallel between Shelley and the bird. “Higher still and higher, from the earth thou springest”. In these verse Shelley sees the bird again as a spirit, as a metaphysical meaning, as the bird rises from the earth to the heavens, actually, it symbolizes rising from material realm to the ethereal realm. Throughout the poem we see the natural images of the sky and light which give us heavenly connections of spiritual happiness. “In the golden lightning, Of the sunken sun, O’er which clouds are bright’ning” Apart from these lines, in the rest of the poem we see more natural images such as fire, star, Venus, moon, waves, mountain and etc...

            Comparison used in the poem is another important element of Romantic poetry. As description of the bird’s spiritual nature cannot be in a direct way, the poet uses comparison in his poem. To convey the meaning of the poem to a spiritual art, poet uses many similes such as; bird is “like a poet”.  He instinctively and naturally makes people want to change their lives and the world. Bird is like a noble girl in love, cheering herself with music. Bird is like a glow-worm producing unseen light. Bird is like a rose making the bees faint with its sweet scent. Thus, we understand that Shelley’s similes are not enough to exactly describe the bird’s spiritual nature, which means Shelley himself cannot find a true image to describe the bird. As comparison is always imperfect, Shelley is not able to make it clear what exactly “Skylark” represent in the poem. So, it is inferable that the spiritual happiness of “Skylark” is not surely known, yet the meaning and the message that To a Skylark conveys is that it is rising from material ideal to the spiritual ideal through the use of metaphors and similes. Thus, again, the poetic language of To a Skylark creates a spiritual nature in the poem. 

To conclude, the poems The Tyger by William Blake and To a Skylark by Percy B. Shelley are important examples of Romantic period, because of their language and poetic techniques that contributed to literature. The poems’ language is the most important element of them, because without a figurative language, there would not be any difference between a prose and poet. Thus, these poems, by presenting the language in a figurative way, give many pages of prose in just several lines with a deeper, condensed meaning and emotions to the reader.