romanticism blog

1. Choose one of the values of romanticism we discussed: emotion over reason, nature over human-made, impermanence of humanity, the individual over the collective, valuing rural life. writing sparked by individual emotion instead of borrowing from other genres or over thinking writing.
2. Choose three literary works from the Romantic Unit. How does the Romantic value you chose come out in these three literary works.
3. Incorporate at least two direct quotations from these works to support your assertion. Use "/" to indicate breaks in lines
4. Remember to explain the why's and how's surrounding your assertions/claims i.e. how does this or that literary work represent the value you choose or why do you think the Romantics focused on these values in their writing over others? Why were the Romantics drawn to such themes?
5. As always, solid topic sentences and varied sentence structure are always helpful.

The romantic era was filled with many stories of emotion and feeling that had to do with nature along with many other aspects of life. Nature being valued over man-made things is one values that romantics lived by that led to many great pieces of literature. Three pieces just from our book that show this value are, Ode to the West Wind, The World is too Much With Us, and Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Each of these selections show in their own way how the romantics used feeling and emotion in their writing beyond the normal writers of that century. In Ode to the West Wind Shelly tells how nature has more life and meaning than man made things when he says, "The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low/Each like a corpse within its grave, until/Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow." He talks about all the facets of nature in a way that gives them life and emotion. In The World is too Much With Us by William Wordsworth he talks about how people don't value nature and only worry about the now and what they want. He also depicts how people don't realize how good they really have it when he says,"Little we see in Nature that is ours;/We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!" Finally in Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray he shows readers that in the end everything will go back to nature. He says,"The boast of heraldry, the pomp or power,/And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,/Awaits alike the inevitable hour./The paths of glory lead but to the grave." To me this shows that we should not get wrapped up in what we have or worldly things because in the end we can't take that with us and what really matters is your legacy and what you leave behind.