Sensory-perceptual dynamics in English Romantic poetry : a glimpse into the writings of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Keats

In the history of criticism, the British Romantic period has always remained one of the most challenging fields for scholars interested in the study of English literature. The movement, which flourished from the early 1780s to the late 1830s, was most distinctively marked by an emphasis on individuality, feeling and a new conception of poetry which was to express, as Wordsworth famously insisted, “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”. Hand in hand with a growing need for new ways of writing went the expansion of newsprint and publishing, which for the first time in history allowed people from all social classes to keep abreast of socio-political developments while simultaneously creating new opportunities for writers. Where authors such as Mary Shelley, Sir Walter Scott and Jane Austen revolutionised prose, in the field of poetry, the ‘Lake School’ (Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey) and the ‘Cockney School’ (Keats, Hunt and Shelley) both drastically altered every rule regarding style, form and content. If Romantic poetry was, indeed, one of self-consciousness and inwardness, it was also, and perhaps more surprisingly, eminently sensuous. For this reason, the present dissertation investigates how and to what purpose Wordsworth, Coleridge and Keats respectively sought to explore the ‘language of the senses’ in relation to some of the most pressing issues of their time. Through close reading, and in a way unprecedented in the study of English Romanticism, it focuses on each poet successively and argues that Romantics have three main ways of expressing sensuousness, namely imaginary painting, synaesthesia, and empathy.