Portal:Romantic poetry

Two streams of thought dominated post-medieval literature: the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Both are included in Portal:Renaissance poetry.

The first, Renaissance, encompasses poetic notions which escaped Medieval Traditions. These were in the vernacular, rather than the dense latin or greek prosody of learned scholars. Furthermore, rather than being lengthy conjectures on the obscure or examinations of theosophic idiosyncrasies, these were oft tributes to simple ideas, like Jonson's love poems (On Lucy, Countess of Bedford) or Petrarch's nationalism.

Afterwards, when the Enlightenment surfaced, rationalism was the dominant spirit even in poetry. Thinkers used poetry as a mechanism to examine ideologies or make arguments, as with Marvell's defense of a 'carpe diem' love-life (To His Coy Mistress) or Swift's "The Logicians Refuted".

Romantic poetry is the epoch in which art returned to pre-Renaissance notions of life, often idolizing Medieval lifestyles (e.g. Camelot), making tributes to the perfection of nature, and often casting utopian philosophies about humanity in the process.

This series, "Romantic poetry," encompasses only the third of these three ages, the former two being under "Renaissance poetry."