Personal Experience as Inspiration in English Romantic Literature

Despite their differences, each English Romantic writer’s personal experience functioned as a muse for their art at some point, resulting in works that describe observations they made, recall childhood moments, include other writers as either subject or addressee, detail moments of personal discovery and express an appreciation for their surroundings.

In their writing English Romantic authors included observations they made about the world around them. Both of William Blake’s contrasting poems titled “Holy Thursday” reflect his observations of the tradition of poor children marching from charity schools to St. Paul’s Cathedral on Ascension Day. Blake expresses sympathy for the children in both pieces though his participation in the tradition was never beyond that of an observer. The children’s innocence is emphasized in the Songs of Innocence version with reference to “lambs” (86; line 7) and the use phrases such as “white as snow” (86; line 3); Blake’s feeling is again evident in the Songs of Experience version as the children are referred to as “Babes reduced to misery” (90; line 3). Similarly, Blake’s two works “Chimney Sweepers” were inspired by his observance of the regular practice of poor boys being sold by their parents into slavery as chimney workers. In his sonnet “The world is too much with us” William Wordsworth reflects on his first-hand observation of society’s materialism and the need to focus more on the natural and the spiritual. He sadly discerns that people are too concerned with “Getting and spending” (319; line 2), and that they have “given [their] hearts away” (319; line 4).

English Romantic writers sometimes included reflections of their own childhood in their writing as well. Charles Lamb’s essay “Christ’s Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago” recalls his childhood days at Christ’s Hospital boarding school. Narrator Elia presents the life of a young Samuel Coleridge as his own, which is that of a poor, lonely boy. Lamb also describes the students’ harsh living conditions, pranks played such as their keeping a donkey on the roof of the dormitory (498) and of the extreme differences in the teachers’ methods. In “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” Percy Bysshe Shelley briefly refers to his own boyhood attempts at magic: “While yet a boy I sought for ghosts . . . / Hopes of high talk with the departed dead” (767; lines 49, 52). William Wordsworth says that as a man he feels the same way upon sight of a rainbow as he did as a child in “My heart leaps up.” He observes that “The Child is father of the Man” (306; line 7), for what one becomes as an adult depends largely upon what he was as a child.

Immersed in their literary world, the writers often wrote to or about one another. Charles Lamb includes former classmate Samuel Coleridge, in “Christ’s Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago.” Lamb admires Coleridge for remaining friends with classmates, even into adulthood, saying it is “pleasant as it is rare” to find friendships that have endured from childhood into adulthood (503). William Hazlitt’s essay “My First Acquaintance with Poets” looks back on the weeks he spent with Coleridge and Wordsworth, including the first time he met the former. Hazlitt jovially describes Coleridge as a “round-faced man” who never “ceased” to talk (541). Hazlitt is afforded more time with Coleridge and later with Wordsworth, during which he debates with the men and marvels at Wordsworth’s ability to see something extraordinary in a setting sun: “With what eyes these poets see nature!” (551). Percy Bysshe Shelley’s aptly-titled poem “To Wordsworth” states he “wept to know” (744; line 1) that the radical social views of William Wordsworth’s youth “fled like sweet dreams” as Wordsworth became more conservative in his later years. Lord Byron also addresses a fellow writer in his letter “To Percy Bysshe Shelley” regarding Keats’ death. In it Byron inaccurately suggests that a scathing review directly resulted in Keats’ death (740). After receiving Byron’s letter, Shelley was moved to write the elegy “Adonais,” which not only memorializes Keats but refers to the “Endymion” reviewer as an “unpastured dragon” (829; line 238).

Moments of personal edification can most understandably inspire an artist, as was the case with the British Romantics. The speaker in “To a Mouse” by Robert Burns is presumed to be the writer himself. After mistakenly destroying a mouse’s winter nest, the speaker surmises that “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft agely” (136; lines 39-40) and reflects that the difference between humans and animals is that men have the ability to remember the past and to look to the future. William Wordsworth’s “Surprised by joy” describes a moment in the writer’s own life in which he was literally surprised by his own ability to feel a bit of happiness after the death of his four-year old daughter Catherine; however, he quickly returns to his sorrow when he remembers this “most grievous loss” (320; line 9). In “Written after Swimming from Sestos to Abydos” Lord Byron realizes his own insignificance as he recalls his swim across Hellespont and lightheartedly contrasts it to that of the mythical Leander. Byron made his crossing in “the genial month of May” (611; line 10) and only acquired the “ague” (612; 20), unlike Leaner who made the trip in December and drowned. Several years later Byron penned “So we’ll go no more a-roving,” in which, after days of hard Carnival partying, he arrives at the conclusion that he must, for the time at least, say farewell to promiscuity. He says the “sword outwears the sheath” (616; line 5) and “the heart must pause to breathe” (616; line 7), so he’ll “go no more a-roving / By the light of the moon” (616; line 12).

Love of nature being a prominent theme among Romantic works, it is not surprising that the English Romantic writers drew upon their own experiences to express the beauty of their surroundings. William Wordsworth, in particular, wrote many poems in praise of nature’s beauty. In “Lines Written in Early Spring” he describes a pleasant day he spent sitting in a grove as the birds “hopped and played” (250; line13) around him, while “It was a beauteous evening” describes the “calm and free” (317; line 1) evening in which he took a seaside stroll in France with daughter Caroline and sister Dorothy. Dorothy’s The Grasmere Journals chronicles in greater detail the same event and shows that William waited five years to write his version. Similarly, Dorothy’s journal includes the same “long belt” (396) of daffodils that William vividly described two years later in “I wandered lonely as a cloud.” “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” finds William comparing his two visits to the abandoned church, noticing the sound of the waters remains the same as they roll “from their mountain-springs / With a soft inland murmur” (258; lines 3-4). As William and Dorothy leave London for France in an early morning departure, he momentarily views London with fresh eyes, inspiring “Composed upon Westminster Bridge” in which he says the city “doth, like a garment, wear / The beauty of the morning” (317; lines 4-5). In “The Eolian Harp” Wordsworth’s colleague Samuel Coleridge sits outside his cottage with new wife Sara and delights in the “white-flowered jasmin, and the broad-leaved myrtle” (426; line 4) that surrounds the cottage as well as the “exquisite” scents and “brilliant” stars (426; lines 8-9).

The writers of English Romantic literature often relied upon personal experience for inspiration. The inspiration lead to works that illustrate observations they made, reflect on their childhood, include the writers’ peers as subject or receiver, recall moments of self-edification and artfully convey their love of nature.

Works Cited

1. Blake, William

1. Songs of Innocence: “Holy Thursday”

2. Songs of Experience: “Holy Thursday”

3. Songs of Innocence: “The Chimney Sweeper”

4. Songs of Experience: “The Chimney Sweeper

2. Burns, Robert

5. “To a Mouse”

3. Byron, Lord George Gordon

6. Letter “To Percy Bysshe Shelley” about Keats’ death

7. “So, we’ll go no more a-roving”

8. “Written after Swimming from Sestos to Abydos”

4. Coleridge, Samuel

9. “The Eolian Harp”

5. Hazlitt, William

10. My First Acquaintance with Poets”

6. Lamb, Charles

11. “Christ’s Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago”

7. Shelley, Percy Bysshe

12. “Adonais”

13. “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”

14. “To Wordsworth”

8. Wordsworth, Dorothy

15. The Grasmere Journals

9. Wordsworth, William

16. “Composed upon Westminster Bridge”

17. “I wandered lonely as a cloud”

18. “It was a beauteous evening”

19. “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”

20. “Lines Written in Early Spring”

21. “My Heart Leaps Up”

22. “Surprised by joy”

23. “The world is too much with us”