Romantics 1

What I took away from the reading was that after the revolutions. Writers and critics believed that literature should be about individuals, their experiences, and imagination. This is very different from what was considered good lit a short time before. The emphasis there was moral values, connection with God and nature, and focus on be straight to the point.

In William Wordsworth's Poem This Lawn, A Carpet All Alive describes what Wordsworth thought while looking at the grass.

This Lawn, A Carpet All Alive
By William Wordsworth

This Lawn, a carpet all alive
With shadows flung from leaves -- to strive
In dance, amid a press
Of sunshine, an apt emblem yields
Of Worldlings revelling in the fields
Of strenuous idleness;

Less quick the stir when tide and breeze
Encounter, and to narrow seas
Forbid a moment's rest;
The medley less when boreal Lights
Glance to and fro, like aery Sprites
To feats of arms addrest!

Yet, spite of all this eager strife,
This ceaseless play, the genuine life
That serves the steadfast hours,
Is in the grass beneath, that grows
Unheeded, and the mute repose
Of sweetly-breathing flowers

Wordsworth describes how the grass grows continuously as the world around it changes. From shadows that dance in the sunlight to swaying with the rhythm of the wind. Things may change around the plot of grass but it continues on growing steadily. This could deal with the steadiness that humans have as individuals. Humans have the ability to deal with change around them and still hold onto the things that make them individuals, like the grass in the poem above.