All historical and artistic events have something crucial to tell us. Through them, we understand the development of the world. One of them is the artistic, philosophical, and intellectual movement called Romanticism, referring to the birth of a new set of ideas. It began in Western Europe between the late 18th and 19th centuries in the work of poets, artists, and philosophers understood as a reaction to the modern world. The Romantic Movement emphasizes the importance of individual subjectivity and emotional sensitivity. For Romantic souls, imagination rather than reason is the most important creative ability.
Romanticism is present in artistic manifestations such as literature, music, and painting. This movement also manifests itself in the following way:
Celebration of the individual – Romantics praise the triumphs of the misunderstood outcast;
Strong emotions and senses – Romantics feel that knowledge is gained through intuition and not by deduction;
Importance of imagination – Romantics exalt the imagination as a supreme faculty to create;
Admiration of nature – Romantics are profound lovers of nature, and they bring the natural world into their works. They reject the rationalization of nature elevated by the former thinkers of the Enlightenment period.
Although its expression is dissolved these days, its characteristics can be glimpsed in some poems of poets of the modern age. Here are four poems that feature the moody love, the connection with nature, the celebration of self, and the loss of Romanticism.
“Be The One” by Lang Leav
You couldn’t be the one – the one to love her.
She dazzled you, but your eyes could never get used to
the light. So you remained clothed in shadow, and you
ignored the hand that reached for you.
You ignored your own heart.
And that is why you couldn’t be the one.
She wasn’t just the moon; she was the whole sky, but
you couldn’t see beyond the stratosphere.
Your souls loved each other as much as any two souls
could possibly love –
but you couldn’t be the one.
“Corpse Flower” by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal
Yesterday, the final petal curled its soft lure into bone.
The flowerhead shed clean, I gathered up your spine
and built you on a dark day. You are still missing
some parts. Each morning, I curl red psalms into the shells
in your chest. I have buried each slow light: cardinal’s yolk, live seawater,
my trenza, a piece of my son’s umbilical cord, and still you don’t return.
A failure fragrant as magic. Ascend the spirit into the design.
My particular chiron: the record that your perfect feet ever graced
this earth. Homing signal adrift among stars, our tender impossible longing.
What have I made of your sacrifice. This bone: it is myself.
“Take This As Your Sign” by Nikita Gill
When will you stop being afraid
of everything you can be.
I have never seen the sky, nor the earth
wear their flaws like they are apologies,
Instead they defiantly present them as
their truth, take it or leave it, it is up to you.
When will you realise that you can still grow
forests from the scorched earth of your soul
Remind yourself that the moon even with
her scars is still the fairest of them all
It’s the light she gives to the world that
matters in the end, the calm of her heart
When will you understand that
those broken parts of you have learned
How to sing more elegant songs
than the loveliest of songbirds.
Everything around you is asking you
to set yourself free, become everything
that you do not think you can be.
“Token Loss” by Kay Ryan
To the dragon
any loss is
total. His rest
is disrupted
if a single
jewel encrusted
goblet has
been stolen.
The circle
of himself
in the nest
of his gold
has been
broken. No
loss is token.
